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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-01-29MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2004 — 8:30 A.M. CIVIC CENTER COUNCIL CHAMBER I. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Spiegel convened the meeting at 8:38 a.m. II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - Mayor Pro-Tempore Buford A. Crites III. INVOCATION - Councilmember Jean M. Benson IV. ROLL CALL Present: Councilmember Jean M. Benson Mayor Pro-Tempore Buford A. Crites Councilman Jim Ferguson Councilman Richard S. Kelly Mayor Robert A. Spiegel Also Present: Carlos L. Ortega, City Manager/RDA Executive Director David J. Erwin, City Attorney Sheila R. Gilligan, ACM for Community Services Homer Croy, ACM for Development Services Justin McCarthy, ACM for Redevelopment Rachelle D. Klassen, City Clerk Mark Greenwood, City Engineer Amir Hamidzadeh, Director of Building & Safety Philip Drell, Director of Community Development Michael J. Errante, Director of Public Works David Yrigoyen, Director of Redevelopment J. Luis Espinoza, Assistant Finance Director Patrick McManus, Chief of Police/Riverside County Sheriff's Department Ignacio Otero, Division Chief/Riverside County Fire Department V. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS - A None MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL VI. APPROVAL OF MINUTES JANUARY 29, 2004 A. MINUTES OF THE ADJOURNED REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF JANUARY 15, 2004. Mayor Pro Tem Crites moved to, by Minute Motion, approve the Minutes of the meeting of January 15, 2004, as presented. Motion was seconded by Councilmember Benson and carried by 5-0 vote. VII. PUBLIC HEARING A. CONSIDERATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE GENERAL PLAN UPDATE AND FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE CITY OF PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA Case No. GPA 01-04 (City of Palm Desert, Applicant) (Continued from the meeting of January 15, 2004). The following is a verbatim transcript of this public hearing Key RAS Mayor Robert A. Spiegel PD Phil Drell, Director of Community Development LB Larry Brose, Robert Mayer Corporation BAC Mayor Pro Tem Buford A. Crites RSK Councilman Richard S. Kelly MR Malcolm Riley JF Councilman Jim Ferguson JMB Councilmember Jean M. Benson RDK Rachelle D. Klassen, City Clerk PB Paul Brady CLO Carlos L. Ortega, City Manager LA Lauri Aylaian RAS This is a public hearing, so I'II open the public hearing. Consideration of a comprehensive General Plan update and final Environmental Impact Report for the City of Palm Desert. And I'II turn it over to Phil Drell. PD Good morning. Where we left off, before we hit the more meatier subjects, we have a few specific items to address. One of the last things we talked about last meeting was the northeast corner of Monterey and Country Club. As you recall, the recommendation from staff had been keeping this the existing medium density residential and designating it as a study zone that might be appropriate from some other form of commercial yet to be 2 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 determined. The Council expressed some thoughts about the potential opportunities for mixed use of some sort of commercial and residential or office and residential. My understanding, and the property owner might want to speak on this, that they're agreeing with staff that the appropriate designation is to keep it the medium density residential until such time as there's a...they decide specifically what they want to do when the come back to the Council, the City, with a specific project, again, and that would be the time to consider any change to the existing residential designation. (Inaudible) if the property owner wants to make a statement in regards to that. RAS Please give us your name and address. LB Good morning, Mayor, Councilmembers. Again, Larry Brose with the Robert Mayer Corporation, 660 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, California 92660. Just reiterating what Mr. Drell had mentioned that we are in support of staff's position that when we do have a real project to bring before you, we will do so with all the project details that I know you're all interested in seeing. So at this time if we would just leave the present zoning as it is with the special study or special zone, special study designation, that would be fine with us, and we'd support that. Thank you. (Inaudible) BAC PD Why don't we just leave it as it is period, without any special whatever or anything else. I mean...we've made an offer to look at an alternative. The developer is not interested in that alternative apparently, so why don't we just leave it exactly as it is. You can do that. All the study zone is acknowledging that some sort of change might be appropriate...again, it doesn't really matter, it's just a...it acknowledges that there is uncertainty, and it's not...as opposed to, you know, we just went through this process and made a designation, why are you changing it, why are you coming in to change it a month later. It simply acknowledges that there is some consideration, and you can...remember, you don't have to...property owners don't have to accept offers for you to put them in. BAC I got my answer. We can do either...thanks. LB Just a question I would have, actually, of Phil. The special study zone doesn't eliminate any need to do the process that we would have to go through if we wanted to change the use from the present general plan and zoning. We would still go through a general plan and a zone change, correct? 3 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JANUARY 29, 2004 Correct. It's simply an acknowledgment that there's uncertainty as to the appropriateness of the existing zone, we're not sure what to change it to, but... RSK But we also get to see what's... PD Oh, exactly. It's just an acknowledgment (inaudible) MR Thank you. My name is Malcolm Riley, Malcolm Riley & Associates, 11640 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, California. I'm involved with the property on the southeast corner that has the vacant supermarket in it and as you know, we are attempting to get a new supermarket and are well along with Gelsen's to fill up that vacant space and so save that center and preserve the integrity of the center and also help the tenants that are in there. Gelsen's has told us they are very concerned about a potential of a supermarket being developed across the street, and if there is any potential or any hint whatsoever, they will not go into our project, and I don't think we could get another supermarket, either. So we would...we feel very uncomfortable. We're aware what the owner across the street has in mind over there, and it would be very damaging to our project. We feel very uncomfortable with any hint whatsoever, and Gelsen's particularly, of some supermarket being developed there in the future. So we would object to leaving it open for further study or anything of that nature. Thank you very much. RAS Any comments from the Council? JF Well, I would agree with Councilman Kelly. I think it's appropriate to designate it a study area. I think pure residential there makes absolutely no sense on two major arterials. I'm aware of the Mayor's concern about the widening of Monterey, which is yet to happen. I have a meeting next week with Rancho Mirage to discuss that issue. And until we know what's going to happen with Monterey, until we know what's going to happen with Gelsen's, and until we know what the mix is going to be, to put it in our General Plan as simply residential without any designation that we recognize that this needs some further study I think would be irresponsible on our part. RAS Anybody else have a comment? My comment would be that at any time any Council can change the designation of any area in our city. That just happens to be the facts of life. We're all not going to be around here forever, and eventually it could be whatever the Council decides it should be. Obviously, I'm in favor of filling the old Albertson's store. It's important that it get built for (inaudible) That said, it doesn't mean that five years from now or ten years from now (inaudible) another supermarket. I'd be opposed to it (inaudible) 4 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD Do you want to take an action, some direction? JANUARY 29, 2004 JF Yeah, I would move that we designate this as its current zoning with an asterisk that it is a study zone going into the future. RSK Second JMB (Inaudible) PD You can define the special study footnote, which is really what it is, any way you want and say that... (Inaudible) PD (Inaudible) PD RAS PD RAS PD BAC RSK BAC RSK ...grocery store, if that's the direction on the special study, you can do that... Again, every one of these special study zones is going to have a footnote, in essence, in the text, which will discuss what the issues are and what the Council's preferences might be. Would a special study be done? Most likely, when the property owner proposes a project, we would (inaudible) that. That means that the person who owns Albertson's is kind of hung up by his toenails. But, as you just said, regardless of what decision we make today, someone can apply for an amendment to this General Plan six months from now. Would the maker and the seconder be supportive of a special study zone that looks at OP and not broad supermarket use? I'm not asking whether the landowner agrees with it or not, I'm asking my colleagues where they are. I'm the seconder. I can't imagine in our wildest dreams we'd ever approve a market, another market there today, and what about 15 years from now? Whoever's sitting here 15 years from now can do...they can approve a railroad there if they want to. So why are we so hung up on it? 5 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL BAC Because that certainly would give... RSK Because that's what you want. JANUARY 29, 2004 BAC No, it would give...it is "A", what I would support. It is "B", it would give some assurance to the property owner across the street that at least at this point, this Council is oriented towards this set of uses on that property. And if that's not what we're oriented towards, then that's fine. RSK I sure don't want another market over there right now. (Inaudible) JF Again, I'm inclined toward Councilman Kelly's point of view. There is so...such a broad swath in the commercial designation, and supermarket is only one use out of hundreds of commercial uses. And from a municipal finance standpoint, from a bunch of other standpoints, I think commercial makes sense there. It doesn't have to be a supermarket, but I don't think we have the ability to bind a future Council. I'm aware of Gelsen's, and I met with the owner of that company, and Jean and I sat down and certainly said at this point, at this snapshot, I can't see putting a third supermarket on that corner. But I also can't get over the fact that the northeast corner property owner offered to provide a replacement tenant for the southeast property corner, and the southeast property corner owner adamantly refused that and now is stuck in the position that he's stuck in because of that opposition and now is trying to handcuff the northeast property owner with a competitive advantage that I just don't think I'm comfortable with codifying in a footnote to our General Plan, which is a 20-year planning document. So I'd just as soon call it a study zone, leave it for a future Council to decide, recognizing that this Council at this point is not mindful of putting a supermarket across the street. JMB (Inaudible) RAS Would the City Clerk please (inaudible) RDK Well, as it stands right now and hearing that the maker and the seconder weren't amenable to making that footnote, that they wanted to approve the current zoning with an asterisk that this location be a study zone going into the future...period. RAS Please vote. RDK Motion fails on a 2-3, with Mayor Spiegel, Mayor Pro Tem Crites, and Councilmember Benson voting NO. BAC And I would move the amended motion as it was stated with that footnote. 6 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL (Inaudible) BAC JMB RAS JANUARY 29, 2004 That it be a special study zone that looks at alternative uses and that excludes supermarket type uses from, at least our perception, approval. And it obviously speaks to this current group of people. Second We have a motion and a second. Please vote. RDK Motion carries with Councilmembers Kelly and Ferguson voting NO. RAS Moving right along. PD Moving right along. Next thing is...although not on your specific program, it is an issue that was...that came up at our...it deals with Deep Canyon between Highway 111 and Fred Waring. Currently the first five or six lots north of Alessandro...Mark, if you want to bring up your exhibit, your's is probably more accurate than mine. RSK Question. This is the one that the Planning Department just dealt with and approved the change of zone on the south two and not on the north two Tots? PD Yes. But since that action somewhat diverges from their previous action on the broad map is why we have to... RSK Yes or no. PD It deals with that issue. RSK That's the one that the Planning Commission just dealt with and approved the two lots on the south side... PD Correct. RSK ...but not the two on the north side. PD Correct. And since that decision, that specific decision, was different than the map that you're seeing before you, the broad map, that's why...and I wanted to bring it to your attention how we want to deal with it...it's something we have to discuss a little bit. The issue is, again...why don't you zoom out, can you zoom out a little bit or is that...a little bit of the bigger picture...no, it's as big as it gets...okay. BAC Mr. Mayor. Mr. Drell. 7 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS Mr. Drell. PD Yes. BAC A question. What are you going to be asking us to do today? PD Okay. The colored... RSK What are you going to ask us to do? PD I'm going to ask you to consider modifying the Planning Commission recommended alternative that you have before you today because it...based on the Planning Commission's actions of Tuesday, last Tuesday, that recommendation apparently has been modified. RAS Councilman Kelly. RSK Well, I've always had a problem with dealing with something specific that's in a General Plan. They call it a General Plan because it's general, and now we're dealing with something that's very specific. If we dealt with it at the City Council meeting, it would be advertised specifically to those people in the neighborhood. Yes, we advertised the General Plan meeting, but who in the neighborhood knows, within 300 feet or even...l'm sure people further away are interested...it's something the Planning Commission just acted on. If the Council wants to act on it, they ought to call that specific thing up and advertise it properly and then deal with it specifically. I just don't believe we should be dealing with something that specific in a General Plan. PD Okay, but you have to make designations on a map somehow, and the Planning Commission had previously shown Office Professional generally... RSK Regardless of the arguments... PD I understand. What I'm saying is what's on the maps, what's on... RAS Mayor Pro Tem Crites. BAC Let me try another way because I agree with Richard. I also think the applicants who were denied at the Planning Commission obviously are now curious about where they go from here. If they choose to appeal the Planning Commission decision, that would come before the City Council within a meeting or so, right? PD Correct. 8 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 BAC Which would allow us to both deal with the specific, and in dealing with the — specific would also allow us to refine if so chosen and the recommendation is before us on the General Plan regarding that area. PD Okay, and that's... BAC Is that... PD And that's perfectly fine. So in essence defer that discussion to an appeal and... BAC And if there is no appeal, then that allows us to note what is being thought about. RAS We could call it up ourselves. BAC We could say, okay, given that, here's what we want to... PD If there's no appeal, then we want to change this map, because right now... BAC That's a decision we'll make if (inaudible) that happens... JF We can do in 14 days or whatever...and we have to provide legal notice to all the property owners within 300 feet. PD That's fine. RAS I believe there are some people in the audience that would like to speak to this. (Inaudible) RAS Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to this? Go ahead. PD One other little...just something to take note of...I said there were no changes south of Frank Sinatra...there's one other change, and that...just to be aware of...in the area, look on your map, the area directly north of the Whitewater Channel at Cook Street... RAS JF Why don't you get a hand-held mic and go over and point it out. I have a quick question (inaudible) I thought last time we had indicated that we wanted a review of the various elements before we got into land use. MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JANUARY 29, 2004 And, remember, the answer was, that was being prepared by our consultant. He can't be here today because his plane almost crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and he had to land in Newfoundland. JF So what is our agenda for today if we're not going to... PD So if you look at the program that I distributed with the packets, we would go to the next items, which was back to land use and university park and circulation, which was what was shown on the Agenda, on the... RAS Hence the Mayor's comment that we're doing something none of us are prepared... PD Well, it was shown on the Agenda, on my program, that my perception was we were only going to take an hour for that overview and the program showed that we were going to spend, for sure, time on university park and circulation element if time allowed. JF Okay, so what are we doing right now? PD We're about to get to university park...and before I get to it, I was going to point out...to one other land use change that you might want to be aware of...and that I made a previous statement that we made no other land use changes south of Frank Sinatra. There was one other one, and I'm going to point that out to you. JF Okay. RSK No other changes from what? PD Existing land use. RSK Of existing... PD Existing land use. RSK No other changes were made south of Frank Sinatra on existing land use except one you're going to tell us about. PD And the other ones we've discussed. RSK South (inaudible) 10 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JANUARY 29, 2004 Yes, in the other ones we've previously discussed, I pointed out...this is one other one that I had not pointed out, and I would like to do that now. And the hand-held mic is... RDK Is being repaired. PD Is being repaired. Okay, if you look at the...where Cook Street intersects the Whitewater Channel and at Merle, there's a triangular section adjacent to the golf course, wedged between the golf course driving range and the channel. It has a sewer line running through it, and so it's really much smaller...it's that triangular piece right where you see the "T" on Cook Street. It...we are recommending the designation on that as Office Professional. It doesn't make sense as single family residential there, and so that's (inaudible) RSK There's no way to get to it. PD There's conceivably a way to get to it. That's up to the property owner to figure out how to do. The other is...there are three parcels right on the corner of Cook and Sheryl which are directly across the street from an office building, and we're recommending that those also be office. RSK Next to the pump? PD Yes, so it's in between the pump and the entrance to the golf course. RSK Between the pump and the entrance. PD hmmm? RSK Between the pump and the entrance to the golf course. PD Correct, which we have the new office building right across the street. RAS I think we found something we can act on. Comments from... RDK That's lined up right there with the golf course and the driving range and much as we'd all like to hit the golf balls straight, we've got lots of problems wherever we have buildings adjacent to golf courses. It doesn't seem to me like a commercial complex there would be very fitting with the golf complex. JF How about open space? RSK Yeah, how about open space? 11 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 PD If it's open space, then we kind of have to buy it. If that's the preference, then... RAS I understand that a gentleman on Parks & Rec attempted to buy that little triangle and it was such that it didn't (inaudible) RSK I'm talking about mainly the three lots right now. JF What's the current zoning? PD R-1, single family. So it's really the...it's zoned for houses. JF How many acres is it? PD They're probably 8,000 square foot lots there, so there's probably maybe half an acre. JF So half an acre of R-1, how much is that? RSK I can't imagine those are a half acre. PD No, the three lots together. RSK Oh, three, okay. PD A little more than a half acre, so it's probably a hundred, a hundred and thirty thousand. Single family lots are now running about 50 thousand apiece 1 think, 40-50,000 apiece, so 100-150,000. RSK You have a street there that makes a nice buffer between any kind of a park or...even if it was a park, in this case now it's a public park and recreation...put anything in there I think would be the right thing to do. RAS Any other comments? JMB (Inaudible) PD Yeah, there's no golf course there now, it's just empty lots. RAS (Inaudible) JF Or plant your wild flowers. PD I don't think they need any parking...they have a big parking lot on the side of... 12 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF Verbenia. JANUARY 29, 2004 BAC Why don't we ask staff to bring us a detailed area map that really focuses down on that... PD Okay BAC ...and that we would schedule that... RSK What's there? PD Next meeting BAC In closed session as something (inaudible) acquisition or at least as a discussion item. JF Well, since we're going to be continuing on with this, why don't we ask Park & Rec to give us their opinion on if there's any... BAC Right. JF ...recreational opportunity there. PD Okay. BAC Mr. Mayor, before we head north, one issue that I would like to have scheduled on the next General Plan discussion is also south of this area, and that's along Fred Waring. I've noted that a developer has come in for one of the Palma Village Plan office buildings that would go from Fred Waring back to Santa Rosa and I think Planning staff now has some different thoughts about our Palma Village Plan as it relates to O.P. along Fred Waring and Santa Rosa, and whether right, wrong, whatever, I don't have a point of view except that I think the General Plan is a good time at least to discuss whether or not the...not today, but at our next meeting, whether or not our current designations and uses are correct or if we want to change those or not...just have that discussion...because it's not a specific thing that's before the Planning Commission or anything else. Nothing's been filed, Richard, so... RSK I understand...you're looking at that...in other words, that we might want to take the parking lots back to the street or something. BAC Or don't. RSK Not that specific item but the whole thing. 13 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL BAC Right, the whole...all along there, yup. RAS Councilman Ferguson. JANUARY 29, 2004 JF Well, along the same lines, I was just amazed that we're so good that everything south of Frank Sinatra is perfect, and we haven't looked at the Commercial Core Plan, we haven't looked at the Palma Village Plan. I personally have seen the evolution of the Service Industrial zone along Cook Street evolve into a mixed use with some retail and that we've got a supermarket there and a bank and a restaurant when it was supposed to be Industrial. As a result of that, we now have people coming back and saying there are parking problems and circulation problems. And it amazes me that we haven't at least looked at that or addressed it or double checked our thinking or somehow acknowledged that maybe the use has evolved from when it was originally envisioned. And couldn't we at least take a look at the Service Industrial area all the way from our affordable housing development all the way over to KESQ and...why didn't we... PD BAC And we did. To say that we didn't change it doesn't mean to say that we didn't look at it. We have changed our whole definition of "Industrial" based on the reality of what the market has responded to in those areas. We no longer have a Service Industrial designation. We're calling it Industrial Business Park because the reality of what has happened in all those areas is a mixture of, you know...really, we started with that zone to put the junk that we wanted to get off of Highway 111. That was really the...and what it evolved into was what you just said, it's a mixture of offices, industrial areas, and that's why we changed the category to be much broader. But, you know, those areas are 98% built out, as is most of the area south of Frank Sinatra, and what we tried to do is, where we did make changes in categories or we did make some changes, that they were reflective of the physical development out there. So the fact that things...that we're not recommending any changes doesn't mean we didn't look at it. It's just that we looked at it and said what's there is...in terms of a General Plan discussion, is pretty much what's going to be there, with the exception of areas where we said because of the evolution of the City, these designations aren't appropriate, and those are things we've talked about...on Portola, on north Highway 111, we'll talk about it now on Fred Waring. As I say, the fact that they didn't change it doesn't mean that we didn't look at it. And, again... In that same light, the discussion that we will have on Deep Canyon and building of another building on San Pablo, an O.P. building on San Pablo, at least brings an issue to me as one person that I'd like us to discuss at some point, and that is...it certainly appears that (inaudible) O.P. can be appropriate along our six -lane major arterials...Fred Waring, Monterey...but, one person's opinion, that they appear to be much less appropriate on 14 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 streets that are not those wide, six -lane, kind of streets. I know we're now...collector streets...we're now looking at Portola and O.P. on Portola north and south of Fred Waring, we're being asked to look at O.P. on Deep Canyon, San Pablo, and I suspect other places as well. RSK And a bunch in the North Sphere. BAC A bunch out there, so I would like to at least look at the issue of having O.P. where we so choose along those types of streets to both be a) one-story; b) "architecturally residential" in character. That doesn't mean they're residences, but that means that to a passerby, it has a less commercial feel to it. Now, I don't know if anybody else thinks that or not, but I just...I look again at a very beautiful building, I'm sure, architecturally on San Pablo, right next to the street, da-da da-da da-da, and...we've never learned this lesson very well...here we are yet another time with something that when we look at it, it all seems fine and wonderful, and when we build it...l've had that with Charlie Martin's building 20 years ago and Dr. Shah and so on. Perhaps, as I say, on the major ones, fair enough, but on these other ones...l'd at least like to look at that issue. PD And it can be...the next step in the process would be to re-examine the Zoning Ordinance to adjust whatever goals and objectives that the current code might be pursuing, how they might be changed. BAC Maybe this is a General Plan goal... PD Correct. BAC ...if the Council so...anyhow, I'd like to visit that in one of our sessions. PD Sure. In the listing of programs and policies within the land use element as it relates to the Zoning Ordinance, we can identify that that program, that issue and that program, to be focused on when we re-examine the Zoning Ordinance. RAS Councilman Kelly. RSK Along with...l agree wholeheartedly with Mayor Pro Tem Crites. Also, there's a setback problem because we have this building across the street that...it's right almost on the street, and even with six lanes wide it's still a problem, so there's a long way...and I agree 100%, there should be areas where one-story is allowed and it should blend in, and there are areas where probably two-story might be okay, but...along with the two-story should be some setback. 15 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL RAS Councilman Ferguson. JANUARY 29, 2004 JF Well, I agree with both the Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Kelly, and it goes back to what I asked Mr. Criste at our last meeting, which is the finer details of this General Plan, which I hope will engraft some of the genius of the philosophy of my colleagues on this Council on items such as...as a general rule of thumb, we don't like to crowd corners...as a general rule of thumb, we like to provide view corridors where possible...as a general rule of thumb, we'd like to preserve open space...as a general rule of thumb, we want setbacks. All of those philosophies really don't codify well into a specific item in the General Plan, but somehow that philosophy needs to be worked in here. And when you say we didn't change anything south of Frank Sinatra, did we at least include some of those concepts? PD JF There are those sort of concepts in the urban design element. When I made that statement, I was talking about land use designations, which is what we're talking about right now. Well, I just don't want to give our residents the opinion that all we care about is north of Frank Sinatra, and to hell with the rest of the City, we're just going to leave it as it is. Because I think we are trying to engraft what we did to the south part of the City in a document so that people have a good indicator of what they should do north of Frank Sinatra when we get down to the specifics of planning. RAS Councilwoman Benson. JMB (Inaudible) PD I think we'd like to finish the General Plan. Remember...at any time, remember, we have a pending ordinance that any time the Council give us specific direction as to what to come back with, we bring something back. The...so...I mean, again, we're...you know, we've been amending ordinances, you know, right and left over the last 20 years, trying to better address the general goals of our existing General Plan. Any time you want to direct staff to come back with an ordinance on any subject, we can do that. JF Was it your thought that, since we did take an action on the hillsides, that we get an ordinance in the works sooner as opposed to later? JMB (Inaudible) RDK Councilmember Benson, is your microphone on, or close enough to you? I wouldn't want to miss your comments. 16 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD Do you want to put what we had... JANUARY 29, 2004 JMB It was just my thought that we should bring that one back as soon as possible to get it cemented, I guess. JF Well, I guess pursuant to my druthers, Riverside County is promulgating an ordinance, and if you could check with them, I think they're trying to work off of our ordinance. And I would at least express to you personally some desire to see you work off of their version as well because they're the same, and it doesn't matter where a property owner lives on that section line, they're going to live under the same rules no matter what. PD Yes, it's just the...I've distributed, and I probably should distribute to all of you...unfortunately, the ordinance that was distributed to me bears no relationship to, I think, our particular goals. The structure might have some interesting aspects to it, but in terms of the specifics of it, it's actually probably more permissive than our current ordinance. JF Well, then, maybe you can share that with the Planning Director of Riverside County because I think his goal is the same as ours. PD Okay. If that's the ordinance he wants to (inaudible) then that's not going — to...that doesn't help us all that much. I distributed, and I'd love to get comments, and I don't know if Jean's gotten it... RSK I don't remember it. PD Okay. Well, we'll get that to all of you, and you can look at it. Unfortunately, it is thicker than our entire Zoning Ordinance, but...I'd love to get comments, and based on those comments, just like we did the previous process with the hillside, we drafted something and sent it to you guys, we got comments, and then we came back to you with something. If you want to take a look at this thing, give me comments, and... RSK Double comment here. I agree with Councilmember Ferguson. It seems like if they're doing an ordinance and we're doing an ordinance, we ought to do it so that they're the...people have the same ordinance if they're going to live next door to each other. But that's that part. But the other part is...this is off the subject, but it's not off the subject because I see Jean down there needed a balloon like I used to...but another organization where I chair it, they have a wish to speak button, and as Chairman of that, it's really valuable because I can just sit there and watch the audience and also see the button when somebody wants to speak. And having sat on the end for quite a while, I wish we had a button so the Mayor would know when we wanted to say something. 17 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL RAS Well, we actually have one. JF But we do have one. JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS But we haven't been able to perfect it. And I've asked that it be installed properly... JF It's with our portable microphone. RSK We spent enough money doing... RAS (Inaudible) I think so. I did this prior to becoming Mayor. I asked that (inaudible) screen, request to speak. JF RTS, right here. RSK Yeah, I've seen that. RAS But it doesn't come up here. I don't know...we'Il have to ask Pat to go back... RDK They're programming it as we speak. We've already authorized that change, software change. Right now it's at the Clerk's station, but I'm kind of busy taking notes and making sure volumes are the right...so it's hard for me to...and I wouldn't want to supercede the Mayor's authority. RSK I think we need a better button system where there's something right in front of you where you can look at the speaker and still see when people... RDK It's in the works. RAS Well, I can always put this up here if necessary, so... JF Right. Point well noted. RAS And we are working on it, but like everything else, all good things come to those who wait. BAC And this will probably be (inaudible) RSK That's just about right. JMB (Inaudible) covered parking. JF Six months, $100,000 from now, we'll get (inaudible) 18 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS I think that the direction is to make certain that the County has our hillside ordinance to work off of besides giving copies again to the Council. JF My preference, Phil, would be for you to take your best shot at drafting something and give it to us and get our comments on what you think works as opposed to just having (inaudible) PD What we thought worked was what we submitted to you. But we will...I will submit our own critique... JF You saw no merit to designate peaks and ridges and other aspects (inaudible) PD Our ordinance does identify those as goals. JF Okay. PD We have Iess...but again, this is an ordinance that's that thick, and you saw it. JF So. — PD And it has some...if we want to take some of the verbiage out, that's fine, but I will...remember our discussion, we had some very fundamental specific differences between Option A and Option B, which we kept on getting a 2-2 vote on. And this...I think the ordinance in the County doesn't even address those two issues at all. JF PD JF But, leave the County aside for a moment, I think you've got a 4 to 1 vote to proceed along the lines of Alternative B. The County offered an ordinance for our review, you didn't think much of it, fine. Come up with what you think is the Council's direction and let us take a look at it. We will bring back the options we had before and if there's three votes for Alternative B...I will do also bring back a, I guess, a review of the ordinance that you dropped by, areas in it which I think...which might be helpful. But... Perhaps the easiest thing might be to just chat with the County Planning Director and see what you two think of each other's ordinance and then come up with your own recommendation. PD Okay. RAS Pretty well decided now? 19 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JMB Right. JF Thank you, Jean. RAS Moving right along. JANUARY 29, 2004 PD Moving right along. Land use north of Frank Sinatra. Given that this is fundamentally vacant property, and I assume you got in your packet the new land use chart summary...right, that...plus the summary which we tried to incorporate all the three options, which I think are the most useful to compare, which is the existing General Plan, the GPAC recommended alternative, and the Planning Commission recommended alternative, and in each category you can see the results in the column side by side. JF Question. In going through this in some detail, it appears that the existing General Plan and the new General Plan, with the GPAC preferred alternative, used different nomenclature for land use designations. And this chart, while helpful, simply takes, for example, under the existing General Plan, we had Commercial Industrial, 708 acres apparently. Under GPAC and Planning Commission, we have none. And I'm assuming that's because we've changed the commercial (inaudible) PD And that's why we...we also have subtotals of total Commercial Industrial, total Public Facilities, total Open Space, and total Residential to try to regularize in a gross sense...and remember, general plans are general. And in reality, they're not hard lines on the ground, and so these, even these acreage numbers are interpolations of a fuzzy line. But this gives, as best we could, a standard for comparison. Also, as you saw in the existing General Plan, we had this thing called Residential Study Zone, which, again, we had to kind of interpolate what it really meant, and therefore we assigned some of it to Commercial Industrial, some of it we assigned to low density, a little bit we assigned to high density. But, remember again, these numbers are not...they are an average expectation within a broad range of potential development. The residential, again, in the residential designations, we generally pick a number in the middle of the range based on our experience. On the commercial, we based on how much typically, how much square footage development results on an acre of land in various land uses. So, again, they are an average expectation that this is not...these are not projects, these are land use categories that have a range, potential range, of development intensity, and this is our best guess as to...using the same assumptions in each alternative, of how they fall out. RAS Mayor Pro Tem Crites. 20 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 BAC Quick question. May I assume that everything that's north of 1-10 reflects the — newly adopted County General Plan? PD No, we're slightly higher intensity. BAC Well, these are our designations for what we believe should be there because it's an area over which we have "influence." PD We don't necessarily have influence. It's an area that if and when, and we'll discuss why the designations are the way they are, if we ever get influence or if the County ever asks for our opinion, we have a document from which to say this is what we think is appropriate. You know, and the County generally does ask for our opinion when projects occur, even areas outside...you know, I get letters...I get...they ask... RAS Councilman Kelly. RSK Along with the comment that the General Plan is for the whole City, and we seem to be concentrating on one area, and so we have numbers of units of high density and low density recommended by GPAC and recommended by the Planning Commission. But in my decision making process, if we're going to approve a certain number of high density units out there, I need to know — how many we have for the whole City. Is that somewhere in this document? PD It is in the General Plan...again, those are...we assumed very little, for instance, high density, new high density land. RSK How many multi -unit units do we have in the City? Is that is in here somewhere? PD In terms of existing. RSK Yes, how many exist in the City today? As an example, if we had 20,000, then I might not want to add any in the North Sphere. PD We don't have 20,000. RSK Well, I know we don't, but that's my point. How many do we have? PD I could sift through here, but... JF Or we could get that later. (Inaudible) 21 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 PD What I would like to do... RSK We ought to know how many we have. PD I mean, it is in the document. It's probably both in the General Plan itself and in the EIR. You know, I could sift through it... RAS Could you provide us that information (inaudible) PD I could get you that information... RSK On one sheet? PD Yes, sure. The... RAS Wait a minute, Councilman Ferguson has a question. JF Just a general observation. Going through this and this and all the stuff that you've provided us, it occurred to me as I was reviewing the north of Frank Sinatra section, this stuff, that if this area of our City was not part of our City, and it was built out according to your proposed land use designations, and these folks came to us and asked us to annex them, the first thing we would do is sit down and do a financial analysis to see whether the blend of what the revenue that it generates pays for the services that it demands. Has any kind of analysis been done along those lines? PD Yes, that is in the...there is a fiscal analysis in the EIR. JF Of just the North Sphere? PD It does the whole City. It does not just...I don't believe it just does the North Sphere...it does the whole City. JF Do you have any opinion as to whether the commercial retail mix that you proposed here provides enough revenue to satisfy... PD I believe it does...as we go through the discussion, I think that'll become apparent. JF Okay. PD And I have other comments that I can make on that subject in general. JF I realize I'm probably getting the cart before the horse, but I just wanted to make sure that somebody was thinking financially. 22 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD Yes. JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS (Inaudible) the Catholic Church has announced that they're going to build a school north of the freeway. Is that correct? PD My understanding is... RAS It was in the paper, so it's got to be true. BAC And accurate. RAS And accurate, that's correct. And also, we know that there's a developer that is working on a major development on the north side of the freeway, just opposite this area, is that correct? PD Correct. And, as you see, you see large...again, I think...why don't we kind of go through the discussion until we get to the details, and then if you have questions, I'II be glad to answer them, but, you know...I can walk you through the process that the GPAC used in making... RAS The point I'm trying to make is that possibly what's done on the north side on the freeway (inaudible) done on the south side. PD No question about it. And that's why we looked at the north side of the freeway. Again, what I'd like to do is walk you through the intellectual process that the GPAC used in this area. And I guess...another quick comment about the rest of the City. And this is partly just to do...as a result of hard experience...that short of identifying areas of severe problems or obvious problems, every time we've ever tried to change the direction of land use in any developed area of the City, I think this Council knows exactly what happens. Even on a micro -level. So...in looking at existing areas, unless we saw a glaring dysfunction, we presumed that it was working fine. Again, we identified areas with glaring dysfunction, and we brought those to you. I think we've done pretty well in the existing city. I know there are only a few areas where, as the City has grown, that we felt that needed adjustment. Where we saw the opportunity for, in the General Plan, for a new, maybe a new vision, is when you're looking a vacant property, where you don't have to worry about necessarily existing...or (inaudible) where the existing property owners or existing residents expectations will be paramount. And obviously vacant land provides that opportunity. Again, if we'd never...on the other hand, if we never contemplate changes, there would be no reason to do this process at all. In looking at the north of Frank Sinatra, again...the decisions were driven by two kind of primary driving forces. One is land use compatibility, and the second is housing demand. And in looking at land use compatibility, the Commission looked, and the GPAC looked at, what are the 23 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF PD JANUARY 29, 2004 (inaudible) given realities out there in terms of existing land uses, and the biggest one is 1-10 and the railroad tracks and our existing system of major arterials and interchanges. Also, in terms of those existing areas which are already being developed substantially, which included the Monterey corridor, from the Interchange with the commercial and the approval of the Gateway center, the Shadow Ridge development, and then on the Cook Street side, the University. So we have, kind of, three big kind of given land use situations, one at the 1-10 railroad corridor, the University on one side and the regional commercial development that is already occurring and is expected to occur on Monterey. And so, again, in looking at, for instance, the residential study zone in the existing General Plan, and if you actually even went back even further, the existing General Plan you see was a product of the North Sphere Specific Plan. If you went back to 1980, you'd see residential right up to the railroad tracks along that...most of that entire frontage, with the exception of right at the interchanges. And given...while people build houses right up against them and people buy them, they usually end up complaining to us after...why did we let them do that. So, the initial decision was the designation of...based on compatibility of commercial industrial property, which included the, again, the Monterey corridor, the 1-10 railroad track corridor as industrial business park...again, we changed the category that made it a very generalized broad category reflective of what we see has happened in our other industrial parks. It allows...we're not getting steel mills and smokestacks...we can find ways to integrate lots of different diverse types of commercial industrial uses and office uses into this zone, because that's what really people build. The regional commercial on Monterey, next to the University, we said that...recognized we heard from representatives from the University, we had representatives on the Board, on the GPAC, who were very familiar with universities and what happens to them and what are surrounding land uses that make the university a stronger, more enriching environment, and so the decision was that adjacent to the university should have commercial uses that complement. So we have commercial uses on Cook Street, on that frontage. The other broad use, you see a lot of green there, is that the Redevelopment Agency has been making some decisions on large pieces of open space, so we included that 170 acres at Portola and Frank Sinatra as potential open space. We...I'm sure you'll have comment on this...for better or worse, we had to consult with all of the other sister agencies that have jurisdiction in the area, one of which is the school district, and the school district has plans, which they are moving forward on, on the high school at the corner of Gerald Ford and... Which school district? Palm Springs Unified School District....the corner of Gerald Ford and Portola for a high school and a K-8 elementary/middle school shown off of what will 24 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF JANUARY 29, 2004 be Gateway Drive south of 35th. Then what we did, the exercise was okay, we built out, hypothetically built out the commercial industrial uses. And that housing demand is a function of...or permanent housing demand, permanent resident housing demand, is largely a function of jobs, employment. In this valley, you have two sources of housing demand. One is the resort oriented housing demand, which is really a function of the national economy and how well we market ourselves to tourists and seniors. And then we have...and historically that...more and more that housing demand is embodied in resorts and very specific specialized developments that orient themselves to tourists and second home people and the retired. The other...and again, that is a function more of, again, the broad economic condition of the United States and our ability to market ourselves. The other type of housing demand is locally generated housing demand, which is a function of people who come here to work and then they need a place to live. That housing demand is a determinant of how we promote economic development in the City and the Valley in general. Question. In going through the Minutes from the Planning Commission discussions and noting your comments and Mr. Criste's comments and in particular Commissioner Tschopp's comments with the Planning Commission, the unstated assumption is that everybody who works in our city needs to live in our city. Why is that? PD I'll get to that. JF Well, I'd like the short answer now. PD Well...and the goal of this plan is not to achieve that. The unstated assumption is...or not the unstated...the stated...under both the CEQA guidelines and the General Plan guidelines, there's a...overarching goal is to create a balance between jobs and housing, and it has a direct relationship...there's one lesson that's been learned in the development of southern California is that policies that tend to separate jobs and housing create all sorts of both air quality problems and transportation problems. The longer people have to travel...since transportation issues are a result of origins and destinations, origins being primarily homes, destinations being work places and commercial destinations. That the further you separate them, the greater a problem you have in both promoting mass transit and in successful regional auto transit system. RAS Councilman Kelly. RSK (Inaudible) we're going to try and get the jobs and the housing close together (inaudible) fact is I can live in Palm Desert (inaudible) drive eight miles (inaudible) 25 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF Thousand Palms JANUARY 29, 2004 RSK And I wouldn't have to drive that far. The point I'm making is that those guidelines that want to reduce traffic...that job/housing balance is two things that have to happen. One thing is you need to look at a bigger area because housing is going to adjust to where they can afford to live, and to try and provide all the housing in one place because that's where the jobs are in one city is, to my way of thinking, a mistake. And also, another factor that comes in there right along with distance is is it located on a public transit route? And we see examples all the time where folks build off the route with no regard to where the public transit is going in. The school system is a good example where they put their complex...they have plenty of places to put their complex right on a transit route...you know, people want to live where they want to live, not where you tell them to live. PD Correct. JF Can I add one more comment, because I'd be curious to hear your response as well. As a hypothetical model, it makes sense. You generate jobs, and those people need a place to live and the closer you can put the people who service those jobs are to their work place, the better air quality, better transportation, all the things that you just said. In the real world, commercial, retail, and other types of uses go where the people are. So if we were to approve the housing, and you're using numbers like 15,000 forthe university, which isn't going to happen in 15 years, as far as I'm concerned 20, but I've got Snellenberger, World Industries, and all these other folks that are chomping at the bit to build a house, and were screaming bloody murder when we passed a moratorium for 12 months just to get through this process. Those houses are going to go in long before those jobs are ever created. The people that live in those houses sure as heck aren't going to be working in those jobs, and the people that are going to be working at those jobs are going to be living where Councilman Kelly said. And so how does that hypothetical construct work in the realities of the marketplace? PD Okay...let's start with issue number one. We only control the land use in our own city. The theory of...and so there's two issues...there's the proximity of housing to jobs, and then there's total supply of housing in the region. What the housing element law tries to do, and it says that if every city...and you know, one can argue whether our adjoining cities are going to be as responsible as they should be, but my mom always told me determine your own morality based on the behavior of your friends...the theory of the, in terms of...we do obviously want to get a...in terms of the region, x amount of units to match the number of...amount of jobs in the whole region. What the housing element law says is that every city does their fair share and matches up their own housing units with their own jobs, then the...then people can 26 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL RAS JANUARY 29, 2004 make all their own decisions. That will ensure that there will be physically enough housing within the region to match the jobs. People will then have their own choices of where they want to live, close to their job or close to some other place for some other reason. But we're not proposing in this plan to match up...and if you let me go on, we're not close to matching up housing demand with this plan. And for...if they let me just go on a little bit further of how we thought about this, you might answer your question. The...once we built out...and remember, this is a 20-year plan...once housing gets built, once a certain arrangement of housing gets built, that's going to be it. We're not going to be able to adjust to housing demand very well 20 years from now and suddenly if we say oh my gosh we need more housing. You know, that's what kind of happened in the bay area...they had an explosion of employment as a result of their success, economic success. They hadn't anticipate any of that in providing housing anywhere in the region. Modesto and the San Joaquin Valley became the suburb of Palo Alto. You had people leaving Modesto at 4:30 in the morning to get to work because there was never enough forethought to say...to do the math...if we're successful if we want to be commercially, how many people are going to need housing, and there was...if every city assumes that their neighboring city would provide the housing for their commercial, then you know what's going to happen, and that's what happened...that's the history of southern California development, that was the history that happened in northern California. Every city assumed that an adjoining city would meet the housing demand created by their own economic development. And since every city made that same assumption, no one provided enough housing, and it turned out people had to come from Fresno and Modesto to work in Palo Alto. The assumption is that if every city makes at least a reasonable effort to meet the fair share of their own demand, then regionally there will be enough housing and then let the market and people make their own choices of where they want to live. At least there will be enough houses, physically, in the region for people to make those choices. Comments. One, if either city on (inaudible) west of us or east of us has anything like this in their general plan. In fact, they don't care where they live if they work at the hotel, is that correct? PD That's correct, and I don't think that's necessarily a compliment. RAS I didn't say it was, I'm just making a statement. Second statement is, the plan varies in price throughout this valley. You can buy an acre in one location for a heck of a lot less than you can in another location, and because we are in the center of the Valley, this land is a lot more expensive than some of the other land in the Valley, is that correct? 27 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JANUARY 29, 2004 That's correct, although it's changing very rapidly. We are...you know, 20 years ago there was this unlimited resource out there, and what I'm hearing from the development industry is that the land in Indio and Coachella and Desert Hot Springs is being eaten up so quickly with a certain kind of very land consuming development that the prices are going up radically everywhere. RAS (Inaudible) they still maintain that the land here in the north sphere of the City is worth a lot more than some other areas. PD And therefore you use it more efficiently. RAS If the Mayor Pro Tem can get the Fringed Toed Lizard (inaudible) some of their land. PD If I could go on... JF Well, Phil, I just wanted to finish out your analogy to Modesto. Having grown up there, I can tell you that the economic drivers for Modesto, Turlock, Lodai, Tracey, Stockton, were the Bay Areas, and they did have an increase in housing, and that housing brought the very commercial that I was telling you about that caused those communities to economically develop and expand, both from their economic base and their population base, and they developed just like Palm Desert is going to develop. And you make it sound like it's horrible that people should have to live in one community and drive in another. But I go back to Jean's comment...this whole Valley, you eat in one community, you sleep in another one, you go to a movie in another one, you shop in another one. We're all intertwined. PD I understand, but...l wasn't talking about the economic development in Tulare and Modesto. I was talking about the people who, in order to find the house they could afford, were living in Modesto and spending three hours to commute to Palo Alto. RAS Councilman Kelly. RSK Well, I think that's an inappropriate analogy. Those people that drive from Modesto to work in San Francisco would drive by acres and acres of vacant property. It's not how they...the price makes the difference, but also they don't want to be stacked up in six -story apartment houses, so when you start stacking people up in six -story apartment houses, they're not going to live there. They're going to go look for a place down -Valley or somewhere else where they can... RAS Mayor Pro Tem Crites. 28 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 RSK I just don't understand where you try to stack all of the housing in one — location. You're trying to force people to live where they don't want to live. BAC I'd like to go back and at least to the planning effort. I suspect we don't have any six -story apartment houses out here. I suspect that we are not ever, no matter what the density we put out here, going to come close to capturing in Palm Desert the housing need for the jobs in Palm Desert. It isn't going to happen, no matter what we do. So we're talking about where we want to go as a General Plan (inaudible) densities that our existing development has, whether those will be lower or whether those will be higher. And I think the members of the Council will probably not agree philosophically on some of those. That's fair, but I'd like to look at this and I really don't care how far people drive from Modesto. PD JF Okay, then let me continue my presentation. Based on the build out of the commercial, and if you see...in either or...the existing General Plan, the numbers are roughly similar. We're looking at...existing General Plan, we're looking at about nine million square feet of commercial. And we're not talking about students here...we're talking about just physical buildings. The GPAC alternative had 10,398,000, and the Planning Commission had a bit more. So...in order of magnitude, we didn't substantially change the designation for commercial use. Some of the big changes in actually the commercial use that occurred...for example, if you look at the existing General Plan, we didn't have a Shadow Ridge timeshare, which is essentially a hotel, it's a commercial use. So there...we used to have residential, now that got changed to 320 acres of commercial use. So...the I'm sorry, my mic wasn't on. On commercial resort, for example, you're taking the North Sphere and saying it's undeveloped land. And yet I would suspect that the vast majority of your commercial resort designation is consumed by Marriott's Shadow Ridge. PD Correct. JF So the opportunities for new resort commercial, as I look at your land, are the 12 acres at the corner of Frank Sinatra and Cook, which the developer tells me he wants to put O.P. on. There are no other pads really for a hotel other than the one spot where a hotel is least likely to go, which is on the far eastern side of that planning area. And so our opportunity to diversify our revenue base, for example, through additional TOT, is virtually nonexistent in (inaudible) PD Hotels can go in any commercial zone. MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF JANUARY 29, 2004 Well, I know that, but your resort commercial is the type of hotel I think that from a municipal finance point we'd want to attract here. There's no zoning (inaudible) PD A resort commercial hotel can go in any commercial zone. JF Yeah, we can put a Motel 6 anywhere we want. PD No, it could be any...it doesn't...land uses don't speak to the character or the price point of a hotel product. It can go in any... JF Then why do we have a commercial resort designation? PD Just for...it improves the communication of the document. Part of the reason you have a land use plan is that someone can look at it, and where you have a large piece of property that you know with certainty is devoted to a very specific use because it is approved and it's built...they can look at it and say that's a hotel, that's a resort use. So where you have developed property, where you have absolute certainty what this very specific use is, then it doesn't hurt to communicate that in the map, and that's all we did. JF Well, I guess my point is simply that by aggregating all uses within a commercial and saying they're roughly the same acreage isn't changing anything isn't necessarily a good indicator. PD I don't understand. JF PD We have a golf course designation, that little green triangle at the bottom of the thing. If we were to entertain possibly getting another resort hotel, it would be logical to put it somewhere near a golf course. Nowhere near that golf course is there any commercial resort designation. In fact, in one of our original renditions of the plan, remember you said yourself it really ultimately depends on where the hotel goes in is whether someone is prepared to build it because we had actually designated that adjacent corner all the way to Cook Street and Frank Sinatra as also resort commercial. JF That's where the fellow wants to put office professional. PD Correct. If that's what, you know... JF That's hardly fronting on...my point is, I don't think that just simply lumping together residential and commercial and matching the acreages to what our 30 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JF PD JANUARY 29, 2004 existing General Plan was is a good indicator that we're getting the mix that you say that we need in these documents. We had no resort commercial designation at all in the existing General Plan. If there are areas that you feel is appropriate for more resort commercial than your, you know, as part of this process, you're very... Fair enough. Again, I'm going through the thought process of how we got to this document. The answer to your question will become clear with that. RAS I'II entertain a motion to adjourn? (Inaudible) Recess observed from 10:00 a.m. to 10:13 a.m. RAS I will reconvene the adjourned regular meeting of the Palm Desert City Council for Thursday, January the 29th, and give the microphone back to Mr. Drell. PD Okay...already? Back to the process. The GPAC looked at the existing General Plan, looked at those determinants and modified those based on what they knew was going to happen with the university, with the commercial on Monterey, with the industrial commercial on 1-10, built out, and say okay, hypothetically what would be the housing demand it will create from that ten million square feet. There were various job generation factors from Urban Land Institute and Local Government Commission and etc. And from that we roughly estimated...again, these are all gross order of magnitude numbers...approximately 20,000 jobs. And those 20,000 jobs...and we're not talking about students at the university, we're talking about jobs, predominantly coming from the commercial industrial, you know, of which, you know, in terms of a business, Cal State University is ultimately going to be the biggest business. But it's just in terms of...and this level of analysis, it's a business like any other with employees. We then were generous and said okay, what happens if all those employees either marry each other or found housing with other housed people in the Valley. And so maybe that's only 10,000 housing units that could satisfy that demand that we are creating. Remember, we are benefitting from this financially from this commercial development, and to a certain degree from an equity point of view. Those organizations and cities that benefit from a certain (inaudible) revenue point from certain source of development should bear some of the costs associated with serving that commercial development. Let me continue, please. Sure, housing can all go somewhere else, but the costs 31 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 of serving that housing, the public costs of serving that housing, is going to be borne by some public agency, and to the greatest extent, one could make an (inaudible) argument that the jurisdictions that benefit most from the development that generates that housing demand should bear a fair share of the costs of servicing that housing demand. So we came up, again, with a generalized, whether its 10,000 units or 8,000 units or 12,000 units, as an order of magnitude of roughly how many housing units at build out the commercial industrial development would generate. And then the exercise was okay, where do we want to put them. Again, this isn't housing demand that's discretionary. Housing demand in resort housing is discretionary. People can choose to have their vacation home in Palm Desert or Hawaii or Scottsdale or somewhere else. Pretty much people who work here have to find someplace in the Coachella Valley. I don't think we want people commuting from Riverside or Banning. But they have to find housing in general proximity, whether it's...and then the question was well, where can you put them. And initially, you know, the initial exercise was what if we try to put all of them in the City. And there result was huge amounts of required multi -family housing at probably 30 or 40 units per acre to accomplish that. Now obviously there's another way to accomplish it, and that is...and this brings in the issue of open space. Sure, there's a lot of other cities out there, and there's some vacant land out there, although depending on what happens with the multi -species plan, a lot of it might be taken off the blocks. There's a lot of farm land out there, you know, down -Valley. We could...you know, if we consumed all the farm land, if we consumed all the open space, we could...there's plenty of land out there outside of the City to accomplish probably to house everyone, or close to everyone, just like happened in the San Fernando Valley. When I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, we got our milk from the Van Nuys Quality Dairy. Believe it or not, there was lots of open space in San Fernando Valley even when I was a kid. San Gabriel Valley was virtually undeveloped. If one assumes that all of the housing is going to...if all of those people are going to live somewhere else, then if you go far enough away, you can find open space that it can be converted to housing...you can house those people. One of the kind of decisions, or one of the debated point at the GPAC was well maybe we don't want that to happen to this Valley, we don't want all of the open space that could accommodate our housing demand to be consumed. Every time we export a house from...that we generate, it's going to go somewhere else in this Valley. It's going to go in vacant desert. So, the presumption, and historically what's happened as cities have...because of the fiscal argument after Prop 13, housing, actually the low density housing, doesn't pay for itself. Cities have been...we've been giving developers medals for not building housing to a certain degree. Every time a developer takes five -unit per acre property and only builds two units per acre, we give him an atta-boy. Butwheneverthat happens, that housing...that demand for that housing gets manifested somewhere else, and traditionally it's happened in the County. 32 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 So basically, what has happened throughout Riverside County...and you see it in Temecula...that as housing demand gets exported out of cities, it ends up in the county, it ends up consuming open space. And so there was a goal of, well, these people are going to have to find a spot to stay somewhere, let's see if we can...that the more that the cities can satisfy this demand, the more of the open space that's in the county can be preserved. But again, the first goal is to get the 10,000 units we had 40-unit per acre apartment zones and that clearly didn't seem to be acceptable. And in...after all sorts of various iterations, the GPAC came up with this plan. The other kind of determination of...in terms of how to deal with this housing demand was that the primary housing resource should still be single family homes. And if you look, under the GPAC alternative, and if I kind of go over this chart, we both calculated the number of acres, the number of units, and then the percentage of that acreage to the whole of this planning area, which is approximately, you know, 2100 units. And the first thing you see, that...and it...if you look...let's start on the commercial industrial. Between...under the existing General Plan, we had about 40% of the land area in this area was commercial industrial. The GPAC had it at 44-45%, and you see the Planning Commission numbers roughly the same. So starting off, approximately 40-45% of this whole planning area is devoted to commercial industrial uses, which include the resort commercial uses. Open space...the existing General Plan designated no open space. The GPAC alternative designated 205 acres, about 10%, and again the Planning Commission upped that a little bit, but we took 10% of the area and designated it for open space. That includes both the kind of undefined open space of the 170 acres, and then more specific parks. Do you have a question about the chart? BAC Just a comment. You know we have, right of wrong, 50 different kinds of commercial listed here. PD Correct. BAC Open space conjures up remarkably different things to different people. One person's opinion, as an example, that 177, the green area... PD Correct. BAC ...is certainly never meant as open space to be "desert," natural...it is probably open space golf course. PD Okay. BAC So I would like us to have... 33 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD Okay. JANUARY 29, 2004 BAC ...to at Ieast...I don't care if we call golf courses open space or not, I don't have a problem with that, but just that we note open space golf course, open space parks, which is a different kind of open space, and open space natural, which is yet a third type of thing. They're different... PD Okay, that's fine. BAC ...not better nor worse, just... PD That was a more of a...I'd like to say that a certain public agency is probably the major property owner in this area. RAS Councilman Ferguson. JF I want to back up on a point Councilman Kelly made, two points he made, one at this meeting, one at a prior meeting. It seems to me that using as a reference point our existing General Plan is like referring to nothing. It's a 24-year-old document that was...looked like it had place holder zoning put in it because we didn't have any plans for development in 1980 north of Frank Sinatra, and it seems to me the way the City has operated with its specific plans and with its development agreements, we have a way of developing the City over that 24-year period that bears no relationship to this General Plan for the North Sphere. And it would be very helpful to me to see what the mixes are on the south of Frank Sinatra part of the City and what we've done historically in development and use that as a reference point rather than just saying well, the old General Plan just had low density everywhere. And your point about there's no resort commercial out there is well taken because that's what the document says, but I know sitting here that if a hotel came and said we want to go there, we'd find a way to put them there. PD And our residential zones allow hotels. And what we had...and one of the reasons, and again, the existing General Plan isn't a 24-year-old document. It was done as the North Sphere Specific Plan, which I believe was late 80's, like 89, 1990... JF Okay, a 15-year-old document. PD ...and, back to resort commercial designations, we actually had a bunch of resort commercial designations in our existing General Plan, and what we kind of learned is that no one particularly wanted to ever build hotels in a place we designated, and they made other choices. And since our zoning allowed hotels to go into both residential and commercial zones, we left it up 34 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF PD JANUARY 29, 2004 to the market to come to us and make proposals that are specific designations of those things which is a very narrowly defined land use that's subject to very specific economic constraints, and those property owners felt over -burdened to be stuck with this thing, that we said, you know...obviously the message went out...we are welcoming hotel development anywhere you can make it work, and we're willing to look at it. And... I know, it sounds like I'm beating the drum for hotels, but I'm really interested in the residential mix at this point because you got me thinking. If we do have one-third of all the retail in Palm Desert, how are we doing on our obligations on the residential side of accommodating those people. And Councilman Kelly made a comment to me on the break that he thought that we did a better job than any other city in providing housing. And I'd just like to see the numbers for what we're doing with the built -out part of the City and use that as a reference point going forward with the North Sphere. The debate...you know, I've seen it in the paper, I've seen it commented on by numerous people...is that there's a division on this Council between those that want to do what we've done historically and believe we've been successful at and even your staff report says or we can do something bold and different. And so I want to compare how different the different is to what we've been doing. And we can...again, that is addressed in the document, and we can focus on that at the next meeting. Again, you have the whole plan, you have the whole General Plan. One of the things that you will notice, and it's probably an interesting analysis, is that since 1980, if you look at the land areas developed especially, or the percentage of land areas, developed by golf resorts, which don't particularly address permanent housing demand, although they show up as units, and...but both the number of units and the amount of land consumed in comparison to our job growth, I believe the document shows we've been falling behind...you know, historically, we've perceived...that the areas of La Quinta, Desert Hot Springs, Indio, have we relied...we've always relied on to provide a big chunk of our housing. BAC Be that as it may, the real simple request is let's look at sort of the...at our next meeting... PD Sure. BAC ...the history of our land use, our commercial development, our housing demands, our issues with the Western Center, and those responsibilities and so on... PD Sure. 35 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL BAC ...and look at all of that in terms of this mix. PD Sure. JF PD JANUARY 29, 2004 Because the implication...and I'll cut right to the chase...the implication I'm getting is we're going to be morally irresponsible if we don't adopt the Planning Commission recommendation or GPAC's recommendation, and your mother aside, I don't buy into that, and I want to check what we've done and see where we're... That's fine. And I would...that this is a...what the numbers will show, I believe, is that, you know, we've been exporting our housing demand for a long time. JF Okay, I'II look at it. PD But we assumed, we assumed that we were even. And...go ahead... BAC And it needs to be noted that GPAC and Planning Commission don't form the limit of this, and we whittle down from there. We may whittle up from there...that's equally, at least on my table... JF It's on the table. PD Yeah...and again, back to my mother's comment, and we are... BAC Did you give her address? PD ...for better or worse, we're only responsible for our own decisions. We can advocate and try to convince our neighboring cities and SCAG and CVAG are always doing that...you know, I think one of the conclusions of the GPAC was doing this in the right way will...is not just a, you know, going around and wearing a hair shirt just to demonstrate how righteous we are. It is...it will make our city better. It will make this a...it will make the university better. It'll make living here...that these neighborhoods will be the most...some of the most desirable neighborhoods, regardless of your income, to live by virtue of their design and the amenities, urban amenities, and parks and everything else that these neighborhoods are going to provide. So, back to...in terms of...okay, what sort of housing do we want to...and one of the goals was we want to maximize still single family housing, but how can you do that reconciling that you want open space, you want to preserve real estate, either in parks or golf courses or undisturbed desert, but sooner or later we have to address this housing issue, that those people are going to have to find a place to stop somewhere. Or, you know, if we work hard enough, we can turn 1-10 into the Ventura Freeway if we force everyone to come from 36 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 somewhere else. So...there was a reconciliation, or an understanding, that for the land that we have left, and land is a resource just like water or air or oil, that a perception that it's unlimitless and that some other jurisdiction somewhere else will satisfy the demand, let's look at ways to use the land we have more efficiently. And what you see, kind of as the dominant in terms of both units and acreage, in terms of the residential category, is what we call...is what is now called medium density residential, which used to assume...these are projects in the range of 4-10 units per acre, which we assumed...used to be thought of as condos. And what's happened in the industry, condos have fallen out of favor for all sorts of reasons. The market has not been that, other than on golf courses, receptive to them. Liability losses relative to attached units has created a lot of heartburn for developers, and that has stimulated a lot of creativity in how to really go back to what...housing design that was very common in California and throughout the United States for two or three hundred years, which was the smaller house on a smaller lot, very efficiently designed, but still providing the benefits of single family ownership at somewhat reduced costs, both by the fact that the ground is a lot smaller and the houses end up being smaller. And there you see, under the GPAC alternative, and now we get back to percentages...in the entire plan, under the GPAC alternative, the Planning Commission alternative, that 34 or roughly 34 to 30% of the land area is devoted to residential. In the existing plan, 60% was devoted to residential, and what's happened since that plan is that we have Shadow Ridge...and you see the difference if you overlay either the GPAC plan or the Planning Commission plan over the existing, you see the areas of residential, which by virtue of our decisions are no longer residential. And those areas have shrunk, both the Shadow Ridge or planned golf course, if you guys want to call it a golf course...I was going to say that the one property owner that I didn't hear from in the process was the City in terms of how...what preferences, you know...the other goal that we all try to do is we tried as best we could to accommodate or at least compromise with the desires of the property owners. That was another driving force in this process, and since we never heard anything from the City, we knew...we gave it a generic, and if you want to make it specific, that's fine. But basically, the university, the 170 acres, and Shadow Ridge, you know, used to be designated residential, and those areas have been taken off of the residential docket and, therefore, you see the residential has gone down. The projected housing production of that original plan, assuming all low density development, was, again, approximately 4,000 units. The GPAC knew we weren't going to get the 10,000 units, so we looked at higher intensity alternative that will produce about 8,000 units, that had a whole lot more multi -family. And you notice in this...in the GPAC alternative, other than the area, the Shepherd Lane area, although the colors seem to fade out, the only low density area was the Shepherd Lane and the area of land that the City owns east of Shadow Ridge, and then those other yellow areas are medium density, located in 37 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL (Inaudible) JANUARY 29, 2004 really...what you're seeing is two distinct neighborhoods, one next to the university between Cook and Portola, and one next to the commercial industrial and the WalMart regional commercial area, Gerald Ford and Portola. PD The answer is because long, long dead-end streets are just not all that desirable. That would be a three-quarter mile long dead-end street. (Inaudible) PD (Inaudible) You mean, why didn't we go all the way to Gerald Ford? PD Because the City, Redevelopment Agency, owns the land in between, and that was going to be part of, at the time, part of our... (Inaudible) PD Well, let me get back...I'm not...if there's a connection, it would be better that the connection occur at a right angle and a T than to have a mile straightaway connecting...and you know, based on what that property owner wants, but it would not be my recommendation to have a mile straightaway paralleling Portola connecting Gerald Ford and Frank Sinatra. RSK You'd rather have another stop sign on Portola. PD RSK PD RSK PD RSK That...yes, I believe that to serve the area, there will be...there should be one other intersection on Portola. But, again, the traffic engineer can speak to that. But surely that is a better solution than having a mile straightaway paralleling Portola, because there's going to be a cut through problem. You don't have to make it a mile straightaway. Well, there we were limited by a property ownership pattern. No, we have property there, you just (inaudible) five acres... You're right. If we wanted to... I don't understand why it's so simple to talk about master planning. We did a lousy job there, 38 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD JANUARY 29, 2004 We were constrained by the existing property ownership, and we sort of...short of buying the property ourselves and master planning it, it would have been very difficult. But what it is is what it is. JF We could change it. PD Huh? JF We can always change it. PD We're...we can change that connection. That connection can go left instead of right into our property if we want. That's a...we were...again, if that property owner usually wants to take...gives us that direction to do that, that would be a great idea. So...what the GPAC ended up with, again from a gross housing demand of about 10,000 units, they rejected the upper, the higher intense alternative which would generate about 8,000 units, and they adopted the plan that you're...recommended adoption of the plan that you see, which would generate about 6,000 units. Again, looking back, looking at the percentages of the total, you're looking at about...a little over 8% of the land area devoted to high density, 12% medium density, which is a single family detached product similar to Desert Rose but detached units instead of attached, and about 13% low density. Also analyzed in the EIR was a — very conceptual plan called a low intense alternative, which generated 4,300 units, and when the Planning Commission looked at the, you know, the GPAC alternative and they looked at the low intense, and partly generated by requests/desires by the property owners, who wanted to reintroduce more low density, higher end product both in what I would call the Cook Street neighborhood and in the Gerald Ford/Portola neighborhood, we refined that low intensity alternative into what you now see as the Planning Commission recommended alternative. And in that, the...both the high density land use area and the medium were roughly cut in half from...in terms of the high, from 8.4% to 4.8%, medium from 12% down to 6%, and a corresponding increase in the low density in terms of acreage, since it was bigger to begin with, the percentage doesn't double. But increasing the low density bo 19%, and as a percentage of the total residential, it's slightly less than 50% of the area, of the residential area designated. Now, when you look at the number of units, you still see that the high density generates the most units, which is why you build high density. Kind of the theory of high density, and right now high density is in high demand, people want to build them all over the place, is that you can satisfy a lot of housing demand while consuming the least amount of real estate. And back to the beginning and Mr. Kelly's...one of the things that makes transit corridors work is the proximity of riders within a quarter mile of the line and within walking distance of a line, and the thing that happens and that makes transit corridors effective is that you...if you get 39 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 high density along the line at the stations. And so, in assigning the high density... RSK Okay (inaudible) BAC Let me just make sure that I'm clear. By medium density, we're looking at four to ten, is that correct? That's your definition of medium density. PD Four to ten, yes. BAC Okay. PD It assumes, like, seven is... BAC Right. Low density is one to four. PD One to four. BAC High density as we're defining it for this is... PD 10 to 22. BAC 10 to 22. The GPAC alternative has 13% low density, Planning Commission is at 19. PD Correct. BAC And the 12% medium back down to, in essence, seven. PD 6.18. BAC 6.18? PD Yes. BAC Okay, 6.2 then. Alright. And high density 8.4 to 4.8, is that correct? PD Correct. BAC I just want those numbers so that I've got all that straight. PD Correct. BAC Okay, thank you, sir. 40 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL RAS (Inaudible) JANUARY 29, 2004 RSK Since you mentioned what makes transit work, which I thought I already talked about, I look at GPAC high density areas and I know that I brought the transit route that's planned to the GPAC so they could see it, but it doesn't look to me like...it looks to me like they're recommending a lot of high density that's not on the route. PD If you remember, there's two...two driving forces in land use, or we can call it three...circulation, compatibility, housing demand. The other place that the...and as you see, the bulk of the...we're talking about the GPAC...they're showing high density along Gerald Ford, which I think is the designated...will be the designated transit route... RSK But they have lots of areas that they don't... PD Which comes into compatibility, and remember, proximity to...and our hope is...if we ever have...while people always make their own decisions of where they're going to live relative to where they work...our kind of hope in land use planning is if we can provide great neighborhoods next to large job concentrations, then a certain percentage of those people who work there will make the choice because these things are going to be a great place to — live. And if we can divert 30% of the trips, if we can...by designing great neighborhoods, if we can get 30% of the people who are going to work in the 1-10 corridor of the City to live in close proximity, then that'll shift a significant load off of the regional system now. So the ideal system is not necessarily assuming that people are going to get on a bus and go from Indio to here. If we can short circuit that as best we can through great design and good, convenience proximity, that people will work in this neighborhood and live in this neighborhood and walk across the street or take a bus that's only five minutes instead of a bus that's an hour to get to work or ride their bike or even drive five minutes instead of a half hour, then that's still a positive thing. And then, of course, the simple proximity issue of multi -family being a more compatible adjacent land use to commercial industrial than low density residential. So, they tried to combine all those factors in how they...you see the uses pretty much adjacent to commercial industrial uses or along the corridors. JF Well, I want to go back to the Mayor's point, and I don't know how to do it gingerly, but I'll try. Last time I looked at College View, Shepherd Lane, and some of those other subdivisions that World Industries and others are doing out there, I think the average home price is somewhere between 360 and 450 for a single family home, regardless of the density. I just can't see somebody who's riding a bus to work buying a $450,000 home, and I know when you get to higher density you're going to get lower unit rates, but I've 41 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 had complaints from, not this one, but other Desert Sun reporters, that we don't have enough apartments that are affordable, you can't find anything under $1,000 a month, and land value being what it is and the private market being what it is, they're going to set those prices, we're not. So I just don't see the grocery clerks and the retail clerks and the folks that are working at the university using the housing that you want to supply them. PD Remember, if you go back to the...I'm not sure why you'd say that...those are the people who are occupying...those are the people who are the market for the multi -family projects we have now, but the plan... JF Well, no, wait a minute. For what project we have now? Our affordable housing (inaudible) PD No. At this point in time, I'm not talking about affordability at all. I'm talking about pure volume of units. Affordability... JF So your (inaudible) that these workers are going to live in these houses and they're going to fuel transit and we're going to take care of our housing supply... PD No, they're not going to...the closer they are to their housing destination...again, and I'm not assuming that all of them are, I'm just assuming that, you know, I like to believe that, again, if we do a good enough job...let me go back to another issue. That...what I've gathered working here for 23 years is that given a choice, people want to live in Palm Desert. That this is the most desirable place to live and for all sorts of reasons, not just because our housing is better or fancier or anything else. Exactly the same house that they build up there in Shepherd Lane, they build the same house in Cathedral City, and it's $100,000 more in Palm Desert because people want to live...so there's a...by virtue of, one we're in the center, so just by virtue of pure geography, we're desirable because if you work...you live here, or if you buy a home here, you do have more options on where you can go in 20 minutes. So, secondly, the services we provide. So there's already incentive for people to want to live in Palm Desert, and if you couple that with the fact that, as one of those incentives, that I can get to work in five minutes, coupled with all the other incentives that we have, and through our design process we create great neighborhoods and make sure we have great projects, that I have faith that a fair percentage of the people who work at the university and work in these areas which encompasses the whole economic range, that a fair percentage of those people will choose to live in Palm Desert for all sorts of reasons. And obviously we don't provide housing that they can't make that choice. I have faith that if we do a good job, a fair percentage of them will make that choice, even if they drive their car...if they can drive their car two blocks, never have to get on Monterey or go over the 42 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 Interchange or go on 1-10, they never have to get onto the regional system, which is our big traffic problem, that if we can even take 10 or 20 percent...if you look at our traffic problems, if we're just taking a little bit of traffic off of a major congested area, it has a dramatic effect on level of service. So that's the theory. Now obviously we can, you can argue about the theory. I believe it's as good a theory as any, and if we do a good job, it will have positive results. So back to the locational decision the GPAC made, you see...one, they...you see the concentration of housing, multi -family housing along Gerald Ford and in proximity to the university. Again, unless you want, and this is an important...again, maybe a hope and a prayer...but our university site is a very constrained site. And building parking structures is very, very expensive. Your typical office commercial project that we build in the City is totally dependent on auto transportation and consumes 70% of the land area in parking lots. Hopefully, if we can provide enough housing in close proximity to this university, and great projects, that both for, in terms of multi -family, medium density, single family, low density, upper end for those folks who can afford it, that a fair number of those guys also will not need to have a parking space at the university every single day, and then we don't have to have a university that's dominated by parking lots. So...that's kind of the...I guess a lot of what we do is if we build it they will come and have the faith that if we do a great job it will be successful, which we've...which I think has kind of been the driving principle of what we've done. RAS Councilman Kelly, I think you have a comment. RSK Well, I think you should know that when the university opened there, we put a SunLine bus going there, but I guess how many people ride it? PD Very little, and I'II tell you why. RSK Like zero. PD I'II tell you why. RSK I know why, you don't need to tell me why. But... PD Well. RSK ...I know what you're going to say. Everybody does, I think. But...let me finish. You look at COD and where those students come from, and I suspect that 20 years from now you're going to see the same pattern at the university site, and the pattern is that 35% of them come from the east, 35% from the west, west and east, and about 25% come from the middle of the Valley. 43 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 JF Well, and I would also point out, and I don't mean to interrupt you, Bob, but it tells me a lot when the university estimates it's going to have 15,000 students. We've given them 200 acres, 50 of which they've used, and their planning committee has made absolutely no accommodation for on -campus housing whatsoever. So if it was a need that they thought was apparent, I would think they would at least address it. And they have the same 20-year forecast that we do, and giving them that 200 acres and taking it off the tax roles, we allowed in our master plan, our development agreement with them, that they could develop it for any university -related incidental use, which I for one at least would think it includes student housing. PD And their plan does include student housing. BAC Did I misunderstand you that projections we're looking at and everything else were not based on student housing? PD Were not based on student housing. It's truly employee based. BAC So if we want to add students into this, then we have a mix that isn't what we're talking about here in terms of demand or anything else. It's non- student...this assumes that we're not building student apartments for students. Obviously students will live there... PD Exactly, this is purely... BAC (Inaudible) students might live in BigHorn, they'll come from the east, they'll come from the west, but that's not what this plan is about, right? PD That's not what this plan is about. RAS (Inaudible) and I'II make my comments. It's my understanding that when this Council had a vision (inaudible) campus on these 200 acres, and I wasn't on the Council at that time, the idea was to put it in a location where the whole Valley could use it because they could drive a car down the freeway, right? PD That was one of the considerations, yes. RAS That said, then, as far as I'm concerned, CalState San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus and UC Riverside Palm Desert Campus have a responsibility for parking. PD That's true, and they will. The question is...and it goes into what a university experience is about. Secondly, that it's still...I think we would feel better if more of this campus was covered with educational facilities and less with 44 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF PD JANUARY 29, 2004 parking, but I'm not...but again, remember, this has nothing to do with students. This is trying to make things better, not worse. But you keep saying that. I'm looking at the minutes from the September 14, 2003, Planning Commission where Mr. Criste is estimating 1200 units we're going to need to be available for students. Are those on -campus? 1200 units is what the university has planned on their campus. The master plan for the campus does include student housing of approximately 1200 units. JF But it doesn't say that in here, and at least Commissioner Tschopp was perplexed enough about it to take up three pages of the minutes. PD No, that is a fact. The question had to do with is the university planning for student housing? Yes, the master plan does designate an area for student housing and approximately 1200 beds. JF Okay. PD But again...should we wait for Councilman Kelly to come back? Councilman Kelly got up and left, should we wait for him to come back? BAC The Mayor and I were talking about an issue COD has at this moment with parking, and one of the notes we'll always have is parking at a university or college isn't free. So there will always be a percentage of people who park off -site and walk, and that's true everywhere. It would be true if we charged for parking, people would park across the street from the mall and walk...no, no, we're not doing that. But, yes, The River, as long as they want to concierge everyone and (inaudible) everyone to work every morning, people will park across the street. So, anyhow, that's an issue we'll always have, no matter...any place you have (inaudible) We're not providing student housing. PD No. BAC We're not providing university parking, we're not doing any of that except as is incidental to the fact (inaudible) PD Right. We're looking at the university like any other business that has certain demands, and anything we can do with land use, that can make things better, decrease the demand for cars moving through important regional intersections, or having to devote excessive areas for parking is worth the try. So, again, the Planning Commission, and there's now the Planning Commission recommendation. And again, it was done in...and this is the other, I think, when I had spoken at the last meeting of whether we 45 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 accomplished something significant, I said I think we did, and remember, I initially said that I didn't have all sorts of great expectations about how...that nothing dramatic would ever happen. What it did do is get property owners thinking and applying creative, sophisticated design efforts to...let me step back one second...based on the proximity of the university, the commercial, that the GPAC said that there should be significant effort in this area to try to respond to this housing demand, whether we succeed or not, but while our almost single minded effort in the last 20 years has been developing ourselves as a resort. That's been what our, kind of, efforts have gone. There's been a lot of sophisticated planning that's gone into designing resorts, we've promoted ourselves as a resort, and we've succeeded very admirably along those lines. There has not been a lot of sophisticated planning effort relative to housing the people who work here. And what happened as a result of this discussion and, I'II say as a result of the moratorium, the moratorium kind of raised the bar on...in terms of the property owners thinking of the sort of projects which ultimately would be most positive achieving this goal of meeting some of this housing demand in great neighborhoods and applying the same effort that has been previously provided to providing great resorts...let's apply that same effort to provide great residential neighborhoods. You know, if you look at our map, the bulk of permanent residential housing is still located south of Highway 111, which was all planned and developed 35, 30 years ago. Most of our residential areas, permanent residential areas, developed since have been kind of the remnants surrounding the resorts. This was a concentrated effort...let's design great neighborhoods for permanent residents to live that try to provide the same sort of quality amenities that meet the residents' needs the same way that Bill Bone designed amenities in country clubs to meet tourist and second home needs. And the result...so there was some concentrated effort and thought by the property owners of what sort of mix and arrangements and circulation systems they felt were going to be most consistent with achieving those goals and there you see that not only have land uses changed from one, but I think the level of detail has gotten much more refined that also tries to address the issue of slope. Some of these areas, believe it or not, these areas are not flat, they're actually on a hillside. From the corner of Cook and Gerald Ford to...up to our park is an 80-foot grade difference, so a lot of thought started going into that. So instead of having a collection of disjointed, isolated residential tracts, they set upon to design a real neighborhood where there would be a variety of opportunities for as many of those folks who might be working out there. And again, with the assumption that given all the other attractions of Palm Desert, a fair number of those employees would be attracted, especially with the availability of parks and what you see, for example, in the Cook/Gerald Ford...the Cook neighborhood...you're looking at a park site right off of Berger and then...which is a five -acre site. In addition to that, we just had a conversation with the Fire Department that they need a fire station, and 46 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 actually the planner for that in that tract actually had designated a piece of that park as a fire...some sort of public facility, either fire station or a library. And in discussions, we felt that was an ideal site for a fire station to serve that area. You see another five -acre site further down, what we're calling that spine road, which is that interior road that cycles from Frank Sinatra over to Portola, another five -acre park. These are neighborhood parks with...not for organized soccer or anything else but to provide a green area for people with kids to kick the soccer ball around and basketball courts and volleyball and picnics. (Inaudible) a smaller little park up towards the corner of Gerald Ford and Portola, more of a kind of a town squarey kind of a park, one or two acres. At Planning Commission, they identified...initially, when...in GPAC's discussions, in that neighborhood development, there was going to be a high school. That's where the school district initially identified they wanted to put a high school, and in conjunction with that high school, we were looking at a larger community park with soccer fields, baseball fields, and everything else. When the school district determined that the magnitude of what they wanted really didn't fit in a residential area, and they moved it out, we didn't really replace that park. At Planning Commission, they identified that omission and from that, you see the larger park on the west side of Portola, which is a 25-acre park on land that we currently own, which seemed to be a relatively centrally located facility that would serve as a, again, a community park more similar to what we're doing out at Freedom Park. Up at...then up in the Monterey/Gerald Ford neighborhood, you see the location of the elementary/middle school. There we are proposing a 10-acre park along the same philosophical lines as we did our other cooperative school/park situations with...over at Washington School and at Freedom Park. That would be a 10-acre park. So each of these neighborhoods is...will be served by a central common recreation facility, the Shepherd Lane area with the one major facility, and then the other two neighborhoods with more neighborhood scaled facilities. Another thing this plan embodies is a somewhat different approach to circulation, which is again more similar to the circulation you see in south Palm Desert and less similar to what you see in more recent residential subdivisions, which is good convenient access in multiple directions, allowing a resident within these neighborhoods to go almost any direction they want, making a right turn, depending on which access they choose to do, but avoiding obvious cut -through opportunities. You know, we have that Portola Road that circles around, but there's going to be sufficient stops along the way, having to make left turns, and so the goal was to provide lots of opportunities for people to get...for residents to get in and out but few opportunities for convenient cut -through traffic. The same thing you see up at Gerald Ford/Monterey where you have clearly designated collectors which will be 35`h, Dinah Shore, or major thoroughfares, and what they call Gateway Drive, but within the neighborhoods residential design will provide multiple access points but discouraging cut -through traffic. So when we ended up, and you look at the 47 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF JANUARY 29, 2004 chart, we're down to 2300 units, which is approximately what we had in the existing plan, approximately 40% of the identified housing demand, and I agree with Councilman Kelly that we're a regional draw by virtue of our geography. There's going to be this huge demand for businesses and commercial enterprise to locate in this city, especially this area. It's not only your dead center east/west, but you're right on the freeway, and therefore, and the fact that we're going to have the university, we have the junior college, that appropriately the region needs, you know, will need to shoulder a large portion of the housing demand, and that is what is being proposed. That really...what we've done and how it's evolved since our existing plan is that there are some decisions made relative to both open space and revenue, that approving Shadow Ridge was, although remember it wasn't universally embraced by a lot of people, but was a good decision financially for the City, but it consumed 300 acres of land that was saved for housing. The university, again a decision was made that it had great benefits and other benefits for the City and the region, but it consumed area for housing. Creating open space has great value, but it was consuming area previously designated for housing. So what has happened is in the remaining housing land left, given the fact that these activities have generated even more housing demand, that the remaining land left needs to be used a bit more efficiently to just maintain the housing production that we assumed would occur in the past, with still the predominant land use, low density residential, at nearly 20% of the residential, 20% of the total, and I think 46% of the residential, with high density reduced to only 4.8% of the total planning area, and that the result is a good mix of housing, appropriately placed, supporting transit, supporting compatibility issues, providing a variety of price points to at least allow those folks who work in these places the opportunity to make the choice to live in Palm Desert, and I think they will live in Palm Desert. A lot of them will make that choice for all sorts of reasons. And so that's how the Planning Commission ended up where they ended up. Any questions? Just one. I know we have a housing division within our Redevelopment Agency, I know we have a Housing Authority, and I know predominantly they look at affordability issues, but has this aspect of the General Plan been run by either of those folks for their input? PD Yes. JF What was their input? PD Their input is they wanted land uses that would allow for housing types that were at least subsidizable. That's the, you know, that there's no such thing as affordable housing. Housing costs are unaffordable inherently by a lot of people, but they wanted at least provision of housing...housing types that at least encourage lower cost housing which then can be subsidized down to 48 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JF PD JF PD JF (Inaudible) RAS JANUARY 29, 2004 affordable. And back to supply and demand. This is where...again, this is not a problem that the City alone can solve in this valley. We have to take leadership throughout the Valley to say that unless you address the regional supply and demand problem, housing costs go absolutely nuts. Back to Palo Alto, they didn't address theirs. They were having, when I lived there in 1979, a $50,000 tract house in Campbell was now selling for $900,000 in 1999 because there was such a discontinuity between supply and demand regionally. And this is something that this valley will have to face in cooperation. Obviously, we can't solve it by ourselves. Well, the reason I wanted to ask that question, Jean, is because to me the weak link in the whole argument that you're making is that I don't think the people can afford to live in Palm Desert, which is a shame and it's something that I know we work very hard at. Certainly, the 5600 people that live in Indian Wells, I can only think of two that actually work in Indian Wells; their city attorney works here. And I do think people are going to live in the best place they can based on their means, and they're going to get the highest paying job they can, and if they can get the two of those together, great, but it doesn't always work that way. And if all we're going to do is create a robust market for upper middle income homes, and all the people that work here still travel from other places, I don't think we've done much of a service to those folks with this general plan. Well, that's not what we're proposing. We're... I know. ...we're proposing (inaudible) (Inaudible) that ties that together, and I'd be curious to hear Jean's comments at least. Any other questions of (inaudible). Alright, we'll adjourn a few minutes early (inaudible) direction from you as to what will happen on (inaudible) do you want to continue... PD No, before we adjourn, we might have...we have 15 minutes for public testimony. RAS Yeah, I'II do that, but (inaudible) give us some direction. PD My suggestion is we again...take this up again next Thursday, which is another off... 49 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS Well, we will, but (inaudible) finalize the housing element? PD Or the land use. RAS The land use? PD Right. RAS Okay. JF And you're going to come back with a column that shows what we've historically done to date? PD We will try...we will take the...and I've had some criticism for the charts and the text and make them also more user friendly. The information is in there that shows the existing city, and we'll put them... RAS (Inaudible) PD Yeah, we'll put them in a better readable form. JF And also, the...we didn't get to it, and you said we would, but I'm sure we will in the future...the financial aspect of the commercial retail mix being able to support the costs. PD Correct. There's a fiscal analysis. JF Just for the North Sphere is what I'm interested in. PD Okay, I will direct the consultant to... JF Okay PD ...prepare for her presentation on the fiscal impact to kind of isolate this area. RSK I find this easier to look at than this. PD Well, the transparencies work when you overlay them over the existing...and again, it's... RSK It's too small to do (inaudible) PD Oh, okay. RSK But anyway, from my standpoint, these two charts work real well. 50 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL PD Great. Thank you. JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS And I now will call for oral communications. Anybody that would like to address the Council at this point? PB Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Sitting here patiently and enjoying the discussion. As many of you know, I've had 45 years in public service, and I've been through four general plan amendments in my career. So what you're going through is a difficult process, to take what GPAC came up with and take what your Planning Commission has come up with. My name is Paul Brady, I live at 78-694 Cimmaron Canyon, and I have a blue slip that was turned in earlier. Let me just make a couple of observations before I get into my prepared comments. First of all, two terms that were used here today, which I think you must keep in mind, one is fair share. Palm Desert must do its fair share in the housing market as well as the transportation balance throughout the Coachella Valley. The other is balance. Balance is critical, balance of retail commercial, balance of housing, and balance of residential. From the standpoint of financial vitality, Palm Desert has been very successful and to continue that, I think, as you look at the northern sphere, you're going to have to provide that balance. That is what has made probably the most premiere city in the state when it comes to development, and that's been the City of Irvine, which I'm very familiar with. Balance was the cornerstone that makes that city very, very successful. Whether you agree with everything that was done or not is not for me to debate. University relationship. I know a little bit about that, and you've created an environment now with the university coming to town that you must be able to provide the attendant development, the retail commercial, multi -family housing, that's going to service not only the university but also COD. That is critical. We in the development community have been very patient, I think, in the last almost three years now and during the moratorium process. And I think the community has come together and worked well together in coming up with the university plan that I personally think is a viable one that you ought to give strong consideration to as you go through the rest of your deliberations. You have the opportunity to continue to make Palm Desert the gem of the Valley. It is the hub of the Valley now, and it will continue to be that, and I think you must capture this opportunity and don't let it escape you. Let me get on to my prepared comments. I appear today in support of the Planning Commission's recommendations to you on the General Plan Amendment 01-04 and specifically the addition of the Serras Regis (spelling?) apartment project that is contained in the university park planning area. There's no question that additional quality multi -family housing will be needed in Palm Desert. One only has to look at the population growth within the entire Coachella Valley to recognize the need for housing product other than country club gated communities. Your Planning Commission spent numerous hours reviewing the options for the 51 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 General Plan. What they ultimately arrived at is a workable and realistic, as it sets the framework for your future. I encourage the Council to not only review the Commission's work but the work done by your staff. It's very adaptable, and it will be a success pattern for this city. The Serras Regis (spelling?) group project will certainly aid in meeting the demand for housing needs for all ages, especially the young professionals, including teachers, police, fire staff, hotel and restaurant employees, as well as the staff employed currently and those that will come in the future to the university and to COD. Apartments are an integral part of community living. Quality and well -constructed multi -family housing is not only necessary to house people but is also important to the economic vitality of Palm Desert. The Serras Regis (spelling?) project will assist to minimize area -wide congestion and will certainly be an attractive and compatible neighbor to those of us who live, work, and play in Palm Desert. I, therefore, again encourage you to include multi -family housing as a part of your actions on the new general plan, and I encourage you to approve the General Plan at the earliest possible date. I commend the Planning Commission for their long hours of deliberation. Your staff has done an admirable job of getting to the point that you're at today, and I think this new framework will set the pattern for the next quarter of a century in the City of Palm Desert. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you for your time. RAS Anybody have any questions of Mr. Brady? Thank you very much, sir. Now I'll entertain a motion to adjourn to next Thursday, which is... BAC Just a comment. Thursday mornings work well for me because we've been on break from the College. As of next week, I go back to work. RAS And that doesn't work well for you. BAC My classes end at 12:20 on Thursday. RAS (Inaudible) Council meeting will be the same as (inaudible) four o'clock in the afternoon. (Inaudible) RAS Two o'clock (inaudible) BAC Okay. (Inaudible) BAC No, next Thursday is not a Council meeting. 52 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL (Inaudible) JANUARY 29, 2004 RAS (Inaudible) Council meeting, so we'll have...we'II start at two o'clock next Thursday to five (inaudible) BAC Thank you. RAS You're welcome. BAC Move for adjournment. RAS Is there a second? (Inaudible) RDK 11:24 a.m. RAS Let's begin our meeting...next Thursday when we have this meeting, we're going to begin with the Entrada presentation and get that out of the way and then go forward. (Inaudible) BAC Well, that's not the 11th, that's the 5th RSK We're meeting early...earlier than our regular Council meeting? RAS No, this...next Thursday is an off Council day, so we're going to do the General Plan. RSK (Inaudible) RAS Yeah, we're going to do the General Plan next Thursday, but prior to the General Plan, at two o'clock, the presentation will be made... RSK Start with that. RAS Start with Entrada and get it out of the way and then move on. (inaudible) RAS Absolutely. BAC Question on that same element. Are we planning next Thursday, then, to also tend to what we were going to do today, the... 53 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 PD Yes. BAC ...other chapters? PD Well, I would like to hopefully resolve this land use discussion while we're... BAC Well, we'll hold the rest of that stuff, then. PD But hopefully we will have time to get that done next Thursday towards the...so basically towards the end of the meeting, but it all depends on how much time you want to talk about... BAC Next Thursday we have Entrada. PD Correct. BAC Next Thursday we have whatever we want to talk about with Palma Village (inaudible) and land use and... PD Right. BAC Next Thursday we then come back to the North Sphere, and next Thursday we also plan to go through those other "chapters" PD Correct. JMB (Inaudible) RAS That's fine with me. Yeah, that's fine. JMB (Inaudible) RAS I don't care. Alright, that's fine. RSK (Inaudible) BAC Okay RAS Okay, that's fine. CLO So Entrada for the 11 th at two o'clock. JMB (Inaudible) CLO That's fine. 54 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL RAS The 11 th at two. JANUARY 29, 2004 RDK Mr. Mayor, I think staff had some concern that they had another Entrada presentation scheduled for next Thursday. LA (Inaudible) from out of town...they didn't schedule meetings with the Mayor and... RAS We can't hear you. LA A couple of consultants, hotel consultants, have come from out of town and were scheduled to meet with the Mayor, excuse me, and Councilman Ferguson next Thursday from two to four on Desert Willow. (Inaudible) LA I can try that. RAS Absolutely, yes. LA Okay. In fact, I think we asked them to come in the afternoon because we thought the Council meeting was going to be in the morning, but if your calendars are open for the morning, we'll swap that. RAS Alright, well try to do that and let us know. We stand adjourned. Took action on the following: 1. NEC Monterey Avenue/Country Club Drive Approved the subject location as a special Study Zone that looks at alternative uses, excluding supermarket -type uses from the current City Council's perception of approval. 3_2 (Ferguson, Kelly NO) 2. Deep Canyon Land Uses Between Hiahwav 111 and Fred Waring City Council concurred that any discussion on this matter be deferred until the appeal or City Council request for review process is initiated and prescribed proper notification of all affected parties is then achieved. 55 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL JANUARY 29, 2004 3. Land Use North of Frank Sinatra Drive and Related Land Use Items Cook Street at Whitewater Channel/Merle — Directed staff to provide the City Council with a detailed area map of the area along Cook Street north of the Whitewater Channel to discuss in a future Closed Session potential acquisition of the vacant lots adjacent to the Coachella Valley Recreation & Park District (CVRPD) Golf Center, further requesting that input from CVRPD also be obtained as to whether any future recreational opportunities would be available at this site. Area Along Fred Waring - Directed staff to bring to the next General Plan Meeting a discussion regarding current designations and uses in the Palma Village Plan as they relate to Office Professional along Fred Waring and Santa Rosa. Commercial Core Plan / Palma Village Plan / Cook Street Service Industrial — Asked staff to bring back a review of the named areas and designations. Office Professional Designation - Requested review of O.P. in areas along collector streets where one-story and an architecturally residential character would be more appropriate, along with review of O.P. setbacks. Hillside Ordinance - Asked for near future consideration of the revised City Hillside Ordinance along with staff to review and critique the proposed County Hillside regulation for compatibility with the City's intentions for this region. - Next meeting to begin with taking up Land Use, including staff to provide a worksheet showing what the City has done historically to date, also asked for an analysis of the financial aspect of the commercial/retail mix being able to support the cost for the North Sphere. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of the General Plan will be taken up after concluding the Land Use discussion. VIII. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS - B None 56 MINUTES ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL IX. ADJOURNMENT JANUARY 29, 2004 With Council concurrence, Mayor Spiegel adjourned the meeting at 11:24 a.m. to Thursday, February 5, 2004, at 2:00 p.m. for the continued public hearing. ATTEST: ss.- , R CHA ELLE D. KLASSEN, CITY CLERk CITY OF PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA 411/Q 't 4g. ROBERT A. SPIEL/MAYOR 57