Tuesday, February 13, 2007

CM PRESS # 82


CITY COUNCIL NEEDS TO GET INVOLVED TO CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION ON THE WESTSIDE

It became clear at the No-Planning Commission meeting held last night (2/12), that there is much confusion about the City Council's intent regarding improving the Westside.

The particular issue at hand was the proposed conversion to condominiums of 51 industrial units in an industrial park on a four acre parcel on the southeast corner of 17th Street and Placentia.

The owner of the industrial park wants to convert his park to industrial condos, and he apparently wants to keep them completely industrial, and not let them be used for live work--as in artists moving in and living and working in the same "loft" units.

The owner's stated intent to keep them exclusively industrial appears, on its face, to be at odds with what many improvers believe the City Council's intent was when it put in dual zoning--both residential and industrial--over all of the same properties, including this park.

No-Planning Commissioner Eleanor Egan was on the side of the improvers and said that the project should be turned down because, in her view, it did not meet what she believes is the intent of the City Council regarding the evolution of the massive Westside industrial area to more residential (and retail store) uses.

City employee and Development Services Director Don Lamm addressed the Commission and said that his understanding of the Council's intent with the dual zoning was to not give preference to either residential or industrial zoning but to simply let things develop as they may.

The CM PRESS view is similar to that of Commissioner Egan's. We believe that the Council's intent was to nudge along the evolution to more residential uses and that this intent was communicated in many ways, not the least of which was the fact that the area already had industrial zoning--for many years--but the Council then brought in residential zoning to overlay all the industrial zoning.

To us that Council action looks like a clear signal of legislative intent and is a strong signal that the Council wants the area to take on more of a residential nature. After all, if the Council wants the area to remain exclusively industrial, why would it put in residential zoning on top of the industrial zoning?

Following the reasoning in the immediately preceding paragraph, one is logically led to the conclusion that any requests that come before the No-Planning Commission that would frustrate the intent of the Council to move toward residential should not be approved.

When the vote came, it was Eleanor Egan and Sam Clark on the side of helping bring in residential uses, and Donn Hall, Jim Fisler and Jim Righeimer on the side of keeping it industrial.

Now, to be completely fair, Donn Hall did try to go along with Commissioner Egan by asking that the matter be continued for further study. However, staff told the Commission that it must decide one way or another because state law mandates that a decision must be made within fifty days of when the application is made.

Of course, no one on the Commission bothered to ask what would happen if a decision were not made within the fifty day time limit. Our guess is that if there were no decision, it would count as a turn-down of the applicant's request and he would have to wait six months to resubmit an application.

And, to be fair to Jim Fisler; he did argue that the intent of the Council would be satisfied because one of the conditions of approval to allow the conversion was that prospective buyers would be notified of the dual nature of the area.

However, Fisler's position is not nearly as strong a position as the one taken by Commissioner Egan. For example, if the owner of the property, as he has stated, wants to keep the units exclusively industrial, he can make that happen by controlling the Condo Association.

So, say you buy a unit and you want to live in half and do your art work in the other half. The Condo Association can tell you that you can't do that. End of the argument. No live work. No residential.

At any rate, this is an issue that is now ripe, and the City Council really should wade into this and stop all the confusion that may be hindering the revitalization of the Westside and clearly indicate what it wants to happen in that area. Then, it should have staff do the necessary paperwork--and put it all in clear and concise written form--to avoid any future confusion.

A good place to start with clearing up the confusion would be to ask Commissioner Egan to share her research on this issue with the Council.
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http://cmpress.blogspot.com/

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