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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - 75ACity Council Meeting Correspondence 4/3/2018 Item 75A PUBLIC HEARING -APPEAL NO. 2017-05 OF SITE PLAN REVIEW NO. 2016-03 AND VARIANCE No. NOS. 2017.05 AND 2017-06 TO ALLOW THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SEVEN -STORY 260 -UNIT MIXED-USE BUILDING "THE MADISON' AT 200 NORTH CABRILLO PARK DRIVE - CABRILLO COMMUNITY PARTNERS, LLC, APPLICANT Date of Name Representative of In Favor of In opposition Correspondence RA*. of RA*:' 41212018 Tim Paone Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP (Concerns regarding project) *RA - Recommended Action Tuesday, April 03, 2018 Page 1 of 1 Orozco, Norma From: Paone, Tim < Sent: Monday, April 02, 2018 2:43 PM To: Arabe, Jill; eComment Cc: Robert Bisno ( Subject: The Madison - Objections to Approval Attachments: #9562561 -v2 -Letter to City Council re The Madison 040218.DOCX Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Flagged Please see the attached comments of the owner of the Xerox Building which is adjacent to the proposed The Madison development. We would like to be sure that these comments reach the City Council. Thank you. Tim Paone IdNICHOLSON F Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP '1GA"U1r iml t:r Selected as 2018 "Law Firm of the Year" in Land Use and Zoning Law filv '()FTHEYFAR by U.S. News & World Report- Best lawyers® "Best Law Firms" rxaat "; For more information, visit our blog Lay of the Lond This communication Is Intended only for the exclusive use of the addressee and may contain information that Is privileged or confidential. If you are not the addressee, or someone responsible for delivering this document to the addressee, you may not read, copy or distribute it. Any unauthorized dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication Is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication In error, please call us promptly and securely dispose of It. Thank you. Cox, Castle Nicholson LLP COX CASTLE 078850 April 2, 2018 Via E-mail (larabe@santa-ana.org; eComment@santa-ana.org) Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council City of Santa Ana 20 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, CA 92701 Dear Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council: This letter is written on behalf of the owner of the Xerox office building at 1851 East First Street (the "Xerox Building') with respect to the application for approval of The Madison. Last November, we presented our concerns to the Planning Commission. Since that time, our concerns have grown, as set forth below. Initially, we would like to emphasize that the owner of the Xerox Building does not object to the uses proposed by the project. To the contrary, we welcome them. Our principal concerns relate to internal circulation resulting in morning peak hour cross traffic impacts that have not been evaluated (including their potential impacts on queuing on Cabrillo Park Drive), the requested parking variance, the location of the loading zone, and the absence of a designated move -in / move -out loading area. These issues need not stand in the way of the project, but should be addressed before the project is approved. Before addressing the CEQA issue, a solution which we proposed to Mr. Bisno and which Mr. Bisno appeared to embrace is to have the Madison parking structure entrance off of Xerox Centre, with the exit on State Fund Drive. By doing so, significant cross -traffic conflicts could be avoided on Xerox Centre Drive and not created on State Fund Drive because (i) the peak hour for Madison entries would coincide with departures from the Xerox building and (ii) the peak hour for Madison departures would coincide with arrivals at the State Fund building. Discussions were initiated with the firm that manages the State Fund building to obtain permission to use State Fund for exiting from the Madison parking structure. Those discussions, however, were not completed and additional time is required for negotiations. It is not our intent to stand in the way of the project, but our concerns need to be addressed. For that www.coxcastle.com Los Angeles I Orange County I San Francisco Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council April 2, 2018 Page 2 reason, we are requesting a one-month delay to (i) allow Mr. Bisno, the Xerox Building owner, and State Fund the opportunity to reach agreement on the use of State Fund Drive as the exit path for the new parking structure and (ii) provide time for design modifications to provide for an appropriate primary loading zone and the addition of a move-in/move-out loading area for the tenants of the proposed residences. Our specific objections are as follows: s The Morning Peak Hour Cross -Traffic. This project impact was not addressed in the traffic study, which focused on Cabrillo Park Drive at Xerox Centre, but not upon the proposed project's interface with the existing circulation on Xerox Centre Drive. In fact, the traffic study does not even state how many cars will be entering or exiting the Xerox Building parking structure at peak hours or, for that matter, at any time. As of now, the City, the public, and the owner and tenants of the Xerox Building have no idea to what degree this conflict will impact tenants and visitors to the Xerox Building or traffic on Cabrillo Park Drive. Curiously, Table 5-1 of the traffic study cites the number of cars that would enter and exit the Madison parking structure if the Madison site was built out as a 210,000 square foot office tower. (Note that the project site is the Phase II of the Xerox Centre identified by Table 5-1, whereas the existing Xerox building is Phase 1 and has a square footage of 321,833.) This is curious because CEQA is not concerned with comparing a proposed project to what theoretically could have been built under existing or prior zoning, but rather what the potential impacts of the proposed project are when compared to existing conditions. Here, it is indisputable that existing conditions do not include cross -traffic from a second parking structure. It is equally indisputable that the project will result in traffic leaving the new parking structure and crossing the incoming traffic lane for the existing Xerox Building parking structure. The potential conflicts must be analyzed. Instead, the traffic study concludes on Page 14 that "the traffic impact potential associated with the proposed Project would likely be less than that of the entitled land use." That may be interesting information, but it is not a CEQA analysis. Even if the correct square footage is applied to the analysis and the number of morning peak hour entry trips are extracted from the ITE manual, the ITE manual is not intended to and cannot judge the potential morning peak hour conflicts on Xerox Centre Drive because those potential conflicts are uniquely defined by existing characteristics and conditions. Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council April 2, 2018 Page 3 Those existing conditions include the distance of the driveway from Cabrillo Park Drive to the entrance to the Xerox Building parking structure, the length of time it takes for the gate arm to rise to allow a car to enter, the number of cars that can enter in a given period of time, and the actual number of cars that, under existing conditions, queue on Xerox Centre Drive while awaiting entrance to the parking structure at peak times of the morning. That information must then be supplemented with estimates of the number of cars that would be leaving the new parking structure at the same time, how long the wait would be for each car to have the gate rise, and how deep the backup would be within the new structure. The purpose would be not to evaluate the impacts of the existing traffic conditions on residents of the new projects (which is not a CEQA task), but to determine potential impacts, if any, arising from the addition of cross -traffic to the existing conditions. Questions to be addressed would include whether the cross -traffic would unacceptably slow down entrance to the Xerox parking structure, whether a slow -down would add to unacceptable queuing on Cabrillo Park Drive, and whether delays in exiting the new structure would be long enough to cause impatient drivers to take unsafe risks to cross the incoming cars. The fact that the traffic modeling does not address on-site traffic implications that could impact persons on private property does not excuse the EIR from evaluating these inevitable traffic conflicts any more than it would excuse the evaluation of a project's noise impacts on neighboring residents. The point here is that the project's injection of cross - traffic into an existing congested condition must be evaluated. Simply saying "it won't happen" does not comply with CECA. Because the project will create for the first time traffic that must cross through existing traffic at the morning peak hour, there most certainly is a "fair argument" that the potential for an impact should be evaluated. Absent that analysis, the project's EIR is not adequate. This analysis must be prepared and circulated for public review so that the public, including the owner and tenants of the Xerox Building, has the opportunity to review and comment upon the analysis. Alternatively, the City Council could add a condition that the project's parking structure would be entered only from Xerox Centre Drive and exited only by way of State Fund Drive. This would avoid the potential for morning peak hour cross -traffic, avoid evening peak hour cross -traffic on State Fund Drive, and eliminate the need for a revision of the project's EIR to address the cross -traffic conflicts. Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council April 2, 2018 Page 4 • Move-In/Move-Out Loading Area. The project proposes 260 residential rental units. As with any large multi -family project, there will be a consistent turnover of units with a need for loading and unloading of furniture, appliances, and other personal belongings. Whether these move -ins will be handled by personal vehicles or moving vans, a designated area inside the parking structure is needed to avoid delays which will impact visitors to and tenants of the Xerox Building. The project's plans have no such designated area, leaving the assumption that move -ins and move -outs will share the loading area for the retail projects and for residential UPS, FedEx, and other deliveries which abuts Xerox Centre Drive. (This location will be addressed in the next bullet item.) Again, there is a "fair argument" that the absence of a designated move-in/move-out loading area within the project's parking structure will result in adverse traffic impacts. • Loading Area. The location of the loading area immediately adjacent to Xerox Centre Drive has the potential to impact traffic on Xerox Centre Drive and, consequently, on Cabrillo Park Drive. As noted above, by placing the loading area next to Xerox Centre Drive, the potential for multiple and inevitably overlapping uses of the designated loading area has been created. This potentially could impact both Xerox Building visitors and tenants and, if backups and delays occur, traffic on Cabrillo Park Drive. The size and location of the loading area appears geared to the retail operations, but presents potential stacking and double- parking issues (and the resulting potential for impacts to Cabrillo Park Drive traffic) not just for retail deliveries, but also for the many daily FedEx, UPS, and Amazon deliveries to the residents of the 260 units. It appears that the location of the loading area simply has not taken into account its potential impacts on adjacent property. Typically, a project's loading area would be designed and located where the burden of overlapping uses would affect only the project itself and not its neighbors. That is not the case here and, as a result, creates a "fair argument" that an impact could arise, thus necessitating additional analysis in the project's EIR. • Parking Variance. We addressed issues related to the parking variance at the Planning Commission and were pleased that the Planning Commission rejected the variance. We are also pleased to see that the Staff Report does not recommend approval of the parking variance. In short, the proposed variance does not meet the requirements of your City code for the issuance of a variance. There are no "special circumstances" or other conditions specified in your Zoning Ordinance that would allow the granting of a parking variance. Beyond the fact that a parking variance would not be legally valid under your zoning ordinance, given the proximity of the Xerox Building parking structure to the proposed Mayor Pulido and Members of the City Council April 2, 2018 Page 5 Madison parking structure and the inevitability of overflow parking migrating to the Xerox Building parking structure, the effects of a parking variance on the users of the Xerox Building parking structure have not been evaluated or taken into consideration. We urge the Council to follow the recommendations of both Staff and the Planning Commission and not grant the variance. • Number of Units. As a point of information for the City, the project site is subject to CC&Rs which presently limit the number of residential units to 250. While this may be considered by the City to be a private matter, we simply want to make the City aware of this limitation and that, absent a resolution of issues which impact the Xerox Building and its tenants and visitors, the owner of the Xerox Building is not likely to consider agreeing to increasing the allowable number of units to the 260 units requested by the project applicant. Except as noted above, the owner of the Xerox Building supports the proposed project. These issues which impact the Xerox Building, however, need to be addressed before the project is approved. We ask the Council to continue the hearing for 30 days to allow Mr. Bisno to resolve these issues. Sincerely, Tim Paone