06 ATTACHMENT 6 - Laserfiche WebLink

Stuart Flashman: Good evening Commissioners and I really appreciate your spending the effort and time on this issue. It is a serious one for my clients and it's been a long- standing one and it's been very frustrating for them to have to live with this for as long as they have. As I indicated in my recent letter to the City, when the City allowed the Mason's to go ahead and landscape the backyard and put in the glass doors and put in the patio, they basically literally opened the door to a whole new range of problems for my clients, and those problems should not have been there because the use permit that was granted in 1977 was pretty specific about saying that the uses are supposed to be concentrated on the southern side of the property. Well, all those glass doors, the patio, the landscaping in the backyard, that's all on the north side where there's not supposed to be activities going on. That's supposed to be on the southern side, and the City just went ahead and let that all happen and essentially since then has turned a blind eye to it and continued to let that sort of stuff happen. And I want to talk a little bit about what that use permit was about because when a use permit is granted, as you know, it has conditions attached to it and you also have to make findings. One of those findings specifically says that the use, as conditioned, will not be detrimental to public health, safety or welfare or injurious to properties or improvements in the vicinity. That's exactly what's happened here, is that things that have gone on at the Masons are injurious to the property improvements of the people in the vicinity —of the neighbors, and yet the City has basically said we don't care. And you should care because when you approved the findings, you are saying that as conditioned by the conditions you're putting in that use permit, this isn't going to cause problems. You're basically promising the City and the people of the City that when you approve something like this, it's going to work. If the City doesn't enforce those conditions it isn't going to work, so you shouldn't be making those findings if you can't say these conditions will be enforced. If the conditions can't be enforced and you know the conditions can't be enforced, you can't make those findings. Staff may tell you can. They may want to make those findings, but they're not you. You're the people who are the decision - makers. You're the people that the decision rests with and if you can't, in good faith, make those findings, you can't approve the permit. So, it's important to you that when conditions are attached that they be enforced because otherwise, you can't do your job. So, again, the condition says it's supposed to be designed so the activity is focused to the south side of the property. What's happened is that they put a building entrance in the south and actually in fact, one of the things they said in the staff report that accompanied that was they said, the building entrance should be on the south. There should be no windows facing the residential frontage and any other access should be for emergency use only. Well, staff just blew that all off and put in the glass doors and let them use that to go into the backyard and in spite of the fact that the staff report, which is the basis for what the use permit that was approved basically said, don't do that. So, what are we going to do at this point? Well, I think staff has given you a way out of this basically saying let all of the things that are going on, make them all legal. Put them in the CUP so that they're okay and then we won't have a problem. Well, you will have a problem. It just won't be something you can't do anything about. But the neighbors are still going to have a problem and you still have to make findings if you're going to approve changes to the use permit. Can you make those findings when you know what that's going to do to the neighbors? I don't think you can. I think there's a real problem for you. Maybe not for them but for you, about making the findings for the changes that they're proposing. EXCERPT: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 22, 2016 Page 13 of 52