Laserfiche WebLink
Commissioner Nagler: The question is whether we want to eliminate the flexibility going <br />forward in order to allow this for sure to not be a General Plan Amendment. <br />Commissioner Allen: Should we ask staff their perspective on this? <br />Chair Ritter: What are you hearing us say staff? <br />Weinstein: I don't think you should get hung up on a threshold for the amount of <br />commercial space on this site. It's a PUD and there's not a specification in the <br />Downtown Specific Plan for what the square footage should be. A thorough reading of <br />the Downtown Specific Plan is that the entire ground floor of an office site should be <br />office, right? So we really backed away from that. I want to be really clear about that. <br />This is already a very flexible interpretation of what the DSP calls for, but staff's position <br />has always been that all of the buildings along Old Bernal should have street front <br />commercial space. And we feet pretty strongly about that and that's why we imposed a <br />condition that says that the new space added to Residence 1 should be commercial <br />space. I think Commissioner Allen is exactly right; that it's just not a lot of commercial <br />space overall and I think we are sort of pushing what the office district means and we're <br />really appreciative of the effort that the applicant has made in redesigning that little <br />space, but it doesn't seem too much of an ask to make that commercial and not have it <br />be used as residential because I think if we added the flexibility in this housing market, <br />it's going to be a residential space. It's not going to be a commercial space, so it didn't <br />seem to us to be that much of an ask and the applicant is getting a really good amount <br />of residential space out of this project in this office district. It's not a residential district, <br />so that's our position. <br />Commissioner Nagler: To put it in practical terms, if this space on Residence 1 were <br />required to be commercial space, I guess the owner of the building could rent the space <br />out to somebody else, right? A law firm? <br />Commissioner Balch: A law firm, a one man architect, you know, accountant. <br />Commissioner Nagler: Okay. <br />Commissioner Balch: Can I make a motion? <br />Commissioner Nagler: So just to be clear what's going to be in the motion.... <br />Commissioner Balch: We're going to remove the metal siding. We're going to require <br />the curb cut to get the additional on -site spot making it go to seven; the shift. And, <br />we're going to require story poles by Council. Is that the appropriate condition? We'd <br />like story poles so the Council can consider it I guess is the..... <br />Commissioner Nagler: And you are or are not going to require in your motion the <br />commercial space? <br />Commissioner Balch: I'm going to require the commercial space. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, July 13, 2016 Page 29 of 38 <br />