Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and consider a third-party appeal by Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility (APL 21-006); Adopt resolution approving and adopting an Addendum (EIRA-06-20) to the Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the City of Long Beach Downtown Plan (PEIR-SCH# 2009071006) relating to the 636 Locust Development (Project) in the Downtown Plan (PD-30) Area and the Downtown Plan Program EIR Land Use Equivalency Program (Equivalency Program), in accordance with the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Section 15164 of the CEQA Guidelines and making certain CEQA Findings and Determinations relative thereto, including a finding that the adopted Downtown Plan Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program mitigates, to the extent feasible, impacts associated with Equivalency Program projects, in accordance with those measures set forth in the Downtown Plan, and that no new or different mitigation measures are required; and Deny the appeal and approve a Site P
All right. We're here just to do item 21. Report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider a third party appeal by Supporters. Alliance for Environmental Responsibility. Adopt a resolution approving and adopting an addendum to the program. Environmental Impact Report for the City of Long Beach Downtown Plan relating to 3636 Locust Development Project and the Equivalency Program and deny the appeal and approve a site plan review for a new seven story mixed use building at 636 Locust Avenue in the Downtown Plan Zoning District District one. All right. So if it looks like a over and over is required here, work. Yes. If you will be participating in this hearing. Do you and each of you solemnly state that the testimony you may give and the cause now in pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do. I do. Idea. All right, I'll pass it back to city staff. I'd like to. I'd like to introduce the planning manager, Patricia Defender, for she'll make the presentation for this item. Thank you so much. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council members. Just making sure you can hear me okay. I can hear you. Okay. Perfect. Great. Okay. Patricia Devendorf, our planning bureau manager. This item involves an appeal of an action of the planning commission to approve a mixed use project in downtown and an addendum to the Downtown Plan Environmental Impact Report, which cleared excuse me, an addendum to the Downtown San Environmental Impact Report, which cleared both the development project and a downtown plan air equivalency program to enable more residential development to occur downtown this year. Addendum in question Because it environmentally cleared both the project and the equivalency program, it is important for future development in the downtown and I will provide more detail about both the project and the equivalency program in this presentation. Do I have the ability to control the side? Just want to make sure. Yeah, probably I do. Okay. Thank you so much. So for some background on this. On September 16th, 2021, Planning Commission approved an ER addendum and a site plan review for a mixed use project at 636 Locust Avenue and also received a presentation on the downtown equivalency program as an informational item. A nonprofit organization, Supporters Alliance for the Environmental Responsibility spoke at the Planning Commission hearing and opposition to the environmental review process and subsequently filed an appeal within the appeal period. Over the next several slides, I'm going to describe the projects and then followed. And following that I will describe the equivalency program. So the proposed project will replace a vacant single storey building with a new seven storey mixed use structure containing 108 dwelling units nearly 1200 square feet of ground floor commercial uses and associated parking. The project has a diverse unit mix, ranging from 1 to 3 bedroom units. It also has building amenities that include a community room, fitness center, lounge area pool, outdoor seating areas, rooftop deck and private balconies. The project site is located at the southwest corner of Seventh Street and Locust Avenue in the Downtown Plan Development District. The 22,000 square foot site is bounded by Seventh Street to the North Locust Avenue to the west. A two story apartment building to the south and an alley way court to the east. The general plan land use designation for the property is the downtown place site, which allows higher density development. Intensity of development. Next slide, please. This slide shows pictures of the existing condition of the site. You can see the existing vacant building that is a former auto facility, auto care facility. Next slide, please. The site is surrounded by a mix of uses. Adjacent uses include an elementary school housing, a health care facility and commercial use. Next slide, please. Project Essentials. The project is consistent with a downtown place type and the land use element of the general plan. Project meets the Downtown Plan Development and design standards, including the promotion of mixed use development with pedestrian oriented ground for project, the project with conditions of approval with meet the required site plan review findings. The project is designed as designed is harmonious and compatible in terms of design, character and scale of the neighborhood and the surrounding community, surrounding structures and the surrounding community. Next slide, please. So now I'll describe in the next few slides equivalency program. So in 2012, the City Council approved the downtown plan, the PD 30 Zoning District and its Associated Environmental Review, which is a program IIR. At that time, the City Council adopted the plan as well as adopted and certified the air to air environmentally cleared development anticipated through 2035. The plan filled out year anticipated development is shown on the table on the right so you can see the different land uses that were contemplated as part of the plan and the program e air and the levels of development associated with each of those uses. This was what was analyzed in the air. Currently, development projects consistent with the levels of development contemplated by the plan and the air can rely on the program air for their environmental clearance and do not require additional environmental review. The mitigation measures identified in the program are are applied to projects as appropriate to ensure individual project impacts are mitigated to the extent feasible. And additional technical studies are sometimes required to analyze project level impacts and ensure that there are no project level impacts that were not identified in the program. Air. The Land Use Equivalency Program, which I'll show a little bit more about that in a moment, was prepared to provide development flexibility so that downtown can continue to to respond to market conditions over the buildout duration of the plan. Land uses would be allowed to be reallocated among already permitted land uses of the plan, using an exchange factor developed through the equivalency program, which will ensure that projects will not exceed the levels of development that were analyzed in the program. IRR for the plan. Because overall levels of development would remain the same. These are supported by necessary technical excuse me, the er addendum supported by necessary technical analysis was prepared to demonstrate that future projects would remain within the impacts analyzed by the program. Ah, when the exchange factors were applied. And square footage in one use was reduced in exchange for increases in another use in accordance with sequence guidelines. California Environmental Quality Guidelines. An addendum to the previously certified air was prepared because the changes are technical in nature and based on a determination that the equivalency program would not result in any new significant environmental impact or substantial increase in the severity of the impacts identified in the previously certified IIR. In addition, future development will continue to be subject to the Downtown Plan II or Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program, and will have to comply with all applicable mitigation measures, as is the case currently. Next slide, please. This table represents the buildout that has occurred in the downtown plan area to date. As you can see from the table, the number of residential units anticipated by the plan has been reached due to the housing shortage and a strong demand for housing. At the same time, there has been less build out in the levels of their nonresidential use as contemplated by the plan and the air and the air due to reduced demand for office and commercial space as compared to what was anticipated by the plan. In order to continue to allow more residential development to be developed in downtown in response to market demand, and in recognition of the fact that due to a number of market forces, there's less demand for nonresidential uses. South Prepare the equivalency program to allow the swapping among the uses and established equivalency factors that will allow for increases in the number of residential uses in exchange for commensurate reduction in the amount of nonresidential. Uses. And. So looks like. But this slide shows the exchange factors, if you will, of the plans. So you can see there were several different impact areas that were analyzed as part of the technical analysis for the equivalency program. Traffic and noise. Air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Based on that analysis, traffic and noise were required the highest exchange rate in order to establish that equivalency. And so going forward, the high exchange rate will be used to to allow for increased residential development. And this represents a conservative approach to ensuring that the impacts that were analyzed in the EIA are not exceeded. And you can see, for example, that 82 square feet of commercial equals one dwelling unit. Similarly, 315 square feet of office equals one unit or. Just over half a hotel room equals one unit. So this is the exchange rate or the equivalency factor that will be used in the future. Next slide, please. This table just provides a an example. If there's a project that consists of 100 residential units, there would be a reduction in order to allow that project. There could be a reduction of office of 31,500 square feet, and that would ensure that there the project is staying within the impacts that were analyzed in the air and that we're not exceeding those impacts for the future. The. Excuse me with future development. Next slide, please. So just to provide an overview of the equivalency program, equivalency program anticipates a build out of an additional just over 3200 units in exchange for reductions in nonresidential square footage. You can see those reductions in the middle column there. Those are the reductions that would be required in each of the nonresidential categories to remain equivalent to an increase in 3200 units. And you can see that that would mean a reduction of approximately 140,000 square feet of commercial, just over 400,000 square feet of office and a reduction of 177 guestrooms hotel guestrooms. But also with the increase in housing. There's still an opportunity to develop additional nonresidential uses. And you can see those adjusted capacity for those uses on the floor, on the column, on the right there. And this is to ensure that a mix of uses can continue to be developed in the downtown. Next slide, please. So just to cover some of the appeal, the specific appeal points, the appellant is appealing the project and the addendum on the basis that the project and the equivalency program are not within the scope of what was analyzed by the previously certified E.R. and the city should have prepared additional separate environmental analysis, a new environmental impact report or a negative declaration. This claim is made on the basis of the points that are shown on the table here. Summarized on the left. The appeal points on the left. Provide the staff. Sorry, on the right, provide the staff response. The project is within the scope of the ER because there is no change to the type of uses permitted nor to the overall plan density or building intensity or the geographic area that was analyzed in the original air. The idea did consider and rejects an increased residential density alternative, but that alternative was an overall higher intensity alternative that included increased residential density but also contemplated the same or greater levels of non residential density. The equivalency program, as I pointed out previously, would make reductions in nonresidential nonresidential development in exchange for increases in the residential development to stay within the overall level of. Development and impacts that were analyzed in the air. The addendum presents substantial evidence for the finding that the equivalency program will have the same or less impacts as the program analyzed in the air. The impact of the project and the equivalency program is consistent with the analysis and conclusions presented in the certified air. And no additional findings are required because no new impacts have been identified as a result of the equivalency program. And as a result, none of the circumstances requiring a subsequent or supplemental air in accordance with law are present. Next slide, please. In accordance with the school guidelines. On the basis of what I described previously, an addendum to the ER was prepared. The addendum was prepared to analyze the proposed project to determine whether the project resulted in any new significant environmental impacts. It was determined that this project and the equivalency program will not result in any new, significant impacts that exceed those that were analyzed in the downtown plan air. In addition, future development will remain, will continue to be subject to the downtown plan, air mitigation monitoring program, and will have to comply with all applicable mitigation measures. Equivalency program does not require or involve any amendments to the downtown plan. The PD 30 zoning district and none are proposed. The allowable uses and the plans, development standards and overall densities and intensities remain the same. The preparation of the Environmental Impact Report addendum is an administrative process and does not have a public notice requirement or a stipulation period. So with that, the five, please. These are the recommendations for council to receive supporting documentation into the record complete. Conclude the public hearing and consider this the third party appeals adopt a resolution approving and adopting the addendum and all of the required finding and to deny the appeal and approve the site plan review for the seven storey building at 636 locust and to uphold the equivalency program. And that does conclude this presentation. The applicant is here and the city. The consultant who worked on the environmental analysis are also available to answer any questions if needed. Thank you. All right, let's set up the presentation. Now we're going to go to public comment. And when we're done with that, will close the hearing and have a council deliberation. So do we have any public comment on this? Yes. We have public comment on this item. There are two of our panelists, Brian Flynn and Sandy Schmidt. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Good. Thank you. Good evening, honorable council members. My name is Brian Flynn. I'm an attorney with the law firm Lowther Drury here on behalf of the Supporters Alliance for their. Civility. And support of their appeal. The pertinent question here is what level of environmental review sequel requires for this project? For reasons I'll discuss, Safer is not opposed to the project per se, but believes that sequel requires an environmental impact report rather than an agenda. So Safer is respectfully request of the Council. Uphold the appeal and refrain from approving the project at this time until anti-air is prepared. So in situations where there's a prior program, the air, which in this case is the 2012 bar for the downtown plan, seek to have standards for what level of review is required for subsequent activities when certain factors are met. The sequel requires an air and we think some of those factors are met here. First, the equivalency program and the Seventh and Locust Project are not within the scope of the impacts analyzed in the downtown plan. He air the downtown planning air on the analyzed up to 5000 units and the increase in residential use proposed by the equivalency program is outside the scope of the downtown planning air and the addendum is not proper. Rather, an air should be prepared the tiers from the analysis and the 2012 air that can be addendums and proper because the air is required for the projects remaining significant and unavoidable impacts. The addendum can see that the equivalency program will result in numerous significant and unavoidable impacts, including air quality, greenhouse gases, public services and traffic. When a first tier EIA, such as the downtown plan, the air reveals significant and unavoidable impacts, and those impacts are not mitigated by a subsequent project. Sequel requires in the air any statement of overriding considerations for those impacts. Third, and the air should be prepared because there are significant impacts to air quality that were not analyzed in the 2012 downtown planning air Safer submitted comments from indoor and outdoor air quality experts. They found that emissions of diesel particulate matter and formaldehyde would result in increased cancer risk in excess of the threshold set by the Air District. These impacts to human health were not addressed in the 2012, the air or the addendum and should be included any new air for this project for their new mitigation measures available to reduce the project's impacts. Such mitigation measures include Tier four final emissions standards for construction equipment and no formaldehyde added products for indoor air quality impacts. These mitigation measures are now commercially available as compared to 2012. With that, I will conclude again. To be clear, Safer is not opposed to this project in and of itself. Safer just wants the project to undergo the proper amount of environmental review and make sure all impacts are disclosed and fully mitigated. So Safer is requesting the Council uphold the appeal and not approve the project at this time so that an air can be prepared first. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sandy Schmidt. Let's just let's just clarify before we go to the next point, madam Claire. These are the is the appellants. So they they actually have an extended period of time, is that correct? That is correct. Brian Flynn is the appellant and Sandy Schmidt is the applicant. They both get 10 minutes. Mr. Flynn just used his time and the next speaker is Sandy Schmid. The applicant. Is there any additional public comment beyond that? There are public comment. There are two public comment speakers after Sandy. Okay. So I'll let so go ahead and let me know when all of that is concluded. Thank you. Hello, this is Sandy Schmid. I am the developer representing the project and not much in the way of comments tonight. Vice mayor and council members. Thank you, first of all, for for hearing us and our project. And most of all, thanks to staff for privacy preparing this presentation. It was in-depth in its technical scope and review far beyond my capabilities. So thank you to the staff for doing a tremendous job here. It's an old vacant tire shop, and we'd love to, you know, make something which we think has contributed to the to the downtown Long Beach community, and hopefully we have that opportunity. So thanks again. Our next speaker is Lee Charlie. Your time begins now. You have 3 minutes. Hey. Good evening. I just pulled over. I'm actually working. I really appreciate all the data and analysis, but I'm speaking from a lot of residents that live literally three streets down from the Taco Bell, the Ginny Ora Pausa on seventh street and Chestnut and this location, that tire shop is abandoned. And right next door there's an abundance of parking. The issues that I raised to the developer is not about the environmental impact, but about the traffic impact. As you know, Seventh Street is the corridor that goes on to the 710 and it's already what we call the Mini Grand Prix. And then at about 4:00 on the exit ramp off the 710 coming down sixth Street where my car was totaled last year. And pretty much I would say not exaggeration about every three weeks there are wrecks that go from Magnolia all the way to Long Beach Boulevard on Sixth Street. So my question is, looking at the data, 108 units, commercial units. My question is, where did the developer do like the traffic study, for example, how many people and residents will be using cars going in and out? How many residents will now be using this exit non ramp for the 17 to get to work in L.A.? Another thing is commercial use. What kind of commercial will it be? Like a grocery store, a shop which will bring even more traffic to the Seventh Street and Sixth Street. So my question is living there, Taco Bell has a lot of foot traffic, Jenny, or a pod that has a lot of foot traffic. And now we're having an additional unit with more cars, more traffic, more commercial. So I just asked the city council, are the developer to maybe give us some insight of that? Was there a traffic study done? And then from my understanding with our councilwoman giving us some great information, I believe Seventh Street and Sixth Street are going to be close. And so my question then is how will that traffic impact our district and the neighborhood and the well, more well, more city and the north time now that there's no exit an on ramp and we've got a 100 to 135 more cars and people accessing this development. So I just raised questions and want to know if possible, did the developer do a lot of traffic impact study? And I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bridget de la Toya. Bridget Dilatory. Your time starts now. Sorry. I made a mistake. Wrong item. Thank you. That concludes public comment. All right, closing public comment, bringing it back behind the real council members. And Dana. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. I also want to thank the the staff who have been doing an enormous amount of work on this item. And I also wanted to ask staff a couple of questions, maybe addressing the concerns that Mr. Flynn brought up. I wonder if staff is available to address some of those concerns that were brought up for the public to hear. Please. Sure. Thank you, counselor in Kandahar. So good to address in general the issue. As I mentioned, the analysis that was conducted, the technical analysis that was conducted to inform the addendum, the analysis was all about, is there are there any new significant impacts that would be associated with the equivalency program that were not identified in the previous air? Or whether there was any increase in the severity of those impacts. A checklist was conducted for every impact area that is analyzed in through as a requirement to figure out all the different environmental impact areas . And it was determined that there would be no new significant impacts that were not already analyzed in the air, and there would be no increase in the severity of any impacts that were analyzed in the air and that there were no new feasible mitigation measures that were identified. For those reasons, it was determined that there would be no additional the circumstances that surround that. Requiring additional environmental impact reports or additional analysis did not exist in this case. And so that that is the conclusion and it is substantiated by the analysis that is part of the public record. And in particular, I wanted to just quickly address the the issue of air quality. The Environmental Impact Report that was certified by the council did identify a number of areas that were significant and unavoidable impacts. And that remains the same with the equivalency program. So there are no new areas of impact that were not already identified and hence there is not a need for a statement of overriding considerations because the statement of overriding considerations is already adopted by the Council. But there are mitigation measures associated with air quality, in particular construction mitigations. And those mitigation measures do require the use of the most up to date equipment that is available for reducing emissions during construction processes. And it does refer to the assumed, which is the Southern California Air Quality Management District, and whatever standards are the relevant standards at the time of construction. And we do apply that when we are applying the mitigation measures to the individual projects. Thank you so much for that. And I am very much in support of Stafford's recommendation today, because I know that they've worked very diligently to try to meet all of all of the ten points that were addressed in in the field. So. And as you all know, we are in dire need of more housing here in Long Beach. As a big advocate for housing that I am, I must support projects that really lead us in the right direction for housing. Housing for everyone. There is with just with this project alone, there is 108 additional dwelling units in the city. And that that comes with additional 135 parking stalls, which is something that is very much needed. This is really a great addition to the downtown area, and I hope that my colleagues will support me in this as well . Thank you. Thank you. Was that a motion councilwoman? Yes. Recommendation. Okay. Yes. Councilwoman Allen. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Councilman de hop for those questions. I think that this project will bring the much needed additional housing to our downtown area, and addressing our housing shortage in downtown and throughout the city is definitely a priority. I will continue to monitor these projects very closely and I just want to thank staff. I want to thank the Planning Commission for their work on this. And I also want to recognize the appellant for bringing their concerns forward. The appeal process has prompted a deeper dove into this project, and I definitely appreciate staff taking the time to brief my office and answer our questions. And as chair of the Climate Action Environmental Committee. I definitely take environmental impact concerns very seriously. The project is consistent with the PD 30 development standards and the pier that are prepared for the downtown plan. And staff have assured me that this project will not cause no negative impacts upon the environment or the surrounding area, nor would it introduce new uses that are not already permitted by the downtown plan. So it is my understanding that the debate, which represents both residents and businesses in downtown, submitted their letter in support of this project. So I will also be supporting this item today. It's a fantastic very public. Well, we already did, but we can't say it's time to go for the roll call vote on this. District one, district two. I District three i district four I. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. Hi. District nine. Hi. Motion is carried.