Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and consider third-party appeals (APL17-020 and APL17-021) from Bea Bea Jiménez, David White, Karin McGinley, Tino Haramis, Kazumi Hiromoto, Tetsu Hashimoto, and Warren Blesofsky (representing Long Beach Citizens for Fair Development); Adopt resolution finding that the 320 Alamitos Project is consistent with the Downtown Plan Program Environmental Impact Report and subject to the Downtown Plan Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program, and making certain findings and determinations related thereto; and Uphold the Planning Commission’s decision to approve a Site Plan Review (SPR17-001) and Lot Merger (LM17-002) for the construction of a seven-story, 77-unit residential development at 320 Alamitos Avenue in the Downtown Planned Development District (PD-30). (District 2)
Well, thank you and thank you to all that were involved in our presentations today. We're now moving on to the rest of the agenda on the city council. We have a long agenda, so we're going to start with like we always do our hearings. So we have one hearing tonight, and that is a hearing on 320 Alamitos. And so I'm going to begin the hearing and just in just a minute. Okay. I can please have the city clerk please introduce the hearing. Hearing item one is a development is from development services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, concluded the public hearing and considered third party appeals from Long Beach Citizens for Fair Development, a resolution finding that the 320 Elevators project is consistent with the Downtown Plan Program, Environmental Impact Report and subject to the Downtown Plan Mitigation, Monitoring and Reporting Program and uphold the Planning Commission's decisions to approve a site plan, review and lot merger for the construction of a seven story 77 unit residential development at 320 Alamitos Avenue in the Downtown Planet Development District, District two. Thank you. And before we move on, I was just asked just because there's a lot of folks here that are not here for the hearing. And so just from from a timing perspective, the hearing is going to come up, which we just started, and then we will go right into the items for the evening. Those that are here for the Innovation Center item that's at the top of the agenda. We're going to go right into both the issues on equal employment and language access and the recreational pot issue, which I think we're most people are here for. So those will all be taking at the start of the regular items. And so we'll try to get through the hearing as expeditiously as possible and then we'll get to the other items as well. So thank you for the reading of the of the hearing item. If I could turn this over now to Mr. Modica. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We will hear a staff report from Kari Tai, our current planning officer. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. This is an appeal. Of the Planning Commission's approval of this project as a site plan review for a 77 unit residential development at 320 Alamitos Avenue in the downtown of the Downtown Area Plan Development District 30. The project is located within the city's downtown plan. It's on the east side of Alamitos Avenue. There's an aerial on the screen. The project site. Serves as a private surface parking lot. You see this on the larger side here. And then there's a smaller parcel that currently has the billboard on it. Sometimes it has a medical center billboard, and right now I think it has Honda on it. And then those so those two parcels comprise the project site. Surrounding properties include an auto repair facility, a four story residential. Building. To the east there. And auto I'm sorry, auto repair and small scale commercial to the north. So that's across fourth street. Across the street from the project site on Alamitos is a professional office building and then to. The south is a commercial building that has a that has their surface parking lot right on the corner. And this is going to follow with some photographs. So this is the. Surface parking lot. It's currently leased. To, I guess, monthly subscribers through. An Internet site. And then also. This is the. Photograph of the site that has the billboard on it. So about the project. The proposed project is a seven. Storey residential building. It would contain 77 dwelling units based on the downtown plan parking requirement. 97 parking spaces are required and 108 are being provided. I think the slide says 105. However, since the appeal was logged and since this presentation was prepared, there has been a refinement to the plan where three additional stalls are actually located on the on the. On the, in the garage. And therefore, please note that correction the unit mix includes four lofts, 29 studios, a 31 bedroom unit and 14 two bedroom units. And basically the configuration of the building is that the parking and then the ground floor uses take up the first two levels and then floors three through seven are the residential units. There are tenant tenant amenities included as part of this building, including a roof roof entertainment area, basically a roof deck and a community room, as well as private open space in the form of various balconies, patios and terraces. And that is a combination of common open space as well as private balconies for the units. So this is a site plan that's on the screen. Note that it is oriented with the north to your left, and so Alamitos is shown at the bottom. There are two site access points for vehicle for vehicles. One is from Third Street, the other is from Alamitos Avenue. Due to the there's due to the linear nature of the building that the two access points really. Facilitate the circulation and usability of. The garage. One thing I'd like to point out while we have the site plan on, is that the. Building is. Really oriented toward the Alamitos frontage. There's a this is the seven story portion, and the portion on Third Street is a slightly lower at six stories. And there is a significant rear setback. That is a. Courtyard on the top of the second level. And so the really the building. Units all set toward the. Front and the courtyard. Is what is directly adjacent to that existing four story. But multifamily residential. Building. So to talk a little more. About the building itself, the architecture of the building is a clean, modern esthetic with pedestrian oriented ground floor spaces, and that is intended to continue to establish a connection between pedestrians on the sidewalk and passers by on Alamitos. A to the actual actual building. The building exterior materials feature wood stained laminate panels, a gray metal panels and smooth stucco framing elements. There's a substantial amount of glazing to afford, a lot of openness to the building as well. And I did talk about the building massing. And this this particular rendering shows that the building is up toward Alamitos. But in the plans that were included in your packet, there are different renderings and there is a point of view that shows the courtyard as well. The building also incorporates. A number of sustainable green building features, including efficient mechanical and lighting systems. The actual exterior materials and window systems are also included to better insulate and better for the building to meet the green building standards. Cool paving and also drought tolerant landscaping per the Downtown Plan program are mitigation measures which this project is also subject to. The project must exceed. 20% increased efficiency over the current building code standards. And so that does include having solar ready for the roof and also any other energy efficient measures that power the building. Lastly, a shade and shadow study was. Prepared and included with your plans. All built proposed buildings that are 75 feet and over in the downtown plan require a shade and shadow study as part of the follow up environmental review for the Downtown Plan projects. This project is actually under that 75 feet threshold. However, the Shade and shadow study was done nonetheless to show whether there would be shadow impacts on the adjacent building. And one of the features of this building was. That was to orient the massing toward Alamitos to minimize any shadowing effects on that adjacent apartment building. In terms of downtown plan consistency. The project complies with all of the downtown plan development standards and by development standards that means height, floor area ratio, open space parking, etc. This this includes actually meeting and exceeding the required parking by one space. There is also the added benefit of having the billboard on the corner removed, as the Council is aware. There has been an effort throughout the city as a whole to eliminate non-conforming billboards and ones that are not in compliance with the city's current billboard ordinance. And that would be one of the benefits of this project as well. With regard to environmental review, the downtown plan included the program Environmental Impact Report that analyzed the impacts of development of development within the Downtown Plan. The Downtown Plan EIA programs are. New about what development intensity and development density would be anticipated, but did not know what the actual form or configuration of the actual development projects would be. And therefore, every project is subject to some level of follow up environmental review. That environment environmental compliance checklist was prepared. And found that the project does not have any new significant impacts that were not analyzed by the downtown plan either. And therefore the project does not. Warrant further environmental review. With regard to the Planning Commission's initial action on August 17th, the Planning Commission conducted a public hearing on the project. There was a public hearing and the majority of the public spoke in opposition to the project. Within the ten day appeal period. Two separate parties have filed appeals and I should note that the two parties consist of. One of them consists of multiple people who the names are listed on the screen, but I will not read them. And the and the appeals contended that the project conflicts with the downtown plan and that the project introduces environmental impacts that were not identified based on the environmental compliance checklist and the analysis of the program, EMR, as well as the compliance with the development standards. The staff finds that the grounds for the appeal are not warranted. Based on the project's consistency with both the. Downtown Plan, Development Standards and compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. The project was found to be in compliance, and therefore a staff recommends that the planning the City Council uphold the Planning Commission's decision to approve this project. And that concludes my presentation and we are available for any questions. Thank you very much for the presentation from staff. And so we do have comments first from the applicant. So Mr. Mes, do we have are we doing 10 minutes for the applicant or are you doing 15? Okay. So we'll do our we'll do 10 minutes less as a request for more time. We will do 10 minutes for the applicant, which will go first, then we'll be then the appellant. I believe there are the two separate appellants. Is that correct? Mr. Mayes There's two sets of appellants, but one of the appellant groups listed a number of people. I think there's six altogether. I don't know if they're all here or not, if they're or if they are appointing a representative to speak for them. Okay. And so what we'll do is we'll do we're going to do one the applicant then one of the appellants will go. We'll go. Then the second group, which is a group of appellants, hopefully they have assigned someone to speak for that, for that group of appellants. And if that's something different, please let the clerk know and we'll try to fix that if that's not the case currently. So we're doing the applicant ten minute, 10 minutes applicant 10 minutes, the appellant another 10 minutes of the second appellant Then the applicant gets a rebuttal of about 3 minutes. Three or 4 minutes, is that correct? That's great. Okay, so why don't we begin unless there's any objection to that from those that are and that are the appellants. We'll move forward with that process. And the applicant, please, can come forward. Three. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for all the council members that's present over here. My name is Justine Lagarde and I'm the. Owner of the Arrow, the given. I'm sorry we didn't take an oath for first, so let me make sure we do an oath for everyone that's going to be speaking. So, Madam Clerk, can you do the oath for everyone that is going if we are one of the speakers tonight or if you're going to comment, please stand and raise your right hand and take the oath from the clerk. You in each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the court now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Okay. Thank you. Why don't you go and begin again? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you all the council members. My name is Justine Lark's body and me. I'm the. Proud owner of the. 320. Kilometers vacant. Land. And I'm very, very proud to present the whole project. We think it's one of the great project. That is going to be making the Long Beach. You know, I know all those areas and everywhere else. It's got to be something that people will be looking forward to. Look at it, look at the project. I'm going to give it to Michael Bond and he can explain the project and. I'll be still available over here to. Michael Bond. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Michael Bond. I'm a senior principal with Studio 111. We're an architecture, urban design and landscape office. Just a side note, we just found out this week that we are not only LEED Platinum as an office, but we are also now, well, gold, the first architectural office on the West Coast. And we just won an award for office, which gets us to 20 awards. Ten of them proudly, I can say, are in Long Beach. But with that, this is the plan that shows in the black rectangle. Our site you can see two circles. One is a five minute walk, the other one is a ten minute walk. And what we what we've learned is that and academics have said that a five or ten minute walk is something if it's a good environment that people can go to. So within a ten minute walk, we can get to the blue line. We also had done some research on Watch Walk Score, which if you're familiar with, is a third party that analyzes the site and determines the walkability bike ability and transit ability of somebody living there and how they can move around without a car to create or to fulfill their daily errands. And on this particular site, the walkability is 94, which is actually a walkers paradise. From a bike mobility perspective, it is an 87, which is it means it has excellent bicycle infrastructure. And from a transit perspective, it is a 77 which is still determined as very high. So with that, we wanted to look at show this diagram here and on the ground floor, as the city had mentioned, we do have a very active ground floor and located in orange here. There's a fitness center at the corner. We have a lobby, we have leasing, we have a bike, kitchen. And then at the other side, as you get closer to Fourth Street along Alamitos, we do have lofts for lofts that are on the ground floor to create a very active edge, which cars just cannot provide when you're a pedestrian in the downtown. Also, we have a rooftop amenity located up here with great views of the ocean and the East Village as well as Alameda Speech. We have open space on the roof with great ocean views for all the residents. We also have another deck on this side and then, as was mentioned earlier, a podium down below. If you take all the square footage of those spaces, we actually are close to double the amount of open space that's required for this project. We are not asking for any variances in terms of parking. We are required 97. We are providing 11 more stalls for a total of 108. Another way to look at it is if you provided one parking stall per bedroom, we would still have an extra 17 parking stalls for guests or spillover within the development itself. This is a view looking north on Alamitos, a third street. You can see the ground floor is very glassy, very open, very inviting for people walking along the street. And then we did step the building closer to third down a floor. You can see a little bit of the amenity room up above. But it does step down and step back from the adjacent residential area. And then this is a view looking south on Alamitos. We did pull the metal in the front building as a material to relate in an abstract way to the Villa Riviera metal roof. And then you see the balconies and how they are faceted and they actually relate to the circular tower, which is not really a truly circular building. It's actually faceted if you look at it closer. And that's known as International Tower. So we wanted to play off those facets and take advantage of the views down Alamitos towards the ocean as well as northward. There is a lot of wood material to bring warmth to a very contemporary building and to make it more attractive for the community. This is the courtyard that was mentioned. On the left side is the taller portion of the building. It's four storeys high. We have a 35 foot wide courtyard and then a ten foot gap between our building and the adjacent building. So from the new residents living on the left side to the existing residence, there is a distance along most of the site of 45 feet. And then walking along Alameda southward, you can see the live work units on the left side or I should say loft units. And then as you walk further down, they're activated by the other uses, like the bike kitchen and the leasing office and lobby. And then finally we have a section here that's cut east west. So on the left side, you see Alamitos. And as was mentioned by Kerry, the highest portions of the building are on Alamitos, so that the math does not minimizes the shading on adjacent buildings. You can see it steps down one floor towards the eastern side. And then there is a significant, as I mentioned earlier, 45 feet from this wall to this wall. That creates an open space between the two buildings. And with that, this concludes our presentation. We think this, as I mentioned earlier, it conforms with the downtown plan. Our city, our region, our state desperately needs more housing. And this is going to be one project that could provide some assistance in that issue. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, we have our two groups of appellants. Our first first appellant, Mr. Borowski, is here. And we're going to go ahead and allow or we do want the other appellant group to go first. Okay. Okay. Sure. Then we will have our other appellant request, which is a variety of folks, and we'll set the clock again for 10 minutes. Whenever they begin, we'll we'll start. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. And members of the City Council. Yes, it's me. I'm here representing our our H-2A, which is lost on fourth. And we are adjacent to the building, but we're across the street on Alamitos. We have some comments. We we prepared a PowerPoint for you guys to show us art, show you our perspective on this particular project. But before we do, I'd like to thank Councilwoman Gonzalez and peers who have spent time with us to sit down and listen to our concerns. And with that information, we've been able to prepare this PowerPoint. Thank you. My name is Bebe Jimenez. I'm on the board for the Locks on Forth Association. I'm here representing the appellants Tino HARAMIS, Karen McGinley, Tetsuya Hashimoto and Kazumi Harimoto first item. Let's go ahead and begin who we are. Who are we? We're long term neighborhood stakeholders. We're homeowners. We've been in this neighborhood, in our building since the beginning of redevelopment. Our building was built by redevelopment. We're residents who chose a friendly neighborhood close to the downtown core, but with an easier pace, a little bit slower. We're supporters of compatible development. We support projects that respect our neighborhood. We're not NIMBYs. One of the appellants is a real estate broker. I've worked on both the public and private side of residential development throughout my career, and we support projects that follow the rules. I'm drawing your attention now to the downtown plans. Our opposition to this project really is rooted in the downtown plan. We see that as a good based document that allows for reasonable development that sensitive to our neighborhood. The downtown plan says that good design usually results from projects that were conceived in their total and respond sensitively to their immediate context. The following standards and guidelines underscore design principles intended to produce good buildings, great streets, and memorable places. Standards per the downtown plan standards identify requirements. Guidelines should be addressed with all development projects. Alternatives will be permitted only if the intent of the design guideline is met again. Standards equal requirements are issued relative to 320. Alamitos specifically relates to standard number two new buildings should respect the scale of adjacent structures and respond to their elements in an appropriate manner. And number three, new buildings should be bold and innovative and promote a forward looking identity for downtown Long Beach. Architectural design standards or design guidelines are also included. The applicant proposes a mid-rise design. We actually think a low rise building is more appropriate for this location. But even presuming a mid rise design, the guidelines indicate that the massing and design of mid-rise buildings should be sensitive to the adjacent scales and carefully address the transition to lower height structures that may exist or may be anticipated on the same block. The project fails to meet standard number two new buildings to respect the scale of adjacent structures. Seven storeys is out of scale and inappropriate for this neighborhood. The adjacent buildings are all low rise. Building buildings, no mid-rise buildings, no seven storeys. Most buildings, again, are one and two stories in height. The project fails to meet architectural guideline that I met, the architectural guideline that I mentioned before, that the massing and design of mid-rise buildings should be sensitive to adjacent scales and carefully address the transition to lower height structures. The proposed project is significantly taller, therefore insensitive to the scale of the adjacent buildings. The transitions that it would create would be jarring and abrupt, as there are no seven story buildings or any buildings near that height adjacent to the proposed project site. Again, this is our neighborhood. The project site is identified in red. This I'm going to go through quickly some slides of the surrounding streets so you can see for yourselves what the adjacent building heights are. This is a northbound view of Alamitos in third Street. You can see a two story motel to the left and three and four story condos at the Seaside Villas immediately adjacent to the project site. This is a misleading and false context represented by the renderings included in the plan package from the developer. The building to the far left where the arrow is pointed does not exist. The South bound view of Alamitos in Third Street. Again, one story apartments, one story auto repair, two story apartments, one story auto, and a two story motel. Again across the street. 38 Alamitos. One story. Two story, one story. Another misleading rendering that's included in the plan package, these two buildings to the far left corner. They don't exist. They appear to give us some dimension and height to the surrounding context, but they don't do not exist. Again, here we are at Alamitos and Fourth Street, giving you some more perspective. Again, two storey apartments to the left. One story, smog shop living room is just off the screen. You can't see it, but it's a one storey bar. I'm sure some of you may have visited it from time to time. To the right is two storey condos. Here's another misleading, misleading rendering showing distorted scale. This is also from the project plans. The Villa Riviera and the international towers are not this large when you view them from this location. Here's the actual photo of that location and look at how far those two buildings are in the background. Once again, we're looking here northbound view of Alamitos and fourth, two storey condos, one storey retail, two storey apartments and retail, one and two story motorcycle and auto, no. Seven stories. Once again, viewing towards Alamitos off a fourth. One story. One story. One story. No, seven stories. Here we go. West Bound View of Fourth Street. Alamitos. Two Story. 2.5 stories. One Story. 320 Alamitos fails to meet the standards, also that the new buildings should be bold and innovative and promote a forward looking Long Beach identity or identity for downtown knowledge. The design is not bold. It's not innovative. Many similar projects look like this in Long Beach. Everybody is doing it now, including Studio 111. It's now becoming a cookie cutter approach. And unfortunately, we have a lot of these now in downtown Long Beach. Here we go. This architect in particular likes to use a lot of heavy horizontal lines, giving the building, has a lot of heavy massing, giving it a very block like appearance. You'll see this repeated over and over. This is another project downtown fourth and land in heavy horizontal lines, heavy massing. Here we are, 1235 Long Beach Boulevard. Heavy horizontal lines. Heavy massing. Another same example at 245 West Broadway. And again, glass at the bottom. The glass lobby seems to be a trend. And here's one from Glendale Arts Colony. I found this one online also by Studio 111. Look at that. And now here's the Long Beach version of the Glendale Arts Project. Well, shall we look at that one more time? Look at that. Wow. Look at the paneling up there at the right. We just get all the paneling in this version. Right. Okay. So I'm going to try to hurry hurry this up. The site plan review findings, we found some inconsistencies and errors. Errors. Their exhibit C says the design wouldn't remove any significant trees, but it also says that the Billboard parcel contains two mature eucalyptus trees. I'm not sure who decides what's significant, but they're significant to us if you can see them here. These are the two largest trees, trees on Forest Street, probably in the East Village. For us, they're neighborhood markers. They provide character, they soften the corner and they identify this place as our home. Also, we talked about shadows study. The shadow study that is in the staff report or in the plans is not adequate. Also, one thing to note, your resolution says that the building is 75.5 feet in height, the resolution you're being asked to approve. But the Sigma document says at 74.5 feet, as does the staff report. I'm not sure which is which, but this is too bad that we're here trying to play guessing games because one automatically triggers the requirement for a Shade Street study. There was a shadow or shade study that was included in plans. It's not complete and it doesn't meet the requirements. It doesn't provide calculations. It's unclear who, if anyone, verified those calculations or verified the shade study is accurate. We consider ourself to be a resident, a sensitive youth staff, and their own secret document says it's unclear what a sensitive use is. We say we're a sensitive use. This photo was taken from a window in our condo complex seven in the morning, October 4th. A seven story building will block our morning sun and put us in the shade. Our building, we consider ourselves sensitive to light sensitive uses because we have large windows, extensive glazing skylights, clear story windows, and it's all designed to minimize the electrical usage. We rely on it a lot to light up our homes without using electricity. In addition, there are other flaws in the secret analysis that was included with the Planning Commission staff report. The analysis indicates that the project would not conflict with any any applicable land use plan, policy or regulation. Thank you so much. And so I know the time that the time is up on this hour. It is the last thing you want to say to conclude. And then we'll turn over to the second appellant. Sure. Well, I would encourage you to go through and review the rest of the PowerPoint if they're able to send it to you electronically. The project is flawed. It doesn't follow the standards. The developer's going to tell you he spent a year developing the project and trying to come up with a good design. During that year, he never spoke to us. If he was smart, he would have spent that year trying to make a project that fits the standards. That follows the standards. It's a tough site, I get it. But there standards in place. You can go 80 feet. Yes. But if you meet the standards and I think everyone should keep in mind that there's a lot of folks who are concerned about the land use element. And part of their concern is that when things get approved, that the rules that get put in place sometimes oftentimes are not followed. We're asking for you tonight to do is to overturn the Planning Commission's approval of the project and show everyone show all of us that the rules will be followed. Thank you very. Much. Thank you very much. And make it clear, Mr. Brewer, cruise control. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the City Council. My name is Warren Lisowski. I represent Lombard, Citizens for Fair Development. Our mission statement is to preserve and protect the architectural, historical, environmental and community resources of the city of Long Beach, and to guarantee that development in the city is carried out in a manner that reflects the principles of equity, social justice, responsible management of the public's resources. I would like to thank the other appellant for just doing an amazing job of showing how this project does not conform to the downtown plan under Sequa. And I'd like to continue to contextualize what her comments were about the land use element. I think this is the largest uprising of public dismay in the city, probably since the 1991 riots. We had these meetings that the city held after demands at the Planning Commission's study session when the Planning Commission did not want to recommend the land use element and staff insisted it was going to be presented to the Council anyways . Part of this anger that surrounding the Louis and this project is the way that the city uses a program, air program each year under secure were not intended to be the end of environmental review for a project. They were meant to be part of a hearing that happened so that further environmental review can be done. And the way that these program ers are used by the city is to cease to do further environmental input. Like the previous appellant was saying, if the developer would have simply came and talked to them, they could have made some changes to the development. And you'll see that throughout this entire process on this development, there there's been a large amount of community input and there's been absolutely no changes in the project. So what is the community input doing and what effect does it have? Basically none. When this when this project came before the planning commission, there was at least 30 to 40 members of the community. And most of them, the vast majority of them, spoke against the project and complained about parking ratios. Also, if you go ahead and look at the exhibit that was included with the staff report, there's about 40 letters from the public of which 39 of them are against the project due to the lack of parking and only one in support from the downtown business district. There's a problem with the staff's instructions to both this body and the Planning Commission. The staff seems to think that the Planning Commission and the City Council don't have a choice or say on anything and very often tell the Planning Commission in response to questions. You have to approve this. You don't have the right to to disapprove this. And in fact, if we look at the Planning Commission's website, it says that the Planning Commission is does numerous requests from developers for administrative use permit, standard variances, etc., etc.. So these are requests from the applicants. These are not demands that the Planning Commission has to rubber stamp. And in fact, we don't know why. Commissioner Van Horwich The Chairperson abruptly quit in the middle of her term. We don't know why, but she did say at the Planning Commission study session, when the Planning Commission chose not to recommend the L'ue maps to the City Council, she said, I'm paraphrasing, are we meant to just rubber stamp this? Do we get a say on anything? That was one of her last meetings. So I think the Planning Commission themselves is sensing some of the frustration that's going on with the instructions being give to them, be given to them specifically as it relates to this project. When this project came before, Planning Commission Commissioner Richard Lewis recused himself from the vote. I believe that was due to the fact that he is the principal developer. But if we look at the city ethics guide, it says that if there's a conflict, a conflict of interest on page nine could be if you are an officer, director, partner, employee or a trustee or manager of a company with business before you, department or board. Well, he clearly recused himself for a reason. But when you look at page 13. I'm sorry, Page. Page 12 when it says, What are the remedies to a conflict? I'm sorry? Page ten, what are the remedies? Abstain from the vote. And also, number two, you must publicly disclose the interest in the subject of potential conflict. It's my recollection that Commissioner Lewis did not give the public or the rest of the commission the reason or his interest in the developer during that recusal. I think that's problematic when when a commissioner recuses himself. I believe it has a chilling effect on the rest of the commission. How are you supposed to vote against the projects that your fellow commissioners have an economic interest in? Also on page eight of the city's guide to two Conflicts of Interest Ethics Guide, it says The state law prohibits you from being financially interested in any way in a city contract. If your duties call on you to participate in any way or any stage in the approval of the contract. Now, I'm not an attorney, but maybe the Mr. Mayor, the city council might want to ask the city attorney, does this development deal and the conditions of development constitute a contract between Mr. Lewis as a developer and the city of Long Beach? So I think it's problematic. I think Commissioner Lewis should decide does he want to be a developer or does he want to be a planning commissioner? That's only fair to the people of Long Beach. The specifics of this project, I've given you all a copy of a letter that we've written. It goes over the specific reasons under Sequoia Y, the Y in air or further environmental studies are needed on this. And I just wanted to say that, you know, we're here to speak for for the for the people that don't have a voice. 3 minutes in this chambers is really not enough time to express the needs that the community has. If you look through the letters in the attachments that staff has given you, one woman has a story of, you know, being assaulted because she had to park so far away from her place, from her house, coming home late at night. And these stories are just really heart wrenching. So, you know, where do we go from here? We don't want to litigate this. That's that's not our intention. We just want some community involvement and sequel is there for community involvement. And so when the city continues to use program ERs to avoid community involvement, other sequel, that's when we have a problem. That's when appeals happen. So we ask this body to send this back to the Planning Commission. And, you know, why is this so important? It's just one development. You know, democracy. If you look at Washington, it's broken right now. I mean, we've got our the people's attorney up there lying in front of Congress. And so why is this important? It's important because for the residents of Long Beach, we depend on this body to be our local functioning democracy. We depend on you to be a progressive decision making body that represents the people of Long Beach. And so when you see such a vast outpouring of dismay over the lack of parking and the outsized scale of this building, simply following the guidelines under Sequoia could have given community input and could have made this project more agreeable to everyone involved. So I think in closing, we'd just like to give, I think Studio 111 could get one more award and it's the architectural firm that's, you know, least considerate of what the needs of downtown Long Beach residents are. Thank you. Thank you. So we have an opportunity for if the applicant wants to give any sort of additional rebuttal closing comments. I think we said 3 minutes, Mr. Mays, is that correct? Okay. Good evening. My name is John Mendis. I am the construction manager for the project. I'm part of this project. I think it's a beautiful project and I recognize the concerns that were here regarding parking in the community. And I think we knew coming in that this was going to be a challenging parking site and project because the adjacency to a residential area and it's the border of really where the urban part of the city meets the residential part of the city. That being said, it is. That being said, it's Alamitos Boulevard. It's an urban street. And we feel the scale is in proportion to what that large wide street carries. The adjacent building is in scale to residential, to low mid-rise, to a taller building. And we're comfortable with that and we believe it's a very attractive, good looking project. That being said, I want to address several of the comments that were addressed that I felt were need to be addressed directly. First of all. I'm the construction manager for the project. I was hired by Mr. Luck's body, Dr. Luke's body. And our job is to shepherd it through the entitlement process. I am the owner of Share of Ice 100%. Richard Lewis has no financial interest in this project. And I will just say that that statement that was made was untrue. I have a financial disclosure with the city as I am also commissioner, and you can confirm that. Secondly, I'm proud of the work that Studio 111 has done in this city. And I think there are great financial I'm sorry, business partner to the city. I think they've done wonderful work there and extremely committed to this city and they've done great work. And I think we need to support that. I think this is a super design and I. I urge you supported this project tonight, and I thank you for your time. Thank you. With that, we are going to go ahead and close the hearing and do public comment, of course. And then and then we will the council. So if you if you're commenting, please come forward now. Well, obviously, we have a long night ahead of us. So please just give us your your opinion and we'll move on to the next person and we will conclude the hearing at that point. So please say your name and begin. And Prophet and I live at 140 Linden Avenue. I've lived in Long Beach since 1975, and I was very proud of the Planning Commission's decision that they didn't want to approve this, but they were told by staff that they had to. It's an ugly project. It has nothing to do with the neighborhood. It's not the right thing. I know that you want us to walk everywhere, to bike everywhere, but we have no retail, no viable retail downtown, and we're not going to get it with little pockets of. Businesses on ground floors. At the same meeting where this planning commission did not want to approve this project. They asked that the parking situation be addressed again because let's face it, it's not working. The downtown plan is not working for the people who own property, the people who rent property and the people who do business downtown. It is not working. And I know you all want to fidget and not listen to me, but I'm really not happy about that. I've got a lot of notes here, but they're not working out. You have to wonder why Long Beach Development Services didn't want to look at parking options. It's a big call because they want to have this program air where nobody is involved in anything in the city where they do everything and they cater to the developers. That is not right for those of us who have equity and we're building too many apartments and not enough condos. You're not going to get people with equity in this city. And that's what we need. People who will come here and stay here, not come and be here for two years until their lease is up and then leave so that the apartment can charge more money. There are lots of questions about this place. But the. Bulk of the matter is it's not good for the neighborhood. You have a clear opportunity here. You can side with the people of Long Beach who don't want this project's height, its density, and its lack of viable parking options shoved down our throats. Or you can do your callous disregard for the citizens of Long Beach and show that you really don't give a hoot about any of us. What will it be? Thank you. Next up next, speaker. Good advice. Mr. dan, I just want to make sure that everyone that's speaking is in the line. So I'm going to close the speaker's list. And so the gentleman at the end there will be the last will be the last speaker. Speaking lists is closed. Speaker's list is close. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jim Dan. I live in the Fillmore, a historic district. A couple of things. I promised Kathleen that I would stay on point because there are a lot of items that were mentioned earlier that really upset me from my standpoint here. The key here with the developer and also the people involved is integrity. I have worked with Michael Bond in the senior project in the Willmore Historic District. It was tough because it was an abandoned apartment that got transferred over. There's some pushback. He came in. He was extremely respectful. Every project that he's done is had the utmost integrity. I think a lot of people in this city, this is not Iowa by the sea anymore. They're out of touch on the what the youth is bringing to the city people these days. I'm probably the last person among a lot of people here that could actually could afford to buy their own home. People these days are not buying homes. They're not going to the strip malls. They're not buying expensive cars. It's a different there's riding bikes. They're walking. They're skateboarding. They're spending money on designer drinks. It's great. I wish I could do it. Now, getting back on point. Jordan Davis has worked with us on several community projects. Again, integrity. Sorry, doctor. I don't remember your last name, but your. I applaud you for hiring these two gentlemen and having them associated with your project. Again, integrity. I please. I support this project 100%. It changes difficult. It is the beginning of change for downtown. And again you have to the highest rated people that I can think of that I would want to build my project in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor and Council. My name is Kathleen Irvine and I am a downtown resident. And I have to say that my favorite part of this project is getting rid. Of the horrible billboard. My father was born in Long Beach. I spent most of my childhood here, and I'm happy to see so many wonderful changes happening. There was a very dark period in in Long Beach as history and the newness and the vibrancy of our new downtown is wonderful. I was part of the downtown plan meetings, so I approved it. Despite being a preservationist, I approve of all the things that are going on. I love this project. Michael Bond and J.R. Van Dike do great work. Just because you don't care for that particular look does not mean it's a bad thing. I do not think it. Is correct. To use that as a hammer to stop a project just because you personally do not like the color gray or glass or whatever it is. That is not enough of a reason. And to say claim that a building that is across a large street is adjacent is really not correct. If you look at the dictionary, you would never see adjacent. Define that way. So I appreciate their concerns, but quite frankly, I'm thrilled with this project and I really want you guys to support it and move it forward quickly to get rid of that billboard. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Counsel lived in the second district for over two decades and the East Village. Has character. That's why people move into the second district. This architectural rendering is a cookie cutter, and it makes me wonder if it's prefab material. And then the other thing, why is it. Only 20% efficiency if their lead. To winning 2020 awards for their architecture and green LEED and all that? Why isn't it. More than 20% efficiency? Thirdly, again, you guys are greenlighting all of these new constructions. With no parking permitted for the neighborhood that's been there before. All this. Continual development. Started rushing in. It's not fair. And listening to what was just said what the second appellant with regards to the commission. My goodness you've got you've got commissioners playing both sides of the fence. That's egregious and unethical. And for you all, if you are rubber stamped us and the community is in such an uproar. What do we have you all representing us for? If if that's the case, we've got five, five council seats up for reelection. And it's time, way past time. We're going into the next new year and you got five seats up for reelection and we're continually have to battle. I also want to know what percentage of this is affordable housing, any of it? Is all these new constructions going to be luxury buildings? And the majority of the people that are going to inhabit these apartment buildings are not from Long Beach. So how are you benefiting the 60% of people that are here already if you're not offering any percentage of it as affordable housing mandated by the city council through your charter, all you're doing. Is just luxury, luxury. Luxury all over the place and the integrity of the second street, the second the East Village is shut. Because that's not what me being on the Arts Council Planning Commission the council was supposed to represent in that village area. That's why people move into the village. So I don't approve this. The the the. Seven storey plan, the architecture does not meet the integrity of what the neighborhood looks like. And it's going to impact our parking in addition to the other. New constructions that's going on. And you all have yet to address that. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Joe Cross and I am an owner of the Loft, one of the units at the Lafayette condominium. I am also a 15 year employee of the related companies, which is a mega developer with dense urban planning skills. I am in favor of this project for a couple of reasons. One, market rate housing is definitely needed in the downtown area. Okay. Secondly, is socioeconomics. I believe the area median income must come up as well. That will help the city drive the quality retail that we sorely needed in the second district. And as well, your goal of bringing more employment to this great city. I think without the housing likely going first, you may not hit those other two goals. But thirdly, and most importantly, I believe in the multifamily concept that it's your sustainability that's built into your downtown plan, the sustainable plan and the city of Delia's plan as well. It clearly states in your plan you are going to get Southern California off of the reliance of the automobile. And without a dense urban plan, you're likely not to hit that. And I truly do support that. I would like to take it one step further, though. As you look towards development in the inner core, with the height restrictions of 250 feet, that you do urban planning that is able to hit a green space development that is not down here to you can easily insert 20% inclusionary housing which is highly successful in the New York City model. And because these projects are built to scale, you can hit parking ratios 2 to 1 that will pencil out to a developer that just takes a little more for planning and getting over a couple of hurdles to where you're currently at. But truly, I do support the project. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And I know the gentleman. The end was the last speaker, so I think we added somebody. That's okay, but I'll be the last speaker. No more. No more speakers. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Members of the city council. My name is Toliver Morris and I'm representing downtown Long Beach Alliance. I'm the former chair and board member for downtown Long Beach Alliance. I wanted to put into the record a multitude of letters that we received from people of downtown and all over the place residents, business owners, property owners who are in support of this project. This is exactly the type of project we need in our downtown. We need lots of these kinds of projects. I'm in the commercial real estate business and bring retail one of the spear heads for retail in downtown. All the retailers who are coming to downtown are counting on these types of projects. The projects that have delivered thus far, the current and the Edison filled up to over 90% in record time, way ahead of schedule. They're doing great. We need more and more of this kind of project. This meets the downtown plan. It also meets with the LBA strategic plan and we are in support of it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Tino HARAMIS. I live across the street from the project and I moved to downtown in 12 years ago. Brand new into the building from sold a house in Belmont Heights in that area. We never had issues like this. All of a sudden. I love our area because it's a diverse area. It's also in our building. We've got some affordable units that have to the people have to live there for 15 years. It shows stability. I feel that it's really and we had also the the city manager the manager of this company come over and talk to us because Janine brought him over and he there seem to be a lot of things he was saying that do not fit into our neighborhood. The first thing he said was the owner bought the lot at a reasonable price, but nothing below a seven building with an underground parking doesn't pencil. Then they couldn't figure out another way to make it more accessible or nicer for the neighborhood. It's called a village. It would bring down the clock. I would move out. If they build, I'll move out. You'll you'll lose one more neighbor. Because I'm not willing to live in a neighborhood with a big, ugly building in the front that does not fit in the. Village at all. The other thing is that those wonderful trees somebody was talking about the billboard. Well, the billboard. I don't even notice it because I notice the trees. It's fantastic. So so maybe they shouldn't you should not combine those lots because those trees are wonderful and we don't have enough green space. We also have to think about the ethical part. We look at the plan. We know it's out of scale. We know they didn't follow the plan. But besides that, what. About making something that also lets people with lower incomes. Be able to live in those apartments? I'm just a man before me. I was just talking about the fact that we want to create more business and make more money. No, we don't necessarily only need money. We need quality of life. We need a community. And you know, we voted for you, Mayor Garcia, because you're innovative, you're young, and you probably understand how wonderful it is to live downtown because of diversity, because we also and it's beautiful to live in a neighborhood. I'm Greek in Belmont Heights. People look at me funny because I was playing Greek music here. I can play any music I want. Nobody looks at me funny. We are very diverse. It's fantastic and I want this diversity. I wanted to stay. Do you think in this building we're going to be as diverse as we have been or they're going to be pretty much pretty wealthy high earners coming in, bring in maybe some money, staying for two years and leaving again. So I like consistency. I love the walkability of our neighborhood. This just doesn't fit. And as the gentleman was saying, I bet you he can find a way to pencil it in and make a lot of money as well. And we can have a nice neighborhood. I would love to see something wonderful in front of our building, but not a seven story. I pay $100 a year, a little under $100 a year for electricity because I have the light. I don't need to use much electricity. I save so much electricity. Now I'm sure my bill is going to go up greatly. So all these things do matter. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. Thank you. I'm Karen McGinley. I'm office on fourth and. I want to thank Bibi for presenting our case so well and also Lina for your assistance. And Miss Pearce, I'll just make a few bullet points. I'm a real estate professional. I've been in Long Beach for 30 years. I moved into the loft on fourth in 2005 with my husband. We've been there 12 years and it is an absolutely spectacular community. As Tino just said, some key issues that I object to as as not only as a real. Estate person, but as a citizen of the redevelopment. Area, downtown Long Beach, no affordable housing element. I think that just cries in the face of what you people say you're going to do, both as a professional and also as a citizen. I also object to the seven stories. The natural light is certainly an issue and the high density impact of traffic is just extraordinary. Already on the Alamitos and forth, and I'm not being rude to the gentleman with regard to traffic. He was kind enough to spend time with us last night, but the road diet isn't working and this isn't going to help, okay? It's going to make it a lot worse. So basically I'm asking to revisit the alum in this project, decrease the number of stories, consider decreasing the number of units, therefore parking and density at an affordable housing. And then you can. Follow the guidelines that you set up. When we started redeveloping downtown Long Beach in the early 2000s. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Debbie Tobias. I live at 100 Atlantic Avenue and I am president of TAPS, a citizens parking group. We oppose the project because it doesn't have enough parking. The city has refused for years to make sure those parking requirements are adequate. Stopping the damage has become an urgent matter. Please get the options for immediate action. Action before approving these buildings. Planning staff is. Following the directives of a previous city council when it comes to the support of the downtown's lowered parking requirements, downtown city councilman Robert Garcia and Switzerland pushed for adoption of the downtown plan, which included the low parking requirements. Council members outside of downtown should realize that these issues are likely to come your way. The the Midtown plan was also was already passed last year. That lowered parking requirements without local data or professional evaluation. During the hearing, the. Planning Commission was told that there is plenty of parking in the area. A commissioner disagreed with that statement after driving. The area at 3:30. P.m.. Planning staff also refuses to include parking guidelines in the alleyway, saying parking will be addressed later in zoning. If you think you can deal with it, then consider how little success we've had fixing this. The downtown plans parking requirements for the new. Buildings were not. Based on data or professional evaluation. Back in 2013, planning staff could not provide anything like that to support one space per unit regulation. For years, seniors planning staff has refused to listen to us the public property managers and owners, business owners, owners, our experienced parking consultant and our lawyers. The only reason there's a parking study coming is because of multiple lawsuits. The California Natural Resources Agency told us that the only way to enforce secret is through litigation. That type of lawsuit requires a great deal of money and time. So those at City Hall who want to continue with the inadequate parking requirements know that they only need to continue saying no. The California Natural Resources Agency also told us that while parking is no longer a secret impact, inadequate parking causes, increased traffic, air pollution and safety issues for pedestrians. Because of the increase in cars circling to find parking in the area. The city can study these impacts to protect our area, or the city can continue to do what they think they can get away with. The choice is yours. This can be fixed, or you can continue with the policies that were pushed into law by a small number of people. Please make sure these new buildings have enough parking for their own use. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Sharon Brown. I'm here reading something for Becky Fisher. She had to leave. She's at 418, Benito. And basically she says there have been numerous studies done indicating that air pollution contributes to Alzheimer's and dementia and people driving around looking for a parking place contributes to the pollution. Last week, Janine Pearce met with local residents to discuss the 320 Alamitos Building. The meeting raised more questions to me than it answered. There are lots of promises made to meet with people before tonight's meeting to provide proof for claims made by staff at planning and council meetings, etc. But to my knowledge, none of this came through . Someone questioned the height of the building saying it's supposed to be in line with the surrounding buildings. Well, it's now she's tells says six stories that's apparent, seven storeys above ground to the four stories above ground next to it. That issue was not addressed. No one could confirm if there's still losing all the parking in front of the building on both sides of Alamitos as originally planned. Nor could they confirm where the claimed 28 new parking places were supposed to be. So no new understanding or clarification to any of our concerns, just promises that did not come to fruition. So on one hand, you have people relating facts that the issues caused harm to the environment and subsequently people, and on the other hand, people just outright denying facts because they don't want to believe. It or. Because it doesn't fit their agenda. The agenda seems to be money, money for business, money for people in power, money for developers. But what about the constituents? If you don't take care of us, who does? The Planning Commission tried. They didn't want to approve the 320 Alamitos, but staff told them they had to. If the Planning Commission can't say no to staff, then why do we have them? If council can't say no to staff, why do we have them? It seems that staff is naming the city, running the city, and they aren't elected. They're hired. So basically we have no representatives and as such, no voice. And thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is. Johanna. Cunningham, the executive director for the Apartment Association. California Southern Cities. I come before you this evening to express my support for the project at 320 Alamitos Avenue. The 77 unit project is a welcome and much needed addition to the downtown area and provides the development of much needed units within the downtown area. Acknowledging the need for housing supply, this project supports that end goal for both tenants and our hometown businesses. Supply is the issue and it is encouraging to see so many residential projects in the process. Thank you for this opportunity to speak before you in support. Of the 320. Alamitos Avenue Project, and I hope you'll support the project and future development as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Lynnette Firenze. And to approve a site plan review, positive findings must be made. Finding requires compatibility and design, character and scale with neighborhood structure in the community. The proposed building is 75 feet and seven stories surrounding buildings are 1 to 4 storeys in height. The proposed building is up to six stories taller than nearby buildings. How is this compatible with the surrounding buildings? It is not. The findings don't address the scale, the building approval. The project will result in a loss of privacy, light air and a reduction in property values to the surrounding condominium owners. Most of El Camino speech is 2 to 3 stories. The new U.S. maps released this weekend show Alamitos Beach went from 7 to 4 stories. This height is more appropriate for the neighborhood. The downtown plan has five guiding principles. Number five is working with and for the community. Dozens and dozens of residents have spoken opposition to this project at Planning Commission. Please listen to your community. The same issue is going to come up frequently in the future has the has many 5 to 6 storey heights allowed. Which are adjacent to single family homes. Protect your community. Deny the appeal, and have the developer redesign. To be compatible with the community. Thank you. Thank you. And a loudspeaker, please. Oh, thank you. My name is Neal Baker. I live at 940 East Third Street Towers, two condos, which are less than a block from where the proposed development would be in the second district. Thank you to last on fourth for your great presentation. That was very eye opening and I hope the City Council will take that into consideration. I lived in the area for 15 years now as owner of town home, also served on the board of our building for 13 years and I've seen parking go from bad to worse. I've seen what's happened with development. I think it's a beautiful project that you have there. I think a smaller project would be much better for the area. I think having the trees there, I think having a little open space is very great there. I think not being able to see the sunrise is is really impactful for neighbors. And I think this is going to be I don't want us to be guinea pigs for. What is a larger scale development in a historically smaller, low rise development area? We are a residential area. We're Alamitos Beach or on the east side of Alamitos, where this project is supposed to be. And I just asked that the council take that in consideration. Also, I imagine that people who are going to come and rent in this building are going to be paying at least 1500 dollars a month. I don't think this is going to be low income. And I see that the neighborhood changing and going from more diverse to less diverse. So I don't think that's something that a progressive city like Long Beach wants to do. So I urge the council to vote against this project. Thank you. Well, thank you. That concludes public comment. And so we will now conclude the hearing and go back to the council. And so I'm going to turn this over to Councilmember Pearce. Okay. I want to. First state. How much I appreciate those of you that are here today engaged in this process. I know that it's been probably the most debated project that's happened in my district since I've been in office, and it is also the smallest of the projects. And so it's been a really hard time for me because it is a project that's in my neighborhood on the other side of Alamitos, on the east side of the district. That feels very different from being inside the downtown plan. And so this is not a project or a vote. That is an easy process for me. And I think you guys have seen me publicly kind of grapple with a couple of things. So I want to give a little bit of context for some folks and just set how my mind has been going and then ask a couple of questions of staff. I think that, one, when I went through all of the letters, the emails I've received in support and opposed, I had to really figure out what's the majority. And I do want to say I want to thank the community members and yon for joining the District one meeting, which while I would have loved to have invited you, I didn't. You just happened to be there. We were at that meeting and we had a meeting last Wednesday and a couple of one on ones as well. And so we've gone through, in my mind, trying to find out how we make this project fit within the downtown plan and how we mitigate the impacts for residents. So within the downtown plan, I think the argument that I have heard from from staff is contradictory, but with some of the the valley, the views from some community members, but it is the roles were set. And when we look at the things in the areas where we have some arguments around if it conflicts with the downtown plan, one of the questions I have is around the height of the building, and that is one thing that I consistently have said is probably our biggest challenge. So I do want to ask development services, if you could talk a little bit about the downtown plan on the areas that we went over previous today around straddling different height densities. Yes. Councilwoman Pierce, I'm happy to answer that question for you. The the building that's before you tonight is at a height of 74.5 feet in height at seven stories. And the downtown plan, the sub area where this building is located allows a height of up to 80 feet. So the context for that is that the building is located on the east side of Alamitos. And if you look at the boundaries of the specific plan, the specific plan does not divide or bifurcate the downtown plan by use using the street as the easterly border. It captures both sides of the street so that there some context to the development. And you will note that the boundary of the specific plan goes several lots almost to a full block east of Alamitos. So everything within that sub area would be allowed or would be permitted to go up to a maximum height of 80 feet . And that's the context for the height. Did you want me to get into the scale a little more? If you could get into the scale around some of the other buildings that are there? The appellants presented some photos. I know to the east of that project is some condos that it kind of steps to. So that's correct. Directly east of the project, we spent a lot of time looking at the context between the proposed building as well as the especially as it relates to the building just to the east and as the developer indicated in their presentation, but staff tried to cover as well. That was of a particular concern to us. And the design of the building is very context oriented, meaning that most of the height of the building or the heights, the highest components of the building, the seven stories are all oriented to the west of the site along Alamitos. The the designers specifically did attempt to step the building back at the side of the property on the east side adjacent to those the four story units. So at that side, the of the project is four stories on top of the the the podium again in an attempt to minimize the impact of the height of the building on that adjacent property as well. If you look at the top, the other feature of the project to address that the issues of privacy was also that you'll notice on that easterly property line there's a row of trees again to provide some screening and some privacy between the project and the adjacent four story building. So the species of that tree are fairly high, so they will grow fairly tall and would provide, again, some privacy on the site. Great. Thank you, Linda, for that. I know there's a couple more questions that Councilmember Gonzalez is going to ask before we get to those questions. I also want to give some context, because when I went through District two residents concerns, every single one of them had to do with parking. And so I absolutely feel that pain. I lived on walnut with no parking. I understand the impacts of that. I want to give a little bit of context. So I'm going to ask Public Works to come up and give a little bit of overview. We cannot in my minds, while the downtown plan said it's 1.25. And actually, Linda, while you're still there, the downtown plans at 1.25, I did tell tops that I would get back to them in understanding where that 1.25 came from, what was there previously. And so, Linda, if you could share a little bit of that for us. Sure. Happy to do that. In terms of the parking standard, the current standard is one unit per space for each I'm sorry, one space for each unit. In addition, the guest parking is .25 or one space for every four units. So that generally comes out to 1.25 spaces per unit. That is a slight increase from the standard that was in place just prior to that. The prior standard was a 1.5, so it got reduced by one half of the space for a unit in the downtown plan. I would just like to note that historically over the years, the parking requirements for the downtown have varied fairly significantly. They were back in the the sixties, they were as low as a 0.5 for the downtown area. They increased to 1.25, they went up to 1.5. And so they've slowly increased over the years until the downtown plan where we have a slight decrease. So it's been a lot of fluctuation in the parking standards downtown. But with the introduction of the blue line, that was an appropriate basis with having very high quality transit in the downtown. That was another basis for the city too, to justify reducing the parking standard for the downtown plan. So it's my understand when we look at cities like Long Beach that have reduced parking, we're. Diamonds for their downtown. It's because we have other modes of transportation, and in fact, it's because we want to have a walkable, safe city. That's exactly. Right. And I know that that is a tough value statement for some folks that live in the parking impacted area because it's really challenging to drive around for 40 minutes looking for parking. So I just want to recognize that. Going to ask public works to go ahead. If you could answer these few questions for me, give an overview of Alamitos and where the parking is. I know we've added back the parking on Alamitos in front of the project. So if you could talk about that and if you could talk about where we are at with the parking study from the lawsuit from from Taps, I'd appreciate that. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. So as part of the Alamitos corridor, we've recently studied that corridor for a road diet, as part of that road diet between Ocean and Seventh Street, which was approved by council last week. We would add 23 parking stalls in the AM peak period. By removing the peak our parking restrictions, we would also lose five additional stalls all day. So that's the summary on Alamitos Avenue itself. Other parking in the vicinity of the corridor, we are looking at adding over 100 new parking stalls on first and second streets between Alamitos and Cherry. This would be accomplished by converting the angle parking to something closer to 90 degree parking, and this would be accomplished as part of a paving project to take place next year. The parking study you mentioned is one that is being led concurrently by public works and development services. With that, we're studying parking in downtown and Alamitos Beach. The consultant on board has begun their data collection and nearly completed that. They've started community outreach and look to have some initial data early next year or initial results early next year. Great. Thank you. And I ask for that context because I think it's important to understand that while we we are not in a place where we're asking developers to provide parking for other residents and that this is a challenge location because there's a lot there. And I want to recognize the history of that lot. When the doctor purchased that lot, it previously was not open to the public to rent out those spaces, and it was one of the very first things that he did, and it's been that way for about two years. Is that correct? About four years. And so we have a community asset that was available to us by a developer that didn't have to do that. What we've learned through the process of this, though, is that that process of getting permits hasn't necessarily been our run in the best way. And so as we are looking, I know Councilmember Gonzalez and I are out there every week talking to other locations to try to open up their lots. What we've learned is that there's probably about 20 people that actually use the lot every night. And one of the challenges is the way that we generate those permits. And so I'm working with public works to make sure that we try as we open up lots at Mula, the church right there on third, the Thai food restaurant and St Anthony's in the first district that we're trying to partner in a way where the city can say we want to invest in infrastructure for your lot and we want to help manage doing a parking permit online like we do for the senior center so that every month or every quarter people can get a parking permit, which is not been existent in current lots. And so one of the things that we've learned is that we can manage our parking much better and that's even without getting the results back from the parking study. And so I know that this these do not relate directly to this project being approved. But when I look through and see 99% of the letters are about parking, I need you guys to have that context that we're working really hard to open up those lots and that building more parking isn't an option until we actually use the space that we have. I also want to highlight that we have the Vision Zero plan and that this project coming in is going to help us reach that vision a little bit quicker because we are going to be installing more crosswalks and lighting and safety measures in the area. And so that's something that I want to thank the developers for. They've kind of gone above and beyond the downtown plan and a number of areas outside of issues of height. Let me see before I continue to ramble on. I don't want to take up everybody's time. I just want to give that context. The other question I have, I do want to highlight that the developers have a have met with me and have agreed that any additional parking that is not required within the downtown plan will be accessible to the community. And so that could be done through a permit process that could be done through an open process, and that they are looking at the lifts and trying to figure out if they can add those lifts inside the garage. When you guys talk about affordable housing, I think it's also important to mention that John and several other developers are coming to the table. All the talk about where the appropriate affordable housing is and what the right funding is. This was a private project that was not a city project. But I think that they have a good vision about where we can go. So I'm going to leave my comments there. I want to hear from my colleague and then I will close up at the very end. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. I would also like to thank everybody who's been a part of this. I know I had two meetings myself, both with Councilmember Pearce and myself in the first District and then last night with more of my residents. So I appreciate every single one of the residents and everyone who's been involved. I know, unlike maybe other projects, our residents are very well versed. As Bebe mentioned, they come from real estate backgrounds, they come from development backgrounds. So they absolutely have the wherewithal and the knowledge. And so I definitely respect and appreciate that. And I took a lot of notes last night, and as I told them, you know, I dusted off the downtown plan to refresh my memory. And if any councilmember understands downtown, it's definitely me. And the one that lives in downtown raised my kids there. I understand the parking impacts firsthand, and I've been here for about ten years, you know, not just working in the city for almost a decade, but living here. So it's really important for me that all of this was taken into consideration. So with that said, I have a couple of questions in relation to the shade analysis that was brought up. Can you give me a little bit more information about the study and what that entails, please? Yes. Councilwoman Gonzalez, the shadow study. It's included in the plans. It is the search on page 35 and it goes to page 43. It did find that the project will cast a shadow. On adjacent uses, particularly the residential use to the east and commercial uses to the north. And that's particularly during afternoon and evening hours. The without understanding, the developers worked on designing the project sort of around those impacts and that's how they got to push the massing to the Alamitos frontage and pushed the massing towards the north end of the project and kind of scale it down on the south and east sides, which are adjacent to the residential uses. Okay, great. And so it looks like around midmorning, that will be a little bit at maybe at its height, but then afterwards it could be a little bit better. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. And then light sensitive uses. I understand in these sequent analysis it just refers to Long Beach Unified School District. Can you clarify that as well? Yes. One of the speakers mentioned or just ask the definition of sensitive uses and suggested that a residential use would be a sensitive use. That is a very specifically defined term in the California Environmental Quality Act or sequel. A In the they're referred to as a sensitive receptor. And a sensitive receptor is a use where the occupants of that facility over a long term may have potential particular sensitivities. And typical sensitive receptors are places that have either young children or elderly or infirm individuals. So it would be a hospital is a risk sensitive receptor a day care facility where you have young kids throughout the day. A senior citizen facility is also a sensitive receptor, but generally a commercial use or a standard residential use. They are not considered sensitive receptors. Okay. And that would be the only that's clearly defined as that. Just so I'm getting that clear. That? That is correct. So when we analyze a project per that standard, it would have to be one of those uses. Otherwise, there's no basis to evaluate it as a sensitive receptor. Great. Thank you. And in relation to the design, so I'll have to be really honest, when I looked at the design at first, you know, you look at it and you went downtown, we want to see bold, we want to see innovative. And so I now looking at the presentation and talking to the developers, I do see that innovation and that boldness in that. And it's absolutely subjective. But I can understand where residents feel as though, you know, this looks like other developments. So I have a couple questions relative to that. So seven stories, 77 units, were pre-sales and were they an option at all and maybe including some sort of walkway to break up the massing at all? About that. The I don't think that the the proposed project includes poor sales. I think we look for for per sales. We look for natural breaks in the design of the project to include per sales. But there are some openings in the project, but they're not technically per sales and those openings. Let me just pull up the plant briefly. Okay. And I guess to help that, I'll just kind of piggyback off of that. Is was there another iteration of this design prior to what we're seeing now? Yes, we the very first initial design of this project was not acceptable to staff because it did not have the level of articulation. It did not have the the the quality of materials that we ultimately arrived at. But when we expressed those concerns to the developer, they were willing to to work with us and provide some additional fenestration to the building and to change some of the colors and some of the materials on the building to lighten it up and to make it more compatible with the surrounding development in the area. And ultimately, the site plan review committee determined that the project was was compatible and that it did address the the design concerns that staff had originally expressed with the initial project architecture. Okay. So we have changed somewhat from the original, of course, and there is this new iteration now that is in the Planning Commission's eyes. And in your eyes acceptable? That is. Correct. Okay, great. And last question is about the raised terrorist garden on roof, which I think is that a requirement? It's not a. Requirement per se, but there is a common outdoor open space requirement and the terrace fulfills part of that open space obligation in terms of square footage. Okay, great. And that would be considered. With the downtown planet, it's called a green roof or an eco roof deck. That is correct. Okay, great. So it's not required. And. All right. And I asked about that. So and the angled balcony, I know we've talked about that as well, but I think that's also another option here that I believe wasn't included in the first iteration. Is that correct? So there was a lot of work done on the facades between iterations and one of the features that was, I guess, enhanced in this this rendition is, I believe, deeper balcony projections and deeper bay window projections. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Those are all my questions I will say. And I want to thank staff. I also want to thank Eric as well last night for being there to talk about the Alamitos Road Diet. And again, I know that this is similar to Councilmember Pearce. This is never an easy, you know, decision for us. We have to really think very hard about what we're doing and the plans we're putting in place, because this is plans not just for tomorrow. It's for many years in advance. And a lot of us expect to be here far beyond, you know, a few years, whether you rent or own doesn't matter. And I will say, although, again, it's not relative to the the project per se. But, you know, both she and I have worked rigorously on parking. Absolutely. And yes, they're going to be creating parking lots or parking spaces that are a little over what they need to on site. But just in the adjacent area, I counted between her work and my work alone, almost 500 parking spaces. And I'll go over that 80 spaces that will be working with St Anthony's on over 50 spaces in District two, which would be the lot which I think is health care partners. There's going to be another 41 spaces at the Seventh Day Adventist, 70 spaces that I created in the East Village on the western side of the East Village in the First District and 18 spaces, which is the net result from Alamitos Road Diet. So that leaves us with about 470 spaces and I'm sorry, there's 250 at Mola that I know Councilmember Pearce is working on as well. And when I first took office, that's the very first thing I did was a parking study to look at what we can do in the downtown area specifically for parking before any of this development came out. So there's been a lot of work put into that. So I want to assure you that that absolutely is being done separate to that. And a lot of people talked about affordable housing. And as I mentioned last night, the first district is actually home to the most affordable housing in all of the city. We have over 1700 units, 300 more that are coming on. So over 2000 units that will be created by the end of the year, actually end of next year. And so a lot of affordable housing being done and created. So do we need more affordable housing? Absolutely we do. But we absolutely want to see them in various places in the city. So overall, in addition to that, there's about ten bus transit lines in the area and over 36,000 square feet of green space added, which has become minor park in that area alone and other areas of downtown increase over 30% in their property values over within the last 6 to 7 years. And that's specific to the Willmore area development happening. Lots going on and yet still seeing property values increase with all of that. So I would just like to end with saying that although this is of course a really difficult decision, like I said, for many people, change is never an exciting thing. I will tell you that the city is absolutely moving in a good direction and I think supporting this project would be a good direction. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. I yes, thank you. I know I jumped straight into some questions earlier. I did want to highlight two more things before making a motion. I had my staff kind of look at what was required in the downtown plan and what was not required in the downtown plan. And we have a 106 parking stalls. 97 was required. We've got 23 bicycle parking spaces, 20 was required, required. We have over almost 9000 square feet of common space when only 4000 was required. As you guys mentioned, there's a community room that's almost 800 square feet and only 500 was required, 1700 square feet of private open space where 13 was required. I think that one of the conversations that I've had in my neighborhood, particularly with the North Alamitos Neighborhood Association, is the the lack of access to community space and community rooms to be available for meeting. I think one of the challenges with this location is also that it is going to be the highest story in the area. And so making accessible the rooftop community space for residents, neighborhood associations and bids is something that the developers of offset owners have also said that they're open to doing. Again, I'll I'll highlight that this was, you know, a process and a project that I think does fit the neighborhood. Looking at the massing of it. When I think about the current being on Ocean and Alamitos and the change up to where Mola is and all the work that's been done, I really do believe that the design of this project fits with that transition. And so I just wanted to make sure I, I said that. So I would like to ask my colleagues to support us tonight. And I'm going to ask. The City Attorney, I'd like to make two amendments to the special conditions of approval in making amendment number or condition of approval 79 that the property owner will make any additional parking spots outside of the downtown plan requirements available to the public by working with the city to manage permits. I would like the second condition of approval to be that the property owner will make the rooftop accessible, the rooftop community room accessible to community neighborhood associations and business improvement districts when available. And these are both agreements that I've already communicated and been working with the project on. And so I want to thank them for agreeing to those. So with that, I asked for my colleagues to support us. Thank you. Okay, there's a motion and a second to approve the project and the Navy appeals members record casting votes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and and moving forward. And next, we're going to be we're going to be moving up the language access item before recreational pot just because of the folks that are here. Next up is Ishinomaki Center, then language access, then recreational pot. So, Madam Clerk, can you please read item 25?