One Broadway Plaza Office Tower - City Council Meeting, May 5, 2020, 5:30PM, Second Reading of the Ordinance
Jeff Dickman
Below is the email I sent to Councilwoman Cecelia Iglesias, and to City's ecom...@santa-ana.org website. Sending my email to the ecom...@santa-ana.org address insures my thoughts are added to the official record opposing the conversion of office space to 415 apartments. Comments submitted to the ecom...@santa-ana.org address before 5:30 PM tomorrow will be included in City Council's report prior to the meeting. Comments sent to the City after 5:30 PM will be distributed at the start of the meeting.
In my email to Councilwoman Iglesias, I express my gratitude for her vote to oppose the conversion of 19 floors of office space to 19 floors of apartments, and her effort to seek a delay for the project. My comments and remedies follow the agenda portion of this email below.
You are welcome to use any part of this email to send your own thoughts to the ecom...@santa-ana.org address, your Councilperson, or all seven Councilmembers (their email addresses follow below).
Here is a link to learn how to call into tomorrow's City Council meeting. https://www.santa-ana.org/cc/city-meetings/virtual-meeting
Dear Councilwoman Iglesias;
Thank you again for standing up for the many neighborhoods which surround the One Broadway Plaza office tower project.
You were the only Councilmember to request a delay to convert 19 floors of One Broadway Plaza office space to high density apartments. The purpose for the delay was to allow time for the City, and its residents, to consider mitigations for an array of impacts from One Broadway Plaza on the health and safety of residents living in the Logan, Downtown, French Court, French Park, Lacy, Willard, Washington Square and Floral Park neighborhoods.
As renters, and owners, we again ask for your help to pull Consent Item 11A (the second reading), from the Consent Calendar (Item 10A) the Minutes from the Regular Meeting of April 21, 2020 of the City Council, for discussion purposes.
The community was disappointed that our City Council approved significant changes to OBP without more benefit and protections to our neighborhoods. As a result the office tower will degrade neighborhoods, and negatively impact traffic on Main Street, Broadway, Civic Center, and other streets and neighborhoods. OBP impacts are far worse than the impacts from the 2525 N. Main Street apartment project, a much smaller development, which City Council denied at the same meeting it approved One Broadway Plaza.
Please consider this request (and the concerns and remedies described below) on behalf of the thousands of residents who desire safer, and quieter neighborhoods.
Yours truly,
Jeff Dickman
1218 N. French Street
714 240 0883
TO THE CLERK OF THE COUNCIL
My name is Jeff Dickman, I reside in the French Park neighborhood, and I am speaking on Consent Calendar Item 10A (11A). I DO NOT support the Second Reading for the One Broadway Plaza Project. Please enter the following comments into the administrative record for this project.
COMMUNITY COMMENTS
Concern #1. Community wants One Broadway Plaza to include Affordable Housing
City Council agreed to allow the Developer to pay a fee instead of building the required affordable apartment units. Apartment units, which would have been available to those in need, will now become market-rate apartments. The burden to construct OBP's affordable apartments would become the responsibility of the City. City Council's action insures that affordable-rate apartment units, and the people who would have lived in those units, are removed, and effectively segregated from the OBP project.
Request #1: Developer to construct his affordable apartment units on-site, to insure the project is not income-segregated.
Concern #2. Community want One Broadway Plaza to prepare a new Development Agreement (DA)
The City Council did not recommend the project prepare a new DA. Development Agreements protect parties, specifically concerning duties, performance and timing. DA's may include project-contributed community benefits like insuring a developer construct on-site affordable housing, provides park land, and expands traffic mitigations.
Request #2: Developer to prepare a new DA to include, but not be limited to, community benefits, roles and responsibilities to fund, design and/or implement those benefits, including performance timing, remedies, and fines if either party does not meet specific goals and or deadlines.
Concern #3. Community want One Broadway Plaza to prepare a new Environmental Impact Report (an EIR), and to conduct additional Traffic Studies.
The City Council did not recommend OBP prepare a new EIR, or prepare new traffic studies. Instead the PC was satisfied that traffic assumptions in the 2003 EIR were sufficient. Because the 2003 EIR does not address traffic impacts from over a dozen newly-approved or anticipated apartment projects near OBP, this all but insures Main Street, Broadway, Washington, Civic Center, Seventeenth, and streets in at least six adjoining neighborhoods, will be negatively impacted for decades into the future.
Request #3: Developer to prepare a new Environmental Impact Report, to address traffic impacts from other recently approved, and anticipated development projects, which surround One Broadway Plaza.
Concern #4. Community sought Additional Traffic Protections for the Logan, Lacy, Downtown, and Willard Neighborhoods
The City Council recommended only the Logan neighborhood receive traffic protections, leaving Lacy, Downtown, and Willard neighborhoods without these benefits.
Request #4: Developer to include Lacy, Downtown, and Willard to the list of neighborhoods to receive traffic mitigation protections as part of his project.
Concern #5. Community requested an Increase in Traffic Mitigation Fees for neighborhoods previously identified to receive these benefits as described in the expired 2003 Development Agreement.
The City Council agreed with staff''s recommendation to increase the original traffic mitigation fee (approved in 2003) from $200,000 per neighborhood to $300,000 per neighborhood. Although the increase appears substantial, the extra $100,000 may not even account for inflation, and would not significantly contribute to the design or construction of much-needed neighborhood traffic mitigations. The City Council also failed to address a timeline to plan, design and construct these improvements.
Request #5: Developer to:
* Increase individual neighborhood traffic mitigation fees from $200,000 to at least $500,000
* Create a timeline when the Developer will plan, design and build these improvements
* Include Traffic Mitigation Fees as part of a new Development Agreement
* Developer and City will work directly with each of the impacted neighborhoods separately, and together, to prepare an inter-related Traffic Mitigation Plan
Concern #6. Community asked that Park Development Fees for OBP remain within the impacted neighborhoods.
The City Council agreed, and recommended that park development fees be available for use in the impacted neighborhoods. Unfortunately the City Council did not address where and how these dollars will be spent.
Request #6: Development Agreement to include the required park fees, and also discuss where and how these park fees are used. This insures the Developer pays the required park fees, and also that City and Developer work with the affected neighborhoods to identify important community-sought park projects.
We ask for your and the City Council's help to delay the One Broadway Plaza until:
* After the November General Election, when a new City Council is seated
* The project is evaluated in light of the Comprehensive Update of the City's General Plan, and
* In consideration of Council's decision to over-turn its past approval of 2525 N. Main Street, a similar, but much smaller project.