Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It's the consent agenda. Agenda items number one through five. Items listed on the consent agenda are considered routine and will be enacted, approved, or adopted by one motion. Unless a request for removal is received from the commissioner versus items removed from the consent calendar shall be considered immediately following the adoption of the consent agenda. May I have a motion, please? Move.

All those in favor?

All right. Excellent. We have a motion and the second motion for commissioner and a second. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Next up is our public hearings.

President Olson, I'd like to make a motion to reorder the bill that is 897-556. And just that, because I think this will be more discussion. So do we have a second for that motion? I second.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Motion from the Vice President or data in the second room conditioner. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes.

So I'm starting with item number seven. This is a public hearing for a proposed beauty school. Is there a presentation from staff? Good evening, President Olsen. This item will be presented by . Good evening.

This is a The property is located in Pursuant to Section 2305.020, the Alhambra Rules of the Code, colleges and trade schools are conditioned to permeate within the CDU zone and therefore require approval of the conditional use permit. The Academy of Aesthetics and Cosmetology A typical day occupancy could be 30 persons. As far as their practical training, students will be able to provide supervised services to members of the general public. These services will be limited to a maximum of 10 clients per day and by a four-week week. The academy will be closed on Saturday and will be closed on Sunday in London. Staff may be on-site between noon and 8am to 10pm from the beginning. Students will complete all the instructions The existing building consists of a total of seven commercial tenant spaces. Units 1 and 1 and 1 and 2 make up the two ground floor tenant spaces, while units 2 and 1 and 2 and 5 make up the five separate floor units. The proposed academy will occupy both existing ground floor tenant spaces, units 1 and 1 and 2, as well as unit 2 and 1 on the second floor, with a combined total primary instructional and practical training activities, while the second floor unit will be used for office and administrative purposes. The remaining four second-floor office suites will not be occupied at school and will be utilized by the property owner for personal purposes. Included in this request are materials and improvements necessary to accommodate the treatment areas for the areas causing talking problems. The improvements also include the new restroom and laundry room. These are photos of the existing routine spaces that will be occupied by the academy. The proposed project will adapt these areas for the school, the routine, and the school. These photographs show the existing building from West Main Street and from the rear alley. The conclusion of the proposed establishment of a vocational training school is consistent with the general plan. The project will provide vocational training in both post-development opportunities and re-activating existing commercial training spaces for being able to continue. Staff are bringing to the Planning Commission to complete the presentation on the 26th of May to allow this to continue. Thank you. Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation? That's right. We need a translator, right? Yes. And do we have someone available online?

Yes, we have someone available online. The number to call in, would you be able to unmute? You can press star six to unmute.

Hello? Yes. Hello, this is the interpreter. I already am muted. Can you hear me? Hello?

Hello? Hello, can you speak? Hello, can you hear me? We're not able to hear you.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello, this is the interpreter. Hello, this is the interpreter. Can you hear me?

Hello, can you speak again, please?

Hello, this is the interpreter. Can you hear me? Oh.

Here's something really faint. Hello.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello, this is the interpreter. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. If we could turn up the volume just a little bit, that would be helpful.

Yes, I already turned on. Can you hear me?

Hello? Hello? Yes, we can hear you. If you could try to speak a little bit closer to the microphone, that would be really helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. You can go ahead now.

Introduce myself? Yes. Hi, my name is . I'm the of the beauty school. Do you have any questions?

Oh, you don't have a presentation to make?

For the translator, would you be able to ask the applicant if they have a presentation prepared for tonight?

Okay, thank you. Hello, I am the translator for today. Okay, we don't have presentation for tonight for today, or is included in the document.

Can you just confirm that they don't have any other comments for presentation? For the translator, can you confirm that they don't have any other comments for presentation?

Okay. 好,请确认你们已经没有其他需要发言的或者是演示的,对吗? 没有 Right, no more.

Okay, they can have a seat, and then if there are further questions, we'll ask them to come back to the podium. And if they have more to say after the rest of the full testimony, they can come back to the podium. Thank you.

Okay.

Ms. Schurz, do you have any technical questions or requests for clarification from staff based on the presentation? It doesn't look like it. So I'm now in the public testimony portion of the public hearing. It's like we don't really have anyone who has pre-registered speak. Do we have anyone online who would like to speak on this item?

We have no raised hands on Zoom.

Okay, cool. Are there any written comments that have been submitted to the city? Yeah, we've had some. Okay. If there's anyone else wishing to provide public comment, wishing to address the commission, you may fill out a Zoom speaker card and step to the podium. And if you're on Zoom, you may raise your hand using the raise hand feature on Zoom. And if you called into the meeting, please dial star nine on your phone style pad. Duration and start six seven yourself. You could also say your name for the record, it would be appreciated. And you'll have five minutes to speak. So it doesn't sound like we have anybody who's waiting to speak at this point. Right. Okay. Um, then I will now close the public testimony portion of the public hearing and Commissioner, if you have any questions or requests for verification from staff on this project. All right. And any more comments for further discussion? So I will now close the public hearing and entertain any motion on the proposed resolution. I have a motion.

I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve.

Do we have a second? I second. All right. We have a motion from Vice President Gargaia and a second from Commissioner Hoth. May we have a roll call, please?

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

All right.

We now have a little something before we move on. I just wanted to make a question in reference to this specific item. I don't know if it's something that Sam can look into, but perhaps you can look into the code amenities to see about changing these to these types of uses to administrative approval rather than from the portion of my stream. So let's comment for the future.

Not a question. Great. Thank you. Item number six, this is a public hearing for a new self-storage facility. Is there a presentation from staff for this item? Yes, this item will be presented by Jessica Vargas.

Sorry, I just want to let our translator know that they can come off the line. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So that's all for today, or?

Yes, that's all. Thank you.

No problem. Thank you for calling. Take care. Bye-bye.

Good evening, President Wilson and Commissioners. My name is Jessica Robinson. I'm here to present the next item on tonight's agenda, which is an application for a conditional use permit administrative review modification of and to allow for the development of a new personal storage facility on an industrial lot located at 3001 West Mission Road in the industrial zone. The project site is located at the northwest corner of Mission Road and Westminster Avenue. The site and the surrounding areas to the north, east, and west are developed with various industrial uses, including manufacturing, warehousing, and repairing from jumping services. There's also some commercial retail and restaurant uses nearby. And then the site is separated from nearby residential neighborhoods to the south by both fishing road and an active railroad that runs through the district. The proposed project is a new four-story self-storage facility. A management office and a community creative space will be located on the ground floor along West Mission Road. The project does require approval of an additional use permit and development agreement for the personal storage use, an administrative review for the construction of the new facility, and a modification for deviation from certain abilities and standards. The existing one-story manufacturing and warehouse building was originally built back in the 40s and has been primarily used for warehousing and wholesale businesses, but that building would be demolished to make way for the proposed personal storage facility. Back in October 2024, the comprehensive zoning code update went into effect statewide, and that included new regulations and requirements specific to personal storage uses. And the enactment of these new regulations lifted the temporary moratorium on personal storage uses that had been in place since July 2023. And those new zoning regulations included a requirement for new self-storage facilities to obtain a conditional use permit and enter into a development agreement with the city to guarantee that community benefits would be provided. And so this project proposal before you today was submitted in December of 24, and it's the first self-storage project to be reviewed under the new regulations. So this is just a brief overview of the site plan. In addition to the new building, several site and streetscape improvements are being proposed. The new surface parking lot and driveway will wrap around the interior side and rear of the proposed building. The self-storage customers will access the storage unit front side entrance adjacent to the parking lot. New landscaping will be installed throughout the entire property and parking lot and in the adjacent public parkways along Mission and Westminster. That includes 24 trees on site and then four street trees in the parkway along Mission. In addition to all this, A new 2500 square foot outdoor community plaza will be located adjacent to the intersection, just outside to the public entrances to the community space and the management office. And so here you can see a view of the building as it would be seen from Mission Road, so it shows the main entrances to both the self-storage management office and the grading space. and then as well as the proposed outdoor community space at the corner. The modern design of the building features multiple wall-cladding materials, providing lists of stucco, decorative blocks, and glass and metal elements. The proposed colors and finishes offer a balanced design that's appropriate to its style and context in the industrial zone. And then this is a view of the building from Westminster. So you can see the continuation of the design around the building, which on this side will also include a large-scale mural on the upper stories of the building. And the design of the mural hasn't been finalized. It would be subject to design review or approval in the future. Due to the floor plan and just the nature of storage operations and other similar industrial uses, The Westminster Passage doesn't feature any ground floor openings except for one emergency address door, but it does provide additional articulation, changes in planes and materials, as well as trees, more landscaping, and trellises to create that visual interest of pedestrian level. And so this is just more information about the day-to-day operations of the self-storage use. The facility will be open every day with customer access from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. The customers wouldn't have access to the trash enclosure, so they wouldn't be committed to leave trash or bulky items behind on-site. And then staff will be on-site during their office hours that start at 9 p.m. And in addition to the security measures, shown here, there'll be several other security measures in place, some iron fencing, parking, and then, you know, like it shows here, lots of video monitoring and limited access to customers throughout the site. And so to go into a brief overview of the creative space, which is one of the community benefits that's being proposed for the project on the ground floor. The space will be managed and operated by a nonprofit organization, and it's really intended to serve as a cultural hub for arts-focused community events, averaging about one event per month. And the city will also have access to the space outside of the program to events on an estimated basis. The proposed creative space operations were developed in collaboration with art consultants and outreach to local creative stakeholders and the applicant team will be able to go into greater detail regarding the programming and operation of this space following this presentation. And so a quick overview of the entitlements that are being requested, as mentioned earlier. So an administrative review is required whenever a new structure is proposed to ensure compliance with zoning standards. And modifications are also being requested for relief from three of the standards found in the citywide building and site design standards chapter of the zoning code. So AMC chapter 2313 basically constitutes the city's objective design standards that apply to all proposed development in the city, regardless of use. And at the time the staff report was published, the applicant was originally requesting a leave from four of the standards. But after some further discussions with the applicant team, they agreed to update the floor plan to show that the proposed creative space will be in compliance with the minimum tenant space dimensions of the citywide design standards. which is really just that depth of the tenant space being expanded to meet the section of the code. So instead of the original floor, they're requesting three modifications. So to address this change in the request, staff is recommending that a condition of approval be added to read as follows. Here in red, at the time of plan check submittal, the plan should be revised to reflect compliance with the minimum tenant space depth requirement of AAC 23.15.020 . Both uninsured reviews and modifications are typically approved at the director level, but because they may be submitted in conjunction with other entitlements that have a higher review authority, all entitlements will be reviewed and decided on by the highest review authority. which in this case would be the City Council. And so with the new zoning regulations that are based on storage uses, conditional use permit and the development agreement are required for this type of use. Prior to the zoning code update, the code did still require CEP. But additional development standards specific to personal storage uses are also now required. So that includes the list here on the left of your screen. The locational requirements, development standards, compliance, solar power, landscaping. So the project is needing all of those specific personal storage standards. And then the other sort of new requirement for personal storage is the requirement to execute a development agreement with the city. So this is the first project that would be required to enter into this type of agreement. A development agreement for storage uses has to be made up of three main components. The first is a community benefits plan that specifies what the benefits are that are going to be provided. Those, in a code, they're broken up into five different categories. A project must provide at least three of those. And this particular project is providing four, which are listed here. Landscaping, open space, and urban furniture. That's all one category. And so they're providing all of those. Public art is another one. You saw where the proposal of a wall mural would be on the upper level of the Westminster facade. They're also proposing a community facility that's really going to be focused on arts programming, which is unique for the city, really. And then last is streetscape improvements. So that's part of the project. New sidewalks will be constructed along the property lines and new parkways as well. I don't believe either Westminster or Mission have parkways at this point, so that would be a new addition to that street state. And then the second component of the development agreement requires a project to identify the amount of funds that will be contributed by the project developer to the city's community benefits fund. So this is a fund that the city can use To fund offsite improvements throughout the city. So that would include open space enhancements, arts, public art, furniture, street stadium improvements. So this is separate from that community benefits plan. So the proposed contribution of this project is $400,000. And then the third component of the development agreement identifies any other site-specific terms and requirements related to the required ground floor use. So including minimum size and location requirements. And so the creative space that is fulfilling this requirement is in compliance with those design standards. And the development agreement goes into greater detail about the operational and programmatic details of the space. So overall, the proposed use is a relatively low impact use compared to other industrial and commercial uses in the area. The project has met all development standards that are specific to personal storage uses, as well as all citywide standards, except for those three for which modification is being requested and for which findings can be made. The new zoning requirements created specifically for personal storage uses and showed that the project would provide several near-term and long-term benefits to the community, including improving aesthetics in the neighborhood with landscaping and pedestrian-friendly fridges, and introducing new creative uses in a largely industrial part of the city that could catalyze the development of similar art-related community-focused uses in the future. Therefore, staff recommends approval of this project. The applicant team is present to extend on some of the details of the project and to answer any questions. This concludes the presentation. Thank you. Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

We don't have an official presentation, but we have slides that are in the city official packet that we can actually speak of when we do have comments. Shall we go ahead, Bill?

That'd be great.

Actually, in this speak, sorry. In the speaker card, we do have an ARC consultant who wishes to speak first. If you don't mind, it's in French. And after that, Mr. O'Donnell is speaking last, just to clarify some of the provisions of the DA.

Great. Let's start then with technical questions from staff, and we'll come back to that. I'm sorry, from the commissioners. Do any commissioners have any? Yes. Commissioner Mahan.

Yeah, I thought you just specified with those three other modifications from client standards or from the posting by the court. Oh, shoot.

Maybe what the Senate report.

Yeah. So the first one has to do with ground floor entrance requirements. The code specifies that there should be a minimum of one entrance per every 50 feet of building frontage with a maximum separation of 100 feet between entrances. So as mentioned earlier in the presentation, the Westminster facade will not be able to meet this requirement. The second request was to a facade articulation requirement. It states that all buildings with three or more stories and over 50 feet wide shall provide a massing break with a minimum width of 20 feet and a minimum depth of five feet for every 50 feet of facade length. There are some massing breaks On the buildings, they vary in size, but some of them are run ATP wide instead of the 20 and then just under four feet in depth instead of the five. There are some that vary a little more or a little less than that. The third modification being requested is the building transparency slash required openings requirement. So, exterior walls facing and within 30 feet of a front or street sidewalk lines, in this case, along Mission and along Westminster, or along a public sidewalk, shall include windows, doors, or other openings for at least 50% of the building wall area located between two and a half and seven feet above the level of the sidewalk. That's a little technical, but, you know, having to have those windows and doors, again, similar to the modification number one, just based on the operation of personal storage. This is not something that's typically found along the side of the building where it doesn't have any access.

Thank you. Another question. The creative space that's being set aside in the project, do we have maximum occupancy in it?

A maximum of that would be determined by the little fireplace.

Okay. Has there been any allocation of the parking as far as the use of the grid space?

No, there hasn't. It's an accessory use sort of to the primary use. So the parking was determined based on the floor area of all the building. So it was included in the floor area calculation of the parking requirement, just based on the floor area, not the use.

Any other questions? Yes.

Yes. Regarding the monitor, will that be real-time, immediate, actionable monitoring? Good. I'm seeing a nod back here. Please.

Just in terms of the actual security? Yes. I'm talking about security. Yes. It will be 24 hours.

24 hours, real-time. So if there's an event that's happening, there will be monitoring? Yes. the developers on that board?

Yes, actually, this is Lenore French, who's our art resource, more specifically, but we do have a position for the city staff, as well as the development entity on the board, in addition to various artists in the local community. So we structured it so it would be diverse, but also representative of all the vested interests, including the developers. Okay, who will be chairing that? The nonprofit will be kind of formulated, but obviously it will be formed by bylaws, appropriate bylaws. Right, so will the developer be the chair? No, he will not be the chair. It will be the art consultant or the art stakeholder.

Excellent. One last question, and this is really not a technical question, but perhaps during the presentation of the slides you can answer this. What is the marketing that's gone on or the market analysis that indicates that this is really a viable project? It's not up to us to decide or determine the economics of the project. But I think there's been some informal analysis that indicates there's a lot of excess capacity with storage facilities in Alhambra. I'm just wondering what the impetus is and the driver is for this or current need. And then you can-

So on the issue of industry and storage demand, if I could have Mr. Ryan Miranda, who's actually the developer, and he can speak to industry. And then if you have further questions on the viability of the creative space, which is also a valid question, Ms. Lin-Yu Le-French can answer that later in the presentation.

Here you go. Thank you.

Bye. Yep. Absolutely.

Well, Ms. Lin-Yu Le-French, thank you for your answers. Appreciate it. A couple of questions. So on the monitoring for the cameras, just to elaborate on that, they're AI-enabled. There's a call center that's always watching them. The camera sees a swirl, doesn't do anything. It's a person jumping on the wall. It's immediately given to the first monitor, what we call the police. So that's helpful. Yeah, absolutely. And then from really a market state perspective, not to get too esoteric on the supply and demand metrics, but with the five miles outside of the city of Alhambra, the 10 miles outside the city of Alhambra, self-storage is actually severely underserved, which is why there's some demand from storage developers to bring storage to the area, as well as all the awesome things that are happening in the city with the densification housing. When there's a new five-story apartment project, that's what doesn't come with that. No storage. You don't want to lease another bedroom in order to keep your holiday goods your hobbies or whatever else it is. The advent of working from home, the advent of people working out at home, all the things that are people doing in their homes more multipurpose than probably ever at this point. And none of those things are accommodated. They are not thought through in new multifamily homes. And so the other thing that storage does is it's really the flex. If you're a retailer and you want to have a small pop-up, you don't have to have another 5,000 square feet to store your inventory in the back. You can store it in a storage facility. If you are selling products at Amazon, you're a last mile supplier, you can have inventory at self-storage. So businesses use self-storage a great deal, and it increases over time. Actually, the adoption of self-storage nationally continues to go up as well. because people are figuring out it's a way less expensive alternative than renting another vegetable, or renting more store food. And so ultimately, from a supply and demand perspective, it's severely underserved. Right now, you see some, anecdotally, you see some availability, because you have extra space to just read it, you know, tore down their single story, long mission, and they built a multi-story. But really, other than that, it's pretty well occupied. Maybe it's just that or it's a lease-up.

But Pasadena has about three, maybe four storage units, or I should say Alhambra has about one per square mile for the city, one storage unit. That seems like fairly dense relative to other cities. So just wondering how Alhambra was chosen and why it's sort of been a market research. why Alhambra would be such a concentration of the dynamics you were just describing?

Well, compared to other cities, it's not. It's actually less concentrated. One of the other things, Alhambra, a lot of their historic uses for single-story drive-up, which when you serve the demand with less density, you need more land area to service the demand. That's why building a four-story, concentrating in one location,

Any questions for clarification from staff?

Yes. Yes. I know there's many issues, you know, statewide. However, looking at the traffic report as well, or the analysis, My understanding is that there are fire loading spaces. It's eight, or maybe this is per city. But I saw three, I believe, only in the drawings. Can we just get more information? And I say loading if we're talking about 146,000 area owned storage. And also what I recall is about three, four more or less visitors on rush hour or peak hour in the evenings. I think parking could be an issue and, you know, support to your clients could be a concern or you could parallel that with a creative space as well.

Okay. I think by Miranda, maybe if you want to come up and speak to the loading zone and then I can speak a bit about the creative space and.

Especially walking back and forth. The from a parking perspective, I can I can tell you that. I actually ran development for public storage, the big three, for nine years on the West Coast. And there's ample heart in here based on the peak demands. The traffic studies are always a little bit more conservative in their numbers. The number of parking stalls here will be more than adequate for the storage facility. And actually, most of the time, they wouldn't be used. And they'll be available for previous use. I think that I've seen, for example, about 170,000 square foot facility interoperability stalls. Public storage monitored that for a year, and there were never more than 10 of them taken up at any one time. Because people don't spend a lot of time in the self-storage facility. They go in, they grab their stuff, they get out of there. No one wants to spend, you know, hang out at the self-storage facility. So they get their stuff and they go. And the peak times are generally on weekends as well. Some people have free time to go to facilities. So I actually don't really envision the parking to be too much of a challenge. And ultimately... If it were, the only route that is harmed by not having a park would be us. Because no one's going to walk down the street with their couch or their TV to go, you know what I mean? They're not going to park down the street. They're just not going to patronize our facility. They'll just go somewhere else. So I'm confident that the numbers are okay.

And since you're here, could you, I mean, with the analysis, just going back to that question from Commissioner Dorado, In your experience, how many square feet do you assign normally for, you know, I know for calculations throughout storage facilities, there's a type of assignation, like, you know, let's say a hammer has about 80,000, you know, habitants. What is it, you know, a number or eight square feet per person or

Yeah, absolutely. Good question. The equilibrium is somewhere around 10 to 12 feet. It just depends on the market dynamics. Some markets use storage more than others. Some demographics use storage more than others. So it's just really variance. But I would say generally the equilibrium is 10 to 12 square feet per capita. So that's for every person, the newborn infant. All the way on up. So Alhambra, the city of Alhambra, I think 4.8, something like that. If you take a radius around the location, again, it's the mid to high fours. If you go five miles outside of it, it's mid to high fours. No matter how you slice it, the overall area is just, I think, because there's been new storage development recently, People almost see it differently. It's like you want that car and all of a sudden you see that car and you're interested everywhere you go, right? I think storage has sort of done that a little bit because most people didn't really pay attention to it before. on to you after the meeting about what the industry average is or national average is versus what it is locally in different measurements.

Yeah, that would be great. Because I think in the community, there's a great concern about the number of units or facilities that are coming in and just doing a little bit of research as well based on numbers since we're above what these typical calculations. Yeah. Great.

If I could just add one thing. So what I was referring to earlier was Pasadena's 23 square miles. They only have 3.8 per square mile in storage. And Alhambra, where I don't know if I

allowed to do self-sourced development, I think, for about 20 plus years. So you won't see any facility in the city to pass data.

And so the notes that are being taken with respect to this meeting, it would be nice for the city council to kind of take note of that and maybe determine whether it's appropriate to declare it as a moratorium at some point. Thank you. Absolutely.

Any other questions from commissioners?

I think I have a follow-up question to Dr. Burns. I think it was about the parking, and I think you touched on it, where you said that the parking is here, correct? Yes. But it would be available during events, but the parking lot would be available to most people that would be using it? Yes. I'm not confirming, yes. Okay. It will be available. Okay, just a general question, because I understand that it is within a half-mile radius of maybe kind of the corridor, and we can't impose parking standards on it, but it would be nice if it did have allocated parking spaces for the Pink Center. The question I have was, Maybe for the architect. Is this tilt-up construction generally?

Tilt-up? I was asking the question. Sorry, was that? Is it tilt-up construction?

So you have more flexibility in tilt-up.

It's really just the construction means and methods. I can come back at it. It's really just construction means and methods. When you do a tilt-up construction building, You need more site area because you're going to have to pass the panels with slab. And you've got to be able to have a place for them to be lifted and picked. And then when you build a storage facility, it's almost like building Legos level by level. So you do the walls, and then you do the second floor deck, and you take the walls up to the second, and you build up as you're going as opposed to an until construction. You'd have to lay it all up and then start building the chair. So it's really just a means of somewhere else around the country where there's a lot less, a lot more land, a lot less dead sea, then yeah, a total construction work.

And above the office space and the creative space, what's on the floors above? There's a separate module, right?

Actually, I think those are proud of the building, I believe. Do you have the same plan, by chance? Those actually, those are proud of the building south of it. I don't think there's anything above them, right? Yeah. I just want to make sure I wasn't wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so it looks like there's a sense of storage about that.

No, no, the storage is not about it. They're standard. They're standard.

So there's no storage, though.

I don't think that's right. That doesn't look like it. It looks like there's storage. It does look like it, but then there is storage. But it's 5G.

This is a question for staff. When this item went before the DRB, did they have any specific comments or questions about the modifications being requested?

Not that I'm aware of.

Were there any conditions imposed on the design of the building that dealt with the modifications?

No.

with conditional disturbance and modification requests, is it the purview of the Planning Commission to impose conditions that would in fact limit design? Is that within the purview of the Commission?

Typically, design is handled by design review. However, in this particular instance, you wouldn't be imposing anything. You're just recommending. So it's ultimately the Council's purview. But if you have recommendations, that you wanted to pass along to the City Council regarding any prospect of fees and tolerance, you could do that.

And it was a DRP's advisory review, right? Perfect. Thank you.

Commissioner Gordy, I'm sorry, but I wanted to clarify Commissioner Mahal's question about the Westminster opening. One of the assets of self-storage in windows and openings along that ground floor is obviously just security issues. So that's part of that, as staff mentioned, resulted in our working with TRB and staff on articulation, but also the greening and the green wall and kind of enhanced landscaping on Westminster. So I just want to clarify that one modification has a little deviation slightly on the openings and transparencies related to the nature of self-storage and making sure that, you know, elements and self-storage units are obviously not visible and therefore causes some of the safety concerns in terms of ambulances.

Yeah, one more question for staff. What's the name of the façade along the Westminster?

It looks like it's about 250.

So we're essentially having a deviation from code five times, right?

Along with some students. Any other questions from the commissioners?

I have a quick question. uh was there any intent when you were negotiating this agreement that the city would have any input into a potential future retail tenant or is it just any tenant that is potentially willing to sign at least out of the integrated space sure repeat that question um is it the intent that the city would have any input TAB, Mark McIntyre, into a future retail tenant or is any tenant you know I guess it's looking at all points and it's so that you know this provision in the in the middle of the agreement.

TAB, I mean it's it's possibly designed for it could be a retail space in the future, but like with any retail tenant space the same time we did take it back to which goes in there.

Okay. So basically, if there's an LOI signed even prior to opening the space, then this would trigger the sentence in the development room. I guess that would be, is that the intent of the way this is drafted?

Which part of the document will do the setting?

Section 27152, you heard me open it, it's only a sentence.

What page is it on?

I mean, because the way I'm reading it,

It just took me a second to scroll to the page, but based off of the plain language of the development agreement or draft development agreement, it does not give the city the ability to sort of block or prevent any particular kind other than adult oriented businesses as is written to be. So that's a comment again that the Planning Commission has that can be passed along to the City Council.

I would just add that I think the intent is to ensure that the space is utilized and it doesn't sit empty and it offers the flexibility to have the space used for creative purposes.

Commissioners just an applicant perspective that is you i'm sorry the previous staff who commented, that was the intent of that provisions to make sure that. If there was a viable retail tenant who alternatively can actively that space versus kind of the creative nonprofit with the city on the board, as well as a little on the board. if they, for some reason, we don't think it's going to happen because there's a lot of demand and interest that you'll hear from this, you know, French, but for some reason, if there's not viable and ongoing interest, you will create a creative community to use this space for free and it remains vacant, which we don't think, as I said, is the reality because you've already gotten tons of interested parties to use it, that the secondary division will then allow a retail tenant to then come into that space, thus making sure that that space is pretty much activated, ongoing, and it's not going to be sitting empty. That was really the answer.

Okay, I appreciate that further, and that's what I figured. I'm just reading the sentence, you know, the planning building and the agreement, and if I were to ask myself, potentially allow you to sign an OI with an EPS store before the space even opens and that you're free of your obligations under the credit space on $150,000. That's just the way I would do the sentence. But if there's some draft verification I missed, then I'm happy to go to drop it. But that's just the way I read it. I'm just like to offer that for stuff. Yeah.

And I think once you hear from this range, you'll see the actual demand and the outreach we've done with our community. And the reason why we're creating this nonprofit, um, formal board is to make sure that the creative space and the programming actually is by a goal and it continues in perpetuity. Um, it was really never meant to be primarily kind of a retail, interested, targeted space. That's really what created us, but I'm sure you will get more about them. Okay.

May I ask for that? So, so as I read this and thank you for putting that sentence up because I did not read that when I was really energized by was the thought that there is a commitment to 12. activations in the creative space non retail or where that nonprofit that's the goal and there's even some. I don't know if they're called penalties but encouragements to do that if it's that doesn't happen, I did not read that sentence so how that could be interpreted as. Oh, there's enough activity. There's enough interest that we can convert that to be consistent. It's a little bit disconcerting to me, though I would like to hear from instruction. Okay, so insurance is the best I'm going to have.

Yes. And while she speaks will also read, I believe there's also a provision that says the city has, if I'm not mistaken, the city also has

And that's my question for staff. In terms of what the agreement says on page, I think it's page five of 144. Yes. If the nonprofit fails to schedule a minimum 12 events, they'll be given 120 days to provide three events or the city will take over the space, or the city will impose a $500,000 penalty fee, or a retail tenant may take the space with no penalty.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So there are layers of provisions to, again, the intent is to create and make sure the creative art element is a perpetual and ongoing activated element.

I have questions for staff. One of the things that says, also on page five, that the city will have access to the creative space when other programming is not taking place. How and why would the city have access to the space? This is my question.

It would be an option for all the community needs, or on purpose, any outreach that's being done on city projects can be helped in. I see.

Thank you for that clarification. I think that's the extent of my questions. Yes, Mr. Watch.

Hi. In looking at the plans, a lot of the elements around security is not surveillance and lighting to keep the property safe, free from vandalism. But I'm wondering what the activation of the space, the increase in pedestrians, what are some of the You know, the questions are taking in order to keep people on the sidewalk safe visibility lighting those those things.

So the question I'm going to go ahead and do for her to hear the architect or by random in terms of actual aside in exterior lighting, as well as any kind of enhance money from the city. Yeah.

Yeah. On both the Westminster frontage and the Mission frontage, there are can lights. We have a minimum foot candle apartments around the perimeter from a safety perspective. As well, when we actually install a camera system, we probably have about 40 cameras from every angle driving onto the site. The one door along Mission is used for emergency access. It will be a little bit, it will have cameras to be a bit under watch. And then, you know, for Google Plaza, I think it's pretty, pretty awesome. The landscape department, I think it's going to be a catalyst.

As well, just, I mean, it's, it's great. And there's those warehouses surrounding the space. So just want to make sure that there's like visibility, utilizing the space and large vehicles. coming through are very clear that, you know, that of this area.

Yeah, I mean, to your point, you're suggesting if people are on the site enjoying it, patronizing one of the amazing art events, they could, you know, maybe have to watch out for traffic or something like that, or is it just night or all day long?

Yeah, that's one of the considerations.

Yeah, and that's going to be something that I think the Knobloch course would figure out how to best program that to keep people, because the space itself, it's going to be, I guess, 24 square feet. But even at 1,500 square feet, the out-of-the-closet subs are 2,500. So they combine those two. You have a lot of space that people can work in. And I think as the use of space evolves, people will figure out how best to program it and how to make it most functional and safe. I can't wait to figure out every credit detail about it. But of course, that's going to be a pretty important thing.

So 2,400 square feet instead of 1,500. Yes. Yes. Sorry. You just came to that agreement internally and advised staff this morning that we are going to increase the interior space from 1,540 to 1,450. And I'm going back to your comments on Christian harsh as we move forward on the actual progress of the project. Typically, I always engage the police department and the police. In this case, field officers and captains actually do perimeter walk with us. They'll lay out our designs, our camera placement. Sometimes we've known enhanced lighting. So we'll work closely with the police department. As we start looking at the building and as the building kind of forms and working with the non-profit board to make sure we're also taking some guidance and, you know, taking some lead and direction, you know, please comment on anything that you can see.

Thank you.

One last question that came to me. I'm wondering, as they went through the process for the design iterations, Sounds like there's going to be one more, at least.

A lot. And in fact, it was designed originally to be old code. And then once the new code was adopted, it was designed that way. There's a couple of tricky things within the code that make it tough to program. There's a requirement, like if you just look at the Westminster branch, it says you have to be within 20 feet of the public roadway, but yet you want this public activation closet as well. How do you do that? You can't do that, right? So that's why we popped the corner back. So we were able to meet the design guidelines on Westminster and on Mission, but then we created this sort of corner to feature closet that will help activate that creative space and be an amenity to it. me just trying to crack them up to try to figure out how to make it match the code was a trick unto itself.

And then a follow up to that, you frustrated me with the previous question. You found that there's sufficient demand to go ahead and maximize the FAR in this project as well? And how many other self-storage projects within the AI region do you have that require storage?

Gareth J. Then the other issue we had one among the six six six this one's for, by the way, for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for So, yeah, it's pretty fun. Once you go in the loading area, you need the elevator button. Whether you're going to two or you're going to five, it's the same concept. There's a study about that.

But, again, there's sufficient amount of gear to support.

Absolutely. And, as I mentioned before, if you're going to provide this as a community use, putting it all in one place, here, a two-story there, a two-story here, you're going to have to have 10 sites, not two sites. So yeah, I'm definitely confident. Thank you.

One more question. Well, yes. So it might not be related much to planning, but I'm interested to find out with the new changes in the code too, and how's it going with the sustainability and energy efficiency, particularly with these buildings that used to be or are, right, have mechanical units within.

I love that softball question. That's great. So we're going to have solar to power 150% of the building. Eventually, when battery technology gets strong enough, right, and stretch it to the ground peaks. All the lighting is LED lighting. We heat at 55 and cool at 85, so you're really not stressing the systems. Your lighting is on timers and motion sensors. So when you walk through, it triggers the entire road, not just the five feet by you, but the entire road so you feel safe. cameras obviously when you pass it as well. And then those lights stay on for a period of time. If they see more motion, they stay on. And so from a use, from an electricity demand perspective, your elevators are probably some of your biggest uses of electricity, but there's really not a really good way to make those two breathing. From a building materials perspective, I mean, it's called a great eviscerate. It's not... products that can't be recycled. Someday, if this is 50 years from now torn down for the 30-story skyscraper that's going to be in Alhambra at that point, then you'll be able to recycle the masonry and the other materials pretty easily as well. It's not a bunch of crazy amount of panels and things like that.

So you mentioned the solar and battery, so it's going to include the solar panel system, but not equipped with the battery storage yet?

We'll do the Title 24 required battery storage, which is minimal at this point. But when the battery technology gets to the right point, then you can... One of the things that I've heard is starting to happen is they take all these old car batteries, say Tesla's batteries, and they put them in sort of a mobile... You just find a place to the site where you can pop that and then all of a sudden you're out of technology. Those are the things that are going to be coming and they're going to be much more cost effective to stretch that electricity abilities.

Thank you for the explanation.

There's been some expressed concern that there wasn't sufficient notification. about this project and community meetings and such. Can you speak to that just from your perspective? How many meetings were held and what you got from folks attending?

Well, so in terms of the actual public hearing meeting, this is our first public hearing that we're having. And then the art elevation creative element was really the Factor a component, because it's so innovative as we were asked to do help each one, so the normal frontage when she comes to that is this will speak to the extensive outreach and she's done she called it walls, she actually did surveys and it was very extensive so she can definitely speak to that.

That's not exactly what I asked, but that's fine.

That's perhaps I can please add to that and then Sam. On the was notified of this project.

The standard public hearing notices?

And what does that entail? How far did the public hearing notices go? What distance from the proposed?

Yes, 300 feet of the property boundaries. And that's what's required? Yes. Right. We post on site as well in addition to the maintenance. and the newspaper and then we also post things.

I wanted to get some clarification on the community plaza. Now I understand the great space may be rented out. Will the community plaza section still be controlled by the non-profit even if the green space is leased?

So the And again, sorry, it speaks to part of Lenore's presentation. So the community plaza in the front is really meant to connect, to be catalytic and connect with the creative activation on the inside of the building. So some of the concepts that you'll see involve creative art users or programmatic users to do both indoor and outdoor connectivity. So if I was having a painting, kind of, you know, exhibit. I can also show outdoor in terms of iterative painting classes as well as doing it indoor. Or movie nights or film nights or a film festival if we wanted to show films in that kind of outdoor creative community plaza, we could do that. So it's not so much governed or, I mean, it's not managed entirely just by the creative nonprofit. It's really tailored for the nonprofit to make it available relative to whichever user is actually using both indoor and outdoor, if that makes sense. So the nonprofit doesn't get to say, we are only gonna allow this type of user or activity in the outdoor space, and you can only have the indoor space, if that makes sense. It's kind of, it's tied together.

Okay, so then whoever is least that would then have, I guess, control over the plaza?

It would have access for the use of that creative outdoor plaza if they wanted to use it as part of the local needs. Right, so if you're a part of the- Are they exclusively have to have use of that then? For that particular event. So if they wanted to do it for two days, And the nonprofit reviews their application. And it's obviously approved and vetted by the nonprofit, which again, the development city said on. Gareth J. For those two days, yes, they will be able to use the outdoor creases find that.

Gareth J. Okay, so, so you refer to the more temporary that said that are going on in the creative space and that they used to be with the Plaza. Gareth J. Yes, I might be something different when it's like if you have a full time 10 in the creative space in the indoor space, how does that affect the boss.

Okay, so Lenore is actually up here trying to explain the non-profit programming because it's really not intended. The creative space activity and programming is really meant to be rotational. That's part of kind of the vision of creating ongoing interest. So if you can allow me more, kind of a good segue for her to actually comment on the program, I think that'll answer some of your questions.

I think there's this understanding happening here. He's referring to if you lease to a retail tenant a creative space. Will they have... I'm misunderstanding you. Yes.

I know we're talking about the same creative space reserve. Actually, that's an interesting question. So I...

So I thought I was following what you were saying. So the reason that retail came up in the first place, this came up during the oratory sessions about trying to activate storage with the ground floor use. And so there was a big push to have retail be the activation for the ground floor storage facilities. Retail missions, a few streets down in Fremont, and then up and down and get up to Main Street. You know, the city got an idea of absolutely retail. It's not on mission down the corner. So one of the things that we were struggling with was the demand of the requirements that were being discussed is let's bring retail down. Retail's not going to make it down. So we wanted to create something that engaged the community and engaged the location that was going to succeed. In fact, to your point, we're going to sneak somebody in there and they're going to fail. And it, by the way, would have to be more than one of the 10. It would have to be actually assigned to someone who's going to occupy. Otherwise, we want this activation. This is a great thing for our site and the community. By the way, it's in the development agreement. It sticks, which goes untitled. It sticks with our property for good. It's not like we're going to sneak away. We sell this building to somebody else. They're bound by the same obligations. So I think back to the retail question, If there were ever successful retail here, I always envision that community plaza is the place where all the umbrellas and things are for your coffee shop or your restaurant or whatever. Do you actually think it's going to happen? I think the create space is a pretty awesome solution to activate, bring the city what their vision was when they asked for this, you know, in the new zoning code update, which was very, very thoughtful and very, HAB-Jacques Juilland, He or her great leadership as the Council of it, but we tell those conversations, but it is a requirement, and I think that, in fact, in fact that retail provisions of the da because the city's just.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay, so I mean yes. I think you're asking that question. So if it was a release, it's not, you're not seeing it slightly to be leased on time by any sort of retail estate. But if it was, that plaza can be used for an extension of that business.

Our vision of that plaza is it's an amenity to that creative space, that space. It's not a corner pocket park for people to go, you know, throw the football around. It's a programmed amenity for that space.

As far as I'm kind of shifting my question or your master my first question with respect to the plaza. You know our events improvements, I mean I I get that's the kind of vision there what sort of crowd are we are we looking at to be an option that we space.

He met some Lenore. So before we start, congratulations, Lenore. You're a wonderful person. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation before we continue with our questions. So please, go ahead. Yeah.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your being here and thinking about and caring about community because that is actually why I was brought in to the project. I have a, excuse me, my name is Lenore French, as you've heard many times. And I have a nonprofit, an arts nonprofit that I run myself that I founded in 2013. called Transformation Arts. And I have extensive experience working both with events and event planning. We ran for many years a very successful art book on the west side called the Mar Vista Art Book. And at its height, we had as many as 20,000 people coming to the event. It was run along a one mile stretch of Venice Boulevard from basically west of the 405 and the largest one would go from that to 405 all the way to Venice Boulevard. We had for that particular art block, we had, you know, buses, shuttle buses, shuttling people up and down the boulevard. So, you know, as to the parking, the idea of any kind of arts activation is to get people engaged and out of their cars and away from their handhelds for the children, of course, and engaged in an arts activity, which is a social activity. And there are, I was brought on this project about a year ago, I guess, and my expertise since we tabled that event, since we I'll put that again to rest, Marlisa Harbaugh, has been specifically in engaging communities to have arts activations, to beautify communities using the community itself to have its own voice and own say in the arts activation. So my entire focus is always on speaking to the community. You will see I brought a friend here. My friend Rick Ordonez, who lives a couple of blocks, actually, from this project, he has a wiki page if you care to look him up, Rick Ordonez. And he is also known, he's an artist, and he runs or manages the mural site in Boyle Heights, yes. And he is known also as Atlas and the kitty cat tagger. So kitty cats are his specialty. And he is, as I mentioned, a good example of what I try to do. He is not only local to, not only was he born in Alabama, but was he raised here? Did he go to Emory Park? His daughter is attending Emory Park. This is the kind of work that we do to ensure that the community is fully engaged in this process. Now, it is true we engage the arts community because this is a creative space. It's intended to be a multicultural, in other words, you know, a multidisciplinary opportunity for artists in the community to use the space in a place where they're just, I mean, I can, Rick will speak to it himself, but there's very little other arts activation happening in the community. There's, you know, one gallery, they specialize in anime and they are exclusive to the fine arts community, painting. And what we're proposing here is an opportunity for lots of different kinds of artists to get involved. The other arts expert that I engaged, who is also local, is Jason Hsu. You can check out his Instagram. He has many more than 100,000 followers. So not only, I guess, you know, the kids would refer to him as an influencer in addition to being And his Instagram is Jason shooting music. So to the point that we want to have musicians, dancers, all kinds of cultural workers engaged in this creative space. You know, Jason did a great deal of outreach, as has Rick on his own, to the arts community here, both in Alhambra and in SGV. So these are all artists who are local to the area, who all recognize that in a survey that we conducted of well over 60 local artists, all of whom have a reputation locally, we used a Google form to ask them whether or not they would be interested in having such a creative space, how they felt about it, was there a need for it, would they attend it, Would they bring their children? Would they ask their friends? Would they have other artists participate? And the answer to, I mean, I know that the data is included in the presentation, so you know what I'm talking about. Overwhelmingly, you know, in the 90 to 95% of the answer was yes. And so what we will do when we put this together, as you heard from the other participants, from the other members of the development team, the intention was always to activate the space as a creative space and to make it a community benefit. I have to say that I think it's a really creative use of a potential public-private partnership. What I do often involves grant funds or federal funds siphoned through the county. or cycling through a foundation or whatever have you, or the city of Los Angeles through the Department of Cultural Affairs. And the budgets are limited. And more importantly, there are so many restrictions on what can be done from an artist's point of view. So what ends up happening is that in order to satisfy those grant funds and to write your final report, you may or may not have been able to As a creative person, how can I put this? You may not have been able to install or to have come to fruition your original vision. What's wonderful about this situation is that because it's your private developer who is coming up with the space, and making funds available to fund a part-time position to maintain it. And with my assistance, having many years of running a nonprofit myself, understanding the legal ramifications and the requirements of keeping the IRS happy for your tax-exempt status under Section 501c3. that I will assist them and engage some of the same people with whom we sent our Google form and who responded and who said, yes, we really would like to see this happen. That's who will then become the basis of the actual board. We'll take about however long it takes to put the building up. to work with the skeleton board to put together the bylaws and to work with us as a member of the city will be, of the city government will be on the board as well, that we will be able to put together something that is workable for the community based on listening, based on actually hearing what the community wants to have in this space. So I hope I have done as much as I can to allay all of the concerns that you have. The intent is to make this work. I have a lot of experience doing this, and I've already engaged members of the arts community who are gung-ho to see it happen. So I really hope that you will take that into consideration as you think about your approval of the project. Thank you. Do you have any questions for me?

Yes, Mr. Rahm.

I do. I'm interested in this idea of creating something like a marvelous art block. You know, that does seem like a desirable thing. One of the things, I'm correct or wrong, I don't think I've been to a specific art block, but you have different components going on where you have different art stations, you have vendors, you have retail, you have maybe push those streets to kind of allow people to walk closely.

Are you selling yourself for membership?

I like the idea, but my concern is like, is that really going to do it? Is that really going to create the space that you want? I think there really was a push for creating an art scene or an art section. I imagine, you know, the fog should be a large percentage of space being donated to that.

Thank you for asking that. And I did not mean to imply that a marvellous art block was suitable for this particular space, just that I had the experience of running a very large event as well as very small ones. We also had a community art gallery on Venice Boulevard at the corner of Beethoven. And, you know, so in small intimate events at a gallery or that would be indoor, outdoor, or perhaps we talked about having a small, say, a short film festival there. But that was one of the thoughts that several of the artists with whom we spoke during the outreach period are filmmakers themselves. And we talked about having a short film festival there. the outdoor space could be used to sell popcorn, for example. It doesn't have to be. I mean, we can think of the space in the most creative way. And that's what I meant to imply when I was talking about it being a benefit, or we're blended in with a private sector instead of with a public sector, because you do have the flexibility to be creative in situations like that. So the outdoor space, it doesn't have to just be for exhibition. It would be, as I said, That could be where your popcorn vendor is in the event of a film festival. It could be where your author is for a book signing, sitting out there signing books after their talk on the inside, you know, as the books are being sold. You have to really be able to think of the space and that's honestly what a good nonprofit will do. They'll be able to assist people who will come to them from the community and say, we'd like to use the space, we'd like to rent it for this purpose. And they will be able to say, yeah, we think that purpose is an excellent use of the space for community. And work with them to come up with the best way to use the space that maximizes its potential for outreach and for activating the community itself in that area. There's not much happening there now. And Rick, as I mentioned, lives just a couple of blocks away. So you can see that it would be a wonderful, wonderful thing to be able to get the community out and walk in the neighborhood.

So your thought is kind of some space for art is better than no art, essentially.

Well, in an environment where the arts are defunded nationally, yes, I do feel that art is a very, very important component of the development of a child's mind. There are all kinds of studies that demonstrate the benefits that art provides for a community. It makes people happy. And art is wonderful in the mind of just about everybody. It doesn't matter where you fall in the political divide. It just is a benefit to a community.

In your experience, what sort of events do you picture happening there? Like how many people ideally space travel?

Well, I do see them being relatively small in the sense that it has to be, you know, within capacity, within the fire code, et cetera, et cetera. But I do see that the flexibility of the space is the beauty of having it both indoor and outdoor. Yes. And I think that as we move through the process, we're just at this point, you know, trying to get approval for the project. As we move along, absolutely, we will begin to finalize things and figure out exactly what kinds of what kinds of events can fit in there. We thought about book signings, art exhibitions, film dance, dance classes, yoga classes.

Yeah, so the concern, I guess, is that there's not a specific plan on how that's going to be happening or how this may happen. You know, there's, I guess, less of a that, you know, the ideal program you're speaking of is actually going to happen. We are in a very busy corner right there on Michigan. I mean, you want to have art for kids, you know, you don't want kids running around screaming about a problem you shouldn't, you know. Like, what sort of space are we going to create to actually make that usable and make that a place where people can gather for it, as opposed to just a totally guest church project?

I'm not sure that I... have communicated clearly enough that the intent here is to speak with the community and to work with the community. The 501c3, the purpose of the 501c3 is to establish, is to be established as a board to be able to be, yes, some members of the board may want to produce their own programming, but there may also be members of the community who will come to the board and then ask the board, say, we would like to put on an event ourselves. So in other words, it's available to the community as well as providing its own events. Does that make sense to you?

It seems like you're going to have to figure that out as you go. A little bit.

Well, yes. I mean, that's the way that the arts work. Okay.

Okay, I mean this, I love your ideas. I just like to see how this is really going to be executed. That's where I'm at. I guess the disconnect is right now, but I do appreciate you speaking on this. All right.

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that the non-topic creation is to actually go through and flush out some of the fundamental logistics and operation. And I also wanted to clarify, kind of answer a question on the question of catalytic activation. I know the staff really talked about it. I myself had been a land use consultant for over 30 plus years. I worked extensively for the mayor's office in the 1990s when LA was really hit hard after the signal unrest and the earthquakes. And one of the things that I worked on throughout my years in terms of working with developers is this type of catalytic activation. You know, Arts District in downtown, when I first started working on that with some local tenants 1,500 years ago, was not what it is today. And it started with one or two anchor tenants. And now, I'm sure you see downtown LA, Arts District is the so-called private club. I, myself, am bringing in one of the highest luxury spots from Barcelona, Spain, coming in. I mean, It really starts with one how the activation. I'm not saying we should will always going to turn into have a mega art long but It is very underwhelmingly activated in terms of pedestrian. There is no street activation with any retail or our tenants or anything other than kind of empty and or I have close off industrial. So other than vehicular traffic, we don't have any of that. So we're hoping this, the reason why it's rotational, the reason why we can't sometimes answer specific questions about like what specific kind of events is because we want to make this non-profit, pretty much listen to the community, start programming these events, and then make it rotational so it starts to invite various interested stakeholders through social, through Instagram, through their experiences. And we're hoping mission kind of starts to establish its own brain. And we're hoping that in the future will then attract the coffee shop or the pastry shop or who knows, maybe in the future, right? Maybe a residential developer, but it has to start with some kind of activation. Melrose Hill is another example in LA. If you guys Google Melrose Hill, another client of mine, Five, 10 years ago, it was all empty detail, like North of Koreatown. I had one developer, sorry, one developer owned it. We bought one museum tenant gallery, tenant Davis Warner Gallery. If you Google it, it's one of the most notable independent galleries in the world. That one tenant has now spiraled in creating an actual area that everyone goes to now, and it's called Melrose Hill. Never existed five, six years ago. So we're just offering this as a community benefit. Yes, it's part of the storage project, but it's largely because of the vision. We work with staff over a year and a half now, and we really look at the surveys that we did and talk to these artists. And this is our vision in the community benefit. DA, which is part of your new ordinance, to really activate mission the way I think we envision it and the way the city hopefully envisions it. I would also maybe love to have Mr. Organes, who's actually a resident in Alhambra and also an artist, if he could speak on his experience and also his thoughts on the potential benefits of the art activation, that would be wonderful. Sure. And that will complete your presentation? Yes.

Unless you guys have me here. My name is Frank Bardonias, resident here for 48 years. I had a business on Main Street from 2004 to 2008. And I had a skateboard shop there. And I've done a lot of... work with like after school programs. I don't know if you guys remember Arnold Schwarzenegger was tied up in California. He had a thing called Arnold's All Stars. And I helped spearhead a lot of those schools. Get the kids the, let's say, after school programs where the kids, after they go to their homework, they can choose what they want to learn, whether it's DJ, skateboarding, art. I think these type of programs are important because I feel like, not that 100 doesn't have a symbol like that, but I guess just kind of recapping on Nucleus Gallery on Main Street. They have a niche and they kind of cater toward art. But these type of, I guess what we're trying to aim for on these, like a non-profit type scenario that we're aiming for, I think these kind of have an, oh, there's an unspoken, area where it's kind of, I don't want to call it a gray area, but as artists, we call it a trust in the process, which is we put all our eggs in one basket, right? I had chosen this life for myself and my friends and family, my daughter, who also was following in my footsteps. And with her crowd and the new generation, I noticed there's like a, there's something missing there. It's not the same from when I grew up here in Alabama. Things are done here very differently. when I'm used to. But being at Emory Park and her being there also, I feel like that their access to these type of programs aren't really at reach for them. I noticed that the Sky Zone, right, the street a little bit, and she had a, when that opened, she had a, a membership there but now it's just kind of leaning toward that's for little kids they're not sparking the interest of her junior high friends which has been next step to all those high school kids and they're more like uh really in tune with social media um and i guess um i don't know how to explain i'm sorry for my i don't know if what i'm trying to express you know what i mean but i feel like if i came up here and maybe show support and took time and have you guys listened to me for a few minutes and i don't know kind of uh how can i put this into words um may um the outreach for kids that are coming out in the area. And really, Mission Road is kind of, there's not really a whole lot going on down there. I drive up and down to avoid the Fremont Valley traffic scenarios, get to my home. I'm closer to Poplar. And I don't know, I just feel like that area could really use some help. I mean, I think we've got a lot of us to benefit from it. Not just the ones that are going to use the creative space. That creative space, I mean, they... It's, I know like the way that this works, everybody wants to have a plan and go towards that plan. But I feel like there's a big area where creative people meet and things happen that is a plan. Stuff sparks from being around creative people. Creative people amongst each other create new trends, create new things, new stuff for kids to be doing or close to each to get my daughter over from the cell phone but more she can get out there and sweat and scrape her knee and get in there and create with her hands and just be more involved being a child you know what I mean like her classroom she's on her laptop and I feel like that's just I don't know to me that's just And I hope not that that has anything to do with the space, but I feel like this could just be more and more out there for them to come out and do more.

Thank you. Which I know I said is the last one, but I want to click on the community benefit on the VA. So the overall community benefit fund amount is $400,000. But in addition to that, we're actually also adding $150,000 for an interest-bearing account to hold that fund. And that will perpetually fund for the operational staff for the nonprofit for the ongoing risk program. Just wanted to clarify. I understand. Thank you.

Sorry, I have just one quick question. Yes. It's about the rental office. In your rental office, do you typically sell like packing, moving supplies, stuff like that?

technically, but nobody would advise it. I mean, I don't think it will be offered. There will be the ability to, but it's not a big... Well, I mean, in this instance, is the plan to do that later? The operator will have something there, but it's... Gareth J. Maybe a wall explains that TV with a couple of boxes to wrap but otherwise the the the office space actually pretty small it's just enough for a few kiosks for customers to come in suddenly so we're going to do it pretty small.

Gareth J. yeah. Gareth J. And stuff that's something that we permitted, based on where we're in today.

Gareth J. Yes, it. Gareth J. When the compromise zoning code and update manager back a few years ago in company. general plan amendment. The goal for the industrial zone was to allow a greater mix of uses because previously it was pretty limited to just industrial uses. I think even restaurants needed the conditional use permit in these zones and it was preventing a greater mix of uses that would support both the existing industrial development and future development as well. um this is the zoning has been um updated to accommodate retail uses um now restaurant uses and um you didn't consist on the same purpose okay yes uh first of all thank you for the presentation of this session i can see the questions from the audience

I can also see that your job is public storage, not running a non-profit. And now I'm trying to say tonight's meeting is about opening up another gallery or museum at a point of mission. So I want to make sure that I'm doing all this and that this is a storage space. facilities. And of course, you know, yes, heard of, you may have heard concerning from the community about the scale of the project, the size of the projects, the height, the block wall, blind wall, you know, you ask for some variance on how to articulate the elevation, you know, and I do want to encourage you to take that as an advantage to but the other cross-street Western District has your campus and really, you know, increase the opportunity with a number of, you know, park, new home, or things that are just like mainstream. Seriously, doing mainstream in trees, it was great, but, you know, it's quite not as effective as it really should. if there's an opportunity to work with the artists and really put a focus on especially that corner where the people would see into a giant or maybe from the outside, it just looked like a giant canvas with a lot of inspiration, imagery and stories and whatnot. That I'll leave it to you guys to design. Of course, I know there's some,

Thank you, Michelle. And we will be working diligently with the city staff and the muralists and the nonprofit as we create the murals. And we will definitely work to enhance the mural and aesthetics on that list and suicide wall. In terms of the actual mission, most of the ground floor mission is going to be glass. Most of it's transparency we try to activate. But wherever we can try to enhance the murals and still meet some of our landscaping requirements, we'll definitely re-look at that to try to enhance Westminster and that world facade working with the staff and the muralists.

Thanks for your input. Right now, just looking at the mass and the elevation, I think there's something there, but it might not be enough to really open up the building, especially when we talk about activation of the public space and how it really improves old and creative city. So that would be my one comment. And my second comment, and also my last comment, and, you know, I think a lot of commissioners have mentioned about the safety on Westminster, and I can foresee when you have this activation programming being successful, people will be parking on the street more than parking blocks itself, meaning that, you know, along the street, I think we are more than just like a minimum 1 to 10 just to that point because you have something for them to see. Agree? Yeah. Agree, Mr. Adelson.

Mr. Rehanna? Just about the comments on Westminster. You know, the creative part is great, and I think we saw some initial views, right? By any chance, do you have the full view of that elevation? I think it was a parking lot. You mentioned that you have it there. Or you have additional ones. Okay. Yes. So, yeah, it's going to be, if everybody sees that. In this corner, you can see the human scale there. So just imagine the proportion of the building. And I think what we're using with, you know, that facade articulation, I think that's a little bit, I'm not sure what else can be done. Just highlighting that one could be even more playful with the landscape too. And the other thing that you can, Commissioner Mujarrab comments. I know what maybe he was going to understand more of the functionality of the space. Questions that come to my mind is how public might access restrooms, perhaps. Do they have to go around the facility? Are they going to be, you know, where are those located for public use in case, you know, that particular space is going to be serving the number of public to Uh, you know, we want everybody to be successful in this fly. So, uh, it's good to plan and just, uh, make sure that, um, things are going to be providing the servings that is needed. You know, in regards to functionality as well, that comes to my mind, storage for this, that creative space, if there's events, they need a small space for food or, you know, just sanitizing things or. I'm not sure exactly why. I think, you know, there was a little bit of a discussion here, but, you know, if it's going to happen, you know, how we make it successful as well.

That's a point. I think once the nonprofit is set up and we can actually start talking to some of these events, we're going to search for better understanding of some of their storage needs. And I'm sure the nonprofit can help. Because the developers will have a seat in the nonprofit. So I'm sure we can talk to the nonprofit and the event organizers about some storage for their event, for the actual event. And just so we know, I think Lenore said rent. This space is free as part of our community benefits. So we are not going to be charging rent. We're also going to be covering all of the fundamental, obviously, custodial, restrooms, all of the kind of space fundamentals.

Just one more thing to add. There are restaurants that are in the retail space. In the creative space, there are restaurants.

They're like 120 or 150 feet away from the facility.

No, no, no. In the creative space itself, there will be restaurants built out.

Within the 55-30, restaurants will be there. 60 by 40.

Yeah, 60 by 40. It was a medicine, yeah.

Okay. We're about three minutes. on the team that would help design the space. And the second part is for the portion of the program that's a temperature controlled space, does that separate the Northern module? How is that anticipated?

So the creative space, I'm just saying the creative space will have its own supply. The self-storage facility will have package units that have zones. So you'll have pods of them on the roof that are screened, and they will feed a certain section of the first floor, a certain section of the second floor, and so on and so forth.

But is there a separate temperature control units?

There's different stats throughout the facility that would control that system.

So what I'm asking is, do you have a separate space that is refrigerated, say, for wine storage or something specific like that? So it's all, because I was looking at that modular module, it looks like it's separate from the rest of it, except there's a . That's great.

From admission, it slopes up as you go to Westminster. So we're actually stepping the slab on the first floor. Second, third, fourth, they're going to stay the same. But the first floor is set, and that's what you're seeing.

Yeah, so that's kind of what I was looking at, is that more of a piece to see if there's a way to kind of differentiate that module. It's already in sub-3. So that's where some people are.

That's all. Yeah, my last question is going to be on tagging along with the landscape architecture. How mature will the trees be?

The new boxes that are planted, aren't they 36-inch boxes?

Yeah, I think the landscape plans.

Yeah, there is a landscape plan in the attachments. You know, I don't think, I think they're 36-inch boxes. They're 4-inch, 24. Yeah, they're all 34-inch boxes.

Thank you.

All right. Oh, they're all. If we're finished with our questions, then I will now open the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Is there anyone who is pre-registered to provide public comment? Yes.

We have the . OK.

And are there any written comments that have been submitted to the city? We have one that is on our desk. Yes, Carp, that's the only one that was received over the weekend and it was provided to us. We now have speaker votes. So I'll go through the candidates. Our first up speaker is Lois McCallum.

a few things to pass out enough for one for everybody

Every park and so forth.

You've submitted written comments back in May 30th when the state was first scheduled. I had given some very detailed considerations, some parts they lied, some parts they didn't, and so forth. One of the things I want you to look at tonight is, if you kind of go back, it was mentioned here by the developer that for 30 years, Pasadena has prohibited some sorts of wine. Well, why was the moratorium Put it in place. And what I had before you here is a section of the urgency ordinance passed unanimously by our city council back on July 24, 2023. And on that, it... In Section 1 of the Erdstuart and Strid, the City Council finds and determines as follows, and there are a number of sections. In Section B, it said, although conditionally permitted in the IPD zone, the focus of that zone is not primarily for Self-storage facilities usually have a limited aesthetic appeal, employ very few individuals you saw, but they're savvy with maybe one to two people, not gonna be a lot of employment there. They are not pedestrian oriented, and they do not encourage flexibility of use in building and site design to accommodate range of uses and business sizes. They generate limited tax revenue. I don't think there's any sales tax on the rental of the storage spaces themselves. It's not like a U-Haul facility that sells lots of boxes as the store has noted. They may sell a few boxes to people if they need to, but it's not going to be a major thing. So there's not going to be a lot of sales tax collected. They will get a bit of property tax revenue, but most of that goes to other entities that come to the city. And thus, they do not enhance the city's industrial areas to attract jobs and expand the city's tax costs, as contemplated by the most recent update in the city's general plan. Once established, such facilities usually remain in place This moratorium has now been lifted. They did make some changes to some of the code. And I credit the developer here with trying to comply with those new parts of the zoning code and so forth, addressing these performance areas and things like that. And it's not quite to the point I remember Many years ago, 55 years ago, being with Mother Art, which was a group of young women artists. And at the state arts, people just raved about what they did, putting on performances in laundromats and stuff like that. Well, they're all in their 80s now, I'm getting to. I... We wish them well if we do this. I did get in the stuff I sent out on this, giving some of the information about this, what was in the agenda and so forth. I did get a note back from one member of the city council of District 2. Hello, Mr. McKendon. Hope you've been well. As always, I appreciate your time to send this over. Very important topic. Might be time to revisit this in more detail. This will be the seventh storage area in the city. Why have other cities said, you know, we need to be moving in a different direction? Now, hundreds of dollars a month. There's a lot of money to be made on, so I can see why they're doing it. But, well, my five minutes are up. And I wish you the best on this in looking at it. I think, like the member of the city council said, yeah, we probably need to revisit this. This is better than it was. But how many of these do we need?

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Brian Moran. Then we have Tina Joy. Oh, yes. And Rick Ordonez, and you spoke English. And Laura French. I spoke English. OK. Then let's see. Is there anyone else wishing to provide public comments? Anyone wishing to address the commission may fill out the blue speaker card and step to the podium. And if you are on Zoom, you may raise your hand using the raise hands feature on Zoom. If you have called into the meeting, please dial star nine on your phone's dial pad, raise your hand, and star six to unmute yourself. If you could also state your name for the record, it would be appreciated. You will have five minutes. Do we have anyone online wishing to provide public comments?

Yes, we have two raised hands on Zoom. The first speaker will be Melissa Michelson.

Melissa?

Yes, can you hear me?

We can.

All right, great. Thank you very much. This presentation has just brought up a lot of questions, lots of vague promises. This community space is obviously an afterthought. I live in Emory Park. I've lived there for 18 years. There's nothing to walk to. We're in the middle of an industrial zone, and we're not going to be walking to this. We're not going to be biking to this. Have you driven on the street before? going into the neighborhood. The closest house is about five blocks, four blocks away. No matter how long you make that building and how expect people to park there, it's just not an accessible, safely accessible space from and to the actual neighborhood that's there. We've seen this before. Developers make promises, like the Chinatown Service Center promised a cafe in the front on Main Street, but there's no cafe there. They changed their mind. With all the wishy-washy possibilities presented here, how exactly are we supposed to quote trust in the process, as one of the speakers said? They said they're offering storage for soon to be built condos that those may or may not materialize with this economy. This project is from two years ago. This is a much different landscape than the same, but the same old project. We're just gonna keep zooming right past this building in cars and we're not even gonna appreciate the mural. I don't think, the community is not gonna be excited for a mural. They didn't reach out. The developers didn't reach out to Emory Park. We had that letter sitting there since May 30th. There's been no community outreach. There's been no meetings. There's been no survey. The closest house, if you're doing the radius survey, To send a public notice is a couple blocks away. So exactly how many houses did they notify? The little wooden sign sitting that's super small at the corner, that's not good enough. The city should... go above and beyond and let the neighbors know about this and have an actual community meeting. This is not a space for Emory Park community to walk to. The limited parking spots say they don't really intend to use the space for the community. The space is too small. How many people can actually fit in a 1500 square foot space? That's not enough. We also have concerns about the employment, the lack of employment here. And this is just a temporary space to store stuff, and every six months the rent will go up. The question about, the very good question about the viable need for this project, there's already a four-story storage facility one block away with 1,500 empty units. four stories, and it hasn't even opened yet. I mean, I think we could do better than this. If they really wanted to create a community benefit, there would be a large performance area, just like the Emory Park Community Group letter that I submitted on behalf of the Emory Park Community Group. We don't have confidence that they will be working with the community because they didn't address our concerns, not one single concern since the May 30th letter in this project development. So can we not do better than this, please? I urge you all to vote no on this project and have them hold community meetings and really get input from the community about what we would like to see there, not just storage. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa.

We have another caller on Zoom. Yes, our next speaker is Rita Ledesma.

Good evening. can you hear me. Thank you. I share some of the concerns that were articulated by Melissa. I think the whole issue speaks to a much broader and larger problem within the whole city planning process building massive storage spaces in a community that needs jobs, affordable housing, green space, opportunities for the community to come together is does not meet any community need that I can think of. And it's not even like very creative planning processes or thinking about changing urban environments. And when you think about storage facilities, who is the population that makes the highest use of a storage facility? Is it folks with incomes that are over 200,000 a year? Or is it people, folks who are on the margins and trying to manage? And as Melissa pointed out, storage spaces don't say, welcome, come to us. You have stuff, store it here. It'll be safe. It'll be protected. It'll be when you need it. It'll be here when you want to move it. It'll be here and it'll be safe. And what most people know, but because they need the storage space in that moment, maybe they're having to downsize. Maybe their rent changed. There's innumerable processes. Maybe they're remodeling their house and rebuilding a brand new house. There's innumerable reasons why people might make use of it. But is there not a better use for our planning process to think about building and construction and infrastructure development that serves the needs of this community? Which comes back to the point with regard to how do you actually really get in touch with folks in the community at the ground level? That process is wanting. If I walked up and down my street and asked him about it, most folks would, their response would be, oh no, not another one. And I didn't know. So we need to do something much better with regard to with regard to communication. I also think that fundamentally that whole issue, when I saw the 400,000, I mean, I've been an administrator and 400,000 is really not a lot of money to do very much. The aspirations to create a cultural hub, to fund a nonprofit, to work with them closely, to blah, blah, blah, is the 400,000 a one-time payment? or contribution, or is it an annual budget that will be tagged to inflation? That's profoundly important. The second issue with regard to the cultural hub is, What are the logistics of building something there in that kind of space? What's the plan for that? How are customers of the storage facility going to integrate with folks going into the cultural hub to enjoy an art show or an event space? And in discussion of the event space, I actually looked it up while the meeting was going on. 1500 square feet can accommodate 100 to 187 people for a cocktail party, 90 to 125 for theater-sized seating, and 75 to 100 for a seated dinner. I don't know about you, but You know, when I'm having a big event, especially if I want to raise some money or I want to showcase something, you need more space than that. So that's kind of like that's kind of silly. And You know, I think, again, it underscores, you know, and what about this mythical nonprofit? Is somebody already lined up? What's the process? Is there going to be a bidding process? Who's going to manage that bid process? What are going to be the requirements? What are the insurance requirements for the organizations? What are going to be the deliverables that the organization is going to provide for this cultural space? I'm all for more spaces for the community to gather. But if you don't have a coherent and well thought out plan that can be executed and that anticipates some problems, as well as some potential solutions to those problems, the planning is faulty. And I think this is an extraordinarily faulty plan, despite the protestations on the presentation of the development side. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Do we have another speaker? No more raised hands. No more raised hands. Okay. Then I will now post the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Does staff want to respond to or comment on any public testimony or comment to me? Okay. Commissioners, do you have any questions or requests for clarification from staff?

I do. With respect to issue CEPs and guidelines and as far as what I suppose issue CEP, one of those factors is it's being in light of the purpose of the priorities on their all right so with this industrial level and um this is concerned about just locking up uh a large portion of storage uh if part of the purpose of industrial area is to generate jobs is to create you know pedestrian spaces is to generate more economic activity um you know, storage by itself doesn't really seem to fit that or work with that. And I know there's this intent to try to create some space, but we don't have a patent. I mean, I'm more kind of speaking rather than asking the question, but if the commission finds that this does not fit the general purpose of the industrial zone, that is the reason to deny CEP, right?

It could be, but personal storage is classified as a type of industrial use in the zone, so it is appropriate that the industrial museum.

But isn't it also true that you have to make findings, and those findings is that it's in line with the general body, the policy objectives of the general body, particularly the plan of settlement?

Which this type of use is in line with then?

Well, that's debatable. I mean, it does support, there's a lot of reasons that are provided that show support for the goals, but in general, the bigger, broader overall goal is to provide economic opportunities, to provide jobs, and I think that this use fails in this respect. I think that's critical. And it's common, right?

Sure. As I mentioned earlier, when the comprehensive zoning code was in process, a new standards for specific uses section was created specifically for personal use, personal storage uses in order to provide additional community benefits as requested by both this body and the city council. And so that was reviewed extensively a few years ago. This, again, this is the first project to go through this process. So they are complying with those additional standards, those additional requirements. So then, and this was a zone that was identified for this use to be appropriate with these additional standards for specific uses. So as currently the zoning is written, this proposed project is in compliance with all those standards.

Except that it's asking for modifications.

It's asking for minor modifications to the building design. So the code also incorporates the option for projects to request modifications, especially for use because the citywide standards, again, apply from everything from single-family homes to multi-family development, big box for detail, to warehousing. So that's why there is an option for modification depending on the use and the operations of that use.

I have a follow-up question. With respect to, I know this is the first project, so this is defining it as we go, but with respect to the required community benefit, how much of a benefit is required? required to have community benefit, like what is the measure? We're talking about 148,000 square feet of solar space here. What would a commensurate community benefit be in that situation?

That's subject to negotiation through the development agreement. There are certain categories and types of community benefits that have this standing sort of menu of options, but it is negotiated between the parties.

Commissioners, any other questions or requests for clarification from staff? Or comments for further discussion?

When it comes to the findings for granting the exceptions or the modifications, do you know what those findings are? specifically with data with site constraints with you're talking more about unusual lock configurations or topography that could constrain the site or some other And I'm just wondering if there's similar types of considerations when we look at aggregate exceptions.

Typically physical constraints are considered more of a variance process. So that's kind of the difference between variance and modification. Modifications in this case pertain more to the operations of the proposed use. So similar to any other warehousing or storage facility, not personal storage, but more industrial storage areas, the operations typically result in buildings that don't have a lot of openings for security reasons as the applicant outlined. So this falls more under those operational variations rather than physical.

design from the inside out without consideration for what the unit wants.

So in this case, they still have to meet the intent of the design standards, which is variation of materials, articulated facades, which they are providing, just not to the exact 20 feet versus 18 feet. They're asking for modifications, just again, sort of based on how the floor plan and the use is proposed.

So again, it was designing from the inside out, rather than looking for the outside in.

And then that's when they come up with proposals that are part of the new intent, not just desire to deletion or landscape any of that sort of thing.

So that's the process for any modification, is how do you then come up with alternatives to what the vote requires.

And remind me, how many times did the design and view board see this? Once.

Any other comments for further discussion? Commissioners? Just share something.

I know, you know, the public storage is not the most popular of topics. I'll find none. None of the area is a good area where people can just walk there and do something on their own. However, I also have to understand that, you know, looking at the location right now where it's situated in the industrial area, and if we're right there, and, you know, what's out there right now, you know, I think someone had a point on that, yes, it's really far from a residential area. called industrial areas. The, you know, personally, I think this project is viable. It's, you know, they created this developer agreement. I just don't know if we as a funding commission have the privilege to negotiate or put stuff on the table. to make it work. And to me, the benefit of the whole entire community and not to any specific community, but to everyone, I think, I encourage to work hard to make it work, to find a common ground, to negotiation, to compromise. And more important is, yes, maybe that little space is not enough to benefit the community, but I'm sure a developer like you guys You know, you have a resource that can bring you more value through this project or through this discussion and engagement that you know how much the city cares about that through your facilities or your other, you know, perhaps community engagement in the future and really bring in some funding or our program school program or something like that, so I will encourage everyone to work hard to make it work, rather than just say hey this is not a good site for me, I don't like it and we'll get about a new one that's my comments, you can share i'd like to know.

With all due respect to to commercial hope on. you know, to kind of leave it to the developer, to establish that community benefit, I would think was the intent of putting forth the requirement of having to develop an agreement, having this department and so forth for creating a community benefit. I'm saying, oh, we can just trust them. You know, I don't think that that's what, you know, was placed in the department. I don't think that's you know, really, you know, because it's been passed about, I mean, with respect to community benefit, I mean, there is, I think the new ordinance, the new code is put in place specifically to demand as much of a benefit as we can with these developments because storage units are impossible, because they don't generate tax revenue, because they don't generate jobs. Okay, so we're locking up space for an area that's not going to do much for the community. There's got to be a good benefit for company value.

I'm trying not to get into the debate. But I think we need to make it clear when I say, you know, the goal stations, I'm not saying that leading to a developer to provide whatever it is. And I'm sure it's sometimes been working with this developer on a lot of similar topics up until this point that we have everything to do. So, you know, some will, That's one way to look at it. Another thing that I want to point out is you don't feel like there's a need for solar space. But I do see that people need the solar space, right? And you can say it's not a opinion, but not a demand. If there's no demand, why people would put on millions of dollars to build the dollar? Is it the best site for this? Please tell me. encourage them to come and invest in this particular corner. Then perhaps, you know, they can just sell the money to the basic dollar and then have, you know, everything that everyone wants built there. Reality is not bad. So my point is just look at what we have right now. We can use all power that we have to negotiate. You know, if you want to negotiate on, oh, I don't want to have four story. I want to have three and a half. Right, bring it up, whether it makes sense or not, let the professional to decide. But in these days, I think, you know, I do see some amendments. Is it, you know, a win-win? Depends. You know, I see that, okay, there's still room to improve, but not to a point that say, hey, you know, because you say so, it's something I don't see that way.

Okay. Just, just to be clear, no one says that there's no need for storage. I mean, you got four stories. If, um, If they decided to, you know, devote the whole entire first floor to community space and retail and an actual arts community, they still have three other stories of storage that are there. I would just like, if you're going to make a genuine effort to create art, create space, create a place for the community to gather, then do that. And have a plan for it. Rather than just make a total gesture and say, trust us.

Any other comments from commissioners?

I just, you know, the back and forth. I do think there's a middle ground, but... Generally speaking, with the agreement with Commissioner O'Connor and that when the ordinance is put in place, the City Council may envision that some storage places wouldn't be developed to this scale and that there would be other uses to activate the ground floor. I think that probably is the case, but this is what we have before us. So I think that there's still, I would suggest that the developer take a look at this one more time and see if there's a way to develop the site, modulate the different components of the building so that it complies more with the intent of the overall guidelines and come back with that. I think that's the middle ground. I'm not saying develop the whole first floor with, you know, split space would be ideal if they could do that. But I'm sure they're not industrial developers. We've heard that before. They do public storage. That's what they do. But I tend to agree that just developing the facade of the front portion of it with this minimal amount of space to provide the code just simply doesn't feel like it's enough. So I'm going to be a no-brainer.

Can I ask what findings specifically are needed to make?

I think the finding that it's in line with the general plan, and I don't think we can make that finding, it does say that goal is to enhance the industrial areas to attract jobs and expand the tax base. And it doesn't do that.

That's your recording from the general finding? Yes. HAB-Masyn Moyer- We have a discussion or.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I mean, again, just kind of repeating earlier self storage is classified as a type of industrial use so we find that it's appropriate in the industrial zone.

So staff looks through the vision offering to provide, to point you towards and policies that are listed throughout the general plan and various elements that we feel align with the project. But if you refer to the actual land use element in its description of industrial uses, it simply says this land use designation accommodates self-storage facilities for most other uses. So a point taken to Commissioner Vice President Bergega goals, goals, objectives, policies, those are subjective things. So we can certainly disagree as to whether or not this project aligns with those goals or policies, but they did want to clarify that in the land use designation description for the industrial land use in general plan, it does specifically call out some search facilities password uses.

Conditional use, correct?

Correct.

No, the general plan isn't identified for the uses, condition, or limit. It just lists the general land uses. So there's the general plan land use designation, which is industrial. And amongst the land uses within the industrial land use designation, one of those identifies as self-service facilities. And the zoning code, which implements the general plan land use designation, the industrial zone,

We will not buy a breakfast. Right.

All right. Unless there's more discussion, any commissioners, would you make any more points before I close the public hearing?

Commissioner Howe. I do hear the demand of having a bigger, better community space to say, I think there's some things back to the developers that you have on this side of the table to say, hey, as a part of the negotiation, we want to have a better space, better stop, you know, to do that, or somehow find a way to generate sales tax using that stage. So they are going to want to own an artist and pay the sales tax to some gay family. Is that something that you would consider looking at and doing? vision on how the common space is so important to the project.

Thank you, Commissioner. I think, well, first, I mean, there's a lot of excitement and momentum on the creative art space and activation space, so I think that's very encouraging for us to hear. We did take A first look at increasing that community space on the original 15 really to 2400 certified. In addition to the outdoor space, which is 2500 some total right about a little shed 5000 sort of your activation space. I will defer to my client in terms of a potential nuance for us to review. Sorry, I pushed the memory. I will, I just deferred with my client in terms of the continuance for the commission meeting for us to deliberate on possible relook at even additional score footage. But I think Commissioner Vargas or Vice Chair like Bardia said at the last, it is not feasible for the project to dedicate the entire first floor for a dedicated or free space for creative art activation. It's just not, it's not viable for us to be moving forward on the project. And keep in mind, we've been working on this project in Goat's Bay for a close to a year and a half now. So I just want to make sure that they're realistic expectations when we come back. In addition to the Vice Chair's comments on generating economic value and job creation, if that is a parameter that will be held to us, even if we come back to the Commission, that is also something that we simply cannot meet. It's not realistic for us to come back. And I'm just being honest because this has been a very collaborative experience with your staff in the city. We are not able to come back here and say we're going to create 100 jobs. So if that's the parameter that we're going to be engaged on the next time we come back, then I fear that that's not going to be a productive discussion. I will be remiss to say, you know, we have always said this is not just a smoke and mirror vacant concept. We are very dedicated to make this creative space work. We do believe it's catalytic. We do believe it's an area of mission street that really needs activation of some kind. And next meeting, we'll be more prepared to share with you some of the more definitive concepts and program ideas. But because we have not created the nonprofit yet, we can't give you specific actual events that are being planned, just because we haven't formulated the nonprofit, right? You've heard a lot from the artists about this being a iterative process, right? It's iterative meaning we need the nonprofit to form to actually get events or organizations actually interested as they converse and as they reach out to the organizations. We set it up that way because we didn't want the developer to assume and commit to utilize specific events during these meetings without really creating this nonprofit to do the outreach. So I know it's coming across to definitely some of the commissioners as us not being sincere about executing it. But because we are so sincere, that's why we're creating this nonprofit to actually do the appropriate outreach and identify specific actual events. But for the next meeting, we will actually come back with some more substantive examples of what types of events we've been looking at. And I think that'll be helpful for the Commission to hear. So for the next meeting, if the Commission is open, We would like a continuous, we will definitely take into consideration many comments, including the potential expansion of the creative space, definitely some of the landscaping, definitely some of the mural enhancements, Commissioner Hotez mentioned, but I also wanted to be clear on the record of some of the restrictions we have in terms of some of the requests, for example, of creating the entire first floor as a food community space, and of course, you know, some of the infeasible goals that we were not going to be able to meet in terms of, you know, immense job creation and immense tax revenue. Commissioner, you mentioned potentially sales tax generation for selling art, et cetera. We envision this community creative arts space for the space to be free for the organizations to actually benefit from selling either their art or, you know, performance. So, We are not set up to try to capture those sales taxes that are tied to actually our event space or our obligation as a developer. So I understand that we're trying to figure out a way to make this a sales tax generating retail, some kind of a store or, you know, um, money making sales tax generator, but the whole concept of the nonprofit and giving this space away. is to provide those opportunities for the actual event and community organization that chooses to use that space. So that's also an expectation that I think we're not going to be able to fulfill, only because it goes against the actual intent of creating free space to benefit the actual community organization . So I just want to make sure that we clarify some of those restrictions that we to respectfully ask for continuance so we can have some time to deliberate on some of the requests that we can maybe do. Extension of the creative space, enhancement of landscaping, and some of the other suggestions. And if we're able to do them, we certainly will review them and come back to you in the next year and hopefully bring some good updates for you.

Question?

Yes, Commissioner Quach.

Okay. I understand you were saying the nonprofit has been formed. Yes. The question about the sequence of events, like what is the triggering event in order to form that nonprofit or let's get more details around what the program looks like.

That's a really good question. So one of the, forming a nonprofit board, and I think one of the commissioners asked, what about the legal requirements? What about the insurance requirements? I'm speaking on behalf of Lenoir, but I do know a bit about it. It is very, very involved. It requires state legislation, it requires insurance requirements. There's a lot of process and scrutiny on how nonprofits are formed. So before we engage all these individuals, particularly artists, to serve on this nonprofit, on the bylaws, We all used to have to do, you know, legal and insurance. All that takes it on. It takes a lot of work. So the point at which the project, this project is approved, and that means the final city council action with the DA, right, the DA document, which is very important, by the way, because I first, and I forget which commissioner I asked, well, how do we know they're just not going to promise to never do it? The whole purpose of the DA being a legal requirement that's tied to our entitlements, right, are available from lies ultimately, and also being recorded on title, is to make sure we're locked to deliver all of the commitments that we said we would in the DA. That's why it's such a powerful tool for the city in your new ordinance to activate that DA as a document. So once that city council action, hopefully, is finalized to approve our project with all the TA stipulations, right? One of which is to do this creative art space and to create this nonprofit, right? That's gonna be memorialized. That then is the pre-mite for the individuals, for Lenore and the nonprofit vetting process, the state registration, process of federal non-profit rights, all of that then activates because then all the parties involved know that it is now an include project and all the DOC regulations, including the one that requires the formation of the creative space for the non-profit, all of that is now vested. So at that point, commissioning clause is when the non-profit and all of the structure of the non-profit starts to implement itself. But in the meantime, Lenore has already done a lot of diligence on how she wants to set it up.

Great. Thanks for that clarification. Just want to make sure that in this next meeting that there are additional details to address some of the concerns that are brought up.

Thank you. So, so it's funny that there to your vice president, uh, the issue of a hard book. Is what you're hearing enough for us to actually have another productive meeting where there could be some losses? Because I'm not interested in more. That's a hard no regardless. If there's things that you're hearing that are saying you're going to go back And these sound like things I might be able to support. Sorry, and if you want to tell me, hey, that's funny, Rizzo, that's funny.

No, it's not. No, there is a sincere gym and effort to really create the space as something that can work for the community. That is something that I'm looking to. The fact that there's limited space, the fact that you have a dangerous intersection where it's really not clear how that's going to be used for community space. you know, the concern about, at least for me, for marketing space, nothing but storage, which if it is a catalyst, as you say, it can be, that there'll be potential to actually, you know, grow out space or have further retail or further ways to kind of put additional businesses or additional community uses that actually do create that for a home. If there is that genuine plan, genuine effort, that is something that I'm so safer.

Okay, I just want to repeat what I heard. So I've heard events and security in the outdoor area. What is our plan for that? And we'll give you hopefully some information, but a lot of it depends on the actual events that are going to be planned. And some of these events may come with their own followers or their own, you know, systems on how they want to kind of crowd control. I just want to be clear. We're not event organizers, right? We're not creating a performance center. So some of your questions really go to the actual organization and doing the event, right? Meaning they may have their own security protocols. They may have ideas on how they actually conduct their actual event. So to the best of our ability, we'll come with some examples. Maybe Lenore has some with some of the events organizers that she's working on. What are your proper security procedures, right? If you're going into a children's art class, what are your proper procedures that you're going to submit to the nonprofit board, right? What are they? But just so we're clear, and I appreciate Commissioner Dorado's comments, we're not doing this to be, you know, the, you know, comments and event performance center. So, We're not going to have like logistical, right, kind of security on different prototypes of events that may happen. You're saying that I get that. I get that.

No, I'd like to know that the infrastructure was there to have that, to have safety, to have to make it conducive to that.

Okay. Okay. So we'll come up with some ideas that we know have been instituted with events in terms of outdoor spaces, you know, what are the methodologies that have been used, whether it's fallers, whether it's k-rails, and we'll kind of come up dating, maybe security points, we'll come up with some ideas that we've seen. Your second question on flex conversion of space, I think that's what you're asking, you know, kind of, and again, full disclosure, and I appreciate Commissioner Dorado's statement, if the expectation is the entire first floor, the majority of it is going to be for community event and center, that's not feasible. It's just not.

And to be fair, that was an exaggerated comment. Okay, okay.

But your other question was conversion, right? So is there a concept of starting with the community use, right? And I think I understand your point. What if the community use, whatever that expansion area is, if we come back to you guys, not going to do a whole first floor, but whatever that is, What if it really does pick up in interest? Is there room, right, to kind of convert any of the interior areas? That's a bit more challenging, right? Because that kind of speaks to, for those of you guys, I mean, you know, you guys obviously deal with developers all the time. It is a pro forma, right? It's a project that actually has funding and locked-in deliverables and performance. So for us to... come back to you and say, well, we can kind of change out that use, like ongoing with the project, that might be very difficult to you, right? For funding, perform a projection rationale to say, well, we have this much storage, but in two years that might all be taken up, you know, another 4,000 square feet might be taken up for like a more creative space or we can convert it into retail. That changes the funding paradigm and the funding analysis for whether it's our project or residential project, it changes that pro forma. So that flex use and adaptation and increasing or changing score for your data as we move forward, that might be pretty infeasible. But again, I can have more updates for you on the next few.

Yeah, that would be good to know more about that specifically. Can I just add? I'm clear that what I'm hearing I would love to have three examples of three kinds of activities and what exactly that looks like, both in terms of the, I'm a process person, so it's really helpful to know, well, here's what this would look like, and here's the likely configuration for security for whatever. I'm not sure if that's helpful, but if you had three examples, one of them's a film screening, one of them's a fill in the blank, that would be really helpful for me to be able to visualize what that would look like in a practical way.

No problem. And then, sorry, going back to your other point, on the point of Vice Chair's comments on economic, you know, vitality, and I know Vice Chair, you're kind of nodding when I kind of repeat that, but some of those requirements were just obviously not going to be able to fulfill them. So if, you know, I just want to make sure that I addressed your comments, Commissioner Dorado, that we're happy to come back with some of these requests and feasible adjustments that we can definitely do, examples of events, et cetera. But I just wanted to make clear that economic modeling and the job creation, and we're just not able to feasibly meet that expectation.

I'm still there with the 100%. Is that all? But what I would be interested in, and it's kind of tying back to what Mr. Mahara has mentioned, is that I would really like to give the flex space that wrapped around the corner to allow you to have that ability to have both ways to look at the space from the Westminster side and also from the additional side and have that corner activated. That would be ideal. PB, Peter Vitale he or he. : And to have a whole portion of the project be dedicated to the workspace and take your office space and put it at the back, because the office spaces are really going to generate. PB, Peter Vitale he or he. : A whole lot of pedestrian activity or in the House, I would put that on the Westminster side and again with that more portion of the building it's not a different grade, you know it's not to the construction there's. That, I think, would do it for me. There's other things that you could do by exposing some of the interior kind of requirements, like asking the staircases or something, just to create some visual permeability into the site. I think that would go a long ways towards fulfilling that same intent. But I'm not thinking doing the whole entire first floor. I'm just looking at some gestures.

A service group. All right. Yes, Commissioner.

I'm just going back to my first question tonight and along with Commissioner O'Hara's questions about security. Yes, important to have security in place for events. But for my first question, I was thinking about the actual infrastructure and the comment from the Alhambra resident in Emory Park calling in earlier, we want to make sure that the infrastructure is there to support even a family coming in from Emory Park neighborhood walking down to the park. Like what is going to make them feel safe walking along Westminster or coming from the other side of the resident walking down mission to get to this space, not just for events, but just along those two stretches. that the development is going to take up. So we'd love to know beyond, you know, for event security, just making sure that the right infrastructure in place for like the daily security of pedestrians, if we're going to really have to do that.

Yeah. Right. If we are then done, I will close the public hearing and entertain any motion on the proposed resolution. I have a motion.

We'll need a specific date to move it to our future accounting commission. So that might actually be a question for the applicant. How long do you think you're going to need to be able to prepare all this stuff?

I think we need at least a month and a half or so because we've got to obviously to your We need to obviously reach out to some of the organizers and get some details. So we need to get some diligence online today.

If we're at a month and a half, I would suggest the October, Monday, October victory. The next one will be October 18th.

Thank you.

Thank you. So we have a motion to continue this until October 19th by Commissioner Dorado.

Was it Commissioner Hull or not? But Commissioner Dorado seconds that.

All right, we have a motion from Commissioner Hull and a second from Commissioner Dorado. May we have a roll call, please? Dorado? Yes.

Rehalva? Yes. Bo? Yes. Or is yes, tomorrow. Yes, coach. Yes, I did.

Yes, and I do appreciate all the hard work that they have looking seems to this to this point.

Yes. Commissioner Olson says yes. All right, Jim. Thank you. Hello. Time for oral communications, I guess. Citizens wishing to address the commission on any matter within the subject matter. Do we have any speaker cards? All right. Anyone online wishing to address the commission on AIDS and asthma?

We have one raised hand on Zoom. Melissa Michelson.

Melissa, go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, you can. Okay, thank you. I know the topic has been closed, but I don't really know a way to get in touch with the applicant there for the storage facility. The question was asked and I'm not an expert personally on how to make something walkable from the from the neighborhood but the whole side of the street the west side and the east side are just not walkable or bikeable for that matter um that street might need to be repaved there's train tracks i don't know but i would i i think that if they took a look from um where the neighborhood begins, going over to that facility, I think they could be more creative in making a way that it could actually be a safe, walkable area, not just where the building begins. But that's about it. I do appreciate their, their, their willingness to be more open minded for the community space. And that's it. And I also want to thank the Planning Commission for having an engaging discussion and thinking about Alhambra's future and providing for the community that's already here. Thank you.

Great. Do we have any more questions?

HAB-Masyn Moyer- No other reasons. All right.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I think it's time now to continue to general comments from the planning commission and conference meeting reports when the commissioners have any comments or instance. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Right, and we'll continue to comments from Sam. Is there a report from the director of community development. We have no items. We have not now completed all the items on this evening's agenda. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Alderman Planning Commission will be held on Tuesday, September 8th at the 17th. Pardon me? Yes. We are adjourned.