Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I would like to call to order the 03/11/2026 meeting of the Manhattan Beach Planning Commission.

For

participants of the meeting on Zoom, including applicants and members of the public, we will mute your microphone until we call on you to speak. We are speaking when we are speaking, please silence any audio on your device to avoid feedback. Furthermore, since not all participants are attending via video, please always announce your name prior to speaking so that the audio participants can follow who is speaking. Commissioner Sistos, would you like to lead us in the pledge of allegiance?

Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The

United States Of America and

to the republic, the courtship

Thank you. Can we have roll call, please?

Yes, we can. Commissioner Tokashiki?

Here.

Commissioner Sistos? Here. Vice chair Ngoko? Here. Chair Hackett? Here. Thank you.

Next is the approval of the agenda for today's meeting. This is the time for the planning commission to notify the public of any changes to the agenda. Commissioners, are there any questions?

No.

Is there a motion to approve?

I move that we approve the agenda.

I have a motion from vice chair Ngoko.

I'll second.

And a second from commissioner Sistos. Can we please have a vote? Commissioner Takashiki?

Aye.

Commissioner Sistos? Aye. Vice Chair Ingoko? Aye. Chair Hackett? Aye. Motion passes, four zero.

Great. Now is the time for public comments. Members of the public may speak on any item within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Planning Commission that is not on the agenda. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. There will be a timer on the screen. If you would like to provide public comments from your seat, please inform the meeting clerk to raise and raise your hand. Staff will provide a handheld microphone to ensure your comments are heard. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Do we have any participants on Zoom?

No participants on Zoom have indicated they'd like to give comment at this time.

Okay. Thank you. Next is the approval of the minutes for the 02/25/2026 meeting. Commissioners, are there any comments or questions?

No. Questions? Nope. I would just like to direct residents to the recordings online to get more detailed information about what was discussed during the meetings since the meeting minutes don't provide a lot of detail.

Fantastic point. Thank you. Alright. Is there a motion to approve?

I'll make a motion to approve our minutes from our last regularly scheduled meeting.

I have a motion from commissioner Cistos. Do we

have a And

a second from commissioner Takashiki. Can we please have a vote? Vice chair Ingoko?

Abstain.

Commissioner Sistos?

Aye.

Commissioner Takashiki?

Aye.

Chair Hackett? Yes. Motion passes three one with abstain from vice chair Ngoko.

Great. We'll now move to general business. The next item is a project pulse study session on the redevelopment of the city owned properties located at 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, formerly the US Bank building and 1155 Morningside Drive Parking Lot 3. May we have a staff report?

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Hackett. Adam Feinstone, Planning Manager here. I'd like to introduce Associate Planner Tariq of English. She'll be presenting the staff report for this item. Thank you.

Good afternoon planning commissioners. My name is Tari Kuvingua and I am the project planner for the agenda item before you today. The focus of today's discussion is the future redevelopment of two city owned properties here in downtown, 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Parking Lot 3 which is also known as 1155 Morningside Drive. In case anyone wasn't able to attend the City Council meetings to date or any of the outreach activities conducted in the fall, we'll begin with some background information about the properties, a brief summary of the outreach done so far, and then we'll move into our discussion. We're here today because the city is planning to redevelop two of its properties here in downtown.

We'll sometimes refer to 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard as 400 MBB for brevity, and Parking Lot 3 as Lot 3 for the same reason. This effort is centered around a comprehensive public engagement program, where we are working with the community and City Council to identify the preferred uses for both properties. Project Pulse is the name for this community engagement envisioning process. On this map here you'll see both properties identified. In the top left more to the north, you'll see Lot 3 at the corner of Morningside Drive and 12th Street and it's a bit more tucked away.

While 4 100 is along Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Morningside Drive with Manhattan Beach Boulevard being a major thoroughfare. Both properties are across the street from Metlocks which is another city owned property. City Council was initially looking at only redeveloping Lot 3, but the unique opportunity to purchase 400 MBB last year now allows us to think more broadly about the future of downtown. For this reason we're no longer looking at Lot 3 by itself because there needs to be good synergy between both sites. The city has owned the Parking Lot 3 site for several decades, but as I mentioned we acquired 400 MBB last year.

It was a vacant commercial building with a surface parking lot and drive through ATM lanes. This acquisition was driven by several factors, some of which were its strategic location in downtown, the potential for community benefits, preservation of local character and long term value investment. Until the future use is identified, City Council approved some interim uses for the property. We're currently using it as overflow parking for the commercial parking permit holders and city staff were able to strike 26 spaces using the existing surface lot and the ATM lanes. And we also installed new bicycle racks along Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

Parking Lot 3 used to have a public parking structure that was built in the 1970s. It was three levels and it projected over the right of way on three sides along Center Place, Morningside and 12th Street. It provided 145 parking spaces and it was demolished in November 2024. City Council directed staff to construct an interim surface parking lot to offset the loss of parking temporarily that was completed in June and it provides 69 parking spaces. City staff also created 56 new temporary parking spaces around downtown.

So currently we've temporarily replaced 125 out of the 145 spaces that Lot 3 used to provide. So not only are the sites close to each other, they also share some similarities. Like the same zoning of downtown commercial, which was intended to provide a vibrant downtown with services and activities for residents and visitors. Some of those allowed uses include restaurants, retail, office, commercial parking and public facilities. They're also both in the coastal zone and as you can see here with this table, they're around the same size.

So for today's study session, we want to cover two topics. We'd like to discuss a preferred mix of uses for the property based Council direction, we're exploring a mix of commercial uses with some open space park or at both. And then we would also like to discuss the potential of parking components at both, which I will explain in more detail later in the presentation. So to give an overview of what this project pulse process and timeline looks like and where we currently are, this slide here is related to a presentation that staff gave to City Council about the bond financing for 400. And while this entire timeline doesn't apply to Lot 3, it does apply to the timeline to determine the future uses of both properties.

We're currently in the visioning phase that is highlighted here in orange that began in August and will run through July. And here we've shown an outline of the overall public engagement program that City Council approved. In the fall, we conducted several community outreach activities. One was a community opinion survey, which was by phone and reached about 600 residents. We also had a booth at the hometown fair and the farmers market.

We also conducted focus groups and we also had meetings with community partners. And we're currently implementing the winter phase where we provided an update to City Council in January and also it includes this planning commission study session that we're conducting today. When we look ahead to the spring season, we're going to be going into design workshops with the community and a design professional to work on conceptual ideas for both properties. And then in the summer, we will work on additional research and refining those conceptual plans with City Council and the community. And then by August City Council will make final decisions on future uses.

So after we held a study session with City Council in August and they refined the list of potential redevelopment options that we were going to seek community input on during the fall. So we've shown those original nine options, which were commercial development, cultural arts or community space, hotel, mixed use development, which we left open ended to mean any mix of uses for the property, where essentially the property would just have more than one function. Multi family residential, open space or park, a parking structure, which could be underground, above ground or a combination, social club and visitor center. So to summarize our fall outreach activities, we began with a booth at the hometown fair in October. We also had a booth at the farmers market in October, November and December.

And then here are some images of the activity we did at the booths, where essentially we had a background poster and then community members could vote on which options they liked for one or both properties. Everyone could put a sticker or they could use a post it if they had specific ideas. So for say mixed use development, if someone had in mind a specific mix of uses, they could write that and that would be counted as a yes. But they were giving us some context. And then the last poster shown here is where we provide an opportunity to suggest alternative options.

And then after another type of community outreach that we did was with community partners, one of which was the Downtown Business and Professional Association or the DBPA. We attended their November meeting and then we just like the booth activities, members were allowed to vote on which redevelopment options they liked. They could also vote for as many or as few as they wanted. So across all these activities people could say, oh I like three out of these nine options or I like all nine or they could say, I like you know this option for one but not for the other. And then we also met with the Chamber of Commerce and the North MB bid, they have a joint meeting so we joined their December meeting.

Due to time limitations we weren't able to have lengthy of a discussion but we did present project background, the timeline, review the current list of redevelopment options at the time and let them know that there would be future opportunities to engage through July. We also conducted focus groups, one of which was with downtown business and property owners and then we also held one with residents, which also included downtown residents and both of those were conducted in December. When we presented this outreach to City Council in January, we had a more detailed breakdown of the results of each outreach activity and then we also provided a summary of the overall outreach results across all activities to show which options were more popular or less popular for each property. A copy of that staff report is attached to this staff report for today's study session. So when we presented this outreach update to counsel in January, they narrowed down the list of redevelopment options.

Four of those options are no longer under consideration for either property, their hotel, multifamily residential, social club and visitor center. So based on that conversation in January and updated council direction, we were directed to continue exploring a project that had a mixed use development above ground. So that would be a mix of commercial uses including some retail with open space or park and then two levels of underground parking for Parking Lot 3. And for 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, we got similar but slightly different direction also to explore a mixed use development. So a mix of commercial uses including retail and open space to park and the potential for some limited on-site parking.

So that could be public parking or parking just for the commercial tenants or a combination. So as the redevelopment options are being discussed today, we wanted to share some general considerations that we've been discussing with City Council and with the community during this outreach process so far. One of them is a source of revenue generation, another is the Coastal Commission and alternative parking sites as it relates to replacing the parking loss from the demolition of Parking Lot 3. Essentially if we weren't to try to replace that full capacity that we had at Parking Lot 3 or through Parking Lot 3 And 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, we may need to consider looking at other locations in the vicinity of downtown to do that. And lastly, while the sites share similar characteristics, they also have some differences.

So for example, for Parking Lot 3, the primary frontage is on Morningside Drive and as I mentioned before, it's a bit more tucked away and the neighboring uses are commercial. But for 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, it's along a major thoroughfare Manhattan Beach Boulevard and the neighboring uses are a combination of residential and commercial. So for today's meeting we used a combination of methods to inform the public about this study session. We sent an email notification to interested parties. We mailed postcards within a 300 foot radius of both properties, we also did a newspaper ad and we also posted on the city's social media.

So to summarize the questions that we'd like to get input on from the Planning Commission and community today is a preferred mix of commercial uses for Parking Lot 3. I listed some examples but essentially any commercial use that's allowed in the downtown commercial zone is possible for consideration. And then we have the same question for 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard. You may suggest a different combination of uses for each property, they don't have to be exactly the same. And then we wanted to discuss parking components at both.

As I mentioned, City Council asked us to explore two levels of underground public parking for Lot 3 and left open the possibility of some limited surface level parking at 400 In Palm Beach Boulevard that could be for public parking only, for the tenants only or a combination. And then before we transition into our discussion, I wanted to note that we have a dedicated project pulse website where we post regular updates including for upcoming meetings. We also have a link there where you can sign up for emails. But you know at any time during this process in between meetings, the community is welcome to reach out to the planning division with any questions. That concludes my presentation.

I and other city staff are available for any questions including our city traffic engineer. He's available until about 04:00. So if there are any questions about the ongoing parking study that is assessing downtown parking needs, he's available to answer questions about that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do any commissioners have any questions of staff at this time?

I have a question. If we have a question for the parking, is that Eric? Should we ask that now, or should we ask that later?

You can ask now.

So I was just curious, Eric. In your parking lot study, are you guys putting in, like, the cost of going underground? Is that part of your study?

Goody good afternoon. My name is Eric Zamblitzi, traffic engineer. Good question. With regard to the parking management study itself, costs are not included in that particular part of the study. The idea is to come up with strategies to pursue. One of the strategies is to add more public parking to the downtown and the North End, and there's a deficit of parking if you base it off of existing latent demand.

So I was just curious when the costing is gonna, you know, raise its head on that parking structure just because you're gonna if you wanna go underground, are you guys anticipating, like, groundwater problems there?

Groundwater is not generally a problem in downtown. We are way above the water table

Okay.

And the flow of water table going down to the ocean. But you can estimate somewhere on you can estimate parking spaces at about $50,000 per per parking space on the surface and 75 to $100,000 per parking space underground.

Okay. So so you're I I was just concerned that we're so close to the beach that the groundwater table

Yeah. No. Thankfully, we have good drainage, and so that that this is the high water table.

Great. Good to hear. Thank you.

I had one more question.

We have Oh.

Go ahead. I was just curious about in looking at trying to replace the number of spots that were lost with the original structure at Lot 3, were the public parking facilities like North and South Of 12th Street, was that part of the conversation in terms of redeveloping those for to increase capacity?

With regard North and South Of 12th Street, yeah.

Is that correct, 12th?

Are you talking about Lot 6 that's off of Highland Avenue?

It's off it's off of Highland Avenue. Enters on what what street is that?

Or is it the Metlocks parking structure? Or

No. I'm talking about closer to the beach where there there's a lot that's metered. It's behind the florist and then there's the spot where we said the hotel was going, right? There's a parking structure there?

Oh, Lot 1.

I'm afraid I don't know the numbers. That's Lot 2.

Off of 12th Street, both sides of the street, one has a one Correct. Level parking structure on Those were not considered as lots for additional parking at this time.

Okay. So it hasn't been considered that they'd be redeveloped to increase

No. Okay.

You.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Is that your question? Another question.

Oh. Thank you

for being here and standing here for us to continue to ask questions. So could you clarify I know there was one public comment made that said that there was already a deficit of 300 spaces after accounting for Lot 3. So could you just clarify sort of where we are parking on a broad level in downtown as far

as Yeah.

Was scrambling to go get those information that information to you. The in downtown do you have it back? Oh, there we go. Just to let you know right now, we have more parking than we've ever had in downtown because we added more street parking and added more parking in a couple of the parking lots. So we are actually

we

have more parking than we ever have even with that with the parking structure that was in place in Lot 3. But Lot 3 only has 69 parking spaces at the current time. It used to have a 145. The remainder went on to the street. As you see here, the increased let's work from the bottom up.

So the in the supply to meet the unmet demand, which is the parking demand for the current land uses, if they're all occupied now, is about a 150 parking spaces in downtown. If you wanna add ambient growth, we don't have a lot of ambient growth, but it's it's it it would be possibly included in, like, the outdoor dining, say, for instance, is another 85. And then if you want to if if the existing properties within downtown are allowed, and they are allowed currently, to occupy or build one to one ratio with regard to their property square footage, that would be an additional 60 spaces to make if they were up if all properties were to go back up. I don't expect that to happen, but we're that would be about 300 parking spaces total.

What we're seeing also is as as the laws change and the rules change, it's less and less parking that's being required for new businesses. New businesses are coming in, density is increasing, and at the same time, we're saying people are walking and people are biking, and so we don't need more parking. So the parking requirements continue to go down. So I like this. This is a helpful analysis to see. I I do think that these are probably realistic numbers, if not understated. And then so the I know you all got very creative with the parking when that when Mhmm. The lot closed. So some of those parking, like the spaces along Valley, are are there plans to keep those sort of extra creative spaces that were created when the need arose, or would those spaces go away when we reopen the new parking structure?

Good question. So the parking spaces that are out there now are intended to remain. We removed about 50 parking oh, sorry. About 30 no. Actually, 50 parking spaces after the lot reopened Lot 3 Lot 3 reopened.

So the ones that are left are are planned to stay?

Plan to stay.

And this number, 295, is net those spaces? Correct. Okay.

With the increased cost going underground for the parking spaces, would that in any way delay the project seeing as it would increase it by, it sounded like, 50 to a 100%?

Well, I don't know about acquiring the funding for it. That would be a different story. But with regard to construction time, the construction time to build underground, you can add about a third of the time to surface level parking structure parking structures.

Okay? Female

Like we may have more questions, but

at Yes, time more questions for staff. Okay. So do we have any more questions at this time?

Female I do. Please. So one of the things that I wanted to discuss was this the automated parking facility. And so I understood the way that I understood the documents were that it was considered, and then in order to take it further, it would require additional investment for more research sort of study on it. At the same time, that option seemed to really make the best use of space and allow us to be more compact, both height and space wise, in order to fit cars in.

And so from my perspective, sort of thinking about this long term, like, yes, there seemed to be a, you know, sort of upfront short term one time cost to say, okay, we need to do additional analysis on this particular approach, which in my mind seemed worth it if we were able to get a lot more, you know, sort of maximize that space better. And so I'm not sure if that's a decision that's already been closed by city council, but that to me, that automated at least exploring that automated parking facility, seemed to be a good approach for specifically for the Lot 3.

Sure. So based on City Council direction in August, we're no longer exploring automated parking.

If I could, the the council looked at that and considered the information that staff provided at that time and the concerns over the kind of novel technology, it's new technology, fairly new, and the potential issues with with maintenance in the coastal environment really kind of gave a little pause. And at that point, they decided let's back off of that idea for the time being.

Yeah. I was curious about that as well. If there was there evidence that there were issues with being related to being near the coast or what was the speculation or it

was Anecdotal. Just I mean it's clearly salt air corrodes and this type of mechanisms would likely face that concern.

I would think that whoever would be the company commissioned to do that work would provide some guarantees to that regard. I mean to me it seems like a viable option but

I think it's short sighted to dismiss it at this time. Do you have

a No.

Go ahead.

Another question. So our mayor and the majority of this council campaigned on sustainability issues, and I'm I'm concerned that sustainability doesn't seem to be part of this discussion at all. Is there any direction at this point to pursue sustainability and solar energy with any structure that we go that we recommend going forward?

So if you're referencing you know what are what is building and safety going to require right like will there be solar panels, do you have to provide EV charging? My understanding is EV charging would required for any new parking facility. I'm not sure about the solar component of how much that would be required or how much that would be

I'm just

saying there's been no direction from City Council in terms of exploring whether or not there's a way to you know, reduce the energy footprint of whatever this building is.

Not at this time because we're in a phase of trying to narrow down the list of potential uses.

Understood. But you would think that sustainability would be first and foremost among people who campaigned on it. At any rate, sorry.

And if I could just mention that, you know, the the building code, you know, we're in the 2025 cycle. Mhmm. And, you know, the requirements of the building code have sort of opt in, opt on energy use. And so there is sort of a high level that they'll have to meet, just meeting the building code. And then yes, there will be a policy decision on if we want to go beyond that as we get further into this process. Okay.

Thank you.

And the purpose of the study session is to get your input feedback, communicate any constraints, considerations or concerns Sure. To city council. So we can definitely recap the things that you've brought up before we conclude today to communicate that to City Council and have that help inform the discussion and the design workshops that we're doing for the concepts.

Fair enough. Okay.

And so for that Lot 3, so I understand that it's now traditional South Park. I I certainly would put forth a recommendation to look at least at what the cost would be to do any additional work to see whether it makes sense to do the automated parking facility in the absence of any actual evidence of issues that have come from being close to the ocean. We're also talking about being underground potentially. So I think that's something, again, longer term, the more we can put into the limited space we have, the better use of that space,

the more compact

we can make it. So I certainly would add that in. And then is there is the idea to is is there still a idea on the table to both go down? Specifically for Lot 3, go down and then also go up two floors, then we would still maintain three levels of parking with the possible commercial look like possible commercial maybe on that 3rd Floor?

So the direction from council was two levels of underground and then mixed use above. They didn't give us direction to do a combination of subterranean and then one level of surface or at ground level. There is a two story height limit for the zone, that was based on the current existing development regulations.

And I know there was some talk of whether to take another look at the height and I wouldn't you know I wouldn't be in favor of going above the 26 feet that I think the lot is limited to. I'm just thinking about how it was previously designed, So it was two story, you need two plus

Concrete.

Go down.

That would

give you even

Yeah. It was three levels. Portions of that upper deck were above the height limit actually because it predated our certified local coastal program standards. So we wouldn't be able to get back to that same level meeting current codes to get back to that same capacity.

I see. So what would be the total number of available spaces with two floors of subterranean parking?

116. So about 58 per level.

It's not quite the 145, but it's Right.

And it would project underneath the right of way on at least the 12th

Street Yes, would be going underground 12.

Okay.

And then our is it still under consideration to put some type of tunnel to connect it to Metlocks parking?

Yes, City Council gave us direction and approval to seek out a consultant to help us with feasibility of an underground connection to Matlocks and going under 12th Street. So we're working on that.

So what would be the benefit of like what would be the value in doing that? Why not just have separate lots? That seems like a lot of expense and you're going under.

So I don't know Eric if you could come maybe speak to that rather than planners trying to speak parking let our traffic engineer do that.

Sure no problem. Thank you for the question. With the ability to have an underground connection to Metlock, you do not need a ramp to go down to that level, and so you add additional parking on that level because you don't have to take a prune with the ramp.

So you'd have to enter in through the Metlocks lot and then drive over to the other lot?

Correct. Underground under the under the other lot. You'd still be able to access the surface with elevators and stairs, but the car would come in via Metlocks.

Okay. So it's a space saving

And it would be the second level down.

That the tunnel would be?

That the tunnel would be.

Okay. Interesting. And

because you're up here, imagine you've looked into the traffic impact of having more cars coming through the same two entrances.

Sure. There's plenty of capacity with regard to the entrances to Metlocks to be able to handle the additional parking spaces on on that

level. Okay.

Thank you. I

do have a question with regard to I know we're going to explore the different uses for the commercial portion of the development, but for the parking, you said exploring whether it is for tenant specific parking. Was that only with respect to 400?

Yes, so City Council direction was for 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard that there was potential to consider some limited on-site parking that could look more like a surface parking lot. So with that more limited capacity it could be some limited public parking, it could be only for the commercial tenants at 400 MBB or it could be a combination of both. But it's something we wanted to bring up for discussion and input.

So it could potentially be for tenants during work hours and then public after with that and on weekends like is that

what That's you're something we could bring up to them and into. Potentially,

okay.

So would we be discussing the size of what type of structure would go on Lot 3 if we were to add commercial? Because again, I'm thinking if we add something very large, then then again, we're back to the place of needing additional parking to accommodate this new commercial space. And so I'm not sure if, you know, we look at the size of that structure, and maybe there is also surface parking to accommodate the parking needs for that new commercial structure. Or perhaps we think about the use of that structure relative to what the demands are for parking. Right? Because immediately, you're gonna take up some chunk of the subterranean parking for whatever commercial space you're gonna put up top. And that is a very large lot, just that surface area. It doesn't need to be all commercial. If it is, then now we're talking about really upping the need for parking.

Right.

It's like how much can we jam in, there. So I think is there is there has there been discussion about the size of what could be put on that commercial space?

Not at city council meetings. So our code has, you know, parking requirements for the types of use depending on the square footage of each use that will dictate your parking requirement. So at this point we're working on narrowing down the types of uses, city staff and working with the design professional and the conceptual plans can work on the proportion of each use and what the parking requirement could be. So at this point we don't want that to limit your conversation if there types of preferred uses you want us to consider. That's the goal rather than there is ways to deal with the parking, like Lot 3 would have two levels of underground, 400 could have limited or none depending on the size of the building and the parking requirements.

So that gets determined when you have more of that information refined.

I mean I think the clear feedback sort of came from all the different avenues of places where you all asked was all everyone was saying that parking was the number one thing. So I think

you know

sort of going in that direction I think we should be thinking in terms of what is going to add net if possible, at least account for what we've had plus add net to support, you know, the needs and desires of the community, both businesses who have suffered from not having that parking available and residents and visitors to Manhattan Beach. So, you know, personally, would say any you know, whatever is currently downtown commercial zoned, I wouldn't see an issue with any of those types of businesses going into Parking Lot 3 as commercial space. I just think we should look at that being was it 15,000 square feet? I mean, it's a very large space Yeah. That some of that maintained is maintained as parking or even as green space since that seemed to be another demand that Mhmm.

Popped up as second most important, And then some commercial. Maybe that commercial is just a portion the portion along Morningside. I don't know. I mean, just sort of look at the design of the lot, but I I would discourage looking at that entire surf that entire ground level or surface level as all, like, commercial development, right? So to thinking about including parking in that on the top level as well.

Yes. So for each property there's a desire for some type of open space and or park. So open space could be plaza, there could be seating, so it doesn't have to only be park. But it wouldn't be based on the direction it wouldn't be a building built to the property lines with nothing else at the right site.

That makes sense. You could potentially get to the 145 if you also had parking as part of that ground level, right, instead of just the two subterranean.

I'm not sure. Eric might have left, but I'm not sure how the about the logistics of the design of like some surface level parking and then having to ramp down to two levels of underground under Lot 3. That's a question more for Eric, but that's something we can communicate as something that you would like to

It sounded like all of entrance to the subterranean was going to go off of Metlock, so I don't think it would impact the parking on the surface level of Lot 3.

So yes. So if we did an underground connection to Metlocks, we would connect from Metlocks to underground parking at Lot 3. Mhmm. If you were going to do it without an underground connection to Metlocks, you would need to ramp down.

Ramp down. Right.

Eric thinks ideally from Morningside, but that would take up some space to Right. Have to, you know, slowly get down there to that first level of underground parking.

Would that take away from the parking spaces or just from the development?

Having to ramp down affects how many parking spaces you can get on that first level.

Okay. Yeah. Do we know by how much?

I don't know offhand. I don't recall which number he said in a previous city council meeting. Okay.

Okay. So for the purposes of this conversation, I think we'll go off of the assumption that a 116 spaces is the maximum number of spaces Yes. We're able to use the Metlock's entrance. Okay. Okay. Are there any more questions for staff at this time?

I I don't know if it's for staff, but I was just curious. Did the use of either of these lots, these spaces, were they ever offered to, like, the fire department or police department or public works where they need additional office space? Was that even considered?

That hasn't been discussed. City Council started this process of initially looking at Parking Lot 3, which the staff report mentions there was an economic analysis, and then the opportunity to purchase 400 MBB arose and that gave us the ability to think more broadly and widen the list of what could be considered. Parking Lot 3 had a much more limited list than even the list of nine from last year. So City Council had not arrived at a decision of what either property should be used for. We've started at a point of what are the possibilities starting with a refined list based on some initial community outreach we did last spring to get some community input and add those to the list of options that had been part of that economic analysis for Lot 3.

So this was never run by the police department or fire department or public works about their future needs?

We have not explored that option

Okay.

At this time.

Maybe you should ask them.

So Yeah. That's a good I guess what's, I guess I don't know if there's a quote. That's a comment. I'll save it for later. I don't really have a question.

So on the so farther down, when you're coming out the driveway of the Metlocks parking, there's a office structure that is built with parking underneath. There's a couple of them there. Right. So that would be another thing to consider to still come within the 26 feet is that if you were gonna put office space or commercial space that you could put some additional parking for that commercial space directly underneath and then you know still stay within the 26 feet. I'm not sure if that's something that's been considered rather than just something commercial property sitting right on top of the ground level?

We haven't considered that yet. That hasn't been brought up since the January direction. So that's something we can communicate as an idea you introduced.

And what that would require a change in the height limit to probably 30 feet. If you want two stories above a parking garage, the way that our down you have grade level or subterranean parking and then two stories above, you would need to modify the zoning standards in the local coastal program. The code currently allows 26 there. There's some areas that allow 30 if you are doing subterranean or grid level parking. So we would have to make that change for the Parking Lot three site if we wanted to go that direction.

I wouldn't necessarily say it needs to be two levels. Like, perhaps it's only one level. Right? And you stay below the twenties. I don't wanna advocate going above 26 feet, but I think you could do parking underneath and then one off maybe one office level above.

And that may be more office than commercial. Right? We think about a commercial, you know, retail store that you wanna be able to walk into off of the sidewalk, but I just thought of those other structures that are right there across the street from that entrance that are office buildings that could be used. And then I think, you know, to commissioner Tokushiki's point, if there is office space built, then again, that is something that would be at the discretion of the city to decide whether that's gonna get leased out to someone in the community or whether it's gonna get used for something the for some need or future needs of the city staff. Right? If you have that space there built built as offices, then it could be used either way depending on the need.

Well, the reason why I'm bringing it up early is oftentimes, police substations, fire substations, public work offices have unique requirements, you know, in terms of the building standard, what you build it to, because it's usually considered a lifeline facility. So, you know, so that call kinda has to be made upfront. And so I just wanted to know if the city council had considered, you know, our future needs as a city if, you know, we wanted to have a police substation that's readily accessible right down in the downtown area that people can just you know, they they can just walk into. That's all. So, you know, I I see the the really nice commercial stuff being brought up, but, you know, I'm kind of a infrastructure guy.

So

Noted.

Thank just you. Bring it up. City council doesn't wanna do it. That's fine. But, you know, we just rec we're just making recommendations, and I just would think this would be a nice time to ask those three departments if they need they have future needs or anticipate future needs.

Should we talk about 400 MBB? I feel like we've concentrated a lot on Parking Lot 3.

Mhmm.

Are there questions about the 400 MBB? Same questions?

It's it's the same it's the same issue. Both lots. I'm just saying if you wanna put in a lifeline type structure, you should bring it up now rather than just you know, I shouldn't rather than just an office building that is built at those code levels. So that's all.

So specifically for 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, that one I was curious about. The park and open spaces was a really popular option as well. Is it possible to do, like, subterranean parking? Think there was also the discussion of possibly being able to connect that into Metlocks too. I don't know how whether you know, how much of this is feasible given the infrastructure that's underneath us right now.

That's the issue is the infrastructure

infrastructure, maybe in between. Okay. So that's off the table. But I think you could potentially use that space and create, like, some beautiful open space, you know, green area, and then have subterranean parking underneath that. So, again, you're using that space. Talk about mixed use. Right? As you're accomplishing two goals there, which those were the two highest voted options from the community.

Is there a reason they didn't explore the underground parking with that spot, or they just it didn't feel

So our city traffic engineer has given some comments at previous meetings that Parking Lot 3 is better suited to concentrate more parking. While the sites are similar sizes, their geometry is a little different and based on Lot Three's location thinks that's a preferred location to concentrate more parking. I don't recall that we've discussed only underground parking at 400 Hatmeech Boulevard, I'm not sure what his

The issue with 400 is the geometries of a lot don't give you enough don't give you as much ability to build something even either surface or even subterranean based on the narrow width of Morningside there in the parking that and other infrastructure that's already below it. Similar to Manhattan Beach Boulevard, it's tougher to work there than it is within the Lot 3 site to go subterranean.

I wonder if the automated parking would work better in that location. Subterranean automated parking just seems like, again, to, like, make the most use of the lot that you have of the space that you have to just do I mean, I would love to have a park sitting right there, but to just do a green open space feels like maybe there's something more that the space could be used for. Or perhaps it's just because it is a long narrow strip. Perhaps it's, like, some open space in the front, then you have some type of building or maybe even you build some type of a theater or something that could be used for open, and then you've got some parking in the on the backside of it kind of that that abuts the residential piece, something like that. Because you do it is a it is a nice sized lot, and you could potentially have multiple multiple uses.

Are we done with commissioner questions at this time? I know we'll still get into our discussions, but okay. Thank you very much. Are there any members of the audience who wish to speak on this item? As a reminder, speakers should be registered with speaker host. Each speaker is limited to three minutes, and there will be a timer on the screen. If you would like to provide public comments from your seat, please inform the meeting clerk or raise your hand. Staff will provide a handheld microphone to ensure your comments are heard. Can do Is there anyone who wishes to speak at this time? Hi.

Michael Zislis, downtown business owner, forty years in town. Am I on a timer or not? No timer?

You are.

Okay.

Yeah. Three in line.

Just a little history. All those parking lots you speak of, three, two, one, those are all built not by the city of Manhattan Beach, but they were built by us, the downtown business. We gave them to the city when Metlocks was built because the cost of the two story underground parking which was genius. And I don't know if you look at the chart but sales tax went through the roof right after that opened, downtown businesses went through the roof so it was a great time. When you built the last thing we built in, I think the city hall or the last thing we built, we didn't go subterranean, I think the library.

You know, anytime you have a chance to go subterranean, go subterranean. Now when the parking lot was condemned within what twenty four hours and we're all out of parking, I then hired a national architecture firm to come up with a plan. I spent twenty five thousand dollars to come up with this underground parking plan that takes 12th Street Morningside, connects it to Metlocks. So I did all that before an RFP was ever put out because at the end of the day, I want my 165 spots back or whatever that number is. So let's not lose sight that they were given to you, you managed them, You got it condemned by some poor management.

I'm just saying we would like the 165 spots. I love the the laundromat underground parking. I've seen that. It's quite amazing. I don't know if it was subterranean. I don't know what salt air would do to it, but that's I agree with you. But I also think, you're the planning department. Shouldn't you be planning this and then taking it up to the city for their final review? I don't know how it's going to the city than coming to you. I don't get it. So that's that's my thing. Let's talk about what works. Metlocks works. What's the most valuable asset you got the city of Manhattan Beach has? It's Metlocks. And what is that? That is subterranean parking paid for, helps fund the fire, police and fire. You guys have to look for revenue centers. You have pension liabilities. You have all kinds of liabilities.

You need revenue in this city. I would love another dog park. But you put subterranean parking, you get all the parking back, you put hotel on top is what I proposed, then you get a million and a half dollars in TOT tax. Every city wants a car dealership, an Apple store, or a hotel. We only have one hotel in Downtown Manhattan Beach. Not that I want a second one, but if there was, I would like it to be mine. So and then Lot 400, I guess you call it, you have to bifurcate that from this proposal. I don't know why we're talking about both these things. They're two different animals. First of all, that should be that's in a residential area.

You can't put a hotel there. You can't put commercial there. You are backing up against condominiums and homes. Just gotta keep that in mind. I'm across Valley from homes and think of the pressure I went through for noise. That would be just disastrous to that neighborhood. But also, you have an opportunity to get Vons. Vons is gonna come up and that's when you should put those two parcels together and build your mirror of Metlocks on the other side and provide the parking for the city. In the short term, you have a space there. You can make it temporary parking until you build the new parking then. I feel like my heart's going. Thank you everybody for listening.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, everybody. So I've got a knee replacement, so I kind of became semi retired so I can actually participate. Live in a 100 block of 10th Street and a long time resident of Manhattan Beach forty years. And I really think we need a park. I see people trying to sit and eat. There is no public seating at all. There's more and more restaurants. And since I live on 10th Street, thank God we saved those encroachments right now. People are there all the time eating. So that's something to think about.

I'm thinking about construction, two to three years of construction on Manhattan Beach Boulevard is gonna destroy small small shops. So we have to think about that and the traffic and the density. I mean, greats gonna have seating for probably 75. There's a new Italian gelato shop opening up. We haven't even considered that and already traffic is pretty miserable downtown.

The corner of Morningside Manhattan Beach Boulevard, for pedestrians, it's really dangerous for backing up traffic all the way to Manhattan Avenue in the summertime and at certain times of the day. So that's something else to think about. So that 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, I don't think should have any kind of parking, underground parking. As Mike said, the residents on Morningside, it's terrible and then it'd be ingress and egress on Manhattan Beach Boulevard right next to Vaughn's, it's dangerous. Maybe we could have a few little kiosks with reasonable rent.

If we make this park, we can have bike parking, something else to think about. And I think we should just replace the 13th Street parking unlike Mike. Sorry, Mike. But I think we should just replace that. Undergrounding, has anybody considered the cost of undergrounding? I can't imagine what's below ground that we would have to work on. And Parking Lot 1, which is right in 10th Street, they added extra spaces so it cuts it's very hard to give them a double wide stroller to get through, so we need to adjust a few of those spaces. And it's a great place for people to park, but half of it is merchant parking. There is no residence parking permits in Manhattan Beach. We've discussed it for so long and still no no resolution.

Everybody keeps talking about public parking and visitors, but nobody is thinking about the people that live downtown. There's quite a few that don't have parking spaces of their own. I have friends that just drive around for an hour on weekends trying to find a space for themselves. There's also so many more tourists coming since Malibu and the fires. I don't know if you've noticed it, but the percentage of people showing up is so much higher. I think that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Brian Dunn, and I've been a resident here for twenty six years, Manhattan Beach and Beach Cities. And I always remember when we were in the process of deciding what to do at the Metlox Plaza level subterranean, and we were thinking of one level only, and then the question of maybe a second level being important. That finally was approved. And I had a job at Strand Hill Properties across the street, and I loved having the employee parking Level Number 2.

And to this day, I think Metlocks Plaza is the place that I tell my to meet my friends parking, and I go to the plaza upstairs and then we walk down toward the pier. So I would think for Lot 3, if you can do two levels, that's the thing to do. Now for the 400 MB Boulevard, Mike Sislis brought up the fact of Vons. I, in the past, have tried to see about acquiring bonds for some of my clients. It's been approved for a hotel, I think, by the city historically.

And I think we should then do not do a major redevelopment of 400 Manhattan Beach Boulevard. It should be a moderate renovation of the existing property. And then if Vons comes down, we've got something to really improve Manhattan Beach with. So even though I like Vons very much and Pete over there, the manager is wonderful. And also, my wife had details tile and stone above Page's bookstore.

And in the summertime, it was very difficult to have clients find parking and come in there. And then we moved it to Hermosa Beach and we don't have that problem anymore. So anything that you can do to improve business parking and also client parking for all the businesses is very important. Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Stefan Kempa, resident here for about thirty years. I'm also on the Parking and Planning Improvements Commission, just to fully disclose that. One thing I want to make a real sincere point about is that that parking study has talks about unmet demand. It doesn't say we have to do that number. So what we really need to do is take a holistic approach and say, what is the number we want? So I think these conversations need to be founded on what we as a community want. If we try to fill that, guess what's gonna happen? We're gonna have more people come, and we're gonna have more unmet demand. So we need to have very conscious effort about the count we want, and how we maintain our small community feel.

So please keep that in mind in your conversations, and that's something that should be a critical input to the process, which I have not seen yet in that process. I am in strong agreement with the discussion with Mike Sislis and the last gentleman about bonds. I think it makes the most sense to do a short term solution there to provide our you know, maintain our cost until we know what's going on there. I know there was an action item for the city manager to start conversations there, probably private conversations, but I think we should be careful on how we spend our money. Speaking about money, what I have not conversation yet or at the city council meeting is what can we afford?

You know, when I built my house on 4th Street, I knew what I could afford to do. I limited my discussions and my thinking to what I could afford to do. If we just go down Pipe Dreams, we may end up presenting something and then we can't afford it as a city. So I think the city council and the finance department needs to give guidance to say what can we afford. So as we look at options, we stay within our limits, and we can still make our 2028 date that we have on the schedule.

Otherwise, I'm fearful that we won't make that date, and we'll just have to relook at it multiple times. On the police fire need, in one of the recent city council meetings, I don't recall which one, but we were talking about the council was talking about the growth in the city. And the conversation came up, do we have enough capacity with the police and the fire in those locations? And my recollection was, yes, we do. So I encourage the city staff to go back and look at those conversations and make sure we talk about that when we present this to the City Council next.

The last one, because I have thirty seconds, is we talked about going down and concerns about getting two floors. Let's get creative. We can go 2.5 floors down and still get that 26 feet. So I think we can be creative in our thinking. Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon. My name is Marie Call me. I'm a long time Manhattan Beach resident, and I'm on the Cultural Arts Commission. And I just wanted to ask the commission to keep in mind and keep in the forefront a public art component to any proposal in both lots. It's a great opportunity to incorporate that into the planning, as early as possible makes a big difference. So, please put that into the wheelhouse and continue to put that forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Lauren Kaladny. I am a long time Manhattan Beach downtown resident. I live on the 200 Block Of 11th Street for over twenty five years, and I'm also a business owner in Center Place right on Lot 3, Wright Tribe. Parking parking parking parking. It's all we need to talk about. I've been coming to the DBPBA meeting since day one, nine years ago, never had enough parking. Now we've lost our parking lot. The city is growing. We still do not have enough parking.

Even though I am the one who would be the most affected by the parking lot, I think we need to go underground. Sufficient parking. I did hear you say that the lot was over the height limit from before, which is kind of a bummer because the other ideal situation would be underground subterrain two and a half levels, which is very smart, more parking, and then the 3rd Top Floor could be a green space. That 3rd Floor parking lot used to have a beautiful view of the ocean and the sunsets. It'd be nice if that was a public space parking.

And I think I also agree with everyone that the pulse should not be connected with the 400. That's a whole separate thing. And if we need more parking, why not demolish that bank right now and create more parking in that lot? But I I just wanna say parking. And if you do develop the, 400, it would be lovely if it could be owned by the city so you could control the rents, and it doesn't go to greedy landlords that will make it so local business owners aren't able to be in business. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Micah. I live on 11th Street, literally a stone's throw from 400 MBB. Please don't put parking there. You can park on the other lot all day long.

Since someone mentioned a short term idea, something that occurred to me, living right there, we used to have yeasty boys. I think they're taking a little break at the moment, according to their Instagram, have a spot for them and maybe another food truck, put some tables and, you know, benches, places for people to eat, the bike racks that you put in, lovely, but on average I see zero bikes there. Give a place for them to go, like when you ride in here all sweaty, you don't want to go to an expensive sit down restaurant, which we've got plenty of. So, just, know, food trucks, kids on Fridays, they need a place to go to. Like, we're running out of little family restaurants, they're being replaced by the expensive sit down, you need a reservation a month in advance restaurant.

So, that was just kind of my idea of what could we use down here, family friendly, not parking, just, you know, something outdoors since we don't have any more outdoor dining or, you know, very limited outdoor dining. Anyway, that was just my thought. Thanks.

Thank you. Do we have any more participants in the audience who wish to speak? Do we have any participants on Zoom who wish to speak?

Let's give them a moment. Okay. Nobody is indicating that they would like to give comment on Zoom. We do have one comment in the chat from Jennifer Duble. She says regarding sustainability, there are required state measures that cover this, and she also asked the question, is there a public report on parking analysis?

That's it on Zoom.

Okay. I think we can move on to commissioner discussions or comments at this time. This thank you to everyone participating in the audience. It definitely is very helpful as we continue the conversation. Commissioner Sistos, do you have any comments at this time? I know you do.

I always do. I do think the landscape is gonna change dramatically in the years to come, and there's going to be a lot higher density of residential along the Rosecrats Corridor. I I do think that commissioner Tokushiki's point of police and fire, I'm not sure that we've looked at, you know, long term what the increased need is gonna be, not just for police and fire, but for all city services. And so I do think that's a really important consideration, and I do sort of see the trend of how things are going. And there's quite a few projects on the docket now that are gonna bring a lot higher density to the city.

So And I think that's an important consideration for council as they think through what to do with this with these spaces. And I also appreciate the, you know, the comments around what is the number of spots that we need and what is the amount of money that we have to spend on it, and we don't necessarily we're not making those decisions with that information in front of us. So at this point, we're not yet, I think, at that place, but I do think that, you know, if we wanna design the state of the art underground automated parking structure, we need to understand what that cost looks like. And if that's cost prohibitive, then certainly that would drive the decisions. And, you know, the 400 MBB was bought in April, so we're already looking at a year since that was bought.

I mean, I also wanna be thinking about the time that it will take to get these two properties up and running. I I don't think that they're being considered jointly accepted the timing is the same. Right? So I think that they're really being considered separately. It's just to put it under one umbrella so that the discussions are happening, you know, concurrent. So I don't think that what we do with one necessarily impacts what we do with the other. I just think it's for the sake of, continuity. It's easier to ask survey questions that ask the residents what they think about both both properties. So I'm less concerned about them being put together under one umbrella. I think the residents today brought up a lot of interesting points to consider. I think we've already given a lot of feedback. I don't know that I have that much more than what I've already given.

Do any other commissioners have any comments at this time?

I would just recommend that we tell the city council that they should, know, perhaps consider, you know, public use of the land. When when I say that, that means please fire public works, city admin staff, and also, you know, that they you know, I agree with with mister Zislis. Maybe you need to separate out the discussion of the just have parking by itself and then the commercial use of the 400 property open up to other workshops and other discussion points rather than try to you know, it sounds just because they're zoned the same doesn't mean that they have the same discussion points. So I would recommend that they do that, but, you know, that's up to their discretion. We work we work for the city council.

That's that's the bottom line. That's it.

Thank you.

Well, as a commissioner, I'm rather frustrated by how this whole thing was set up to begin with. As a resident, as a voter, I'm deeply disappointed in my representation on city council for defining this in such a narrow and shortsighted way. It was launched on the community as a visioning project, unconstrained by things like budget, when, in my opinion, it should have been developed methodically, thoughtfully over a longer period of time to determine what the needs of city government, as well as the the downtown business owners and the downtown residents over time. It seems like it's being forced into a three to five year time frame, when really we should be looking at a ten to fifteen year time frame in terms of this. At some point, you know, we're going to need temporary facilities for Joslyn Center programming, right, when that building gets redeveloped.

This building is a whole another discussion. You know, where where are we going to be able to move people temporarily within government property? I think that should have been looked at over over a ten to fifteen year time frame. And so getting back to the the thing at hand, my my preference, what I'm leaning towards, is towards keeping Lot 3 as a transportation hub. In my head, that means, you know, consolidating all the different types of modalities, transportations that you can take into downtown and then get around on foot.

This does not mean, of course, Amtrak, light rail, buses, none of that. But if we're starting at at automobiles, you've got automobiles, you've got EV, you've got normal bicycles, you've got elect ebike charging stations, all of that should be brought into consideration as the central transportation hub to get to downtown and then proceed on foot. And I don't see that that's been I I don't see that it's been framed in that way in terms of the development of that property. The other thing that city council needs

to take a

stand on is golf carts, And whether that is an acceptable mode of transportation within Manhattan Beach, are we going to foster it? Are we going to develop it? The time is now. You know, the these particular council members have have been on since scooters became a problem, ebikes were allowed to proliferate until they became a problem for, you know, other people to try and solve and now for the city to scramble to try and do that. We're at that point with golf carts as well.

So I think we need to decide whether or not we are a town that fosters that. Does that become part of our parking scheme for this particular centralized transit hub? I do wanna comment on the idea of a hotel. I'm very glad that they took that off the table. My first my initial concerns with that were that, you know, several years ago, we had community meetings to determine the development sites for hotel properties.

Right? This that we're not constrained by the current height limits. Right? This is how we I think one of our first meetings was on the El Torito hotel site. This site was never part of that discussion, and I don't think that there's been nearly enough community input to have a serious discussion about a hotel at this property.

I'm leaning towards separating the two the two properties, as you said. Like, it's it's really a timing thing that they came in here. I think if we can improve the parking situation, the ability for people to get into downtown and then move around on foot, that should be our priority. The 400 lot, my sense is that the community wants more community meeting space, whether it's enclosed or public, you know, outdoor. And I think that that would be the temporary combination that should be there until a bigger development opportunity presents itself on that corner.

I wanted to comment on the sort of timeline for how this is all to be developed. I'm very glad that City Council is looking at appointing an internal task force as to a broad understand, normally, I am all for community input, but given the time frame for this, I think it's important that the task force be internalized. These particular council members don't have a very good history, in my opinion, of implementing the input from multiyear public task forces. So cross reference public outdoor dining. So if this is to be done in any time kind of time scale, I'm glad that they're looking at an internal task force.

I think I've run out of things to say on my soapbox today. Yeah.

So my comments are a little different than what you're saying, but I do feel like it has been a situation where they're just splitting the baby. Right? And they're saying, okay. The town wants they want their parking. They want their green space. They want their commercial development. Okay. So we'll sort of chop up both of these spaces and try to give them everything in one, and you lose you lose the efficiency of those spaces by doing that. It's it's a little bit surprising to me that I I know that the city has done a fantastic job, and and we're I feel like in all of this, we've forgotten to say thank you so much to staff for all of the work that has gone into this. We know that.

But what sort of gotten lost in this is, okay. We've replaced a lot of those spaces from the previous parking facility being knocked down. Just anecdotally, going into town, it is much harder to find parking. I'm not sure if that's a result of, you know, people moving into the community, which we, of course, were very happy to welcome people who were displaced. But it it is very challenging to find parking.

Our businesses are suffering. Hermosa Beach, it's just not an issue because they have that large parking structure. Frankly, I'm surprised that it wasn't addressed. Go two below, but then continue to have two decks above or I know that we can't go the three, but two and a half below, two above, whatever it be. And, again, in terms of separating these spaces, timeline, there is a functional building at 400 MB, and there are parking spaces.

So is there sort of a quick fix, make that a functional building, lease it out office space, have those parking spaces, see how cost prohibitive it is to do Lot 3. Right? Maybe do I I think once you start bidding out that project, they're going to see that it could be a challenging item to build. I just don't want us to, again, pursue projects without any bounds of budget. I agree with Joseph's point that the community I love that they had input.

I love that they were able to get very creative with it, but they're not thinking of height restrictions, setbacks, parking spaces. They're sort of just throwing out there everything that they wanna see without necessarily understanding the reality of it. So it it does feel a little bit tight what's being provided to us. Hey. You can talk about the commercial uses above ground, but it will be two below with two above ground here.

And then over here, we might have some surface level parking. Tell us what you wanna go there, office, retail, restaurants. And and it's it just feels like we're going about this out of order or backwards. So I do think we really need to revisit. Clearly, parking is a massive issue here. I don't know if a 116 spaces, especially that being the maximum amount, is really going to alleviate that. And even if

it

temporarily alleviates that, if it's going to alleviate that, if it's going to feel like any relief in the next three or four years. So I think we're I don't know. I think we're all coming to the conclusion that what what are the next steps in terms of I know we're supposed to go back to city council.

That's on Tara, really, to remind us what

Female Yes. I know we're all sort of using this to express.

Female Now, we appreciate all of your comments and feedback, and that's the entire purpose of this study session, right? So in terms of next steps, we have some additional outreach we're doing like an online survey with Flash Vote and we're also going to make a presentation to the older adults program. And then as we go into spring, we want to hold what we call design shreds, which are basically opportunities for the community to work with city staff and a design professional to talk about conceptual ideas and elements of what they'd like to see at each property. And then, the design consultant will work with city staff to come up with conceptual plans. We'll have an open house community workshop after that to show those conceptual designs, get more community feedback and refine those into essentially preliminary design packages for City Council to consider by August.

We would have some City Council meetings in the summer, basically after that community workshop to August to refine. It's by no means like a full construction, it's more to refine, identify elements and kind of the site configuration that could be possible. And in that time we're also speaking with a we're also working to consult a professional about feasibility for the underground connection to Metlock so that can help inform that work.

I think I'm gonna echo the same thing that that chair Hackett has said, which that feels like that's coming before the step that's needed, which is for counsel to give some clear direction that we even are gonna put a physical building on either of these spaces. So it just really make the best use of time and the best use of input from the community. Like, I I think based on what chair Haggot just said, I mean, I would say Lot 3, let's just make that parking. That should just be all parking. As much parking as we can fit, up, down, go up to 26 feet. That's it. And that's sort of what commissioner Ngocca was saying as well. Like, make that a transportation hub, golf cart parking. If we're gonna have golf cart, put e bike parking, but whatever kind of different parkings, compact, large, whatever we need to do, make that that space.

Mhmm.

And then we're then there wouldn't need to be a discussion around what the design would look like for that lot, right, or that particular space. So that's why I feel like it's a little bit it's almost like you need more definitive direction from city council. Like, city council says, we will have commercial on that lot. K. Now okay.

Well, then we're gonna talk about what should it look like and what should the design be. Right? Similarly for the 400 MBB, I guess I I don't have enough insight into the discussions that are happening around bonds and what that may look like, but there were some comments that have come up about if there's some future development that maybe you wouldn't put a building on 400 either because if there's some future thing that's gonna happen where the sites could get merged with the Vons lot, I I'm not purview to those conversations. But then I think the question becomes what would be the short term or the interim solution for 400 MBB? Would it be keeping that structure?

Maybe you can just give it a face lift. Maybe it needs to be demolished. I I don't know. I mean, we need like, I I don't have enough information to make that call, but I do feel like the engaging on the design and the conceptual reviews before city council has decided that we are going to have a structure there. Maybe we wanna make that a green space, and maybe it's gonna be an amphitheater. And maybe we're gonna use our new cultural arts budget for performing arts, and we're gonna make that a open open seating amphitheater space, and we don't need to look at the design for any kind of building there. So I guess that's it's the order of things that we're getting a little jumbled about.

I did have a question from before, which is based on the current commercial downtown commercial occupancy rates. Is there is there a demand for additional commercial property for us for the city to develop and manage?

Let me see if I understand your question. You're wondering more about like perhaps what the economic analysis showed that that we had done?

If we were to suggest a mixed use commercial property on top of Lot 3 on top of the subterranean, will there be demand for the for those commercial spaces based on the current occupancy in downtown? Like my understanding was that we're not fully occupied in the commercial spaces downtown.

I would want to look

at It's more a downtown

report from Cosmos that they did for the economic analysis.

We'll have

to guess.

We'd have to come back to you with

Fair that enough. I mean, if I if I had a compelling argument to me that we are short on commercial spaces, then I would I would consider that. But really, I I'm fully leaning towards towards making this this transit hub, you know, underground and above. I I know that there's a lot of concern discussion about, like, say, the 2nd Floor and and how valuable that would be as a potential commercial space or community space, green space. That's based on the current view.

We're not talking about allowing this building to be any higher than the the building standards currently allow. And so unless we're gonna have a serious conversation about purchasing air rights from the from the surrounding properties, that view is in no way protected. We have no view protection ordinance. So it may exist for a short period of time as a public space with a view. If as the rest of downtown has developed up to the currently allowable heights, that's going to disappear. So I understand that people think it's fantastic now, but I think it's not I think it's shortsighted to look at it that way.

It it may have been and and correct us if we're wrong because we're also coming in late into the process, but you've had several discussions with City Council already. It could have been that the commercial space on Lot 3 was just being looked at as a way to offset, like to have some income generation or revenue offset the expense So of I'm not sure if that's where the genesis of it from City Council.

So part of the economic analysis was to have a source of revenue generation, They looked at commercial, they looked at hotel, looked at a parking structure only. To answer your question about 400 NBB and rehabilitating that building, the city's building official was at one of the city council meetings and he and the fire marshal went and looked at those buildings. I looked at that building and it would there would be a significant cost rehabilitate it. We could not rent it out as it is because it doesn't meet Wow. Current

Okay. That's a And good bit of

so then I guess, so if that's the driving, you know, city council is driving, they're like, hey, this is gonna be expensive to do two floor subterranean parking. We need to look at I mean, obviously, we have the revenue coming from the parking itself.

Correct.

And then we have the revenue generated for the businesses Yep. In the city. Right? So I so I guess you have to look at the economic analysis, right, to determine. But I I would lean towards it was previously a parking lot, continue to make it a parking lot, try to recover as many of those spots as we can and maybe more if we can get creative in how it's built. And if there is commercial, maybe it's just very small. And I just think about how in that lot of, where Wells Fargo is, and they've just they're adding that tiny little, like, commercial space right in that little corner that was technically zoned, you know, and able to, but had so you look at the size of that. It's maybe some corner that's on top of a ramp that has to be put in to go down. I don't know. Right? So something that

You might talk me into a bike repair shop.

A bike

repair shop.

Are they looking at the two the two parcels? Could the economics of one help with the economics of the other? I mean, at the end of the day, it's all owned by the city. Right? So even if parking isn't the highest price per square foot revenue generator, if it's helping everything else in the city, including whatever would go on 400 MBB, can it be looked at together in that sense?

So I guess the first thing I'll say is that revenue generation isn't the only option and it's not a what is the top revenue generator. That's something to be considered. But clearly the need for other things in the city from what we've been hearing from the community, from yourselves, parking seems a big one, number one on the list for all the surveys that have been done. So the two properties, yes, to your point, if you're providing, let's say parking at Lot 3, that's going to make up for or we're going to be able to assist in paying down debt service on another on the 400 MBB site. I don't know the I'm not in finance.

I don't know how the accounting works on it. But yes, there that that to an extent is also why the two are being looked at concurrently, Because you have that synergy with what gets developed on one may assist the other. If you need to provide parking for 400 MBB and you decide and and the city decides we don't want to use that floor space there or, you know, the the square footage of the lot itself, that footprint to do parking that could be hypothetically accommodated in the Lot 3 site. 116 is what we're hearing we would be able to get going down two floors. To your point, I think it was yourself, commissioner Sistos, stated that, well, up and down. Right? So that

And do you for parking, not just because we were talking about two floors subterranean with commercial on that surface, and that maybe like, what I'm saying is you're adding more commercial. You're adding more need for parking that we've already we we already are constrained. Right. And, yeah, mean, you can't look at it just from a revenue perspective. We talk about putting a park or a green space or community space. Like, that's not going to be revenue generating, but it is going to increase the, you know, the small town feel and the character of our city, and it's going to provide a space for families and a space for the community to gather and throw an amphitheater in. I'm telling you, we've got performing arts there and picnic tables, and all of a sudden, that is a space that's not revenue generating, but it is attracting people Mhmm. To the city and and giving it its character and its small town feel, which is a high priority for every resident.

Mhmm.

So it can't be the only consideration. I'm just trying to get suss out where that was coming from. So Commissioner Takashiki? Yeah.

Do we have any other comments at this time? I think

No.

Is there any other input that you'd like from us that that would be helpful? We've given you a lot. Maybe Yeah. I

think at this point, we need to probably review the the recording as well ourselves and and digest all everything that we've heard tonight and be able to, summarize and provide that, report out to counsel.

Can we go to your slide? I think you had one slide at the end that's what you said. I wanna make sure we hit on each of the yes.

This This one? Yeah.

One quick comment or not?

Unfortunately, I think we've closed public speaking, so we cannot at this time. Thank you.

Was that the slide? No.

So surface level parking lot, we haven't really

Well, I I mean, my thought is if to take Joseph's idea and sort of what we've all echoed, if Lot 3 is exclusively parking, does it alleviate the need? Can we still get what everyone wanted, which was commercial use, green space, and parking? If Lot 3 is exclusively parking, can we push? Then we're able to be much more flexible with the use of 400 MBB. It could be a mix of commercial with some open air seats, what have you.

Again, I'm not trying to undo all of the hard work that has gone into it up until this point, but based on comments from the public, I do feel like that would better reflect maybe what people were originally trying to convey when they shared insights as the community.

I was just going to have Tari put up the slide with the contact info and everything that if any members of the public would like to reach out to city staff, we are more than available to help out, talk with them and understand other concerns that they may have. So I think that this is a good one to end on here.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, we will move

on to the next item on the agenda. The next item is the Planning Commission's consideration of the six cycle housing elements 2025 annual progress report. May we have a staff report at this time?

Yes, thank you. I'd like to invite up Jae Hee Yoon, our senior planner. She'll be providing the presentation in combination with myself.

Good afternoon. I'm J. E. U, senior planner. And the item before you is an informational item on the housing element of annual progress report.

As way of background, the housing element is one of the state mandated elements of the general plan that analyzes the existing and projected housing needs of the community across various income levels. And we received our certification on our six cycle housing element back in July 2023. Pursuant to government code section 65,400, all jurisdictions in California are required to prepare and submit their housing element annual progress report to the California Department of Housing and Community Development commonly known as HCD as well as Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation. The two main purposes of submitting the prepared annual progress report is to track the progress on the housing element program implementation as well as identifying statewide trends in local land use decisions that are being made. The annual progress report covers activities from calendar year 2025 that include data on the number of planning entitlements that were processed, building permits issued and those that received certificate of occupancies during the calendar year for new residential units that include ADUs, JADUs, multifamily residential units and single family residential.

And the associated affordability levels are also included in the report as well as the progress towards meeting the city's regional housing needs allocation, which we'll provide in the next slide. And also an update on the program implementation of the housing element where the city has 31 programs. This is a snapshot that summarizes the city's regional housing needs allocation numbers that are on the that are on this column with a total of 774 units. And across the total units that you see on the very low end row, it shows you the number of building permits that were issued during the six cycle planning period. For 2025, we issued 102 building permits for new residential units and for the remaining Reno, we are continuously working with the community development community with projects in the pipeline with affordable units that are included to be processed in the coming years.

And from here, I'll turn it over to Adam.

Thank you, J. E. So building on the information that J. E. Just provided, the table before you kind of summarizes the larger residential development projects that are currently under review.

I've got the table and then there'll be in on the next slide, you'll see in just a moment, there is a map that kind of correlates. But this presentation of this information came out of the Planning Commission's request last year when we were working through the housing element related zone text amendments on some of the high density projects, planned development permit. I'm sorry, yes, the planned development excuse me, the precise development plan items that discussion was at Planning Commission because it is something separate from but in a manner similar to the rod sites where it is housing allowed by right and we have certain requirements in the code. The sites are allowed by right submit straight to building. There's not much there as far as any requirements for any public notice anything like that though the City Council has established policies to that effect.

The PDP there we did codify some information regarding a notice being sent to property owners in the vicinity at the time project has been approved. At this point we have kind of taken the City Council's direction on notifying the public at the time an application is submitted. So that's being done as well for the projects that are not necessarily in the rod, but are subject to a precise development plan. So there are 10 different projects listed here. On the next slide, we've got a map of them.

I'll kind of just point them out. Oops. That's not what I meant. How do I go back? Is this the light?

So I'm just going to kind of go geographically not necessarily down the list that's on the prior slide. But we've got a couple of the largest projects that we have in the pipeline are on Rosecrans here. The one on the corner Rosecrans and Sepulveda obviously the Frye site that is a two seventy three unit project that's been proposed. I believe it's 10 stories, two buildings, one of them is ten, one of them is seven. And it is under review as far as building plans having been submitted.

The other two on Rosecrans, they are in a preliminary planning review stage. They are anywhere I think one of them is 500, the other one is five fifty and they're about seven stories, six or seven stories. So that's the largest sites. There's a couple of smaller ones that are let me actually jump to the two that are under construction. This is High Rose, so that's 79 units total.

Six of those are affordable for people qualifying as very low income households. And then there are 14 units down on Artesia here. That project is pretty benign, pretty small. The only reason that they had requested the density bonus was to make their parking work. They did take advantage of the of a bit of additional density there, but it's not it still is within height limits etcetera.

So it's not anything significant in the manner that some of the other projects that you've kind of been hearing about and we're seeing here are. The others that are currently in the preliminary stage of review, they are two of them here on Sepulveda, the one on Sepulveda and 30th I believe it is, it's 2905 South I'm sorry, North Sepulveda.

2705?

Nope. 2905, the one on the corner.

At bottom.

Yep. I'm sorry. There's I'm not going in necessarily in order of what's on a list, but this one here, it's the, the one on the corner where the smog shop is currently. It includes that and then the small retail building just south of it.

Is it the one that says settlement agreement? Yes. It is. What does settlement agreement mean?

I would defer to our city attorney on that question.

There was litigation regarding that project and there's been a settlement agreement for processing a particular project. There's a timeframe involved in that. I think it was extended for a period of time as they're working through details on that project.

So was that a PDP or a rod project? Or is it neither? It was

builder's remedy project that was settled through the settlement agreement.

Got it. Thank you. Sure.

And then the other one, the $27.00 5, that's the one that's on the list there in the rod site section. That's 48 units, and that one is a as well, we have it's in a preliminary planning review stage. It's also under pending litigation, so we can't really give much discussion on that one, but that is been something that we've got in house.

Which what was the height on that one was that one hundred seven?

One was proposed initially it's we've seen an 18 story structure. So we've seen that we've seen that was one of several iterations, but I really can't speak to it based on the pending litigation at this point. Okay, if I move on. There'll be more time for questions as well after. We've got a couple others then on Sepulveda here 2301 North Sepulveda.

This is probably the furthest along in building plan check and we anticipate potential for permit issuance in the next several months. That is 40 units of which 11 are going to be either low or moderate income. And then the other one at 201 To 207 North Sepulveda, that's where the Deep Root Site was. That's the that is one that's under building plan review as well. That is

Second and second.

60 units, 12 of which would be affordable for low income. That's the Deep Roots. Then there's

It used to be Deep Roots.

Yeah. They used to be the Deep Roots Site there. And then there's one other that is kind of a unique situation. It's not a rod site. It is a standard multifamily residential zone property on 12th. So it just being processed pursuant to the PDP. It's been the type of development that has been permissible pursuant to state law for at least a couple decades now. So that is been proposed at I'm sorry, I missed the one. Oh, I'm sorry, there it is. It's 17 units, two of which would be moderate income.

Because it's not in the rod, it doesn't need to provide affordable units to low income individuals. It can provide at a moderate income rate and be able to obtain some of the benefits of the density bonus regulations. And that one I believe is five or six stories as well. So those are summary. I think I hit on all of them.

If there's questions on them, let us know. We can answer those. Before that though, I just wanted to kind of mention the next steps. So city council will be presented with the, information here as a, receive and file and authorize submittal, through which they will authorize that submittal to we're asking them to authorize submittal of the progress report to HCD and LCI land use and climate innovation. It's the rename of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research is now the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation And that is due by April 1. So that concludes the presentation here and we're happy to answer any questions that the commission may have.

First of all?

It has a delay.

No. Okay. Well, thank you for taking us through all of that. I guess I wanted to ask staff's opinion if there are any concerns that they have about the progress that we've made in terms of developing? So

far we're really on track. Since we do have a lot of the affordable units in the pipeline next year, you'll see more progress being made on our reader numbers.

Good to hear. Excellent. All right, thank you.

I'm guessing you can't answer this question, but 2705 North Sepulveda is the pending litigation related to it being 18 stories?

You are correct. We should be talking about that. Okay. Worth asking.

Robert, do you have any questions of staff?

No. I do not. Thank you very much.

The properties on the two on Rosecrans, the 1500 Rosecrans and the 1440 Rosecrans, those are both 500 plus units. How what are the structures like? Are they height wise I mean are they multiple buildings and

address I don't have them in front of me obviously and I'm trying to recall what one versus the other is. Think J. E. You've been working with the developer on one of them.

Sure I can speak to 1440 Rosecrans. They are two separate buildings, one is six stories, the other is a seven story building.

And I do not recall unfortunately the exact details but the scale and scope of the projects are fairly similar as far as height and intensity of structures.

Do we have any more questions of staff at this time?

I don't.

And we intend to use this opportunity annually through the housing element annual progress report to provide the update like this on the multifamily projects.

This is helpful and great to see it. Mean, it would be great to look at it more than once a year, but, you know, we're kind of talking about it one by one as they come through as well in the director's items. So it is helpful to have it all here in one place for residents to see what's happening as far as development.

Okay. I guess we let the record show that this report has been received and filed, and we will move on to director and staff updates. Planning manager, Feinstone,

do you have anything?

Nothing at this time.

Thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any planning commission items? Any commissioners, please?

No. None here in Mammoth.

Do we have a tentative agenda for the March 25 meeting?

We do. We have one item that's been scheduled, public hearing on the housing element zone text amendments that we held the study session on two weeks ago.

Okay.

Thank you. And do we have a motion to adjourn?

I'll move that we adjourn.

I'll second.

I have a motion from vice chairing Gokul and a second from commissioner Sistos. We are adjourned. There's no need to make a motion for adjournment anymore.