Remarks by Seth Grossman
55 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 34:51
“Thank you, Brett and Chris, and thank you to the applicant. There's a lot I like about the project, echoing Commissioner Stark, the for sale housing, proving that Von Karman can support affordable housing on that street and on that area and in the IBC. I think that's very positive. What I wanted to talk to you about is sort of, I've spent a lot of time on your feasibility analysis. You're asking for a waiver of the density, of the 50 units density. And when I looked at it, it appears to me that the analysis was very binary. It was, what would it be for a tuner in 27 units, which is the 50…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 37:39
“Were there economically feasible alternatives that would generate a higher unit count and help the city to meet its density?”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 38:06
“Steph, can I ask a question? Do we, as a part of our review, look at any of those alternatives, or do we simply make a binary determination that 50 is economically infeasible?”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 38:42
“WELL, JUST AS A MORE OF A STATEMENT OF POLICY AND NOT IN ANY WAY TO PENALIZE THE APPLICANT FOR FOLLOWING THEIR RULES, I THINK THAT'S SOMETHING WE SHOULD EVALUATE AS TO WHETHER OR NOT THAT BINARY APPROACH OF IT DOESN'T MEET, WHICH I ABSOLUTELY AGREE THAT THE APPLICANT'S FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS DEMONSTRATES. BUT WE'RE NOW LOOKING AT 23.79 UNITS, WHICH IS MORE THAN A 50% REDUCTION. I don't know. I don't in any way mean to impugn the applicant, but I don't know as a third party verified whether there was something in the middle or somewhere in that range that could have satisfied those needs. And I…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 41:18
“No, they're based on the lowest tier of the affordability, right?”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 42:16
“And I'm not exactly sure. The individual areas, staff is more, we've identified that they meet sort of the space requirements, the square footage requirements. But from my reading, and please help me to understand why you would disagree, they're not, the size of the square footage, even in the reduced area of the IBC, I don't believe courtyards, frontage area A or frontage area B, are meeting the minimum required square footage. And I'm worried that we don't have enough of a contiguous, essentially open space for the families that would be moving in. And I acknowledge that the applicant has…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 44:35
“standards under the IBC relevant standards. I understand we've had Fairchild, they requested waivers and those were granted. But we're not doing that here. So are we comfortable? Are we certifying that each of these has met the minimum standards of square footage? I thought it was something like 6,000 square feet individually. I know collectively, aggregate-wise, but there still are individual standards that I'm concerned aren't being met.”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 46:13
“I didn't write down the exact line, so I apologize on that. But I believe it was 6,000. I believe there was something around a 6,000 square foot number. And two of the... six areas do meet, one 6,073 and one 6,370, but the other four are less, based on my understanding, which is what I'm trying to see clarification on.”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 47:11
“Thank you. Just one last comment, but it's just more of a comment for transparency point. Community Park obligation is being satisfied through a fee of roughly 2.04 million here using the applicable vested valuation of approximately 4.2 million per acre, which is absolutely the applicant's right as per their vested interest, but just acknowledge that this VALUATION OF THE LAND IS AT 9.1 MILLION PER THE TRANSACTIVE LAND PARTS, AND SO THAT I KNOW WE'VE ADDRESSED, WE'VE BEEN LOOKING INTO THIS AND IT IS BEING ADDRESSED, BUT JUST AS A MATTER OF TRANSPARENCY AND POLICY GOING, YOU KNOW, LOOKING…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 1:13:36
“Thank you. I would very much like clarification on that because while there is a tremendous number of merits, and we've discussed this at length, we have to make sure that all of our T's are crossed. And it does, from my understanding, it does clearly state that there is a minimum size of 6,000 per square foot for each of the individual courtyards. There is some type of if there's connected to, but if there's amenities like sports equipment or taught lots, as Commissioner Bhatia raised, but that's not proposed here. So in that respect, I would support a continuance. I did have two more real…”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 1:15:17
“I think rather than, well, yeah, rather than asking a couple more questions, I think I'd just like to make a motion for continuance. Would that be appropriate? Or was there already a motion? I'm sorry, did I?”
Planning Commission · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 18:09
“Thank you. Thank you to staff for being proactive. I think that it's commendable as a city that we, we, we do periodically. We look at our, at our codes and continually update them. I recall a couple of weeks ago, we were dealing with the coastal commission and talking about point systems. And I had to do a lot of homework to understand what that was. Cause we were dealing with 20, 30, 40 year old code. So I appreciate that when you guys modernize and update. Okay. I'm just going to go through a few small, small and a couple of big ones. Um, To echo Commissioner de la Cusack on the boarding…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 20:15
“Okay, fair enough. That's good that we have a... A follow up on opportunity on their great quick question on the self storage issue now, it is, I know that it is a we're being presented as correcting a previous omission and I and I acknowledge that that it is, I guess i'm just want to ask a question to staff to you. it's more of a land use question. Self storage doesn't generate very much employment it's. It's a very large use of space for a very low employment type category. Now it's a needed, it's a valid business use. Do we really want it to be by right? Is it the best use? Have we…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 21:23
“I have no problem with it today. I think it is an omission and such. I would encourage us to look at the land use element of self-storage spaces. Okay, I really wanna keep going. Where I wanna spend a little bit of time is the minimum density. First of all, I wanna really applaud staff for seeing how things have been developing and pushing forward the removal of financial infeasibility as an independent basis for reducing required minimum density. the preferred profitability of a project should not determine whether affordable housing is up. So I thoroughly support that. As part of the…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 24:23
“Okay, fair enough. All right, last question, last topic for me. Adult daycare and the community facilities. I just want to point out 100% support um bringing in not not not not having an issue with conflicts of existing conditional use permits and existing facilities most of these organizations that are covered by this are doing amazing work which we would all fully support adult daycare is an interesting category, and it is governed by state licensing requirements and has its own, again, going back to the idea of defining things as clearly as possible, like corporate housing versus a…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 32:22
“Commissioner Grossman? One comment. Going back to the hotel, Commissioner Mansfield, I would also suspect that the reason for the long term is the employees of the hotel would need a place as they're riding their bikes to work to be able to store it on a date and don't necessarily want to put it in the front of the hotel. I'm just speculating, but it seems like... Might work for me. One question I forgot to come back to. There's on the five business day appeal for administrative approvals. Again, I, again, support faster finality benefits the applicants. They have more certainty. That makes…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 33:34
“Published on the website. OK, so if I'm a nearby resident or, you know, or tenant or How would I know if I wasn't regularly on a daily browsing the website?”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 34:09
“OK. with all the, that feels inadequate if I were, because I acknowledge that they probably aren't controversial, but if someone was doing something either near my home or near my business, I kind of would like to have an easier way of knowing. So I don't know if there's a way of, you know, whether we're required by law or whether there's a way of notifying, you know, we have other rules where it's like 500 feet, people who live within 500 feet of a location. I don't know, it just feels like five, certainly five days would be hard to figure it out, find it, figure out what to do, and then if…”
Planning Commission · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 29:30
“THANK YOU. THANK YOU STAFF. THANK YOU APPLICANT. ERICA THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I JUST WANTED JUST A COUPLE MAKE SURE CLARIFICATIONS. SO THE ERRATA THAT WE HAD HAD BEFORE HAS NOW BEEN FULLY INCORPORATED INTO THE CURRENT RESOLUTION.”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 29:44
“OK. And the revised private street design that the applicant and the party have amicably agreed to as the only substantive change from June 18th?”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 29:57
“Okay. And I just want to clarify, does the resolution in any way make any new determinations about development rights for the adjacent MacArthur parcels? There's some language in there that I wanted to clarify around LCP and future. But first of all, first question is, does it make any declarations about future development rights for the MacArthur parcel adjacent?”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 30:24
“Okay. So we're not making any findings regarding the MacArthur parcel? Correct. Correct. Okay. And it does... So this resolution does not make any... towards any future development in that area. So I guess my real question is, the LCP references, are they descriptive? Are they creating new legal rights? Why is that language necessary in this resolution? It seems superfluous to me, but I'm a little unclear.”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 31:08
“Maybe I can ask something else while we're just going. Should I? So one other question. So the affordable housing, you've taken advantage of the 50% density bonus. Has the applicant looked at ways of providing more affordable housing now that they've had the 50% density bonus, which they are allowed by law, but in order to try and provide more affordable housing in this project, was anything explored? Or would the applicant like to?”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 32:31
“And I appreciate that you've done everything by law and by code, but recognizing the city cannot require additional affordable housing units. I mean, could I ask you to just voluntarily look at whether it's housing partnerships, whether it's working with trusts, whether it's working with nonprofit partners, but could I ask you to look into or commit to looking into, not commit to doing anything, but commit to looking into seeing if we can bring more affordability into cities into this project. That's one of the biggest challenges we have in our community. All of us have children that are…”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 33:21
“I really appreciate that. And then the last thing, again, is a voluntary request. Today, we're talking about approvals, and I'm on board. But as we get into construction, I'd like for you to strongly consider using our union labor as much as possible in this project. As we move into these projects, it's going to be important that we try and bring those people so that they can also move in and live into our city and get good-paying jobs in projects like this. So I would hope that you would look into that.”
Planning Commission · Jul 16, 2026