August 13, 2016 Neighborhood Meeting Summary

Agenda Items:
Preparation
Attendees
Acknowledgments
Meeting

Preparation

E-mail and phone reminders

Attendees

6 members

Acknowledgments

Susan brought homemade chocolatey scones

Meeting

Agenda Items:

The meeting began about 11:25 am

  • 550 unit development review & thoughts
    • Neighborhood members met with developer representatives on July 30 at Hastings Branch library.
    • Counted 11 of us from neighborhood.
    • The developer was represented by four people:
      • Brad Cox, Senior Managing Director, Trammell Crow Company
      • Jim Anderson, Senior Vice President, Development & Investment, Trammell Crow Company
      • Karen Shorr, Vice President, Trammell Crow Company
      •  Sheila Gonzaga, public relations person from Marathon Communications
    • Brad Cox gave a brief introduction of the development company, Trammell Crow, and the history of the project site. Jim Anderson gave an overview of the plan. Both answered questions. Karen Shorr took notes.
    • Primary new/updated information:
      • Trammell Crow submitted their formal application package to the city on July 8.
      • The city is currently going through the process of hiring the consultant who will do the Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Expect the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process to start by the end of September.
      • Should expect an EIR scoping meeting to be held by that city consultant this fall. Should attend that meeting to express concerns about traffic and any other environmental concerns. All those comments have to be written down and addressed in the report.
      • Traffic study will be done by Pasadena’s traffic engineers.
      • Expect EIR to take at least a year. Then begin the design review process. Expect it will probably take another year to get all the permits to start construction. So figure 2 1/2 years before construction is underway. Then another 2 to 2 1/2 years to build it.
      • The current design differs from what we previously saw in at least these ways:
        • The garage structure has been changed to have access to and from Kinneloa Ave. (As Laura suggested in letter to City Council for Preliminary Plan Review in June). It still would also have access to the central and eastern access roads to Foothill.
        • The underground garage had been made contiguous under the northern group of buildings.
        • Access to the underground garage has been added from the central access road to provide retail parking access.
        • The buildings have been broken up more, so there are more avenues for pedestrian circulation. (As design commission had suggested).
        • Have changed the plan for outdoor retail seating to put it behind the retail space on Foothill, not adjacent to the busy street. (As design commission had suggested).
        • Building Diagram & Circulation Plan for Vehicle Access as of July 8, 2016
      • Learned there is also a triangular piece of land on the west side of Kinneloa (between the freeway and Dewey Pest Control) that is included in the agreement between Trammell Crow and Space Bank. It is not part of this project and they haven’t made plans for it yet.
    • Other information from meeting notes:
      • Trammell Crow is 69 year old firm; 38 in Southern California. Now a subsidiary of CBRE. 14 people in their California office, now located in El Segundo. Develop all product types, including hospitals, multi-family, and office buildings. Majority of multi-family projects are Transit Oriented Developments. Extensive company experience with “brown field” developments (dealing with toxic waste). Have their own environmental science unit.
      • Trammell Crow currently has big Transit Oriented Development project in Los Angeles next to Union Station called LA Plaza Village.
      • Investors in projects are long-term holders, such as big pension funds. Not build and then sell.
      • Will develop parking to maximum city allows, although think some years down the road it will be too much.
      • Current plan has 835 spaces in all the garages. Will also have motorcycle parking and free but locked bicycle parking room.
      • They typically lease the parking spaces “unbundled”. Charge extra to lease a parking space which is then explicitly reserved for the lessee. Don’t have to lease a space if not needed; can lease additional spaces. There will be spaces reserved in the nearest garage for the retail uses.
      • Still talking about main access to project being an extension of Santa Paula and “activating” the street.
      • Say buildings are designed as backdrops to the open space of the project. Plan is 30% under the allowed floor area ratio (FAR), 32% under allowed building footprint, 24% under number of units could have.
      • “Large park” of greater the one acre is “heart of project” and publicly accessible. Will have programmed community events in that space such as movies or concerts. Expect to have mostly native plantings, but will have some lawn areas.
      • Have done “dozens and dozens” of environmental tests already. They will be responsible for ground contamination cleanup and are confident can do it.
      • Have been discussing for years with Dept of Toxic Substances and Regional Water Quality Board. Once Trammell Crow has control of the site, test well(s) will be drilled to test water. If contamination is found, a clean up well will have to be active for a long time. Indicated might have to bring suit against Navy to get them to do it. (Tried to get a response as to where such a well would be located, but either question wasn’t understood or direct answer was avoided.)
      • Said wells have been drilled to 150 feet without finding issues. (Not clear to me whether that has happened within the site or if they were referring to our water well, which is a bit upstream of the site).
      • Question about transient/homeless problem. Response was they will definitely have some kind of security and because it will be private property, they can kick anyone out, even from the “public” part of the property.
      • 15% city required affordable housing units will be on-site, mixed among and indistinguishable from the other units. Expect that 10% will be so called moderate income, defined as under 80% of the median of the area. That would typically be people like young teachers. The other 5% would be “very low” income, often seniors or disabled.
      • Current design’s mix of units is: 30% studio, 30% one bedroom, 35% two bedroom, 5% three bedroom.
      • Buildings will have variations on height and set backs along Foothill so does not look like big monolith. Expect variety of materials will be used. Glass for ground floor retail. Metal, stucco, wood elsewhere.
      • As part of the design/permit process, they will be required to do capacity checks for all utilities. If there isn’t enough available to the site, they will have to pay to increase the capacity.
      • Have to meet California green code and title 24 for energy consumption, which effectively causes them to meet LEED standards, but they don’t know yet whether they will pay for LEED certification. Certification is expensive. Have not determined yet whether will put solar panels anywhere – will have to evaluate incentives and trade-offs that will be available at the applicable time.
    • Meeting attendees who provided an e-mail address received a “Dear Neighbor” letter via e-mail from Brad Cox, Senior Managing Director, on Friday August 12, thanking them for participating in the meeting and encouraging continued communication.
    • Whether or not one agrees with the project, we felt that they certainly have taken their public relations lessons seriously.
    • Here is background on this topic starting with our last meeting:
      eewna.org/meeting-summaries/june-11-2016-neighborhood-meeting-summary/#spacebank
  • E-Waste & Document Shredding Event, Sat Sep 3
  • Local Crime Summary
    • For the last two months, from crimemapping.com: (note that time is typically when reported, not when it happened)
      • Wed July 20, 6:10 pm, 3200 block Estado, Residential Burglary
      • Tue July 12, 9:09 am, 3200 block Foothill Blvd, Burglary
      • Mon July 25, 2:30 pm, 3200 block Foothill Blvd, Burglary
      • Thurs Aug 5, 1 pm, 3200 block Foothill Blvd, Grand Theft Auto
  • anything else attendees wish to discuss
    • Miscellaneous discussions
      • We discussed numerous other topics. Some of them were:
        • Is everybody getting bitten a lot this summer? Yes, especially at dusk. By what? Mosquitoes? Mostly not seen, just the bites.
        • Neighborhood Connections has a new acting director, former director Brian Biery. He has reached out to the Neighborhood Associations asking if there are other services we’d like to have from the office.
        • Usefulness, or lack thereof, of Dial A Ride for those who can no longer drive.
        • Anything happening with the Santa Paula humps initiative? No one present involved with it.

Next meeting is September 10, 2016, 11:15 am, at Hastings Branch Library meeting room

Adjourned about 12:40?