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As seen LIVE on Nov. 22, the City Council voted 8-0 (Andrews absent) to overrule Mr. Blesofsky's appeal and approve the developer-sought increased number of residences without requiring a new EIR. (Nov. 21, 2016, 10:50 a.m.) -- At the November 22 City Council meeting, Long Beach resident Warren Blesofsky (individually and as President of Citizens for Fair Development) will require City Councilmembers to either uphold or disapprove the October 20 action of City Hall's non-elected Planning Commission that approved letting a developer increase by 42% the number of residential units allowed in a previously-approved 35-story downtown high rise at Ocean Blvd./Alamitos Ave. while increasing on-site parking by roughly 16.5% without analyzing its environmental [neighborhood and city] impacts.
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The 35 story building's proposed outside design will remain the same. It's a not-yet-constructed eastern tower (roughly twice the height of a previously constructed western tower) at the NW corner of Ocean/Alamitos (777 E. Ocean Blvd.) The western tower (17 stories, 223 residential units) opened earlier this year; the eastern 35 story tower was approved in 2007 for 221 residential units plus 6,367 sq. ft of retail/restaurant space. In October 2016, the Planning Commission approved an increase of 94 residential units (from 221 to 315) with an increase in parking of 16.5% from 393 spaces to 458 spaces in a larger subterranean garage increased from two to five stories. Image from Exhibit B to Planning Comm'n agendized item. Mr. Blesofsky (who has opposed other Council actions that approved other developer-sought/city staff-supported downtown-development actions) filed an appeal of the Planning Commission's action (including paying the Council's newly-doubled $100 appeal fee) alleging that the City improperly used an "EIR Addendum" to the project's underlying Environmental Impact Report to avoid performing a new EIR that would analyze the impacts of allowing 94 additional residential units (315 instead of 221.)
City staff prepared an EIR Addendum concluding that "[A]lthough the proposed project could have a significant effect on the environment, because all potential significant effects (a) have been analyzed adequately in an earlier EIR or NEGATIVE DECLARATION pursuant to applicable standards, and (b) have been avoided or mitigated pursuant to that earlier EIR or NEGATIVE DECLARATION, including revisions or mitigation measures that are imposed upon the proposed project, nothing further is required." (To view the EIR addendum, click here.)
Mr. Blesofsky's appeal cites section 15164 of CEQA guidelines which indicates that an addendum is appropriate when minor technical changes or additions are needed and new information doesn't involve new significant impacts not identified in the previous EIR. [Blesofsky / Citizens for Fair Development appeal text] A 40% increase is not a minor technical change or addition. It is a major, substantive and significant change. For that reason alone an EIR addendum is not appropriate...[In addition] the addition of 94 units is not necessary. It may be desirable to the developer or the city, but it is certainly not necessary because the original plan was approved without the inclusion of the additional 94 units. Mr. Blesofsky's appeal notes that over 100 items on a city staff-completed environmental checklist are listed as having "no impact not identified in the previous EIR, to which his appeal states: "We believe that the addendum contains many instances of Impacts not previously identified, in fact too many to list here."
In September 2016, residents in adjoining the Alamitos Beach neighborhood urged the Council to budget a professionally conducted comprehensive parking plan in FY17...but received no voted budget support from their recently-elected 2nd district Council representative, Jeannine Pearce (or from any other Councilmembers.) The residents said the 2012 Council-approved high-rise-density-promoting "Downtown Plan" (championed by their now-exited 2nd Council dist. representative Suja Lowenthal with voted support by then-Councilman/now Mayor Robert Garcia) was supposed to deal with parking but, they said, hasn't been implemented. The Alamitos Beach area residents [who aren't listed among appellants in the Nov. 22 appeal] testified that they're now forced to cruise city streets for lengthy periods to find a parking space at the end of their work day, an issue they said makes the City less desirable for development and less competitive than it should be.
City staff required the developer to provide 1.25 parking spaces per dwelling unit and 1 space per thousand feet of retail/restaurant (in this case 6.7 spaces) amounting to 458 parking spaces, 60 in tandem, giving the developer an allowance for guest spaces that can be used to satisfy some required retail parking spaces. "Given this, the project exceeds the code requirement by 63 spaces," a city staff agendizing memo stated visible in full here. "The tandem spaces are considered excess and will be required to be solely used and assigned for residential units only," city staff said.
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