2025.03.04 Speaker Card - PC - Laserfiche WebLink

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March 1, 2025 Dear Mayor Martinez Saballos, Vice Mayor Eakin, and members of the City Council and Planning Commission, I would like to acknowledge the hard work by staff and the consultants throughout the City-led process to provide the community with information about the project and site conditions via the webinars and sensitivity analyses, as well as identifying a reduced alternative that could be ﬂeshed out in the CEQA review. Given that this City-led process is not something that is typically done, there were naturally some bumps in the road and some things that did not necessarily meet community expectations that could have been done a little differently or better. That said, I appreciate the time and efforts of staff, the consultants and the experts who participated in the process. While feedback from community meetings were incorporated into the reduced plan alternatives presented by the consultants, such as increasing the greenway along Marine Pkwy and behind the Peninsula Landing and Boardwalk residences, setting buildings further back from residences and the slough, and reducing the mass and visual impacts of some of the buildings with step backs and moving the mechanical further back, the alternatives do not adequately address building heights in the 100’ tall range and density of the project. The alternatives posed removing buildings from behind the edges of Boardwalk and Peninsula Landing to lessen the impacts there. However, when buildings are removed the result is that the remaining buildings have to retain height … so we still have many 100+ tall buildings, plus mechanical on top that makes them even higher. Building heights are measured from ground level, so if you take into account that ground level in some areas could potentially be 30’ higher than the Marine Pkwy roadway surface, the residential buildings, and sea level, we are now looking at buildings that tower in the neighborhood of up to 150’ ASL (above sea level). This is clearly unacceptable. I am skeptical with regard to the claims that we will not see the buildings, especially those in the interior, because of the set backs and planting of trees that will block the buildings. It generally takes 20 years for trees to reach maturity, and while the type of tree determines how fast and tall it will be, the types of trees that are suitable for the soil and wind conditions in the Shores will not grow to the heights necessary to block 100’ tall buildings. It is much easier to obscure lower buildings than taller buildings. It is also not clear to me if the quantity and locations of the trees needed to obscure the buildings will impact the greenway walking path that we wish to retain, as well as an adjacent biking path that we wish to have added. Moving the Longfellow Lane roadway away from the residences and greenway to the interior is a good idea in terms of mitigating the road noise and vehicle emissions. The small 104-room hotel was retained in the plan alternatives. Feedback throughout the process was that the community was clearly opposed to the hotel - - there is the Grand Bay on Twin Dolphin that is never fully occupied and plenty of other hotels in our immediate area. The real estate being taken up by the hotel would be better served as an ofﬁce/lab building; this would have the added beneﬁt of helping reduce the heights in the other buildings.