Planning Commission Meeting Results

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission unanimously approved the recommendations by the Planning Department.

It also appears that many Planning Commission members support senior housing at Ponte Vista at San Pedro, when all is said and done.

The votes by the Planning Commission members reflected only their disapproval of the application, vesting tentative tract map, and other plans that were applied for.

The Planning Department is still in a great position to assist the developers of Ponte Vista and members of OUR community to provide the best results for the project.

A new EIR will be circulated if the current development team remains interested in the site.

The new EIR will probably focus on only three options:

The Proposed Project will probably be for 1,395 housing units as described by the development team.

The Planning Department's guidelines for a site having between 775-886 units, both with or without a density bonus.

The legal Alternative of "No Project" which means that the property remain with its current zoning.

The motion that provided for the acceptance of the Planning Department's recommendations included a 120-day period before the Planning Department, the developer, and others provide the Planning Commission members with a "progress report".

It could come to pass that all the studies and circulation of the new EIR will be finished before August 13 and that might help speed up the processes.

Expect to see lots of changes of attitudes and activities in the coming weeks and months.

It is basically a 'Start Over' but not really. We all have in place folks who are determined to work together to help develop Ponte Vista at San Pedro from a new Application and EIR, to the Entitlements.

The Planning Commissioners gave the Planning Department their 'marching orders' to work with the development team and the community to come up with a project that best fits what the majority of folks want to see.

Even though the Planning Department guidelines carry their issues regarding senior housing on the site, the members of the Planning Commission can overrule them and allow that type of housing.

There are still a fairly good number of folks, including me, who would not object to having some senior housing at Ponte Vista.

Commissioner Michael Woo was the only member who stated he did not like the idea of a gated portion of a project. He is only one vote though.

According to the Deputy Director of the Planning Department, he stated that his Department will stick fairly solidly behind their guidelines.

The work OUR community needs to do is to WORK TOGETHER to find the best project that we all can live with.

I am feeling warm fuzzies that we can work together for OUR community.

The average number of units between what the Developer wants (1,395) and what is at the upper end of the Planning Department's guidelines for a non-density bonus project (886) is 1,140 units.

Now about the density bonus issue.

According to a Deputy City Attorney, even though the developer now claims he will not seek a density bonus while he owns the property and he would carry that over to whoever buys the property, should he decide to sell it before building, the opinion is that the density bonus law will not allow that.

SB1818 is one issue that will need to be looked into further. It appears that the developer may not be able to give up a right to not have a density bonus.

If a density bonus is applied to the 1,395-unit proposal, that would allow for 1,883-units at Ponte Vista is 1,395 would be initially granted.

The Developer is proposing to set aside 20% of the senior housing and 20% of the Multi-family housing for "restricted to prices affordable to workforce housing" families.

In our area, the Area Median Income is approximately $41,000 per year.

The developer's workforce families housing would be priced to be so that someone making 180% of the Area Median Income would qualify to buy the least expensive unit.

180% of $41,000 per year is $73,800 per year.

If you currently make almost $74,000 per year, you may qualify for the least expensive unit at Ponte Vista.

76 Senior Housing units of the 380 proposed would fall into that income range.

77 Multi-Family units of the 385 proposed would fall into that income range.

A more subjective post follows this post.