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8/14/1995
/:�ef�l\I 17:1 AUGUST 14, 1995 7:00 P.M. South Coast Air Quality Management District Auditorium .21865 East Copley Drive Diamond Bar, California Bruce Hamenbaum Bob D. Wd Meyer -Don Scbad FrankUn Fong Copies of staff reports or other written documentation relating to agenda items a're on file in the Community Development Office, located at 21660 E. Copley Drive, Suite 190, and are available for public .inspection. If you have questions regarding an agenda item, please call (909) 396-5676 during regular business hours. In an effort to comply with the requirements of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the City of Diamond Bar requires that any person in need of any type of special equipment, assistance or accomodation(s) in order to communicate at a City public meeting must inform the Community Development Department at (909) 396-5676 a minimum of 72 hours prior to the scheduled meeting. Please refrain from smoking, eating or drinking in the Auditorium The City of Diamond Bar uses recycled paper and encourages you to do the same. CITY OF DIAMOND BAR PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA Monday, August 14, 1995 CALL TO ORDER: 7:00 p.m. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Next Resolution No. 95-11 1. ROLL CALL: COMMISSIONERS: Chairman Bruce Flamenbaum, Vice Chairman Bob Huff, David Meyer, Don Schad, and Franklin Fong 2. MATTERS FROM THE AUDIENCE/PUBLIC COMMENTS: This is the time and.place for the general public to address the members of the Planning Commission on any item that is within their jurisdiction, allowing the public an opportunity to speak on non-public hearing and non -agenda items. Please complete a Speaker's Card for the recording Secretary (Completion of this form is voluntary) There is a five minute maximum time limit when addressing, the Planning Commission. 3. CONSENT CALENDAR: The following items listed on the consent calendar are considered routine and are approved by a single motion. Consent calendar items may be removed from the agenda by request of the Commission . only: 3.1 Minutes.of July 24, 1995 4. OLD BUSINESS: None 5. NEW BUSINESS: 5.1 General Plan Conformity Report No. 95-2 for Acquisition of Sanitary Sewer Easement and Summary Vacation of Sanitary Sewer Easement Pursuant to Government Code §65402 for property located within Lots 21, 40 and 41 of Tract No. 47851. 5.2 General Plan Conformity Report No...95-3 for Acquisition of property located adjacent to Summit Ridge Park (Lot 51 of Tract 42560) Pursuant to Government Code §65402. 1 5.3 Planned Sign Program No. 954 A request to amend Planned Sign Program No. 94-2 Project Location: 1180 South Diamond Bar Blvd, Diamond Bar, CA 91765 Applicant: Ron Underwood, 3600 Birch St., Ste. 220, Newport Beach, CA 92660 Property Owner: Nikko Capital, 3961 Mac Arthur Blvd, Ste 105, Newport Beach, CA 92660 RECOMMENDATION- Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve Planned Sign Program No. 95-4, Findings of Fact, and conditions as listed within the attached resolution. 6. PUBLIC HEARING: 6.1 Conditional Use Permit No. 95-2 This is a request to locate an unmanned remediation compound at the existing mini -market. The purpose of the facility is to remove, by vapor extraction, petroleum by-products which have leached into the soil as a result of gasoline storage tanks which had been used as a part of a gasoline station .previously operating on-site. Property Location:. 3302 S. Diamond Bar Blvd., Diamond Bar CA Applicant: Ralph Moran, P.O. Box 6037, Artesia, CA 90702 Property Owner: ARCO Environmental Assessment:. Pursuant to the terms of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City, after concluding review of the initial study, has determined that a* Negative Declaration be prepared for this project. RECOMMENDATIONS: The staff recommends that the Planning Commission open the public hearing, receive testimony and continue the public hearing. 7. PLANNING COMMISSION ITEMS: 8. INFORMATIONAL ITEMS: 8.1 Status Report regarding implementation of General Plan (i.e. Tree Preservation Ordinance, Slope Density Ordinance, Development Code, etc.) Verbal presentation from the Community Development Director 8.2 Information from the East San Gabriel Valley Planning Committee Meeting of July 27, 1995. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS 9. ADJOURNMENT: August 28, 1995 2 MINUTES OF THE CITY -OF DIAMOND BAR REGULAR MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION 40 JULY 24, 1995 *4 CALL TO ORDER: Chairman Flamenbaum called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. at the South Coast Air Quality Management Auditorium, 21865 East Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, California. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: The audience was led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Commissioner Meyer. ROLL CALL: Present: Commissioners: Chairman Flamenbaum, vice Chairman Huff, Commissioners Meyer, Schad and Fong. Also Present: Community Development Director James DeStefan6; Assistant Planner Ann Lungu; Consulting Engineer Mike Myers; Recording Secretary, Carol Dennis. MATTERS FROM THE AUDIENCE/PUBLIC COMMENTS - None CONSENT CALENDAR: 1. Minutes of June 26, 1995. VC/Huff stated ' that the motion on Page 7, Paragraph 5 should be corrected to indicate a vote of 3-0 so that sentence reads: "The motion was approved 3-0 with the following roll call:" A motion was made by C/Meyer and seconded by C/Schad to approve the minutes as corrected. The motion was approved 4-0 with the following roll call: AYES: COMMISSIONERS: Meyer, Schad, Fong, VC/Huff NOES: COMMISSIONERS: None ABSTAIN: COMMISSIONERS: Chair/Flamenbaum ABSENT: COMMISSIONERS: None OLD BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS: 1. General Plan Conformity Report for Vacation of Right -of - Way (Gona Court) Pursuant to Government Code §65402. CD/Myers stated the City of Diamond Bar has received a request from the Cross Keys Homeowners Association to July 24, 1995 Page 2 Planning Co vacate Gona Court southerly from Golden Springs Drive to its cul-de-sac approximately 425 feet southerly. This property was dedicatdd to public use with the recording of Tract No. 34157 and is fully improved. There exists public utility, sanitary sewer and storm drain facilities within the public right-of-way. However, as the facilities exist it would be necessary, should the vacation be approved, that the property be reserved for -public utility and public services easements. In accordance with Section 65402(a) of the Government Code, no real property shall be disposed of or street vacated until the Planning Commission reports on conformity of the location, purpose and extent with the General Plan. Gona Court is not shown in the Draft General Plan nor on the Master Plan of Highways as a primary or secondary highway. The design and dedication of this street for circulation purposes is for specific service to the adjacent properties which are all members of the Cross Keys Homeowners Association. CE/Myers continued that this proposed vacation appears to be in conformance with the Draft General Plan, There is little or no probability that taking this recommended action would be detrimental to or interfere with any future adopted General Plan. Additional Section 892 of the Streets and Highways Code requires that the City Council find that the right-of-way is not useful as.a non -motorized transportation facility (bicycle, pedestrian or equestrian way). Gona Court is not shown in the Draft General Plan to be planned nor required for bicycle, pedestrian or equestrian use. Therefore, the property is found: not to be required for general public access or circulation; not to be any longer nee nor for the prospective public which use cannot reservation of a public services easement; and not to be useful as transportation facility. led for the present use of the general be served by the utility and public a non -motorized Pursuant to Section 15312 of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), this matter is categorically exempt. July 24, 1995 Page 3 Planning N�WR*Eei. Commission Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve the attached resolution finding and reporting that: 1) pursuant to Section 65402 of the Government Code, the location, purpose and extent of the vacation of this property is in conformance with the * Draft General Plan; and further recommending that, 2) as required by Section 892 of the Streets and Highways Code, the City Council find that Gona Court is not useful as a non -motorized transportation facility. A motion was made by C/Meyer and seconded by VC/Huff to adopt the resolution. Responding to Chair/Flamenbaum, CE/Myers stated that, upon vacation, the maintenance for the public utilities would be the public utility entities. The storm drains would continue to be maintained by Los Angeles County Flood Control District and the sewer would be maintained by the Consolidated Sewer Maintenance District. There are some Los Angeles County storm drains located in "The Country Estates". The City does not pay for the maintenance of storm drains. The City does pay for the maintenance of catch basins and inlets as required under the City's commitment to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Chair/Flamenbaum stated he is concerned about the trend toward the City giving up street right-of-ways. CE/Myers responded that if the Planning Commission finds this request to be in conformance with the General.Plan, the matter will proceed to the City Council in accordance with other sections of the Government 'Code regarding vacations of public right-of-ways.' The matter is subject to public notice, public hearing and deliberation by the City Council. Chair/Flamenbaum indicated he does not see a benefit to the City with respect to the vacation. In addition, he questioned why the City would not vacate every street and thereby save money on road repair. CE/Myers responded that the City could save maintenance and liability costs. C/Meyer stated his reason for the motion to adopt the resolution was that the resolution meets the criteria for the Draft General* Plan. He indicated that his observation of Gona Court is that it has very little pub * lic benefit. Currently, the City of Diamond Bar is asked to maintain what is essentially a private street with access only to the condominium development. The benefit of vacation is reduced costs to the City and its taxpayers. July 24, 1995 Page 4 Planning Commission IV Chair/Flamenbaum stated the next step after vacation of this *street will be the installation of a gate. He further stated- that, in his --opinion, this is contrary to the intent of the Draft General Plan. C/Meyer stated that the least amount of property held by a public entity is of benefit to the community because the City does not have -to maintain the property, the liability is reduced and the property is taxable. VC/Huff stated he agrees with C/Meyer that Gona Court is surrounded by the condominium project. He indicated he sees no benefit for the City to retain the street. He further stated he is not prepared to propose the privatization of all streets. In addition, he stated that a request for a gate 'at the street entrance would be a separate consideration by the City. Chair/Flamenbaum stated that while he does not have a problem with vacating Gona Court, he does not agree that this resolution conforms with the intent of the Draft General Plan. He indicated he is concerned with the trend. C/Meyer stated that upon approval of vacation of Gona Court, he would favor amendments to the Cross Keys Homeowners Association CC&Rls, to insure the proper maintenance of the property. CE/Myers responded that the complex has other streets which have been.'well maintained. The Cross Keys Homeowners Association CC&Rls have been reviewed by the Department tment of Real Estate. The vacation will result in amendments to the CC&Rls and the budget. CE/Myers responded -to C/Schad that the public services easements will remain with the street. The 'lighting system, upon vacation of the property, will be taken out of the Street Lighting Maintenance District and the cost for power and maintenance of the light poles will become theresponsibility of the homeowners association. The current infrastructure will not be disturbed. The lighting cost is based upon an fixed annual per -pole fee. CDD/DeStefano, responding to C/Fong and Chair/Flamenbaum stated that upon request from the Cross Keys Homeowners Association for installation of a gate at Gona Court and Golden Springs Road, the matter would come before the City for consideration and approval. July 24, 1995 - Page 5 Planning Commission4e The motion to approve the resolution was approved 4-1 with the following roll call: AYES: NOES: ABSTAIN: ABSENT: CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING: COMMISSIONERS: COMMISSIONERS: COMMISSIONERS: COMMISSIONERS: Meyer, VC/Huff, Fong, Schad Chair/Flamenbaum. None None 1. Conditional Use Permit No. 95-3. - A request to operate an unmanned public utility substation for a cellular communication facility with a 60 foot monopole with antennae and microwave dishes. The radio equipment will be housed within an underground vault. Continued from June 26, 1955. Because C/Meyer's business is located at the site under consideration for this project, he recused himself and left the dais. CDD/DeStef ano stated this item was continued in order. for the applicant to provide additional photographs requested by the Planning Commission. In addition, the Planning Commission and staff requested additional time to examine documents provided by the applicant on June 26, 1995. Data contained in the report indicates that the applicant is seeking a site that meets their criteria for efficiency rate. Staff has noted the receipt of more and more questions and comments regarding monopoles and other cellular telecommunications devices in the community. In staff's opinion, this is a result of a growing use of these types of tools in the immediate area as well as, the sale of additional air wave rights allowing more users in.the area. The applicaiit has focused on the site known as the "Walnut Pool" site. The applicant believes that this is the best location to connect with the existing cell sites in the immediate area. The monopole is proposed not to exceed a 'height of 76 feet. The applicant has looked at a number of other sites in the immediate area including the Raddison Inn. Staff has indicated several concerns with the proposed location. Staff believes that a monopole of up to 76 feet in height is inappropriate for the proposed location within the community. Staff.is not opposed to the technology. In fact, the City has approved a number of cell sites over the past five years. Cell sites have been approved at the Diamond Bar High School, Torito Lane, Prospectors Road and the Raddison Inn. Each of these locations have been modified from the original request of the applicant. All of the approved sites July 24, 1995 - Page 6 Planning CommissionIAN have resulted from the cooperative ef fort of the applicant and the City. Staff feels this cooperative effort is lacking with this application. The City has a draft General Plan that encourages aesthetic values which are described in policy statements. The City is seeking the retention of "Country Living" by, various def initions. The City is seeking overall superior land use planning and the protection of views from properties and developments. A number of scenic areas have been identified as posing ideal characteristics for preservation, not the least of which has been the SR 57 corridor. The City has spent considerable time and energy to encourage.the utility companies to underground utilities that are currently located overhead within the community. For the past six years, the City has required -underground utilities for all new developments. The City, through policy statements and regulations, has adopted low -scale monument signage and 35 foot height building maximums in most zones. , Staff believes the application is inconsistent with the General Plan and.policy statements the City has adopted and implemented over the last few years. Alternative locations and heights need to be explored by this applicant. Absent a specific willingness by the applicant to seek, at a minimum, an alternative 'height, if not an alternative location, staff recommends the Planning Commission deny the application. by directing staff to prepare the appropriate resolution. CDD/DeStefano, responding to C/Schad, stated that the applicant's package incorporated the identification of Walnut Pool's at the top of the monopole. Staff indicated such signage was inappropriate. The applicant stated at the June 26, 1995 meeting that should the application be approved, they would remove the signage from the top of the transmission tower. Responding to C/Fong, CDD/DeStef ano stated the existing Walnut Pool sign is a non -conforming sign. The sign was established in 1978. Based upon the existing sign ordinance, the sign has a 15 year life. The Planning Commission could include the elimination of the current sign into an approval for a future development of the site. The existing sign is 35 feet high and the current ordinance allows a sign of 6.feet in height. Chair/Flamenbaum declared the public hearing reopened. Joe Richards, Richards Mueting Wilkes Planning & Engineering, 6529 Riverside Avenue #115, Riverside stated his firm represents AirTouch Cellular on this matter. He introduced Maria Lamb, AirTouch Radio Frequency Group and Eric Mears, 4, July 24, 1995 Page 7 Planning CommissionJ Real Estate and Site Development Group. He stated that staff's concern that cities and counties are becoming increasingly concerned about towers is valid. Despite the concern, the cellular source is a regional service and the objective is to give -customers the ability to access the network through cellular facilities that are permitted in adjacent cities. The applicant recognizes there is no obligation for the cities and counties to provide for this service. The two current AirTouch facilities reside on buildings. He stated that in his opinion, AirTouch has made ever effort to locate on buildings when they exist. In this case, there is no building to house the proposed site. Based on analysis of the City of Diamond Bar, the proposed site is a good location . for a monopole. The proposed isolated commercial property site is adjacent to a freeway infrastructure and a CalTrans facility. He further stated there has been no written or verbal opposition to this project. I I Regarding aesthetics, the need for cellular facilities is increasing. Cellular facilities provide business and residential use as well as 911 emergency access. He stated that, in his opinion, the service provides a better quality of urban life. The industry has an obligation to consider co - locations and existing structure's where feasible for its facilities. He indicated he believes AirTouch has fulfilled this obligation. AirTouch believes that a monopole is a proper support structure for the Diamond Bar location and the site is conducive to such a structure. Responding to VC/Huff, Mr. Richards stated that some AirTouch locations are in the process of converting to digital service. With the advent of digital service, there will continue to be a need for the monopole at this site to handle the capacity. Mr. Richards responded to C/Schad that, at the discretion of the property owner, AirTouch would be amenable to having -another cellular company co -locate on the monopole. Maria Lamb, AirTouch Cellular and a Diamond Bar resident stated the proposed site is a split between the cell site at Rowland Heights and Golden Springs Drive. She emphasized the site is needed to accommodate the projected increase in use. She further stated that the Raddison Hotel building was considered for a cell site, however, it is too high. In response to VC/Huff, Ms. Lamb stated any location on the Raddison Hotel building is too high to accommodate the line of site. Of the sites considered, the Walnut Pools location is the best. July 24, 1995 Page 8 Planning Commission C/Fong asked if the current AirTouch cell sites could be relocated to accommodate a more favorable site than the Walnut Pools location. Ms. Lamb responded AirTouch has considered that possibility. - However, because -of the terrain, -it - is- not feasible to alter -the existing sites to meet the current facility needs. A temporary cell site was located on . Valley Boulevard between Brea Canyon Road and Lemon Avenue which proved inadequate. Eric Mears, Site Development Manager, Air Touch Cellular and a Diamond Bar resident, responded to VC/Huff that even going to the lowest level on the side of the Raddison Hotel building, the facility would be much higher than the proposed site at Walnut Pools. ' The facility could not.be placed low enough to be in contact with the other cell sites in the vicinity. The facility currently located on the side of the Raddison Hotel building allows for only two sectors. The Walnut Pools site would allow for three sectors which would accommodate all outlying cell sites. Responding to C/Fong,, Mr. Mears stated AirTouch has researched the possibility of relocating the current sites to accommodate a new cell site and found that there would continue to be a gap in service due to the terrain. Mr. Mears, in response to C/Schad, stated all cell sites are licensed with the FCC. Other possible sites were identified by AirTouch. However, the proposed Walnut Pools site appears to be the most technically feasible. There is currently a temporary cell site located on the Shell Oil property in Tonner Canyon. Responding to Chair/Flamenbaum, Mr. Mears stated AirTouch will be offering digital service. It is not currently available commercially. Ms. Lamb responded that theproposedmonopole at the Walnut Pools location will not operate on the same frequency as the Rowland Heights or the Torito Lane and Golden Springs Drive cell site. Interference will .occur if the users cell phone is operating at the same frequency as the cell site. The proximity of cell sites depends on the transmission power and the site height. Chair/Flamenbaum stated the proposed site is not offensive to him. However, as the need for service increases so do the requests for additional sites and the Diamond Bar area will soon look like an antenna farm. in response to Chair/Flamenbaum, Ms. Lamb stated the Raddison Hotel building is not a good site for micro cell application. Micro cell operates on zone areas and. the zones have to be interconnected with fiber optics. Clustering will not accommodate the corridor which needs to be improved. Chair/Flamenbaum stated there are sites other than the July 24, 1995 Page 9 Planning Commission Raddison Hotel that would accommodate clustering of the cell sites. ites. Ms. Lamb responded that the Diamond Bar Honda location suggested by Chair/Flamenbaum would not facilitate the handoff proceeding southbound'on the SR 57. Mr., Mears stated it is contemplated that technology will surpass the need for any additional cell sites in this area. As the digital technology advances, the current frequencies should provide greater usage. Micro cell technology is very limited and clustering would not prove to be effective. Mr. Mears responded to C/Schad that the existing tower to the east of the Raddison Hotel is located at Golden Springs Drive and Torito Lane. Responding to C/Fong, Mr. Mears stated that the Diamond Bar Golf Course would be too easterly for a monopole site to provide a clean line of site to the next cell site to the .west. In addition, it would be too close to the Golden Springs Drive -and Torito Lane site. C/Fong stated he has a problem with the proposed site and staff's indication that the applicant is unwilling to consider other sites. He further stated the applicant has not provided anything in writing to the Planning Commission to indicate that any alternate studies have been conducted by AirTouch. Chair/Flamenbaum declared the public hearing closed. CDD/DeStefano stated that the Planning Commission has had the opportunity to hear the staff report and receive testimony from the applicant. The applicant has yet to respond to the Planning Commission request for additional photographs showing this particular site at the proposed location. According to the applicant's testimony, the Planning Commission is considering a site that is poor planning on the part of the applicant. This site has been chosen principally to fulfill the needs of the applicant. It seems to staff that this is an inappropriate height for this utility at the proposed location. The Planning Commission has considered a number of projects over the last few years.- There has always been concern expressed for the degradation of the community and the quality of urban life. In addition, there have been concerns regarding aesthetic values, retention of open space and the continuing urbanization of the community. The application before the Planning Commission is for the eighth facility within the City of Diamond Bar. CDD/DeStefano stated that the staff recommends that the Planning Commission take action to deny this particular application at the proposed location. July 24, 1995 Page 10 Planning Commission In response to Chair/Flamenbaum, CDD/DeStefano stated NexTel is proposing a 50 foot monopole next to the Diamond Bar Honda location. LA Cellular is proposing a 90 foot monopole at Brea Canyon Cutoff. LA Cellular has A temporary facility on Pathfinder Road. VC/Huff stated he is' concerned with the proliferation of towers in the community. He indicated the community is attempting to underground utility services. Erecting monopoles in the City of Diamond Bar does not lend to the country living atmosphere which the City's residents are seeking. However, there is a need to access 911 and have the cellular benefits available for emergency. He stated he is concerned with the large number of projected cell sites due to increase in demand. He further stated he is also concerned that staff has taken a strong position on this matter. Since staff usually does not respond in this matter, it indicates to him that there are unanswered questions regarding this proposal. Therefore, he indicated he would like to see the applicant work with staff to consider additional alternatives and present the results to the .Planning Commission for further consideration. As a result of the Walnut Pools location proposed to be the only site considered by AirTouch he stated he would not be in favor of this proposal. C/Schad stated he discussed the proposal with the applicant. Based upon 'discussions this evening, he is concerned that more should be done by the applicant to research an alternate location in order to improve the aesthetics of the City. C/Fong stated he is not in favor of the AirTouch proposal. In his view, a better location can be determined in order to preserve the aesthetics of the community. Mr. Richards requested a continuance to October 9, 1995. Chair/Flamenbaum stated he feels the proposed site is perfect. He indicated he has difficulty with future proposals and the inability of cellular companies to co -locate their facilities. Mr. Richards responded that AirTouch is willing to work with competitors to share facilities. He stated they will contact NexTel to discuss the matter. A motion was made by C/Schad continue conditional Use Permit The motion was s approved 4-0 with AYES: COMMISSIONERS: NOES: COMMISSIONERS: ABSTAIN: COMMISSIONERS: ABSENT: COMMISSIONERS: and seconded by VC/Huff to No. 95-3 to October 9, 1995. the following roll call: Schad, VC/Huff, Fong, Chair/Flamenbaum None Meyer None July 24, 1995 Page 11 Planning Commission C/Meyer returned to the dais. PLANNING COMMISSION ITEMS: VC/Huff stated he is pleased to see the signs acknowledging the businesses during the Grand Avenue rehabilitation project. ANNOUNCEMENTS: CDD/De9tef ano, stated that the.. City of Diamond Bar is the host City for the East San Gabriel Planning Committee meeting to be held Thursday, July 27,, 1995 at. 6:30 p.m. at the Raddison Hotel. Dr. David Bess, CalPoly Urban Planning Professor who is a former Dean of the School of Environmental Design will present 1115 Way to Fix the Suburbs". He encouraged the Planning Commissioners to attend. CDD/DeStefano stated consideration of the Draft General Plan is agendizeid for the July 25 City Council meeting. ADJOURNMENT:. Chairman Flamenbaum, declared the meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, James DeStefano Community Development Director Attest: Bruce Flamenbaum Chairman BACKGROUND: The City of Diamond Bar has received a request from Diamond Bar East Partners to construct one of the sanitary sewer lines for this subdivision at a location different from that approved on the original sewer improvement plans and as was shown on the final map of Tract"No. 47851. This subdivision (Tract No. 47851) was approved and recorded in July of 1994. Lots 21 and 40 were burdened, by dedication on the final map, with easements for sanitary sewer purposes. Subsequently the Subdivider determined that Lots 21 and 40 could be better utilized if they were free of the sewer easements that encumbered them. Prior to construction of any sewer improvements in this vicinity the Subdivider prepared a revision to the sewer improvement plans which realigned a portion of the proposed sewer mainline out of Lots 21 and 40 and across Lot 41. This proposed revision of the improvement plan has been approved (subject to the dedication and acceptance by the City of an easement for sanitary sewer purposes across Lot 41) and the sewer facilities have now been constructed. City of Diamond Bar PLANNING COMMISSION Staff Report AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: 5.1 REPORT 'DATE: August 3, 1995 MEETING DATE: August 14, 1995 CASE/FILE NUMBER: APPLICATION REQUEST: General Plan Conformity Report for Acquisition of Sanitary Sewer Easement and Summary Vacation of Sanitary Sewer Easement Pursuant to Government Code §65402 PROPERTY LOCATION: Vacation of Existing Easement (Lots 21 and 40, Tract 47851) Acceptance of Proposed Easement (Lot 41, Tract 47851) APPLICANT: Hunsaker Associates PROPERTY OWNER.: Diamond Bar East Partners BACKGROUND: The City of Diamond Bar has received a request from Diamond Bar East Partners to construct one of the sanitary sewer lines for this subdivision at a location different from that approved on the original sewer improvement plans and as was shown on the final map of Tract"No. 47851. This subdivision (Tract No. 47851) was approved and recorded in July of 1994. Lots 21 and 40 were burdened, by dedication on the final map, with easements for sanitary sewer purposes. Subsequently the Subdivider determined that Lots 21 and 40 could be better utilized if they were free of the sewer easements that encumbered them. Prior to construction of any sewer improvements in this vicinity the Subdivider prepared a revision to the sewer improvement plans which realigned a portion of the proposed sewer mainline out of Lots 21 and 40 and across Lot 41. This proposed revision of the improvement plan has been approved (subject to the dedication and acceptance by the City of an easement for sanitary sewer purposes across Lot 41) and the sewer facilities have now been constructed. City of Diamond Bar Meeting Date August 14, 1995 PLANNING COMMISSION Staff Report (August 3, 1995) Page 2 of 3 No sanitary sewer service point of connection for any lot was changed by this revised alignment. Lots 40 and 41 continue to be serviced by house laterals in Oak Knoll Drive and Lot 21 by a lateral in Woodbridge Court. The attached Exhibit "A" shows both the existing easements (proposed vacation) and proposed easement (offer of dedication). The owner has offered to the City a sanitary sewer easement across Lot 41 which is described in Exhibit "B". Those easements proposed to be abandoned are described in Exhibit "C". Upon acceptance, by the City Council, of the offer of dedication of a sanitary sewer easement over Lot 41 the existing sewer easements over Lots 21 and 40 which are proposed to be vacated would: • be no longer needed for the present or prospective use of the general public; • have been superseded by an alternate sewer easement location and no other public facilities are within the easement; • have not diminished service to any property which previously enjoyed such planned services; • be sanitary sewer easements in excess of that required for the necessary and proper service to these properties and the general public; The California Bicycle Transportation Act, Section 892 of the Streets and Highways Code of the State of California requires in part that "(r)ights-of-way established for other purposes by cities, counties or local agencies shallnotbe abandoned unless the governing body determines that the rights-of-way or parts thereof are not useful as a non -motorized transportation facility." The sanitary sewer easements to be abandoned are generally on steep slopes (approximately 2:1) and do not provide opportunity for extension or interconnection of any master planned or General Plan bicycle, equestrian or pedestrian facility in the City of Diamond Bar. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT: Pursuant to Section 15312 of the California Environmental Quality Act(CEQA), this matter is categorically exempt.. City of Diamond Bar Meeting Date August 14, 1995 PLANNING COMMISSION .Staff Report (August 3, 1995)' Page 3 of 3 RECOMMENDATION: It is recommended the Planning Commission approve the attached resolution finding and reporting that: 1) pursuant to section 65402 of the Goverment Code, the , location, purpose and extent of both the acquisition and vacation of sanitary sewer easements- is in conformance with the General Plan; and further recommending that, 2) as required by section 892 of the Streets and Highways code, the City Council find that the sanitary sewer easements proposed to be vacated are not useful as a non -motorized transportatio facility. acility. PREPARED BY: e Myers for �qGeoErge Wentz,Director of Public Works/City Engineer ATTACHMENTS: Vicinity Map Planning Commission Resolution Exhibits "A", "B", and "C" DlAMo�Vp SAR DlAMON� b ol v o'� • Coco L ,tus _ L�.yg qtr . --- rre 1Yo.4785/ 7-F"7-- 7W • nro _ 4/8 Y8 7 VICINITY MAP �SoALE= 1�=2800' PC RESOLUTION NO. PC 95- A RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION. OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR FINDING THAT THE ACCEPTANCE OF A SANITARY SEWER EASEMENT ON LOT 41 OFFERED FOR DEDICATION AND THE VACATION OF A SANITARY SEWER EASEMENT ON LOT 21 AND LOT 40 ALL OF TRACT 47851 IN THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR, CALIFORNIA IS IN, CONFORMANCE WITH THE GENERAL PLAN OF THE CITY OF, DIAMOND BAR. WHEREAS, Diamond Bar East Partners, a California Limited Partnership has dedicated to the City of Diamond Bar an easement for sanitary sewer purposes over Lot 41 of Tract No. 47851 in the City of Diamond Bar, County of Los Angeles, State of California, as shown'on.Map filed in Book 1207, pages 47 through 56 inclusive of Maps, in the Office of County Recorder of said County for the purpose of constructing sanitary sewer facilities for the use of the public; and WHEREAS, Diamond Bar East Partners, a California Limited Partnership has requested the vacation of sanitary sewer easements as such easements exist on Lots 21 and 40.as shown on map of said tract; and. WHEREAS, the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar has considered the matter of the dedication and the vacation of sewer easements the location and extent of which is generally shown as the "existing easement for sanitary sewer purposes to be vacated" and "new sewer easement" on Exhibit "A", attached hereto; and WHEREAS, Section 65402 of the Government Code of the State of California requires that no real property shall be acquired by dedication for public purposes nor disposed of until the location, purpose and extent of such acquisition and disposition have been reported upon by the planning agency of the city as to conformity with the General Plan. NOW, THEREFORE,- THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR DOES HEREBY RESOLVE: Section 1 The Planning Commission hereby finds inds that the vacation of sanitary sewer easements as such easements exist on Lots 21 and 40 of Tract No. 47851 in the City of Diamond Bar, County of Los Angeles, State of California, as shown on Map filed in Book 1207, pages 47 through 56 inclusive of Maps, in the Office of County Recorder of said County; and as generally shown on Exhibit "A", attached hereto, as the "existing easement for sanitary sewer purposes.to be vacated", along with the acceptance of the dedication of an.easement for sanitary sewer purposes over Lot 41 of said Tract No.. 47851 as generall ' y shown on Exhibit "A", attached hereto, as the "new sewer easement", is in conformance with -the General Plary--of -the- City 'Of Diamond Bar.' Section 2 The Planning Commission hereby recommends to the City Council that the sanitary sewer easement to be vacated, as generally shown on Exhibit "A", attached hereto, as the "existing easement for sanitary sewer purposes,to be vacated", be found to not be useful as a non -motorized transportation facility as required by Section 892 of the Streets and Highways Code of the State of California. Section 3 The Secretary to the Planning Commission shall: (a) Certify to the adoption of this Resolution; and (b) Forthwith transmit a.certified copy hereof to the City Council of the City of. Diamond Bar. PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED THIS DAY OF 1995 ATTEST: James DeStefano, Secretai-y CHAIRMAN: BRUCE FLAMENBAUM Attachments: Exhibits -A", "B- & 'C" K STATE OF CALIFORNIA ) SS COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ) I, James DeStefano, do hereby certify that I am the secretary of the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar, California and that the foregoing resolution was duly adopted at a regular meeting thereof held on by the following vote: Ayes: Noes: Absent: ATTEST: James DeStefano, Secretary 3 1r EXHIBIT SEWER EASEMENT IN THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA EXISTING PARCELS PROPOSED PARCELS IN AP NUMBERS REFERENCE NUMBERS DIAMOND DAR EAST LOTS 21, 40 AND '41 PARTNERS. EXIST. EASEMENT FOR SANITARY SEWER PURPOSES PER MAP N0. 47851 TO BE VACATED 40 15 P.0.B. 12 52' N 40 45' 00" W 19.76' H 0' rn04 NEW SERER EASEMENT • �, APER DESCRIPTION °. S 1;xl4►bi+ "6'. LLI�' N 18.42' 12" W U ` 6 6. 33' 'r U 6l EXIST. PRIVATE AND FUTURE CL 3 EASEMENT FOR STORM DRAIN PURPOSES PER MAP 47851 N 20943'34." E O tD EXIST. EASEMENT FOR THE PURPOSES OF ACCESS, SANITARY SEWER & PRIVATE STORM -DRAIN /. PER MAP NO. 47851 9 JOHN W. HILL, JR. L.S. 5669 \ Exp.- e -•30-x3 EXP. 9/30/95 N0. 5669 T _ °F �' SHEET I OF i SHEETS EXHIBIT "B" SEWER EASEMENT A 10 FOOT WIDE STRIP OF LAND OVER, UNDER AND ACROSS A PORTION OF LOT 41 OF TRACT NO. 47851, IN THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, As SHOWN ON THE MAP FILED IN BOOK 1207, PAGES 47 THROUGH 56, INCLUSIVE, OF MAPS, RECORDED AUGUST 30,1994, IN THE OFFICE OF THE COUNTY RECORDER OF SAID COUNTY, THE SOUTHERLY AND EASTERLY. SIDELINE OF SAID 10 FOOT WIDE STRIP OF LAND BEING DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE NORTHERLY SIDELINE OF THE EASEMENT SHOWN ON SAID MAP OF TRACT NO. 47851 AS "PRIVATE AND FUTURE EASEMENT FOR STORM DRAIN PURPOSES" WITH THAT CERTAIN COURSE OF THE EASTERLY E BOUNDARY OF SAID LOT 41 SHOWN ON SAID MAP AS'NORTH 4045'00 Wr-ST.1936" SAID INTERSECTION POINT BEING 12.75 FEET SOUTHERLY OF THE NORTHERLY TERMINUS OF SAID CERTAIN COURSE; THENCE LEAVING SAID EASTERLY BOUNDARY ALONG SAID NORTHERLY SIDELINE SOUTH 48014'03' WEST 153.59 FEET; THENCE sou-rfi 18042'12 . - EAST 66.33 FEET; THENCE SOUTH 67°17'08' WEST 90.73; THENCE SOUTH 2004334" EAST 8.11 FEET TO A POINT IN THE NORTHEASTERLY SIDELINE OF THAT CERTAIN EASEMENT ALONG THE SOUTHWESTERLY LINE OF SAID LOT 41 SHOWN ON SAID MAP AS AN EASEMENT FOR THE PURPOSES OF ACCESS, SANITARY SEWER AND PRIVATE STORM DRAIN. THE NORTHERLY AND WESTERLY SIDELINES OF.SAID STRIP SHALL TERMINATE IN SAID EASTERLY BOUNDARY OF LOT 41 AND SAID NORTHEASTERLY SIDELINE OF SAID EASEMENTALONG THE SOUTHWESTERLY LINE OF SAID LOT 41. JOHK'W.'HILL, JR. L.S. 5669 HUNSAKER & ASSOCIATES SAN DIEGO, INC. Exp. kOFCW�Z '9xa0l.doc _.,kk msword\m.Nlegals\0953\00 CnqT(T ktnS 2[71>� OZ:17T S6, 02 Wf r - EXHIBIT f9cly SEWER EASEMENT ABANDONMENT THOSE PORTIONS OF LOTS 21 AND 40 OF TRACT 47851, IN THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AS SHOWN ON THE MAP FILED IN BOOK 1207, PAGES 47 THROUGH 56, INCLUSIVE, OF MAPS, RECORDED AUGUST 30, 1994, IN THE OFFICE OF THE COUNTY RECORDER OF SAID COUNTY, SHOWN ON SAID MAP AS 15.00 FOOT WIDE EASEMENTS FOR SANITARY SEWER PURPOSES. VN D &0, _U 0 , �_ 0 / L.S. 5669 l� Exp. MOI-05 HN W. HILL, JR. LS. 5669 HUNSAKER &ASSOCIATES SAN DIEGO, INC. �FCAL- JH:kk rr mrdlm:WpjsYo353Y�Oldoc wo 0953-@x 12(21184 City of Diamond Bar PLANNING .COMMISSION Staff Report AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: 5.2 REPORT DATE: August 10, 1995 MEETING DATE: August 14, 1995 CASE/ FILE NUMBER: GPC 95-3 APPLICATION REQUEST: General Plan Conformity Report for the acquisition of Title to certain tax defaulted property identified as Lot 51' of Tract 42560, located adjacent to Summit Ridge.Park, pursuant to Government Code Section 65402. APPLICANT and r. PROPERTY OWNER: City of Diamond Bar BACKGROUND: The City has an opportunity to acquire.a 1.27 acre parcel which functions as a neighborhood pocket park and is located adjacent to Summit Ridge Park. Prior to final -acquisition the Planning Commission must take action as to conformity with the General Plan. On January 31, 1995 the City received notification from the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector ' of a pending sale/ auction of the referenced parcel for the nonpayment'of taxes. In February, pursuant to the provisions of law, the City exercised its legal prerogative to acquire the subject property for the minimum bid amount.of $8,040.00 plus related costs. The property identified as Lot 51 of Tract 42560 (Assessors Parcel No. 8701-013-047) is maintained by the City as a pocket park through a Lighting and Landscaping Maintenance District. The purpose of the public acquisition is to assure continued utilization..of the property in conjunction with Summit Ridge Park. - ANALYSIS: The purpose of the acquisition is consistent with and conforms to the General Plan. The Vision Statement contains a component related to the preservation of open space resources. The Land Use Element and map designates the property as "Park".(PK). . The PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT GPC 95-3 page 2 acquisition of the property -is -consistent with the Resource Management Element as identified within objective 1.3 and Strategy 1.3.3., located on page 111-12, and the Public Services and Facilities Element as described within Strategy 1.5.1, located on page VI -6. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT: Pursuant to Section 15061.(b)(3) of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), this matter is exempt from CEQA. RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve the attached resolution finding the acquisition of Lot 51 of,Tract 42560 in conformance with the General Plan. PREPARED BY: James DeStefano Community Development Director ATTACHMENTS: Vicinity Map Draft Resolution INTRODUCTION A. VISION STATEMENT The General Plan for the City of Diamond Bar has amajor role to play in the future of its residents. As the "foundation for City public policy", it must be a statement of the hopes and aspirations of its citizens and should include a shared mental picture or "vision" of our future. - This vision of the future is an important component of the Plan because it serves to communicate the unified intentions of the community. The vision must be imaginative since it includes conditions that do not yet exist. But it must also be practical in order to motivate appropriate action and sustain commitment toward a common direction. Accordingly, a Vision Statement is useful in the General Plan as a means of defining scope and emphasis of the Plan. The following Vision Statement is intended to facilitate consensus on'overall community growth and change; and help define key policy issues and resolution strategies. What are the major components of the Diamond Bar Vision? What do the citizens of Diamond Bar seek for their community future? • Retention of the rural/country living community character. There is a strong, long -held goal among residents to maintain and protect distinctive, physical attributes of Diamond Bar which make it a desirable place in which to live, through a careful balance of housing, businesses and services, public facilities, and preservation of significant natural environmental resources. • Preservation of open space resources. Significant privately and publicly owned vacant areas exist within the 'boundaries of Diamond Bar and within its Sphere of Influence (SOI). The preservation of these resources contributes to the goal of retaining the City's distinctive character and offers educational and recreational opportunities. Portions of the 3,591 acre Sphere of Influence (S01) and abutting lands within the City have been included in Significant Ecological Area 15, by the County of Los Angeles. SEA 15 is considered to be a major significant ecological asset to the. community. The City will play a proactive role in the preservation of this resource by assuring that extensive analysis and review precede any changes from its current uses and possibilities. • Reduction of regional traffic impacts on local streets. Through traffic seriously encroaches on the City's local streets because of the preexisting inadequate regional freeway/circulation system. Commuters from neighboring cities make use of City streets in order to avoid the congested freeway system, to the detriment of local traffic, with attendant adverse impacts. The City is committed to a proactive involvement in regional efforts to solve and/or reduce circulation impacts on the. local community. Current plans and programs for implementation of the Circulation Element are designed to reduce congestion. • Promotion of viable commercial activity. The City will play a proactive role in business Diamond Baur General Plan Introduction July 25, 1995 1 ® Provide wildlife movement linkages to water, food, shelter and nesting „ ® Provide vegetation that can be used by wildlife for cover along roadsides - ® Avoid intrusion of night lighting into identified areas through properly designed lighting systems ® Allow wildlife and migration access by use of tunnels or other practical means ® Replace fresh drinking water for wildlife when natural water areas are removed or blocked ® To the greatest extent possible, prevent street water runoff from flowing into natural or blueline streams 1.2.3 In conjunction with local schools, environmental groups and volunteers, the City may participate in environmental education programs. 1.2.4 Take an active role in pursuing the preservation of environmentally sensitive canyon areas in their natural state. 1.2.5 To the greatest extent possible, provide for preservation of flora and fauna. Objective 1.3 Maintain a system of recreation facilities and open space preservation which meet the active and passive recreational needs of Diamond 'Bar residents of all ages. Strategies: 1.3.1 As quickly as possible, complete a Recreational Needs Analysis to determine the present and future recreation and park needs and update this analysis at intervals of not more than 5 years. 1.3.2 As quickly as possible, complete and adopt a comprehensive Master Plan of Parks which analyzes present and future recreation, park and open space preservation needs. 1.3.3 Through the Master Plan of Parks, strive to provide neighborhood and community park facilities, such that a rate of 5.0 acres per 1000 residents is ultimately achieved. 1.3.4 Maintain an inventory of open lands which were set aside for open space uses as part of previous development approvals through the County, and require verification as to the existence of any potential open space restrictions previously approved on the subject property, prior to accepting development proposals. 1.3.5 Recreational Open Space shall be preserved as recreational open space unless and until said recreational open spaces are replaced with equivalent open space Diamond Ear General Plan Resource Management Element July 25, 1995 III -12 1.5.1 Retain and provide community social gathering places, including active and natural park lands and one or more community centers. In private commercial and office complexes encourage the development of plaza areas. 1.5.2 Maintain a public information program to . inform residents of community events. (a) Whenever possible, establish permanent locations and regular dates for community events to improve attendance. (b) Encourage a -"Community Calendar". as part of the local cable television programming to inform residents about the times and locations of upcoming community events. 1.5.3 Within new residential developments, encourage organization of individual neighborhoods and discourage through traffic on local streets while maintaining pedestrian and bicycle _ continuity and encourage neighborhood parks, improvement. programs and social events. GOAL 2 "Consistent with the Vision Statement, achieve a fiscally solvent, financially stable community." Objective 2.1 Provide sufficient opportunities for retail and other non-residential commercial and office uses as necessary to maximize municipal income to finance desired community amenities. Strategies: 2.1.1 Promote the intensification of the sales tax generating potential of existing and future commercial areas within the City. 2.1.2 Work with State officials and local elected representatives to make a determined effort to promote statewide legislation that would secure guaranteed long-term stable financing of local government based primarily upon property tax revenues. Alternatively, support legislation that would redistribute sales tax revenues to local agencies based upon an equitable formula that would include both the location where the sales tax revenue was collected and the population of each local agency involved. 2.1.3 Pursue the expansion of municipal boundaries to areas which can be utilized to assist in the provision of sufficient municipal income to provide the high level of services and facilities demanded by Diamond Bar residents. 2.1.4 Utilize public cost/benefit and/or fiscal impact analysis in the review of new development proposals and in determining acceptability. Objective 2.2 Promote efficiency in the provision of public services and facilities. Diamond Bar General Plan Public Services and Facilities Element July 25, 1995 VI -6 1 3Z 2627 Z5 ��' ♦ 1Ktats L • • 12 • � _ • � f3 {� 14 58 IO 12 �!' ; C717 16 t 35 57 9 4 15 34 LOT 4 Il "� 4.�� � o 8 '• . 8 ,_. . 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W • R 43 z F b k S 7z 44 ` 5 13 F n• //''1� VR - ♦! �' j �' 37 .tl I Y Z, n 9 a n. •4 a•. .x+31 c .rc 43 55 23 r 1' .I 6 6 p• 42I- 12 6 $ " 7 B xx• l/ N 2f ss ,x+ 29 F TR39 ece 3H .. 41 } = W 41 40 3 ' •j3 •ji �� l0 o• w i r _ a �$ 16 ii' � 4 '�=.3H i ..a.•• O sI = Ia .13 .s. 3 2' 32 pl. 2S ri F pct 27 37 1 I ?5 .3 ` .Ly n~12' _ VICINITY MAP '�`�f AUGUST 10, 1995 P.C. RESOLUTION NO. 95- A RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR, CALIFORNIA FINDING THAT THE ACQUISITION OF LOT 51 OF TRACT 42560 IS, -PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 65402, IN CONFORMANCE WITH THE GENERAL PLAN OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR., A. RECITALS: (i) WHEREAS, the acquisition of Lot 51 of Tract 42560, a parcel now functioning as a neighborhood pocket park, .is requested by the City of Diamond Bar for the purpose of maintaining the public utilization of the property in'conjunction with Summit Ridge Park and'; (ii) WHEREAS, the Planning Commission - of the City of Diamond Bar has considered the matter of acquiring Lot 51 of Tract 42560, the location and extent of which is shown on Exhibit "A", attached hereto, and; (iii) , ' WHEREAS, Section 65402. of the Government Code of the State of California requires that no real property shall be acquired until the location, purpose and extent has been reported upon by the planning agency of the city as to conformity with the General Plan. B. RESOLUTION: NOW, THEREFORE, THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR DOES HEREBY RESOLVE: Section 1 The Planning Commission hereby finds that the acquisition of Lot 51 of Tract -42560 as shown on Exhibit "A:, attached hereto, as the "area to be acquired" is in conformance with the adopted General Plan of the City of Diamond Bar. Section 2 The Planning Commission hereby finds that the acquisition of the parcel is exempt from the California Environmental - Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of said Act. ADOPTED AND APPROVED THIS 14TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1995 BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR. I . Attachments: Exhibit "A" BRUCE FLAMENBAUM, CHAIRMAN' Page 1 I, James DeStefano, Secretary of the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar, do*hereby certify that the foregoing resolution was duly introduced, passed, and adopted, at a regular meeting of the Planning Commission held on the 14th day of August, 1995, by the following vote to wit: AYES: COMMISSIONERS: NOES: COMMISSIONERS: ABSENT: COMMISSIONERS: ABSTAINED: COMMISSIONERS: ATTEST: James DeStefano, Secretary Page 2 21660 EAST COPLEY DRIVE - SUITE 100 DIAMOND BAR, CA 91765-4177 909-860-2489 - FAX 909-861-3117 February 1, 1995 Ms. Gerrie Dobmeier Senior T . ax.Deeded Property Agent Los Angeles Tax Collector 225 North Hill Street, Room 126 Los Angeles, CA 90012 Re: Notice of Intent to Purchase Property Dear Ms. Dobmeier: Pursuant to Division I, Part 6, Chapter 8 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, the City of Diamond Bar hereby gives notice of intent to acquire title to tax defaulted property NStl 159, known as Lot 51, TR=42560, Assessors'Parcel No. 8701-013-047. The City currently maintains the property, which functions as a neighborhood "pocket park", through a Landscaping and Lighting Maintenance District. The purpose of the public acquisition is to assure the continued utilization of the property in conjunction with the adjacent City -owned Summit Ridge -Park. The City hereby exercises its legal prerogative to acquire the property for the minimum bid amount of $8,040.00 For further information and proceedings, please call me at (909) 396-566.6. Sin erely, 1 V4 �err�ence L. Belanger City Manager TLB\JDS\mco MB PG PCL NSB# ITEM LEGAL LATEST LATEST PARCEL NS: NO DESC ASSESSEE- LOCATION MIN BID. IMPS EARLIEST PARCEL PART 97 11889 TRACT 1 6550 THAT P 1,864 8678 023 010 OM COM UTSIDE LA VERNE CITY OF LOT OM 8818678 023 010 NW COR OF LOT A TH N 88°42'30 w W T 'w 1338.1 FT TH.S 0040130' W T DIST A L NE PARALLEL WITH AND DIST 0 OF AT \R1054.43 FT FROM S LIN F LP SD LO TH S 880051 W TO A L E P ARALLE WITH AND DIST W AT /A 2 00 FT E LINE OF SD LOT TH S 0040130m TO SD S LINE TH W ON SD S LINE 0 A PT W TH ON 215. 02 FT FROM SSE COR OF SD(LOT TH N 00401300 E 702.63 FT TH 'S 880051 TR W TO NE LINE \ TR ) RF 25493 TH NW AND FOLLOWING BDRY INE OF SD TR TONE COR - OF LOT 8,R S 72-14 TH 1 N 22038 40m E 24�.,. 2 FT TH S 6702 1,200 E 140 FT \N 35°211200 E "N C 200 FT TH N 5,40 38',40N W 87.55F T TH NW ON AC rRVE CONCAVE TO SW AC RADIUS EQUALS 130 FT\TO SE COR 0 F LAND DESC DOC X350 6-10-5 7 TO SHARD - GROUP # 3\1NC TH N 260.26 FT H W 285 FT TH\S 170 F T TH -S 50 271150 E_ 213.49, ' FT TH 'SW ON A URVE CONCAVE TO SE RADI US EQU S 1.3 0 FT TO NE LINE.\. OF S D TR # 25493 TH NW AND FOLLOVING BDRY INE OF SD TR 1 25493 TO -W LIN OF SD LOT A TH N THEREON\ 0 �I , T BE PART OF LOT A ASSESSED 0 S TTA,*FRANK J SR AND MARGARET ROACH,RALPH T AND DEBORAH LO TION CITY OF CLAREMONT 159 11906 TR=42560LOT 51 ASSESSE $8,040 8701 013 047 D TO CALIFORNIA COMMUNITIES INC .88/8701 013 047 LOCATION rTmy F' nTa nun RAR 386 15 I I 3 AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: REPORT DATE: MEETING DATE: CASE/FILE NUMBER: APPLICATION REQUEST: PROJECT LOCATION: PROPERTY OWNER: APPLICANT: BACKGROUND: City of Diamond Bar PLANNING COMMISSION REPORT Staff Report 5.3 August 9, 1995 August 14, 1995 Planned Sign Program No. 9.5-4' A request to amend Planned .Sign ProgramNo. 94-2 1180 South Diamond Bar Boulevard Diamond Bar, CA 91765 Nikko Capital 3961 Mac Arthur Boulevard, Suite 105 Newport Beach, CA 92660 Ron Underwood 3600 Birch Street,.Suite 220 Newport Beach, CA 92660 The property owner, Nikko Capital, and. the applicant, Ron Underwood, are requesting approval to amend existing Planned Sign, Program No. 94-2 which was approved for an existing retail center identified as "Diamond Bar'Towne Center". The Planned Sign Program was approved by the Planning Commission on March 14, 1994. The project site is located at 1180 -South Diamond Bar Boulevard. It is within the Unlimited Commercial-Billbodrd Exclusion (C -3 -BE) Zone. The General Plan. land use designation is Commercial (C) . -Generally the following zones surround the subject site: to the north is Single Family Residential -Minimum Lot Size 8,000 Square Feet (R-1-8,000); to the south is C -3 -BE Zone; to the east is R-1-8,000 and Unlimited Multiple Residential -Minimum Lot Size 8,000 Square Feet -30 Units (R -3-8,000-30U) and to the west is C -3 -BE Zone.. ANALYSIS: Pursuant to the City's Sign Ordinance No. 5 (1991), Sections 108.A.1. and 110., Planned sign Programs require the Planning Commissions review and approval. Therefore, any amendment to an. existing Planned Sign 1 Program must also be reviewed and approved by the Planning Commission. The owner and applicant are requesting to amend the three existing monument signs. Sign A is located at the north end of the center along Diamond Bar Boulevard; Sign B is located at the south end of.the center along Diamond Bar Boulevard; and Sign C is located on Grand Avenue. The existing Planned Sign Program allows for each monument sign to be six feet six inches (61-611) in height and eight feet (81-011) wide. The signs along Diamond Bar Boulevard (Signs A and B) include the street address in six inch numbers. The proposed amendment to the Planned Sign Program requests the following changes: All monument signs will include center identification along the top edge. Sign A: This sign will be for shop tenant identification. It shall be six feet (61-011) tall and five feet (51-011) wide. Currently, this sign ex ' tends four feet into the City's right of way. To correct this, the proposed monument sign shall be located at the property line, perpendicular to the screen wall. Sign B and Sign -C: These monument signs are for anchor tenant identification and shop tenant identification. Both are six feet (61-011) tall and twelve feet (121-011) wide. The proposed monument signs shall be 'a minimum of five feet from the property line and two feet from any curb. Sign B shall be located a minimum of four feet from the windmill. Sign C shall be located approximately six feet from the property line (adjacent to screen 'wall) and will include the removal of ten feet of the screen wall along Grand Avenue. Cur * rently there are several large trees in the vicinity of the Grand Avenue monument sign. If the removal of the large Sycamore tree becomes inevitable, the applicant has agreed to replace it with two similar 24 inch box trees. In summary, the requestis to modify three monument signs: two will have anchor tenant identification along with six shop tenant identifications per sign face, the third will have six shop tenant identifications per face and will be relocated out of the City's right of way. City Department's Review: The City's Public Works Division has conducted a preliminary review of this project. Comments from Mike Meyers, the Consulting Engineer, include: 1) Any part of the monument sign shall be a minimum of two feet from any curb that is adjacent to parking spaces or an aisle of traffic, and 2) Each monument sign shall be a minimum of five feet from the property line. 2 PUBLIC REARING: A Planned Sign Program review by the Planning Commission does not require a public hearing. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT: Pursuant to the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City has determined that this project is Categorically Exempt S 15301. RECOMMENDATIONS: Staff recommends that the Planning' Commission approve Planned Sign Program No. 95-4, Findings of Fact, and conditions as listed within the attached resolution. Prepared by: Holly A. Rider, Planning Intern ATTACHMENTS: 1. Draft Resolution 2. Application. 3. Exhibit "All - site plan, and elevations dated August 14, 1995 3 PLANNING COMMISSION DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 95 -XX A RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR APPROVING PLANNED SIGN PROGRAM NO. 95-4 AMENDING THE MONUMENT SIGNS IN THE EXISTING PLANNED SIGN PROGRAM NO. 94-2 AND CATEGORICAL EXEMPTION (SECTION 15311 CLASS 11 (a) FOR A RETAIL SHOPPING CENTER IDENTIFIED AS DIAMOND BAR TOWNE CENTER LOCATED AT 1180 SOUTH DIAMOND BAR BOULEVARD. A. Recitals 1. The property owner, Nikko Capital and the applicant, Ron Underwood, have filed an application for Planned Sign Program No. 95-4 amending existing Planned Sign Program No. 94-2 for a property located at 1180 South Diamond Bar Boulevard, Diamond Bar, Los Angeles County, Califor- nia, as described in the title of this Resolution. H- ereinafter in this Resolution, the subject application Is referred to as the "Application". 2. On April 18, 1989,- the --City of Diamond Bar was established as a duly organized municipal organization of the State of California. On said date, pursuant to the requirements of the- California Government Code Section 57376, Title 21 and 22, the City Council of the City of Diamond Bar adopted its Ordinance No. 1, thereby adopting the Los Angeles County Code as the ordinances of the City of Diamond Bar. Title 21 and 22 ofthe Los Angeles County Code contains the Development Code of the County of Los Angeles now currently applicable to development' applications, including the subject Application, within the City of Diamond Bar. 3. Action was taken on the subject application as to the consistency with the General Plan and has been determined to be'in conformance with the document. 4. The Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar, on August 14, 1995 conducted meeting on said Application. 5. All legal prerequisites to the adoption of this Resolu- tion have occurred. B. 1, FT Resolution NOW, THEREFORE, it is found, determined and resolved by the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar as follows: 1. The Planning Commission hereby. specifically finds that all -of--the--facts- -set -forth- in the --Recitals.,- -Part A, of this Resolution are true and correct. 2. The Planning Commission hereby finds and determines that the project identified above in this Resolution is categorically exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, as amended, and guidelines promulgated thereunder, pursuant to Section 15301, Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations. - 3. The Planning Commission hereby finds and determines that, having considered the record as a whole, there is no evidence before this Planning Commission that the project as proposed by the Application, and conditioned for approval herein, will have the potential of an adverse effect on wildlife resources or the habitat upon which the wildlife depends. Based upon substantial evidence presented in the record before this Planning Commission, the Commission hereby rebuts the presumption of adverse effects contained in Section 753.5 (d) of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations. 4. Based upon the findings and conclusions set forth herein, this Planning commission, hereby finds as follows: (a) The project request . is to amend the existing Planned Sign Program to incorporate the following modifications for three monument signs (A,B,C): All monument signs will include center identification along the top edge. 2) Sign A (located at the north end of the center along 'Diamond Bar Boulevard): is proposed as a shop tenant identification sign. It shall be six feet (61-011) tall and five feet (51-011) wide. Currently, this sign extends four feet into the City's right of way. To correct this, the proposed monument sign shall be located at the property line, perpendicular to the screen wall. PA DRAFT 3) Sign B (located at the south end of the center along Diamond Bar Boulevard) and Sign C (located on Grand Avenue) are proposed as anchor tenant identification and shop tenant identification signs. Both are six feet (61- 011) tall and twelve feet (121-011) wide. Sign B shall be located a minimum of four feet from the existing windmill; a minimum of five -feet from the property line; and two feet from any curb. Sign'C shall be located approximately six feet (minimum of five feet) from the property line (adjacent to screen wall) and will include the removal of ten feet of the screen wall along Grand Avenue. (b) The.project site consists of five (5) parcels and is approximately 9.5. acres.. The parcel which consists of the Bank of America is a separate .parcel, and is not a part of this project. The site is developed with a retail 'shopping center identified as Diamond Bar Towne Center located at 1180 South Diamond Bar Boulevard, Diamond Bar, California, 91765. The project site is within the Unlimited commercial -Billboard Exclusion (C -3 -BE) Zone. It has a General Plan land use designation. of General Commercial (C). (c) Generally, the following zones surround the project site: to the north is Single Family Residential -Minimum Lot Size 8,000 Square.Feet (R- 1-8,000); to the south is C -3 -BE Zone; to the east is R-1-8,000 and Unlimited Multiple Residential - Minimum Lot Size 8,000 Square Feet -30 Units (R -3- 8,000-A),; and to the west is C -3 -BE Zone. (d) The project site is adequately served by Grand Avenue.and Diamond Bar Boulevard. (e) The proposed Planned Sign Program amendment complies with the City's Sign ordinance No.5 (1991). (f) 'Substantial evidence exists, considering the record as a whole, to determine that the project, as proposed and conditioned herein, will not be detrimental to or interfere with the General Plan adopted by the City. 3 DRAFT (g) All conditions of approval as described in Planned Sign Program No. -94-2 shall remain in full force unless.otherwise amended. (h) Substantial evidence exists,considering the record as a whole, to determine that the amendment, as proposed and -conditioned herein, will not be detrimental to -or ` interfere with the draft General Plan. (i) The proposed Planned Sign Program amendment will not have signs that obscure from view or detract from existing signs, based on the location, shape, color, and other similar considerations. (j) The proposed Planned Sign Program amendment will have signs that are legible to the intended audience under normal viewing conditions based on the location and the design of the visual element. (k) The proposed Planned Sign Program amendment will be in harmony with adjacent properties and surroundings based on the size, shape, height, color, placement, and the proximity of such signs to adjacent properties and surroundings. (1). The proposed Planned Sign Program amendment will be designed, constructed and located so that it will not constitute a hazard to the public. 5. Based upon the findings and conclusion set forth above, the Planning Commission, hereby approves the Application subject to the'following conditions: (a) The Planned Sign Program amendment shall substantially conform to the Exhibit "A" dated August 14, 1995.' (b) In the event the proposed monument signs will cause the removal of any tree, the applicant shall be required to replace the trees with similar 24 inch box trees. (c) Sign B and C shall be a minimum of five feet from any property line and two feet from any curb. (d) The proposed monument signs located on Diamond Bar Boulevard shall include address numerals with a minimum height of six (6) inches. (e) The subsequent site shall be maintained in a condition which is free of debris both during and 4 The Planning.Commission Secretary shall: (a) Certify to the adoption of this Resolution; and (b) Forthwith transmit a certified copy of this Resolution, by certified mail to: Nikko Capital, 3961 Mac Arthur Boulevard,, Suite 105, Newport Beach, CA 92660 and Ron 5 WAFT Underwood, 3600 Birch Street, Suite 220, Newport Beach, CA 92660; APPROVED AND ADOPTED THIS THE 14TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1995, BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR BY: Bruce Flamenbaum, Chairman- I, hairman I, James DeStefano, Secretary of the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar, do hereby certify that the foregoing Resolution was duly introduced, passed, and adopted, at a regular meeting of the Planning Commission held on the 14th day of August, 1995, by the following vote: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: ATTEST: James DeStefano, Secretary y'= C1 crry OF DIAMOND BAR -DEPARTMENT OF PLANN' 21660 pley briiye . Suite' .L- (714)396-5676 Fax (714)861-3117 REQUEST FOR PLANNED SIGN PROGRAM REVIEW Case# __59�_ FiledL_e,24 Fee $ Deposit Receipt 0�04Z, By 4 _ - Record Owner (s) Applicant Applicant's Agent Nam (Last name first) Address Cit Phone (71r) h5::,L.-o certification: I'l the. undersigned, hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information herein provided is correct to the best of my knowledge. /Vo8clO f3o/3 OA-01`10/�4 Printed Name (Applicant or Agent) Signed (Applicant or Agent) Location (Street address or tract and lot number) Zoning ..r_,IHNH_ 16! 71-4 -1 / List number, size and type of sign(s) requested. - 6 ft.h . igh (Example: 2 - 81 x 91 Freestanding, double faced . signs I - 31 x 24' Wall sign) 57- r TO @ 7-010 L Scw) ', — Length of lot frontage(s), if freestanding or roof sign(s) if roof sign, height of building Length of building (space occupied) frontage, if wall sign &Y CONSENT: I consent to the submission of the application accompanying this request= Signed — Date (all record owners) v ® Q ED C ca . ca CL 4 O � O � C M O z o Z. z � w w O H v ® Q ED C ca . ca CL IUM � P . vJ s w 1 BYO �` • •''''r �. `,• "`.`".�''-+.:. 1"; %Zb (jam .i OM �}• _�'':4�' •.,�?,•x {, �+ O.t�: ,Ski +s` �� ',� :. �. ,.A . �. �.. _ .. •� '1s ; ' ,•� may. J� .. ". : , •,` : � .: •�% , • YET O ,►. � . ••• " � � �' ':1 •• r•=�',S._-'+��.�M1•'`s •• YZ +,�. ♦�,+i+. 1Jfb it -16 IAO 41 1 1110 - ms's•: � w - ; 8�r1 ► • irk. _• ce V • U Z o a x • fi' O a• i� O � U A Ate, � Rl O a p A O a , R G z 3 o � � z F 'C A � R U z z A P o h .-i w AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: REPORT DATE: MEETING DATE: CASE/FILE NUMBER: APPLICATION REQUEST: PROPERTY LOCATION: APPLICANT: PROPERTY OVA: BACKGROUND: City ofDiamond Bar PLANNING . • Staff Report 6.1 August 7, 1995 August 14, 1995 Conditional Use Permit -No. 95-2 This is a request to locate an unmanned remediation compound at the existing mini -market. The purpose of the facility is to remove, by vapor extraction, petroleum by-products which have leached into the soil as a result of gasoline storage tanks which had been. used as a part of a gasoline station previously operating on-site. 3302 S. Diamond Bar Blvd. Ralph Moran P.O. Box 6037 Artesia, CA 90702 ARCO P.O. Box 6037 Artesia, CA 90702 The General Plan land use designation for the subject site is OP (Professional Office) and the site is located in Zone CPD (Commercial Planned Development). The use is conditionally permitted, within the zone pursuant to section 22.28.150 of Title 22 of Planning and Zoning Code. The project site is currently developed with an AM/PM Minimart with self serve gasoline facilities. The site is served by Diamond Bar Blvd. and Brea Canyon Road. The development of the site was completed approximately two years ago. During the preparation for development of the site there was a determination made that gasoline storage tanks previously located on-site, had leaked. Site development was allowed to proceed with the understanding that future remediation of the site would be required. 11 A gasoline station and commercial centers are located on both corners to the north of the subject site , to the east of the site is a vacant lot bordered by a storm drain -channel, a two story office building is located south of the project and the State Route 57 (Pomona Freeway) is located west of the project site. The applicants have completed the testing .of the site and have determined the plume of contamination. The preliminary tests indicate that the contamination extends across the area currently used as the driveway aisle, parking area, and into the public right of way. The available techniques for remediation of contaminated soil include removal of the soil and deposition of the soil in an approved location. Another method would include soil aeration, a method which requires removal of the soil and spreading the soil in a manner that allows oxygen to commingle with the sample and speed the decomposition of the contaminated compounds. This method can be accelerated with the application of bacteria specifically developed with an appetite for hydrocarbons. A much more economical method is implementation of a vapor extraction system. A vapor extraction system involves establishing an underground system of extraction wells that connect with an above ground unit that encompasses the control panels, contamination receptacles and air stack. When the unit is in operation, the hydrocarbons are leached from the soil at variable rates, transferred to the receptacle or furnace and the contaminates are then disposed of by incineration. The incineration is conducted in conjunction with a mixture of natural gas within the unit. By- products include water and air and are disposed of in concurrence with South Coast Air Quality Management requirements. The length of time for the remediation is difficult to estimate. The first 90 percent of the hydrocarbons removed from the site will occur generally within the first six months. The remaining contaminates may take an additional period that can extend as long as a few years. The soil materials and other factors will influence the progress over the remaining period. Traffic: The maintenance of the system will be fairly consistent throughout service to the site. Vehicular traffic related to the project will not exceed 10 total trips a month and will not have an identifiable impact to parking or circulation on-site. Noise: The system operates on the principle of pumping hydrocarbons from the soil and consuming them within the unit. In conducting this procedure exhaust and condensation are produced as by-products. The condensation is filtered and returned to the ground but the exhaust is filtered and vented to the atmosphere via a 13 ft. air stack. The pressurized emission escaping the stack, in conjunction with 2 the other equipment operating the unit, will generate a sound at a noise level of approximately 85 db. With mitigation measures implemented within the design of the unit, the sound produced by the system will be reduced by 15 db at the site and will produce noise levels commensurate with ambient levels 20 ft. from the site. Aesthetics: The applicant is proposing the system for a location on the southern elevation of the structure adjacent to the convenience store. The enclosure for the system will include a 12 ft. chain link fence with wood slats, a locked gate, and a concrete pad that the unit rests on. A temporary power pole with above ground connection is proposed adjacent to the enclosure. A underground phone line will connect the unit to the base station computer for ' data transfer and will serve to transmit any malfunctions within the system. Conclusion: The system proposed to remediate the contamination at the subject site is an efficient cost effective method of soil remediation. The plume of contamination is widespread over the site and extends off- site as well. The system is self contained and requires little maintenance and site visitation. The primary impacts associated with this type of use revolve around the exhaust produced by the unit. The exhaust is required to meet all AQMD air quality standards. The sound levels produced by the pressurized emissions, unconstrained can produce noise levels of upwards of 85 db. The design of the system has been modified to reduce noise by 17.5 percent. Twenty (20') feet from the project site the noise level conforms to the ambient noise levels. The unit is located over 200 ft. to the nearest residence and .will have no direct noise impact on the development. The unit will operate a high efficiency for the first six months removing more than 90 percent of the hydrocarbons. The remainder of the operation time is presently indeterminate as various factors will affect the long term duration of use. ENVIRONAW,NTAL ASSESSMENT: Pursuant to the terms of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) this project has been determined to be categorically exempt pursuant to section 15301 (f) and 15303. PUBLIC NOTIFICATION: This application was advertised in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and San Gabriel Valley Tribune on August 4, 1995 and all property owners (28) within a 500 radius were mailed notices of the public hearing. 3 M&NDATORY FINDINGS OF FACT: 1. That the proposed project is in substantial compliance with the Proposed General Plan pursuant to the terms and provisions of Government Code Section 65360. I That the proposed project will not adversely affect the health or welfare of persons residing or working in the surrounding area. 3. That the proposed project will not have an adverse impact on adjacent or adjoining residential and commercial uses. It will not be materially detrimental to the use, enjoyment, or valuation of property of other persons located in the vicinity of the proposed project. 4. That the subject site for the proposed project is adequate in size and shape to accommodate the proposed used. 5. That the proposed site is adequately. served by Pathfinder Road and Brea Canyon Road. It has good visibility, easy access, and adequate parking for the proposed project. DI M � The staff recommends that the Planning Commission open the public hearing, receive testimony and adopt the attached draft Resolution approving Conditional Use Permit No. 95-2. PREPARED BY: Robert Searcy, Associate Planner ATTACBAIENTS: Application Plans 4 M August 14; 1995 CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT NO. 95-2 Conditions of Approval 1. The remediation compound is approved as shown. Three copies of the revised plot plan marked Exhibit "A and conforming to such of the following conditions as can shown on a plan, shall be submitted for approval of the Community Development Director. The property shall thereafter be developed and maintained in substantial conformance with the approved plans. 2. That the applicant must comply with all local, State, Zone CPD, and Building and Safety. Department requirements. 3. This grant is valid for two years and must be exercised (i.e. construction started) within that period or this grant will expire. A one year extension may be requested in writing and submitted to the City 30 days prior to the expiration date. 4. This permit shall not be effective for any purpose until a duly authorized representative of the owner of the property involved has filed, at the office of Diamond Bar Community Development Department, the Affidavit of Acceptance stating that the applicant is aware of, and accepts all the conditions of this permit; 5. That all requirements of the Zoning Ordinance and of the underlying zoning of the subject property must be complied with, unless set forth in the permit and shown on the approved plans; 6. Appropriate fire suppression equipment shall be installed as a component of the system within the interior of the compound. 7. Signage related to commercial advertisement is prohibited from placement on the enclosure as a part of this approval. 8. If the remediation compound is determined not to conform to the air quality or noise standards presented as a part of the approval, the City may require that the applicant immediately cease operation of the system until the system is brought into compliance. 9. The applicant is required to submit quarterly monitoring reports to the City. 10. Upon completion of the remediation process, the site shall be returned to its previous state with all landscaping returned to its current state. 11. The Building Department requires that all structural components of the project must be designed to 80 mph wind factor and exposure -C. C.I XTMRSUWP0 7s1cU,"5-s.S7Y 1 RESOLUTION NO. 95 -XX A RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR APPROVING CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT NO. 95-2 A REQUEST TO LOCATE AND OPERATE AN UNMANNED RF;MEDIATION COMPOUND LOCATED AT 3302 S. DIAMOND BAR BLVD., DIAMOND BAR, AND MAKING FINDINGS IN SUPPORT THEREOF. . A. Recitals 1. Ralph Moran, acting as the agent for ARCO, P.O. Box 6037, Artesia, CA 90702 has filed an application for Conditional Use Permit No. 95-2 as described above in the title of this Resolution. Hereinafter in this Resolution the project, located at address indicated in the title of this Resolution, shall be referred to as "the application" . 2. On April 18, 1989, the City of Diamond Bar was established as a duly organized municipal corporation of the State of California. On, said date, pursuant to the requirements of the California Government Code Section 57376, Title 21 and 22, the City Council of the City of Diamond Bar adopted its Ordinance No. 14, thereby adopting the Los Angeles County Code as the ordinances of the City of Diamond Bar. Title 21 and 22 of the Los Angeles County Code contains the Development Code of the County of Los Angeles now currently applicable to development applications, including the subject application, within the City of Diamond Bar. 3. Action was taken on the subject -application as to the consistency with the General Plan and has been determined to be in conformance with the document. 4. On August 14, 1995 the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar conducted a duly noticed public hearing on the application and concluded said public hearing on that date. 5. All legal prerequisites to the adoption of this Resolution have occurred. B. Resolution. NOW, THEREFORE, it is found, determined and resolved by the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar as follows: 1. This Planning Commission hereby specifically fords that all of facts set forth in the Recitals, Part A, of this Resolution are true and correct. 2. The Planning Commission hereby finds that the project is categorically exempt pursuant to section 15301 (f) and 15303, in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, as amended, and the Guidelines promulgated thereunder and reflects the independent judgement of the City of Diamond Bar. 3. The Planning Commission hereby specifically finds and determines that, having consideredtherecord as --a- whole - including-- the -findings-- set -forth below, and changes and alterations which have been incorporated into and conditioned upon the proposed project set forth in the application, there is no evidence before this Planning Commission that the project proposed herein will have the potential of an adverse effect on wild life resources or the habitat upon which the wildlife depends. Based upon substantial evidence, this Planning Commission hereby rebuts the presumption of adverse effects contained in Section 753.5(d) of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations. Notwithstanding any previous Subsection of this Resolution, if the Department of Fish and Game requires payment of a fee pursuant to Section 711.4 of the Fish and Game Code, payment thereof shall be made by the applicant prior to the issuance of any building permit or any other entitlement. 4. Based on the substantial evidence presented to the Planning Commission during the above -referenced public hearing.opened on August 14, 1995 and concluded on that date, including written and oral staff reports, 'together with public testimony, and in conformance with Ordinance No. 4 (1992), the Planning Commission hereby specifically finds as follows: (a) The Application applies to a site approximately 2 acres in size located at 3302 S. Diamond Bar Blvd. at the AM/P.M Minimart. The project site lies within Zone CPD and allows the proposed use by Conditional Use Permit. (b) Generally, the subject site is surrounded by the SR 57 Freeway, Diamond Bar Blvd. and Brea Canyon Road. (c) The surrounding properties are developed with freeways, two story office building, and commercial retail development. The site is located approximately 200 ft. from residential development. (d) Notification of the public hearing for this project has been made in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin on August 4, 1995 and twenty eight (28) property owners within 500 feet of the project site were notified by mail. (e) The Application is for the construction and operation of an unmanned remediation compound. (f) That the requested use at the location will not: (1) Adversely affect the health, peace, comfort or welfare of persons residing in the surrounding area, or (2) Be materially detrimental to the use, enjoyment or valuation of property of other persons located in the vicinity of the site, or (3) Jeopardize, endanger or otherwise constitute a menace to public health, safety or general welfare; and (g) That the proposed site is adequate in size and shape to accommodate the yards, walls, parking facilities, landscaping and other development features prescribed in this approval; and (h) That the proposed site is adequately served: (1) By highways or streets of sufficient width and improved as necessary to carry the kind and quantity of traffic such use would generate, and (2) By other public or private service facilities as are required. (h) Notification of the public hearing for this project has been made; (i) The proposed project is consistent with the applicable elements of the City's General Plan, design guidelines and architectural criteria of the appropriate district; (j) The design and layout of the proposed development will not unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of the neighboring existing 'and future developments, and will not create traffic or pedestrians hazards; 5. Based upon the findings and conclusions set ,forth herein, this Commission, in conformance with the General Plan, hereby finds as follows: (a) The project is consistent with the adopted General Plan; (b) Substantial evidence exists, considering the records as a whole, to determine that the project, as proposed and conditioned herein, will not be detrimental to or interfere with the adopted General Plan. 6. Based on the findings and conclusions set forth in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 above, this Commission hereby approves the application subject to the following restrictions as to use and standard conditions contained within this document: Conditions of Approval 3 (1) The remediation compound is approved as shown. Three copies of the revised plot plan marked Exhibit "A" and conforming to such of the following conditions as can shown on a plan, shall be submitted for approval of the Community Development Director. The property shall thereafter be developed and maintained in substantial conformance with the approved plans. (2) That the applicant must comply with all local, State, Zone CAD, and Building and Safety Department requirements. (3) This grant is valid for two years and must be exercised (i.e. construction started) within that period or this grant will expire. A one year extension may be requested in writing and submitted to the City 30 days prior to the. expiration date. (4) This permit shall not be effective for any purpose until a duly authorized representative of the owner of the property involved has filed, at the office of Diamond Bar Community Development. Department, the Affidavit of Acceptance stating that the applicant is aware of, and accepts all the con- ditions of this permit; (5) That all requirements of the Zoning Ordinance and of the underlying zoning of the subject property must be complied with, unless set forth in the permit and shown on the approved plans; (6) Appropriate fire suppression equipment shall be installed as a component of the system within the interior of the compound. (7) Signage related to commercial advertisement is prohibited from placement . , on the enclosure as ,a, part of this approval. (8) If the remediation compound is determined not to conform to the air quality or noise standards presented as a part of the approval, the City may require that the applicant immediately cease operation of the system until the system is brought into compliance. (9) The applicant is required to submit quarterly monitoring reports to the City. (10) Upon completion of the remediation process, the site shall be returned to its previous state with all landscaping returned to its current state. (11) The Building Department requires that all structural components of the project must be designed to 80 mph wind factor and exposure -C. 7. - The Planning Commission Secretary Shall: 12 VtnaNl Certify to the adoption of this Resolution; and (b) Forthwith transmit a certified copy of this Resolution, by certified .mail, return receipt request, to: Ralph Moran and ARCO at the addresses as set forth on the Application. APPROVED AND ADOPTED THIS 14th DAY OF AUGUST, 1995 BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR Bruce Flamenbaum, Chairman L James DeStefano, Planning Commission Secretary, do hereby certify that the foregoing Resolution was duly introduced, passed, and adopted by the Planning Commission of the City of Diamond Bar, at a regular meeting of the Planning Commission held on the 14th day of August, 1995, by the following vote: AYES: COMMISSIONERS: NOES: COMMISSIONERS: ABSENT: COMMISSIONERS: ABSTAIN: COMMISSIONERS: Eviing James DeStefano, Secretary P] Name -A-My 9-Ut name first) Adds= CITY OF DUMOND BAR C0',WMUN,= DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT 21660 E. Copley Drive Suite 190 (909)396-5676 Fax (909)861-3117 CONDMONAL USE PEI= APPLICATION CIVIA8ML'f� �Ck-� Applicant WAM RALPH (iasi name first) PROMM, AAT,r-6;7A0 6A-. Applicant's Agent FAULV- ; ast =nz am) 1370 i S. Ai -MA AV6. GAAD90A CAI -y+= - Mp q0-702, go -709 -qooq Phone(Phone( ) 74-00-5-3&0 Phone( )(3; 0 JA3 - 6'750 NOTE: It is the applicant's respotmbility to notify the CorrunanitY Development Director in writing of any (:l=ge of the principals involved during the processing of this case. (Attach separizz sheet, if necessary, including names, address=, and signatures of members of pa==hips,joint vcaturcs, and directors of corporations.) Consent- I ce I am the owner request- " / . Signed record owners) herein described property and permit the applicant to file this Date /� c! Czrtift=tio= 1, the undersigned, hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information herein provided is cornet to the best of my knowledge. Printed Name Q4Aa.S',—,M- FAVV, (Applicant or Agent) Signed I Data 3 --,N -q Ll (AppUcant or Agent) Locatioa-930;), S. DZW0AJb SAA I;! -Vi) (street address or =cc and lot number) Zoning OOA"ACXA4, "146D Lr�� - ENM-4M 14 222 - Previous cases colo *qn--s' j%Fvg.4.oPmg.,,j—, ggv;gul it-qA--A Present Use of Site &M 5;- —IAi-sod + M.Wl- MAAKr--r QPe-Al a4 Use applied for .5AI,4 r-- + NOW L46AT" 0910 -ME- COIL-44rk 0' PiWi�-a HFA—, - - To 'lire. - �y 90vQ>-;;V6- :rAJ* APP4011- 3061 X� A- -'- I-A&DI—�r A. A APj::- Project Size (gross acres) project density Domestic Water Source— Company/District r) cMethod of Sewage disposal Sanitation District Grading of Lots by Applicant2 Yes No (Shoo, nec-ssaiy grading design on site plan or teat map) CONDITIONAL USE PERIMrr BURDEN OF PROOF In, addition to the information. required in the application, the applic= shall substantiate to the satisfaction of the pinTm;ng Commission, the following fu= A. That the requested use at the location proposed will not: 2. Adversely affect the health, peace, comfort or wel&= of.persons residing or woricing in the surrounding area, or Z. Be materially detd==tal to the use, enjoyment or valuation of property of other persons located in the vicinity of the site, or 3. Jeopardize, endanger or otherwise constitute a rnpj,,— to the public health, safety or . general welfare. ME :rMTEN"r AA) b POA P66ii-E AM, ILL TS rcA, 7W-- kan.5D.7A7U7&0A/ OF -eo-u Au 1 6�WjlWwATA4 At -L. 7V A—::: Apg,e6nF:p SA&L4AV-77�2---A4q �44��S -D: - 1 0/ t.. AzraAkoe5 ' . if"A•95 AA0 7hhPo-- B. That the proposed site is adequate, in size and shape to 2 mmodate the yards, walls, fences, parldng and loading &zilities, Landscaping and other development features prescnI3ed in. this Title 22, or as is otherwise required in order to integrate said use with the uses in the surrounding area. ALL LAMD5C4A-W-C- RE AMC- - 7V !;;SA4 7 Ihm Af-- AF-A -,4A,b --ojzAYteAj-r Ao-y— e-rmP,-,jAw- C. That the proposed site is adequately served: 1. By highways or streets of sufficient width and improved as necessary to carry the Mind and quantity of traffic such use would generate, and Z. By other public or private service facilities as are required. r G c LEGAL. DESCRIMON (all ownmbiP =wisiug the PrOPosed IOKs)/P=wl(s) Area devoted to _ GSD f S, r'. Landscapmg/Open sp = Zeiaenaal Project and (gross area) (No. of lots) density (Units/Acres) Paridng Rimed Provided Staadard Compact Handicapped Total Project Applicant (Owner): AAZO (0 0,517 AAT6-s-,A CA. qo-704. PHO" I (staff use) PROTECT MJUMER(s): INITIAL STUDY QU=ONNAME A. GENERAL INFORMATION I -0i -- SW Qkkx,� CIO XAJ%M 13791 5- Ai -,AA Wa. CAP UDEWA CA qo!;I.A 1. Acd= reipasted and project description.. CUP 7M MXD kaffiaDTA� COMP60,42 1EIVI, Alt) 2. Street location of project: 6. DsAlAgl4b BAO, 81-VJ>- 3a. Presort use of site: 3b. Previous use of site or 4. Please list all previous uses (if any) related to this project: Cup � gA-6- AN) 17AVOc,#PrAaae Q;Syxe40 � gA A Other related p=jyapprot s required. Specify type and granting ag=cy- LA CouLL[2( fWu5,1- kMAK6 ANS -5"Q(AL) 6. Am you planning future phases of this project? Y If yes, 7. Project Area: Covered by structures, paving: Landscaping, open space: Total Area: S. Number of floors: 9. Present zoning- 10. Water and sewer service: If yes, do purveyors have capacity to meet demand of project and all other approved. projects? Water Sew= Y K WAMEMINII If domestic water or public sewers are not available, how -will these services be pravideV. Residential Projects: ii. Number and type of units: 12- Schools: What school district(s) serves the property? L____:_ Are existing. school hcffities adequate to meet project needs? YES NO If not, what provisions will be made for additional classrooms? Non-Residentin] projects: 13. Distance to nearest residend2l use or sensitive use (school, hospital, etc.) 14. Number and floor area of buildings: 15. Number of employees and shifts: 16. Maximum employees per shift: 17. Operating hours:— is. Identify any: End products, Waste prod=ts____, M— of disposal 19. Do project operations use, store or produce hazardous substances such as oil, Pesticides, chemicals, paints, or radioactive materials? YES NO If yes, explain r c 20. Do your operations require nay gre=6=d tanks? YES NO If yes, explain 21. Ratify any fizmmable, reactive or expIosive =zterizts to be I—wd oa-site. isrl�'SE�LZN�. ZZ. Will delivery or shipment: trucks travel through resident>zt arras to reach the nearest hiOway? YES S If yes, explain B. ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION 1. Eaviton=:ntal Setting—Project Site a_ Existinguse/ idi WW b. Topography/slopes RIM) UIPIMA06 A Nb MM *c, vegetation *a. Animals *e. watercourses L CulturaLlistoricalrrsousces g. Other Z. Environmental Setting — Surrounding Area a, uses s1 (ts, densities): © !.E b. Topographylslopes *c. vegetation *d. Animals *e. watercourses f. Cultural/historicalresources g. Other. 3. Are there any major trees on the site, including oak trees? If yes, type and armzber: 67 EU6AL-VPaus 4. WM any natuial*watercourses, surface flow patterns, etc., be changed through project development?: YES If yea, explain: * Answers are not required if the arca does not contain natural, undeveloped land. S. Grading: WM the project rewire grading? YES NO If yea, bow many cubic yards? WM it be balanced on site? YES NO If not balanced, where will dirt be obtained or deposited? 6, Are there any identifiable landslides or other major geologic hazards on the property ('including uacompacted fill)? YES NO If yes, eocphda: -;a 1 Is the property located within a high fire hazard area (hillsides with moderately dense vegetation)? YES NO Distance to nearest fire station: S. Noise: Existing noise sources at site: KAJ-0A A00ZgC55"-✓ ft o L')k Ni ; A���r�I L€ Noise to be generated by project: S 07A44M E•rt RS13-A' 9. Fumes: Odors generated by project: 5mt AS i✓X.�S ; sn�(r Could toxic fumes be generated? 10. What enezgy-conserving designs or material will be used? 'CF -R. =CATION: I hereby certify that the statements furnished above snd in the attached cxlnbits present the data and inibrtmacion required for this initial evaluation to the best of my ability, and that the fans, 5±2temmts, and information presented are true and correct to the best of my 3mawiedge and belie£ Date Signature Far: ALZ i A&M -TS ( git—T '4 MCPA"J) . ENVUZONri1FlVTAL CHECKLIST FORM L B=kgraund I. Name of Applicant: AAQV Z. Address and Phone Number of Pmponeat: C4-- gO-IM 3. Name, Address and Phone _ of Project Contact; i 3701S. /fit -M A'Jr' 6A r-�J/'� , C/}-. qf:,�� 3io) 3.23-0730 4. Dam of Eavjronmml: W Information Submitta 1?, 14. +7 5. Date of Environmental Chenldlist Submittal: 6. Lead Agency (Agency. Required Cf=kIis): Gi-r%f or, DI' grv�D 7. Name of proposal if applicable (Tract No. if Subdivision): S. Related. Applications (under the authority of this eavunameatal determination): YES NO / variance: Conditional Use Permit: �r Zone Change: General Pian Amendment: Development ReTiew (Anadi Completed Environmental Infom=ion Form) YOM(BIT A Parcel 1 as Shown on Parcel Map No. 2151 filed November 11, 1971 in Book 34 at Page 84 of Parcel maps in theo ffice Of the County Recorder of Los Mgelest County, Californja, That portion of Parcel 2 of Parcel Map Number 2151 recorded in Book 34, Page 84 in the County Of Los Angeles, State of California, described as follows: Beginning at the Northeast corner of said Paicel 2; thence South 11 degrees 58 minutes 40 seconds West along the Easterly line of said Parcel 2 a distance of 180.99 feet', -Ites-37 seconds West 60.73 feat; thence North 31 degrees 33 55 min' thence North 6o degrees minutes 51 seconds East 173.16 fret to the point Of Beginning. 03/27/1995 14:46 7149978744 ADIAEST AD W-- EST TECHNOLOGIES, INC. FAX TRANSMITTAL DATE: 3. TO: COMPANY: co FAX NO. 3/0 FROM: j FAX NO. 714-997-87-A4 NUMBER: Or, PAGES: (INCLUDING TRANSMITTAL SHEET MESSAGE: -- A) -o c ZS - PAGE 01 V1 03/27/1995 14:46 7149978744 �■ I mm ADWEST PAGE 02 I lb J di ADWEST PAGE 02 I 03/27/1995 14:46 I 7149978744 ADWEST PAGE 03 r� r: ,r tr :t nr rh• !,t 11 ,17 :1 Ali -1,12/09/1994 13:46 7149978744 ADWEST 1 � P-2 OfWN PUMP FOR REvICW ot"ISION -'.12/89/I994 13:46 7149978744� ADNEST � -_____________--- ______-_-_______- - | 1 PR ESS FLOW AND � r 12/09/1994 13:46 I' 7149978744 ADWEST PAGE 06 t SIM HLEVATION FOR REVIEW. 1"PVI910N I RY ICHMCK 12/09/1994 13:46 7149978744 ADWE5T TAG No. MOUIPMENT LMGMND 1 V -t: KNOCK -OUT POT 2 P -Ir PROCESS SLOWER 3 H-1 CATALYTIC OXIDIZER 6 HEAT EXCHANGER 5 06-1: CONTROL PANEL 6 P-2: DRAIN PUMP 7 TRAILER CONTROL CADINCT INTIARIOR TAIMP. NOT TO EXCEED 190 OEOREE3 P. PAGE 07 REAR ELEVATIONe.u, vA r.a+.c •�� • • .$� . z i a r A.RC✓CQ 200 rN. r7•••vd• IfATOX t00 C04 - C.ATALTT,c TMEf Obi1DIZEA i.lmrT GENERAL ARRANGEMENT t _ _ r• . r - o• 244-02-200 BHT I ow 1 E" mt -0 E 0 t Wl INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: Chairman and Planning Commissioners FROM: Ann J. Lunqu, Assistant Planner O'ee SUBJECT: East San Gabriel Valley Planning tommittMeeting DATE: August 1, 1995 The July 27, 1995 East San Gabriel Valley Planning Committee meeting was attended by Vice Chairman Bob Huff and myself. The guest speaker, Dr. David Bess, professor of Urban Planning'at Cal Poly, presented ideas based on the May 15, 1995 Newsweek article 1115 Ways to Fix the Suburbs". This article addresses the idea of a 'neo -traditional suburb as an alternative to suburban sprawl. Attached is literature distributed at the meeting relating to this topic. Attachments: 1. "Bye -Bye, Suburban Dream", Newsweek, May 15, 1995 2. 1115 Ways to Fix the Suburbs", Newsweek, May 15, 1995 3. Bibliography from David E. Bess, Cal Poly Pomona, July, 1995 72� Ar M A Th6* `new urbanists' are going back to the future to take the edge off edge cities. They want to bring small-town charm to blighted metropolitan landscapes. V Tr IEWED FROM THE AM, THERE'S NO APPARENT REASON why a city like Phoenix, Ariz., already the seventh largest in the nation, couldn!t keep growing fbrever.Four times a year, a pilot from Landiscor, an aerial -surveying comp flies over the city at 20,000 feet, snapping pictures to b assembled into vast photographic maps. They show the white box(4:bf downtown, the graceful loop of the freeways as they, inteisea and sort themselves out by compass point, and the gleam- ing roofs of suburbia stretching to the horizon in nested curves of wads, streets, drives and lanes. The pictures from the end of March showy 5,000 more houses than the ones taken ffiree months earlier. Houses squeeze through the gap between two Indian reservations and follow the highways into the desert, which they are consuming at an . acre an hour. Excluding federal land, the only thing standing in the way of Phoenix's swallowing the rest of the state, says 42 NEWSWEEK MAY 15-1995 JOHN HUMBLE Porches, gables and picket fences—all brand new at-Kentlands WONDERFUL TOWN Some people consider such communities too cute, but cuteness is the glue that holds them together at five units an acre Michael Fifield, director of the joint Urban- Design Program of Arizona State University, is Tucson. Unless, that is, you subscribe to the view of former mayor Tem Goddard, that Phoenix is approaching the marginal disudlity o suburban sprawL This is the point at which each new subdivisior subtracts more from the quality of life than the new inhabitants will contribute to the economy by buying wind chimes, mes- quite logs and Navajo -motif throw rugs. Many other places in the country are coming round , to this view. Most suburbs are exploding in size without even the compensation of economic _ growth; the Cleveland metro- politan area expanded by a third between 1970 and 1990 even as _ its population declined. Over roughly the same period, Cali- fornia's population increased by 40 percent while the total _ -- ofvehicle-miles driven doubled. Maintaining a fleet of cars p, to navigate among the housing tracts, commercial strips and of- fice complexes of the American. ' landscape now takes 18 percent of the average family budget. As anyone who reads the fic- tion in The New Yorker knows, Americans mostly live in banal places with the souls of shopping malls, affording nowhere to mingle except traffic jams, nowhere to walk except in the health club. By itself this baset been a reason to stop building suburbs. But economic unsustainability may carry more weight A confer- ence on "Alternatives to Sprawl" at the Brookings Institution this year was electrified by a report from the Bank of America endors- ing the formerly elitist view that sprawl in California has created "enormous social, environmental and economic costs, which until now have'been bidden, ignored, or quietly borne by society ... Businesses suffer from higher costs, a loss in worker productivity, and underutilized investments in older communities." "You can t keep'spreading out," says Mike Burton, executive director of Port- land, Ore.'s metropolitan government, Metro. "The cost to make roads•and sewers gets to the point where it doesn t work" = FIE TCHALLENGE IS TO DEVISE AN ALTERNATIVE TO SPRAWL, where people can envision their children playing in the streets. It must not evoke "the city," an alien place where by definition middle-class Americans refuse to live. So a growing corps of visionaries, of which the best-known are Miami -based architects Andres Duany and his wife and partner, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, are looking to an even older model—the "village," defined as a cluster of houses around a central place that is the focus of civic life. Under the banner of "new urbanism," they have promulgated some surprisingly simple -and obvious rules for building better suburbs, described in detail on the following pages. They can be roughly summarized in these three principles: .. ® Density: A typical modem suburb may have one to two dwell- ing units per acre, and is laid out entirely for the convenience of the automobile. The new urbanism strives for five or six units'per acre, including a mix of housing types: detached houses, row houses, apartments, "granny flats" tucked away above the garages. In theory—and the new urbanism still exists mostly in theory—the village would extend no more than a quarter -mile from the center to the edge and include a transit stop and a place to buy a quart of milk and a newspaper (actually, probably, a decaf latte and a copy of The Kenyon Review, .but the point is the same). ® Civic space: Suburbs—except for the streets—consist of almost exclusively private space, much of it devoted to the single most useless form of plant life in all botany, the ornamental lawn. A suburb is a place that's two-thirds grass but with nowhere for kids JOHN HUMBLE Rids waiting to cross a.multilane road in Temecula, Calif. NO STREET OF DREAMS The `civic center' of many suburbs, designed for the convenience of the car, is a strip mall along a six lane highway to play ball, except in the streets. Communities need parks and outdoor public spaces in which people can gather and interact . ® Mandatory design codes: Obviously, no one with a choice in the matter would want to look out his window at a 7 -Eleven- New urbanist practitioners impose elaborate design and zoning controls intended to create harmonious streetscapes. The results can be intensively cute and not to the taste of people unaccustomed to seeing dormers, gables and porticoes on every building. But cute- ness is the glue that holds neighborhoods together at five units per acre. Like mostvisionaryarchitectural schemes; this ideahas sold more books than houses. Its principles were known to planners early in the century, when such charming communities as Scarsdale, N.Y., Mariemont, Ohio, and Lake Forest, Ill., were built But they were forgottenin thepostwarrush tobuild suburbs onthe sameprinciples of efficiency that had been employed in constructing army bases. Their fust new application came a decade ago, when Dua4 and Plater-Zyberk drew up plans for a small resort town on the Florida panhandle, called Seaside. Seaside—with its cozy, narrow streets, its jumble ofpastelhomes with mandatory frontporches-is proba- bly the most influential resort community since Versailles. Prince Charles noted it approvingly in his BBC special on architecture. - Since then other "neotraditional" developments have been built in places as far-flung as suburban Maryland (Kentlands, also planned by Duany and Plater-Zyberk) and the outskirts of Sacramento, Cali£ (Laguna West, planned by Peter Calthorpe of San Francisco). But the real test of this idea will come in about a year, when the Disney Co. opens its first planned community ever, Celebration, Fla, on a 5,000 -acre swath of land near Disney World. After considering a_, typical subdivisionbuilt around a golf course, the company opted for a plan which vice president Wing Chao described as "traditional little -town America." Celebration will either validate the new ur- MAY 15, 1995 NEWSWEEK 43 banism with the imprimatur of Disney—"safe for middle-class consumption"—or prove the point ofits critics, that it's aplot to lure unwitting citizens into living in theme parks. You can look at Phoenix as a pretty good example of what the new urbanism is up against It is among the five fastest-growing metropolises in the country, and few places are as relentlessly suburban in character. It has a downtown so exiguous that a pedes - him outside its biggest officebuildingat9 onaweekdaymorningisa phenomenon as singular as a cow in Times Square. Meanwhile the new subdivisions race each other toward the mountains. Del Webb Corp., a major national developer, recently won approval over heated opposition for a 5,600 acre project in New River, 30 .miles north of downtown and at least 10 miles beyond the outer edge of existing devel- opment. The environment, which to de- velopers used to just be the stuff they knocked down to make room forhouses, isnowacherishedsellingpointThere is =r a catch, according to Frances Emma Barwood, a city council member who represents most ofthe sparselypopulat- f 4 ed northeast quadrant of Phoenix `The = people who bought houses in Phase One `y [of a popular development] were told they'd be surrounded by beautiful lush Via'= MAA _rAwRmc711 deserts, but instead they're surrounded ^S"•ertN�asz'de" p"tdnn' �=. '� by Phases Two and Three." at a.hel1 during � s� IN T� RUSH To � 0 d embrace nature are thousands Andres Dttatty; the: - of'1960s-era ranch houses that arcitiiciEta,- , hisrLionable are too old, small and unfash- an er to attract middle-class buyers, and as a result are turning into ElirabethPter- than new American phenomenon, the Zyh� e�.'desigttettfiFte= suburban slum. This may be the fate of neo6radfli0rtaIisti an area called Maryvale, which like all of :' R west -side suburbs suffers from the ft competitive disadvantage that commut- pr7ot� ' :1935 a ers must drive into the sun both ways. ee&. Interspersed among -the houses are large tracts of vacant land, dreary eom- . e f� mercial strips and a mall, once the cynosure of a thriving neighborhood, now dark and empty. "For the same money that Del Webb is spending in and:6eat t ....New River, rll bet they could buy up �autite a oyes most of this area and rebuild it," God - e. ca ha lard says. "What is the imperative thaf says we have to "go to a beautiful sue rural area when we have'all this land a miles from downtown? We're.de- m ,x, a ° straying • ourselves in shorter and ave i 'shorter cycles."we. = - The "imperative, .as''Goddard well ' .knows, is "the market" To build in an ifsti" existing neighborhood, says Jack Glea- son, a seniorvicepresident at Del Webb, is to "rim against the market, instead of with it" Banks are reluctant to lend to such "infill" projects because they have no assurance the houses will sell. A prime engine of.PhoeniZs growth apparently consists of middle-aged couples fleeing California This is a market, Gleason notes, heavily driven by "security," the polite term for "feat:" "Fear of crime is a great motivator for development," says Joe verdoorn, a Phoenix planner: "Everybody wants to be on the farside of the freeway." So the new subdivisions go up behind ocher -colored stucco walls 44 NEwSWEEK MAY 15. 1995 In California, oldfarms are sprouting more houses than crops DON'T FENCE ME IN To run with the market is to develop... virgin land farther out, not to rebuild dying communities closer to the city sixfeethigh, with guards andgates between the publicroads and the inner sanctum ofresidential streets. Otherkinds ofbarriers defend something nearly as dearto suburbanites as their own skins, proper- ty values. Homeowners are isolated by design from apartments, shops, public squares or anything else that might attract people with less money or of a different race. Deed restrictions and community associations see to it that no one will everbring down the tone ofthe neighborhood by turning his living room into a beauty parlors Success for a development lies in freezing for eternity the social and economic class of the original purchasers. No wonder they're so sterile—sterility is designed into them! Anything else is a threat to the steady appreciation of resale value homeowning Americans take as a basic economic right You drive down the wide, curving streets of Terravita, in north Scottsdale, whose sales slogan is "The Harmony ofLand and Life," and the only signs of "Life" are the saguaro cactuses, which accrue at the rate of about an inch a year. The houses themselves are magnificent monu- ments to family life: thoughtfully designed, carefully constructed, with master bath suites the size ofthe Oval Office, but the face they turn to the street is the blank brown plane of a three -car garage. O EVEN THINK OF CHANGING THIS CULTURE IS AN ENOR- mous task It runs counter to the dominant ideology of free-market' economics, which. in its reductive fashion holds that developers by definition are building what ]'.[people want to buy. "There is this strange conceit among architects," says Peter Gordon, a professor of economics at the University of Southern California, "that people ought to.live'in what they design. If you look at how people really want to live in this country, suburbanization IS not the problem, it is the solution." And for that matter, Oscar Newman, a celebrated New York - based urban planner, describes the new urbanism as "a retrogres- sive sentimentality." American families typically live in a neigh- borhood for three to.five years, forming communities based not on common birthplace but on interest: young singles, families with children, "active adults." Who among us, Newman asks, really wants to re-create the social ambience of an 18th -century village? He -thinks the suburbs need more exclusivity, gates and barriers where none exist already, recognizing that most of us are going to live among strangers for most of our lives.- - On the other hand, people can buy only what's for sale. The housing market is notoriously conservative and conformist, if for no other reason than that most people expect to sell their houses someday. Perhaps more people would choose to live in urban villages if they were exposed to them. "If you ask people if they want 'density,' they will always say no," says Peter Katz, author. of "The New Urbanism." "But if you ask if they want restaurants and schools and other things close to where they live, they say yes.- But es"But you couldn't build a village in most places in the country even if you wanted to. Suburban sprawl is built into the zoning codes of most communities and the lending policies of virtually every bank JOHN HUMBLE - .. .. For new villages to become a reality, they will have to get past a phalanx of planning boards and bank officers, whose first principle is, "Nobody ever lost his job for following the code." . We are, nevertheless, on the verge of a great opportunity. Americans moved to the suburbs for the best of motives—to give their children better schools, cleaner air, a place to ride their bicycles without getting their tires caught in the trolley tracks. Suburbs should teem with life, with humanity in all its diversity (or as much diversity as you can find within one standard deviation of the median family income)—with people walking, running, bildng, rocking. But their design has promoted instead the ideals of privacy and exclusivity: the clapboard -sided ranch house, evoca- tive of empty plains; the brick colonial, hinting at descent from the Virginia aristocracy. We can continue the trend of the last 40 years, which Gopal Ahluwalia, director of research for the Nation- al Association of Homebuilders, complacently describes as bigger houses, with more amenities, situated farther from the workplace. Or we can go down a different path, which probably will begin with the kind of humble observation a visitor made at a subdivi- sion near Phoenix recently. Like most new developments, this one aimed to conserve water for important uses—namely the golf course—by landscaping the houses with gravel and cactus rather than lawns. As the visitor paced the lot with a puzzled look, it suddenly dawned on him that the desire for an acre of land is not an unvarying constituent of human nature. "Gee," he remarked wonderingly to a saleswoman, "if ies all gravel, you don't really need that much of it, do you?" With MAGGIE MALONE and PATRICK ROGERS in New York, NINA ARCHER BIDDLE in Memphis, SPENCER REISS in Miami, JEANNE GORDON in Los Angeles, PAUL KA ND E LL in San Francisco and DANIEL G L I C K in Washington MAY 15, 1995 NEWSWEEK 45 Most of us actually know what we want in a neighborhood—we just don't. know how to get it, because developers have been building the wrong thing, for 50 years. Here's how to get our communities back on track. lnaving aay ar nenrlanas, me neotrawtronat suburb to Maryland where houses are close to the street and to each other :: •• OR DECADES, ANTON NELESSON OF RUTGERS two lanes wide. At the edges of the village they leave open space." University has been using the tools of science - 0 "With two working spouses, [smaller.lots] make a lot more to pursue that most elusive and subjective sense. You don't want to mow that big lawn.": quality, happiness. When a developer comes : ® "People have : a fundamental, psychological, spiritual into a community, humbly seekingpermission, response to nature. If you show them recently built multi - to re-create ancient Pompeii on the site of an firmly housing or office parks, they go negative. A small, tra old Go Kart track, the town's planners com- ' ditional neighborhood is what people want They dod t know how mission Nelesson to survey the populace and to get it." determine if that's what they'd actually like Well, of course they dolt most of them haven't even seen a there. Using photographs, models and questionnaires, Nelesson "small, traditional neighborhood" in years, if even But they in - has surveyed people all over the country, and these are some of the stinctively choose it anyway. The premise of the new urbanism is things he's found: that people can have the kinds of neighborhoods they say they like. ® "Everybody will call for a green open space in the middle— Architects know how to design them, developers can build them, thaes automatic. They will put the major community buildings banks can make money on them. All it takes is a measure of around the plaza, then group the houses on relatively narrow political will to overcome the inertia of 50 years of doing things the streets. Ninety-nine percent don't want streets that are more than wrong way... and the application of a few simple rules. 46 NEWSWEEK MAY 15, 1995 GIVE UP BIG LAWNS ONE USEFUL 'WAY TO DEFINE A SUBURB is "a place that grows lawns." The great`��� f' postwar disillusionment began for _ many Americans when they left the city in - search of a simpler life and discovered that watering, fertilizing, weeding and mowing :. �w •:,, , �' ` _ = -� = ' ''� — the measliest yard takes more time over a year than the average New Yorker spends looking for parking. And the expanses of - front lawn themselves serve no purpose but their owners'vanity—except that most sub- urban communities require them, on the. theory that large setbacks help preserve the r _ bucolic character of a community. i ► } j That may have been true in the 1920s, when suburbs were being settled 30 houses at a time. But when highways opened up huge areas of countryside after the war, large -lot zoning had the opposite effect by . spreading population over a larger area, it accelemtedspmwL Ifzoningboards weren't so fearful of "density," they could require developers to cluster houses and set aside land nearby for open space and recreation. This is also a more efficient way to build a community. Houses that are 100 feet apart, obviously, have 100 feet of unused road and utility lines between them. School buses have that much farther to travel And the goal of malting a -walkable cum- ,. �..-:.._.,.-• :-...- - hoax HUMBLEmunity is defeated when houses are spread This wide street in Temecula;'Cali .f, is.�ne r cars but not f or kids and other - � hpedestrians out on huge lots. Even the depth of the front . .-�.... -- . _s... - yard difference. tw�ehouses rpsychologi- cal - MAKE THE STREETS SKINNY behind 30 feet of lawn, the streetscape be- comes oppressively desolate; your perspee tive changes so slowly you don't feel you're Modern subdivisions are designed to be driven not reaching a destination. Probably no single - walked. Even little -used streets are 36 feet or 40 feet change would improve the quality ofsubur . life as much as. shrinking the size of wide, yith big* sweeping curves at the corners. It's great lots—and it would actually make houses for'cars: traffic barely needs to slow down. But for those - cheapen _ - - on foot, the distance is daunting. Narrow streets—as BRING BACK THE --little as -26 feet wide—and tight, right-angled corners•are CORNER STORE a 10t` easier for walkers, and probably safer as well, 2 . THE SUBURBAN coNDrrION, , SAYS architect Peter Qdthorpe, "is a land- because -they force driversto' Slow down. One objection: fire departments scape'of absolute segregation ... not ' worry. about getting trucks through. just in'terms ofincome, age or ethnicity, but . But that hasn't been a big problem in old nabes in cities simple functional uses." This is so obvious that most people no longer see the absurdi- like New York and Boston. _ ty of malting a .five -mile round trip for a loaf . . of bread. That is, as long as they have a car, for anyone not so blessed—children, the elderly or handicapped, people who can't afford a car for every member of the family—it's nuts. Again, this is a -function of good intentions undone by the explo- sion of suburbia What worked in a compact neighborhood in a city—a dry cleaner, a drugstore, a comer grocery—became gro- tesque when blown up a hundredfold and applied to whole coun- ties. Shopping strips stretched for dozens of miles along the highways, while the curving streets of suburbia wormed their way ever deeper into the countryside. •. Obviously, malls and' supermarkets, with their vast selections and economies of scale, will never be supplanted by neighborhood shopping streets and corner groceries. But it still should be possible to provide some of the necessities of life within walling distance of many people. Then you could send yourkid out for that bread—and a newspaper while he's at it. MAY 15, 1995 NEWswEEK 47 Discouraged'. winding streets and cul-desacs emwerbatatraffic Ri _ a.,w �: d-�;:« Yrafftr f(nw. 4 �»:i uta • e:,- ��. ��.Rim DROp THE CUL `DE -SAC 4 The cul-de-sac, a fancy term for "dead end," has emerged as -the street plan of choice for modern suburbs. -Its great ad- vantage=the elimination of through traf- fic—is also its weakness, because it com- pels - everyone in_.:a: •given ':subdivision to use the_same few roads, -often atthe_same times: Anyone : a_ttempting to: --:travel .'on foot or by bicycle'- icycle will eventually wind up on the shoulder of a busy highway -=and probably give up. But streets don't have to be like that: they can follow predictable routes and interconnect. This 'gives mo- torists a choice of routes, so they don't all pile'up every morning waiting to make a left turn at the same intersection. ��W V I Main 5 IN AN ABSOLUTE SENSE, THERE IS NO REAL SHORTAGE OF land in the Vnited States; if the entire population lived on an acre of land per household, it would occupy less than 5 percent of the contiguous 48 states (plus all of Canada and Mexico for parking). But in the regions where Americans actually want to live, they are swarming into the countryside, covering whole counties with "edge cities" flung outward from the beltways as if by centrifu- gal force. New York City's suburbs reach across the whole state of New Jersey into eastern Pennsylvania, nearly 100 miles from Times Square. To new -urbanist theoreticians, this is the disastrous result of shortsighted government policies, such as the bias hi the federal mortgage -guarantee program toward detached houses on large plots of land. To free-market economists, it represents the sum of millions of choices by informed individuals who have decided that, on balance, getting up before dawn in Bucks County beats a full nights sleep in Brooklyn. But sprawl is not a necessary component of affluence. In Europe and Japan, governments have proclaimed "urban -growth bound- aries,- beyond which development is more or less prohibited. Even in a democratic country such as Hol- land, a businessman seeking to live on a farm and drive into the city to work would have to request permission from the government—and he might not get it. Try telling that to Lee Iacocca. Con- trary to popular American political the- ory, these regulations haven't notice- ably affected the prosperity of Western Europe—nor of the one major Ameri- can merican city that has instituted its own ur- ban-growth rban-growth boundary: Portland, Ore. In Oregon, naturally, no one would prevent the hypothetical businessman from living on a farm; he just couldift sell it off for a subdivision when he re- tired to Palm Springs. More than 20 �- years ago, planners for the Portland Caltttarpe more 'metropolitan area drew a line around M. ' GSq 325 square miles—covering 24 munici- caann5 dos�ararittn palities and parts of three counties— Gigt!-d and designated it to receive virtually all es— e9 population growth. Along the way they have reduced the average Iot size for sub' �" _were on %a: detached houses from 13,000 square utCOS. Aecordi feet to an average of 8,500 square feet— a Saul ran roughly the difference between putting three and five units on an acre. The proposed future goal is an even mingier ersfarid 6,600 square feet. Between now and the num6e year 2040, Portland's planners expect peo ew1'#frdlffe the population to grow some TT per- cent, ercent, but they are committed to an in- a es crease of residential land use of only 6 percent. Instead of planting more "edge cities" at the arbitrary points where - freeways intersect, Portland has con- centrated job growth in its downtown. rs The urban -growth boundary has been ,. cas so successful that even a conservative aCencourtters, " property -rights group, Oregonians in tom' U& ntlgiy' Action, endorses the concept (although lwrtanf' 3 b r it argues with some details). Imaginejtrstaiiotrt how Los Angeles would look today if it had done this 20 years ago. -" anytrt MAY 15,.1995 NEWSWEEK 49 • 6 Most suburban houses give the ap- pearance that they are first of all places. to park, turning to the world the blank and desolate face of a garage door. Neigh- borhoods look more pleasant when ga- rages are put be the houses, accessi- ble by side yards or by alleys. JOHN aUSfBLE Multi ear garages turn an un-iMcoming face to the street MIX`H0"U`S.ING'_ TYPES =- OF ALL THE WAYS TO IMPROVE THE SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL organization of the suburbs; none would be as subversive as endless -alternation of "Crestwoods" and "Auroras" intended to foster the illusion of preference in buyers' choosing between four bedrooms and three bedrooms plus a den. Homogeneity is the very essence of the 'suburbs. Attached houses, rental units, shops or businesses—anything that might attract traffic and its attendant evil, a decline in property values—are banned _ This is a fairly new phenomenon in human history. For most of the last 9,000 years, most people inhabited villages, where by definition nothing -was very far from anything else. As late as the 1940s, for that matter, Memphis, Tenn., developer Henry Turley grew up in the kind of haphazard city neighborhood that is. the despair of sensible planners: a jumble of stores, shacks, flats, walk- ups and decaying mansions, all suffused with the vivid street life neighbors made for themselves in the era before air conditioning lured them indoors. It is, of course, beyond the power of zoning to bring back those days, even if we wanted them back, but it may be possible to recapture some of the energy and spirit that character- ized American civic life before television clamped its monopoly on public discourse and entertainment. So in 1987, when Turley bought a 135 -acre vacant plot on an island in the Mississippi five minutes from downtown Memphis, he embarked on a radically different kind of development, which began not by asking "What 50 NEWSWEEK MAY 15, 1995 will the county let me build?" or "What will the banks finance?" but "What kind of place do people want to live in?" The result was Harbor Town, intended to be "a slice of the world—the more complete and varied the better." There are houses ranging in price from 5114,000 to 3425,000, which contrasts with a typical subdivision in Phoenix, Ariz., for example, where the seven basic models run the gamut from 5271,990 to $316,990. There are town houses and apartments, and shops being planned. Devel- opers had tried mixing housing types in the "planned communities" of the 1970s, but in those each use was isolated in its own thousand - acre quadrant; in Harbor Town they are all within a few blocks of each other. Turley seems to have decreed that instead of gol& the leading recreational activity would be chatting with neighbors while watching the sun set over the river, so he set the houses close together and built cozy village squares. The houses themselves are an eye-popping collection of styles, including Charlestown provin- cial, Cape Cod and Bauhaus modern, but they have an underlying unitybased on materials (mostly clapboard or wood siding) and the ubiquitous new-urbanistamenity, porches. Turley expects to make money on the project, when ifs completed in 1997, but he also has a higher aim. "Democracy assumes—demands—that we know, un- derstand and respect our fellow citizens," he says. "How can we appreciate them if we never see them?" • . 8Nothing humanizes a street more than a row of trees shading the sidewalk. But they must. be broad -leafed shade trees such as sycamores or chestnuts, not the dinky globular things like flowering pears ' * that developers favor in parking lots. And they should be planted out at the curbline, where they will grow out to form a canopy -over.. theroadway. Why: don't more places' :have such, an obvious amenity already? Because traffic engineers worry that people might_ drive into them. -- DIANE COOMEN JENSHEL Strolling under a canopy of spring blossoms 9 THEY'VE GOT FOUNTAINS, HANGINI ferns and ice rinks, and if you stay v one long enough you may eventuall, hear "Wichita. Lineman" restored for 14t violins, but most shopping malls are, es sentially, just vast sheds that consumer. trudge through until, with nothing left tc spend, they are spit out into the parking lot No wonder people are so quick to desert them when a bigger one opens up down the road. Ghost malls are no longer a rare sight in America Phoenix has at least two, in- cluding one right across the street from several of its largest office buildings. But the land they occupy can, with some inge- nuity and a lot of money, become the nucle- us of a real neighborhood, an'architechaal adornment rather than a hulking blight The process is happening first with strip shopping centers, which are usually older than enclosed malls and less complex archi- tecturally. The first step is to transcend the definition of a "shopping center" as a group- ing of unrelated stores in the middle of a parking lot That pretty much described the New Seabury Shopping. Center, a dreary 1960s -era strip mall on a busy highway in Cape Cod, Mass., about 70 miles from Bos- ton. A decade ago, the owners decided to redevelop it on a radically different scheme, modeled on a New England town. New streets were laid out in what had been the parking lot; new shops were built in the neglected area behind the existing ones. A 25-year.development plan was drawn up, envisioning a .substantial community; of- fices, -a library, a church and a senior-citi- zeas' home have already been built ' Parking was redistributed along the curbs of the new internal' streets. This makes for some congestion and inefficien- cy, but lessens the frustration of trudging down long aisles of parked cars toward a distant mall entrance. Developer Douglas Storrs says that shoppers .find the strength to walk as much as half a 'mile down the sidewalks of what is now'ealled Mashpee' Commons, passing shop windows, benches and planters. The same'people 'reach the threshold of exasperation when they have to park more than 400 feet from the door to an ordivary'mall ''. There are "other ' examples ,-including Mizner Park, in Boca Baton, Fla., where a failing shopping'center was replaced with a '28 -acre mixed-use development organized around a new public park To be sure, not all developers will be this ambitious with dpeir properties. But as a first step, biding the ugly collection of Dumpsters and load- ing docks on the backsides of strip malls could eliminate a lot of suburban blight In Portland; Ore; these commuters are choosing to ride the-rails nu+r,EeooamilENSiH PLAN FOR MASS SIT 10 IsR.there =es"and to get Americans out oftheircars and trains? In Los Angeles, ioeyen,an earthgiiake' sufficed; only about 2 per= cent . of drivers switched to mass transit after' their freeways fell ' d_own " last`year, -arid ` most of ' thein oveut: right back to drivinga.s soon as the roads tivere patched UP. _ : The problem is that - ` - - transit seem.s'to need a critical mass to work; and many metropolitan areas** (Los : nge-_ les :among them) are just too spread ciut Many commut- yrs seem to flunk that if you have to drive tothe`train >tation "anyway; "`you might a'swell just keep _going to he off ce.�= =' �.._...:._� : �. ,,s -�- - - : _ e*_ ^Hence Calthorpe's idea`for the "p edestrianpockei": a •elatively dense settlerenf within a`quartei=mile'walk >f a transit stop. In Portland, Ore., they're building the ransit line f rst 'putting stops literally in the middle of ,mpty fields —in the expectation that the development vill follow. MAY 15, 1995 NEWSWEEK 51 LINK WORK TO DOME SUBURBS ARE NO LONGER JUST BEDROOM communities; 'the dispersal of employ- ment out of the central cities has been going on for a generation. (As the writer William H. Whyte demonstrated two decades ago, big corporations leaving the city tend to relocate with- in a few miles of the chief executive's house.) But the result—the oxymoronic "office parks" consist- . ing of indistinguishable glass cubes amid a token fuzz of grass and a giant parking lot—is just a higher class of sprawl than the gas stations and fried -chicken places that would have been built there instead. If companies don't want to be downtown, they should at least attempt to integrate their of- flees—or factories, for that matter—into commu- nities. Nobody wants to live next to a steel mill, naturally. But in Laguna West, outside Sacramen- to, people are happy to live within a quarter -mile of an Apple Computer plant, which provides 1,200 - white -collar and assembly -line jobs. Apple agreed to locate, there after the community was already planned; developer Phil Angelides says the com- pany ompany liked the idea that executives and workers could afford to live in the same community. Playa Vista, a new -urbanist community being planned for Los Angeles, has been mentioned as a possible home for the DreamWorks SKG multimedia com- pany. It could be an updated—and very upscale— version of the company town, which in this case _ will comprise 18,000 houses and apartments, shops, a park, promenades and jogging trails along the last tidal marsh in the city. -'Calthorpe believes that more businesses will move to new-, urbanist projects as they grow disillusioned with the traffic and .isolation of their officeparks.'the idea is not necessarily to live in MKF A TOS CENTER -12 Every town needs a center. a plaza,:. square or green that_ is a geographi- -. cal reference. point and a focus: of :civic life = even, if .that just means -.a place to push a stroller or throw a Frisbee. Shop+ ping malls are a poor substitute; the area fihey serve :is too diffuse, and in any case their civic function is incidental to their- real heir real purpose—malting money. Develop- ers often provide some parkland in their subdivisions, but it's usually on leftover parcels that wouldn't be built on anyway, by the edge of the highway or adjoining another subdivision. the same development you work in," he says; "there are a lot of criteria for where you choose your house. But if people can walk to a park, to midday shopping, restaurants and day care, it's better for the people working there." - SHRINK PARKING LOTS PARKING IS ONE OF SUBURBIA'S HIGHEST achievements. Only in the United States does the humblest copy -shop or pizzeria boast as much space for cars as the average city hall. But it is also a cause; the vast acreage given over to asphalt is useless for any other purpose, and goes unused more than half the time anyway. Most plan- ners regard parking as a prerequisite for economic growth, like water. But downtown Portland, Ore., which strictly regulates parking, has been thriving with essentially the same space for cars as it had 20 years ago. Developers often build more parking than they actually need; a half -empty lot is presumed to reassure prospective tenants that they'll never run out of space for their cars. Yet abank, a movie theater and a church are all full at differenttimes. One simple improvement towns can make is to look for ways to share and pool parking space among different users. The ideal—although expensive—solution 'to the parking problem is for cars to vanish underground when they get where they're going. A shopping center surrounded by acres of striped asphalt, whether it's empty or full, might as well put up a moat against pedestrians. Large parking lots should be situated behind buildings whenever possible—something most suburban zoning codes don't currently allow—and divided by streets, sidewalks or structures into smiRer segments ofaround three acres or less. On -street parking in residential neighborhoods is con- troversial Some planners favor it, because it creates a "buffer" between pedestrians and traffic, but others consider it a danger to children running out between the cars. Bibliography Adler, Jerry. "By -Bye, Suburban Dream," Newsweek, May 15, 1995. Bainbridge, David, Judy Corbett and John Hofacre. (1979). Village Homes Solar House Designs. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press. Barnett, Jonathon. (1986). The Elusive City. Five Centuries of Design, Ambition and Miscalculation. New York: Harper & Row. California Energy Commission (1993). Energy Aware Planning Cnuide. Calthorpe, Peter. (1993). The Next American Metropolis. New York: Princeton University Press. Corbett, Judith. "The Awanee Principles: Toward Livable Communities," Western City, September, 1994. Corbett, Michael N. (1981). A Better Place to Live. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press. Duany, Andres. (1992). Towns and Townmaking Principles. New York: Rizzoli. Fulton, William (Editor) (1995). Beyond Sprawl: New Patterns of Growth to Fit a New California. San Francisco: Bank of America. Fulton, William. "Viewpoint," PlanningMagazine, July, 1995. Langdon, Philip. (1994). A Better Place to Live, Reshaping the American Suburb. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Lyle, John T. (1994). Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. New York: John Wiley & Sons. National Commission on the Environment. (1993). Choosing a Sustainable Future: the Report of the National Commission on the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Van der Ryn, Sim and Peter Calthorpe. (1986). Sustainable Communities. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. David E. Bess, Cal Poly Pomona July, 1995