Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout4/27/2004MINUTES OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR STUDY SESSION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION APRIL 27, 2004 STUDY SESSION: Chairman Nolan called the Study Session to order at 6:10 p.m. in Conference Room B, City Hall, 21825 Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, California 91765. Present: Chairman Nolan and Commissioners Ruth Low, Joe McManus and Steve Tye. Vice Chairman Tanaka was excused. Staff present: James DeStefano, Deputy City Manager; Ann Lungu, Associate Planner; Linda Smith, Development Services Assistant and Stella Marquez, Administrative Assistant. • Presentation of proposed Grand/Golden Springs project by David Lewis, Lewis Operating Corporation DCM/DeStefano stated that this study session introduces the Planning Commission to the Lewis project and further consideration of a wide variety of entitlement requests. David Lewis of Lewis Operation Corporation and its retail and residential divisions has been working with the City on a 40 acre project at the corner of Grand Avenue and Golden Springs Drive on about 12 acres owned by Calvary Chapel (retail center), 14 acres owned by Calvary Chapel (institutional church use) and about 12 acres on the Citrus Valley Health Partners property (resident/office development. For the past year or so the City has been working with Lewis to bring this project to fruition, a project that has been pursued for seven or eight years with various other developers. The Lewis Corporation has been involved in these types of projects since 1955. David Lewis is a third generation owner of the company that has produced millions of square feet of retail space and some 56,000 residential homes in the Pacific southwest area. David Lewis stated that his company presently has more than 3 million square feet of retail under construction that includes the Victoria Gardens Regional Mall at Foothill and 1-15 Freeway. Mr. Lewis indicated that his firm had been working closely with City staff and Calvary Chapel officials to meet the needs of the City and the church. In accordance with the upscale residential areas of Diamond Bar, Lewis selected Brookfield Homes to build the 200 high-end town homes on the Citrus Valley site and that Lewis proposed to build a 200,000 square foot retail component with the proceeds of the land housing and a 50,000 square foot Calvary Chapel sanctuary bookstore expansion similar to a Barns & Noble prototype. APRIL 27, 2004 Page 2 PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION Mr. Lewis reported that on September 6, 2003, his firm embarked on its environmental studies for the site plan. At the direction of DCM/DeStefano, Lewis has taken a conservative and flexible approach to the environmental document leaving room for growth in the event that over time, the prototype grows. In addition, his firm hedged on the Calvary Chapel expansion from Pastor Reese's request of 40,000 to an estimated 50,000 square feet for purposes of trip -generation calculation. The environmental document includes two existing Environmental Impact Reports, one for the medical plaza and one for the Diamond Bar Revitalization Plan, a document certified by the City Council under the CEQA guidelines that accompanied the formation of the City's Redevelopment Agency. The hospital site contemplated 10,000 trips and the current plan including the residential, commercial and sanctuary is roughly 7,000 trips. Lewis contracted with Linscott, Law and Greenspan, the City of Industry's traffic consultant for the Grand Avenue crossing project for its environmental study. DCM/DeStefano explained to C/McManus that the project contemplates the opening of Grand Avenue in order to allow left -turn movements in and left -turn pocket out which could become an additional access point for the church as well as for the retail project lessening the impact at Grand Avenue and Golden Springs Drive. For the residential project, traffic can make a right -turn out, a left -turn out and another right -turn out. There are two points of ingress/egress for the residential component. The left -turn pocket will allow only left turn access at the point closest to Golden Springs Drive allowing the trips to and from the church and the retail portion to be spread and disbursed. In order to make the spread and disbursement possible, the City knows for certain that a signal modification on Golden Springs would be necessary. DCM/DeStefano explained to C/Tye that the reason for moving the access point is to comply with the church's wishes to have the access to their property. Additionally, the grade difference between Golden Springs and Grand Avenue determined the need for a curvature design solution. C/Low asked if the retail next to the bookstore belonged to Lewis or the church. Mr. Lewis responded that Lewis proposed to locate a retailer such as Trader Joe's at their retail location, not part of the church property. DCM/DeStefano stated that the drawings in the Commissioners packet were duplicates of drawings presented to the City Council about six weeks ago. Those drawings would change several more times before they were presented to the Planning Commission for public hearing. For example, there was a problem with APRIL 27, 2004 Page 3 PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION the smaller parking lot having no access to the larger parking lot. He said the Commissioners should not be concerned with those kinds of details at this point because staff would be working with Lewis to make the necessary modifications. In addition, the residential portion of the project was greatly modified from what was contained in the packet and what the Council saw a few weeks ago as a direct result of having a different architect on board and having a builder selected to move forward with the project. DCM/DeStefano explained to C/McManus that Lewis' traffic engineer and the City's traffic engineer together with the City's Public Works Director David Liu had been conferring about the traffic study details to make sure that everything was properly identified and analyzed for proper traffic flow mitigation. Traffic would continue to get worse even if the lot remained vacant because of what is occurring in the region. In addition, staff is taking into account what this project would generate at peak hours in order to make certain the project was properly conditioned. Mr. Lewis indicated to Chair/Nolan that Calvary Chapel proposed to use the existing chapel for offices, classrooms, youth ministry and archival storage. The proposed project contemplates 7,000 trips and the El study contemplates 10,000 trips. Rick Cuoco stated that Brookfield was pleased that Lewis selected them to build town homes in Diamond Bar. He responded to Chair/Nolan that the average size of the town home units was 1600 square feet and the residences would range in size from 1247 to 2047 square feet. Each building contains 10 residences in a three- story configuration with the parking tucked under at 5 feet below grade. Every residence was afforded a two -car garage that opened into the living area. Upstairs were the two, three and four-bedroom residences. The estimated price range was contemplated from low $400 to mid $500,000. Chair/Nolan asked if Target was on board to locate in the retail center. Mr. Lewis responded that his firm had worked closely with Home Depot and Target and believed that both would ultimately locate in Diamond Bar at one of its three retail sites. C/Tye said he saw a previous plan iteration that showed a two-story retail site. Mr. Lewis explained that his firm embarked on a program to get Target and Home Depot to stack. However, stacking was not as successful as ground level retail. Secondly, Lewis was the successful bidder on Site D and Target quickly asked to APRIL 27, 2004 Page 4 PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION locate at that site. As a result, Lewis planned that either Target or Home Depot would locate at Site D and concluded that with such a possibility, stacking would not be the program of choice. C/Low commented that stores such as Trader Joe's had stacked in Pasadena and other areas. Mr. Lewis responded that it was possible to stack boxes like Target or Home Depot but that it was not the optimum plan. Lewis believed that one-story units were much more manageable from a traffic perspective. He further stated that the study contemplated regional growth to the year 2015 and included the City of Industry, Diamond Bar and Chino Hills build -outs. DCM/DeStefano indicated to C/Low that the traffic study contained an ambient annual growth factor of approximately 2 to 3 percent. Chair/Nolan asked if the project had established sales tax revenue projections with the completion of both sites? DCM/DeStefano said it was somewhat difficult to make those projections without knowing who the retail tenants would be. If it were Home Depot it would generate approximately $500,000 per year to the City. The smaller retail and restaurants would likely generate $20-50,000 per year for the City. DCM/DeStefano explained that Staff was working toward filling the project with sales tax generating uses. Diamond Bar needs revenue to sustain itself and to meet its growing needs and beyond that, the state continues to extract revenue from cities, a factor that could dramatically impact Diamond Bar's budget. C/McManus asked about community interest in the proposed project. DCM/DeStefano responded that there had been little to no interest in spite of press updates. C/McManus expressed that in the past there had been some concern about "big box" retail and residents who did not understand the tax revenue generated by big boxes. He felt that Commissioners needed to brace themselves toward possible negative connotation regarding "big boxes." DCM/DeStefano said he was mindful of those previous concerns and felt that it was a small percentage of the population who were politically unsupportive of such a concept. C/Tye asked Mr. Lewis if his opinion was that the proposed project was the best use of the site. APRIL 27, 2004 Page 5 PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION Mr. Lewis responded that from the City's standpoint the project was most likely the highest and best use of the property. C/Tye elaborated on his question asking Mr. Lewis if it would be a better use to locate both a Home Depot and a Target in the same location and use the other piece of land for some other opportunity? Mr. Lewis said yes. Site D was a tough site as are many sites in Diamond Bar and that core drilling studies were underway to determine whether Site D was a usable retail site. DCM/DeStefano commented on the marketing history of the hospital site. He said that Site D offered another marketing opportunity. Several hundred thousand cubic yards would have to be exported from the site in order to render it marketable for a retail opportunity because retail centers needed to be at street -grade. For now, staff was focusing its energy on the Grand Avenue/Golden Springs site because of the competition in the immediate area. For instance, Majestic had an approved development at Grand and Valley for a similar big box product and Industry was looking to build a 600 -acre project behind the Honda dealer with a significant portion set aside for big box retail. C/Tye asked if Mr. Cuoco cared what resided below his project or if Diamond Bar was sufficient draw for 200 town homes to which Mr. Cuoco responded that he saw no downside to having retail below his project. C/McManus spoke about a possible car dealership project between Diamond Bar and Brea near the SR 57. DCM/DeStefano was familiar with a proposal that included 3500 homes and 60 acres of retail on two different sites along the SR 57 and he indicated that there had been discussions about annexing some or all of it into the City. He said that car dealerships were also looking to locate in the area and that there was some interest in an auto center between Brea and Diamond Bar Blvd. DCM/DeStefano concluded that Commissioners would have the opportunity to make all project land use decisions as this project moved forward to Planning Commission and City Council public hearings. ► Public Comments on Study Session Agenda Items - None Offered. APRIL 27, 2004 Page 6 PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION ADJOURNMENT: With no further business before the Planning Commission, Chairman Nolan adjourned the study session to the regular Planning Commission meeting at 6:55 p.m. Respectful Submitted, fames ue4etano Deputy Cityl Manager Att G� Chairman Dan Nolan