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Home My WebLink About07/07/1998 Minutes - Regular MeetingMINUTES OF THE CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR JULY 7, 1998 CLOSED SESSION: None 2. CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Herrera called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. in the South Coast Air Quality Management District Auditorium, 21865 E. Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, California. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Captain Martinez, Walnut Sheriffs Department INVOCATION: Dr. James Price, Diamond Canyon Christian Church ROLL CALL: Council Members Ansari, Huff, O'Connor, Mayor Pro Tem Chang, Mayor Herrera Also present were: Terrence L. Belanger, City Manager; Michael Jenkins, City Attorney; James DeStefano, Deputy City Manager; David Liu, Deputy Director of Public Works; Bob Rose, Community Services Director; Mike Nelson, Communications 8 Marketing Director; Joann Gitmed, Senior Accountant and Lynda Burgess, City Clerk. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: As presented. 3. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS, CERTIFICATES, PROCLAMATIONS: None 4. PUBLIC COMMENTS: Clyde Hennessee said he did not receive the July 6, 1998 Special Council meeting agenda until that afternoon. He felt that the personnel matters could have been continued to tonight's meeting. He expressed concern that street sweeping is taking place every other week instead of weekly and certain areas such as alleyways are not maintained. He questioned how Concerts in the Park benefit the community. 5. SCHEDULE OF FUTURE EVENTS: 5.1 CONCERTS IN THE PARK - July 8, 1998 - 6:30 p.m. - Doo Wah Riders (Country Western/Bluegrass), Sycamore Canyon Park 5.2 TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION - July 9, 1998 - 7:00 p.m., SCAQMD Hearing Board Room, 21865 E. Copley Dr. 5.3 PLANNING COMMISSION - July 14, 1998 - 7:00 p.m., SCAQMD Auditorium, 21865 E. Copley Dr. 5.4 CONCERTS IN THE PARK - July 14, 1998 - 6:30 p.m. - Film at Eleven and the Late Breaking Horns - (Classic 60's), Sycamore Canyon Park 5.5 CITY COUNCIL MEETING - July 21, 1998 - 6:30 p.m., SCAQMD Auditorium, 21865 E. Copley Dr. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 2 CITY COUNCIL 5.6 CONCERTS IN THE PARK - July 22, 1998 - 6:30 p.m. - Mid West Coast Band (Top 40 Contemporary), Sycamore Canyon Park 5.7 PANTERA PARK GRAND OPENING - July 25, 1998 - 10:00 a.m. - 738 Pantera Dr. 5.8 DIAMOND BAR LIBRARY GRAND RE -OPENING -August 15, 1998 - 10:00 a.m., 1061 S. Grand Ave. 6. CONSENT CALENDAR: Moved by MPT/Chang, seconded by C/Ansari to approve the Consent Calendar as presented. Motion carried by the following Roll Call vote: AYES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - Ansari, Huff, O'Connor, MPT/Chang, M/Herrera NOES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None ABSENT: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None 6.1 APPROVED MINUTES: 6. 1.1 Study Session of June 16, 1998 - As submitted. 6.1.2 Regular Meeting of June 16, 1998 - As submitted. 6.2 APPROVED VOUCHER REGISTER - dated July 7, 1998 in the amount of $489,584.73 for Fiscal Year 1997-1998 and $189,854.31 for Fiscal Year 1998-1999, for a total amount of $679,439.04. 6.3 REVIEWED AND APPROVED TREASURER'S REPORT - for month of May, 1998. 6.4 DENIED CLAIM FOR DAMAGES - Filed by Leslie Bellegia on June 3, 1998 and referred the matter for further action to Carl Warren & Co., the City's Risk Manager. 8. OLD BUSINESS: 8.1 ACCEPTANCE OF WORK COMPLETED IN ENVIRONMENTAL ENHANCEMENT AND MITIGATION (E.E.M.) TREE PLANTING PROJECT -The E.E.M. Tree Planting Project along the 57 Fwy. and at the 60 Fwy./Brea Canyon Rd. Interchange has been completed. A total of 421 trees were planted and a drip irrigation system utilizing reclaimed water was installed. Total cost of the project is $154,757, which is within the contract amount of $158,405. All costs will be reimbursed to the City by the State and ongoing maintenance is the responsibility of CalTrans. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 3 CITY COUNCIL In response to C/Ansari, CSD/Rose stated that 15 gal. walnut, oak and sycamore trees were planted. In response to M/Herrera, CSD/Rose indicated that all of the funding for this project will be reimbursed by the State. MPT/Chang moved, C/Huff seconded, to accept work completed in the E.E.M. Tree Planting Project, direct the City Clerk to file the Notice of Completion and authorize release of the retention in the amount of $15,475.71 (10%) 35 days after recordation of said notice. Motion carried by the following Roll Call vote: AYES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - Ansari, Huff, O'Connor, MPT/Chang, M/Herrera NOES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None ABSENT: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None RECESS TO REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY MEETING: 6:58 p.m. RECONVENE CITY COUNCIL MEETING: 7:00 p.m. 7. PUBLIC HEARINGS: 7.1 VESTING TENTATIVE TRACT MAP NO. 52267, CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT NO. 98-03, OAK TREE PERMIT NO. 98-01 AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT NO. 97-02 (SCH 97031005) - Diamond Hills Ranch Partnership and SunCal Companies are requesting approval to subdivide 65 acres of a 339.3 acre site into 141 lots for development of 130 detached single family residence, 10 open space lots and one lot reserved for the W.V. Water District; remove and replace oak and walnut trees; and remove map restrictions on a portion of the 65 acres. The balance of the 339.3 acre site (274.3 acres) and all of Lot 9 of Tract No. 31479 would be dedicated to the City as open space. The project site is generally located east of D.B. Blvd. and north of Grand Ave. at the extension of Highcrest Dr. The Planning Commission concluded its review on May 12, 1998 and recommended approval. M/Herrera opened the Public Hearing. Tom Jones, Bonterra Consulting, the City's Environmental Consultant, presented an overview of the Environmental Impact Report. In response to C/O'Connor, CM/Belanger explained that a map restriction is a condition that says the City has a right to prohibit JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 4 CITY COUNCIL residential construction. It is not a prohibition of residential development, it is a right to prohibit residential development and, therefore, in this instance, Council retains the right to prohibit or allow residential construction. Deed restrictions, which do not apply to the proposed project, are generally restrictions that are placed in deeds that are conveyed to property owners. The most common types of deed restriction in D.B. is the kind that occur as a result of CC&R's that are promises to do or not do certain things in relationship to the use of private property and are between private property owners. The City is not a party to private property deed restrictions and no action that the City takes changes deed restrictions. CM/Belanger stated that the City received two letters from the law firm of Johnson & McCarthy, LLP regarding the proposed project, one dated June 19, 1998 and one dated July 7, 1998. He recommended that these letters be entered into the record. Applicant Todd Kurtin, Diamond Hills Ranch Partners and SunCal companies, stated that over the past two years, SunCal has analyzed all of the various elements to design the best and safest land use plan for the site and for the community in general. During the same period of time, the City's staff and outside consultants have reviewed, analyzed and critiqued the plans. Once staff completed its review and the EIR was made available for public comment, the project was forwarded to the Planning Commission, which recommended approval. He believed the controversy surrounding this project is centered around two issues - property rights and achieving the highest quality development for this property. His company's right to develop the property is clearly stated in the City's General Plan under Planning Area II. The General Plan describes the basic parameters for this development: A maximum of 130 single family detached residential dwelling units to be connected along the extension of Highcrest Dr. and that 75% of the total acreage be set aside and preserved as Open Space. There is no discussion in the General Plan which restricts the development to Lot 6. The framework behind this land use plan of Planning Area II was a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and the previous owner, Bramalea. In the MOU, the City and Bramalea agreed to allow for the development of not less than 110 and not more than 135 homes on Lots 5, 6 and 7 - what is referred to as the retained property. The basic understanding agreed to in the MOU has withstood three revisions of the General Plan. 2/3 of D.B. voters showed support for the General Plan by voting down Measure D. He explained that the County had placed map restrictions on hundreds of properties in So. Calif. prior to the areas becoming cities. Many of these cities have removed the restrictions and allowed development to occur. The JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 5 CITY COUNCIL proposed project offers the following significant benefits to the City: 360 acres of vacant land dedicated to the City and preserved as Open Space (an increase of approximately 2 112 times what the City presently holds as Open Space); $250,000 contribution to the City's Parks Development Fund; consistency with the General Plan's Vision Statement; preservation of Sycamore Canyon, and design of a neighborhood that offers safety and enjoyment. Lex Williman, Planning Director for Hunsaker & Associates, the applicant's engineer, explained the proposed project. Dean Armstrong, Engineering Geologist for Pacific Soils, explained the geotechnical considerations for the proposed project. James Anderson, 23342 Stirrup Dr.: I have been in development for about 15 years - not in this area. The presentation was absolutely professional. I think the people did a magnificent job - a beautiful project. No question about it, but not in my backyard. I feel we have enough traffic right now on D.B. Blvd. I have a feeling that at some point in time our schools who (which) are crowded again which, of course, means more expense to the City. I feel very strongly that many of us came here for the beauty of this area. I feel, unfortunately, that the Planning Commission, which approved this, perhaps doesn't live here or are possibly thinking about moving. I want to say I love this city. I like it the way it is. Thank you. Rosie Bern, 1010 S. Park Spring Ln.: I have been a citizen and a taxpayer of D.B. since 1980. We had a population when I first moved in of 29,000 roughly. I think we're now, the latest figures are like 53,000 or so. I don't believe them. I think it's more like 60,000. That was our maximum capacity at one time. Our density. I don't know if that's been reached or not, but I have a suspicion that it has been because I haven't seen those signs changed for a very long time. And my point is also that my quality of life has diminished due to the traffic congestion along D.B. Blvd. I go on D.B. Blvd. during the morning rush hour and I come back every evening and it's a total mess between 57 and 60 or 71 and up Grand Ave. since it's been opened. And that needs to be addressed, maybe in the Transportation meeting I'll have to go to on Thursday night. Also, because, before we do any further development I simply have to look into our traffic problems. I'm also concerned that we're over populated and I think we've done as much development as we should have between three long miles - D.B. is only three miles long - and also, there's 130 houses that they're planning to put up on those hills and that's not one car per family. There's probably going to be two cars per family - that's another 260 cars going down to D.B. Blvd. and JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 6 CITY COUNCIL clogging it up even more. So I'd like to know the environmental impact and the traffic report. Even during construction, what that impact is going to have with the construction going on up there because I think it's really going to make it impossible to go on D.B. Blvd. I've also got other concerns about devastating the natural landscaping of our area. I came here because I like the hills and the canyons and I'm seeing more and more of them torn down. I like the open spaces. I don't want to see any further development. And, I have a problem thinking about, you're talking about there's landslides, possible landslides and who's going to be here after those landslides happen if we have another bad rainstorm like we did this year in February and March - who's going to be here to pay the damages. Is it going to be left to the city and the taxpayers? Who's going to accept the liability? That's what I would like to know. I don't want it to be on my tax bill, let's put it that way. And I'd like to see - I'm more concerned also, about the type of barriers that are going to be put up - if it's going to be sufficient to withhold rainstorms because it's a heavy hill. I've seen a lot of damage along D.B. Blvd. where the landscaping hasn't been too good. And they're not even as steep as the area that you're talking about. And I guess that's about all of my concerns if that could be addressed. I'm going to stay here until the end of the meeting to see if those questions could be answered. Stan Granger, 23800 Gold Nugget Ave.: I've lived here since 1980. At that time, the developer assured me that the large open area presently under discussion was map and deed restricted and it would never be developed, purposely to leave it as an open area. This present developer, Diamond Hills Ranch Partnership is only the most recent of several owners of this property. In other words, they purchased the property knowing full well that they could not develop it. So you do not have to concern yourself about restricting their rights as property owners or bailing them out of a known bad deal. You, the City Council, need only concern yourselves with the rights and wishes of the residents of D.B. This is the reason you are here - to represent us, the residents, not the developer. And why would you want to look after the developer's interest instead of the citizens of D.B. anyway? Judging from the disgusting performance of the Planning Committee in recent months where they rudely interrupted speakers, left the room while people were speaking and declaring themselves impartial and undecided in this matter, and then minutes later voting in favor of this project, virtually without full discussion, flying in the face of substantial opposition. Also, the city's management policy of notifying only those residents within 500 feet of development when this matter concerns all residents of D. B. makes one wonder what stake the city managers have in this development when they should be concerned with the desires of the residents who JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 7 CITY COUNCIL pay their salaries. So it seems that the Planning Commission doesn't want to represent the residents of D.B. And the City Manager doesn't want to represent the residents of D.B. It is now up to the City Council to make the right decision even though it should never have gone this far. So let's do the right thing and stop this ridiculous project here and now and put an end to something that should never have been started in the first place. You cannot build on this deed and map restricted property period. Sam Saffari, 24075 Highcrest Dr.: Thank you Mayor. Mayor, Council Members, people of D.B. - I'm going to go through this fast because I'm on a time clock of five minutes. I live at 24075 Highcrest in D.B. and I've been a resident for 11 years. I also want to thank SunCal project for allowing me to borrow their board. I'm against this project. I've been attending Planning Commission meeting for the past nine months. In that nine months and the number of meetings that I went to I've asked a number of questions and none of them were answered or none of the major ones answered. I'd like to address one and allow my fellow residents to get the others. The main question that we asked the City Commission was this project was never offered to the Commission within Lot 6 and as you can see from this plan that we have here, the green line represents Lot 6 where everything is supposed to be built and what is the houses that are going outside of Lot 6 are the ones that are in orange. And the rest of the plan produced - I would call it a mickey mouse plan because it lacked a lot of the necessary things such as the water tank inside, so on and so forth, and it was just talked about over the microphone. No actual plan has ever been presented for actual intelligent decision-making by the City Commission to see these two plans, one within Lot 6 which they are allowed to build. And I would like to, at this point, make a strong point that I believe that SunCal has a right, has a property right, but within parameters of what our General Plan has given them and they cannot come out of that right and allow us to believe that the land they are giving us in return is a favor. As Mr. Kurtin or SunCal was stating, the General Plan itself says they have a right to build on this land if they give us a 75% return - so they're not giving us anything, they have to give it to us. Point number two - I'm going to go through this real fast because I have other things to mention - this land that they give us, there is no guarantee that the City Council will not use for other purposes such as a financial disaster happening because of what ever project you have, revitalization program or your current Redevelopment Agency makes a mistake and oops - $ 20 million - now, we need to not become Orange County, we need to sell this land to a developer just like all the promises that we've heard over the years that this land is not going to be built - now it's smaller - we'll take a bit more and we go JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 8 CITY COUNCIL forward. The guarantee in writing - a guarantee that a conservancy has taken it over prior to anything said over a microphone or that can be taken back and say no, we now have changed our minds. Those are my only two - I would like to mention at this point that there are many people in attendance who are not going to speak. These people have understandable problem with public speaking. They are here and I understand what you just mentioned, but I do not see any other way but to ask them to clap at this time to show how many residents are here to show their support that they are against this project. M/Herrera: They don't need to clap, but if they would raise their hands. Mr. Saffari: I would like to ask all the people who are against this project to please stand up if you are a D.B. resident. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated. I would like to, any D.B. resident who is for this project to stand up. I would like to know if you drive a car. Thank you. Please sit down. I would like to take this time -we have collected over this past nine months 2,000 signatures. I would like to thank all the people who walked the streets of D.B. collecting signatures - at this time many of them are in attendance - and I hope you have access to those signatures to see their names. And at this time also I would like to mention that a lawyer representing the residents of D.B. is in attendance but he's limited to five minutes. We asked both the commission's members to donate some of the speaker's time and write on your card that you would donate their time to the lawyer and please hand it in. A number of people already have handed in their cards with their time donated to the lawyer. And last, I would like to just mention real fast some of the points that Mr. Kurtin and his engineer brought up... M/Herrera: I'm sorry but you're out of time. Perhaps other residents could make the points that you were about to make. Thom Pruitt, 24242 Breckenridge Court: I'm President of Pop Warner Football and Cheerleading Association. This year, we're celebrating our 20th Anniversary of incorporation. But actually, we've been involved in providing programs for the City of D.B., the families here, for 30 years. And obviously, during that time, the organization could not possibly have survived without the strong support of civic leaders including current City Council and governmental officials. And we appreciate that very much. At the same time, we currently don't have a home field - a place that we can call home - to play our games and our other activities to have as a base. The reason for that obviously, is that there is an increasing scarcity of recreational facilities here in JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 9 CITY COUNCIL the City of D.B. and that's directly attributed to the lack of open space available for development of those recreational facilities. We have spoken with many of you to varying degrees about our concerns and have received quite a positive response. We've also spoken with leading officials of other organizations here within the city as well as, with Todd Kurtin of SunCal. And we have received very positive responses in all cases. We feel certain that as you continue to consider the issue before you that you will take into consideration as a priority the need to establish some sort of a sports and recreational complex here in the city. This is in addition to the about to open Pantera Park facility. Each year, including this year, approximately two weeks ago, when we try to allocate space for athletic facilities, recreational facilities for organizations within the city, there's always a conflict, a mild conflict, and that we try in a cooperative manner to divide up the facilities that are available. But they are far from adequate. Probably the loan exception within the city is the Little League which has a property that was provided by Transamerica Corp. some years ago and has been further developed by the families that utilize that particular facility. We're hoping that as you go forward with your consideration on this project before you that you will consider for open space use, whether you approve it or not, a sports facility - there are many models for this in surrounding municipalities. This would address the needs of citizens of various ages, the youth, a teen center, a senior citizen's center as well as, a complex that would include a playing field that could be used by various organizations. Soccer for example, has approximately 100-120 teams and maybe 1500 participants. We have almost 500 participants. And so forth, and so on. Thank you very much. Wendy Ann Goin, 809 Bridle Dr.: Thank you. Madam Mayor, City Council Members. Not to be redundant, I just want to reiterate something that someone said before about the aesthetics of the city that we live in. And I am a very recent member of D.B. I just moved here last month. And the reason being that I liked the city the way it is. If I wanted to have live in a concrete jungle type of home then I would not have moved to D.B. Maybe live in LA. But I chose D.B. because of the way it looks and I hope that you choose to leave it that way. The second point I'd like to make is that overcrowding of our schools which has a direct correlation to the quality of education that our children receive. I don't need to tell anybody here how we hear complaints about the poor level of education in California in general. This all has to do with overcrowded schools. And we have a development such as this. We have a hundred more kids coming into our schools. Where do we plan to put them? What type of education plans are we going to enforce? Do the children in our current schools, will they be suffering as a result? Third point I'd like to make JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 10 CITY COUNCIL is that everything should not be about dollars and cents. Unfortunately, in today's society, it is. It should be about quality of life. And just walking outside your home and seeing some beautiful green hills and not having a concrete jungle. It shouldn't be about dollars and cents and I'm wondering if the developers and the planners if that's maybe their focus since they don't live here. Another point I'd like to make is that it was stated before, I think by Mr. Belanger, that the City Council has a right to prohibit or not prohibit the residential building but someone thought it was important enough to keep that space and not to build on it. So they had that statement - that clause put in so that it could be hopefully not lifted because it was important enough for somebody to see this is a beautiful place. Let's not mess it up. Let's leave it as it is. And I think we should just take a step back and look and think about what that person maybe had in mind when they put that statement there. And also, a final point I'd like to address is - I don't know the gentleman's name. He made a point about there were five or more problems but the only two problems or three problems that were remaining that were not of any significance were the aesthetics, the air quality and the noise. I'm wondering, not of importance to whom. I mean these are exactly the points that we're all talking about - the aesthetics, the air quality, the noise - and I think if we just simply brush it aside and say well, these are the only three things that we haven't dealt with or we haven't taken care of. But those are the things that we should take care of if we're going to, you know, really address this entire project. Final point I'd like to make - final point, is that when does it end? You know, we build now and we say we're going to leave this much space and then the next 10 years, pops, we need some more land. And then another 20 years, ooh, yeah, we need to take a little more, you know, and when does it end. That's all. Thank you for your time. John Forbing: I moved here in 1975 and got involved on the D.B. Improvement Association Board and was President. I'm now the President of the D.B. Historical Society, so I do have some knowledge of the background of this community. When Transamerica originally planned this community in 1957, it was planned for 110,000 people. The D.B.I.A. for years fought the original zoning and got the zoning downgraded from multiples all along D.B. Blvd. to single family residences. It was a constant battle against the County. The only reason that the County ever put a map restriction on was because they wanted the developer to come back and stand in front of them and give them something to get it removed. Map restrictions were strictly done to get the property owner back in front of the Board of Supervisors. It had nothing to do with aesthetics or the feeling for the community by the Board of Supervisors at any time. The education JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 11 CITY COUNCIL comments that have been made by several people has absolutely nothing to do with the City Council. There is a school board that handles both ends of the community. They are the ones that are responsible for the schools. The state legislature has set up a way that the school districts collect money from every builder. Whenever they build a house they have to give so many dollars per square feet of that house to the school district to improve the schools. The community now has about 58,000 population. That includes the area that is west of the 57 freeway that was never included in the original Transamerica map of D.B. The 110,000 population did not include the area west of the 57 freeway. So, when you take into account that area the 58,000 is a lot less than what was originally planned. I think that this project is well thought out and well designed. I feel it will be an asset to the community and it's the responsibility of the City Council to work with the property owners of any property that has rights in the community and make sure that they do the best possible job of developing their property so that the community will benefit from it. I think that the open space that is being given by this property owner is going to be an asset and it's something that the City Council in the future can work on to add recreation areas. It's really a shame that a previous proposal that came to the community at a different part of town and a lot of people signed petitions just like they've done on this one without understanding what it was they were signing and fighting. The property is building homes right now on his original approved property. The same is that there is now a hill there where there could have been a park with room for soccer fields, baseball fields, an amphitheater, an extension of all of the recreation facilities from the middle school that was contiguous with that plus 1.2 million dollars a year forever of income to the City of D.B. from a retail area. The people that signed those petitions that stopped that project are also the people that when the alternative General Plan was on the ballot, soundly defeated it. The General Plan that was proposed by the City Council was approved, is in effect right now, and I think that this Council is doing a good job of requiring this developer to make sure that they have mitigated all of the problems and they should continue to work with the developer and approve the project. Don Gravdahl: Yes. Good evening. My name is Don Gravdahl. I know we've heard various times of living in the city. I think the wife and I bought our first homes here in 1967 when the County had a sign posted between the golf course and D.B. Blvd. on Golden Springs Rd. that was 3600 and some population. That 3600 and some population stayed there for quite a long time until probably the early part of the 70's when building started off. Most of the people, if we're going to close the door on property rights and say we love that beautiful hill up there, I loved that beautiful hill when the population was 3600 too, but JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 12 CITY COUNCIL I didn't have the money to buy that beautiful hill. Somebody else has paid property taxes on it over all of these years. I realize this particular property has changed hands several times, and I also realize that there are property rights to build on one parcel of about 130 homes. If this developer builds on that property - if he crams or goes in and does a screwy job of a development that you probably can't drive two cars down the street and meet each other and do all of the other things that we have in some parts of our city in the early 60's, maybe he can fit them in there. But if he does that, do you get 360 acres that he's talking about? Do you have the right to ask him for that? Because that's in that MOU that was signed in the early 90's if this was carried out so that this development could be a decent development. I've sat in the audience and to be very frank with you, this is the first presentation I've seen on it. Here you have a gate - guarded community. Everything back of that gate belongs to the homeowners. They're going to pay for the maintenance on those streets. They pay for everything once they pass through that gate. And yes, we're going to collect taxes on those pieces of property even though they are maintaining the streets and everything else that's in it. As I understand, there's about 30 acres of green area that is also going to be the responsibility and ownership of these property owners. They're going to be paying for that as well, the maintenance and everything else on that. That's a real plus for our community. As far as the schools are concerned, I believe this falls in Pomona Unified School District and I'm sure the proper officials down there have got their hands out and they've figured out just exactly what to do with the money from the 130 homes. Yes, this builder has rights on it. And yes, he has proposed a project that does slop into some of the other ones that did have the Board of Supervisor's map restrictions on. But let's get the best possible project out of this. At least you will have something that the homeowners who will be living in that development with will have pride of ownership when they're done. You're going to eventually get 130 homes some way on this property. The rest of the property that is there will still be hanging and if it's in private ownership will still be coming back to this Council time after time after time. At least, if the city owns that property, if some of it is used for parks or recreation or whatever else, we know where it's at. We know that all of the residents from the very south tip of the city, the very west tip of the city and the very north tip of the city will benefit from this development and that land when the city has it. I realize that this City Council's got kind of a hard job and I'm sure that if you've looked over this project you're probably wondering why you were out there carrying your signs around asking for that job. Do your job. Give this developer his part and get all you can from him. Thank you. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 13 CITY COUNCIL Dave Kersey, 23403 E. Wagon Trail Dr.: Thank you Madam Mayor, Council Members. I've been going to Planning Commission meetings since last September. And at the very first meeting when this project came up I asked questions of the Commission that have not been answered. The developer gave us facts - I'm not sure where the figures came from - stating that of these 130 homes, there will be 96 trips made in the morning between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. and 131 trips in the evening between the hours of 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. If there's 130 homes and only 96 trips being made in the morning, somebody's not working. How did they buy the homes. And why is there 131 trips being made between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. when the majority of people work until 5:00 p.m. So let's look at that traffic issue closely. I don't know if you've come down D.B. Blvd. in the evening towards north D.B., but it took me 25 minutes when I turned onto D.B. Blvd. from Brea Canyon Rd. to get to the post office this evening and that's between 6:00 p.m. and 6:25 p.m. We don't need any more cars. They also had facts and figures about the oak trees and walnut trees. There were 820 oak trees that are going to be preserved and exactly 410 that are going to be destroyed. And I asked how is that? Was it chance? Because in the other project that the developer pulled sometime earlier in this year which was Tract No. 52308 there were 20 oak trees and 10 were going to be destroyed. In each instance, exactly 50%of the trees, or I'm sorry - 1/3 of the total was going to be destroyed. And the same figure held for walnut trees. And this to me sounds like a figment of somebody's imagination. Carey Garza of SunCal looked into it and claims that it's just pure chance. Please, let's check this out. These trees, these 410 oak trees, basically fall in one canyon. The 1230 oak trees total fall in the entire project - the lots that go from D.B. Blvd. all the way back to Summitridge Park. And we're going to take exactly 1/3 of them out on D.B. Blvd. I don't know why we have to take them all out. It seems to me we should be able to preserve some. With regard to the water issues - hydrologic issues, there was one gentleman that came up at one Planning Commission meeting who was responsible for San Diego State project and he stated that they ran into some severe problems with water runoff that's a real issue when you get into slopes. Now, all of us have seen the water that accumulates in front of Sycamore Canyon Park there on D.B. Blvd. There's an area there that says be careful extra water and they stick signs out there. Tin Dr. is going to come down very steep and that water's only got one place to go that I can see and that's toward Sycamore Canyon Park. We'd better get our liability insurance increased to cover the accidents. The development impacts air quality. I've heard Mr. DeStefano say that several times. We cannot get around it. We exceed the environmental impact allowances. Let's not do that. And I've heard that they're not going to allow dynamiting. But even at that, JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 14 CITY COUNCIL we're still going to have severe impact with dust. The noise is going to be something that we're going to deal with for several years. The aesthetics obviously are going to change the community. This is our last virgin hill. This is the last hill that D.B. residents have that are commuting up and down D.B. Blvd. to look at. Sand Canyon is.gone. Let's save the last one. And getting back to the water issue, we had our hundred year rain this year. The slopes held real well. I hate to think what might happen. I do recall Gold Rush Dr. and I remember that that mud rushed all the way down Gold Rush, down D.B. Blvd. all the way to Golden Springs. We have enough trouble keeping our cars clean with these meridians that have water out in the street more than in the grass areas. And that, as I recall, was a project that the D.B. voters told the City we do not want. And yet they came back and it was put in against our wishes. George Davidson, 23426 E. Wagon Trail Rd.: First, I just wanted to mention that the speaker before Dave, I echo his thoughts that I want to find out what is the best possible project for this area. How can we possibly do that if there's never been a development proposal before you that is wholly contained within Lot 6? That is his legal right. If we don't have that to compare to, I just don't think we can find out what really the significant benefits are of allowing to lift the deed restrictions so that he can develop that additional land. The crux of my issues are around the lifting of the restrictions. I've talked to many of the Council Members, and it seems that in order to lift the restrictions, the issue here is that there has to be a significant benefit to the city. And the fact that we would be obtaining 360 acres of restricted land could possibly be a significant enough benefit to lift those restrictions, and I wanted to address that. The developer came up and said there's four significant benefits that he claims he's giving to the city: The open space, the $250,000, following our Vision Statement, and safe neighborhoods. The safe neighborhoods I think we all understand. That's D.B. So that's not significant to me. I don't think that's a real significant benefit. And following our Vision Statement, I think that's what you're supposed to do. So as far as significant benefits it's really just the land and the money. For the city to own restricted land, and I asked many of you Council Members, what is the significant advantage to the city owning it if its restricted land. And every Council Member that I talked to, and I believe the other Council Members up there in their campaigns talked about the preservation of open space. We want to preserve the open space. If we own that land, then we can preserve that open space. To me a significant benefit is, after you add up the pluses and you take away the minuses, there's enough pluses left over that it becomes significant. I want to remind the Council that we don't get this for free. This is not something that we are being given by the developer. In JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 15 CITY COUNCIL order to get our name on the dotted line of restricted land, we have to give this developer the right to destroy almost 19 additional acres of our precious open space. And I want to expound on that issue. This developer isn't coming to the Council and saying hey, I need a few extra square feet over here to make a little bit better configuration, or I need a couple of percentage extra to make a nicer layout in the land. This developer is asking you to lift restrictions on an additional 40%. This is not a developer who is trying to make a better plan. This is a developer, in my opinion, that is trying to take advantage of the system. 40%. The other point I want to make is, this is restricted land. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way you can develop restricted land is if you City Council Members lift those restrictions. So if your concern is to protect the open space, then what I say to you now is, please - we're talking about 19 additional acres of open space that you're going to allow this developer - you're considering to let this developer develop. Stay true. Stay consistent. Do not allow him to take that open space. Say no to the development and lifting of those restrictions. The second point that I wanted to make real quick because I know I'm on a time constraint, is an issue, like I said before, I talked with many of you Council Members. And one of the issues that I brought up to everybody was the amount of signatures that we got. We really didn't even try and we got close to 2,000 signatures. And I asked some of the Council Members, you know, I asked one in particular, how many signatures would it take for you to not lift the deed restrictions and the answer I got - it shocked me. And I'm going to quote. The quote was, George, you're probably not going to like the answer I'm going to give you, but it wouldn't matter tome if there was 10 million signatures. Now l'm not going to take it out of context because the Council Member explained that the fact that we got 2,000 signatures meant something, but that this individual had to look at the project as a whole and determine whether this was a significant benefit for the city and that was what they were going to base their decision on. I believe that we are a city, not because of the land that we stand on, not because of the streets we drive on or the houses that we live in, I believe we're a city because of everybody that's in this room - the people. And you people were elected by us to represent us. And for a Council Member to tell me that it wouldn't matter if 10 million signatures had been obtained, he was still going to base that decision on what he or she felt was best for the city, it tells me that you're not representing me. And I just want to say that please, keep that in mind. Randy Nayudu, 24059 Highcrest Dr.: Good evening. My name is Randy Nayudu. I live on 24059 Highcrest Dr. and I thank you City Council Members and Madam Mayor for the opportunity to speak before you. I would like to take up Madam Mayor's suggestion to the JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 16 CITY COUNCIL city staff here that they will answer in writing some of the questions that will be raised here today. I have three specific questions. And they are relating to issues that I think are of great concern to everybody and what this whole meeting is about. The first one is about open land. The second one is about traffic and congestion. And the third is about the safety of my property which happens to lie right adjacent to the SunCal development. I asked a very pointed question to staff and I would like to have written answer from them. Approximately 500 acres of open land in D.B. transferred from the hands of Bramalea to SunCal somewhere in the period of the last couple of years for a price of $2.7 million. The question I ask is, $2.7 million is peanuts for 500 acres in the heart of D.B. Why did not somebody in the City of D.B. make a bid to buy this land instead for maybe $3 million. Because if they did, we would not be having this issue today. $3 million for the City of D.B. on a 10 year bond with approximately 70,000 residents amounts to less than $350,000 a year on a mortgage payment which is approximately $5.00 to $6.00 per resident. So, I would like to know who dropped the ball on this one. I work for the private sector and I know that my job would be in jeopardy if I did not pick up an opportunity that is available to buy some property for next to nothing. 500 acres in the heart of D.B. I would like an answer to that. The second issue is regarding traffic and congestion. I think your duty as the City Council and the people who were here prior to you in several meetings, namely the Planning Commission, need to look at not just the project for SunCal, but the problems in D.B. as a whole as an entity. I want to ask you folks, and I would like a written response to this one, how many members of the Planning Commission - name by name - and how many members sitting up there right now drive between Pathfinder and Grand Ave. between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. every evening? Because I do and I would like to see if you are really seeing the world from my perspective or are you seeing it from the top of an ivory tower. The third issue is the safety of my property. I live right adjacent to the SunCal property. I open my LA Times and I see landslides in several parts of the state. And I see SunCal's name there. Has anybody here, or are they willing to come back and give us a detailed report of what the investigations at these other landslides have shown? Maybe it is not SunCal's problem. Maybe it is SunCal's problem. We need to know that. I think it was very quickly glossed over here about one of the gentlemen showing you this map and he talked about well, you know, this area, you know, potential, if water seeped in it. That's exactly what we're talking about. I'm an engineer. And I have a real concern about these issues. Another item I would just like to mention is as elected members of this city, I've attended several Planning Commission meetings and I tell you, they rode rough -shod over the people of D.B. The last meeting was frankly, a disgrace. The people JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 17 CITY COUNCIL of D.B. were insulted, were shouted at, and 1, for the first time in my life, I got up to speak at a meeting here because I felt somebody had to say enough. And after all of these discussions and all of the soft voices and all the sweet talk in the last five minutes of this meeting, three key issues were passed so fast which were never brought up earlier. One was that the bulldozers were moved from D.B. Blvd. up to a launching pad on Highcrest Dr. The second was Mr. Todd, as a gentleman had given me his word as a gentleman that the gate on Highcrest will be strictly for fire. And in those last five minutes they passed another resolution that that gate will be open because the people in this development will use Pantera Park. And the third was, they got a waiver to start the grading prior to the deed being recorded. So, my question is, whose side are you on? That's all I want to know. I see the only benefit to this whole deal is everybody's talking about the free land coming to the city. I do not accept anything for free. Do you? I think we are not poverty stricken. I don't think we're some hard up little city somewhere. I think SunCal is very smart. I respect them. I admire them. They saw a deal, they went out and got it, okay. I'm a fair man. I don't think we should take anything away from SunCal for nothing. They were smart enough to buy 500 acres for $2.7 million. I say the City of D.B. should have the guts to tell SunCal look, we respect you and admire you... Sandy Erickson, 22806 Ridge Line Rd.: Thank you, Madam Chairman and City Council Members. I currently live at 22806 Ridge Line Dr. but we will be relocating to Highcrest. We purchased a piece of property there. And as this gentleman stated, my property is going to butt up right next to this SunCal project. At one of the Planning Commission meetings I got up and raised the question, since one of the gentleman touched on the issue of safety several times alluding to the fact that he did not want to create another Gold Rush, I got up and said, well, it doesn't seem like you're going to be doing much to mitigate what is happening on Gold Rush by opening up a gate right there that's going to dump right on to Gold Rush down the street into D.B. Blvd. You're increasing the amount of traffic going in and out of Gold Rush down an already crowded busy dangerous street. That's the only place if they come out Highcrest that they will be able to access D.B. Blvd. is off of Gold Rush. So the safety issue is critical. Gold Rush is a mess and we're just going to make it worse by allowing him to develop the way he wants to develop. 1 brought up the issue about the large building machinery being brought up Gold Rush up Highcrest, highly densely populated areas, and using Highcrest as the staging area. Well, someone over here said the Planning Commission has the right to restrict that. They can say you cannot start building, you have to use staging off of Tin Dr. Build Tin Dr. first, then use that area which is not populated currently for your JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 18 CITY COUNCIL staging. Well, like this gentleman says, in the last five minutes that was changed. They were allowed to use Highcrest as their staging area. That means they're going to be moving heavy equipment and machinery up highly densely populated areas with children who play out in the street. To me, it's just welcoming disaster. I too read the article about the sliding in Orange County, the homes that slide down the hill recently, and SunCal's name was mentioned in it. I would like to ask the question, is the same geological firm doing the research for this project that did the research for that project, and if so, how much credence can we put on a geological study done by a firm who couldn't foresee that. The gentleman said well, he's going to be here at least until the end of the project. Well, that's great. The sliding's not going to take place right at the end of the project. It's going to happen maybe one, two, three years down the road when we have another EI Nino. Who's going to get stuck with the liability issues when that happens? It's going to be the City. Because, if SunCal comes out of the mess down in Orange County whole, then if it is perceived that this will happen here, then it's very common for these developers to declare bankruptcy once they're done - out - declare bankruptcy, they're no longer responsible. If the geological firm goes out of business and opens up shop in another name, you can't go after them. Guess who the citizens are going to go after that purchase those homes that may slide down the hill at a future date. It's going to be the city. We're the city. We're going to be stuck with the bill down the road. None of us are saying that the developer does not have rights to build in the lot that he purchased to build on. None of us are saying that. But, by the same token, we as citizens certainly can't just arbitrarily say we're going to take over open land that's deed restricted and build on it. I don't think you would allow me to do that and all we're asking as citizens is that you not allow them to do it either - that they stay within the parameters of Lot 6, they don't bleed over. The open space is restricted. They're not giving us anything. They can't build on it anyway unless you lift those restrictions at some particular point in time. So, they're basically giving us open land that's restricted as open land anyway. Not a big shake. They're not giving us a whole lot. Dr. Christina Goode, 624 Hoss St.: My name is Dr. Christina Goode. I reside at 624 Hoss St., D.B., and thank you Council for giving us the opportunity to address you. I previously attended the Planning Commission meetings and was extremely disappointed that the Commission ultimately approved this project to come to you. And it was by a 4-1 vote, not a 5-0 vote as indicated by Mr. Kurtin. So there was one person on there who listened to the comments. Tonight it appears that you are now being asked to vote again for this development due to the "significant benefit to the city of the donated JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 19 CITY COUNCIL open space and the sum of $250,000" which I think is approximately half of the cost of one of the 130 houses that they're going to build, so it is not a particularly significant sum. In doing this, in voting for this project, you are being asked to ignore the three factors already mentioned by the environmental consultant that will have a significant detriment to the city. There are the aesthetics, the noise and the air pollution. And several people have spoken already about the aesthetics and the noise. I would like to discuss the air pollution. As a resident of D.B. for 11 years, the mother of two small children and a PhD lab chemist doing research into biochemistry and the effects on our environment, I am horrified by the Environmental Impact Report which seems to have been somewhat brushed over in this thing. As determined by the Environmental Impact Report, the levels of pollution during the ensuing years of the construction will exceed the prescribed levels of health by at least three times, probably closer to 10 times, the level determined for health. And this is both for particulant matter - that would be dust generated by the construction and also nitrous oxides and pollution from the construction traffic. And the people that are severely impacted by that would of course be butting on to the development. Given that there is now an extensive scientific literature that directly correlates even small increases in these particulant matters with significant increases asthmatics, in infant mortality, in mortality amongst the aged, the body of evidence that is out there that correlates these two things is overwhelming. And I have plenty if you would like to see it. I'm wondering and I find myself wondering why the committee of the Council can accept this development given the Environmental Impact Report. It would seem to me that that reporting is in itself, regardless of everything else that is being discussed is in and of itself reason for not allowing this development. We are going to be subjecting the citizens of D.B., our children and our aged population, to severe health effects during the period of development and because of the increased traffic, after the development. But certainly during the development the levels of pollutants are enormous. And my question is, and I hope it can be answered - and I too, would like to have it answered in writing by the Council or the Council's staff - is what good is an Environmental Impact Report if we just say, oh well, these three factors are significant but we accept the project? Thank you. Martha Bruske: I wish to say that I don't live in the proposed project area but I support the people who are here concerned about the quality of their life. You've heard me talk about quality of life and the deterioration that I observe in the city and, most notably, noise, and the messes around the school and things like that. I agree with what's been said. I'm concerned that you don't know how to accept land from a developer. I frankly don't trust you not to turn around and JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 20 CITY COUNCIL sell it to another developer. But here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Sandstone Canyon. Seems to me I've heard this song before. We had the same issues. We had map and deed restrictions which the Council lifted. I believe everybody who lived in this town and voted for cityhood had no idea that one of the things that was going to happen was that the Council could then lift these map and deed restrictions. We had loss of open space. We had the purchase and the resale of water district property. The Council did that and it allowed the developer to progress. We lost a park. You tell me it's coming back, but it will probably be behind guarded gate. It won't be available to me. We lost animal habitat. We moved some oak trees which were going to be saved. As is, then I think we talked about replanting saplings and then I think we lost track of what trees we had saved. I think you really need to give some answers to all of us about that business of oak tree saving. Finally, of course, we lost the whole hill didn't we. And the people who live behind that hill lost the natural sound barrier. So I support these people who are concerned. I am also concerned that when you have a public hearing, city staff are here to work with the developer for the developer's posture on things and there is no one in the city who helps the residents get organized or helps to speak for the residents. You are the ones who are suppose to do that. Thank you. Ron Tehran, 745 View Ln.: Good evening, Council Members, ladies and gentlemen in audience. I want to talk about map or deed restriction. As you can see, I have a copy of the grant deed that talks about a restriction. It is not a map restriction. This is a deed restriction and it talks about restricting building on this property. The restriction that was placed by LA County was for a reason - to preserve open space because of all the other development. This deed restriction is not for public and should not be used for negotiation. The project is a hillside development. This project, as you can see, is a very steep grade - 2:1, 3:1 - very steep grade. Normally, all the other jurisdictions, including us, that have two to five acres, have one building in those areas. When you look at Lot 6, it has only 40 acres. Based on that, you only can build eight to 16 lots in this property. They cannot negotiate the rest of the land. They only have right to build in Lot 6. Based on hillside development, they can only build every five acres, 8 lot to 16 lot maximum. I can't see how they negotiate for anything more than that. The city cannot use other lots area to transfer density or to combine map restriction. The intention is to leave open space for public. No matter how you look at it, if you remove this restriction, you're betraying public trust. You can only trade Lot 6 acre per acre or even more. If they want to get something more, they have to dedicate more from Lot 6. Nothing else. We heard from the engineer. He talked about damages, he JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 21 CITY COUNCIL talked about soil and he talked about safe. They intend to do what the developer is asking him. Safe. They can make less houses. It would be safer. They don't need to make 130. If they build 16 they can fit it a lot easier in Lot 6. They don't have to go to other lots. Why do you have to push 130? If they want to make a nice grade, okay, go to the other lot but dedicate some other portion of Lot 6 one to one for the area that they are going out. Why are they building everything on Lot 6 and they're also going out? I don't see it to be safer. There is no document. They don't show any cross-section. There's no engineering. Just talking. At least let's substantiate what they claim based on engineering, cross-section document. Not just wording. It is not safer to be 130. It's safer to make less. In addition, I would like to ask if they have a chance to come back up and talk, I'd like to have the public have the same chance so when they come in here they have more time - a team of citizens can also have more time in response to their answers. Because they come here and they answer something totally different and the Planning Commission used to take it and they say okay, okay, that's fine. Their plan has to be justified based upon engineering, not just wording. Based on the geotechnical report that they stated that everything can be built, they can minimize the project to any size. These hills are visible from a long distance away. Even people driving can see these and having been located in the heart of the city, everyone will pass a few times a day and enjoy the natural beauty and serenity of them. This project mass grading with cut and fill will reconfigure the whole area with millions of cubic yard which will impact all surrounding neighborhoods and in fact, the whole city. The aesthetic impact cannot be mitigated and the natural beauty cannot be replaced. The visual impact cannot be mitigated. The amount of dust, exhaust and noise of grading of two million cubic yards of cut and fill created will adversely impact the neighborhood and the city. Each cub yards is 2000 pounds - that's one ton. Then they talk about two million cubic yards. That's two million of cars. Imagine if you have two million cubic cars of moving to just give you an idea. Everyone in the area of the project will be impacted. Henry Pourzand, 1008 Quiet Creek Ln.: Good evening, Council Members. My name is Henry Pourzand. I live at 1008 Quiet Creek Ln. I've been a resident of D.B. for over nine years and I've worked in the field of air pollution control for almost 10 years. One of the previous speakers has said a lot of what I was going to say so I won't repeat it. I just did want to reemphasize that your own EIR statement as adopted into the record states that the mitigated effects of air pollution from this project are going to exceed 10 the healthful threshold level. And one thing that she didn't mention is that the latest study - I believe it's out of Kaiser, I would have to check - JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 22 CITY COUNCIL indicate that the group that's most affected now in California, children. The chronic illness there is asthma. And I know one of the other speakers talked about recreational facilities for younger citizens so I see some contradiction there. And I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And just to let you know for the record, I am opposed to this project. I won't take any more time. Thank you. Marty Torres, 24832 Highcrest Dr.: Good evening, Council. I'm a D.B. resident but I also live on Highcrest and I came here with an open mind and I really respect the comments of all of the speakers before me. Just a couple of issues. I don't have $250,000 to give the city. I wish I did. Then I would be on a little more equal ground. I don't have any open space to offer you tonight. But I do have as many other people in the audience, really a 15 year history of civic involvement in the city. And I am a taxpayer. And I do agree with having some open space but I'm a little bit concerned about at what cost. We've heard a lot about a lot of technical issues by the developer and the other technical people and I respect their opinions and I'm sure they're well founded. Unfortunately, just because you can engineer something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. That's opinionated and it can be emotional and I do understand that. I'm a pharmacist by training so the quality of life issue means something to me both in the emotional aspect but even on a technical aspect and I really want you to weigh that very heavily. But not so much emotionally but really with respect to what the Environmental Impact Report had to say about that because I think that's really critical. And some of the speakers before me addressed that. As a representative of my community, I do respect that the developer wants us to play by the rules. I do believe he has rights just as we do. And in playing by those rules, I would respectfully request that you do not remove any of the map restrictions because that's playing by the rules and I feel that we should be above board. Do not waive the EIR. Though six out of nine points seem to meet the appropriate thresholds, three of nine didn't and I hope you weigh that very heavily in your assessment of this project. I don't want you to downgrade those because the majority did meet. The bottom line is we hear the word mitigate over and over again, but in three of the nine points in the EIR the mitigation efforts were not effective enough. And that's based on the people you had put that together. Those consultants, please respect their opinion and let's not downgrade their efforts on the city's behalf. And then lastly, based on all this I hope you exercise your right on my behalf and many of the members of the community to prohibit this development exactly as it is. And if there are other alternatives then we can go there when that happens. But as presented to the community and to you I hope that you, on our behalf, will prohibit what they're presenting. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 23 CITY COUNCIL Nick Anis: Good evening. My name is Nick Anis. I'm a D.B. resident. My wife and I are active community volunteers. I wish we could get so many people to turn out for some of the community events in town. You know, the different fundraising for youth sports in the schools. But I guess that's just the nature of things. I want to start out by congratulating people who've taken the time to come here tonight and express their concerns. I bought my first home with my wife in 1977. We were very thrilled. We both worked two jobs to save the money to buy our home and we did care about our home and about our neighborhood. And one of the most thrilling times in our life was when we moved to D.B. We did see open spaces but to be honest with you we did move here because it seemed you got more for the money and the overall community was nice. It seemed to be a safer community. There already was traffic when we moved here and that was before the homes were built around this proposed project. I'm a little confused. I'd like to start by saying I don't blame anyone who lives on a certain street or in a certain neighborhood. They have every right not to want other things in their neighborhood. Not to want a new, I don't know, an office building or even another home. If you have someone who lives on Elm St. and there's 10 houses on that street, if you say to them would you like another house built on your street, who's going to say yes? Why would you want more houses? You already have your house. You don't need a house. But maybe that's not the right question. Ask them if they would want to pay a $1,000 per year assessment so that the city can pay for land that they've taken away from a property owner. And I don't think most people are willing to do that. That question was asked right here in this room. It was proposed that we buy the land at Southpointe. The Middle School. And no one in this city was willing to pay the tax money for us to buy that land. And that's a shame. I would have been in favor of that. But there were very few people that expressed interest in that. I've heard some things tonight and I think a lot of people aren't familiar with EIR's and how they work or with how the Planning Commission meeting works or a Council meeting and the comment period. But it seems to me, I just want to remind everyone, the Council, to my knowledge, you don't have the authority to turn down any building what -so -ever. They are entitled to approval of a project. So the question really is, are you going to approve this project that's on this board? I can't believe there are people in this audience - you want them to say no to this and then SunCal comes back - you don't even know what they're going to come back with. Maybe you won't like what they come back with. Have you thought about that? What if you hate what they come back with but it's on that one lot. Then they must - I can talk to anyone I want - they must approve it. If it's on that one lot, they must approve it. And how do you know you're going to like it? Maybe you should take another look JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 24 CITY COUNCIL at this project. Is that 10% in those other two lots - that's going to make more dust or more traffic? I mean, I'm on your side. You deserve a break. You deserve every consideration. But do you really believe that if intruding on another couple of lots that makes it better or worse? And if so, please explain it to me and I'll help you. I'll chip in for the lawyer. I'll fight it. I care about this community. I've worked here as a volunteer six months full time on community projects and so has my wife. I care about D.B. I live in the Summitridge area. My front yard overlooks the largest open space in the City of D.B. The City of Industry has building rights and one day they're going to build on it. And I'm not going to like it either. But I don't know if I'm going to be able to come here and tell the Council to ignore the law or to take people's building rights away. So if you really don't want them to build on those other two lots, and I don't think they have to lift the restriction. The restriction does not say you cannot build. It says they have the power to say yes or to say no. If they say yes, they don't have to lift anything, they just say yes. Albert Perez, 703 Pantera Dr.: I've heard a lot of comments today - good evening, first of all - anyhow, about the traffic and the noise and all the elements that go into building and I won't go into that because we've heard a lot of it. My comments will be based basically on whether - I think the issue's going to come down to as whether this project should be approved and if it's not approved, what are the consequences for the City of D.B. You have a City Attorney from Richards, Watson & Gershon who would probably give you legal advice one way or another. I think you would know well enough that if you deny a project, is it a taking from SunCal? Can they come back and tell the city is it a taking? If you weigh the totality of the circumstances of what everyone is telling the City Council on how the residents feel and I feel the same way because this is in my backyard. I'm opposed to the project the way it is. I don't want to take the man's or SunCal's right to develop. I oppose the lifting of the deed restrictions. You don't have to do that. That's what's in the deed and you can follow the law. Now you've heard a gentleman that came up and said you have to approve it. That's not true. He should probably read some law books and understand a little what's going on here. Now, this project can be limited. It goes on with what the General Plan is. What constitutes a taking? As far as if you would limit the project that's here, would it be a taking? Well, if you limit it to conform with D.B. standards, what the people of D.B. want, what's good for D.B., taking into consideration the Environmental Impact Report. And that's what it's for, to take into consideration so you can make an unbiased opinion of what you have. You can limit the project to the point where the man can still develop on his project where it doesn't effect the residents. It doesn't effect the community JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 25 CITY COUNCIL as a whole. And that's the way the decision should be brought on this. You should seek the legal advise that you have here that you're paying good money for and he should be able to tell you that you can limit the project, you don't have to lift the deed restrictions, and if SunCal says well, I'm going litigate this, which they probably will tell you, not to be afraid because when they lose, and they will lose if you base on a rational decision, you will be able to collect your attorney's fees back from SunCal. So D.B. will be in a win-win situation. Our community will get a project that's not going to be disturbing to everyone, you're still going to have the open space, and we're going to have a peaceful community. Thank you very much. M/Herrera stated that Mr. Johnson would have 30 minutes in which to make his comments. Kevin Johnson, Attorney, 550 West "C" Street, San Diego, CA 92101: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'll do my best to take less time than that. I know you've all been sitting here for awhile. My business address is 550 West "C" Street, Suite 1150, San Diego, California. I'm with the firm of Johnson -McCarthy. I have previously submitted to you a couple of letters based on my review of your EIR, your General Plan and some other documents that had been given to me and I understand now with the recommendation from Mr. DeStefano that those are part of your record. Is that correct? Ailright, very good. I want to try and go somewhat in order. I've been taking notes during the course of the evening here, and touch on some high points. I think it's very wise of you to take some extra time to get some questions answered in writing and continue this to another date for a decision. I wanted to start off on the subject of deed restrictions. I have attempted to get some further documentation about the city's legal rights in connection with the lifting of the restrictions. I've reviewed the language in the General Plan and I have looked at title documents that were generated as part of the study for the project. I have referenced in my letter of July 7 to you a deed which deals with a number of the lots in question. And at the very back of that deed it refers to restrictions on building for Lots 4, 5, 7 and 9. This document has been submitted to the City Clerk. I have extra copies here which I can hand out to you if you'd like at a later point. But in any event, this is a deed. It was developed by Chicago Title when they did a deed search and on the deed it says that there are restrictions on buildings. So, we need some full clarification on this because this is not a map, it's a deed - it's a restriction on a deed. And as I note in my letter, in several places in the EIR the consultants refer consistently to map restrictions and deed restrictions. And as Mr. DeStefano said, if it is a deed restriction, that is a restriction that is put on by private parties and the JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 26 CITY COUNCIL city unilaterally can't lift it. So that needs to be looked at very carefully. Now that raises another issue. Your General Plan talks about the requirement that you develop an open space plan for the entire community. It's my understanding that an open space plan for the entire community has not been done. We don't have, or you don't have a thorough plan comprehensive inventory in terms of what you're doing with open space. And so, therefore, to sit down and say well, we're going to try to assess the significance of giving up 19 acres of open space in the context of the whole city and its future, you just simply can't do it. You have incomplete information. Your General Plan dictates that you have an open space element; it dictates that before you build on this project that you have a specific plan for this planning area; it dictates that you have a master plan for this planning area. None of those things are done. And I respectfully submit to you, based on my understanding of General Plan law, that this project cannot be authorized without your General Plan being complete in those areas and without you proceeding within the context of a specific plan and a master plan and having an open space plan for your entire city. I had hoped to have some dialogue with the city prior to the meeting tonight to get some clarification on the thinking on this because I had raised these basic questions in my letter of June 19. For various reasons, perhaps some misunderstandings, I did not have those conversations. I do expect that there are going to be some semi -articulate explanations in that regard. I look forward to hearing those because as I have seen it played out over the years, these types of problems just simply prohibit you from legally approving this project because the project is not consistent with the General Plan. There are specific features of the project that are proposed that are not consistent with specific provisions of the General Plan. You have, for example, under Planning Area II in your Land Use Element a statement that the lot sizes shall be between 6,000 and 10,000 square feet. Shall be between. That is mandatory language. You can't get around that. So, you have a project before you which is bigger. It has a number of lots that are much bigger than that. It is inconsistent with your General Plan. If you want to approve this project you have to go through a General Plan amendment process on that particular issue. You have maps in your General Plan which reflect this area as Open Space. If you want to change area from open space to residential you have to amend your map. You have to make the General Plan amendment. These are things that have to be done procedurally. And I get very concerned when there appears to be - and again I say appears because I stand to be educated on these subjects - when there appears to be a rush to get something through when there are lots of procedural matters that are being ignored. One of the other things I get very concerned about is when I start hearing about great JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 27 CITY COUNCIL benefits of a project. The City of L.A., that wonderful planning model for all of us, was not built on people coming in and saying well, we've got an okay project here and we hope you'll just sort of like us and let's go ahead and build it. They come in and they promise you the world. And then they deliver something less. This project will deliver traffic; it will deliver air pollution; it will deliver additional students to your schools. It will cause all kinds of problems. Now. What are the real benefits? People have talked about this issue of this other open space. And I call it open space because it is functionally open space. It's restricted land. They knew it when they bought it. Now, I ask you. If you have several hundred acres of land that you can't build on, what do you want to do with that? You want to get rid of it because you're holding it. It's a liability. There could be a landslide. There could be a mudslide. It could go down on D.B. Blvd. You've got to pay property taxes on it. It's a pure liability. I run into this issue a lot of times when I get involved in negotiating deals between private donors and land trusts. Because the private owners say well, gee, we want you to support our project and we'll dedicate this hillside to you. Well, the response to that is, look, you want to dedicate this hillside to us more than we want it. They want to get rid of the liability. They want to get rid of the expenses. In this particular case, you need to look at what they're trying to give you. They've got land that's deed restricted, or map restricted. It's General Plan restricted. However you want to call it, it's restricted. You can't build on it. So they want to give it to you anyway. So what's the value to you. Now, if you want to make this land have value, really make this land have value and other land that is restricted in the city have value, what you need to do is you need to say we're going to barter away 19 acres of open space for $250,000 and set the precedent for every other builder and developer in this city to look at every other parcel and say now what can we come up with to go to the city to try to barter so we can try and take some more open space. Go ahead and, you know, you set a precedent here by doing this, and this is going to come back to haunt you. Somebody said - a gentleman who was speaking in favor of the project, I thought it was ironic - he says if this land doesn't go into public ownership they're going to come back over and over and over again. Well, I think it's exactly the opposite. If you take the stand now and you say this is deed restricted - this is open space and you don't touch it and nobody touches it anywhere in this city, then the message is clear. And people aren't going to come back. It's the basic lesson I have to deal with my nine year old daughter on all of the time. Kelsey, this is the rule. Quit coming back and bugging me. I'm not changing my mind. You need to set that precedent here. Your General Plan dictates it and good planning dictates it - that you can't buy this stuff. This is too precious a resource. I might also add that this whole bugaboo of takings is something that just sort of JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 28 CITY COUNCIL rhetorically gets overworn in these types of settings. A couple of the gentlemen that spoke earlier were quite right that you have more than ample grounds to turn this whole project down. I've given you references probably to 30 or 40 General Plan provisions which you could site and reliably and I'd be a 100% sure that you could turn this project down because it's inconsistent with your General Plan. You have the ability to do that and any threats to come after you because you're not giving them what they want which they're not entitled to are simply idle and they should be interpreted, I think, in a general sense, as reflecting more of a position of weakness than a position of strength. The rights of the community are here in front of you and when they talk about private property rights, they're talking about developer private property rights. Now, those are very important rights, but there are also neighbor private property rights and citizen private property rights and community private property rights and city private property rights and you hold them right now because you control the restrictions on the property as open space. On the issue of safety there has been a lot of discussion about fill and I think that there are a couple of basic observations that could be made and I can put it in the form of a question, really. Would you rather have your home built on a cut lot, a lot with one foot of fill or a lot with 80' of fill? I think the answer is pretty obvious. Also, what security do you have in the fact that soil is compacted to a level of 90% when there's 80' of it underneath your house? I don't think you'd have a whole lot of security. Anytime you build up a massive artificial structure you are creating something that could fail. It's a question of risk. What type of risk do you want to take? Your General Plan says you're suppose to minimize fill in your projects. That makes sense from an environmental standpoint, from an aesthetics standpoint, from a planning standpoint, from a public safety standpoint. I live currently in San Diego. I was raised in this area. I can tell you that San Diego is the construction defect capitol of the world. And we have more problems because we have naturally hilly terrain like you guys do in this particular area. Everybody is cutting down hillsides historically and filling in and all this and boy, we've got projects over the last two decades that have been cracking up all over the place. And the engineers came in and they had great credentials and they had all the right things to say and they said these projects are going to work. Folks, there are risks involved. That's all there is to it. Anytime you're talking about 1.4 million cubic yards of dirt, there are risks. And you'd best avoid it. Now, I pointed out in the paperwork that I've submitted to you that there are a number of problems with the EIR. I do commend to you the Section 5 on Project Alternatives because they have a number of little jewels that are hidden in there in terms of their observations of this particular project in terms of alternative designs. And they say how they can do certain things and they can JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 29 CITY COUNCIL avoid a million cubic yards of fill. They can avoid building two huge fill slopes. They can protect an extra 80 trees. They can do lots of things if you get around to redesigning this project. And, coincidentally, if you redesign the project and fit it within Lot 6 which you are required to do, so many of these impacts are dramatically . reduced. That there is really a compelling case that the project needs to be within Lot 6. Now, the developer may say, I don't know whether they've said it or not, we can't afford to do this project unless we can do it this way because the economics don't work out. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not your problem. The economy of So. Calif. is not going to fail because they fail to build this project. And I don't know whether the economic consideration is a big one that they have pushed in this context. I do know from experience that that is often something they say. We have to have this many lots. Well, they can get 130 lots. The EIR says that. All you got to do is have smaller lots and then they'll all fit in Lot 6 which the EIR says, your laws your General Plan and your map restrictions and your deed restrictions dictate. On the subject of traffic, it always pains me because I live in a highly trafficked area too, to hear people sharing the same frustrations. And a lot of times, people aren't quite sure who to blame and how to deal with the problem and I give a lot of leeway to folks who do get up and say, look, I live in this traffic, it's terrible and I know something's wrong and I can't really put my finger on it. Those people instinctively know something is wrong and they know that this project has something to do with it, they don't necessarily make all of the right connections. But they shouldn't be criticized by other people who come up and suggest that they don't know what they're talking about. On the subject of traffic I will say that I was very surprised that the EIR simply dispenses with impacts by saying that under certain standards there's a less than 2% increase in the over capacity of intersections that were analyzed. What does that mean? You have failed intersections. You need to do something about it. These people should be paying good money into your traffic mitigation plan, not just building a traffic signal cause that's all I read. They were going to put a traffic signal on the road that they were going to build at the intersection of D.B. Blvd. They should be paying good money into your coffers as part - that has a plan to actually deal with the traffic problem on D.B. and I didn't see that anywhere in the documents that I read. Perhaps I missed something. This is an opportune time to say look, you're going to make a bad situation worse and have no doubt about it, traffic is often a classic example of that old phenomenon of the straw that breaks the camels back because you can have a situation where you can sort of live with the traffic and you add a hundred more car trips and all of a sudden, all heck breaks loose. The traffic engineers can confirm that. That's good science and we all know it from our own observations. In terms JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 30 CITY COUNCIL of how you proceed from here, I was going to suggest that you might consider doing a workshop. I know that things need to be moved along. My experience is that when you have tons of questions like this and issues that need to be answered, sometimes actually having a workshop that is maybe a little bit more informal allows for a little bit more exchange. It can be very helpful in terms of working through this with the citizens and the experts and the applicant and the planning people. So I just threw that out idea for your consideration. And I guess finally, to the extent that I have any time left, I'd like to reserve that to respond to any further presentation made by the applicant. Thank you very much. Any questions, I'm happy to field them at this time. Thank you. Lex Williman explained that he had not read Kevin Johnson's letters and could not, therefore, respond to his comments about the General Plan issues at this time. He said the applicants' feel that findings can be made that the proposed project is in conformance with the General Plan. One can make findings for or against any project. With respect to traffic, the report points out that D.B. suffers from existing traffic problems that are not directly related to any one local project and are, in fact, related to regional issues. The proposed project's impact to existing traffic patterns is minimal. Any kind of grading operation will create dust for a certain period of time. There is a significant impact with respect to the dust, however, it is a temporary situation. The noise impacts occur during construction. He explained that because of the current economy, construction will take place at a rapid pace in order for sales to proceed. There was a study presented for retaining the construction within Lot 6 which would place the access road to Highcrest Dr. an additional 20' higher which would create more of a visual impact than the proposed project. In addition, the grading would be pushed out to D.B. Blvd. The proposed project attempts to push the grading back from D.B. Blvd. as much as possible. He explained why a project wholly contained within Lot 6 may be aesthetically less pleasing than the proposed project. He stated there will be impacts with respect to aesthetics. However, the project proposes natural looking slopes and natural looking landscaping in accordance with the City's wishes. With respect to hydrology, studies have determined that there is adequate capacity in all of the pipes and the velocities are within acceptable limits. There will be no runoff onto D.B. Blvd. and down into Sycamore Canyon. All of the drainage will be picked up by pipes. Todd Kurtin explained that the project has been designed to be developed on approximately 38 acres. Lot 6 consists of 40-45 acres. The proposed project does not propose construction that would exceed the acreage of Lot 6. 25 acres of the development will be JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 31 CITY COUNCIL open space manufactured slopes. The applicant is not asking to develop on more acreage than was contemplated in Lot 6. He said he believes that by containing the development wholly within Lot 6 and reducing the lot sizes, the values of the project homes as well as the surrounding homes would be reduced. SunCal has no desire to enter into litigation with the City and the subject has never been discussed. The soils engineer for the proposed project is not the same soils engineer that was used for the San Juan Capistrano project. The San Juan Capistrano landslide did not occur on the applicant's property and was most likely caused by EI Nino. Jim Castles of Pacific Soils explained why SunCal's project in San Juan Capistrano and the proposed D.B. project are not comparable. With respect to Mr. Johnson's statement implying that it would be better to place houses on cut rather than fill, the Pacific Soils report recommends that fills greater than 50 feet in depth be placed on the project site at a 93 percent compaction standard. This is not mandated by the City. He said he disagrees with the implication that cut is better than fill. A properly engineered fill will generally perform as well if not better than cut lots. M/Herrera closed the public comments portion of the meeting and opened Council deliberation. She requested that staff present its response to questions by the public and by Council in writing at the August 4, 1998 meeting. C/O'Connor: I'm not planning to ask all of the questions that I have because I know that other Council Members have some, too. I do want the audience to know that all of the Council were given audio tapes of all of the Planning Commission meetings and the public hearings. I have listened to those and taken notes so hopefully, 1 am up to speed as to what your concerns have been. And I must say that I agree with many of you that in reviewing everything, I don't understand why the developer has never presented a plan wholly inside Lot 6 with no grading on restricted property. They knew when they bought (the property) that there were restrictions on Lot 4, 5, 7 and 9. So I, too, would like to see a plan on Lot 6 alone with no grading outside of those lots. I have looked at the petitions that were signed by the residents. As a matter of fact, I computerized them so that the Council could take a look at what streets were involved. I don't guarantee that I could read all the writing of all the numbers and all the streets as well as, peoples names, but I think it's given us a good indication of where the residents live. I do have a question on map restricted property. I know that we've received information that they cannot build residential property on map restricted property, but does that prevent them from grading on the other lots? JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 32 CITY COUNCIL CA/Jenkins: Mayor, Council Member O'Connor. That's a good question. I mean, the literal language of the dedication prohibits the right, or, gives to the City the right to prohibit construction of residential buildings. And that is all it says. C/O'Connor: So that would not prevent them from grading outside of Lot 6 in order to shore up property to put homes on Lot 6 along. CA/Jenkins: That would be a fair interpretation. C/O'Connor: Now I'm a little concerned about the deed that was shown up on the screen by one of the speakers and unfortunately, I wasn't able to write down the exact verbiage of that as far as possible deed restrictions so I'm hoping that we will be presented with that information and what effect, if any. I know that you have said that the City is not involved with deed restrictions between private property owners. CA/Jenkins: We did have an opportunity to look at the deed a little bit earlier and I do not believe that it is a deed restriction as it has been represented. It is a deed between Bramalee and the current applicant. It merely references the existence of map restrictions - those map restrictions that were included in the original map. In other words, in my judgement it merely provides notice to the applicant of the existence of those restrictions. It does nothing more than attach, in essence, the tract map to the deed. A true deed restriction is different. A true deed restriction is a situation where the grantor is reserving some right such as an easement or a reversion area interest when granting property interest to a grantee. That is not the case here. All that is the case here is a mere notation on a map that gives notice to the grantee of the existence of County imposed map restrictions. So, as far as I can judge from my preliminary review of it this evening, it is not a deed restriction. C/O'Connor: Now we inherited that map restriction when we became a City from LA County? CA/Jenkins: That is correct. CM/Belanger: Madam Mayor. One aside. There was another presentation that indicated a grant deed. The date on that was April 7, 1972. Obviously we don't have that and we would appreciate it because there were some references made to that deed in terms of this property and that has not been indicated in any title reports that we're aware of. We would be interested in getting a copy of that deed to see what it in fact reflects. If the individual who had a copy of that JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 33 CITY COUNCIL would make it available to the City Clerk we would appreciate it. C/O'Connor: That was the one I was referring to. I was able to read it but I couldn't write down fast enough to put that down. Another concern I have is the water tank locations that whether they are mandatory to be on Lot 6 or whether they would be allowed to be put off Lot 6. 1 assume that since they are not a residential building that they would be allowed to relocate those water tanks onto the map restricted property? Is that a true assumption? CM/Belanger: The property that is restricted by the map provides the City Council the right to prohibit residential construction. I don't believe that extends to the construction of water facilities. CA/Jenkins: Ah, right. But to carry that thought forward I think we would have to take a further look at whether a water tank would be a permitted use as a primary and sole use on a piece of property under our Zoning Ordinance which is a separate question. C/O'Connor: There's been a lot of talk tonight about the particulant matter and the construction pollution. During grading, how far does the dust flow? How far - does it go a mile? Does it go 10'? Does it go... CM/Belanger: It depends. It depends on wind currents. C/O'Connor: Now, I believe I read in there that if the wind was more than 25 mph that they could not do grading. Is that correct? CM/Belanger: That's correct. C/O'Connor: I don't know how comparable the Standard Pacific project is. Did we have any grading problems with that site as far as neighbors having health problems with the dust that we know of? CM/Belanger: Not that we know of. DCM/DeStefano: There was one house at the end of Rapidview Dr. which is the only house for a long stretch of Rapidview that had some concerns about the amount of dust that was coming into their property with respect to the dust that was going into their pool, specifically. And Standard Pacific took charge of that issue and during that time where construction was in that area, regularly cleaned and maintained that property for the particular resident. And that's the only one that we're aware of, but that wasn't necessarily a health- related issue. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 34 CITY COUNCIL C/O'Connor: I'll just ask one more question and then pass this on. Is this property geotechnically similar to the property that Diamond Ranch High School graded? And has anybody talked to Diamond Ranch High School, the PUSD, about grading problems that they had to see if there could be some potential problems with this site that Diamond Ranch had? CM/Belanger: I don't believe that question was asked unless the applicant independently analyzed that. That would be the kind of question we would research and get you an answer but I don't know that anybody is prepared this evening unless they correct me, that would be able to answer that question for you and that would be one of the written responses that you would get - is whether the geomorphology of the high school site is comparable to the project site. C/O'Connor: Has there ever been a development that the dust has been under the AQMD standards when there's grading involved? DCM/DeStefano: Madam Mayor and Council Members. My recollection is that the Piermarini project was under the threshold at that time. The standards have been modified. It would not likely have been under the standard today. But at the time it was approved, I believe that project was. C/O'Connor: There's been questions asked about having the City potentially buy this property and setting up a bond or assessment district to have residents pay. I would just like to state that when I was involved with the Parks Master Plan, we did a questionnaire. And it was a random questionnaire of 500 residents of D.B. And the question was asked whether they would be willing to pay for increased park improvements. And it started - unfortunately, I don't remember the exact numbers - but it started with, let's say, $36 per year and dropped on down. And the overwhelming response was "no" that they were not willing to even pay $24 a year toward park improvements. So those of you that say that you think the citizens of D.B. would be willing to add hundreds of dollars maybe to their property taxes to buy this property, I'm not so sure that that would be a realistic achievement. I'll yield to the rest of the Council. M/Herrera: Ok. Thank you. Mrs. Ansari. Did you have questions that you would like staff to research. C/Ansari: Well, number one, I'd like those questions answered because in listening to the tapes, some of the questions that were asked tonight were ones that were asked during the Planning Commission hearings. And looking at the notes from the Planning Committee, the minutes of the meeting, and listening to the tapes - I think I got more out of the tapes than going back and looking at the notes. I'd like some of the answers given to us. I don't know if we'll be able to get them by August 4 so that the people JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 35 CITY COUNCIL who have attended many of those Planning Committee meetings will be able to get the answers for them and be able to see them in a timely way. I think the question about having a workshop was a very good point. I think then we would be able to have some give and take and discuss this openly. I think when you get 2,000 signatures, and, I know people were saying those 2,000 signatures are from some areas of the City that were not even near this property, I think it determines the whole City, this project that's determined. It's not only the people that live near the project. It's an area that impacts the whole City. Granted most of the traffic mitigations, the amount of houses that are being built - there are 130 - when you have, if you double that on cars it brings it to 260 and I think much of our traffic impact, and this does impact the traffic problem, comes from across Grand and I think, what are they approving over in Chino Hills - 800 homes last month? So those are concerns that I have, too. But really, one of the issues that really concerned me was the fact of there was never a project development or there was never a map for them building on the unrestricted property which is Lot #6. And that was not done. In fact, even listening to the notes and the minutes of the notes, listening to the tapes, I don't even know if that was discussed much. Didn't seem like it was. So I have a little concern about that. And I'm not saying that these developers have not tried to work with the community. I think they have. But I think maybe these issues need to be discussed maybe in a town - maybe in a workshop that we can discuss this, and that we can discuss this openly back and forth and try to iron out these issues. Some of them may be but to talk about these concerns that we have and maybe a less informal, less intimidating session and not have it go on for months and months with anger escalating. We need to talk about this project and see where it's going to go. And I'm not ready to pass the project where I have many questions that I feel were not answered yet. And they were not answered for the people that attended those meetings. And I'd like to see the answers. Thank you. M/Herrera: Thank you, Mrs. Ansari. Mr. Chang. MPT/Chang: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, first of all, we certainly want to thank these many residents who are concerned about our community and have taken the time to come over here to express yourselves. I believe several things make this issue so important or so touchy. Number one, we talk about property right and I'm glad that most of the people tonight who expressed themselves respect property rights which is good. And that means that we do not allow developers to do anything at all. So basically, the property right is in Lot 6 and I think that's what we're concerned about. Number two, because there is a map restriction, therefore, it causes a JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 36 CITY COUNCIL problem. Without this map restriction, the whole thing would be easier. Number three, the significant benefits are already recited in the General Plan. So, what is really a significant benefit to the community is something we have to figure out - Council and everyone in the community. And of course, the EIR report which we understand doesn't 100% fulfill the requirement. The other concern is that if we bring the whole thing down to Lot 6, will that still fulfill the requirements of the EIR criteria threshold? That I would also like to know as well. But luckily this is a temporary situation and of course, temporary situations need to be concerned. But I believe this is manageable. If somewhere down the line we have to make a decision, this is something that can be managed. Of course, the betterment of the community will be considered. That is the number one concern. The quality of our life. I mean, that is all that we talk about here. Traffic situation, yes. We do realize that we have a traffic problem and we do realize that 130 houses maximum might create some impact to the traffic to make bad into worse like some of you people said. We need a better analysis on how bad it might be and to give us a better analysis so that we can really make the decision - a smart intelligent decision. Right now, I think we are all here to listen to each other and to exchange our opinions. There's nothing that we want to make the decision tonight. And we are glad that we still can communicate here peacefully, respect each other and respect the property rights, and respect your right of living in a quality community and hopefully we can all keep it that way. But I do have a concern that we should see a project that stays within Lot 6 only to see what is going to come up. Without see that, it is kind of hard for us to talk about further. And besides, since the property right remains in Lot 6 only, I think the developer should come up with a Lot 6 proposal versus the other proposal as well instead of just one and only proposal. So I think that's probably what I would suggest we look into that as well. But anyhow, before then, we welcome you for your expression and thank you for your expression. So I think, Madam Mayor is going to make some announcement whether we're going to have another hearing again or not. Thank you. M/Herrera: Thank you, Mr. Chang. Mr. Huff. C/Huff: Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's been a long evening as you have sat there and opened up your hearts and told us your concerns. I share many of those concerns and yet, I try to balance that also, with what is in the best interest of the community because that is what we do up here as Council Members, hopefully. And tonight we sit here not as legislators creating law, but we sit here in a quasi-judicial mode trying to interpret things. So it's a little different role than maybe we're normally use to. And also in that role we have to be JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 37 CITY COUNCIL careful that we're not swayed by shear numbers. There has to be logic. We have to make findings or we find ourselves vulnerable to lawsuits. And so from that standpoint we do need to proceed carefully, wisely, thoughtfully, and make sure that the product we come out with reflects the interest of the community, the desire of the community as a whole, but also doesn't compromise our own positions or the future. We don't want to just give something to somebody because you're coming and asking, but we also don't want to deny them just because we don't want it. We have to make the decision wisely. I too share the concern about this deed that we saw tonight, the 1972, and I would like to see that come back and I understand that that is in the process and we will hopefully get a copy of that and we can review that and see if it applies to us here. The common theme that came up tonight was the traffic. And certainly we do know that traffic is a problem. I would like staff to give us a little bit of a report or perhaps the applicant next time, but I think it's more correctly staff, to look at what the traffic counts are coming from outside of the City. I believe we do fairly regular traffic counts. I know we did a Quail Summit Traffic Study showing Grand Ave. at 32,000 vehicles and that roadway is rated for about 30,000 as I recall. D.B. Blvd. is a major arterial. Where are we right now as far as the regional impacts. What are we seeing on the streets of D.B? CM/Belanger: We take periodic measurements of traffic coming across the Chino Hills/City of D.B. incorporation line. For a short period of time it was on about a monthly basis. We're now doing it on a quarterly basis. We will take your comment in the form of a question and we'll provide that data or the data that we have and give you an indication of what the changes, if any, are in terms of the traffic counts, they're 24 hour counts so they give us a snapshot of an entire day, just to give you a flavor of what's coming across the line and then how that traffic dissipates in a variety of directions at Grand Ave. and D.B. Blvd. C/Huff: Good. I'd appreciate that because I was caught up in the traffic on D.B. Blvd. tonight. Actually, that's why I was 5 minutes late. It is a nasty thing. We'll talk more about that later, but I'd like to see how this project impacts the traffic. I've heard two different studies. I know the first traffic report looked ridiculously low and one of the speakers mentioned that tonight. And I heard a higher traffic count later on so let's sort through and see what the real impact of this is - our best guess - because that's really all it is, the best guess. If you have 130 homes out there they may or may not generate four trips a day per vehicle or whatever, but it is a guess, but let's try to get that nailed down. There is also a concern about schools - overcrowding of schools. And while one speaker said that wasn't our venue - the JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 38 CITY COUNCIL schools do their own thing and have an assessment from the developers, I would like us to quantify, if you could bring that back next time, about what will happen with this. I understand there are some plans for the Pomona School District to develop Pantera Elementary School and if we could get some report from the Pomona School District about how this would impact them - negatively or positively, that would be helpful. Not that it is our venue, but just as collateral information because that is a concern to the residents here. Also on the aesthetics, clearly something that is the way it is when you buy it, you like it, or it's okay or you wouldn't buy a house. And so any change is going to have a resistance, whether that is a change for the better or a change for the worse because it's really a change to the unknown and people do resist the unknown. And we've looked at the applicant. There's a nice little foam model down here which I haven't had an opportunity to look at. The 3D model. We have a lot of maps, pictures, but really trying to visualize how something is going to look is a difficult thing. I know when I was on the Planning Commission I was viscerally reacting against development that was taking place in the Country area called the back Country, in the SEA, Significant Ecological Area, and yet looking at that 4 years, 5 years down the road, it looks significantly different than it did at the time of grading. Why is that? Because there was a plan. And the plan was that they grade the jeepers out of this thing which is what I was looking at and reacting to, but when they did compact it and fill it up and try to form those roads and pads into a flowing kind of pattern which is similar to what you see here, when you get that revegetated and the native vegetation on the slopes - it's growing slowly at this point, but the other vegetation on the pads is growing better - it takes on a totally different characteristic. Is that as good as the naked hills? No. Is it acceptable to the community? I guess that's a judgement call. But I would like staff to speak a little bit to what we're trying to achieve through the General Plan and through the most recent Development Code that we've just adopted of excellence in planning because that's what we've been trying to achieve. The County did not achieve excellence in planning. One of the speakers tonight talked about the early streets that were made where you could hardly have two cars passing at the same time. They're very narrow. That houses are all jumbled together. We had a slope failure in D.B. with this 100 year rain this year on one of those older tracts also. But could someone from staff speak to what we're looking at when we're looking at a project that has 120 or 100 put onto Lot 6 or if we're looking at something like we see here on Lot 5, 6 and 7 where it's overlapping, what makes one project more of an excellence in design as opposed to the other one which may be an easier decision for us to make. Obviously, from the comments we've heard tonight it's a lot easier for us to just approve something on Lot 6 and forget 5 and 7. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 39 CITY COUNCIL So what is the difference that we should be looking for. CM/Belanger: It depends on what your premise is. If your premise is you can have 120 homes the outcome on aesthetics is going to be different than you can build an aesthetic project and we'll give you whatever the land grants you. In essence, it could be from 1 to 120. So what your premise is in terms of what you're looking at will dictate the aesthetics. If you don't start with a specific number that you're trying to reach and instead say we want to see a project that meets some aesthetics standard and that whatever the number of lots are that evolve from that become what you consider, that's one way to look at aesthetics. The other is you can have 120 lots. Let's see what it looks like. There can be two completely different analyses in terms of aesthetics. In terms of Lot 6 proposal Council has indicated they want to see a proposal on Lot 6. There are a couple of issues and I'm sure the property owner heard that and if he's been paying close attention he probably ought to do that. The question is whether you want to see a project within the lines or do you want to see a project that allows for grading outside the lines to support a project. There are some issues here in terms of what do you mean by Parcel 6 and the kinds of project alternative you want to see come back to you. Or maybe one of each. One that shows, that has grading outside the lines but you build lots within the lines and one where everything has to take place within the lines. It would be useful in terms of direction to the staff as well as, to the property owner how that would be undertaken. Because that will also have an impact on your question of aesthetics as to how you do that. C/Huff: Maybe you can answer the question right now. How much on this 130 home tract that we see now, how much of the Lot 5 and Lot 7, those are the map restrictions and possibly deed restrictions, how much of that is encroached upon for grading and how much of it is for actual pad on those two lots? CM/Belanger: For actual grading the number is - I'll just use a number and Mr. DeStefano can correct me - it's 19 acres. For actual construction... C/Huff: That's a combination of both lots? CM/Belanger: Yes. The applicant has indicated that the actual construction is on a smaller amount but you have to grade it all in essence to create the lots on the lesser amount. So you grade 19 acres in order to build on, I don't know what it is, 4 or 5 acres. C/Huff: What's the breakdown of how much of the lot is disturbed as JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 40 CITY COUNCIL opposed to how much of the lot is undisturbed. In other words, is it a 150 acre lot and you're messing with 10 acres of that? What is that ratio? The number? CM/Belanger: I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. C/Huff: Ok. We know we have X number of acres, 43 acres or whatever it was, on Lot 6. I've seen two different things that confuse me. Actually, I've seen a lot more than that that confuses me. I've seen a total building pad I thought somewhere of like 65 acres. And yet there's another number that added up to 10 less. What I would like to know is how much are we disturbing of Lot 5 and how much are we disturbing of Lot 7 and what is the total size of Lot 5 and what is the total size of Lot 7. MPT/Chang: Council Member Huff, I think probably one of the information I counted may be helpful to answer your question here. Basically, it's the 19 acres on Lot 5 and 7 being used and then they will build on like Mr. Belanger said, about 4 to 5 acres. However, a total of about 42 of the lots fall into 5 and 7. Basically, roughly. On Lot 5 about 12 houses. On Lot 7 it's about lots, pads. So probably that would help you to figure out. CM/Belanger: You're asking how many of the acres of Lot 7 are going to be utilized in relationship to the totality of Parcel 7 and the same for Parcel 5. 1 don't have that number before me but I'm sure somebody over here does and they'll get it for us in a moment. If we can't readily get it for you it will again be one of the written responses. C/Huff: I would like to see, and I think we're going to generate some kind of response to the attorney's letters and his written comments. I would like to see that and I think you're bringing that back to us at the next meeting so that would be helpful. CM/Belanger: It will be brought back not at the next meeting but August 4. And any information that is provided to City Council is also provided to the public. And we'll try to do it in a way where the public has it in enough time to read and analyze it and the City Council has enough time to read and analyze it. C/Huff: Ok. That's it for my comments or questions tonight and I look forward to sorting through these comments and trying to find some more common denominators and looking for answers to that because when we get through this process at least we want to have your questions answered. It may not be answered to your liking, but at least we'll try to answer them and then we'll make a decision on top JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 41 CITY COUNCIL of that. M/Herrera: Ok, thank you. Mr. Chang, you had another question? MPT/Chang: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Belanger, in terms of a . proposal within the boundaries of Lot 6, 1 would rather see everything inside of Lot 6 instead of grading on Lot 5 and 7 again because if that's the situation we're going back to day one again. So we might as well just stay within Lot 6 only including the grading so that it will be easier for us to figure out unless the other Council Members do not agree with that. M/Herrera: Thank you, Mr. Chang. Given to us was a Comparative Environmental Evaluation Proposed Project and EIR Project Alternative, and I believe this alternative was regarding building just in Lot 6. 1 believe 120 units within Lot 6. And there was an analysis of what that would mean and I would just like to point out a couple of things that concern me. "The grading design for the EIR Project Alternative provides less contour grading than the proposed project although major slopes are somewhat contoured. This grading design conforms with the Hillside Grading Ordinance to a lesser extent than the proposed project." Another point that concerns me is construction noises. "If the alternative is taken (and that is just building on Lot 6) implementation of the project alternative would (tape pauses between side 5 and 6) at the intersections of D.B. Blvd., Tin Dr. and D.B. Blvd. and Gold Rush Dr. However, these noise levels will not be greater than those associated with the proposed project. The EIR Project Alternative proposes residences in a development area adjacent to D. B. Blvd. that were not part of the proposed project. Proposed on- site residences along D.B. Blvd. may experience vehicular noise levels that exceed the City's noise standards." And so while you're saving maybe noise in your neighborhood, you're transferring it to somebody else's neighborhood which may not necessarily be a good thing. A lot of questions have been raised. I have some of my own. Is Ron Tehran still here? Okay. He was the one that shared with us a copy of the map restriction that was dated 1972. And I don't have a phone number for him. I do have an address. If somebody has a phone number for him we could contact him and get a copy of that. I would just like to ask staff to research. Mr. Huff has already talked (about) and several residents brought up, the traffic point. If we could have a little summary for the large part, the traffic along D.B. Blvd. Where does it originate and where does it go to? Is it in town traffic or is it out-of-town traffic, regional traffic. Schools, Mr. Huff addressed that. Overcrowding of schools and where are we going to put the kids. The school will be within PUSD and I believe they are already planning to build another elementary school near that site. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 42 CITY COUNCIL But if you could address that briefly. A question was asked about trees and how is it determined which trees go. The tree replacement and what is the ratio - if you could just briefly talk about that. A question was raised about pollution in the air. What mitigating things could be done to reduce that, if possible? A question was raised about the Arciero project - that there were map and deed restrictions on that property; we lost trees. If you could briefly address that. What trees were taken out and in what number were they replaced. I've already mentioned about getting a copy of the map restriction dated 1972 from Ron Tehran and if that is a valid copy - deed restriction - does that supersede our copy of 1967 that was shown to us? The copy that was put up on the... CM/Belanger: That was 1981. That's the date of the registration of the engineer. M/Herrera: Ok. Then how does that work. If there was a 1972 copy of something, does something else dated 1981 take precedence over it? CM/Belanger: Without seeing both documents, it would be difficult to say. M/Herrera: Ok. Could you perhaps address that question. CM/Belanger: Yes. M/Herrera: Ok. That concludes my comments or questions, rather. As I'm counting, I did count three individuals that want to see something brought back on Lot 6. Would that need to be in the nature of a motion? CA/Jenkins: Mayor, I also counted at least three and we've been talking about that here. It seems to me that the applicant has the option of going forth with the current proposal or acceding to the wishes of at least three of you to have the opportunity to compare the current proposal with a proposal that is limited to Lot 6 and I don't think it requires a motion but I do think at some point we need to know whether or not the applicant is willing to prepare that alternative document or whether the applicant wishes to just move forward with what we have. And then I'm going to reserve for the moment the question of what happens if the applicant does prepare an alternative document and the Council prefers it to the existing proposal because it will require some additional analysis as to whether or not A) it must go back to the Planning Commission and B) whether or not there needs to be any supplement to the EIR. So the only real issue that JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 43 CITY COUNCIL is before you right now in that regard is whether or not the developer is interested in coming forward with an alternative and whether or not they are able to do that by August 4 or whether they are going to need additional time to put that sort of a proposal together. M/Herrera: Can I make a suggestion then to Council. Many questions have been asked and we've asked staff to draft responses to us. Can I suggest that we kind of hold up on any request to change the project until we see the responses to the questions. And those I anticipate can be brought back on August 4. And at that time if the Council want to make a serious request to change the project it can be done at that time. Okay. Mrs. Ansari. You have a question. C/Ansari: Yeah. There's one other issue, too. For this proposal that's coming before us to lift map and deed restrictions so they can build on Lot 5 and 7. 1 don't know if what they're proposing to the City is of significant benefit to us. They have a good project. It's going to look aesthetically nice. They're giving us land that already has restrictions on it and $250,000. 1 don't necessarily think that's a significant benefit to the City. Just that alone to be honest with you. M/Herrera: Ok. What is the Council's opinion on my suggestion that I just made to kind of hold in abeyance any formal request to the applicant to change their project until we review the responses to all of the questions that we've just put before them. Mr. Huff, you wanted to say? C/Huff: I guess the real question hinges on what Council Member Ansari just said. Is the dedication of the open space to the City a significant benefit? Because if we want to thumb our nose to that and force them back to just Lot 6, then that's a decision we can make. will say that when the applicant - I don't know if they were in escrow with the property, but they were looking at the property - Bramalee had gone into bankruptcy and so it was on the market, and they did approach various Council Members - I know they approached me and they asked me about my impression of the Memorandum of Understanding. And I was on the General Plan Advisory Committee back when we dealt with this thing and I had heard about the MOU and in fact, the General Plan was written trying to encapsulate the essence of the MOU in there. The concern always was from the group that I was involved in - the GPAC - from what I heard before, that the developer would find a way to wiggle around the MOU. Now I find it a little bit ironic that it's sort of on the other foot now. The General Plan was written - it was thought to be a good development at the time. Although it was a concept, this is the first time the City was getting something of significance. We were in the middle of or JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 44 CITY COUNCIL through fighting the Sandstone Canyon thing where the City had a couple of different options including preserving 72 acres of the sensitive canyon bottom. And that evaporated and what you see over there now is the result. In this particular case, we had a willing seller or the willing developer and the City who is looking for open space and we were writing our elements to try and find more ways to finance more open space for the City and this is something we had in mind, that what a great deal. Without spending public funds you can get 300 plus acres into the City for open space. So the question before us is, is that no longer a significant benefit? And we do have a good cash reserve for the City. Is that something we want to spend on buying open space? I submit to you that there was also someone talking tonight about his 20 year old streets that are cracking. Because we are a relatively new City our infrastructure needs are not as great as they will be some day. The cities that are cash-strapped are generally older cities because they have not set aside enough money to take care of their infrastructure concerns. So, for me, if I look at something that we can get 75% of this for free, or we can pay X number of dollars for something and then compromise our position to use that money for something else down the road, as long as they are following the design standards that we have carefully been crafting over the last nine years we've been a City - and I'm not saying that I buy off on their plan yet, I still want some of these questions answered - but to me, having that open space deeded to the City, and if we're worried that the City is going to develop it or sell it off, then have it revert to some wildlife agency; somebody else so that we can never develop it for commercial or residential and that would take care of one of the concerns that I heard and it would also satisfy the City's need to have some kind of a trails element. One of the speakers did, or maybe it was the applicant, talked about how this does connect Sycamore Canyon Park which we have currently developed, with Summitridge Park, it's already an unofficial trail. I used to walk my dog on it every day and ride my bike on it when I lived on Clear Creek Canyon Dr. Just because we've gotten used to it doesn't mean it's ours. There's nothing to preclude the applicant from sticking up a fence along there and saying keep out. Because we look at it all of the time, because we have access to it, we feel very proprietary like it's ours. It is not. But if it is deeded to the City then the City can control it and you will continue to elect officials to make sure that it stays that way. And, since there is that lack of trust, we put a reverter on so that it goes to some other agency if we decide we want to try to do something with it. I think this is a good thing for the City. The open space part. As far as having the size of the development they have before us, I think maybe we can still do something within that. But, if you're asking for the applicant to come back with something strictly limited to Lot 6 then I think that what JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 45 CITY COUNCIL you're saying is that you do not think it is a significant benefit to the City. So that's the question I believe you have to answer for yourselves. M/Herrera: Well, and in a great sense I agree with Mr. Huff. We're required to be prudent with the public's monies. And I cannot justify why we would buy something, pay for something, if somebody is willing to give it to us for free. I cannot justify that. I'm going to repeat again that I would like to see the Council hold off on a formal request to the applicant to change the plan until we see the responses back from staff regarding all of the different questions that we've asked. Mrs. Ansari. C/Ansari: Then, if we're going to have those questions answered that people in the audience felt that were not answered before, I would suggest that we have a Town Hall Meeting or a Saturday meeting where people could have those questions answered for them and maybe we can discuss that freely and look like we're working with the people in the community and discuss this. Now, the amount of open space that we would get with this development is very very nice when you think of this as open space. However, what the issue is, is how do the people in the community feel about it. And if this is going to be decided by us and we're going to vote on it, I think that we need to have a forum where we can talk about it, have a Town Hall type of thing on a Saturday to discuss it openly. This is our first meeting. We received this packet, although we had gotten the EIR's a year ago, July was the first EIR I got, we got this packet of the tapes was a week ago Monday - a week and a half ago I received the tapes. And I've been listening to them since then. And so the tapes and all of the information that we went through, I think there's still some questions and I think we need to have a meeting where we can talk about this freely with the people in the community and then maybe put some closure on it and decide where we're going to go from there -whether or not we ... if you want we can hold off on whether to build on Lot 6 until after we have this Town Hall meeting but I think it's something that needs to be discussed. Now also, the alternative suggestion that they had in this book, yes, Mr. Belanger, in this book, does not have a map. It does not have a map of how they were going to develop it even though they answered it in the request of the alternatives. Where is the map. Well, it didn't go in, and this was not given to everybody that was at when they had this at the meeting. It was never discussed fully if you read the minutes of the meeting where this was brought up - the alternative. And I think maybe this needs to be discussed to. I listened to those tapes. M/Herrera: Mrs. O'Connor, did you have something? JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 46 CITY COUNCIL C/O'Connor: I think we would be doing a disservice to the citizens of D.B. if we did not have the applicant come back with a presentable development on Lot 6. 1 can't say at this point in time which one would be aesthetically better. I don't like the idea of the one that is on Lot 6 or the proposal of having the six homes right off D.B. Blvd. But I think we have to let the citizens see both plans so that they can decide for themselves whether aesthetically the proposed plan is better than the Lot 6 plan. We've heard the developer say that they don't think that it would be the best possible plan on Lot 6 but we've also heard from the majority of the residents here that they want, they're not against the development on Lot 6 which causes me a little problem because you hear a lot of questions about the air pollution and the noise. Well, if it's developed on Lot 6 there's still going to be the air pollution and there's still going to be the noise. So I really think that we need to present a viable project on Lot 6 so that the citizens can see that yes, the proposal on Lot 6 is not as good as this proposal or, Lot 6 is as good as this proposal. And without that information - I know they made an attempt, but there's still a lot of open items on this alternative and I just feel that personally, I will not be able to make a decision one way or the other without seeing the Lot 6 proposal and I think we owe it to the citizens who have said they want the project on Lot 6, to show them what it would look like. M/Herrera: Ok. First point. Do we want this brought back on August 4 or August 8 which is a Saturday? CM/Belanger: You're asking the applicant to prepare an alternative.... M/Herrera: No, no. Right now you only have one Council Member asking for that alternative. CM/Belanger: Let's just presume for the moment that somewhere in this discussion that three of you decided that you wanted to see a project alternative, you need to get from the applicant how much time they need to do that and whether August 8 is sufficient. M/Herrera: Ok. First point of order then, we need to see if there are three individuals that are asking the applicant to do that. C/Ansari: Well, whether it's August 8th or not, eventually I'd like to see it on Lot 6 so we may as well have them do..I would like to see it on Lot 6. MPT/Chang: Yes, I would like to see it on Lot 6 because basically, the procedure to this is suppose to have Lot 6 be proposed and then to have something else prepared. Meaning, if Lot 6 is not good JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 47 CITY COUNCIL enough, then how Lot 6 will similarly cross the border onto Lot 5 and 7. To me that sounds more logical for them to apply to the City and have the matter before us to make the judgement not only just to the Council but also to the residents. I think probably that would make more logic. Disregard what is of more significant benefit to the . community for right now. And that is something else we certainly want to put a consideration. M/Herrera: Ok. Then we have three Council asking for a proposal on Lot 6. So next point of order would be to find out whether they are interested in doing that and how much time do they need to do that. So we're perhaps talking beyond August 8th time. Do we need that response right now at this point in time, Mr. Jenkins? Or... CA/Jenkins: No, we don't, but if they don't provide it then what we should do is continue this to a date certain from which we can then continue it depending on their response. So, for example, if they were to give us their response within the next week you could continue this for two weeks solely for the purpose of them continuing it either to August or beyond. M/Herrera: So, let's see. The next meeting would be the 21 st so we could continue this to the 21 st for the sole purpose of hearing back from them whether or not they are interested in doing that and then continue it again to a point in time where they think that they would have the plans ready. Meanwhile we'll know if we have to go through the Planning Commission process. CA/Jenkins: Right. If they decline then we could continue it to your first meeting in August simply to answer the questions that have been raised. M/Herrera: Do we need a motion to continue this item to August 21 st? CA/Jenkins: I'm sorry. Did they indicate a response back? M/Herrera: Do you need time to think about...? Todd Kurtin: I have two comments. One --we need time to think about it, number one. But more importantly, to me, we need to fully understand what you're looking for. Councilwoman O'Connor just mentioned that our other alternative was inadequate. I don't know what that means. We need to know what you're really looking for so that we can understand what to deliver and if that's appropriate or not. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 48 CITY COUNCIL M/Herrera: Ok. You need more time so we can continue this to July 21 st and Mrs. O'Connor, if you could clarify so that they would be better able to evaluate what you meant by the plan was inadequate - the alternative. C/O'Connor: I guess I'm not sure. Would a new EIR have to be made if you're just doing a Lot 6 project? Again, I come back to my question about whether grading would be allowed on Lot 5 and Lot 7 with a map restriction. So I'm not sure either what I'm asking - whether I'm asking if all grading and all residents have to stay on Lot 6 or whether you would be able to grade outside in order to build on Lot 6. So, until we had that answer, but I'm sorry, I thought there were parts in here that were not complete, in this alternative as far as, and I can't come up with them right now. Water tank location would be one item that you don't address here and whether you're allowed to put the water tanks outside. That would be one. I guess I would have to sit down and look at this and come up with the list of things that I would like to see you try to present to us. So I guess I'm not prepared to do that tonight either. I just feel for the citizens and you have heard them say they want it on Lot 6. 1 don't know what that exactly means. Hopefully when they realize that aesthetically it is not a pretty as this proposal, potentially, that they might decide well, hey, let's go back to this one. I don't see that the noise and the dust is going away. If you develop on Lot 6 you're still going to have the dust and you're still going to have the noise. So that's not going to go away. And yet, most of them said they want it on Lot 6. So there's - is the word dichotomy there. Todd Kurtin: So I guess through the City or you will get back to me on what you are looking for, I guess. I don't know how to handle this. C/O'Connor: Maybe we just need to have more discussion on this alternative. And I don't know whether you can do any pretty maps like you have for your project to give the citizens a better view of what Lot 6 is going to look like and whether that would remedy the problem. Todd Kurtin: Talking to our team, we will be ready by August 4 or August 8 whatever date, but the question comes back and we have to be considerate of the staff that they need time to analyze our work so that they can give you feedback on how they understand and analyze this new project. My understanding right now is that the Council is looking for a project strictly on Lot 6 - grading and where the homes will be and all the grading will be contained, in Lot 6. M/Herrera: Well, that was Mr. Chang's expression. I don't know if that was Mrs. O'Connor's expression. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 49 CITY COUNCIL Todd Kurtin: Because she later said it depends on if the map restrictions would allow us to grade on Lots 5 and 7 which we have prepared an analysis like that already. And so now I need to know, do you want us to complete that analysis that there are some holes there or to go to Mr. Chang's analysis? MPT/Chang: Again. This is personal. Just coming from the sense that on Lot 6, you have a right to build. Then come in with the best solution that you think can maximize your benefits either up to 130 houses or 85 houses or something I don't know. But it make it still quality that you think can attract the residents and attract the Council and also to bring the best benefit to the community. Then at your discretion, come up with the best proposal that might work. Then I think with that in hand in front of us, it will be better to make an analysis and one that is fair. M/Herrera: So, you have some options. We can continue this to the July 21st Council meeting so you could wait until that meeting to respond if you want to go forward. Perhaps we'll have a little bit better clarity in what different people mean, exactly, or are looking for exactly, whether just the building is on Lot 6 and you grade outside or exactly what... it's after 11:00 p.m. and we've been talking about this for 5 hours. And we do have another agenda item that we must take care of. Todd Kurtin: We will go forward to Aug. 8 and discuss with staff what to prepare for that meeting. We'll have alternatives ready by then. M/Herrera: Ok. That's a Saturday. And staff at that point will have responses to all the different questions asked so we will schedule the Council meeting for Aug. 8, Sat. Ok? So, Mr. Jenkins, is the public hearing still open? CA/Jenkins: Yes. M/Herrera: ...or do I close the public hearing? CA/Jenkins: No. I would suggest you continue it to Sat., Aug. 8. M/Herrera: All right. Then this public hearing is still open and this matter is continued to Aug. 8. CM/Belanger: Madam Mayor. We would need a time when that would occur. M/Herrera: 9:00 a.m. JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 50 CITY COUNCIL M/Herrera continued the public hearing to a Town Hall Meeting to be held on Sat., Aug. 8, 1998 at 9:00 a.m. in the SCAQMD Auditorium for reviewing alternative project proposals and staffs answers to questions posed during the public hearing and in written form. 7.2 (a) PUBLIC HEARING - CONTINUED FROM JUNE 16, 1998 - RESOLUTION NO. 98-42: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND AR LEVYING AN ASSESSMENT ON CITY OF DIAMOND BAR ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 38 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1998-1999 - On May 18, 1998, Council approved the Engineer's Report and adopted Resolution No. 98-29 to declare the City's intention to levy and collect assessments for District No. 38. Council commenced the public hearing on June 16, 1998 and continued to July 7, 1998 on the levy of the proposed assessments on assessable lots within this District for FY 98-1999. (b) PUBLIC HEARING - CONTINUED FROM JUNE 16, 1998 - RESOLUTION NO. 98-43: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR LEVYING AN ASSESSMENT ON CITY OF DIAMOND BAR ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 39 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1998-1999 - On May 18, 1998, Council approved the Engineer's Report and adopted Resolution No. 98-30 to declare the City's intention to levy and collect assessments for District No. 39. Council approved the Engineer's Report and adopted Resolution No. 98-30 to declare the City's intention to levy and collect assessments for District No. 39. Council commenced the public hearing on June 16, 1998 and continued to July 7, 1998 on the levy of the proposed assessments on assessable lots within this District for FY 98-99. (c) PUBLIC HEARING - CONTINUED FROM JUNE 16, 1998 - RESOLUTION NO. 98 -XX: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DIAMOND BAR LEVYING AN ASSESSMENT ON CITY OF DIAMOND BAR ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 41 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1998-1999 - On May 18, 1998, Council approved the Engineer's Report and adopted Resolution No. 98-31 to declare the City's intention to levy and collect assessments for District No. 41. Council commenced the public hearing on June 16, 1998 and continued to July 7, 1998 on the levy of the proposed assessments on assessable lots within this District for FY 98-99. Consultant John Friedrich presented information regarding LLAD Nos. 38, 39 and 41. M/Herrera reopened the Public Hearing. There being no testimony offered, M/Herrera closed the Public Hearing. MPT/Chang moved, C/Ansari seconded, to adopt Resolution Nos. 98-42, 98- JULY 7, 1998 PAGE 51 CITY COUNCIL 43 and 98-44 levying assessments on Assessment District Nos. 38, 39 and 41 for Fiscal Year 1998-1999. Motion carried by the following Roll Call vote: AYES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - Ansari, Huff, O'Connor, MPT/Chang, M/Herrera NOES: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None ABSENT: COUNCIL MEMBERS - None 9. NEW BUSINESS: None RECESS TO REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY MEETING: 11:15 p.m. RECONVENE CITY COUNCIL MEETING: 11:16 p.m. 10. COUNCIL SUB -COMMITTEE REPORTS: None 11. COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS: MPT/Chang spoke about a successful and patriotic July 4th celebration. C/O'Connor encouraged residents to attend the Concerts in the Park. Quakes night for D.B. will be Wednesday, August 26, 1998. She and M/Herrera discussed their opposition to Senate Bill 2010 with the California Legislature and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. M/Herrera spoke about the Monday, July 6, 1998 Special City Council meeting. She stated she will establish a Telecommunications Facilities Task Force consisting of two residents appointed by each Council Member, two Council Members (Cable Subcommittee Representatives) three members of the telecommunications industry and staff representatives as deemed appropriate by the City Manager. This task force will begin work on September 1, 1998 and conclude meetings by October 31, 1998 with their report to the Planning Commission no later than January 1, 1999 for its review and recommendation to Council. The number of Task Force meetings will be determined by staff. 12. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business to conduct, M/Herrera adjourned the meeting at 11:21 p.m. ATTEST: Mayor Lynda Burgess, City clerk