HomeMy WebLinkAboutDiane Rush Letter (Speaker #10)Seal Beach Planning Commission �plal"1.2 Rm I
June 27, 2017, 7:00 p.m. c+3s'"tw-4� FO
Good Evening members of the Planning Commission,
My name is Diane Rush, I reside in Rossmoor.
Approving the LA Fitness project would violate item 5 under Conditional Use Permit requirements.
The Fitness center will indeed be detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of residents in the
adjacent condominiums and surrounding neighborhood.
It's also likely the actual occupancy hours will exceed 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. which would make it
inconsistent with the General Plan and a menace to nearby residents trying to sleep.
I lived across the street from a 24 -Hour Fitness Center from 1994 to 2007. 1 belonged to the
Neighborhood Watch program and attended meetings at which the local law enforcement
representative spoke. He itemized facilitators to criminal activity in a community:
• Busy parking lot near a business with late hours of operation.
• Venue concealed from street view.
• Area with limited access for police and other emergency vehicles.
• Close proximity to one or more freeways.
• Location in or near affluent, unsecured neighborhood.
All of these crime facilitators are built into the LA Fitness Center proposal
The 24 -Hour Fitness Center parking lot on Knott and Lincoln was filthy with refuse. People used it for
a dump and I had to avoid broken liquor bottles, discarded food cartons, used diapers and used
hypodermic needles on my way to businesses in the strip mall.
The Fitness Center became a notorious hangout for drug - dealers and gang members. The parking
lot was a base-of-operation for neighborhood vandalism, robbery and human trafficking. Reports of
violence were not uncommon.
The local police department even assigned a dedicated unit to this parking lot to augment the center's
existing security force. This extraordinary vigilance was not enough to thwart crime. Once crime gets
a foothold in a neighborhood it becomes impossible to eradicate.
News sources report hundreds of crimes in and near health dubs; these establishments rank with
bars and nightclubs for crime rates. Health dubs do not adequately vet prospective employees and
have hired convicted felons! Fitness centers degrade the quality of life in their vicinities.
A 37,000 sq. ft. facility added to our "built-out" shopping center threatens to redefine our community
as urban, something Seal Beach has stringently avoided in its own backyard.
Members of the Seal Beach Planning Commission, we are neighbors. Consider the irreversible
consequences of this project. Our residents' safety and quality of life are threatened by this facility
that law enforcement calls °a magnet for crime ".
Thankyou