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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Min 2003-07-28 7-14-03 I 7-28-03 ' Approved: '-fJ rdxlcPv l ~ Mayor' I Attest: Seal Beach, California July 28, 2003 The City Council of the City of Seal Beach met in regular adjourned session at 6:30 p.m. with Mayor Campbell c~lling the meeting to order with the Salute to the Flag. I ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Campbell Councilmembers Antos, Doane, Larson, Yost Absent: None Also present: Mr. Bahorski, City Manager Mr. Barrow, City Attorney Ms. Yeo, City Clerk The City Attorney invited any member of the public wishing to speak to the item identified on the agenda to do so at this time. I CLOSED SESSION The City Attorney announced that the City Council would meet in Closed Session to discuss the item identified on the agenda, a conference with legal counsel with regard to anticipated litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(b). The Council adjourned to Closed Session at 6:31 p.m, and reconvened at 6:59 p.m. with Mayor Campbell calling the meeting to order. The City Attorney reported that pursuant to the Brown Act the Council met in Closed Session to discuss the item set forth on the agenda and that no reportable action was taken. ADJOURNMENT It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council, to adjourn the meeting at 7:00 p.m. "ty Clerk and f the City of clerk I Attest: 7-28-03 Seal Beach, California July 28, 2003 I The City Council of the City of Seal Beach met in regular session at 7:0l p.m. with Mayor Campbell calling the meeting to order with the Salute to the Flag. ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Campbell Councilmembers Antos, Doane, Larson, Yost Absent: None Also present: Mr. Bahorski, City Manager Mr. Barrow, City Attorney Mr. Whittenberg, Director of Development Services Mr. Dancs, Director of Public Works/City Engineer Chief Sellers, Police Department Ms. Arends-King, Director of Administrative Services Mr. Cummins, Associate Planner Mr. Vukojevic, Deputy City Engineer Ms. Yotsuya, Assistant City Manager Ms. Yeo, City Clerk I APPROVAL OF AGENDA The City Attorney recommended that Item "K", the AT&T Wireless Cellular Tower Lease Agreement for 3131 Beverly Manor Road, be removed from the agenda and considered at an August meeting. Yost moved, second by Larson, to approve the order of the agenda as revised. AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried ANNOUNCEMENTS Mayor Campbell reported having attended the open house at the Seal Beach Animal Care Center on Sunday, also announced an upcoming fund raising event to benefit the Shelter, an evening of music from the Broadway stage. Mr. Ross Thomas explained that the fund raiser will be held on September 13th at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, the Center has a capacity of one thousand, four hundred tickets have already been sold, it is expected to be sold out, and presented two complimentary tickets to Mayor Campbell. I PRESENTATION - GARDEN GROVE ISR-221 FREEWAY Mr. John Garcia, OCTA Project Manager, explained that the focus of the presentation is on the aesthetics of how the 22 Freeway project will look when completed. * An overview of the project from Valley View to the 55 Freeway was a carpool lane in each direction, a continuous auxiliary all purpose lane between the 1-5 and Beach Boulevard, a separation at the westbound 22 Freeway and the 57 connector for those exiting and entering The City Drive, a collector/distributor road for those traveling eastbound entering and exiting those freeways as well as entering nearby ramps, there will be soundwalls and replacement landscaping; 7-28-03 I * A photo was shown of The City Drive congestion bt the p.m. peak hours, proposed for a connector above!with the ramps underneath; * The project has been held up for considerable time awaiting the approval of the final environmentat document, that process is now expected to be completed by August with a record decision from the Feder~l Highway Administration, that will then allow the project to be bid, OCTA is going to be the lead and wor~ with CalTrans to bid and award the project as well as do it by means of the design/build method, the hiringiof one contractor to do the final design and construction; I If environmental approval is realized in AUgustlthe Board will be requested to authorize distribution of requests for proposals for the design/build coniract, that will take approximately four months, the c6ntract could then be awarded by March, move forward with the design/build contract right after that, at present they are looking at about a three year period to complete construction yet because of the nature of design/build it is felt that time frame can be improved. I * Mr. Gary Adams of Parsons, the Project Consultant, noted that this presentation is one that Mayor Campbell and other elected officials along the corridor have seen. Mayor Campbell mentioned that the focus of the presentation is aesthetics, she felt it was important that people see what is planned, this project is presently slated to end where the 22 merges with the 405 yet the goal is to take it to the County line which means it will be going through Seal Beach. I * The aesthetics of the project are based on a document that was approved in 1995 by the OCTA Board, a master plan for the freeways and transit corridors in Orange County; * As part of the State Route 22 design/build project, at least the area from Valley View to the 55, an aesthetics committee was established that was comprised of representatives from each of the corridor cities in this phase of the project, OCTA representatives, freeway architects and planners; * Because this project will be built in a narrow right- of-way the areas for landscaping will be limited, the freeway will be built up to the soundwalls, therefore the aesthetics is focusing on the hardscape elements of the freeway, the walls, bridges, etc. and where landscaping can be done, basically the interchanges, it will be somewhat more intense than is normally seen with freeway projects; I * The aesthetics committee established a theme for the project, it was taken from the master plan which designated this part of Orange County as agriculture and orchard, therefore that was the basis for design, an orange image that is reminiscent of an orange crate was used as the symbol for the freeway; I The master plan suggested how the plan for the freeway could be expressed in concrete, the different way that the images can be played out in a structure and ~he * I I I 7-28-03 landscaping; * Photos were shown that were illustrative of the hardscape features of the project, one being the pilasters that define the beginning and end of a bridge, special imprints on the barrier rails and textures on the retaining walls; * A photo too showing how the interchanges will be treated where they are required to carry noise walls over the interchange, some of the interchanges will not get all of the treatments where they are askew or not very visible, some will have special treatment at gateway locations, some have more historic design features, arch girders and bridge rails that are reminiscent of the 1950's and 1960's, special slope paving at the bridges to feature the orange image, an opportunity for the corridor cities to have their logo image placed on the pilasters; * The retaining walls currently seen on the freeways are split faced block, the pilaster features will be in the existing and new noise walls, retaining walls will get special treatment; * There will be opportunities for the corridor cities to invest in the project over and above what is planned for the project, possibly a little gateway entry at some of the interchanges; * In terms of landscaping they will try to salvage as much of the plant material that they can, the landscape plan itself will be up to the design/ builder and will work with the aesthetics committee for the first year or so while the design is being done, the contractor will do a complete inventory and focus on saving palm and red bud trees; * A visualization was shown of the Beach Boulevard interchange as it exists and a concept of what it will look like in the future, trees are put in an orchard pattern reminiscent of the theme of the project; * wi th regard to the comment made by the Mayor .that sometime in the future the project could be extended, the response was that the HOV lanes would extend onto the 405 up to a connection with the 605, that is part of the project that has been defined in the EIR, it is likely through that if and when those improvements occur the aesthetics will probably be based on the aesthetics program defined in the earlier study for the 405 corridor versus the 22. On behalf of the Council, Mayor Campbell expressed appreciation for the presentation. PUBLIC COMMENTS Mayor Campbell declared the Public Comment period to be open. Ms. Joyce Parque, Seal Beach, spoke in support of approval of the Boeing project, stated they are a good business, pay the utility tax, property tax, employ people who eventually buy, rent, and spend their money in town. With regard to the Redevelopment Agency, Ms. parque said there seems to be some confusion as to how much money goes to the Agency, she again 7-28-03 mentioned that a house on 1st Street sold for $985,000, one on 6th Street sold for $926,000, a house on 8th Street pays $9,260 in property tax of that the City receives $1,389, the County receives $836, and the schools receive $5,926, the house in the Agency area on 1st Street pays property tax of $9,850, because it is a frozen basis when the Agency was formed the City gets $20, the Agency gets ninety-eight percent which is $7,880, to the question as to where does that money go, it goes to pay bond debt, $180,000 per year for twenty years for rental assistance in the Trailer Park and Agency home improvement program loans. Ms. Parque claimed that the home improvement loans were meant for all of Seal Beach, anyone living here that qualifies, there is no catch or strings attached to the grant program, both programs are provided to income qualified residents of Seal Beach and are available for housing programs, a single person having an income of $63,480 can qualify for a grant of $10,000, that is free money that comes from property tax paid by another, for two persons the income qualifier is $72,600, three persons is $81,600, etc., the grant is to be used for the exterior of a house, there is a $50,000 loan program but it and the interest is forgiven if the recipient stays on the property for twenty years, it does not set forth what the $50,000 can be used for, it could be skylights, hardwood floors, new kitchen or whatever. Ms. parque mentioned that there was a news article that said there was going to be slurry sealing in Old Town, she looked for it however it was 1st Street which is in the Redevelopment Agency. Mr. Glen Clark, Trailer park, said the world has lost someone who was important to all, someone who brought a lot of humor to a tremendous number of people all around the world, a person who was knighted by the Queen of England, awarded an honorary veterans title even though he never fought in a war yet a hero, born in England, moved to Cleveland where he fought under the name of Packey West, this person was a friend of his wife's father, he is known as Bob Hope, and thanks for the memories. There being no further comments, Mayor Campbell declared Public Comments to be closed. I I COUNCIL ITEMS APPOINTMENT - PLANNING COMMISSION Mayor Campbell moved to appoint Mr. Henry Eagar as the District Four representative to the Planning Commission for the unexpired term ending July, 2004. Councilman Doane seconded the motion. AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried CONSENT CALENDAR - ITEMS "c" thru "N" Larson moved, second by Yost, to approve the recommended action for items on the Consent Calendar as presented, except for Item "K", removed from the agenda. C. Approved the waiver of reading in full of all ordinances and resolutions and that consent to the waiver of reading shall be deemed to be given by all Councilmembers after the reading of the title unless specific request is made at that time for the reading of such ordinance or resolution'. I D. Approved regular demands numbered 42747 through 42960 in the amount of $749,849.17, I I J. I 7-28-03 ADP payroll demands numbered 4799688 through 4799810 in the amount of $210,966.15, and authorized warrants to be drawn on the Treasury for same. E. Approved the minutes of the regular adjourned and regular meetings of July 14, 2003. F. Received and filed the Monthly Investment Report for June, 2003. G. Approved the certification of the Confidential, Supervisory, Professional and Technical Employees into a recognized bargaining unit represented by City Employees Association (CEA). H. Received and filed the Interim Review Management Comment Letter for 2002/2003 from Lance, SolI & Lunghard, the independent auditing firm. I. Adopted Resolution Number 5145 entitled "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA, ACTING IN ITS CAPACITY AS THE LEGISLATIVE BODY OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH COMMUNITY FACILITIES DISTRICT NO. 2002-02 (SEAL BEACH BOULEVARD/LAMPSON AVENUE LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE) TO CERTIFY THE RESULTS OF THE JULY 22nd, 2003 SPECIAL LANDOWNER ELECTION, DECLARING THE RESULTS THEREOF, AND SUCH OTHER MATTERS AS PROVIDED BY LAW" and Adopted Ordinance Number 1503 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA, ACTING IN ITS CAPACITY AS THE LEGISLATIVE BODY OF CITY OF SEAL BEACH COMMUNITY FACILITIES DISTRICT NO. 2002-02 (SEAL BEACH BOULEVARD/LAMPSON AVENUE LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE) AUTHORIZING THE LEVY OF A SPECIAL TAX WITHIN THAT DISTRICT, AND DECLARING THE URGENCY THEREOF." By unanimous consent, full reading of Resolution Number 5145 and Ordinance Number 1503 was waived. Approved the acquisition of a previously owned beach tractor through a thirty-six month agreement with Municipal Finance Corporation through the adoption of Resolution Number 5146 entitled "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF A LEASE WITH OPTION TO PURCHASE, AND AUTHORIZING CERTAIN ACTIONS IN CONNECTION THEREWITH" and adoption of Resolution Number 5147 entitled "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA, AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT, NO. 04-06, FOR THE PURCHASE OF USED JOHN DEERE BEACH TRACTOR THROUGH A LEASE PURCHASE AGREEMENT." By unanimous consent, full reading of Resolution Number 5146 and Resolution Number 5147 was waived. K. (Removed from agenda). 7-28-03 L. Approved the 2003/2004 fiscal year budget of the West Orange County Water Board and the City of Seal Beach share in the amount of funding of $37,112. M. Adopted Resolution Number 5148 entitled "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH ACCEPTING GRANT OF PUBLIC ACCESS AND SIDEWALK EASEMENT ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF WESTMINSTER AVENUE WEST OF SEAL BEACH BOULEVARD." By unanimous consent, full reading of Resolution Number 5148 was waived. I N. Concurred with the direction of the claims management adjuster, Carl Warren & Associates, to deny the claims for damages of Daniel Aguilar, Marlene Boehm, Karina Dahmen, Shelly A. Mask, and Bill Rieman. AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried HELLMAN RANCH - MITIGATION PLAN FOR CULTURAL RESOURCES - COASTAL COMMMISSION The Director of Development Services directed attention to the supplemental staff report which provides a brief overview of where the Hellman project is currently. The Director said as part of the ongoing cultural resources mitigation measures on the Hellman project, the Coastal Commission has required that a mitigation plan be approved by the Commission prior to allowing John Laing Homes to go forward with the grading and cultural protection measures that are necessary in conjunction with the continuation of work on the project, the mitigation plan has been prepared by the City authorized archaeologist, Edaw, and that has been submitted to the Commission. The Director recalled that when the issue of the education center was brought to Council at the last meeting the Council was advised that the position of the Commission at that time was that they would not consider the mitigation plan until the City approved a final location for the education facility, at some point then the Commission changed its mind and decided to bring the plan to the Commission for approval with a condition that the builder can not obtain a permit to pour foundations for the homes until the final location for the education facility is approved both by the City and the Coastal Commission. He mentioned that the Commission staff report has been reviewed and a comment letter has been prepared for consideration of the Council that recognizes that change of position by the Coastal Commission, also suggests that the Commission grant to the Executive Director the authority to also be able to consider alternate locations within the area that are to be encompassed within the approved grading plan for the residential home project which includes slope areas and a water retention/water quality basin westerly of the homes. The Director offered that staff has no idea as to how the Commission may respond therefore if the letter is approved requested that the Council also authorize his attendance at the August 7th Commission meeting in Huntington Beach to respond to any questions that may be forthcoming. Councilman Yost noted that he has spoken before the I Commission several times, he will not be available tol' attend, therefore he would authorize the Development Services Director to attend, possibly the Mayor and another member of I I 7-28-03 I the Council as well, suggesting Councilman Antos, to speak to this issue, this is a mitigation plan and to him the center should be placed in a mitigation area, which is where the homes are to be located and not in the backyard of someone else for the sake of proving the bottom line for the builder/developer. In response to a question of Council this is a three day meeting of the Commission, this is the last item on their second day agenda for August 7th, the Long Beach desalination project is also believed to be scheduled for that date. Mayor Campbell expressed a desire to visit the proposed location sites for the education center. Councilman Yost responded that he has visited the sites. Antos moved, second by Yost, to authorize the Mayor to sign the comment letter to the California Coastal Commission, authorize the Director of Development Services to attend the Coastal Commission meeting and respond to issues and concerns on behalf of the City, and receive and file the staff report. Councilman Larson stated he would vote a reluctant yes as it is never known what the Coastal Commission will do, nothing has been done to resolve the issues he mentioned at the last meeting, about the gate, etc. AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried I The City Manager advised that he and the Director of Public Works would be stepping down and disqualifying themselves from the following items as the roadway in the area in which they live is within five hundred feet of these considerations. Councilman Larson stated that he and Councilman Doane were both cleared to vote on the Boeing project by the Fair Political Practices Commission as a less than significant affected segment of the public, the following project is as close as the Boeing project therefore the assumption is that the same reasoning applies therefor they are eligible to vote. I DESALINATION TEST FACILITY PROJECT - CITY OF LONG BEACH - COASTAL COMMISSION CONSIDERATION The Director of Development Services explained that this item is before the Council as a result of a concern expressed at a prior meeting to what has been characterized by the City of Long Beach as an interim test desalination project that is to be located within the confines of the Haynes Generating Plant on Westminster Avenue. He stated that upon reviewing the Coastal Commission decision to appeal the local jurisdiction approval by the City of Long Beach, staff then requested a copy of the Commission staff report, a copy of which has been provided the Council, also requested approval of a comment letter to be sent to the Coastal Commission. The Director offered that after reviewing the material provided by the Commission it is felt that the major concern of staff with water quality and impacts to water quality and marine. biological resources in the River as a result of this project, and upon reviewing the conditions that the project must comply with, the existing pollution discharge permit requirements from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, no increases will be allowed under any of the discharge requirements, that permit condition is in effect from now until year 2005. He said if the project, as it proceeds, is found to need to modify those permit conditions they would have to go back to the Water Quality Control Board for an 7-28-03 amendment of the conditions as well as approval by the Coastal Commission. The Director explained that the comment letter basically states that Seal Beach is aware of the project, that the City supports the position of the Coastal Commission that the project must comply with the NPDES discharge standards, and if any changes are found to be necessary they would have to go through the Water Quality Control Board as well as the Coastal Commission. He noted that this item is before the Commission on August 7th as well. I Councilman Yost said 'just say no', anything that increases the amount of salinity, anything that increases the discharge of a worse quality water into the River, which a desalination facility must do, he can not support and his feeling is that the City should not come close to supporting that kind of verbiage. Councilman Doane stated that as a member of the West Orange County Water Board desalination has come up many times, the reason for that is that Arizona and Southern California are increasing in population, both are fighting for Colorado River water, by the time it hits the sea it is no more than a trickle, another source of water is needed, the San Joaquin Valley farmers are demanding more and more of the water supply, but as Southern California continues to grow there needs to be more water, there must be a solution and one of the solutions being looked at not only by Long Beach but by other cities in Orange County is desalination, it is being used in many countries, it does work but is very expensive. Councilman Doane said however that he agrees with Councilman Yost that it must be monitored, it is not desired that there be more pollution of the rivers, and the salt will eventually get back into the ocean, that is not a concern to him, as a member of the San Gabriel Rivers and Mountains Committee the comments of Councilman Yost are well taken yet his belief is that the need for desalination is with communities today. Councilman Yost disagreed, stating that there is a solution to the water problem and that is conservation, there is a way to recapture a lot of water that is wasted and sent into the stormwater system that currently exists, there are a number of ways to conserve the amount of water that is used, it could be used much more effectively without polluting the rivers, even Mexico said no to a similar facility because of the environmental damage that it would have caused. The Mayor noted that plans are developed to do one thing and in the process they destroy something else. She added that desalination is needed but a way needs to be found to not return the salt to the ocean, dry it and take it away, but they should not destroy the environment to do something else, it is counterproductive. Councilman Antos also agreed with Councilman Yost, he understands that there are desalination plants in many places throughout the world, some places that have them have no environmental laws, he understands that they want to do desalination but they best come to some agreement with a salt company to carry away the brine, it can not go back into the San Gabriel River, in the past there were discharge problems in the River, at one point there was no sea life living in the River because of discharge, now there is. Mayor Campbell noted that it goes beyond an environmental issue, it is also an economic issue, when the beach is closed because of pollution it has been estimated the cost to clean the beach is in the area of $700,000 per year. I Yost moved, second by Antos, to authorize the Mayor to sign the comment letter to the California Coastal Commissibn to , I I 7-28-03 I reflect the opinion of the City Council with regard to the Long Beach Desalination Test Facility Project, expressing concerns regarding desalination facilities, requesting notification of Commission consideration of proposed projects within the Long Beach/Huntington Beach area, directed staff to monitor proposed desalination projects that could have potential impacts to water quality, animal and plant communities, and water recreation uses. AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council, to declare a recess at 7:43 p.m. The Council reconvened at 7:54 p.m. with Mayor Campbell calling the meeting to order. I PUBLIC HEARING - BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT PLAN - RESOLUTION NUMBER 5l49/CERTIFYING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT - RESOLUTION NUMBER 5150/ GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT 03-02 - ORDINANCE NUMBER l504/Z0NE CHANGE 03-2 - RESOLUTION NUMBER 5l5l/BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS SPECIFIC PLAN - RESOLUTION NUMBER 5152/ TENTATIVE TRACT MAP NO. 16375 Mayor Campbell declared the public hearing open to consider the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Development Plan. The City Clerk certified that the notice of public hearing had been advertised and mailed as required by law, and reported no communications received either for or against this item. The Director of Development Services noted that the Associate Planner would make the staff presentation and the Deputy City Engineer was present to respond to technical questions and concerns. The Associate Planner presented the staff report, explained that the items before the Council relate to a development on the Boeing campus which is generally located at the corner of Seal Beach Boulevard and Westminster Avenue, displayed an aerial photo giving an idea of the total campus facility as it exists currently, to the east is Seal Beach Boulevard, to the north is Westminster Avenue, the buildings shown currently exist on the site, the majority of the buildings exist in Planning Area 1, the buildings to the west are located in Planning Area 2, just north of where the track area is located, the large undeveloped portion of land to the far west is located within Planning Area 3, access to the site is proposed at two separate locations off of both Seal Beach Boulevard and Westminster, the interior roadway would be called Apollo Drive to provide access from both Westminster Avenue and Seal Beach Boulevard. Planning Area 1 contains the bulk of the existing Boeing campus facilities, approximately forty-one acres, Planning Area 2 is about sixteen acres, it includes a number of existing Boeing facilities that mayor may not be developed in the future, there are a number of land uses in that Area that are line of sight to Planning Area 1, as such they are currently set out in a separate Planning Area, Planning Area 3 is the undeveloped portion of the property, Planning Area 4 is the parking lot area at the far northeastern corner. A proposed site plan for the area was shown with entrance points giving an idea of where the building footprints would be, showing the landscaping along the sides of the streets, the future connection of Apollo Drive that would take place when Planning Area 2 is ultimately demolished and rebuilt with the new land uses. From a raw numbers standpoint Planning Area 1 is the existing campus, in the future an additional 345,000 square feet may be built in that area for a total of a little over 1.1 million square feet, Planning Area 2, if it were to I 7-28-03 be demolished, could be rebuilt with up to 345,000 square feet, the undeveloped portion, Planning Area 3, is a little over 625,000 square feet of new uses, and Planning Area 4 is proposed to have a one hundred twenty room hotel and about 55,000 square feet of new retail uses, the sum total would then be a little over 2.2 million square feet and the total acreage of the site is about one hundred seven acres. The Associate Planner offered that the first consideration for the Council is the certification of the Environmental Impact Report where the City as the lead agency needs to publish a document for public review that individuals can look at and analyze the environmental impact associated with the new development, under State law this assures political accountability of the environmental impact of a proposed development. Staff has been going though the EIR process for several months, the document has been before the Archaeological Advisory Committee, the Environmental Quality Control Board, the Planning Commission, and now the City Council, the planner said he would review for Council the recommendations from those advisory boards, the document proposes a mitigation program with a number of proposed mitigation measures within the various areas, RBF Consulting, a City selected and hired firm was present who prepared the draft and final EIR documents, they can also review the various technical mitigation measures if desired. The Planner stated that this project has four identified and significant unavoidable impacts, explained that pursuant to State law when a City publishes an EIR and when there are significant and unavoidable impacts they must be identified in what is called a Statement of Overriding Considerations, those impacts relate to an increase of traffic at the Seal Beach Boulevard/Westminster intersection and at the bridge overcrossing of the 405 Freeway, the improvements that are required to bring those impacts to a level of non- significance are basically not technically feasible in this project, additionally there are short term and long term air emissions given the location of Seal Beach in the Southern California region and it would be difficult to comply with the air quality standards, virtually every project of this magnitude will have this type of significant and unavoidable impact. As mentioned, this project went before the Archaeological Committee, they are primarily charged with looking at the cultural resources section of an environmental document as outlined in the General Plan, the Committee adopted a resolution on April 23rd that recommends that the Council adopt the mitigation program. The EQCB similarly held a hearing on April 21st, they recommended that the document be certified if five separate areas were further addressed, that the Council consider reducing the wind speed and duration, that is basically when there is a high wind velocity which causes flying dust at which time the developer should cease construction, historically the City has used thirty-five miles an hour for a duration of one hour, that is stated in the document however the EQCB would like that to be considered for reduction, secondly the EQCB determined that the long term noise impact is inadequate and not sufficient to mitigate the noise impacts, third, that the short term construction noise is inadequate, the EQCB felt that short term construction noise should be considered significant and somehow be mitigated, fourth, that the traffic analysis at the Leisure World entries was inaccurate, and last, that the long term traffic analysis and proposed mitigation for that analysis was inadequate. The Associate Planner offered to answer questions relating to those issues and how they are responded to in the responses to comments within the I I I I 7-28-03 document, the consultants available as well. The Planner explained that the Planning Commission reviewed the EIR on May 21st, they adopted a resolution recommending that the City Council certify the document in its present form. I The Associate Planner stated that separate from the EIR there are a number of project approvals relating to this development application, the General Plan, which is basically the overall guideline for all development within the City, there are a number of amendments to the General Plan that would facilitate the Specific Plan adoption, the changes primarily relate to changes in tables which sets forth numbers of acres within the General Plan, that would be the case with the Land Use Element where a specific number of acres would be taken from the Light Industrial Zone and create a Boeing Integrated Defense System Specific Plan area, the Open Space/Conservation Element amendment would add some acreage for flood control and water quality basins that will be shown on the tract map, there is currently some language within the Housing Element that relates to the potential to create low and moderate income housing within the Boeing site, in that that is not proposed as part of this development application it would be necessary to remove that language, the Circulation Element, there would be a new street, Apollo Drive, that would be designated as a collector having a sixty foot right-of-way. As mentioned, the Planning Commission review all of these items on May 21st, held over the project approvals until June 4th and June l8th at which time they recommended approval of all of the General Plan amendments, zone change, Specific Plan, and Vesting Tentative Tract Map. Upon approval of the General Plan, then the Specific plan sets forth the development standards, what can be done on the site, within the draft Specific Plan there are several basic design guidelines of what things should look like, there is a table of allowable land uses, which land uses are allowed in which Planning Area and which ones require a conditional use permit, which public facilities will be provided for and which will be private, the Plan currently provides for public streets as an example, there are design and architectural guidelines within the Specific Plan which would require subsequent developers or builders who want to modify things to go through a Precise Plan approval process, that will assure that there will be some consistency amongst the building types within the Specific Plan area, development regulations are also set forth for setbacks, height restrictions, landscaping requirements, what one can and can not do, and lastly the procedure for making application for a Precise Plan and the process to attain approval within the Specific Plan area. Within the Specific Plan there are a number of allowable land uses and it should be noted that the principal uses allowable in the proposed Specific Plan are land uses that are currently allowed within the M-l zone, basically the only changes are that Planning Area 4 would allow for a one hundred twenty room hotel and some associated commercial within a time period of at least eighteen months and would allow for some point of sale land uses that may not currently be allowed under the M-l zoning, a list of the allowable land uses are included within the staff report. The Circulation Element plan would be to have a street at ultimate buildout to be called Apollo Drive that will run from Westminster Avenue to Seal Beach Boulevard, it is proposed to be a sixty foot right-of-way, sidewalks on both sides of the street for the full length, there would be no on-street parking on Apollo Drive but there will be a parkway between the sidewalk and the property line, the I I 7-28-03 applicant has a drawing of what the entrance point of Apollo Drive will look like, from that one can get the sense of what the treescape will look like. Within the Specific Plan there is what is called a Precise Plan, it is similar to what was approved for the Bixby project where each separate development site was required to go through a Site Plan review before the Planning Commission to make certain it was consistent with what was approved by the Specific Plan itself, make sure that the buildings are in conformance with other buildings that have been built, keeping a cohesive look throughout the entire project. The Specific Plan proposes that these Precise Plans be approved by the City staff as currently written to allow the Director of Development Services or designee to make those approvals and to make minor adjustments with regard to setbacks, parking, zero lot line development, etc., the Planning Commission however recommended that the City Council adopt an appropriate resolution to have that be a Planning Commission function as was done on the Bixby project rather than approvals at the staff level, additionally, there was some language that would allow a height variation to be approved by staff and height variation provisions of the Code that allow non-habitable architectural features, spires, cupolas, etc. that project above the height limit, the Commission again recommends that those come before the Planning Commission for review otherwise the developer simply meets the height limit as set forth in the Specific Plan. The planner explained that the Vesting Tentative Tract Map is the actual subdivision of the land, the proposal is to subdivide the one large Boeing parcel into twenty smaller parcels and three lettered lots, the lettered lots being non-buildable parcels primarily for water quality basins, all of the lots are less than ten acres except for Planning Area 1 which are the existing Boeing campus facilities, this is significant because within the development standards lots larger than ten acres have a maximum height of seventy-five feet, lots less than ten acres have a significantly smaller overall height limit, their proposal is to create lots, except for the existing Boeing campus facility that has taller buildings, of less than ten acres and restrict the height more to thirty-five or forty feet, more of a commercial use type of height limit. There are some issues relating to Planning Area 2, one building straddles a proposed property line, that has been addressed by placing a proposed condition that would require that building to be demolished before those lots are conveyed to a third party owner. I I The Associate Planner noted that there are a number of conditions of approval, a number of those are standard engineering conditions, the Deputy City Engineer will respond to questions with regard to those, there are also specific conditions which are specific to this project which puts into place the ability for the City to get necessary public improvements that are specific to this project, the City has concern with regard to getting medians along Seal Beach Boulevard and Westminster, landscaping those medians, and creating some type of mechanism to pay for the long term maintenance of the landscaping, there is need to provide for various water quality controls in that the Regional Water Quality Control Board is coming down on cities so long term water quality needs are addressed in this project, the flooding concerns are being addressed in front of PI~nning Area 4 by requiring a study initially for drainage I improvements to be done at future buildout of Planning Area 4, sidewalk would be installed where none currently e~ists on I 7-28-03 I Westminster, and three new traffic signals installed, two for Apollo Drive at Westminster and Seal Beach Boulevard, the third being at Adolfo Lopez Drive at Seal Beach Boulevard. Inquiry was made if one is not a replacement, the response that two will be replacing existing signals at Road A. The Planner stated that there will also be upgrades of existing signals along Seal Beach Boulevard and Westminster so that the signals are interconnected and can talk to each other to help traffic flow through the Seal Beach Boulevard/ Westminster intersection. He mentioned again that the Planning Commission adopted Resolutions on June 18th which required a number of pUblic improvements, the applicant approached the City and indicated that they could provide a number of those improvements but not right away, they would provide the City with what it needs in exchange for a few things being pushed back, the Council packet contains two sets of Resolutions, one reflects the Planning Commission recommendations to the Council and one reflects the concessions made by the applicant to do public improvements throughout different phases of the development schedule. He pointed out that the pUblic improvement schedule has been divided into two phases, essentially a north phase and a south phase, the public improvements in the north phase would be completed prior to a Certificate of Occupancy on lots I, 2, 3, 4, 12, and 13, that is to improve the median landscaping on Westminster Avenue including developing some type of financing mechanism to pay for the long term maintenance, install the sidewalk, and the Apollo Drive right-of-way would be dedicated upon each final map recording, the developer has indicated that they may be filing multiple final maps. Similarly in the south phase should there be a certificate of occupancy for lots 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 the Boeing team would construct a new median on Seal Beach Boulevard the entire length of the Boeing property, the median would be landscaped, install new traffic signals at Adolfo Lopez Drive and Apollo Drive, all signals will be improved for signal communication, and provide a drainage study for the area of Seal Beach Boulevard adjacent to Planning Area 4, subsequently what the City would agree to concede at this point is that only the new utilities would be undergrounded, the existing utilities on the poles along Westminster Avenue would remain above ground, and rather than amend the Open Space Element to account for the water quality basins that are being made a condition of the Tract Map approval whereby they would need to provide them before the City takes action on any of the final maps for the project, the reason for that is that the water quality basins may change when they get to the Coastal Commission, so if the raw acreage were approved as it is today it could change at the Coastal Commission and the applicant would then need to come to the City to request a General Plan amendment to then be in compliance because of the acreage change. Another condition is to remove the requirement to repave the wide southerly side of westminster Avenue fronting the property, with regard to the drainage improvements instead of being done immediately that would be done at the development of Planning Area 4, Apollo Drive will be dedicated incrementally rather than at one time, Apollo Drive would be constructed with the last Certificate of Occupancy for lots 9, 10 and 13, explaining that there are three lots that line the inside of Apollo Drive in Planning Area 2, all of those lots still contain some Boeing use, Boeing does not want to have a road that dissects their existing campus so they do not want to build the road until they have abandoned the land uses within Planning Area 2, offering that the applicant team may be able I I 7-28-03 to forecast when that may be. The Associate Planner explained that the proposed fiscal impact for the project, depending on three different development scenarios within the study ranges anywhere between a net increase of a little over $450,000 to a little over $800,000, when that report was received the City in turn had an independent third party contracted firm look at it, the report from that firm was that the revenue projections, if all of the assumptions turn out to be true, are essentially accurate, so there are a number of situations where the revenue can be either overstated or understated depending on market conditions at the .actual time of development and the final buildout of the project, the revenue is primarily based on the Transient Occupancy Tax from the one hundred twenty room hotel and additional utility users tax because there would be more buildings requiring utility services. The Planner offered to respond to questions, noted that RBF, the EIR consultant was present, the Deputy Engineer can respond to engineering technical questions, a representative is present from the third party financial review firm, it is also believed that the Boeing team would like to make a statement, the traffic consultant present as well. I Councilman Yost said the Apollo Drive seems to have been relatively fluid in terms of its design, questioned if there is any way to not have two signals in close proximity, possibly have Apollo Drive go behind the Accurate Metals building and come out to the Boulevard on Adolfo Lopez, this would be to not increase the number of signals within a short distance. The Associate Planner responded that staff looked at that possibility conceptually, pointed out the water quality basins, which are drainage ditches, are identified within the EIR as having wetland characteristics, that became a site planning issue that made that difficult, the engineering staff can explain the nature of the cut-through. Councilman Yost said if one takes the current layout of Apollo Drive and instead of making a left turn towards Seal Beach Boulevard make a right turn to behind Accurate Metals would that be superior in any way, he understands the issue of the drainage ditches, that is likely one of the things that led this project to be at this particular point. The Deputy City Engineer confirmed that that was looked at previously, one of the issues that came up was meeting the design standards set by Orange County that the City is following for this project, which requires that a road will be continuous as opposed to having it come to a "T" or ninety degree intersection, his recollection of the different scenarios when looking at Apollo Drive was that it would not meet those standards but it is believed that the developer had issues with regard to how the lots would be split at that point. With regard to a question relating to the undergrounding of utilities in front of Planning Area 3 fronting Westminster, the Deputy Engineer clarified that only the new installation of utilities will be undergrounded, the existing high power lines that are fronting Westminster, including cable television, electrical, and telephone will remain as they exist, that was one of the concessions during negotiations in order to do some of the other items, the Code provides that under grounding is open as a condition, not a Code requirement. The Development Services Director noted that another issue the staff was dealing with is tha~ the main power lines on those poles are 66KV lines which are very expensive to underground, undergrounding of the 66KV Qine was , I I 7-28-03 I not being looked at to begin with, the question was then whether the other utility lines be allowed to remain on the poles as well or taken down and leave the 66KV lines, it seemed to make sense to leave all of them. Councilman Yost offered his opinion that since the area is going to be developed it would seem that the lines in the area of the new development should be undergrounded. With regard to the flooding area on Seal Beach Boulevard, a concern for everyone that uses that roadway, it would seem that if a development is going to be allowed that is going to substantially increase the traffic flow through the area without addressing the ponding issue, which takes away at least one lane each time it rains, his feeling is that it should be more than just a study, it should be addressed given the increased traffic as a direct result of this project. The Associate Planner explained that the way the project is currently conditioned the applicant would provide a study in the short term, would indicate different solutions for the problem, and then correct the problem at the buildout of Planning Area 4 which is the area that immediately abuts where the problem exists. Councilman Yost inquired as to police and fire services in an industrial area such as this, does it require a different type of service by the Fire Department, how does that get paid in that the largest cost to the community in terms of tax dollars is police, fire and public safety, will this require the City to pay more and how does this cost get passed on to those using the development. The Planner responded that the Orange County Fire Authority was contacted this date, the current contract with the Authority continues until 2010, the Authority was asked if this type of development would create a change in that contract, their response was that it would not, in 2010 the City would be renegotiating its contract and there was no idea as to what the renegotiating methodology will be at that time, therefore it is not possible to determine what the impact could be long term. with reference to the height limits, Councilman Yost noted that as part of the Specific Plan building height was listed as forty feet with an additional seven feet for architectural features, to him that seems to be high, is that the standard. The Planner responded that thirty-five feet is the typical commercial height limit, forty feet would be reasonable for an industrial zone, the seven feet is the area in question, the Specific Plan requests that staff have the ability to approve architectural projections into the seven foot area and the Planning Commission proposed that that be kept as a Commission function for a height variation. Councilman Yost concurred with the Planning Commission, however to him it would seem strange to allow something in one particular area that is not allowed elsewhere in the community, those types of variations go through the Commission, it is not known why an exception would be made for this particular property, the approval for Precise Plans should go through the Planning Commission also, as well as changes that are less than ten percent from the original plan. Councilman Doane mentioned that Apollo Drive would be constructed when the last of Planning Areas 2 and 3 are sold, yet when construction of Planning Area 3 starts there will need to be access roads, will that be the cul-de-sacs that are now seen. The Planner responded that access to those parcels would come in either from Apollo Drive onto one of the cul-de-sacs and through the parking lot, or to go to the southerly parcel one would enter off of Seal Beach Boulevard, the understanding is that they would like to build it in two separate phases, and confirmed that Planning Area 3 will be the first of the Planning Areas to develop. .Mayor Campbell I I 7-28-03 mentioned that her questions deal with the unavoidable and unmitigable issues of traffic, noise, and air quality, of particular interest were those that came from the EQCB, specifically the comments of Member Hurley, and following his comments through the EIR she found that there were inconsistencies, there lies the responsibility to find out if one is right, one is wrong, or if they are all wrong. with regard to the air quality concern, the Planner explained that the Air Quality Management District wind standard is thirty- five miles an hour for one hour, that is typically used as the standard as to when development should cease, the City has historically used that standard in all of its environmental work, therefore used again in this situation, the EQCB did suggest that the Council reduce that velocity, they did not propose a specific number, from the staff standpoint it has been City policy to use thirty-five as a standard and as a threshold by which to measure against, if more information is desired as to why that is used the consultant is present to respond. Mayor Campbell offered that that may be the goal standard but this is an area where the breezes blow onto Leisure World, a community whose residents are older and may not be able to tolerate blowing dust, the suggestion of Member Hurley was that a competent City employee be designated to determine when to stop the construction activities and adequate mitigation would include a complaint hot line to alert that employee, obviously the thirty-five miles an hour is unacceptable to Member Hurley, particularly when the wind is blowing into Leisure World. Councilman Larson stated that he has no method of judging how much dirt blows in at thirty-five miles an hour as opposed to twenty-five miles an hour, he could only assume that if everyone uses thirty-five there must be some measurable difference yet he would agree that Leisure World being directly across the street and if it needs protection it should be done. Councilman Larson said this project deals with something that does not exist which is Planning Areas, they are dividing the property up into small lots and have made the Planning Area designation as if it is important, it is not, they want a number of lots, they are going to sell the lots, the City can decide how those lots can look without doing it in relation to a Planning Area, that is merely an artificial designation that is confusing, this deals with the ultimate Tentative Tract Map which will show lots, he thought of that in connection with Apollo Drive where they said it was too close to Planning Area 1, they do not have that in Planning Area 2, just say that there are no lots there and move it over, the Council is has this whole piece of vacant land to deal with and he does not want to get tied down with artificial designations of Planning Areas, particularly when there are difficult times getting cooperation from the applicant. With regard to the wind issue, Councilman Doane requested to hear from the consulting engineer. I I Mr. Glen LaJoie, RBF Consulting, project manager for the Environmental Impact Report, stated that the standard identified in terms of miles per hour is pursuant to the South Coast Air Quality Management District which is referred to as Rule 403, a typical provision for reducing dust emissions, the standard was identified pursuant to the Air Quality District requirements, when discussion occurred as to reducing the miles per hour provisions they did contact the Air District to identify the latitude or understanding if other jurisdictions have requested such reductions arid their contact at the Air District could not identify a sim~lar situation in other communities. Mr. Lajoy said he could say, I 7-28-03 I having done this type of work for a number of years in Southern California, there are situations where development is occurring adjacent to what is referred to by the Air District as sensory receptors which includes seniors, schools, hospitals, single family residential areas, and in identifying the rule 403 relating to dust emission there has never been a comment identifying a concern to reduce the miles per hour provision, however according to the Air District there is the latitude of the local jurisdiction to further augment rule 403 by reducing the miles per hour, and again he could not identify another community where that has occurred. Councilman Larson inquired if historically how many days a year that over thirty-five miles per hour occurs. Mr. Lajoy stated they did not do that measurement, and to that Councilman Larson concluded then that it is not known if it would stop a project for three days or forty days. Councilman Yost said he could respond to that question as he knows about wind patterns in Seal Beach, there are very few days that the wind blows thirty-five and over, a Santa Ana on occasion, and clearing winds after a major storm, even twenty-five mile per hour days are extremely rare and usually for no more than an hour, it would be unlikely to affect the development if the wind velocity were lowered to twenty-five. Councilman Larson noted that the Santa Ana winds blow from the east directly into Leisure World, he was trying to anticipate how it occurs on those days as it will from the south which will be the prevailing flow. Mayor Campbell said she was looking at this large empty field and envisioning them trying to grade land and all of a sudden having dust clouds, when that happens everything stops and given the proximity to Leisure World that could be problematic, possibly establish someone in the City for the residents to call, possibly someone in the Planning Department, yet Councilman Yost did not seem to feel it was necessary to reduce the wind velocity to twenty miles an hour during grading. Councilman Yost said if it were reduced to twenty- five it would likely not be an issue, would not affect the grading frequently, the Mayor may be correct as to the type of soil, how fine the soil is. Mayor Campbell suggested reducing the wind speed to twenty-five miles an hour and if there is a problem have the residents call the Planning Department because if the days are rare it should not be a problem. Councilman Larson inquired if there are requirements as to when they have to spray the soil with water so that it does not blow. The Associate Planner responded that there are several mitigation measures that specifically address that situation as a means of trying to depress dust from floating every time they are using heavy equipment, there are also mitigation measures in place that require the placement of staging areas and location of where the heavy machinery will be to further reduce impacts. Councilman Doane said if the Council goes along with the recommendation of the consultant and dust clouds do occur the Council does have the capability of reducing the wind velocity. The Planner explained that if adopted at thirty- five the developer would not be required to stop until the velocity were to ~each thirty-five miles per hour for a duration of one hour. Mayor Campbell mentioned that Seal Beach has a high water table yet she looks at that open area and it is not known if that land has a high water table because there are no trees or growth, nothing-for many years which tells her that that land must be extremely dry, her preference would be to reduce the velocity to twenty-five and if as said that that is rare then it should not present a problem, this would at least be a way to protect the I I 7-28-03 residents of Leisure World. with regard to inspections during the grading operations, the Deputy City Engineer said the past practice of the Public Works Department, regardless of the wind speed or any measurements taken, is if there is a heavy dust situation the operation is shut down immediately and they are required to get a water truck on-site to take corrective action, and to the question as to whether that was the action taken at the John Laing Homes and Bixby sites, the response was yes, in that type of situation the Department has the power to shut down a job and require water trucks on- site. Councilman Antos offered that it seems that the main problem period would be with mass grading as opposed to fine grading, it would seem that lowering the wind speed standard to twenty-five miles an hour during mass grading times and with the requirement of water trucks that should mitigate some of this concern, thereafter when there is fine grading and a water truck is on site there could be a different mile per hour standard, this is however a large area that is probably going to be mass graded more or less all at once, at least Planning Area 3, all or most of Planning Area 4, that is the time when the problems will be experienced. He noted also that the City does not have a great deal of control over the military and their property and Mashburn Farms is an agricultural use and from time to time they do plowing during the occasion of some fairly heavy winds which has resulted in dust clouds over Leisure World, the City has no way to shut such operation down except to talk to base personnel. Councilman Antos expressed his feeling that something needs to be done at least during mass grading. Mayor Campbell said she lives just south of the Air Station, there is farming directly behind her home, and because the winds primarily blow from south to north they do not get dust clouds, but there is constant dust, again, her preference would be to reduce the wind speed to twenty-five miles an hour and that the Associate planner be the contact for residents, and if it is fact that higher wind speeds are rare then it should not be a problem. Councilman Doane inquired of Councilman Larson if he has witnessed dust clouds in the area in which he resides in Leisure World, the response was no, just with the occasional Santa Ana winds and even then nothing like a visible cloud, it is just dusty. The Development Services Director recommended that these suggestions be kept in mind at this time as the public hearing has yet to be held. I I Councilman Yost inquired as to the height limit for M-l zoning. The Director advised that the current height limit is seventy-five feet if the lot is over'ten acres in size, if less than ten acres it is either thirty-five or forty feet, and agreed to confirm the less than ten acres height. Mayor Campbell noted that EQCB Member Hurley claimed that the numbers in the three noise tables were all different. The Associate Planner explained that there are different ways of measuring noise either in LEQ or CNEL, and upon re-reading the document apologized for any confusion as a result of not understanding the technical aspect of noise measurements, and offered an explanation by the consultant. Mayor Campbell pointed out that Member Hurley referred to Volume I, page 5- 14, current noise levels, outer ear, 65 decibels, which is 10 decibles above the maximum allowed for any residence per the Seal Beach Municipal Code, and in Volume II, page 14-52, No. 6-Q, they were told that the noise from construction i machinery could reach 77 to 86 decibels in Leisure World, his question was what would be the noise levels in Leisur~ World with existing traffic, construction traffic, and construction I 7-28-03 I machinery combined, there seems to be some concern with not having solid answers. The Planner said first it is necessary to separate out short term construction noise from long term operational noise once the buildings are ultimately built, the noise study looks at what the current existing noise patterns are and what the existing plus project noise patterns would be, the long term operational noise, after construction and the buildings built and occupied, the increase is thought to be less than two decibels which would be negligible to the human ear, the bulk of existing noise comes from traffic traveling both directions on Westminster Avenue, there will be a negligible increase in long term noise, the bulk of increased noise comes from short term construction in that it is relatively noisy to build a building, the City Code addresses that noise and exempts it from the noise standard, that is used as a threshold in the document and identifies short term construction noise as being non-significant under CEQA. Mr. Ed Torres confirmed that there are multiple ways of presenting the noise results, their results were presented as stationery source and mobile source, mobile source is the cars which is the primary source of noise in the area, when the study says construction noise is a bit higher than ambient, what is meant is construction levels are on the tip of the scale, the noise levels presented of 77 to 86 decibels are for a worst case that would rarely happen, all equipment operating at the same time at full throttle for a limited amount of time, the noise levels presented in the study are primarily for the mobile source levels. To the reference of the Mayor to the questions raised by Mr. Hurley, Councilman Larson cautioned that this is a public hearing, it was improper for Mr. Hurley to send personal letters to any member of the Council on this subject that was not available to the applicant, noted that he and Councilman Doane received such letter, did not open it, submitted it to the City Manager who in turn gave it to the Planning Director, at this time it is inappropriate to discuss the questions of Mr. Hurley or what anyone might say in a letter which could impact the legality of the hearing. The Director of Development Services confirmed that the applicant was provided a copy of the staff report that included all of the attachments. Councilman Yost again mentioned the height limit in an M-l zone to which the Development Services Director responded that the existing Code provides for thirty-five feet, the Specific Plan is proposed at forty feet, and the Code allows for the seven foot height variation, to that the understanding of Councilman Yost was that the Specific Plan adds five feet onto what they would be able to do under the standard M-l zone provisions without seeking a variance. Councilman Yost made reference to page forty-two, attachment 1 of the staff report with regard to changes in travel time at peak hours at various intersections, and as a result of this project questioned how much longer is it going to take a person who is in an ambulance starting in Old Town to get across the 405 bridge to get to the hospital, the Boulevard being the main route to reach the hospital. Mr. Rich Barretto said he could not answer the question in that they did not do travel time surveys as part of the EIR, he could respond to changes in the level of service, but a response to travel time would be a guesstimate, an answer would not be possible without having full background. It was suggested that Mr. LaJoy be requested to speak to the nature of the comments during discussion with the Fire Authority and paramedics as to how those things are typically looked at. Mr. LaJoy, RBF Consulting, noted that the question of emergency medical I I 7-28-03 response did come up during the EQCB hearing, going back to the process of preparing the EIR the Fire Department was contacted to ascertain any specific concerns in terms of emergency response, first and foremost there was no response time issue for emergency medical response within the Leisure World area, there was also no issues with regard to ingress and egress to Leisure World, the Fire Department did not identify any other specific issues or concerns in terms of response time, medical emergency, access. Councilman Yost offered that that is fine as it concerns Leisure World in that the Fire Station is just outside their gate, the problem arises when the truck has to go back past this development unless the truck from Old Town is used if it is sufficient to handle the emergency. Mr. LaJoy said that was the response of the Fire Department. Mayor Campbell expressed her belief that the bottleneck is getting over the bridge. I Mr. Clay Corwin stated he is a principal with the real estate, development, and management firm Stonecreek Company representing the Boeing Realty Corp. Mr. Corwin noted that handouts reflecting their slide presentation were available for the public. He thanked the Council, staff, and the community for working with them over a period of time to develop this project, it is felt that the process has been productive in terms of what has been accomplished through planning, engineering, the EQCB, Planning Commission, and to this point, mentioned that this process was started a couple of years ago with some informal sessions with staff and members of the Council to design a product and project that would meet the needs of the City, the landowner, Boeing existing operations, as well as the community. Mr. Corwin mentioned that through that process they came up with several guiding objectives, 1) to respect and preserve the Boeing ongoing operations, as is known the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems will continue to conduct business here with approximately three thousand programs including Rand D defense programs and others, 2) to plan and build an industrial park that would be consistent with existing General Plan policy, the project basically respects the M-l zoning that has been in place for quite some time, enhance it to provide some things that are beneficial for the City, 3) minimize impacts to surrounding uses, as they looked at a range of land uses a main consideration was minimizing impacts to surrounding land uses in the community from an environmental perspective, 4) to do a quality project, that is what the Specific Plan contemplates by increasing some of the development standards and design guidelines that are called for under existing zoning, that is what Boeing looks to do every time they do a project, and it should be remembered that they will continue to occupy approximately forty-five to fifty acres adjacent to the business park, and 5) provide positive fiscal benefits, they heard loud and clear to find ways to grow the economy and revenue streams yet do it in a fashion that does not create more severe environmental impacts as well as to create opportunities through the Specific Plan for market driven uses that would come to the area, and again minimize community environmental impacts. As mentioned previously, Mr. Corwin noted that this proposed project has been in the process for about two years, the formal environmental review process commenced with the initial study and scoping sessions in March of 2002, since then they have been involved in about fifteen variousl public meetings, the draft EIR was completed by the City in December of 2002, there was a forty-five day comment period du~ing which it is believed that the City received some thir~y I I 7-28-03 I comments from individuals and a variety of public agencies, the City, working with the consultant, responded to all of the comments which are now contained in the Final EIR, the Specific Plan and EIR were made available to the community and on the City website. Mr. Corwin noted concerns mentioned at this meeting, and as stated by the Director they did receive the letter from Mr. Hurley in the agenda packet, it is believed the consultants for the City can respond to his noise concerns, it is known that a community to the west, Island Village, had some questions with regard to this project, there was a meeting with their board where some design changes were made to the orientation of the buildings, to the setbacks from their property line, and as mentioned there is a condition that the sidewalk will be completed along Westminster Avenue where it' now does not exist, that is a benefit they asked for, as well as the fact that City staff has included in the conditions of approval a requirement that any user when ultimately identified for their project would be required to conduct a noise study to determine any impacts and appropriate mitigation measures at that time, they have tried to be proactive in addressing those immediate neighbors. Mr. Corwin mentioned that the Specific Plan was initiated in March of 2002 at the request of City staff to build on the M-l zoning and create some opportunities that do not currently exist under that zoning, more specifically to allow for point of sale retail uses to capture sales tax from the business park as well as designate Planning Area 4 for a hotel and retail uses, that is what is planned at this point however they can not make promises as to what that end user will be, the ability to attract a hotel user at this time is too early in the process yet they are in discussions with a range of operators and developers and as it gets closer to a final approval for land use through the Coastal Commission it is felt certain that that issue will get a little more right, they are working on that, point of sale uses are now allowed under the proposed Specific Plan, as well as within Planning Area 3, subject to a Conditional Use Permit, retail and showroom uses are allowed, the CUP process allows the City to filter what type of uses would be desired, and to that they tried to be sensitive to make sure that other existing businesses in the core City, Main Street, etc., are not necessarily cannibalized, the City has control over that process. With regard to the fiscal impact that was analyzed briefly, Mr. Corwin said any recurring revenues currently existing from the Boeing campus are approaching $800,000 per year comprised of utility user tax, property tax, some sales tax and a significant amount of business license tax, what is called the proposed project would be basically what has been outlined, most of the development of the Business Park as well as some retail and hotel uses in Planning Area 4 would add about $700,000 of new, annual recurring revenue that would come from about four different strains, sales tax, transient occupancy tax, utility user tax, and increased property tax from the development. Under a more conservative analysis that would basically contemplate that no hotel was located on the site the proposed revenue baseline is still in excess of $450,000 from a mix of utility users tax, property tax, as well as some point of sale sales tax. It is believed that this adds substantially to the revenue base of the City and should be pushing the City in the right direction along with Rossmoor and Bixby centers. Mr. Corwin referred to questions raised in terms of the existing look and the look in terms of the Business Park, the main development to the west, showed the existing entry from Road A, the building to the left being the Accurate Metals building, the signal light I I 7-28-03 at Seal Beach Boulevard/Road A, also showed a visual analysis of what the buildout would look like under the Precise Plan in terms of a landscaped entry, monument signage, etc. Mr. Corwin mentioned that there has been some discussion thus far about proposed improvements from the project, this the result of productive discussions with City staff over the past few months, most of these are shown in the vesting Tentative Tract Map conditions in terms of public improvements, it is believed they comprise most of the improvements that they have heard concerns about, they include new landscaped medians along Seal Beach Boulevard of the entire Boeing frontage, significant improvements to landscaping and entry at both project entries, new and improved landscaping in the existing Westminster Avenue median, new sidewalks that go along the entire frontage on Westminster where no sidewalk currently exists, sidewalk improvements along Lopez Drive, and on both sides of the street within the Business Park, upgrading, replacement, and improvement of existing traffic signals, the only new signal will be at Lopez Drive and Seal Beach Boulevard, the two existing signals at Road A and Westminster Avenue and Road A and Seal Beach Boulevard will be replaced new, and the two signals in the vicinity of Planning Area 4 would be upgraded so there is synchronization on both of those streets where the signals are impacted, several deceleration lanes for traffic flow and safety have been added at points of entry around the project, Boeing is . obligated to do a detailed study to resolve the drainage problem and as soon as Planning Area 4 goes under development then implement whatever the agreed resolution is as determined by the City Engineer. Construction impacts are for a short period of time, the entries of Apollo Drive would be built up front, the only issue that was in question, now resolved, is the future connection, the concern of Boeing was that their campus as it currently operates would be forced to be bisected, a requirement that the road go in before they had vacated ongoing operations in Planning Area 2, for security and operational reasons to have a public road was not feasible, what has been agreed to with City staff is a condition that states that once a map is recorded covering the three lots that front Planning Area 2 on the west then the obligation to improve the road vests, and the traffic impact fees for this project is about $1.8 million to be contributed to the city. Mr. Corwin mentioned some additional project benefits, a state of the art treatment system including bio-swail and using the retention areas to treat urban runoff prior to discharge into the Los Alamitos Retention Basin, it is believed that comprises close to five acres incorporating two of the ditches on the property, one the southerly ditch off of Lopez and the central ditch. Fiscal benefits, the recurring revenue, projection of potential jobs in the fourteen to fifteen hundred range out of the Business Park, there is an obligation to maintain the landscaping on the new median improvements on both streets so that it is revenue neutral to the City, again, point of sale land use is an opportunity for the Council to control any competing retail uses that may come in, and Boeing operations allows Boeing to continue to grow and hopefully thrive in Seal Beach through this plan, this gives some flexibility to grow by allowing them to meet a corporate objective to dispose of surplus land, this property has sat for forty-five years without being developed, this allows all of that to occur while security and operational needs of the ongoing business are respected. He noted that the Specific Plan is designed to enhance what already exists on the property, it is consistent with the General Plan, design guidelines and I I I 7-28-03 I development standards are actually greater than what is required under current zoning, as was mentioned the height limit is up a little but there are some tradeoffs in the Specific Plan in terms of increased landscaping requirements over existing zoning, increased setbacks, things that are felt will overall enhance the project to make it a quality Business Park, the setbacks are also an effort to minimize the impacts on the adjoining communities of Leisure World and Island Village. Mr. Corwin offered that they have tried to listen to the City Council, spent considerable time with Planning and Engineering, have listened to the community, his belief is that they have come with a project, have ,come to agreement with City staff on a range of conditions that they think essentially satisfy all of the needs that have been heard in terms of what the City is looking for. With regard to some of the questions and comments made earlier Mr. Corwin noted that there were comments on the roadway and the timing thereof, they had looked at a large range of alternatives for the road design to tie into Adolfo Lopez, it became impossible to deal with County and City road design standards to respect the wetland characteristics of the ditches and existing buildings. He referred to a question about undergrounding the existing utilities, as was mentioned the cost is prohibitive, they talked to the Edison Company and it is not something that they would be asking that Boeing do, in terms of aesthetics as long as the 66KV line remains the poles will remain, this allows the creation of some other project benefits as opposed to spending over a million dollars to underground those lines so the basic infrastructure remains above ground. He mentioned that the staff and RBF responded to other questions, expressed appreciation for the time and consideration of the project, and their team was present to answer questions as well. I Mr. Alan DeFrancis, Vice President of Boeing Realty Company, conveyed appreciation for Council consideration of the Boeing project, it is hoped the project represents a collaborative effort with the City that has taken place over the last two years, on behalf of Boeing they are pleased to be coming into this hearing in locked step with Planning staff with a project that they are supportive of and they believe has created opportunities both for the residents of Seal Beach, created fiscal benefit for the City, and important for Boeing as it maintains the integrity of their existing operations. He too mentioned that their team was present to answer any questions, and again the feeling that there has been an ongoing collaborative effort in putting this project together and it is hoped that at the end of the meeting the Council will feel the same way. I Mayor Campbell invited members of the audience wishing to speak to this item to come to the microphone and identify themselves. Dr. David Rosenman, Seal Beach, said he had mixed opinions about the Boeing project, he agreed with the comments of Councilman Yost relating to the height limit, agreed too that approvals are not delegated to staff unless one wants things to happen that one is then not happy with. with air quality and grading, Dr. Rosenman stated he is asthmatic and sensitive to such things, until he sent e-mails to staff with regard to blowing dust nothing was done, a false sense of security and assurance, there was no water truck on site, the same will hold true with the Boeing site. He said it was unacceptable and inexcusable that no one seems to have an answer to questions relating emergency vehicle access time, even more so given the only remedy being a 7-28-03 statement of overriding consideration, and the Mayor correctly identified the other problem which is the bridge. Dr. Rosenman said it was stated by a speaker at the Bixby hearings that there was an access problem at that time, it has not gone away, it is inexcusable that no one has taken the time to develop that information, when a question as to emergency access time was brought up at the EQCB hearing the response of a representative of Linscott, Law and Greenspan was that he has asked that of one person at the Fire Department who did not provide an answer, however he has personally asked two volunteers and they feel there is a problem, this is an issue that needs to be investigated further, this will be a problem for persons at the school, residents of the Hill and Old Town, to the statement that there will be no increase in the cost of police and fire services he disagrees, there has to be an increased cost for those services, and with regard to undergrounding of the utilities, not knowing what Boeing will make on this project yet given the price of housing in this community, the expenditure of a million or two dollars to underground would seem that the City would be merely extracting a reasonable bargain, he would not be too concerned that Boeing would not development this property if they were actually made to do something, it is inappropriate for staff to make concessions, that rests with the Council. Mr. Terry Sears, a department manager at Leisure world, said environmental issues is one of the things that he is asked to speak on as an advocate on behalf of some of the residents. Mr. Sears mentioned that Boeing has been a good neighbor for many years, on the few occasions that he has had need to call the issue at hand has been immediately remedied, it is hoped they will continue to be a good neighbor on this project. Mr. Sears reported that there are at least sixty units that face Westminster, the windows and doors of these units will face this project and be dramatically impacted, the average age of these residents is seventy-eight to seventy-nine years, the portion of the population that are sensitive receptors, his understanding is that construction will go on for one to two years, the EIR says there will be temporary substantial impact from matters such as noise and dust, in his opinion one to two years stretches the definition of temporary, for those residents that is a long time, there can be medical recoveries, and they wear devices such as he does that amplifies any machinery noise. Mr. Sears said most of the residents that he speaks on behalf of are not against the project, in fact some have asked for a bridge over Westminster so that they can reach the new development, yet they asked that the Council further the mitigation and minimize their discomfort, of particular concern with the project is dust and noise, his question is, is good enough to meet laws and Codes good enough, an example is that the statutes and history does say thirty-five miles an hour for an hour in terms of wind, it is hoped that that will be modified, in earlier environmental meetings he had asked for twenty miles an hour yet would be delighted with twenty-five, that would be an example that would strike to the people that would be most affected. He mentioned that there is some mitigation for dust that requires watering twice per day, he has more concerns with dust that he did not hear mentioned, one is dust at night, if there is wind at night which blows towards the Leisure World residents it will not only impact them at night but blow onto Westminster and then in the morning when the cars use: that roadway the residents will have the dust a second time. with regard to noise, Mr. Sears said upon reading some of the early charts and in some of the volumes distributed in the I I I 7-28-03 I last few months some of the assumptions made are a concern, an example would be a mobile noise levels along westminster that assumed an average traffic speed of between thirty to forty-five miles an hour, upon observation he would think an average speed would be more like forty-five to fifty-five which will increase the decibel level. Another thing is the synergistic effect in that there will be mobile road noise, noise from the construction machinery for one to two years, and those combined with increased traffic will result in greater than under the three decibel level that has been projected in his opinion. Mr. Sears acknowledged that the City Code does allow for increased construction decibel levels during regular business hours, yet given that this is such a large project is it possible that they could do some amelioration or mitigation, for example on the western side of Leisure World there was recently some pile driving activity and part of the cost of that project was to install double paned windows in order to absorb sound in those units that would be most directly impacted, he had mentioned that in some of the earlier meetings however he has not heard any further reference to that. Mr. Sears again suggested that the dust generation be lowered by some means, that there be a hotline for residents to call, every possible mitigation effort should be put forth to minimize the incidence of noise and dust impacts on the Leisure World residents for inconvenience and health reasons. Mr. Sears concluded by reporting that Leisure World averages one hundred ten paramedic calls a month, they have a short trip to enter Leisure World but the trip north on the Boulevard is already difficult, he was uncertain as to a travel time from downtown, there is currently difficulty with traffic in general, the culprit being the bridge which is not due for any improvement until after 2006, he would suggest that someone try to expedite the time frame for the bridge widening. Mr. Bill Hurley, Leisure World resident, said he had a few comments to add to the record in addition to those that he had already made the Council aware of. Mr. Hurley mentioned the negative health affects on people like the Leisure World perimeter residents of excessive environmental noise, the EIR mentions only one, page 5.5-2 and table 5.5-1, a study from 1970 showing hearing damage at one hundred decibels for eight hours" there is a growing body of research showing more extensive links of ill health to environmental noise, in his research he has seen reference to a study in the 1990's showing increases in such things as cardiac and accidental deaths in people over seventy-five years resulting from loud environmental noise. Mr. Hurley said there is another example over and above those already provided Council of the EIR quoting standards that do not really apply to the sensitive receptors in Leisure World, directing attention to page 5.5-4 Mr. Hurley said when the State noise insulation standards for multi-unit dwellings, which is 45 dba interior units, was enacted when the Leisure World units were already ten years old and not required to meet that standard, the field testing, shown on 5.5-9, did not include but should have included sampling inside the Leisure World perimeter units to determine if the noise now is already above 45 dba and if so by how much, that needs to be known before you can estimate the effect of the project noise, both construction and long term on Leisure World perimeter residents. To Councilman Larson Mr. Hurley said he would assure that before he sent something to the members of the Council he inquired of the Planning Director if it would be alright to lobby members of the Council, he was told it was but did not mention the applicant, if there is a problem with what was I I 7-28-03 sent to the Council the problem is not with him but with staff or legal counsel. Mr. Corwin noted the comments with regard to air quality and air speed and an amendment to the Rule 403 standard, said Boeing is agreeable to reduce the wind speed threshold to twenty-five miles an hour and establish a City appointed monitor, and with regard to the undergrounding, he had made the statement that they had spoken to Edison in that regard, and said that Edison does not permit undergrounding of 66KV lines because of maintenance issues and the need to dig them up when there is a problem is a prohibitive expense, this issue was looked at through the EIR in terms of aesthetic impacts where none were identified, part of that has to do with the existing substantial screening along Westminster Avenue in mature trees as well as new improvements that will exist in Planning Area 3, those things combined led to the result of the discussions. I The City Attorney advised that prior to the closing of the public hearing it would be appropriate to enter into the record all of the staff reports, the four volumes of the Environmental Impact Report, and all of the comments from this public hearing. The Associate Planner said he believed that the traffic consultants would like to respond to the concerns expressed relating to the emergency access. Mr. Rich Barretto, Linscott, Law, and Greenspan, stated that in the Final EIR they did an analysis of the existing and projected service levels of the interchange with proposed improvements that are identified by the City in their Project Study Report and Project Report, there are five improvements, from that they could interprelate how the service levels at that interchange will improve, on page 14-28 of Volume II there is a Table that summarizes the service levels. Mr. Baretto said there is no disputing that it takes time to get across that interchange, it is bottlenecked, it is a four lane bridge section with single turn lanes to get on and off of that interchange, with the improvements of adding lanes at the intersections of the southbound and northbound ramps and provide additional off ramp lanes, the service levels then improve from Level Of Service F during the critical PM peak hour at both intersections to Level Of Service E and Level Of Service D, the overall capacity increases by over thirty percent, and from that based on definitions for delay in service levels a decrease in delay can be seen by about thirty to forty seconds to get through the intersection even with the project being built out, the bottleneck is the bridge but if capacity is added to the intersections it is possible to free up time for through movements on Seal Beach Boulevard by processing traffic much quicker and getting them through the intersection by adding additional turn lanes. I The City Attorney confirmed that the public testimony portion of the hearing could be closed, if there are further questions of the applicant this would be the time to pose them. The Mayor declared that public testimony was closed. I Councilman Antos said his comments relate to grading and wind speed, he expressed concern previously with mass grading, not just work, and inquired if it would be acceptable during mass grading of any of the areas to limit it to when the winds are twenty-five miles an hour or less, also watering at l~ast twice a day or as directed by staff. A second issue has to 7-28-03 I do with construction noise, it is clear that there is probably two types of construction noise, one would be using heavy equipment and/or pile drivers, etc. which would be for specific times and duration as opposed to regular construction involving hammering, cement trucks, etc., would the project team have any objection to contacting a designated person in Leisure World prior to commencing heavy grading to let them know what will be taking place so they can plan for it. Mr. Corwin responded that they are agreeable to the twenty-five mile per hour condition, the standard engineering conditions that City staff referred to are conditions of the Vesting Tentative Tract Map which contain a range of very detailed conditions to be complied with including the applicant providing its own monitor, a hotline number, provisions for watering in place, the scenario described would be acceptable if not already covered in the standard conditions in terms of multiple watering, it is believed there are also provisions that require construction area fencing, a chainlink type of fence slats, all of those things are acceptable in terms of providing a notice to someone prior to a major construction activity, some simple mechanism, that is agreeable, he clarified also that there is no pile driving on this project, these buildings are all on conventional spread footings. with regard to the noise issue Mr. Corwin said he has heard and learned several times from the testimony of the noise consultants that contrary to a laymans view that stationary and vehicular sources of noise become additive that in fact they are not. Councilman Doane clarified that the only Mutual in Leisure World that would be affected by the noise is Mutual Two and a person could be designated by that Mutual. The Mayor suggested a direct call to the Associate Planner, and Mr. Corwin said his understanding was that the request was for a contact person prior to a major construction noise event. Councilman Larson suggested that a construction schedule be provided the Leisure World News, a newspaper that most everyone reads, and inquired if the Boeing team considered installing the double paned windows for those units that face Westminster Avenue as did the Department of Water and Power when they did the Haynes Steamplant project. Mr. Corwin said based on all of the analysis and the input from the City and their consultants that was not considered, it was understood that was a markedly different project both in terms of scope, duration, and noise, one of the other suggestions that had been raised was to potentially increase the height of the existing wall, comments to that were that it is not allowed under City Code but maybe more importantly from one of the Planning Commissioners who raised concern that with a higher soundwall the resident population would lose the benefit of the prevailing breezes off of the ocean, it sounded as if that would create a greater problem than the problem being alleviated. Councilman Larson said his question was specific to the windows, acknowledged that it was a different type of project, however the window replacement served as a public relations benefit for the people whose residence faced to the west, the cost of the replacement is unknown. Mayor Campbell offered that if there are sixty units and two windows per unit, possibly $25,000, and asked if that could be a consideration. Mr. Corwin offered to consult with Boeing regarding that request. Councilman Doane said he did not believe that there are sixty units in direct line with where the construction will take place because a large portion of that area of Mutual Two is the Leisure World maintenance shed. I I 7-28-03 Councilman Yost referred to the hotel proposed for Planning Area 4, to him one of the greater benefits, and asked what the City can do to increase the chance that that will actually occur. Mr. Corwin said everyone from a user type situation like that wants to be wanted, wants to understand the development process in the City, that has been one of the challenges, they have talked to a range of hotel developers and operators who have expressed interest in the site, the biggest challenge so far is timing, and because of the challenges that are known in dealing with the Coastal Commission and their business planning cycle and to look out a year or more to make a commitment has been a big challenge, beyond that what could be done to attract a hotel developer obviously is to provide additional information in terms of demand, in terms of things that would be attractive that they might not be able to discover more easily on their own, market feasibility studies, which they will do, possibly a honeymoon from the Transient Occupancy Tax until they get ramped up and stabilized, possibly a year or two, since their interest is in getting a product built once they purchase a parcel of land to have assurances to have expedited processing of plans and building permits, work with them with regard to development fees, those are the types of tools that they would like to see to attract a particular user, this is not what a hotel operator would call an "A" site in terms of all of the characteristics that they look at, however there are several positives as well, the proximity to the coast, not much other product in the immediate area, proximity to Leisure World, proximity to Boeing, those are positives and that is how they have been able to generate interest to date. Councilman Yost offered that he has heard that the Ayres Hotel is the best performing financially of all of their units, that information may be helpful, again, to him the hotel is one of the better aspects of the project because it does bring in recurring revenue to the City, it can be well landscaped and be relatively attractive for the community, also located at the entrance to the project and the community, the City would like to assist in making certain that that transpires, and asked if increasing the time frame from eighteen months to two years would be of assistance. Mr. Corwin said the provision is actually an obligation to Boeing to market that property exclusively for a hotel and retail uses for an eighteen month period after Coastal Commission approval of the project, however after eighteen months if it looks like it is viable to build a hotel as opposed to one of the other approved land uses Boeing could, still pursue that as a potential user, what the provision of the Specific Plan says is that you can not do other land uses like light industrial/office as an example until the eighteen month period has expired, noted that Boeing has had good experience with hotels on other campuses, the market however has been fairly depressed since 911, it is coming back but slowly, in the most immediate past window expansion plans by the major chains have basically been put on hold or substantially minimized, as the economy improves he would expect that market to improve as well. Mayor Campbell inquired as to the target market for a hotel, the Ayres is in the area of the 405 Freeway and Extended Stay America is on the east side of the weapons Station. Mr. Corwin responded that the target market in terms of guest spaces would be similar to what Extended Stay America is capturing at McDonalds Center, but if a hotel product were next to the Boeing campus where that group of users would be a fairly large number, overnight and visitors because of the proximity to the coast, a different market segment, a new product that I I I 7-28-03 I is not a luxury product, not like the product seen in Huntington Beach, but has a better price point for a family that is looking for an extended stay vacation, visitors, family, and friends of residents of Leisure World, those are some of the market segments that it is understood a hotel operator would look for, contrast that with the Ayres product in the Bixby Center, they have confirmed that their project has been successful thus far, however it is understood that they are basically looking to attract drive-by traffic. Mr. Corwin reminded that this is not a huge hotel, it would be a one hundred to one hundred twenty room hotel. I Mayor Campbell made. reference to the statement that the project would generate fourteen to fifteen hundred jobs, to that she inquired as to the quality of those jobs. Mr. Corwin responded that it is a range, an order of magnitude projection from the fiscal impact consultants that compiled the study contained in the staff report, a range from white/gray collar type jobs to potentially light manufacturing to warehousing/distribution, the job menu largely dictated by users which is also dictated by where they might locate within the Business Park, there are twelve buildings that range in size from approximately thirty-five thousand square feet to about one hundred eighty thousand square feet, some of the larger buildings are designed to be divisible for multiple tenants, certainly the three parcels that front Westminster Avenue, shown as lots 1, 2, and 3 in the Specific Plan and on the map, they would expect to draw a higher image, more of a white collar research and development type user, one or two of the larger buildings in the back of the project may be more for warehousing and distribution, the projection is based upon a range of those type of uses. I Mayor Campbell then asked how far back is Island Village from this project. Mr. Corwin responded that the property line from the closest lot, lot 3 at the northwest corner of the project, is approximately two hundred thirty feet from the nearest residential unit, the residential units tend to backup and there is an intervening circulation road within that community, immediately after lot 3 as one goes south the property line of Island Village cuts away substantially therefore the lot to lot distance jumps to about three hundred seventy feet from lot 4 which is the next southerly lot, in addition, there is about a seventy foot setback on those two lots from the property line to the building itself, there is enhanced landscaping along the property line, various trash compactor units that are exterior, at the request of the Planning staff they have been moved to more muffled areas on the buildings, when one gets to about lot 5 it is probably six or seven hundred feet across the Los Alamitos Retention Basin. Mayor Campbell said she was wondering from building to building what that would look like to the Island Village residents. Mr. Corwin said from a prior plan that went through a mitigated negative declaration process around early 2001 some of the building orientations have been shifted in terms of where loading docks are, some changes have been made in window lines to deal with visual aesthetic concerns as that relates to concerns looking across into second level windows of the residences that are nearby, lighting standards are spelled out in great detail in the Specific Plan to shield lighting so that there is not glare at night into those residences, these are all benefits of the Specific Plan that not only increases the quality of the project but minimizes impacts to neighbors. 7-28-03 Mayor Campbell noted comments with regard to the different sources of revenue, sales tax, utility users tax, transient occupancy tax, and increased property tax, to which she said while the utility tax would increase, if the City were ever fortunate enough to reduce the utility tax that would be a source of revenue that would just disappear therefore can not be counted on forever like the sales tax. Mr. Corwin explained that if one looks at the breakdown of the increase of recurring revenue that is in the Robert Charles Lesser report in the Appendix and the increase over existing versus new under the two scenarios, what is called the middle case and the low case, while there is an increase of the utility users tax under those two scenarios it is believed it is about $150,000 of the $750,000 in scenario one and $450,000 in the second, there is another $70,000 to $80,000 in property tax that is a step up in the base that will only increase, there is an increment as analyzed of sales tax both from the commercial piece of about thirty thousand square feet next to the hotel which adds about another $100,000 with a projection of another $100,000 to $150,000 from point of sale opportunities which could be very large or very small. Mr. Corwin mentioned that there have been discussions of the various options of what might go in either under a CUP or existing zoning, whether it is a point of sale use that is not a traditional retailer or if it is a warehouse/showroom type operator like Pacific Sales, so the utility users tax is a significant piece, yet the other three pieces, sales, property and TOT are also significant, as well as the existing Boeing operation, even though it does go up and down, the business license tax that the existing campus pays to the City based upon contracts earned during a period of time can range from about $100,000 per year to an amount last year of about $400,000, the point being that there would be comparable type users whether they be government contractors or other defense contractors that may choose to locate in the Business Park because of the synergy of adjacency that could generate additional business license tax that would not go away, none of that is really accounted for in the fiscal analysis at all. I I with regard to traffic, Mayor Campbell agreed with the statements that the bridge is a bottleneck with no bridge widening anticipated for four to six years basically because that project is tied to the widening of the 22 Freeway, the widening project is starting at the 57 Freeway and working its way west, at present there is no budgeted money to take the widening past the 22 Freeway, yet the goal is to go to the 605 Freeway, that is a reason for the presentation by OCTA this evening relating to the aesthetics because that theme will be carried forward throughout the widening project, once the widening project reaches this community the intent is to widen the Freeway, widen and lengthen the bridge, the existing expanded right hand traffic lane to the north of the bridge is in anticipation of the bridge widening. Councilman Yost noted that within the Specific Plan there is a provision for on-sale and off-sale liquor establishments in all four Planning Areas, asked why there is need for liquor establishments in a Business Park, requiring a CUP of course. Mr. Corwin responded that he believed that was included with the CUP overlay simply to give the City the greatest amount of flexibility in order to attract and decide what type of food and beverage or restaurant users might come in, ;similar to the sit down restaurants in the Bixby Center, that is I 7-28-03 I nothing of importance to Boeing per se. Councilman Yost said he could understand Planning Area 4 but he could not understand Areas 2 or 3 which is proposed as a Business Park. The Development Services Director explained that from the business parks that he has looked at one often sees smaller buildings that have a number of service type uses to serve the employees of the area, a restaurant operation, dry cleaners, etc. within the business park development, this allows that type of use to come before the City under the Conditional Use Permit process to be considered on an individual basis, yet if felt to be inappropriate for certain Areas it could be eliminated. with reference to a warehouse/showroom use, Councilman Yost inquired as to what would that include. The Director said he would envision that Pacific Sales or Frys Electronics would fit into those categories, those uses would have to go through the Conditional Use Permit process and public hearing to assure the use is appropriate in that there are markedly different traffic impacts generated by those types of uses as compared to a business park use. Councilman Yost noted that those types of uses have not been considered in the EIR therefore why would such uses be included in the Specific Plan, would that not require recirculation of an EIR and should that be contemplated. The Director noted that the process would be similar to that of Bixby where projects came in, the restaurant uses were switched from one end of the Center to the other, a greater trip generation use moved to a certain area, and as that process went through the Conditional Use Permit review there was further evaluation of traffic impacts, noise, and air quality, in those cases if substantial impacts are found that need further mitigation a mitigated negative declaration needs to be prepared to deal with those issues, one can not project those things until there is a specific user in mind to know what the impacts would actually be. Councilman Yost then said this started out with zoning as a high tech business park, the project was sold on that basis, then on the last line of a chart in small print it gives the possibility of a Frys and Home Depot coming onto the site yet none of those have been described in the EIR, he does not understand how that can be done. The Director responded that it can under the process where there are no identified users and they must come back for subsequent review at a later point if a discretionary application is filed, a request from someone to bring in a certain type of a use, if the users that eventually come into this particular project are all permitted uses without needing a Conditional Use Permit those uses are the ones that were evaluated in the EIR document, uses that require a CUP are fairly speculative, it is not known what they may be or how large they may be, or what the trip generation characteristics are, and until those things are known they can not be evaluated, that is a subsequent evaluation at a later point in time. Councilman Yost then asked what triggers recirculating an EIR and going back through the process. The Director explained there are a number of trigger points but it probably would not be a full EIR rather a mitigated negative declaration where there are a limited number of impacts that require evaluation that can be mitigated to a level of less than significant, if there is an impact that can not be mitigated to a less than significant level through the further evaluation then there is a requirement to do a supplemental EIR, it depends on the capability of the project and the ability to mitigate the impacts to a less than significant level. The City Attorney confirmed the correctness of the statement by the Director, at the time that they may come in with a new use that I I 7-28-03 requires a CUP or some type of discretionary permit, the City would do an initial study, analyze the environmental impacts of that particular use, a finding could be made that it is already within the scope of the EIR, it could be a negative declaration, a mitigated negative declaration, or if the impacts are substantial enough it could be a supplement to the EIR. Mr. Corwin added his comments from a different perspective in terms of their feasibility of looking at various options informally, stating that they did not talk to most of the users that are being thought of, this is not a site that they would be interested in, secondly as planned and proposed through the Vesting Tentative Tract Map there are no lots that would be appropriate at least under any of their business models. Councilman Yost inquired as to the parking that would be required for something like that, are there any lots that have that amount of parking under the Vesting Tentative Tract Map. The Development Services Director stated there is not, generally the parking for those uses and the City requirements probably are not sufficient for what those types of uses need to provide, the City requirement is basically one space per three hundred square feet of building area, most times it is found that those types of uses will want to provide five spaces per thousand square feet, none of the properties in this area provide parking in those ratios. The Mayor stated her belief is that a Home Depot needs something like twelve to fifteen acres, neither Costco, Home Depot, or Wal-Mart were interested. Mayor Campbell declared the public hearing to be closed. I It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council, to declare a recess at 10:16 p.m. The Council reconvened at 10:26 p.m. with Mayor Campbell calling the meeting to order. I Councilman Yost stated that it seems as if every time there is a project the height limit goes up by five feet, traditionally he has been very cognizant of the height limits in Seal Beach, if Boeing stayed with their existing zoning and did the mitigated negative declaration they could not build anything higher than thirty-five feet without a variance, now with the Specific Plan they are going to forty feet, the question is why. The Associate Planner said he believes there are a number of reasons, with a slightly taller height limit one can create the capability of having mezzanine level in certain sections of the buildings which makes the buildings more marketable to certain segments, as one looks at the Specific Plan, the reason the staff thinks that it is more palatable is that there are greater setback situations that would allow for those buildings to be further offset from outside property lines which makes them less visually intrusive going up as one may otherwise have with the existing zoning, there are also additional landscaping treatments and design guidelines that the current M-l zoning does not require which would also offset the visual impact of the additional five feet. The Development Services Director explained that the current M-l zoning has a minimum lot size of ten thousand square feet which is approximately a quarter of an acre and a fifteen foot setback requirement from all property lines, therefore under the current M-I zoning there could be thirty-five foot buildings fifteen feet away from a property line, the Specific Plan allows forty foot buildings, the smallest lot proposed under the Business Park development is two and a half acres, those are lots ten times the minimum lot size allowed and as indicated with greater setback distances, the minimum is about seventy feet from a property line as opposed to fifteen feet, therefore the buildlng is I 7-28-03 I set back further with more landscaping, it is felt that helps the marketability of the buildings by being able to have the mezzanine level for the types of business uses that need offices as part of their use, or for research and development use in particular, that was the thought process upon looking at the Specific Plan. Councilman Yost asked if gymnasiums, like volleyball gymnasiums, etc. have been looked at in terms of business models and contemplated, the Director responded that he believed that is allowed by a Conditional Use Permit. Councilman Yost also inquired as to the thought of increasing the time from eighteen months to two years to require Boeing to shop the hotel area, to him that is one of the major benefits to the community to ensure that that is built. The Associate Planner offered that staff definitely considered that, in fact originally was looking at a three year time frame, went back and forth with the Boeing team as to what that time period should be, eighteen months was an arbitrary amount of time that was agreeable to all, staff was looking at ways to generate additional revenue and the Transient Occupancy Tax was one way to do that, of concern as the Plan was development was that if the hotel did not go in a large portion of the proposed revenue would never occur, staff did look for a longer time period. Councilman Yost proposed that the time frame be extended to thirty-six months. I Looking at the Conditions of Approval, Mayor Campbell cited the condition to provide a solution to the flooding problems which exist after heavy rains along the eastern edge of the Boeing property on Seal Beach Boulevard. Councilman Yost said he would not only require them to do the study but to resolve the issue, at least find a way to get that accomplished in the short term as that is a major problem for anyone traveling that roadway any time that it rains, it reduces from a four lane road to a two and a half lane road, it is a major issue for anyone coming up and down Seal Beach Boulevard, it would be nice to find a way as this project goes forward to get that taken care of in the short term, especially with the added traffic that will occur as a result of the development, it seems that a connection can be made between how bad the travel will be and the increased traffic that will be on that road. Mayor Campbell asked if the Conditions of Approval have been agreed to, to that the response of the Associate Planner was that they are proposed Conditions of Approval on the Tract Map, they are further broken down based upon certain time frames, an example would be before a building permit is issued, some before a Certificate of Occupancy is granted for a building on a certain lot, and confirmed that Boeing has ,agreed to those conditions as currently drafted and set forth in Attachment Two. The Mayor proceeded to clarify that Boeing has agreed to provide a mechanism to provide for maintenance of landscaping to be dedicated to the City of Seal Beach, the response was yes, to provide a solution for the flooding problems that exists after heavy rains along the eastern edge of the Boeing property along Seal Beach Boulevard, the response was yes yet with a caveat, they have agreed to fix the problem at such time as development occurs on Planning Area 4. Mayor Campbell offered that if the time frame to market a hotel is extended to three years that then delays a resolution to the flooding problem. Councilman Yost said he is desirous of making certain that the City gets the best long term benefit, which is the hotel, the flooding needs to be taken care of and if there is a way to get that done in a shorter time period it should, yet the long term benefits need to be looked at in terms of aesthetics and income, that I 7-28-03 is the hotel. The Development Services Director suggested that a thought be kept in mind that it may be difficult to determine what all of the future drainage issues may be in the area as a result of not knowing how Planning Area 4 may be developed, under the scenario being discussed it could be that a plan would be approved to deal with the existing flooding problem that may require further correction once it is known what is proposed for Area 4, that was the reasoning for the suggestion to wait until that is known, the drainage analysis would be concluded and everything would be dealt with at one time. Councilman Yost said if the time frame for a hotel is extended to three years Boeing will have a lot that they will be paying on for a longer period of time so it would behoove them to develop it in the way it is zoned and conditioned, he would recommend a period of three years, the hotel is important for the long term recurring revenue stream to the City. Mayor Campbell asked if the building height concerns had been responded to satisfactorily, the response of Councilman Yost was reluctantly yes, stating he has always been a staunch opponent of raising height limits however in this case and given the lot sizes are ten times the size of what they would be under existing zoning, the setbacks and landscaping, this in exchange for making certain that the drainage problem is resolved in the short term and ensuring to the best of ability that a hotel is built. I Mayor Campbell inquired as to how double paned windows can be addressed in the documents. The Development Services Director suggested that if the intent is to impose a condition on the project, whether it be the installation of windows or an evaluation of cost, would be to require whatever is to be done prior to the issuance of a grading permit for any work in Planning Area 3, a condition on the Vesting Tract Map. Mayor Campbell said she would like to see a cost evaluation, if it should be cost prohibitive that may not be something that Council would want to impose, given the fact that windows were installed prior to the DWP project it seems that it would not be cost prohibitive, however this should be looked into because seniors are not as resistant as the general population and it becomes a health issue. The Director suggested that at the time of consideration of the final Vesting Map the Council may wish to require that the evaluation be presented and considered by Council and a determination made as to whether or not it is appropriate to require the window replacement, if approved that would then be a condition prior to the issuance of a grading permit. with regard to Planning Commission control, Councilman Yost noted that the documents were drafted requiring Planning Commission review of the Precise Plan, the architectural features above the height limit, and the changes that were less than ten percent of the plan yet in the Specific Plan it states that is to be done by the Director of Development Services, his feeling is that they should go before the Planning Commission as they traditionally have, he would not be comfortable having that done at the administrative level, it needs to be done in a public forum. The Director confirmed that the resolutions do reflect the recommendation of the Planning Commission that those items go back to them for final review. I I Councilman Antos referred to the Grading section, 3.1 of the proposed Resolution dealing with the Tract Map, in his opinion that is where there should be a requirement for a , plan to be submitted to the Director of Development Service for a program to notice upcoming construction to be provided 7-28-03 I the Golden Rain News or some other appropriate mechanism so that they are aware beforehand, and under section 3.2.6 there is reference to the AQMD Rule 403, that should be modified to a twenty-five mile an hour wind as opposed to the unmodified Rule 403. The Director suggested that it may be better reflected in the Mitigation Monitoring Program where there is an entire section dealing with all of the air quality dust provisions, that would be on page 128 of the EIR certification Resolution, the grading terms used by staff are rough grading and precise grading, his understanding is that the rough grading permit would reflect the twenty-five mile an hour limit for one hour, the precise grading would reflect a thirty-five mile an hour wind, if correct those changes will be made to the Mitigation Monitoring Program and include the notification procedure to Leisure World as well. Councilman Antos indicated agreement. I Mayor Campbell reviewed the EQCB recommendations once again, there was Council concurrence to reduce the wind speed and duration from thirty-five to twenty-five miles an hour, the remainder of their recommendations dealt with noise, their feeling was that the long term noise impact analysis was inadequate, did not sufficiently mitigate noise impacts, the short term construction analysis was inadequate with respect to sensitive receptors and the proposed mitigation did not adequately address short term noise impacts, the traffic analysis of the Leisure World entries was inaccurate, that the long term traffic analysis and proposed mitigation is inadequate, and consideration of future buildout pursuant to the Circulation Element of the General Plan of the Seal Beach Boulevard bridge widening over the 405 should be considered within the EIR document. At the request of the Mayor, the Associate Planner explained that the things said at the EQCB hearing related to existing noise levels and that any increase over that should be considered significant no matter what the increase, under CEQA the document needs to analyze whether or not the increase itself is a significant increase that would need to be mitigated, the noise analysis indicates that the average human ear would not detect any noticeable increase in noise over what is currently existing, therefore from a CEQA standpoint there is not a significant increase in long term operational noise, as mentioned previously, the main bulk of noise is existing traffic on Westminster Avenue, from the staff standpoint the long term operational noise is not a significant impact under CEQA. As it relates to the short term construction noise the City Code exempts that noise from any type of noise standard, a building could not be built without using equipment and equipment has some impact, traditionally CEQA looks at those impacts as being short term and non-significant therefore those noise impacts have been analyzed as such. Mayor Campbell inquired as to the projected increase of vehicles a day on Westminster Avenue. Mr. Barretta quoted from the traffic study that the existing traffic on Westminster Avenue adjacent to the site ranges from twenty-three thousand to twenty-four thousand vehicles per day, projected to increase to twenty-nine or thirty thousand vehicles per day, the existing daily service level of the roadway is "B" then degrades to a level of service "D" which is still acceptable. The Mayor said she was making a comparison to Lampson Avenue which has increased by two thousand vehicles a day since the Bixby Center, she looks at the impact on the homes that back to the street, this project will be a five to six thousand vehicle per day increase, the question is the impact on the Leisure World residents. It was stated that it is necessary to compare the I , 7-28-03 numbers to the capacity of the roadway, Westminster has a greater capacity, also, an increase of five thousand versus two thousand cars does not necessarily mean there will be three times the noise impact. Mr. Torres explained that for noise they use a model that is provided by CalTrans, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Transit Administration, this model is the most widely used for municipal projects, EIR's, Negative Declarations, etc., they use the traffic information that is given to them and model the scenarios given, the existing and the existing plus project which gives the increase for the project, they model future levels and future with project to ascertain what the difference would be with the future building when the project is complete. Based upon the difference and the capacity of Westminster Avenue it does have a higher capacity than most roads based upon the lane configurations and width of the roadway and the distance of the residences from the centerline of the roadway which is the center point of the road, based upon that the maximum increase from no project to project is 1.1 decibels, based upon multiple references and research they have done from the scientific level and the administrative level from CalTrans and Federal Highway Administrations the most standardly used criteria level is that anything less than 3 decibels is not noticeable to the human ear, typically only noticeable under laboratory conditions however in the field and in common practice anything less than 3 decibels is not significant for most CEQA documents, that is the standard that they used. Based upon the increase of 1.1 decibels from no project to project it was determined that the impact would be less than significant to the receptors. Mayor Campbell said then what is being said is that the traffic will be increased six thousand vehicles a day and the decibels will only be increased by .l. Mr. Torres said another thing that needs to be looked at as well is that when traffic levels are lower, currently the vehicles on Westminster Avenue is about twenty- three thousand vehicles a day, if there was a road with vehicles in the range of eight to twelve thousand and it was increased by five to six thousand vehicles there would be a bigger difference. Mayor Campbell made reference to peak travel times, from her experience from about 6:30 until 8:00 a.m..and 4:30 to 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. the traffic increases significantly. Mr. Torres offered that since the traffic levels on Westminster are currently high there is already a high noise level, common practice in the acoustics field too is that when there is that significant level of traffic, twenty to thirty thousand vehicles, the noise increase per couple of thousand vehicles gets smaller and smaller, if there were forty thousand vehicles and ten thousand were added the noise would increase by I or 2 decibels at the most, it does not add up on the mathematics scale, the model does take into account the worst case parameters, it assumed that there was no vegetation surrounding the project site along westminster Avenue, it assumed it was all a hard site which means it is all street scapes, sidewalks, asphalt, no intervening barrier, that the residences within the contour band were within fifty feet of the roadway, some residences are much further than that but they took a conservative, worst case analysis, that is why they were confident in their results of a 1.1 decibel increase with the project traffic levels, if there was a lower traffic level of possibly ten thousand vehicles and traffic was increased by five thousand there would have been a greater increase in noise, since there are already a greater number of vehicles the increase due to the project will not be significant. Mayor Campbell I I I 7-28-03 I noted the plant growth adjacent to the Leisure World wall and asked if that absorbs any of the sound. Mr. Torres responded that they typically do, a wall will absorb' 5 to 8 decibels and according to the research done by the Federal Highway Administration, foliage, trees or shrubs will reduce noise by 1 to 3 decibels depending on the density, however in their analysis they did not assume any intervention by vegetation. I Mayor Campbell stated that she had completed her list, the height limit, looking into the double paned windows, reduction of the wind speed, future review and approvals will be through the Planning Commission rather than staff, the hotline will be the Associate Planner by day and a Leisure World designee for evening hours. Councilman Yost said he would like to extend to three years the time period for the hotel to be shopped, that the drainage study be prepared and that the flooding problem be remedied in the short run as well, the time frame being within eighteen months after approval of the project by the Coastal Commission. Councilman Larson said something should be learned from the Bixby project, if the City does not get the concessions that they want now it likely never will, with this project there is nothing for certain, just lots, the street will not go through unless the buildings are torn down and it is not known whether they will ever do that, if they are a successful company they will expand, it is not known if they will get a hotel, he really does not want to vote on anything until it is known exactly, he agrees with the dust control measures, the hotline, that the windows should go in, he will assume the number of windows mentioned by Councilman Doane are correct, the cost can not be that great, he supports the Planning Commission approvals rather than staff, would like assurance that with the height of the buildings that they not be allowed to have noisy air conditioning equipment or other equipment on the roof, that could be a noise problem, and he supports the construction notification to the Golden Rain News. He mentioned also that the City went through the bridge problem with Bixby, whether the Council articulated or not the City accepted the fact that the bridge is not going in because of problems with the Orange County Transportation Authority and CalTrans, therefore the problems that exist must be accepted by reason of the bridge not being improved, it is not certain why but Seal Beach Boulevard is busy, some of the problems will be solved by the work that is currently being done at Westminster and Seal Beach Boulevard, there will now be two southbound left turns from the Boulevard onto Westminster, that will help. Councilman Larson said he wants to make certain that the City gets what has been conceded, if the Vested Tentative Map is approved that is final, the City may not get what it wants in some instances depending on what the market is, that needs to be understood, he also appreciates the concern of the Council for the residents of Leisure World, shares the concern of the Mayor with regard to traffic noise impacts, yet if the Council can be assured by staff that the City will get what has been discussed then his vote will likely be yes. I Councilman Yost asked if there was a desire to hold this matter over to the next meeting to allow additional time for review of the information. Councilman Larson said his understanding is that due to personnel absences it would need to be held over until a future meeting rather than the next meeting. The Development Services Director said the concern is with Council having questions of the Engineering Department regarding conditions on the Tentative Tract Map in 7-28-03 particular as the Deputy City Engineer will not be available during the month of August, if there are questions that can resolved at this meeting then the item could be brought back to Council at the next meeting. It was suggested that the Council may want to take action on the EIR Resolution and hold first reading of the Ordinance adopting the zone change, defer action on the Subdivision Resolution until the second reading of the Ordinance, and there may not be a need for the Engineering Department to be present at the next meeting since the public hearing is closed, the issues being discussed are not engineering issues. I Mayor Campbell inquired about the location of loading docks and times of delivery. The Director explained that those are already specified in the Precise Plan approvals that have been granted on the project, as part of those approvals there is an additional noise analysis required of the loading dock area once it is known who the end user of the building is going to be and what equipment they will have in the loading dock area, that is a requirement that will need to be complied with, if the analysis does not show adverse impacts they will be able to move forward, if there are they will need to come before the Planning Commission for amendments to the Precise Plan approvals. Mayor Campbell expressed her preference to continue this matter until the Deputy Engineer returns. Councilman Doane noted that there are five recommendations being discussed, the applicant and his team have worked a long time on this project, if there are just a few problems they can be taken care of through the mitigation mentioned, the Engineer will be away the month of August, there is no first meeting in September, it would not be considered again until the end of September, and he would support the suggestion of the City Attorney. I The City Attorney explained that the law requires that the EIR be certified first, that Resolution could be adopted except that the Director has some changes to the mitigation measures, then have the first reading of the Ordinance, then the other resolutions could be deferred, the key item is the conditions to the Tentative Map, the other resolutions do not have conditions. The Director stated that the one change he would propose to the EIR Resolution would be to mitigation measure 5.4-la, page 128, it would be to set up two categories for stoppage of work as opposed to the existing one category, for rough grading if the wind exceeds twenty-five miles an hour the grading stops, for precise grading if the wind exceeds thirty-five miles an hour, and incorporate into that the language in the general conditions of the Vesting Tentative Tract Map as to notification, and specify that the property needs to be posted with phone numbers for people to call. The City Attorney added the notification to the newspaper and a contact for Mutual 2. with regard to the issues of drainage and increasing the length of time to shop the hotel to three years, Councilman Yost asked if those are included in the Vesting Tentative Tract Map or will they be contained in the proposed ordinance or resolutions, the response was that the drainage would be part of the Tentative Tract Map, the three year marketing time would be a Specific Plan provision. The City Attorney explained that the marketing time extension can be done now, his concern is with the drainage and windows, his feeling is that that is language the Council needs to see. Couricilman I 7-28-03 I Yost mentioned that this land has been vacant for some thirty-five years or more, another couple of weeks should not matter, this needs to be right. The Director said it may be whether the Council is comfortable with the changes that have been discussed, they are not an engineering technical issue, rather policy issues for window replacement, wind speeds, time of marketing the property, and time of improvements on Seal Beach Boulevard to resolve the drainage issue, therefore the remaining documents could be brought to the Council on August 11th. The City Attorney again clarified that the only Ordinance to consider is to change the zoning designation, and it requires a first and second reading. Councilman Yost asked if it would be possible to include actual travel times for emergency vehicles into the EIR by the next meeting, and if it is increased how many lives that would mean in a year. The response of the Director was that if changes are desired to the EIR it would require finding that the EIR is inadequate, cite what is inadequate, that requires a whole different analysis, the EIR has been recommended as adequate by the EQCB, Archaeological Committee, and Planning Commission, to go back and consider travel times that have not been evaluated at all and would require recirculating the entire document. Councilman Larson noted that he sits on the Orange County Fire Authority Board of Directors, he gets calls that the fire response was twenty minutes and upon checking it is found that it took ninety seconds, the Fire Department can also use the center divider in which to travel, he would not like to hold up the EIR for the emergency travel times. with regard to continuing this item until August 11th, it was noted that the water rate study will be on that agenda, preference would be that both items not be on the same agenda, the length of the consideration would depend largely on how the Council comes together on the issues, if the changes are to the resolutions to reflect the wind speeds, analysis of window replacements, marketing time for the hotel, and requiring the drainage improvements to be done in eighteen months after Coastal Commission of the project, they can likely be done fairly quickly, however if the issues are to reevaluate the EIR and have a travel analysis done, that would require recirculating the EIR and start the approval process over again. Councilman Yost recommended that the drainage improvements be done within twelve months of Coastal Commission approval of the project rather than eighteen months. Councilman Antos asked if the study would be completed by that time. The Associate Planner mentioned that the way the drainage study condition is worded it requires the study to be done when something happens on either the north or south phase, it is felt that twelve months will likely pass before the condition for the study would need to be complied with, if the Council were to require some action to occur with regard to the drainage within twelve months of Coastal Commission approval the other condition would become mute because they would need to do that study and fix the problem within twelve months. The Director suggested that consideration be given to approving the EIR Resolution as presented with the modification to the wind speeds under mitigation measure 5.4-la, and adopt the mitigation plan, introduce the Ordinance adopting the zone change, then carryover the second reading of Ordinance 1504 and the remaining Resolutions until the next meeting or another future meeting. Councilman Yost said his problem is that nothing is known about this project, things keep changing, Apollo Drive keeps changing, everything is fluid, nothing is specific, it makes it difficult to make a decision. I I 7-28-03 Larson moved, second by Yost, to adopt Resolution Number 5149 entitled "A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH CERTIFYING THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS (BIDS) SPECIFIC PLAN, MAKING FINDINGS PURSUANT TO THE CALIFRNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT, ADOPTING A STATEMENT OF OVERRIDING CONSIDERATIONS, AND ADOPTING A MITIGATION MONITORING PROGRAM" as amended to reflect the reduction of the wind speed during rough grading from thirty-five miles per hour to twenty-five miles per hour. By unanimous consent, full reading of Resolution Number 5149 was waived. I AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried It was again stated that the window issue would be dealt with under the Vesting Tentative Tract Map, height issues would be considered under the Specific Plan. Doane moved, second by Larson, to approve the introduction of Ordinance Number 1504 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SEAL BEACH ADOPTING ZONE CHANGE 03-2, CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM LIGHT MANUFACTURING (M-l) TO SPECIFIC PLAN REGULATION (SPR) AT THE BOEING INTEGRATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS PROPERTY (2201 SEAL BEACH BOULEVARD)." By unanimous consent, full reading of Ordinance Number 1504 was waived. It was explained that Ordinance Number 1504 merely changes the zoning on the property from M-l to Specific Plan Regulation, this is the first reading, second reading will be held at the next or a future meeting at which time the Resolution will be considered to make the amendments to the Specific Plan, which includes the recommendations from the Planning Commission, plus the changes that are felt need to be incorporated based upon the discussion of the Council. I Vote on the first reading of Ordinance Number 1504: AYES: NOES: Antos, Campbell, Doane, Larson, Yost None Motion carried Councilman Larson recommended that the remaining Boeing items be continued until the meeting of August lIth. No objection was raised. CITY ATTORNEY REPORT No report was presented. CITY MANAGER REPORT The Director of Development Services thanked the Council for their patience in working through the Boeing project process to the point that it is now. COUNCIL COMMENTS Councilman Yost requested that staff look into Pavilions being a curfew Center, look at ordinances and ways to condition the center so that the noise is mitigated on that site for the residents that live nearby, he is aware that there are other communities that have curfew ordinances and stores. Councilman Antos inquired as to when the next Redevelopment Agency meeting will be held. Mayor Campbell said possibly the last meeting in August. Mayor Campbell reported that she wrote an article this past week on slurry sealing versus repaving, provided the article to the Sun who did not print it, the News Enterprise did, it is also on I 7-28-03 / 8-11-03 the City website under her name, that she will be providing weekly or bi-weekly updates as to things going on in the City which will also be posted on the website. I CLOSED SESSION It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council, to adjourn the meeting until August 11th at 6:30 p.m. to meet in Closed Session if necessary. By unanimous consent, the meeting was adjourned at 11:23 p.m. clerk Approved: ~a1Ji1~1 rt~ [}wA( ~ City Clerk Attest: I Seal Beach, California August 11, 2003 The City Council of the City of Seal Beach met in regular adjourned session at 6:30 p.m. with Mayor Campbell calling the meeting to order with the Salute to the Flag. ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Campbell Councilmembers Antos, Doane, Larson Absent: Councilmember Yost Councilmember Yost arrived at 6:32 p.m. Also present: Mr. Bahorski, City Manager Mr. Barrow, City Attorney Ms. Yeo, City Clerk I The City Attorney announced that this would be the time for any member of the public to speak to the two items identified on the agenda. In response to a public objection to the Council meeting in Closed Session at this time it was explained that this is an adjourned meeting from the last regular meeting, the regular Council meeting does not commence until 7:00 p.m. CLOSED SESSION The City Attorney announced that the Council would meet in Closed Session to discuss the items identified on the agenda, to confer with legal counsel with regard to anticipated litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(b), and to confer with the City's labor negotiator with regard to the Management/Mid Management Employees and Supervisors and