We are mirroring the Save Glendale Riverside Rancho Urgent Alert announcement posted on Nextdoor.com, to attend the media advisory on May 7, 2019.
SaveGlendale RiversideRancho
, Riverside Rancho
Urgent Alert: PLEASE ATTEND THE MEDIA ADVISORY ON TUESDAY, MAY 7TH NEAR THE PROPOSED HOTEL. We are planning a Media Advisory on Tuesday, May 7th (the morning before the City Council meets with the hotel on Victory appeal. (we will provide time and address shortly) to invite broadcast TV news to increase awareness of community efforts and concerns of the impact of the hotel in the neighborhood, affecting traffic circulation, pedestrian safety, etc. We do need everyone concerned to come to this as well. Media can interview you, if you like of your concerns. But even if you do not speak is fine. We need residents to attend. Bring or make signs, as media will come when they know there will be a crowd and hopefully in the morning before school begins. This will help to increase public awareness, and especially to make the City Council to be aware. And also, again on May 7th, at 6pm come to City Council as well. Even if you do not speak, when we do, we will ask everyone who is here who oppose the hotel to stand. We shall be in touch shortly with the time and location, but please plan on attending the Media Advisory on Tuesday morning.
I will definitely try to make it however no guarantee that I’ll have a sign but I’m the big mouth .
We urge City Council to support reversal of the Design Review Board’s January 2019 approval of the Victory Hotel re-design which failed its first hearing in May 2018. At first, the notion of a “boutique hotel” on Victory between Western and Winchester was appealing. There was no NIMBY-ism.
But, scrutiny led to discouragement, concern, even fear, and finally opposition. There was a growing conviction that all was not right with the Applicant’s project nor his team—not the design, the process with staff, the outreach, nor the incompatibility with the Rancho’s historic, equestrian, and unique community worthy of protection and preservation.
Residents remained troubled over public safety; environmental issues; crossing dangers for students, riders, and park users; and regarding the expectation of a design—albeit commercial—that would respect and reflect decades of the area’s natural and architectural past—not an ersatz Euro-style box whose design has little logical and directional relationship to this Rancho site.
Reasons for the Appeal include:
1. The design takes the busy, congested public alley to use for its driveway to access a 2-story underground garage from the hotel’s side facing the Chevron. Mitigate this by reducing the 64 rooms for space to install a dedicated driveway there. Include more robust investigation by city traffic engineers and the GPD traffic unit. The alley now serves residents’ garages; the Chevron and mini-mart; vendor, telecom, and city vehicles; emergency vehicles; visitor cut-through traffic; and is impacted by Franklin School drop-offs and pick-ups.
Hotel access to a front garage via NB Victory is difficult due to others’ right turns into the gas station and onto Western plus it’s the bus lane, or from SB Victory a few yards south of Western, needing a left turn pocket too near that intersection with its many turn pockets. Unless the hotel frontage is pushed back to allow for a large curb cut-in and driveway apron? So far, the set-up is terribly wrong. DRB recently zilched use of an alley behind a proposed 727 Sonora office building with similar but fewer problems. Why not this one?
2. The siting of the second-floor pool deck facing NE overlooking Winchester homes, which re-design mitigations still do nothing to ensure adjacent quiet enjoyment, sunlight, and privacy. A last-minute “sun study” was woefully incomplete. Moving the pool to the hotel’s front on Victory facing SW would be more appealing to guests using it at workday’s end for park ridge views of the sunset. Or eliminate the pool altogether to make space for rooms lost on the driveway side. It need not replicate a big downtown hotel.
3. The inadequacies of the Mitigated Neg Doc regarding toxic soils where a longtime auto-and-petroleum products business operated before the Applicant’s purchase two years ago. The many issues are not “insignificant” as assessed by the Applicant’s hired enviro firm and accepted by staff.
Further, the City Attorney had to order a cleanup of the eyesore after resident public health and safety complaints reported illegal sheds against a resident’s fence, storage of numerous old cars, trash, and various containers of liquids.
Only two cats of those trapped by the Applicant’s hired trapper were delivered to Pasadena Humane, which is city ordinance. Ongoing neighborhood trap-neuter-return efforts were successful for the ferals, but fears that pets were trapped were ignored. Residents called police and humane officers to the site to help exit two heard crying in sheds, to avoid animal abuse.
4. Despite the Applicant’s opinion, their public outreach has been inadequate and confusing. Last-minute tiny invites dropped off to a few residents, and event set-ups at a distant Glendale eatery and two Burbank store fronts, were unprofessional and unsatisfying. Glendale commercial projects adjacent to homes require better organization, receptivity to concerns, and genuine connectivity. Rick Caruso, where art thou?
We’re depending on council and staff to order re-design following more thorough staff vetting to restore our faith in the city’s process and its care for neighborhoods, to stem the uptick in unchecked, incompatible development lacking enough oversight. The Rancho is a gem in the Jewel City, and deserves no less.
Please stop the overdevelopment of Glendale. This hotel is not necessary nor wanted in this neighborhood. You have designated area’s for hotels in the Colorado Blvd near the Galaria and on Glenoaks between Brand and Pacific. Building this eyesore will create a traffic Nightmare, and who is to say, you build one are more hotel’s to come in the near future? Please do not destroy this beautiful neighborhood. Thank you for your time.
David Quackenbush