REMINDER: The Glendale Design Review Board Meeting is tonight, January 10, 2019 @ 5:00 p.m. in Room 105 of the Municipal Services Bldg. 633 E Broadway, next to City Hall. Ample free parking behind, access using Wilson Ave.
The Design Review Board will re-review amended plans by Applicant Jayesh Kumar and his associates. Please attend to speak and/or to learn more about this issue.
The proposed design is oversized (three stories with no less than 64 rooms with little peripheral landscaping, would use a public alley to access its underground garage that is already used by Western and Winchester residents to access their own garages, and by the Chevron minimart delivery trucks). The property, many feel, has not been vetted thoroughly enough in the Environmental Impact Report for its decades of toxic waste and debris associated with the operation of an auto repair/sales/storage business, which concerns the soils, water, and dust from demolition and construction on nearby homes and structures. Benjamin Franklin Elementary School is one block away! Complex traffic issues at the Western-Victory intersection that serves also as the link between the I-5 and the 134 would be compounded by hotel traffic—as would nearby equestrian crossings and park user activity!
Numerous other concerns residents have are: the reduction of quality of life issues such as privacy of R-1 residential neighbors, elimination of sunlight, and depreciation of property values due to a poorly planned project. Additionally, neighbors have very strong reservations, and lack of confidence in the development team, due to past and present neglect of the site and other projects associated with its members.
Outreach meetings called by the Applicant have been poorly planned, poorly attended, ineffective, and were only orchestrated to appease the DRB and offer superficial cosmetic changes while the far more serious concerns of residents have been ignored. As a result, the neighbors, the Glendale Rancho Neighborhood Association, local businesses, and users of Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, have taken it upon themselves to bring awareness of the project proposal to ALL interested parties so that developers were unable to proceed with this project while citizens remained oblivious to their intentions.
Thank you for your concern and emails. Please remind your friends, family, and neighbors to sign the petition opposing this project. NOTE: this project was first presented to the DRB last June 14, 2018, and was rejected by the five-member board to be returned with changes.
Also, in the background is the chronic issue of whether Community Development’s planning staff adequately pre-review Applicants, their associates, and their projects in the context of more than simple profits to made within neighborhoods that interface with commercial zones. There is growing concern that much is left up to the DRB (currently with only four members) and hapless residents. Thanks for your interest! Stay tuned. This is as sobering as last year’s months-long SaveTheRancho opposition to the potential zoning change that would have allowed for a large condo complex amid the Riverside Rancho’s commercial equestrian services sector. It was fought, and the Rancho won!
We can win again! And, at NoVictoryHotel, winning means developing the site from an eyesore resembling urban blight into an asset that enhances the Glendale Rancho, beautifies the area, and is respectful of the needs of the surrounding community.
I am sorry I can not make tonight meeting. I would however like to state that this is the wrong use, from the wrong developer for this location. As a homeowner within a mile of the property, I do not want my property value to diminish from such development.
I support this project. The location is an absolute eye sore and I drive by it everyday. This area is in need of a new development to enhance the area that has been neglected for sometime. Most of the buildings are old. We live in an area where there is growth. A building such as this will hopefully allow other properties in the area to be more enhanced as well. Majority of the apartment buildings and houses are run down and we need some change in the area.
With this:
“The location is an absolute eye sore and I drive by it everyday. This area is in need of a new development to enhance the area that has been neglected for sometime. ”
We completely agree!
However this applicant has shown that they are here merely for profit, and they refuse to work with the neighborhood to give us a development that makes everyone a winner.
As we wrote in our post:
“winning means developing the site from an eyesore resembling urban blight into an asset that enhances the Glendale Rancho, beautifies the area, and is respectful of the needs of the surrounding community.”