Agenda #: 3.1
Meeting Date: January 24, 2023
CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION REPORT
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RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive the staff and consultant presentations; receive public comments; and provide direction as necessary and appropriate.
INTRODUCTION:
Tonight’s joint meeting provides the first formal opportunity for the project team to share with the City Council and Planning Commission the work that has been completed and underway during the first six months of the Town Center planning effort. The purpose of this evening’s discussion is twofold:
1. To bring the Council and Commission up to date on the tasks completed on the Town Center Specific Plan (TCSP) thus far, as well as the work that the project team is currently engaged in; and
2. To invite feedback and direction on any of the topics discussed. Staff wishes to hear if the Council Members and Commissioners feel that the project team is on the right track with respect to their expectations and community’s input; or if course corrections should be taken to align the project with those expectations.
RECAP:
General Plan 2040
The vision to create a downtown in Diamond Bar began to take shape during the General Plan Update process that kicked off in 2016. Early in the process, residents expressed a desire to establish a downtown, or “Town Center” in Diamond Bar: a walkable “place” with entertainment, retail, restaurants, community gathering spaces and urban housing opportunities. Participants in the General Plan Update process cited various examples of thriving historic, revitalized and newly created downtowns in nearby communities that they patronize regularly, including Brea, Chino Hills, Claremont, Fullerton and Monrovia. Several sites within the City were initially identified and discussed as potential locations for the Town Center. Ultimately, the 45-acre TCSP STUDY SESSION | January 24, 2023 Page 2 of 7
commercial district along Diamond Bar Boulevard, between Golden Springs Drive and the SR-60 Freeway would be designated as the Town Center Mixed-Use Focus Area in the General Plan, which was adopted by the City Council in December 2019.
Urban Land Institute TAP
Moving ahead to 2021, the City engaged the Los Angeles Chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI-LA) to assemble a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to gain a better understanding of the market possibilities, economic development strategies, and other tools that should be deployed to implement the General Plan’s vision for the Town Center. The TAP—which was comprised of practitioners in planning, architecture, development, economics and land use law—convened during the week of April 12-16, 2021. Among the key takeaways from the TAP process were that the panel agreed that the City’s vision for the Town Center is viable, and provided recommendations to achieve the vision, including creating a Specific Plan to guide and regulate the development of the Town Center. The TAP’s findings were published in a ULI-LA report in June of 2021.
Specific Plan
In May 2022, the City entered into a Consultant Services Agreement for Torti Gallas + Partners to prepare the TCSP. Over the past summer, the following major tasks were completed:
• Late June 2022 - The TCSP website was launched (www.downtown4db.com) to keep the public informed about the project and upcoming events. To date, the website has more than 460 subscribers that have signed up to receive email and text alerts.
• July 21, 2022 - A community workshop was held at the Diamond Bar Center to introduce the City’s constituents to the Specific Plan process. The attendees participated in group activities designed to encourage an open exchange of ideas about the desired look, feel and palette of land uses for the new downtown. More than 100 Diamond Bar residents attended the workshop.
• August 22-26, 2022 - A weeklong design charrette took place at the City Hall Windmill room. The design exercise kicked off by incorporating the public input from the prior month’s workshop into drawings and sketches. During that week, the Torti Gallas team turned the Windmill Room into a public design studio, during which visitors could stop in, meet with the architects and designers, critique the design concepts, and even mark up the design team’s drawings, or provide their own sketches. During the charrette, as well as the weeks leading up to it, the project team conducted stakeholder interviews with most of the Town Center property owners and community leaders. Evening presentations took place on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the charrette to share with the public how the design concepts and alternatives evolved over the course of the weeklong exercise. • September 2022 - An Existing Conditions & Market Demand Analysis (Attachment 2) was completed to assess the demographic and market factors that will provide both TCSP STUDY SESSION | January 24, 2023 Page 3 of 7
the opportunities and constraints to be addressed in order to achieve the long-term vision for the Town Center. Infrastructure assessments were also performed that will lead to the formulation of public improvement plans and criteria to support the redevelopment of the study area.
DISCUSSION:
Alternative Specific Plan layouts
The information, data and ideas amassed primarily during the community workshop, design charrette and stakeholder interviews coalesced into four alternate street and block layouts for the Town Center (numbered 1, 2a, 2b and 4), which are illustrated Attachment 1. Common features among these alternatives include a “main street” or esplanade that runs along the Sprouts, Ross and Providence frontages; at least two new cross streets that divide the Diamond Bar Boulevard corridor into smaller blocks and strengthen the connection between the east and west sides of the corridor; and a “Civic Building,” which accommodate such uses as a community center, cinema, performing arts center, etc. The Civic Building is presented as a “bouncing ball,” so that its eventual location (should it become a reality) does not have to be determined yet.
Alternates 2a, 2b and 4 also feature a grand stairway that connects the higher-elevation properties along Golden Springs Drive to the lower-elevation properties to the north.
Influences for this feature include the Spanish Steps in Rome. The grand stairway connects to the esplanade, and is oriented to open up a vista to the San Gabriel Mountains.
The project team proposes that Alternate 4 be selected as the Preferred Alternative, at least in terms of its street and block layout, because it seems to express the desired “downtown feel” in the most effective manner.
Residential and Commercial Buildout Numbers
General Plan 2040 and ULI TAP Report
The current General Plan established a maximum residential density of 20 dwelling units per acre and a floor-to-area ratio (FAR) of 1.5. These policies limit the area’s residential buildout to 900 dwelling units, while facilitating upwards of 1.8 million square feet of commercial space.
However, the conclusions reached in the TAP report were that there may never be sufficient demand to support commercial development of such a magnitude, and at the current density limit of 20 units per acre, developers would not likely be able to find it economically feasible to incorporate commercial floor space into their projects, let alone the public spaces and amenities that are key to Diamond Bar’s vision for the Town Center.
The TAP’s speculative pro forma suggests that a more feasible buildout scenario would consist of about 1,500 residential units (averaging 33.3 units per acre) and about 600,000 square feet of commercial space. The TAP report concluded that such a mix TCSP STUDY SESSION | January 24, 2023 Page 4 of 7
would realize a positive net fiscal impact to the City in increased property and sales tax revenues. Moreover, because the residential component of a mixed-use development is what largely subsidizes the project’s infrastructure and other required improvement costs, the private sector can be expected to deliver higher-quality public realm amenities when more residential units are allowed.
Housing Element
The recently-adopted and State-certified Housing Element Update requires the City to commit to rezoning the Town Center Mixed Use District to allow residential development at a density of 30 units per acre1, which would yield a residential buildout of 1,350 units.
Incidentally, the other two mixed-use districts established in the General Plan already allow residential development at a density of 30 units per acre.) Market Demand Analysis and Stakeholder Feedback
RCLCO Real Estate Consulting prepared a Market Demand Analysis (Attachment 2) in September 2022 for the Town Center planning area (RCLCO also prepared the preliminary economic analysis for the ULI TAP). RCLCO’s recommended development program for the Town Center includes 1,875 housing units and approximately 446,000 square feet of commercial space at buildout.
The TCSP consultant team conducted stakeholder interviews with most of the project area property owners during the week of the charrette. The responses from owners with development experience indicated that they would not consider redeveloping their properties if they were limited to 30 residential units per acre.
TCSP Program Alternatives
Torti Gallas developed three programmatic alternatives to provide staff, the public and the City decisionmakers some insight as to how different intensities of buildout might be reflected in the built environment. Site diagrams for each alternative are provided in Attachment 3.
• Scenario 1 consists of approximately 1,350 residences, 403,000 square feet of commercial space and 97 hotel rooms (i.e., the current Best Western hotel). The residential count reflects the minimum overall density of 30 units per acre required pursuant to the Housing Element.
• Scenario 2 consists of approximately 1,800 residences, 402,000 square feet of commercial space and 97 hotel rooms. The residential count is based on RCLCO’s recommended development program in its September 2022 Market Demand Analysis.
• Scenario 3 consists of approximately 2,055 residences, 419,000 square feet of commercial space and, again, 97 hotel rooms. The residential unit count was arrived at following further consultation with RCLCO as the maximum residential 1 Rezoning can be accomplished through a Specific Plan, which will be the case with the TCSP.
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buildout the market may be able to bear.
Staff proposes that 2,055 dwelling units should be used as the maximum residential development capacity for CEQA purposes. Even if the Specific Plan is ultimately approved with a lower residential buildout limit, the “worst case” scenario should be evaluated for potential environmental impacts.
Residential Density vs. Residential Buildout Cap
Regardless of how many residential dwellings the City Council ultimately approves when the TCSP is adopted, there are two basic regulatory approaches to allocating residential development in the Town Center:
• The first would be to establish a fixed density for each development. For example, if the maximum allowable residential density in a mixed-use project is 40 units per acre, and a developer submits an application for a five-acre site, then a maximum of 200 dwelling units would be permissible on the project site.2 The maximum buildout for the Town Center in this scenario would be 1,800 dwelling units. • The second approach would be to establish the buildout cap for the TCSP project area as a whole, but not expressly limit the density on individual mixed-use projects.
In this scenario, individual projects can be built at higher densities, but still be limited by other development standards, such as height, parking, open space requirements, street dedications, etc. If the buildout cap is 1,800 units, the average density throughout the Town Center would be 40 units per acre—as it would be in the first example—but individual projects would be built at a variety of densities.
As development progresses, a variety of housing types and densities are likely to materialize throughout the Town Center, from mid-rise apartments, to rowhouses, and possibly senior housing. This diversity would be driven by market forces that evolve over time. As such, staff’s preferred approach in the Specific Plan regulations is to allow flexibility in the densities of individual projects, provided that the to-be-determined buildout number is not exceeded. Regulations limiting the height, mass and bulk of buildings will control the density of projects, but staff will also study placing an upper limit on the number of units per acre for individual developments.
Affordable Housing
The Housing Element commits the City to facilitate the production of housing for lowand very low-income households through its zoning regulations. Income categories and affordable housing costs are summarized in the table below:
2 For the sake of simplification, this example does not consider the additional density that must be granted under State law if low-, very-low and/or extremely-low housing units are proposed.
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2020 County Median Income = $77,300 Income Limits* Affordable Rent Affordable Price (est.) Extremely Low (<30%) $33,800 $845 *
Very Low (31-50%) $56,300 $1,407 *
Low (51-80%) $90,100 $2,252 *
Moderate (81-120%) $92,750 $2,319 $375,000
Above moderate (120%+) Over $92,750 Over $2,319 Over $375,000 Assumptions:
-Based on a family of 4 and 2020 State income limits
-30% of gross income for rent or principal, interest, taxes & insurance plus utility allowance -10% down payment, 3.75% interest, 1.25% taxes & insurance, $300 HOA dues * Because of State adjustments in high housing cost areas, some of these income limits are higher than the percentages of median income Source: Cal. HCD; JHD Planning LLC, Diamond Bar Sixth Cycle Housing Element California Density Bonus Law provides a complex set of incentives to encourage developers to build affordable housing, along with a complex set of “concessions” from zoning regulations that cities must allow based on the theory that such concessions will make the production of affordable housing economically feasible. A Guide to the California Density Bonus Law (Attachment 4) provides a detailed overview and explanation of how developers can implement the law’s provisions into their projects.
Despite these State-mandated provisions to incentivize the production of affordable housing, for-profit developers remain reluctant to incorporate income-restricted units into their projects. For this reason, several California cities have adopted “inclusionary housing” ordinances. Local inclusionary housing laws mandate that some percentage of residential developments be restricted for sale or rent to lower-income households, along with covenants to maintain those restrictions for 30 or more years. Staff proposes to incorporate inclusionary housing requirements into the TCSP regulations.
Road Diet
During the community workshop and design charrette, the concept of placing the segment of Diamond Bar Boulevard through the Town Center on a “road diet” received a good deal of interest.
The typical objective of a road diet is to reduce the width of roadway pavement to accommodate other functions, such as wider sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities, safer bicycle paths, and beautification. The implementation of road diets can also run afoul of motorists when lanes are reduced and congestion increases, as the news media has reported in recent years.
The project team is currently evaluating how the current Complete Streets design for the Town Center segment of Diamond Bar can be modified to accommodate the Town Center’s future street and block grid. The team is also studying road diet opportunities for Diamond Bar Boulevard that will make the street more walkable without reducing lanes. Ideas under consideration include narrowing or eliminating the center medians and reducing the widths of the travel lanes. Preliminary concepts will be presented during the joint meeting for discussion and feedback.
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NEXT STEPS:
A second Community Workshop is anticipated to be held in the spring to show how the public’s input from the first workshop, design charrette and surveys has been addressed through plans, renderings draft regulations and design guidelines. Meanwhile, the traffic consultants are completing the technical analyses needed to commence the CEQA process. Staff also recommends at least one more joint study session within the next few months, prior to the publication of the draft Specific Plan and EIR documents.
The project remains on schedule, and the team is working toward scheduling adoption hearings by the end of the year.
Prepared by:
_________________________
Greg Gubman, AICP
Community Development Director
Attachments:
1. 3.1.a Site and Architectural Concepts for the Town Center
2. 3.1.b Existing Conditions & Market Demand Analysis
3. 3.1.c Illustrative Project Buildout Scenarios
4. 3.1.d Guide to the California Density Bonus Law by Goetz & Sakai