1 Maryanne Cronin
From: Stephanie Booth <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2023 1:02 AM
To: CityClerk; Maryanne Cronin
Subject: 2023 01 19 fire station 9 letter to the City.docx Attachments: 2023 01 19 fire station 9 letter to the City.docx ‐EXTERNAL‐
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These are my concerns about the plans for fire station 9.
Correspondence H-14 Stephanie Booth
MY CONCERNS:
1) The way it is worded in the meeting document, the employees and fire trucks will use the alley to access their driveway to Fire Station #9. I would argue that they will be using the alley as a driveway, because they cannot enter onto the property without using the alley. This is a planned, unprecedented use of an alley as a drive way. It reflects how undersized the property is. Even the passenger vehicles will need to proceed one‐way through the property. 2) This “driveway” will have very noisy trucks passing by homes without noise buffers or barriers—this will be the worst for one home (it is permitted) that has one of its walls on the property line. I am a light sleeper and when a no‐alarms‐on fire engine drives on our street, it wakes me up. The City can tell me anything it wants about how the noise will not damage my hearing. I appreciate that, but I am concerned about sleeping through the night. 3) Using this site as it’s currently being considered will require removing 13‐15 much‐ needed street parking spaces – these spaces are used by customers who support struggling, local small businesses. For nearby residents, it is already difficult to find a spot to park near their homes for the no parking times on street sweeping days. 4) Looking at the conceptual drawings, the property is not large enough to accommodate the parking required to support fire station personnel and people visiting the community room. The number of parking spots needed will be even higher during change of shift. (And good luck to our fire fighters in finding street parking!) 5) Passenger vehicles using Long Beach Blvd as the exit from the property will have difficulty turning onto the street, because there are blind spots. It will become more difficult because of the (variance required) station being built closer to the road than is normally acceptable; this can be very dangerous. I thought the rules about setbacks were made for purposes such as keeping the citizens as safe as possible, but the City will be giving itself the variance.
6) A car and a fire truck will not be able to squeeze by one another in the alley. Also, if the alley is blocked for maintenance of the neighborhood, fire trucks will either need to wait or they will need to back into their garages from Randolph Pl; a road that is 9 feet narrower than where trucks used to back into the old station off of Virginia Road. 7) Especially perplexing about using this location for a new FS #9, there will be absolutely no flexibility to accommodate growth or expansion in the future. Despite all the variances required to piece this property together and build out past the usual limits, it remains too small to be a reasonable choice for a new fire station. This is the primary reason (as residents in the area have been told) that the old FS#9 location was never seriously considered for a tear down and rebuild; the property is too small to accommodate the new, larger fire trucks. Well, the fire trucks that will be using the 4101 property need to subsume the alley as a part of their property, because without that space, they won’t be able to get home. 8) The traffic in the area is already horrible; in part, this is due to the closely spaced traffic lights at Carson and San Antonio. Now the plan is to add another set of traffic lights. I wonder what the consequences will be in terms of increased waiting times. More importantly, I worry about whether this will cause car accidents. When lights are too close together, drivers see the close‐up green light and tend to overlook the yellow light at the next intersection. I regularly hear north bound vehicles squealing their brakes to stop in time at San Antonio. It is rare to have two lights so close together, let alone three. 9) The fire trucks at certain times of the day will not be able to leave the station and proceed north on Long Beach Blvd. North bound traffic stopping at the light at Carson (even at San Antonio) frequently backs up to well before Randolph. South bound traffic will stop at the new Randolph light, but the firetruck will be facing a wall of NB cars and will only be able to make a right‐hand turn and proceed SB.
Thank you for your consideration of my comments.
Stephanie Booth