From: Rebecca Sanders
To: Council, City
Subject: Item 9 - NV Zoning district, etc. - Monday, August 5, 2024 Date: Sunday, August 4, 2024 2:20:28 PM
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Dear Mayor Stone and Council Members:
I have several concerns about the proposed new NV zoning ordinance before you.
1. 65 foot tall buildings will be allowed in a new zoning designation NV-MXH zone (Mixed Use High Density) and NV-R4 and 55 foot tall buildings in the new NV-MXM zone (Mixed Use medium density). I checked prior City Council and Planning and Transportation Commission meetings and nowhere did I find that Council or PTC recommended 65 feet.
Why is such drastic height being bestowed on North Ventura?
2. One of the 55 foot high sections backs up onto the area where the creek and the park and the affordable housing will be located in NVCAP. So a potentially 55 foot tall building will loom over what is supposed to be open space, a naturalized creek and the homes of people with below market rate housing.
3. There are no minimum parking requirements. We are adding 540 new units and none of those people need to park? Surely not everyone will be a commuter who walks to the train station to get to work. What about people with disabilities and what about EV charging stations? We're losing all our parking on El Camino. So where will people park? On the streets of Ventura further clogging up the streets. And still they will have to walk blocks in the dark to get home.
4. Mixed Use Means More Office -- Back in the day during the NVCAP process, community stakeholders could agree on one thing -- more housing. And yet here we are, not only allowing Sobrato to keep office at Fry's but now we are allowing more office space in the new Mixed Use Zones where we could have had housing. So what we wanted was more homes and what we are getting is more office along with more mostly high-end housing.
To summarize, THIS IS NOT THE PLAN WE WERE TOLD WE'D GET. Instead, this requires no parking spaces. It allows tall buildings to loom over existing ones and our new parkland!! It will make traffic worse. It will harm neighborhood safety. It allows more offices when there were supposed to be fewer. it endangers local stores and shops. It's time we shouted "NO" and told the City to go back to the plan that the community and City Council supported.
Thank you.
Becky Sanders
Ventura Neighborhood