From: Holly Osborne <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 3:05 PM
To: Eleanor Manzano <[email protected]>
Subject: Final revision to Remarks for July 19 (ADUs on Multi-family lots) CAUTION: Email is from an external source; Stop, Look, and Think before opening attachments or links.
Eleanor:
These are my remarks for tonight. I intend to give them in person.
Could you forward them to the city council members, and make them part of the record? Thanks
Holly
Good evening Mr. Mayor Pro-Tem and city council:
This is Holly Osborne, District 5.
I want to amplify some remarks I made last time on non-agenda items, about ADU creation on multifamily housing lots., To refresh your minds, this concerns the ability of a developer to create ADUs out of the apartment structure, .
This has especially negative consequences for Redondo.
Redondo has apartment complexes that are non-conforming, in both North and South Redondo. . On these North Redondo lots now zoned R3 since the 1970's, there are older apartments that have 6, 8, or even 10 units crammed onto the lot. This was possible, because the early code (prior to 1964) only required one parking place per unit, whereas after 1972, we required two. (In between it was 1.5) The current street parking situation around these older apartments is especially awful.
The new ADU laws passed a couple years ago, allow an apartment owner to add ADU units equal to 25% of the number of existing units on the lot. So, if an owner has 8 units crammed on the lot, he can add two more ADU units, for a total of 10 units.
When I first read the multifamily ADU law, I thought, well, for each ADU he adds, he is basically taking the single car garage for that unit and making an ADU out of it. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
He can take 4 single car garages to make one ADU. (A single car parking space is roughly 10x20 feet, = 200 sq ft; so four of them = 800 sq ft, which is what we are forced to allow.) If he is allowed two ADUs, he can use ALL EIGHT of the the parking garage spaces to make the two ADUs. Did you realize that? ALL of the parking spaces..
This 25% rule is actually diabolical, or Machiavellian (or developer- ian.) I believe it was designed to wipe out the parking. It certainly could do that for older pre 1964 or even pre 1972 Redondo complexes. If that was not the intent, then it is an unintended consequence, and demonstrates the ignorance and arrogance of Sacramento.
And dumping 8 cars in front of a complex which was previously not requiring street space, is physically impossible. These R3 lots are only 50 ft wide. They have a driveway access. You can get at most two large cars or maybe 3 three small cars out in front. So where do those other 5 or 6 tenants park?
If an owner had newer, post 1972 apartments, built to code of two parking spaces per unit, he would not only have fewer units on which to base his 25% of allowable ADUs, he would not be using all the existing garages to convert to ADUs. In our case, here in Redondo Beach, the reality is we have these older apartments. They are ripe for exploitation. One size legislation from Sacramento does NOT fit all.
In North Redondo, the situation is even worse. Most of the east/west streets are exceptionally narrow.
They are only about 27 1/2 ft wide; and not 30 ft wide as required by the code, and exist in other parts of the city.. To get more parking, these streets are often one way, with parking on both sides, but this makes it more difficult for emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks, to get through.
What should we do?
1) There is a possible escape hatch. If there are health and safety concerns, we do not have to allow these conversions.
If you can't think of any such safety concerns, then I invite you to park about 10 blocks from your house tonight, at whatever ungodly hour this meeting gets over, and then walk from there. You then might then be able to think of some safety reasons. You might also check with the fire-chief, about what he thinks of driving his trucks in North Redondo.
2) There is one other thing we should be doing NOW. There is a new bill in the legislature, SB 897, called ADU housing which tweaks the ADU laws and makes things EVEN WORSE, because it . raises the height limit of the detached ADUs from 16 ft, to 18+ ft, to make a (free standing) two story ADU possible. This Senate Bill is now in front of the assembly, but it has not been passed. At the minimum we need to ask Assemblymember Muratsuchi NOT to vote for it. 3) We need to get Senator Allen and our assemblymember over to Redondo and show them the consequences of these bills. Senator Allen's office is on Artesia Boulevard; he should not remain ignorant. And likewise, show Assemblymember Muratsuchi what these bills do. He lives in Torrance.
He also needs to be educated, but thankfully he has supported our efforts in the past.
And we need to sign the zoning initiative, when it comes back, so we do not have to keep dealing with these ill thought -out Sacramento bills.
Holly Osborne
Redondo Beach