HomeMy WebLinkAboutNOVEMBER 28, 2006 (2)
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MINUTES
ARCADIA CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
Tuesday, November 28, 2006, 6:30 P.M.
Arcadia,City Community Center
The Planning Commission of the City of Arcadia met in regular session on Tuesday, November
28, 2006, at 6:30 p.m., in the Arcadia Community Center of the City of Arcadia, at 365 Campus
Drive, with Chairman Olson presiding.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
ROLLCALL:
PRESENT:
ABSENT:
Commissioners Baderian, Beranek, Hsu, Panilleand Olson
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None
OTHERS ATfENDING
Community Development Administrator. Jason Kruckeberg
Senior Administrative Assistant Billie Tone
EIP Representative Alison Rondone
SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION FROM STAFF REGARDING AGENDA ITEMS
Community'Development Administrator Kruckeberg presented a letter'fTom Cbatten,
Brown, Carstens to the Commissioners regarding the public meeting on the DEIR'.for the
Shops at Santa Anita.
PUBLIC BEARING ITEMS
Commissioner Olson said that the purpose of the meeting was for the Planning Commission-to
hear public.commeI!tS on the draft environmental irnpacireport for the Shops at Santa Anita
project only. He also reviewed the procedures applying to speakers.
1. PUBLIC MEETING
Draft Environmental Impact Report
Shops ~Santa Anita Park _ _
The City of Arcadia Development SerVices Department has completed a Draft Environmental
Impact Report (DEIR) for the Revised Shops at Santa Anita Park Specific Plan (also referred
to as the Caruso Project) located in the City of Arcadia. The purpose of the meeting is to allow
an opportunity to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact-Report (DEIR) only. The
.Planning Commission wilLbe hearing comments only, no decision will be made on the project.
Mr, Kruckeberg presented a brief overview of the project to date and stated that the public
comment period will end on December 14 at 5:30 p.m,
The public hearing was opened.
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Following is a list of the speakers. Please refer to the draft transcript of the meeting (attached)
for their comments.
Dirk L. Hudson, 428 Stanford Dr., Arcadia
Stewart Bell, MD, 150N. Santa Anita, #300, Arcadia, CA 91006
Larry Williams, 130 Garfield Place
Brian Golden, 1 022E. Camino Real
Sanford Shulman. 427 Harvard Dr.
Sonia Williams, 130 Greenfield Place
Douglas Carstens, 3250 Ocean Park Blvd., #350
Nicky Hunter, 120 W. Sycamore Ave.
Scott Hettrick, 67 E, Arthur Ave.
JeffB()wen, 1919 Wilson Ave,
Rebecca Ruiz, 955 EncantoDr.
TalinNigolian, 951 Paloma Dr.
Paul Herr, 515. E. Wisteria Ave.
Sung Tse, 240 Renoak Way
Ruth Dunlop, 824 Arcadia Ave.
Bob Kimbal~ 140 Santa Cruz
Rick Limo, Caruso Affiliated
Vince Foley, 320 Cambridge Dr.
Tony Henrich, 431 N. Altura Rd., Arcadia
Unidentified Speaker
Michael O'Conner,370 W. Colorado S1.
Kevin Norton, IBEW
Mike. Manis, Portola Drive
Richard Martinez, 301 W. Magna Vista Ave.
Frank Razi, 2210 S,Siidh Ave.
Eina Sirene, 824 Arcadia Ave., #11, Arcadia
Paul Becket, 2016 Canyon Rd.
Ralph Roy.Ramirez, 504 Sharon Road
Marco Valle, 4939 Rupert Lane, La Canada, CA~91OU
Carmen Thibour, 1215 OaklawnRd., Arcadia 91006
Stella RosS; 881 W, Huntington Dr.
Mary E, Hansen, 900 Hugo Reid Dr.
AnnA. Duirgerian, 122 E. Foothill, #113, Arcadia, CA 91006
Dennis Goldenhouse, 400 block ()fFairview
Dick Harris; 143 W. Santa Anita Terrace
Kelly Mandu, 30 E. Newman
Colleen Brennan, 315 S. AlturaRd., Arcadia, 91007-6239
BettyHarris, 143 W. Santa Anita Tr.
Ed Casey, Westfield
ScottSaire, 444 W. Huntington, #113
Vidal Hernandez, 540 Gloria Rd.
Mark Bower, 300 Monte Vista Rd.
Jerry Garing, 122 E. Foothill Blvd., #113
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PC AGENDA
11-28-06
/'age 2
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Mary Daugherty, 1110 Rodeo Rd" Arcadia, Ca9I006
Laurie Thompson, 229 S, A1tura Rd.
Robert Blake 871 Colorado Drive
Victor Ceporious, 32 E. Camino Real
MOTION:
It was moved by Commissioner ParriIle, seconded by Commissioner Baderianto close
the public hearing.
ROLL CALL:
AYES:
NOES:
Commissioners Baderian, Beranek, Hsu, ParrilJe and Olson
None
TIME RESERVED FOR THOSE IN THE AUDiENCE WHO WISH TO ADDRESS THE
PLANNING COMMISSION ON NON-PUBLIC HEARING MATfERS - Five-minute time
limit, per person
None
MAnERS'FROM CITY COUNCIL AND PLANNING COMMISSION
Councilman Amundson thanked everyone for their pllIticipation in the hearing.
MODIFICATIONCOMMITrEE MEETING ACTIONS
Chainnan Olson said that all items on the Modification Committee agenda were
conditionally approved.
MAITEJl& FROM STAFF
None
ADJOURNMENT TO 12-12-06 AT THE ARCADIA CITY COUNCn. CHAMBERS AT
7:00 p.m.
9:00 D.m.
Is/Jason Kruckebertl
Secretary, Arcadia Planning Commission
PC AGENDA
11,28-06
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ARCADIA CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2006
6:30 P.M.
ARCADIA COMMUNITY CENTER
365' campus Drive
Arcadia, california 91007
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1 COMMISSIONER OLSON: I'd like to call to order
2 the meeting of the Arcadia City planning commission for
3 Tuesday, November 28, 2006.
4 would everybody 'please rise, and join me in
5 the pledge of Allegiance.
6 (The pledge of Allegiance was recited.)
7 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Roll call., please,
8 MS. TONE: Commissioner Baderian?
9 COMMISSIONER BADERIAN: present,
10 MS. TONE: commissioner 8eranek?
11 COMMISSIONER BERANEK: Present.
12 MS. TONE: Commissioner HSU?
13 COMMISSIONER HSU: Present.
14 MS. TONE: Commissi oner parri 11 e?
15 COMMISSIONER PARRILLE: present.
16 MS. TONE: Commissioner Olson?
17 COMMISSIONER OLSON:' Present.
18 can thave supplemental information from staff
19 agenda items?, '
20 MR. KRUCKEBERG: We do have one item that was
21 passed out. It's a memo from Chapman Brown Carson.
22 It's dated November 28, 2006, and it's been placed at
23 each of your places.
24 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much. TO
25 start the meeting, I'd just like to briefly describe
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1 what we're here to do tonight, and that is to accept
2 public comments on the draft environmental impact report
3 for the shops at Santa Anita project only.
4 I'd like to go ahead and turn this over to the
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staff for a brief presentation on the project, the
process and the procedures we will follow.
MR. KRUCKEBERG: Thank you, Mr. olson.
welcoTe. Thank you to you all for comins tonight. My
name 1S Jason Kruckebers, I'm the communlty development
administrator for the Clty of Arcadia. Also with me
toni ght is Alison Rongodi from EIP Associ ates,
consultants on the project, and we have additional staff
in the audience.
The purpose of tonisht's meeting. as Mr. Olson
mentioned, is to receive publlC comment on the draft EIR
for the shops at Santa Anita project.
The draft EIR was released to the public on
'October 23rd. It's available for review at City Hall.
It's also available at the library. You can also
purchase copies, both in hard copy form and CD. and it's
available also on the city's website. So there's plenty
of 'opportunities for you to review the document.
The california Envi ronmental Quality Act
requires a 45-daypublic comment period. That public
period will be ending oil December 6th. However, the
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city did extend the public comment period un~il oecember
14th, 2006. At each of your places here tonlght, there
is an agenda. On the back of that agenda is a notice
that shows that extension of the comment period and also
the method with which to give comments to the city on
~hat. so, again, 5:30 P.M. December 14th is the end of
the public comment period. All comments received in
writi ng upunti 1 the end of the peri od wi 11 be added
into the administrative record. as well as any comments
verbally made tonight.
As you can see, we have dual reporters here so
we are recordins the meeting tonight so there will be
transcripts avallable at the city. As most of you know,
the Shops at santa Anita project was revised and
resubmi ned to the ci ty in Apri 1 of this year.
Just a quick description on the project. The
project contains a specific plan for the 304-acre
property that includes the racetrack and surrounding
area. Included in the application are zone change!
general planning minutes, architectural designrevlew,
design guidelines 'for the proposed buildings. The major
change of the revised project was the removal of
resi denti a 1.. units from ,the proj ect., -'
'The project weare lookins at tonight in this
draft EIR does not include resident,al. The project as
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1 proposed is approximately 829,000 square feet of retail,
2 commercial and office, designed as a pedestrian main
3 street, pedestrian-oriented main street in a north/south
4 orientation on the southern part of the racetrack
5 parking lot.
6 The northern portion of the project includes
7 1.4 acre -- it's called paddock garden, which would
8 actually interface With the grandstand in the paddock
9 area of the racetrack. At the southern portion of the
10 project area is a proposed three-and-a-half-acre water
11 feature, which is included within a seven-acre, roughly,
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open space area.
The ~roject will also include an approximately
98,000 square foot simulcast center which would De
located within the actual grandstand structure itself.
In addition to the project that I jLlst described, of
course, there will be on and offsite public improvements
for streets, pedestrians. et cetera.
As required by the Cali forni a Envi ronmenta 1
Quality Act, the EIR does three things. It assess the
expected direct and indirect accumulative impacts of the
project. It identifies means of voiding or minimizing
potential adverse impacts from the project. And it
evaluates a reasonable range of alternatives to the
project. The EIR in this case analyzes 15 topic areas,
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including transportation, traffic, aesthetics, water
quality, air quality, et cetera.
This meeting is one of the key steps in, our
process. AS you remember back in June we held a similar
meeting called a public scoping meeting where we invited
input on what items and issues should be included in the
draft EIR. This meeting is to receive again comments
from you on how that information was presented, are
there things that still need to be looked at, and how
are the issues presented within the document. The
meeting allows the planning commission 1:0 hear public
comments, and they will be taking those public comments,
alon~ with additional comments that we receive, as I
menboned in writing, along with our responses when the
planning commission and the city council reviews this
project for a decision. And that, we estimate, will
occur -- will begin in March, April of next year.
The 1'1 anni ng cammi ss; on wi 11 be maki ng a
recommendation on to city council, and it's at those
meetings where planning commission will have the benefit
of all the public comments received during the comment
period and the consultant team and city's responses to
those comments. At those meetings in early next year,
we will be able to receive all your questions, the
planning commission, I'm sure, will have plenty of their
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1 own. Again, this meeting tonight is to receive those
2 commentsc. So we won't be discussi ng necess'ari Ty the
3 content, answer questions. we will be receiving comments
4 from you.
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One final thing we wanted to mention, we did
get a number of calls on the recent initiatives and
whether those recent initiatives that passed which dealt
with public paid parking and also dealt with signage
have a si9nificant impact of the EIR. And the answer
iS,tlieres no signfficant impact. They do riot
necessarily change any of the conclusions of the draft
EIR.
So with that, I'm going to turn it back ove~
to Oave olson to go through the procedures we'll follow
tonight. I'd like to ask folks to please turn off cell
phones and pagers. We have a lot of folks in the
au~ience, and w~'re going.to try to.get through this as
qUlck1y as posslb1e. Agaln, oave wl11 go through the
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procedures that we will follow tonight.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you, Jason. First
of all, the commission is not here to answer any
questions on the project because we do not have all the
project materials yet, and, plus, we're basically here
to hear public comments. Because of the size of the
crowd, we have determined that all the speakers will be
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limited to three minutes. we feel that's an appropriate
amount of time for each 'speaker to say what they want to
say. If you don't feel -- you've got a lot more to say,
you can write that down, submit it in.
whether you speak tonight or put your comments
in writing, they're given the same amount of wei9ht and'
wi 11 be answered in thei r enti rety and i ncl uded 1 n final
reports and the comments that the consultants wilT look
at, the city will look at.
when you're up here, as 'you come up here, I'll
ask that if you want to speak, start 'to form a line
behind the podium. ~tate your name and your address for
the public record, then you may speak. I've got a
stopwatch up here. we willmoni.tor the three-minute
time limit very closely and kind of give you a warning
when ~ou're' gett~ng close to trye three minutes. Also,
theresa cllpboard at the podlum that we also need .you
to write your name and address, once again, for the
public record that -- sometimes it~s hard to understand
the .spelling of your name without it written down there
as well.
I'd also like to mention, normally we also
have up here with us at our planning commission meetings
alia i son from the (:'i ty counci 1 . ou r liaison is
councilmember Peter Amundson. He's here tonight, but
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he's sittin9 in the back. we've got some limited space
up here. H1S job as a councilmember and as our liaison,
is, just to observe us as a planning commission and to
help bring information to us from the city council, as
well as report back to the city council actions and
thin9s that happened during the planning commission
meetlngs.
And with that, again, all cell phones off and
I would..goahead, and like to open 'the public meeting.
And if anybody would like to speak, now is the time to
come forward.
State your name and address.
MR. HUOSON: Oirk Hudson, 428 Stanford orive,
Arcadia.
As Arcadia residents who live just north of
the racetrack, we urge prompt consioeratlon and approval
of the Shops at santa Anita. we have toured Caruso
projects at Thousand oaks, calabasas arid The Grove, and
have come back deeply impressed.
Our con"cerns are two-fold. One, to preserve
the economic Viability of historic santa Anita park and
with it Arcadia's racing heritage. And two, to obtain
from Arcadia as part of its future heritage, the
demonstrated beauty and style of Caruso landscaping and
architecture. Thi s woul.d be a vast improvement over
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today's empty pa. rking lot, and it's uno, bstr,ucted view of
the trashy 100kin9 eastside of Westfield Mall.
The posltive environmental impacts, the Shops
at Santa Anita would provide at least seven benefits to
Arcadia, One, preservation of Arcadia's racing heritage
in Santa Anita for which Westfield has no plan. Two, an
attractive and relaxing outdoor environment as may be
observed in previous Caruso projects. Three, over two
mill i on doll ars annually in new sales tax revenue to the
city, benefiting schools and vital services, police,
fire and ambulance. Four,a wider spectrum of goods and
services 'with greater competition for the consumer
dollar. Fi ve" an auditori um and performi ng arts center
for school and communitY events, and offices for the
Arcadia School District all without charge.
Six, an atmosphere and architecture in harmony
with ,Santa Anita offering views of horses being brought
up for racing events and perhaps even i'i des in
horse-drawn carriaQes. seven, an attractive open-air
complement to the lndoor Westfield Mall, enabling both
malls to exchange visitors and better compete with malls
further away by offering greater variety and choices to
customers, the same strategy that works for food courts
in malls such as westfield and jewelry and garment
districts in cities. Negative impacts.
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Havi ng said allthi s, there's some co'ncern over
increased traffic, whether attributable to westfield's
expansion. tlie good traffic, whether Shops Santa Anita.
the bad traffic. 30 years ago when we moved to Arcadia,
the racetrack was flourishing and the traffic was much
worse than i,t is today. Nevertlieless, the college
street area, above the racetrack where we live"
continues to be surrounded on all sides by traffic
creating problems for both ingress and egress.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: One minute.
MR. HUDSON: AS a statement in our comment. to
the first draft EIR effort, much could be ,done to
alleviate this situation by placing signals at Baldwin
and Harvard on the west and princeton and colorado on
the east, and inserting a dedicated northbound~feeder ,
lane on Baldwin fromStanford'to-Ha'rvard.--In addition,
through traffi c woul d be di scouraged by closi ng the
intersection at Harvard and colorado which is also a
blind intersection. ,
unfortunately, the second draft EIR contains
no discussion that we could find of traffic impacts and
riliti9ation,proposals for the coll~ge street area that we
submltted ln our comment on the fl'rst draft fIR on
February 27th of this year. One would have thought the
comments provided by the city would have been
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considered, discussed, the solution, the caruso project.
unlike other alternatives --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: we're at three minutes.
wrap it up in the next ten or 15 seconds, please.
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MR. HUDSON: -- provides its own solution to
the traffic problems in the adjacent neighborhoods.
First I'd like the city, as reflected in this draft EIR,
unlike Westfield, Caruso will provide a 250,000 bond to
address t.he impacts of increased t.raffic in the adjacent
neighborhood. second, unlike possible alternatives, the
Shops at Santa Anita will provide over tWo million
annually in sales tax revenue to the city which. will
enable the city to mitigate the traffic impacts.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Mr. Hudson, thank you.
If you've got more to add, please submit itin writing.
It sounds like ,you have a speech there.
MR. HUDSON: I almost reached the last
sentence.' '
COMMISSIONER OLSON: We hav~ got a lot of
peopl e here.
MR. HUOSON: I'll put my name down, if I may.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Yes, please do that.
MR. BELL: My name is Stewart Bell. I'm a
physician. I practice at 150 North Santa Anita.
My concern of the mall is two-fold, I don't
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disagree ,with much of what the previous speaker said
about the attracti~eness of some malls, but that's
possible. My concern is the traffic impact. A recent
article, about a year ago, in the Star News mentioned
that ~rcadia traffic has grown much worse, much faster
tha:n the traffi c engineers had anti cipated, whi ch tell s
us something about the traffic projections which can .be
i naccur'ate. I thi nk, since' we' re looki ng at a statement
that's claimed that this adding of 30 to 50,000 cars a
day to the city is going to actually improve, traffic. if
we just improve the signals at the intersections.
A good way, to check out a r'eaHty check out on
it is to take a look at what's happened in the prior
caruso malls. My understanding is his last 100,000
square foot development tremendously worsened traffic,
and they're now after the city to try and mitigate some
of that. It's a permanent effect. It isn't once we
build a mall, if he's worse, if the traffic's worse, he
takes it away. It's there.
Second, my concern is the extra thousand
square foot of gambling pOint, non-gambling industry
people, study of the economic impact of gambling,
posi tive, negati ve, i,t turns: out negati ve. Increased
police, fire, bankruptcy rates, et cetera. drain on
legitimate business. It's a negative. And this is part
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1 of the plan.
2 Lastly, just tell you as a physician, some of
3 the saddest, wounds I've seen are self-inflicted ones.
4 We're talking about changing a city of homes to perhaps
5 a chy of traffic gridlock I would just, ask you to
6 reconsider that. Thank you.
7 COMMISSIONER. OLSON: Thank you very much.
8 MR. WILLIAMS: My name is Larry williams. I'm
9 from 130 Greenfield Place.
10 And t want to discuss one aspect of the new
11 ma 11, that is the so-call ed water feature. Thi s is
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about three and a half acres of basically still water.
And'I want to analyze it in terms of benefit versus
risk. AS I see it, this three and a half acres has
basically relatively little benefit, after all this
water isn't being used by anybody for anything, other
than to be looked at.
I would suggest there are two down sides., two
risks to this large water feature. The first, of
course, is the West Nile virus situation. The situation
is that, for example, if a human is showing symptoms,
their death rate is somewhere between 5 to 10 percent.
For a horse, rather ironically, it's something around 40
percent. If you 'go on the Internet and check the State
of california or the State of New York the number one
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method to reduce the incidents of west Nile Virus is
simply to remove sites of standing water.
we've been urged to do that locally. and
pe()ple in this region are guite concernecl about that.
we've been told, for example, to do things like takinl/
away spare tires or trash tires which may have water 1n
them, or animal dishes that are left outside. It's
somewhat ironic, of course, because of the horse
involvement, a loss of just one horse from a racetrack
of this type would be a real disaster.
The second downside is that, of injury due to
the, water. Although the new EIR has increased the
security around the water feature, there still is no
complete security around it. children can walk in, fall
in, be thrown in from a variety of sites of this water
feature. And you can imagine a scenario where you're
there with your children or grandchildren and you
suddenly discover one of them might be missing at night,
for example. what are you supposed to do? Are you
supposed to look in this 'water feature and try to find
someone? I think that the security around the feature
has to be at least as good as those we require around
swimm,ing pools, for example, which this is basically a
replica of.
, My alternative is to convert, this into either
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a grassy area or a xeriscape that offers you two _ _
- possibilities. Increased'parkin'g for overflow, and also
a place for athletic events. I think that, we do have to
be careful of not having security around the feature and
the disease threat. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
Also" could I just add, I haven't heard any clapping or
anything, but please maintain civility throughout this
hearing. Everybody's got different view points and
would like to say them, and we would like to hear them
all. Even though everyone has many different
viewpoints, at the end of the day we're all neighbors.
so please show respect here for the speaker at the
podium.
Next speaker, please.
MR. GOLDMAN: 8rian Goldman, 1022 East camino
Real.
I'm just going to read a brief paragraph from
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the public notice that we should have all receiv!!d in
the mail but many of us may not have read, "si gn'i fi cant
environmental effects. The proposed project would
result in significant, unavoidable adverse environmental
effects to aesthetics, air quality, cultural resources,
noise, transportation, traffic and utilities and service
systems that cannot be mitigated to less than
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significant levels. The EIR provides further discussion
and the environmental effects resulting from the
implementation of the proposed project."
My question is, why on God's green earth do we
want to put something in there that's going to have
significant environmental effects that we cannot fix
once it's done? so my question is, on this for caruso,
as many of you have heard many times on T.V., deal or no
deal? And, it's no deal.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you, Mr. Goldman.
Next speaker, please.
MR. SHULMAN: The gentleman before me forgot
to sign, but'I don't know if that's mandatory.
Nevertheless, I'm Sanford Shulman. we live at
427 Harvard, in what is called the college district as
the first gentleman mentioned.
,My concern is that I do hope that within the
traffic report, within that environment report., that
it's difficult now to access Baldwin or Colorado from
Harvard and Stanford .and cambridge, I do hope that they
do look at that particular area and have some kind of
solution as far as the access and ingress from those
streets. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
MS. WILLIAMS: Hello my name is sonia
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w,illiams. I live at 130 Greenfield Place.
And my comments concern the panoramic and
scenic views from the south and southeast of the santa
Anita racetrack when you drive along Huntington Drive in
front of Holly Avenue. These ,are described in the 1996
Arcadia General plan as worthy of preservation. They
are Arcadia's heritage and must not be obscured. The
racetrack built in 1934 is now eligible to be listed on
the country's most'prominent nati ona 1 register of ' - -
histori c places and the 'Ca 1 iforni a Register of Hi storic
Resources. The revised DEIR has numerous adverse
aesthetic plans that .needto be changed.
For example, in the before pictures of the
parking lot with the grandstand behind it, it shows the
dull, grey cloudy day not highlighting the background as
being vi.5ually distinctive or beautiful. when one
dri ves by on Hunti ngto'n Dri ve eastward, one's eyes
quickly scan a grey parkin!] lot and look immediately to
the grandstand, the mountalns, the greenery, the
fabulous vista which we just cannot have taken away from
us.
In the after picture with the shops now
loading the hei!]ht to four-plus stories, the view looks
outstanding, qUlte picturesque, and unbelievably
.attractiVe. Thi s vi sua 1 effe'ct is decepti ve and that
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even with the buildings lowered in height, the visual
effect of the grandstand would still be obscured. Note
also that all the shops will be visually blinded with
perhaps advertising signs, store names, et cetera,
taking the eye from the racing track grandstand and
showing only gray" roofing.
we keep asking for alternatives .to project, I
submit, this layout of the shops be split into a
horseshoe effect with green path in the middle, no
lagoon and with the west and east flanks built with some'
shops of a limited number, say at least half the present
proposal. Let's not fill in all the land. Give us
something aesthetic with limited shops, some
restaurants, the auditorium, a beautiful hotel, a
medical plaza of offices, school offices, a science
park, etcetera. Let us not rush into this very
important future investment in our city. Our ci~y
cannot be asked to make an amendment to our general plan
to allow for the loss of our vista and heritage. Our
,city forefathers voted on this for a good reason, and we
need to uphold this part of our heritage. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much,
Ms. williams. Ne-xt s'peaker, please.
, MR. CARSTENS: Good eveni ng, my name is
Douglas carstens, and I'm an attorney with Chatten-Brown
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& carstens. And we are here representing the 4300
members of Arcadi a Fi,rst. And I did submit that 1 etter
for the pl anni ng commi ssi on members' consi,derati on.
, I appreciate the time that you'are devoting to
this, includin~ tonight and the numerous hearings that
we will behavlng on this., It's obviously a very
important project. probably one could argue the most
important in Arcadi a's l1istory and for its future. so
obviously the time spent on this'is time well spent.
This is a project that is going to generate
about 30,226 vehicle trlps a day. It has those
significant impacts that we heard about earlier. It has
the dramatic adverse impacts on the historic resource in
Arcadia, the Santa Anita Racetrack. So this is
something that we urge everybody to take the ttme :that_'s
requ,i red to find a bette"r coifsensus. Come up with
better alternatives, find a way that you don't have to
choose between this group and that group, but find a way
that people can come together. I think there are ways, '
if only a better range of alternatives can be developed.
We ask tonight not to comment about the details of this
EIR,we are going to be submitting a detailed comment
letter, we, have done that already on the prior draft
EIR.
What tonight I'd like to ask is that we extend
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1 the comment period just a little bit more. I mean, we
2 had asked that it be extended to January 8th. Staff had
3 determined it would be extended eight days, to the 14th.
4 It's reasonable to ask that it goes just oneinore week.
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This is a regionally significant project. It took seven
months for professional consultants to revise this EIR.
It's a busy time of year. so it's not unreasonable to
extend it a little bit further to give folks an ,
opportunity to comment and to do so on a good long look
at this.
This revised draft EIR is still inadequate.
There were hundreds of comments, literally hundreds
submitted on the prior one, including from members --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: one more minute.
MR. CARSTENS: one more minute? I can do
that.
And public agencies, and they were not
responded to here. I. think perhaps th~y were responded
to, there were changes, some errors were corrected, some
errors were created. But this draft EIR is hard to work
with. It's not a redc1ine version where' we can see
where changes were made and what responses were made to
parti cu1ar comments.. so proceeding 1 i ke that actually
discoura~es people who have submitted, taken time out
from thelr busy schedules before, submitted comments,
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and they don't know what happened to those comments. So
it's a discouragement to submit comments again.
we ask that the EIR be responsive not just to
comments that are submitted on this draft, the revised
draft, but also on that previous one, the original.
That would meet the California Environmental Quality
Act's purpose of involving the public in this process.
5-0 we ask for that conti nuance of a dead] ine. And we
ask that the EIR be responsive, both to comments that
'are received in this process and in the prior one. And
I thank you for your time tonight. I know that there
wi 11 be more ab.out this. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. We have a lot
of empty seats throu9hout here, so those that are in the
back, if you would llke to sit down. Go ahead, please.
MS. HUNTER: I'm Nicky Hunter. I, live at 120
West Sycamore Avenue.
This report made by experts is extremelY
large, excellent bedtime reading. But I wclu1d say that
all the points that I want to make, I just want to take
one, and that involves traffic. 42 intersections were
actually looked at in depth. And of those, only 20
intersec~ionscwere deemed'to be impacted by this report.
NoW, I have a graphic here that I want to show
you. This -- just look at the colors because I know you
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1 can't read anything. Red, this is the project if
2 nothing happens at all. If we don't build anything,
3 this is what our traffic is going to look like. Red
4 means it's going to be at the worst 'pbssib1estages of
5 congestion, the lowest two levels of congestion. Yellow
6 means that traffic is going to be okay. It'S the middle
7 two levels of congesti,on. Green means that the traffic
8 is goin9 to be good, excellent at the top levels of
,9 con~est1on. Just look at, the amount of red without the
10 proJect.
11 Second thing I want to show you is what
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happens when we do have the project. Again, of those 20
intersections, if we do all the developments,
mitigations, including improving the signs and physical
restripinq of the lanes, as stated in the report, white
on this vlsual shows that there's no impact, or very
little. Lots of white. Green shows that those
intersections are siqnificantly improved. quite a lot of
green. of those 20 lntersections, 16 are qoing to be
better, or at least to the same level, as lf no project
was there at all.
The last remaining, yes, there are four which
be improved, I agree, that's the grey. But of
four, the levels that the project will actually be
the top two levels and just one down in at the
won't
those
is at
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middle level. To me, I just think that's a huge
improvement of where we're going to be in 2009. I don't
think we can afford not to do this, in terms of
improving our traffic.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
Next speaker, please.
MR. HETTRICK: Good evening. My name is scott
Hettrick., I live at 67 East Arthur Avenue.
I first wanted to commend the city and the
independent agency responsible for 'the preparation of
this revised environmental impact report. It's good to
see that all the issues that were fully addressed from
th,e comments we Arcadian's made after.the first report,
including concerns that were expressed again this
evening about the west ~ile virus and the traffic,
they're addressed pretty substantially in the revised
report so it should alleviate any concerns some have .had
about that., ,
while I'm happy to see that 84 of the 100
potential areas of impact would result in no si~nificant
impact 'with the approval and the building of thls
development, there are a few areas that were not covered
that I would like to address.
First, there's nothing in the report that
notes the potential negative impact on the santa Anita
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1 Pa"k Horse Track if this development is not approved.
2 For instance, will on-track attendance continue to
3 decline? The city has already lost about 1. 5 million
4 dollars ion annual revenue from the 'track in the past 10
5 or 15 years. And as a result -- as an indirect result,
6 we have had to reduce the size of our fire department
7 and .other city staffing during that time. HOW much
8 fur.ther will our city be impacted if this development is
9 not built.
10 There's also nothi ng in thi s report to note
11 the positive impact that an extra two million dollars or
12 more each year from sales tax revenue alone could have
13 on all 'city serv.ices.. Nei ther was it noted how much we
14 could improve fire and police protection for the entire
15 c,i ty by earmarki n~ the fi.rst dollars generated from thi.s
16 development to brlnging those departments back up to
17 full string.
18 In the section about alternative uses for the
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racetrack parking lot, which gets a lot of ink in the
media and from other organizations, I don't believe the
report provides any perspective on the realistic chances
of forcing or convincing the owners of this private
property to implement any of these alternatives, whether
we want, them to or not. After all, this is private
property, and I don't imagine they would be any more
willing to have others tell them what to do ~han you
I would want someone to tell us what to do wlth our
property.
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or
COMMISSIONER OLSON: One minute.
MR. HETTRICK: Thank you. There's also
nothing in the report to explain the negative impact of
having the owners of the race track property build an
Indian casino or residential housing or car lots on the
property, none of which will offer the tens of millions
of dollars of community improvements that Caruso
Affiliated is voluntarily offering,
The report also doesn't describe the positive
impact on our schools if the development is approvedi
especi a 11 y ih 1 i ght of the new bond measure, that cal s
for new buildings on the high school campus. HOW much
more croWded will the campus be if school district
offices are not provided a new 22,000 square foot
building for free by the developers across the street?
In all of the findings relative to the imllact
on the traffic, almost all of which show the traffic
flow will be even better wi th the improvements provided
by the developer' than it is now, as Nicky just so
adeptly pointed out, The report does not really factor
in how traffic may be even further improved if and when
the owners of the westfield Mall provide all the
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1 mitigations they have promised for years.
2 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Go ahead and wrap it up.
3 MR. HETTRICK: Finally, the report points out,
4 that even without the development, traffi c wi 11 continue
5 to get worse and worse in Arcadia, but there's no
6 mention about the impact on the pocketbooks of local
7 residents if we are required to pay the tens of millions
8 of dollars in higher taxes to make improvement rathe,r
9 -than--letting,the developer of The Shops at Santa Anita
10 foot the bill. Thank you. ,
11 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you.
12 MR. BOWEN: My name is Jeff Bowen. I live at
13 1919 wi 1 son in Arcadi a. And I've lived in Arcadi a ',si nce
14 1950, and raised my family here.
15 I vi ew thi 5 ErR a 1 i ttle di fferently. , Yes,
16 there's going to be environmental issues to deal with
17 that the vacant parking lot. is built on, but the reality
18 is that somethi ng wi 11 be bui h on that parki ng lot.
19 And I thi nk we ought to, just face that real i ty and move
20 forward with the quality project that's been proposed
21 for that property and b~ thankful that we have it to
22 look for. That's my comment.
23 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
24 please.
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MS. RUIZ:
My name is Rebecca Ruiz, and I live
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I knoW that
little dry.
mi ssi ng
at 955 EnCanto Drive. well, after two EIRs,
they are independent and very factual! arid a
so part of the life that really, I th1nk, is
from these, reports, I wanted to focus on. '
In the project description we have a community
theatre added. Now the communitY, at least those who
have ~hildren in school, have really been looking for a
community theatre. It's a real benefit. school
admiriistrativespace, the high school is approaching
occupancy maximums. Arid I was at a school board meeting
and they were ecstatic to have caruso offer what he's
offered, in terms of spaCe. Reinvigorating the
racetrack. The purpose of bringing Caruso in there is
,to draw people into the racetrack. So any alternatives
would really have to address reinvigorating the
racetrack. when people are on the property, they can
see the grandstand, they can be invited to come in
instead of dri ve by. . Lastl y, I
wanted to talk about the footprint of this project. If
you go to The Grove; this is just to give a little
perspective, The Grove is 13 acres, of which about 20 to
25 percent is open space. The shops at Santa Anita,
it's going to have 46 acres available for development
that the project is proposi ng, 'of whi ch 26 acres i,s open
space. And about 14 acres is park, the water feature,
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that's the size of The Grove. So i,n addition that's
over 50 percent open space. And that's huge.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: One minute.
MS. RUIZ: In closing, I hope -- I see there
are a lot of supporters here, and I hope others come up
and talk. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
MS. NIG9LIAN: Helloi my na'!le is Talin
Nigolian, and I 11ve on 951 pa oma Dr1ve.
And after all this well-researched
information, I just want to say to my fellow intelliqent
tasteful and concerned Arcadians, really, what more 1S
there to think about? More money to the city, very much
needed office space for Arcadia High school. A
beautiful and safe environment to shop and dine with our
famili es. , A community theatre that we' ve all been
waiting for. And a developer who cares what we think.
And most importantly, let's all remember that
competition is good.
Have we all noticed the Cheesecake Factory and
the finer retail stores such as Banana Republic, Guess
and H&M that are all of a sudden coming in westfield.
Bottom line, we are Americans and we are about progress,
so why not progress forward With a top-notch quality
development that most other cities would die to have.
1 Thank
2
3
4 I'm a
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you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker.
MR. HERR: Good evening, my name is Paul Herr.
3D-year resident of Arcadia. Grew up in the san
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Gabriel valley.
And my main concern is the traffic. ,I notice
somebody got up here and said 16 intersections would be
better. I'm an accountant. I've been an accountant for
many years. The numbers don't add up. I don't see how
you can add 30 to ,50,000 car trips a day and improve the
traffic no matter how you change things, unless you put
in a double decker system or something.
I'd like to address the -~also the traffic,
as it's going to be five years, ten years and 15 years
down the, way. As all of you are aware, anybody who's
dri ven on the 210 over the 1 ast 30 or 40 years, it's
gotten progressively worse year after year. If you have
that many more cars comin9 into Arcadia on the 210, on
the 60, and whatever, you ore going to have major cause
of additional qridlock. You take the effect that has on
the people's tlme, as far as how much time it's going to
take us to get to 'and from work, that's increase.
That's a cost.
It's going to ,slow down your progress so
you're driving longer, you're going to use up more gas.
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I think these need to be addressed in the ErR. I've
also been over to The Grove. There is a. lot of gridlock
around there. It'S very difficult to find parking loot
on occasions. And I don't think we need to add that to
Arcadla. Arcadia is known as a city of homes, and I
don't think we should make it a city of gridlock. Thank
you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
MS. TSE: Good evening my name is sung Tse,
T-s-e. My address is 240 Renoak way, Arcadia. Ido
live in Arcadia.
, I would like to squash the rumor that Arcadia,
Fi rst, fi r's't of a 11., is a shi 11 orqani zati on for'.
Westfield. Iam not paid by Westfleld. I'm a very b~sy
mother of tWo. You know what, I just -- I just wonder
now people could just glOSS over the fact that we are
going to have increased smog that cannot be mitigated.
I haye a calendar that was sent to me by the
Air Quality Management District, and it says here that
the --I'm sorry. Nearly half a million calffor:nia
chilpren have asthma, leading cause of children
absenteeism. children are more at risk from the effects
of ai'r pollution because they breathe in larger ., '
quantities of air, spend a lot of outdoor -- doing
outdoor activities, and have lungs that are not fully
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1 developed. we are talking about the children, the
2 schools, and all the impact, the negative impact, the
3 traffic. '
4 You know, I'd really love to address all the
5 mothers here. why did you move to Arcadia? Why do you
6 live in Arcadia? Isn't it for your children? I mean,
7 this says the environmental impact -- the DEIR, all the
8 impacts here -- excuse me, I'm sorry. It's listed right
9 here all the impacts, 4.2, 4.2-2, 4,2-3, 4.2-4. And
10 this is black and white. It says that our air will --
11 it's going to get worse. If you just look at the
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okay.
If the impact -- 4.2-2 says, "Construction
activities associated with the proposed project." It
has a lot of initials here, VOC, NOX and Co2. That
means smog. Bottom line, that means smog. And it says
here, black and white, that it will be -- the impact is
significant, and unavoidable. The bottom line here, if
we are talking about the overcrowding of schools, this
community theatre that's supposed to be so great for our
children, this outdoor space that's going to be inside,
that's as large as The Grove. My goodness, that's going
to be very lar~e, and all that and we're saying that's
for our commun1ty, for our children. What about the air
that we breathe? You could ,say the lights are not going
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to affect me, I don't live near the mall. I am not
affected by the traffic, I don't live near
COMMISSIONER OLSON: About 30 seconds.
MS. TSE: well, I would just like ever:(one to
just instead of -- all these little badge, Arcad1a First
and Arcadia wins, whatever, if we are -- if we truly are
concerned about ou r chjl d ren, please don't i gno re the
fact that thei r ai,r is goi ng to get worse. Thank you.
,COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
Next speaker, please. please no clapping.
MS. DUNLop: I'm Ruth Dunlop, and I live at
824 Arcadia Avenue.
Many things have been said tonight that ,I was
going to say, like the fact that Caruso is planning on
having the Arcadia High school or the Arcadia offices on
their property, not charging rent, which will keep the
school from bursting at the seams. Somebody said
something about calling these people of Arcadia First
shills for westfield, I don't think anybody has thought
that or said that; however, When Westfield has thrown
over three minion dollars into this campaign to defeat
carusoi I think that they may be misled. I won't go to
the ma, 1 at night. I had two friends who had their
purses snatched at Westfield. one was when Broadway was
still there, and this friend of mine was going into
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1 Broadway'and there was a woman standing by the d~or~ she
,2 thought she \vas --
3 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Can we limit this to
4 discussion on the --
5' MS. DUNLop: okay. well, one thing, though,
6 that Caruso project is, they do hi!-ve great security.
7 And I know that at one of the pollce meetings that we,
8 had this last summer they said something about putting
9 in cameras and things at the westfield Mall. well,
10 Caruso has that sort of thing. I was wondering who is
11 paying for this? IS westfield paying for this or is the
12 city paying for this.
13 A city of homes doesn't' put the police and the
14 fire people in -- the caruso is up-scal,e shops, they're
15 no threat to westfield. And certainly they would not be
16 a magnet for the teenagers and such that hang around
17 there. I know that Caruso has tried to work with the
18 city"and I know that when the mayor called westfield,
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they wouldn't listen to him. So as I said, the theatre,
the school district, the, -- all the -- all ,the ways that
they have tried to work together. And I don't --
talking about West Nile and the lake, well, we have open
water --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: 30 seconds.
MS. DUNLOP: we have open water at the
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arboretum too" and I haven't heard anybody with the; r
children falling in or West Nile. Thanks.
MR. KIMBALL: Bob Kimball, 140 santa Cruz.
Just to echo what the lady said, I work with
water parks and water features, and the health
department would shut you down in a heartbeat if there
was standi ng water. .
Anyway" I am areal i st and the ci ty of Arcadi a
has to make a huge decision. Santa Anita iSl for laCK
of a better word, doomed. There's so many d,fferent
venues for qambling, there's so many different venues
for entertalnment. I go to the track, I entertain
guests, neighbors, friends, out-of-towners goinq to the
track. The attendance i,s 1 acki ng and the park 1 s
doomed. It'S either that, or have 1100 homes and then
all of a sudden the city of Arcaaia has to figure out
traffic mitigation, smog, timing of lighting, the .
,traffic signals, et cetera,et cetera. '
The other impact is tax qenerated __ I'~
sorry, tax revenues generated by elther1100 homes --
and this is just a plus or ri1i'nus of what people have
been saying with, the 86 acres. Keep in mind that
Westfield did get 20 acres from the track in 1978, I
think it was.
~nyway, the caruso project will continually
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1 generate taxes as opposed to permit fees and new water,
2 sewer, electrical, et cete'ra, et cetera. A lot of those
3 fees are just goi ng to be !I one-ti me hit, and then the
4 city is going to have to try and figure out what' to do
5 with those 1100 homes, times 2.3 people per home, per
6 dwelling, whatever. I'm in favor of the Caruso project,
7 just because there has been a lot of thought gone into
8 how to lessen the traffic, what to do with it, and I
9 know that Westfield has tried and they've not" had ~heir
10 hands tied as to what to do. I mean, they've been
11 recommended but haven't rea 11 y fl i ppedthe buck to do
12 it. So, that's my time.
13 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you.
14 MR. LIMO: My name is Rick Limo, and I'm with
15 ,Caruso Affiliated.
16 council member Amundson, commissioners and city
17 staff. out of respect for your time and respect for the
18 guests here tonight who have come on both sides of the
19 lssue, I want to congratulate the city and the residents
20 for 'literally crafting the project that has been studied
21 in this EIR. And to save time for a lot of folks and a
22 lot of people who were robbed fro~ their Tuesday
23 evening, if I could just ask that everyone here who is
24 in support of the work done in th,is EIR, and support of
25 the mitigations that Caruso will be putting in the
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project, would please raise their hand so our
commissioners would be able to see what the numbers are,
so we don't tie everyone's time tonight speaking. And,
as you can see, it' 5 a si gni ficant amount of the room.
I have to tell you that we're humbled, and we're very
grateful, and we thank you all for turning out'tonight.
Thank you. ,
COMMISSIONER OLSON: If I could. I'll remind
everybody, this is not a popularity contest, number one.
Everybody, whatever is said tonight or in the comments
is getting equal consideration and discussion and
thought to it. And so it rea1.ly doesn't matter 'how many
people are here or not, quite frankly. And if somebody
has already said what you want to say" you don't need to
repeat i.t because it will be answered in the report.
Next speaker.
MR. FOLEY: Gee, David, you have to say that
just when I get up there. "Not a popularity contest,
don't forget." My name is vince Foley, I live at 320
cambridge o'rive, which, as you can ten by the name is
one of those college streets places.
A lot of the thin\ls I was going to talk about
have been said already, obv10usly. So I want to just
tal'k about, one thi'n\l that I got in the mail just today,
and it's from Arcad1a, First. And it says, of course,
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it's paid by Westfield, we all know that. One of'the
things they ,want me as a citizen to talk to you about
tonight, is the need to include a new public park. And,
of course, we know there are no public parks anywhere
near westfield, but we know there are some, as we've
heard 20 acres of open green space proposed for this new
project. so I would agree that we certa,inlyneed in
Arcadia in that area a new pUblic park. Ana I would
suggest we pTaceit immediately east of Baldwin, just
north of Huntinqton, kind of right where westfield's
purposed expanslon is going to be. Because they say we
neea a park, I think that's where we ought to have a
park.
MR. HENRICH: My name is Tony Henrich. I live
at 431 North, Altura Road in Arcadia, over the lower
,Rancho. ,My wife and, I have lived in Arcadia for-over 30
years.
I'm past president of th!i! homeowner's
association and currently architecture review board,
chairman for 'the 900 homes which surrounds the racetrack
on the north and on the west. Speaking for myself, I
have revi ewed the EIR, and I, fi nd it comp'rehensi ve and
complete, but I would like to ask the planning
commission to consider the EIR to ,reflect the added
goodwill that this project provides to the citizens of
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The Caruso project will finally ,give us a
downtown, a plaza. A place where we can go and stroll
and dine and meet with our neighbors or what have you.
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we don't have that in Arcadia. Just think of the added
value and goodwill that downtown Monrovia provides to
its citizens, or the added value that sierra Madre
downtown adds to its citizens. I can't imagfne these
cities without their downtown.
. Here in Arcadia we have an added value
provided by a great s~hool system, which our kids went
throuqh. we have added value from the arboretum, and
most 1mportantly, we have added value from this great
crown jewel of Arcadia, Santa Anita Racetrack. I would
hate to lose that track. I think this project provides
the enhancement and will help save this pro~ect.
So in closing, I support thispro)ect, I ask-
the planning commission to look at the qoodwill and
added value that this project will prov1de all of us.
Thank you.
, COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please. ,
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAK: I th,i nk the average Joe
'blow citizen like myself --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Can I have your name and
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address, please.
UNIOENTIFIEO SPEAKER: I prefer to remain
anonymous, if that's all right. I think the average
citizen of Arcadia is not interested in the squabbling
that's going on between westfield, the city, Arcadia
First, and any other organizations. I moved here from
Northern californfa 11 years ago. Init-ially, my wife
and t lived in, south Arcadia, on the other side of Live
oak. We lived in a small house off of Live Oak for two
years ana then we bought a house very close to the back
side of the track. And li,ke so many other people, we
enjoy Arcadia, ,we enjoy the track. I take my
nine~year-old-daughter over to the track quite
frequently to see the horses, to ride the tram on
saturday mornings. I love the track.
But just some comments I'd like to throw in.
Again, I think another point that's being missed is, I
think the duty of any ci ty counci 1 and any p 1 anni ng
commission is indeed to protect the interest of the
people" and make sure that the public hea'l thi s
safeguarded. And some of the speakers have been saying,
well, sometlii rig's got to go in there" somethi ng "s goi.ng'
togoin there._ ,That may be true, a~d ,maybe it .is owned
lly pri vate interests, ,I can't argue with that, but
that's missing the point.
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1 City councils are to safeguard the interests
2 of their citizens, regardless of whether or not it's
3 private property. Look at the eminent domain issue,
4 that's a perfect example. I'd lJke to see a commission
5 appointed, just like Monrovia did. old Town Monrovia, I
6 don't think anyone can argue, it's been a huge success.
7 They appointed a Blue -- I don't know if it's properly
8 called a Blue Ribbon Commission, but it was an
9 independent commission that Monrovia went with to get
10. input. I'd really like the City of Arcadia to do that,
11 to study
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COMMISSIONER OLSON: One minute.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I work in Enci no, it
took me an hour and a half this evening to drive 35
mi 1 es from Enci no to get here. If this proj ect is goi ng
to ,be successful, people have to take that 210 Freeway.
AS one other speaker poi nted out, it's i ust goi ng to g'et
steadily worse. I don't think the traffic can be
adequately judged until you put a whole bunch of cars
there. Go out and get, ,some rental cars and actually put
them in that area and judge the impact.
The impact on the power grid has not been
addressed at all. In prior sessions I've been told,
well, that's Edison's resl?ons1bility. I:Ihat if Edison
can't deal successfully wlth It? I d l1ke to see
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comments sol i ci ted from neighbori ng ci ti es and '
communities. sure, the school district is going to get
a buil di ng, but it's just goi ng to be ashe 11 'from what
I understand.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: You have 15 seconds,
could you please wrap it up?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sure. Also, the track,
from what I understand, was one of the original
promoters of offsite wagering. And sure enough, that's
reduced the number of people coming to the track. This
proj ec't, is muchbi gger than anythi ng else that Mr.
caruso has tackled.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: If ~ou'v~ qot any further
comments, you can please put them 1n wr1t1ng.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My final comment would
be. I really encourage the city to appoint an
independent commission to study this. Thank you.
. COMMISSIONER OLSON: Next speaker, please.
MR. O,'CONNOR: ,My name is Mike o'connor, I
live up on the college streets.
When I first heard about this project, being'
neutrali I just waited to see, what it was all about. My
persona op1nion, I would like to see -- I want to see
progress in Arcadia, but I certainly don't want to see a
lot of additional building right in the middle of
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1 Arcadia. we alreadY have a lot of c:ongestion and
,2 traffic. Important thinqs -such as pohce, fire,
3 hospital, doctors' build1ngs, there's too much traffic
4 for those important services as there is right now.
5 Adding to that is just going to make things in Arcadia
6 extremely difficult, even possibly unsafe for somebody
7 who's in an emergency.
8 There's no way that -- no matter what you are,
9 told or what people claim Will happen! there's no wa~
10 anybody is going to improve the trafhc in Arcadia after
11 ther put in a new mall. It's riot going to happen. I
12 don to care if they consult the number one foremost
13 traffic facilitator in the country. It's not going to
14 happen. I live up there. I know what it's like.
15 There's a school up there, Barn Heart, they haven't
16 talked about all the racetrack traffic leaving out
17 through that direction. people living on the hill, the
18 only Way they're going to ~et down to this mall is Santa
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Anita or Baldwin. There's no way you're going to handle
that traffic. ' You're going to back up traffic on the
freeway on busy days.
That doesn't even talk about pollut~on. How
would you 1 i ke 35,000 cars goi ng around us, here in thi s
buildiny? All that pollution, smog, you're breathing it
in. It s not the city's obligation at all to save the
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racetrack owner from making a, bad investment. That's
not our job. That's riot your job, because your job, as
the man said before, is to safeguard the citizens of
this town. ,
I would like to see Arcadia improve and get
better, but I also want it to stay the way it has been,
a decent fine community, not a congested overloaded
place where people can't get from one place or another.
when L went to one of the earlier meetings, the real
estate people, a spokesman stood up and said, "We want
more apartments, there's not enough." Obviously most'of
them don't want' apartments. I called them and said,
"You don't really mean, that." The real estate 1 ady, she
said, "Have you lived here long?" I says, "Yeah, I
remember the way Arcadia was wnen the racetrack was
going." she goes, "Yeah, I heard Arcadia was hopping
then." Yeah, you'couldn't drive anyplace between 11:30
and 1:30, you couldri't drive anyplace between 4:30 and
6:30. NOW we'll have it all day long. And on special
days like special race days or christmas shopping or
something like that, might as well walk. The
racetrack --
COMMISSIONER 9LSON: you've got 15 seconds,
please, if you could wrap it up. , ' .
MR. O'CONNOR: I'll just get to one thing.
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when I
1 I'm concerned about some of the taCtics I've seen
2 Obviously, everybody has different opinions. But
3 saw a Ayer come to my house that said, "NO new
4 apartments in Arcadia," small print, "unless the city
5 counci 1 approves. " small print. .
6 I went to date night, when I talked to other
7 people, there were people in a number of ,those meetings
8 who stood up and said the traffic around The Grove is a
,9 .lot better. They're-obviously 'working for Mr. Caruso.'
10 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Mr. O'Connor, if you have
11 anything else to say, you can put it in writin~.
12 MR. O'CONNOR: I go to Meet-the~Cand~dates
13 Night and the homeowner's association, and what is in
14 the back of the room? The racetrack. It's the Santa
15 Anita -- or the owner's association, Day At The Races,
16 right in the back of the room, but we're sitting up
17 there listening to the candidates.
18 C:OMMISsIONER OLSON: Mr. O'Connor, your time
19 is up, please. we have other speakers.
20 MR. O'CONNOR: So anyway, my last comment is,
21 just follow the money.
22 MR. NORTON: Good evening. My name is Kevin
23 Norton. I represent International Brotherhood of
24 Electrical workers, we're the electrician's union.
25 we're a community stakeholder.
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We have members that work on projects in
Arcadia like the hospital in front of us, the Westfi~ld
Mall when that was under construction, and they'll be
working on this project., we all represent electricians
who work at the racetrack, so we're concerned about the
future of that racetrack so we can have these jobs. we
already have half the amount of jobs that we used to
have ~ust a few short years ago because of the
diminlshed traffic at the racetrack. We feel that
Caruso project will be an added value to the community.
It will also help shore up the racetrack, which is deh
in Arcadia history. It's a beautiful facility that
they're going to build over there. And we fully support
the project and hope ,that you- move"forward with 'it. '
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Next speaker, please.
MR. MORRIS: My name is Mike Morris. I've
lived on portola Drive since 1964.
What I'm concerned ,about is a simple situation
that nobody has bothered to ask Caruso to guarantee in
writing with a situation where it will cost them dearly
in the pocket if they don't go throu9h with all these
promi ses. Tney promi sed a school bUll di ng, it's a,
she ll. Let's gi ve them a bui 1 di rig that's quality, that
won't fall down with the first earthquake and get it in
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wr1t1ng. Make it hurt if they don't give you a quality
buil di ng.
Next thinqis, I have yet to see caruso say
anything about PUtt1 ng a tram in between thei r faci 1 ity
and the Gold Line, and pointing out in their ads it will
cost three bucks a day to come to their facility if they
take the Gold Line and the tram, and maybe even refund
,the three bucks. That will cut traffic. That, will cut
exi sti ng traffi c to westfi e 1 d.
parking situation. I've been a Holy Angels
parishioner since I moved here. There used to be a
problem witf:1 people parking in the Holy ,Angels parking
lot when they went to the racetrack. In fact, Monsignor
O'keefe had to pull the candles (inaudible) so people
would light a, candle for their horse. well, let's make
it to where_on, where if -- 1 et"-s' make the parki ng- free
in the parking lot where this won't happen.
They're talking about putting gambling in
there. No, thank you. I'm a sheriff's volunteer in
their communications group. I hear about the problems
the sheriffs have in the gambling dens done in other
parts of this country. Ask any sheriff's officer if the
crime rate improves around where there's gambling.
please. And then ban the gambling. I'd much rather see
that parking lot be zoned parking only forever than to
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1 see something go in where my personal quality of life
2 drops, I also want to see caruso guarantee my personal
3 property value won't go down. Thank you.
4 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Next speaker, pl ease.
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MR. MARTINEZ: My name is Richard Martinez. I
live at 301 West Magna Vista.
And I think a lot has been discussed here
regarding the quality of the Caruso projects and 'so
forth, many people have gone over and taken advantage of
going over to The Grove and so forth, which is flagship,
as far as we're concerned, here in Arcadia. , I think the
issue is not really whether it's a good project or not
for the residents, it's the quality of life in Arcadia.
And over and over what do you hear? You hear about the
traffic.
Right now I would suggest that probably most
of us at qiven periods of time avoid different
intersectlons in Arcadia or we just don't travel in
Arcadia. when they talk about addlng between 30 and
50,000 extra trips per day and improving, with a project
improving traffic, that is not so.
I'm sure most of you have already seen
numerous articles in the front page of the business
section of the L.A. Times that says -- I have a copy
here which came out in page 1 of the business section of
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the L.A. Times wednesday, April the 19th. A comment
from an area resident that says, "Traffic in this
neighborhood is much worse than it 'was before The,
Grove." .
Also" the arti cl e states that "Traffi c
congestion is so bad that noW the state is conducting
and provi di ng,addi tioria 1 grants t() try 'and sol ve the
problems at The Grove." And The Grove adjusted 40-some
traffic lights. They built new streets, new ingress and
egress. And they still are congested where the state is
trying to resolve this problem. If adding lights is
~oingto solve the traffic problem here,whY don't we do
1t now? We don't have to build the project in order to
adjust the lights if that is the answer.
And also,as far as traffic is concerned, if
you look in the EIRs, it says -- there isa note, I'd
like the planning commission, to follow up on it, that
the~ are going to work, I believe. with about f1ve other
cit~es probably contig40us ,to our city, to try to
resolve the traffic. In other words. if we get the
traffic out of Arcadia because of minor adjustment, san
Mari no, pasadena, sierra Madre, Monrovi a wlll say ,yes, _
give us your traffi c? 'NO; - they "are not. -
COMMISSIONER OLSON: 30 seconds.
MR. MARTINEZ: There was a comment saying that
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1 we, will be getting together with them to resolve this.
2 I say this has to be resolved before anything goes any
3 further than that, because rsuspect that they don't
4 want, our contiguous neighbors do not want Arcadia
5 traffi Co Thank you,
6 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
7 please.
8 MR. KRUCKEBERG: Folks, if you could please
9 remember to sign in after you speak. Thanks.
10 MR. RAZI: I live at 2210 south 6th Avenue.
11 I'm one of the few people here that actually grew up in
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I moved to Arcadia when I was about eight
years old, and I moved away for about four or five years
and now I'm back. And a couple of the issues that have
been issued 'is the issue of the parkinq, I mean, of the
traffic oil the 210 Freeway, ,the pollut10n. The fact of
the matter is, the_growth of the Inland Empire has
really created, tcaffic on the, 210, the additional smog
that we deal with. I am a developer in that area. I do
that run just about ,every Single day, and I know that
the traff1c is bad, but not because we're going to have
an extra mall here. It'S because there's about,3QO,OOO
new homes in that area. ,so anybody who thinks that this
little mall is going to create more traffic on the 210
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or more pollution, they're highly mistaken compared to
that other issue.
The other issue that I have is that of all my
classmates that I grew up with there's probably maybe,
three or four of them that actually stayed in Arcadia.
And it's not because we can't afford the homes here" the
big issue is, there's really not a whole lot for us to
do that goes beyond just going to the mall. Many people
that are here are retired and only have a certain amount
of period of time that they're going to still live in
Arcadia, but I'll probably live here at least another 30
years. Let's be serious. There's really not a whole
lot, for us to do.
The track has become a -- not an exciting
place to go anymore. The Arcadia Mall is just filled
with these corporate entities that really don't have the
kind of stuff that we're looking for. we don't have
good restaurants. I have to go to Pasadena" the fact of
the matter 'is, it has affecteCl our home values. If you
think I'm joking, I'm not. If you look at the average
price of a, say, 1500 square foot home in Pasadena in a
poor neighborhood, it" s equivalent to what a -- that
same si ze home is in Arcadi a. And you' 're not getti nq
near the schooling, the beauty of Arcadia. And why lS
that? Because pasadena has a lot of stuff to do. It's
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1 a place where people want to be. There will be some
2 hiqher traffi c in ,the ci ty, but that may be asma,ll
3 prlce to pay for the welfare of our city. 1hank you.
4 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
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please.
MS. 5IRENE: My name is Edna sirene. I, live
at 824 Arcadia Avenue. I've lived there for 85 years.
The block west I was born and raised.
I have a whole list of things to talk about
but many people have already covered. If I hear about
the Grove one more time -- it's so wonderful because
people love it. Why don't they move to The Grove? It's
a good idea, huh? And as far as the racetrack, the
racetrack brought more to the City of Arcadia than
anything else. It isn't the racetrack's fault that they
don't have the people there, crowds. Because the State
of California Horse Racing Board are the ones that all9w
the off-track betting.
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19 So if you bet the races, if you live in, let's
20 say, Pomona, why would you come to Santa Anita, when
21 you've got an off-track right there in Pomona. Or the
22 same with people going to Hollywood park, it's not a
23 popular place any more because people can go right here
24 to Santa Anita to bet Hollywood Park and so on. There's
25 a lot more I could cover, you don't have time, and I
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don't have time.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
MR. BECKET: Good evening. My name is Paul
I reside at 2016 canyon Road here in Arcadi.a.
a member of the executive committee of Arcadia
please.
Becket.
I'm also
First.
AS you a 11 know, we're opposed to the proj ect.
I have a number of concerns, most of whlch have been
express~d here, from the traffic, to tile pollution. to
the obliteration of the skyline, to the increased
police, fi.re services.
I've heard the comments of a number of the
supporters of the project here this evening, and some
made comments about the wide open green spaces in the
lZaruso projects, the safety of the Caruso projects. I
think if rou do visit The, Grove, as I guess mariyhave
done, you 11 see that The Grove is not Known for wide
open spaces, it's wall-to~wall concrete with a
meandering path through the middle. I think the same is
true of Glendale'. I think what you see in each of these
areas is density beyond your wildest imagination.
And in our,case here, the del(elopment will
introduce new elements, to our community here which are
not present here. I' think if everything went as the
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most opti mi sti c proj ections say, you kept all the retai 1
spaces full, your ailjoining business remained vibrant,
maYbe you get the increase in revenues that we're
talking about, but it comes at a ~r,eat cost. Because
what is associated with these proJects, the Caruso
projec,ts in particular" is density" density, density.
Try today to drive anywhere 'near 3rd and
Fairfax at any time of day. Try to drive from north to
south in Glendale any time of day. I think the revenues
are certainly something to talk about, but the costs are
very; Vf~ry great. And wi th what I know of our current
projections in the city budget, our current situation in
the 'city budget, we simply don't need those kinds of
revenues. We can do with lesser revenues and preserve
the kind of community that we have here.
i: would like to add one other thing. There's
a lot of talk here about the imminent demise of the
racetrack. From the numbers I've' seen, and I've said
that here before, I don't see a basis for that. I thi.nk
those claims are without foundation. I think on the
contrary, Santa Anita Racetrack i.s the highest
revenue-~enerating racetrack in the nation, talking in
the mill10ns of dollars, 80 percent of which is
off-track betting.
So I don't think hanging this project on,
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well, we have to save the racetrack. I don't think you
can go forward with the, pro~ect solely based on what you
may get by way of revenues lf everything goes just
right, police, fire services don't run higher costs than
what you project, crime levels aren'-t higher. As the
gentleman earlier said, show me a place where there's
gambling, a,casino atmosphere where crime, has gone down.
It just doesn't happen.
show me a pJace where you add 30,000 cars or
5Q,OOO and how you get traffic getting better. where
has traffic improved in and around any caruso 'project?
You 'ore tal ki ng about someplace 1i ke Ca 1 abasas. Maybe
you don't get a major impact. we're not calabasas here,
we're also not west L.A. here either. This is a
community of homes. Consider some alternatives.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: could you sign the
clipboard please. Before the nex't speaker, I'm going to
-- because the reporters, they need a short break, if we
do take a fi ve~minute break. If you want to stand up
you'll be the first speaker. we'll reconvene in five
minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
COMMISSION~R OLSON: Next speaker, please.
MR. RAMIREZ: Members of the planning
commission, city staff, good evening. My name is Ralph
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Rami rez, my wi fe and I live at 504 sharon Road.
. And the thinq that has been a~dre~sed to you
bnefly here" but not ln the depth I th1nk lt should be,
is the issue of public standard. Public standards o'f
conduct, which are -- I think i's a very imJiortantissue
that is enforced at 'all of the Caruso pro~ects. since
thi s is pri vate 1 and, you can enfo",ce it 1 n an effort, of
public conduct. These posted standards.
And I thought it was quite interestinq, and
that having toured their security system, and w1th their
cameras and their security force, whenever they see
somebody with inappropriate attire or inappropriate
behavior, or even people who are at the point where
they're mitigating the possibility of ~ood behavior but
of errant behavior, their security is 1mmediately posted
to, that area. "(h,ese standards are read to the people.,
they're said, "Do you want to stick around here? Do you
want to be arrested? DO you want to leave the
premis'es?" And as a result of that, those enforcement
of a standard of code of conduct at all the Caruso
projects, and verified by the police chiefs of all the
cit1es involved, as well as the city of LOS Angeles,
police requirements have been lessen, crime has been
reduced, even with more people.
So I think it's a very important issue that
1 should be addressed.
2 to go to westfield in
3 shootings up there at
4 things, if thi.s would
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My wife and I are very reluctant
the evenings. And with the
Dave &, Busters and those kinds of
have been mitigated to begin with,
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you wouldn't have those kinds of people in the location
to begin with. I think it's a very important issue.
And we're talking about police and fire and safety
issues. And we have a number of vacancies in our police
department, we can't afford to nire anybody. So when
somebody says we can do whatever we want, yeah, you can
downsize it, and can have crime increase. If you don't
have enough police, you don't have enough fire.
I think you necessarily have to have the
revenue to support a city of thiS size and a city of
this quality. And it needs adequate public safety. And
the standard of code of conduct I think is an important
ingredient of that. Because of that issue, I felt that
I had to get up and impress upon -- the woman addressed
it earlier, the issue of safety and of public safety for
a 11 those people who parti ci pate is a very, very
important' issue,.
And I think if you visited any of these
locations 'at any time of day, I think it's very
important. And if you visited their security locations'
and seen where the cameras are at the entrances of their
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parking lots, as wel1 as the egress of their parking
lots, that could be tied very easily~with the CHP 'stolen
automobile issues so stolen cars don't get out.
They're immediateiy arrested. There's so many issues
that pertaining to public safety of that program.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: 15 seconds.
MR. RAMIREZ: SO anyway, public safety I think
is an extremely, i.mportant is~ue, ,and it can be mitigated
by 'approvlng thlS, ca~uso proJect.
C COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you Very much.
Next speaker, please., ' n
~ MR. VALLE: Hello, my name is Marco valle,
v-a-l-l-e. I live at 4939 Rupert Lane, which is La
canada, Flintridge, not in Arcadia, although, i have
worked in Arcadia for years and so have members of my
family, and do a lot of shopping here, have over the
years. ,
, And just felt compelled ,to share a short word
about change and the process of change. In my business,
I've had the opportunity to look, at how communities like
Arcadia have become cities of homes. It's because over
the process of many years southern californi~ and the
suburbanc;:uTture that"sfraying out of'it, became very
autocentr1C.
I think a lot of the challenges that have been
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1 addressed tonight, a lot of the concerns that have been
2 concern'ed at this meetin~ and the p~evious one, stem
3 from the process of gett1ng away from a traditional town
4 with a town center, which was centered around
5 pedestrians and retail that was in a central location.
6 These problems are stemming from decades and decades of
7 getting away from that and towards the culture that we
8 now have, which is very focused on cars, and has 1 ed to
9 all the traffic problems and commune issues that we have
10 now.
11 so what I'd like to share is that I think I
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represent a lot of people from La canada, Flintridge who
would love to come to the Shops at Santa Anita and to
spend our leisure time and our money here, because we
don't have anything like that in La canada, Flintridge.
It'S projects like this th'atrepresent a renaissance in
developmental thinking now. ,With new developers such as
caruso, Caruso Affiliated that are embracing working
with communities'and getting back to the fundamentals of
city planning.
I do recognize that there are issues that come
up with any kind of big changes like this. The 30,000
cars keeps being mentioned over and over ad nauseam. At
the same time, though. it is projects like this' that are
now beginning to happen as people are changing their
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minds and looking back tOWards the more traditional ways
of city planning, going back literally centuries, if not,
millennia. They provide a catalyst for business, civic
leaders and residents, to not simply have change for
change Sake, but to embrace how cities like Arcadia are
going to deal with change that is beinq imposed on them
with increases in population and changlng of
demographics. ,
COMMISSIONER OLSON: 30 seconds.
MR. VALLE: Thank you very much. That's
actually all I wanted to say. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please. '
MS. THIBOUH:
r'm Carmen Thibouh. I
Arcadia.
Good evening, commissioners.
live at 1215 Oaklawn Road in
~efore I make my comments. I would hope that
the commission in the future, i.f an individual refuses
to give their name and their residence, that their
comments should be stricken. If you don't have the
cOl!rage to give your name and your address, then; don't
thl nk they shoul d have been all owed to speak earl 1 er.
My comments are regarding the traffic flow.
The EIR states clearly that the traffic flow will
improve as a ,result of the 8tci 10 million dollar
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investment by Caruso in upgrading the current 1970s
traffic technology 'in Arcadia. This isa 'technolciqy
that the city would like to have been able to prov1de
for over the last few years, but has not had the money
to do so.
Contrary to a letter that was written to the
pasadena Star News from somebody, caruso has not made
extravagant promises to improve the Arcadia ,
intersections. New state-of-the-art traffic technology
has proven to be effective in his other projects. what
a gre~t deal for Arcadia. Much needed traffic
improvements at no cost to the taxpayer.
Some of the congestion that we are now
experiencing is because when Westfield expanded, they
did not follow through with mitigating traffic, thereby
creating the mess that we're in now. I applaud caruso
in bringing first-class shopping, dining and facilities
for our Schools and our community eVents. I also want
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to strongly caution cltlzens to consider the
ramifications of bringing a petition to reject the
Caruso project.
Remember, this project is being built on
private property and would you want the city or any of
your neiqhbors to tell you how to build on your private
property? Keep that in mind. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON:
Thank you.
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Next speaker,
please.
MS. ROSS: My name is Stella Ross,and I live
at 881 West Huntington Drive.
several people have talked about traffic, and
I can't resist reminding us in the '70s and '80s, 80,
90, 100,000 cars went to the, racetrack. And the traffi,c
was reversed on Holly in the morning north, and south it
was reversed south in the afternoon. I had three
children that went to Baldwin Stocker, and you know
what, no problem. Everyone talks traffic, traffic.
And now there was -- I for9ot something. oh,
I know what. They talk about our ch11dren, our
children. What are we going to do. Don't some of you
remember how we drank water out of the water hose
outside because we di~n't want to go inside, and we ran
after the ice truck? I did. And my little brothers and
sisters did too. We got ice, and we licked it. , It was
great, and we ran throughout barefooted. Do I look like
there's something wrong with me? I don't think so,
Rea 11 y ,I'm here -- I,' d rather tal k about this
other stuff. I am so upset with westfield. I don't
even'know how to tell you.' The misrepresentations, the
half-truths, the bullying, bullying, bullyin~. And as a
matter' of honor and principle, I am very senous, I 'made
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1 a decision or:' Novemb!!r 7th, I don't shop there anymore.
2 And I don't 1 ntend to Shop there., Thank you.
3 COMMISSIONER OLSON; Thank you, Ms. ROSS,.
4 Next speaker, please., .
5 MS. HANSEN: My name 1S Mary E. Hansen,
6 spelled ,H-a.n~s-e-n. And I live at 900 Hugo Reid orive
7 for 45 years.
8 ' I can remember attending many. many meetings
9 where the city has been offered good deals topui-on
10 that land. And they said no deal all the time. We have
11 something now and I say deal. Thank you.
12 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
13 please.
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MS. DU~RGERIAN; Good evening, members of the
planning commiss10n. My name is Ann Duirgerian, 122
East Foothill Boulevard, Arcadia.
over the last ten years or sQ, we have watched
as proposal after proposal has, been presented to the
city regarding th~ southern parking lot of the Santa
Anita Racetrack. Each proposal was different, it had
one common thread, improving,the bottom line of the
racetrack, and; hence, the city.
This year Santa Anita had a great year.
According to Magna's own financial report,Santa Anita
generates twice as much revenue as any other racetrack
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they own. And this year the racetrack's revenue had
increased by another two million dollars. That meant
additional funds for the city, and those funds, when
combined with other revenues coming into the city, have
put us in great financial shape for next year and
solidiJied the years to come. I'm surprised that the
revised draft, environmental impact report did not
disclose this information but used older revenue
i nforlTlati on as justification for the need for 'this
proposed regional mall.
we also know that the near future may bring
additional race days with the closing of Hollywood park
o~ perhaps the future ,will be almost,2,OOq machines that
w11l allow people to place bets on h1stor1c races, all
of which means more mpney for the city.
I am concerned that the environmental
documents prepared for the proposed regional mall did
not include any analysis of the impacts of these
additional race days and site uses, especially the
increased traffic all of this activity would bring to
our community.
The RD -- EIR'should be revised to reflect the
improved economic picture that we now have on hand. '
The~e is no immediate need for this proposal. ,AS a
resident, I wonder why we don't sit back and take a look
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at what we would like to have Arcadia look like 20, or
even 50 years from, now. There is no urgent need to save
entities that don't need saving, and that gives us the
opportunity to take a look at not just the racetrack
proposal, but what we want our city to look like and be
known for in the future.
I know Arcadia First has asked the city to
consider creating a Blue Ribbon commfssion, to use a
consensus building process that wi 11 identi fy
alternatives to the proposed regional mall at Santa
Anita Racetrack and I support that idea. The commissi on
could look at the current proposal, the alternative to
the proposed Ilroiect submitted to the city during the
comment period of the last EIR and perhaps even develop
other ideas that would meet the go~ls of.enhancinq
revenue streams for the track ana'1mprov1ng'tneoty's
financial picture even further:
I hope you will consider the Blue Ribbon
commission pro'cess asa chance to identify what we want
our community to look'like in the future. And I want to
say, my husbanil and I are on the executive board with
>!Ircadia First, very proud to, and we're volunteers.
Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
Next speaker, please.
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1 MR. GOLDENHOUSE: M~ name is Dennis
2 Goldenhouse, and I live on Fa1rview in the 400 block.
3 I've been to several of these meetinqs, and
4 I'm reminded cif the audience each time in looklng around
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when I first got here. There are a lot of people who
are in the same ilk I'm in, unfortunately or
fortunately, I don't know, we're senior citizens.
And I see the same group that banned together
to fi9ht westfield. It's the same doom and gloom,
trafflc, Brue Ribbon commissions all the conversations
that people have when they don't have a lot of time to
-- or they have a lot of time in their lives, basically
they're retired, so westfield has tapped into that
ener9Y of people like myself who are senior citizens.
And 1t's really very sad because the very people that
they've tapped into are the ,ones that fought the very
the very existence of Westfield.
So myself, looking at all this conversation,
I've come to the conclusion, espeCially on that ballot
and the way that ba 11 ot was written, Westfi e 1 d --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Can we limit it just to
discussion about the environmental --
MR. GOLDENHOUSE: Oh, okay. The environment
is really simple, then. The environment is, westfield
has been a good addi~ion to our community. The, shops
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lover on Baldwin and Duarte anchored by Pavilions have
2 been a very good addition to our community and the
3 quality of our community. '
4 And last but not least, the addition of the
5 caruso project would increase the quality of life for
6 the people who live here, especially the younger
7 generation that will be here long after we're gone. And
8 I don't think we're going to be here that much longer.
9 Thank you very much.
10 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Next speaker, please.
11 MR. HARRIS: My name is Dick Harris. I live
12 at 143 west santa Anita Terrace. My predecessor spoke
13 about the senior citizens here, I'm a senior, senior
14 citizen. .I'm not going to speak for or against this
15 project. I want to talk about traffic.
16 I,'ve read the EIR report, I've read it again
17 and I've read it again, and I still don't: understand it.
18 I'm going to, make a sugqestion. It comes up with
19 approximately 34,000 tr1.PS per dilY to the new proposed
20 unit, the new shopping center. I assume that means
21 that's an average, and on Monday you would have 15,000,
22 on Friday or Saturday you would have 50,000. I don't,
23_,know. - But my..suggestion, thi snumber i's aWfully
24 important, it becomes the base of this statement that
25 caruso is going to put: in traffic enhancements, that we
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1 will not have any increase in our traffic problem. His
2 statements are based on this figure. All of the
3 projections of the future are based on this figure.
4 NOW when you read the report, the person who
5 did the stud~ points out how difficult it is to project
6 the number of visits that will be made to a shopping
7 center. This is a computerized process using statistics
8 that are available for different types of retail space.
9 Now, I'm so old I remember when Santa Anita went in, the
10 shoppin~ center, and I remember how bad -- how far off
11 the proJections were there, of the traffic, to that unit.
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So this figure is subject to, some question.
NOW! there's an awful good advantage that you
have here. S1tting just to the wes~ of the proposed
development there's a shoppi nq center. coul,dn' t you
take and run the same statistlcal projection for the
existing one, using the same data that was used in the
EIR, and see how many automobile visits there are using
those statistics and then check it against the actual
one? We could tell -- you could tell how many are going
into Santa Anita every oay, you could compare it and it
would verify, at least give you some semb,lance of
confidence in the projection that is made here. 1 think
'that we are all concerned about the traffic.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: You have 30 seconds.
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MR. HARRIS: Beg your pardon?
COMMISSIONER OLSON: 30 seconds.
MR. HARRIS: That's it. I think we're all
, concerned -- this will help verify the figure that
you're using. It would take some of the question out of
the minds for many of us.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you for your
comments. Next speaker, please. ,
MS. MANDU: I'm Kelly M1lndu, and my address is
30 East Newman. I went to Arcadia High SChool and I
g'raduated this past year and I now attend cal state Long
Beach.
And I know that there -- in my high school
ye~rs there was definitely a place where my friends and
I wanted to go and hang out and feel safe and just get
dinner, watch a movie, do something fun together, and'we
didn't feel that at westfield, we didn't feel that it
was safe. .
And I think that caruso definitely will make
us feel safe. Arcadia is known as being a community of
homes, and how are we a community if there's no place
that we can meet as a community, and feel safe as a
community? .
And one more thing, about the smog. Everyone
says that the caruso project would add smog in our
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1 world, news flash, we don't live in the '60s and '70s
.2 anymore .peopl e drive cars,. Ki ds don' tride thei r
3 bikes to school, they don't walk to school. They're
4 either getting dropped off in a car, or they're riding
5 to school in a car.' So there's goi ng to be smog no
6 matter what.
7 Also, on what the one man sai d about there
8 being a gambling problem with the Caruso project and it
9 would increase the crime rate. Yeah, he's totally
10 right. cuz there"s no gambling going on at the
11 racetrack, right? Everyone goes to look at the pretty
12 horses? Thanks.
13 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Next speaker.
14 MS. BRENNAN: I wrote a few notes down here to
15 make it short.
16 COMMISSIONER OLSON: State your name and
17 address, please.
18 MS. BRENNAN: Sure. My name i.s Colleen
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19 Brennan. And r have resided on Altura ,Road for 44 years
20 in Arcadia.
21 And I would like to address a few subjects on
22 the West Nile virus. A shallow pool, just liKe a
23 swimming pool, could be checked every two hours, the
24 water. And I can't understand the panic about this
25 pool, no one is suggest)ng draining the arboretum, the
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lagoon or other water on that particular land as Ruth
brought up about the arboretum.
The second issue is parkin~ of non-residents
for fees. And I have a number offr1ends that attend
this senior center. we eat lunch together most days.
And they're very concerned about them having to pay for
parki ng. I i nqu;'red about thi s thi s eveni ng from, one o,f
the trusted individuals that I've talked to before on
this project, and he said validated parking is available
through the me<chants, for a certain amount of time. You
ask them for this validation. And the same is true for
going to a movie.
And in closing, I'd like to say that we have
no control over what goes in, to a degree that is,
should Caruso not get voted in. In other words, what if
a law is passed that had -- they have to put a Title 8
on part of that parking lot or some lesser desirable
type thi ng? And, persona 11 y, in endi ng, I'd li ke to, say
that I'm going to vote for a financially sure thing for
Arcadia's property values, their schools, and that type
of thing. Thank you very much. ' ,
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please.
MS. HARRIS: Betty ,Harris, 143 west Santa
Anita Terrace,' Arcadia for about 44 years.
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I ~ust want to say thanks. Thanks to a
counci 1 who 1 s li.stening and do'i ng the best they can in
trying to bring something they consider of value, and
these are people I trust. Thanks to a planning
commission, again, who I trust, for listening to all
these people tonight,. Thanks to everyone who has spoken
tonight. It's been interesting and fun hearing friends
from both sides of the battle and friends on staff speak
to_this issue. It's been very interesting, a beautiful.
display of democracy, I guess.
One point. Traffic seems to be of concern to
everyone. And we 'do live in a beautirul, beautiful city
with a lot going for it. Even things for senior
citizens. AS a senior, I find I 'have a lot going for
me. And a lot,of things that do interest me right here
within the city.
One thing I would consider on the traffic
thing is, why not promote bicycles? Build bike racks,
and do a real promotion. Bikeways on the streets and
build bike racks and see if we can't get people 'back to
ri di ng a bi cycl e . All they're going to do is go to the
mall from home, get on a bike and go and reduce the
traffic. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please.
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MR. CASEY: Good evening, commissioners, my
name is Ed casey, appearing tonight on behalf of
westfield Santa Anita.
And given the time limits on remarks tonight,
let me limit my own remarks to a single issue, and that
is, alterna'tives. And what I want 'to focus on toni9ht
in connection with alternatives is what is missing ln
this revised ErR. And what is missing is any discussion
at all of the detailed altern~tive proposal that
westfield submitted in connection with our first comment
letter in on the original EIR. And I think you have a
copy of that si'te plan in front of you.
NOW, the revised EIR is broken -- the alternatives
analysis is broken into two parts. The first part has a
detailed ,discussion of four project alternatives, that
alternative you're looking at is not among them~ I't
also lists all the other alternatives that were proposed
in the past but were deemed infeasibl,e by the city.
This alterna'tive is not even listed there. That's kind
of curious" because as we demonstrated in our first
comment letter, this alternative achieves more of your
city's general plan objectives' with fewer environmental
impacts and substantial tax revenues in the million
dollars of dollars.
Let me just go walk through some of the key
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elements even though it's here, and try to go through
this y.ery quickly. Md:the poin't of me.go~ng through
the hst of these uses 1S not to saythls 1S what should
De done, but to point out that this is the kind of
alternatives that should be discussed and analyzed in
this document. Because what this does, is create a
campus-like, setting for the collection of uses, and it
achieves a couple of key general plan objectives.
First, the sites, as you'll see, the whole
project in ihe southeast portion, i~ keeps the middle
open for a number of otner open space uses. By doing
so, you achi'eve the fi rst general plan's objective, that
is, preservinq the views of the h.istoric grandstand from
Huntington Dr1ve, that's in your general plan. ,
Two other key general plan objectives, "That
any development, on this parking lot has to be compatible
with adjacent uses and create economic synergy." That's
the words in the plan. 'This f)lan does this, how? By
having more different types of uses than in the project
you're considering tonight. ,It has a medical office
building and some assisted-living component that would
work very well with the adjacent hospi tal. It has a
site for another auto dealer at the site, which could
work well with the existing dealers in the she, which
may also be looking to expand. It has a hotel that has
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1 business conference facilities that could achieve a
2 number of different uses.
3 COMMISSIONER OLSON: One minute.
4 MR. CASEY: In the middle it has a small
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park-like setting that could work well with the entrance
to the grandstand as opposed to demolishing two of those
building.
we've also included in this alternative, a
small retail component of 50,000 square feet. And we
picked that number because it's the size of Mr. caruso's
project, and hiS other project in Thousand oaks at The
Lakes. We think that kind of collection of uses could
achieve your general plan objectives as we showed in the
first comment letter, we show in the second one, with
few envi,ronmental impacts, and, it Will create millions
of ,dollars6f tax. revenue to the city.
YOU add those three things up, achievin~
general plan objectives, fewer impacts to the proJect,
substanti'al tax benefits for the city, that' sthe
definition of a feasible alternative under CEQA. CEQA
says you have to look at feasible alternatives. This
EIRshould look at this alternative, and if it doesn't,
I urge you to ask one ,simple question, why not? '
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you, Mr. casey.
Next speaker, please.
Saire.
across
here.
MR. SAIRE: Good evening, my name is scott
I live at 444 west, Huntington Drive, that's
the street. It's about a five-minute walk from
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I'ma licensed architect in california. I'm
doing mostly commercial work, so I'm ki,nd of familiar
with what we're tal ki ng about. I have to say somethi ng
to the previous speaker who is apparently a westfield
rep -- well, I hardly know where to begin. Westfield--
COMMISSIONER OLSON: If you could keep your
comments just to discussing the EIRimpact report.
MR. SAIRE: It's relevant. That Westfield is
withholding receptacle access to the project. And
that's driving the Caruso design, in what I say is, the
wrong direction. What I say :is that they need to join
the party. They need to start working with us and not
agai nst us.
Let's see, the items I wanted to talk about
specifically, hopefully it's something different than
what some of the other people have been talking about.
Just real briefly about the traffic impact. I know
nobody wants to hear the word traffi c agai n, ,but the
summary" which I've got here, says that if we make a']-l
of the improvements that everyone'sproposing, that the
impact would be less, than si'gnificant. However, if -- a
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1 number of those improvements take place in other
2 jurisdictions, mainly in Cal Trans and L.A; county
3 areas, and that if all of the mitigations aren't made,
4 then the impacts would be significant and unavoidable.
5 So I guess my statement would b.e that we should make
6 approval of the project conditioned on approval from
7 c;>ther agencies so that we don't have significant
8 lmpacts.
9 Let's see, the other thi ngs I wanted to talk
10 about. Someone else mentioned a dedicated shuttle, the
11 report, actually, mentions a dedicated shuttle' from the
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track to the Gold Line to try and reduce traffic. I'd
like to just tag onto that,that one of the ways the
track could induce people to use the Gold Line is to
give some sort of entrance fee reduction. That's not
specifically mentioned in the report. It would be nice
if they added that in as a potential incentive on the
super busy track days.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: You have one minute.
MR. SAIRE: okay. I'm trying to go as fast as
I can. Let's see, pedestrians' access. when westfield
was building their project, we specifically asked for
some kind of a real pecestrian entrance from Huntington
orive and it was in the ErR, it was approved. They
never di d it. The ci'ty di dn' t enforce it. we '.ve been
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aSking about the same thing here, it's just a one-line
sentence that pedestrians' access wi 11 be provided. I'd
like to see a little more detail in exactly what we're
asking. As the response, what that mitigation is going
to be. What kind of access, how big, what sort of
landscaping, so we actually get something this time.
The last things lS, I'm really just kind of
unhappy with the project and where it's sl~ed. There's
a number of alternatlves, none of which I think are very
good., I took the libert~ of making ~ sketch, but rather
than bore you with it, I II just hand it in and you guys
can take a look at it.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: You need to wrap it up.
MR. SAIRE: Exactly. The project should be
moved south and west so that it's actually linked with
the mall. I believe that if you 'want to get 'some
synergy happening between the two projects, which I
believe is in the general plar1, as. the westfield rep
said, you need to have them joined. So the project
needs to be ,reconfigured so 1t actually feeds together,
the mall and the neW Caruso project work together. If
someone wants to walk over from the racetrack, I'm sure
they wi 11. Anyway" thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. The next
speaker, please.
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1 MR. HERNANDEZ: Good evening. Vidal
2 Her'lan.dez, ,5,40 ,(;loria Roadi nArcadia': - ,
3 The prior speakers already discussed all my
4 three pages. I am just goin~ to make a one statement.
S Free enterprise, and competit10n for joining the
6Cinaudible) is the key of the success of this country.
7 we know that without competition we are nowhere.
8 Monopoly is out of the question and I don't know why
9 we're trying to fight over here. It's competition, and
10 that' s it.
11 Mr. Caruso is one of them, entrepreneurs,
12 after seeing the projects that he has, I know that he's
13 thinking Dig with class and style. And that's what we
14 need over here, shops in Arcadia, we ma.ke stronger
15 Arcadia with class and style. Thank you.
16 COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you very much.
17 MR. BOWER: Mark Bower. I live at 300 Monte
18 Vista Road in Arcadia.
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19 I'm all neutral ,as you'll see my comments. I
20 think that any new construction in Arcadia, any major
21 construction, should include (inaudible) easier to do
22 when it's gOing up than think about it later.
23 Also, in the model of calabasas,
24 unfortunately, I get tired of smokers, not so much from
25 the smoke, but throwing cigarette butts on the ground.
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And I would like to see the car.uso project, should it
materialize, be a total non-smoking'area.
It gripes me, this is -- those are my input
comments, but this is an additional comment. The
Arcadia High school campus is crowded. A number of
parents feel the junior high school at Foothill, I think
it was about 15 years ago, I have a bad memory, and we
tried to keep the 8th graders from moving to that
campus" and we tried, everybody in the crowd, basically,
did not want to see them move. It's very hard to have
sympathy now that they're stuck there. It was a
mistake, in my opinion. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please.
MR. GARING: Good evening. My name is Jerry
Garing from 122 East Foothill.
I'd like to continue with (inaudible). I hope
that all the members of the planning commission and the
city council have either read or attempted to read the
rev1sed draft environmental impact report. It's a
daunting task. It's 5200 pages, which you're aware of.
However, in the sl?ecific plan, in chapter 1, page 3,
there's a disturb1ng paragraph, ,quote, "wherever the
regulations of the santa Anita park Specific plan
contain provisions which establish regulations,
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1 including, but not limited to heights, densities, uses,
2 parking, si~ns, open space and landscaping requirements
3 which are d1fferent from, more restrictive than, or more
4 permissive than would be allowed pursuant to the
5 provisions contained in section 9263 et S~,q: and 9273 et
6 seq of the AMC, the santa Amta park speClflc plan shall
7 prevail and supersede the applicable provisions of the
8 Arcadi a Muni ci pal code and, those ordi nan~es. " I'd 1 i ke
9, 1:,1:\ repeat that. "Santa Anita Park Specific plan shall
10 prevail and supersede the applicable provisions of the
11 Arcadia Municipal Code and those ordinances."
12 If I understand this paragraph correctly,
13 it basically supersedes and overrides any and all
14 current regulations and ordinances passeD by both the
15 planning coiitniissiol'1 and the elected cit:y council. ,If
16 this speci fie pl an passes, then the city i sadvo'cating
17 all of its le~al obligations and power with Arcadia
18 Electric as g1ven to you.
19 If this paragraph is allowed to remain, then
20 all these community meetings over the years have been a
21 sham. when Arcadia property owners approach you
22 requesting variances for setbacks, you inevitably ask if
23 the occupant -- if they knew what the, regulations were
24 before they designed their project. The paragraph I
25 cited earlier is one example of how this developer
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p~oposed not to follow the rules that govern the rest of
us and have you let him set his own rules. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you.
MS. OOUGHERtv: Good evening. My name is Mary
Dougherty. I live at 1110 Rodeo Road. I've lived here
since 1971. I,'m a 16 year past member board of Arcadia
unified school Dlstrict Board of Education.
I think the citizens of Arcadia owe a huge
debt, of gratitude to the Santa, Anita Racetrack
management for selecting the Caruso Affiliates as the
project developer. Arcadians recently passed a 218
million dollar bond issue to improve the facilities at
each and every school within the Arcadia unified school
'District with the major emphasis at the high school.
Caruso has offered 22,000 square foot development for
the administrative offices for the school district.
That i~ ~ ,huge asset for the school district and for the
commUnl ty.
There's been a lot said about traffic. I
remember when the racetrack was crowded and traffic jams
were in the morni ng before the first post, and in the,
afternoon at the close of the race season -- the race
day. With additional shops at Santa Anita, any
additional t~affic will be disbursed throughout the day
rather than an opening and a closing time.' That is a
83
huge difference. And with increased technolo~y, which
is not provided fori nthe i:i ty budget, there s the
opportunity to provide increased technology for uaffic
management and signaling. And I' think that is a huge
benefit.
, COMMiSSIONER OLSON: You have one minute.
MS. DOUGHERTY: Thank you. '.
And an additional factor that no one has
menti oned yet, KCET in August of thi,s year, honored Mr.
Caruso as bei ng -- for hi s, contri buti ons to the
communi,ty wi th 500 in attendance at the Bever' y H'il ton.
I think his reputation at The Grove and his other
developments speak to the quality of his developments
and his caring for the community.
In additio~, he served on the police
commi ssi on for L. A. ci ty. I thi nk we 'reo deal i ng wi-th
somebody 'who has' a quality ,reputation. I'm proud to
endorse his project and hope that it will go forward.
Thank you very mucro
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you.
Mrs. Dougherty.
MS. THOMPSON: Last but not least? My name is
Laurie Thompson. I' live at 229 south Altura. I have
lived in Arcadia, both in south Arcadia, I now live 'in
The village, where I serve as the architectural review
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board chairperson, gladly serving my community.
AS a science educator, I believe decisions
have to be based on facts and evidence, and riot '
emotional hysteria" such as throwing children into
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ponds. And when I slogged my way diligently throuqh the
EIR, my impression is ana my belief is that the eVldence
in ~he EIR is overwhelmingly supportive of the Caruso
proJect.
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And if I could ask the City of Arcadia to do
anything, we know that there will probably be an ensuing
battle, but I'want the facts and evidence of the EIR to
predominate. And if information comes out that is
untruthful and unbiased, I wish tl'iat ,both you and the
city council would take a stand. And I overwhelmingly
support this project and the EIR., And good luck,
Arcadia, because I think we are at a turning point.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OlSON: Thank you. Next speaker.
MR. BLAKE: Hello. My name is .Robert Blake.
I live at 871 coronado Drive.
I think Mr. Caruso, without a doubt, makes a
wonderful mall; however, i,t' s the traffic. It's the
traffic as more than half the people here mentioned,
it's the traffic. I don't feel like pooping in my nest.
This man, Mr. casey, he proposed something to you that
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I'd never heard of. I'd like to know more about it. I
don't work for this man, I don't even go to that mall.
But he's proposing something that seems that it would
add to your tax base, and if he's getting short shrift,
I think that's an error. I think that's a very large
err,or.
This project that's going to be put in here,
it's going to be for, I assume, years and years. Is it
going to be productive for years and years? If we have
30 to 45,000 cars, by the way, on the weekends,
goodne'ss, what' si t going to be in ten years? What ' s it
going to be in eight years? Five years.
These women who -- the woman who mentioned
about her children, that's a valid point. I don't know
if you have children, it's a worth while point to 'think
about.
pollution. There was a medical doctor here.
In fact, a former mayor, Mr. lilli, am I ri ght about the
pronunciation of the name? Also a physician. Made a
comment previously about the possibility of there being
hillher levels of pollution than would be healthy for
ch1ldren, and I assume adults at the same time.
This is the last comment, again, ~ don't have-
no, connection with Mi"'. casey here, could we also hear
about his plan? And also from an economic standpoint.
86
1 Again, I have nothing against Mr. caruso's mall, nor Mr.
2 Caruso. He builds a beautiful mall. Economically, I'm
3 not sosure it's viable. I haven't heard a single'
4 person come here and talk about financials. Not, the
5 fi rst person. Good Lord. I hope we can tal k about
6 finance one day, gentlemen. I hope we can talk about
7 what thisi s really goi ng to cost Arcadi a for
8 protecti on, fi re depiirtment, pol i ce department, thei r
9 salaries, their retirement, over a lifetime, over a
10 career.
11
At any rate, that's all I have to say.
Page 38
If I'm
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a little bit passionate, I don't mean to be. I wish I
could be more cold about it. But, again, I'd like to
hear about more alternatives besides this single
project. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Next speaker,
please.
MR. CEPORIOUS: Name is Victor ceporious. I'
live at 32 East camino Real. I've lived there, I think
approximately 30 years now.
:i: just had to say something because this
dribbling I've been hearing, just like chicken Little
running around saying the sky is falling. It's
interesting ,to me how westfield, at this late stage,
jumps up and says, oh, we have a wonderful alternative
87
thing. where were they two or three or four years.ago?
They keep putting every obstacle into getting this
project to move forward.
This project is ~ood for Arcadia. I think
we're all in favor of it, 1rrespective of that baloney
vote that went in for Nand P. That' was a travesty. I
couldn't believe what ,kind of underhanded things that
westfield was involved --
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Can we stick to the
discussion of the environmental -~
, MR. CEPORIOUS: I'm sorry, I just had to get
that point across. Anyway, but that additional thing
westfield is now ,throwing up, oh,we've got this
wonderful alternat'ive plan. baloney. It's just another
stalling tactic, and woe should proceed on it. We waited
a long, lo~g time. I'd love to see ~he thing qet done
before I d1e so I can get some benef1t out of 1t. We've
been waiting long enough. Anyway, that's alJ I have to
say. Thanks.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you.
Is there anybody else? It's your last chance
if you'd like to speak. I'll entertain a motion to
close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER PARRILLE: So move.
COMMISSIONER BAOERIAN: I'll second the
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motion.
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COMMISSIONER OLSON: It 'sbeen, ,moved by
commissionerparrille and seconded by commissioner
Baderian, , without an objection, the publiC hearing is
:cl osed .
We're not quite done with the meeting,. but
we'll go ahead and ,wait; a few seconds i'f you'd like to
go ahead. we'll be done.
NOW is the time reserved for those in the
audience who wish to address the planning commission on
non-public hearing items. If you would like to say
anything to us tonight, now is the time. Not about the
item that we've just di scussed, though.' ,
seeing none, I'll move to matters from city
~ouncil and planning commissioners. City counci 1 member ,
would you like to say anything?
COUNCILMEMBER AMUNDSON: Nothing, but the
council appreciates everyone's interest and efforts and
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taking the time to come out tonight. That's all I have.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you, councilmember.
Manaqement Planning commission? None? You
have the modif1catjon meeting agenda, it's in your
packet. The mi,nut'es came out. the mi nutes were
essentially approved. There were some conditions
attached to it this ,morning.
89
Any matters f,rom staff?
MR. KRUCKEBERG: Not tonight.
COMMISSIONER OLSON: Thank you. Then we will
adjourn to regularly scheduled meeting December 12th at
7:00 o'clock P.M. in the City council chambers. Thank
you very much for your patience.
(TIME NOTED: 8:44 P.M.)
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STATE OF CALIFORNIA ) 55:
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES )
I! CATHRYN L. BAKER, CSR NO. 7695, do
certlfy:
That the foregoin~ hearing was taken before me
time and place thereln set forth.
That the comments made at the time of the
hearing were rec:ordedstenographically by me, were
-thereafteY transcribed under my direction and
supervis;onand that the foregoing is a true record of
same.
I further certify that I am neither counsel
for nor related to any party to said action, nor in
any way interested in the outcome thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have subscribed my
name this 29th day of November, 2006.
hereby
at the
CATHRYN L. BAKER, CSR NO. 7695
page 40
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SIGNING TIllS DOCUMENT IS VOLUNTARY - YOUR ATTENDANCE
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