Planning Commission Preview - May 8

The Planning Commission is meeting tonight to consider two items – more booze in the City and changes to the parking regulations. But before we get into those issues, I wanted to note that the first of the City’s “traffic forums” was held last night, and it was clear to everyone that one of the major causes of traffic congestion is poor planning. I’ll have a lot more to say about this topic next week when I summarize the results of the traffic forum. At this point I wanted to note that not a single member of the Planning Commission was in attendance. In fact the only Council or Commission member present for the forum was Mayor Pro Tem Adam Nick. I would strongly urge all the Planning Commissioners to attend both of the remaining traffic forums.

MORE BOOZE

The 99 Cents Stores on El Toro Rd and on Towne Centre Drive both want to be able to sell beer and wine. Both of these areas already have more than their quota of stores selling beer and wine. In the case of the both stores, according to the filing by 99 Cents Stores, there are already 8 stores in their census tract that sell beer and wine, and this number already exceeds the state formula by 400%. Admitting another booze-selling store would seem criminal under these circumstances, since Lake Forest already has its fair share of DUIs and arrests for violations of the alcohol laws.

In their appeal, the 99 Cents Store claims that they need “to sell beer and wine to be competitive in the grocery business”. According to their most recent financial statement on their website, the company had $889,492,000 in assets. Their net sales were $403,920,000 and they reported a gross profit of $165,215,000. Their operating income was $37,542,000 and their net income was $22,175,000.

They have 238 stores in California and 332 altogether. According to their website “Stores open for at least a year generated average net sales per estimated sellable square foot of $295 and average net sales per store of $5 million, which the Company believes are the highest in the dollar store industry.”

With a net income of $22 million and the highest net sales per square foot of any store in the dollar industry, I’m not sure 99 Cents needs to sell beer and wine in Lake Forest to remain competitive.

RESIDENTIAL PARKING STANDARDS

This is Part 3 in a series of discussions about residential parking standards, following the last meeting in February. The big discussions at the last meeting centered around the ratio for guest parking at multi-family projects and allowing tandem parking in new housing developments.

Guest Parking

Currently the City’s requirement is 0.2 (20 guest spots for every 100 multi-family units), but this ratio is low compared to many other cities, and from all the multi-family overflow parking problems in the City, it looks like this ratio may be too low.  Commissioner Fuentes argued for a ratio of 0.5 because it’s easy to do the math, but most of the discussion centered around 0.4. All things considered, the difference between 0.4 and 0.5 is large (despite Mrs. Fuentes’ assurance that it isn’t), and in a project of 200 units the difference is 20 parking spots, which reduces the amount of space for building units, and probably means millions of dollars in potential revenues that are lost.

The staff did some research but couldn’t find any definitive data to justify a specific ratio. The staff is recommending maintaining the requirement for 0.2 guest spaces per unit and allowing consideration of a site-specific guest parking ratio on a case by case basis. In addition, they recommend requiring parking management plans for all new multifamily development.

Tandem Parking

Staff went looking for data and came up empty handed. As a result, they are recommending that the PC do nothing, and consider tandem parking on a case by case basis.