Tuesday’s Costa Mesa’s City Council meeting went long into the night with a three-hour debate on a skate park at Lions Park, followed by a debate to reopen the Fairview Park master plan for a dog park or another skate park. One issue was an appeal of the Planning Commission’s forbidding an Eastside apartment to convert to a condo.
It was clear not everyone understood the condo conversion issue or how it affects property owners’ rights.
For decades, property owners nationwide have tried to convert apartments into condos. It is not a complicated business model to buy apartment buildings for $200,000 per unit and convert them to condos that sell for $450,000 or more. Even with extensive upgrades costs, the profits are sizable. This is what was happening until the condo-conversion moratorium, now over, here in Costa Mesa.
During the last two years, unlike the rest of the county, Costa Mesa had a surge of applications for conversions. This started with the city’s thinking that it could turn renters into homeowners.
To achieve that goal, we allowed condo conversions to be granted without the units adhering to current standards. Most people at the time thought we would get some 20- or 25-year-old apartments whose standards would be close to current. Nobody expected applications from ’50s and ’60s properties, which were way out of standard.
Because the city had no real code, the decision to approve a conversion was at the complete discretion of the Planning Commission and city council with no guidelines to follow.
Besides health and safety issues of older properties, the city was getting applications for ’60s projects that had 40% less parking than was needed. These parking codes were set in a time when families had one car. Now, families have two or more cars. Neighborhoods that had older apartments had no parking for residents. People would have to drive around the block several times to find a space. Single-family residences close to these apartments had cars from apartment residents who lived blocks away.
Over time these issues usually take care of themselves. As buildings get older and lose their economic value, developers buy these properties, raise them and build new homes or condos with adequate parking in their place.
Remember that every other city in the county would never allow a conversion unless the property was up to current standards.T
o help bring more homeownership without hurting neighborhoods, the city adopted a condo-conversion ordinance that would allow apartments to be converted with standards between the old and new ones. Except for health and safety issues, a property could be approved if it met minimum standards. For example, when you figure in guest parking on a two-bedroom unit, the existing standard is 3.5 parking spaces per unit. If it is a conversion the ordinance now allows 2.5 spaces per unit. What will not be approved are older properties that sometimes had 1.5 spaces per unit.
Some may say that it is impossible to bring a 1962 property up to 1985 standards, let alone 2007 standards. That’s the point. When an apartment building was built in 1962, it was built as an apartment, not a condo. The owners of the property have an apartment building not a condominium project. Not allowing an under-parked, over-crowded apartment building from converting to a condominium is not taking away any of the owners’ property rights — they never had that right.
Property owners should know that the city will not hurt their values by prolonging the economic life of a building that, in any other city, would be torn down to make room for a new development. On the other hand, we need to have flexibility to rehabilitate older properties. The new conversion ordinance does both.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
City Trying to Throw Us a Curve
Tuesday night’s joint Newport Beach City Council/Planning Commission meeting had a verbal presentation of The Irvine Company’s plans for future development of Fashion Island and Newport Center.
Though some might disagree, on balance, The Irvine Company has been a good steward of the development and management at Newport Center. The problems in the presentation started only when it tried to explain the development of the city hall project.
A rule of thumb in business is that if something that shouldn’t be confusing is, someone is trying to confuse you.
That’s how I felt when I walked away after the presentation The Irvine Company (TIC) made for their “non-expansion” expansion of Fashion Island. The confusing part was not the adding of 420 high-rise condos or the 278,000 feet of office space to be built instead of the previously approved 195-room hotel.
It was trying to understand how a new 72,000-square-foot city hall, which needed three acres of land to be built anywhere else in town, now only needs a little more than an acre.
The lack of land needed seems to be explained in The Irvine Company’s statement: “ guarantee use of required parking spaces to exclusively serve the City Hall.” By using TIC’s parking structure, the city would not have to buy the additional land needed for parking.
Does that mean that The Irvine Company is going to pay for the portion of the parking structure that the city uses? I don’t think so.
Calling around to people who have some idea of what would be negotiated in a development agreement with TIC, expect that the city will have to pay for construction of its portion of the parking structure and maintenance of the same.
So now it looks like the city will be paying for 280 spaces in a parking structure on land the city will not own. How do you think this affects citizens who want to visit city hall?
First understand that the parking on San Nichols Drive between Newport Center Drive and Avocado, where city hall is being proposed, is already “Controlled Access Parking.”
What is controlled-access parking? It’s parking for which you pay $1 for each 20-minute segment because you lost or forget to get your parking ticket validated before you got back in your car. TIC is planning an additional 206,000 square feet of office space in this same area.
Therefore, the city’s parking spaces will also have to be accessed controlled. So whenever you go to do anything at city hall, you will have to take a ticket. Just don’t forget the validation.
Of course, that does not include city staff or council — they get a card key to get in and out. Only citizens need to take a ticket.
Now compare this to the City Hall in the Park plan. Thursday afternoon I had the pleasure of talking to two proponents of the park plan: Bill Ficker and Ron Hendrickson.
Besides the fact that the citizens of Newport Beach already own the land, another major difference with their plan is that the “below line of site” parking structure they have planned would provide not only 280 parking spaces for city hall but an additional 120 much-needed spaces for the library.
In addition, the parking could also be used for the park. This parking would be open to the public with no parking tickets to lose.
What a concept: free parking when you go to the library, city hall or the park. Here’s a tough decision. Should the city use the several million dollars already budgeted for the parking lot in the park on city hall or should we just save it?
The reason I bring up these inane issues is that when you are being told that it costs more to build on land we already own than on land we have to buy, you have to wonder are the opponents of city hall in the park comparing apples to apples.Parking costs are just one of the issues with which they are trying to confuse you.
Though some might disagree, on balance, The Irvine Company has been a good steward of the development and management at Newport Center. The problems in the presentation started only when it tried to explain the development of the city hall project.
A rule of thumb in business is that if something that shouldn’t be confusing is, someone is trying to confuse you.
That’s how I felt when I walked away after the presentation The Irvine Company (TIC) made for their “non-expansion” expansion of Fashion Island. The confusing part was not the adding of 420 high-rise condos or the 278,000 feet of office space to be built instead of the previously approved 195-room hotel.
It was trying to understand how a new 72,000-square-foot city hall, which needed three acres of land to be built anywhere else in town, now only needs a little more than an acre.
The lack of land needed seems to be explained in The Irvine Company’s statement: “ guarantee use of required parking spaces to exclusively serve the City Hall.” By using TIC’s parking structure, the city would not have to buy the additional land needed for parking.
Does that mean that The Irvine Company is going to pay for the portion of the parking structure that the city uses? I don’t think so.
Calling around to people who have some idea of what would be negotiated in a development agreement with TIC, expect that the city will have to pay for construction of its portion of the parking structure and maintenance of the same.
So now it looks like the city will be paying for 280 spaces in a parking structure on land the city will not own. How do you think this affects citizens who want to visit city hall?
First understand that the parking on San Nichols Drive between Newport Center Drive and Avocado, where city hall is being proposed, is already “Controlled Access Parking.”
What is controlled-access parking? It’s parking for which you pay $1 for each 20-minute segment because you lost or forget to get your parking ticket validated before you got back in your car. TIC is planning an additional 206,000 square feet of office space in this same area.
Therefore, the city’s parking spaces will also have to be accessed controlled. So whenever you go to do anything at city hall, you will have to take a ticket. Just don’t forget the validation.
Of course, that does not include city staff or council — they get a card key to get in and out. Only citizens need to take a ticket.
Now compare this to the City Hall in the Park plan. Thursday afternoon I had the pleasure of talking to two proponents of the park plan: Bill Ficker and Ron Hendrickson.
Besides the fact that the citizens of Newport Beach already own the land, another major difference with their plan is that the “below line of site” parking structure they have planned would provide not only 280 parking spaces for city hall but an additional 120 much-needed spaces for the library.
In addition, the parking could also be used for the park. This parking would be open to the public with no parking tickets to lose.
What a concept: free parking when you go to the library, city hall or the park. Here’s a tough decision. Should the city use the several million dollars already budgeted for the parking lot in the park on city hall or should we just save it?
The reason I bring up these inane issues is that when you are being told that it costs more to build on land we already own than on land we have to buy, you have to wonder are the opponents of city hall in the park comparing apples to apples.Parking costs are just one of the issues with which they are trying to confuse you.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Proposed Bills Nit-Picky, Redundant
By midnight Sunday, Gov. Schwarzenegger will have vetoed, signed or let pass into law — by doing nothing — 965 bills that were approved by a majority of both houses of the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
These 965 bills that received enough votes to get to the governor’s desk could become 965 additional laws that some people think Californians could not live one more day without.
Understand that this is whittled down from the 5,000-plus bills that our elected representatives thought we needed badly enough that they had their staff, with the help of legislative counsel, write and put into the legislative hopper. To think that we could not live another day without the help and protection of this legislation boggles the mind.
The reason for all this legislation is that government in California has gotten so out of hand that it must now control every aspect of our lives 24 hours per day.
Do not get me wrong: Laws are necessary to protect us from violent criminals, unscrupulous individuals and to set basic standards to protect our food, water supply etc. My point is we had enough laws on the books last year to protect us from all those things without these 965 additional laws.
California has become the ultimate “nanny-state,” and it gets worse every year. Much of our legislation is laws that are written to fix the unintended consequences of previously passed laws.
Some legislation that passes may be considered a good idea, but should not be a law.
An example of that would be SB 7, which the governor signed into law and that makes it a crime to smoke in a car with anyone younger than 18. Now is it a good idea not to smoke with minors in a car? Probably, even if you do not believe all the overblown and unproven statistics about the dangers of second-hand smoke.
But is it to the level that we should have our police force and our overcrowded courts system spend the time to enforce or adjudicate it? Aren’t there enough real crimes to go after with our limited law enforcement resources?
How about AB 105, which will make it a crime if a tanning salon does not see a driver’s license or some other government document showing that the would-be tanner is 18 years of age?
You also have to be given a written warning specifying the dangers of indoor tanning.
It is already a crime to let anyone 14 to 18 tan without a signed parental/guardian written permission form. Now it will be a crime if a 40-year-old doesn’t show ID.
This law was written and passed by the same legislative body that finds it unconscionable and a grievous obstruction of your constitutional rights to ask for any identification before you walk in a voting booth.
We spend more time and money protecting people from tanning booths than we do to protect the vote of citizens not to be canceled out by someone who should not be voting.
This week I was reminded again of how our nanny-state intrudes in my life.
A friend called and said someone had dropped out of a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota and asked if I wanted to go.
Now understand I am not really a big hunter and have hunted birds only on a couple of occasions.
But a pheasant hunting trip to South Dakota may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Like a good husband, I got permission from my wife to go. The cost was within our budget so I called the airlines to book a flight.
One problem: I don’t own a shotgun. No problem, I can go on Saturday after the Pop Warner football game where one of my daughters is a cheerleader.
I called back my friend to confirm and told him about buying the shotgun. He then let me know about the 10-day waiting/cooling-off period we have in California to buy a shotgun.
I asked if he meant a handgun, but he reiterated that it now included shotguns as well.
So here I am, a 49-year-old father of four with no criminal past (they do a criminal background check), and if I don’t leave in the next 10 minutes I will not be able get to the store, pay for a shotgun and start the 10-day clock, after which I have to come back to the store to pick it up in time to get on the plane.
Gotta run now and explain to my wife why I am going to be late for our date night.
These 965 bills that received enough votes to get to the governor’s desk could become 965 additional laws that some people think Californians could not live one more day without.
Understand that this is whittled down from the 5,000-plus bills that our elected representatives thought we needed badly enough that they had their staff, with the help of legislative counsel, write and put into the legislative hopper. To think that we could not live another day without the help and protection of this legislation boggles the mind.
The reason for all this legislation is that government in California has gotten so out of hand that it must now control every aspect of our lives 24 hours per day.
Do not get me wrong: Laws are necessary to protect us from violent criminals, unscrupulous individuals and to set basic standards to protect our food, water supply etc. My point is we had enough laws on the books last year to protect us from all those things without these 965 additional laws.
California has become the ultimate “nanny-state,” and it gets worse every year. Much of our legislation is laws that are written to fix the unintended consequences of previously passed laws.
Some legislation that passes may be considered a good idea, but should not be a law.
An example of that would be SB 7, which the governor signed into law and that makes it a crime to smoke in a car with anyone younger than 18. Now is it a good idea not to smoke with minors in a car? Probably, even if you do not believe all the overblown and unproven statistics about the dangers of second-hand smoke.
But is it to the level that we should have our police force and our overcrowded courts system spend the time to enforce or adjudicate it? Aren’t there enough real crimes to go after with our limited law enforcement resources?
How about AB 105, which will make it a crime if a tanning salon does not see a driver’s license or some other government document showing that the would-be tanner is 18 years of age?
You also have to be given a written warning specifying the dangers of indoor tanning.
It is already a crime to let anyone 14 to 18 tan without a signed parental/guardian written permission form. Now it will be a crime if a 40-year-old doesn’t show ID.
This law was written and passed by the same legislative body that finds it unconscionable and a grievous obstruction of your constitutional rights to ask for any identification before you walk in a voting booth.
We spend more time and money protecting people from tanning booths than we do to protect the vote of citizens not to be canceled out by someone who should not be voting.
This week I was reminded again of how our nanny-state intrudes in my life.
A friend called and said someone had dropped out of a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota and asked if I wanted to go.
Now understand I am not really a big hunter and have hunted birds only on a couple of occasions.
But a pheasant hunting trip to South Dakota may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Like a good husband, I got permission from my wife to go. The cost was within our budget so I called the airlines to book a flight.
One problem: I don’t own a shotgun. No problem, I can go on Saturday after the Pop Warner football game where one of my daughters is a cheerleader.
I called back my friend to confirm and told him about buying the shotgun. He then let me know about the 10-day waiting/cooling-off period we have in California to buy a shotgun.
I asked if he meant a handgun, but he reiterated that it now included shotguns as well.
So here I am, a 49-year-old father of four with no criminal past (they do a criminal background check), and if I don’t leave in the next 10 minutes I will not be able get to the store, pay for a shotgun and start the 10-day clock, after which I have to come back to the store to pick it up in time to get on the plane.
Gotta run now and explain to my wife why I am going to be late for our date night.
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