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Minutes 2000-04-06 MINUTES SPECIAL JOINT MEETING CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONITRAFFIC COMMISSION Thursday, April 6, 2000 - 6:30 p.m. Woman's Club Community Center - 211 Vernon Street Arroyo Grande, California 1. CALLIO ORDER Mayor Michael A. Lady called the Special Joint Meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. 2. FLAG SALUTE Mayor Lady led the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL Citv Council Plannina Commission Traffic Commission --X- Mayor Lady Abs Chair Greene Abs .chair Scott --X- Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara --X- Vice-Chair Parker --X- Vice-Chair Owen --X- Runels --X- Costello Abs Borda --X- Tolley --X- Keen --X- Pilkington --X- Dickens --X- London --X- Tappan STAFF PRESENT Staff members present were Kerry McCants, Community Development Director; Public Works Director Don Spagnolo; and Kathleen Fryer, Community Development Administrative Secretary. CONSULTANTS PRESENT Rick Harter, Envicom Corporation; and Richard Pool, Associated Transportation Engineers. 4. PUBLIC COMMENT ON WORKSHOP AGENDA ITEMS The following members of the public addressed the Council and Commi'ssions: I Edward Gordon, 272 Tempus Circle C.Z. Brown, 350 Old Ranch Road Marie Cattoir, Arroyo Grande resident Karen Cross-Harmon, 390 Mercedes Lane Velma Harris, 677 Woodland Bill Pierce, 687 Printz Kathleen Wendell, 737 Printz 5. DISCUSS THE FOCUS FOR THE CIRCULATION ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN UPDATE Director McCants stated that it was the intention of staff and the consultants to have an informal discussion that would provide the new traffic consultant Richard Pool, SPECIAL JOINT MEETING MINUTES CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONrrRAFFIC COMMISSION APRIL 6, 2000 Associated Transportation Engineers (ATE), and Rick Harter, Envicom Corporation with some input as to the direction to take regarding the Circulation Element. Mr. Pool asked for direction on whether the City wanted the draft Circulation Element to be consistent with the Draft Land Use Element, or should the Draft Land Use Element be modified to fall within the scope of the current circulation system that. the City now has. Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara stated that there was a positive correlation between the Land Use Element and the Circulation Element in terms of the infrastructure relationship. Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara explained that this correlation is alluded to all through the General Plan Land Use Element and it has meaning in terms of circulation and the two documents need to be closely coordinated. He stated with regard to some of the recent traffic issues that have been discussed, mainly Level of Service, the City had spent a great deal of time going through and coming up with a Level of Service Policy for the City. Mayor Pro Tern Ferrera stated that he did not want to see this discussed again because it had already been done and he did not want to see the repetition of this in Mr. Pool's scope of work. To the extent that the City needs to revisit the counts and update it from time to time, it would happen. However, this work has recently been done and is current. Mr. Harter" stated that it would be a good idea to identify the places that the City needs to focus on for analysis, constraints of the system, places where the circulation capacity needs to be increased, or constraints need to be recognized. Mr. Pool asked for some direction from the Council as to how they wanted the City's policies to be written. For instance, it would be approximately seven years before anything could be done about the Brisco Road interchange. What does the Council want to have happen during this seven-year period? Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara stated that the City would engage its LOS standard for the performance of that intersection and keep the development within the boundaries of that LOS standard, Traffic Commissioner Owen stated that he did not know that this LOS policy had been . decided on and put into t_he General Plan and he did not understand exactly what this was and what.the methodology was that would be used to determine the LOS. Mr. Owen also stated that he was hesitant to go along with the statement that Brisco Road was at a Level of Service "0" and therefore no further impacts should be allowed. He believes that a Level of Service "C", or maybe better, was the case at this intersection most of the time. Mayor Lady stated that the Level of Service of this intersection would not be fully known until the Five Cities Center was finished, This issue would be a major contributing factor. 2 SPECIAL JOINT MEETING MINUTES CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONrrRAFFIC COMMISSION APRIL 6, 2000 Planning Commissioner Keen stated that it was his understanding that the City Council had adopted the policies regarding the LOS issue. Council Member Dickens stated that one of the best reasons about having this joint meeting was to clarify some of the decisions that had actually taken place. Further, he said that the City Council had taken into consideration the comments that the Commissions and the public had given on the LOS issue when making its final decision. Mr. Dickens then read for the record the recommendations that the Council had adopted on the LOS policies. Mr. Pool explained to the City Council and the Commissions that, taking into consideration the General Plan increase that had been proposed in the Draft Land Use Element, the circulation system would not accommodate the land use that had been proposed. He wanted to know how should this be handled in the Circulation Element. The Council stated that they had established the Brisco Road interchange as having the highest priority. It was also discussed that the City should look into the proposed development outside of its boundaries and redevelopment within the City. Council Member Tolley stated that it was very important to look at what was happening in the County and cities surrounding Arroyo Grande. The City then may be able to look for ways to have an influence over the choices outside the City, enabling it to have an impact on helping the traffic within the City. Council Member Runels stated that he felt that in the past the City had been shortsighted in looking for ways to get traffic to the freeways. He felt that the City had an opportunity at this point, before there was any building, to put a connection between Fair Oaks Avenue and the proposed EI Campo interchange. Planning Commissioner Parker stated that she was concerned that when mitigation measures are proposed for projects, they are not adequate, She stated that she would like to see acceptable mitigation measures that would really work for these projects. Council Member Tolley wanted the Circulation Element to reflect that all the freeway interchanges should work together to have better circulation within the City. After discussing the issues involving mitigation measures, Mayor Lady stated that it was the intent of the Council to see the infrastructure drive development rather than to have development drive the infrastructure. Mayor Lady asked how it would be possible for the City to deal with the daily trips that would be generated by the projects that have already been approved in the County? Mr. Pool suggested that the City should be active in participating in the discussions held by the County and SLOCOG when they are making their decisions on projects. 3 SPECIAL JOINT MEETING MINUTES CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONITRAFFIC COMMISSION APRIL 6,2000 Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara stated that he felt it was premature to attempt to develop a detailed Circulation Element at this point. He said that a framework could be put in place and some general policy, but there were too many crucial factors that were in motion and the City had no idea how they were going to turn out. He opposed the development of a Circulation Element at this time. Planning Commissioner Costello stated that he would like a better definition on the Level of Service terms "A" through "E". Council Member Dickens stated that he felt that the consultant was making some assumptions that he should not be making with the issue of a Highway 227 by-pass. Council Member Dickens stated that the conclusions of the Omni-Means study that dealt with the Highway 227 by-pass were that the City was seeing traffic wanting to go from the east side of the freeway to the west side and the by-pass became a secondary alternative to those conclusions, which did not solve the problem. He stated the traffic going to Lopez Lake is miniscule, and it would be wonderful to reroute the bus and truck traffic; however, to put them over a grade in order to do so would not work. Council Member Dickens further stated that there were some very significant comments that came from the Omni-Means study and he personally resented some of the comments Mr. Pool was making that seemed that it would be easy to build Highway 227. Mr. Pool answered that he understood Council Member Dickens comments but his point was simply to ask if the City felt that this issue should be studied further. Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara stated that for planning purposes at this point the Highway 227 issue was not something he wanted to pursue. Council Member Tolley stated that he felt, for long term planning, the City needed to look for a way to get people from Highway 101 to a section of town east of the freeway. Mayor Lady stated that he agreed with Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara's comments. Mayor Lady felt that possibly, at some time in the future, there would be the potential of discussing this issue further. However, in the short term, for this General Plan Update, it was not a consideration. There was further discussion concerning the Highway 227 by-pass issue. Discussion on Item 2 . Parking and other Considerations The Council and Commissions discussed parking and felt that there were no major issues with parking in the City except for the areas around the City's schools. It was also suggested that there was a need to find a solution to Village parking during major events such as the Strawberry Festival. 4 SPECIAL JOINT MEETING MINUTES CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONfTRAFFIC COMMISSION APRIL 6, 2000 Discussion on Item 3 - Transit/Non-Vehicular Assumptions Planning Commissioner Parker stated that she felt there was a need for bike trails and sidewalks along Lopez Drive into the Village. With many children walking or riding their bikes from this area of town to the High School, she felt that it was a safety issue that needed to be addressed. Council Member Dickens suggested that bike routes should be included in the "'Circulation Element and he also recommended looking into the possibility of more public transportation. Discussion on Item 4 - Traffic Modelina and Transportation Analysis There was discussion about the SLOCOG traffic model and the problems associated with it. It was also discussed that the City of Arroyo Grande had contributed money towards developing this model and the Council wanted to know where the information was that the City had paid for. Council directed staff to follow up on this issue. Director Spagnolo stated that staff had given direction to the consultant who was developing the model, telling the consultant that the City wanted some kind of a model to be produced although it may not be as in-depth as was originally anticipated. Mayor Pro Tern Ferrara stated that staff should pursue looking at alternative models, other than the SLOCOG model, and also that staff should find out what the status of the SLOCOG model is. Discussion on . Item 5 - Standards for Acceptable Performance The Council discussed the need to communicate with the surrounding cities and the County about future development and the problems .facing South County, as well as the City of Arroyo Grande, with regard to problems with circulation. It was discussed that this should be the number one priority issue to be discussed at future Joint City Council meetings. Discussion on Item 6 - Timing/Schedule Mayor Lady expressed concern that the General Plan Update process had taken such a long time and he suggested that the process be moved forward as quickly as possible. 6. COUNCIUCOMMISSIONS COMMUNICATIONS None. 7. STAFF COMMUNICATIONS None. 8. ADJOURNMENT Council Member Tolley moved, Mayor Pro Tem Ferrara seconded, and the motion passed unanimously, to adjourn the meeting. 5 SPECIAL JOINT MEETING MINUTES CITY COUNCIUPLANNING COMMISSIONITRAFFIC COMMISSION APRIL 6, 2000 Time: 9:35 p.m. MICH:LA~I1R~ ATTEST: 7A9--- ORE, ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIRECTOR! DEPUTY CITY CLERK 6