The Alameda Planning Board met on July 24, 2023, at 7:00 PM in City Hall. President Ruiz, Vice President Hom, and Board Members Teague, Cisneros, Curtis, and Sahibba were present. The board considered two major items: adoption of revised Objective Design Review Standards and a recommendation to rezone 1715 Lincoln Avenue from commercial to residential.
5A: Objective Design Review Standards – Staff presented amendments based on prior board direction, including merging multifamily and single-family standards into one document, exempting facades within 5 feet of a property line from articulation requirements, clarifying balcony standards (minimum 60 sq. ft., 5-ft dimension, 25% recess minimum 15 inches, 50% railing transparency), and adding a wayfinding program for campus-style developments. Board members discussed:
5B: 1715 Lincoln Avenue Rezoning – Staff recommended rezoning the property from C-1 (Neighborhood Business) to R-5 (Medium-Density Residential) to conform to the General Plan. The property is a former single-family home that was converted to commercial use, but its current zoning requires ground-floor retail, which is incompatible with the residential designation and has resulted in prolonged vacancy. The applicant (Nick Portolese of Portman Enterprises) experienced audio issues and could not present, but the board proceeded. Board Member Teague supported the rezoning, noting it aligns with the General Plan and housing goals. The board voted unanimously to recommend the rezoning to City Council.
Thank you. Roll call, please. President Ruiz. Here. Vice President Hom. Board Member Teague. Here. Sahibba. Present. Are you here? Cisneros? Here. Curtis. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you. So move on to do we have any agenda changes? No agenda changes by staff. Thank you. Moving on to non-agenda public commons. Do we have any speakers list? Yes, we do. Christopher Buckley. Yes. Christopher Buckley, Alameda Resident. Would like to make a recommendation when the planning board is reviewing documents that have gone through various revisions. It would, you know, one, it's good to have red lines showing the previous revision, as we've often seen. But if there's multiple revisions, it would be good if the subsequent revisions are highlighted in some way, like using double strikeout, double underlining, the attorneys know how this works, or maybe shading text that represents changes from the previous iteration. That's just a suggestion. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? No, that's it. Thank you. Now let's move on to consent calendar. Do we have a motion? I I have a question for the attorney. Yes. On a consent calendar, we normally do it all at once, but one of the items I have to abstain on. So how do we do that? You could either um call it off the agenda and note your abstention then, or you could let the board know that you're planning to abstain on a certain item, and then we can just take it all at once noting your vote. Okay. Um further, maybe taking two separate votes. Um do we have to can we do it as two separate consent items, or do we have to do it as call the item? I think we could do two separate votes. One vote for there's two separate items, right? Yes, there's two items. I think what we could do if uh President Ruiz is open just to call the vote for the first item and then call the vote for the second item. Thank you. That's proceed as such.