The proposal for the development can be found on the City of Seaside website at this link:
https://www.cityofseaside.us/planning-commission/agenda/pc-agenda-and-packet-972021
The introduction, staff report, and proposal start on Page 45 of PDF. The first few pages were written by the city planning department and contain the details about the proposal. A summary is as follows:
- To divide the land into 17 residential development lots and one open space parcel of 1.93 acres
- The property is 6.62 acres in size
- The access to the property is at the corner of Hemlock and Aldercrest St.
- The lots would be between 6,943 and 14,825 sq. ft. in size
- Sewer services would drain North through the wetlands
- Water services would come from East Sunset Hills – through unidentified private property
- Storm water drainage into the creek on the property
- Two new roads on the property to access houses
- A four foot public walking path on the property
- Setbacks from the creek
- A request for an exception to the minimum lot size
Also included in the first few pages were evaluations that contained comments and concerns from the planning department. Highlights of those are as follows:
- The proposal does not specify who will own the open space parcel
- No architect has been contracted for this development
- No identification of who will own the new streets to be created
- Sidewalks are not to city standards
- The street widths are less than standard, make no provisions for on-street parking, and are less than required for emergency access
- No finished grading plans were provided
- No specific drainage plans are included
- Permits from state agencies have not been issued
- No Geologic Hazard mitigation plan has been submitted
- Vegetation buffers may be required
At the end of the page 49 (the 5th page of the proposal), the planning department’s conclusion is found. It reads as follows:
“This staff report identifies a number of items that need to be clarified and/or additional information that needs to be provided by the developer before the Commission considers making a final decision. Therefore, staff has not prepared a formal recommendation at this time, other than to suggest the Commissioners review the overall development plan, hear any relevant public testimony, and prepare a list of any additional information that may need to be provided to the Commission before they make a formal decision.”
In short: the application is incomplete, but hold a hearing anyway.
The proposal as it was submitted by the developer starts on page 51 of the packet provided.
We believe that the application should not have been brought to a hearing in the first place. We’ll provide our thoughts about the challenges with the timing and our own commentary about the proposal in a future blog post.