Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 1996-11-06 Mayor Jack Drago Council: Joseph A. Fernekes Eugene R. Mullin ---John R. Penna Robert Yee SPECIAL MEETIN_G CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER 6, 1996 MINUTES V~9/- City Council Municipal Services Building Community Room November 6, 1996 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Section 54956 of the Government Code of the State of California, that the City Council of the City of South San Francisco will hold a Special Meeting on Wednesday, the 6th day of November 1996,, at 7:00 p.m. in the City Council Conference Room, City Hall, 400 Grand Avenue, South San Francisco, California. Purpose of the meeting is a study session to discuss: BART Station design guidelines. 2. Homeless Shelter with Tom Roberts from San Mateo County. Dated: CALL TO ORDER: ROLL CALL: October 24, 1996 AGENDA (Cassette No. 1) 1. BART Station design guidelines. City Clerk City of South San Francisco ACTION TAKEN 7:10 p.m. Mayor Drago presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Fernekes, Mullin, Penna, Yee and Drago. None. Senior Planner Kalkin related: two community workshops were held to discuss the design of the S.S.F. BART Station; there were 15 residents at the first meeting; responses to questions provided the design team with direction for the second workshop; Group 4 and its team developed a set of sketches to depict alternative design approaches to five com- ponents of the site design: the streetscape along I 1/6/96 Page 1 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN BART - Continued. I 1/6/96 Page 2 both El Camino and Mission Roads, the station building, the parking structure, the plaza, and the bicycle/pedestrian pathway; 35 residents were in attendance at the second meeting who were asked to rate the various alternatives; Group 4 will address the responses from the attendees and find out what the Council would like to see. Mr. Robin Chiang, Group 4 Architecture, related: people participating in the workshops were long time residents; with the coming of the new BART Station and new land development, new people will become a part of the City; the long term residents want the Station to reflect the history and life style of the City, for people passing through the Station will only have that first impression of the Station itself; his firm had taken people's ideas at the first meeting, and in the second focused on designs that were not abstract and talked about issues, such as lighting and landscaping, however, the vote was not unanimous so they broke it down to five different categories; the BART Station will be an important addition to this area and could stimulate improve- ments to the residential, commercial and recreational aspects of its adjacent neighborhoods; the Station will be integrated into the community via public transportation, access roads, improved pedestrian and bicycle circulation; there will be improvements to the two major adjoining streets of El Camino Real and Mission Road with a greater share of landscap- ing on El Camino and a smaller share on Mission Road; he presented the various schemes on the El Camino Real and Mission Road beautification; he felt the parking structure is possible at El Camino rather than at the Station; he spoke of the various drawings for station design to reflect the community that was inspired by industrial, agricultural, residen- tial, and ornamental horticulture buildings; for the parking structure to be a positive addition to El Camino Real the schemes include screening with large scale vertical trees, screening with mid-range street trees and vines, emphasizing another use - stores on ground floor, emphasizing another use - stores that appear to be two stories, making it ap- pear as another type of building - an institutional or industrial structure, making it appear as another type of building - a residential or commercial structure, and mid-range trees as a screen focusing attention on one portion; public plaza to attract community usage with schemes showing entry as Gateway (design should relate to station architecture), entry as AGENDA ACTION TAKEN ~7 1.__. BART - Continued. 11/6/96 Page 3 piazza with campanile (design should relate to sta- tion architecture), entry as landscape and garden pavilions (design should balance station and garage architecture), and entry as urban park (design should complement station architecture by creating "soft" contrast); Colma Creek as bicycle-pedestrian park- way with schemes for driveway for buses and pri- vate vehicles with bicycle lane and street trees, driveway for private vehicles only (busses on Mis- sion side only) with bicycle/pedestrian zone, kiosks, large trees, driveway eliminated (buses and private vehicles on Mission side only) with bicycle/pedes- trian urban park, kiosks, variety of landscape, and he gave detailed preferences by the attendees of the meetings and schemes; the people liked the idea of having retail in the garage; etc. Mayor Drago stated the people are worried about the parking structure that is going to be sitting out there two or three stories high, so how do we design that. The Council is here to decide on the design of the building and the noise and wind problems will be addressed in the EIR. Discussion followed: Councilman Penna liked the horticultural design; Councilman Mullin had voting sheets on all the schemes from his various classes; he felt high priority should be given to sufficient parking in the garage because he lives two blocks from the station; Senior Planner Kalkin stated there may be a need to go to a third story; a third floor would be open on top; Kaiser has a five story park- ing structure; Councilman Mullin liked the entry as a piazza with campanile and felt it related to the Municipal Services Building; Councilman Penna liked the mixed style, the low ranch style; Council- man Yee asked if the roof could be translucent, so the light can go through; Mr. Chiang stated yes, it was their goal to have as much translucency regard- less of the design; having the students walk through the station going to and from school or put in a barrier; etc. Consensus of Council - To design an institutional or industrial structure; it will be an industrial building; there will be screening with random trees; there will be a uniform landscaped look with gaps in the tree spacing; it will be a public plaza to attract commu- nity usage with schemes showing entry as a gate- way. AGENDA ACTION TAKEN Councilman Penna Left the Meeting and Did Not Return: 2. Homeless shelter with Tom Roberts from San Mate°b~o County. Councilman Penna left the meeting at 7:57 p.m. due to a conflict of interest and did not return to the meeting. Mr. Tom Roberts, San Mateo County Homeless Coordinator, related the following on the proposed project for a work hostel and shelter in S.S.F.: he is mindful of County attempts to place a facility in north County; he was excited about presenting this to the Council tonight and wanted an honest apprais- al with direction to go forward; this facility will pro- vide beds for 27 men and women as they acquire job training skills, get a job and move on; there will be additional beds in the winter for the homeless; the County has created this work force for those on welfare, for no job is a bad job when you are unem- ployed for a job with a low income is a step up; there has been good success as over 2600 County residents have jobs, including 600 through the VRS in Belmont, which is the work hostel; there are vocational rehabilitation services in Belmont for folks who need basic job skills. Discussion followed: if this proposal is accepted to put it into S.S.F., will the work shop move up here too; the County is looking to have a place for them to live for they will be provided transportation back and forth to Belmont for the training. Mr. Roberts continued: to go through the needs, there was an unduplicated 4,099 homeless as re- ported by the Neighborhood Services Center who serve 500 homeless in the San Bruno and S.S.F. area. He stated the non-profit agencies went out and got names, social security numbers and birth dates to make sure they were not counting the same peo- ple. The agencies that did not keep social security numbers did not participate, so it is an unduplieated count which will be taken again in 1996. He ex- plained the term homeless as those living on the street or in a car and those being in eminent risk. Discussion followed: what is to prevent a Daly City resident to come to Neighborhood Services for shelter; there really is nothing to prevent it; Coun- cilman Yee questioned if a use permit was required in that it requires a rezoning; the City would create an overlay zone for any on-site parking; right now the plan is for some staff, so an arrangement will have to be worked out, for right now the City does not accommodate parking at night; instructions will 11/6/96 Page 4 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN Homeless shelter with Tom Roberts from San Mateo County. be given to the people to return to the shelter at 5:00 p.m. at night and arrive from different bus stops; Councilman Yee is concerned about the people walking from this site to Spruce and business areas; a County van would take people in the morning and why not have the van take them from the bus stop in the evening to the facility; what are the other 54 homeless people going to do during the day during the winter time; where will they eat lunch; some of those homeless people are already out on the streets; there is a place on Grand Avenue that feeds lunch to the homeless that the City is going to take a look at; what happens if the facility's rules are broken; then they cannot go back to the shelter; there will be a neighborhood committee to monitor problems from the homeless; perhaps the City can offer jobs cleaning up the City like the program Ed Mulgrew is working on; Mayor Drago is also con- cerned that the homeless will wander Grand Avenue and he didn't want 54 people lined up for a soup line; some do have cars and that must be provided for; there will be people that cannot work do to temporary or permanent disability; Mayor Drago leans to the work training rather than a shelter and provide jobs, for we have 6,000 businesses in the City and they don't need the homeless wandering around; the Council has worked very hard to clean- up the downtown and if they start seeing begging on the street, then we are walking a thin line; Mr. Roberts stated the armory in San Marco has a con- sortium of people and they have not seen many people congregating in that area; Councilman Mullin has taken clothing to the shelter, but won- dered how far the armory is from the closest busi- ness section; it is on North Humbolt behind San Mateo High School and three or four blocks south of San Marco Avenue; Police Chief Raffaelli stated he had contacted Redwood City and San Mateo about the shelters; Redwood City had indicated they did not have problems with the busing; you do get some that end up congregating, one or two, in the shopping centers and loitering; San Mateo says they leave the shelters and the police have problems at night, but no criminal activity; are the people in the shelters backgrounded; no, they are not because they are only there for a short time; the police can not use the system to check for a rap sheet, unless they are investigating for a crime; it's ridiculous, it limits the tool, say we are going to hire a police officer we could run them through the system and run the fingerprints, but they took that away 11/6/96 Page 5 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN Homeless shelter with Tom Roberts from San Mateo County. away from us and some departments have been penalized; backgrounding may or may not be posi- tive depending on how long ago the history was; concern about the people hanging around downtown in the breezeway; why is it that the police reports say nothing about the homeless; the present home- less sleep in doorways and officers try to find places for them to stay or suggest they go to the shelters; the homeless put up shanties wherever possible and the police knock them down; in the downtown they are not homeless, but live there; homeless are found under the 380 freeway; does the Council want a committee and a place for the homeless, if their concerns can be addressed, then staff must create a zoning ordinance for enabling legislation; creating an overlay to limit the areas, but if the Council is not comfortable with the concept, the City Manager does not want to start it; Councilman Yee wants the concerns identified and the responses to the concerns to be the first step; he feels Council has certain obligations to the homeless; is there a mechanism in the event this does not work out; if the applicant is not happy it could be structured like a use permit; the one issue is an agreement on the terms of the use permit; Councilman Mullin's concerns are to pre- serve some of the upgrades done in the downtown area, and secondly a survey should be done of the people through the Chamber, of the individual busi- ness owners; he shares Councilman's Yee's concern that everyone has an obligation, but not to the detri- ment of the community; Vice Mayor Fernekes stated he reserves his comments until he sees the responses of staff on all the concerns; Mayor Drago shares the comments made; there will be 87 beds in the last week of November to March; artist's concept plan of the building; type of businesses around 108 So. Linden; it would have a community task force of people and the police; the funding would be Federal, CDBG, ESG, FEMA, State, EHAP, the County; private foundations; a homeless trust fund was start- ed with $1 million; Redwood City has a 60 bed shelter for the homeless and San Mateo's Armory has 90 beds but no work program; 12/96-11/97 will implement local siting plan, committee, business and media outreach, 12/96-3/97 commence option period to resolve zoning and raise funds, 6/97-10/97 rehab of facility, then open facility for operations. M/S Yee/Fernekes - To adjourn the meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. 11/6/96 Page 6 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN ADJOURNMENT: Time of adjournment was 9:05 p.m. v, ESPECTFULLY SUBMITI~ED, Barbara A. Battaya, City Clerk City of South San Francisco APPROVED. ~go~~~~YnOr~Frafficisco C'yo Sou Sa The entries of this Council meeting show the action taken by the City Council to dispose of an item. Oral communica- tions, arguments and comments are recorded on tape. The tape and documents related to the items are on file in the Office of the City Clerk and are available for inspection, review and copying. 11/6/96 Page 7