HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC INPUT NARRATIVE 06-25-24 Thank you for your time this evening. We are here to ask the Planning Commission for its insight and help with
a seemingly intractable problem, made worse by an overweening HOA board that abuses its power. The
underlying issue centers around the formation of the Presidio planned community in which we live, which the
Tustin Planning Commission had a hand in approving in the early 1990s.
Various documents were provided to us by the City of Tustin, but of primary significance were the "Report to
the Planning Commission" dated August 12, 1991, and the associated minutes of the Planning Commission
meeting that same day, as well as Resolution 2938, which appears to have been used to develop the language
of the CC&Rs for our community ("Presidio").
Background & Overview
The Presidio community was developed as a "Cluster Development." In essence, the Cluster Development
layout allows a developer to increase the number of dwellings per acre from typical city standards.
The Cluster Development concept proposed by the Bren Company (a.k.a. "The Irvine Company") for Presidio
included the stipulation that all resident parking would be limited to garages and all garages would only be
capable of housing two vehicles. Presumably due to the lack of street parking on any of the municipal streets
such as Jamboree Road and Patriot Way„ all parking on the interior streets of the community were designated
as guest parking.
Review of the planning commission meeting minutes provides some insight as to the significance these
restrictions would impose upon some residents. The representative from Bren noted that the company's goal
was to "provide single family detached housing in a pricy: range that would normally be associated with
attached housing; that they had been creative in their site design; that they were at a substantially lesser
density than another design could have achieved." One of the Commissioner's at the time, expressed
concerns that were likely to be shared by the future residents, noting that she was "she [was] worried about
the negatives"including inadequate turnarounds, limited parking, room for delivery trucks and possible liability
for the City, and the possibility of inadequate parking for the residents. She even wanted to see the parking
ratio increased, noting that" with 55% of the houses having four(4) bedrooms, there will be a problem with
parking, since large families have more than two (2) cars." Bren's representative short-sightedly noted that
"there would be less children of driving age in this type of project; that they feel that the buyer will not be
someone who has lived in single - family detached housing."
In the end, despite the Commissioner's common sense comments, The Irvine Company was allowed to
proceed as planned with some modifications to site configuration to address other matters raised by the
commissioner.
The crux of the matter resides in the underlying resolution and the Presidio CC&Rs that were derived
from it. Despite radically different circumstances than when the resolution was passed in the early
1990s. We now live in the 21st century and the homes in our community are valued at upwards of
1.5M--due to the economy and the cost of housing in CA, they are no longer a cluster of"starter
homes." It is no longer feasible for residents to be limited to garage only parking. In addition, many
homes such as ours, are actually wired so that the washer and dryer are in the garage, and the car
must be removed in order to do laundry or access items in the garage, or make repairs or access
holiday decorations. Due to the underlying resolution, residents are unable to use guest parking at
any time in order to engage in the incidents of daily living without a direct violation of the CC&Rs and
fines that follow.