HomeMy WebLinkAboutPA2018-099_F15b-10-2018_Mosher commentDate of comment: October 5, 2018
Agenda Item: F15b-10-2018
My position: as described
To: Liliana Roman, Coastal Program Analyst
200 Oceangate, Suite 1000,
Long Beach, CA 90802
Re: Amendment Request No. 4-17 Part B (LCP-5-NPB-17-0084-1) to the City of Newport
Beach Local Coastal Program (LCP),
Although the staff report indicates it was prepared in response to changes to the City of Newport
Beach’s LCP requested by City Council Resolution No. 2017-51 (Exhibit 1), adopted July 25,
2017, as CCC staff undoubtedly knows, since the passage of that resolution additional changes
to California Government Code Section 65852.2 were made, effective January 1, 2018, and as
Item 12 on its September 11, 2018, agenda, the City Council adopted a new Resolution No.
2018-65 authorizing a request for additional changes to the ones requested with Resolution No.
2017-51 (with a redline version presented starting on page 69 of the Item 12 City staff report).
To avoid a need to immediately re-amend what is here being amended, CCC staff’s
“Suggested Modifications” to the Resolution No. 2017-51 request appear intended to
anticipate the additional changes the City would be requesting with Resolution No. 2018-65.
The Commission should, however, be aware that the changes to the LCP-IP (Title 21 of the
Newport Beach Municipal Code) requested with Resolution No. 2018-65 were intended to
duplicate changes being made to the parallel (and generally identical) provisions the Council
expected to make to Title 20 (the City’s separate Zoning Code) with Ordinance No. 2018-14.
That ordinance was introduced on September 11 and expected to be adopted at its second
reading on September 25, 2018. But Ordinance No. 2018-14 was not adopted on September
25. Instead, City staff submitted a memo asking for more time for further input and discussion.
As a result, the present set of “Suggested Modifications” to the Resolution No. 2017-51
language may or may not represent the City’s final word on how it wants the ADU
regulations to read.
Assuming the City has asked the CCC to proceed with adoption of what may not be its finally
requested language, I would note a couple of typos:
1. In Section 6, near the top of page 5 of 9 of Exhibit 1, the City requests modifications to a
non-existent “Table 3-10 in NBMC Section 21.41.040.” I believe that was intended to
read “Table 21.40-1 in NBMC Section 21.40.040.”
2. In the last paragraph at the bottom of page 9 of the staff report, in its “Suggested
Modifications,” CCC staff asks for the off-street parking requirement to read “A
maximum of one parking space shall be provided for an accessory dwelling unit.” I
believe the City asked for that to read “A minimum of one parking space.” And the
City’s version makes more sense to me (I can see why the Commission would want to
require off-street parking; I cannot see why it would want to limit it).
Jim Mosher to Coastal Commission re: F15b-10-2018 (LCP-5-NPB-17-0084-1) Page 2 of 2
3. Although not so obvious a “typo,” near the top of page 10 of the staff report, CCC staff is
suggesting changing “the existing” to “a proposed or existing.” This change was not for
in either of the City resolutions, and I don’t see the point of it, since this sentence refers
to subsection (C)6, and that subsection deals only with “Conversion of space within [an]
existing structure.”
I might also point out that Suggested Modification 1 is actually suggesting no change at all to
the existing language of NBMC Section 21.18.010 – in other words, it is asking the Commission
to reject the amendment requested in Exhibit 1 (and later retracted by the City). That is, with
Resolution No. 2017-51, the City asked for the words “accessory dwelling units” to be added in
two places, and CCC staff is anticipating that with Resolution No. 2018-65 they will be asking for
them to be removed. The net result will be no change to that part of the LCP.
As to the City’s requested insertion of the new Policy 2.7-5 into the Coastal Land Use Plan (the
first Item on page 4 of 9 of Exhibit 1), I would ask if some of the narrative preceding the policy
on pages 2-50 and 2-51 of the presently certified CLUP needs to rewritten to provide a logical
context for the new policy. The present narrative makes the small dwelling units sanctioned by
it sound illegal and frowned upon, which does not seem to be the current thinking.
Regarding that thinking, my understanding from the public hearings is that the City interprets the
proposed rules as allowing legal ADU’s only on lots where the only other structure is a single
one-family home. In other words, they could not be added to either or both units of a duplex.
I do not know if that is the intent of Government Code Section 65852.2, or would be the intent of
the CCC, but if it is, then I think the definition proposed by the City in Section 9 on page 9 of 9 of
Exhibit 1 could be made more clear. I might suggest: “Dwelling Unit, Accessory (Land Use). A
dwelling unit accessory to and attached to, detached from, or contained within, the principal
dwelling unit on a site zoned for and occupied by one a single-family residential use.”
Yours sincerely,
James M. Mosher, Ph.D.
2210 Private Road
Newport Beach, CA. 92660
jimmosher@yahoo.com