May 29, 2001

Cindy Moore, Project Planner
County of Santa Barbara
123 East Anapamu Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

RE: 01-ND-18 Fairview Shopping Center Remodel and Expansion, 99-DP-055, 99-OA-015.

We offer the following comments on the INADEQUATE and INCOMPLETE 01-ND-18.

AESTHETICS/VISUAL RESOURCES

1. There is no discussion of mitigations for the excessive height of the two towers and therefore no rationale for allowing a modification.

2. There is no discussion of mitigations for the excessive size of signage proposed and therefore no rationale for allowing the modification.

3. There is no discussion of extensive use of the shopping center's sidewalks for storage of sale items in full view of the community. Shopping carts, merchandise and vending machines are currently unsightly, yet there is no discussion of mitigations to eliminate this in the future.

BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES

Monitoring of all mitigation measures should be subcontracted to the Environmental Defense Center or Urban Creeks Council.

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS/RISK OF UPSET

1. There is no discussion of the possible consequences of allowing project initiation prior to final determination of the extent of the soil and groundwater contamination problem. This project involves a complex process of shifting tenants as work moves across the site. If grading were initiated or construction begun, only to be shut down when the full extent of contamination is determined by County Fire or RWQCB, the consequences would be born by the entire community. The ongoing investigations should be completed prior to project initiation or mitigations discussed.

2. The discussion of hazardous materials storage is inadequate. No information is provided to determine safety and no mitigations are proposed.

NOISE

The noise mitigation plan submitted December 10, 1999 has not worked and additional noise is stated as expected, but mitigations are inadequate and propose no penalties for non-compliance. South planters will not block any noise and increased wall height is not considered, nor is wood facing on the structures discussed as a means of reducing sound reflection toward the west.

PUBLIC FACILITIES

With the filling of Tajiguas imminent at the time of completion of this project, an additional 48 tons per year of solid waste deserves true mitigation. Since the entire community is required by law to reduce landfill to less than 50% of its 1990 level, new projects must be expected to do even better. Proposed mitigations are completely inadequate. The proposed project should be required to recycle 75% of its solid waste instead of achieve 75% participation.

RECREATION

The project should be required to stripe a portion of the parking lot for roller hockey and could be reasonably required to dedicate an area for a skateboard facility. Any project should contribute to existing community needs instead of merely being required not to create new ones.

TRANSPORTATION/CIRCULATION

1. Pedestrian safety is not addressed. Pedestrian safety is jeopardized by use of sidewalks for storage of carts, merchandise and vending machines, forcing pedestrians into the driveways during peak hours. There is no discussion of eliminating such uses of sidewalks or alternative means for improved safety for pedestrians.

2. Pedestrian safety is jeopardized by routing of driveways directly adjacent to sidewalks of major tenants. This design maximizes the need for pedestrians to cross traffic and encourages the use of sidewalks for storage. Merits of a parking buffer between structures and driveways should be discussed.

3. Traffic safety is inadequately addressed. The current site access by eight driveways is dangerous at best and no proposal to improve the situation is mentioned. This center is frequented by customers from as far west as El Encanto, as well as most of the area east past Patterson and north of Cathedral Oaks. Most of these customers attempt to exit north onto Fairview to avoid the LOS D intersection at Fairview and Calle Real. The large volume of left turn exits from 3 Fairview driveways is highly problematic during rush hours. Only customers living east of Los Carneros or from Old Town chose to make right turn exits or use Shirrell Way. Aggravating this situation are 5 driveways on the east side of Fairview between Encina Road and Calle Real, as well as 3 driveways on the south side of Calle Real between Fairview and the proposed main entrance off Calle Real. This project must be required to mitigate the existing situation, yet there is no discussion or proposed mitigations.

4. A major traffic safety hazard is mentioned but the mitigations are inadequate. The northbound 101 exit ramp is inadequate and currently backs up onto the active freeway at rush hour as a result of the LOS D nature of Fairview/Calle Real. This project will aggravate this already dangerous situation yet no cumulative analysis is provided examining various trip distributions for the increased traffic. And central to this analysis is the fact that this center is currently generating only a portion of the traffic that it would if all shops were open and operating at average efficiency. If no expansion were being proposed, and the center's management approached that of the modernized Calle Real Center, traffic would increase significantly.

5. The proposal suggests reducing Calle Real to 1 lane in each direction with a center turn lane, but nothing is discussed about how this would affect future cumulative circulation when and if Calle Real is extended east to Turnpike or connected through the Bishop Ranch. Discussion of adequacy of 34,000 ADTs under such a situation is warranted.

6. There is discussion of moving the main Calle Real entrance 35 feet, but this is not far enough to help with the conflicting movements from Rusty's Pizza.

7. Most importantly, the discussion of parking on the site is entirely inadequate. While parking is underutilized at present, this in no way allows for a modification essentially waiving all the parking requirements for the 24,000 sf. expansion. Parking on the site is underutilized due to the underperformance of the current tenants. Several shops are unoccupied. An upgraded center will attract greater business. Addition of better tenants in the existing floor space will result in the same overflow parking conditions as occur now in the Calle Real Center (is there a modification there?). While the weather on the survey date of March 25, 2000 is unknown (rain?), the Fairview freeway interchange was under construction, it was not a pre-holiday rush at Michaels, and many shops were unoccupied. There was no discussion of such issues.

Sincerely, Jack Hawxhurst, PANA President