Some residents of the Peninsula area say they are feeling a bit left out of the loop when it comes to residential development happening in their neighborhood.
The issue lies within the city’s land development permit process that allows landowners and developers to begin building apartments and then use the city’s condominium conversion ordinance to change them to condominiums while under construction without having to jump through the hoops of the normal planning board process. The units are then sold individually after completion.
Peninsula Community Planning Board member Gary Halbert said he has seen the conversion law used in this way before in other parts of the city.
“Nobody is doing anything wrong,” Halbert said. “But at the same time, if you’re a neighbor and suddenly get a public notice for something already under construction, what would you say?”
This wouldn’t be a problem for Planning Board member Kathryn Rhodes, either, except that often-times, the finished projects can break height restrictions and generally circumvent part of the community planning process.
“They say they’re building apartments but they’re really building condos so that we don’t get to see them until after [the condominiums] are built,” Rhodes said.
In a letter to the City Council dated June 12, Rhodes pointed to the project at 3119 Carleton Street. The letter claims the condominium complex broke the 30-foot coastal height limit. The letter also states that the structure doesn’t supply enough parking in compliance with the municipal code.
The building does appear slightly taller than the surrounding complexes, and Rhodes said the developers were able to circumvent the parking requirements using an “over-the-counter” ministerial review process.
Project plans approved through the ministerial process must comply with the municipal code before construction starts.
The Carleton Street complex is almost complete and already on the market.
Owners, however, have a legal right to build apartments on their property as long as they comply with the municipal code and zoning laws, according to Patrick Hooper, a Development Services Department supervising manager.
It is up to the applicant to submit the project plans to show compliance with the municipal code. If an owner needed to deviate from the regulations, however, the project would have to go through a “discretionary” review process. The process requires public review of the project, which can involve the planning board, he said. Condominium conversions automatically fall under the discretionary review process, Hooper said.
But if the project has already been approved and permitted as an apartment before it goes through a discretionary review for a conversion, then planning groups can’t effect any design changes to the building, he said.
“I understand that the community planning groups are frustrated that they don’t get a chance to provide input “¦ but it’s already been approved, so they feel like they’ve been circumvented,” Hooper said.
Part of the problem, however, goes beyond the planning group being circumvented.
Rhodes said when an apartment project is approved “over-the-counter,” it does not have to comply with the same regulation screening by the board if it were discretionary from the beginning.
The height requirements or environmental mitigations can “fall through the cracks” from a regulatory standpoint, she said.
Another project currently under way further illustrates the issue.
The complex under construction at 3244 Nimitz Blvd. was also submitted as a ministerial review, according to staff at Development Services Department.
Former Peninsula Community Planning Board Chair Kirk O’Brien is an architect for the project on Nimitz Boulevard. He said developers usually use the condo conversion law to save time.
If the project was submitted as a discretionary project from the start, community planning groups could affect minor modifications but they could not stop the project, he said.
“The reason that’s done is because the process takes months and months,” O’Brien said. “It really has no meaningful impact to the community whatsoever, because it’s not at all circumventing,” he added.
O’Brien also said the newer condominiums provide housing the city needs and that dividing ownership from an apartment into separate condominiums for future homeowners should not be a reason for a community group to intervene.
In January 2006, the City Council passed legislation requiring condominium conversions to include specific upgrades to electrical, plumbing and smoke alarm systems. It also required the inclusion of a Building Conditions Report to be submitted by the developer to the city and to potential buyers.
As for the current problem, Rhodes said one way to close the “loophole” would be to pass a law setting a minimum time an apartment must remain an apartment complex before allowing for a conversion.