Fast food, cannabis, housing, oh my: it’s gonna be a long night.

First up we have the latest draft of the inclusionary housing ordinance (IHO). I’ve already written too much on the concept, so here’s a short(er) rundown on the specifics:

• Although not covered in the Agenda Report, the Staff is sticking with inclusionary thresholds of 11% low income or 7% very low income.
• The Staff is not budging on raising the minimum project size from 10 units to something more reasonable, like 20 or 25 units. Staff’s conclusion relies both on past practice (development projects in Costa Mesa from 2014-2021) and comparisons to the thresholds set by other cities with IHOs.
• The Staff is also sticking to its guns and recommending that the inclusionary housing ordinance apply to ownership properties.
• The Staff is defending its decision to implement an in-lieu fee, after some criticism last meeting that the fees won’t be sufficient to purchase meaningful properties for affordable housing.
• The new draft also introduces the idea of a local resident preference for available affordable housing.
• Finally, the Staff wants the IHO to apply to the Measure K sites (our “commercial corridors and industrial areas”, though that description pointedly omits E. 17th Street… a story for another time)… plus any other site that is rezoned or approved for higher densities than currently allowed at the site. That’s logically consistent with the Staff’s view that the IHO is a tradeoff for upzoning.

Honestly I still think there are still improvements to be made here, and hopefully the Planning Commission will make them. Otherwise, the fight moves to the City Council early next year.

Next, we have a continued discussion of potential changes to the cannabis ordinance. There isn’t a lot of new detail in the Agenda Report but I would expect yet another lively discussion.

Finally we have two conditional use permits: one for a new Raising Canes on Newport Boulevard and E. 16th Street, and one for another cannabis retail store across from the Triangle on Newport Boulevard.

The Raising Canes proposal is interesting as it would reduce intensity of use, proposing to demolish an existing 25,000 sq ft furniture store and replace it with a much smaller 2,500 sq ft fast food restaurant with a large surface parking lot and a two-lane drive-through. The applicant here has gone out of its way to emphasize its eco-friendly bona fides (its letter stresses the improved water permeability of the land at the site following reconstruction as well as its intent to install EV chargers and bike racks), but that feels like lipstick on a pig when it is also proposing a double-loaded drive-through with a giant parking lot. There is also the surrounding area to consider — there is a (non-conforming) mobile home park around 200 ft away, and other nearby parcels are likely to be redeveloped for more residential thanks to Measure K. Adding a large drive-through may undermine those long-term plans.

That said, read this blog long enough and you’ll find that I am not a fan of government officials denying applications using their discretion rather than strict adherence to the codes and ordinances, and this application does seem to fit within the city’s rules. I do think the drive-through would be detrimental to the area in the long-run and I hope residents and the Planning Commission will raise that, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure its inclusion is a fair reason to deny the application. If we want to make rules about drive-throughs — and to be clear, I absolutely think we should — we shouldn’t hold applicants accountable to those rules until we have them in place. Raising Canes has been a good partner to the city (it supports our bridge shelter with free meals and has worked with one of our local elementary schools) and the proposed restaurant would be a shot in the arm on a stretch of road that has suffered from disinvestment for decades.

Finally we have yet another cannabis retail store going into the Triangle Square area on the Eastside, this time right next to an existing cannabis retail store on Newport Boulevard. This application would not be noteworthy except for the fact that some Eastside residents have retained an attorney and have threatened to sue the city if another cannabis store was sited in this area. While this attorney has shown up at several Planning Commission and City Council meetings to denounce the negative impacts of cannabis stores on neighborhoods, he’s always been light on the specific rules the city is violating by permitting them. So it will be interesting to see what position this group and its attorney takes now that they have another application.

All of this serves as an appetizer to the City Council’s final meeting of the year, which will be Tuesday’s omnibus study session on all things housing. Stay tuned for more updates on that.