Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "brian holloway"

Thai Basil gets the Ok on second-floor patio

2011-10-15T03:56:31Z

Following a controversial debate between Thai Basil and Level Up Lounge owner Suleka Sun-Lindley and her supporters, and members of the community concerned about noise levels and trash issues, in an 8-1 vote the Planning Commission granted the businesswoman approval to build a second floor-patio off of her lounge.

The Thai Basil restaurant opened in May 2002, while the second-floor Level Up Lounge was added in 2007. They are located at 2431 J St.

Despite Thai Basil being voted Best Thai food of Sacramento by Sacramento Magazine and Sacramento News & Review for the past 10 years, Sun-Lindley said that the economy has forced her to rethink ways to get customers and to keep them inside.

“People go downstairs to smoke, and they usually end up leaving,” Sun-Lindley said. “With the patio, the customer can step outside for fresh air or to smoke without leaving.”

The addition will also benefit nonsmoking customers of Thai Basil eating on the bottom-level patio by shading them from the sun and protecting them from the rain better than the leaky awning that is currently placed above the outdoor area.

“Our goal is to create a positive dining experience for the customer,” she said.

Sun-Lindley made it clear that her strategy for achieving this goal does not include the promotion of drinking or smoking. The deck is pragmatic.

“Unless you ban smoking in California, there will be smokers,” she said. “We try to give our late-night customers water to sober up. We also walk some customers home to make sure they get there safely.”

The restaurant and lounge will also have security guards monitoring activity inside and outside the premises Thursday through Saturday between evening hours and closing at 2 a.m.

Prior to the go-ahead decision, community members expressed their differing sentiments on the matter.

Brian Holloway of Holloway Land Co. said he believes that Thai Basil should be supported because of its popularity in Sacramento.

“Thai Basil is an important fixture in the community,” he said. “It’s one we need to keep thriving in Midtown.”

Other residents disagreed.

Richard Jansen of Midtown said he is concerned that the patio will add to the noise problems he has experienced since the addition of Level Up Lounge.

“I don’t trust that design. The buildings in that area are old, (and) noise carries easily. If it was enclosed into J St., it would be more acceptable,” Jansen said.

According to Sun-Lindley, the restaurant and lounge windows were recently replaced with double-pane glass.

Arcelia Marcado, a J St., resident and owner of Salon De Arcelia, a hair salon near Thai Basil, said she was concerned about the noise of the impending construction.

“A guy at the restaurant said they would be doing the building at night. I don’t know how I’m going to get any sleep,” she said.

The Planning Commission assured Marcado that after-dark construction was prohibited by city code. Sun-Lindley said she was aware of this and in agreement to work only during the day.

The construction costs will be roughly $150,000.

For more information about Thai Basil and Sun-Lindley, click here.

DOC Urges Deregulation of Planning and Design

2009-03-25T16:54:36Z

Sacramento's Development Oversight Commission is proceeding with its plan to merge the Planning Commission and Design Commission into a single body. Despite the overwhelmingly negative response from the current Planning and Design Commission members and the general public, the latest version of the DOC's proposal includes even less citizen input: instead of a seven-member board with two developer representatives and five members of the general public, the new proposal recommends five developer representatives and two members of the general public, in addition to the greatly reduced number of public meetings.

From a historian's perspective, the consolidation of these bodies into a single, smaller group has an interesting parallel with California history. In 1879, California lawmakers held a constituional convention to revise California's constitution and reflect the changes to the state since the original 1849 constitution's writing. One issue they hoped to address was the influence of the Central Pacific Railroad, whose power dominated state politics from the time of its completion a decade earlier.

The 1879 rewrite of the California Constitution included the creation of a three-member Railroad Commission, to deal with railroad issues. The original intent was to create an independent body to review railroad law, and remove it from the political influences of the State Senate, many of whose members were elected because of Central Pacific's money and influence. Central Pacific welcomed the creation of the new Railroad Commission: instead of having to bribe half of the state senate, they now only had to bribe two of the three members of the Railroad Commission to ensure decisions in their favor.

From Panama Bartholomy, Planning Commission member:

"The City Development Services Department and the Development Oversight Commission have posted a schedule (http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/customer-service/CommunityAnnouncements.cfm ) of the community meetings where they have and will be presenting the DOC’s proposal to eliminate the Design Review Commission, move most planning decisions to the staff level out of the public forum and reconstitute the Planning Commission with a 75% developer membership.

"Despite posting the schedule and location of the meetings there is no time given for any of the upcoming meetings so any resident or neighborhood group would not know when to attend the meeting, negating any benefit of having the schedule online.

"It also now appears that the DOC’s original January 6 proposal has changed to even more heavily favor developer interests over neighborhoods. In their original proposal (http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/planning/2008/documents/DOC_letter.PDF) the DOC proposed a new Planning Commission to be made up “of seven members, with at least two of the seven required to have professional experience in architecture, landscape architecture and/or urban planning.” The City handout presented by Bill Thomas, Director of Development Services, at the February 23 Neighborhood Alliance Group (NAG) meeting (http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/documents/SUMMARY-CHART.pdf) proposed a Planning Commission of seven members, with five-representatives from the development community and only two of the general public. Sometime between January 5 and February 23 the City and DOC decided that the original proposal did not limit the general public’s involvement enough and decided that all development decisions in the city should be made by either the development community themselves or by city staff with orders to “Get the customers to success”.

"The City has now set April 30 as the date that the City Council will have a workshop on this issue. There they will decide on whether or not to continue to pursue this proposal.

"Community leaders that value the two-year old Design Review Commission’s role in ensuring the protection of neighborhood identity need to contact their City Councilmember before this meeting to express their views on the DOC’s proposal.

"Those that value a citizen oversight Planning Commission over a developer dominated rubber stamp Planning Commission need to attend each of the public meetings in the newly posted schedule (http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/customer-service/CommunityAnnouncements.cfm) and ask the DOC and City why staff feel the public should no longer have a role in planning decisions that affect their neighborhoods.

"To keep up on these meetings and all activities related to this proposal feel free to join the Neighborhood Efficiency, Accountability and Transparency (NEAT) Coalition at its Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69072329545).

"Here is the schedule of the next meetings where the proposal will be shared with select community members:

Curtis Park Community Meeting
March 25, 2009

Oak Park Neighborhood Association (Oak Park Community Center)
April 02, 2009

South Area Community Outreach Meeting (Pannell Community Center)
April 06, 2009

North Area Community Outreach Meeting (South Natomas Community Center)
April 13, 2009

City Council Workshop
April 30, 2009"

Sacramento Preservation Roundtable at Shady Lady Saloon, 14th & R Street

2009-03-13T20:08:13Z

The Spring Sacramento Preservation Roundtable will be held this Saturday, March 14, 9:00 AM

Held at The Shady Lady Saloon - 1409 R Street
A tour of the building following.
Discussion on "Minimum Maintenance of Historic Properties" & Neighborhood involvement.

Presentation by the Development Oversight Commission about the DOC's deregulation proposal and the elimination of the Design Review Commission

CADA (Capitol Area Development Authority) will present the latest projects & plans for the 18th & N / O Street Area

Juice, rolls, coffee, $5 Donation, students w/valid ID attend free

Sponsored by CADA, D&S Development &SOCA

http://www.sacoldcity.org

Date: Saturday, March 14, 2009
Time: 9:00am-12:00pm
------------------------------------------------

Forwarded by Panama Bartholomy of the City of Sacramento Planning Commission:

The City, and potentially members of the Development Oversight Commission (DOC), are expected to present to the Preservation Roundtable on Saturday March 14 (http://sacoldcity.org/WebCalendar/view_entry.php?id=17&date=20090314) the DOC's proposal to eliminate the Design Review Commission, move the majority of planning decisions to the staff level and overhaul the membership of the planning commission so that it contains only two non-development community members.

Please come out to the event to see if the City or DOC has prepared the requested analysis that identifies what problems the DOC’s recommendations are attempting to fix, what the costs and assumed benefits of the changes will be and how the City will preserve neighborhood input in development oversight.

This presentation is not posted on the City website and there are no other identified presentations to be found on any City website before the rumored late-April City Council workshop on this issue. This may be one of your last chances to provide input into this incredibly important proposal to overhaul the City’s development oversight public input process. Please come out an let your voice be heard to call for an elegant development review process that is efficient for our developers and City staff, inclusive of our neighborhood concerns and will enable us to continue to strive to be the most livable City in America.

The meeting will be held in the New Shady Lady Saloon at the corner of 14th and R Streets, 9:00 AM, Saturday, March 14.

The meeting will include a presentation from Capitol Area Development Authority (CADA) on the latest projects & plans for the 18th & N / O Street Area and a tour of the new Shady Lady Saloon.

Please note that there is a $5 donation requested by the Preservation Roundtable to cover the costs of food and beverages.

City Closer to Eliminating Design Commission

2009-02-21T18:41:05Z

At the Planning Commission meeting on February 12, members of the Development Oversight Commission presented their proposal to eliminate the city of Sacramento's Design Commission by integrating it into the Planning Commission. This action would take most planning decisions out of the Commission's hands, assigning them to city staff, with fewer public hearings. This effort was met by surprise and disapproval by the Planning Commission, and also by the 20 or so members of the public who spoke against the effort at the meeting.

Development Oversight Commission member Brian Holloway assured people that this was only the beginning of a large-scale outreach program, that they had not yet formulated specific recommendations, and it would be many months before any action would be taken, but the letter they had sent to the Mayor regarding this action included very specific recommendations. Now, less than two weeks later, the city council is being asked to draw up a new ordinance to put these changes in place permanently. The massive outreach effort will consist of one meeting with the Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group, a monthly gathering of central city neighborhood associations and advocates, the day before the City Council meeting.

In brief, this change means that many projects that currently go before the Design Review Commission or Planning Commission will be approved by staff, with no board review. If people want to appeal a design decision, they have to pay a $500 fee to air their concerns before the Planning Commission. But even then, the Planning Commission will be smaller and have less power. $500 is chump change to a developer working on a multi-million dollar project, but to neighbors and small neighborhood associations, it is significant enough to give many groups pause. The change in threshold also means that many of the projects that most directly affect existing neighborhoods, like small infill projects, are the ones least likely to be heard.

The Development Oversight Commission is a think-tank of developers and contractors, paid by the city to suggest changes to the city's planning process. One member of the public at the February 12 meeting, a former Planning Commission member, suggested that eliminating the Development Oversight Commission might be a simpler cost-saving measure.

Here is the letter sent by Planning Commissioner Panama Bartholomy regarding this issue:

---------------------------

Dear neighborhood association, or neighborhood, leader:

At the February 12 Planning Commission meeting the Development Oversight Commission (DOC) members and City staff committed to an extensive public outreach effort to collect input from the community on their proposal to eliminate the Design Review Commission and "move most planning decisions to the staff level" :

http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/planning/2008/documents/DOC_letter.PDF.

Now the City Council has on its February 24 agenda an item (#8) to direct the Council’s Law and Legislative Committee to begin work on an ordinance to implement the recommendations:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=74&meta_id=171047.

The DOC and City staff have not provided any analysis to show the problems in the current process that the recommendations would address, nor the benefits expected from the implementation of the recommendations. In fact last year a Sacramento Business Journal survey of developers found that the City ranked first in the region for permitting process: http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/03/31/focus1.html. If this is the case is there the need for such a hurried process? Could there be enough time for community members and neighborhood groups to engage with the DOC and City on the most efficient and effective way to oversee development in the city?

The consent calendar is reserved for items with no controversy or questions of content. At this point without any clarity on the intent, nor benefits of such a significant change to our City’s development oversight process and lacking any input from groups besides the development community this direction from Council does not meet that criteria.

Please contact your council member to ask that the direction to the Law and Legislation Committee to begin work on this item be withdrawn until our community can work with the City to craft recommendations that ensure transparency and efficiency while preserving citizen participation. Council member contact information can be found here: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/council/index.html.

The DOC will make their first presentation to a community group next Monday, February 23, at the regularly scheduled Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group meeting at the Hart Senior Center (27th & J streets). The meeting starts at 6:15, I am told the DOC presentation will begin soon after 7:30.

Here is what is known about a schedule for this issue:

February 23: DOC presentation to Area 1 NAG, Hart Senior Center (27th & J streets). The meeting starts at 6:15, I am told the DOC presentation will begin soon after 7:30.

February 24: City Council to consider providing direction to Law and Legislation Committee to begin work on ordinance on March 17, New City Hall, 2:00: http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=74&meta_id=171047.

March 2: DOC monthly meeting: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/development-oversight/2009/, location TBD

March 17: City Council Law and Legislation Committee, Committee potentially begin work on ordinance, City Hall, 12:30 pm.

Thank you all for your efforts to ensure that Sacramento continues to provide efficient services to all parts of our community.