Only Known Photo of Sam Altowaiji

Jeff Thompson

There is not much happening on the Planning Commission agenda this week. After last week’s near riot at the Tustin City Council meeting, the city staff are probably thankful for a little boredom.  There are no public hearings but city staff will present the draft of the Commercial Design Guidelines for the Cultural Overlay District.

The Agenda Item states the draft is ready to be released on the city website and to stakeholders for a 30 day review period. Interestingly, the city does not consider the local residents of Old Town to be stakeholders. As this is our area of town, one would think they are interested in what the city intends to do with it, commercially or otherwise. Of course, the residents of the area have never been much of a consideration for the Community Development Department.

We only have a copy of the memo to the Planning Commission to go on as well. Apparently, the city didn’t think enough to include any presentation or the guidelines handbook itself. So, we’ll just have to wait until the city updates their website.

If the memo gives us any hint, the design guidelines are established to keep a sense of continuity in Old Town (a good thing) while allowing a degree of flexibility in design and use of materials. The handbook will also address “adaptive reuse” where a historic structure is repurposed for another use. This sort of happened at the Utt Juice Building where the original structure was torn down and live/work lofts were built. Some of the brick used in the original structure was reused in the facade of the new building. Hey, at least it is something.

In any case, the CDG is also supposed to go hand in hand with the RDG (Residential Design Guidelines). Maybe after this, they can finish up the second structure issue.

The only other item on the agenda, this week, is the 2013 General Plan Annual Report for the MCAS Tustin Specific Plan. The plan is required to be approved by the city council and staff are asking for permission to send it along. This is a routine item but, in case you haven’t seen it before (or your a glutton for punishment)  you can access is here. Warning, it is 213 pages long.

That’s it for the week. Congratulations to Sam and Jeff for their reappointment. It’s no real surprise and one wonders, if the incumbents were re-applying, why they bothered extending the timeframe for folks to apply to the commission. A lot of good applicants in the field that had their bubble burst thinking they might have a shot. That’s politics.