City Council — 2022-05-10

Good evening. We have a quorum, may we have the roll call please Gail?

Uh no commission reports tonight

Okay, thank you very much. We will move on to public communication. Just a reminder to the public these are items not on the agenda and because they're not on the agenda we cannot discuss them. When you make a comment we're not ignoring you. We appreciate your viewpoint and participation but we can agendize for the future And each comment is three minutes and I'll be asking the council, never mind. In the sense of fairness and efficiency please stop talking when the time is up and model civility and respect.

No giving away time to another speaker. We're doing our best to run an efficient and productive meeting so thank you very much for your cooperation. So tonight we have just two public communications Gail? Okay first we have Ron Solozano from our library

All righty, thank you so much members of council. My name is Ron Solorzano and I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley Tonight I wanted to give you another update on the operations of the Ojai Library So the library is currently open for the full seven day a week schedule. Customers are able to fully access our collection and many of our typical programs are returning to meeting in person.

Perhaps most exciting right now is the fact that our 2022 summer reading program is beginning as of May 15th, and both children and adults are going to be able to join our reading challenges online through our website. Along with our reading challenge, where young ones can track the minutes that they read and adults can track the books they read. The Ojai Library is also going to offer special programs that will include board game and Lego sessions, science art and writing workshops, and the long-awaited return of our weekly story time for children ages zero to five years old.

The library also continues to visit the Ojai Community Farmer's Market on the second Thursday of every month, and our Pause for Reading Therapy Dog program continues every Wednesday afternoon. Also our mobile library is still visiting the Miners Oaks Elementary School campus every Friday at 1030 a.m. to deliver their outdoor storytime. For adults, we have two special events coming up.

One is actually taking place at the E.P. Foster Library in downtown Ventura where former Hells Angels president George Christie will speak on this Saturday May 14th. On the following Saturday May 21st a local author Elizabeth Krauss will be coming to the Ojai library to talk about her travel memoir entitled Three Sisters, Three Weeks, Three Countries Still Talking.

For more information on these or any of our other programs, you can contact the library or visit our website at www.vancolibrary.org. That's all I have for now. Thank you so much for your time and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you.

Thank you so much Ron. Next we have Bill Miley

Good evening, for the record my name is Bill Miley. Hello! As of Friday when reading the new issue of the Ojai Valley News I have an informational item to share In the extensive article about the appeal of the City Planning Commission approval of El Roblox redevelopment, I read a brief statement about Mindful Citizen Simply Ojai which is the hotel appellant having a new structure called Fuel Reduction Works which is receiving a grant of funds from the state organization CAL FIRE.

In my opinion they deserve congratulations for the award of $492,000 for their project I try to stay current on what's going on and this is brand new to me. I went to the CAL FIRE website and looked at their current grant approvals, there are 40 of them throughout California. The fuel reduction works grant work plan was described by CAL FIRE as follows Removing incendiary ember cast and fire brand producing fuels by eucalyptus, Italian cypress, fan palm et cetera around homes in adjacent open areas owned by willing participants that are solely in the very high fire hazard severity zone. State responsibility zone and also local responsibility area zone.

There are 543 homes in the project area By dramatically reducing the number of ignitions in future fires, we are limiting the size and intensity of fire occurrences. Long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions will be achieved via reduction in acres and structures burned over time and by substantially diminishing the chances of wildland or urban fire because becoming out of control.

From the Ojai Valley News commentary, I want to quote this section as it recognizes the local person who will be instrumental in the grant's implementation. Quote, The project manager listed on the grant application obtained by the Ojai Valley News through a Public Records Act request is Ojai resident Tom Francis who according to the grant budget will be paid just over $50,000 as manager of the project stated to be completed in 2024 The summary of the grant is Northern Ojai Incendiary Fuel Ember Cast Reduction Project.

And in conclusion, this surely is a windfall for a portion of our valley which will add to all the previous and current efforts to prevent and if not prevent reduce damage from wildfires. Thank you. Thank

You

Bill

any comments on Zoom Gail?

If anyone in the Zoom queue who would like to speak, please use the raised hand function now. No one's raising their hand? OK.

Thank you. All right. We'll move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve?

So move and note that Councilperson Blatz has joined us on Zoom. Great. I'll second.

OK. Roll call. I

had a comment on this. I paused it. A comment on that consent calendar

Sorry, can you repeat that Ryan?

I have a comment on the consent calendar.

Okay.

On item J, I was just wondering if the council wanted we were canceling one meeting in each of the next couple of months for summer recess but I was thinking that it might make more sense if we did the second one in July and the first one in August rather than the first one or second one each so they weren't you know they're back-to-back rather than have this one have one miss one and then have one I just wanted to know if the council would prefer to do that. I thought that made more sense.

And, and I can note just quickly that we did check all four of those meetings and there's nothing time sensitive that would result in us not being able to cancel one keep one so that would be an option for council if it's desired.

I like the option.

Excuse me what option?

I have no preference, I was just interested in what you said James about the time sensitive item.

Yeah, so we checked all both meetings in July and both meetings in August. And as long as we have a meeting in each month which Councilmember Blatt's proposal would still keep, we should be fine. So I think that would be cancelling July 26th and August

9th. That's fine either way is fine.

Okay. All right. We have a second? Second.

Okay,

all right. Thank you Ryan. Roll call please Gail.

Yes, thank you. Thank you Mayor. So this item, the appeal of the design review permit for the proposed remodel of the Hotel El Roblar site is a public hearing and so as you mentioned we'll be holding a public hearing and allowing for public comment The item being appealed is the design review permit for the Hotel El Roblar, which was formerly the Oaks at Ojai.

The Oaks at Ojia operated as a 46-room hotel and included an interior dining room with patio. We'll get into in a moment what the remodel proposes. But just a little bit of history, the project was approved by the Planning Commission with the majority of the project approved 4-1 on April 6th. And the remaining lighting and landscaping plan were approved by the Planning Commission on April 20, 2022.

An appeal was filed by the Appellant on April 20, 2022 The appeal is considered a de novo hearing. The project site was constructed in 1919 with several modifications and expansions since that time, which are detailed in the staff report and in the historic report. The hotel, as I mentioned most recently operated as the Oaks but closed during the Thomas Fire.

The Hotel El Roblar is proposed to be remodeled as a full-service 50 room hotel comprised of 11 bungalows or suites and 39 hotel rooms within the main two story hotel building. Modifications to the exterior are proposed to remove the 2003-2004 mission style revisions, and the applicant I think will talk a little bit about their vision. But my understanding is the vision is to return the design closer to its original design roots.

The city required a historic resources report for the proposed changes to the exterior. The City's Historic Preservation Commission supported, reviewed the proposed design and supported the proposed design which is the design with arches. The report talked about some of the different designs but it's the design with arches The Planning Commission then ultimately approved that design as well.

Most of the modifications proposed in the project are the repurposing of existing space, but there is some new construction related to the gym building and pool facilities. The Planning Commission when they reviewed and approved the project focused on a couple of areas that I wanted to highlight. One was operating hours for the hotel, restaurant and event center.

Briefly the hotel will operate 24 hours a day seven days a week. The 66 seat restaurant and 42 seat bar or lounge area would be open between 7am to 11pm. And the event center would include a capacity of 150 seats and be operational between 8am to 9pm, Sunday through Wednesday and 8am to midnight Thursday through Saturday. The planning commission included a condition that the city review the hours of operation and the uses on the one year and three-year anniversaries of the certificate of occupancy being issued so those reviews will be scheduled if the project is approved.

Another issue that was discussed in addition to the operating hours is the parking for the project. The Planning Commission actually reviewed the parking and gave feedback several times in December, January and again in April as part of the approvals. To summarize that issue, the ITE standards which is the Institute of Transportation Engineers The ITE standards identify a requirement of 78 parking spaces. The project applicants proposed a plan to provide 78 spaces across three locations, 40 spaces are on-site which may be accessed via valet, 18 are at the lot just north of the hotel site at 202 North Ventura Street which is owned by the applicants which would also be accessed via valet And then 20 spots are dedicated as employee self-parking with no guest or no valet parking, which is behind the beacon location.

Staff previously recommended allowing 15 of those spaces to count towards the requirement. The Planning Commission approved allowing all 20 spaces to count so that was included in the approval. And so lastly, the last key element of the project that we wanted to highlight is the project will be subject to the city's public art requirement. Because the composition of the Arts Commission was recently changed and the commission still needs to have some appointments made to be able to have a quorum We are recommending that the council approve the agreement identified as attachment and in the report, which will require the applicant to immediately deposit the total fee amount of the public art fee into an escrow account.

And that would allow the city and the applicant to work towards requiring with the public art requirement in full by October 21st 2022. This is intended to allow time for the public art process to ensure the best result rather than a rushed project right at the entrance to the city. So we thought that was important and so That is a highlight of some of the key elements of the project I believe the City Attorney will add a couple of comments in as part of the staff report

Thank you James, Mr. Vega. Mayor and Council a couple additional points as you know most are familiar with the project but a couple of different points one in the staff report there two corrections that are worth noting number one is on page three there's a reference to the outdoor pre-function area as part of the general area the general courtyard and that's not quite correct it's correctly noted in the conditions the outdoor pre function area is part of the event center Why this is relevant is because that means that the outdoor pre-function area would be subject to the conditions on hours and other operations, including capacity of the event center. So that's one correction there. Second correction is as to the one year and three year reviews condition number 23 correctly notes that the condition is to review the functions of the event center, not the entire hotel.

And that was not quite precisely stated in the staff report. So the one in three year reviews as approved by the Planning Commission and is recommended by staff for the council to approve, it would be that review is of the event center's operations. And then that's an opportunity to assess, is it working well or not? And if it's not working well, then what adjustments should be made to make it work well? And again, that's at the one in the three-year opportunities. Second is when they propose findings, staff has two recommended additions should the council approve the project One would be on the finding G in the resolution and I apologize, I don't have front of me which page that is.

But we will find out in a moment. Finding G is on page 5 of attachment A, the resolution or which is also packet page 2-19. And it would be in finding G, which currently states there are adequate provisions for public access water sanitation and public utilities and services to ensure that the proposed use would not be detrimental to public health and safety. Subject side is served by public utilities. We'd add a reference as to water demand report submitted yesterday this morning by Watershed Progressive shows that the existing hotel facility has adequate water connections and has maintained a water service connection And it's as proposed, the project would reduce water demand. by approximately 55% compared to the previously operating hotel.

And then second, also on the next page finding J which is on page 2-20 or page six of attachment A as regards parking staff would recommend adding a reference to the discretion in table 3-5 of Ohio Municipal Code section 10 to 1405 that allows the director on recommendation, the planning commission on approval, council on appeal to determine that the mix of uses for a mixed use project can be required parking can be determined by the ITE study. The basis for that is to draw the connection between the 78 space requirement as noted by Mr. Vega's comments and in the past discussions drew from the ITE study to add a reference to that in the resolution and then it's noted as proposed 78 required parking spaces and 78 have been provided through three pieces.

40 on site, 18 at 202 North Ventura and 20 at 209-211 West Ojai Avenue. Last staff recommends a minor adjustment to the public art compliance agreement. And on this one I have a handout And this is, the addition is to add a new section six that would provide that in the event of acts of God other things beyond the applicant's control. The timelines for the public art piece could be adjusted and that if the project ever did not proceed, the city would return the money. The reason being that the $50,000 that will be paid in by the applicant if this is approved It's for public art. If it is never built, the city would have to return the money.

And with that, I would add that we are available for questions both myself, the city manager, community development director and a number of consultants on the city side. In particular worth noting the city's historic consultant, what was her name? Evangeline, not Evangeline. Evan. Evan St. Clair with architecture- Charles. St. Charles, thank you. With architectural resources group is available this evening through the Zoom for any questions on the historic issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. Any questions from Council? Susan?

Would it be possible or desirable to separate... Oh! Over here. Sorry. Thank you for telling me. Can we consider separating the issue of the façade, the two choices for the façade from the five main issues that is in the appeal? because the appeal does not include any reference to the facade. My thinking is that, you know we have a large audience there's going to be a lot of comments would it make sense to separate the two but start with the appeal because if that takes too long perhaps

you know. So council can consider it in pieces but the decision has to be as to the project as a whole We cannot approve half a project, or disapprove half a project. Either way that has to be a decision. So council could consider it in pieces and if desired it can always be continued but my recommendation would be to as much as possible take it in chunks but in the end get you a decision on the whole project

Okay, so that was my other question. It's all or nothing tonight? Say that we have an issue with say one of the items in the appeal.

So I should clarify there. The council's options are approve the project as proposed, deny the project thereby affirming the appeal, or approve it with conditions, or remand it back to the Planning Commission for a further assessment of either the whole project or one piece So an option would be to refer it back to the Planning Commission, to look at one piece of it if that would be necessary.

But those are your four basic options. Approve, deny, approve with conditions, kick back to the Planning Commission.

Okay thank you for the clarification.

Other questions? Randy and then Bill.

Just real quick I have the application for appeal in front of me and Suze, I don't see the five concerns.

Right here on page two of the letter yeah that we received a letter from Leslie Hess. Leslie

Hess is not the applicant?

I believe she's the rector of Simply Ojai.

She is not on the application, so do we need a some form of ruling on that? That who's the applicant and who's not the applicant and something that has been sent to us is subject to the comment period am I clear

on that? Am I right on that let me clarify a couple points so number one the stated Appellant, the applicant is the Hotel Aurora Bluffs owner. The appellant is Megan Berkfist for Simply Ojai. Thus the appellant is Megan Berkfist or any bona fide representative of Simply Ojai who was listed as the aggrieved person. Ms. Hess submitted a letter yesterday or the day before that yesterday that purports to be from and on behalf of Simply Ojai I do not know to what extent Ms. Hess is in that role as a director of simply, oh I presume she'll speak tonight and prove up that status. The council on appeal can consider any issue raised by any member of the public. The appellant raised two issues in their appeal summarized as intensity of use too high parking inadequate and the council must consider those two issues.

The council can also consider any other issue about the project because it's a de novo hearing. As a result, you could consider the issues raised by Ms. Hess in her letter. You could also disregard them as not raised in the appeal. That's a choice.

Thank you.

So again I just need to clarify this. This is the appellants and Megan is the appellant am I correct?

Yes but she did so in a representative capacity not in her personal capacity Equivalent to if I appeal something for the city, I'm not personally the appellant. The city is the appellate. In this case she appealed as a representative of an unincorporated group of citizens as far as I know although again we haven't been provided proof as to Ms. Hess' status.

So just for clarification so that means that anyone who belongs to this organization can come here tonight and represent Simply Ojai?

The group will be limited to about 10 minutes in representatives and we would need to understand how they are a representative of that group.

And how do we arrive

at ten minutes? That's a rule of reason subject to the mayor and council's control, about ten minutes for the applicant, about ten minutes for the appellant. Subject to council control of course. That's not a hard rule. More about efficient meeting, OK?

Well like I said, I'm just trying to be clear on so this is my probably my second appeal in seven years. So it's just. It seems that it seems to me to be a little out of the ordinary that we have someone

stick to questions for style.

Yeah, I will. No no, this is a question please let me finish. So being as it is different. How are we to determine the right response to the letter we received yesterday? And any other letters that we have received, do we take them all in kind? Do we take them all separate? Do we need to take every individual letter that has come to us and break it down and say well this was with simply Ojai and this is just a citizen. How do we make those determinations?

So my recommendation is to take it as a whole The project is proposed, arguments against it by the appellant were submitted in the written document in your hand. Let's consider those two and that's what's done in the written resolution and then consider any other arguments raised by anyone else as worthy or not worthy of review and assessment. Staff's assessment is that of all the arguments raised so far in order to fulfill the Planning Commission's decision, just two edits would need to be made to the findings. The one on water and the second on parking. The rest have been dealt with but that would be our recommendation is take it as a whole. Thank you Matt, thank you Mayor.

Bill?

Just too quick I think my question has been answered so I'm going to phrase it in the form of am I correct then in my understanding The council must address the grounds for appeal that were filed originally and it's our discretion on grounds beyond that. Yes, that's correct. And the second thing is as of the beginning of this meeting we do not have a list of members or participants in Simply Ojai.

Nothing has been submitted to the city.

That's

right. Ryan any other questions?

I wrote it down and I'm not finding exactly where, but I was on page 18 of 22. But there, I didn't write down which attachment, there's so many. But there was a section that said there was a maximum of one event per month for local nonprofit and other community events. And I wondered if there was I don't want to deliberate about that now, but I wanted to make sure when it was written correctly and what the rationale if any was behind that. Was that to limit local events? Because I'd hate to see if there's one month where there happened to be two community non-profit events that could be potentially at an event center. I don't know why we'd be putting a max on it. When I first read it, I thought oh they're promising one, but I said well that doesn't make sense.

And no, it was actually a cap in how many they could have

Yeah, that was discussed at the Planning Commission meeting. I think the general idea was... The general discussion was focused on making sure there weren't too many events that would start impacting neighbors and the community But I do remember that same question came up where the commission was asking for, you know why we would want to put a limitation on number of local events in particular. So that is a standard or that is something we could modify relatively easily?

Yeah well that was all I needed for now. That's the question. Thank you. I'll get back to it later thank you.

Question about the watershed progressive report that we received it this afternoon around three. Yes, that is not present in any other Report Planning Commission report that did the Planning Commission get that?

To my knowledge, the city received it today. We had not received it before.

I don't recall it being in the Planning Commission

report. Is that correct? So yeah we confirmed it was not in the City's files before.

Okay thank you. Okay I guess that's... Randy?

Just one last question regarding that though if I remember correctly the El Rolvar group did bring up the water saving Features to to Planning Commission. Am I correct?

Yeah,

I believe that's correct Yes, it's orally just not right substantiates to their verbiage that they articulated in the planning my correct correct.

Okay Any other questions? Okay The public hearing will now be open and we will hear from the applicant for an overview of the proposal And it's I was I will keep an eye on the clock

James, can we pull up the slides?

Mayor Mameka, one quick comment. Ex parte Souza and I did meet with this group on Friday and did a walkthrough of the property. I think we were there about a half hour so I just want to let the public know that we did do that.

I would add that I think we were there for over an hour. Yeah, and I stayed after you

did.

I sat in

my truck for a long time answering messages

but... Okay. I didn't know we had to disclose that.

Mayor and Council before we have Mr. Shimshiri speak why don't we confirm on the record who anyone else who visited the site?

Warner gave me a tour a long time ago. Remember Warner? It was a while back,

okay? I had a

tour a very long time ago as well. We've all been here a very long time. So should we get started? Be generous, please. Okay, I'll race through it. Well good evening, my name is Ramin Shamsheri and I'm one of the partners of the Hotel El Roblar and I've been here in Ojai for 14 years. I wanted to start by thanking everyone here for taking the time to review our project and also want to thank city staff for all the work you've done in the last few years to getting us to this point and thank you to the council members that have come out and took the time to tour the project to better understand our proposal I also wanted to introduce our team. We have Warner Ebb Inc., Eric Goode, and Jeremy McBride scattered back here.

For the benefit of the council and general community, I've prepared a brief presentation for the project which has been documented in the administrative report. Hopefully it's not too redundant. But our proposal intends to renovate and restore the hotel most recently known as The Oaks into the Hotel El Roblar, the original name of the hotel when it was built by Edward Libby in 1919 and was recognized as the city's foremost resort hotel that was open year-round prior to World War II.

We started this process almost three years ago, months prior to closing escrow on the property which occurred in the fall of 2019. The hotel has been closed since 2017 due to the Thomas fire and we began conversations with the city on permitting our project to reestablish its historic entitlements which was a full-service 49 room hotel that had 50 parking spots and based on our initial reports, was historically under parked by 34 cars since 1972.

Our intention is to bring the hotel back to its original roots and make the entire property feel like it's always been there, an integral part of the history of Ojai. We're truly honored and humbled to carry on the spirit and tradition of this iconic property And we were thrilled when the Clough family chose to sell the property to our group because they felt it was in the best interest of the city.

We intend to treat it with the utmost respect and care, both architecturally and socially, and we hope to create a place that caters not only to visitors but also can capture the spirit of the local community and invite them to share in the amenities. The hotel is over 100 years old and everything we are proposing works within the historic entitlements that have been established and occurred over time, such as overnight accommodations, the event space, the restaurant, bar, lounge used to have live music. And then the amenities like the swimming pool.

We believe the ultimate aesthetic impact will be minimal and improve the look and feel of the site while implementing the conveniences, efficiencies, and amenities of a full-service hotel. We chose the path to restore this hotel, and this includes the process of rehabilitating each room from scratch. It's a process that requires more resources and time than a ground-up project. Rehabilitating old buildings is a skill I've been working on for most of my career, and the most obvious challenge for this project is existing parking configuration as well as creating sustainable model for a hotel given the realities of today's climate.

How can we open the public spaces that we read so much about during the 20s and 50s, and comply with current codes? How can we do this when there hasn't ever really been enough parking to begin with? How can we work to create a sustainable project in a building that's a historic contributor to a district, and is over 100 years old. And as you know our plans have been approved by the Planning Commission, as well as the Historic Preservation Commission.

So the solutions, and those solutions are what you're hearing today. So I wanted to walk you through our initial concept. I guess we can go to the next slide. Am I doing it? Okay, so we were first inspired by the original architectural style of building and we looked to the work of Irving Gill who mentored Mead and Recwell before they opened their own practice and were hired by Libby to do a good portion of the Ojai Historic Core. These are some early photos. We can go to the next slide.

And the site plan and drawings, we can go to the next slide as well in the next slide So this is the current site plan that we have existing, and we can go to the next slide. And this is the proposed site plan which I think you've all reviewed in the package. As noted, we'd like to remove a good bit of the parking on the perimeter to replace it with more drought-tolerant landscaping so that you're not looking at a building surrounded by cars with curb cuts but rather a nicely landscaped perimeter with usable sidewalks. Our proposed plan will result in a reduction of 10 parking spots on the actual property while adding an additional nine street parking spots open to the public that don't exist today.

So, the net loss on site would be one spot This does not include the additional 38 spots we've secured at off-site, private locations. We want to encourage pedestrian foot traffic that brings vibrancy to community. The Playhouse, Libbey Park, the playground, the tennis courts, Libby Bowl, the museum, Barts Books, the library, the market, everything is within a five minute walk of the hotel.

We can go to the next slide. This is our proposed façade on Ojai Avenue, which would reincorporate the original pedestrian arch built in 1919 and we wanted to simplify and clean up the façade by extending the current arched arcade that supports the balconies above. These are arches that are already there and they're already on about one third of the facade, and we want to just extend it all the way across. This is the approved facade which we feel is more romantic and pleasing architecturally. It creates a seamless transition from the required structural columns to support the balconies We feel it's more aligned with the downtown historic core and complements it rather than competes with it by using arches that are a different scale than what exists in the core, and they're also set back from the street nestled behind trees and landscape.

In October of last year, we were told we had to go through historic review and followed all the city protocols, completed a new historic resources report and presented our facade options to the Historic Commission. After much back-and-forth on the legality of the Secretary of Interior's standards, they supported us unanimously in favor of our preferred façade with the arches.

It was then contested at the following Planning Commission hearing, and they too supported the arches as well. We can go to the next slide. In our research, we found some original drawings and photos of the interior which we used as a basis for our plans. This is the original fireplace. And the next slide, we can keep going sorry. Next slide. So this is a rendering of the lobby which is based on those drawings and we'd like to bring back that original, oh sorry go back one sorry. We want to bring back that original rock fireplace, the board and bat paneling and use classic terracotta tiles.

We can go to the next slide. These are the drawings of the restaurant off the main lobby on OI Avenue, the working name is The Condor Bar and this is the one we'd like to have open to the public. You can go to the next slide. This is the same Condor Bar in the next slide. This is our proposed breakfast and lunch restaurant, which is facing the pool. It's on the north side of the main building and one of the areas we're proposing to demolish on the facade.

It has a mid-century look and not in keeping with the characteristics of the rest of the property. And we hope to bring back the original character of that building with a more Spanish style elevation and interior. Next, please. This is the proposed banquet hall originally known as the Flamingo Room which we intend to keep and that remains within the existing footprint of the hotel. We can keep going.

These are our guest rooms. Each room will have unique touches that will honor the history of Ojai, potential imagery of Beatrice Wood and Krishnamurti, and we're using vintage posters from the Ojai Music Festival. We can go to the next one. And the next one, I think. Okay so overall we hope to create an experience that captures the essence and history of Ojai and allows visitors and locals to appreciate our beautiful downtown historic core. Concurrently we hope to bring more foot traffic and revenue to local businesses while restoring and improving the TOT tax and sales tax that was lost to the city since the closure of The Oaks We're estimating one and a quarter million dollars per year in additional tax revenue for the city. We hope to create 40 new hospitality jobs, over 100 short-term construction jobs.

We will also be working on attaining 1% for the planet certification by giving 1% of our revenues to local environmental causes like the Ojai Land Conservancy. We've since met with some of those opposed to our plan and oddly we both want the same things We don't want the hotel to have a major impact on local parking and congestion, but we simply have philosophical differences on the best way to get there.

They believe that we should have self-parking that directs visitors to lots or spaces allotted for them. They believe that valet is culturally wrong and elitist and will congest the streets with extra trips. We think that plan will create a parking free-for-all, with visitors driving around not knowing where to go and taking whatever street parking they can find.

Our goal is to keep as many cars as we can off of our public streets and out of our public parking spots. The use of valet gives us the opportunity to have greater capacity in private lots, not open to the public. It gives us the ability to control where our guests park and allows us to have their cars moved by staff that know where they are going. It keeps the cars off the street essentially allowing for more parking for locals less cars driving around and ultimately less of an impact on the community If there's a significant concern about solving the parking problem, we request that this council take action on this important issue and create a special Parking Commission to foster ongoing cooperation among businesses residents and city agencies in order to address them in a collaborative way.

Also, if the goal of the valet ordinance is to push for open-to-all parking then shouldn't we be afforded the same freedoms as the other businesses on Ojai Avenue that don't have to adhere to any parking requirements? We've been playing along by the rules set in front of us for three years. We have watched a number of businesses open on Ojai Avenue and a number of businesses continue to operate on Ojai Avenue, most of which have little or no parking at all. We have presented a variety of proposals with options that provide significantly more parking spaces than our predecessor with essentially the same entitlements.

In regards to the environmental concerns, we've been working with a company called Watershed Progressive to come up with a sustainable plan for the project. Today we have submitted a detailed report that includes landscape and irrigation upgrades, low flow fixtures, potential rainwater harvest and gray water reuse all of which will reduce water consumption by about 55% from the current infrastructure.

Furthermore, the HVAC was already designed to be entirely electric with a heat pump. And our first pass at the water heating design was a high efficiency gas tank but we are in the process of reviewing the feasibility of solar thermal preheat system as well as installing a PV electrical system on some of our roofs. As locals, this is a passion project for us and none of us want to lose the soul of Ojai.