HomeMy WebLinkAboutBackground ReportBACKGROUND REPORT
The need for comprehensive Design Guidelines and Best Management Practices became
evident at the time that Caliber Collision relocated from their National City Blvd. location to
their current locale at 940 Haffley Avenue. At that time and due to no formal design
guidelines, the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) provided input and conditions for
Caliber's Conditional Use Permit. These stopgap conditions, although effective, were not all
inclusive and needed to be bolstered and/or updated commensurate with recent
environmental regulation changes.
In order to look for more permanent and comprehensive requirements and standards for
auto body shops, staff applied for and received a grant from the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to fund research into standards used elsewhere in the country. The EPA
produced a comprehensive document that outlined design guidelines and best
management practices for auto body shops. Staff edited the document for content and
prepared code changes/additions that are part of the pending Land Use Update.
It is the intent of the auto body design guidelines to act in a similar manner to the City's
architectural Design Guidelines. Given that body shops generally require a CUP to operate,
new facilities will be seen and approved by the Planning Commission and City Council. In
this regard, staff requested that the Planning Commission review and comment on the
attached guidelines and BMPs. The Commission recommendation is thereby transmitted to
the City Council for your review and approval.
The auto body design guidelines are intended to apply to new construction of auto body
shops but would not necessarily exclude their application to the reuse of an existing
building. The best management practices (BMPs) contained in the document are intended
to apply to both new facilities and those involving reuse of an existing building.
Planning Commission conducted a public hearing on May 2, 2011. Commissioners
asked questions about newer less polluting paint products, existing illegal facilities in
the Westside area, and applicability of the guidelines. There was also the question of
whether any industry representatives could review the guidelines. Although the
Commission voted to approve the CUP based on required findings, staff contacted a
representative from Greenwald's Auto Body for. Their comments were received via an
e-mail, a copy of which has been attached to this report. Comments were related to the
following items:
Design Guidelines:
#8 — Parking: The guidelines encourage parking for both customers and employees.
Greenwald's suggested that requiring employee parking was onerous due land costs.
Response: guidelines are specifically should statements and are generally advisory in
nature. The pertinent Code section in the Land Use Code provides the shall
statements, or specific requirements. In this case, the (new) Code requires one space
per 500 square feet of gross floor area and does not discriminate between customers
and employees.
#10 — Building Access: The guidelines require that employees utilize rear entrances
and exits. Greenwald's suggested that having staff utilize front entrances and exits
reduces the potential for theft and/or misunderstandings.
Response: Again, this is a should statement and would not necessarily work for every
business model. There is no specific requirement in the pertinent Code section that
requires separate ingress/egress.
#12 — Fencing: The guidelines require that all equipment and vehicle storage areas be
screened. Greenwald's takes issue with this requirement due to the fact that screening
can impede the ability to detect property and/or vehicle theft in progress after hours.
Response: City codes have historically required screening of industrial and storage
uses due to the typically undesirable nature of said uses. Both the old and new Land
Use Code requires such screening.
Best Management Practices:
#13 — Inventory Control Practices: This section used the term "waste" interchangeably
with excess materials in reference to recycling. Greenwald's correctly points out that
recycling of waste (as in hazardous) materials is not permitted by the State and
requires special handling. The intent of the section was to encourage a system for
excess (over -stocked) material to be used, possibly by another facility, rather than
disposed of as waste. The section (last bullet point) has been edited for clarification.