01. MP2019-0004 Agency Review Comments 2020-08-25
August 25, 2020
Mr. Garrett Simon
CM Wave Development LLC
2440 Junction Place, Suite 200
Boulder, CO 80301
SUBJECT: DESIGN COMMENTS FOR THE WAVE PROJECT
GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT 2019-0002
ZONE CHANGE 2019-0004
SPECIFIC PLAN 2019-0003 (AMENDMENT 5 TO SP 03-067)
TENTATIVE TRACT MAP 2019-0005 (TTM 37815)
MASTER PROJECT 2019-0004
Dear Mr. Simon,
Your application was found complete on July 7, 2020. At that time, the application materials
were circulated for inter- and intra-agency review. We have received comments from the
following outside agencies, whose letters are attached:
1. Coachella Valley Water District
2. CalFire Fire Safety
3. Imperial Irrigation District
4. Southern California Gas Co.
5. Sunline Transit Agency
Please review these comments and incorporate any changes required in your plans. The
comments, where required, will be added to the conditions of approval for the project.
In addition to outside agencies, comments were received from City departments, as follows:
Planning Department
Extensive comments were provided on the 2nd draft of the Specific Plan document on July 23rd.
Following our meeting with you and your team last week, we will review the 3rd draft when it is
provided to us. Please upload the revised Specific Plan to Trakit with an email copy to me when
it is ready.
City Manager’s Office
The property is located in an area of the City covered by a Riverside County Redevelopment
Area, which has been leveraged for bonds by the County. As a result, the City does not receive
any property tax for the project site, currently or after its development.
The City will need to see a fiscal impact analysis for the project. The FIA should focus on annually-
recurring impacts to the City’s General Fund. The preliminary analysis should provide a
“snapshot” of the annual impacts at full buildout of the Project. The final report will include year-
by-year projections leading up to buildout. The costs would need to cover public safety and
maintenance for the area. The City does not receive property taxes for another 15 years.
Please contact Gilbert Villalpando, Assistant to City Manager, at 760-777-7094, or by email at
Gvillalpando@laquintaca.gov for questions or direction on the fiscal impact analysis format and
content.
Fire Department
Adjustments to minimum clear width travel lanes need to be corrected to minimum 24-feet when
that roadway is identified and required for Fire Access. Secondary Emergency Egress/Access
roadway is required for the Low-Density Residential gated community area. This shall be
sufficiently remote from the primary gated entry point and connect to an alternate thorough-
fare. Access to the Resort and Boardwalk area is of concern. CFC 503.1 requires a maximum
150-feet hose-lay distance to and around all exterior elements of proposed/future structures.
The exceptions allowing an increased distance is not automatically provided or approved.
*Increases in fire sprinkler system design above normal minimum design for that particular
structure/occupancy has been used to request increased fire access distance up to a maximum
of 300-feet.**R-3 Single Family Home structures with automatic fire sprinkler system installed
is provided an automatic extension of required fire access to a maximum of 300-feet.
In addition, please see comments in Specific Plan and Tentative Tract Map PDFs, provided
separately in upload (see below).
Public Works/Engineering
1. Provide grant deed or preliminary title report showing Freedman Leff Investments, LLC
as owner.
2. Tentative Tract Map: See comments made on TTM PDF, provided separately in upload
(see below).
3. Preliminary Grading Plan: See comments made on Grading Plan PDF, provided separately
in upload (see below).
4. Preliminary Hydrology Report:
a. Please show emergency overflow route.
b. Please include half street tributary for Ave 60.
5. Comments will be made on Final WQMP. No further comments on Preliminary document.
Traffic Engineer
1. Both Madison Street and Avenue 58 are secondary arterials in the General Plan. The
Tentative Tract map shows Avenue 58 being 102 ft. wide and Madison Street being 110
ft. wide. Why is Madison Street being modified from its General Plan standard?
2. All the interior streets are all very narrow - cross sections proposed (excluding the 2 ft
well gutter on each side) leave only the following travel area for vehicular traffic:
A = 24 ft
B = 20 ft
C = 28 ft but has 8 ft parking on one side
D = 22 ft
E = 24 ft
F = 20 ft
G = 20 ft
H = 20 ft
Based on Fire Department standard of 24 ft wide - B, C, D, F, G, and H are all substandard.
3. The traffic study uses the presence of bike lanes to reduce VMT. How would a bike use a
20 ft street? Is the intent for bikes to share the road with all traffic, with no bike lanes
proposed, or is there a separate bike plan that is proposed with all off-street trails? If so,
need to see that and the cross section for it. Also, will golf carts be sharing this network
of sidewalks or streets? (most sidewalks shown in cross sections are 5 ft wide on one side
of street only, indicating all peds, bikes, and possibly carts would be expected to use that
sidewalk in both directions. This is not sufficient per General Plan golf cart plan.
4. The City would like a conceptual striping plan for each street to assure the appropriate
right-of-way will be dedicated to include that desire width.
5. Where parking is allowed on alternating sides of the street - parking restrictions need to
ensure that peds, bikes, and carts crossing have adequate sight distance of approaching
vehicles. Show where these crossings take place and provide a sight distance analysis.
Traffic Study: CEQA Requirements
Staff review of the revised Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) is not yet complete, however, I need to
make you aware of a change in State law, which will require that additions be made to the TIA.
As of July 1, the State required that traffic impacts be analyzed based on Vehicle Miles Traveled
(VMT) rather than LOS, and that each jurisdiction adopt a procedure for this analysis. The City
adopted its VMT Policy in June, and the Policy must now be implemented in the TIA. The policy
has been provided in the upload documents.
Technical review of the revised traffic study is not complete (see below). Additional comments
will be provided on the revised traffic study.
Review of Environmental Documents
As we have previously discussed, the review of the first draft of the Initial Study will be provided
next week. In addition, the review of revised technical reports, including the traffic study
mentioned above, is not complete, and will follow Initial Study comments. The responses to
comments provided for the cultural resources report and noise study will facilitate our review of
those documents. If a response to comments was provided for the traffic study, it was not
provided to me, and would be extremely helpful in expediting the review of the second draft of
the traffic study.
The response to comments provided for the air quality and GHG report was helpful in completing
our 2nd review, and comments on the second draft of the air quality and GHG reports are provided
in the upload documents.
Conclusion
As you know, the City had a technical failure with its permit tracking system last week. As a
result, I was unable to post the comments as we normally would, into the Trakit system. In order
to provide you with comments and revision requests promptly, I have downloaded the
documents from the Trakit system, and you can access them at:
https://terranova3-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/ncriste_terranovaplanning_com/EthFzA-
q6RFOuJr2PduElpwBxFz0aQM48r46Bx8Pt733PA?e=g1s1Fc
In addition, the PDF documents, in particular the Tentative Tract Map, were not flattened before
they were uploaded to the Trakit system, which results in an overload in the reviewing program.
Please assure that MSA flattens all PDFs resubmitted after comments have been addressed.
Due to current State mandates, I am working remotely. If you have any questions regarding the
process, please contact me at ncriste@terranovaplanning.com, and/or at (760) 341-4800.
Sincerely,
Nicole Sauviat Criste
Consulting Planner