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The Pleasanton Planning Commission recommended changes to the Downtown Specific Plan last week, proposing city policy require fully “active” business uses in ground-floor units on Main Street in most circumstances.
Commissioners called for simpler and stricter regulations than suggested by city staff, who proposed requiring at least the front 60% of a commercial unit be active retail or restaurant, in expansion of the current policy of 25% depth. Still up for future debate is potential allowances for properties with tenant vacancies over six months.
“I would like to see this whole multi-use aspect be eliminated from our language. No other city has it, and most of us have realized that there’s very few businesses that have come into play,” Vice Chair Nancy Allen said during the July 28 commission meeting. “When we say active use ground-floor retail, we mean 100% active use retail — clear with the intent, simple and provides direction, and no ambiguity.”
The City Council had referred the city’s “active ground-floor use overlay” policy for further review by city staff and the commission in the wake of a recent appeal from Iron Horse Real Estate for a multi-use commercial tenant space on Main Street.
The existing Downtown Specific Plan regulation requires the front 25% of the depth of multi-use tenant space to be an “active use” commercial operation, with exceptions for vacancies exceeding six months and purpose-built banking buildings. Active use aims to attract customers and increase foot traffic downtown with establishments such as retail and restaurants.
While the overall direction from the council was to increase the proportion of the requirement of active use in commercial tenant spaces, public comments received by staff before the meeting generally opposed raising the ratio, according to city senior planner Shweta Bonn.
The recommendation from city staff was for mandates of 60% depth and 60% of leasable square footage minimum to be an active use.
In a public comment during the July 28 hearing, Erica Jasso, owner of Sculptsations, expressed her concerns with the Downtown Specific Plan as an applicant to be a tenant on the first floor on Main Street.
Jasso said she had already invested more than $25,000 into her beauty services business and made changes to comply with the 25% requirement, but with her business license and zoning approval denied, the increase in required depth could prevent her from opening her business.
Zac Grant, executive director of the Pleasanton Downtown Association, also spoke, emphasizing there are only a few number of cases of multi-use spaces. He said PDA officials’ concerns are not of the percentage but that the storefronts are bona fide active-use businesses.
“There’s so much discussion that has occurred around this, it creates a lot of interesting hypotheticals. But honestly with just a couple of cases, I don’t want to see this dividing my membership anymore than it already has. I’d like to move on to other more important issues for the city,” Grant said.
During the discussion, the commissioners took into consideration the concerns from the public comments and echoed Grant’s statement that the percentage of depth of active use should not be the primary issue.
“What I’m leaning towards is not requiring a specific percentage so much as finding other ways to ensure that we have vibrant use,” Planning Commissioner Brandon Pace said.
“Does the mixed-use concept need to be there because we’re forcing it to be there by forcing a percentage to begin with,” Chair Justin Brown added.
With all around support for requiring 100% active use on the ground floor of Main Street, the commissioners brought up concerns with after six months of a vacancy. Originally, after six months of confirmed vacancy, the space would be eligible to full non-active use tenants.
With the pandemic, vacancies lasting up to or more than six months have become more common and commissioners said they worried that after six months, the policy would allow more non-active businesses to locate on Main Street due to the exception.
“Maybe after the six months is when the backup plan of a portion of retail of 25% is required, just so we can steer downtown to where we want it to be,” Planning Commissioner Matt Gaidos said.
“The accommodation that I would look to is that we are expanding the definition of the business that are being permitted after a certain amount of time,” Pace said in support of allowing personal services to be incorporated into the percentage depth required after the six months.
With the debate varied on active-use policy after a six-month vacancy, the commissioners agreed on tabling that subject, recommending future discussion to be agendized.
In addition, the commissioners recommended clarifying the language around when to start the clock on vacancy duration (completion or termination date of the lease) and what types of evidence would qualify to support that (photo of the leasing sign in the window, public real estate listing on a commercial MLS or more subjectively, proactive marketing of the site).
After receiving unanimous support from the commission, the amended proposal will now head to the city council for consideration at a future date.
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I think in the case of six month vacancies if the landlord is asking excessive rents, that no one is willing to pay, this should be considered before an exception is made. I have heard many cases of closures downtown relate to rents being so high the business is unsustainable. If landlords priced the space reasonably so that a shop or restaurant can make a profit, they could rent the space. Allowing more real estate companies, banks and the like go in because they are the only ones that can afford the outrageous rents, does not make for a vibrant downtown. I sure wish we had more boutiques including some for geared for the more mature demographic like towns such as Healdsburg, Sausalito etc. Everyone isn’t trying to look like a 20- something.
I avoid downtown Pleasanton as much as possible. “City planning” is a euphemism to make downtown Pleasanton into an outdoor restaurant mall. Parking is a nightmare. The streets that allow traffic are too small to handle a high concentration of retail/restaurants without adequate parking and still allow traffic to flow. Downtown Pleasanton needs more than requirements for retail/restaurants. Fix the traffic flow problem then perhaps I will venture there again.
So we (Planning Commission) are going to “steer” Downtown to more retail? There’s this thing called the “internet” (Information Super-Highway to some), and on it resides this other thing called “Amazon.” Together, Amazon and the internet have pretty much killed retail real estate as we once knew it. (A good read on retail real estate: http://mcnellis.com/news/article/a-vaccine-for-retail ). If we truly want a vibrant Downtown, we are going to have to remove restrictions, and allow things like barber shops and nail salons and real estate offices. That’s way better than when my family moved to town and Main Street was home to 15 bars and 5 gas stations!
Bring back Union Jack!
I loved the little local bar with a pool table, miss them. I miss a number of retail stores that couldn’t afford to stay.
The charm of a downtown is the shopping of unique mom and pop stores with a few restaurants serving great food at reasonable prices.
Time passes and things change, but what doesn’t change is spending time doing things with family and friends in our communities.
If you have a downtown that accommodates what family and friends want to do together you will have a thriving community.