Purpose

Staff is seeking City Council direction to fill two existing vacancies on the Magnolia Park Community Advisory Committee and to address the issue of inactive members. The report will also provide an update on activities within the Magnolia Park Area.

Background

The Magnolia Park Community Advisory Committee (CAC) established on June 29, 1993, is presently comprised of twelve members, and is scheduled to meet the third Thursday of every month, as needed. The Committee was originally created to provide merchant and residential representation on a strategy to revitalize the Magnolia Park business area, and to develop a neighborhood protection plan for the surrounding residential area.  The Committee was active and successful in completing projects such as the master plan for the Magnolia Park area, and the Magnolia Park Streetscape Project. 

In October of 1998, staff recommended a reconstitution of the CAC.  The recommendations were that: a new mission statement for the CAC be adopted (focusing on the shifting emphasis to commercial projects in the area); and that the CAC be represented by seven merchants and five residents. The City Council adopted the recommendations, but changed the representation to six merchants and six residents.

In March 2000, staff recommended that the City Council adopt a resolution that would have reduced the number of members on the Committee from twelve to nine, and remove the six inactive members. The City Council directed staff to keep the Committee at twelve members, but remove the six inactive members and direct staff to fill the vacant positions. Currently the CAC has 10 of the 12 seats filled with a composition of five merchants and five residents.

Current ACTIVITIES

Since the re-establishment of the CAC in 2000, the Committee has worked diligently on several issues including developing criteria for the kiosks, the expansion of angle parking, and the reuse of the old Thrifty building (Conditional Use Permit 2000-30). The following provides an update on various activities including proposed new improvements.

Kiosks

The CAC�s first priority was to establish some criteria for the kiosks. After long discussions and presentations from the Public Works Department and an advertising company, the Committee decided to retain control of the kiosks, allowing only community-based materials to be displayed on the kiosks. The Committee has also developed a display form similar to the one utilized by the Library. Due to the condition of the kiosks� interior and the difficulty with posting materials, the CAC has asked for a City Department to assume the responsibility of maintaining the kiosks, which is now being maintained by the Public Works Department.

Angle Parking

The next priority for the CAC was the expansion of the angle parking in the Magnolia Park Area.

The Committee, with the assistance of the Public Works Department, was able to establish a priority list of streets that are the most in need of angle parking along Magnolia Boulevard. On November 2001, during its annual report to the City Council, the CAC recommended that $125,000 be earmarked from the General Fund, for each of the next five years to fund the improvements and the expansion of the streetscape. The City Council voted to fund the improvements over the five-year period with consideration of funding occurring on an annual basis.  The first two legs of angle parking were completed in August 2003, and design work has started for the next four legs.

Old Thrifty

The reuse of the old Thrifty building is an ongoing issue with the Committee members. In November 2001, the CAC made a recommendation in support of Conditional Use Permit 2000-30, for a multi-tenant retail facility. However, since then there has been little progress on the reuse of the property. The CAC has been discouraged by the inaction on the reuse of the property and has inquired about the possibility of the City buying the property. While staff has met with the property owner several times the site continues to sit vacant.

Shared Use Parking Opportunity

Currently, an item that is being discussed by the CAC is the shared use of the Burbank Community Church Parking lot.  At the September 2002 meeting, Subcommittee member Vander Borght requested that staff contact the owner of the Burbank Community Church to inquire about a share use of the parking lot. Since the Community Church only utilizes the parking lot on Wednesday evenings and on Sundays, there appears to be an opportunity to utilize the parking lot for neighborhood businesses at other times. In addition, at a Magnolia Park CAC meeting, Mr. Vander Borght indicated that he would like to see improvements made to the parking lot to help improve the appearance of the lot particularly related to landscaping. Part of the intent of the improvements is to improve the buffering between the residential and commercial areas.

Staff has prepared several parking design options which have been reviewed by the CAC, the Council Oversight Committee and by Pastor Jones of Burbank Community Church. Based on the comments received, staff has circulated a conceptual plan to City Departments to solicit assistance and input on the plan. It is estimated that approximately 48 share use parking spaces would be generated, while leaving 9 spaces for the exclusive use of Burbank Community Church and adjacent businesses that have existing parking rights on the lot. Given the possible number of parking spaces that could become available as compared to the limited number of spaces generated by the on-street diagonal parking, five of six CAC members present at a recent meeting agreed that the shared use of the parking lot would be their top priority; however, due to the lack of a quorum, the Committee was not able to make a formal recommendation on the CAC�s top priorities.  It is anticipated that staff would return to the City Council within 120 days with the proposed parameters for creating a shared-use parking lot at this location.

Analysis

Over the last year, the CAC has had seven meetings cancelled due to a lack of agenda items.  In addition, agenda items are increasingly becoming updates to past projects (e.g. Old Thrifty, Streetscape, etc.) rather than new projects or items that require action by the Committee.

There are ten current members, of which five are Merchants and five are Residents. Two Committee members resigned in May 2003 (1 Merchant and 1 Resident). The Committee members have discussed the issue of not having a quorum if more members can not attend a meeting. The Committee has requested to fill the vacancies and has asked staff to seek direction. The Committee does not want to return to previous patterns of not being able to convene a quorum when needed. In the past two years when a quorum was not established, the number of members attending was six, which would have allowed for a quorum to convene, if the Committee had only 11 members. A Committee of twelve members requires seven members present to achieve a quorum.

The CAC in the past has tried to balance the needs of the businesses, while protecting the interests of the residents. However, there are some issues that have been outside of the typical CAC activities that need to be addressed by the neighborhood as a whole. These include analyzing land use options for retail and restaurants, in order to spur the development of vacant and under utilized sites such as the old Thrifty building. There also needs to be solutions to the parking issues associated with current and future uses in the area. Further efforts on promoting the Magnolia Park Area should be considered as well. Although the CAC has addressed these issues from time to time, with some success, a more comprehensive analysis of the issues should be studied

City staff recently met with the Chamber of Commerce and Magnolia Park Merchants Association to discuss holiday promotions. At that meeting the Association felt that the CAC could continue to foster a good relationship between the merchants and residents. The Association also believes that the area should consider potential strategies to those being implemented in the downtown area. Part of the future activities that the CAC should consider is analyzing the issues of parking, vacancies and the overall retail mix.

To address the issue of member resignations, staff has reanalyzed possible options for maintaining membership. In addition, staff also considered whether the existing membership structure provides an accurate representation of the neighborhood. Staff has outlined the following options to maintain and enhance neighborhood representation.

Option 1

The City Council could leave the Magnolia Park CAC intact; fill the two existing vacancies on the Committee, with two new members. Seven members would be needed to have quorum.

Option 2

The City Council could extend an invitation for applications for all twelve seats on the Committee, again with six merchants and six residents.

Option 3

Alternatively, the City Council could reduce the size of the Committee to eleven members, thereby reducing the number needed to have a quorum to six. As mentioned previously, in the past two years when a quorum was not established, the number of members attending was six, which would have allowed for a quorum to convene, if the committee had only eleven members.  In this alternative, staff would also recommend modifying the representation to six merchants and five residents. Since the predominant issues that the CAC has dealt with have to do with businesses along Magnolia Boulevard, such as promotions and retail vacancies, staff recommends six merchants on the Committee.

Conclusion

Given the lengthy term of the CAC, the lack of new agenda items, and the resignation of two Committee members, staff concludes that the restructuring of the Committee might better address some of the current attendance problems facing the CAC. To address the quorum issue it is recommended that the CAC could be limited to eleven members, six merchants and five residents. Staff would also recommend that the Committee re-examine all of the possible ideas and issues that could help improve the Magnolia Park Area including the commercial/retail mix, parking, promotions and vacancies.

Staff Recommendation

Staff recommends that the City Council consider Option 3 and reduce the Committee to eleven positions with six merchants and five residents.

go to the top