On July 31, we submitted drawings to the city for entitlement/development advisory board approval. The drawings were accepted using the discretionary permit form.

This has been a long-awaited moment; this was the culmination of our best attempt at securing a future for the project and plotting a path forward. Through this process, the parcels for the community garden were joined into a single parcel using a lot line adjustment that the city initiated. The parcels are also in the process of being rezoned to open space zone, whereas they used to be low density residential.

The submission was signed by Jerry Burke, PE, Engineers Without Borders. The submittal included rendered plans and elevations of the buildings, site plans, rendered conceptual landscape master plan by Fausto, and conceptual grading plan and WQMP by Jerry Burke.

Leading up to the submission, in June, we were informed that the Planning Department had verbally okay’ed the plans and that we should proceed with the building department to acquire construction permits. This was more than unexpected, since we had been in talks with planning for more than a year regarding this submittal and a path forward for the project. We proceeded to seek a compromise allowing us to complete our scope of work and entitle the project. We informed planning that the project was not going to continue unless we could secure their approval for it. The Planning Department requested us to present the project to an internal audience, and we used this as a bargaining chip to have the city seriously consider our request to continue with the submittal.

The Planning Department had us present the project to an internal audience and Necils did an outstanding presentation. Prior to the presentation, the city agreed that we would submit the drawings for some form of planning approval. Such an approval would enable us to fundraise knowing that we had the go-ahead from the city.

The absence of having such confidence had led to the pausing of the project in the past. Knowing that Cathy, the director of the planning department fully supported the project, it was time to secure the city’s commitment going forward. In the past, the project was not fully supported by the previous head of the planning department.

The first thought to compromise was to secure a letter from the planning director. However, we wanted to ensure that the letter captured the information and design intent of our drawings. Due to this, the city, Chuck in particular, proposed getting the drawings reviewed by the Development Advisory Board instead of the Discretionary Permit submittal. According to the city, the Discretionary Permit was not needed since the project was too small. At the moment, we do not know whether there were additional reasons for the city’s initial refusal to carry out the Discretionary Permit submittal as we had planned for months.

In any case, on Wednesday, we submitted 14 sets to the city, in hopes that our path forward is secured and we can submit for construction permits in subsequent months.

During the submission, we were also informed that the city secured funds for the parking lot improvement.

For the final deliverable, we created an updated rendering from an aerial photograph, and polished the rendered elevations after passing our Engineers Without Borders approval process a couple weeks prior. The rendering was a team effort; Necils composited the image, Fariba added the people, Kirill produced the base render and tweaked the buildings. The printing process was long and arduous, it took several days of printing and assembling the 350 full-size sheets. Everyone worked together to print and organize the sheets.

Necils, Nathan, Fariba and Kirill worked to produce this submittal.