Developer, City Plan Clash On W. Rock Plan

The developer interrupted the city staffer weighing in on his long-stalled project.

“I don’t know if you know how to read drawings or not,” Larry Waldorf declared. ​“But that is not … that is not…”

“Excuse me. I have over 20 years of experience as a professional landscape architect,” City Plan staffer Anne Hartjen shot back. ​“I know how to read drawings. Thank you very much.”

That exchange between Hartjen and Waldorf (pictured above) took place in City Hall Tuesday night after Hartjen critiqued plans for a proposed 124-unit elderly housing development on the top of a steep strip of land running from Whalley Avenue, near the intersection with Emerson Street, down to the West River.

During a tense two-hour special meeting of the City Plan Commission, Hartjen called the drafting of the site plans ​“sloppy” and ​“baffling” in their incompleteness.

It was the latest episode in a years-long quest by Waldorf to build the project in the shadow of West Rock — a quest that is heading for a decision.

“There is a lot of sloppy drafting here,” Hartjen said. ​“In some cases there are silt fences in the river itself and that’s just not even possible. So those plans need a lot more work.”

“This set of plans since 2013 is so woefully deficient in grading information that it’s almost been difficult to analyze it technically,” Hartjen (pictured at left in the photo) said. ​“There’s a lot of information that’s missing. There are places where grades are proposed but they don’t match what’s really happening on the site. We as people analyzing these plans are left to ask, ​‘Did they mean to put a wall there or did the mean to leave out a wall?’ There are a lot of very specific places where we’re left wondering what the intent is.”

Commissioners made no decision Tuesday night. Instead they allowed Waldorf, the owner of the property, 30 days to review and address in writing the 16-page City Plan staff report that he received last Friday. They also allowed staff to go through the report, and gave Waldorf a chance to respond to points with which he took exception.

He took exception with all objections staff made — objections that led to a recommendation to deny his site plan.

Waldorf first proposed and received approval of site plans back in 1999 and again in 2000 after he showed the project would cause the wetlands only minimal harm. But the permit he received then expired, and he needed again to win approval. Which has proved a challenge.

Hartjen characterized the slope of a proposed driveway for the site as being so steep it ​“exceeds the tallest hills in San Francisco. There’s no reason to do a driveway like that in Connecticut. In fact it’s unsafe.”

Waldorf demanded to know how she reached such a conclusion.

“I’m sitting here listening to all this and trying to take it in,” he said. ​“That is the most incredible statement that I’ve ever heard. Steeper than the steepest street in San Francisco?”

“It’s over 15 percent,” Hartjen replied.

“It’s virtually flat,” Waldorf countered. ​“We were over there today.”

“It might be flat as it exists, but it’s not what’s shown on your grading plans,” Hartjen said. And on it went Tuesday night.

3rd Time Not A Charm?

The commission has twice denied Waldorf’s plan for the site; he sued the commission after that second rejection. Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger ruled that the commission and developer had to ​“engage in a full discussion concerning whether the regulations have been satisfied,” before City Plan either approved the application, denied it, or approved it with conditions. (Read more about that here and here.)

The latest draft staff report also recommends that the commission deny the plan based on a laundry list of deficiencies that include three significant zoning violations; an incomplete grading plan; missing geotechnical information; a non-compliant stormwater management plan; and an incomplete soil erosion and sediment control plan. 

Waldorf (pictured) chastised commissioners for allowing him to speak only after staff had finished presenting its report — a customary practice for all commission hearings. He also chastised staff over what he called an unwillingness to communicate.

“I should have an opportunity to speak when people are talking,” he said. ​“This is a whole smorgasbord I’m supposed to respond to at one time. I don’t think it’s a fair set up. You have Cindy to say something and let me respond to it, that’s fair. Anne says something, let me respond to it, that’s fair. Tom says something, let me respond to it, that’s fair. But to have everybody just throwing all this stuff out — that’s not fair.”

City Plan Commission Chair Ed Mattison (at center in photo) pointed out if hearings were operated as Waldorf suggested, they would last until midnight.

“Well what’s the difference if you’re here until midnight?” Waldorf fired back. ​“This project has been held up for three years. If I hold you up for three hours, well then I’m sorry that’s what has to be done.”

“With respect to how the hearing is held, that is within our purview,” Mattison said. ​“You can make the claim that somehow it was not fair but this is our practice. We are not applying any different rules to you than anybody else.”

“Really?” Waldorf retorted.

Agree To Disagree

At one point, Waldorf challenged Hartjen over her measuring of the proposed parking on the site. He said that he measured them with an engineering scale and each space was 9 feet wide and 18 feet deep.

“So I don’t know what scale that you’re using, but the scale that I had said that scaled properly,” he said.

“I would disagree,” Hartjen said.

“You can’t disagree…,” Waldorf said.

“I can disagree because it’s technically drawn wrong,” said Hartjen, who measured the spaces during the meeting at the commission’s request and proved that they are of varying scale.

“The important scale is the width,” Waldorf said.

“No,” Hartjen countered. ​“It’s not.”

“Sure it is,” Waldorf said.

“The consistency of the design over the site and very careful drafting is required in a site like this — and any site — and anybody who has done any CADD work in their life knows that,” Hartjen said. ​“You don’t just willy nilly put a line in and say, ​‘It’s almost OK.’”

“Well thank you for that tutorial,” Waldorf said.

“You’re welcome,” Hartjen replied.

End Of The Road

City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg (pictured) pointed out that Waldorf had been in front of the commission a number of times and the problems that staff has with his site plan have not changed much.

“There’s not a whole lot different from the May listing where [Anne Hartjen] went through every sort of line of our regulations and very carefully checked out whether or not they had been addressed, and I think this is not substantially new material,” she said.

Consultant Cynthia Baumann noted that the grading problems she outlined Tuesday night are the same as she identified more than two years ago. ​“The grading plan sets the frame elevations for your stormwater system,” she said. ​“They are intimately tied together. I have provided more detail, which I typically don’t do. Typically it is the engineer that decides what they are doing at these locations. I typically don’t redline or markup a plan.

“It’s not our job to design the site plan,” Hartjen added. ​“We’re fully capable of redlining, but what continues to baffle us is after four our five submissions [this plan] still doesn’t have adequate grading information. It’s frustrating for us because we’ve never seen anything like it.”

Waldorf has until Nov. 9 to respond to the draft. The commission plans to make its decision at its regular December meeting. Mattison said on that day the commission will deliberate and make a decision.

“We have never spent the kind of staff time and meeting that we have spent on this,” he said. ​“One of the things that I absolutely feel is that this has to come to an end.”