Proposed East Los Olivos Street Project Impacts Life Safety of Residents in Mission Canyon Area

This document is written to illustrate, highlight, and express concern for life safety regarding the proposed high-rise project at 505 East Los Olivos Street which will adversely impact fire emergency egress from the Mission Canyon area.

Mission Canyon is a densely populated residential neighborhood situated largely in the extreme high fire area with very limited fire evacuation routes for egress of residents and ingress of emergency personnel. The area above Highway192 is steeply sloped with narrow switchback roads to access the two exit routes to the south and out of the area in the event of a fire.

The primary evacuation route of Mission Canyon Road is further impacted by pinch points at the historic stone aqueduct and narrow Mission Creek Bridge directly adjacent to the proposed high-density project.

The proposed project includes 270 units and parking for 444 automobiles in an area already “at capacity” and never intended for such high-density development, and as such, is also in conflict with the City’s General Plan.

As professionals, we wish to express our grave concerns for our citizens’ life safety that this project will impose and which we do not believe can be mitigated due to the constraints of the area and the current overloaded condition. We hereby express our strong opposition to this project as proposed.

Proposed 10-Story High Density Apartment Complex to Add Hundreds of Residents to Already Congested Intersection

The proposed project has only one vehicular entrance and exit onto Los Olivos Street, which poses significant life-safety concerns in the event of an emergency. One primary concern is the time required for 444 vehicles to exit the parking structure. We consulted professionals within the parking garage industry and, although there is no standardized metric for measuring the total time required for vehicles to exit a parking structure, there is an established standard for the time it takes a vehicle to pass through an operable parking gate: approximately 10 seconds per vehicle. Based on this estimate, it could take approximately 72 minutes—more than one hour—for 444 vehicles to clear the gate alone.

We believe that the applicant should be mandated to provide professional studies and a report detailing the time required for residents of the proposed development to safely evacuate during an emergency and the resulting impacts on traffic egress for the surrounding neighborhoods. Residents in adjacent neighborhoods currently experience congestion at the intersection directly outside the project’s driveway entrance. The addition of 444 vehicles during an emergency evacuation scenario will create severe and potentially life-threatening traffic conditions.

Signed Brett Ettinger, Architect; Cassandra Ensberg, FAIA Architect; Brian Cearnal, AIA Architect; Kent Mixon, AIA Architect; Dennis Thompson, FAIA Architect