Workshop Summary | Get Involved | Review the Process | See the Vision | Read the Guidelines

On October 5, approximately 100 people attended the third community workshop of the San Carlos Downtown Visualization Project. The workshop was held in the Library, at 610 Elm Street. The main goals of this third workshop were to:

• report on the results of the downtown image survey,
• show how citizens' preferences will be incorporated into design guidelines and,
• using the 3-D computer model as a visualization tool, provide an opportunity for participants to comment on some of the projects that are in various stages of development in downtown.

Interactive Exercise: Where Do You Live?

After people registered, they were asked to find their house on a large map and place a tiny orange dot sticker on it. This showed instantly both the geographic distribution of participants as well as whether this was the first, second, or third meeting that participants attended. At each workshop, participants will locate their houses with a different color dot, so that the workshop attendance can be tracked over time.

Outline of the Process

Tom Richman reviewed the Visualization Study work plan and schedule. Three workshops have been added in order to allow for more participation from the community. An outline of the goals and intentions of the workshops is as follows:Aug 10: Introduction & Village EconomySep 7: Downtown Image Survey, Land Use, & TrafficOct 5: Urban Design Guidelines Discussion & Current Proposed Projects ModeledNov 2: More Discussion on Current Proposed ProjectsDec 7: Urban Design Guidelines ReviewJan 4: Current Proposed Projects ModeledTBD: Urban Design Guidelines to Planning CommissionTBD: Urban Design Guidelines to City Council

Affordable Housing

Lisa Costa-Sanders, a planner with the City's Planning Department and Redevelopment Agency, and Bill Lee, Executive Vice President of Economics Research Associates, gave a brief presentation on affordable housing.

Downtown Image Survey Results

Tom Richman & Associates reviewed the results of the Downtown Image Survey that was given at the September 7 workshop. Click here to read the survey results. Tom presented examples of how the community's preferences could generate design guidelines. The purpose of design guidelines is to specify design direction in order to shape the development of downtown in the direction of the shared vision of the community.

Current Development Projects

Tom Richman presented a summary of four currently proposed development projects in various stages of consideration: Laurel Street Improvements (including 1200 block of San Carlos Avenue), South Plaza, Garden Hacienda, and the Southeast Corner of Walnut and San Carlos (incorporating Wheeler Plaza and Imagine Foods). He discussed the main features of each project and showed them rendered into the 3-D Model. Click here to view the model

Discussion Break Out Sessions

The meeting broke into groups to discuss the current development projects. Read notes from the discussions or the summary below: