Plans for the final buildings in Oceanside’s 25-year-old, nine-block downtown master plan were approved on a 3-2 vote Wednesday after the developer agreed to widen the distance between the two structures. More space between the upper floors of the of the eight- and seven-story buildings on the lot s known as Blocks 5 and 20 will help preserve views looking west along Pier View Way toward the ocean, said Daniel Bertao of Ryan Companies, the developer. The lowest two floors will be 90 feet apart as initially proposed, Bertao said. From the third floor up, the plans will be adjusted to match the distance, estimated at 106 feet, between the Mission Pacific Resort Hotel and the Club Wyndham Resort that face Pacific Street and the Oceanside Municipal Pier at the end of Pier View Way. Pier View Way, like Mission Avenue, is one of several east-west downtown “view corridors” that the city tries to keep open so people can see the ocean as they approach the beach. Blocks 5 and 20 are on either side of Pier View Way, separated by one end of a pedestrian underpass beneath the railroad. Mayor Esther Sanchez and Councilmember Eric Joyce voted against approval, after unsuccessfully proposing to postpone the decision a month. Sanchez and Joyce said they wanted more time to discuss the buildings’ spacing and the developer’s plans for the area around a public plaza on Myers Street at the western end of the underpass. “This is the jewel of our city … where people feel most connected to the ocean,” Joyce said, adding that more should be done to make it special. A condition on the approval requires the developer to continue working with the city and residents on “placemaking” opportunities that would make the Myers Street plaza and the area around it more attractive. About a dozen residents spoke to the council about the development, most of them in support of it. A few had concerns about increased traffic and the public parking to be lost. One person questioned the need for an eight-story building, which will be the tallest in downtown Oceanside. Oceanside’s only taller building is the 17-story Marina Towers residential condominiums at the harbor, built in the 1970s before stricter limits were applied. Paul Dooley, an Oceanside resident and businessman for 40 years, recalled the reasons for the downtown master plan and what the area was like before the plan was approved. “A lot of people forget the unsavory businesses that were downtown and are no longer there,” Dooley said. The area catered to young, enlisted Marines from Camp Pendleton for years, with T-shirt and souvenir shops, strip clubs and cheap bars. It also had a railroad switching yard that was moved onto Camp Pendleton in the 1980s to make way for the redevelopment. Sanchez said proposed development has been long sought, even though there’s still room for improvement. “This was really the hope and dreams of a lot of folks,” Sanchez said. “Some people didn’t feel safe coming downtown.” Together, the buildings will have 370 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments and six live-work condominiums, with 10% of the apartments reserved as affordable housing for qualified tenants. The buildings also would have a little more than 17,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floors. Each building will include a three-level parking garage with two levels underground. The buildings will have one parking space for each studio or one-bedroom apartment and 1.5 spaces for each two-bedroom apartment, with no guest parking. Parking also will be provided for restaurant and retail uses in the structure. About 25,000 cubic yards of sand excavated for the buildings’ foundations and underground parking could be used to replenish the city’s eroded beaches, Bertao said. The material initially would be stored at the city’s El Corazon Park and then, if tests show the quality is appropriate, it would be trucked to the coastline. Ryan Companies previously completed three other multi-story, mixed-use projects on separate blocks west of the tracks — The Springhill Suites, Pierside South and Pierside North multi-use buildings — within the nine-block master plan. ...read more read less