Escondido planning panel recommends Juniper Street office-to-residential conversion to City Council

Escondido — The Planning Commission on Feb. 10 voted 6–0 to recommend that the City Council approve PL24-0126, a plan to convert an existing office building on Juniper Street into 32 residential units, after staff described the project and commissioners raised questions about sidewalks, exemptions and public safety.

Ivan Flores, principal planner with the city’s planning division, told commissioners the 0.67-acre site currently contains a roughly 20,020-square-foot office building and is designated in the downtown specific plan’s Southern Gateway Land Use District. Flores said the downtown specific plan allows up to 45 dwelling units per acre (about 30 units for a 0.67-acre parcel) and that the applicant, Darshan Patel, requests a density bonus to reach 32 units by deed‑restricting eight low‑income units, or about 26 percent of the total. "The downtown specific plan allows 45 dwelling units per acre," Flores said during his presentation.

Flores said the proposal includes three…