Karen is helping with administering the oath of office. Thank you. Thank you.
So raise your hand. Hi, Virgin Patel. Hi, Rajiv Patel. Do you solemnly affirm? Do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend that I'll support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. And the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies.
against
all enemies foreign and domestic. Foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I'll bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of
California. To the Constitution of United States, and to the Constitution of the State of California. That I take this obligation freely.
that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation.
Without any mental reservation. Or purpose of evasion. Or purpose of evasion. And that I will…
And that I'll well and faithfully. Well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Discharge the duties.
Upon
which I am about to enter. Thank you.
Congratulations, Rajiv.
Also, we don't have to take roll call
because he's already been.
Um…
You probably would want Karen to remain to do the appointment of the chair and vice chair. The floor is now open for nominations of chair for the Planning Commission. Are there any nominations? And I would nominate Jim Roshura. And I second that.
I second that. Is there any discussion? Any other?
Okay. May we have a roll call, please?
Commissioner Janet? Yes.
Commissioner Patel? Yes.
Commissioner Brito.
Yes, Chair. Yes. And with that the motion passes. Congratulations, Jim. You are now the chair of the Planning Commission, and I just want to say a quick thank you to my fellow residents and my fellow commissioners for.
Helping me this year has been a real joy and pleasure to work with everybody. And now somebody else gets to lead the chair, which is Jim, quite capable hands. Thank you. With that, do you want to handle the next item at all? I can. Sure.
Okay. Well, it'll take us just a second to do a little swaparoo here.
Let's see.
Here…
I guess this…
Bill Lewis. Yeah.
Here…
That says Vice Chair Chair. We'll have to fix it with somebody. I can do both today, actually, because Alyssa is not here today.
I just need to plug this in to make sure I have power.
That was not bad.
Okay, that's ready. That's ready. That's ready.
That
is there.
And this is too piled.
Uh, before I begin, Brigitte,
you did a fabulous job, and I want to thank you for from all of us, from all town residents.
You have a superpower of your attention to detail and keeping us on track that this body really needs. And I'm so grateful that you are here and you did such a great job. Thank you very much.
So as you just saw, the…
Chair got assigned. Normally, we would go in now and assign a vice chair. We're going to going ahead and assigning the vice chair, even though she's not here.
And then we're going to hope that she's okay with that. When we talk to her next. So I would like to at least take this opportunity to explain why.
We
are choosing. Please, go ahead. So typically, we rotate the position
of chair and vice chair among the planning commissioners.
So
it's…
Alisa Stern and or Malika.
However, we heard at the last City Council meeting that the council has decided that any vice chair nominee.
should be on the council for a year.
So we want to go ahead with a similar type of arrangement in the Planning Commission.
So instead of choosing Malika at this time, we thought we should choose Alisa.
instead. Now, having said that, since she is not here today, we'll defer that decision till next meeting when we actually have her here.
Um…
Unless, uh, you feel you've already spoken with her, and we could appoint her, and then just do the signing in. I did speak…
well, I texted her, and she texted back that, yes, she would be willing to entertain being Vice Chair, so we could just.
Go ahead and entertain that. And I would make a motion then to nominate Elisa Brito to be Vice Chair. I can second that. Thank you. Why don't we go
ahead and do that? Then we
can take a roll call. Thank you.
Commissioner Indico. Yes. Commissioner Jened. Yes. Commissioner Patel.
Yes. Chair Washura? Yes.
All
right, we're fully constituted.
Before we begin, I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about a subject that's really important to the Planning Commission and to staff.
By the way, it's wonderful to see so many faces here. This doesn't happen very often, and it's really a great thing to see. This is how we learn what residents like and what they don't like. Uh, it's easy for us to represent the people who are here, and there are a lot of people who come to these meetings regularly.
It's so much more difficult for us to represent what I call the silent majority, and yet it's very important for us to represent them well. So thank you for all being here today.
But we have an issue with Planning Commission meetings. They start at 6 o'clock, and we've been here at one o'clock in the morning more than a couple times. The the agendas are very long. They're difficult subjects to get through.
And so one of the things I'd like to focus on in my term as chair is to try to shorten the meetings. It's for our benefit, it's for your benefit, and really for staff's benefit. So I have a few ideas, and I wanted to mention them and see if we can get some concurrence on this.
I have five ideas, and I'm… I'd love to hear any other ideas you have. First, let's try not to redesign projects from the dais.
When an application needs substantial change, we serve the applicant better by continuing the item with clear direction, then by negotiating details in real time.
If you find yourself proposing a specific design solution, consider whether it be belongs in a condition and then approval, or in a direction for a continuance. That's item number one.
Item number 2, let's get to a motion as quickly as we can.
Once we get a motion, then the discussion is focused on the motion, not on a lot of wide-ranging topics, and I think that may facilitate a quicker delivery.
Third, at the stage, uh, there's a certain cadence to how we process hearings, and one of the steps is called clarifying questions. During that stage, let's make sure what we're asking are clarifying questions.
That's not a time to kind of talk about anything and everything to do with the project. Really, we just want to make sure that we on the dais understand the things we need to move forward.
Uh, fourth, please send your questions to staff in advance if you can.
Many of them can be answered offline outside of meeting time, and that can help us. And where an answer is something all of us and the public need to hear, I'll ask staff to please include the answers to those questions in their presentations on those particular items.
Obviously, at that point, you've already published your staff report, so we can't change the staff report. But during the presentation, please try to address the questions that you have heard about so that you can say them once instead of us asking you them.
Three times in three different ways.
In the same vein, if there are some aspect of the project that we believe the public and fellow commissioners would benefit from having described specifically, let staff know that in advance. And similarly, they can add that to their presentations.
I think if we can get that information coming from staff once, that will help us.
And lastly, and I'm the worst at this, if a colleague has already made your point, it's enough to simply say you agree and have nothing else to say.
And you can call me on that anytime you want. That's fine. All right. I hope that those are some ideas. There are other ideas. Let's bring them up at any time. Let's try to get staff home at a reasonable hour.
and us as well, and residents as well. Thank you. I just have one suggestion that, and we used to do that in Los Altos,
since there were always
a lot of people attending the meetings, that we should be really.
Keeping an eye on the clock, because if we have a lot of people and we let one person talk longer, and then clocking the other…
There was a 3 min, then it just becomes longer and longer, so if you have a lot of people in the room, at least we should try and see if we can make sure that we stick with the timing, at least for everybody. I totally agree with that.
Everyone? Yeah.
I suppose the other thing that goes along with that is people get a chance to say their 3 min. They talk, and that's it. We're not gonna dribble on and on and have comments.
from the seats, that's a bad idea, because when you speak from the seats, people on Zoom can't hear you. You really do need to be at the microphone for this to be a public meeting.
All right. All right. Thank you.
Okay, the next item on the agenda is presentations from the floor. For those of you who haven't been to Planning Commission meeting, there's kind of 2 times to talk. One is, if you're addressing a specific item that's on the agenda.
And the time to talk is during that agenda item. But if you're just here with something that you want to say, there is an opportunity now called presentations from the Floor. This is an opportunity for persons wishing to address the Commission on any subject.
That's not on the agenda. Persons who wish to address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda are invited to do so now.
Please note, however, that the Commission is not able to undertake extended items… extended discussion or act tonight on any non-agendized items. Such items will be referred to staff or placed on the agenda.
For a future meeting.
If you would like to address the Commission, please come to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom, and someone will assist you. We ask that you provide your name and where you reside for our records, but it's not required that you do so.
Each person will be given 3 minutes to provide their comments. Are there any persons who wish to address the Commission?
John.
Good evening. I'm John O'Connell, Los Alto Sills.
Since we're on a spree of changing some things as
to how we do it to make things more efficient.
in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to research things.
I'd like to request both the Commission and staff.
We have a system called Laserfiche.
It takes quite a long time to get to a document.
But
when you get to it.
All you can do is either screenshot it or leave it open in your browser and go back to it, and it takes just as long the next time you want to look at it. The print button.
or download button is disabled, and it really does make it difficult to go back through a large number of records.
I'd also like to bring up the issue of… I think we've gone too far.
In this copyright, and therefore people can't really get access to the plans. The plans now are all digital.
And I understand the issue of them being copied and copyright.
But it really it really is to the point now where.
There's new plans for tonight.
And I haven't looked at them.
I haven't looked at them because I just haven't had time to get to the town.
So maybe we can also think about how to get the applicants and their architects, etc, to maybe organize the thing into two things. If there's some areas that they really do have a copyright claim on.
Then that I understand is copyrighted. But an awful lot of the stuff I really don't think is copyrightable. It's so maybe you could do some things to the better informed that residents are.
the more effective we will be at communicating our comments to you. Thank you.
Well, I don't think we can make any motions about this, but let me just ask staff to please look into enabling the button and the downloads. That seems like a reasonable possibility, and maybe to agendize an item to.
Make some suggestions about how we might be able to make some of this information from either sign off disclosure document or or some some way to get this information to residents better from the plans.
Understand
your direction. Chair. Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Faye. And the
first thing is to address to your request earlier to ask us
to speak shorter.
Obviously, if we know where you are and your votes will be, we can be short. We can speak shortly, but if we worry about you not getting the picture, worry about this and that, how we have to address it is impacting.
our lives seriously, right? The second thing is.
The second thing is I just wish any regulation, any pilot rule ruling today, it can be thinking about for the whole Los Altos residence. If you consider some policy is eligible.
compatible, whatever.
make it public, transparent, applicable for all office. Don't do it as a patch up this time. We need it. If you want the patch up, we all want to patch up together. Right? You you understand what that.
So that means different regulations and the trees. Do we preserve the trees? Do we preserve the slopes as our general plan request? Or do we? When there's a conflict.
Your reason behind, and how you.
modify the plan.
Yes.
I see. May I just comment your 1st point about.
Being economical with speech didn't have to do with the residents. It had to do with us.
We are the ones who need to be more economic with our speech. Economical with our speech. The speeches that residents provide, I want to modify in no way whatsoever. There's a timer on the wall, and you're welcome to say what you need to say. All right.
Thank you so
much for the clarification. Thank you.
Pete, are you in line? I am.
Good evening, Pete Carlino, Liam Brace. I'm here for an item tonight, but actually
I want to speak on. I've been having ongoing conversations with planning staff
about development area calculations as it relates to fire truck turnarounds and fire truck widths and assessment of roads.
And it's just becoming clear with current review processes that alternative materials that have been tried to use to stay under MDA were not factored in in the nineties when the land use numbers were being developed with some of these items. And so I've been talking with staff.
about maybe doing a reassessment of some of the items, such as like grass paid gets you a 50% credit because it's permeable, but gravel pay gives you 10.
But they're both permeable. Fire will sign off on gravel pave, but they have a hard time signing off on grass pave. And so we're making decisions on MDA numbers instead of on actual performance of them. So I just wanted to let you know we've been talking with staff and want to encourage, maybe, Planning Commission to take up.
some conversations about how to deal with MDA numbers that relates to fire, fire access, and improvements. So I don't see getting any easier based on some of the projects
we're working on. Well, uh, thank you. Um, we are trying to streamline things as much as we can. I have to confess, I didn't follow exactly where this was applicable, but I can certainly appreciate.
That there can be some improvements if things were locked in many years ago, and it's not
a specific project, it's more of a global conversation about the development
area. Yeah, just to understand what you're saying is.
Since materials have changed over the last few decades, it's better to understand the different new materials available and appropriately apply MDA calculations using them. Is that part of it? Yes. And
part of it is that.
Some of the review with some of the jurisdictions are that you only have an impervious material, and it's where there's some struggles with how to comply with fire life and safety, as well as trying to be within MDA numbers, because it wasn't really factored in at the time.
say, not a new home, but maybe an adu or something else that is not in that type of redevelopment stage
of a project. Well, let me alert staff. Here's another great item to consider. Maybe you could.
stand this up a little bit better, formulate it, bring it in, and we could discuss
it. Maybe I can add a little reference, too, that maybe we could have the EDPC.
Add this to one of their items that they do submit preliminary investigation and help staff out with a little bit of legwork, so you don't get stuck doing the
main burden of it. Yeah, so one of our work plan items, uh, as it relates to ongoing discussions for code amendments was a consideration of.
regulations that have
come from committees and come from the Planning Commission. One of those was artificial turf. Because of that conversation, as well as some conversations that we've been having around gravel surfaces in the light of fire prevention. We've already started that conversation, and in fact, this week, um, we presented some modifications that we're looking at.
As it relates to some of these types of surfaces. And so that conversation with the EDPC, we gave a presentation on some of the direct modifications, but now hearing the larger topic, we'll continue to expand that with them.
Thank
you. And and keep a keep after us again. I'm just I'm
here at an off topic meeting item tonight. Wanted to make sure at least I get it out there. But we've already requested some conversations to be had at staff level. I figured I'd bring it up, saying hopefully it gets to this level of conversation, maybe with the residents as well, because it affects.
residents with their potential development. Pete, you're a
great resource for the community. Keep it up. Oh, thank you. Appreciate it.
Are there any other people on Zoom? No, and no, I see no other people here in the room. We thank members of the public for coming forward to express their comments, questions, and concerns. The next item on our agenda is the consent.
Consent calendar. We have two consent calendar items, both of which are approval of draft minutes, the April 22nd, 2026 Special Meeting and the May 7th, 2026 regular meeting.
Uh, Marco, was there any corrections that you've already received on either of these? Uh, no.
I was waiting on some corrections from…
Vice Chair Brito.
I'm still to receive in written. We could
choose to continue this if she has some. Did she already tell you she had corrections? She was to send me some like 2 meetings
ago, but
I reminded her again, and
then I asked you off.
to send
me corrections ahead of the time. Do you know if it has to do with one or both of these particular ones?
Just the first
one. The
second one is new to everyone. All right, my suggestion is we continue the first one so that Alyssa can get her changes in.
Uh, but that we go ahead with the second one, if that's amenable to everyone. Are there any changes on the
second set
of minutes? I'm good. All right. That's fine. Can I get a motion to approve these minutes? Have there been any changes since you published them? So we'll, uh…
I'll make a motion to pass or yeah to pass the minutes for the May 7th, 2026. Okay. I'll second that.
Commissioner Indico. Yes, Commissioner Jeanette. Yes, Commissioner Patel. Yes. Chair Washera. Yes.
On to the fifth item in today's agenda, the public hearings. Chair, if
I may. Could we bring up the course.
Uh, we wanted to move the director's report up in the agenda for a good reason, and we're about to hear why.
Thank you, Chair. Obviously, we typically do the director's report at the end of the meeting. But I do think, since we've got a number of the members of the public here, it's important to talk about some of the resources that the department has, and we've.
We've been very successful in recruitment. We have a new, uh.
Um, planning assistant with us. It's one of the most critical roles of our operation, and having an individual of the caliber that we were able to recruit in Amond Desai, who's here with us today, and who had asked to give a little bit of a background on himself for the benefit of the community and for the commission.
We're very excited to have him on with us, and look forward to working with him as we dive into a number of projects in the coming year.
Welcome,
Amon. I think you'll find that there's a lot of work to do, and we will appreciate your efforts very much.
Hello, thank you. I come here from Tulare County, where I was working for the county a
little bit. I've also
worked for developers, planner, and also in labor as well. Very good.
Welcome. Some of
the other things within the director's report. We are going to have a special meeting for our subdivision committee. We'll be having 2 different items on that particular agenda dealing with subdivision of the former Fenwick property.
Um, with that, we've talked a little bit about what kinds of plans can be shared. For this particular item, we went through great length to make sure that we could give digital information to individuals relating to those plans. So now the agenda associated with this particular item that's going to happen on August 10th.
has plans and specifications associated with it, as well as the general notice for that particular item. And then the last update was we had submitted, um, the last round of ADU amendments to the state to comply with state law. Um, we had a very good response from the state. However, there was two corrections that we need to be able to clarify for the state.
Over the, um, coming months, we'll be working with them to clarify that, and if there are additional modifications, we'll be bringing those back for Planning Commission
consideration. And let me explain to fellow commissioners. Remember, recently we went through quite a few ADU changes.
That is not this. That is not part of this. We broke the large set of changes into the things that were all absolutely necessary, because legislation changed, or for some reason, such as that, and then the new newer changes.
We filed for the legislative changes. Those are the ones we have two comments on. My understanding is that it's not on fire. They said, you know, take your time to respond, so I'm kind of hopeful that we might be able to.
do the second batch, the larger batch, and these corrections at the same time. Of course, that'll depend on staff and the
only comment I would make is.
trying to batch everything in a larger batch.
has lent us to delay this month after month, if not year after year. So, as long as we can.
do the whole batch.
In a reasonable amount of time. I like it. But if that's not doable.
Let's continue with the small batch first. That's the only
thing. I agree completely. I think what took us a long time was…
Doing the thinking of what would be in the larger batch, and I do believe that is done now. Right. So,
so, as long as in the next.
Month or two, we can have this…
finally come to the Planning Commission.
Great. But if it's going to take more than that, I'm happy to take the smaller batch.
sooner and get it out of the way.
Because otherwise, my worry is this has to go through the council.
And December, there is no council meeting.
So we need to do this ASAP. If you want this to be signed off this year. And I definitely want to have it signed off this year. At least some part of it, if not all. And
let me just say that the reason I want to batch them together is the things we really care about aren't the little technical changes, it is the bigger stuff.
So I kind of want to use the technical changes as a vehicle to get the bigger stuff through the barn door.
Fair, but this year? Yes. Oh, yes. And before ideally, no later than October, it should come to Planning Commission.
I hope you've heard
that. Tim is texting
me now. He says he agrees that October will be fine, and for minor technical changes, September will be able to do so. Okay. Well,
so this is not the only one. The same applies to another, you know.
What we talked about, SB9. So I think both of these, we have to knock them out soon.
Because we have other important housing element issues coming up which will suck us into a long discussion for a very long time. Well, what I would ask,
I suppose, is if at by the next meeting, if this it isn't clear what we're doing here, please give us a.
some information about the outlook for this, so that we can see that it is going to be able to happen by December.
Yeah, the timelines, right? Outlook of timelines, yeah.
Thank
you.
Anything else on that subject? No, that's great. All right. Now we're on to public hearings. Public hearings are specially noticed items for discussion. Anyone wishing to speak regarding a public hearing item should fill out a speaker card prior to the completion of the staff report.
And give it to staff, or if you are attending on Zoom, raise your hand, and someone will assist you.
The order of business for a public hearing is as follows. First, we'll hear a staff presentation. Then the applicant will give a presentation of up to 15 minutes in length.
Then there will be commission… commissioner questions and clarifications.
Then there will be an area for public comment, uh, and everyone will be given up to 3 minutes per person to speak.
Then, after the applicant has heard all those comments, the applicant can have 5 min to respond to everything they've heard to date to that time.
And then finally, we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission, and the Commission will, uh, will do deliberation and develop actions on that item.
If you challenge the proposed action in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raised at the public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the Planning Commission at or prior to the public hearing.
Any interested party may appeal a determination of the Planning Commission to the City Council by filing a written notice of appeal with the City Clerk by 4 p.m. within 21 days of the decision.
A non-refundable filing fee and a deposit for services shall accompany each notice of appeal, except that any member of the City Council may file such an appeal without payment of a fee.
First, can I ask my fellow commissioners about any ex parte they may have had? And why don't we just do all the hearings at once, and I will begin. I've had discussions with residents Doris Pond and Connie Oakson.
On the subject of the La Barranca property, and also John O'Connell.
Anyone else?
Yeah, I've had a conversation with Fay and Amy on the La Branca property.
And
I thought for for 5.1. I've had expertise with John O'Connell, Carol Gottlieb. Neighbors say, and also Denise Gallo.
I
think that was all of them I spoke to.
Thank
you. Okay, we'll move on to the 1st public hearing item. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said you you
didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't. I'm just saying… Oh, you
have to recuse.
Yes, I'm just waiting
for… Uh, if you don't mind, I'm just going to explain for the residents. Go ahead. Malika Junaid is a world-class architect, and um…
She is the architect on this project, and so she's going to recuse herself and not be part of this discussion. So, officially…
Okay, all right, perfect. Just checking.
I don't think it would hurt for me to at least begin. Item 5.1.
is, uh, it's called 0 La Baranca Road. This parcel has an APN number, but it was never given an address. So it's called the unaddressed La Barranca Road, APN 18205034.
property file number Sd25-0072, and also for the variance VAR 25- 006 lands of Bangala and Tokawa.
0016.
0016,
pardon me.
Uh, this is a request for a site development permit for the construction of a 4,584 square foot 2 story single family residence with attached garage.
A 793 square foot attached accessory dwelling unit, a 999 square foot attached Sb. 9 unit and associated hardscape and site improvements.
And also a variance to permit a driveway width exceeding the maximum 14 feet.
and also a grading policy exception to allow the excavation to exceed the maximum cut thresholds for driveways, and for a Williamson Act compatibility determination.
As the property is subject to a Williamson Act contract for agricultural land conservation.
It's CEQA review is status is categorical exemption per section 15303A, and the staff.
Senior Planner is Jonathan Fox. May we begin with the staff report, Jonathan.
Thank you, Chair.
Taking a look at the unaddressed property on La
Branca. The Commission will recall that this application.
Had its first public hearing with the Commission on June 8th of this
year, where staff presented a recommendation for approval of the site development permit variances, grading policy exception, and also presented findings for the Williamson Act compatibility.
At that public hearing, the Commission took public comment.
deliberated and ultimately continued the item to a date uncertain, so the applicant can make changes to the plans, so staff could provide further information on the Wilmson Act, and for the Open Space Committee to provide a recommendation for an open space easement.
Here's the property west of 280, south of La Branca Road.
And here is a Google or the GIS aerial of the same property, noting the contours, high point being the northwest portion here.
And then decreasing in slope as you get to the south.
Um, to the southeast.
So you'll find that this presentation is not going to focus on the changes, the design changes that have taken place since June 8th, as the applicant's presentation will go into those in great detail.
product of scope, as the chair had read, was a site development permit for new residents, a variance to exceed the maximum driveway width.
Previously, there was a variance to exceed maximum development area, but that has been designed out of the project, so that is no longer required as findings.
A grading policy exception to exceed cut excavation thresholds and a William Snack compatibility determination. At the last public hearing. There also was a staff observation that the height did not comply with the the maximum building height of 27 feet.
At that June 8th meeting staff presented a solution to to address as a condition of approval. However, that's just been again designed out of the project, so it will comply with the 27 foot height limit.
Here's the proposed development calling a very similar outline and layout to what was presented on June 8th driveway coming off of La Biranca into the attached garage. The one.
attached structure that features a primary dwelling SB 9 unit, and attached ADU.
Couple of design changes is the pool has been removed from the scope, so that's how the applicant was able to not require a variance to MDA. Also, there's been some changes to the carports, so those do not count as floor area either.
Again, we have the chicken coop and the…
greenhouse in the center of the property, and the septic system that is accessed by a pump that is uphill, uh, northwest of the property.
The
Open Space Committee gathered.
Shortly after Planning Commission on June 10th, and provided a recommendation on the open space easement.
an open space easement in a U shape over a majority of the slopes greater than 30%, similar to the diagram presented at the meeting. The small bits of the steep slopes near the proposed septic tank would be excluded. The existing slope easement along La Barranca would be excluded.
So, the Open Space Committee's approach was really by the general plan to require an open space easement on slopes greater than 30%, but highlighting that a couple areas would be excluded septic tank and the existing slope easement that is already protected.
We acknowledge that the Open Space Committee meeting that.
portions of the existing development are within the slopes greater than 30%, and it was open spaces open space community's desire not to factor that in that recommendation, factor that into the recommendation, but for the Planning Commission to take that position, that the area of the.
proposed development in 30% slopes would obviously not have an open space easement on it.
And you'll see that here. This is the applicant's proposed open space easement, which largely addresses the open space committees.
recommendation, but again, there's portions in this back part of the residence that are, uh, proposed over slopes greater than 30%.
So those areas have been excluded from the open space easement.
And again, for reference, there's an existing slope easement adjacent to La Branco Way, very steepy slope, greater than 50% that's excluded because it's already protected by that open space easement.
As I mentioned in the project scope.
One of the findings for the planning commission to make a recommendation on, and for the city council to take final action on is the Williamson Act compatibility.
Um, again, one of the…
updates since the June 8th meeting is that the Willom Synap contract for this property has been located.
It's been included in your staff report packet, and it's published online. That contract was approved, entered into the… entered by the town and the property owner in 1972.
That contract limits the use of the property to the production of agricultural commodities for commercial purposes and compatible uses. It establishes a list of compatible uses. A screenshot of which is on screen, Exhibit A of that contract.
And we've highlighted in red, um, of those compatible uses which apply to this proposed project.
So obviously that is agriculture, open space uses, primary dwellings, and secondary dwellings. This project proposes all 4 of those.
And lastly, the Williamson Act contract allows either party to initiate a non-renewal at any time, and that will be.
Relevant
to the recommendation slide.
The public notice for this property was issued out again as this project was continued to a date uncertain. So the notice went out again on July 24th.
Uh, staff did receive several written public comments.
gearing up for this presentation. Those were included in the staff report packet. There have been supplementals, supplemental public comment that was received following publication of the staff report. Those have been forwarded to the Commission and uploaded to the town's website.
And the town has also received a petition, which highlighted a number of concerns and a lot of questions, and that petition was signed by about 50 residents, and that has also been forwarded to the Commission.
There, there you go.
So the staff's recommendation, um, there's two options that are laid out in the staff report. Option one is to adopt a resolution, which is attachment 1, recommending that the City Council find the project categorically exempt from CEQA.
Uh, consider whether the town should continue supporting the Williams-Snack contract for the subject property.
Uh, to determine that the proposed project is consistent with the principles set forth in Government Code Section 51238.1, which is the Williamson Act, and is compatible with the property's existing Williamson Act contract.
And finally, for option one is to approve the site development permit and all associated project entitlements subject to the attached conditions of approval.
As an alternative to Option 1, the Planning Commission can continue the project to a date certain and direct staff to prepare a resolution recommending that the City Council deny the project.
That
concludes staff presentation and here for any questions.
Does anyone have any clarifying questions for staff?
I
don't think so. I'm not clarifying. So just to
clarification. The second recommendation you have.
Is to have city council deny the project for what purpose?
The
the…
Okay, so
the second option is, I think it's important to note that we would have to come back at a second meeting because we don't have that denial resolution prepared yet. And we would use the conversation in today's public hearing if it were to go towards a denial to.
inform how staff writes that denial resolution.
Yeah,
and I think what I would add is there's really 3 different decisions here that are before the Planning Commission. The first is the project that you're used to, for the most part, within the variance requests and general compatibility with our zoning. So that can be approved or denied. Um, and depending on what the, um.
The Commission wants to do in that action, um, would cause staff, if the variances were denied, or the project was denied because of the lack of those variances, that then there would be a redesign of that project, and then a new project would need to come back that.
propose either different variances or, you know, something that completely complied. The second part of the decision making is really tied to and the third is really tied to the Williamson Act. Because there's a development happening on this project, I'll handle the higher level.
The question that we have to to the Commission, and ultimately to the city council, which is anytime a property is being developed, there is a question as to whether or not the contract is something that the the council would still want to have.
Um, because of the new development, right? You're going from open space, you're adding new houses, you may be agriculture, you're shrinking open space. Is that really what the city council envisioned when they entered into this contract in 1972?
Um, and so, because of the contract language, there's an ability for a non-renewal by both parties in that instance. And if the planning commission, who has typically been the body that makes recommendations through a report to the city council.
Um, based on, um, again, the adoption of the town into an agricultural preserve, um, would have the ability to, um, go, uh, ask to have the contract non-renewed, and then the…
That process would have a specific duration of time associated with it for notification to the particular.
To the particular property owner or contract in this particular instance, parties in the contract. And then from there, um, then there's a number of things that would happen with the, um, the county assessor and the taxation for that particular piece of land.
It's important to note that if, um, then in this next part of the conversation, um…
And I'll talk about compatibility. But if for some reason compatibility resulted in something that was noncompatible, and the planning commission made a determination that it was noncompatible.
The contract would then make the the project have to stop. There wouldn't be a project that would move forward at that point in time. So there's another part where the applicant, if found noncompatible.
would then have the option for non-renewal themselves, and could potentially then immediately cancel the contract, which would then give them the ability to move forward with development, assuming that the Planning Commission was supportive of the first thing that we talked about, which is the variances and the overall.
direction of the con… of the project itself. But if the project is compatible and the town council still feels like non-renewal is possible, then that allows the project to continue because it would be compatible with the contract at the time until the 10 years have expired, of which the non-renewal would then expire.
And the contract would be void at that point in time. So those are really kind of the different parts of the consideration in front of the Commission today and kind of the ramifications of each of those decisions that you have before you.
And the recommendations you could be making to City Council.
So I have a question here because this is kind of this is like a fork in the road. Basically, we have the Williamson Act. We have to figure out the compatibility and that's got to be decided first and foremost. And then you can talk about option A or B. And that decision rests solely.
on City Council. So we, as a recommending body, need to focus on the compatibility issue, because… and then have City Council weigh in on that, and then.
At a later date, talk about, you know, Road A or road B, in a sense. I feel the compatibility is the crux of the issue here.
I have a similar question about this. You listed the items in a particular order, and I wonder if, per what you just said, if the 1st subject really isn't the compatibility with the contract.
Because if that's a no, there is no project moving forward. Now, but if that's a yes, I guess I would differ with you a little bit. I think that if we determine it's a yes, I think we could go on.
With the examination of the zoning variance and those sorts of issues, uh, because then it would go to City Council as a package, and they could take our recommendations on the whole package.
and be done with it. I see a little bit of convenience there, but I don't think.
Let
me ask you this, though. Since this is procedural clarifications.
Aren't you kind of preempting City Council by having, first, the determination of what we recommend as far as compliance with the Williamson Act, and then giving them.
an option if they chose to go this route versus the other route. I don't know, it's kind of preemptive strike, in a sense. I guess I'm just trying to… That's what I'm kind of curious about, as far as pragmatic here, yeah. Um, yeah, the reason I
took it in the order that I did is because I do think that understanding if the Commission is supportive of the project, just as if it was a regular piece of property without the Williamson Act encumbrance.
is something that is germane to the… probably the first thing that's germane to the conversation, right? Because if you're not willing to, under regular circumstances, consider this project, then, you know, we should tell the applicant that, um, first. Then we get into the conversation of.
You know, the Williamson Act and which conversation comes that whether you would support compatibility or not support compatibility, and then whether or not you would support the renewal of the contract or not. And those would all be recommendations to the to the city council.
I think we should
discuss this later. Okay, yeah, just I just wanted to ask a question, but I think this is a quite a long discussion. So let's table it.
Other clarifying questions.
I do have one more Claire. Go ahead. But maybe I should have a clarifying question for the applicants, since they're the ones presenting the plans, right?
Yes. We can do that
at that time. My understanding is Claire is online. One of my clarifying questions has to do with the Williamson Act determination or compatibility determination.
And it has to do with whether agriculture has to be a primary use on the land for the primary and secondary dwellings to then be subordinate to.
And, um…
So far, what I've read in the packets is that that's not under consideration, that's not a requirement. But I'd love to get some to clarify whether tonight it's important for us to to consider or make findings about whether.
Agriculture is the primary use of the land. Yeah. So I'll
start, and then Claire can follow. So one of the 1st things, as you heard me say, and and I do appreciate research from our residents, and specifically John O'Connell on this particular matter, because one of the things that he was able to find is in 1971, that agricultural preserve was established in town.
That then means that the town has to accept Williamson Act applications, and that the town can itself move to take applications and consider them. So with that in mind, then you look at what local regulations that we have. And again, to John's research.
An ordinance that we have before us is ordinance 616, and that ordinance was the establishment of that preserve, and in there it talks about the the criteria associated with the Williamson Act and how it performs comparatively to.
the properties that are asking to be incorporated within the Williamson Act. What you'll see there is that there is some criteria that mimics the contracts that we have with these individual property owners.
Those contracts talk about prime agricultural use, but they don't necessarily give quantities of the land that's necessary. But there was a question that I think you posed earlier to staff that we should.
We'll probably bring up at this point, which is what is prime agricultural use versus open space in the context of Williamson. The Williamson Act. And so when you look at the definition for what prime agricultural use is, it's the sale of goods at a commercial level. And in this project, while has a minimum.
footprint as it relates to the agricultural use. It does have commercial associated within the business plan that we've seen and reviewed as part of this project. So without a local statute, we're left to use what was originally, uh, uh.
designated within 1972, which is the overall state regulations related to agricultural uses and the definitions at the state. We can, as local government, have criteria that we've established locally. We haven't done that as a town that we've.
We found in our research to date. But then there's the question of whether a land that has been undeveloped is an open space can have development and still remain that without the agricultural use. And I believe that was your question to staff, Commissioner.
or chair. Um, and so, in that, we would do believe, and would concur, that the language within the contract would say that if you're moving from an open space into a development, that that would prohibit, then, the property from being considered as.
a Williamson Act property, because we've had other properties in town that have similar configurations with Williamson Act that have had development that have then had to subdivide that piece of development out so that the remainder of the parcel could remain an open space and still qualify for Williamson Act.
Um, so in this instance, because this project not only has open space that's remaining, but also has the agricultural use, though, um, the statutes don't necessarily put a finer point on what that percentage is, or the area or size.
The fact that it exists is one of the things that we believe qualifies it for the contract and for the Williamson Act at the state level, and then it does allow for you to then consider other uses on that property, which are then ancillary to that agricultural use associated.
With the number of things listed in the contract itself, which relating to this project are open space, the primary structure, the secondary structure, as Jonathan showed in his presentation.
The
specific area that I'd like clarification on is that you're right. Our 1972 contract was pretty thin. It turns out it came from a kind of a boilerplate. The county had.
Uh, back in 72, um, but you'll note that the second paragraph says.
Although it specifies some things at the local level, and those things are very thin, it also in the second paragraph says will be consistent with the 1965 Conservation Act.
And the study that I did in this area shows that if you drill down into the 1965 Conservation Act.
And also, all the lawsuits that have happened since then regarding this, this very specific item has been addressed multiple times, and it always appears to me to imp…
imply that the agriculture needs to be the primary use of the land, and the… and I'm having difficulty with the idea that we would.
create findings that says it's a primary use of the land. And so I'm just trying to understand our role in this situation. Should we just believe the assessments from you and our attorney, and.
Go based on that, or should we consider… may we consider our own research to understand if we think that the primary use of the land has to be agriculture to qualify? I
think we should discuss that later. Again, my opinion.
But since we are the planning commission, we should be having our own opinions also. We can't just.
blindly follow what staff or potentially legal is saying. But at the same time, I would say, let's talk about it when I'm just
fishing for some good legal counsel here. I think we are not going to
get it, so let's move on. Okay.
Claire, if there's anything you'd like to add right now, that would be great. Otherwise, I think we'll just move on to open the public hearing. No, no.
Well, I'll just, and good evening, Commission. I'll just add, I think Jay summarized that really well that when you look at the statute, it is framed in such a way
that allows the city or the county to establish a preserve and then allows them to contract to preserve land within the preserve area.
That's for agricultural use, and it delegates, obviously pretty
substantial amount of authority to the local jurisdiction to establish the rules about
What's the compatible use? What's the
The contract provisions governing the preserves, preservation of the land, and etc. And so in this case, there is a contract, and it talks about the preserved use, or the compatible uses. So that contract
Can guide your decision. But again, you know that
I would advise a commission if you want to continue with the hearing and get some more information from the applicant, and then you can revisit this topic.
All right, thank you very much, Claire.
It is a… I've been here 6 years. This is the first one of these I've seen. It is a very complex topic. So we'll we'll have to dig our way through this.
Now we will open the public hearing. First, we will ask the applicant to make their hearing presentation. Please keep it to 15 minutes allocated to you. And the applicant is.
Here we are. Very good.
We we have several people here to speak, so we'll keep our part as short as we possibly
can. My name is Alpheus Jessup. I'm with M designs architects. And this is Nene, who's
also with us and is the lead designer on this project. She's going to summarize.
The changes or the alterations that have been made so far to the project, we're happy to be talking about it from the architectural side, rather than.
The Williamson Act side, and we'll go from there. We've got the civil engineer here as well to speak to issues that people have had. And we've also got the geotech and soils engineers to participate as well.
Oh, I'm sorry. And the homeowners are here on Zoom, and they will be if you do want to get into the Williams snack contract, they will be happy to talk about that at that point.
Thank you.
Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission. My name is Nini. I'm the lead designer of Caro, and we're just just try
to get as close to this thing as you can. Good evening, Chair and members of the commissions. My name is Mini Malik.
designer of the Zero La Bronco Row project. I'm
here to present some of the modifications that we've done on the project since we last met in June. I'm pretty sure everybody is already familiar with the projects scope of work and the site constraints. We have quite a steep load, and we are.
We have our thoughts on across the property. We have. We are under evidence mapped. We have steep slopes and a very limited buildable area. So it's a very challenging site to develop. But, however, we managed to design something for the homeowner. Hopefully, that would benefit them in the long term.
Can we go to the next slide, please?
So since we last met, we have made modifications on the tree removal. We originally have 12 trees, heritage trees to be removed on site, and now we have 9. And now we also have reduced the floor area.
from 5,178 square feet to 4,006, 683 square feet, which is.
317 square feet below the maximum allowed Mfa. And then we also have reduced development area to under 7,500, which is 7,495 square feet. Now it complies to the bylaw limits, and we have reduced the height.
to 27 feet by reducing the configuration, changing the configuration of the skylight. We have also removed the pool on the ground floor, and we have removed extensive amount of vegetable farming. That's in response to the neighbors comments. And now we have only greenhouse.
And, uh, chicken croup on site. And we also had. We're planning to implement some rolling shades on skylights to and other areas to limit the light mitigation on site. Please.
Can we go to the next slide. And so this slide shows the forest floor plan changes before and after. As you can see, we have removed the carport on the first floor. We have reduced the mud room and the storage room.
Size pretty significantly to accommodate the MFA area. The next slide shows the.
Next slide, please.
shows the second floor before and after, so you can see that the pool has been removed from the backyard, and we also have reduced the backyard patio area near the adu.
And the this slide shows the tree removal. We originally had 12 trees in red that is supposed to be removed because we we had.
We had illuminated the pool construction on site. Now we have. We are able to preserve 3 more trees, 3 more heritage trees on set.
And the next slide shows the height change. And this you can see the scale of the house is shorter. Right now we reduce the pitch angle on the gable at the front front covered porch, and we have.
I also made the skylight shorter.
And next slides, it's remaining variance request that we are asking the commissioners to support us on, which is a great exception, driveway based on the slope easement. We have our civil engineer.
Carlino to speak up to explain the variances for us.
Good evening, Pete Carlino, Liam Brace. Great to be up here again.
the when we were 1st starting this project and siting building, it was, how can we gain a driveway access off the road in a safe manner with safe line of sight while trying to preserve the grading policies of the town, and it became apparent there was only one.
area to come into the property that would meet fire turning radius of 28 feet to come up the driveway without having tunnels to like lower level garages or excessive grading on the downhill side or the uphill side. And so the grading exception is in relation to turning off of La Baranca in a safe manner.
As it turns out, and steering the walls for to break up the vertical face of the cut. And so that's why you're seeing the the concentrated amount of grading is right where you come off La Barranca into the property as you turn up the site. So I'm.
Also here, the widening opening is the fire department's requiring us to be able to swing either direction to come onto the property. We're close enough. We don't need to turn around, but they require that we show compliance of the truck turning in and going up the driveway to not park down on La Barranca as part of the design.
Is
he…
Is a truck turnaround required at the end of the driveway? It is not. It is. You can pull in and back out.
But that's why we have to show we're working with the fire department on their standards as part of it. And that's was part of the review of the project.
Thank you. The overwidened area is because of the 28 foot inside turning rate of Branca as part of it. That's why we're requesting more than the town standard is 20 feet of that opening. And as you spin up, it is wider as you go up the driveway.
I there was an email from the neighbors. I had responded to that as well with some initial comments about the drainage. The septic system, and I think it's included in the staff report. It was sent back. So I'm here tonight to answer any further questions when the time is appropriate, but I don't want to take up any more time.
than is necessary, unless there's questions from…
Uh, council.
Why don't we get through your presentation and see if there are any clarifying
questions? Yes, next we have the homeowner online on zone 2.
Speak about the Venus Mach findings.
Naveen, it's online,
I see.
Yeah, I'm here. Can you guys hear me?
Yes.
Okay, alright, sounds great. Let me try to turn on my video.
Sorry, I just
It is a little quiet if there's anything you could do to make it a little bit louder, or maybe we can do that on our end.
Much better, much better.
I can speak a little bit louder. Can you guys hear me a little better?
Yes.
Okay, okay, awesome. Yeah, you know, sorry we have to, as a family, we needed to travel for, you know, for an immediate health reasons, but happy to be here again and
Also, you know, before I go into Williamson Act in just a minute
I wanted to, you know, mention that, you know, after the June 8th meeting, you know, we and our team has worked really hard to take in all the feedback and advice and inputs and concerns
And make all the changes necessary, right? So hope, you know, hope we are addressing, you know, most of them, if not all, and we can discuss further today. And regarding the Williamson Act, like I think we had some good discussion at the beginning
And I think from last time, what was a big crux or a big concern at the point in June 8th meeting was we didn't have a contract, right? So because of that, it was subject to
you know, large interpretation. So we did some homework and were able to find the contract written for the signed contract written for it. And based on that, and we are kind of making the the next steps here right
And again, we want it to be consistent. We do not want to be different in whatever the council or the commission decides, we would like that to be consistent going forward.
Just, you know, after saying that, so I just want to mention that we are following those, you know, there are multiple things that we could be doing in this land
And we have, as submitted in the plans, those are the four highlighted areas is what we are
using this landfill.
We can go to the next slide, please
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think like the staff said this using those four were making it compatible.
And otherwise, I think these are the general points as a part of the Williamson Act research that we did
Another key points I want to mention besides the compatibility high level is we we heard the concerns from the neighbors
So there is the disturbance of business. I think that's something that we completely understand and cognitive of
Based on that, we reduced the scope of the agriculture
to limit it to just the green
house, which is, like, you know, around 400 square yards. Sorry, square feet.
And it's a combination of the potted plants and, you know, very small number of chickens, right? No more than probably the neighbors already have, right? So that kind of a situation that we are planning to
So yeah, as it's saying, it's a very small scale cultivation.
And another major thing is we like to keep the open space easement so that there is a free movement of, you know, of the animals, you know, and whatever is required for the open species meant from the front of the property to the back of the property
So that is something that we have enabled
Yeah, I think that's the main thing I wanted to mention.
They have 2 voices.
Thanks, Naveen. We also have, as I said, we've got the geotech and soils engineers here as well. And I know there were a lot of questions in the in the correspondence from the neighbors about soil stability and compatibility of the ground for development.
And they're here to speak to that and also answer any questions as they may come up.
Sure. So we since we'd have…
A few minutes left. Of course.
So okay. Yeah.
My name is Craig Harwood, and I
work for Quantum Geotechnical Engineering for the project.
Um, there were 3 or 4 questions that were posed to us that I can cover. One of them was the question of faulting.
We did do an exploration at the site. We identified the Monte Vista fault zone.
And in fact, it was field reviewed by the town's peer reviewing consultant from Cotton Shire's office. They agreed with our findings in the field.
We suggested a building setback of 25 feet from the fault zone for a habitable structure, which is the home, and they concurred with that.
That report, the fault report was subsequently submitted to the city, and it was reviewed by the the peer reviewer, and they approved it.
Um, there is another question about…
uh, landsliding. Based on our explorations at the site, we didn't see any evidence for lands past landsliding, and didn't see any issues for future landsliding, uh.
With regard to the way it's going to be developed, all the drainage and the grading will be done conventionally and will be inspected during the grading operations.
Um, there was another question about, um…
The groundwater table, that area up there has a deep groundwater table. It wasn't an issue for any of the geotechnical or geologic concerns at the site. We don't see that anything that developing the site will have any impact on a groundwater table, because it's so deep in that particular area.
There was a question about, um…
Slope stability analysis. We didn't consider it was necessary to do slope stability analysis for the natural slopes at the property. Of course, the the grading and construction will be done under standard grading operations and will be inspected by us.
We will be doing a slope analysis along the road cut for La Barranca, because the septic system, right now, it's set back 40 feet from the top of that road cut, and they… for various design reasons, they need to encroach slightly closer, or they would like to.
As an option, and so we're doing the slope stability analysis to see if that's feasible, and what a appropriate setback would be for the leach field.
I think that the other questions are for our geotechnical engineer, Simon McDessie.
Good evening. My name is Simon
McNessie. I'm with Quantum Geotechnical, and I'll be addressing.
some of the foundation and grading recommendations, as Craig has alluded to.
Our project has
been the
subject of review with the town's third-party geotechnical consultant, and they have approved all the various design aspects of the project.
Our grading is standard grading activities, slopes of 2 to 1 are acceptable on this site.
It is a challenging site from a foundation point of view, and we do have mixed foundation of a maths lab and pure and grade beam. All of it will be sitting on rock. We do have shallow bedrock on the site, so that creates an overall positive stability to the site.
The presence of rock.
And with regards to erosion, any issues with erosion can be taken care of standard grading and planting operations.
Well, that's exactly what I'm finished. I see. Thank you. Good, thank you.
I have 1 clarifying question, and it might be for Pete. It's a water question.
When we put concrete on this area, water that rain that used to hit the ground and it's take an hour to soak in now is going to be in a 4 inch ABS pipe in about.
10 seconds, and down into that creek, and the acceleration is going to be high. What have you done to try to mitigate the increase in acceleration into the creek? Can you hear me?
Okay, there you go.
First, thank you for the question. I would respond with that the project, as most projects in the town, when we have net increase of development, we're required to put an on site detention system which we have on this project. We have on site metering device. Any drainage associated with the buildings, the patios.
Everything is collected into that and drained into a system that is directed towards La Barranca side of the property. Okay. And as the primary release. The there is drainage from uphill west, the property as it comes down. That drainage is picked up in swales.
and directed around the house, and released towards the.
southeast direction, and as if that drainage naturally would have gone that direction. But the house development, and is all detained in the detention system and redirected towards La Barranca, which will go towards the right-of-way down into the street and down to the curb inlets that are at the
bottom. The decelerator is in the path to LeBron La Branca. Correct.
Got it. So again, we
worked with the town on many projects. It's the same design system that has been installed through other projects and reviewed and approved by town staff. Thank you. I have a question.
Do you have any a
question for Pete here actually is about just curious, what is the grade on the driveway on this? It is 20% coming up.
Okay.
And that's been approved by the fire department. Right. And
then so the fire department, because I… have you ever had any of the projects where they've asked for a 28 foot wide mouth to the, uh…
driveways here in speaking generalities for a minute here. This
is something that is newer, where fire would just usually park in the street. They have now made sort of part of our review process that we would like to turn into the properties and get off the street. This has happened in the last 8 months to a year.
With projects where historically they had not been asking for it, but that has now been part of the plan check revive process. I'm not sure the change in approach, but I don't think this is going to be the last time we probably talk about over widened driveways turning into driveway projects.
is the… from the road to the house, is it less than 150 feet? Yes, so
there's no turnaround at the top.
That's interesting, okay. And then also, just curious if they can bring up the other picture of the slopes, where is the 30% slope that occurs, I guess, on the… On the house at the back? Yes.
I think it's, and I apologize, because someone, there's an exhibit, maybe.
Five
exhibits, right?
It would be that upper purple area at the top of building at the top of the page. The triangle up in that general direction. Okay.
Is that is that the patio or what is it?
It's a covered patio.
Does the cover patio, and then the little one down below. Is that the Sb. 9? The one to the left
or the right, the right
to the right the tiny triangle is that that's the
Dg passway. There's a walkway around the building. Oh, that's a DG pathway. Okay. But the one.
To the
right is
is the is the.
The
direct is the ADU speaking. That was
at adu, and then the other one, the bigger triangle is the enclosed patio covered patio. Yes, a covered patio.
Okay, thank you. And then…
That's all my questions for right now. Thank you. Okay. Anything, Commissioner?
No. All right.
Next we'll ask for members of the public who wish to provide their comments regarding this item. Each member of the public will be limited to being recognized only once.
Please restrict your comments to three minutes each. If you're interested in providing comments, please come to the podium or raise your hand in Zoom and someone will assist you. Why don't we…
In fact, it would help maybe to get 2 or 3 people in a row ready who want to speak, and we'll just… We do have a list of cards we got
in sequence.
Oh, I see, you want
to just go off of
that. Why don't you call out two or three names at a time?
So people can get ready and we'll just move as quickly as we can. Sounds good.
And
can I also suggest one thing just for better efficiency? This is for all residents. It may be valuable if you're.
you know, stating what has already been stated.
Do it in a shortened fashion, rather than repeating the same item again and again, because we will be taking notes.
Okay, so the first three are gonna be
Connie Yu, Julie Wicker, and Frank Cahill.
That's
a question. The owners, I understand, are in media.
We can hear you. Yes, thank you. The owners are in India and I discussed with some of the residents I was going to go much later.
But I would like them to hear the comments that I was going to make.
So, I don't know if they're going to be… how
long they're going… I would be fine putting you to the front of the list, if that's what you're asking. Let me just ask my fellow. Yeah, I'm fine with that.
Would you
care to go first?
Well, I don't if the owners are going to be here for on the call for an hour or so, then I'm happy to go later, but I would like them to hear the
comments. You know, John, you're standing right there. I think we ought to just go ahead and get it done.
Okay.
And John, try to get this close for the owner's benefits as well. Okay.
We've had a discussion about what the real priority decision that we need to make on this project is.
And I am going to speak with total certainty on what I believe the priority is.
It's what, what is the path forward?
That this project should take.
And there are options, and most of those options, the decision on those options rests with the owner and the applicant.
In my viewpoint, and I'm not advocating either way, but in my viewpoint.
There are two ways.
to approach this project.
The 1st, I would characterize as being safe.
Predictable outcome.
with absolutely known parameters.
The second is high risk with uncertainty as to when and how hard both the town and the owners may get impacted.
So part one…
is actually the path that the vast majority.
Since the Supreme Court decision in 1981.
take for Williamson Act contract terminations. In fact.
One of the properties that was approved on in January 1971, along with this project, filed in.
This January for what is called a notice of non-renewal.
Once a notice of non-renewal is filed.
The project is going to come to an end in 9 years time.
But the applicants, once it is filed.
can immediately file a request for what is called a contract cancellation.
Assuming the contract cancellation has good public support.
It could be approved before the end of this year.
If the owners don't file a notice of non-renewal prior to October. This contract will extend for another year in its 10-year rolling period, and it will not be out of Williamson Act until January 2037.
The cost of filing a non-renewal is 0.
The cost of STEP.
Two
of option one.
If the request for contract cancellation is approved, you know, I'm going to
ask for clarifying questions, John, so you can continue. Okay, if if
it is approved.
The applicants will owe the Santa Clara County Assessor.
12.5% of what the assessor determines is the value of the property in current market conditions minus the encumbrance.
But it's an absolutely known parameter.
Path
2.
is the route that we are on tonight.
A compatible use determination for a project which is at the limit of both Los Altos Hills.
Codes. State SB 9 and ADU codes.
And even if it is found that the, um…
The contract, the.
Compatibility? Compatibility, that's the word. The compatibility determination is found to be correct, or found to be supportive of that.
The decision will almost certainly be challenged.
The problem with the challenge is you will not know the outcome with the people that have to determine it probably until the project is complete.
However, at that point.
If the compatible use determination.
is much less than the amount of the property that is built.
The excess amount of property. So if there's 7,000 square feet, and the compatible use is 2.
5,000 square feet.
will be charged…
First of all, a 25% penalty.
on the same value, the assessor will work out for the land.
and a 25…
percent penalty on the on the value of the construction cost of the 5,000 square feet in excess.
I've done that math very, very back of the envelope. And what I would say is the cost of option 2 is 4.5 to 5 times the cost of option one. Now, it may turn out.
Nothing happens.
in which case you might make a little bit of money.
I I do not understand.
The reason why…
We are going down this compatible use path.
The risk for the town is also considerable.
A compatible use determination which is deemed by the courts to have been in this much in excess.
is what the Supreme Court described.
As the compatible — approving a compatible use that defeats the purpose of the Act.
And that is direct words from the Supreme Court.
What could happen to the town?
is unknown.
I don't want to go any further. I think… Yes,
John, let's wrap it up. I really do appreciate all the information.
So I would… I would strongly recommend.
that if this information is new.
Somebody should start to think as to whether or not they want to take the safe, known path, or if they want to stay on the high-risk path. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Thank you.
Next.
Hello, I'm my name is Connie Young Yu.
My husband and I have lived on on La Baraka at 12981, two doors down from the proposed building, and we've lived there
since 19.
70. So we've seen a lot, and we've raised chickens also. I was going to.
discuss or talk about our concerns like all of my neighbors, my dear neighbors on La Baranca about building.
This ambitious project with several, you know.
buildings on such a steep slope with soil erosion and the problem of soil erosion and water runoff.
And the specific issue that I was going to bring up was the number of chickens which you hear that has been reduced to a number of chickens that the neighbors would be are owning and that.
It's not 50 to 100 chickens, as was stated in an earlier plan.
I still would like to say that when we built the barn in 2001 and we have a large corral on the flat land.
There was a stipulation for we were granted the variance, but the stipulation from the city council at the time was that our chicken could be moved a certain distance far from.
the border where there's a creek running through. So that was a major concern, and we were told that it would be a hazard. It's cause pollution. You know the all that chicken manure, and of course we have a compost, and.
That was taken care of, but it was a concern. So I think that we still can be talking about what is planned for the there will be a chicken coop on the property, and this is a very, very steep slope, and the runoff.
Whatever will of the sludge will be affecting the properties that the
neighborhood
properties. So thank you. Thank you.
Hello, I'm Julie Wilker, and I live on Coumbra Vista. So not the same, but one street over.
Looking at this, I had a couple of, as as was noted in some of the notes I sent in a letter ahead of time.
driveway safety. I'm really
worried about every time
I go up and down La Barranca,
which is every single day, usually more than once.
I look at
those posts and I'm almost on top of them with my car before I see them, both directions.
I am worried.
I'm
just going to leave it at that. I'm really worried. I am also worried about the hillside safety.
Uh,
it's a lot of excavation.
Now I just heard that the water, don't worry, it's not going down the creek. It's going down La Barranca. What the?
My
gosh, we already have enough runoff
on La
Branca. Are
you now? Is the
street now not going to
be usable when it's raining? I hope not. I hope that's studied.
I hope I am panicking.
And
it's not needed.
But we all know what runoff looks like and how we have not been able to get… use some of our streets because of runoff.
Um, that's as far as the project.
During
the last almost year, I've had construction down the street from my house.
I have had many days that I could not get out of my driveway.
Because of people parked on the streets.
I've had to go and ask for people to move. I bring this up only because this project is going to take quite a while.
And there's
really
no parking there for the construction vehicles. So.
Possibly not part of the approval or not approval of the project, but certainly approval of the… all of the permits.
The safety of the construction that is not having vehicles on the street, on the pathway, not blocking La Barranca, not blocking a single lane, or if there is a lane, there's going to have to be flagged people on each end of it.
I'm worried. I'm worried about safety.
I'm fine with the house. Whatever.
I'm not real keen about more chickens if it was 100 chickens.
If you… if you tell me it's 5 chickens, if you tell me it's 6 chickens.
Yeah, I'm alright with that, whatever. I know you'll keep it clean.
You don't want… you don't want dirty chickens, you know, around where you're living. I'm sure you'll want to keep it clean, but 100 would have really freaked me out.
Okay. Construction debris there again during the construction, we've got, if we've got water running down, it's going to pick up construction debris running down the street.
The road's gonna have to be watched and washed.
and cleaned. That's
it for me.
Thank
you.
Hi, Frank Cahill.
Los Altos Hills
on the corner of La Baranca and Elena.
On Comra Vista.
I'm also going to focus on La Barranca.
We be so bold
as to ask the Commission to raise their hand. Have you
been to the La Barranca property? Many, many
times. Excellent. Members standing down on La Barranca.
And looking up, if this had been in Tahoe, this would be an expert ski slope or missing on the moguls. I mean, it's very steep. Now, I did hear that the fire department approved the 20% slope.
That's their maximum.
slope that they would approve. Now, I don't know if the firemen had been over there, but I cannot imagine a fire truck going up the side of that hill.
And then backing out? I can't see that. I really can't.
And the other thing that's going to happen is at least during construction, there is going to be dirt all over La Barranca.
And when you drive your cars up, I've got an old car, I don't really care, but you have a lot of fancy cars in the neighborhood, and when you go over and it's going to be all of that dirt is going to be kicked up on your car and putting dings in your paint job.
Uh, you're going to have to ask that the contractor have a full-time person down there sweeping the dirt and getting it out of the way during the day. You can't just do it at the end of the day.
It's got to be done during the construction as it's going on.
And, uh…
The other last thing, as I was listening, John talk.
I realize that there is a contract for this property, and there are a few other properties in town.
Also under the Williams Act.
Williamson that in real estate, if you don't have it on paper, it doesn't exist.
The town needs to put their take on the Williamson Act on paper, so that we do have something that everybody can compare to the same requirements. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, there's an order. She'll read the next 3. The next
3, Michael Grady, Ginger Jenkins, Jill Cinder. That's neither.
My name is
Ginger Jenkins. I'm here with my husband, Ted and my son.
I'm changing all my paragraphs
because as
people have spoke,
I'm going to speak about the chickens, because Connie has just… if
there's 5 chickens, that's fine. We'd like to know how many chickens the plan has. I heard there were 100.
I'd like to talk to you about…
Histoplasmosis, a lung infection that's caused by breathing spores.
of the fungus histoplasma capsule.
which is caused with a damp soil with chickens or other bird droppings.
You do not catch it directly from the chickens and their fresh poop, but rather from the dry dust in the soil of the coops.
When it hits, when the ground is disturbed.
This is a big one for me.
My original plan was to talk about the heritage oaks.
And how many are being cut down?
And I understood that every time you took out a heritage Oaks, that you would have to plant 3 more trees. I don't know whether that is the case.
But that situation could not hold on that property.
And
of course, as…
Just mentioned on the driveway.
And I have a question, but if you're going to.
put in an exception for the 14 foot wide driveway. I'd like to know how much it is.
But the plan of cutting the road cut with the 20%.
slope, and cutting into this La Biranca curves right as you see the the stakes that they're planting to go up on.
I think people should take a look at the curve of the road and whether that would require retaining walls.
Um.
The Williamson Act. If I decide, by the way, I think it's a bit of a boondoggle to say I'm going to have a hundred chickens there.
What if right across the road where I live, I decide that I want to put 100 chickens and get the same tax break that the Williamson Act affords.
How will you justify how many people are going to do that? I think the Williamson Act is a little bit of a boondoggle myself.
This project requires.
6,400.
uh, square feet of buildings.
That's a lot. I think that this project would be a lot better in a rural community.
Where you didn't have to make those road cuts.
Just finally, if you look around the room.
We moved them 50 years ago, actually 51. My son just turned 50, and it was a year before he, uh.
He was born that we moved there, but if you look around the room.
There's at least.
seven or eight residents that have been in our neighborhood. La Barranca and Cougar Vista Court over 50 years.
And we want it to be done right. Thank you.
Michael Grady, then Jill Snyder, then C. Snyder.
Thank you, Michael Grady, Los Altos Hills. The
Planning Commission and the Council shouldn't go
along with what
is
essentially a tax dodge to avoid paying the appropriate amount of taxes on a proposed.
It's very clear that this project isn't consistent with the principles of the Williamson Act, nor with the original intent of a contract. Contracts are interpreted based upon the original intent.
At the time they're entered into. Clearly, agricultural and out open space use are not going to be the principal uses of this property if this project goes forward. You know, I have to pay my full property taxes.
If they want to build a mansion, they should have to pay their full property taxes.
Don't give them a bootagle. Can I just take a moment? This that's.
Uh, I hear ya. And that is an area that I did a lot of examination on.
The House site, the land of the house site is taxed the same way all of our taxes are taxed. The house itself is taxed the same way all of our houses are taxed. It is just the agricultural area.
The non-house site that would get this a little advantage. You'd be surprised how little this is relative to the dimensions of the property tax bill. And I'm not an attorney. I'm not a Cpa. I am an engineer.
I've looked into this as carefully as I can and dug in 3 layers into the unwrapping this onion.
This… it is less an issue about the fairness of people paying their fair share of property tax than you think. Okay, so
the assessor goes and reassesses the house and all the improvements as if the Williamson Act was not a factor. That is the
information that I have, yes.
Okay,
that's good to know. Thanks, Steph can confirm.
I'm sorry, Jay, what did you say?
Stephan can confirm. Yeah.
Good evening. I'm Jill Snyder, and I have lived
in Los Altos Hills for over 50 years. I have seen it grow. I've seen it change.
The principles of what we
value,
the trees, the countryside, the hilltops, all of that still holds.
Although I see it disappearing.
Whether people are complaining about, I would like to second and double that.
concern. It's the trees that you're cutting down, and then the driveway. So I go up and down La Biranca many times during the day during the week.
And if you hit it at just that certain time in the afternoon when the sun is setting, you are blinded and you can't see. And so you're going to put a driveway there. It's a blind raising curve.
and you're just asking for problems. I don't see any place else to put the driveway.
Maybe it shouldn't be in the house. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Carrie and I've lived in Los Altos Hills for over 50 years, right by La Barranca. And I
would like to second, first of all, the issue of the
driveway. I can't believe that you're thinking of putting a 27 foot.
span cut into the hillside on a blind curve when I I, too, go up and down that La Branca multiple times a day, and if you hit it at the just the exact right time at the wrong time, you are completely blinded. And I, too, have gone with my car and seen the posts that are in there, and you are on top of them.
So it is a very, very unsafe place to put a driveway, not only for the residents, the new owners of the property, but for all of us. So you were putting all of us in danger. You know, I have as a pedestrian, I have been hit by a car. It's not something that I recommend.
But I determined that, you know, as unfun as that was, I never want to be somebody who in my car actually hit somebody, and that is my concern with where this driveway is going. It is never meant to have a driveway there. The other thing I want to talk about briefly, although I thank you for the clarification, is the Williamson Act.
Because clearly there's some financial benefit that's trying to be sought here. The word used earlier was boondoggle.
Um, and I think that that's, you know, there's a more extreme word for it. I think we are being asked to subsidize this property, because clearly it is not about open space or agriculture. What's being done with a 7,500 square foot house.
I understand that there was a pool that was wanted and other things, and the chopping down of 9 heritage trees has nothing to do with the maintenance of open space, and I guarantee you I was unaware of the Williamson Act until this came into the limelight. There's a lot of residents in Los Altos Hills.
who also don't know that the Williamson Act could benefit them, and getting chickens and putting in a greenhouse is something that's very easy to do with the land space that people have. So if this is a benefit for this individual, then I guarantee you there's a whole lot of other residents that are going to want that benefit as well.
So thank you. Thank you.
My name is Jeremy. I speak for the trees.
I was born here, I'm 50 years old.
These
trees are the same age as me, and
there's about 10 of them I hear that are, you know, just huge.
The other thing I want to say is where they're trying
to build the driveway. I see deer all the time trying to go up this road.
There are owls, and uh…
you know, red-tail hawks and coyotes.
And these people are trying to build a house and take out like 10 of these trees. And it just kind of disgusts me.
I'm sorry if I'm raising crap with Naveen here, but.
You know, it just goes on and on. I don't think a lot of people are morning people, and if he's going to have 100 chickens roosting, it just the whole thing just seems ridiculous to me. Thanks.
I do want to comment that hens.
aren't roosters. Excuse me.
Maybe what I was trying to say is that they're roosting. They're
loud, you know? But this is my point. They're not nearly as loud as roosters, or gobblers, or turkeys.
Yes. Well,
I mean, if he has, like, 20 chickens, that's great, but, like, after a certain amount, I mean… I understand. I just
wanted to make that one clarification. Hens lay eggs, roosters are louder than in the morning, and you don't want them next time. But hens also root. They
make a lot of noise, and they…
Lay those eggs.
That doesn't bother me. The big point I'm trying to make is these trees that are 50 years old, you know, he's trying to take out these trees.
And if it was my property, I would build the house around the trees, you know? And
so I'm done. Thank
you. Appreciate it. Next is Marjorie.
Hmm.
Mary.
Marjorie Howey
and then Cheryl Evans.
Sorry if I mispronounce it.
Yeah. All right. I'm 96, 95. All
right.
I've been in the
Hills
fellow guy.
I think in the
hills since 1965.
Wow. So I've seen
a lot of things happening. When you talk about the Williamson's Act.
I've acquainted with it because I'm a cattleman's daughter, and I know all about chickens and roosters and everything else. But I
noticed when we did the Williamson Act on our property.
that I was not allowed to do anything. It was permanent.
You know, so I don't know when you talk about the Williamson's Act being able to be taken away after a certain amount of time, didn't you say?
I
can just summarize it. You can post a notice that you're not going to renew it. Okay. Either of the 2 sides that are a party to the agreement. That doesn't end the agreement, but it says that.
Over a 9-year period, it will slowly end, and after 9 years, it's ended. But once you file a notice of non-renewal, you can also then request to cancel it. And I…
well, maybe it was different, because I'm from the Valley.
And we had cattle, and so we put the Delta 2. We put the Williamson Act on property on a lot of the grassland.
So I was just surprised.
when you said that. All right, and I'm against…
them going up that driveway now, because I go down and up that lumber on day and night, and that's terrible.
To have
a driveway there. All right.
Thank you
very much. Thank you. And and congratulations
on your health. I have to
say. Next
three chair events, Jim Lai and Connie Oksan.
I'm
Cheryl Evans, Buena Vista Drive. This project. Okay, this project is
completely against
the spirit of the Williamson's Act, which is meant to protect agricultural land. Building a luxury home and trying to say that it's keeping in chickens and
selling plants is agricultural use.
An attempt to avoid the penalty of removing the land from the Williamson Act contract.
You've covered the part about the house, not, you know, but you still haven't covered the part of the penalty. And that's just a dangerous… that's a dangerous precedent. I have chickens. I have an orchard. I have a garden, and maybe instead of sharing with my neighbors, I start selling my excess to them.
Um, I could say that I have an entered into a contract with the Williamson Act, and I could save 50 to 70% of my taxes. And as you've heard, other people are thinking the same way. What's that going to do to the town's tax revenues? So I think we should take this out of William's nap.
Thank
you.
Honey Oaks, and I've lived here 50
years
also. I would like
to address the health and sanitation for the project and preserve the open space that we definitely
need, and the environmental impact of 14 oak trees.
Uh, being cut down, and there may be a few more, so could be 17 oak trees and.
When they are cut down, they will be replaced by hardscape and hardscape when the rains come, it.
just goes. So we've been told that it will go out to La Branca and down the hillside. Well, if anybody knows about La Barranca, it floods when the rains come.
280 is over the top.
And the runoff from 280 is also comes down right under La Barranca. So not only are we going to get all that runoff from this, this project, we also have 280.
And everything else that goes along with it. So I'm not sure that's really. I don't think they've thought about the runoff from 280. We've had cars.
stopped on La Baranca, you know, flooded because of the rain.
Also, speaking of the chickens and the rain. They've talked about Deer Creek and can it handle all of that? But they say they're moving it away from Deer Creek.
So, you have to, um…
But I think the project as it is now should not be allowed. There needs to be more information looked into this, and it needs more.
Just looking into.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The next three, Alex Chen, Amy Huang, and Doris Lam.
Hi, I'm Alex Chang and I live on La Barranca Road 12854, which is below the freeway. And I understand all the, um.
Run off because we have the creek right behind our house,
and I
know how much water goes down there. It gets down up to, like, 3 feet, 4 feet high, and when you're looking at the grading and all.
Runoff going down on La Barranca. It feeds into Deer Creek past our house.
But I want to also talk about the Williamson Act.
Let's see, um…
The statute assumes that the Williamson Act parcel will be about 10 acres or more. That's what I believe. And in a sense, it's a trade off between property taxes and a promise not to develop the property.
1.2 acres is an abuse. That means our neighbors, new neighbors will not be paying for their fair share of the cost of maintaining the city such as police, the streets.
and the schools. I think the city is allowed to do the allowed to do a parcel of any size. It wants to, but why would it? That's my question.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Evie Huang, and I'm the Dan Hill neighbor of this project. I have a particular
concern about the
drinkage because the drinkage is really critical to the downhill resident like me. A
clarification is needed regarding this proposed.
uh, stormwater management system like how the stormwater is captured conveyed.
discharged to prevent elution and the best impact to on a downhill property.
And also, what is the measure will be implemented to ensure the drinkage pattern do not increase the runoff onto the neighboring lot?
And you know, to use the heavy equipment like excavation activity, grading operation, and the tree removal will disturb and losing the existing soil. And what temporary or permanent.
illusion control measurement will be implemented during the construction to prevent the soil movement onto the adjacent property.
And how has the potential risk to neighboring property be evaluated and mitigated? That's for the drinkage.
Because looks like there's absence in absence demonstrate a comparable project with similar land condition.
We believe that it's more conservative development approach is warranted, and reduction in the scale of development to size more consistent with the site physical limiting.
And that will reduce the burden placed on the Hue side and minimize the gradient and destructured intervention.
So lower the risk of the slow intertibility and better protect the public safety and the neighboring property.
And also talking about the Williamson Act.
And, um, looks like it has… it has been noted as the tag does not appear to have a clearly defined policy or set of guideline for addressing Williamson at property and the related land use decision.
So to promote this consistency, credibility and fairness. I think the town should consider adopting the approach similar to the use by the city of Santa Clara for the transition of the Williamson at designated properties.
But if the town chose not to adopt the Santa Clara model, and I suggest the town council should establish the transparent objective and consistently apply the framework that respect the original intent and spirit of Williamson Act.
So any such policy should be clearly articulated, responsible and equitable, ensuring fair treatment to all Los Angeles residents.
Okay. And I also have another concern about the tree removal like approximately 9 heritage tree located near the crest side.
Because the remote raised the question about whether the hillside could become more susceptible to elution, slow failure, or other forms of instability.
And also in addition, removal of this existing tree may significantly increase direct yield into neighboring property like mine, reduce privacy like mine, and alert the character of the neighborhood.
Thank you. Thank you.
Hello, Doris.
Hi, my name is, can you hear everyone
in here? My name is Doris Lam and I live on Cornwall Vista.
I am speaking
on behalf of myself as well as a group of other parcel owners of Los Angeles Hills who cannot be here today.
Um, on
the Williamson Act,
the town does not have a written policy with respect to the Williamson Act. We recommend that a written policy be adopted before the parcel of unaddressed La Barranco Road is approved so that we understand what guidelines are used.
for the analysis for either the approval or rejection of comparability.
Um, and this should the Boyism Act with the plan should all be looked at the same time review all reviewed at the same time, and the permit of released at the same time, and and not hold.
The project, inconsistent with the Williamson Act, you know, having it done twice.
Okay. Drainage on water and soil. The parcel sits on a hill surrounded by parcels of homes at a lower level. There is a house 13027, La Barranco Road, then could be severely impacted by the rainfall and soil movement.
What is being done or technology to be implemented to prevent and to control rainwater and soil from spilling over or eroding the construction phase or after the property is developed onto other properties as it is currently open space in a natural state.
As the soil is undisturbed, removal of trees. How can we be assured that only 9 heritage trees and 4 other trees, a total of 13 will be removed. The concern about the trees, specifically the heritage trees have long roots, and they help.
In holding the soil from eroding. So there are 4 questions that I have on that one is number one, how many trees will be replanted on the property, and where? How large are the trees, and what kind of trees? The removal and planting of trees should be addressed and.
resolved before the permit is issued.
On construction traffic on La Bronco Road. As this is a one-lane, narrow, winding
road with
blind spots and a main thoroughfare for downtown Los Altos Santa San Antonio Road.
And Foothill Expressway, what is to prevent obstruction of traffic parking on La Barranca and soil and debris, including lumber screws, nails, and metal.
from landing on the road. Geological and land survey report. Where can we find that and can we review it?
Thank you. Thank you.
the next three.
Bracey and I need the amyst.
Thank you, Commission, and thank you, the applicant. First of all, we appreciate the current modification from previous version and we acknowledge that there's some change and we.
like it, but we are hoping to preserve more of the trees and preserve our environment. The 1st topic I'm going to talk about is a septic tank.
by EDPC report, it says the septic tank and the motor or motor whatever is within the 30 feet setback. I'm not sure if that's true, but if it's the case, can we move it? I don't.
There's no reason they have to be close to the property line. And because of that.
Because of the current location, they will ask to remove two huge heritage trees with trunks of 24 inch plus two because one has two and the other one is 24 inch. So there are two huge trees.
And there are other smaller oaks that they are not heritage. They didn't propose to remove, but if you put…
to likely they may have two septic tanks because it's huge development.
some of the trees may compromise, may be removed as well, and that will cause.
I'm sure you cannot see, but that would cause a huge… the whole canopy lost from my view, and there's no privacy between the 2 properties.
And, you know, the area is precious. We have very sloped lots, and that happened to be at the flat area. I don't want this cause my future development issue when using the flat area.
So first, I request…
to see if the septic tanks and each leach field can be as one of the engineer mentioned to move maybe more forward to there.
property or move to south facing slope. I don't know somewhere.
And the second thing is the slope variance that.
I understand some of the area that's close to La Branca Road. That's about 30% in slope, and that's supposed to be open space easement.
And there are some area, because of the proposed driveway.
thing, and they have to cut it.
I'm not going to comment too much on that because it's the fire department thing and that I don't know. But I would hope the other side, you know, the untouched, unneeded part still remain in the open space easement.
We certainly, because it's… I don't know if people have dropped there. It's very steep up there, and if there's no need to move it, don't touch it.
And, um…
I also want to address a little bit about the Williamson Act. I understand the owner has every intention to keep calm and sanitary operation with our neighborhood, and we appreciate that. But we would request legislation on.
If it get past what? Because they may move out, they may sell the property to the next owners. We need a legislation, not just there.
promise, you know, if there's a Williamson Act, what are need?
rules we have. The last thing is that my time's up. The last thing I want to address, James.
property tax calculation, but I don't have time.
Okay, so please try to summarize your thoughts very
quick. My property, because you
people been
here 50 years, maybe less matter. But for people moving here within the.
Last 10 to 15 years, a lot of property tax is value is based on our land. My property tax, the the house I have is 15% of the total value of my property in.
During the assessment. And I just checked my, you know, assessment letter from Santa Clara. So yeah, it is not that cheap.
Thank
you. Thank you.
I don't want to claim to be an expert in this area, and we probably should get some good advice and good legal explanations of this, but my understanding is the home site land.
is still valued at the regular, uh, tax rates.
Uh, anyway, that's a discussion for another time.
Hello, I am Grace. I live on Elena and Albaranca. So like Elena and Laboranka and I was just told by John
that
my house, when my house was built, there is a huge detention thing.
In my property. And let me tell you that it's not working when the when there is heavy rain runoff.
My property has huge pot of water. And then it break all my irrigation system. And when the water gets to the maximum, it…
all of a sudden it just goes down the road and to the other La Baraka residence. So I want to.
I want to let the engineers know that this is what's happening in the reality. So and the second thing I want to talk about is also on top of the property tax.
The property tax of Williamson Act, does the owner bought it at 700k in 2024. So when there is no Williamson Act.
The land should be 2, 3 million or 3-4 million. So when the Williamson Act got take out, I believe the Santa Clara County will slowly go up.
and assess the lab. So if the planning commission or the Council keep giving the Williamson Act.
Then the owner is paying a lot less property tax than the rest of us. So that's my second point.
And my first point is the Williamson Act. When I look at the staff report.
And look at all the planning and discussion seems like when the staff report look at it and the applicants, the owner to determine whether it is compatible, it seems like it's a checklist.
Okay, whether it has the primary gerry, whether it has the secondary.
Whether it has an aquaculture thing and then whether it has an open space. I'm sorry, this is an all of us, all of us here in LAH, we have all the four checklists.
So if the council, say, or planning commission say.
This property is compatible. Then all of us should be compatible to. Yes. So another thing.
Another thing I want to make is.
Why don't the
planning committee and the council follow the Santa character?
County. The Santa Clara County has this thing, say 10% limit, 10% development to the entire parcel. So if.
Santa Clara has this number. I keep hearing that say there is no quantity on this 4 item checklist. But then Santa Clara has a real number, 10% of the development limit. So why can we follow.
On it. Thank you. Good. Thank you.
Okay, last but not least, my name is Andy Gist, and I live on Footy Lane, but more importantly, I run a network of emergency of 70 house on
La Barranca, Elena, the whole neighborhood. I'm sorry. I'm having trouble hearing you. Go ahead and try that again.
Maybe you're so close, it's over-modulating like this.
Try that. Can you hear me
now? I have.
By the way, and I wear hearing aids, so I
should be able to hear you.
Thank you. My
name is Anne DeGuis, D-E-G-H-E-E-S-T, because
I thought you kind of killed it
there. I
run a group called
FLORT, which is an
emergency network of 70 houses on La
Barranca, Elena, all the side trees and Foothill Lane.
I want to expand on
one point, which is it is the job of the town to provide safety to all our residents. We have over 100 people in my in my organized group who go up and down La Baranca multiple times a day. I'd like to explain that that driveway.
The way it is designed in the blind turn is a safety hazard that the town will be liable if there's accidents. Is the town willing to make so many exceptions and so many changes to the law, you know, that makes an exceptions that just one property, that you increase the risk that we have accident.
It is a blind turn. We're going to be coming down at very high speed. That driveway there has to have a retaining wall because it's so steep there that visibility is going to be an issue, not only for the owner, who is going to be liable if it hits us, but for us to basically be at risk in an emergency route.
This role that Barranca has been identified by the fire department to be our emergency room in case of wildfires. And there's no doubt that it is compromising the safety of over hundreds of peoples in the neighborhoods. Please deny this request for all these exemptions that you're being asked.
Thank you.
The next three, Larry Del Carlo.
Liz Wilson and Eric Evans.
Thank you.
Thank you for letting me talk. Sure. My name is Larry DiCarlo.
Excuse me. And I live at 13117 La Branca, which is on the
corner of La Branca and Elena.
We've lived
there since 1976.
50 years. This is my first time talking in front of the Planning Commission, where they.
City
Council. Let's.
Hasn't been important to me all these years.
This has been, though. This is…
Something that both my wife and I.
feel
very strongly about.
And I'm not going to talk about all the things that our neighbors have talked about already. The driveway, I think, is ridiculous.
Having a 27 28 foot driveway in La Broncos.
It's a joke to me.
The heritage oak trees.
Terrible
thing to do.
That's going to increase the noise for the rest of us on that property.
My biggest concern is for the privacy of the neighbors that are close.
on
either side of that house.
A two-story house.
Uh…
Facing where it's facing is going to be.
take the privacy away from the neighbors in front, behind, and on the side.
which which I think is…
You know, everybody should have a.
The house of their dreams, but not at the expense of their neighbors.
The last thing I want to talk about is the Williamson Act. And I know that Los Altos Hills doesn't have a policy on that.
But the last time I checked, we were in Santa Clara, and Santa Clara County does have it.
A policy. And the policy that I read.
States that properties with 10 acres or less.
must have 75% of that property devoted to commercial agriculture.
And this certainly isn't the case in…
For this, uh…
For
this house. So.
I thank you for letting me talk and getting it off my chest anyway. Sure.
Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Wilson. I live on
Buena Vista
Drive in
Los Altos Hills. I am
not a
neighbor of this
project.
But I use that street regularly as my exit route
also. And
I think you need to be aware that that's actually a heavily used street and the ramifications the neighbors are speaking about should be taken into account because of that.
I also did some reading about development in Santa Clara County, and I'd like to confirm my reading also said that 10% of the property.
was to be.
developed,
uh…
and the rest put into the agricultural purpose. It appears to me in looking at this property, that more than 10% has been devoted to Mfa Mda.
And then my last thing that I'd like to say to you is that I encourage you to think about the precedents that you are setting here.
There are numerous variances that have been asked for on this property.
Almost all of us live on hilly pieces, and we all want variances.
Many of those were denied to other people. I think that you need to be aware that that's a sensitive topic, and that you need to be very careful about granting variances, especially with the quantity that are asked about for on this property.
And the same way about granting the Williamson Act.
situation. A lot of us would qualify for this, actually qualify much more easily than this particular property. And and get the tax write-off, and I I would remind you that that property tax helps just.
support our city. And without that money, that makes a big difference on our infrastructure. So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Eric Evans.
A combination of a large custom home adu and SE 9 simply does not fit
the allowable type of buildings nor use on a Williamson Act parcel.
building a custom home on a protected parcel would likely require an easement exchange whereby the area of land used for the development, which would be most of its Mda, would be removed from the contract in an equal amount of adjacent land, presume, presumably from an adjacent parcel.
would be encumbered by this contract. That's called an easement exchange. Alternatively.
cancellation of a Williamson Act contract by the owner must meet statutory findings, and if those can be met, then a penalty must be paid equal to 12.5% of the property's value as if the property were unencumbered by the contract. In other words.
current market value of an unencumbered property.
The town has given up significant tax revenue over many years to parcels that are under a Williamson Act contract.
The owner should not be allowed to remove this parcel from the contract without penalty and or paying back taxes, and then just to turn around and develop it to its fullest, most valuable potential under other non-allowed uses.
And with emphasis, they also should not be allowed to keep their Williamson Act contract and low tax base after building a full custom home to the limits of what's allowed with only a small greenhouse as the agricultural component.
This project could set a very dangerous precedent for the town.
Every owner in the town could very easily buy chickens, plant crops, maybe even just build a greenhouse, ask AI to develop an agricultural operations and business plan, which it would do in a couple of minutes, and then apply to enter into a.
a Williamson Act contract with the town, thus saving them huge amounts of money in property taxes and causing the revenue of the town to drop. Maybe that's what we all should do.
This application simply does not fit the requirements, intent, nor spirit of the Williamson Act. It should be denied in full until the owner has done the required work and paid the penalties and fees to properly cancel the Williamson Act contract, or let the 10-year contract.
non-renewal period run. Thank you. Thank you, Eric.
Is there any… a show of hands, is there anyone else who would like to speak on this
subject? I
see. We
still have two questions.
You have
names. I see. Very good. We still
have 2 more here. One from Harold.
Cut lab, and the other from sewerch.
That's
Carol Gottlieb, by the way. Thank you.
and ready.
Is there anybody online?
I don't see anybody online with their hands raised. Okay.
We
have one. Carol Gottlieb,
and I'm speaking for the environmental design and protection committee,
and we had
looked at it. Usually.
We usually one of our things is
to look up the property. How's how it
affects the neighbors.
But I think the neighbors tonight have done
an outstanding job of protecting themselves. So I'm going to speak on some sort of mundane.
topics.
First of all,
I'm very
concerned about the pump.
The sewer pump in the 30 foot setback. We do not allow swimming pool equipment.
We do not allow.
HVC
and our 30-foot step
back.
So if
we
start allowing pumps.
Electrical pumps in a 30-foot setback. I think this is going to
open Pandora's box. So I
ask if you're going to allow a pump in the 30 foot
setback that it becomes a variance.
At
least that doesn't open up quite the
Pandora's box, because we have a lot of see a lot of properties where people
have put pool equipment
and everything in the 37 set box. And we say, Oh, no, you can't do that.
The second topic that nobody has discussed is a.
the retaining walls, and this property is going to have excessive retaining walls to the driveway, and I would like to see it.
the color be a deutral color, earth tone color other than
a gray. So
I think
that's an
important, and that's
something we've
always
done in
site development when we see retaining walls.
The other thing is that the ADU. I think the height level of
an ADU is supposed
to be 19 feet, and I think this exceeds it, and I'm not sure whether you're supposed to have a
2-story adu. I thought it
was just one story adu.
So, that is something that needs to be looked at.
One of the things that I was really surprised at is to hear that the water is going to be directed down to La Balanca, because.
I always thought we weren't supposed to direct the water down to a street.
And it was supposed to be retained. And I'll tell you about these retention basins. My neighbors have them, and I have a ditch.
And so the retention masons let out water all summer long. So once I cleaned off the ditch, I no longer… I have to clean it out
again because
I get water coming down that ditch all summer long.
And I
gather it's from the retention basins, or somebody's swimming pool. I don't know what, but this means a lot more work on my part to maintain my property.
Um, I think that's…
Some of the little points that we would be mentioning if this was at a site development level. Thank you, Carol.
Okay, Sue Welch.
Sorry, I forgot my notes today, so I'm going to be more disjointed than usual. Okay. I sent you a written comments with two suggestions. One to do a better compatibility determination,
the one in the first report in June was based on what they heard.
From here, basically hearsay from the owner. He's going to do this and this, and this which is not adequate. And the the even the one from the from the most recent staff report is, I think, is lacking. Santa Clara County will not even consider.
would not even accept a file for a development project or a building permit from a Williamson Act parcel until they have a formal compatibility determination done.
And I don't know if anyone looked at? Did any of the staff or anyone look at what Santa Clara County does? Apparently they have a whole guidelines thing for this, and I just think we need we need better information about the compatibility. I think it's a major issue here.
Um…
And the second thing was get some better legal advice from a real land use lawyer who has an expertise in dealing with these parcels. This is a very complex, specialized things. If you make mistakes.
The penalties are enormous. So, you know, let's spend a little of the town money and get some get some real advice to make sure we're headed down the right road on this, because, you know, as people are saying.
I'm going to have chicken because my neighbor has chickens. I grew 500 plants and they'll have every time the last three years. That's an egg site. Okay. The other thing is that I think there's maybe people who don't understand that the Williamson Act also allows.
Just holding land is open space can be left as can be considered Williamson can meet the requirements for Williamson Act contract. And that's basically what the Fenwick property has been in. There's never been any grazing or ag there.
And that's what this… if you look at the aerial photos for this parcel, you can see that there's never been any ag done on this. And that's okay, because the Williamson Act allows that.
But now the contract that Parcel has with the with this parcel is that they can also have ag. And so they're going to be having a few chickens. And so okay, an important another point is that the regarding the.
building the law, the Williamson Act law requires that a residence built on the contracted parcel be quote incidental to the agricultural or open space use.
And it's very clear that the 10,000 square feet of development area that's coming with this house, with the residential stuff, is not incidental to the 300 square feet greenhouse chicken coop that.
That's going to constitute the ag. It's just not, okay? The other thing is that the open spaces, the.
Open Space Committee recommended open space easements over the the 30%.
Some of the 30% slope on the parcel, which is standard for the town. But the issue is because those.
You cannot put a open space easement, which is a requirement, a condition of development. It's required. You cannot put that type of easement in the Williamson Act. So they're going to have to be taken up that open space area will have to be taken out of Williamson Act.
And you can say, well, can't we just leave it in Williamson Act and have it act as open space? It would be the same thing. No, it wouldn't, because if it's left in Williamson's Act, the owner can get rid of it next year.
Whereas if it's in a formal.
Open space easement that was required as a condition of development. It is in perpetuity. Thank you. Complication.
Thank you. Thank you.
I don't see any others online or here in the chambers. I want to thank everybody.
Question.
Did
you make it this cold? So we go away? No.
Perhaps we we've warmed up the room enough that the thermostat kicked in hot air
out there yet.
I want to
sincerely thank all of you for coming here, especially resonate with the gentleman who said he somehow avoided this for 50 years. And this is what brought him here.
I appreciate that.
I do appreciate that every lot that we all have at one point was an empty piece of land, and somebody bought it and somebody wanted to develop something on it.
think that the owners of this property, they have rights as well. And the trick is to find something that works for everyone. But I am so grateful to have a thorough list of the issues that have come up.
for us all to discuss. Before we continue on with the normal steps here, I just wanted to ask, we've heard so much good information. Jay, is there anything you'd like to provide at this moment? Yes, certainly appreciate
it. Shouldn't we first
go with the applicant response?
If I
may, I believe I've had a conversation with the applicant
response staff. Naveen, hang on just one moment.
Go
ahead. Okay, so certainly appreciate the the residents and and the concerns that we've heard tonight. We've heard a number of property owners concerned with impacts to their property, and that the property owners are concerned with their property owner rights. I'd like to discuss a little bit about.
Those rights that all property owners have here in Los Altos Hills, and what our code allows for within the confines of the development of a property here in Los Altos Hills.
Um, when we look at that, we also have this conversation associated with the Williamson Act. And we've had a number of properties here developed in town that in the past have not even had a consideration of Williamson Act when they've gone through development. There's been a historic practice in town that has been inconsistent.
And this is one of the first properties that we've seen have this consideration for the Williamson Act be applied to their property when they've come in for development. We have a property on 2400 5 Oaknoll that went through two rounds with the town and never had the Williamson Act mentioned on their property when it came in for development.
Um, that was in 2006 and again in 2019. I heard a number of issues associated with the development tonight, and I'll start to try to address as many of them as I can before I turn it over to the the applicant to address maybe the more significant and things of impact that they feel are necessary to try to.
articulate their position and advocate for their project. But every project has a right to access. And this particular property is in a unique configuration where we've heard multiple property owners here talk about the steep slopes. When you look at where the access has been taken off of Law Baranca, it's actually one of the most sensible places to be able to access the property.
It has sight lines that allow for 205 feet of sight line to where the entrance to the driveway would be in both directions. That is consistent with the town's standards for being able to see safely the travel distance.
I heard a number of things about conditions and roads and glare and things of that nature, but I think if we're driving anywhere, there's always the potential for other constraints to impair drivers and their vision. This is not one of those issues.
When we come into the detention and runoff, obviously there's well-engineered design mechanisms to be able to control runoff, and they're poor mechanisms. We've worked with Lee and Braz on a number of projects here in town and hold them in high esteem. And we've heard that from the Commission as well as the Council when.
projects that have used their services, and certainly the review and the town has done of those designs would say that the tension associated with this project and runoff is appropriate for the level of access water that would be caused by the impervious constraint.
impervious materials.
For construction access, dirt and debris, we do have a number of city standards that relate to where vehicles can be parked, where the and maintenance for dirt and what Bmps would need to be in place. Those have been reviewed and approved associated with this project by the town's third party reviewers as well as town staff.
And will be monitored throughout construction. The slope of the drive specifically is related to the nature and the topography of this particular site. There could be additional requests to have increased grading and and cut associated with this to reduce the.
The slope of that driveway. But I believe this applicant was trying to be able to maintain compliance with our grading policy to the best extent possible, and it's a typical variance that we see for most development projects. As it comes to the driveway orientation. Again, it's controlled by a number of standards, and certainly the fire district is one of those controlling agencies when it comes to vehicle access.
And we defer in most projects to their requirements as it relates to access to the site. And that's not unique to this project. It's typical for projects within town.
Um, when it comes to the trees, our code has a preference for development over the trees themselves. If we're talking about the trees will be removed, typically for every tree removed, staff can require up to four trees of a 15 gallon variety, 24 inches in height.
Um, so there will be some allotment associated that with when landscape screening comes in for the project to be able to make sure that any disturbances associated with views and.
The removal of the trees in general, that there is a sensible number of trees put back to be able to make sure the performance aligns with the the current conditions of the project. We heard comments as it related to the septic pump. The septic pump is an underground utility. The town has shown an indifference as it relates to utilities that are underground that are within setbacks.
As it related to the penalties in particular for the property as it relates to violations of of the Williamson Act, those would be violations that would be occurring if there was not compatible use, and that there would have been.
No consideration for compatibility before the structures were introduced, and that's when you would find yourself in violation of a potential of our… of the contract.
And the contracts are looked at from an annual perspective to be able to see how they're performing associated with the intent of the contract. That responsibility has been for the portion, or the majority of the portion of the Williamson Act held by the county.
That has just recently transferred to the to the town. When I hear that there's a lack of regulations, we talked about the ordinance already and 616 that does set a local standard that is not codified within our municipal code, which does make it a much more difficult.
standard to find, but it relies heavily on the State regulations, not any local regulations, and staff actually heard a number of suggestions for having local designations of which staff would support. We heard some comments as it related to the value of the property and how it would be affected, and what the Williamson Act property.
designation does to that value. This property owner brought a property, and I heard $765,000. Well, that's the market value of the property because of the encumbrances associated with this property. It's not a $2 million property, not a $3 million property. If it was a property that was ripe for development, it would have been sold for that price.
And so, when we talk about what will happen as it relates to how the Williamson Act will affect this property, certainly design compatibility is one of those things that we're concerned with, and the performance of the overall contract. That's why in the staff report, we recommend that.
We look at those things very specifically, and what I would say is that this owner has tried to balance the intent of the compatibility with the Liamson Act, with the neighbors concerns, and has adjusted the ag use to their detriment, clearly in this conversation, as that there's a disbelief as to the ag use and its primary use on the property.
We do believe that there is a question as it relates to non-renewal, and whether the town would find this still compatible with the contract when it was entered in 1972, which is why we actually asked that the contract be looked at, and that there be a recommendation for the Planning Commission.
Above and beyond just compatibility. We think that's a best practice, even though we don't have a local standard that specifically would regulate those levels of compatibility above and beyond what state law has within them.
Um, when we look at the total area from the development perspective, we had, uh, I think an MDA associated with somewhere just under 8,000 square foot. This is a 1.16 acre property that has, um…
A number of steep slopes that will be protected by opsisace that were already protected by open space. And when you look at the total law coverage, we're talking about a homestead that is roughly 15% of the property, so by no means is it overly covering the lot.
And in some instances, we've seen properties with much greater areas and much greater development associated with them, even within the Williamson Act properties. So with that, there's a number of standards here that have been, I think, talked about and have been reviewed by staff and are comfortable with.
the project and the variances that have been requested. And so I just wanted to give that as some background as what all property owners have as rights, and then how the Williamson Act affects this particular property. And with that, I'd let the applicant respond to anything that they wish to address.
Thank
you. Thank you.
Okay.
Now let's ask the applicant if they wish to respond, provide any responses to the comments from the public or other discussions so far. Naveen, would you like to represent the response, or would you like one of your.
Consultants to do that.
I appreciate it. Appreciate it.
Can I… am I still audible?
Yes, I hear you.
Okay, great. So let me get started and then I will ask my team to add to me as well after me.
Yes.
For your information, your team is right here near the podium and already.
Yes. Yep, yep, got it. I mean, the only thing I would like to add to what Jay, you know, just you know added all the details, you know, and we've been working on this project for about 2 years now
We understand it's a complicated project, and we have… that's why we have hired the best of the, you know, best of the best to, you know, to make this project happen.
From the architect, you know, all the way to the civil engineering and everybody else. And at every point, you know, in this 2 years we have been working very closely with the staff, you know, making changes as you know for the recommendations like Jay just described
Now, also, I think there's a little bit of confusion. We did modify some of the ag use cases like Jay mentioned just now. We don't have 100 chickens, for example, that were there originally. It's reduced to like a very, very small number. You know, and the plants also have been reduced to a small restricted area, you know, things like that
So I just want to clarify that piece a little bit. Also, I think the location of the house and the driveway was a big concern, and I will let Pete talk about that more
But I do want to make sure that this was the only location possible that's buildable in that particular lot. And a lot of discussion went and debate and, you know, brainstorming went in with John Chow and everybody
Before we finalize that.
I hope, I think it's not us against them at this point. It's more like how we can make this project built
To, you know, so that it's good for everybody, right? I think that that's my hope here as we move forward.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm. There's three more minutes. If you'd like to respond with any other information. I think really brief.
I think really briefly, this is Chip Jessup again. First of all.
Jay described this property better and responded to all the comments way better than any of the rest of us could do that. I thought that was really excellent. One of the things that.
I guess Carol asked about was, can we call it the retaining ones? Absolutely. That's essentially, you know, we want a man, we want to fit in with what's going on. I do think that it's appropriate for people.
Maybe to reiterate some of the conversation about grading and grace, because that is, you know, obviously something that people can be concerned about.
Pete, if you could mention placement as well, and somebody else mentioned placement of the septic, whether it's in the 30 foot septex or not. I can
speak first to what is allowed in the setbacks, which is.
Excuse me, Pete, Carlene and Lillian Brace again talking about for this environmental health. The system will be below the ground. It's not a pool equipment structure above the ground. It's all subterranean equipment in vaults. So the town does allow for utilities, and so does the county.
To be located in the setbacks when they're below ground. When they're above ground, they are relocated outside of the setbacks. As transformers have been coming up lately as well. And so the septic tank is placed in an area. I don't think we're removing trees for the tank.
There are retaining walls adjacent to another reason the trees are being removed, but not the tank being placed there. We picked that location because it was the flattest of all the areas below the house where we could place it at, working with environmental health and the setbacks.
I think it's the leach field, probably, where the
right. It's
the tank and
the leach field. You pump it up to the pump it up to the upper area, so there's
a blood-grade tank that has storage that actually has a factor of safety of one and a half days, so if the power does go out.
That there's extra capacity for storage per the requirements of environmental health design manual. It is pumped up to the upper part of the site, and where it's dissipated in shallow systems on the upper part of the site. So all of the leaching of the septic is in the upper part of the site above the house.
And the leech is also underground and may be in the setbacks. Correct. Got it.
There
we are being mindful of trees that are up there. We have setback to trees, set back to the fault, setbacks to property lines, set back to steep slopes. So we really have one area to put the leash
field in. But there are 2 large heritage oaks in the leach field which are being removed.
Correct, because
that is the only area to put the leach field. Okay. And can you put the house up there because the house cannot be located in that area, given
the seismic. Yes. Can you speak a little bit about the location of the house and the placement of the house, which?
Attends the placement of the driveway. Why was this spot chosen?
I
would have to defer to the architect for the house placement. I did work with them on multiple iterations of driveway designs based on slope terrains, based on access points, based on establishing an area of the house, the backup area of the garages and the required parking spaces.
As part of it as well. So that was… I don't think it was specific to I want it there. I think as we started figuring out how to get to that an area
that could be developed. And is it you who looks at the safety concerns of the driveway?
The sight distances. Okay. I was the one that
did the placement working with town staff and working, uh, reviewing it. There's actually an exhibit that will be in the documents that I prepared as part of the AASHTO assessment for the line of sight. Okay, thank you.
And for the retention system, I did want to mention we did design with a factor of safety of 1.4. So there's not only the requirement, but an extra capacity requirement as well. So how
many year flood water calculations did you do? For the
town standards
of their drainage manual. I don't want to say it's 10, 25, or 50. It's their manual that we're complying with as part of it. I don't want to speculate on a rainfall intensity.
Because I think it's a storage requirement as required by town staff.
You know, I'd
be happy to give you a moment if you have
questions. I apologize, I just want to answer your questions. Any other questions? I'm happy to answer them. But again, I should mention also the walls are all built with pure and grade beam.
Not slide foundation, so they're going to be anchored into the bedrock. I'm not a structural engineer, but I'm saying when people are talking about concerns of soil movement, I don't think you can ask for a stronger wall. Pier and Grey being anchored into the bedrock. Okay,
thank you. I'd be happy to give you a moment if you had anything else to add. Sure, yeah, I want
to speak for the location of the house. If someone can pull up the cyclone, I can explain the.
why we chose the specific location, because that's the only spot we have because of the building envelope setback. 1st of all. So 40 feet on each side. It's in the front yard and 30 feet on the side and rear.
But and we also have those really steep slopes in the back, and the slope easement.
In the front, so… and the fault setback. It's a 50ft setback. So, like, really, we're we're just touching the borderline of those setbacks to meet the…
The design criteria that the owner gave us for the for this lot. I mean, this is we're trying to accommodate a family of actually 5. You know there. It's a multi-generational home. So it's not just.
the family of 3. So that's why we were using the maximum footprint as possible to to design this this actually it's only a $4,600 square feet home with the ADU and SB 9, which is a lot by the State.
Thank
you very much.
Also, Simon and Craig, do you have anything to add based on the discussions?
On the geoperspective.
Yeah, Craig Harwood here with quantum. The questions were raised about soil erosion.
Our geotechnical report provides recommendations on how to deal with.
erosion in the long term, and especially during construction. And so that's incorporated into the plans. We review those plans. And during construction, we would be out… a representative would be out there doing inspections and seeing to it that the recommendations are followed.
Thank you.
And the geotechnical engineer, and let's wrap this up kind of quickly. Yeah, with regard to
slope stability, that was obviously mentioned several times. There's an existing cut slope along the road there that's quite steep and tall, and that's been there for probably 60 years.
It's in good condition. It hasn't… there's no evidence of any movement or failure on it. And so that's a good example of what the future would look like on any similar kinds of cuts in there.
I see.
Thank you. I have a question for the applicants. Yes, in fact, it…
This is now the time for clarifying questions from commissioners. Yeah. Yeah, I just
have a question here. It's basically the big one has been ignored is the ADU. I mean, the ADU is a two-story.
detached ADU. And the thing is, when I look at my municipal
codes, you
know, we we give incentives to staying out of the setbacks, but the maximum building height, if it's detached, is.
Basically, it's one story and 19 feet.
and I've got and I've got the codes here. Do you have
any comments
on this? Oh, about the Edu.
Sorry, I was talking to the neighbor.
Brigitte, can you
repeat the question? Yes. You know, I'm.
But I…
Yeah, this is
probably for
staff,
right? We can address this. Yes.
I think the question was for Jay, actually. Yeah, I see that the question was meant… directed to Jay. Let's let Jay answer that first too.
Yes.
So based on, we did touch on this in the the June 8th meeting staff's view is that it is an attached adu because it's attached by the the covered porch.
So there's that physical attachment between the residents and we mentioned
at that meeting that that's not the way that we interpreted attach means is a shared common wall. It's not a walkway or a patio. That's the interpretation that we stated at the June 8th meeting as well, and that's why I asked this question, because.
It does go against our…
incentive, you know, the idea of adus are to be affordable housing, accessory dwellings.
not to be in… if it's attached, it's attached with a common wall. I
I I do appreciate the planning commission's interpretation, but I do want.
I think we could take that feedback, but I do not want this to be part of the decision-making tonight, as the ADU and SB 9 are ministerial.
And they're just shown as references to what is the master plan on the site. But the focus and the discretion that the Planning Commission has would be for the new residents.
I see.
And then one other issue I had a question for, because one of my big concerns, too, is that the glass roof is a huge skylight of 20 feet, 8 inches by 14 feet, 9 inches, and that intrudes upon dark skies policy.
Typically, we in the past, when we've looked at project, we make people reduce something that huge. I know you mentioned, you know, putting shades, auto shades. But that's something that we have no control over. And I know we had other projects on.
page mill and Altamont, exactly. Well, we had them reduce the size of their skylights because of dark sky compliance, and this is huge.
And I mentioned this also in the June 8th meeting as well. So this is not new.
uh, yo,
we did reduce the heights. Yeah, but then
we also mentioned the size of it as well. Right. This is something we can
discuss with the homeowner. I think this is not something that is detrimental to the project, that they must have such a huge skylight, but it is because the size of the courtyard that they want to maintain.
and have some sort of natural light coming down that's, you know, in line with the size of the courtyard. But I don't think that's something that we can… we cannot work on. Well,
that skylight is
not part
of the… it's the interior part of the living area.
So to me, that's not a courtyard. Courtyard to me is something exterior like the outdoor patio. Right.
Let me explain. So that's near the South Indian style home that we went after. And that is…
It was supposed to be a natural courtyard with without skylight, and to mimic that look, we created a skylight to provide natural light coming down. So that's when I said it's a courtyard, but it's not. It's not a courtyard. You're right. So we just.
Which is something that we can certainly work on the sides of the skylight
that is not. And the mechanical shade covers the entire skylight.
The mechanical shape?
Uh, Naveen, I think, yeah, the homeowner was…
Yeah, that's correct. I think the laurel shades that we have included in the document covers the entire
glass
Covers the entire glass. Got it. Thank you. Correct. Yes. Are there any other clarifying questions? Yeah, I do have
another from
the staff, actually. You know, when we talked about the 30% slope in that patio corner, is that included in the variance list? Because that requires, does not require a variance as well? It doesn't require a
variance. There's a bit of nuance in the town's regulations.
So, the municipal code does not prohibit development on 30% slopes. It goes down to a general plan policy, which says to reduce development in excessive slouch as much as feasible.
So the Planning Commission.
uh, would need to find that development is concentrated as much as possible in more gentler slopes.
But it… there's no prohibition on 30% slopes and greater.
If… if the town wanted to make that a development standard, it could amend the municipal code to fulfill the general plan, but presently it is not a development standard.
I thought we had done variances for. So that's for
not for the home. It's for…
development outside of homes, like pools and other such. Yeah, since it's a patio and it's
not liveable space, patio pools, and so on.
That's why
the triangles are only on outdoor areas. Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, thank you for clarifying for that. Okay, thank you.
Alright, I think I have…
Yeah, basic exhaust in my list for the time being.
any.
So I'm no question. All right.
Why don't we
close the public hearing, and we'll bring this back to.
The Planning Commission for discussion. There are a lot of issues here. And the first thing I just wanted to review before we get into it tooth and nail is the order of events here.
My own take is that it is still the case that the Williamson Act compatibility determination is kind of the pacing item. Yeah. And, um…
And I do think it would be good to offer the applicant feedback, and you know, maybe as far as approval or denial of the project as if it wasn't in.
a Williamson Act. I'm not sure that's that is what I want to discuss with you guys. So do we want to just look at the Williamson Act first, or do we want to look at it as if it wasn't in the Williamson Act?
First, and look at it as a zoning issue, and then look at Williamson. And wait, let me answer one other question, because I have a question which was that after that there's going to be a question of.
Does the town really want to have properties like this in Williamson Act and developing standards for how the town wants to react to Williamson Act, especially now that we're responsible for looking after Williamson Act properties.
Instead of the county doing that. I think that is a separate step to us. I don't think we need to focus on that right now. I think that is also just something that we make recommendations about, because we don't decide those things. City Council would decide those things.
So among these topics, how do you feel about the order of events here? So there are two ways of looking at it.
Do you want this to finish in 15 minutes or two hours? Okay. The two
hour
approach is go over everything.
Of which 1 hour and 45 minutes do not apply. Today, maybe apply later.
And the other way is focus on the most important part, and see if that at least gets to a conclusion for.
The project as it's today.
Giving an example, that 15 minutes is exactly the point you brought up first, that the most important thing is to talk about Williamson Act.
Now, what about Williamson Act is what we have to discuss in that 15 minutes, because clearly, that also is not in our purview alone. It has to go to the Council.
So, if I had to select, I would say, let's only talk about that.
Figure out exactly what we want to communicate to the council as to our viewpoint.
and leave it at that, because we are going to be back some other day.
to look at all the other things one more time, and based on today's feedback, I have no idea how maybe the applicant goes and changes things.
Right.
So that's… I agree. I think the top issue here is compatibility
of Williamson Act, because depending on what gets determined at city council level with our recommendation to city council level determines how we approach this site development. And that's, I think, the point that Sue well she made.
In Santa Clara County, you wouldn't even have a site development until the Williamson Act is resolved, whether it's a non-renewal, it's a cancellation. If it's whatever, because the thing is, too, if you file a non-renewal.
Okay, so that happens. And then what happens? Do you take path 1, like John O'Connell said, or path two? You know, there's still other procedural things that we're not exactly knowledgeable on, and I agree, we need to really focus on the compatibility issues.
I have
one more
little caveat, too, which is interesting. As part of… I've got a six-item list for non-compatibility that, as I've been delving into these issues, like all of us, we've spent a lot of hours working on this.
Is that the fact that SB9s are not allowed on Williamson Act. That was kind of a thing that I discovered as I was looking at other municipalities and places, because the 2 programs don't have… are totally polar opposite goals. One is preserving.
you know, agricultural lands preserving open space conservation. The other one is and staying away from urbanization. The other one, Sb. 9 is promoting urbanization and more construction. So they have polar opposite goals that conflict.
And there are counties out there that don't permit that at all, which actually adds another caveat. So that's why I say, if we look at the site development, there are little gotchas everywhere, so we really have to focus on the Williamson Act incompatibility first and foremost, because.
Depending what happens there will kind of help.
direct what happens at site development. So I
resonate with both of what you're saying, but I'd like to get some feedback from Jay and the team, and maybe Claire on the approach that we're describing.
Well,
it's pretty simple. City Council needs to decide on ways to act here. No, no, no,
I know how you feel about this, but I know,
but before that, let me also put my view. Yes, I do not want the staff to tell me, let's talk about the site development and.
Once that is blessed, we'll talk about the Williamson Act later. Sorry, I'm not going to go there.
I want Williamson Act to be resolved first. Then it comes back to Planning Commission for site development. I'm not talking about site development approval today at all.
So, I hear you?
And… and in addition, the reason I
wanted to say that is because I got hints from earlier staff's commentary of the reverse. Yes.
I think that the applicant has put in an awful lot of work in response to our first meeting, and I want to acknowledge that I think they have rectified everything we identified, and maybe there's some more things to identify.
But I do want to say that they did a job of trying to improve that situation.
And I hear what you're saying. I'm gonna take a little bit of prerogative here to… I agree with Rajiv. You know,
I don't…
let me say, I don't disagree.
Yeah, you want to keep it to be
15 minutes
or 2 hours. No, no, no, this is perfect. I don't disagree. It
is not going to be the two hours route, but I want to get some feedback from staff because I respect how much work they've put into this as well.
Jay, would you like to?
say anything in support of working on the Williamson Act first?
Yeah, I I certainly agree with that approach.
All
right. Done deal. So so if
I had to quickly, you know, comment on it, right? We already talked about the site development permit.
For now, we can wait till we get a clear.
Indication about the Williamson Act, right? In the Williamson Act also.
I think the most important thing which I did not hear from staff report.
was the fact, till the end was that.
Until recently, this was in the purview of the county, and only recently the county has been pushing it to the different towns.
Now, if that has been the case.
The logical thing for any town to do is.
Deer in the… you know…
headlights, right? You have no clue somebody has pushed something on you.
What is the first thing you do? If something comes up, you go back and look at the county rules and decide what to
do since you have none. That's not exactly what was pushed back. What was pushed back was the annual survey of how things are going, not the rules, the county's rules never applied here. Never applied.
But what
I'm saying is when you don't have anything, you go to your near neighbors and look at what they have. We do
have
something. We don't have anything. I'm not okay
with the
contract. I'm talking about.
What is the compatibility and development rules on Williamson Act parcels?
We don't have any guidelines. No, I agree. I think that we should… We don't have any guidelines. We don't have any policies. However, the county does.
The county does.
Okay, so we don't have any. The county does. That very well
may be something we could recommend. Just adopt the county's rules. So that doesn't affect the fact that these folks already have a contract. No, no, I agree about the contract,
but all I'm trying to say is.
This is what I would like for us to agree and send as a proposal to Council, because we need to tell the Council.
What is it that…
They should be looking at. So, in my opinion, what they need to be doing is…
Are you talking about it in respect to this property, or are you talking about it, generally speaking, when we see Williamson Act, this is where we think Williamson Act should be, this is where we think it shouldn't be. To me, I completely agree.
For
the general Williamson Act parcels in town. we need the council to have a proper.
compatibility, determination rule set or guidelines.
Along with… Well, okay,
I think we have to be careful. Compatibility is with the contract. The contract already exists, and we have to evaluate it on that. Separately, we need policies for how to handle Williamson Act. And by the way, the guy that told me first about the need for policies.
was J.
No, no, all I'm trying to say is it's not only about Williamson Act, but how and what are the guidelines and policies for developing.
Williamson Act properties for other than their uses, which is generally agriculture or open space.
Yeah, that's the bar,
which is the most important part, which needs to be…
Okay, so but let's just take a moment and assume that that's where we're gonna go. We're gonna ask staff to start putting together policies for a better roadmap for how to do Williamson. But what do we do today? Okay, well, let me
start then. So, so,
so on this property.
My view is, until we have that.
There is nothing we can do about site development, because we need that guidelines.
To apply to
this property. No, but what we need right now, though, Rajiv, is the fact that we need to come up with a non-compatible… to make a recommendation to city council so they can rule on this compatibility non-compatibility. For example, you know, other municipalities.
Riverside County, for example, anytime you change anything on a Williamson Act property.
no matter what, it basically nullifies the contract, and there is no grandfathering, and especially if there's no residents that exist on a property. But you're talking about policies
for the future for how we do… But
the thing is here, too.
You know, it puts away…
The contract is what it is on this property, but by them changing and putting all these other things, they're taking away the focus of the open space conservation that's been there. I know the talking agriculture, but there's no grandfather. I
agree. I
could not find… I could not develop a finding that said.
Agriculture was the primary use. No, here it's open space.
And actually, you know, even… Can I tell you one thing before you go further? On our general plan in the land use element there, this is on the map that's all shaded with the little hash mark showing that this is the open space conservation area per our land use.
On, um, in the general plan, the back portion of it, which is the area where, you know, open space play… so it was just interesting to see that we do have that designated even in our general plan, this particular property. I'm trying to tease apart the issue.
Can I tell
you about another compatible issues? The other thing…
So, Chair, if I
I'm sorry, if I may add, I just wanted to offer some
some discussion points, or maybe outlines for you to think about when you're
discussing the topic because as chair, you mentioned that there is the issue of this project in itself, and there is a contract
stating what are the
or compatible uses for the property. And there is the larger question about what you should do as a town when it comes to Williams map projects
the policies, and also keep in mind that we're agendized for the project tonight. So that's one consideration
The policies that
the town establishes and applies to projects going forward
They are not going to apply to this particular project.
Because the application, this is a housing project, the application is already complete. Here we are
at the hearing stage.
So I just want you to keep that in mind. So when you're considering these issues.
They're overlapping in some ways because they're they're you know similar discussions. But
You should keep that particular division in mind that we're talking, what we're talking about is whether the project which has a contract that's in place
So I think we could say something like.
Um, we can't find that this is compatible with your pro… with your contract. You need to exit your contract, clean that whole thing up, get rid of the Williamson Act, then come back and we'll talk about development.
Exactly.
Sure, exactly. That's exactly… And
I think one of the, uh, I forgot who, but one of the residents put it very clearly that Williamson Act compatibility is not a checklist.
It is all about what is the primary use? Well, be careful! And this is, in
my view, I've read everything I can
read about this, and I believe what you just said, but I'm not a lawyer. No, no, no,
I agree, but that's what
I'm saying. It's very unclear.
Yeah, I think we need legal advice on that.
So
at least I
believe I have the right to interpret it my way till somebody legally corrects me.
And to me, I think Williamson Act properties should primarily
be used
for their primary purpose, which is open space or act.
It's
only ag or ag. It's
it's ag.
But but
what I'm
saying is that's the way I would like to interpret it myself, till I
hear a
legal argument against it. So can
I, in
fact, add to that? Yes, as a primary
use. Yes,
ag has to be a primary use.
And then you can have these other things that are compatible with it. Yes. And I think that our policies could state things about percentages and limits and how much could be supported.
Right. But
I think personally that we're talking we're heading towards a continuance.
Right. Over getting legal advice about determining that this is not compatible with their own contract because it's not a prime agriculture. We cannot make a finding that the.
Agriculture is a primary use on the lot. Right. And that's
just one. But,
you know, the thing is too, it could also still, because I know that staffers wants to get like building up what other issues are there? Well, this since this is an open space conservation Williamson Act.
taking out 9 heritage oaks goes against that contract.
That's one item. Exportation of 1400… 1410 cubic yards of dirt also goes against the Williamson Act, because you're not preserving open space conservation. The other thing, too, is.
The interesting part is that the owner initiated a renewal of this act in January of this year for a continuation of the contract, which was open space conservation Area, and now they're switching.
hats and saying they want to use agriculture, and there's been no
agriculture. The
Prime Act never was open
space. It's agricultural.
No, it's out there. It's your…
Yeah.
It's agricultural or
undeveloped. Well, if it's undeveloped,
you
might think of that as being open space.
No, it's… It is
the confusion here that
is pointing me towards continuing this until we get legal advice from a land use attorney that specializes in
Williamson.
And outside of our counsel. Yeah, I think that we asked for that back in June. I want
to just make this comment.
The two parts of it, as Claire mentioned, today we are talking about this project.
And so for this project, it's exactly what you just mentioned. However, I would also like, because this is going to council.
I would also like to guide or recommend the council to come up with some guidelines and policies for Williamson Act parcels in town, so that we are not here again.
Talking about some other future project.
And determining its compatibility in a vacuum. And you know what, Kelson could come back and
say, you know what, Planning Commission, could you please go take a look at Santa Clara County policies and see what we can do to adopt those in to help us. And that would be something that Council could direct let's
try to let us get
this. Did
you close public hearings, by the way?
Yes. Let
us… I
was just going to try to help.
No, give us a moment and see if we can do it on
our own.
What I
don't want you to do, and I'm concerned it's going then.
The the primary goal here.
is
I don't think…
I spoke to the neighbors.
The neighbours don't want to see this project get held up for ever.
They're appreciative of the things that have been done. They'd like to see.
A little bit more done.
So, if you're not careful with the path that you're on.
We're going to throw the baby out with a bathwater.
I hear you, but I also don't want to set the precedent of stating that a property that has a minuscule amount of agriculture on it is compatible with a Williamson Act thing, because that could come back to bite us.
We
have…
And
it becomes…
Okay.
Sure, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just, if you're going to take public comment, you should open the public hearing again, if that's what the Commission wants.
I'm going to open the public hearing for 60 seconds.
Okay. The the town. I really do want to
hear John's
advice, because I know that he's put a lot of time into understanding this.
The
town has, if you go and read the ordinance or the resolution that I I pointed to the town does have beyond this contract.
Right? And this contract is identical for every single William Snack parcel in the town.
The town made a very conscious decision.
The parcels that it was going to allow William Snack contracts on.
Whereas yet.
Not subdivide as yet undivided.
or as yet unimproved.
And the goal was to slow down subdivision and to slow down the development in the town. So every single.
contract that's out there and some parcels are more open space than others.
But if we get into saying that this part.
parcel it because it is not open space is not a valid Williamson Act contract.
It's not an agricultural primary use. Then rather than simplifying things, we're just making this problem more complex. So my recommendation to you.
My recommendation is…
The applicant could…
File a non…
a non-renewal, and they could do it next week.
I don't know how long it takes to get done, but they could come forward with a request for cancellation.
And if…
There is a finding that it is, you know, there's no public interest issue and there is public support for it.
that could be findings made, and this entire thing could just be cleaned out in a month. Okay, thank you,
and that's going to be the end of the podium here.
I raised my hand too
Um, I… I would make a…
I raised my hand too.
Yes.
Chair, I'm sorry, if there are other comments, you should, I would advise commission to take them as well, since the public hearing was reopened.
All right.
So, Jim, I have a comment as well.
Awesome. Yes, Naveen.
So, Jim, I think at the very beginning, I think in Jay's submission, he very clearly stated that there is another property that went through this Williams that had the Williamson Act
And that has completed the development. In 2006 and 2019
And Williamson Act was never a consideration, right? We feel we are being
Particularly highlighted
We actually feel that the whole, you know, the room is completely, you know, picking up this one thing
Although it has been reviewed by the staff
reviewed by the Clare
And they came to a conclusion
And their conclusion being questioned without a policy in place
And the policy discussions are happening on the stage
I think this doesn't look the way we should conduct
And we will have our own measures that we will take
Thank you.
I thank you. Let me just comment one thing.
All the neighbors I have spoken to have said how they want to welcome you to the neighborhood that… and they want you to get started as soon as you can. And so I know it must feel.
challenging, but uh…
We're… we all want to get you started. We just want to do it in a way that is consistent with how we want to move forward with the Williamson Act. And I'm sorry that there were these other things that happened in the past. I… we don't know anything about that.
My understanding is that those… it was an overlooked thing. It wasn't something that was decided to not consider. And I think that it… that we're trying to do the right thing now.
And, um, I… there are some policy questions. I would like to see those separated from the this discussion. And so we can focus on just this.
Um, so…
I feel like there is a real need for some land use attorney input.
to understand the… our role in this compatibility determination and what criteria we should be applying.
I've read those contracts myself. They are thin, but they refer to other documents. I've read those, too. And with
that, there is two, three other adjacent questions, right? The one which…
I believe one of the residents, Sue Welsh, brought up about how open space easements play along with
Williamson Act. And SB
9. So that's
one. SB9 is another one. So there are these which need…
An expert to provide us a concrete answer for me, let
me quickly come in. Sorry
to interrupt, but first of all, I thank Jim's common sense in a way that.
Sorry, planning, you shouldn't use the overlooking or mistake you did in the past to rule the new finding or the newly identified issue here. I'm sorry. If anything happened past without attention.
It's not our responsibility. It's someone else's.
The second, I don't know how much we need to argue whether this is a primary agriculture or primary open space, or whatever with this kind of development, you invite any person in this world.
They will say, no, it doesn't look like an agriculture land. I don't know how much money or time or…
Among this highly educated people, we have to dig through the word wording
to see
what is the primary agriculture. It's not. Yeah, they were given the contract years or decades ago, or almost, yeah, but then at the time, the land was not developed and never used for the past.
70 years? I don't know how many years, 50 plus years.
You are changing the land as one of the neighbor…
brought up earlier, you are making big difference on it. And naturally, it's not supposed to inherit.
the contract of Williamson, because you're changing it.
Right.
Thank you very much. Yeah, exactly.
There's nobody else that would.
No, I do have to respond back, if I may, please.
Jim.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah.
Please go ahead.
So I think the response to that is, what if in 1972 when this contract was written.
It was written, like, no development should be made in this one, right?
What would the neighbors say at that point? Right? So would that be? Oh, okay, you know it is what it is. You know, it cannot be changed.
We are inheriting a contract that is written, and we are following that contract at this time. We're not changing it. We are following it.
Whichever way it was written, right? We are not modifying it
And, also, it's, it's
It's
We feel the Williamson Act
compatibility has been checked
You know, by the staff.
And approved
And I think we would like to
go with that. Thank you.
Thank you, Naveen. Unfortunately, the staff doesn't approve that we do or or or we make the determination, and and my concern is, we don't know the criteria with which to make that determination. I'm going to ask for Jay's input.
Yeah,
so, um, certainly appreciate the robust discussion here again. And obviously, I understand that some of staff's comments here, you know, think to support or not support Williamson Act or the the project, and so…
I want to be very clear, you know, if someone comes for a new Williamson Act contract, the state law is very clear in the size and uses that the state law currently in its form requires. And so we would be evaluating any new property as it relates to that on those criteria as it stands currently.
And I think it would be very difficult for a number of properties of the size that this current property is to be able to meet that same burden that William Sinak now places on property owners that would be requesting Williamson Act.
It's one of the reasons why, again, you said, you heard me say earlier as best practice. We would suggest that you consider a recommendation on whether renewal or non-renewal should be decided tonight, and we would pose the fact that we've heard enough comment from the public that the non-renewal should be one of the first things that should be a fairly easy.
Um, topic for the Commission to weigh in on whether they would recommend that the Council look to non-renew this contract. The contract has provisions from both parties in it that allow for non-renewal for any number of reasons, or no reason at all. So, I would
first ask… Is there an advantage to the applicant filing for non-renewal instead of… Both parties
have equal right to file non-renewals in it.
So I think there's a question here that if we could answer first that, then we can talk about compatibility, and what compatibility means. If if we don't define this project as being compatible, we have the contract to use first to be able to determine compatibility.
But then, if we don't find that that's… and you don't find that that is compatible, then that will stop the project from moving forward until either our non-renewal takes place, and then a cancellation would take place after that. I would
be more comfortable if we…
uh, decided on non-renewal based on some standards, some objective criteria that we established or and that with city councils input. But I I wanted to make sure that that wouldn't preclude.
The applicant from saying, you know what, I don't want all this delay, I'm sorry it's going to cost me a couple hundred thousand dollars, but maybe I should file the non-renewal and do the cancellation and get on with the project, while we independently work on.
objective criteria for how we want to handle this in the future.
Yeah, certainly from a policy decision that that's certainly something that the Commission has purview over right? And I think what what staff was trying to get to in this point is whether or not that, you know, circumstances like this, you know, that we have before us now.
Should be part of that consideration, you know, and the criteria that moves these types of projects forward when they come in for development. So, you have an opportunity right now where you've heard a number of individuals say that they weren't supportive of the Williamson Act because of the nature of the ratio of the.
the agricultural use. And you've also heard staff say that the applicant has adjusted their agricultural use, you know, which then has an impact on whether or not it's a prime agricultural use or not. So, there's.
There's that question in general as to whether or not you want properties of this size, which don't currently meet the state statutes as it relates to 10 acres of prime acreage, which is not a hard and fast rule, it's a rule of law.
It's a general guideline and then you have 40 acres of subprime. So there's very few properties within Los Altos Hills that would still be able to fit those criteria. And when you looked at, again, resolution 616.
They talked about having 100 acres of land when it came into the Williamson Act. So I think there's enough things that, from a findings perspective, that certainly the Commission could make a recommendation on for non-renewal at this point. I just don't see the advantage to
it. Well, so the reason
that there's an advantage to it is eventually then there's a deterrent if you make the determination for compatibility, the individual gets.
to move his project forward, but the recommendation then at that point would be in 10 years, they're going to be paying full tax burden. And at that point, you know, they still can have their agricultural use. There's nothing that removing the Williamson Act would stop. Every property owner again has rights to agricultural use here in Los Altos Hills.
And so, from that perspective, what you're starting to do is forcing the applicant's hand as to whether or not you find for compatibility or non-compatibility whether they have to cancel immediately or if they have to cancel after 10 years. And that's the part here.
I
would rather that be their decision, and it will be whether they want
to develop now or 10 years from now. If you say that it's noncompatible.
Right.
You mean we file the notice of non-renewal, but they filed the cancellation? Correct. If they want to move
their project forward, they can cancel.
And they can do that, and then move their project
forward immediately. I could support that
I yeah, no, I get the logic here, right? If, let's say, we file for non-renewal.
We as in we recommend to the Council, and the council is the one who determines that.
Then the fork in the road for the applicant is.
To go forward, and in 10 years, it's anyway going to go out of Williamson Act.
Or, to pitch for compatibility.
Which, again, we have to determine yes or no. If it's yes, it's one path. If it's no, it's a 10-year sunset time.
So,
in a way, you're saying that along this path, there might be a chance that we get out of having to educate… adjudicate the compatibility question. Yes.
Because
the other option the applicant might have is, I don't want to go down this compatibility path, I'll just file for cancellation right now. Yeah. Well, okay, so
that was,
to me, the question. Is that right, the way I thought?
So,
you'd still have to make the compatibility determination. You don't get out from under that
one. Yes.
Okay, so to me, you either make the compatibility determination, and if it happens to be no, you also, at the same time.
Say you're going to file for non-renewal. Recommended
both of these instances.
Recommend for non-renewal, or you recommend for non-renewal now.
you're still coming back for the for the compatibility, right? No, no, no, I think
what I heard is we
have to
do more findings now for non-compatibility. And then I'd also like, you know,
depending on what motions are before you, I'd also say that there's maybe a check-in with the applicant, depending before you make a vote on a motion, because I think one of the things that.
you know, it is unclear right now is kind of where the commission's direction may be to staff, and I think they may have some some thoughts of their own, depending on where they see you may be heading. So maybe some straw poll voting would give them an ability to then intercede with maybe some other comments that they would have made. But having
said that, Jay, whatever we do.
It's going to the council.
So, if it's going to the council, let the applicant take the time to come up with a thought.
you know, thinking through it for at least the last next 2 weeks, or whatever the Council meeting is.
And let it get resolved then. What their viewpoint is. Why are we pushing them right now when the poor guy is in India and it's like…
way past,
you know,
yeah, morning there actually so it's fine.
I do not feel prepared to make a compatibility determination without legal counsel, legal advice. No, I'm
ready to. And
the reason is.
without legal counsel, I'm going to interpret it the way I would like to, and my interpretation is going to be that the primary use of this.
parcel as I see this project is residential and not agriculture, and to me, that is.
The reason for me saying not compatible. I see, and you
feel like it's just your opinion that matters. No,
right
now, without any other…
opinions or guidance, that's what I would like to.
say
state.
No, the second part is.
So
is
that we defer this
for legal opinion, like you had mentioned earlier.
But,
regardless of what I'm saying.
A legal opinion will be required, and.
I'll change my opinion when I hear the legal opinion, if need be.
Claire, could we get some advice?
Yeah, so to that question, if the commission is not
You want further information on that topic, you're not clear about the basis for compatibility
You can continue the item. As Jay mentioned, the contract does provide for the non-renewal process. There is
The Council ultimately decides to… to serve that notice, there is a notice period and then there is needs to be an additional public meeting or public hearing for to receive any objections. So there is a process for that
But with respect to the compatibility, if you're not clear, for example, there's two
Levels of compatibility. If you think about it this way, there's a contract. So the statue first says
Compatible uses. So the statute defines agriculture uses to be commercial agriculture. And then it says compatible uses essentially is
you know, anything that the city decides to be compatible, subject to findings, but includes agriculture, open space, recreation. And then it goes to introduce some compatible compatibility principles when you first
you know, at the first level, you're establishing what compatible uses are. But in this case, there is a contract. The contract says that primary and secondary dwelling units are compatible
and the section 2 of the contract says that it's supposed to. It's pursuant to the Wellness Act, and it's subject to amendment to the Willism Act.
That may be made after the contract is executed. So there's so there's that component. I would just say the statute does not
talk about the percentages, or whether the use of agriculture use has to be
primary or the compatible uses are incidental. It doesn't talk… it doesn't go into that, and all the
the examples and the legal authority which you know they really involve different situations where there's a subdivision or a cancellation. They relate to where the county, for example, Santa Clara County has rules about what constitutes
compatible uses, and those rules talk about incidental uses, or incidental to the agriculture uses
And so to the extent that you want to understand how the town can make a determination about compatibility when
You know, the contract has the uses and the statute doesn't give much guidance. If you want to understand that, you know, you can continue it. That's not that is within your purview.
So I just offer those thoughts for your consideration.
So the issue that I have with this, not now, not now, not now.
The issue that I have with this is that I've read the contract, and I've read the second paragraph that says it must follow the 1965 act, and I follow that thread down, and I my own analysis says that there is an issue.
about primary use of the property, and I want to know if my own analysis, my own understanding, my own opinion can direct me right now to say it is incompatible with the contract for that reason.
And it should be, uh… and we should file a notice of non-renewal. Can I do that based on my own read, my own understanding of the situation?
So with respect to the non-renewal, you don't have to make any findings. The contract provides for that.
The statute provides for that you can either side can not renew at any time, subject to the process I talked about
Yep, exactly.
If you
I'm sorry.
the findings. No, please go ahead. Go ahead.
But if you're speaking about compatibility, I think the commission should think about the contract provision says certain users are compatible. So if the opinion that
The uses that are stated there are not compatible, then you should give reasons why that is. And the reason should be based on what you're the record does before you and on the
applicable statutes. So if you feel that you can
Based on opinion on those grounds, then, you know, you can express that opinion and you can vote a certain way. But if you're not clear about that, you have the ability to continue the item.
So I want you to kind of think about it in that framework.
So I think the main thing, what you heard, Claire, is we are focusing on primary use.
As
one of
those main items. The second part, and the third part, could be, and we'd like to hear your views on applicability of SB9.
uh, development on Williamson Act parcels. And the 3rd part we'd like to hear from you is about open space easements in Williamson Act parcels.
All these three have come up today.
All right, well, as I mentioned before, the statute does not talk about primary use, it just identifies agriculture which needs to be present on the property and the compatible uses, it doesn't go into specifics about
What, you know, maybe 10% of land has to be this and 20% has to be the other use. It doesn't go into that. And I my view is and my read of that is because it
gives that ability to the local jurisdictions to adopt the rules and compatibility and make findings
So it doesn't… it doesn't really speak to that issue. And so that's where I'm I'm offering that if the Commission wants to
Some further research, some further information about that aspect, you know, you have the ability to continue the item. With respect to SB 9,
I mean, I do think that without specific findings of uses, so for example, if the Willis Mac policy says, you know the residential use has to be incidental
Or if the property is not zone residential or for single family, for example, then you might have a reasonable argument that the SB 9 is not allowed. But if its property is
Within
single-family residential, you know, it's not a prime farmland or a reserve for endangered species or some specific fish and game code provisions that are specifically referenced in SB 9. I do think the SB 9 would apply
Yeah, I think the difficulty that in those situations is that the contract says it's not allowed.
And then as the open space easement, it's… the easement is an easement, and so if it's recorded, against the property, it preserves that area in the same way.
I mean, as a from a talent perspective, we wouldn't allow development to be in somebody else's easement area or the area that's preserved for a specific use because that's really a property right. And so we've been
The SEI units wouldn't be allowed to be in there.
Um, I'm very leery to open the public hearing unless you have something truly informative that's extremely short. Yes.
I
think I do.
Given all this conversation.
We and our clients don't think that this should be continued. So if you're not going to approve it.
As it is, we'd like to have you just deny it. I see.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
That is the level of information I was.
I did want to hear.
Now,
one thing to remember, we are recommending board. We do the legwork and the groundwork for city council. So what we say is going to get up to city council. They're the ones that have to make the determination. We're just recommending. And we had set this back on June the 8th. We wanted to have.
Legal, specifically knowledgeable in Williamson Act.
weigh in on this.
And I don't think we feel comfortable with what we've been presented, because I can tell you,
SB nine honor what the what the applicant just said. Yeah.
and
and.
I mean, clearly, I understand where that would head to.
and you have every right to do that.
If we deny the project as it came to the Planning Commission today.
is that are we? Do we need to deny both the zoning portion of it and the Williamson Act portion? You just deny the whole thing? No, no,
no. So
you have to identify findings for the denial? Yes.
Yeah. So again, this is why when I began the conversation, right? You've got your normal land use authority related to this project related to the variances. So if you were not going to be supportive of the project, and you were going to deny, it's going to be based on the merits of the project and the variances that are before.
for you. Okay. And you would have to make those findings specific to this property.
Is it sufficient to say that we.
deny the project because we do not.
find that it is compatible. No, no, no,
it's on the merits of the variances that are before you.
Oh, it's not on the merits of the no compatibility determination absolutely I thought that if we had if we failed the determinate the compatibility determination.
That is a denial, or that is the end of it.
It's…
I don't even want to talk about the site development. So variances are out.
I want to only focus our denial on
the Williamson Act
compatibility. So, Claire,
this is a question from staff, if you don't mind, to the chair. This is where what is the appropriate action that the.
Commission should be taking as it relates to compatibility. If they want to if they want to honor the applicant's request.
So the commission is making a recommendation.
And so if you're
If you're not able to make
So if you don't you're of the opinion that the uses are not compatible
You
we'd recommend that you articulate why, and you would forward that recommendation
Up to the city council and
That you know you would I don't think that you would need to reach the variance findings because you would essentially be foreigning the
the
determination that you know you recommend city council that
the find the use that's proposed could not be determined to be compatible with the contract.
And therefore, per the contract, you
Well, the good news here…
So, Jim,
if I hear what Claire just mentioned, and if I read.
There were three requests.
Variance for the driveway grading policy exception, VLAMCN Act compatibility.
So out of three, we could choose any one to deny the project. Yeah, but she wants
what she said, though, was that the first two, we don't have
to address. That's because we can address the third. The third one, uh…
We… the good news about denial on the third one is I pardon me, but I get what I want, because this is going to lawyers and attorneys, and this… that's where I think this needs to go.
to understand the true legal ramifications of this. And so I think we could deny saying that it is not compatible on the grounds that it is not a… agriculture is not a primary use of the parcel.
I would
like to
add
because I
think we need to give more information to the council on this, and we are uncertain about how open space easements apply to Williamson Act properties.
And we are uncertain about how SB9 zoning applies to Williamson Act properties. The issue with… And I want that to
be also
determined by the legal, uh, along with the… But the issue
with that is that if we're uncertain about something.
we should continue and go get certain about it. I'm saying that we're certain that this is not a primary application of agriculture. I agree. Right.
I agree.
And just to kind of preface a little bit, you know, getting back just to…
A little bit more information. SP9, this whole idea of not being allowed in Williamson Act, both Santa Cruz County as well as Sonoma County have that.
As part of their…
docs
for it. But the issue is that we don't. Right. Well,
you know, it's their interpretation from what's happened in Sacramento. I think it's in their ordinances. Right,
but it's… yeah,
so they've
made it
clear, but it's also the interpretations come from maybe… So we might have to do
that in
the future.
I am going
to propose
a motion… Yes. Actually, I'm the chair now and I shouldn't do that but you're so good at it though.
one
that the applicant does have his hand up. I don't know if that.
I'm
sorry, what? The applicant, the owner. Yes, go ahead.
So, Jim, I think your primary reason is, like, this is not, compatible with primary agriculture, right? That's your point.
And the point, and I think what you've also observed on June 8th and today
There is so much of pushback on any kind of agriculture in that one, right?
Okay, so it's in between the houses, you know, there, you know, like, there is health issues. We could… I think it allows grazing, right? So we can bring 1,000 cows, and then it considered as grazing. Would you allow that? But that would be a primary consideration.
Really?
I'll, uh…
I think we are kind of picking and choosing what is convenient
In your observation, but I think you're not looking from the contract the way it was written
I believe I am looking.
I understand where you're going, but you're not allowing us to do… you're looking at one particular way
And when entire neighborhood is also looking in the same way as you're looking
Honestly, Naveen, I've heard all the neighbors and their issues and it's not uncommon that neighbors that have lived next to a beautiful empty parcel object to development, and I've heard.
Many reasons. Those aren't the things that are driving me at all right now. What's driving me is that I believe if you look at 62 ops cal, attorney General 233 reinforced by Cleveland National Forest Foundation.
findings that there is a requirement for this agriculture to be the primary use of the property, so that these other things can be secondary to them.
It doesn't say that these things can be… this list of 11 things can be done on your property. It says these are 11 things that are compatible with the agriculture that's on your property. And anyway, by the way.
I could be wrong. I absolutely could be wrong.
But I'm not an attorney, and I think this does need to get to attorneys to figure this out, or we're going to be here at 3 o'clock in the morning and still talking about the same things. And I am sorry that this puts you in this situation. I really do want to help you get your house started. I really do. I like the house.
I really do, but I think that there are issues here that need to be resolved first. And this, at least, I know it's expensive, but this at least gives you the option of pulling a ripcord.
And finding a way out of this nasty back-and-forth that is only going to be rectified by attorneys butting heads.
Yeah. I'm sorry
about that, but…
And
we ask for that in June, you know, to have…
So, I'm going to propose a motion that we deny the project.
I'm sorry, just a moment. I'm getting a signal.
Okay, let's…
We should at least have a motion on the table, and then we can discuss if the Commission is
leaning towards the denial, then it would be option 2. I have a problem.
Wait, are you saying option 2? That says continue. That's continue so that we can bring
back a resolution for denial. Okay, all right, that at least
gives us
a little bit of hedge.
and maybe wiser people will come to bear on this question.
All right, I'm going to propose a motion to continue the project to a
date certain September third, I believe Thursday, September 3rd.
Thursday, September 3rd, and direct staff to prepare resolutions recommending that the city council deny the project.
Should I also say, on the basis of the Williamson Act incompatibility relating to the agriculture not being a primary, the primary use of the parcel.
Did you get it? Let's find out. You want
to read that back? Yeah. So just copy
the first part of part two. Yes. And for September 3rd, Thursday, on the basis of the Williamson Act incompatibility relating to.
Agriculture not being the primary use of the parcel.
I need a second.
I am checking.
We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion?
And the thing is also,
I hope everybody realizes, we are operating the best that we can.
With the amount of information that we've all studied on our own and derived on this, this does not come easy for any of us. I mean, we've all delved in deeply into this, and we really need.
Strong, Williamson Act-type legal counsel on this. I'd also
like to add the empathy that I have for the applicant going through this process.
Yeah, the other part, just as a comment I would make to staff is, since you will be taking this to City Council, I would highly recommend you to ask the city council to think about what should be done for Williamson Act parcels.
In town, so that's so
that we
don't have this discussion again, and so we don't have other frustrated applicants. You know,
I would like to take that further and consider passing another motion. Jay, can I get an option on this after this one?
I don't want to stack these for that exact purpose.
But first, can we vote on this motion? Oh, sure. I'm sorry. I guess I would like to hear what. I appreciate that. I'm speaking as an individual. I just say, if you would consider wording your motion
so that it's more neutral.
And asking for legal input, that might be a better way of approaching
it. Help
me understand what neutral would be. As it
stands, you're asking for the staff to come back with a proposal for denying the project based on.
On the Williamson Act.
agricultural use. Whereas if you word it so that you say, get us legal advice on what are the bearing… what is the bearing of the law in this area? I think… I guess I
could amend the motion. I want to keep in what we said, because that's where I think it's going.
But I would be willing to add to it, or…
comp… or how about deny the continuation
of the
Williamson Act on this property? Because that's what we're really aiming for is not, you know, basically non-renewal for the Williamson Act. That's really what it's not the legal advice.
I want to either…
follow through on what we just said, or if smarter minds have looked on this with legal advice, and there's a better thing that needs to happen, I don't want to force them to only come back with.
This recommendation, or this resolution, but that they may also come up with other resolutions that… for us to consider. Thank you.
Yeah.
Okay. So how are you going to rework?
How am
I going to say that? Okay, I would just add an or clause that says, or other resolutions.
incorporating legal advice.
for us to consider.
or
city council, or us, or
both? This is coming back to us.
or given additional legal counsel.
an alternate resolution can be considered
an
alternate alternate resolution for us to consider.
because it may. They may give us some
options or give an additional legal counsel.
And then what should
I put from there? Or given additional legal counsel, other resolutions for us
to
consider. Yeah.
Okay.
Second. Would you read the whole thing? Yes, please. Read the whole. Okay, continue the project to date certain September 3rd. Oh, could you put that
back? We need that back.
Continue the project to date CERN and direct staff to prepare a resolution recommending that the City Council deny the project.
On the basis of the Williamson Act incompatibility relating to agriculture not being the primary use of the parcel.
Or give an additional legal counsel, other resolutions.
are to be proposed for the Commission to consider.
I didn't follow the last point. You just
read it down. Should it be N?
Or perhaps the what I'm hearing is
So that first part or
Or…
to present to the Commission additional resolutions based on
legal counsel opinion.
I love it. Okay, there you go. That's nice and simple and to the point.
Or to present to the Commission.
Alternative resolutions
What was it? Alternative.
Resolutions…
Alternative
resolutions for us to consider. Gotcha. For
the Commission.
Yeah, based on legal counsel opinion.
Be
strong legal counsel opinion. Yes, hang on
there. We're going to take a break in just a moment.
Okay,
so now I'm seconding that. Okay.
Let's
take a vote. Commissioner Indico. Yes,
Commissioner
Patel. Yes, Chair Washara. Yes.
Do we want to do the other motion quickly, Jim?
Yeah,
do another motion for the
staff. I propose a another motion to direct the staff to develop.
a yes.
So, Chair, if I may, that we staff can take that as direction because we're not exactly agendized for that issue.
I see, okay. You shouldn't. So
let us
provide you direction to start developing policies around future use of Williamson Act in the town. We'd like to see it go through it, get some options, and then it would go to City Council.
Especially
for development
of Williamson, development on Williamson Act parcels. Wait, just a moment. I
think there
are three areas. One is the acceptance of another new Williamson Act parcel. The other is development on an existing.
Williams Act parcel
and
compatibility
and
how the Planning Commission would make compatibility determinations.
on a Williamson Act parcel.
Yes. staff understands
the direction. All right. Thank you.
Let's
take a 10 min break. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. That was a tough.
Very good
job, Jim. Thank you. Well, I mean that that's tough. I mean.
Let's see. The next thing is, um…
I guess we're going to move on. And Jay will find us here in just a second.
There he goes. The second public hearing item tonight.
is housing element program a 6, the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance and affordable housing in lieu fee program.
This item was originally noticed as a study session. Item 6.4, and has been moved to public hearings as item 5.3.
The staff report has been updated to include a staff recommendation and an action for the Commission.
Item 5.3 is a Housing Element Program A6, proposed inclusionary.
Housing ordinance and affordable housing in Luffy program public hearing to consider the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance and affordable housing in Luffy program.
The staff on this item is Jay Bradford, our community development director. Jay, you want to just move right into the staff report? Yeah, thank you,
Jim. Thank you, Chair. There's not going to be a presentation today. We received a number of communications from the League of Women Voters, and also from Cal HDF.
We didn't have access to strategic economics because of some staffing outages with their agency. And as a result, we weren't prepared to be able to respond to those in the time that we received the notifications from those agencies. We got one yesterday at 4 pm.
And we got another one today. I would like to highlight what those issues are. In the CalHDF letter, we had an instance where they thought that there was some preemption of density bonus law. We'll make some clarifications associated with that.
There was also an issue as it related to if a project proposed alternate affordable levels within a project, and we'll make some clarifications associated with that.
And then the last issue we had was the feasibility analysis and its findings for feasibility as it related to the various project types that were described within the inclusionary study and how those impact the projects and the inclusionary policy itself.
It sounds really complicated there, but really what the basis of this is is that we do stand by the study that was done and the market analysis that's there. But market analysis do change. And so we're going to be looking at 3 options from some cities that have.
recently modified them. Obviously, they're not necessarily going to be exact to Los Altos Hills, so that's why there's a little bit of analysis that needs done and why we needed strategic economics to be able to do so. But we're going to look at a model where applicants, um, with third-party.
a QAQC would provide a feasibility analysis that then would allow for us to trigger. We may also make recommendations associated with policy changes that we've seen in San Francisco or San Jose, because they have much larger and more robust inclusionary housing programs.
that we can model from, and we'll be relying on strategic economics to be able to provide those linkages within that conversation. And then for the League of Women Voters, what we had was association with the thresholds for affordability, and they've asked us to look at some different criteria than what we had previously studied, so we'll also ask strategic economics to weigh in on what those affordable levels are and what that performance would look.
like from the inclusionary policy perspective. With that, we would ask that this particular item be continued as a regularly rescheduled item to a meeting on August 13th.
If there are any questions, certainly I can respond to them, but I would ask that maybe we hold off on those and that we give them to staff in the interim, and then we'd come back with responses at that August 13th meeting. Should we
pass a motion to continue to date certain in one week?
Can
I ask one quick
question? You
mentioned that, you know,
like you
mentioned that you picked cities like San Francisco and others which have great inclusionary programs.
Again, you know, like in many other housing element issues, are we one of the leaders among small towns in such policy making? I think what we would
say here
is that there are some definitely unique approaches to how those feasibility studies that are done at point in times, each jurisdiction handles them. So it's not necessarily about the size.
of the jurisdiction or their programs. Jurisdictions like us, like
Hillsborough, Atherton,
Woodside I'm just thinking are we the front runners
here? So
on this
particular issue,
this is again one of the reasons why
we want
to be able to continue the issue to give strategic economics and our staff the ability to look at some of those other.
Okay. Those other cities, right? That's hard to compare us to a Palo Alto. We have at least three that other models that we know of currently that we're comfortable with from a perspective of how it would impact our proposal and our policy. Okay, I'm sure that this next step is not
going to take a lot of time, but I'd like to do it anyway.
Since it was publicly noticed, if there's anybody here in the audience or online that came here for this item and would like to to provide comments. I'd like to open the public hearing for that. I guess it's not. Is it a yeah, it is a public hearing. Correct. Yeah.
So I'd like to open the public hearing. Is there anyone? I don't see anyone. I am closing the public hearing. Okay. And then I'll propose a motion that we continue this item to a date certain.
And that date is September… August 13th. August 13th. 13th
week. Next
week. Yeah,
and I
would say that, you know, um, we'll also be noticing this for the council meeting that'll be on August 20th, assuming that there's a positive reaction for the policy from the Commission.
Okay. Okay.
Second,
I'll second it.
Uh…
I'm just wondering if I can throw a unanimous consent here. I just get the word. Go ahead
and do a vote. Commissioner Indico. Yes. Commissioner Jeaned. Yes. Commissioner Patel? Yes.
Chair Washira? Yes.
And then Cher, if I would, I'd ask for an adjustment to the schedule to be, or the agenda to be able to bring forward Betham. They've been patiently waiting through our last items.
I
agree. That is item 6, 2. So we'll take a short. We're moving on to study sessions.
And there are two study sessions this evening.
6, 1, 6, 2. Let me just make sure there's no 63. There
are 3.
Okay, so there are 3, and we will swap the orders of one and two. Please. In order to bring 6 2 forward. So study sessions are an opportunity for the Commission to review a topic, ask questions of staff, hear from the public and provide direction.
No formal action is taken on a study session item.
Members of the public will be given an opportunity to comment on each study session item with 3 min per speaker item. We will swap item 6.1 and 6.2. Let's move on to 6.2. 6.2, 26, 790, Arrastredaro Road, file.
Pound PA26-0037 lands of congregation Beth Am. This is a study session to review conceptual plans for a new security gatehouse and on-site parking and circulation improvements at Congregation Beth Am.
This is an information item only to provide feedback to the applicant. No formal action will be taken.
Uh, just a moment…
Okay, the.
Planner, the senior planner for this project is Jonathan Fox. Jonathan, would you like to commence with
the quick
words. Thank you, Chair. Congregation, Beth M operates a conditional use permit at the restaurant property for a religious institution that was originally improved.
In 1958.
the modern COP with its existing conditions or approval was approved in 1997. The last renewal was in 2006, meaning that the conditional use permit is expired.
Congregation Bethem is going to present conceptual plans for improvements to the property. We expect that project to come back with a formal application in front of the Planning Commission, which will provide a recommendation to the CUP renewal, the amendment, and the underlying site development permit or variances.
to the City Council. We expect that there will be a variance required for the reconfiguration of some existing parking spaces that are in the setback currently.
And with that, I'll give it to the Beth M team to give the presentation.
Yes, let's the applicant present the conceptual plans.
I'm
just going to introduce
our architect. I'm Deborah Raden. I'm the president at Betham. I also… so, first of all, honored to be able to represent
a congregation here. Also grew up in Los Altos Hills. I started in first grade at Bullis.
have really not have come and gone, but have grown up here, raised my family here. So still a resident of Los Altos Hills. So this is home for me as well. So very, very important. What Rob Steinberg, our architect, is going to show you is how important it is that we're working with you as partners on this.
We've been members of the community for 70 years, very important. And now with for many reasons we'll be explaining security is vital upgrading our security.
making our campus more accessible, more welcoming, easier for people to get up the hills at our campus. So so with that, I'm going to introduce you to Rob. I know it's a late night, but he's going to take the show away. Thank you all.
Good evening. Good evening.
It's very
nice
to be
with you. I also am.
move to Los Altos Hills in 1952.
And grew up
here. And.
I'm very pleased to be here with you tonight.
I wanted to tell you that my father, Goody Steinberg, who designed many, many homes in Los Altos Hills, was the design voice for Congregation Betham.
And he had two driving principles that have really directed our efforts over the years. One is that the building should be in harmony with nature.
And two, that there should be both because of our beautiful climate and the setting, indoor and outdoor rooms and places where people connect, and we can build community. Next, please.
Our site, which takes its access from a Racadero Road, was purchased in the 1950s. Next.
And our campus is blessed to have very good planning and architectural boats.
You can see by the sketch on the left on the sketch that the outdoor rooms, which are green in the indoor rooms in blue are shown on the campus. It's a little faded out here, but most of those are on the left side.
The parking in the yellow is on the right. And the takeaway here is that the parking is at the bottom of the hill, and most of the activities is on the left at the top of the hill. Next, please.
So this is a section through the site, and you can see that the bulk of the parking is at the lower level, and it is a significant climb, particularly for our aging congregation, to take to get up to the top of the hill.
where most of the activities are taking place. Next, please.
There were 3 building phases to the property in 1958 is the light blue, the 2.
Sorry, the colors are a little faded out here, but the lightest color in 1966, the main synagogue and social hall was added. And in 2000 was the Beit Kehila. Next, please.
So, this is the classroom and administration building, so we were first built in 1958.
Next. And this is a photo that I took in 1977 when I joined my father as an architect. And I don't know if you know this, but in 2006, the American Institute of Architects awarded Beth on their prestigious 25 year.
award for distinguished and enduring buildings in Silicon Valley. And I'll be honest with you on a personal note, Betham was one of the reasons that I wanted to become an architect.
Next, please.
I was privileged to be the architect for the lower campus in around 2000. Next, please.
and I want to tell you today, Betham was not designed to accommodate the same level of security that is required today.
And in addition to security and safety, welcoming others and a sense of openness, welcoming the community is also an important part of our values. Next, please.
So this is our existing entry on a Rastadero, and if you look at the picture on the left, I'm not sure that it either looks secure or invited.
The tired looking sign was a gift from my family to Congregation Bethlehem over 60 years ago.
The barrage of well-meaning signage and the lifeless guard check leave, frankly, a sad at first impression.
Next, please.
So our proposal is for a new entry that includes two lanes of egress.
ingress, one lane for individuals needing assistant that would have to stop at the guardhouse in one lane for those with approved access.
A new pedestrian path that's separate from the vehicles, so people could come in on bikes easily. A security pavilion. And directly after passing through security, a new electronic signage.
Next, please.
So this is a view of the entry, and we envision Betham, honestly, as a spiritual retreat nestled into a residential neighborhood.
A series of low organic walls, or what I refer to as reeds, emerging from the ground, literally reach out to welcome the visitor, funneling them towards the entrance.
Next, please.
As one approaches the entry pavilion, security becomes more evident.
These metaphorical reads become more closely spaced together, increasing in height, forming an entry portal.
the gaps in the oak in between the opaque walls are infilled with transparent fencing that allows partial visibility into the campus.
next place. So I'm sorry. This is a little light, but I just showed you the entry on the on the far right bottom.
And if you move clockwise, there are three modest but impactful interventions that we're also proposing to add.
There's a drop-off at the bottom with the classrooms. There's a new front door at what would be nine o'clock and a drop off again at the administration at 12 o'clock. And I'll show you what those look like.
Next, please. This is a view of the existing drop off at the classroom area. And you can see there's a significant grade level change from the drop off at the road up to the buildings themselves.
Next,
please.
So, without narrowing or impeding the existing two-lane roadway, we're proposing on the left, 8 additional parking spaces.
On the right are four off street drop-off spaces.
In a new accessible ramp providing access to the outdoor chapel in the other buildings at the top of the campus.
All of the improvements are inboard from the existing road.
Next,
please.
The existing drop-off near the classrooms and outdoor would be reconfigured to provide a little additional parking spaces on the left, the drop off in loading on the right in the landing at the bottom of the stair would be expanded to accommodate seating.
Signage in an accessible ramp leading directly to the outdoor chapel.
Next, please.
At the top of the hill, the only place where the topography is flat is an ideal location to create a welcoming front door, which we don't really have right now.
A community space and an arrival plaza could add energy to the arrival experience. Next, please.
Decorative paving, places to sit, enhanced landscaping, announce the arrival.
Just as an aside, we've recently re-roofed the entire campus with a combustible heavy shake roof.
Um, a fire retardant fiberglass, shingles, replacing our 70 year old.
wood shake roofs.
We're proud of that, and we're trying to upgrade the campus piece by piece. Next, please. Okay, you got it on the right.
Our 16 reconfigured parking places, including 2 required covered Ada spaces that we committed to provide to the city based upon a solar project that we completed last year.
On the left are 2 off street drop off spaces. And again, a new accessible ramp providing access to the offices, library and the social hall courtyard.
Next. In addition to adding more available parking at the top of the hill. The new off street drop off for unloading can facilitate short term transactions and deliveries with the office.
In a new accessible ramp directs visitors to the office in the main conference room.
Next,
please.
Lastly, this is a view opposite the entry stairs to the administrative office that shows the required ADA covered parking that we committed to provide as part of our previously approved solar project.
Now, I probably have given you more information that you wanted this late at night, but we're here tonight to.
give you a sense of where we're trying to go, and to get input from you, what we can include in our presentation and our submittal to you to give you all of the information that you need to make a thoughtful decision.
Thank
you, Commissioners.
No questions for now for I just have questions for staff.
Well, this isn't…
this is just an informational thing, so we're really just going to talk back and forth at this stage. If you have any feedback. I'm disappointed that I have nothing to say. This looks so beautiful.
I don't have really much to say. The only thing I would say,
1st of all, I love your bike lighting. I
like that. Sorry,
I love
the slides. Your hand painted drawings look wonderful.
So, I haven't seen many architects do
these days. So that is great. Oh,
you mean ChatGPT didn't
do that? I don't
know. No,
ChatGP did not do that.
But, uh, the only question I had is, with all the parking that you're adding, how close is it to the property line?
On the
sites. So if
we look at this drawing, the.
entry grade is exactly where it is now, just to configure right on the parking and drop off. I'm going to call it 6 o'clock, the bottom is all inboard of the road. So we're not going any closer.
11 o'clock.
Right. Right. On the left.
at 9 o'clock.
It's it's all inboard.
Uh, it's existing parking. It was accessible handicap parking when it was built, but it is not meet today's accessible standards today. So we want to fix that. We want to… we… our population is getting older.
And we've got to accommodate them so that they can participate and enjoy the facilities.
on the one at 12 o'clock.
We are…
I think we may be infringing a little bit beyond where we are today. But in the measure of 3 or 4 feet. So there is parking there now.
Uh, but we're reconfiguring it, we're making it, bringing it up to code standards today. Do
you anticipate the neighbors having any feedback about that? Well, we're… we will meet with
the neighbors. We wanted to meet with you first before we started meeting with the neighbors.
We, I believe, are going to ask for a variance for a small portion of that top part where we are in that setback a little bit, but we are in that setback currently.
So we are infringing another 3 or 4 feet. We're happy to work with the neighbors on planting or what have you. Their homes are quite a ways away in the closest thing on the other side of the is a driveway.
Going there, so it's not…
approximate
to a home. And you have enough room between the parking and the property line to put shrubs in. We
do, we do, yes. There's parking there now.
We're really, we're just reconfiguring it, because it doesn't meet today's parking standards. They were. They were done quite a number of years ago.
So really, what we're trying to do is to secure our entrance and have some security, because people are worried that it's a big campus and anybody can drive in. And that's that's not right.
Well, anything
I know staff feels the same way about this. Anything we can do to move this along and facilitate it and get that security in place, we want to be able to support that.
I
love hearing that. Next time we come, I want to be right in front of that other group, not after. I'm teasing you. I have a
couple of questions. This is coming in front of us because…
I just want to clarify something. Yes, so
study sessions. We we try to use sparingly for an opportunity to get in front of the Planning Commission. It's typically for more unique residential projects, and then we've done them more frequently.
Yeah,
but the
number of parking is changing from existing to how much?
Yeah,
the parking is not a trigger for the Planning Commission's review. The trigger is that it's a CUP renewal and an amendment. Okay,
that's basically it. I just wanted to clarify why we are getting this. It's similar to what we looked at previously for the other project. And if
I can. So there are no concerns about.
Mfa and MDA and all of those things. We haven't received
those numbers yet, but it's largely reconfigures of existing space, right? So it doesn't seem like it's an
issue. But I just wanted to know. Okay, we'll certainly be checking
that. Okay. And if I
can just make a suggestion to show like Google Maps, you know the aerials.
It just helps to kind of see the neighborhood and everything
else. Then
you submit.
I apologize
to you, but the first the slide that showed the 9 acres, our site, Aristadero.
is a Google Aerial. It's just… it's a little… it got a little, uh, washed down here. But that was my intention with this slide. That's actually to showing you the context. Okay, yeah, because I'm just looking at my own little
phone here, and just kind of getting a feel for it, and just…
It just helps to clarify better. I'm
sorry, but maybe we whited out the neighbors a little too much. But yeah, yeah.
No, but
I see what you were saying that the property on the top of.
This diagram are further out.
There's a road, yes. Yeah,
which is
good. Yeah. So the only thing we see is that when like to give feedback, I mean, the, the gate and everything looks like it's set back in, I'm guessing it's going to comply with all the town's requirements.
Um, the only thing is the parking spaces which are being pushed out in the top, which you called at 12. It looks like it's going in that 10 foot grading setback.
Or close to it, at least not in this, but in the drawing that was submitted. So that seems to be the only thing coming to maybe John Chau to review. But apart from that, the parking at the bottom, and there, I mean, these are very preliminary drawings, so it's very difficult to read the.
But that is what you will be submitting next as more detailed drawings. So from our side, it's just that if we are we are supportive of this.
Yeah,
I think what to your question earlier, right? About why we're here. So if there's anything that was an immediate reaction from any of the planning commissioners, you know, the kind of fail fast, you know, type of.
Um, like, uh, this is critical to us, this isn't critical to us, those types of things. Yeah. So please, yeah,
no, it
just came up mainly because since you're going to have a guard gate and gates, which I'm totally for sense of security for the campus, is I'm just concerned about the traffic on Arastadero.
As far as when you do have your different session, how much of a backup is going to happen on Arasadero as people are waiting to get past security? And there may need to be a traffic feasibility study or something where you might need to pull the guard gate back.
into the property a little bit, so you can accommodate more cars being queued up. I don't know, that's kind of my
initial gut
thoughts. So we're happy to do that. We have run this by a traffic engineer. We have about 4 car lengths.
Um, before you get to the gatehouse. Okay. And when we have events where we have a lot of people coming in, we will have the gates open, and we will have staff there to be able to facilitate moving people in.
And we have a second lane for people that will either have a fob or license plate readers so they can move through quickly. But this is generally for security when we're expecting and we know when we're going to have.
religious services, or we're going to have large activity, then the the gates would be open, and there would be someone there. I
guess the whole property fenced at its perimeter? It is. It is currently. It is.
Okay. So
when you'll be submitting formally, just like the.
Pinewood School, my guess is the number of cars and number of people, the timing, everything would be submitted, it'll be very clear how much traffic is coming through and not at what time. Right, yeah. Let me ask you,
is the rest…
Is there
a turning lane at Arrastred?
I was gonna
ask, Aristadera, what does that look like?
There is a left turn lane when you're traveling west, I guess east to west. But it's not
close to the intersection.
No. Near the no I wanted to
know if
at the gate, there's a left turn.
It's
coming from Foothill Expression from the Foothill
Express. It's
there on the other way. Yeah.
And
then do people that come from East going west making a left turn into there?
Currently, does… is there any queuing up that happens?
With the current, you know,
entrance at all, you know, when you've got your big services, or…
Or big events? No, because there, um, we have, um…
parking staff that is there directing people and keeping the flow.
Yeah.
And honestly, what we're doing is we're adding a second lane, which we don't currently have. Okay. We're facilitating.
So what we wanted is we wanted a secure lane where people could come in. There is a turnaround. If you decide you came in, and this is not where you want to go. So you can exit before the gate. Yeah. And then there is a separate lane.
for people that have passes that can move right through. Right. And when we have large activities, we'll man that and organize it. But we've never had any backup trouble. Okay. We've never had any problems. Rust
is a major road anyway for traffic normally, so it's not like we're in a residential…
setting right there, exactly. So, yeah.
Is it fair
to say most of your traffic's on the weekend?
Please.
Most
of our traffic would be maybe Friday night for services Friday night, which, um…
But but going in is never a problem. Going and no, because people come in and out at different times, or high holidays, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, but
then we have fully, fully staffed. I'm just thinking of the it competes with Tesla traffic and.
All of those… the others
off Deer Creek. That's further down the other
way. Yeah,
but they
come back. Yeah. So the entrance… but we're… our entrance is right across where… is it broadband now? Broadband? Yeah. Right?
It used to be a VMware. So we're east of…
Fremont. We're exactly, we're right,
not quite Deer Creek. So we're right in that in-between… we're right across from the Stanford. There's Stanford parking right across from us. So we're far enough back from the intersection, and then also from where Tesla comes out at Deer Creek that. Yeah.
That we're not backing. I
lived here
for 30 years, and I don't re… and I do travel that way to get up to 280. I don't recall any kind of traffic in front of Beckham, to be honest with you. So I'm like, I'm just asking the obvious questions, so, yeah.
There's also a dedicated left turn lane.
Oh, okay. So,
yeah, that helps. So I
think
just one more question. Have you, uh…
Had any neighbors have any concerns over the last, you know, years, like decades?
concerns
as in not not not about traffic, right? Just in general. No, no, in general,
right? We
have, um, so no, we've had an amazing relationship with our neighbors. Okay. Yeah.
That's great, because that helps.
It helps
a lot. I think most recently.
You might all know we had vacant land that was adjacent that we had. We know it well. Yes. So in that process, we made sure we spent a lot of time with our neighbors then. Okay. And there were no problems, there were just questions, and we dealt with it. So it was a relationship.
Okay, great. I
think as
study session, we're just giving feedback. I think our feedback is just, you know, having maybe a slide or two and some details about the left turn lane, how many cars can fit in before the gate, you know, things like that, timing of when you expect the most crowd, so you can have the doors open.
Is it just if you have two lanes, that's 4 plus… so 8 cars more than that. How are you? I mean, I think it's going to be more of a general question on that, so more details which are given just at that a gate intersection would be great.
Probably as a submittal, and the rest would be, to be very honest, is just that parking area, which is on the top, which is going to be probably very close to the property line, which is going to be more the city staff kind of looking at it, and you know, privacy screening and.
May and definitely talking to the neighbors and bringing those signatures in that, you know, they support that.
Yeah, I don't think there is anything much that we need to give you guys feedback on. No, but, you know, like,
when we did the Pinewood School, it
was really nice, even though this is so non-impacting, just to get the neighborhood. It's just kind of a nice way to say, you know.
Yeah, they agree, for sure.
Let's take
a moment and just see if there's anybody online or elsewhere that would like to provide any feedback on this. We do have a Francis Lew's hand raised.
Uh, can we determine if that's for real?
And ask her to go ahead. Go ahead, Francis. And Lila, can you present those?
And she asked to present some, uh, some photos. Oh, very good.
Can you hear us, Francis?
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes, we can.
Okay, so
I have no problem with all your improvements and more buildings and making a better entry
Francis, Francis, can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
Francis, please try to talk right at your microphone and continue to talk right at your microphone.
I'm using
PC. So where's the microphone?
Is it on top
For a moment there, it was very good. So just continue doing that.
Okay, so I… my only concern is my house is right in the corner of Fremont and Arrest Rodero. My house faces is the first house that faces Fremont, and the corner of Fremontero
It's part of my property. And the only concern is with everything that you're doing, is it going to cost more water? I mean, the drainage, is it going to stay on site? Do you have any like drainage plan or because right now on my property
That's a kind of a drainage creek
doing the summertime is all dry, and it kind of runs along a restaurant. So between your driveway, go through to my neighbor's house before it come to my house, and then it goes through my property, and then it drains in the corner of Fremont and the rest of the Darrow
So this is the drain… this is the drain that I… that on your property, and it goes through one neighbor's house, and then the second neighbor's house
And then the picture with the little iron grid, that's the end of my creek from my neighbor's property. Then it goes to the corner and goes down, goes down under the pipe underneath Fremont. So my concern is right now, when it rains, that's a lot of water
So is it going to be more water coming my way when you do this project, or is it not going to make that much difference?
I don't think
that there is going to be a dramatic difference.
Between what's there now and.
in the future there is a retention basin at our entrance that collects our water. It's rarely.
You rarely see water in it, but is part of the original drainage for the project. There is a retention basin. If the low part of the site, and our intent is to improve that, and we'll have to.
meet the conditions of drainage and on-site water retention. Because
you are,
you are repaving some of your parking spaces.
We
are going to add a small amount of paving at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock. Correct. But mainly at 6 o'clock. But there'll
be some repaving happening to your older.
Road to accommodate that new whatever edition, so… There will be some
additional pay… So
you will
be coming
in with some sort of a grading plan to
the amount of paving we have now.
I think the… I don't know the exact percentage, but the incremental increase will be very modest. What I meant
was that you will be coming with a grading and drainage
plan. Absolutely. That's yes. Yeah, I think that's the main
thing that just take care of that properly. I think that's required.
Okay, because last time when you put in that big parking lot, right, the one that's facing a resident arrow, at that time, you actually, you did do something really nice for me because you came in and kind of graded the creek, I mean, the dry
The drainage on my property, and then you put gravel there, so at least I won't have so many weeds in the wintertime. But then my two other neighbors will not allow you to go in to do anything, so I don't have no idea what it's like when the water drains through their property
But I do appreciate what you did for me last time when you put in a big parking lot, because that really helps to make sure it doesn't flow to my property and just go down the street. And the city made the drainage hole under Fremont bigger, so there's more water going through
So usually I try to clean all the leaves on my property before it rains and in the city cleans those two holes. It goes under Fremont. But then what the other neighbors do, I have no idea, but still a lot of leaves get washed out because there's so many oak trees around
So right now I'm fine. So far, I've lived here for
38 actually 49 years
This particular drainage has not overflowed, but I did get overflow from the other side, and it was like a river on my front yard
But then at least
Well, thank you, Francis. I think that we should just be sensitive to the grading and the water flow and that would be addressed when you come back for your project. If I could through the
chair, if I could just say, Francis.
It's nice to meet you, and we would be happy to sit down and meet with you in person and make sure that we're we've got a good solution that works for both of us. Thank you.
Okay, so we'll talk to you again. So anyway, so I do appreciate all that graph what you put there because it like helped me out with the weeds and how you graded as so the water froze properly. So that was good for me
So I do appreciate you guys doing that for me. Like when you did the big parking lot
Thank you.
So as long as the water doesn't flood my yard, I'm fine. So I'm glad you're making your… I've been to your… I have been to your place several times for my kids' bar mitzer parties
Awesome.
They get invited there. That triathlon was fun. I still remember it. I remember going to two of those bodies
It's 11 o'clock at night.
Okay.
Thank
you, Francis. We really appreciate it.
Because my kids grew up here. And I work at Stanford for 30 years, but I retired now. But I appreciate you guys being good neighbors, except sometimes they hear loud noise on weekend when you have those wild parties. But not so much now.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so that's what I need to say. Yeah, good luck to your project. Okay.
Thank you, Francis. Stay in touch. Stay tuned. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Very good. Is there any other information any of us would like to provide? Well, thank you for coming by. It's great to see what you're doing and that you're doing so well. That's nice to know too. Thank you for the opportunity to
look forward to having you come back
with your project. Okay. Thank you. And thank you
for the
history. I enjoyed hearing the history. I mean, that's almost, I hope our history committee.
Has the historical information about your location as well.
We'd
love to invite you up. We
could show you.
Yeah, well, just mainly
because since you've been here since the 1950s, I mean, the History Committee, which they're going to have their.
There's things there. They're gathering just, you know, little tidbits of history from around our town. It sounds like you definitely have some… We'll
connect. We have an archives committee that's
very, um,
yeah,
there might be some good. Okay, why
don't we
move on to the next item that is also a study session.
Uh, this is a discussion of policy amendments to permit alternative review of variances for electrical equipment. Tim, are you online there?
It's this time, poor guy.
Hello, Tim. Wake up, he
fell
asleep. We have
to promote Tim, unfortunately. I
feel terrible
for him. That's right. He's in Wisconsin. Yeah. Boy.
Okay.
Okay, we
just promoted him.
I think we're good
Good evening, everyone.
Okay, Tim, can we have your staff report?
Certainly. Good evening, Commissioners.
Let me just get my slides up
We're trying to fake being in the council chambers, huh? The old ones. No,
he's in the corner here.
Yeah,
but that big
door
wasn't in his picture.
It's pre-renovation.
Remark.
Historic.
Okay, are y'all able to see that okay?
Yes.
Perfect.
Yes, so as Jay mentioned, we'll be talking about
transformer variants policy modifications, or at least gathering feedback on those modifications.
So this is something that has been kind of on staff's radar for quite a while now, particularly in recent years as above ground transformers and other electrical equipment in the setbacks has become a recurring theme at Planning Commission meetings with a larger and larger volume of them
coming to the Commission for variance requests.
Back in 2019, I believe you got our first one, and that's steadily ramped up to 8 cases, either going to the Planning Commission or instilling the application stage as of 2025.
So pretty significant year-on-year growth, and no signs of that slowing down, primarily due to increased electrification generally around, new construction, both with reach codes and just general design trends gravitating that way
As well as, supply of underground units, which would be the, obviously, the preferred method to stay out of viewpoint within the setback
And as well as just general PG&E process around undergrounding, they've shifted away from that over time, and we'll get into that later in the presentation
But both of those factors have led to a higher and higher volume of these projects coming to the Planning Commission for review. And yeah, we don't see any sign of that slowing down.
So currently, we usually get these variants processes mid-planning stage. So we know fairly early on that they're going to be coming, but it still is an extra variance that an otherwise compliant project may have to ask for
Meaning there's lead time on noticing, getting it on a planning commission again agenda, getting the design team to get their presentation together. It does add a decent bit of cost and time to any of those projects, which would otherwise normally be compliant
To get these transformer variances approved.
As I mentioned, yeah, most are driven by utility code constraints, not a discretionary design choice, and again, lack of underground units or underground arrangements being available for these projects.
The most recent communication we have received from PG&E has indicated this is, for all intents and purposes, a permanent change moving forward. So the planning department is requesting for consideration tonight. Feedback on a potential code amendment
which would involve
to basically demoting these types of reviews to an admin, or potentially site development level review with an ability to shorten some of that permit lead time and and that process of taking it to the Planning Commission for each and every project
Meeting either a set of adjusted objective requirements where certain types of projects are fast tracked and it would admin review where others are elevated still the planning commission or public hearing view. Or some combination of that just to allow for at least some of these projects to move
move through the process a little bit smoother
And whether or not we base these off of things like noise, or amount of encroachment, or height, or visual impact, or some other thing, there's obviously a series of standards we could use.
The plan would be that all these variances would still be appealable to the Planning Commission, and we would plan on noticing them, potentially like we notice a fence or other administrative permits where there's still a lead time given to adjacent neighbors who would potentially be affected, even though there's not a formal public hearing for
fence permits. We still do that noticing
And then regarding the timeline or sunsetting of this, considering
You know, this may not be a forever thing, but at least in the near term, maybe setting a 3-year time limit, a 5-year time limit, or, you know, whenever units become available to underground, or PG&E has a process change.
And staff is available for questions and comments.
Does anyone have any comments? I have a
couple. I think
it's simple. I don't have comments. I just have some suggestions of where we should go. Go for it. I think if I had to choose, I'd say since this is something new.
We should do this. But let's start with the three year duration period. And after 3 years, if all is going well, then we extend it.
And the other part is, from a process perspective. I would just say, whatever we determine as the guidelines for this approach.
Follow the fast track process. So it doesn't always come to the planning commission. It goes to the standard processes, and if the community development director believes that there is a need to go to the Planning Commission.
It comes to us. How about this?
How about we put a couple of guidelines, you know, kind of going on what we've had variance hearings already on, that use those as the guidelines between… Yeah, so we should develop the space and the parameter of the… on the pad, and then also, I would say.
Anything that's over 600 amp definitely comes before Planning Commission, you know, up to 600 amps, which is. Wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait.
We care about the size. We don't care about amps.
Well, no, the
thing is, what happens is that the ones that get… that go bigger are…
We are 6 to 400 is fine. If you go bigger, like 800 amps, that's going to be a bigger cabinet. See, that's my point.
The 600
is already big.
Yeah. Like
600 is the size,
though, that's isn't the size of 800
or more going to be bigger and bigger because you need the airspace.
for the heat dissipation and all that. Yeah, but
600, I mean, 400 amp is like just a meter. Yeah, exactly. Like, 600 is already a
problem. Yeah. Refrigerator. So do we want to say…
Anything over 600 and above? I'd rather, like, we
should see
what the size is. Like they should maybe give us. It's just a study session, right? We are developing the guidelines. Correct. Like we give an idea of what that 600, 800 would look like, and then we can see which one is.
Yeah. Like not acceptable for us to stay fast.
Walter is
not so
much acceptable.
It has to come before us. That's
what I
mean. Like, it's
not acceptable that it stays in fast track. We
have approved a lot of 600s, and we've approved one which was three-phase, right? If I'm…
Yeah.
Yeah,
and 600 is, like, even in residential now. So
so those have become very common.
Yeah, maybe come up with, like, the parameters. Yes, we should
go with some sizes. But even for a 600 amp, there could be multiple sizes.
You know, some might be wide and short, tall and thin. So we can get
in the study session, we can ask that when they're coming back, they come up with those criterias, because there are not that many different
sizes. Are
there any criteria you have developed?
If we were to say, let's go ahead
with this. Yeah, in previous projects we've said that the height of the bollards cannot exceed.
a certain number of feet, and we've said that the surrounding concrete pad cannot exceed a certain inches. Yeah. No,
but the actual unit itself, the transformer unit itself. The unit…
We don't
get to pick that. Yeah.
It's mainly just to…
But what we can
do is pick a reaction to that. For instance, maybe the screening thing changes when it's this size. Correct. Or the placement. I have a question about if we were to provide this stuff.
to PG&E. Could they incorporate that, or would they respect it a little bit in terms of where
they put
stuff? That we
should be
pushing things back from the street further.
Yeah, so, um, we've had multiple conversations now, um, with PG&E over the last 2 years. We've worked with multiple representatives, and what we continue to hear is that there are a number of.
regulations at the local level that PG&E is not responsive to. There are utility provider and they have similar, um…
Um, acknowledgements from the CUPC, similar to the building codes that, you know, for public safety, you must do these things. And so, we cannot preempt PG&E and their placement of the utility, the location, and service sizes of the utility.
And so, in addition to that, they also have regulations that talk about screening for those types of utilities, all based on their Green Book standards. And so, where we do have maybe some level of pushback on PG&E is in how they are moving from.
Um, what is typically an approval from the town into construction, and then typically there's field modifications that happen. We can push back on the field modifications happening without prior approvals, things of that nature, because the laws that they would be potentially.
conflicting with our state laws. They're not local laws. So that's where we do have some level of pushback, but as it relates to the size of equipment, location of equipment, you know, color of the equipment, you know, those, you know, are all things that are coming from PG&E specifications and the suppliers that they acknowledge.
That can be installed within their system, so…
Well, I'd like to see a list or a series of options on screening.
Yes, certainly. The Green Book has those levels of screening associated with transformers, the panel boards, cabinets, things of that nature, and the clearance.
And clearance is associated with those particular types of utilities, so we can certainly bring those back, and what we'll try to do is we'll have… ask PG&E representatives to try to explain their standards, because they're certainly much more familiar than what staff is. Of anything that they want
from us, or that they need from us. They do not need anything
from us. No,
we could make a deal. No.
There is very little leverage
No, I
think the only thing what I recall is that.
The PG&E requirement is that the transformer is in the right of way, so they don't need any special easement to access it. So there
are some things
within the PG&E Green Book that do allow for things to go further back in site. Typically.
There's a crane and a crane exemption form that folks can fill out that would allow for, you know, placement of equipment further into the site. But when you're on a hillside like we saw at the West Wind project, you know, you can only go so much further into the site, even with the crane exemption applied for.
Um, because just the topography in that particular instance caused, you know, okay, great, you want to go in another 5 feet, you went up 10 feet, you know, and at that point, the crane reached its limitations with just another 5 feet, where on a flat piece of land, it probably could have gone in another 10, 15 feet.
They've been looking for access and clearances associated with access. We've certainly seen them on private property, put them adjacent to driveways so they get further in. But then just like the fire trucks, they have to have rated driveways, they have to be able to meet some of those same turnaround requirements. And so.
Um, we can work with individuals there, and certainly there's a difference between co-located equipment, which we've been talking about on some projects, where it serves multiple residents, and those do go in public right-of-way, where if it's a singular transformer for a singular residence, then those can be located further in, assuming that there is access.
And again, all of those other things we mentioned as it related to their
vehicle. Well, in general, I'd like to get them as far into properties as possible, screened as good as possible, because these are going to be everywhere now. Yep.
And, um, and that will minimize the number of complaints. I got two
things also.
One that it should be… this should only be for RA zoning, definitely not multifamily zoning.
Oh,
it'll be for multifamily as well. Oh, you mean the… But it'll come to
us for
multifamily. Exactly, exactly. Just, you know, I'm gonna say it's the obvious. You know, because you never know. And then also have a concern that, you know, this gets reviewed by our full-time employees here.
not contracted staff, you know, as far as because I mean, love you guys. But one day, maybe we'll have more contractors here picking up bits and pieces. I would really like to have any of this kind of review done by.
Uh,
can I clarify what you're asking for on the… and planning director
basically. Okay, so we're not
talking about the inspection process, because we do have contracted inspectors. Okay, so just the planning. Exactly. Exactly. It's like
the same way I would make the request for.
Anything with espionage, ADUs, full-time employees that work here.
That oversee that not contracted. You had mentioned 3 years.
I think
that to start this we might want to do just one one year, just to check it out, make sure everything
is okay. Yeah, I think, like, I mean.
probably, like, 7 months into a
year. Well, then what
I'd like to see is at least maybe some
reporting about
it. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. A
status report… I like that. After
a year, on what happened in that… Yes, but I was thinking, you know, maybe…
There's this little dashboard on our monthly reports where you put your… the, uh, the accommodation stuff, and you put in here's how many things we did on transformers. We already do that for Fast Track, we already
have this list, right? Because we get whatever will go to Fast
Track, we'll see it.
Correct, yeah.
Correct? It'll be here.
I see. So
so this would just be another fast track item. Correct. And
then some of us are already part of that fast track. So if you see something which is not looking good, we can always ask.
I
think that's why I like the fast track process. Just use that process so you know what process to use, you know what guidelines you have
set, you're done. What about appealability?
If
we include with fast track, then it's appealable to Planning Commission. So there's already a contract.
It follows the same process as any other fast track project would.
Yeah. Okay. It just need
any more than coming. Is that good? Did we hammer
that one
out pretty well? Does anybody have anything
else to add? No.
I
Very good.
I just wanted to follow up with a quick question on those size thresholds. Is the request to have thresholds based off of amps or size? Because I heard 600 mentioned
Right.
Um, probably sizes. Yeah, the amp's like 600 amp comes in variable sizes. I just I want to see the camera just in case we don't get it like I don't want to get a garden shed out there versus a sub-zero refrigerator size. You know, we already know. Basically, yeah, we're
just asking that whatever standard.
Okay.
two or three sizes they have for each of these boxes. Then I
want to know
about it. Correct, but… Yeah, and I think the reason we
need to know the sizes is so that based on the size, we can determine what type of screening has to be done. That's true. And also, what are the things we
are okay with, fast track, and what are the things we want to put a threshold on. And what collards
you might need and so on and so forth.
What
was it?
Bollard's data we put up? Wasn't it
like 30? 36 inches. Yeah, it
was proximity to a vehicle hazardous vehicle way versus the transformer, and then and in that instance, I believe we did settle on 36 inches as the protection for there.
I'd also mention that there's someone online.
Do we
want a smaller baller, then? No, because the… that is
still for the cars. Yeah, okay. You should just, like, make it as many things standard as we can, and then look at screening plan where we need to. Yeah.
And I think
and
have a kind of a menu of sizes.
When do you think you'll be developing this? How many other projects will come to Planning Commission before that?
I think the goal is to hopefully, I'm sorry if I'm cutting someone off, but I think the goal is to hopefully have this enacted to kind of
open the… or redirect the flow of current projects down to fast track
Yeah, so let's talk about what the timing of that looks like. You know, that's a four-month process. We come back to you next month with a recommendation. Then from there, it goes to city council. That's the first reading. Then we come another month, second reading, and then 30 days for that goes into effect. So welcome to the new year.
That's exactly what
I'm saying, and
then in that interim, there'll be probably 4 other projects. We have a few other
projects already in line that you guys will see. Well, let's get on it as fast as we
can. Which will get maxed out, not ours. Well, hopefully
we had enough of these hearings with all these variances. We do have someone online.
We
have
on
somebody online.
Oh, Carol. Yes. Sorry.
Okay. Chair, we
have Carol. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, one of the things you haven't considered on Lidikotte Lane, there were three
Transformers within 100 feet of each other. It's not gone through.
Because I don't think it's ever planning commission, but when I went out there, they were very close on a very steep slope. They were in the almost in the pathway
So, I know that Brigida mentioned something that they had to be so far away from the pathways, but you might
I want to say something about how many transformers that you want on one property along
I'm not sure we have any ability to do that, Carol.
Well, I think you might. One of the things, because some of the transformers are only for one property and some are for two or three properties.
So you might want to say that if you have transformers altogether that you would want the transformer built, but they're bigger, but that might be better looking than three transformers on the same piece of property
Yeah, but
But we will not have that, like, for example, if one person develops it and then the other one comes in, they're going to not remove the other one and they'll put a new one. And sometimes they can only put it in
that position. Yeah, I think the one thing, though, this brings up is we should put down a note that.
per property, only one transformer is allowed.
So if somebody comes up with an ADU, they cannot have a separate transformer. It has to be one transformer per property.
But it's not in their control, though.
No, but what happens, what happens is the neighbor across the street
I
don't think we can
enforce it.
Why? PGE
gets the
pick.
PGE does the engineering. Can we
enforce
that? Um, so that's an interesting question. If it's not part of the public utility, there's a potential that you could have that performance standard for a single-family residence.
When it becomes a public utility serving multiple, we would use Torello Lane as an example that had an underground transformer. They installed an above ground transformer right beside it, right in front of the same house, and there was no control, and we had very specific conversations about PG&E.
We also had very specific conversations with them about Liticoat. They said verbatim that they would not acknowledge and they would not make any accommodations. So, you mean for one property, there were multiple transformers? So,
it was in public right-of-way, but
it was in front of one property, and there was an underground one and then an expansion to an above ground one.
all within 5-10 feet of each other. But for the same property
or different property? Because it
was in public right away, it was serving multiple properties, which is why it was able to be installed within public right of way. Right. If it's if it's serving at least two houses, we would allow for it to be installed in public right of way. If it's only for the benefit of one individual home like it's at the end of a very line.
Um, then if it's on that private property, then I think there's a chance that, you know, because it's for that private property, you know, the requirements could be, as opposed to adding a second transformer for that same property that it would be one.
But we can ask PG&E that again, but, you know, I'm not…
Yeah, but we've had instances, only a few, but where the house is a corner house.
And having an ADU or an SB 9, and then the main house, and PG&E has insisted on two transformers, even though it costs the clients an arm and a leg and thing. So I'm just saying, I don't know how much control we'll have on it, so we should be very careful on… Can we
keep them out of pathways or give a little bit of margin, you know, around the pathway
so they're not
the pathways aren't on public utility easements, are they?
Yes.
They're
in Road right away.
Yes, they are.
Yes.
Road
right away is a public utility. Yeah, so there could
be a POE right next to a pathway, but it should not be overlapping. Right, or it could
be, like, have
a little bit of margin between.
The PUE, or the transformer and the pathway, so it's like… Yeah,
when we've had these types of requests come from residents, it's been to the fact that, um.
when we've had surveying done that typically PG&E is fairly accurate as it relates to where their utilities are, and so it's what it's boiled down to is that the property owners assume that they owned more right-of-way than what they actually do.
Assuming that they come right up to the street, which is, as we all know, not necessarily the case in all instances. In most instances, you've got the edge of pavement, and then you've got some, um, the length of offset before the property line for that property owner exists.
And they oftentimes think that that gap in between is also theirs. It's theirs to maintain, but it's not theirs from a standpoint of where utilities or trails and things like that can be installed.
Could I say something?
Yeah.
There's a problem, too, because
The transformer that was being built was not on the person's property. It was on across the street. And I had that on my property. The people that were building across the street came over
Without, and nobody ever gave me any information about it
And they built the transformer. It was underground on my property.
Yep.
No, on your right of way.
Yes, am I right away. That's right.
Now, it
Well, and that… and the point is, it's
not
your right-of-way.
This town's right away.
But I'm paying taxes on it. So
Yeah, you know
I
know, but that's what everybody has the issue with. Well, all we
are hearing, Carol, is that.
We have very limited options when it comes to this. You don't have control. Yeah, I would want to…
No, but the thing is, maybe we could plan better, but I don't think the people I wasn't informed. So if somebody was building a transformer on somebody else's property or putting it on
Yeah.
I think the person who owns that
area of right-of-way should be informed
So I agree with that completely. Yeah. And
we have a process already in play. Yes, we do. And because we are able to check the, I think they're called a site plan or site index comes from PG&E because they're doing work in our right-of-way.
So we have an encroachment permit process where we're able to see where those are, and we've, because of these resident requests that we've been getting, you know, about concerns that it's their property versus public right away, we've had, just as Carol's mentioned, individuals.
Five houses down, you know, around the block, not even remotely close to a project that have no notification associated with an encroachment. So, staff has taken it upon themselves since PG&E has not, um, taken it upon theirs or their, uh.
contractors haven't taken it upon them to do outreach. So, while they say they do outreach, we also follow up with certified mail now to those property owners where they have a transformer adjacent to their house that has no dealings with a project in their area, or even adjacent to a.
So, so
in that case, when we require screening, who pays for it?
Yeah,
so, um, in that… that instance, the project owner would still pay for it, even though it's
around the corner. Correct. I see.
Well, I appreciate that
Assuming
that it's allowed for within a… and typically, if it's in public right-of-way, we don't necessarily always allow for screening either because of visual sight lines and other things like that.
We should look at ways to make that possible.
Some… some ways, because there's… these are going to be everywhere.
They are
Yeah,
in fact, in public right-of-ways, as far as I recall, we don't even allow irrigation.
So even if you look like maintenance issues.
Maybe an art committee will be involved and make it as an art sculpture throughout the town, wherever it's, like, painted, like we're doing in Mountain View. But I don't know.
I mean, we can suggest this in this study session, but I think the town staff needs to look at it because we can say screening, and then it becomes a liability, and now we don't have
funds to maintain
it. I want to suggest it anyway, and let's see what options you guys can think of.
Yeah,
and just figure out this irrigation part, because I remember irrigation is not allowed.
And
It's
not up on trip.
And yet
I would clarify
that the Community Development Department is not the agency or the department responsible for public right-of-way for the town. That would be the Public Works Department, so we
will certainly confer with that.
No, you're sure. What can I say?
Well, I
remember this because I was not allowed irrigation, so I had to put some plants which don't need water. They don't
grow that
tall. I'm
thinking of a little redwood fencer.
Yeah, I think we
It's
maintenance. And then who's
the
liability? So it's
in
the public. The building
department. Okay. The
info, do
search and study.
I think we have our marching orders. I did want to highlight one thing regarding the landscape piece of it, just in conversation with staff while we were prepping for this. I think the plan would be like normally for a house, we'd have the house go to fast track, and then have that followed later
By a separate landscape screening permit. I think the goal with this would just be to handle all that as one package deal. So landscape screening and the unit is all approved as part of the same process.
Correct, which is maybe a bit of a wild card. And then the second
Okay. Assuming that the timeline with PG&E and their plans align with it. The
house will be done and
there'll be no PG&E. I do think the
earlier you can set the expectations with the resident and PG&E, I'm not sure that's useful, but.
the better.
Okay,
let's move on.
The second thing regarding the multiple trans…
Sorry, one more point. The second thing regarding the
Yeah. All right, uh, we're on to… I think
Dim
is asking something. Tim. Any
more questions, Tim?
Oh, just one more quick point to answer the question of multiple transformers.
the… that's been touched on in our conversation with Hcd regarding adus. So basically, if if a transformer is required
born ADU development. There's some
I would say it's frowned upon, if not explicitly banned, and it might be explicitly banned to deny a project because there's an ADU as HCD would see that as an unfair denial of an ADU.
So it may be something that we just have to handle on a case-by-case basis to have multiple transformers on a single parcel
Okay, got it.
But that's all
I think that if it's on the parcel inside the parcel, that's probably okay. It becomes more of an issue when they're right on the street, or right in the right of way.
I think so. And presumably the adus would be somewhere near the ad.
Correct.
Yeah.
Again, it's PG&E. Who knows? That's
right. They
will choose
because if it's near the adu, they need an easement to access it.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay. Okay. All right. On
to 6.3. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Tim.
Thanks.
Uh, housing element program E11, incentives for extremely low income housing development. The community development director, Jay Bradford is going to give us a staff report.
Yeah.
Thank you, Chair. As we, you just mentioned, housing element program. E. 11 is for a.
Uh, sorry, it says inclusionary housing. It should say for extremely low income density bonus there. And so when we look at the program E11 specifically.
And sorry, my screen's getting covered here by some things. We had a number of items that we were supposed to look at. The the second bullet point in the excerpt from the housing element itself talks about the development of a financial assistance for infrastructure studies, sewer, water improvements necessary for for affordable housing.
Annual contract, uh, contact of developers and identifying of opportunities to assist with funding for various incentives for facilitating housing development. And then the other criteria was to set a density bonus incentives beyond.
State law for extremely low-income units.
Um, history of work to date. We've certainly worked on the technical feasibility and the funding work, and we've done that through the allocation annually of consultant support for implementation of the housing element programs. This year we've budgeted $300,000.
for the implementation of all programs, of which this is a subsect. We've completed a water supply analysis and other technical studies associated with multifamily housing that also include those extremely low income units, and then there's ongoing coordination with the multifamily site owners as well as other agencies that promote affordable housing.
And then the last piece of this program that we've really been waiting on to see how the multifamily program was going to play out, as well as some of the other density bonus incentives and inclusionary housing policies that we had to have to be able to make this kind of relevant for where we were going to have the discussion.
So that's why we're bringing this last piece to you tonight. This is really meant to be able to focus on, you know, options for local extremely low income density bonuses. And there's kind of 4 flavors of these that we'd like to get some initial feedback on.
The first is very similar to what we've seen as those alignment with state law on density bonuses, which were specific to, you know, if you include these units, you get so many extra units. The second one for an incentive.
perspective was the development of additional standards as incentives. So think of this similar to what we did for the senior housing, where we gave additional parking. We gave larger size units.
There's also a third option, which is fee reduction, fee waivers, so that if a project comes in and it has extremely low income units, and I should talk maybe a little bit to remind the commission, the extremely low income units are above and beyond the low and the very low income category.
So this is typically around 30% of area and median income. So it's a very, very advantageous of a developer was going to come into the town with a project with extremely low income. And certainly there's cost because of the offset for that affordability level.
Um, so fee waivers and fee reductions may be applicable because of the additional cost the developer would be bringing forth. And then the other part that we could offer is maybe some expedited permitting process to be able to prioritize the reviews.
And early comments and consultations. I would caution on that one that, you know, we're one agency of multiple agencies that look at this, these types of projects. So, while we may be able to promise expedited services from the town.
We wouldn't be able to make those same promises. And the other thing I would say is because the state has these existing density bonus criteria that we've already adopted through other programs that we've just heard in recent months.
Really, the 2 that we would recommend the commission focus on and giving feedback would be the incentives to development standards, fee reductions, or some combination thereof. And based on that feedback, then staff will return with.
recommendations for an ordinance to be brought before City Council for adoption. With that, any questions or comments? Is this a particular…
tier of our Rena quota that we're having difficulty with that we need to provide hefty incentives. So
we've talked about this on the inclusionary conversation. Right now we've got a.
performance criteria that would say that we could count 50% of our very low into this category. This is meant to try to develop 62 extremely low income unit households.
how these programs tie into the RHNA allocations. These are meant to… there's kind of two flavors of themes when it comes to housing law. You have those that are meant to.
further fair housing. And this this would be one of those objectives that does that. The other are trying to remove constraints and barriers to projects. And so for this, there's not a specific alignment within the housing element Rena allocation, because that allocation looks at.
Very low, low. And then so on. And so typically the way that we've been meeting this paper plan. Yeah, these count as
households? Yes, they do. Yeah, these are
these are dwelling units, just like any other dwelling unit because of the affordability level, they're often smaller units.
Because… Would it satisfy the arena, though, or
is… Yes, it would. It would
satisfy Rena if these were developed in town. So if they
were developed, they would count towards a very low in Rina.
That's… well,
we would count them as very low. Yes, correct. Okay. Let me ask you, too,
on this, is that, you know, people… like, the builders will apply for this, but there's no enforcement that they have to build it.
So whatever bonuses or incentives we give, they could get those incentives and still not create the units. Well, so, you know, they certainly
are still get the benefit of density bonus. That was something that we just mentioned in the inclusionary policy. So this would be…
you know, doubling of incentives for developers above and beyond what state law is. And that that's the incentive, and that's the… So let me give an example of performance criteria of the program that
we've agreed. Let's take an example, right? Let's say a developer comes with.
a proposal with 10 very low-income housing units.
affordable units in that scenario, then they would get a doubling in the density bonus, and then if we had set, you know, reductions in standards for parking and size of units, they'd get those two.
No, but all I'm saying is, does the developer get any benefit if he develops ELI versus VLI? He doubles his… he can
stack these bonuses. Yeah, and we would be
giving more for, you know, because we have some that are on the very low that are aligned with state law, again, because of other programs that we.
we've adopted. This would allow for stacking.
Okay, so,
so we are allowing a higher bonus with
this program. Correct.
What is that number?
Well, we, uh, so we don't have to allow for additional units. You saw that as one of the options, but we had three others that you could
choose. I see.
You have
less fees or the fees you talked about.
These are only fees that.
The city controls. Can you…
You can't waive school fees, for example. No, correct. Okay.
But the question I have is what you were asking, I mean.
The ones we are doing when you… if you are showing affordable housing, you have to comply with it and have affordable housing at the end when the project is
finished. Yeah, yeah,
that's correct. If you're in the density bonus program, you have to provide the affordable units. If you're.
Uh, if you're in one of our local now bonuses that are tied to state law, you know, you have to provide those units to be able to get the density bonus. I think the question here is that, let's say
we did it, and they got the incentives, they got the density, they got everything.
And then when they built it.
My understanding is for our other projects, you have to make sure that you have this. You can't just change
those into… Yeah, because we're talking about being restricted
affordable units here. Why
did Steve Mattis make… remember he at a city council meeting? It was.
couple months ago, he mentioned that, you know, the builders can get all these different bonuses, and Denzie's been in practicality. They don't have to build it.
I've not seen that, because it's like I'll have to go back
in my notes, but with a city council meeting, he had mentioned it was later maybe what he
was saying
was they don't have to take the bonus if they don't want to. So they'll get the concessions and the waivers, but they won't necessarily have to take the density bonus.
Which, and so let's talk about that. So because this is one of the comments that came in the CalHDF letter that James Lloyd mentions, and it was this thought of preemption of density bonus, right? Where our inclusionary would still require.
a minimum percentage, regardless of the number of units, right? And that's not what we were talking about in that particular item. So there's… it was conflated a little bit. So, um, it will clarify that, as mentioned before, but the thought was that if you had, you know, a 15% inclusionary, um, or a 15% density bonus.
Well, the 15% density bonus was going to get you maybe 50% more units. You then weren't going to be able to use that inclusionary program to say of those new 50%. So if we had, let's just make it easy, 100 units, 15 of them were.
you know, going to be affordable, and then that was going to get you another 50 units. Those numbers are not accurate. I'll just be very clear on that. But what it was saying was, you're not going to then apply your inclusionary to those new 50 units, because those 50 units are really meant to offset.
The cost of the inclusion of the affordable units you've had. Yeah,
and diluting
that ability to then offset the cost by continuing to include through an inclusionary program. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about are additional incentives to the existing incentives.
to be able to provide a higher level of probability that these types of units get built.
Malika, from your experience, that list of 4 things, what would a developer want the most? So the list, if
you can
put it back up. Oh, yep. Sorry. What we were looking at, I mean, of course, the…
The fee is always exciting for people. The number of
units is the most exciting, right? Number
of units are happening, I think, by default, right? So if you look at the other ones, the number 2.
And then the expediting process is the most exciting and that's the biggest discussion happening in Mountain View and Sunnyvale as well of how developers are not.
Coming in because it's just taking too long for approvals. But the problem is that Jay said, they might be able to control what's happening in the town, but the consultants, you can't control the
fire department,
you can't control… Well, what are they doing in those other towns?
They're struggling because the problem is
that it's not moving fast. So we are helping the city of Mountain View with trying to figure out an incentive of moving fast. Sunnyvale is has done a better job because they have like they you submit everything like you do like a study session.
But you get comments back from every department, like from fire, from public work. And
that's a full service agency versus an agency like ours that relies on outside support. Correct. So
there it's faster, because you submit within a month you get everybody's comments. So there's no gray.
and they move really fast. So
does that
mean let's say if we want to do that.
It might mean that we may have to have a dedicated staff member just to help.
accelerate
things and still
failure that's not
doing
their… It might still
fail,
but the whole… the possibility of improvement.
Yeah, but
my guess is if and when this is coming through as a project.
Our current staff is not going to be looking at this. I'm guessing at that point we will have to have.
At least 1 or 2 people who are just looking at multifamily. But, I mean, in this, I think, as Jay said, that 4 will be difficult. Maybe a study session is the fastest thing that can be given, but then the 1st.
Number one is happening by default, I think. But 2 and 3 is going to be very.
you know, is the incentives, the more incentives they have, the more they'll do.
Because it becomes as many units you're giving, then you have more unit per unit fee also, and things like that.
So, one, we are saying by the state laws, there will be some bonuses.
Now, you could go over and beyond that. This is local.
Great.
Yeah. Incentives just for our local, because by the time people are coming in and building, this is so expensive that if you don't give incentives to add this, nobody will add it much. I agree. Because they won't break even.
I mean, we are struggling with affordable. So going down it is going to be even more challenging for a developer, right? We are struggling even to.
convince.
But because these are study sessions, it'd be good to give ideas that these are the incentives which would be good to see. But maybe the town can also talk to a few developers just to see what incentives would be exciting for them.
I
mean, we probably could say a study session within 30 days.
Or something
like that. But we are
giving a guideline as to like what they should be looking at, right?
As
of today's study session.
So I'm saying that they should be also like we give incentives we think can work, but it'd be good for them to also.
Talk to a few developers just to get an idea. Yeah,
I see what you're saying. But let me ask towards that, do we know what developers are.
wanting, not for extremely low, but even for very low or low. Yes, we've had any
numbers of conversations with developers, and they would really like to have 80 to 100 dwelling units per acre to be able to hit their project criteria for the performer perspective.
Yeah, because it
comes down
to number. If that is the comment we are getting for very low and low.
Double that for this, because this is extremely low. So I don't think we need more feedback. We already have the feedback based on what they're asking for very low
and low. We just don't know what options we have. Exactly. You know, what are these development standards, height, setback, open.
Like,
just giving them more incentive, like, you know, if you did this many units, then you get extra this much height or an extra floor, or whatever it is.
less parking. I hope parking is one thing I think we should not add because we need parking. Everybody will have two cars regardless which unit it is. So I think apart from parking, like, we can give incentives on open space, setback and heights.
Because
that town is an open space like, but.
If you need to give them, but I would not
do parking, because what does it mean to give them
open space? No, give incentives that you don't have to, like, if our minimum open space is a certain thing in our whatever guideline, it's an incentive that if you did this, you can reduce your common area, or you can reduce parking, or setbacks, or height.
So it's an incentive for developers that, okay.
you know, they can get more units, and they can get away with certain things.
I think based on what I've heard so far, we'd like to understand what options are in number 2. What possible things we could do for number 2. I wouldn't
reduce parking, but I would do tandem parking allowed.
But not
reduce it. Yeah,
tandem parking.
Yeah. Those
kind of things,
I think if we can give, then maybe people will feel… because the problem is the number doesn't work for developers, so then they don't do it. Yeah.
But isn't parking expensive for developers, too?
From what I understood
when… But if we don't give like we have no public transit here. Oh, and
I'm just
saying, as a, you know, yeah, we need the parking, but parking also is just an added expense to the developer parking. Yeah. But since we
don't have public transport anywhere close to us, they will have to give.
per unit than standard.
thing, but I'm saying we should not reduce the standard with incentive.
We can say you can do… we'll give
flexibility. Being very
helpful to
you, to
be honest. Well,
actually, I think what we're saying is, number one, we don't like. Number four, we can't do. So
it's got to be number
two or number three.
Why don't we like that?
I mean, one is, I think, happening by default.
Isn't it? With the state density bonus? Not being any help at all to
him. Jay, explain me. I thought
that is going to be the biggest incentive. And that's going to happen by default.
Well,
okay, so give me one second here. I've got some things up on my screen. Uh, trying to minimize. Another thing I
can think
of as an incentive is high, but, you know, I just… I'm watching the construction of that five-story, you know, building in downtown Los Altos. I'm like.
Yeah,
but keep in mind that wherever this comes in, hopefully we'll be on acres.
Like in Los Altos and Mountain View, it's like this much a site, and then it's huge. So I'm hoping to scale.
is going to be like, you know, it's bigger.
So what we could do is we do have height. We do have height. We do have heights available.
I'm not a fan of doing that, but…
Yeah, and to your question, unfortunately, I don't have what the existing state density bonuses are to tell you kind of that threshold. I should have done that. I'll bring that back. That's okay. But what
I meant was we still get it.
Yeah, so they definitely have access to all state and local density bonus programs that we've already implemented at this point. And then this would be if for option one, say, say it was a 5%. Maybe we could make it a 7%, right? And they would get, you know, that many extra units as a result.
Okay. But
could we do, like, what
we did for senior housing where we increase the FAR by 0.05. Yeah, certainly. Right? So that's another approach.
Because if you don't give… if you don't give incentives where they can make money at the end, they will not add
this. I
like the idea of unifying on a.
idea, and then using it multiple places. Yeah, so whatever
we did
for senior housing, we should directly apply to
this. That would be number 2 here. And more, of course.
Review 1, 2,
and 3.
Let them review 1, 2 and 3. Come back with one on what the state number is, and maybe we can give a little bit more incentive in
there if need
be. And try to make them more concrete, so that we have real things to look at.
Okay.
No problem. Okay.
public comment. All right.
Public comment. Is
there any public comment?
Nobody.
Anyone where'd
they all go?
Disappeared. Nobody online?
I will close that
part
of the public
hearing. Awesome. All right. And why don't we go ahead and move on?
Let's
go. It's midnight. Number seven item number 7 is ongoing business.
Discuss and direct staff regarding housing element implementation. J. Do you have specific things there that you want to talk about?
I think we provided the update that we had gotten the two comments back that were fairly minor that will clarify with HCD. And if additional modifications are necessary, we'll bring that back to the.
Commission. Other than that, I don't have anything else that I'm thinking of at this point in time for an update. Okay. Yeah, the only thing
I would reiterate for this is.
We should conclude some subset or the whole of the ADU and SB9 ordinance soon. Yeah, Alisa and I are on the ADU one.
Right. Yeah,
and I would say… That's the only
thing. No,
I'm saying from
a timeline, we don't know how many of these are going to bunch up.
Together, and are just going to get kicked off just because there are
too many.
Yeah, and I would… In fact, let me just mention, on the ADU, the idea is to get those nailed and out and done.
And then there's a component having to do with communication. This is website, FAQ, all of the information that we've been gathering and getting that out. And then there's an aspect of streamlining, of trying to look for specific areas where we can modify our processes to get things done faster. No,
I'm just talking about the ordinance part.
That's the very first thing that we're on deck right
now. Right.
So the ordinance part, I think we should just.
We've done enough of discussions that we don't need workshops or study sessions. We should just go ahead and bring it to Planning
Commission. It's
independent, because we actually are having a study or a workshop-y thing in September.
And there's a debate right now about whether this is ADU-oriented or just development-oriented, whether it's a listening session with city council, I'm not in favor of that, versus a workshop with planning commissioners.
But is that workshop…
Going to delay the… No, no, no, the total
different track. Got it. That's
what I
would like to see. If they're on different tracks, perfect.
Perfect. I just don't want it to come in
the way of…
Yeah, we all feel
the same way. Good, good. Yeah, and I would mention we were circling around September 14th, um, for the workshop, um, and then the other thing I should mention is that on the SB 9.
We've been asking for meetings with HCD staff and have yet to have a response from them specifically. They've got a lot of things going on at the state level, so when they have… We should get around
that if we can. No, so we discussed
that at the ad hoc committee.
We are going to split what we are going to do on SB 9 into things we can do.
and get it on the books.
without getting HCD feedback. And then the broader aspects, we will wait
till we
get more feedback. But we need to get step one or some subset of it out, because there's a lot of mistakes or.
Changes in SB9 we need to do because of the new SB450. Got it.
Okay, uh, reports from commissioners. Let's see, in July, we didn't have a city council.
So, did I hear September 14th as a potential date?
That's correct, for the workshop. Okay, so
I'll block
it on my calendar.
I'm
okay with this, uh, my September 17th date. Right, that's
the next
question. Is everyone okay with these dates? I'll probably
attend the August 20th. So in case Elisa can't do it. Well.
It would be good, Jay, if somebody could just contact Alyssa and just confirm that.
She's on tap for that, August 20th. She probably knows about it already, but if she can't do it, let's ask… The
only thing
is, since August 20th, City Council, they're supposed to be working, hopefully getting the H, you know, the housing element standing committee up and running.
As long as there is not more than two of us in the audience, or if there's more than two, we'll have to take turns going outside, if there's any. I think I'm in Cleveland.
So I'm not coming. So Rajiv, you and I
can go to
August 20th. Yeah, I don't know yet
if I'm free, but I'll try. At least I know that no one else is going to be there. I don't want
to be
there, but I
do want to go and just see what's going on.
Oh, sorry, I'm not here August 20th. Okay. I'm flying that afternoon, so I'm not here. All right.
Well, then you take care of September 14th, because I won't be around for that one, so okay, great.
Okay.
Reports on Fast Track, or past fast track site development meetings.
Is
there anything there, Jay?
No,
I think, uh, just as it's… all
of that is canceled.
Okay. Um, reports on approved reasonable accommodations on Kate Drive. Is this the Kate Drive? This is the same K drive. Yes.
And so you guys heard the variance request. That was if they were going to keep improvements permanently.
When that was unsuccessful, they made the request for a reasonable accommodations for conditional approval, which included, you know, potential removal of those materials after use has ceased.
And
my…
Uh, nothing. So what was
the results
of all that then? Um, so
they did have to follow the direction that the Planning Commission gave them for the the majority of the the lighting and other improvements and things of that nature.
But then obviously because of a disability, we did allow for them to be able to maintain what was a five-foot path as opposed to a four-foot path. Well, so we would have given exemptions for 4-foot paths anyway under DG.
But because of the need for a different type of surface and a little bit more maneuvering clearance, we gave them an allowance for a 5-foot hardscaped path.
And
that's the only priority,
additional MDA that you approved. Correct. Right. And
they took
it down. They had 14 foot wide paths. Yeah, those,
those were, again, all things that the were part of the determination from the Commission at that point in time.
And those regulations still were in place based on their accommodation is
no longer being used, is there any follow-up? They got to take stuff
out? Yeah, so again, based on the recommendations, um, here, and then the council action.
There's a reporting period and then follow up from staff required on an annual basis. And then I think a potential three-year look ahead from those individuals as well. So how
confident are you of.
The reporting and the follow-up. Because if I look at our track record on CUPs, it's very poor, right? Oh, hold on now. We're doing a
lot of
work on that now.
I thought they were working hard on an
Excel sheet. Yeah, I forgot to mention one of our new interns in Zhe Zoo over there, he's been doing a ton of work. He helped on the MDA.
conversation about coverage and materials that we presented to the EPC that we were talking about, but he's also been doing a ton of work as it relates to organizing our CUPs and of various flavors that we have. Mostly from their inception all the way to current date.
We're getting a lot more information on when CEPs occurred, when they were renewed, and then current status. And so we've definitely got a lot of information on CUPs now that we didn't have before, and, you know, we certainly understand that there's a need to bring those that have been missed, and I'm going to say prior staff on this one.
Um, to be able to make sure that we're judiciously moving those forward so that they're all becoming more and more current in our list. It'd be
great if,
you know, whoever it is, uh, is, uh, can publish a report on this. This is awesome work.
I think
AI can do that right now, like, just give us priority. Yeah,
you have to
be careful. And, you know, add this one to the CUP list, because this one is a unique one. It will get lost if
it's not tracked somewhere. Yeah, so we… we also have set up specific record types, and within the parcel records themselves have been adding additional comments and notes associated with these things.
We also have, you know, private files because of the sensitive nature to this, so those aren't going in electronically, so it's a distillation of some of that information so that, you know, there's still confidentiality associated with what goes into the system. So even if someone got access to it, or for some reason it got shown to the public.
There wouldn't be anything sensitive associated with it. It'd be the determination of staff, and then the conclusion of the
request. I'm sure the interns are much better at using AI than the staff, right? You guys should use a lot more AI.
Is
there anything more
we should discuss tonight? Jay? Yes, on item 12, if
you would continue this meeting to the… to that August 13th. I see, so we don't have to re-notice.
Oh, we will be re-noticing
anyway, um, because we're going to be putting out the notice for the, um, City Council meeting for the inclusionary item. So we'll also include.
the item being rescheduled from the Planning Commission in that same notice. So we have no
problem with re-noticing. And so we're this is just going to August 13th August 13th. Can I propose a motion that we?
Continue this meeting on August thirteenth.
Okay,
I second whatever. Yeah. Second. Yep.
unanimous. Yep. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All
right.
Thanks, everybody. 1212. I'm not too bad.
I was really…
blown
away by how.