Item 4 - Addendum with Attachments
PREPARED BY: JENNIFER ARMER, AICP
Senior Planner
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● 408-354-6832
www.losgatosca.gov
MEETING DATE: 2/18/2021
ITEM: 4
ADDENDUM
TOWN OF LOS GATOS
GENERAL PLAN UPDATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
REPORT
REPORT
DATE: February 17, 2021
TO: General Plan Update Advisory Committee
FROM: Joel Paulson, Community Development Director
SUBJECT: Review and Discussion of the Revised Initial Draft of the Community Design
Element.
REMARKS:
Attachment 26 contains comments from Committee Members.
Attachment 27 contains public comment received after the completion of the Staff Report.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachments previously received with the November 5, 2020 Staff Report:
1. June 11, 2020 Community Workshop and Online Survey Summary
2. Initial Draft of Land Use Element
3. Initial Draft of Community Design Element
4. Public Comment received by 11:00 a.m., Friday, October 30, 2020
Attachments previously received with November 5, 2020 Addendum:
5. Committee Member Comments
6. Public Comments received between 11:01 a.m., Friday, October 30, 2020 and 11:00 a.m.,
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Attachment previously received with the November 5, 2020 Desk Item:
7. Committee Member Comments
Attachments previously received with the November 19, 2020 Staff Report:
8. November 17, 2020 Town Council Staff Report with Attachments 1-7
9. Committee Member Comments
PAGE 2 OF 2
SUBJECT: Revised Initial Draft of the Community Design Element
February 17, 2021
N:\DEV\GPAC\GPAC Staff Reports\2021\02-18-21\Word Docs\Item 4 - Addendum.docx
ATTACHMENTS (continued):
Attachments previously received with the November 19, 2020 Desk Item Report:
10. Committee Member Comments
11. Public Comment
Attachments previously received with the January 7, 2021 Staff Report:
12. Revised Initial Draft of Land Use Element
13. Comment Response Summary Table – Land Use
14. Revised Initial Draft of Community Design Element
15. Comment Response Summary Table – Community Design
16. Updated Potential Housing Production Table
Attachments previously received with the January 7, 2021 Addendum Report:
17. Committee Member Comments
18. Public Comment
Attachments previously received with the January 21, 2021 Staff Report:
19. Maps of the Area Described in a Public Comment
20. Committee Member Comments
Attachment previously received with the January 21, 2021 Addendum Report:
21. Historic Preservation Committee Comments
Attachment previously received with the January 21, 2021 Desk Item Report:
22. Committee Member Comments
Attachments previously received with the February 4, 2021 Staff Report:
23. Updated Comment Response Summary Table – Community Design Element
24. Committee Member Comments
Attachment previously received with the February 4, 2021 Addendum Report:
25. Committee Member Comments
Attachments received with this Addendum Report:
26. Committee Member Comments
27. Public Comment
From: Jeffrey Barnett
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2021 11:42 AM
To: Joel Paulson
Subject: Community Design Element
Hello, Joel.
I have a couple of grammar corrections relating to the Draft Community Design Element.
1. Page 4-37. The discussion on the Lark Avenue District has an incomplete sentence. It reads: ``The area
most of the Town's industrial uses and office complexes, as well as primary frontage on Los Gatos Creek.."
2. Page 4-41. The clause on the auto-oriented corridor is followed by "With a with a mixture..."
Great job by the GPAC and consultant. Their hard work is certainly appreciated.
Jeffrey
ATTACHMENT 26
General Plan Advisory Committee
Memo
To: Chairperson Hanssen and Members of the Committee
From: Steve Piasecki
Date: February 18, 2021
Re: Comments regarding the Public Review Draft of the Community Design Element
Since we haven’t discussed the Community Design Element for several months I wanted to
reiterate the following comments:
4. Community Design Element
Study the reduction of travel lanes on Los Gatos Blvd.
Study the feasibility of reducing the number of travel lanes on Los Gatos Boulevard to four
lanes to enhance the sense of Los Gatos as a small town, discourage speeding and reduce
cut-through traffic. The recovered space shall be devoted to safe pedestrian and bicycle
circulation and enhanced landscaping.
The following illustrations were taken from the City of San Jose Basom Avenue Urban Village
Plan.
Existing Los Gatos Blvd. from Google Maps
Notice that nobody is walking on the sidewalk
Possible conversion of the excess travel
lane to pedestrian walks and protected
bicycle lanes.
2
Page 4-7: Add words about the importance of the ground floor being visible and
activated along public streets.
Page 4-22
Designate the north and south approaches on Highway 17 as gateways. The gateway
signage could be mounted on overpasses or adjacent to the freeway right of way (as
shown in some of the photos.)
Compatible Building Design:
Step buildings down adjacent to neighboring lower profile buildings. This can be
accomplished by stepping the two-story building down at least one-half story adjacent to
a single-story building.
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Intentionally
Left Blank
From: David Shade
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2021 2:10 PM
To: GP2040 <GP2040@losgatosca.gov>
Subject: Written Comments GP2040
GP2040
General Plan Update Advisory Committee
Thank you for volunteering for this effort and reaching out to the people that elected the Town
Council. Citizen participation may help somewhat but it is your work output that reflects most on those
officials who bear all the responsibility to us the taxpayers.
First off, I have a disagreement with a statement in the Invitation Notice published in the community
newspaper. It has to do with the notion that the GP acts as the Constitution for development…….upon
which all land use decisions are based. The Town can only have one Constitution and that is the Law all
other tax payer funded activities must adhere to.
I believe that the GP is just a Road Map developed by unelected staff, who bear no responsibility to the
taxpayers, for the purpose to guide the Town of Los Gatos Council to operate within the liberties
protected for the taxpayers.
In other words, the Town Council cannot hand off the alteration of the Constitution to a committee.
Most of us chose Los Gatos for a very specific reasons. Charming residences, beautiful parks, fiscally
conservative government, locally owned merchants, friendly neighborhoods, safe streets, good schools,
and the list goes on. This may be called the the Town Charter or Mission Statement, but I think of it as our
Constitution. It consists of simple items, each very definable, each very specific and not arbitrary in any
way.
GP’s are more detaled and change all too frequently in my mind. Too often they are used to circumvent
our Constitution and the scrutiny of the taxpayers. Excuses given…. that it was in the GP so it must have
been justified to go ahead without ever consulting the voters. Sometimes brought-on by reasons such as
new council members unfamiliar with our history, new department heads with ideas that worked for them
in other cities, elite appointees that are smarter than the electorate, career oriented politicians with large
egos using Los Gatos as a stepping stone to the next job while we the citizens are left holding the bag. You
might know some of these people.
I do not mean to minimize the importance of the Advisory Committee at this time. A GP or Road Map as I
call it, is generally a good thing to have if it indeed represents the taxpayers rights.
However, GP’s have failed on occasions to protect our original attraction to live in Los Gatos. That’s
another list we all know. Yes, there are those who want to profit at the expense of the
taxpayers. Government bureaucrats, some elected officials, some city staffers, here today gone tomorrow
land developers, some favored merchants, etc. to name a few. It is much easier to blame a GP than an
elected official for allowing or sometimes engineering those mistakes to take place.
Therefore any GP item failing the Constitution protections that brought us to Los Gatos should be
eliminated. I have attended too many council meetings to hear that Los Gatos will not:
Change the use of my street, the character of my neighborhood, the zoning law applying to my
neighborhood, the housing density per tract, the family density per home, add low income housing
ATTACHMENT 27
(ADU’s), add homeless housing (ADU’s), allow non-conforming structures and setbacks, raise speed
limits, allow cut through traffic, increase private school enrollments beyond their use permit, permit
more car trips per day for those same private schools, etc. and overload our streets and schools and
police protection with mixed phase land developments that fail to be completed by developers as
approved by the Town.
Too many times these stated protections have been “just empty words”. I would hope you take these
comments into consideration as you complete your task.
Furthermore, I would recommend avoiding “cookie cutter solutions” that create any unintended
casualties by the GP, apply fiscally conservative controls to all items, prioritized items within the real
limit of our financial reserves. Additionally, any item that takes a liberty away from one segment of our
population to favor another should be eliminated from consideration. Funding sources from the
Federal, State or County governments should not be pursued or accepted if conditions are placed on the
Town taxpayers/voters that violate our Constitution. Example: low income housing placement that
changes any taxpayers’ liberty for the use of their property without compromise (physical or
economic).
Thank you for your concerns.