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Attachment 9 - May 24, 2023 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A P P E A R A N C E S: Los Gatos Planning Commissioners: Jeffrey Barnett, Chair Steve Raspe, Vice Chair Susan Burnett Kylie Clark Melanie Hanssen Emily Thomas Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti Community Development Director: Joel Paulson Town Attorney: Gabrielle Whelan Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin (619) 541-3405 ATTACHMENT 9 LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 P R O C E E D I N G S: CHAIR BARNETT: Now we’ll move onto Agenda Item 2, which is a submission by the Town in which we are asked to consider a request to forward a recommendation to the Town Council on Modification to the Town’s Height Pole and Netting Policies for Additions and New Construction. Staff notes that the proposed amendments to the Town policy are not considered a project for purposes of CEQA. Are there any disclosures by Commissioners? Seeing none, is there a Staff Report on Agenda 2? JENNIFER ARMER: Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. The item in front of you is consideration of changes to the Town’s Height Pole and Netting Policy, often referred to as the Story Pole Policy. This discussion is a continuation of the item from the April 26th Planning Commission meeting. The reason for considering the current Story Pole Policy started with recent requests for exceptions to the current Story Pole Policy, but additional questions and suggestions have been raised in the public comment and at the April meeting. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The written Staff Report that has been provided to you for your discussion tonight provides a series of topics for discussion presented as a series of questions. First, should the Town retain a requirement for installation of story poles for development projects? If yes, then what types of projects should be required to install story poles? What types should be excluded or exempt? Should the current requirements be modified? Should specific alternatives be detailed in the Story Pole Policy? Should a modification be made to change the decision maker for the exception requests or certain exception requests? Should the requirement for submittal and approval of a Story Pole Plan be removed from the policy? This concludes Staff’s presentation, but I’d be happy to answer any questions. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for the presentation. Are there any questions of Staff at this time? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I have a question about ADUs. It doesn’t specifically say that we do or don’t LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 require ADUs, but I would assume that we cannot require story poles for ADUs. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. That’s correct. Because Accessory Dwelling Units are processed as a non-discretionary process at this time it’s actually just a Building Permit for those applications, Story Pole Policy would not apply to those. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So when it says additional structures, it would be a nonresidential structure on a property, like a pool cabana or something like that, not an ADU? JENNIFER ARMER: It could be if there were multiple structures on a property, but for Accessory Dwelling Units, because they are ministerial, they would not be required to do story poles. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Chair, one more question. CHAIR BARNETT: Please. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: One of the things that were suggested in the Staff Report is a possibility to consider if it was the will to continue the Story Pole Policy. One thing that could possibly be an exception was 100% affordable housing, so what would qualify as 100% affordable housing? People would want to understand that. So the North Forty has met requirements for affordable LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 housing, but it’s not 100% affordable, so 100% affordable is what? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I would say that if that is the recommendation of the Planning Commission that we could provide some additional information to Town Council about the different levels of affordability and what those thresholds are for them to consider whether there is a specific threshold, but in general what I would say is that if all of the units in the proposed development are deed restricted to be below market rate, that that would qualify as 100% affordable housing. CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions for Staff? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I have two questions. First I was wondering what we do for a proposed 70’ tall building, for example? I can’t imagine that we can do story poles that tall. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. My understanding is that for that type of building there are some options that could be considered, for example, getting the large cranes that are used in high construction, and those get set up to have the string of flags between them. I believe that when we had the Netflix development coming through that they did something similar to that to show what the height was. You LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 can imagine though that, depending on how many of those cranes you need to have, it is something that becomes a pretty significant investment, especially depending on how long they need to be in place for. COMMISSIONER CLARK: May I ask a second question? CHAIR BARNETT: Please. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. The other thing I was wondering is one of the possibilities that was mentioned is only showing things like front façade or tallest ridge and things like that, and I know it varies drastically I’m sure between projects, but in general would that save a considerable portion of the cost for a lot of projects? JENNIFER ARMER: My understanding is that the extent of the story poles and netting does add significantly to the cost, and so if it were just showing certain portions that would reduce that impact. We will have some members of the public speaking. I know that we do have a few developers joining us to provide their perspective, and so that type of question based on their experience may add to the Commission’s discussion. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Anything further? Commissioner Thomas. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Chair. I have two questions for Staff. The first is that in our current policy it states that the story poles enhance understanding of the project for Town residents, Staff, etc., including us. Can Staff make decisions without story poles? I have an assumption about an answer, but I still want to know. Then are there any instances where story poles are necessary for Staff to make decisions? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I would say that it is not the majority of the agencies in Santa Clara County that actually require story poles and that there is a clear answer of yes, Staff can make decisions without story poles. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Is there any instance that anyone would know about where they would be really important to the decision making process on your end? JENNIFER ARMER: From Staff’s perspective, I don’t believe that it would be required for us in making our recommendations for compliance with the regulations, because there would still be the information in the plans. As stated at the beginning of Story Pole Policy, it has a multi-pronged kind of purpose, and so it is a question of what the intent and goal of the policy is and how best to accomplish that. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. May I? CHAIR BARNETT: Please. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. My second question is about the Story Pole Policy, and I know we discussed this a little bit last time too, but I just wanted to clarify, is the Story Pole Policy helpful for Staff, and if yes, why? Then, on average do you approve the Story Pole Policy or do you suggest changes before the story poles actually go up. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. As mentioned at our last meeting, we find that it is helpful to have the Story Pole Policy in advance so that Staff has the opportunity to make sure that the critical elements of the building are represented, and there is the concern that if there wasn’t a Story Pole Policy but Staff was still expected to go out and take a look and make sure that it really was fully represented that there might need to be modifications in the field to what was installed, so that’s part of the question behind it and I think we do often indicate a need to have more poles, or different poles, or something is inconsistent. I’m not sure how often there would actually need to be changes in the field, because based on my experience the story pole installer will represent the building LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 reasonably well. Sometimes the corrections to the Story Pole Policy actually just have to do with how it was drawn rather than how it would all actually be installed. One of the additional benefits to having a Story Pole Policy that we have found is that it sometimes is helpful to members of the public to understand how those poles and netting represent the building that is drawn in the plans. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you, Chair. The Story Pole Policy has been in effect since 1998. I’m wondering why now are there changes that want to be made to it? Is it because of the new pending larger projects? I know the builders have always known of the cost. This is usually a built-in cost and they’ve been aware of this, so I’m wondering is there something that has triggered the desire to change our policy? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. Yes, as stated in the Staff Report the reason for bringing this forward was based on direction from Town Council, because we have had several taller projects come through that required a request for an exception, which added multiple months to the process for those and added to the work of the Town Council, and Council indicated that once LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 buildings go more than 35-40’ that this may be a recurring issue. They did ask Staff to bring to Planning Commission this discussion for what modifications may be needed. In addition to that, you have heard and seen in written comments a number of other concerns from the public and suggestions for modifications and alternatives, and so those have also been incorporated into the items proposed for consideration tonight as part of this discussion. In addition, as was previously mentioned, there also is a discussion for production of housing and whether this is considered a governmental constraint. It is something that is currently in the Draft Housing Element for consideration, that we would look at the Story Pole Policy to consider whether modification should be made. No determination has been made whether it needs to be changed. CHAIR BARNETT: Does that answer the question? Any further questions of Staff at this time? If not, we’ll open the public portion of the public meeting on Item 2 and invite comments from members of the public, and we’ll start with anyone who may be participating on Zoom. Mr. Paulson, do we have any? JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. For the participants on Zoom, if you wish to speak on the Story LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Pole Policy please raise your hand. The first speaker will be Jessie. JESSE BRISTOW: Good evening. I’m not sure if you can hear me, but my name is Jessie Bristow of Swenson Builders and I’m listening in for YouTube because there is no audio on Zoom, but I hope you can hear me, and it looks like everyone can. I’ll just speak to our project, which is on Shelburne and Winchester, and as earlier discussed the project that we’re proposing, the building height is around 38 feet and then we have a mansard roof, which is designed to hide the solar equipment and heating and all those things and reflect the architecture that was requested per our Community Advisory Committee meeting. Essentially what happened is we used string flags to accommodate that size, because once you go that height you cannot do netting and so we had asked for a Variance, and then actually had to ask for a Variance twice because of trying to implement that new design that Council recommended for us, and additionally all the storms that we had, so now we have a Variance to create a 3-D walk-through video of the project, which we actually feel articulates the architecture in the finished project much better, but I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 would agree with the discussion that it could be a constraint for future housing. It is exceptionally costly. The vendor that we used is one of, I want to say, two in the Bay Area and our initial install was about $70,000, and on top of that we pay about $7,000 a month on rent for those flags that essentially aren’t doing anything for our project, and we’ve had those flags installed since November, so it is painfully expensive and it does prevent us from trying to move our project forward to the Planning Commission. And again, one of our discussions that we had at our most recent City Council meeting was do the flags really even highlight what’s going to be there? There were some neighbors and some Council Members saying, “We just see some orange flags in the sky and we don’t know what that means,” and so I feel that it can be prohibitive. I think there are alternative solutions, such as renderings, such as videos. We have a lot of technology today that we can use, so that’s just our experience in a nutshell. I apologize, I only have three minutes, but we do encourage a change to the policy, especially with future RHNA housing goals and density bonuses that allow you to break the height. Thank you for your time. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much, Jessie, and before you go we will ask any of the Commissioners if they have questions for you? I’m not seeing any. Thank you very much. Oh, I guess I would like you to explain the video process, like were there particular protections to make sure that it was accurate? JESSE BRISTOW: (No response.) CHAIR BARNETT: He may have hung up. JOEL PAULSON: Did KCAT look into… JENNIFER ARMER: KCAT did check and they’ve got the audio coming through, so they’re not sure whether it’s something on his end. CHAIR BARNETT: Well, Jessie, we’ll give you another opportunity to participate after we’re done with the other public comments, and I’d like to see if you have responses to that kind of question, or if any other Commissioners at that time wish to ask questions of you. Do we have anyone on Zoom, Mr. Paulson? JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. If anyone else on Zoom would like to speak on this item, please raise your hand. I’m not seeing any hands yet, Chair, but maybe we’ll go to the folks in the room and then reach out again. CHAIR BARNETT: Agreed. So why don’t we start with Mr. Fagot? Thank you for coming and speaking. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LEE FAGOT: Good evening, and thank you all for the work that you’re doing on behalf of our community. Appreciate it. I’m speaking as an individual in our town, a long-term resident; I’m not representing any groups. I think that we need to be considerate of the long-term impact of new construction that goes on in town, regardless of whether it is residential, commercial, or whatever. It’s there for a long time and it’s in a variety of different types of neighborhoods, historic as well as general commercial, and so forth. It is not just in that particular neighborhood where the construction is occurring, but it is impactful town-wide, and therefore all members of the community, all members of the Town, should be able to see what this new construction is going to look like. I like the idea of the virtual, but not alone. I’m advocating for the story poles. Story poles help give a better image of what the impact is going to be from different perspectives as you look at the site, particularly with the hillsides and our various topographies. I believe that there is an opportunity to perhaps have less dense netting so it’s not going to be impacted by strong winds as we saw back in December and January, so LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that type of amendment I think would be very helpful for the contractors, and story poles without netting makes no sense. I think also the suggestion that was made to put flags at the top where the peak of a roof would be would help to give it a perspective, so the flags with less dense netting would be good with these story poles. Also, markings on the story poles like every 10’ so you get a sense of how high this construction is going to be, and those markings should start at the new grade, not just where the site is currently. That’s my proposal. Please consider that as you make a decision to make your recommendation to the Council. Story poles have been working for a long time. Yes, there is a cost associated with it, but the benefit is the larger community gets to see what the impact is going to be on that site, and that’s helpful for this town to have its sense of community and wellbeing. Thank you for your time and your work for us. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, and I’ll ask if any Commissioners have questions for you. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Fagot, for coming tonight. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 My question for you is you mainly mentioned new construction. Our Story Pole Policy accounts for remodels and things like that, so I was wondering what your feelings were about those? LEE FAGOT: When I say new construction I mean on perhaps an existing site that has already been developed, so not just a blank tarmac. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So additions and new builds? LEE FAGOT: Correct. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Any other questions? It looks like not. Thank you again. We’ll now call on Mr. Cross. NOEL CROSS: Thank you. My name is Noel Cross; I’m a practicing architect for over 35 years, and most of that has been in the Town of Los Gatos and I’ve had maybe dozens of projects before the Commission. I hope you read our letter. Bess Wiersema mostly wrote it, but there are six or eight of us architects that regularly go before this Commission and work with the Town and we had a lot of input into that. Thank you for letting us talk about something that we deal with every day very LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 intimately and we know all the ins and outs of it. I’d like to underline just a few points in the letter. Basically story poles are really more hurtful than helpful. They really don’t represent the character of the building at all. They represent only the worst parts of it: the mass, the height and the bulk of the structure, but they don’t communicate any nuance, any materials, color, shade, shadow, roofline, proportion, all the things architects care passionately about and we work on in our 3- D renderings, and we think about that all the time, and those things go up and it conveys none of that. What I have learned in over 35 years of doing this is that the neighbors of our projects are very fearful, mostly about the unknown, and because these story poles convey none of the nuance and the beauty, how the sun reflects off of a roof or wall or how a certain overhang shades the building, none of that gets conveyed with these story poles and so it only stokes the fear and makes it worse. Our renderings are way better at communicating actually what is going on, because sometimes there are areas where the hill is graded away, there’s a fence, there’s some trees, there’s landscaping, all of which is in our renderings, none of which is conveyed by these story poles. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 An analogy is it’s like trying to convey one of Mozart’s most beautiful symphonies by just showing you the sheet music; you don’t get it at all. You don’t really understand any of it. Also, the ironic part is the color of the netting is orange. Somebody did the research and it’s an LRV of 44, but the Hillside Design Guidelines require nothing more than a 30. Why are we having something orange and fluorescent when that is not what is really going to be up there? Most roofs are dark, earth tone, black, brown, grey, and the orange is not a color that’s in any project I’ve ever designed, that’s for sure. CHAIR BARNETT: Unfortunately, your time is up. You’ll have a further opportunity to speak if there are questions from the Commissioners. Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. First of all, thank you, Mr. Cross, for your comments. You indicated that you are an architect practicing here in Los Gatos. I imagine you’ve practiced in other jurisdictions as well? NOEL CROSS: Oh, yes. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Can you explain to us your experience in other jurisdictions that don’t use story poles? How do you convey the massing, the idea of the building, in those jurisdictions? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NOEL CROSS: They rely on our renderings. VICE CHAIR RASPE: How do you convey those to the public? NOEL CROSS: Well, we have to turn in renderings. We do it because it’s a smart thing, showing floor plans and elevations. Most people can’t understand that, so computer renderings are really the… And they’re extremely accurate, because they have to be, because we’re designing the entire building; we’re representing it. They also become our elevations which get measured by Staff, and so it’s really something from which you get the sense of what the building looks like as opposed to just the poles and the orange netting and all you get is the worst part, which is the size of it. And to make it worse, especially if there’s any existing building that you’re either tearing down or adding to, it’s so confusing for people. I did one project in Saratoga where 80% of the new building was not in the same footprint as the old building, so it would have appeared twice as big, because people cannot subtract the building that’s going to be torn down, and so we were given the option of not doing them and we took that. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you. I appreciate that answer. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions for Mr. Cross? I have a question. Jessie who spoke first talked about a video presentation. Is that something that the architectural community is beginning to look at? NOEL CROSS: Yes. In the last couple of years our software that we use is Archicad, and there’s a new app with the last maybe three iterations of the software and it’s called Twinmotion, and you basically input the thing and then you can create a movie. You can drive down the sidewalk, you can go around the back yard, you can fly and you can create a movie, and then show context obviously too. We often will show the neighboring buildings in a very simple way, basically just relatively boxy, so that you can see the relationship of the sizes of the buildings. CHAIR BARNETT: It would show the size and height of the neighborhood residences? NOEL CROSS: Yes. We have to do that already with streetscape elevations, especially if it’s in a neighborhood where the buildings are close together. Not so relevant with a hillside project. CHAIR BARNETT: Those are my questions. Thank you for your responses. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I just have a follow up to that question. Thank you for coming tonight and speaking LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 and answering our questions. My question is related to once that video is made how easy is it to change things? For example, if those videos of like in the renderings were made available to the public and public notice went out earlier than typically what we’ve seen with the story poles, story pole go up and then it’s kind of toward the end of the process. How easy is it to tweak things if something came out about people having an issue with the color or something and that was a compromise that needed to be made during the planning process? NOEL CROSS: I’m not sure the video changes anything, because we’re going to do renderings anyway, and it’s to our advantage and it’s a requirement. You just take stills from different angles and if changes are going to be made with the color, height, roof, and things like that, we’re going to make them in the model. When you create a video you don’t need to recreate it in a sense, you just change the building and hit play again and it’s the same video. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So it would be similar to like if you were changing the renderings: you just click a few things and save the changes and it’s updated? NOEL CROSS: You make it sound so simple. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER THOMAS: But yes, it’s a similar process. NOEL CROSS: No, the video doesn’t change anything. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, perfect. Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Further questions? I came up with another one. Can you speak to the issue of the cost of doing actual modeling? NOEL CROSS: Well, we’re doing 3-D stuff anyway. CHAIR BARNETT: I’m talking about physical modeling. NOEL CROSS: Part of the construction documents process is part of the entire process of designing the building. We’re doing the virtual 3-D model, and so there’s no added cost. CHAIR BARNETT: I’m speaking to a physical model. NOEL CROSS: Oh, physical model. That’s a whole different thing. We used to do those, but they are very costly; they are quite costly. They are cool though. I would have to say that even in video, renderings, things like that, and even if you were just to do a walk-around on screen, it’s still harder for the human eye and brain to figure that stuff out. When you see a physical model, it takes one second and you get it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I did a presentation to the San Jose City Council and we were doing a very large 105 unit thing and it was relatively modern, and so we had floor plans and elevations and it was relatively featureless, and we got a lot of nonverbal communication from the members of the City Council who were like this is not going well. Then the people who were bringing the model in, which we were late, it’s big model, and they brought it in and set it down and it was a couple of city blocks. All of a sudden everybody is smiling and so many people said, “I was going to vote no, but it’s an absolute solid yes,” just because of that physical model, so they are really effective. CHAIR BARNETT: Can you give us any idea of a cost factor that’s involved in it? NOEL CROSS: I don't know, it’s kind of hard to say; we haven’t done it in a while. But they are time consuming, and if you really want to do it professionally you get somebody to do it. We’ve done 3-D models. I’ve done them with the 3-D printer; we’ve done that. Kind of expensive, but I would wager to say on a typical residential project probably not as much as story poles. Story poles are in the $15,000-$20,000 range. CHAIR BARNETT: No other questions? Okay, thank you again. Next we have Ms. Wiersema. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 BESS WIERSEMA: Good evening, Commissioners. Bess Wiersema, Studio3. Also a local architect. I’ve been working in the Town of Los Gatos for not as long as Noel, probably don’t make as pretty models as Noel, but I just wanted to reiterate please take a look at the points that we made in the letter that we gave you last time that were some specific suggestions that we felt could be built into modifying the Story Pole Policy in terms of creating certain buckets. Maybe there are projects that don’t need story poles. Maybe if something is highly contested, or a larger project, or is asking for an exception or a Variance, maybe those are the projects that are story poled, but if neighbors are fine with looking at 3-D computer models and renderings… And I think when we all refer to 3-D models today we’re really talking computer renderings over actual physical models, and I think those are more helpful anyway. I would like to say that we know staff has put a lot of work into this issue, but unfortunately the owners, developers, and design professionals have not had a chance to timely produce our recommendations. We’re trying to get better following Staff communication and deadlines, but they have been challenging to keep up with, and direct notices and requests for comments come too late, as in last LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Friday, for us to remember to give you additional feedback; we apologize for that. We know this is a very important issue and we feel very strongly that it’s actually directly related to the permit streamlining process, which is something that Town Council has directed staff to work with local design professionals on. We would like to suggest having a study session for a group of design professionals, owners, developers, story pole contractors, and Town staff and to use tonight’s Staff Report as a basis for a more thorough and meaningful discussion, and to be able to come back to the Planning Commission with a collaborative recommendation that probably has more specifics in it that actually address things like buckets of when something, or at what level something, and how something should be story poled. I think there are two issues here. One is story poles—as you’ve heard every design professional say—do not accurately represent a project, period, end of report. There is no workaround for that. Second, it’s the process in which the Town deals with the story poles, and that’s where the permit process gets hung up and where we would like to see additional streamlining, because that’s far different than even other local jurisdictions that have story poles. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 26 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I think it would be nice if Staff and ordinances that were made would rely on the professionals like civil engineers who have to certify that ridge heights are there, story pole setters that have to put the poles up and know how to put them up better than what we might draw, better than might get edited for what wants to see them being drawn. We’re not building a house out of pickup sticks. CHAIR BARNETT: We’re at three minutes. Why don’t we let Commissioners ask you questions, and you can get into some of the other areas you wanted to. Other questions? Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you, Chair. I’m a little confused. Are you requesting no story poles for any and all new buildings, or buildings, or additions? I’m sure the Town could streamline your permit process and do other things to help with what you’ve requested in the past, but what do you really want from us? BESS WIERSEMA: I want to be clear. The letter, even though it came from my email and I’m the one who somehow got to wear the crown, the “we” in this is not me. I am part of it, but it is actually a collaborative group of six or eight architects and a developer who got together and talked about how we can help things be better in the process or how we’re each managing different things. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 In the original letter that we submitted after we knew that this was on the docket we did have some suggestions that we didn’t believe certain things needed to be story poled. We suggest that no single-story new home needs to be story poled regardless of location unless it is asking for an exception or a Variance. No single-story addition should need to be story poled. No story poles should be required if there are added roof elements to a single- or two-story home that sits within the overall massing and below the highest existing ridgeline, such as dormers or an additional shed roof portion or things of this nature. I think we also had a conversation as a group about neighbors and owners really want renderings. They want to see what this is actually going to look like. They are more responsive to that, they have more educated questions about it. It’s not a fear-based conversation, so if there is no contest from the immediate neighbors, which I think is who we are deemed to really making sure that the overall massing is fitting in on, and we do a lot of drawings, not just story poles. Plans to show how that works, and that’s reviewed by Larry Cannon, by the planners, we get feedback on it. I think if it’s an uncontested project and we don’t have an issue, then why LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 28 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 are we going through this extra step? If the immediate neighbors, who are supposed to be the most impacted, are okay with it, do we really need to story pole the project? Did I answer your question? COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Mostly. I have a follow up question. CHAIR BARNETT: Sure, please proceed. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: The follow up question would be so people in town that are driving by and there’s going to be a project, and they’re working and not aware of what’s going on, but the policy now has changed and there’s going to be no story poles but you have to access it by video or what your suggestions are to see what the new project will be like, and then all of a sudden now this large building goes up. So are there other ways to sort of let the public know rather than video? I don’t see people that are busy with work accessing a video. If you have flyers, if you put it in the newspaper, if you document it if it’s going to be a large project, and I’m just saying this might be an option, to help alert the neighbor or the community of what’s going on. I think there should be some communication. BESS WIERSEMA: I agree with that. Let me back up and say that the majority of the comments that we gave and LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 what I can speak to as a professional has really to do with single-family homes from an architectural perspective. My feedback really is not about a big 100-unit development or something like that, so when I’m answering this, that’s on our behalf and we speak as a group of residential architects. I know some of us in the group do bigger projects, but in general our comments are based on individual single-family homes. Notification happens in a couple different ways. We are asked, if not required, to be sure that immediate neighbors are notified; those are the ones that are most impacted. There is a sign that goes up when we story pole a project, so why not continue the sign? Why not have more than one rendering and have a couple views of that? On those signs it’s required that we put the application number, the request, what’s going on, some critical information, so there’s a lot of information and people can then go on to Town’s site and look at plans. They can also come down and now meet at the counter and have a planner walk them through questions, and this does happen. We do sometimes get feedback from some completely random person that isn’t even in the neighborhood that has decided to take an interest in the project. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 On most of these projects they will also have a tech review or another form of a hearing where neighbors can come and speak and ask questions and talk about it, so there are multiple steps along the way besides story poles where people do get noticed. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Further questions? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Just a quick question. How do you generally notify the immediate neighbors? BESS WIERSEMA: What I recommend to my clients, and I think you could ask everyone here, we ask our client, who obviously has these people as their neighbors, to please reach out at the appropriate time. We ask our clients to host a little social, whether that’s a happy hour, a coffee hour, or whatever, and I normally come so that I can answer any questions. We have a set of plans there, and normally we’ll have the 3-D rendering views that aren’t required with story poles per se except for the one for the sign, and we share those, we talk about them, we keep a list of which neighbors and what address came. If it’s a project that’s noticed to a larger group because it’s a larger project, then that notification LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 goes out from the Town and we make sure that we also say this is when we’re doing this and we let people know. Some of my clients will prefer not to do something in person, so they do kind of an email blast and we just collect information and we let the planners know what we did for changes or no changes. It’s kind of a mix. The thing I think is interesting is that people do respond to renderings much better, in person, etc., and I think we’d love the opportunity to share with you. We could all bring project examples where we show you what some story poles look like, we show you what an actual rendering that’s keyed to that looks like, and we can even show you final products, and I’m going to bet that all of you are going to hate the story poles, the rendering is going to be exciting on some level, and the final product is actually going to be the best. I think you should understand the documents that go into the process. I think you should know and see what those all are. We do get edits from Staff that add to the time of the permit process, etc., so I think there are a couple of issues going on here, not just the story poles themselves and how neighbors are noticed, but also the process. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions? It looks like you’re free finally to go. Thank you so much for coming and providing your opinions. Do we have anyone back on Zoom? JOEL PAULSON: We do. I’m not certain that we actually have the problem solved, but we’re going to give it a shot. JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, I have actually communicated with the two people who are on Zoom. They are both interested in speaking and they’ve been listening to it through YouTube, so they have been able to listen to the discussion, but they may be delayed in answering questions. What I’d like to recommend is that if you want to restate the question that you had for the first online speaker, Jessie, that we might go to Mr. Capobres for him to give his comments, and that gives the first speaker time to hear your question so that then we can come to him at the end, if that works for the Chair. It’s a little confusing and tangled, I know. CHAIR BARNETT: That’s fine. Why don’t we proceed in order beginning with Jessie, if he’s back, and we can certainly interrupt our larger discussion to receive other comments from the public? JENNIFER ARMER: So for Jessie, who we already heard from, he has already used the three minutes but he is LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 33 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 available to answer your question, so if you still have a question to ask of him, you could ask that now. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you for that. My question to Jessie was how do you perceive a way to ensure the… JESSE BRISTOW: Jessie Bristow again. I apologize. There’s probably about a 30-second lag in what I hear on YouTube. I apologize. So I would just like to answer as far as the original question from the Chair on how precise is the model? The previous speaker, Noel, spoke greatly about that. It’s exact, so it is a CAD model and it is to those exact measurements, so the video you are seeing is to true scale. I know there is discussion about the cost and I think that was more related to single-family homes, so I just wanted to express that the cost is kind of reflective of the size and we do have a relatively large building, so that’s why our cost is more. Another note that I took was how do people passing by have access to these potential renderings or 3-D video? We were directed by Town Council to put in a QR code on our signage with renderings. We have four parcels, so we were directed to have a sign on each parcel with the rendering with a disclaimer saying, “These flags do not LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 34 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 represent the true model Please look at this QR code,” and the QR code will take someone to our 3-D video, which the previous architect spoke of, that you can look at these with plantings, with shadows, at different times of day. I would say we’re about 90% done with the video that we are working on after we were allowed by Town Council to have a 3-D walk-through model, and we’re really excited about it, and so we’re hopeful that you guys will be able to see that soon and maybe that’s something that can help with your decision making in the future. I do apologize if I’m not able to answer anything further, but I will listen to the feedback. Thanks. CHAIR BARNETT: Well, if I can just ask for one clarification, and that is in the video is there a key to existing landmarks, corners of adjacent homes, for example, or other visual points of reference that could be used to assure the accuracy in terms of the viewpoints, for example? JOEL PAULSON: As Ms. Armer mentioned, it’s probably going to be about 30 seconds before he hears this, so we’ll just have to sit and wait. JESSE BRISTOW: Hello. I don’t mean to interrupt; I’m trying to keep up. To answer the question, the whole intent of the 3-D model is to show the true relationship of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the neighbors. More specifically I believe it’s University Townhomes or University Oaks, which are the townhomes right next door, and so really wanted to show the relationship of the concerned neighbors and the adjacent building that’s at two stories with their related frontage, and then we actually use drone footage to do a flyover to show the relationship of the finished product to the rest of the Town and the neighbors. So yes, it’s to further highlight that relationship more so than what you would see in a 2-D rendering. I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn. CHAIR BARNETT: No, that’s a very good response to my question. I appreciate that, and I don’t think there are other questions from the Commissioners, so thank you for your participation. JOEL PAULSON: Chair, there is one more speaker on Zoom, Don Capobres. DON CAPOBRES: My name is Don Capobres. Good evening, Chair Barnett, Commissioners, and Staff. I’m going to just kind of jump to the chase. I know we’ve submitted some letters on our viewpoint on the story poles, but in the spirit of trying to be collaborative and give you some of our experience on the North Forty and maybe some suggestions on other methods, LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I’m going to skip all that negativity in my prepared comments. At the last hearing there was general consensus that story poles are largely effective in alerting the general public about potential land uses, and I believe that, but there has got to be a better way to do this. I want to highlight some of the biggest concerns that we had during the North Forty story pole program. First of all, they should have been done when there was a chance for the public to make an impact on the land use policy decisions, and I’m not really sure how to implement this, but for example, it should have been done at the beginning of the Specific Plan process, not with an application that complied with the Specific Plan. In the case of phase two of the North Forty, we’re in the Housing Element; we now have an SB 330 pre-application in. It’s too late for the general public to really make significant changes to that, given State law protections. Second, the interior story poles at the North Forty, we put up over 600 story poles at a cost of nearly $1 million, and the general public could not see the interior poles and the only way to see them was to access the private property through an invitation. We’re not required to have Council Members and Planning Commissioners LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 walk the interior of the site, and so the general public really didn’t have a chance to see the interior story poles. Then the third biggest issue was that we were required to keep the 600-plus story poles up standing for over half a year as the various Planning Commission and Town Council hearings got extended, and that put a lot of cost into it, and danger, I think, from impacts on weather. We had to provide free rent to businesses out there, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, some office tenants, impacted residents. I think the length of time that the story poles were up was not really helpful to anybody. Again, if the main intent is to alert the public, I think people knew within the first couple of weeks that there was something happening on the North Forty. I think there are other things. Technology has made great advances; other speakers have commented on that. I would say we have an 80-foot tall building proposed on phase two. Renting cranes to do story poles for that is just… We had to rent the boom lifts in phase one, and to rent four of those cost us $20,000 times six months of $20,000 just on that, so we would advocate looking at tethered balloons, the photo-simulations, and computer renderings. QR code-based technology, as the other speaker LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 has talked about, has advanced very well and we would be excited to try something like that out. We did build a physical model of the entire phase one of the North Forty that was housed at the library for some time, and 3-D printing has really helped the cost efficiency of that. CHAIR BARNETT: Are there questions for Mr. Capobres from members of the Commission? I do not see any, so we’ll move on to another speaker from Zoom. JOEL PAULSON: There are no more speakers on Zoom, Chair. CHAIR BARNETT: Very well, so now we’ll close the public portion of the public hearing on Item 2, and I would proposed we proceed to the Staff Report on the suggested outline from Staff considering issues related to the story poles. They are designated items A-F on pages 14-17 of the Staff Report, and Item G sets forth opinions from our Town Attorney and we can consider that after covering the previous sections. On each item we’ll see if we have a consensus that would support a motion. If not, I understand that Staff will bring to the Council the ideas that we’ve discussed on that item. We talked about the fact that there are no appeal rights on this. Did we talk about appeal rights? There will LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 39 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be no appeal rights since this is only a recommendation to Council, and we discussed the fact that no findings will be required. So why don’t we move on to the Staff Report, Item A on page 14? This raises the basic question of whether story poles should be required by the Town or not, and we’ve been informed that the majority of the jurisdictions in the County do not have that requirement, and the issue is open for discussion by the Commission as to whether we want to follow the majority, or for reason particular to Los Gatos we would like to keep them. So we’ll start with Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I sit on the Housing Element Advisory Board and it was brought up by the HCD letter that potentially story poles can be an impediment to production of affordable housing, and I heard all the testimony from the architects and whatnot. That being said, I don’t think the people in our town would be ready to not have story poles at all. I think instead what might make sense is to look at the totality of the Story Pole Policy and see if there can be some things that could be taken out of having to have story poles, and we could talk about that. Those were some of the items that you have that are in the Staff Report. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 For me personally, we’ve had story poles for quite some time, and with all due respect on the North Forty, even after having a committee that met for several years on the North Forty Specific Plan it wasn’t until those story poles went up that people really started to understand what it meant to the Town, and it’s been a hot topic of discussion on all the threads like Next Door and stuff since then, and so I think it would be a big, big step for the Town to think about going from what we have now to nothing, and I would prefer something, from my point of view, in between with a reduction and some streamlining. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that comment. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have a quick question for Staff. For the majority of cities in our county that don’t require story poles, does that mean that story poles never go up in their cities? JENNIFER ARMER: That is my understanding, that they generally have signage that goes up with certain types of projects, but that story poles are not part of the process. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Okay, thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments? Vice Chair Raspe. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 41 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks, Chair. First of all, I want to thank the public comments tonight via writing and on Zoom, as difficult as that was, to help us inform our decision. I think this really is a technical discussion in a lot of respects and I think it’s really helpful to the Commission to have an informed and educated discussion. I think it’s evident from what we’re hearing that story poles are at best a blunt instrument. There are certainly more effective ways, I think, that are coming into fashion now that we can use for our projects. That being said, I don’t think they’re without some purpose. I think they have a purpose of educating and alerting our public that projects are coming online, and I think they’re useful in certain projects, although I think we probably in this town overuse them for every project. My sense is, much like my fellow commissioner, there is a time and a place for them and I’d like to have a discussion about maybe winnowing that down to the more essential time and place and letting more projects go through a more streamlined and economic basis. Those are my thoughts. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other comments are most welcome. Commissioner Thomas. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree with what my fellow commissioners have said tonight. Are we going to make a motion? CHAIR BARNETT: We’re ultimately looking for a motion. We can discuss that in the course of that. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So then I move to recommend that we retain a requirement for installation of story poles for development projects with further details coming in the other sections with all of the things. JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I believe that should work. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: We think we should still have requirements, but not as many as we have right now, so we will discuss those. CHAIR BARNETT: Thanks for the motion. A second? Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: I second that motion. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Discussion? I just had a comment, which is I think there’s some uniqueness to our town that may not be shared by some of the other jurisdictions in the County. We’ve got the hillsides, we’ve got historic areas, we’ve got established neighborhoods that have their own distinct characters, and while I believe in certainly paring down the requirements LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to when they’re most essential, I do think that we should keep them also. Can we have a show of hands in support of the motion? It’s unanimous. Thank you very much. Now lets move on to Item B concerning what types of projects should be required to install story poles, and what type should be excluded or exempt. You’ve got the agenda and Staff Report before you, so I don’t know that I need to read the whole thing. I’ll ask you to give some thought to that, I’m sure you already have, and to begin a discussion. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m happy to go first since I submitted some public comments to be shared with the Commission. Just based on all of the comments that we’ve gotten from all of the public, architects, developers, etc., I agree that we are a unique jurisdiction compared to some of these other towns and cities near us, and so I thought that a good compromise would be we have different requirements for hillsides. I kind of looked at what the Town of Los Altos is doing versus the Town of Los Altos Hills and thought if we did a mix of that it would really meet our requirements here in town. I thought that we should have, similar to the different categories that the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 architects that spoke tonight and submitted public comment a month ago had, for in hillsides any new buildings, second story additions, additions exceeding 900 square feet, accessory structures exceeding 900 square feet, and then trees proposed to be removed. I do have a couple of questions for Staff. I did notice in our policy and in other policies that were provided that this tree tagging is lumped into these story pole policies, but it’s kind of a separate issue. I see why it was lumped in, but at the same time I don't know if we already have some sort of policy like our Tree Ordinance. Does our Tree Ordinance cover this anyway? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I can provide clarification. At this time we require that when there are trees being removed as part of a project that there be an arborist report, and that would number and tag the trees with a little number on them, and the arborist report then shows which of those numbered trees would be removed. I think what is being suggested in some of the comments is that some sort of colored tape would be put around the trees. I would say that in many cases those are going to be interior to the project site, and so putting that kind of tape on them would not actually be visible LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 from the public right-of-way to the public, but I would say that generally that is a separate category from story poles, but clearly has been part of the discussion in the comments received. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you. I feel like the trees should be removed, because it just complicates things, so I would no longer recommend that we include that here. The main changes for this part was that it looked like the City of Los Altos Hills had a marker of 900 square feet or larger and that is what triggered this. Ours is smaller now; I think it was 100 square feet, which I feel is a little bit excessive. I just kind of put down the 900 square feet. I’d be happy to hear what other Commissioners think about that number, but I do think that something different for hillsides would be important. Then also I do think that projects in historic districts asking for exceptions or Variances is something that from all of the public comments that I’ve ever heard in all of the hearings that we’ve ever done, I know our historic districts are really important to us in town, and so I think that if anyone is asking for exceptions or Variances, unless the lot is nonconforming, because we do have some odd size or nonconforming lots in those areas LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 too, so I don't know if that triggers to the Community Development Director with regard to the exceptions process. Those were kind of my thoughts, and then also requiring them maybe for Specific Plans similar to the North Forty, even though I understand that that didn’t end up being productive, but some sort of requirement for that. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. That gets us well on our way in the discussion. I recognize that Section B is the longest in the Staff Report and that there are subsections here, so I want to encourage comments in general, but maybe we should move on. In the first paragraph there’s a general suggestion of discussion of the types of projects, and that’s sort of continued in the use types, but I was wondering if other Commissioners had comments that are specifically related to the type of projects that should be included or excluded, and then we can move on. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a few thoughts. One is I don’t see why we would need story poles for anything that’s not going to Planning Commission. Sometimes I’ll be on a walk and I’ll see story poles and get excited, because we’ll get to vote on this, and then I see that it’s a minor development, so I think that we shouldn’t have story poles for those. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I don’t think that they should be a requirement if it’s a 100% affordable development, and I think we should even consider lessening that percentage. We have very few incentives available to us to incentivize affordable housing development, and I actually think that this could be something we could leverage to try to get developers to include more affordable units in their developments. For example, if they want to build something that is like 60’-70’ I would hope that a lot of those would be affordable, and maybe if there was a percentage that if they reached they wouldn’t need to have story poles, then they wouldn’t have to do those cranes and stuff, and I think that that could end up being a good incentive. I don’t think there should be story poles for additions to buildings, at least for the most part; I don't know how many nuances there would be in that. Then also, we might start seeing more non- discretionary developments, like things that the Town doesn’t even get a say over using the different bills and stuff, so I don't know if there already wouldn’t be story poles for that because of the nature of it, but if we’re not going to have a say in it I don’t see why we would need to put those story poles up and make people afraid of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 48 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 something that probably won’t look nearly as ugly as the story poles anyway. Last, I agree that there should be a different set of requirements for the hillsides. I think that’s a really good idea and that we should have more story poles around there, because those developments are a little more serious, I think. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. That’s a good contribution to the discussion. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to thank Commissioner Thomas for those suggested proposals. I was looking at all the different kinds of things and where my thinking is in general on this is that there are certain parts of town where we do want to consider having story poles, for example, the hillsides, because when all is said and done we have the Hillside Standards and Guidelines and Hillside Specific Plan and the whole idea is to make sure we do our best to preserve the hillside while allowing some amount of residential development, so I think to take away story pole requirements for that would be a tough thing, not to mention the fact that even without the current land use for the 2040 General Plan, it’s been referended, whatever gets approved is likely to go in that same direction because of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 fire safety to be very careful about development that is in the hillsides. I would add to that list of projects, since we have a Historic Presentation Committee and it’s so important to preserve our historic features of town, that I would want to have story poles for those kinds of projects, whether or not it is asking for a Variance. Speaking to Commissioner Clark’s general suggestion about Planning Commission or not, I would think that any other residential, especially single-family developments, if it’s not asking for a Variance in height or setback or whatever that would cause it to come the Planning Commission, but I would call it a Variance, that I would think it wouldn’t be an issue, except for one thing, and that’s because of all the time I’ve sat on the Planning Commission where we have a lot of single-story neighborhoods, if someone comes in and both of the neighbors on either side are a single-family home with a single story and they’re going to be 10’ or 20’ above them, I think that’s something we have to consider as needing a story pole for that case, even if they’re not asking for an exception, just because it’s going to change the character of the neighborhood. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Then as far as the affordable housing, I too thought that if we were lucky enough to get a 100% affordable housing project we should let it happen, and it has to comply with our standards anyway, and so I think that we should give an exception for that, and that requires story poles. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Other comments? Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Hanssen, I think you’ve taken all my great ideas, which we both took from Commissioner Thomas. My thinking is, and I think I’m repeating ourselves, I think we’re coming hopefully to somewhat of a consensus, but maybe just to simplify, my sense is I would like to see the story poles continue in historic districts and in the hillside areas for all projects. I think especially in the hillsides it’s very valuable to see what’s happening up there. We’ve had a couple projects that came before us you really don’t get a sense of it until you look from the ground and you look up into a hillside and you see either netting or flags or whatever that may be. I think there is a value there. With respect to every other portion of town my sense is with respect to new construction for single-family LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 homes and commercial, if you are not seeking a Variance with respect to height or FAR or any other matter, and this goes with respect to additions, new construction, new rooflines, I don’t see the value necessarily of story poles. I think those matters could be handled probably better by renderings, and as long as we have those renderings and can somehow make them available to the public via QR code or something else, I think that works, so I would use story poles in the hillside, in the historic districts for all construction, I would use them in other areas for where there are Variances sought, and I’d also use them for projects where there are Specific Plans or they’re unusually large—North Forty is the obvious example— just to give a better sense of scale, but I think for the lion’s share of single-family construction going on in our town that would obviate the need for story poles and handle it in a much less intrusive, more efficient manner with 3-D renderings. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have one very brief comment. I agree with Commissioner Hanssen that a development in a neighborhood that’s majority single-story and they come to Planning Commission because they’re the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 first two-story development in the immediate neighborhood or something like that, I think that’s exactly the kind of thing where it still might make sense to have story poles to get an idea of the massing, because the whole reason it’s coming to Planning Commission in that case is the massing, and that’s why I was now using the language of Variances, why I would try to say if it’s coming to Planning Commission because, yes, I do think that’s an instance where we should have them. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I do have one question for the Town Attorney. I think this is addressed in Section G already, but can you comment on the issue of story poles under the new emerging housing laws in terms of cost burden or procedural delay? ATTORNEY WHELAN: There is no case exactly on point, but there are cases talking about what constitutes a constraint on housing in other contexts, and the cases talk about height limits, they talk about parking standards, and processing and permit procedures. I do think conceivably an applicant could make an argument that imposing a story pole requirement did constitute a constraint on housing, but in the case that has been decided under the other fact patterns where it had to do with building height and parking standards the court LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 weighed that public interest against the burden on the applicant, and in those cases they came out in favor of the public interest that was at stake, and so that’s a policy decision for the comment, like to what extent do the story poles serve a public policy interest, but the court would put a lot of weight on the public policy interest. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Before we ask for a motion, let be see if we have any further discussion. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: My only question is that right now it does say this is nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet. I don’t think that we are going to have non-residential in hillsides, so I don’t think that we really need to discuss that here. I suggested the 900 square feet because that’s what Los Altos Hills has, and I assumed that their staff had been informed by some reason, but I am interested in hearing what other Commissioners think about that number or if that is something that we can just say of a specific number and say in our motion that Town Council decides. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I’ll just say that I would be in favor of the 900 square feet. I like that number; I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 54 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 think it makes sense that if Los Altos Hills is doing it that we would do on our hills. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I like the 900 square feet as well, I think it made a lot of sense, and plus we have an example from another jurisdictions that it seems to be working for them. But I do also want to comment on the nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet. A lot of times we see in the hillside they don’t just build a house, they build a compound, and the compound would have multiple buildings that they may not be living in. They use them and it’s part of their residential compound, but they’re not going to be sleeping there, and so I think, and Staff can correct, that a nonresidential addition exceeding 100 square feet if in their current policy needs to be story poled. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. No, my understanding of that third bullet is that that is for commercial properties where there are additions. One clarification that I wanted to add to the discussion is the first bullet point in terms of what it applies to now excludes single-story accessory structures, so regardless of the size of a detached structure it is not currently required to be story poled even if it were 900 LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 square feet or more, so that is one component to consider since I know that is included in the comments from Commissioner Thomas. JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, one other idea to think about is even if we just go to hillsides, you potentially can do a 900 square foot addition or more through just a Building Permit, so if they’re not tearing it down and they’re not creating a demolition, then that would just be a Building Permit where we also would not be able to require story poles. CHAIR BARNETT: Thanks for that clarification. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Then I do need some additional clarification. What is considered an accessory structure versus just a regular residential structure then? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. An accessory structure, you have the primary house and then you have detached structures; those are accessory to the main house. In some cases it may be an Accessory Dwelling Unit, in which case regardless of whether it’s over 900 square feet it would just be a Building Permit. We do have a trigger in the hillsides that detached structures, accessory structures, over a certain size do need to have a higher level of review. I can look up what that threshold is right LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 56 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 now; I believe it’s 450 square feet but I’ll check on that for you. JOEL PAULSON: While she’s checking that I think just a little more information. It’s a detached garage, it’s an ADU, it’s a pool house, so those are typical detached structures that we would see that are actually floor area, so it’s not like a gazebo or something that’s not enclosed, which are accessory structures but we still wouldn’t have them story poled, because they’re not technically square footage. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that clarification. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So I think then that I’m open to any suggestions. I do feel like we need to keep some story poles for the hillsides, but I don’t want to create additional burdens that what we currently have, because I feel like the standards that we currently have are working for the hillsides, so whatever other Commissioners think, however that looks I am happy with. Then also we didn’t discuss commercial yet, so I don't know if people have different opinions about commercial and/or mixed-use. CHAIR BARNETT: Right, so B is very comprehensive and we’ve been appropriately discussing it in different LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 57 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 contexts, but I think that that’s a good point, Commissioner Thomas, and we can move on to that. I see on page 14 that the current Story Pole Policy requires nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet, and we just talked about it in terms of residential accessory structures. Maybe I could ask Staff to address where we might see the description of a nonresidential addition exceeding 100 square feet? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. A nonresidential addition exceeding 100 square feet often will trigger an Architecture and Site review application. In some cases that may just be going to the Development Review Committee if they are not asking for exceptions and they are complying with the Commercial Design Guidelines, and so that could just be an existing grocery store wants to add a little additional space for a café out front or something of that nature, so the 100 square foot is the trigger for those. There are some minor changes to commercial buildings that can be done through a Building Permit, but generally if it’s adding square footage, 100 square feet is generally threshold that we use for that moving to a Discretionary Permit. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, that’s very helpful. I guess we have the larger question of whether we want to exclude story poles from new commercial or mixed-use, and maybe we could talk about that. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Our current Story Pole Policy, under what conditions do we require story poles for commercial and mixed-use? JENNIFER ARMER: For commercial buildings we would require it for new structures or for additions of 100 square feet or more, as stated there. In addition, to answer the earlier question about detached structures in the hillsides, the threshold for coming to Planning Commission for a detached structure is 1,000 square feet. It would require a Discretionary Review for the Development Review Committee if it was between 600 and 1,000 square feet, but over 1,000 is automatically reviewed by Planning Commission at this time, but would not generally be story poled if it’s a single-story detached structure based on the current policy. CHAIR BARNETT: Any other comments in terms of mixed-use or commercial? Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. My thoughts on commercial and mixed-use are much like my thoughts on residential, that is, I’m not sure they are a great tool LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 where our applicant is bringing a project that’s not seeking an exception to, again, either height, FAR, or other limiting requirements, so as long as the project is within our guidelines I think for all new and redeveloped commercial mixed-use projects story poles probably are not the best tool. I’ll put one caveat on there; we may want to consider really large projects, something bigger than the Whole Foods project that we just considered last month. That was a larger size project. I thought the story poles expressed pretty well what that project looked like, so perhaps there’s a square footage we might want to consider over which we would use story poles. I think the day-to- day, to the extent there are any day-to-day mixed-use commercial projects in town, to the extent that they are not seeking exceptions, I wouldn’t impose upon them a story pole requirement and, again, would just require 3-D renderings. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Other thoughts? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I agree with the Vice Chair on that general approach, and I thought of another property which we have seen before and I don’t know where it currently stands because I think it’s going through LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 things, but at the corner of Shannon Road there’s the Artisan Wine Depot. We had seen that previously at Planning Commission and it caused a big up-stir with the neighbors, and ultimately I think they are going in a different direction anyway, but that’s the kind of thing where I would not want story poles for that kind of project, but if it’s just some remodeling or a new commercial building that’s in compliance and it’s not a very large structure that would seem like overkill to do the story poles for that kind of project. CHAIR BARNETT: I’m giving some thought to that. To the best of my knowledge the Shannon Road/Los Gatos Boulevard property originally was talking about a mixed-use commercial and residential, is that correct? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The last thing was an office, I believe. Staff could correct me. CHAIR BARNETT: Office only? JENNIFER ARMER: Office above commercial of this different sort. CHAIR BARNETT: Residential above commercial? JENNIFER ARMER: It was office. At this time the proposal is office over commercial. I don’t believe there is any residential as part of the current proposal. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 61 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, that was my understanding too. Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you. I have a question for Staff. If a project comes through and there are no Variances and it gets the green light from our Staff, however, the neighbors find out about the project and they’re not happy about it, can they still appeal the project? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. If there is a project that is going through a Discretionary Review process, whether it is a Minor Residential Development or a new second story on a single-story house, that does not require a public hearing. It still involves public notice and the ability to appeal the Director’s decision. Projects that go to the Development Review Committee where they are complying with all of the regulations and complying with the Design Guidelines also can be appealed to the Planning Commission as long as the appellant is someone who qualifies to appeal the project as stated in Town Code. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts? We’ve covered a lot of ground. Commissioner Hanssen. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 62 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to bring up something that we didn’t talk about, which was the building height. It did cross my mind that when we’ve talked about 70’, as Mr. Capobres mentioned, the complexities of doing story poles for that seem to be quite onerous because of the danger factor, so I don't know if we can recommend like a certain height limit that we can consider X alternative; I don't know if that would be better. Some things were suggested, like putting a crane or whatever, or maybe we don’t do story poles at all. I don't know what the best solution is, but I think it’s important to make sure that the people in the Town are able to see those, but maybe the traditional way of doing story poles might not work, so I’m just curious to what other people think. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other thoughts? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and I think that what we’ve heard from public comment is that one of the most important parts of the story poles is that it gives notice to people, and so I think that the concern with especially tall buildings or something, and some of these even commercial projects that we’re talking about right now, it’s really just about letting the public know, and I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 63 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 think that we want to move away from the story poles letting the public know for reasons like what happened at the North Forty. By the time those story poles went up and everyone was like what’s going on here, it was really too late for the community to be as heavily involved with the decision making, so I do think that when we talk in Section D, Signage And Alternatives For Signage I think that we can cover a lot of the major concerns and hopefully start to help people in town to transition from story poles trigger like this is a project that’s happening and now I see the sign that triggers this is a project that’s happening. That being said, for commercial and mixed-use projects I don’t think that most of the time, even if they’re new builds, we need story poles. I agree that if they’re asking for an exception or a Variance, but I think we should kind of specify that, because I do think that there are a lot of exceptions and Variances that story poles aren’t going to add or change anything. Maybe if it has to do with height or setbacks or something else I guess related to those things, but if it’s any exception for, let’s say, parking minimums, which I know we’re going to get a lot more of because we’re going to be in the process of changing our parking, I’m sure, and that’s just the trend overall, so as the Boulevard redevelops we’re going LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 64 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to be getting a lot of requests for those things, I don’t think something like a parking minimum should trigger story poles having to go up, if that makes sense. I don't know if there’s a list of specific items that we could include or just make a general recommendation to Town Council that it should be specific for commercial buildings, but it looks like Ms. Armer has a suggestion. JENNIFER ARMER: If that is the direction that the Commission is going it could be stated in the form of a Variance or exception related to physical characteristics of the structures, and so that it is something that is being shown by those story poles, and we could work to get something specific and more detailed for Town Council to consider. CHAIR BARNETT: Good suggestion. We also haven’t talked about the issue of flag ropes or pendants, and also the visibility exception. I wonder if anyone has comments on either of those topics? Oh, that’s under alternatives. I’m sorry, I had that in my notes at this point. So let me just review our topics, we’re under B, and make sure we’ve covered those. I do think that we could focus more on the discretion issue, although that also comes up later. But on page 15 there’s a discussion about the reviewing body: the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 65 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Director, Development Review Committee, Planning Commission, and Town Council. I guess this would be a suggestion that we consider this in terms of exceptions? JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. I would say that a discussion of whom the deciding body is for any discretionary parts of this, that that’s something that could be part of the discussion under Section E of the Staff Report, Modifying the Exception Process. And some of the other topics that you have mentioned recently about the flags could fall under the modifying physical requirements under Section C. Providing alternatives also could be discussed under Section D. The type of projects this applies to, I think, is what’s been discussed so far, but we haven’t received a motion on that yet. CHAIR BARNETT: Right. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I was just going to say relative to what you said, I think this started with Commissioner Clark making a suggestion that if the Planning Commission was the deciding body that there probably needed to be story poles, and that would include things like we talked about where it’s the first two-story house in a single-family neighborhood, or it could be if there’s a LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 66 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Variance; those types of things tend to trigger Planning Commission. I thought we had already discussed that and had sort of a consensus, but I just put that out there. I know we did discuss it. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I guess the subject could also be addressed in Section E on page 16 when we get to that, or it could be made part of the motion; I have no problem with that. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I did have a question about Specific Plans, because I did put that into my recommendation about like special story pole requirements for Specific Plans. I have not been on the Planning Commission while any of these Specific Plans have been developed, but I know that the example is the North Forty Specific Plan, so I don’t know if Staff could answer a couple of questions about how that’s developed, if story poles can be included in that process or not, etc. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I would say that just like with the development of the General Plan it’s difficult when you don’t have a specific development project in front of you to do a story pole installation. Generally a Specific Plan is going to be a smaller area than the General Plan, but it is generally for LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 67 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a large area, and so it’s going to be looking at multiple buildings and you don’t know what the configuration of those buildings are, whether the floor area would be done in a multi-story building or flat across. That is one of the difficulties about planning documents is we don’t know how they will actually be implemented, and so it’s difficult to do physical story poles in that case at that stage in the process. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: But is it legally possible when that plan is being developed as part of those agreements and the plan being processed that story poles will be part of the process later? JENNIFER ARMER: I’ll open it to our Town Attorney to see if she wants to add on that. ATTORNEY WHELAN: I wouldn’t refer to a Specific Plan as an agreement per se. I would consider it as like a mega zoning ordinance, like it’s setting forth what the rules are, what the maximum can be, and so I think any requirement to impose story poles would probably live outside of the Specific Plan. You might also be thinking of like Development Agreements where an Applicant comes in and they want a Development Agreement, and maybe they want to give an entity something extra in exchange for like vesting to LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 68 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 existing standards, and so as part of that Development Agreement maybe something extra they would give would be providing story poles or something like that, but for the Commission I would think of imposing the story pole requirement outside of the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I was just thinking if we have like a large area. We don’t have a lot of larger open spaces, but if we have a large area that there is going to be a development for, would we want in that specific space, but it’s probably very niche, so not important. I did want to go back to the reviewing body before making a motion, because I do not feel that every single thing that comes in front of the Planning Commission needs to be story poled, and I think that that might significantly delay processes that we’re trying to help people streamline, so I’m happy to come to an agreement and just state that and know that Town Council knows that, but I don’t think that every single thing that comes before us needs to be story poled, but I am curious to see what other people have to say about that, just to clarify that point. Then also with regard to the historic districts, I just wanted some clarification about do you think all projects in historic districts, or just projects that are LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 69 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 listed in the historic inventory within the historic districts, should require story poles? Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: A lot of good thinking going on here. Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you. To respond to that question, I think all homes in a historic district should have story poles, because it affects the whole district. Like if we ever get the Glenridge a district it will be 12 blocks, so I think homes impact the whole district. But back to another question for Staff, I’m a little confused here. You were saying that a large project would not require story poles if it doesn’t have Variances, and of course there probably would be Variances, but if it didn’t have Variances and it’s a large project, let’s say one of the ones that are going up on Los Gatos Boulevard, and it doesn’t have Variances so it wouldn’t require story poles, but on the other hand then how would citizens be able to appeal the size of it and the mass and density of it? Are they already permitted? When does that happen? I’m trying to educate myself and the probably the public on this subject; it’s important to me. What I’m trying to address is that citizens have an ability to respond to a project, and if it’s not required with story poles because LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there are no Variances, how will the public know? I don’t think looking at videos and renderings will do it, because people are busy and I don’t think they’ll be aware so much. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for those questions. If you’d like, I can try to address some of that. We were talking about where I was saying that story poles would not be required is when a Specific Plan or General Plan is being considered and adopted, because at that point we don’t have a specific building design being proposed, it’s more about setting the zoning rules for an area, and so when a development project does come through, then the question is at what points do story poles get installed? As I’m looking at my notes from the discussion the Planning Commission has been having this evening, the consensus items that I have heard was interest in having story poles for certain projects in the hillsides, projects in the historic district, projects where it is the first second story in what we define as the “immediate neighborhood,” and for larger commercial projects the example of Whole Foods was given as trying to give a sense of what the threshold might be for what might be considered a larger project, but for anything smaller than that on any other single-family homes or smaller projects that it would LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 71 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 not require story poles unless they were requesting a Variance or an exception to a physical Zoning Code requirement. So that’s what I’ve heard so far. I expect there will be further discussion, but hopefully that helps you understand, what I’ve heard at least in, terms of the size of the projects that would still require some sort of story poles. We of course haven’t gotten to the section of the discussion where what that story pole requirement might be for some of the larger, more complex projects. In any case, I think there’s an understanding that signage would still be required, and so there is still the opportunity to then ask questions and understand and be part of the development project. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Okay, thank you. Just a quick follow up. When do story poles go up? When the project comes before you? It doesn’t have a permit yet, right? JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. Generally an application comes in and it goes through review by Staff, and Staff is looking to make sure there is sufficient understanding of what the project is. Sometimes we don’t have the details that are needed in the project scope in the plans, and so we’re working to make sure we’ve got LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 72 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 those details and to understand what type of permit is required, whether it triggers architectural review, for example. Once we have gotten to a point working with the Applicant that the project is whole and is ready to move forward to public hearing or public noticing, that’s when story poles go up, because otherwise as part of the Staff review there might be changes to the form of the building that would require them to modify the story poles. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. That was very helpful. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen and then Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to comment back on what Commissioner Thomas brought up, which is about the Planning Commission, and I think you summarized it correctly, Ms. Armer, in terms of what I think there was sort of consensus on. It’s not everything that comes to Planning Commission, but if it’s a Variance that involves bulk and mass, such the setbacks, the height, the FAR, if it’s a fence issue, they don’t have enough parking spaces, or something like that, those are not things that I would think of, so I just wanted to be clear that that’s what I was thinking of when Commissioner Clark mentioned Planning LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Commission or not, but it wouldn’t include Variances that didn’t pertain to the bulk and mass of the structure. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Clark was next. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I appreciate you bringing that back up, because I meant we should never require them, at least for the most part or at all, for things that are not coming to Planning Commission, but I don’t think we should require them for everything coming to Planning Commission. I really do think we should make an effort to not require them whenever possible. I think like what Vice Chair Raspe was saying, just when we need them we require them sort of thing, so I appreciate the clarifications on that. Then, for me, I would say that we should only require them in terms of the Historic District for homes that are in the Historic Resources Inventory, but I am open to going the other way on that. CHAIR BARNETT: Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: My comment was similar. I’ve served on the Historic Preservation Committee now for three years, so the best way to think of our historic homes, we have districts but we have many historic homes that are not in our districts. Presumptively, all are pre-1941 homes or historically designated, so I would say in our category of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 74 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 homes that should require story poles for work as performed would include all homes on our historic inventory, whether or not in a district. I think one other point we had at least working toward consensus was not requiring story poles where there was a large percentage of affordable housing in the project, perhaps 100%, maybe not requiring 100% but I think a favorable view towards that, making it more efficient and creating incentives for those projects where possible. CHAIR BARNETT: Very good. Other thoughts before we try a motion? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Since I have not served on the Historic Preservation Committee, I am curious how the story poles have been helpful for you all in your decision making, because in my opinion there are alternatives, and I don’t think that these houses are on the Historic Resources Inventory. The adjustments that we’re approving, I just don’t know how story poles are actually valuable for houses outside historic districts but that are still historic. VICE CHAIR RASPE: I’ll give you an example. The Historic Preservation Committee actually met today and we had a small Mediterranean home very close to the street, and much to the developer’s credit they are saving the façade of the home, but to make it a more livable home in LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 75 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2023 they are adding an entire section to the back of the home; they’re creating a second story and they’re pushing about another 35’, setting the structure back 21’ from the façade of the home. It could potentially—and we’ve seen it on other projects—change the entire character of the house, the sizing and massing of it. Maybe 3-D renderings solves that problem, but I don't know, because in HPC we’ve been using oftentimes story poles, which sends that message, so I in HPC found that a useful tool in that kind of situation. Granted, if we’re adding 100 square feet in the back, that’s probably not what we need to see, but where it really changes the character of the home story poles are a valuable tool for me. CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts? I assume that in the context of a Planned Development there are going to be modifications from the standard rules, and could be, say, that in Planned Developments there would be story poles, or what is Staff’s recommendation on that? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. It’s hard to know exactly the modifications from the standard rules that would be requested as part of a Planned Development, and I can think of a couple of examples that wouldn’t meet the criteria that we’re currently talking LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 76 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 about in terms of physical Variances from the rules. For example, having a smaller width to the roadway, not wanting to do a private roadway and so having a smaller width there; or having a smaller lot size so that the homes on a hillside property could be clustered in a flatter area and leave more room open for open space; that that type of project would be potentially going through a Planned Development process but the structures themselves may be actually complying with the physical floor area and height setback requirements. CHAIR BARNETT: So that could be a possible format for a Planned Development if there were in fact changes that related to the building structures or setbacks. What would your recommendation be in term of story poles? JENNIFER ARMER: I would say that it’s an item worth discussing, but it is hard to know since each Planned Development, as is the intent of that tool, is going to be custom to the particular project and setting, and the detail that the Planned Development goes into in the terms of the form of the structures really does vary significantly from one Planned Development to another. Most of the ones we’ve seen recently do get pretty specific about the form of the buildings, and so then at that point LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 77 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the Architecture and Site Application really is just making sure that it complies with what was already prepared, the drawings in the Planned Development, so it’s hard in that case. I would say to recommend one blanket rule for all Planned Developments, but I think they could potentially be guided in the same way as the other rules that the Planning Commission is currently discussing. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that answer. The Chair will now entertain a motion from a brave Commissioner. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think I got it. For Section B, Types of Development Projects, I move to include the following types of projects that should be required to install story poles, and that would be for residential projects if they’re the first second story in a neighborhood, or if the project is requesting a Variance of exception to physical characteristics of the structures only. Then for historic districts all now residential and nonresidential buildings in historic districts, and all residential second story additions in historic districts, and nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet; what we have right now, but just for historic districts. Then for the hillsides, just new buildings or second story additions in the hillsides. Then generic commercial LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 78 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 everywhere else besides the historic districts. Only additions over 100 square feet for new builds asking for Variances or exceptions to physical characteristics of the structure. I think that includes everything. CHAIR BARNETT: Did you comment on affordable housing? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Oh, affordable housing. Yes, some number of affordable housing, to be discussed by Town Council, should be allowed an exception, or one of the categories of exceptions, or be exempt, I guess I should say. CHAIR BARNETT: Then Vice Chair Raspe, you brought up the concept of a large project. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Yes, commercial, and I think we used by way of example Whole Foods, so anything of the Whole Foods or larger size would require commercial project mixed-use of X number of feet to be determined by Town Council, but by form of reference to Whole Foods. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Do we think in general or only if they’re asking for exceptions? I think that if they’re only asking for exceptions to the physical…like to mass and height and all of that, that’s really valuable, but once again, I think that the signage is what we need to… I think we need to get off the crutch of story poles LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 79 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 telling people this is going to happen and lean into the signage as this is telling people it’s going to happen. VICE CHAIR RASPE: My thought, and again I’m flexible, is two requirements in the commercial mixed-use area: a) where this is a Variance with respect to massing location, the physical structure; or b) all structures over X square footage, because some are of such scale that I think the netting or flagging, whatever we call it, serves a purpose of conveying the sense of scale for it. I use by way of example Whole Foods. I got a sense as I was driving down Los Gatos Boulevard because of the story poles. I thought that was helpful. On your run of the mill day-to-day commercial I don’t think it’s that helpful. For something big like that, and I don't know what the cutoff is, but I use Whole Foods by way of example. I would like to try to retain a story pole requirement for the super size buildings. JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, since we do have a motion on the table, she could accept modifications to her motion, or it could be a follow up motion if additions were…whether we had the majority of the Commission to add in this additional commercial. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Do you know offhand the size of what Whole Foods was? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 80 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: It was 40,000-50,000, somewhere in that range. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Anything 50,000 or above? VICE CHAIR RASPE: (Inaudible). COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, just around 50,000 or above perhaps. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll accept it. No, I’m just kidding. Yes, the motion is amended to include those. Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: And for consideration by the maker of the motion we talked about possible height limits. Is that something you want to include, or not? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I didn’t have anything specific written down. I think that that maybe can also be in the Modified Physical Requirements section, just because that has to do, I think, with how high we can do story poles. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, very well. I’ll just raise the question. Did the motion include our thoughts about not requiring story poles if it’s not going to the Planning Commission level? It did include that. Okay, thank you. So now we’ll look for a second. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I can make a second, but I did have a requested modification. So I will second the motion, but I would ask the maker of the motion, the part LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 81 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that you brought up about the very first two-story house in a single-family… I also considered the scenario where it might not be the first house in the way we define it in the Residential Design Guidelines, but if there is a single- story house on either side of it and it’s going up to two stories, these are the ones that cause the most consternation with the neighbors, so I would put that case in there as well. If on both sides it’s got single stories and it’s going up to two stories, that would be one where I would think it would be important. JENNIFER ARMER: Just for clarification, it sounds like right now as the motion stands as I hear it, that requirement for story poles would only apply to a new two-story home or a new second story addition when it is the first in the immediate neighborhood, and the immediate neighborhood includes two houses on either side of the proposed project plus the properties across the street, generally five properties across the street, and so what Commissioner Hanssen is suggesting is that even if you have a two-story home that’s in one of those, say, two houses away, if the two houses, one on either side of the proposed house, if those are both single-story and this is kind of a taller building in between. I believe that suggesting is LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 82 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that that would also trigger, even if there were other two stories in the immediate neighborhood? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes, that is what I meant. If there was a two-story across the street and on either side there are single-stories, yes, that’s when I would want the story poles. JENNIFER ARMER: So, to the maker of the motion? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: If that’s the will of the Commission, then yes. Again, not what I originally planned, but happy to change the motion to include that. CHAIR BARNETT: So we have a motion and a second. Discussion? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have two questions. One is I feel like sometimes we have a home come to Planning Commission and it’s not the first two-story home in the immediate neighborhood, but maybe it’s like the second in the immediate neighborhood and one of the few in a predominantly single-story neighborhood, is that the case and if so should we consider that in our motion? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: (Inaudible). COMMISSIONER CLARK: For the one where it’s the first two-story in the immediate neighborhood, but sometimes it would be the second two-story in the immediate LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 83 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 neighborhood but would come to Planning Commission because of its bulk. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. Yes, there have been some examples. For example, if it’s the largest house in the immediate neighborhood by floor area or floor area ratio, then that is sometimes something that will trigger review by the Planning Commission. Not necessarily a recommendation for denial from Staff, but a higher level of review. At this time with the motion as it stands those wouldn’t necessarily be triggering story poles, but they might still be coming to Planning Commission, depending on the adjacency, whether there are two-story homes adjacent. CHAIR BARNETT: So I’ll come back to Commissioner Thomas on that. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that if they were requesting a Variance of an exception to something related to height or setbacks or whatnot, then it would require story poles. From my understanding I think that that’s a good compromise, just because of the situation to become too specific, but do you want me to amend the motion? COMMISSIONER CLARK: I wanted to at least flag it, because it is changing what generally triggers us to consider those things for review by the Planning LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 84 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Commission, and so it felt like if that’s our concern is it being like the bulkiest in the neighborhood, but then we define it differently than we would normally if we might be voting on it, so I’m open. I just wanted to bring that up. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Burnett, and then we’ll get back to the maker of the motion. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. Considering the motion, it’s gotten a little involved now, so I want to be sure, would your motion cover what Vice Chair Raspe talked about, a pre-1941 home would require the story poles, even if it was not in a historic district? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I don't know if that was explicitly mentioned, but yes, that was my intent. JENNIFER ARMER: It could be stated as homes that are part of the historic inventory. That does include all homes within the historic districts as well. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, so homes within the historic inventory that are the new builds, new residential and nonresidential buildings, or residential second-story additions. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Clark, if you would. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a question for Staff. Do you know roughly how much of our town is historic districts? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 85 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JENNIFER ARMER: Unfortunately, I don’t have that number off the top of my head. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I think my concern is I think for me I would probably be opposed to requiring story poles in all historic districts, and for me it would also depend on how much of town it is, but that could end up being like a lot of town, I might think. JENNIFER ARMER: The clarification that I can provide is that the historic districts really are downtown at this time. There is the potential that others could be added in the future. The part that would extend beyond the downtown area are these houses that were built before 1941 that when it is listed as a pre-1941 build date, then we presume it to be historic until it has gone to the Historic Preservation Committee and requested and received permission to remove it from that, in which case it would no longer have these requirements, but at this time anything that is triggering that review by the HPC would be falling under this requirement as well, as currently stated. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Burnett. COMMISSIONER BURNETT: I would hope we would retain that and not the change the motion on that subject. I think it’s very important to keep our pre-1941 homes LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 86 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 intact as much as possible and I think story poles help actually the designer, the builder, and the homeowner to help design to keep the home as it started out, like the home we had today. It was a very good project and it was very helpful, so I think it’s very important and I would encourage the maker of the motion to retain that. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that comment. I have one question. Did we talk about a project where there’s no visibility from the public right-of-way, to exclude the requirement of story poles under those circumstances? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I did not, but I assumed that most of those projects were a lot of times in the hillsides, but then we can see them from view corridors. I do think that if they can’t be viewed from a view corridor, and they cannot be viewed from a public right-of-way in any way, shape, or form, then I think that should be included in the excluded or exempt category, so I would amend my motion to include that, because it seems unnecessary. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I guess I have an issue to bring up then. We saw at the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee, the first meeting this year, the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 87 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 concept for a very large development in Surrey Farms, and that would be 22-23 homes including ADUs, and you can’t see that from the viewing platforms, but everyone in that neighborhood would be able to it, so I wouldn’t want them not to have to do story poles. I was hesitating about taking out if you can’t see it from public viewing platforms, because there are quite a few developments where you wouldn’t want that to happen without the neighbors being able to see it. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I totally agree and I know exactly where that lot is, and it is viewable not from our specific view corridors, but it is viewable from all of Longmeadow Drive, and so I understand. My intent was that this was truly a project that couldn’t be viewed from any street, but I don't even know if that is legally too complicated to write in. Yes, probably. ATTORNEY WHELAN: It sounds like you answered your own question, but it’s not too complicated to write it in if the Commission wants to exclude properties that aren’t viewable from view corridors or public right-of-way, but it sounds like there’s a debate happening. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So any public right-of-way would include Longmeadow, so this wouldn’t not be included as exempt? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 88 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JENNIFER ARMER: One question of clarification. What about private roadways? We have a number of private roadways which are done by easement rather than public right-of-way, especially in the hillsides, so just to fully understand and discuss the implications of that. It can be written in there, but you may have cases where something is visible from a private street to the people who drive up and down that private street, but it would not qualify for this requirement of story poles because of the way you’re currently phrasing it. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So the way that I’m currently phrasing it, I think that for me that would be okay, because that seems like a huge burden to put financially on a builder/developer for one or possibly a couple of private property owners to be able see the story poles versus like we do know that there are alternatives of the renderings, etc., so I am comfortable with that, but thank you for bringing that up. CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments on the motion? Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Just on this last issue, my whole concern is it seems to me that the types of homes we’re talking about here are the ones most likely to be in hillsides, and those I think are among the categories when LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 89 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we first started discussion that would be most benefited by story poles, and viewing corridors change over time. My sense is that by introducing an element of not visible from viewing corridors we’re introducing maybe an element that’s creating too much ambiguity. A thought. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, but I also included public right-of-ways, so I feel like there would be very few lots of properties that would qualify with all of that, but I don't know, because I don't know that much about the extent of the mountainsides and everything, so I’m happy to get rid of it if we feel like it’s too complicated, or now the Town Council knows we mentioned this if they want to deal with it, that’s fine with me, so yes. I also do just want to state that I am on the same page with Commissioner Clark. I don’t feel we need story poles for everything in all of the historic districts. I’m happy to keep it for the historic inventory list, and I understand that would cover all of the historic districts anyway, so then I guess it doesn’t really matter if you guys feel strongly about it. CHAIR BARNETT: So we have a motion and we have a second. Any further discussion? If not, I’ll ask the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 90 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Commissioners to raise their hand in approval, and we have a unanimous vote on that. Thank you. ATTORNEY WHELAN: So did the motion delete the requirement for the proposal that properties be exempt if they’re not visible from right-of-way or viewing corridors? CHAIR BARNETT: That was removed, yes. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: No, I included it. VICE CHAIR RASPE: It’s included. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Because the seconder didn’t ask, but yes, but the Town Council knows that we weren’t sure, so there you go. VICE CHAIR RASPE: It was included, yes. ATTORNEY WHELAN: And everybody who voted knew that? Okay, thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Let’s see, our time is 9:30. We could take a break now if Commissioners are desirous of doing that; otherwise we can plow ahead. VICE CHAIR RASPE: I think the remaining topics are quick, hopefully. CHAIR BARNETT: So we’ve got Sections C and D left. We’ll move on to C at the bottom of page 15, and this addresses the concept of what kind of netting or alternatives we should consider. Current policy requires all building corners and heights to be demonstrated by the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 91 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 flagging system, and that would include towers, spires, elevators and mechanical (inaudible), cupolas, mechanical equipment, screening and similar elements not used for human activity or storage which are visible from the streetscape. See I’ll open discussion on that item and see if there are any comments. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have two changes I’d like to see. I don’t think we should require internal story poles. I think that adds a huge cost burden. Something I want to note looking at the North Forty. Those units are expensive and we know that it took almost $1 million to put in all those story poles, and that cost gets passed down to the homeowner or tenant, it’s not absorbed by the developer, so I think it’s important to look at where we can lower the costs; I think that’s a good way. Then I also think we should make modifications for things like only front façade and tallest ridge rather than every architectural detail. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments. Other comments? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I support Commissioner Clark’s comments; I am in agreement with that. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I also must say that I understand comments about the orange netting, but I also don’t know if there’s a real… I’m happy with flags or something else that could be used that’s easy to get access to, that’s inexpensive, but when I was thinking and looking at the other jurisdictions it’s not like there’s another alternative besides the orange netting that does a much better job of representing what the final product is going to look like, which I feel like was a big comment that we got from the architects, so I don't know if there’s a way that we can really adjust that, because I don’t think there’s really a product out there that’s less expensive, less wasteful, and that’s more available, according to my very little research. But I do agree that the outside of the building and the height is the most important part, and I do think that if we’re talking about from the perspective of this also is a signal to the community that this project is happening, it doesn’t matter if there are four poles or ten poles, the four poles are going to do it for people, so that’s my opinion. CHAIR BARNETT: Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks. I’m generally in accordance with both Commissioners’ prior comments. I think a representation of the general outline of the structure LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 93 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 without going into its internal spaces, representing its high points specifically. I think there was a comment about it only representing the front façade. I think we need more than the front façade; I think we need a general footprint of the space. With respect to the orange netting, I find it generally non-problematic. I understand orange is a shocking color, but I think at some point we want the public to see it, and I think it’s better than the alternatives. My only caveat would be if we are in high wind areas or extraordinarily high areas, then I think the netting becomes more of a problem, and so maybe in those situations we would go to flags instead of netting. Aside from that, a system that just gives us the outline with peaks using orange netting I think is a reasonable solution. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: When I was looking at this I thought of a couple of things. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture, but the Story Pole Policy is all outside building corners and along the rooflines, and presuming that the rooflines are going to be higher than the outside LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 94 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 corners unless it has a flat roof, so I’m not sure why that’s so onerous. Then as far as the architectural elements, when I first went through Leadership Los Gatos I remember we had a section on land use, and one of the things that came up from the assistant town manager or town manager at the time was something along the lines of the dome building—you guys know what I’m talking about and where it is—and I don't know if that had story poles representing the dome part that is not used for anything but it basically is covering up a big part of the hillsides as you’re driving down Los Gatos Boulevard. I wouldn’t want that not to be story poled, so when I was reading this I thought of that. I don’t want it to be too onerous, but if we’re taking it away from enough different properties I don’t see that it’s too much to ask to show us the things that are really going to stick out, so maybe there’s a better way to say it than to take away all these things. I don’t have a better way to say it than that, but I wouldn’t want to take that away from the story pole requirement so that people wouldn’t really see what’s going to be built. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. We might consider that as part of a discretionary decision by the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 95 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Town. Just throwing that out as an idea, maybe something we can look at later. Other comments? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have a quick question. Is the netting significantly more expensive than flags? JENNIFER ARMER: I’m not sure. I think there was a comment to that effect, but I’m not sure what the difference in the cost is between the two materials. JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, I’d just add I think some of the other comments were that you can span a greater distance with the flags than you can with the orange netting without any issues, so that’s less poles you technically have to put up, which probably makes it cheaper overall. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I personally would be in favor of looking into flags instead of netting. CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts on Section C? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that I think that the poles and something strung across signals that a project is happening, and so I agree that with having an option besides the netting, flags I guess was the other suggestion. I guess rope was also included as an example; I think that that would need to be a pretty bright color. I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 96 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 don't know how rope would be better than flags, but I do think that maybe that could be included in the modify exception process and we could maybe try to streamline that area, so I am happy to leave this here and then discuss it more in the Modify Exception Process section in E, but I did want to ask the Town Attorney if that is where we should… In this section I guess we’re not actually requiring any policy, but would it be necessary to mention that alternatives can up to the discretion of the Community Development Director, etc.? Would that be necessary to be included right after the comments about what is allowed, or is it just in a completely different section of the policy? ATTORNEY WHELAN: I don't know what section it would be best in, but I do think it would be a good idea to specify the criteria under which an exception would be allowed so that it gets applied evenhandedly and so you could recommend to the Town Council that the ultimate policy allow exceptions to the netting under the following circumstances. JENNIFER ARMER: And that could be part of your discussion of Section C of your Staff Report or Section D, either of those. We will take the recommendations from Planning Commission and work them into a revised Story Pole Policy as appropriate. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 97 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: All right, Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to ask the question, pursuant to what was brought up earlier in Section B, Building Height, the 70’ high building. I’m looking at the exception process and it says the current exception process for alternatives, including the orange snow fencing and replacement of poles, and I would think the height thing would require an exception from Town Council. I’m trying to think of ways to get around that and to put it more with the Community Development Director. I don't know where this height thing would fall, but I think as long as there’s a way to represent the building physically that’s similar to the story poles that it would be fine to leave that to the discretion of the Community Development Director. JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I would say that you could place that as an exception or you could just build it in to say this is the material that is…the netting is required for all buildings unless they exceed a height of 35’, in which case an alternative material of this flag rope—I don’t think it is just rope, I think it is flag rope; it’s the rope that has the flags on it—that that is the alternative material that could be allowed when a building exceeds 35’, for example. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 98 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That sounds reasonable to me. JENNIFER ARMER: So then it’s not an exception process, it’s just built in. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right, because I do want to honor what the Town Council asked us to do. They have other things to focus on, not that. CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions or comments? I believe one of the examples we saw talked about netting that designated the plate heights in different colors, and that seemed interesting to me. We talked about possible markers on the poles themselves to designate distances, perhaps at 10’ intervals or something like that, but I think actually somehow demonstrating where the plate lines is would be helpful to envision the future building. Just a thought to throw out. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I would also note that Mr. Fagot also mentioned about the flags at the top where you have the netting, but then at the very highest point there are flags at the top, if I got that correctly, that would be worth considering. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for remembering that. Commissioner Clark. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 99 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER CLARK: I wanted to ask, one of the architects during public comment talked about only 30 being required but we use 44 for the level of orange or something. Do you know what that means? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. They were talking about the brightness of colors on the building that are allowed in the hillsides, and so when we’re talking about a new hillside home, it’s limited, it can’t be a bright color, and then they were saying that the flags or the netting is very bright and therefore does not comply with the Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines for new homes. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Okay, got it. Thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments or a possible motion? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I can do both again. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: My comment is actually related to the flag at the top. I guess that’s not as difficult, but adding more requirements to the story poles feels like it is only going to increase this reliance on story poles, and I feel like at the end of the day the goal needs to be to get information to people to authentically engage in a better, more meaningful, and constructive way LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 and I don't know if adding more information to story poles is going to do that. I think that we need to encourage and require outreach and information sharing in a different platform, so I agree that it would be really helpful for me as a planning commissioner to be able to see the plate heights and everything in real life, I would really appreciate that and have the poles be marked, but I feel like it would create further reliance on this process that is clearly a burden to part of our community, and so that is just my only fear and hesitation for adding specific requirements. That being said, I am happy to make a motion if you want me to anyway. CHAIR BARNETT: Please do. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So for Section C, Modify Physical Requirements, should the current requirements be modified? We say yes, the modification should be that above 35’ alternatives to netting can be approved, such as flag rope, and I think that that’s pretty much it. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: And then also we had discussed something more toward just displaying the general footprint of the building versus every architectural LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 101 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 detail, so like something in that direction, and also no internal story poles. JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, may I ask for clarification on that? CHAIR BARNETT: Please. JENNIFER ARMER: We don’t currently require story poles in the middle of a building unless it’s supporting a tall ridge, so was that intended to address situations where there are multiple buildings? COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, so for like the North Forty, all the ones that weren’t even visible unless you got a private invitation. JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, that’s actually in Section D, so if we get to D then we can handle that there. I think the Commission has been having a lot of good discussion, but once we get a motion on the table we really should get a second, and then we can start talking about potential amendments; it might be a little cleaner that way for us to unravel when we watch the video. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, so we have a motion. We don’t have a second. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I’ll second the motion. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 102 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen, thank you. Any discussion on the motion? If not, I’ll ask for a raise of hands of those in support, and it’s unanimous. JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, I just want to clarify, the motion was the flags would be allowed over 35’? Okay, thank you. CHAIR BARNETT: We’ve made our way to Section D on page 16. This addresses alternatives to the Story Pole Policy, including more clarity and predictability and potentially reducing the exception request, which as I understand has been a burden to both the Applicant and perhaps to the Town, and to consider these options for perhaps eliminating or limiting the story pole requirements, and that is to use flag ropes, renderings and digital simulations, signage, and reduced number of poles for multi-building projects. I think the rest of it has been reviewed and understood, so I’ll open the discussion on Section D. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a couple of things. One thing I think that we should discuss is some people had a problem with having to rent story poles for a really long time, so maybe we should consider—and I don't know if this is where we would do it or if we’d want to do it in another spot—adding a time limit or something so that they’re not LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 103 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 having to rent story poles for months on end and the cost keeps accumulating. Also I wanted to bring up the option of in order to officially notify the neighbors if we’re not doing story poles something the Town could do is send a mailer to the ten immediate neighbors or something, and I just wanted to throw that idea out there, but those were my first couple of thoughts. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. On Commissioner Clark’s point with respect to notifying neighbors, I’d like to see perhaps a system whereby the proposed development has a sign in the front and could have a rendering on that sign, and maybe even I think Commissioner Thomas indicated in her notes before, a QR code which immediately could provide the viewer access to 3-D renderings to the extent those were created. And then, again, with respect to items in here in Section D, it also has reducing number of poles for multi- building projects. I think this is where we would include our opinion that in multi-building projects such as the North Forty there wouldn’t be a requirement to include internal poles, but rather we would look for story poles, around the perimeter of the project. Those are my thoughts. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 104 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BARNETT: One question I had on the net concept is what if there are higher buildings on the interior than at the four corners? Maybe something worth considering. Other thoughts? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I have a question for Staff. We require signage and renderings under what circumstance? Because we did hear from the architects that they are always doing at least the renderings anyway. What do we require now, story poles or not? JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. In the Story Pole Policy it does actually include specifics about what needs to be on the signage, and it does require the front elevation on the proposed building. When we get into something that’s more complex than just a single-family home, then a rendering is required. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: My thought was since they’re already doing that it’s easy to do that, and since we’re taking away story poles from a lot of developments that we should continue to, even if they don’t have to put up story poles, that they should do renderings and digital simulations and signage, and if they are doing story poles they should do it as well, but the people that aren’t having to do story poles should also do it. I don't know LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 105 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 how you’d do that when it’s not in the Story Pole Policy, but you see where I’m going with this? JENNIFER ARMER: The Story Pole Policy does include signage requirements, and so it could require for those projects that don’t trigger story poles that signage would still be required. I think it’s possible for us to work that in in terms of this larger story poles, netting, and signage policy if that is the desire of the Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: It was just my suggestion, because I think that would be an easy way to create visibility and it would help take us on the path of weaning people off of the need for story poles, and if that was the only thing they had to look, at and we could get some experience with it as well. CHAIR BARNETT: Any thoughts? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and if we’re discussing our Height Pole and Netting Policy—but really I feel like it needs to be renamed to Story pole and Netting and Signage or whatever—I think that signage is a really important part of this moving forward and hopefully can just be more useful with the access to technology that we have. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 106 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I did have a question. I know that this wasn’t necessarily in the topics of discussion, but it came up multiple times in all the policies that we looked at and it’s with regard to timing, and I think that that’s where we’ve been coming with a lot of the story pole stuff. I think that because we can post signage and link information, but the linked digital information can be updated, is it possible for us to require signage to be posted earlier in the process than right now, which is they go up with story poles? That’s my first question. My second question is related to our timing with the public notices. It says in our current policy that it should be the height poles and netting have been installed… It was something about it has to be before the public comment period or something. Either way, other jurisdictions have specifics like a 7-day or a 10-day or a 14-day, so is there a recommendation that we should put something more specific than just like sometime before? JENNIFER ARMER: At this time the signage meets the same rules as our 10-day noticing for these projects, and so we require that the story poles be up, certified, and photographed, and the signage be installed prior to the beginning of the 10-day notice when we send notice cards. In general, notice cards are sent to any property within LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 107 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 300 feet, unless we’re talking about a Minor Residential Development Application where it’s a smaller radius, or the hillsides, in which case it’s actually a 500-foot radius. And those notice cards do include the web link to find more information about the project online so that they can see any drawings, renderings, or project descriptions available. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you. With that being said, I think that we should mention the ten days in here, unless that causes confusions because the notice period could change and then we’d also have to amend this policy. Right now the requirements on the sign are the address and the phone number of the Planning Department. Not that people shouldn’t physically come down; that’s great if people want to physically come down and look at things in person, but I also think information about who to email is probably also helpful, and then also making sure that there are requirements about website links and QR codes and things like that, because I do think that that is the most helpful way to gain access to digital information right away. I still do think that putting the signs up earlier would be helpful for everyone involved, even if the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 108 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 renderings end up changing, and I would be in favor of also making these signs more of a template format in some way, shape, or form that really does give visual notice to the community. A lot of the signage is developed by architects or people that work with architects, and they’re really beautiful and nice to look at, not that that’s problematic, but if we’re trying to get signage to replace the indicator of a story pole, maybe it does need to be outlined in orange, or the title needs to be in all the same exact font and same exact size, and then there’s the area where they add the additional information. I’m not exactly sure what that would look like, but I do think something that’s more visually striking would be really helpful during this transition period away from the story poles. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments. Other thoughts? Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks. First of all, I join in all the comments by Commissioner Thomas. I have one question for Staff. How long do the story poles have to remain up? We’ve heard horror stories about how they were up for six months and it cost $1 million. Is there a requirement of X days? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for the question. The requirement is based on completion of the public hearing LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 109 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 process. They must be installed prior to the public notice going out, so that’s ten days in advance of the first public hearing, and then it must remain up until the end of any appeal period. The examples that were given were ones where there were multiple Planning Commission meetings, continuances, and then an appeal to Town Council, continuances there, and so that is how it ended up becoming that length of a period. VICE CHAIR RASPE: So maybe one of the things we might want to consider is putting a cap on so that that burden doesn’t become too onerous for our developers. I don't know if it’s 30 days, 60 days, but it seems to me six months of carrying costs can be extraordinary, so if we want to consider that as well. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other thoughts? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I like the idea of adding a cap. I think that in a perfect world it would be up until it’s gone all the way through, but if the goal is to get the public’s attention, after 30 days they should know that it’s there, and maybe we do a really good job updating the signage to make it clear the story poles are down but this project is still being considered or LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 something, but I would say 30-day cap, because I don't know what 60 days would get you compared to that. CHAIR BARNETT: Is it correct that the Staff materials online include photographs of the story poles? JENNIFER ARMER: We do require that photographs of the story poles be provided, and if we were considering a shorter period of time for the story poles I think that would become standard practice that we would provide the photos online. One element to consider is if a project then gets appealed to another deciding body and the story poles are no longer up, then they would be relying on the photos and any renderings that were provided. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question. In general I am okay with the idea of exempting parts of the buildings that are not visible from the public right-of- way, but just taking the example of the North Forty, if you go by the outside of it most everything is at a 35’ height limit, however, the Market Hall with the two layers of affordable housing is at least 10’, if not 15’, more. Is it more than 45’? JOEL PAULSON: Yes. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think one of the things they got for the density bonus is more height there. I just would want to make sure, because we will see other projects like this with the new Housing Element, that they would still have to story pole at least the highest thing in there, even if they don’t have to story pole every building. Does that make sense? I put that out there that way, and hopefully it’s good. Other than that, I don’t think they have to story pole every building. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. I’ll interject a comment. The current policy, which is on page 75, includes as alternatives digital imagery, simulation, and computer modeling, and I was struck by the detail in the Santa Barbara requirements that went into this in considerable detail, particularly on pages 41 and 42 relating to photo- simulations, perspective drawings, 3-dimensional modeling, and aerial views, and my thought would be to commend those to the Town Council for possible consideration as specific requirements if we go away from story poles. If we don’t have other comments, I guess we’re looking for a motion at this time. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I can try. I move under Section D, Providing Alternatives, to have a reduced number of poles for multi-building projects, so that only the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 112 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 outer buildings need to be story poled, as well as the tallest building if not one of the outside ones. That there be a QR code and email address included on the signage, and that there be a time limit with cap of 30 days for story poles to be up. For projects that don’t trigger story poles for signage to be required. To consider having signage up earlier than the story poles. And to maybe standardize signage to ensure it is visually striking or catches attention. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. That’s your motion, and I’ll look for a second. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I second that, and then I did just want to clarify for the 30 days. Should it be 30 days after the notice, or 30 days total? COMMISSIONER CLARK: I like 30 days after the initial public hearing I think is a good idea. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So that typically would be like 40 days, the minimum, right? Okay. CHAIR BARNETT: Any thoughts about other inclusions into the possible motion or discussion about it? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I meant to ask this earlier. It was in the comments of the Staff Report. Do we need to consider adding or mentioning anything? Towards the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 113 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 end it says, “Relocation of poles when located close to property lines to reduce guide wire conflicts and attachment of guide wires to existing trees, fencing, and equipment.” We didn’t discuss that in the motion. What does the policy say right now on that point? JENNIFER ARMER: Our policy does not currently have any exception for those situations, except going through the standard exception process to Town Council. JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, one option might be to have Section D have two separate motions, because these really are pretty separate topics. Like moving forward with what you have, and then see what kind of comments we have on the second portion. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Fair enough, but since it was under Section D I wanted to make sure that we didn’t skip it. CHAIR BARNETT: So we have the motion, we have the second, and we’ve had discussion. Anything further? If not, I’ll call for a raise of hands for those who are in favor of the motion, and again it’s unanimous. Thank you very much. Commissioner Hanssen, do you want to formulate a motion on your thoughts? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 114 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Let me ask a question first. Is it reasonable if we gave a more automatic exception for people that need to relocate poles that are close to property lines? What would be the consequence of letting them relocate the poles, and how much does that happen? I just want to understand how that works. JENNIFER ARMER: Since this isn’t an exception that we’ve seen frequently, it’s a case where I think they’ve just found a way to make it work, but it could be phrased as an exception. It could be considered either automatically that within a certain distance of a property line that the poles could be set in. We could include some language that there needs to be some note about that on the signage to specify that it’s not representing the full width of the building. This is me just kind of brainstorming some ideas as to how you would address that. Alternatively, you could consider this as another exception process, so as the Town Attorney had suggested we would want to have some specific guidelines to guide Staff through that type of exception process and when to grant it. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Given what you just said, I would just say that it’s not a big issue, so I would leave it to the discretion of the Community Development LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 115 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Director whether that was okay or not. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a big problem, and I wouldn’t want them to have to go to Town Council for that. Also, the attachment of guide wires to existing trees, fences, and equipment, I do maybe have an issue about trees, because we have so many protected trees, but the fences and equipment, as long as it’s not going to damage them, I again wouldn’t want to send people with an unnecessary exception, because we want them to get the story poles up, so if they can’t do it another way then they should have that kind of alternative. So that would be a motion I would make to say that we can allow the relocation of poles located close to property lines to reduce guide wire conflicts without getting an exception, and the same with attaching to other devices other than the poles they’re putting up, but not trees. So that’s my motion. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for the motion. Do we have a second? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I second. CHAIR BARNETT: And discussion? Seeing none, I call for the raise of hands in favor. Also unanimous. Thank you. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 116 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Now we’re going to move on to Section E, Modify Exception Process. This relates to who is going to be the decision maker on certain exception requests, and I believe you’ve had a good opportunity to look at that and consider it, so why don’t we open up for discussion? Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks, Chair. My sense is the Community Development Director already handles quite a few issues with respect to the poles, and it’s only certain issues that are not handled by the CDD that go up to Town Council. I don’t see a good reason to break it down that way. To me, I think the CDD should handle all issues with respect to those story poles, take it all out of the hands of the Town Council who have many more important things to do, so my recommendation would be to make the CDD the decision maker for all matters with respect to the story poles and signage as we’ve talked about tonight. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, that’s a clear motion. Is there a second? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I second. CHAIR BARNETT: And discussion? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just wanted to say I think that’s a good motion and that we can support that if the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 117 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Town Council would like to make that decision to offload it, we would support them doing that, but ultimately I think this one, mostly it’s going to be what the Town Council wants to do, because it falls under them a lot of the time now. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and do we need to be discussing what is part of the exemption process or just the process itself for Staff right now? Just the process? JOEL PAULSON: Yes, just the process, and this is really just specifically the deciding body for exceptions, because the reality is with the motions that have been made thus far we’re going to have far fewer exception requests probably even for larger buildings, because you provided some options. Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see what Council says, but I think that’s where we’ll find out whether or not we need to build in additional comments related to the exceptions request, but this is specific to the decision maker for any exception requests. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, perfect. Then that’s it. CHAIR BARNETT: I noticed in the Staff Report it refers to only two jurisdictions in the County that have an LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 118 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 exception process where the authority is placed within the Community Development Director, but I support the motion. Any further discussion? If not, raise your hands, and it’s unanimous. We move next to Section F, Story Pole Policy requirements, and we’ve heard about that issue from some of the commentators, and I guess we can move right on to discussion of that. Vice Chair Raspe. VICE CHAIR RASPE: My sense is the Story Pole Policy requirement is the Applicant has to provide a plan to the Town for it’s prior approval before raising the poles and putting up the netting. To me that makes eminent sense. The alternative is no plan, the poles go up, and God forbid they’re incorrect and they have to be redone to a greater expense. So, yes, there is a great upfront expense in preparing a plan, but it seems to me it’s the most efficient probably cost effective measure, and so I would recommend keeping that system in place. CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I totally understand what the Vice Chair just said, however, the story poles have to be certified by an independent certification, and if I understand the role of those certifying bodies it’s that they’re supposed to take the plans and say yes, I agree, LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 and because I’m qualified to say so that those story poles represent the development plans as submitted. So while I understand having a plan would help, is that onerous on top of them having to get them certified anyways? That’s just a question I have and I had written down before I came to the meeting. CHAIR BARNETT: Is that a question to Staff? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: It’s a question to the other Commissioners. CHAIR BARNETT: I see. Thank you. Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I think what I heard from the architects and developers is that it’s very onerous to put together that Story Pole Policy; it sounded like it is legitimately a problem for them, and if Los Gatos is the only agency in the County that requires the Story Pole Policy, it must work not to have one though would be my opinion, because everyone else seems to be getting by okay. I think one thing we could do is provide the option to get a Story Pole Policy approved before putting them up so that if somebody is concerned that their story poles would end up needing to be changed once they were up, they could come forward, but if they don’t they understand LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that they might be assuming an additional cost if they do need to be changed. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think that’s a fantastic suggestion. It’s the story pole version of the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee. It’s an option if they want the confidence that they’re doing the right thing and then they can choose to do it, and it could also be a warning that if you don’t do it, it might be an additional expense for you. I like that approach. CHAIR BARNETT: It sounds like there’s a growing consensus. Is there further discussion? Commissioner Clark. COMMISSIONER CLARK: I move to make a Story Pole Policy plan optional rather than required. CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Now do we have a second? Commissioner Thomas. COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I second the motion. CHAIR BARNETT: Any further discussion? If not, raise your hands in support. Another unanimous vote. Now we are down to Section G, the one that is remaining, and we’ve heard from the Town Attorney on this issue tonight, but does anyone have any further questions or comments about it? Commissioner Hanssen. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 5/24/2023 Item #2, Modifications to Town Height Pole and Netting Policy 121 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I will just mention that this was discussed at the last Housing Element Advisory Board meeting, and although we didn’t come to any recommendation on that particular point it was discussed at least briefly because it was brought up by HCD, but I think we all took comfort in the fact that our Town Attorney’s opinion is that a court wouldn’t consider that being an issue, and especially since we are loosening a lot of the requirements for Story Pole Policy it seems to me that that shouldn’t be an impediment, especially with what we’ve done with mainly affordable housing. CHAIR BARNETT: And I assume in our iterative process with HCD that this hasn’t been mentioned as a requirement or concern? JOEL PAULSON: I don’t believe it has specifically been mentioned, but we did provide a lot of additional information in this second round, which may lead to some comments. CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. (END) This Page Intentionally Left Blank