Attachment 06LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 8/24/2016
Item #2, 401-409 Alberto Way
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair
Kendra Burch
Charles Erekson
Melanie Hanssen
Matthew Hudes
Tom O'Donnell
Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney: Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(510) 337-1558
ATTACHMENT 6
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR BADAME: Our continued public hearing,
which is Item 2, was continued from August 10, 2016. As I
live within 300’ of the proposed application I am recusing
myself, and Vice Chair Kane will take over. I will be back
for Item 3.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Correct me if I’m wrong,
Counsel, but as the Chair said, the structure proceeding
for this matter would be we are going to provide the
applicant with questions, and that will be the only
remaining portion of the public hearing. After that we will
close it and I’ll turn to the Commission for discussion,
questions of Staff perhaps, and/or a motion, is that
correct?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: That is correct, and just one
more cleanup matter. Commissioner O'Donnell was not at the
last meeting, so I wanted to make sure that he puts on the
record that he did review the proceedings and that he’s
able and up to speed to hear the rest of this matter.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Excellent. You’re quite
correct.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: This weekend I went over
the four hours that we have on video, so yes, I’m familiar.
VICE CHAIR KANE: With that, I will call the
Applicant and his or her team to the microphone to receive
questions. I’ll provide the Commission as well as the
Applicant with an earlier direction that I’ve received that
really tonight we’re going to do questions of the
Applicant. We’re not going to get back into tertiary
subjects or provide for speeches, but right now, just if we
have questions for the Applicant. Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: When we left the last
meeting—I know we had to continue because we were running
out of time—one area that we all had a lot of questions on
was the EIR. Is the Applicant the appropriate party to
answer questions about the EIR?
VICE CHAIR KANE: We’ll turn to Staff for that.
Mr. Paulson.
JOEL PAULSON: Staff is available to answer
questions. You’re free to ask questions of the Applicant as
well if you want to get their input. Additionally, the
environmental consultant is here as well.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Whose environmental consultant?
JOEL PAULSON: The Town’s.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Further questions?
Questions for the Applicant? Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe starting with the EIR,
I had a few questions. In terms of the alternatives—the EIR
requires alternatives—I wondered what your thoughts are
about the comparison of alternatives and whether there are
alternatives other than “no project,” and whether a reduced
project alternative is something that you’ve considered?
RANDY LAMB: Thank you, again, Chair. This is
Randy Lamb from Lamb Partners; I’ll speak loud.
We saw that the alternatives, as with any EIR,
were discussed. We have considered a number of
alternatives, to tell you the truth, but the economic
alternative that works for this project is what has been
proposed to you. There are no significant impacts, as
you’ve seen from the Town’s EIR, and so our perspective is
that the size of the project as it sits today is what we’d
like you to consider.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you. I have some
other questions on the Final as well. Is it okay to go on?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yeah, proceed.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: On page 29 the Final refers
to removing eight on-street parking spaces, and the
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question about that, does that reflect only the
construction phase or is that on a permanent basis?
RANDY LAMB: That’s permanent. That’s three on
one side of the street and five on the other side of the
street.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And did you consider any
ideas to replace those parking spaces that the residents
will lose?
RANDY LAMB: We did. We considered adding some
underground parking on our facility to accommodate that,
and one of our responses today that we gave early this
morning was that that was an option that we would consider,
and we would have the Planning Commission consider it as
well.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question on the
EIR, and this one I would actually like to ask of the
Applicant.
In the section on aesthetics there was a
determination made that there were no significant impacts,
but at our last hearing a number of the residents showed
pictures, and I went back and looked at them myself, and if
you were standing across the street their views of the
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Santa Cruz Mountains are going to be completely obstructed
if you’re a resident of 420.
So my question for you is I understand the
environmental consultants made that determination, but I
think that’s a subject that maybe not everyone would agree
with, and I wondered, since you were trying so hard to work
with the residents to make this a solution that works for
everyone, if you had given any consideration to moving that
building or reducing the height so that you could not block
the views? Especially with regard to Building B, I believe,
the one that’s farther to the north, that’s the one where
there’s basically nothing there, and so putting all that
building will obstruct the view of the Santa Cruz
Mountains, which is the only view that they have.
RANDY LAMB: I think to restate it; the EIR did
come to the conclusion that there wasn’t a significant
impact related to the aesthetics. As you know, we’ve had 14
different open houses, community meetings, and we’ve
directed people to our website to be able to take a look at
not only our process, but the Town’s process as well. We
are open to suggestion as it relates to the height of the
buildings. We’ve talked about various design items
internally, and so if there are suggestions we’re certainly
open to hearing them.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you.
ALICIA GUERRA: I’m sorry, Commissioners. I just
wanted to clarify with respect to the determination of a
significant visual impact. The CEQA case law is very clear
that that impact is measured based on public vantage
points, not an individual’s impact to its views, so while
it may be significant for a particular resident, the EIR
made a determination based on case law, CEQA thresholds,
and guidance as to how you measure those impacts. So the
reason that this was not identified as a significant impact
was that effect on visual character was not impacting
public views, and so what Mr. Lamb was indicating was they
took this into consideration in how they designed their
project to address the surrounding community and be
sensitive to that, but they also looked to guidance from
the Town’s consultant, and the determination, which was
based on case law and based on CEQA guidance.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I thank you for that.
Well, then I’ll re-ask my question, and you don’t have to
re-answer it, but my question would be based more on the
General Plan, then, because clearly there is a direction
from our Town’s General Plan to retain our small town
character and to fit in with the neighborhood, and so part
of that would be not obstructing people’s views.
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ALICIA GUERRA: Would you like an answer to that
question, Commissioner Hanssen?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think Randy indicated
that you guys were willing to work with the neighbors on a
solution that might be better, so I mean we’ll have to
consider that in our deliberations.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I have a question of
Staff first. We have not certified the EIR, is that
correct?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So as of the moment we
don’t have an EIR that depends on it being adopted and
certified, so it’s not adopted or certified.
Secondly, I wanted to ask the Applicant
concerning the parking. You, generously, I think, said you
might do something about the eight spaces that are going to
be removed. One of the things I wondered about, I remember
when the new restaurant across the street went in there was
a lot of discussion about using the surface parking of the
property you now have, because there would be overflow from
the restaurant. Has there been any further discussion on
that point?
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RANDY LAMB: As we talked to the property owner
and all there was direction that you did give relative to
that parking, and there was never an agreement made with
the property owner and with the restaurants.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So did you take into
consideration, then, the overflow from the restaurant for
street parking?
RANDY LAMB: I don't know how you would evaluate
the overflow from the restaurant, given that they have
onsite parking as well as street parking, other than the
eight spaces that we talked about earlier, so I don't know
how you would evaluate that.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Well, I would tell you
that we had serious problems with it, and one of the things
we did determine was that to the extent they could use the
property you have, and that would suggest that they could,
that took away some of the problem with that restaurant, so
if that’s not going to be there, we will, or at least I
will, take that into consideration. To the extent you could
help us, that would be great. To the extent that you
cannot, we’ll have to do it ourselves.
RANDY LAMB: I think the question is pretty open
and vague. I don't know if that means providing two spaces
or a hundred. The discussion that came up at the last—and
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I’m sure it’s on the video as well, that you might have
seen—was there ever a direction from Planning Commission
that there be an agreement? There was a direction that the
restaurant owner would meet with and talk to the property
owner, but there was never a conclusion to anything on it,
which we were not privy to.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Part of the reason I
think it’s relevant is in your consideration of parking,
which you have done and you’ve said it’s adequate, you did
not take into consideration the effect of the restaurant,
which I believe you would have to do if you’re going to
have an adequate evaluation of street parking.
RANDY LAMB: Yeah, this isn’t one that I’m
familiar with, but what I would say to you, I don't know
how public… Most businesses provide their own parking on
their site, and I don't know how we would evaluate that in
terms of our site, but I would also say that I assume you
approved that project based on the Town Code that would
have included that type of a use on that site.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Let me go to a general
question. The two floors of parking you have, the garage
beneath the ground, is that controlled parking, or is that
open to the public parking?
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RANDY LAMB: That’s controlled parking. It will
have a parking garage gate that will be up for all
operating hours, and generally the gate will come down at
6:00 o'clock at night and then be closed until 7:00 o'clock
the next morning.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s what I’m driving at. So
between X hour in the morning, and I think you just said
6:00 o'clock, will that be open parking? Is there anything
stopping me parking there?
RANDY LAMB: I’m sorry, say it again in terms of
the hours.
VICE CHAIR KANE: From X hour in the morning
until 6:00 at night, whatever hours you just said, can I
park my car there?
RANDY LAMB: Our lease will be very clear with
our tenant that the tenant will have exclusive use of that
parking. Will the gates be up? Yes, the gates will be up.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So if the gates are up, I can
park there, or will I be towed?
RANDY LAMB: I don't know how I would ever answer
that question, because it’s going to be a tenant that’s
going to be there. That’s what I’m saying.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s two floors of parking, and
I was thinking the residents are concerned about a loss of
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parking, and I never had a clear sense that somebody
couldn’t park there. At the last hearing I asked for
heaven’s sake, how do I get out after 6:00 o'clock? And you
said there would be a badge or a magnet or something
allowing me to get out, which would also actually allow me
to get in on nights and weekends if I had to. But other
than those nights and weekend times the garage will be
open, yes?
RANDY LAMB: The garage gate will be up, yes,
during business hours, that’s right. Meaning Monday through
Friday from 7:00am to 6:00pm.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So for those hours it would be
available to the restaurant?
RANDY LAMB: Again, I don't know how to answer
that. It’s a private facility that I will have a lease, and
a tenant that will say I have exclusive rights to those
parking spaces. That’s what my lease will say. I don't know
how I say to you yes it will be available to the
restaurant. How do I say that?
VICE CHAIR KANE: That it is or it isn’t. I’m
thinking what you may be meaning is each tenant will be
assigned X amount of spaces, and if the building was fully
occupied all of your spaces will be assigned, and then you
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would have signs up on the wall, “This is for Bob’s Company
Only.”
RANDY LAMB: That’s right.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And no one else can park down
there?
RANDY LAMB: That’s right. If you all own
companies that were tenants there you would want it posted
as private parking, you would want to make sure your
employees are secure and safe; that’s what a tenant would
expect in their project.
VICE CHAIR KANE: (Inaudible) that how many
spaces are down there?
RANDY LAMB: Three hundred and eighty-three.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Each one of them is going to
have a sign, and I thought you might leave some open for
some of the folks, because up on top you have like the
rotunda with very limited spaces for visitors.
So anyway, let me ask you something else. The
spaces that are going away from the east side, the Alberto
side, from your driveway to Highway 9, will that all be red
curb?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So all of those spaces are
going away?
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RANDY LAMB: Five of them.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, then, it’s not a yes.
RANDY LAMB: Well, no, everything from our side…
So if you come out our driveway and turn right.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yeah.
RANDY LAMB: That’s five spaces.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So there will be no parking
from the driveway to Highway 9?
RANDY LAMB: That’s right.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s what I’m trying to get
at, yes?
RANDY LAMB: The five spaces.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s a good thing.
RANDY LAMB: I agree.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Because I was there today, and
it really improved the line of sight to have no vehicles…
The line of sight right now is not very good—we’ll talk
more about that later—but to take all of those cars out is
for me inconvenient to folks who would park there, but
really improves the safety of folks traveling toward
Alberto, because you get a better line of sight, so thank
you for that.
One other question on things I saw today. The
northern boundary of the property, I walked that entire
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driveway, and I had concerns at our last meeting where in
the guidelines it shows a commercial building looking down
into a residence, and in reexamining the story poles and
the setbacks, or the potential to increase setbacks, I
didn’t really see that problem, because—what are they,
Italian Cypress?—the trees seemed to be very effective, but
they weren’t complete. Now, without going to the volumes of
paper, is it your intention to complete that entire
driveway line?
RANDY LAMB: We’ll be replanting our entire side.
This is great feedback we’ve gotten from Las Casitas
directly, that they’d like to have 30-40’ evergreen trees
along our side to block our views of their homes
completely, and so we’ve agreed to it and we’ve even
offered to have them have input into what tree we would
plant.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Excellent. I’m going to pass
the gavel; I’ll come back later. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Getting back to the Final
EIR, page 2-30, there’s reference to Caltrans and to a
commenter on the EIR from Caltrans. The commenter provides
recommendations for new pedestrian facility’s crosswalk
consisting of high-visibility ladder style markings and
installation of a rectangular rapid flashing beacon at the
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street crossing location. Are you working with Caltrans?
Has Caltrans committed to implement these recommendations?
I believe there’s a significant issue with line of sight
there that needs to be improved.
RANDY LAMB: I think that’s a question for Public
Works, as it relates to that particular section relative to
the coordination between the Town and Caltrans. Hopefully
I’m answering your question. We’re open to anything that
creates a safety improvement. As you’ve seen, Public Works
had the idea of creating a barrier there, or a buffer,
between auto traffic and people walking right along that
new sidewalk; we’re all in favor.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, so I hear you’re in
favor, however, we know that getting something from
Caltrans is a very, very difficult, long process, and so
being in favor is one thing, actively working yourself
directly with Caltrans to have some of these improvements
made, is another, and I take it from your answer that
you’re not actively working with Caltrans.
RANDY LAMB: Caltrans wants to see the project
approved, and then we’re happy to get together with them
and actively promote any safety things that you see there.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Other questions for the
Applicant? Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Just a couple of questions
between the Draft EIR and the Final EIR before we probably
move to other items, just to stay in the same vein of
questioning.
In the Draft EIR, on sheet 3-34, it discusses
promoting ride share services and incentives. Now, I
understand that these are going to be leased spaces, so I
would just like to hear from you how you plan on working
with your tenants to ensure that they are hopefully not
only promoting but providing the incentives that were
requested in this document.
RANDY LAMB: As we’ve done in our other office
buildings, we’re huge advocates of public transportation
and the ability to ride share, vanpool, and carpool. As you
see, we’re providing 99 bike parking spaces, which is a
large number for a building like this. Our lease will have
specific language that the tenant is responsible and
expected to incent their employees to find alternative ways
to the office rather than single cars.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: On that same note, as we
have listened and I took notes at the last meeting,
obviously there was a lot of concern about traffic. Would
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you be opposed to providing some type of a bus or something
during the two hours around the lunch time, perhaps as a
loop going through downtown or something, to allow the
tenants the ability to move in and out of the downtown
areas, or others, Walgreens, without placing a large number
of cars on the road during the day?
RANDY LAMB: We’re not opposed to it. In fact, a
number of people in this room who have come to our open
houses have suggested that in terms of their concern about
walking across the overpass on Highway 17 as it is now.
There are a number of people who have said, “Hey, would you
consider it?” And we’ve said yes.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: But you would consider it as
the owner, not write it into the leases, therefore making
each individual lessee a part of it? It would be under your
purview?
RANDY LAMB: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: At our last meeting there were
concerns from the public, and I still have a concern about
taking those spots away, although I think it’s a good safe
idea. It’s a shame we can’t provide additional parking with
the many, many parking units you have available.
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But it came up about the parking. Because if I
worked there and you allowed parking on… I wouldn’t use the
basement parking thing. I’d get there early every day and
park on the street, so those guys would always be filled up
with employees, not really residents. It would be a contest
to see who could get them earliest for a clean getaway in
the afternoon.
But I did ask where the construction workers
would park, and I don't remember that we specifically got
into that. I wanted to ask is it not true that in the
Conditions of Approval of what’s there at 99, number 94
talks about a construction management plan? Is that where
my answer would eventually be as to the accommodations for
the many workers I anticipate will be there? Like maybe
you’re going to lease spots from Los Gatos Lodge? Or I
don't know what you're going to do, but they can’t park in
that area. So the answer to that is the construction
management plan will cover all of those concerns with
appropriate oversight from the Town. You’ll have phone
numbers posted in case there’s a violation or a
misunderstanding, yes?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Other questions? Commissioner
Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: A follow up question on
the construction management plan, that that’s a to-do after
there would be an approval. Having said that though, a lot
of concerns that came up in our hearing were about just
that, the whole process.
I think it’s a great idea to have underground
parking, and don’t get me wrong, I think everything that
you guys are doing with the LEED certification and all that
is great, but it does have a consequence. I actually live
down the street from a neighbor—we live up in the hills—and
they had to do a lot of cut and fill, and when they were in
that stage of the project, it’s just one house, there were
literally 40-50 times a day back-to-back trucks all day
long.
It was really a big disruption for our
neighborhood, and we don’t even have that many houses in
our neighborhood, so that got me thinking what would this
construction management plan look like for the residents,
because they’re all concerned about being able to get to
their doctors, and the emergency vehicles getting in and
out, and I was trying to imagine the scenario where you
wouldn’t have to shut down one of the lanes in the street,
and so I just wondered, I know you haven’t made the plan
yet, but if you could comment on is it going to be possible
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to do a plan that isn’t going to seriously inconvenience
the neighbors?
RANDY LAMB: We’ve done three similar projects
that have had underground parking, and each time we’ve
never had 99 Conditions of Approval, I can tell you that.
Your Planning Department is very thorough, as is the
Building Department, Public Works, and the Fire Department.
What I would tell you is each town or city is
very particular in what their hot buttons are to manage.
Ninety-percent of it is safety, as you would expect, let
alone circulation of traffic and the ability to get
emergency vehicles into a site. We will be no different.
In this particular site this will be our fourth
parking structure that we’ve done, and there’s a process to
it. It will be very specific. We’ll be working with the
Building Department and Public Works on exactly what’s
allowed, what’s not allowed, time frames, notifications,
and all the safety things you can think of. Our people will
have walkie-talkies so they’ll be able to talk to each
other. If there’s an emergency, our side of the street will
be shut down and that other side will be completely open.
If there’s no one in the street, then the street will be
left open. So it just depends on what’s going on in there.
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But we have no intention of creating a problem in that
area, and in the other projects, we didn’t.
Are there delays? Yes, there can be delays,
because inevitably you’re managing people and you’re
managing trucks, and that’s what it is. Most of it is going
to happen in the early part of the process when it’s
related to excavation and shoring. That’s your key area
where you’ve got a lot of movement going in and out of the
site. It gets to be less over time. You’ll have people
there. We’ll have the ability to park workers offsite.
We’ll probably have the ability to park workers in the
parking structure once it’s done so that they’re not
visible. I mean we’re willing to work with Staff on
whatever makes the most sense.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: This is a question first
of Staff. On the construction management plan, that does
not limit our ability to condition any approval, is that
right? In other words, the construction management plan is
what Staff does, taking into consideration the terms of the
approval too, is that right?
JOEL PAULSON: That is correct, so you could add
something specific if you had a specific condition that you
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wanted either added to the project’s decision or that Staff
makes sure that they include in the construction management
plan.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So we should not just
assume that a document we haven’t seen will solve the
problems that we are raising, and therefore we could
condition, and then you’ll draft your construction
management plan, is that right?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, and then one other
question I wanted to ask you. If the EIR were adopted, were
it certified, that would not, as I understand it, limit our
ability to say yes, no, or condition. We could not raise
the issues put to rest by the EIR, but such things as mass
and bulk and density, that kind of thing, is not approved
by the EIR, it simply asks a different question, is that
correct?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Since we were talking about
the Conditions of Approval and the construction management
plan, I believe in the last meeting we discussed off haul,
but I may have just thought about and didn’t ask the
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question. Knowing that early on in the project you’re going
to be obviously excavating most of the site, do you plan to
stockpile onsite or will you being moving trucks in and out
on a regular daily basis to remove spoils?
RANDY LAMB: Regular daily basis to remove
spoils. There will be stockpiling at times. As you know
from the construction process, demolition happens first,
our shoring will happen around the site, and then depending
on what happens, depending on the number of excavators that
we have going, whether it’s two or three for a site that’s
two acres, everything that you can think of. They’ll
stockpile at times, or they’ll have a rainy day, or they’ll
have this or whatever it might be, so it just depends. Each
day onsite is a little different. We try to get it so that
we’re literally off hauling each day, but that’s the goal.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: What about the truck
circulation for that? Obviously we don’t want those large
trucks parked on Alberto, so I would hope, looking at the
site it looks to me like you could very easily create a
loop where the trucks could idle on the farthest point away
from the residences before they are loaded and off haul.
Would you be opposed if I specifically put that in
Conditions of Approval? Would that be something you’re
opposed to?
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RANDY LAMB: No, I’m not opposed to it. Every
single project we’ve done the trucks actually stage offsite
and then they’re radioed, like I mentioned, by the person
with the walkie-talkie, and so they estimate the time that
it’s going to take for them to get there and get into the
site. I don't know what page it’s on in the Staff Report
that shows what the actual circulation plan is, but it’s
generally where our future drywell will be. Comes into the
site, works its way around, they’re filled, they’re swept
off, whatever the practice is at that point that the Town
approved, come back up out, and then make a right turn and
then they’re back on 17.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay. Can I ask a question
of Staff just following up?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I know we have limitations
on fences, but do we have a limitation on the heights of
screening fences during construction?
JOEL PAULSON: If you want to have a temporary
construction fence that’s taller than our typical 8’ fence,
that is something that can be conditioned. I can think of
one instance where that happened, up on I want to say Oak
Hill, in between a couple of residential properties, but if
that’s a temporary condition that you want during
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construction that is something that we could definitely
include.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay. If I did request that
placed between the site and any residences, would you be
opposed to that?
RANDY LAMB: Not at all.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I want to ask you a
couple of questions about two different areas. One is if I
read your data correctly you’re going to excavate to a
depth of 20”?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And over what square
footage or acreage, the whole thing?
RANDY LAMB: Virtually the whole thing.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And I think you’ve
estimated how long that excavation would take?
RANDY LAMB: We have.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: What was it, three
months? I forgot.
RANDY LAMB: We actually created a three-month
timeframe of demolition; the shoring itself, which is going
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down and stabilizing the sides of the site; and then the
excavation at three months.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Have you tested to see
what the level of the water table is?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And what is the level of
the water table?
RANDY LAMB: It’s not off the top of my head.
(Aside) Do you remember? Yeah, the architect is telling me
it’s well below where our garage will be.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The reason I ask is when
Safeway put in their parking they hit water at about 6’.
Caused a lot of problems.
RANDY LAMB: (Aside) We’re going down to what?
Yeah, so we’re going down to 20’. The highest level water
is at 23’.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, and that’s right
on the creek, right?
RANDY LAMB: On the old creek.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The only creek we have.
RANDY LAMB: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay. Did you say three
or four months for excavation?
RANDY LAMB: Three.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And then how long do you
allocate for construction?
RANDY LAMB: The total is 14 months. Our last two
projects have taken us 14 months.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Including the
excavation?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you very much.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Let’s stay with the water for a
moment. The geological study that was done is where I would
find how deep the poles were drilled, yes?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And did you account for
unusually heavy, rainy season precipitation? The reason I’m
asking is because in the past we’ve been hit with heavy
rains—I think I can remember them—but the place turned into
a lake, and I wasn’t quite sure why it was a lake, and they
said because it’s not draining off. Has this been addressed
in your geological report?
RANDY LAMB: It’s better not to guess, so let us
just think for second.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
RANDY LAMB: So basically, depending on of course
Planning Commission and the Town, our excavation wouldn’t
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start until sometime in May or June of next year, so we’d
be far enough away from a rainy season that we wouldn’t
have a condition where we’ve got water going constantly,
and I think the way the soils report went is they did take
into consideration wet years on an average I think is how
it was.
ALICIA GUERRA: And they also took into
consideration the soil content, the clay content of the
soils, and the cumulative thickness of the soils and
liquefaction potential, as well, in terms of designing it.
To accommodate liquefaction potential, and I’m not a
geologist, but to accommodate that they would have had to
take into consideration the soil moisture as well.
From a hydrology standpoint there are some
regulations, called C.3 regulations, which require that you
manage surface storm water runoff, and so to the extent
that there are impacts occurring from the grading and
construction related to subsurface excavation, we have to
take that into consideration for water quality and storm
water management purposes.
So all of that does get factored in, both in
terms of geotechnical requirements and hydrological
conditions.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: So in layman’s terms they’re
saying it’s dry enough to dig down 20’? And in layman’s
terms they’re saying not so much during construction, but
after construction that we’ve addressed alleged issues in
the past, reports, that the place retained a lot of water
and you’ve provided for that as well?
ALICIA GUERRA: Correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have some sort of big
picture questions about the architecture and the location,
particularly Building 401.
First of all, I commend you on reducing the size
of Building 409, virtually eliminating the 409 building,
and also in increasing the setback to the 401 building from
Highway 9 as well.
What I’m left with is a concern about 401 from
Alberto Way. To me that building is very long, it’s a
hundred and some feet long, and it looks a bit monolithic
to me, and I think it’s not in compliance with our
Commercial Guideline 2.3.5, which is to avoid visually
bulky buildings. So I’m wondering if you’ve considered two
possibilities for that façade there?
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One is did you consider stepping back the second
floor considerably from where it is now on that façade that
faces west?
And did you maybe consider reorienting the
building so that you have a smaller linear dimension on the
west side and increasing the linear dimension on the east
side, which backs up to the freeway, so that the bulk of
the building in a wedge would find itself out of view along
the freeway rather than along the front of Alberto Way?
RANDY LAMB: I always get in the way of this. I’m
going to have our architect answer this, but I’m going to
talk to you for a second, because I think this is a chance
to talk about this site.
In terms of the site itself, as you can see, what
we did here is we tried to keep the building, and remember,
too, that this particular site with the Caltrans right-of-
way next to it is almost invisible on two sides of this
site. The place you start to see this, basically, is right
at this corner as you look down, and we’ve got some
pictures to show you as well.
In terms of this building, the long end actually
does go into the site rather than as the frontage; that’s
exactly what we were trying to do, minimize our frontage up
on Alberto Way.
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Secondly, in terms of this building, which is a
little more of a square, we were trying to push that back
as far as possible so that it was away from the site. This
particular site drops by 9’, so this is basically the side
of a hill rather than it being a flat site. I think we have
some pictures showing it. From the standpoint of this
building, this will be built down from an elevation
standpoint about… Shane, what’s the number? Go back to that
last one. Go to the picture from here showing the
vegetation out front. There you go.
Okay, so what you can see here on this—I don't
know how many people can see this—but basically the site
itself, as I said, drops about 9’ from left to right. As
you can see here, this is about the beginning where this
building is actually built into the hill, so there’s a
pretty big amount of that building that you will not see.
Separate of that, to your question, there is a
picture on there… Well, this I guess is going to have to do
for now. We had a slide in here that basically was this
information. I don't know how many people can actually see
it. These are different growth rates at which you can
actually see the project.
So at the very top is when it’s actually planted
when our project is done. The second down is at the three-
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year point, and the third is at the five-year point in
terms of the amount of landscaping that we’re going to be
doing on that site. You may have noticed that we’re adding
3,600 plants to the site, and many of those, 75 of them,
are actually mature trees that today will dwarf what’s
there. What we have onsite now is anywhere from a 20-35’
tree. Most of the trees we’re going to be planting along
that side are anywhere from 25-45’, 75 of them, plus
another 15 that are going to go along our north boundary
with Las Casitas, and most of the trees are going to be out
front because of the way the site is situated.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I understand that there will
be trees there, but we do have guidelines about the
buildings themselves, and putting trees in front of a
building that doesn’t meet our guidelines I don’t think
works, so could you maybe explain to me? I’m looking at the
elevation on sheet A-3.02 where I’m looking at the building
itself, and I’m asking about the building. I understand the
trees. I don’t think I need to see the trees anymore.
In terms of the design of that building, number
one, have you considered significantly recessing the second
floor so that it follows kind of the form of the existing
buildings, which has a deep recess to their upper floor,
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and would that help relieve some of the monolithic view of
that side of the building?
DAN KIRBY: Yes, and that was actually done,
Commissioner. This is the tree diagram, but I can use it to
respond to your question.
Working with the Town’s consulting architect, Mr.
Cannon, he had similar concerns about the mass of the
buildings, and one of the things that was done as part of
our initial redesign was to create some balconies which
pulled the second floor back, and that was done here at
these extreme corners, and also dropped the roofline. So
this is actually not the initial design, this is the
revised design that tends to break up the mass of the roof
and the mass of the second floor plane in order to pull
back and soften these corners. That was in direct response
to Staff and the town’s…
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe we could look at
sheets A-3.01 and A-3.02, if it would be possible, because
I have questions specifically about that, which I can’t see
through the trees there.
My question on that is if I’m looking at this it
looks like one-half of the building… Yeah, could you look
at your plans, A-3.01 and A-3.02? Jennifer, might you be
able to put up A-3.01 and A-3.02? Thank you. So how much
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articulation and setback is there to the left half of the
building?
DAN KIRBY: The initial design, this roof here
carried all the way across, and as part of the suggested
intent of making the building feel more articulated and
less bulky this roof was dropped in height and this balcony
was added to pull the second floor back, and that’s pretty
typical; it happens multiple places around the building. It
happens here at this corner where this balcony was created,
and that corner was pulled back and that roofline was
dropped. It happens here.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So on the left half of the
building, it that the middle? Because I’ve got a different
version of that on my A-3.01.
DAN KIRBY: You shouldn’t. You should have this
version.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Well, I have a different
version. My question is how far back is the second floor
recessed on the left half of the building?
DAN KIRBY: Possibly 8’.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: On the left half?
DAN KIRBY: Correct. The balcony is about 8’
deep, so from this plane to that plane is about 8’ of
difference.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: The one I have doesn’t have
a balcony.
DAN KIRBY: What is the date on your plans?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: 2/19/16.
DAN KIRBY: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m looking at Building 401;
I’m looking at the left side, the left half of that
building.
DAN KIRBY: Okay, let me get caught up.
JOEL PAULSON: Just for clarification, the left
half is not where the balcony portion is. That’s the right
half.
DAN KIRBY: Which elevation?
JOEL PAULSON: The one up on the screen.
DAN KIRBY: Oh, okay, so there’s not a balcony
here and we didn’t set back that corner, because that’s the
corner that’s right at the intersection of Highway 9 and
Alberto Way. It’s also the portion of the building that is
the most recessed in the hillside, and it’s also heavily
covered with trees, and it’s not near the residential, so
we were more concerned about creating articulation in the
more critical areas that people see that face the street
and aren’t obscured by tall trees.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, so I’m correct in
assuming that there’s no articulation on that half of the
building?
DAN KIRBY: That’s correct, other than different
materials and things happening here, but it’s a fairly
obscured corner. It’s buried in the hillside and obscured
by mature trees.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: On the right side, how far
is that set back?
DAN KIRBY: About 8’. Balconies are about 8’
deep.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And how long is that
building?
DAN KIRBY: The front façade of this building?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah.
DAN KIRBY: One moment. It’s about 140’.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So 8’ on a 140’ to me
doesn’t seem…
DAN KIRBY: Well, that’s the depth. The length of
that balcony is longer.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: No, I understand, but I’m
saying 8’ of articulation on 140’ plane is not a great deal
of articulation, and I don’t think it’s consistent with the
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kind of buildings that are there now where the second floor
is set back.
DAN KIRBY: The width of the balcony is 51’.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right.
DAN KIRBY: The depth is only 8’, so it’s
actually 51’ on 140’, so it’s more than a third.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. So did you consider
any designs where there would be greater articulation or
setback of that second floor?
DAN KIRBY: We did not. That would be at the
direction of the client and Staff if you wanted us to do
that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And then the other question
I started with was did you consider orienting the building
so that the west side, which is what we’re looking at,
would be shorter than the east side, so that the longer
side of that building would be back against highway 17?
DAN KIRBY: The problem is the site squeezes in.
Maybe you can go back to the site plan. So because the site
gets narrower due to the on-ramp the shape of the building
was designed to follow the intent of the site. Also, the
pretty good riparian setback, Caltrans, right over here
that we had to work with, so that is the reason the
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building gets narrower at the end rather than getting
narrower towards the front.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So if you were to sort of
flip the building so that you had a smaller side, on the
west side, and the longer one, you’d have to reduce
something.
DAN KIRBY: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. And did you consider
reducing something in order to eliminate that sort of large
monolithic façade on Alberto Way?
DAN KIRBY: We haven’t considered it yet.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. I had another area to
get into, but it’s a long one, so…
DAN KIRBY: One other comment about the
arrangement on the site. The building could possibly be
extended a little farther back, but as you can see, as it
goes farther back it becomes so narrow that it becomes
difficult to work as a planning module for a tenant layout.
RANDY LAMB: Can I add one thing? The big piece
to this that the tenants are really interested in, as
people in this room and others know, these areas to high-
tech companies are really important for their outside
gathering spaces, and so the goal, as Dan mentioned on
this, along with it being a friendly front, if you will, in
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terms of what’s up front, was to be able to create enough
space in the back so that each one of the users would have
their ability to use that site. In this particular case you
can see the little kind of pseudo boundary here that’s
built into the hardscape, which gives this area to this
building in this particular area, and this is an underhang
back here, that gives that their ability to use that common
space, just so you know.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I walked the project site
today, as I mentioned earlier, and I share Commissioner
Hudes’ appreciation of what you’ve done along Highway 9
where is it not the case that the setback for the project
is larger than the setback for the existing building?
DAN KIRBY: You mean the setback back here?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Along Highway 9.
DAN KIRBY: No, it’s about the same, actually,
and we’re actually pushed up as close to Highway 9 as we
can get.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And those story poles are
figger-dibbers, because the existing building comes out to
here, and the story poles (inaudible) 7’ behind it.
DAN KIRBY: Hang on a moment. I do have a site
plan that superimposes the current site plan on our site
plan, so if you’ll give me a moment I can get to that. Can
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we put up plan C-2.0? It’s about maybe three-quarters of
the way through the set.
VICE CHAIR KANE: While she’s looking, your name,
sir?
DAN KIRBY: I’m Dan Kirby with Arc Tec. I’m the
architect.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Mr. Kirby.
DAN KIRBY: So this is the southern edge of the
401 building, and it’s a little bit difficult to read, but
this is the front of the existing building right here, and
it does extend a little bit beyond the footprint of our
building and that probably speaks to when it was designed;
way back when the setback requirement was probably less
than what they have now.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What I’m driving at, and I
meant to make a compliment but now it’s getting important,
is right up at the corner of Highway 9 and Alberto Way the
story poles start…
DAN KIRBY: Yeah, this is the corner of the
existing building.
VICE CHAIR KANE: …6-7’ behind the existing
building.
DAN KIRBY: Then that’s probably not correct,
because this is the corner of the existing building, right
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here. Can everybody see where I’m pointing? Right here. And
this is the corner of our building.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Let me ask a question of the
Commission. Commissioner Hudes was with me today.
Commissioner Hudes, did I… But I pointed out to you that I
thought that setback is greater than the one that is there
now. No, not the map. What did we see when we looked at the
poles?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I saw something that looks
like what’s on C-2.0, which is that the existing building
is farther south…
DAN KIRBY: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: …by I don't know how many
feet, maybe 10-15’.
DAN KIRBY: Not by a lot. I mean they’re pretty
close, but again, the setback, when I look at the footprint
of the existing building to where we’re allowed to build to
the property line, it’s very close, and it could have been
that at the time the zoning was different and the setback
requirements were less.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: The east/west orientation of
the pole and whether it was inside or outside the existing
building.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: It was flush on Alberto, but it
was pleasingly pushed back on Highway 9 and I thought that
tends to ensure the grove, and it’s a substantial grove and
substantial growth, will likely go untouched, is that
correct?
DAN KIRBY: Correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right. So what’s the chance
of making Alberto Way look much the same, pushing it back
from the street?
DAN KIRBY: Well, it is much the same in that the
front façade of the existing building is right here, and
our front façade is (inaudible). Now, our front façade is
obviously much longer, it extends farther down Alberto Way,
because it’s a larger footprint.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, you’ve missed my
point, but I got your point.
DAN KIRBY: That would be up to the Commission
and the client.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What I’m saying in general is I
took a closer look at the project and I saw things I hadn’t
seen before, and so I was wondering tonight, because we’re
not going to get a chance to chat much longer, if some of
the concerns that have been voiced by many parties about
mass and scale, are you willing to address those?
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RANDY LAMB: We’ve said all along that we’re
willing to address it once we know all what the issues are,
not just any in particular, but if we hear from the entire
Commission and we hear that that’s something that you’d
like to talk about, we’re totally open to it and we’ve…
The reason this original change happened is
because we sat down with Larry Cannon and said what is it
you’d like to see with this? As you saw from his letter
from March 18th, he was comfortable that this met the design
and the uniqueness of this community and this area. We
assumed at that time that that was there. If you’re saying
that you have a different view as a Commission, we’re happy
to talk about it.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I may end up with one. Right
now I’m exploring the possibilities. Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I want to go back for a
second; it will only take a moment.
The groundwater question I asked you, a colleague
here called to my attention the Draft Environmental Impact
Report on page 3-76 where it says, “The borings were
drilled to depths from approximately 15’ to 40’ below
ground surface,” which is BGS. “Ground water was
encountered on the neighboring property to the east,
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according to the geotechnical report, at depths of 18.5’ to
21’. Soil liquefaction was also studied by the consultant,
and based on the methodologies used the gravel depths at
portions of the site below the depth of approximately 20’
are potentially liquefiable.”
Now, your testimony was that you didn’t hit water
until well beyond 20’, and yet the Draft EIR says water is
encountered—this is this year—at 18.5’ to 21’. I’d like to
know if you could reconcile those opinions.
RANDY LAMB: I don’t have the document in front
of me, but is it saying that it’s…
ALICIA GUERRA: You’re correct, Commissioner
O’Donnell, about the information here. I think what was a
bit confused here is that the parking garage depths would
be excavated at approximately 20’. It is correct that there
is groundwater encountered 18.5’ to 21’ below ground
surface, so there is a range, and those estimates would be
further confirmed prior to commencement of construction. So
the information is in the EIR.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Let me ask you this,
because apparently we have not been clear. The
alternatives, as I recall, were three, not just two. One
was no project, one was this project, and one was a project
reduced by a third, as I recall. And near as I know, your
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answer to the reduced by a third is economically that’s
disadvantageous. Is there any other reason why you wouldn’t
want to… Well, I know why you wouldn’t want to, but in
making a decision here can you give us a good reason why
this shouldn’t be reduced?
ALICIA GUERRA: Maybe I could answer that from a
legal standpoint, and then Mr. Lamb can address it from a
feasibility perspective.
Under CEQA you consider alternatives that meet
the basic project objectives. For one, they have to be
feasible, and two, the goal is to come up with something
that substantially lessens the environmental impacts of the
project.
In this case, the proposed project didn’t have
significant environmental impacts based on the analysis, so
when the alternatives were identified in the CEQA document
the no project of course did not meet the I believe nine or
twelve project objectives. Well, you can’t accomplish those
project objectives.
With respect to the reduced scale alternative,
the nature of that alternative did not actually meet eight
of the project objectives, not just including what was
financially feasible, but the test of feasibility includes
also legal, socio-economic, and other considerations also
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can be environmental considerations that go to the
practicability of the alternative, and in those cases some
of the alternative, that alternative did not meet other
project objectives, including managing transportation
demand management efforts; providing for Class A,
I think one of the commenters submitted a comment
letter saying well you’ve just got to find a tenant who
wants Class A office space, and therefore that makes it a
feasible alternative. That’s not all of the factors that go
into what can actually deal with the class burden of trying
to redevelop the site in a way that accomplishes all of the
objectives here, as well as the 99 conditions that have
been imposed on the project. So it’s more than just a
feasibility from an economic standpoint.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Let me suggest to you
that if we do not certify the EIR this will all be
relevant. At the moment I’m trying to probe a little bit to
find out… Because you comment you don’t know where we’re
going to come from. There are a couple of ways you can find
that out. We can vote tonight, and you’ll find out where
we’re coming from, or we can discuss now what we could do
to ameliorate what is perceived to be some substantial
impacts that this draft of the Final EIR does not
recognize.
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So you can hew a legal position, which is what
you’re doing, and that’s what lawyers do, I know, or you
can discuss with us what I believe is going to be I think a
fairly widely held view that this is a very large project
on a relatively small piece of property.
ALICIA GUERRA: Understood, Commissioner
O'Donnell.
(APPLAUSE.)
VICE CHAIR KANE: He can be eloquent, but you
cannot be noisy. So please, no outbursts. We’re giving
everybody equal amounts of respect.
ALICIA GUERRA: If I might just clarify, I laid
the groundwork from a legal standpoint, because there are
certain rules you have to follow when you’re doing these
analyses. Certainly it’s the Commission’s discretion to
find out what project is acceptable to proceed with, and as
you heard from Mr. Lamb, he is willing to work with the
Commission and he’s been willing to work with the community
to find an alternative and design that addresses those
concerns.
All I am trying to do is explain to you the basis
in this environmental document of how it satisfied the
requirements from a CEQA standpoint, so if you select an
alternative or address this from a design standpoint that
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maybe isn’t consistent with the alternatives that were
considered here, it doesn’t mean that they’re off the
table, it just means that those are why those alternatives
set forth in this document were rejected.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: My only point was we
have not adopted the EIR, and we may not adopt the EIR. You
have an opportunity to deal with that. If instead you want
to take the legal position that you’re defending a legal
position, I respect that.
RANDY LAMB: Can I clarify your question? The
questions we’ve gotten so far were are we willing to talk
about the appearance or the setback from Alberto Way on the
401 building, which is the building on the left. I already
mentioned that we’d be willing to consider that, assuming
we know all the other discussion points that are here.
I guess I’m not making the connection between the
depth of our excavation versus the water table.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If you run into water,
I’m suggesting to you it will take you longer to excavate
and you will have different problems when you allocate it.
I would like some comfort… We’ve had projects near Los
Gatos Creek over the years that have run into water at
fairly shallow depths that cost the contractor or the
applicant considerably more money than they anticipated,
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such to the extent that some people will not build close to
the creek. You, on the other hand, tell me that the water
table is deeper than 20’. The EIR says that’s not correct.
Therefore, I have a concern.
RANDY LAMB: Yeah, okay.
VICE CHAIR KANE: This Environmental Impact
Report that we’re talking about is substantial, and the
Final Environmental Impact Report succeeds it. It was in
the original EIR, which I mentioned at the other hearing, I
called it Plan B, which was the one between no project—
which made no sense to me, but I suppose that’s how an EIR
is constructed—and the proposed project in the middle of
which was what I’m calling Plan B, which was 43,000 square
feet or something in that neighborhood, and you had
mentioned that there were nine or twelve indices that were
being measured.
Well, I haven’t found those, but this is an
interesting conclusion. It’s the last line in the EIR. “The
reduced project alternative,” which is the Plan B, “also
would conceivably be able to meet a majority, if not all,
of the proposed project objectives.” And I think that’s
what we’re getting at in our line of questioning is to what
degree might you be interested in something like Plan B?
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And it’s not just the setback on Alberto Way on
Building 401, if that’s the right building, it’s a whole
discussion of mass and scale, and not the quantitative
issues—and I say this because I don't know when I’m going
to get a chance to chat with you again—of 50% occupancy of
the land and you’re at 45.9%, and 35% maximum height and
you’re at… We’ve had discussions that they’re not maximums,
they’re targets, and that doesn’t square with the language
we have on the unique, small sense of feel and place that
we’ve been talking about a lot these days, and so I go to
the 43,000 as a layman looking for a simple solution to
something that seems to me to not look like anything else
in the neighborhood.
Can you help me with any of those hurdles that I
have that it does look like other things in the
neighborhood, that it is compatible with mass and scale?
Because that’s right now where I’m heading.
RANDY LAMB: I guess the two things that come to
mind are that that neighborhood has a plethora of different
architectural styles. Not one of those projects is the
exact same; every one of them is different. What we tried
to do is model this project, even if it’s got a more
current look than the other historical projects in town
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like the high school, like other historic buildings that
are here.
Our goal when we go into any community is to
build to the highest level of quality we can build, that we
know that that’s timeless, and to try to imitate what has
already been accepted and embraced in any town, if that
answers your question. I mean a Mediterranean style is
exactly what most of the Bay Area embraces. This would be
our fifth building like it. Most communities love the
style, but it depends on what your view is on, again, mass
and scale.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s not a style question for
me. I think the buildings have style. I think the LEED
commitment as energy conservation is great. I think all of
the environmental aspects of the project are great. It’s
mass and scale, and it’s not style.
You mentioned the high school. Now, Commissioner
Hudes and I were out there for some time today, and I’ve
been out there for some time before, and it occurred to me—
you stop me if I’m going in the wrong direction with this—
but it occurred to me today… I’ve lived here for 36 years.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: This is a questioning period.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I don’t want to say this to him
later.
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ROBERT SCHULTZ: You don’t need to. You can say
it to him. If it’s not a question, there wouldn’t be an
answer.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Oh, goodness, there may not be
an answer. Commissioner Hudes, bail me out.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Actually, if you don’t mind,
I’d like to get into a different area of questioning,
because I think I’ve formed some opinions about the mass
and I’ve gotten some questions answered about it.
I wanted to talk about the street. I asked some
questions about this last time. My understanding is that
the street will remain 36’, and that there will be a
restriping and elimination of parking, but not at the south
end, because there is no parking currently at the south
end, but at the north end. So if you kind of divide the
property in half, and we’re talking about the left half, or
the south half of the street, we have a dedicated right
turn lane, we have a straight or left turn lane, and then
we also have an entrance lane, is that correct?
RANDY LAMB: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: What I was interested in is
your openness to working with the Town’s Complete Streets
Policy and where we’re doing new development to put in an
actual bike lane and potentially widen Alberto Way, which
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also might help with where this façade is relative to the
other residents, and also to potentially give us a way to
get emergency vehicles in and out of there, and again,
particularly when there is the potential of gridlock on
Highway 9, which we don’t have a permanent solution for.
Have you thought about the idea that I put on the table
last time about maybe straightening Alberto Way, and
widening it somewhat?
RANDY LAMB: I think my response to you was we
actually don’t have… I mean architecturally, and I’d have
to ask Dan on this, architecturally we don’t have a concern
straightening this out. In fact, we’ve talked to the
community about traffic calming quite a bit.
Just to reiterate, each one of these outbound
lanes is a 10’ lane, so the far right lane you talked about
going right; the middle lane, that would come through and
either go straight or left; and then the inbound lane is
16’—this is a Public Works conversation if they’d like to
jump in—but each one of these is 10’ going out.
I think when you asked last time my comment was
if you have an idea of what that means in terms of adding a
bike lane, does that mean it’s 2’, or what are you looking
for in terms of the front? We don’t have a problem making
this straight at all. We’d love to do it from that
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standpoint, and if there is other traffic calming measures,
we’re open to them as well.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m not expert enough to
give you an answer on how wide, but I guess if you’re open
to that then potentially you could work with Staff and work
with the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee to actually get a
real bike lane in on Alberto Way, and potentially even the
Town could explore continuing that bike lane to the
crosswalk of Highway 9 as well, and at least we’d have a
little bit more bike lane as a result of working with this
project.
RANDY LAMB: We would definitely consider it.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’ve received a request from a
number of individuals that we take a ten-minute break, and
so we shall.
(INTERMISSION)
VICE CHAIR KANE: Questions for the Applicant?
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Just a quick question I
highlighted when we were discussing the EIR that forgot to
ask you.
In the Final EIR, on page 3-2, we discuss a
height restriction exception, and basically this is a
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height exception for the towers. Now, as we go through the
discussions—I’m very compromise minded, so you’ll probably
hear me ask these type of things a lot—if as we’re looking
at height and mass, is that tower component an area that
you are willing to compromise on to keep the height at our
standards?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Other questions for the
Applicant? Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had some questions about
the traffic and the TIA. Some of our residents did some
analysis, and I know there’s been a rebuttal to this, but
frankly, this is part that I was not able to absorb in the
time allotted, so maybe I could ask you to respond to the
analysis that was done by, let’s see, it looks like…
VICE CHAIR KANE: Which Exhibit would that be,
Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: It was in the Desk Item…
VICE CHAIR KANE: Tonight’s?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: …so it didn’t have an
exhibit number.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: And there’s an email from
Bob Burke dated August 18th, and then there are several
pages that follow, and on pages 8, 9, and 10 there’s a
discussion about the traffic flows and how the Applicant’s
traffic report and the EIR omitted all vehicles heading
eastbound, and suggested that there are three times the
number of trips, and I’m wondering, there’s a lot of detail
in here that, frankly, I haven’t absorbed, but if you’ve
had a chance to look over these comments? I know you made a
rebuttal to them. Could you talk about your perception
about what the traffic flows are and whether these numbers
are correct or they’re not correct?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: Thank you. I’ll try to explain
it, maybe with an exhibit. Maybe we can pull up the
interchange and the project area.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m referring to pages 8, 9,
and 10 of this report that came in off of Mr. Burke’s
email.
AT VAN DEN HOUT: I can do one of my exhibits,
one of my figures of the figures that we had in there. I’ve
seen it before. That one is fine.
The issue is as follows. When we did the traffic
study we did Intersection 20 (inaudible) counted
Intersection 3, which is the intersection with Alberto Way.
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The question is regarding the number of cars arriving at
Alberto Way eastbound. The traffic flow that is arriving at
this intersection comes from three different areas. It
comes from eastbound Los Gatos/Saratoga Road, it comes up
from the northbound off-ramp, and it comes from this off-
ramp, the loop ramp that comes from the south.
The volumes that are shown in our analysis
reported there are about 800-something vehicles arriving
here, and Mr. Burke made the statement that he is under the
impression that that traffic only represents traffic coming
from Los Gatos/Saratoga Road, and in some respect he is
correct in the sense that we also have traffic counts that
were provided by Caltrans on this ramp that leads to the
intersection as well as for this loop ramp, and when you
add those traffic volumes together you end up having a
higher volume than we’ve indicated in our report.
However, what we have noticed is that the
Caltrans volumes that were provided to us were
significantly overestimated. Those counts are incorrect;
they’re inaccurate. We did our subsequent traffic counts
ourselves about two weeks ago to see how much traffic there
actually is on this ramp, and in particular this ramp.
Caltrans reported this loop ramp has about 1,100 vehicles
in the morning, and based on the traffic counts that we did
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that volume is more in the 300 range. The discrepancy comes
from adding traffic volumes together provided by Caltrans
and the ones that we reported and coming up with a
different volume at Intersection 3.
We strongly believe that the volumes that we have
reported in the report are consistent, because when you
look at traffic going eastbound at Intersection 3, what we
reported is very similar to the number of cars that are
arriving at number 4 going eastbound, because there should
not be much difference, because the only traffic that is
added or subtracted from this volume is the (inaudible)
that’s happening at Intersection 3, which is not a lot.
Most of the traffic that goes eastbound continues to be
eastbound to Los Gatos Boulevard, so the counts that we’ve
conducted at Intersection 3 and that we’ve been using for
the analysis are, in our opinion, accurate.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Have you provided the data
that you said you collected recently?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: No, I have not.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Would you be willing to
provide that information? Because I think we have to rely
on information that we have in front of us.
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AT VAN DEN HOUT: I understand. What we could do,
we could just actually do a new count to record volumes
precisely at this ramp; I’m more than happy to do that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: But conceptually, regardless
of the number, do you agree with the point in this report
that says that it omitted all vehicles arriving from CA 17
heading eastbound on Highway 9?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: No. They are accounted for;
they are not omitted.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. So if you could
provide any information to back that up. We could
appreciate that, but we don’t really have anything in front
of us at this point.
AT VAN DEN HOUT: I understand.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Other questions for the
Applicant? Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question on
traffic as well. We talked at our last hearing about this.
You had a table about the incremental increase in traffic
counts and I kind of wanted to go back to the source of
that. I know where the number came from, and it was based
on peak hours and everything. So what are you using as the
basis for determining that there are 139 in peak AM? Is it
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based on the capacity of the garage, or the number of
people that would be working there? How does that work?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: Good question. The way that
works, there is what we call the ITE Trip Generation
Manual, Institute of Traffic Engineers, which is a manual
that is basically the Bible for traffic engineers. It
contains survey data that was taken over a long period of
time at over 200 sites in the United States that measures,
surveys, the actual number of cars generated by office
buildings at all the different sizes, and it takes an
average of that. So based on actual survey data we know
with a fairly high level of accuracy what a building of
this size, 93,000 square feet, would generate in terms of
traffic volumes in the morning and in the afternoon during
the peak hour.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, that makes sense.
Since you’re here in Silicon Valley, and we have some
companies that have some interesting models of running
their business and everything, do you think there’s any
need to look at variations from the ITE standard when we’re
looking at things in the Silicon Valley? Because certainly
our conditions here might be different than, and I know you
do have a nationwide average, but I’m from Ohio, and
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certainly conditions are different in Ohio than they are
here.
AT VAN DEN HOUT: We have done trip generations
counts for some other office buildings here in the Town of
Los Gatos and we’ve found actually that the trip generation
rates are slightly lower than what the ITE Trip Generation
Manual provides us. So talk about local conditions, we’ve
seen in the Town of Los Gatos at several office buildings
that the trip generation is lower than what is reported in
the ITE and what we’d be using for this project.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Some of the other points
made in this letter, I think it was dated the 18th, raise a
question as to the number of occupants in the building. We
have assumed that there will be 320 cars or thereabouts.
That also assumes so many square foot per occupant, and the
letter posits that you can virtually double that with the
model that is now used by many Silicon Valley companies, 40
square feet per person, as I recall. Would it affect your
calculations if instead of, let’s say, 320 occupants, you
had 750?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: Well, like I said, the average
trip rates for buildings and offices of this quality and
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size are directly related to trip generation that’s
reported in the ITE. It has about a 90% correlation between
the size of the building and the actual trips generated, so
there is not much variation in that.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The ITE has to take into
account and make certain assumptions, and clearly the
variance between 320 and 750 is an interesting variance in
assumptions. Can you analyze the ITE assumptions to figure
out what they calculate for a given number of square feet?
So if you’re in Ohio and have a building that’s 300,000
square feet, and you’re in Silicon Valley and you have a
building for 300,000 square feet, you’re going to use the
same ITE no matter what the size of the space used by the
occupant. Does that make any sense to you?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: Well, I guess my answer to that
is we’ve done many actual surveys of office buildings in
the Bay Area, including in Los Gatos which I just
mentioned, and we see either a very close relationship
between the rates that we measure and what we see reported
in the ITE Trip Generation Manual, so even on local
conditions it’s very similar.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Have you looked at the
calculations used by Netflix?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: No, I have not.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: That’s perhaps the
largest building we’ve recently gone over. We had a lot of
traffic studies in that, and now we have the proof of the
pudding. So you’ve not looked at that?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: No, I have not looked at that.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: All right, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: As a follow up to that, have
you seen the ITE numbers change as patterns of office use
have changed, in my own experience dramatically in the last
ten years, where there are much, much denser offices, have
the ITE numbers changed as that has changed?
AT VAN DEN HOUT: The ITE Manual updates every
two, three, four years, and with additional data that’s
then provided and added to data that already existed, and
especially for typical land uses such as office and
residential areas, I have not seen much change at all in
those rates.
RANDY LAMB: Let me give you one more assurance
too in terms of the number of people that will be in that
building. Our lease will be very specific about how many
people will be in that building and how many people won’t.
This is not a call center. The comment that came from the
commenter was based on a call center or a marketing group,
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or what have you. In our particular case we will actually
have a top cap on the number of employees in that building,
and I imaging your use permit will as well.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And what is that top cap?
RANDY LAMB: The top cap is the exact parking
ratio that we have, 390 spaces.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And that translates to how many
people?
RANDY LAMB: Three hundred and ninety.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One person per car?
RANDY LAMB: That’s right.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And you’ve said that you
would anticipate that we would put that in your use permit?
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: All right, thank you.
RANDY LAMB: Most towns do.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Other questions for the
Applicant? Going once. Seeing none, thank you, gentlemen.
I’m going to close that portion of the public hearing and
turn to the Commission for questions of Staff, discussion,
comments, or a motion. Commissioner Erekson.
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CHARLES EREKSON: I have some questions of Staff
to be sure that I’m less confused than I may be at the
moment.
If I read proposed Condition of Approval 70, it
suggests that the on street parking on Alberto Way is
eliminated in front of the project, which I believe is five
spaces—there are lots of Conditions of Approval in here—but
it doesn’t reference anything about the parking spaces on
what would be the east side of Alberto Way, which is
actually adjacent to the restaurant. There has been
conversation about removing eight spaces, five, three, but
if I read the Condition of Approval, I believe that it only
references the ones in front of the project.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Ms. Petersen.
LISA PETERSEN: Thank you, Lisa Petersen, Town
Engineer. I would have to go back and reread that
condition. It is the intent that we were getting five
parking spaces removed at the frontage of the office
building, and three on the other side of the street.
CHARLES EREKSON: Just for clarification, let me
read you that one. It says, “On street parking along the
project’s Alberto Way frontage shall remain prohibited
after the construction and installation of public
improvements,” so I would assume the interpretation is the
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frontage of the project would be only that side of the
street, not the east side of the street?
LISA PETERSEN: I believe that we also do
reference putting in red curb for no parking on the
opposite side of the street.
CHARLES EREKSON: Yeah, I was trying to… Okay,
that’s fine, as long as we’re clear about what’s in the
Conditions of Approval.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I read somewhere that they’re
going to eliminate the parking on the other side of the
street, and I wondered how they could do that, but I guess
the Traffic Department can do that, yes?
LISA PETERSEN: I’m sorry, can you repeat that,
please?
VICE CHAIR KANE: I was commenting to
Commissioner Erekson that I also read that parking on the
other side of the street was going to be eliminated, and I
was wondering how they would do that. That wouldn’t be
coming from the Applicant, that would be coming from the
Town, is that correct?
LISA PETERSEN: That’s correct. That’s a
requirement that’s coming from us.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Erekson.
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CHARLES EREKSON: I’m satisfied with the fact
that the question has been raised and one would address it.
I have a couple of other questions, if the Chair is okay.
I believe, if I understand correctly, the parcel
that’s under consideration for this project is about two
acres in size, and the buildings being proposed are about
roughly 92,000 square feet. So I’m curious, what is the
size of the parcel immediately across the street that has
the other commercial development, and what’s the square
footage of that?
JENNIFER ARMER: You’re talking about the motel
and office and restaurant property?
CHARLES EREKSON: Absolutely.
JENNIFER ARMER: The size of that property is
1.55 acres, almost 66,000 square feet. The total floor area
on that lot is 21,757 square feet. This is all from the PD
zone that was approved there. The total number of parking
spaces is 77 cars. Was there another part to your question
that I can answer?
CHARLES EREKSON: I don't want to be too dense,
but I didn’t follow all of it. So it’s approximately 1.55
acres. How many square feet of developed space is there?
JENNIFER ARMER: Twenty one thousand, seven
hundred and fifty seven, so that’s about 33% lot coverage.
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CHARLES EREKSON: Okay, so there’s a about
roughly 22,000 square feet on an approximately 1.5 acre
size lot. Okay. With the Chair’s indulgence, I’ve got a
couple other questions for the Staff.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Go ahead.
CHARLES EREKSON: In the what I’m going to refer
to as the Alberto Way neighborhood, do all of the other
developments, to the best of your knowledge, both
commercial and residential, meet the onsite parking
requirements of the Town Code?
JENNIFER ARMER: To my knowledge, yes.
CHARLES EREKSON: So there would not necessarily
be any need to have on street parking as a conceptual way
of providing adequate parking for any of the development in
the so-call Alberto Way neighborhood?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.
CHARLES EREKSON: Okay. And I think Jennifer is
ready to answer this question with a little help
potentially from Sally, and this is going to be a long
question, but there’s a reason. There’s Part A, Part B,
Part C, Part D, Part E, and Part F. So to the question, and
it’s all about architectural style. I’ve asked them to be
prepared to answer the question about what is the
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architectural style of the existing buildings on the site.
That’s Part A.
JENNIFER ARMER: I’m going to let Sally handle
that?
CHARLES EREKSON: Our new on-staff architect.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Good evening, Commissioner. I
think referred in some of your questions, Mediterranean or
contemporary Mediterranean.
CHARLES EREKSON: No, the existing building.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Sorry. Yeah, so the existing is
sort of a two-story. It’s probably built in the early
sixties, we’re thinking, and it’s kind of a ranch style,
two-story with external circulation.
CHARLES EREKSON: And the proposed building is
Mediterranean style, correct?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Correct.
CHARLES EREKSON: Okay, so now I’m going to go
across the street. There’s a commercial complex across the
street. How would you characterize the architectural style
of that?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: That also is contemporary. It
has some traditional elements in it that have probably been
more recently added: some of the wood trim on the columns,
there’s a fascia, it also has a mansard roof like this
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project that you’re looking at this evening; the mansard
roof is a similar kind of element. We would call that late
20th Century, or turn of the century.
CHARLES EREKSON: Right, right. Yeah, that’s what
I said. So let’s go down the street then, the Pueblo De Los
Gatos complex at 420 Alberto Way.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: There are a number of
complexes, and those are primarily sort of townhomes with
independent external entries. They’re two-story. They’re,
again, sort of contemporary, which is generally post-World
War Two, towards the end of the 20th Century, architecture.
CHARLES EREKSON: Generally consistent with the
commercial property that’s adjacent to it?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Yes.
CHARLES EREKSON: Okay. Then the next one is Las
Casitas complex; it’s at 435 Alberto Way.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Again, two-story, late 20th
Century, modern, townhouse. Has a comp shingle roof. Again,
it’s got individual entries. Clustered townhouse, late
modern developments.
CHARLES EREKSON: And the Los Gatos Commons
complex?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Again, the same sort of era:
eighties, nineties. Very stripped down, simple kind of
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townhome developments. There’s one in there that’s more of
Neo-Craftsman, the units in the complex at the corner of
Alberto Way.
CHARLES EREKSON: So if you were going to make a
general statement about the architectural style of all of
the ones that I asked you about, absent the project one,
what would your general description of that architectural
style be?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Yeah, I would come back to
generally contemporary, and contemporary, again, is
generally late 20th Century and into the 21st Century, so it
goes beyond post-modernism. It’s eighties and on, or
seventies and on, right in that era, and they’re sort of
vernacular contemporary.
CHARLES EREKSON: Right. Not Mediterranean
though, is that correct?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Some of them do have red tile
roofs, so there are certain elements that they would share
with that, and there’s that mansard roof across the street.
So I think that, again, in that era and in this era there
are different elements that can be put together in an
architectural design.
CHARLES EREKSON: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had two questions for
Staff, and I had some questions about the EIR, since we’re
supposed to certify it or not. I don’t know if we have time
to go through all those questions, but let me start with my
two top line ones.
The objectives of the project talk about
redeveloping the site to create a net positive fiscal
impact to the Town of Los Gatos and Los Gatos school
districts. Could you tell me what that would be?
JENNIFER ARMER: Can you restate the question?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: On page 2-7 of the EIR,
the second page of the Project Objectives, and the top one
on that page says, “An objective of the project is to
redevelop the site to create a net positive fiscal impact
to the Town of Los Gatos and Los Gatos school districts.”
So I’m just curious, from our vantage point what would the
net positive fiscal impact be? Not just the traffic impact
fees, I’m assuming, but…
JENNIFER ARMER: Right. The Project Objectives is
something that is provided by the Applicant; it’s what
their objectives are for the project that they are
proposing. My understanding of what is intended by that
objective is to have the redevelopment of the site being
something that is positive and supporting to the community,
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so bringing in a new building, new business, that sort of
thing.
JOEL PAULSON: Just to add onto that too, it
generally will be a net increase in property taxes, which
is a net increase to the schools, and they will also have
to pay additional SB-50 impact fees to the schools without
any student generation from this project.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So that’s the technical
answer?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Then relative to our
experience of this, it struck me, because of the large
number of residences on this dead end street, do we have a
precedent office development in such a configuration on a
dead end street in Los Gatos anywhere? I couldn’t think of
one off the top of my head.
JOEL PAULSON: I don't know if there is one. I
mean we go back to the basis; the General Plan permits
office. It’s commercial for this property and the zoning
also as well, and so that’s the land use that we are
testing this project against. I don’t recall any, to answer
your question more specifically.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Because a lot of the
difficulties with this project are dealing with the 300 or
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so residences there, so if we had any experience with that
I would… But I couldn’t think of a place where we have
something similar.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We were concerned with
parking when the restaurant went in, and this whole concept
of this motel, office, and restaurant is that the office is
basically open in the daytime, the restaurant may be open
for lunch but have your business at night, and the motel
tends to be an evening/night business, so this was
(inaudible).
I’m wondering to what extent it has worked out
with reference to the fact that we’re going to be removing
eight street parking sites? What kind of anticipation would
you have as to what that will do to the restaurant’s
customers? Because what we’ve found in the past is they
were parking on the lot across the street whether they had
permission or not permission. Now I think there will be
better supervision of that property. So do we have any
opinion as to what taking these eight parking spots will do
to the traffic generated by the restaurant?
JOEL PAULSON: As with any project that one was
evaluated and is required to provide whatever parking is
required on its site, so we don’t take into account on
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street parking when doing those analyses. Obviously, as you
mentioned before, there was discussion about the potential
for, if a challenge comes up where they’re not able to
accommodate that parking, considering entering into a
parking agreement with the property next door. The Town has
a process for that. It’s alternating use of parking and we
get a Conditional Use Permit so that we can memorialize
that, and that was not required and hasn’t been brought
forward since.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But we don’t have any
evidence at the moment one way or the other on whether
there is a traffic problem caused by the new restaurant?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Following up on that, what
is the procedure for removing parking from a Town street,
and do we need any justification to remove that parking? We
did have testimony at the previous hearing that the
residents across the street use that parking frequently. I
experienced it visiting the site on a Saturday and it was
full, the street was full of parking, and it was clearly
not from the office activities, because their lots are
empty most of the time anyway and there was virtually no
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one there. So what mechanism do we have when someone wants
to do a project and remove parking?
JOEL PAULSON: I would defer to Ms. Petersen.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Ms. Petersen.
LISA PETERSEN: Yes, thank you. That is something
that is to the discretion of the Parks and Public Works
Department. Oftentimes we look at it from a standpoint of
safety, so of course if a development is coming in and we
see safety issues for a need to remove on street parking,
such as in this case, then we would call for that removal.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: To follow up on that, if
that street were wider by a lane, or a bicycle lane plus,
would it be possible to retain that parking?
LISA PETERSEN: The parking that we’re talking
about that’s in front of the project, that’s an issue of
sight distance, because of that curve. Now, if you talked
about changing the alignment, there’s definitely a
possibility there.
As far as the other side of the street, yes,
there is a possibility; it depends how far down that we
could get that widening.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: With regard to widening
streets, tell me a little bit about the Transportation
Element and TRA-2.8, “To develop Complete Streets with the
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Town that include landscape and shared space for bicycles,
cars, pedestrians, and transit.” Does that refer to putting
bike lanes in places? What’s the Town’s position on
encouraging more bike lanes in town?
LISA PETERSEN: Our position is that the Complete
Streets is in the General Plan, it is something that we are
trying to encourage pedestrian and bicycle improvements
when developments come in, so that is something that we ask
for and we look for.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is this development an
opportunity to put in Complete Streets, since there’s a
possibility of realigning this street?
LISA PETERSEN: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a generalized
question on the EIR, and it came up in a lot of the letters
that we got as well. There were a number of identified
impacts that were, because of mitigation measures,
determined to be less than significant.
Taking just air quality, for example. A number of
the residents challenged the adequacy of the mitigation
measure, for example, putting the special kind of heating
system in only addressed one of the air quality hazards,
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and since it’s a heating system it would only be during the
winter.
I could give other examples, but my general
question is what do we do with that? If we are of the same
mind that those mitigation measures aren’t adequate or
don’t measure up to the problem, do we suggest a new one,
or do we not certify the EIR?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’d actually like to have
Richard James, the principle with EMC, who is the Town’s
consultant who prepared the EIR, come up to address that
issue.
RICHARD JAMES: If the Commission feels that the
mitigation measures in the EIR are not adequate to address
the impacts identified, then the Commission has a couple of
alternatives. They could of course simply not certify the
EIR; that’s one option. Another option is to substitute
additional measures or make amendments to the measures that
are in there.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Could I ask you, since you
were involved in the preparation of the EIR, what is your
position, just taking the air quality one, for example? It
was challenged by a number of the residences.
There’s obviously a measure of parts per millions
of air quality issues, and you have a theory about how much
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this project will add to that. So how do you correlate the
mitigation measure with that in terms of can you make a
match between a number, or is it just saying something you
know that would be effective?
RICHARD JAMES: Specific to the air quality,
because there was some confusion, I noticed, in the letters
on the air quality measures. There are a couple of
different impacts that are discussed regarding air quality;
one of them has to do with criteria, air pollutants; things
like nitrous oxides, reactive organic gases, also known as
VOC, volatile organic compounds; and PM-10, which is dust
basically, particulate matter.
We didn’t include the CalEEMod, which is the air
quality modeling program that’s currently used. We didn’t
include the results of that, because this project is well
under the Bay Area Air Quality Management District 2011
Guidelines screening thresholds. The project is 95,000
square feet, more or less, and there are screening
thresholds of 277,000 square feet for an office building,
so we didn’t include any analysis numbers.
We did run CalEEMod, because it was required for
the greenhouse gas emissions, so we do know what the
numbers were. They came in, if you would like to hear them.
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The standard is about 54 under the 2011
guidelines, although the Air District, because of the
lawsuit, has rescinded those. The prior standards were 80
pounds per day of emissions.
The project emissions for criteria pollutants ROG
was 12.7, so well below either 54 or 80. Nitrous oxides was
11.6, which is well below 54 or 80 standard. And PM-10 was
at 5.3, well below the 80 or 82 standard. So there was no
significant impact in regard to criteria air pollutants.
A lot of people looked and said well you’ve got
this mitigation measure for low NOX heating units. That was
put in for consistency with the 2010 Clean Air Plan, so
it’s a completely different issue that’s being addressed.
The low NOX doesn’t address NOX from automobiles; it
addresses consistency with the control measures that are
built into the air quality plan.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I see. So relative to my
question, you wouldn’t try to match it up with the amount,
because it was under the threshold.
RICHARD JAMES: Right.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: But it was more about the
steps in the plan and making sure that all of those were
addressed.
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RICHARD JAMES: Right, it’s two different issues.
One is automobile emission, which was under the threshold
considerably, and the other issue is consistency with
controls measures that are aimed at reducing air emissions
region-wide, primarily from stationary sources like
buildings.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had the same kind of
question specifically on some of the transportation
mitigations. For example, it’s documented there’s going to
be an additional 700 trips a day. People might argue
whether that number is right or not, but that’s what the
ITE said. So the two mitigations were proposed, and the
then the Applicant has signed up to do some others, to
restripe Alberto Way, and so then the question in my mind
was the same on that I had about the air quality, which is
how does that fix 700 trips a day, or does it, or do we
even know?
RICHARD JAMES: We rely entirely for that type of
analysis on the Traffic Impact Analysis that was prepared
and then peer reviewed by both Town Staff and by the Town’s
traffic consultant, and so what’s in the EIR is basically
taken directly from the Traffic Impact Analysis. They run
the numbers with existing situation, what’s out there right
now, and then they run it again with the changes that are
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proposed, and when they run it with the changes that are
proposed the level of service result that comes back says
it’s acceptable. For a detailed response I think I’d have
to defer to the traffic consultant.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So that TIA that is done
though does feed in… There was a table in the EIR that
actually said—I forgot what page it’s on—existing project
plus proposed project and what the level of service would
be, so the input to make those numbers would have come from
the TIA where they reran it based on the proposed
mitigation and/or the additional traffic.
RICHARD JAMES: Right. They analyzed it with the
proposed condition and the proposed traffic level.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And then that was what
resulted in the table here?
RICHARD JAMES: And the result is either yes,
it’s acceptable, or no, it’s not acceptable.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Just a follow up, and it may
not be your department. We received a letter, more than
one, on this question of the power plants that are on the
roof, as to whether or not they’re adequately shielded from
visibility, and the letter continued to say the power plant
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providing exhaust on the two levels of garage, and power
plant for the building itself.
Now, these are all sources of emissions, and I’m
not an expert in environmental impact, et cetera, but in
your estimation, all the things I just mentioned are within
standard and are acceptable?
RICHARD JAMES: Yeah, I mentioned the CalEEMod
model, which is the air quality analysis tool that’s
recognized statewide, and that takes into account all the
different components of the building and the site as well
as the traffic that’s generated.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What about the location of the
external power plants on air conditioning or electricity,
are they properly situated? The letter thought that they
weren’t. In your opinion, are they fine?
RICHARD JAMES: My understanding, and this comes
from the noise section, is that they are 175 feet from the
nearest resident. We didn’t do a specific analysis on that
equipment, but that’s a pretty standard component of a
building, and I don’t think there would be an issue.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: As a follow up to
Commissioner Hanssen’s questions about emissions and health
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impact, there was a letter from Roman Rufanov on August
14th, which we received just before this meeting, and it
gets into some detail on the health impact. Have you
reviewed those calculations and the health impact, and are
the mitigation measure adequate? It looks significant to
me, points at six metric tons equivalent to 162 gallon
gasoline spill, 3.2 metric tons of carbon monoxide, et
cetera. Have you reviewed that letter, and what’s your
opinion about that?
RICHARD JAMES: I did read that letter, and
again, I go back to the CalEEMod model, which projects the
emissions from both vehicles and from the building itself,
and its numbers came out far below the threshold that the
Air District established back in 2011, so we don’t see an
issue there.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you’ve looked at these
specific numbers?
RICHARD JAMES: Yeah. We generate numbers through
different mechanisms through the model that the state has
blessed as the correct methodology for analyzing air
quality impacts, and using that methodology the numbers
were well below for operational.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Mr. James, the size and the
scope of this document is impressive, but I’m looking at
the viability of your final sentence: “The reduced project
alternative also would conceivably be able to meet a
majority of, if not all, proposed project objectives.” Does
that have viability? Is that something I should consider?
RICHARD JAMES: CEQA guidelines give direction on
how a jurisdiction approves a project, and a project like
this. It’s been said a number of times I’ve heard tonight
that the project has no significant impacts. In fact, the
project does have significant impacts; they are mitigated
through the mitigation measures; every one, in this case.
Some projects of course you’ll have a significant
unavoidable impact where the impact remains significant,
even with mitigation applied. CEQA guidelines in a number
of places talks about when a jurisdiction approves a
project it needs to eliminate to the extent feasible
significant impacts. It can do that, and it uses this
language, consistently throughout by the application of
feasible alternatives or feasible mitigation measures.
In a project like this where there are feasible
mitigation measures, that’s the typical route that’s taken;
approve the project with those mitigation measures.
Obviously, the Commission has the authority to approve an
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alternative project as well, so it’s really at the
discretion of the Commission. But CEQA definitely uses that
either/or language throughout, feasible alternatives or
feasible mitigation measures. It’s difficult of course for
us as EIR consultants to state authoritatively if an
alternative is feasible or not. That’s really something
that an Applicant needs to look at and pencil out and say
yes or no.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It seems a lot of gray to me,
and I often encounter the phrase “to the extent feasible.”
Does that ever say no? Does it ever say no, this cannot be
mitigated?
RICHARD JAMES: We do run into impacts that
cannot be mitigated.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I didn’t see that in this
report, is that correct?
RICHARD JAMES: No, there were no significant
unavoidable impacts in this report.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question about
greenhouse gases. It’s on 3-98 of the Draft EIR. It wasn’t
identified as a significant impact, but what caught my
attention was there was a projected increase of course of
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greenhouse gases, and of course the Town has a
sustainability plan, and we’re trying to get all that down.
Right under the table it says, “The Air District
does not have a threshold of significance for construction
phase greenhouse gas emissions,” and so I wondered about
that, because I thought probably the greatest source of
greenhouse gas emissions will be during the construction
phase of the project, especially with all those trucks and
diesel and hauling and all that kind of stuff, so that
concerned me. Is there a reason I shouldn’t be concerned?
Is it ignored because the Air District doesn’t have a
standard for it?
RICHARD JAMES: We look simply at the operation,
ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously, there are
greenhouse gas emissions during construction. I believe the
basis of the state’s overall plan for greenhouse gas
reduction is to basically write those off, because they do
exist and they’ll be temporary, and to really look at the
ongoing permanent greenhouse gas reductions through LEED
certified buildings, reductions in automobile traffic, that
type of thing. And of course the state looks at much
bigger, broader things than that, too, that are well beyond
typical city or town approval.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: But basically you’re
saying they don’t consider it significant, because it’s not
an ongoing thing, it’s a relatively short period of time?
RICHARD JAMES: Right. It’s temporary, it can
happen with any project, and basically I think it’s such a
small component of the total greenhouse gas emissions,
looking at it from a state or regional or worldwide
standpoint, it’s really just ignored at this point.
Obviously there are some things you could
probably do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during
construction. You could use more efficient construction
equipment, that sort of thing. That’s good to do some
reductions in that manner, but again, it’s short term and
it doesn’t have the lasting impact on emissions that
building and the project itself do over its lifetime.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Earlier when you were
talking we said if perhaps we don’t agree with some of the
mitigation measures we are able then to suggest something
that we would prefer. So while this clearly does state what
I think we all know, that there’s a lot of diesel exhaust
during the excavation portion, although it’s considered to
be such a short period of time, so there’s really no
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mitigation measures even put in here, we would be able to
write in or provide some mitigating measure which we may
prefer, which I’ve spoken to the Applicant about earlier,
because I was thinking about this exact topic. For example,
during excavation having the large trucks idle on the
farthest side of the site away from the residents, creating
a taller screening from the residents, using a construction
fence with screening that would mitigate. Even though there
are no mitigation measures, I assume I can add those in if
I would prefer to.
RICHARD JAMES: You can add those in, and we do
have some suggestions along those lines, if you’re
interested in seeing those.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’m very interested, yes.
RICHARD JAMES: There are a couple of things.
Idling is controlled by the California Air Resources Board.
There is a five-minute, with some exceptions for where it’s
impossible not to idle; operating a crane, for example, is
one. Queuing away from residents is certainly a good idea.
You could institute a stronger idling requirement if you
want, stronger than the standard five-minute state mandate.
The state does actually suggest potential for a two-minute
idling, and you might want to consider that in locations
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that are nearest to the residents, for example; you might
have a differential idling requirement.
Starting in 1996 the U.S. EPA started evaluating
and setting standards for off road diesel engines, and so
there are classifications of engines starting with tier
one, which started in 1996; tier two, which came in I think
in the early 2000s; and so on, and recently introduced tier
four. I have some information, if you would like to see it,
on how the relative emissions are from those different
types of engines. So that’s another approach you might want
to take is to mandate the level of engine that’s used on
the construction equipment.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: And that sounds great, but
that’s nearly impossible to do, to have a subcontractor
with a subcontractor with a subcontractor have a certain
year built piece of equipment, so I would like to know the
difference between a tier three and a tier four, because I,
judging by what I see, I think most pieces of equipment
that are out there right now are tier three.
RICHARD JAMES: There’s a comparison. As you can
see, from tier one to tier two is a significant drop in
emissions.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: But there’s quite a
significant drop between it looks like tier three and tier
four. I don’t have my glasses, so I think I’m seeing…
RICHARD JAMES: Yeah, tier three to tier four is
a huge drop also. Tier four just came in in 2011 to 2014.
There’s probably not a lot of tier four equipment out
there.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: All right, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have some questions about
traffic. I have no more on the EIR.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: In a few places in the Final
there’s reference to Caltrans suggestions, page 2-29 and 2-
30, and so my question is has the Town consulted with
Caltrans, and are we confident that the suggestions will be
followed? There are some suggestions under .2 on page 2-29,
and also there are some suggestions under .5 on page 2-30.
Have we consulted with Caltrans, and will these be
implemented?
LISA PETERSEN: Thank you. These suggestions came
from a review of the EIR, but additionally, as I had
mentioned previously, the Applicant will need to apply for
an Encroachment Permit. So during the process of applying
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for an Encroachment Permit all of these requirements that
Caltrans has requested will be implemented, and maybe
additional ones, depending on what Caltrans wants.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that’s something that
follows, that’s something that we will be on top of as a
town?
LISA PETERSEN: Yes, absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: One more question. From
resident letter on July 29th there was a concern about the
stability of the overpass on Highway 9 and the liquefaction
zone. Has Caltrans or another engineer looked at the impact
of the 20’ of excavation on the overpass and infrastructure
that’s close by?
LISA PETERSEN: Caltrans did review the project
for the EIR. If they had issues or concerns about that they
probably would have made some mention of it. Additionally,
they’ll have another opportunity through the Encroachment
Permit process.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I mean it sounds like
significant concerns, and it might be better to address it
proactively rather than just see whether they’ve got it or
not. It sounds like an important concern. Those are the
questions I had on traffic.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: It’s not a question. I
wonder if we can perhaps move on to finding out what is the
pleasure of the Commission, because if we have more
questions we ought to ask them, if we don’t, then I think
we have to talk among ourselves to see where we want to go.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I think we’re at that point.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’ll throw something out
I guess to get it started. The Applicant seemed willing to
consider some suggestions we might have.
Very frankly, this project is too big for me, and
the Chair has read that last sentence, which I think is
important. For many reasons, which I won’t go into right
now, I think the project is too large. One of the
alternatives calls for a reduction of one-third. I’m not
altogether sure that one-third is enough, but at least it’s
something better than 100%.
So I would not support a motion to approve this
project as it is. Personally, to be fair to the Applicant,
I would suggest if we have some things we would like the
Applicant to consider, to do, to condition to come back,
that we do that tonight.
If, on the other hand, it appears that people
believe that there is not enough the Applicant can do, or
they believe that he’s done enough, we can get that put on
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the table too. But I’m just saying, I’m throwing out for
discussion my feeling, and hopefully I was clear on that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Commissioner, can I ask also
following up on what your comment just was? That seemed to
address the Architecture and Site Application. Do you have
any feelings about the Conditional Use Permit or the EIR?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yes, personally I think
we should send it back, if we’re going to send it back, and
get it taken care of before we deal with the EIR and the
use permit, particularly the use permit.
But at the moment I have serious considerations
about traffic, and I don’t think the numbers provided to us
are realistic. I have now been doing this for many, many
years and I have found that often the traffic engineering
doesn’t meet reality, and that’s just based on my
experience, and I personally feel that’s the case here too.
But we don’t have to get there tonight if we were
to say go back, come back with a project which is either as
suggested in the alternative, or a smaller project which is
not less than the alternative suggested, and other things
like the height and that kind of thing. I think we could
defer a decision on CEQA, and defer the decision on the use
permit.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I agree with most of what
Commissioner O'Donnell said. I, too, am troubled by the
size of the project for the location it’s in. I wanted to
make a point, and I thought about this a lot in the last
few days, the existing office complex that’s there now is
out of date, it does need to be redeveloped. Clearly the
Applicant had a great intent to put a LEED certified
building in there; it would be great. The problem is it’s
too big for that site with the 300 or so residences that
are there and the dead end street. If you could put this
project on University or Winchester, then it would be a lot
easier to consider.
I, too, have concerns about the traffic.
In addition to the size and mass issues, I’m very
sensitive to the neighbors that are living there now and
all the images that they showed us, and I went and checked
it out again today, and as I said earlier, having their
view of the Santa Cruz Mountains blocked; I don't know what
can be done about that. I mean if they didn’t have Building
B, or 405, then it wouldn’t be a problem, but I don't know
if that’s an option, but I certainly want the Applicant to
figure out a way to try to help those residences not lose
their view.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner
Erekson.
CHARLES EREKSON: I seems to me we have a site
with what I would call a functionally obsolete set of
buildings that were likely designed for another use in
another time. It’s in a mixed-use, residential, commercial
neighborhood with a single arterial ingress and egress, and
one could reasonably conclude, as Commissioner Hanssen just
noted, that it’s in need of redevelopment.
It seems to me—so we’re leaving the EIR aside for
the moment, the Conditional Use Permit application—the uses
proposed are generally consistent with the General Plan and
with the zoning for the site, so I don’t have a problem
with the use being proposed.
With regard to the Architecture and Site
application, for me a key consideration is to go back and
look at the Commercial Design Guidelines that we should be
looking at with respect to this particular building, and
that I would suggest the Applicant should look at
carefully. When I looked at this and thought about it, I
looked at Section 1.4, which are the community expectations
of the Commercial Design Guidelines, so I would give the
Applicant kudos for some of those, and I’ll suggest three
in particular.
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Highest quality architecture, landscape, and site
development design; I think they’ve done a good job with
that. High quality materials and craftsmanship; I think
they’re proposing a very high-quality building. And a
sustainable design; they’ve declared their intent to do
that.
But I would bring three other of those important
community expectations to the attention of the Applicant
and to my fellow commissioners. One of those is careful
attention to architecture and landscape details similar to
the Town’s residential structures. Second, the sensitive
interface of commercial development with adjacent
residential neighborhoods. Third, scale and character
appropriate to the setting.
I think this application as proposed, for me,
doesn’t go far enough in satisfying those community
expectations that we’ve codified in the Commercial Design
Guidelines, but given that there are kudos that I gave to
the Applicant I would want to give them an opportunity to
continue the good work that they’ve done so far for the use
that they have, but being more respectful of those,
particularly in this neighborhood, which is obviously a
mixed-use, residential and commercial neighborhood.
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For me, the development of the rest of the
neighborhood is what I would characterize as medium-
density; this is much higher density than that. That makes
it out of character for the rest of the neighborhood, for
me, and so creates a conflict with the third that I cited,
which was the scale and character appropriate to the
setting. The setting that they find themselves in is a
mixed-use neighborhood, which is, as I said, medium-density
for me, for everyone else.
If I look across at the other commercial
property, both of them are at the right place in the
neighborhood for commercial properties; the rest of it is
residential. One has two acres with proposed 92,000 square
feet, the other is 1.5 acres with 22,000 square feet of
use, and I understand they have surface parking one place
and subterranean parking, underground parking, is the other
space. But that is a much different density of use for the
two commercial properties, so for me, I would not see it
being consistent with what are articulated in Section 1.4
of the Commercial Design Guidelines of the Town and the
community expectations that the community has laid out.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I think that’s an excellent
summary. Over and over we’ve talked about mass and scale,
small-scale buildings, community, et cetera. It’s all there
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in all of the points, some of which they’ve done an
outstanding job with, but they haven’t seemingly paid much
attention to small-scale buildings. I think that whole
Section 1.4—which I’ve been carrying in my pocket trying to
think how can I best communicate this?—they’re not
quantified, they’re not 50%, 20%, 30%; what they are is
qualified. They’re all quality aspects of maintaining what
we have in the Town. I think you said it extremely well; I
don’t want to be redundant.
Are we close to having that put into the form of
a motion? Sometimes we make motions and we get into those
numbers, 35’, 22’; I’d like to avoid those and be guided by
everything that’s been said at the hearings, everything
that’s been said in the vast amount of community letters.
There are provisions in here about working with the
surrounding community. I’m not saying they didn’t. I’m
saying they may need to do more of that, and to listen to
what the community says, because when it comes down, the
community is a viable entity, and we may be guided by that
as it fits into the standards and guidelines that we have
to work with.
Commissioner Erekson, are you prepared to make a
motion, or shall I take comments from Commissioner Hudes?
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I don't know where
this is going to go, and I’m not prepared to make a motion,
but I did have a few more specifics that maybe hadn’t been
covered in terms of some things that I think would make
this more acceptable.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, then maybe if we had a
motion we could consider additional line items.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Sure.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Rather than have them in
advance, let’s have them after we have a motion, if we can.
Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I would certainly agree
that Commissioner Erekson can go ahead and make the motion,
but I also want to just further what you’re saying. Were I
to make the motion, I think I’d make it like a tree upon
which you can hang things, because I for one would say send
it back and ask them to satisfy us as to certain things,
but there are a number of us here, and as Commissioner
Hudes was about to say, he has some things that he may want
to put in the motion, if Commissioner Erekson is prepared
to make a motion. I just throw that out, because I think
that will happen in any event.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Or would you defer to
Commissioner O'Donnell with his tree for hanging things?
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CHARLES EREKSON: Commissioner O'Donnell and I
have known each other and worked together for a long time.
I’d be okay with either of us planting the tree.
I have some thoughts about how to construct the
motion, and it would be helpful to construct a tree, but I
would want to do it in a manner that would allow each
member of the Commission to hang something onto that tree,
so to use Commissioner O'Donnell’s metaphor, I’m not
exactly sure from the Staff how to do that, because it’s a
motion which is incomplete when it’s made.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer that I think
the simple start is, if I’m understanding correctly where
this is potentially going, it’s continuing the item to a
date certain with the following direction, and so the tree
becomes the list of directions, would be a suggestion.
CHARLES EREKSON: No, I understand that, but I’m
not prepared to presumably know what all of those
directions are from the remainder of the Commission, I
guess is what my question was.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That is one of our three
alternatives, and Commissioner O'Donnell, why don’t you
take a shot at it?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I would defer to your
motion. I would just say to the extent that it’s any help
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at all, if you follow what Joel just said, I would think if
we said we’re going to continue this matter to a date
certain with instructions to the Applicant that I for one
would like to see a reduction in size and mass, but I’d
also like to say a minimum reduction, because I think it’s
just difficult to say to somebody a reduction in mass, and
they come in and they’ve reduced it by 5,000 square feet,
and you say oh gosh, that’s not what we had in mind.
Since we have the EIR that says a reduction by
one-third satisfied most, if not all, of the requirements,
I personally would suggest that this motion that
Commissioner Erekson might make would say whatever he wants
to add to it, but as we add it, that we would say when it
comes back it would be a reduction of at least X, and that
way we should at least make it easier for him. He may or
may not want to do it, but he’ll know what we’re shooting
for. Does that help at all, Commissioner Erekson?
CHARLES EREKSON: I have a suggestion for the
Vice Chair. I’d be happy to make the motion if we would
first go down the row, and I’m happy to record the
direction that each Commissioner would like to be sure is
hung onto the tree so that we don’t get into a limitless
number of amendments to a motion, if that’s reasonable from
the Vice Chair’s perspective.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: So the motion is to continue
the matter to a date certain with specific direction, e.g.,
and then we go on from there. Did you want to start off?
CHARLES EREKSON: Sure. I mean that’s the intent
of the motion I’ll make after I get the direction from my
fellow commissioners about what they would like to include
in the motion, and I’ll phrase it somewhat similarly to
that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Would you like to begin? Or
does somebody else want to begin?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Let me begin, because I
just have one thing, which I think really addresses a lot
of problems, and that is a reduction in size. I’m not
saying this is the right size, but you’ve got to start
somewhere, and since the EIR says a reduction of one-third
has been considered as an alternative, I for one would
suggest we at least start there. I would not say if you
come back with that it’s sort of like an automatic, but I
personally would not want to entertain this development
that did not reduce itself by at least that much. So the
one thing I want to hang on this tree is that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Erekson earlier
asked some excellent questions about neighborhood
compatibility. What he was doing was looking at the
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buildings around, and what we learned is we have 1.55
approximate acres across the street with 22,000 square feet
of developed area, so I don’t like doing numerical
objectives. I’m saying, and I will say, be guided by the
spirit and the passion of Section 1.4 and what you hear
from your neighbors.
One of the things you would hear is similarity in
the neighborhood, so the 43,000 may be excessive. I hate
giving numbers, but across the street what we have is 1.55
acres with 22,000 square feet of development. I would say
that might be a guideline, because sometimes when we give a
number it becomes a target, and I’d like to keep it a
little open or flexible, and I think many of the answers
are in Section 1.4.
If I could continue, my wish list would include
underscoring and maybe further developing some of the
traffic safety provisions. I’ve lived in town for, I’m not
sure, 35 years; five more years and they’ll consider me a
resident. In those 35 years, including today, I did not try
to cross the onramp to 17, and that was good, because a lot
of my dearest enemies were driving cars and trying to kill
me.
Seriously, it was an eye opening that even when
Commissioner Hudes and I were not at the crosswalk it was
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unnerving for the cars zooming… We could get a lot of
ticket money out of that thing, but they were really,
really moving. They’re coming down that hill, they’ve got a
green light and they’re heading for home. I just wonder if
we could do something more about that.
The crosswalk was set up for handicap. God
forbid, because when Commissioner Hudes and I were standing
there, guys were just flying right by. Well, one pickup
truck noticed we were standing there, and he hit his
brakes, and he almost made friends with the car behind him,
and no one has ever stopped there before, I don’t think.
As has been mentioned, the line of sight is—I
don’t want to be frivolous—a tragedy waiting to happen,
because of the overgrowth. So we’d have to look at—to the
extent you can, to the extent it’s your purview—making that
corner somehow safer. A yellow light. I don’t think you
could put in speed bumps at that section. It really needs
to be addressed.
The interesting thing we also observed, and it’s
obvious, but I didn’t see it, is there is no sidewalk on
the other side of the street, so the only way you can get
from here to there is crossing that onramp, and for the
time that we were there today and the time that I’ve been
there previously, I didn’t see a human being, no, any
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living creature, try to get across that street, so if
there’s anything we can do to try to improve that.
Along those lines, on Alberto Way we’re going to
improve sight lines by taking out the parking spaces, which
is regrettable, but I think it improves safety. Maybe we
could look at traffic calming provisions that we have on
the books for things we could do up Alberto Way once we
pass the two driveways, the driveway of Las Casitas and the
driveway of the subject property. Maybe we could put in
some yield, slow, something to improve that traffic.
Sometimes you go out to hunt gazelles and you run
into a herd of wooly mammoths, and that’s what happened
today. I was looking at just walking around and seeing the
site, and ran into the killer crosswalk, and I’d like that
to somehow be a… Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’ll be quick. I’m going to
touch on a couple things I do like about the project. I
like the open space. I like parking underground; we talk
about that a lot. I consider that a bonus to no longer see
a mass of cars when you turn onto that street; I like the
underground. I do agree with reducing the size, and I think
when we reduce the size we might be able to pull that
building a little bit away from the residential.
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Aside from that, most of the things that I would
ask for will come about after a revision is made, and then
the EIR, that will be in the Conditions of Approval, and
maybe some mitigation notes that we can make at that time.
But I would like to make sure that as you do look
at this for the continuance that you maintain the outdoor
usage. I think, having driven up and down that, the
residents use those; I see the kids playing around, so I
think that that is a positive aspect.
I think keeping as many cars as we can away from
that intersection, therefore in the parking garage and off
the street, will be significantly safer.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Shall be go down the line?
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have three items.
Actually, the first one Commissioner Kane covered. I would
simply say explore creating a more visible crossing at
Highway 9 onramp, working with Staff and Caltrans.
The second item is to explore with Staff the
possibility of straightening and widening Alberto Way to
allow the ingress/egress of emergency vehicles, accommodate
a bike lane, and implement the Complete Streets program by
actually widening the street at that point.
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The third item I have is in reducing the size,
and in doing the above on Alberto Way consider reducing the
eastern façade—I think I said western before, but the
eastern façade—of 401 Alberto Way; articulating the top
floor in a manner similar to the existing buildings; and
reducing the linear dimension along Alberto Way, perhaps
increasing it at the west or rear side of that 401
building.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You made me think, Commissioner
Hudes, we just want to have a line item saying, “Please
continue to pursue that LEED certification.” Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Like Commissioner Burch, I
like an awful lot of things about the project, and aside
from size, the views, and some of the traffic
considerations I think just about everything about the
project seems to be designed right.
In terms of working on the size, I agree with
Commissioner O'Donnell about trying to give at least some
kind of meaningful target, because so many times when we
give nonspecific direction we come back and we get a 5%
reduction, and it’s not meaningful. There isn’t really a
right number to put out there, but I think it’s worth
giving some guidelines.
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This isn’t a size guideline, but I looked at the
land use policies of the General Plan and Policy 1.8,
“Commercial development of any type shall be designed in
keeping with the small town character of Los Gatos,” I
think if you think about that, and think about what’s
already there, and work with those people.
Also policy Land Use 6.5, “The type, density, and
intensity or new land use shall be consistent with that of
the immediate neighborhood,” and if you kind of think about
that, that’s a pretty good guideline of how to move
forward.
In terms of reducing the size, I think it’s
important that the Applicant work with the neighbors and
come up with some kind of solution that doesn’t destroy the
view of the people that are across the street. It was only
in that more than northern portion I think closer to
Highway 9. There are a bunch of trees there, and the
building was already there. It was kind of that one
section, but I think there must be a creative way to get
around that and not have them lose their view, so I would
hope they would do that, as well as work with the residents
not in a confrontational way, saying we’ve got all the
terms and conditions lined up, but we want to work with you
in a way to try to address your concerns.
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On the same vein, this is more for the residents
in the neighborhood; I think it’s important for them to
recognize that something is going to be built here. I mean
it was nice to have this big, open space that’s hardly
used. Something is going to be built here, so I hope that
the residents will be willing to work with them in a
cooperative way to come up with something that’s better
than what is on the table right now.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Really well said. Commissioner
Erekson.
CHARLES EREKSON: I have a question of Staff, and
then I’ll take a roll at the motion. Would you have a
suggestion about what date certain to continue this to?
JOEL PAULSON: Well, it’s unknown the length of
time it will take the Applicant. I think the first meeting
we could even remotely consider probably ends up being
September 28th, and that’s probably a little soon; that’s
only just over a month out. The next meeting following that
isn’t until October 28th; there’s only one meeting scheduled
in October. The other alternative would be to consider a
special meeting in October.
VICE CHAIR KANE: We’ve laid out a general scope.
Is there a way to talk to the Applicant about what’s
realistic and convenient or practical for them?
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JOEL PAULSON: You could potentially reopen the
hearing for that specific question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And I shall when we get to it.
Thank you. Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I want to ask a question of
Staff. I believe I heard in the list of items in the motion
some references to doing some work on the Highway 9 to 17
onramp. Did I mishear that? Is that in the purview of this
project?
JOEL PAULSON: We would have to look at nexus.
Ultimately, that’s going to be up to Caltrans regardless of
what conditions the Town puts on it. We may put conditions
on it that Caltrans doesn’t agree to, and so obviously we
won’t be able to compel the Applicant to implement those if
Caltrans does not permit them.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Erekson. Or
Commissioner Hudes, did you have an item?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just one comment about that.
I’m referring there to the comments made by Caltrans about
creating a more visible crossing.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s correct. Commissioner
Erekson.
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CHARLES EREKSON: I would ask the Vice Chair to
reopen the public hearing for the limited purpose of
inquiring from the Applicant if continuing this item to
September 28th would give them sufficient time to… I think
they have a reasonable idea of what will be in the motion
at this point in time.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So your motion will encompass
everything we’ve said, so it gives them a sense of what may
need to be done.
CHARLES EREKSON: As long as my notes are pretty
good.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay, good.
CHARLES EREKSON: But my fellow commissioners
will judge that on their own.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I want to reopen the public
hearing at this point for the purpose of asking one
specific question of the Applicant. We’ve suggested a date
certain of September 28th. Is that a workable date, or do
you have another one in mind?
RANDY LAMB: My guess is that was a pretty broad
list, and if you want us to be talking to neighbors and
Staff and our architect and everybody else, I doubt we can
get it done by the 28th. My guess is that October would be…
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JENNIFER ARMER: The 26th. October 26th is the one
Planning Commission…
RANDY LAMB: Thereby the October 26th, yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You ask what we would like.
What I would like is for you to be successful and give us a
lovely design. So if you want to do that date, we’ll do
that date.
RANDY LAMB: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: October 26th.
JOEL PAULSON: That will be incorporated into
Commissioner Erekson’s motion.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, I’m closing that
portion of the public hearing and going back to
Commissioner Erekson.
CHARLES EREKSON: I would, as an intro to the
motion, suggest to the Applicant that you heard a lot of
positive comments from the Planning Commission about the
work that you’ve done. No concern about the nature of the
use. No concern about the quality of the building and the
kind of things that you’re doing. There was relatively
unanimous concern about what is captured in the sense of
Section 1.4 of the Commercial Design Guidelines, which are
the community expectations. We would want you to remember
that you’re building a building; you’re developing a site,
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in Los Gatos, specifically. That’s the reason for the
emphasis on the community expectations and that’s the
purpose of the community expectations in the Commercial
Design Guidelines.
That being said as a frame, I would move that the
matter under consideration this evening be continued to
Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at a meeting of the Planning
Commission scheduled for that evening, and that we would
want the Applicant to come back with a proposal which
addresses the following concerns for sure, and any other
concerns that you may have heard that we failed to include
in this list that you are considering (inaudible).
The first is some significant reduction in the
scale and size of the building. Significant is obviously a
subjective word. Commissioner O'Donnell suggested that you
might look at the alternative plan in the EIR that suggests
a reduction of approximately a third. That certainly would
meet the measure of significant, I think, in general, but
we will leave that to you to determine what is significant.
In conjunction with that, you’ve heard direction
to examine, when the building is reduced, possibly moving
the building away, if you can, as you re-site the building
or buildings that will result away from the residential to
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the extent that you can without compromising what you would
do.
That you maintain the underground parking on the
site.
Then there were a number of them that relate to
traffic safety and improvements, so for you to re-examine
the traffic safety measures on the site and immediately
adjacent to the site with particular attention to examining
the straightening and widening of Alberto Way and whether
or not you can work with the Staff to make it approximate a
Complete Street concept that the Town is pursuing, and that
one would work with the Staff, and as appropriate,
Caltrans, to do what you can to improve the visible
crossing of Highway 9.
That you would incorporate the architectural
style changes that were articulated by Commissioner Hudes.
I won’t repeat all of those; those are captured and the
Staff has taken them down in detail form and will be able,
I’m sure, to provide you with those.
And I would say in addition to that be sensitive
to there is a general architectural style in the
neighborhood, and be sure that the buildings as developed
complement that style, because it is a neighborhood, and
it’s a mixed-use neighborhood, and it’s mixed commercial
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and residential, but it needs to work together to be sure
that as you potentially think about the architectural
style, that you’re sure that it looks like it belongs in
the neighborhood with what’s there.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I would second that motion. I
want to clarify the garage. Did you say two-story garage,
or one or two stories as appropriate?
CHARLES EREKSON: All I said was maintaining the
underground parking.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So that might be a one-story if
that’s all we needed.
CHARLES EREKSON: Personally, I wouldn’t attempt
to be that specific with the Applicant. We’re asking them
to adjust the size of the buildings themselves, which will
undoubtedly have some implications for how they plan the
parking underground, so I wouldn’t feel it necessary to
give them any more specific direction other than to
maintain the underground parking. I guess my sense of what
Commissioner Burch is suggesting is don’t come back with a
project that has significant surface parking; that’s really
the intent.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Good. I’ll second that motion.
Discussion?
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ROBERT SCHULTZ: I have just a clarification for
the record, because there’s been quite a lot of talk on the
alternative, and it being a reduction in one-third. That’s
not what the alternative project was. It was a reduction in
about 20%, so it’s not a one-third reduction in that
alternative.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I haven’t checked the
EIR, you have, and that was 20%?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Somehow one-third was in
my mind.
JOEL PAULSON: So the reduced project
specifically states 74,260 square feet, which is
approximately a 20% reduction.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Well, personally I’ve
thrown out a third, and I’d like to stay there.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yeah. Where did we get 43,000
from? That’s what I’ve been talking about. I thought that
was the EIR Plan B.
JOEL PAULSON: I’m not sure where you got that
number.
VICE CHAIR KANE: My bad, but we like that
number, so something like that.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yeah, thank you for
clarifying that, but I want to stay with the one-third.
CHARLES EREKSON: So as the maker of the motion
can I clarify what I think I’ve said in the motion about
that particular item, and then I’ll maybe tweak it just a
little bit to remove the language about the alternative.
I think we are asking you to make a significant
reduction in the size and scale. Commissioner O'Donnell has
suggested that, at least for him, one might measure
significance by about a third, so one would go from 90-
something to 60-something, if my math isn’t too bad. While
that’s a target for you, if you come back with a proposal
that meets the intent of a significant reduction, then we
can say that the scale and character is appropriate to the
setting. Is that exactly one-third? Is that 32%? Is that
41%? Some of that will be determined by how you redevelop
the buildings that you will propose presumably.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And as you pointed out,
Commissioner, the building across the street has 21,000 on
1.55 acres. That might be a little tight, but it gives us
another view. Discussion on the motion?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: All I want to say on
that latter point was of course the use across the street
is totally different, and I really don’t know that it makes
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much sense to compare a motel with an office building.
That’s fine if somebody wants to do it, but I for one don’t
find that analogous.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Other comments? Seeing none,
I’ll call the question. All in favor? It passes
unanimously.
When we continue something to a date certain, are
there any appeal rights necessary, Mr. Paulson?
JOEL PAULSON: There are not.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.