Attachment 02LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 9/14/2016
Item #4, 105 Newell Avenue
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Mary Badame, Chair
D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair
Kendra Burch
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 2
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR BADAME: Item 4, 105 Newell Avenue. Planned
Development Application PD-14-002. Mitigated Negative
Declaration ND-16-002. Requesting approval of a Planned
Development to rezone a property from R-1:12 to R-1:12:PD,
to demolish an existing building, and construct four
single-family residences on property zoned R-1:12. APN 409-
24-026.
May I have a show of hands from the Commissioners
who have visited the site? Are there any disclosures from
Commissioners?
We’re still gathering speaker cards, so I’ll give
it a moment before we’re ready to receive a Staff Report.
Thank you for the speaker cards.
Ms. Armer, I understand that you’ll be providing
us with a Staff Report this evening.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, good evening. Good evening,
Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners. The project in front of
you this evening is a proposal for four new homes on the
site currently occupied by the Elks Lodge. The site is at
the corner of Newell Avenue and Winchester Boulevard. The
project site is a sloped corner lot of approximately 1.4
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acres with residential on two sides and the aforementioned
streets on the other two.
The four proposed homes would be two stories, and
two of them have alternative floor plans, which include
kind of an in-law unit, a secondary dwelling unit, as a
possibility. The proposed Planned Development zone would
include numerous exceptions to the underlying R-1:12 zoning
regulations.
The proposal to redevelop the site was first seen
by the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee on
December 11, 2013. At that point there were two different
proposals that were included. One of them was 11 attached
residential condo units; the other was five single-family
residential units. One of the primary elements that the
Applicant heard at that meeting was a concern over the
density and intensity of the uses that were proposed, and
so they decided to go for the single-family residential
version or idea for redevelopment, and they went from five
units down to four.
The application was submitted approximately six
months later in July 2014, and then over the following year
they had five different Staff technical review meetings,
coming back to work with Town Staff over technical issues
and resubmittals.
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In the middle of that process there was also
review by the Town’s architectural consultant and the
Town’s arborist. Both provided review in February 2015, so
that was about six months after the formal submittal.
Their final Staff technical review was actually
last July, at which point even though there were still some
unresolved technical issues the Applicant decided that they
wished to move forward with the review, and with advice
from Staff they did decide to conduct the environmental
review so that there was an opportunity to have a decision
rather than having the application reverted back to Staff
for environmental review.
A Draft Initial Study and Mitigated Negative
Declaration was prepared in the first half of this year,
was available for public review from June 17th to July 7th of
2016, and is now before you along with the proposed PD
zone.
Staff’s concerns are still detailed in the Staff
Report. There are a number of different concerns; the main
ones fall into three categories.
The first being details that are left unresolved
from the Staff reviews. Issues like the height measurement
in Lot 4 that was done incorrectly was shown different, and
these are items that could potentially be addressed through
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the Planned Development, through specific exceptions, or
through the Architecture and Site review process.
The second category of main concern is the
grading and retaining walls that are proposed; the depth of
the cut and fill; and noncompliance with the Hillside
Design Guidelines that do apply certain categories,
including the grading section of those guidelines, to apply
to this lot, because it is a greater than 10% slope. Also,
that includes a section that discusses maintaining the
existing landform where the proposal goes a pretty far way
in trying to create flat parcels for the four proposed
houses.
The third category that is of concern for Staff
is neighborhood compatibility, both the proposed two-story
character of the homes, which is out of character with the
immediate neighborhood as well as the floor area, and the
total proposed square footage of the homes, which is
significantly larger than the next largest home in the
existing immediate neighborhood.
Based on these concerns, as well as those
included in the written Staff Report, Staff recommends that
the Commission forward the Planned Development application
to the Town Council with a recommendation for denial.
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This concludes Staff’s presentation, but I’d be
happy to answer any questions.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for the report, Ms.
Armer. Questions for Staff? Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for your report.
I had a couple of quick questions.
One of the guidelines for approving the current
Planned Development, not the ordinance that we’re hopefully
revising but it’s not approved yet, is to take into
consideration open space. My question is how much open
space is there now? I actually used to run on that lot, we
did hill running, but it’s a parking lot. With the Elks
Lodge, how much open space is there now, and how much would
there be with the proposal, as we know it?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’m going to recommend that we
take that question to the Applicant when they have the
opportunity to speak, but beyond the front yards and the
private driveway there isn’t a whole lot of open space
that’s proposed. The existing site is predominantly the
single building and the parking lot as well.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, so we can come back
to that.
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A second question; it’s quick as well. Have we
ever allowed a Planned Development with this level of
grading, of cut and fill, flattening the hill, basically?
JOEL PAULSON: I think it’s a distinction between
quantity, so there’s probably many that have had similar
quantities, depths of cut and fill. Since the new Hillside
Development Standards and Guidelines were adopted, probably
not, but quantity, I’m sure that we’ve had projects that
have had the quantity of cut and fill that this project
would propose.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The volume of yards, okay.
Then last question, is the Town Arborist here tonight?
JOEL PAULSON: They are not.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Because my question was
when I was reading her report she only recommended to keep
one tree, but her recommendation was based on construction
impacts, and this isn’t approved as a Planned Development
or as an Architecture and Site Application, so I would have
wanted to know what trees she would have wanted to save,
period, versus with construction? If we have all our
questions answered, maybe there’s a way to get the answer
later.
JOEL PAULSON: One option there is obviously
you’ll be making a recommendation moving forward to
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Council. When you decide to make that recommendation,
should that happen this evening, then that would be
direction and we can get that answer prior to the Council
taking a final action.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Birch followed by
Commissioner Hudes followed by Vice Chair Kane.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Thank you so much for the
detailed Staff Report, so I’m going to apologize; I’m about
to ask a redundant question. Just for the sake of
conversation, one of the things that you noted at first was
there were a number of exemptions that we’re asking for.
Can you list those out for us?
JENNIFER ARMER: Sure. Part of the list of
exceptions is based on things that they are specifically
asking for, and some are based on things that were left
unresolved from the Staff technical meetings and therefore
were incorporated here, because that is what’s being
proposed in the current set of plans.
The Planned Development section of your Staff
Report, page 13, exceptions would include reduced lot
depth, exceeding the maximum allowed floor area, exceeding
the maximum cut and fill depths, no sidewalks on private
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streets, maximum height, and encroachment of eaves into
setbacks.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had a couple process
questions for Staff. Commissioner Hanssen alluded to this,
this is being we’re asked to make a recommendation to
Council on this and it’s under the current Planned
Development Ordinance, correct?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct, because it would be a
rezoning.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Should the recommendation
from Planning Commission be to deny, is there any point at
which the new ordinance might come to play on this
particular application?
JOEL PAULSON: It would not, because the
application has been deemed complete prior. Depending on
the action of Council, they may remand it back to Planning
Commission, or they may deny it, in which case a new
application would have to be filed, so the new ordinance
may have caught up by then.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that would trigger off of
the Council’s action, not this body’s action?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: The other question I had,
because I haven’t seen Planned Developments myself before,
is it normal to have two designs come before the Planning
Commission? It seems there is an alternate design.
JOEL PAULSON: I will just offer that they’re
proposing options, and we have had Planned Developments in
the past with options. One that pops into my mind is the
old McHugh site where currently the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation is at Los Gatos Boulevard and Gateway. They had
two different site layouts and designs for that proposal
when it came through.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Then within regard to CDAC,
since the discussion with CDAC was a very broad set of
options ranging from condominiums to five single-family
homes, is there any circumstance where this would go back
to CDAC?
JENNIFER ARMER: The advice from CDAC is
generally something that’s done at the beginning of the
process to give some direction and sense of concerns for a
project before it’s begun. Once it gets to this point,
unless they were proposing a totally different project, no,
it would not return.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. That’s all I had.
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CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, did you still
have a question?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you for an excellent
report and the written Staff Report; comprehensive can make
our job easier.
What doesn’t make my job easier is the excessive
detailed bioengineering, all of the things that go into a
Mitigated Negative Declaration. We can do this off record,
but maybe somebody else is interested. I have three of
them, and they’re all terribly detailed, and what they’re
essentially designed to do in about 15 different categories
is say it’s something potentially bad about this project,
and it comes in different response categories. Yes, it’s
very bad. No, it’s not that bad. Well, it’s kind of bad,
but we can fix it with mitigation. All of the standard
categories are treated that way.
A simple education in two points. One, why do we
have three of them? I know they’re sequential and I expect
they’re a response to each other, but I couldn’t find clear
responses or clear revisions that something said in the
first one had to be fixed by the second one that had to be
fixed by the third one. It (inaudible) the issue, and a lot
of them are very, very objective on soils and noise and
emissions, but there was a subjective one, and I don't know
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that I’m going to put my finger right on it; maybe I can.
This is page 46 of the report dated May 31st, revised final,
July; they’re both 2016.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, is there an
exhibit number so we can be sure we’re looking at the same
one? I have Exhibit 13.
JOEL PAULSON: Exhibit 13.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s Exhibit 13 and Exhibit 30.
Sorry about that. Exhibit 13 and Exhibit 30, and I don’t
know, I guess this was one of the originals we received,
May 31st.
They’re good, they’re comprehensive, they’re
scientific, they’re engineering, and all of this clearly
has to be done. When we get to the subjective portion on
zoning, and does the project comply with ordinances and
standards and guidelines, this particular one, the one I
mentioned, May 31, 2016, revised July 2016, says, “The
proposed project would not conflict with any existing land
use plan or policy, therefore no impacts have been
identified,” and yet in your excellent Staff Report, Ms.
Armer, you pointed out a number of issues that
argumentatively may not be consistent with our policies and
may have impact. I’m not a professional. How do I reconcile
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those two things, and I guess really what should I be doing
with these three reports?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’m going to start with a few
clarifications. I believe you should have two reports, so
number three maybe you borrowed one from your neighbors,
but there was a draft Initial Study/Mitigated Negative
Declaration that was prepared, and then the consultant this
time decided to prepare a revision to that, so that’s what
you’re looking at right now. There were only minor changes,
but they were done in tract changes so you can see where
those were throughout the document, and that was just some
minor changes in response to comments, so there should be
two documents that you have in your materials for the
project tonight.
Your question about the environmental document
and its comments on land use, I’m going to let Joel add to
this if he has anything, but I’ll just start by saying that
the environmental document and CEQA have a very specific
set of parameters for what it looks at, and so the proposal
for residential in this location does comply with the
General Plan. It is generally the type of use that is
appropriate by our land use regulations, so this view that
CEQA takes is a much higher level view in terms of those
predefined categories by the state. The environmental
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consultant found that this project did not have any
significant impacts and that the potential impacts could be
mitigated; that that is the conclusion that they and their
consulting experts came to.
However, you now have the opportunity to look
more at a more detailed rather than the 30,000 feet level
review to look at the specifics of what is being proposed
for this PD zone and how it works with our more detailed
requirements.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It may not follow CEQA
requirements or Town standards, but I was thinking of when
they provide the Initial Study, if there’s a Final Study to
come back—and don’t tell me it’s in here, because I’ll be
embarrassed—an executive summary of what in fact was
changed on the part of further review or the Applicant
would be extremely helpful.
I now confess, because I’d better do it, so
overwhelmed was I that the third additional study is from a
different project. Nobody’s perfect, but thank you for your
explanation.
The broader view, they did not see potentially
significant issues when they clarified meeting General
Plans and Policies, such as there are no impacts. It’s a
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broad statement, and then I should look to the Staff Report
for more specific guidance?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct, and I would add that in
your review of the project and the changes that were made
to the environmental document, I would recommend looking at
the Response to Comments, which is Exhibit 12, which does
have copies of the comments that were received on the
environmental document. It has a specific response to each
of those comments as well as a reference to what changes,
if any, and where they were made within the environmental
document.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions for Staff?
VICE CHAIR KANE: I may have. I thought somebody
would.
CHAIR BADAME: No, go ahead.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The CDAC minutes that were
provided, for which I thank you, is there anything broader
than that, or is that the representation of the 2013
meeting of the CDAC?
JENNIFER ARMER: That is what is available, and
what was approved and adopted by the CDAC at their
following meeting.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: As I read them, a number of
recommendations, 14 or 15, were made. Is it a fair question
to ask whether or not you know in providing the Staff
Report, was attention given to those 14 suggestions, or is
that not the job of the CDAC, but to provide general
guidance?
JENNIFER ARMER: My understanding of the job of
the CDAC is to give general comments and response, general
impressions to preliminary proposals to provide some sense
for the Applicant of what type of project might be
appropriate on their site. The Applicant then has the
responsibility to take those comments and move forward in
the way that they feel is appropriate.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So whether or not any attention
was given to any of those recommendations would essentially
not be germane, because they were general guidance?
JENNIFER ARMER: It is general guidance, and it
is up to the Applicant to choose how to proceed based on
the opinions that were shared at that hearing, and it is up
to them to respond to any questions that you have as follow
up to that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One final question, if I may?
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, Vice Chair.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Inside the report, when they
met in 2013 there was a Plan A and a Plan B. A was houses
and B was condos, loosely construed. I believe the
Applicant in one of the documents made the statement that
the condos were laid by the wayside, because CDAC did not
express favor for them, which I didn’t necessarily find in
the document itself, but also because there was strenuous
opposition from the neighbors. Do we have anything at this
point that would document that opposition, letters or
memories from 2013?
JENNIFER ARMER: I do not, since I was not staff
here for the Town at that time.
JOEL PAULSON: You’ll hear from a number of
members of the public in the neighborhood, and so you’ll
probably receive a response to that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I thought the statement was
important; I wondered if we could substantiate it, that’s
all. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, before we open the
public portion of the hearing, we are going to take a ten-
minute recess.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR BADAME: We are back from break and ready
to open the public portion of the hearing. The Applicant is
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at the podium. If you could please state your name and
address for the record, and if you have not filled out a
speaker card, I will need one. You have ten minutes to
address the Commission.
KURT ANDERSON: I told him; he didn’t believe me.
My name is Kurt Anderson, associate architect with Camargo
& Associates. My office address is 120 West Campbell Avenue
in Campbell.
Madam Chair and Members of the Commissioner, we
are really, really glad to be here. as you can tell by
Jennifer’s report, it’s been a long time to get to this
point, and we want to take this moment to thank the Staff.
Jennifer, that was a fantastic report; you did a
really great job summarizing your report. Thank you very
much for that. And I want to thank all the neighbors that
we’ve had a kazillion meetings with. Many of them are here
in the audience, and we appreciate your time being here and
supporting the project, we hope.
Without further ado, let’s run through a quick
presentation. Jennifer took a little of the thunder out of
my sails, because she did such a great job, but let’s go
through this quickly just to bring you back up to speed.
Jennifer, which way do I go, to the right?
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Here is a rendering of the proposed project. As
you can tell, on the lower left is the intersection of
Newell and Winchester. This is what we are proposing
tonight.
This is where we started. This is what we
presented to CDAC. We had five single-family homes on the
left, then we have the condominium on the right. Based on
CDAC’s comments we immediately met with the neighborhood,
and I will tell you that the neighbors were adamantly
opposed to five homes and the condos, and they can address
that when they come up and do their presentation.
So we came back and we looked at doing a couple
of different configurations on a four-lot subdivision. We
had always planned to do a PD approach, because the
configuration of this parcel, the slope, the size, the
location, it really works using a PD approach to this
project under what’s allowed under the General Plan and by
the Town.
On the left, you see that was a flat lot
subdivision. This wasn’t going to work, because we couldn’t
get a fire truck turnaround, so we didn’t do that one.
The one on the right is a full city street with a
cul de sac, and you can see at least minimal area for
development for the homes. That is an aerial view looking
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down at the corner, and so this would actually be looking
at the southwest corner and you can see the access right
here. You notice when you’re out at the site that this is a
very dangerous situation, and I could tell you for a fact
that I used to live on La Montagne Court, I owned a home
over there for years and years and years, so I’m very
familiar with this site.
This corner right here, you’ll see as we get
further through this process that we have relocated this
entry further up Newell, which we think in our opinion
really increases the safety factor at that corner, because
especially when they had events with all the people coming
out of there that was a major issue, especially with the
increased traffic from Netflix and other commercial
development down the street on Winchester.
So here is our proposal. We have Lot 1, Lot 2,
Lot 3, and Lot 4. In this proposal what we’ve done is we
have elevated this area here, and it has a lot to do with
the relationship of getting the street from this point here
up to the parcel so we could access into the garages on the
site. The only reason that we’ve got the site configured
this way is because this is an extremely busy commercial
street and we did not want to have those houses, the
private space, the rear yards right here, being at street
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level from a noise standpoint, and also from a safety
standpoint, people coming through this intersection, losing
control, coming down the street. By getting these houses
up, we’re protecting the inhabitants of those residences.
This is the current condition. There’s that
retaining wall along Winchester. This will look at it from
Lark Avenue. That’s the existing structure. You can see the
orange netting here depicting the forms of the homes. This
rail right here is backing right up on the parking lot that
is on that building. There’s another shot of that street.
And that is what it looks like with the homes
that we’ve proposed. You can see how the back yards have
been elevated through grading retaining walls. This is
additional fencing here. We can create layers of landscape
along the side to soften the structures to make it a very,
very attractive development to that corner.
As you know, that corner right now is just
basically a sea of asphalt. This is looking at it from,
again, the southwest. There’s that intersection we were
talking about. You can see, this whole parcel, this 1.3
acres, is primarily roof and asphalt. It’s basically
impervious coverage.
Now, you know dealing with the new C.3
regulations we have in the State of California that
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impervious coverage is to be minimized, because you have to
be concerned about the runoff that goes into our bay and
into our groundwater and contaminates it. One of the things
that we’re doing with this project—there’s another picture
of it—is we are getting rid of all of that asphalt and
we’re turning it into landscape.
We have a smaller street that we’re proposing
here, and you can see as you go up Newell and up the hill
that this access point right here is about probably 7-8’
above this corner right here, and that slopes up to the
site. There it is with superimposed landscaping. There’s
another shot looking directly up the drive from Newell to
the four parcels. You can see how it’s terraced up the hill
and then it conforms to the rest of the slope of that
existing street.
If you really think back about that area, if you
really look at that slope, that whole hill that went down
to Lark Avenue, Winchester was cut into that hill. That’s
why the Town constructed the retaining walls along
Winchester over on that side back here. So we’re getting
back more in conformance with the original contours.
Here’s the plan. Winchester, Newell. Here’s our
access drive. We’ve got garages here, here, here and here.
Here’s our fire truck turnaround, with the requirements of
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Central Fire. We’ve got some on-street parking here, and as
mentioned in Jennifer’s report, we do have a sidewalk here,
and we do have a sidewalk here.
Now, a lot of these things that we feel that were
expressed in the report, these technical nuances I want to
call them, we know those need to be resolved. We’re here in
front of the Planning Commission because we want you to
recommend approval to the Council to convert this to a PD
Residential zoning so we’ve got affirmation that we’re
going in the right direction, and then we’ll continue to
expend the time and the energy to work with Staff to get
all the technical nuances and exceptions minimized as we go
through the process, through Architecture and Site review.
We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money to
this point, three years, and we still don’t know whether or
not the Commission or the Council want to see a residential
development. Jennifer said it great in her report: We’re in
conformance with the General Plan, and we’re in conformance
with the zoning. This really is a residential site. Right
now it’s a nonconforming commercial use. We want to get
this back to what it’s supposed to be according to the
General Plan and the zoning.
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This Conventional Subdivision, you can see we’ve
got 60’ diameter bulb, width 40’, street parking, lot sizes
less than 10,000, on and on and on.
In this under Planned Development. We’re going to
build and construct that road, and we’re going to maintain
it so there is no cost to the Town. From Newell up, that
will be part of the development. They have to maintain the
infrastructure, storm, water, sewer, all those things, so
that cost will go to those homes and not to the Town,
thereby not further burdening the tax base.
Part of this right here is when our clients
purchased this property one of the things they looked at
was the whole neighborhood, and they looked at La Montagne
Court—I used to live right here, the house that you see—and
this here is only one parcel away, so when we looked at
this we felt that was in the immediate neighborhood, that
this was comparable to the design of La Montagne.
We have statistics that we can share with you—
I’ll let Maurice do that—in regard to the house sizes for
that. But you’ll see on the next site, there’s La Montagne,
and there are the homes’ sizes that you can read as they
come up. You can see they go from 3,960, 4,000, and 4,248;
there are a whole variety of sizes there. These other
parcels back here are homes that have been renovated and
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expanded. Now, currently the rest of the subdivision are
not this large, because they’re still the single-family
ranch-style homes, 2,500 square feet, that…
Madam Chair, may I keep going?
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, you have 30 seconds
remaining.
KURT ANDERSON: Why don’t I just cease and I’ll
do my closing comments at the end? Because I can’t do much
with 18 seconds left. Okay?
CHAIR BADAME: Okay. All right, thank you for
your presentation. Do Commissioners have questions for the
Applicant? Seeing none, thank you very much.
I will now invite comments from members of the
public. Our first speaker will be Liat Perlman.
LIAT PERLMAN: Good evening, I live at 183 Newell
Avenue, which buttresses against I think Lot 3, and I’m
very much in support of this development. I think it’s a
very reasonable plan, not overusing the piece of property.
The property at 183 has also got quite a significant cut
and fill, probably more of a cut than a fill, but that goes
back to the 1960s when the house was originally built. I’ve
noted the delta of use on this property, and given its size
it seems appropriate.
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In addition, I think it has a really good fill
for the space in terms of keeping with the property and the
community. It doesn’t exceed the La Montagne type of
development, which is nearby, and although I think that
what are considered the most relevant houses are small in
nature, my comparison to some of these houses, if somebody
was to apply for a remodel and add some square footage, we
would be at about the same.
Given where we’re at in the neighborhood today, I
welcome this. My family has lived here for 40 years and I’m
representing the household, and we all welcome this
development. We can’t wait for the work to begin, and I’m
hoping there won’t be too many holdups in terms of that.
This is a space that needs to be filled in and basically
utilized in keeping with the nature of the development of
the area. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Perlman, and don’t
go away. We have a question for you from Commissioner
Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: In reviewing this, which I
understand that you support and I appreciate you coming and
speaking tonight, would you be in favor if it were a Class
A office space?
LIAT PERLMAN: Absolutely not.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. For anyone speaking
tonight, when you step up to the podium please remember to
state your name and address for the record. Our next
speaker is Khilil Fattahi
KHILIL FATTAHI: Good evening. I’m Khilil
Fattahi, as you mentioned, and I live just adjacent to this
project. For 21 years I’ve lived in this one, so I have
part of my back fence side and all of my side yard
(inaudible) Lot 2.
The builders have been in touch with us, they
have satisfied everything that we want, and my wife and me
are both very much supportive of the plan as it is
presented.
The height of this building, even though this is
going to be a two-story on Lot 3 next to mine, it still is
a little even below my roofline because of the way that the
land slope is.
For 21 years we have been living next to Elks
parking lot. At night motorcyclists who like this cozy
corner and throw their pizza boxes over our fence have
bothered us, and we receive eggs and beer bottles, and by
the time we call the police it’s too late, so we really
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welcome just four homes for this size lot, which is not big
to us.
My lot size is 11,400, I believe. I went to the
Planning Department a few months ago and just wanted to
find out how much more I can have. I have 2,500 square feet
right now and between 1,850 square feet I can add. So for
this lot, especially next to mine, Lot 3, which is going to
be 16,000 square feet, if they’re going to that size around
4,000, it should be perfectly fine.
This is an exceptional plan, which you will see,
because the whole neighborhood is behind this. We don’t
want anything commercial there, we don’t want tennis courts
from Courtside there, and we don’t want this turned into
another parking lot. We’re very much in support of this.
I heard some comments from the Planning
Department; they were making the comment that they need
sidewalks. The whole Newell Avenue on all three courts
don’t have one inch of sidewalks, but I heard that from the
builder that they’ve going to even put a sidewalk there.
We are just very much in support of this and I
hope without much trouble this plan goes through. We are
fed up with the ugly Elks building there, and it’s a
nuisance. Thank you.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Fattahi. Our next
speaker is Harvey Yap.
HARVEY YAP: Good evening, my name is Harvey Yap
and my address is 119 Newell Court. I’ve been at this
address for 40 years. My property is one of six that adjoin
the proposed development, and I support their application
to build these four homes.
I’ve read the Planning Commission’s Staff Report
and the recommendation for denial. There are six exceptions
that I feel are reasonable and should be granted, because
this site is unique, it’s not easy to develop, it’s only
1.4 acres, and it’s on a hill, and you’re looking at
putting four homes in that location. Although these four
homes will be larger than most of the houses in the
neighborhood, being two stories, I would not object to it;
I feel that they would be compatible.
I request that this PD be approved and allowed to
move forward. The Elks Club has been vacant for many years
and I consider that this will be a good replacement for
this property. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for your comments, Mr.
Yap. Dale Miller.
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DALE MILLER: My name is Dale Miller, 115 Newell
Court. If you look at that number four on the drawing up
there, I’m behind Lot 1 of this development.
I, too, am for this development. This property is
zoned R-1 and this project has been intended for, and I
think as the neighbors have all said, we’re all in support
of, houses. We’re tired of the Elks, we’re tired of an
empty parking lot, and we’re tired of Courtside coming over
and using it for their exercise classes, as was pointed out
earlier.
This is the first time in any development, or any
suggested development, that the actual architects and
developers came and talked to the neighbors. Everything
else has been forced down our throat. As Mr. Paulson knows,
I’m the neighborhood grump. I organize everything and we
come out and complain about what’s going next.
The neighborhood definitely wants to make sure
this is residential. We don’t want commercial. We don’t
want Courtside or anybody else. We want houses; it’s a
neighborhood.
The original developer was Duke. According to my
ex-neighbor, Jack Aiello, who died, Duke willed these four
lots to the Elks Club originally in the sixties when they
had a downturn.
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There was a comment about landscaping. There is
no landscaping on this. The Elks have never taken care of
the landscaping. Everything is dead, everything is old, and
it’s run down. There is actually a tree that fell over by
the Courtside parking lot into the street one night about
three months ago. There is no landscaping worth saving.
Maybe there are a couple of trees, but not many. The only
thing that was ever taken care of in this would be when we
called the Fire Department about fire hazards in the spring
when the weeds grew; that’s the only time the Elks did
anything to improve this lot.
I’ve read through the Planning Commission report.
I’d like to see you guys get together and compromise and
make this happen as a Planned Development. There are things
that can be agreed upon, changed, modified. This is the
first time we have a builder that’s talked to us, worked
with us, had several meetings with us, taken our concerns
and fixed them, so we appreciate that.
But the one additional request I have is because
parking in the area. As Khalil Fattahi talked about, there
are no sidewalks in this neighborhood. I complained to the
Town before and the previous Town traffic planner said the
streets conform to the California standards. They do,
they’re 34’; I measured them the other night. That allows
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for two 11’ lanes for cars, and two 7’ lanes for parking,
but there are no sidewalks. I’d like to see this
development have no parking on the south edge of Newell
Avenue, which is where this development is, so that people
can actually walk and not get run over when they walk down
the street.
Other than that, I’ll close by saying that we are
definitely for this development. The developers have talked
with us, they’ve worked with us, they’ve had several
meetings with us, and we are definitely in favor of this.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Miller. Richard
Potter.
RICHARD POTTER: Good evening, I’m Rick Potter; I
live at 144 Newell Avenue, which is a little farther up the
street, but as my neighbors who back up to this property so
aptly pointed out, it’s a project that is due. The property
has been sitting there vacant for a long, long time, and
the plans that has been proposed for all of us who live in
the neighborhood—I’ve been there for 25 years—we all seem
to think it’s going to be a great project and we encourage
you to support it. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Potter. Our last
speaker is Tobin Lehman.
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TOBIN LEHMAN: Hi, I’m Tobin Lehman; I live at
175 Newell Avenue, which is right on that corner. It was
nice being last, because I get to just say, “Yeah.”
Everyone has made all the good points, and I just want to
agree with them and say yes, please approve this Planned
Development.
I’ve had the benefit of being next to this vacant
lot, and all the RVs and motorcycles and everything that
come up in there. It would be really nice to have high-
quality housing. My wife Shannon and I really are looking
forward to having new neighbors. Thanks.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. The Applicant, Mr.
Anderson and his team, is now invited back to the podium
for five minutes to add further comments.
KURT ANDERSON: Thank you, everybody. We really
appreciate it. They really have been a joy to work with.
We’ve met with them at least I think six times, and they’ve
given us a lot of great suggestions and things for us to
consider, and we’ve been working very closely, so we’re
very, very happy to have their support and be next to such
great neighbors.
I’ve got some closing comments. I’m going to put
up this up; I think this will help.
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I’ve summarized this. I took that packet. I have
one thing for you, Commissioner Kane. Initial Study, just
so you understand in our language for what we do, is the
first environmental study for the project. If that Initial
Study determines there are no environmental concerns,
that’s it, that’s what you use to create the Mitigated
Negative Declaration. If there are additional concerns that
need to be further…like see the certain standards, then we
go to what they call phase two. So when that Initial Study
is presented to you like it is, that’s as far as we’re
going to go environmentally, because we’ve met the concerns
of CEQA. I don't know if that will help you or not.
I drilled through this report; Maurice, the
clients. I prepared this like I was a commissioner. If I
were looking at this, why would I want to approve this
project? So let me run through this. It’s not in your
packet. Do you want to see a hard copy; we can give you one
real quick.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s impossible to read. Maybe
others can, but… I hate to waste your time this way.
KURT ANDERSON: That’s okay.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Maybe we can stop the clock. If
you’ve got copies of that, it would be very helpful.
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KURT ANDERSON: We’re going to bring them to you
right now.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Madam Chair, if that’s okay.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, yes.
KURT ANDERSON: Madam Chair, okay. I’ll run
through these real quick. Reasons to approve this project.
One, we are converting a nonconforming commercial
use to a residential use. Just like the neighbors said, no
more commercial, we want residential.
Secondly, the proposed PD Residential zoning is
in conformance with the General Plan. Jennifer said that in
her report.
Thirdly, the proposed PD Residential zoning is in
conformance with the Zoning Plan. Jennifer said that in her
report.
The proposed PD zoning is compatible with the
adjacent residential neighborhoods, including the Newell
subdivision and the La Montagne Court subdivision.
Next, we are eliminating a safety issue at the
corner of Newell and Winchester by relocating the driveway
access. We talked about that earlier.
Next, we are significantly reducing the amount of
impervious coverage on the site, which reduces the
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pollution into the groundwater in the bay. That’s huge.
That’s all part of our greenhouse emissions issue.
Next, we are bringing the site into conformance
with the CT requirements of the State of California for
groundwater treatment. By building the project we’re going
to build, we’re going to eliminate all that runoff that’s
going to now go into bioswales and treatments, as you saw
in the Mitigated Negative Declaration. We’re going to
eliminate a big issue there.
We’ll significantly increase the amount of
landscaping on the site. More oxygen, less carbon dioxide.
We are reducing the number of trips. This hasn’t
really been discussed tonight. Because it now goes to
residential use, the amount of trips generated from the
site instead of a commercial use are significantly reduced.
We’re eliminating an unattractive project and
replacing it with four beautiful residences.
Next, we’re diligent with the neighborhood and
have designed a project that’s garnered overwhelming
support from the neighboring residences, as (inaudible) in
the previous presentation.
The size and the design of the parcels is similar
in nature to La Montagne Court, which is also zoned R-1:12.
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The project is designed to today’s housing
standards and not standards that would apply to the 50-
year-old subdivision that was Newell.
The houses will be (inaudible) rated. They’ll be
constructed to the new building codes that will be adopted
in 2017, which are going to be significant from an energy
standpoint, et cetera.
We are, at our expense, fixing a site that has
got major problems, and that’s one of the reasons we need
the size of the homes, so that we can afford to make those
improvements to that site. There is a significant amount of
cost with infrastructure, street, et cetera. We explored
other options and this is the best result, and with the PD
zoning we’re eliminating any cost to the Town.
What we are requesting tonight is this: We’re
asking the Commission to recommend to the Council the
approval of PD Residential zoning for the four-lot
residential subdivision. We’d like you to recommend
approval of the size of the residences to vary from 3,000…
May I continue?
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, 30 seconds.
KURT ANDERSON: Well, you can read my comments. I
don’t need to go through (inaudible). I feel that this is a
summation of the report, the issues, and what we’re trying
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to achieve. If you don’t have any further questions, we’re
available for technical questions from Staff, but the big
deal here is we’d like you to recommend to the Council that
our Architecture and Site Application come back to the
Commission for approval and not to the Development Review
Committee. That way you all can have a chance to be
involved in the final results.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, time is now up.
Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: You’ve seen the report
of the Staff that we’ve received?
KURT ANDERSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And that of course
recommends denial.
KURT ANDERSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And on page 5 of that
report they list some, but not all, of the exceptions that
you would need to have this project approved. You haven’t
responded to any of those.
KURT ANDERSON: Commissioner O'Donnell, we’ve
been working with the Staff for almost three years, and
we’ve just gotten to the point where we need to have
assurance and recognition from the Commission and Council
that we can do a residential subdivision here. We’re going
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to spend a bunch of money with the design, engineering,
work with Staff to get this approved, but we’re looking for
the PD zoning approval. We’re not looking for Architecture
and Site tonight, that’s not what this application is, so
we’d like those considerations to come back.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: This is fairly simple.
It says what’s wrong with your application. You have not
responded to one of things they’ve said. I think homes
sound great there. On the other hand, when they say these
are the problems, if you don’t respond, you kind of tie our
hands, so could you tell me why you don’t respond?
KURT ANDERSON: Let me see if I can make this
clear, and I appreciate your position. I’ve been doing this
for 40 years. I know your side of the dais; I’ve been
there.
It’s a significant cost for the site. Our clients
have spent a significant amount of money with all the
consultants. We were told from day one by Staff they
weren’t going to support our application, and so we’ve gone
through five planners, we’ve gone through a whole bunch of
technical review, and things keep changing, and we still
have not yet had a positive indication of support from the
Town that we were going to be able to do this project.
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What we’re hoping to get from the Commission
tonight is we’d love to see residential use. You’ve got
some issues on there that you need to resolve. We’ll
support you if you get those issues resolved. Or, send it
to Council, recommend approval that we come back and work
with Staff; that’s on my recommendations that we’ll work
with them. We’re committed to have a beautiful project, or
we wouldn't have spent three years, met with the neighbors,
and done all these reiterations.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: As I said, as far as I’m
concerned you tied our hands. You have not responded to
these objections, but were we to recommend denial, then
you’d get to the Council. Is that what you’d like?
KURT ANDERSON: No, we’d actually like to have
your support.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: To get our support, we
are required that you comply with the various laws we have.
You don’t comply with them. We just can’t say we like homes
and let’s go for it. You’ve got a list here, but you
haven’t bothered to do anything for it. I don’t understand
that.
KURT ANDERSON: Let me use an analogy; and I’ve
used this in other cities that we work in. Think of
planning, guidelines, setbacks, FARs, all the stuff that we
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do as if you were creating a dome, okay? We’re creating a
dome. We have to design a project that fits in with that
dome, but the dome here is loose, we don’t really know what
it is, we don’t know if we have a dome. Maybe you say hey
guys, we love your project, we’ll support it, but go back
to Staff, get these things worked out, and then come back
to the Commission. That was be the first indication from
the Town that we have… Now we’re ready to go full tilt and
get this resolved, because we now get the support of a
residential project. We’ve got the support of the
neighborhood. We have yet to have indication from the Town
that you all support it. Tell us you’ll support it and
we’ll get those things worked out, and we’ll come back here
happy campers and get this resolved.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for that answer. Did
that help you? All right, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: To follow up with what
Commissioner O'Donnell is saying, and then to take what
you’re saying, I don’t believe it’s moving parts. Very
clearly in our Residential Guidelines there’s a limit to
the FAR, there’s a limit to square footage, there’s a limit
to height, there is a limit in cut and fill in the
hillsides. Those don’t change, and those are what this body
has been appointed to adhere to, so if you’re saying well
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say yes, it’s homes and we’ll fix them, then are you saying
if I go all right, I do think homes are what need to go
there—and actually your neighbors are the ones that just
convinced me of that—but does that mean you’re now going to
fall in line with the FAR, fall in line with the setbacks,
fall in line with the height requirements, fall in line
with the sidewalk requirements, and fall in line with the
cut and fill, or are you still going to say great, you let
me do homes, but I’m still going to ask for all these
exceptions?
KURT ANDERSON: I can’t answer that question
specifically to that. I can say that our clients are
committed to work with the Town to make a project work at
that site if we have a positive indication that the
Commission will support a residential project there. Am I
not answering the question well?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Actually, I’m going to wait.
I want to ask Staff more later.
CHAIR BADAME: We cannot give any guarantees; I
can say that. Any other Commissioners have questions for
the Applicant? Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I have a couple questions.
Have you read our guidelines, for example, to approve a
Planned Development? It says here that the Planned
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Development is supposed to provide for alternative uses and
developments that are more consistent with the site
characteristics, not to change the site into another site
so that you can build whatever you want there. Clearly it’s
zoned for residential, I think we all agree on that, but
how do you think this complies with our Planned
Development? I mean a Planned Development isn’t a way to
get around all of our other guidelines.
KURT ANDERSON: In my opinion, with all due
respect, a PD gives you a vehicle to do things differently
than that are required by your normal standard setbacks
because of the unusual either configuration, location, or
surrounding uses. It gives you some flexibility as a
deciding body to make changes basically because of the
unusual project.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: There must be another
proposal out there that could meet our design guidelines;
there are certainly a lot available. It’s very clear what
our guidelines are.
My other question for you was were you involved
with the CDAC feedback?
KURT ANDERSON: (Inaudible).
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Because that was in our
packet and they very clearly said yes, residential, but
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they said development should meet unmet needs, don’t have
too much cut and fill, you don’t need to exceed the
guidelines that are spelled out, and you need to fit in
with neighborhood.
The neighborhood is very clearly defined in our
Residential Design Guidelines as two, two, and five, the
immediate neighborhood, not Montagne Court or whatever
around that, and these are things that are spelled out in
our guidelines, so I just ask why you think that this PD is
justified?
KURT ANDERSON: I’m going to say this: I think by
your questions and the position you’re taking that—and I’m
making a supposition on my part, this is strictly me, I’m
not speaking for the team—generally speaking you all are in
favor of supporting the residential project here. And this
is me, I’m not holding you, I’m not putting you on the line
here, so I think what we should really do is we as the
Applicant should request a continuance to allow us to
address all of the concerns that have been the exceptions,
to come up with something that makes everybody on Staff
happy and the Town happy, and come back to you and present
it to the Commission at that point in time, so we can
eliminate these exceptions and get something worked out
that we’re all happy with. Then we can move this thing
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forward and I think probably that way we can come up and go
we’ve got it; we’ve got neighborhood, we’ve got all this
stuff worked out with Staff, we’re ready to move forward. I
think that probably makes the most sense for everybody
involved.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, I think the question
was answered. Commissioner Hudes followed by Vice Chair
Kane.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just to be specific about
that, on page six of the Staff Report there are six bullet
points that describe how the project would require
exceptions, meaning that it would not be compliant. Are you
familiar with that Staff Report?
KURT ANDERSON: Yes, correct. I’m looking at it
now; it’s page 13.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So are you saying that you
would be willing to look at all of those six exceptions?
KURT ANDERSON: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Including the one with 125’
minimum, the first one? Oh, I’m on page six.
KURT ANDERSON: I’m sorry, where are we at?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: There are six bullet points
there. I think they’re repeated several times.
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KURT ANDERSON: We’re willing to look at every
single one of those items and address them and come to you,
a resolution. Page number six. Six items.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Based on what the Applicant
is saying, would I be out of place to make a motion to
continue?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Close the public testimony.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Oh, sorry, jumping ahead of
myself.
CHAIR BADAME: No problem. If there are not any
further questions I will close the public portion of the
hearing. No further questions. You may sit down. Thank you
very much.
KURT ANDERSON: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, so I will look to
Commissioners, and I’m going to look to Commissioner Burch
to make her motion.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’m going to move to
continue Application PD-14-002 and Mitigated Negative
Declaration ND-16-002 to a date certain, which we will get
to, specifically so that the Applicant can address the
items listed on page six of the Staff Report to eliminate
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the need to ask for the exceptions. I would look to Staff
though for the date.
CHAIR BADAME: Do we have a date?
JOEL PAULSON: The earliest it could be would the
November 9th meeting. I’m not sure that’s going to give the
Applicant enough time to address that, so probably the
better option is December 7th, and if we’re still not done
then, then we’ll just continue it from there.
CHAIR BADAME: I can look to the audience and
with a nod of the head about November 9th? Okay, December 7th
sounds like a good idea. All right. Do you want to add that
date to your motion?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Yes, I would add that to my
motion.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I won’t be supporting the
motion.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: There’s no second.
CHAIR BADAME: There is no second.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’ll second.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioner O'Donnell
seconds the motion, so I will look to Commissioners now for
discussion, and Vice Chair Kane.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: I won’t be supporting the
motion for this reason: What I rail against is specificity.
Those six points, as we progress in the development of this
motion, I’m got about 14 of them, and what I would say with
all due respect and all sincerity is you don’t want to make
people happy. You want to comply with the standards, the
guidelines, the things we’ve been given to uphold, and
there is a whole Staff Report in here about reservations
and concerns. I don’t want to limit it to six points,
because that becomes a target.
I would say comply with the Hillside Standards
and Guidelines. I would say comply with the Residential
Design Guidelines. Often I say listen to your neighbors;
your neighbors love you, that’s okay.
But the third point is to really pay attention to
Staff. If we’ve been working on this since 2013, it’s not a
mystery. They’ve clearly told you what we need to have to
comply with our Standards and Guidelines, so I can’t
support it, because I don’t like specificity; I don’t like
being happy, I’d rather just comply.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I will strike the comment
about referring just to page six, and what I will instead
say is that I am asking that you comply with all of… Staff
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made a number of recommendations and comments in this; that
you just stick to that.
CHAIR BADAME: Does the seconder accept that?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yes, but let me say
something so that we are clear. The fact that we’ve said
we’re going to send this back, because you’ve indicated a
willingness to try to work this out, doesn’t mean we’re
pre-approving the project. But I appreciate the offer
they’ve made, and I think the motion deals within that, so
I would keep my second.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further discussion? Vice Chair
Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: If it’s inappropriate, I’ll
stop, but I would encourage you to take heed to what you’re
hearing and feeling up here so that we don’t waste your
time. Give it a good second shot and see what we can do
with that property. Something will be there. Likely not
this is what I’m hearing from my colleagues, so give it a
good shot. Work with Staff; they’re very good.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, I will call the
question, unless there is further discussion. Seeing none,
all in favor? Passes unanimously.
Mr. Paulson, are there appeal right of the
actions of the Commission on this item?
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JOEL PAULSON: There are not.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.