Attachment 8 - November 8, 2017 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 11/8/2017
Item #2, Town Code Amendment A-17-003,
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Tom O’Donnell, Chair
D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair
Mary Badame
Kendra Burch
Melanie Hanssen
Matthew Hudes
Kathryn Janoff
Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney: Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 8
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We begin with our public
hearings, and the first active matter on the agenda is Town
Code Amendment A-17-003, and I’ll ask for a Staff Report.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Thank you. On September 27th the
Commission began discussions on the proposed amendments to
the Town Code regarding Accessory Dwelling Units, providing
some valuable input, and then continued it to this evening.
Additional information has been provided with the
Staff Report this evening, including information on the
Housing Element’s Enhanced Accessory Dwelling Unit program,
also neighboring jurisdictions’ ordinances, the junior ADU
law, and recent bills which further clarify provisions for
Accessory Dwelling Units, particularly regarding parking
and areas where these units can be allowed.
The Commission’s recommendations on the
developments standards have been incorporated into the
amendments to the Town Code, and then there are specific
questions included in the Desk Item today related to
minimum lot size, hillside properties, and the question of
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allowing new second story ADUs on top of existing detached
one-story garages.
Based on the analysis and the consistency with
the General Plan, we are recommending that the Commission
provide any comments and recommended changes to the draft
code amendments and forward to the Council with a
recommendation for adoption. We’re here to answer any
questions. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I want to first say that I was
not here on the 27th, so today I had the pleasure of
watching you all for however long it took, but it was a
long time, and so I’m, shall we say, up to speed. I
apologize for not having been there, because I, in watching
it, know that I would have said a few different things, but
I’ll say them tonight. Anybody else want to say anything
before we start?
Okay. So because the Town is the Applicant, you
submitted something in writing. If you would like to add to
that before I call for public comment, now would be the
time.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: (Shakes head no.)
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, so you don’t. I have two
cards here, and if anybody else wants to speak on Agenda
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Item 2, now is the time to submit that card. The first card
I have is for Jennifer Kretschmer, and I got to watch you
on television too.
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: Hello, thank you. I’m
Jennifer Kretschmer, local architect. I live at Old Blossom
Hill Road.
I just wanted to continue our discussion
primarily on floor areas and what we would allow as far as
floor areas for these ADUs and JADUs, and the lot size that
we were talking about in floor area ratios.
I just pulled this from the California Department
of Housing and Community Development. They have a handout
that they’ve been distributing to local municipalities in
order to help them develop this ordinance within them.
One thing that’s important that I wanted to point
out was that the standards in allowable areas must not be
designed or applied in a manner that burdens the
developments of ADUs, and should maximize the potential for
ADU development. Now, the state did want to say that in
cases of health, safety, and welfare that of course certain
single-family zones could be prohibited, but they did want
to encourage that, as well as discussing about floor areas.
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I think since we last met we now have some more
ordinances from local municipalities, but I did bring out
just a small, little spreadsheet, particularly the three
closest municipalities that we would see, our neighbor, as
well as Santa Clara County, because we have properties
within the Town that their municipality or their
jurisdiction is actually Santa Clara County.
When you look at these basically floor areas,
Santa Clara County basically just says as long as the ADU
is within 800 or 1,000 square feet it doesn’t matter what
the floor area ratio for the property is, you can still
have it, however, if the lot in most R-1 areas is less than
10,000 square feet, they do say that that ADU must be
attached, and it has to be over a 10,000 square foot lot in
order to have a detached unit, but they do allow for it.
Saratoga doesn’t do floor area ratios like we do,
but they have a floor area type calculation. They’re
allowing for a maximum square footage of 1,200 square feet
for an ADU, and if the Community Development Director
allows, they can go 10% over their floor area.
Monte Sereno also has floor area 20% to 40%.
Forty percent is for the smaller lot size, so if you have a
lot size of at least 8,000 square feet, then you can have
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different rules for what size, but their maximum allowance,
again, is 1,200 square feet, 40% for the smaller lot size,
20% for the larger lot size as far as total floor area for
the lot.
So those were the municipalities that I wanted to
share with you, and I think that it’s important within our
town that we do look at allowing ADUs as long as it is
reasonable within the floor area or within the lot size,
and not just say it has to contain to the floor area ratio.
I think that there are many lots in town that with good
thought about the floor area you’d still be able to have an
ADU even if you were mildly exceeding the floor area ratio.
Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions? Go right
ahead.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you, and thanks for
doing the work to summarize some of this in a table. Are
you familiar with the attachment page 1 of 4 for Monte
Sereno that was distributed and part of the Staff Report?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: No, I’m sorry, I didn’t
have a chance to reread the new Staff Report. I did have
this little, nice handout that Monte Sereno is providing.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I think that’s what’s
repeated in the Staff Report, and is that the same as what
you’ve shown?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: Yeah. So the maximum ADU
size is 1,200 square feet, but you have to have the largest
lot size in the largest zone in order to be allowed to have
1,200 square feet. The smallest ones, the R-1:8, which is
an 8,000 square foot lot, you’re only allowed 900 square
feet for a detached.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that looks a little
different than what you showed us; you showed us a
percentage.
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: The percentage is based on…
So, yes, it’s in their ordinance. It’s not on this handout.
If you pull out each individual zone, for example, if you
were to look at R-1-44, they talk about what floor area
you’re allowed for your lot, and you’re allowed up to 20%,
and the ADU would have to be contained within that 20%. But
if your zoning was R-1:8, then it’s 40%.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So the numbers here equate
to 40%, the numbers on the table?
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JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: Well, that’s for the
maximum size for an ADU. The 40% is for the entire… It’s
what we would call floor area ratio.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Oh, the entire floor area
ratio.
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: Exactly, yes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, I understand. Thank
you.
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: You’re welcome.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: With your comparison chart
with the different cities, I’m not quite sure what you’re
proposing that we do. What do we follow that you’re
proposing?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: As I’ve mentioned before,
floor area ratios in this town are pretty low compared to
our neighbors, so it’s kind of hard to allow for an ADU
when you have a floor area ratio of .28. Even though you
might have a large enough lot where you would be able to
put a detached or attached ADU, and it would still comply
to lot coverage, setbacks, and all the other regulations.
What I would like to discuss and what I would
like to see our town do is to allow for an ADU of a certain
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size on certain zones, so we could say R-1:8 our maximum
floor area could be 800 square feet regardless of your
floor area ratio, as long as you can comply to all the
other regulations, including setbacks. Or we could say
maybe that’s not appropriate on an 8,000 square foot lot,
and so we could say an ADU is allowed, but it has to be
attached, so long as you comply to all the other portions
of the regulations, including lot coverage and setbacks.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: So along with the sizes
that you’re proposing that maybe we should allow for bigger
size ADU units, we do put a limit of two bedrooms, so if
you want larger floor area ratios on these ADU units, do
you want more bedrooms as well?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: No, and I think our current
code with the two bedrooms, that’s fine. If we wanted to do
one bedroom, that’s fine. I think it’s mostly on the square
footage.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: You’re welcome.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Staff proposed a table with
maximum unit size and maximum number of bedrooms. Do you
have an opinion about that table?
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JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: My opinion is basically
based on the floor area ratio, that we still contain
ourselves within our floor area ratio, and if our floor
area ratio allows for, for example, a lot that says you’re
only allowed 1,900 square feet because of your lot size,
and you have a floor area ratio and you already have an
1,800 square foot lot, but there are ways to do an ADU and
still have the parking, still have the lot coverage, still
have the setbacks, I think we should still allow an ADU,
even though it’s now exceeding the floor area ratio.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: If I could follow up? Then
you’re basically suggesting do not have a table that limits
the maximum unit size, strictly follow the floor area
ratio?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: I think the table is fine,
it’s just saying contained within the floor area ratio. For
example, like Santa Clara County says we’re not taking
floor area ratio into account in our ADUs. They have a
table as well. As long as you fit this table size we’re not
going to tell you that you have to stick to our floor area
ratio. If you can do an ADU, but you can comply with all
other regulations, we’ll let you have an ADU of this size
in our table.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: So it would be perfectly
okay for the ADU to be larger than the primary residence?
JENNIFER KRETSCHMER: No, there is a note in
Santa Clara that says it cannot be more than 50% the size
of the original structure, and that would be acceptable as
well.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? Seeing none,
thank you very much. I have a couple more cards. The next
speaker is Eric Phelps.
ERIC PHELPS: The highlight of the day for me was
the Pledge of Allegiance; that was great.
My name is Eric Phelps, and we are homeowners in
the HR zone. We have an HR-1 lot that’s about 1.4 acres,
and we’re on the northeast corner of the HR zone.
In support of ADUs for all hillside lots, minimum
of one-acre lot size, I’d like to discuss these four
topics: privacy, density, parking, and finances.
So that’s our lot here, and we are unique,
because we’re on the border of R-1 zoning to our north, and
San Jose to our east, and you see the lots continuing down.
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The Charleens (phonetic), our neighbors, couldn’t
be here tonight, but they wanted to show their support for
ADUs in hillside zones also.
What I put on here regarding privacy is if we
were to build… I put a 1,500 square foot ADU. I don’t know
what the size will end up being, but a 50x30 unit there
would end up being 60’ from our nearest neighbor, so I
don’t think there’s any privacy issue with an ADU on our
lot, and as you move farther up into the hillside zone
there are less issues with neighbors, because you don’t
have the higher density R-1 next to it. For example, the
Charleens, if they had one here, they’d be even farther
from their nearest neighbor.
This is a density chart that I got from the
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines. You can’t
see the numbers, but it goes from really 11,000 square foot
lots all the way to 32,000, and then it just says anything
about that you’re allowed 6,000 square feet buildable. Our
lot is 61,600 square feet. It’s virtually flat, 5% slope,
and our FAR is 7%. If we were to build the 6,000 square
feet and have a 1,500 square foot ADU, our FAR would only
be 12%, which is far below the lowest on this table of
18.5%. And even if somebody had the minimum hillside lot of
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one acre, and they did the same thing, they’d be 17% FAR,
which is, again, below 18.5% allowable for 32,000 square
feet, so I don’t think density is an issue.
For parking, this is also from the Hillside
Development Standards. It allows for an exclusion for a
garage of 400 square feet. A 400 square foot garage is the
bare minimum of a two-car garage; it’s 20x20. I suggest a
three-car garage for a primary residence, and a one-car
garage for an ADU, and that would be a about 1,000 square
feet.
We were forced on our private land to put in a
sidewalk, even though there is no sidewalk requirement in
Hillside, and we’re required to add an extra parking lane,
even though we’re not a subdivision, and this is what it
looked like during construction and this is what it looks
like done, so we have plenty of parking.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Take a few extra seconds,
because we slowed you down there.
ERIC PHELPS: Okay, thank you. I found this
online, the 25 most expensive housing markets in the U.S.
This is from 2016, and guess what number one is? Saratoga.
Well, where is Los Gatos on that list? Los Gatos is ten, so
we are the tenth most expensive place in the United States
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to live. The land housing in Los Gatos was ten highest.
Many of us in Hillside are paying $30,000 to $40,000 in
property taxes, and how it looks with taxes we may lose a
lot of that deduction. The most affordable place for us to
put extra housing…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: You’re going to have to wrap
up.
ERIC PHELPS: …for elderly parents and extended
family is to be able to build on existing lots, and I ask
the Planning Commission to let us consider that.
In summary, I respectfully request the approval
of ADUs for all Hillside lots, minimum acre lot size, and
an increase in ADUs for 1,500 square feet, and a garage up
to 1,000 square feet.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: There may be some questions.
Commissioner Hudes, you had a question?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah. I’m glad you got to
that last slide, because I had a question about what you’re
proposing. You’re saying 1,500 square feet as a maximum on
any lot?
ERIC PHELPS: In the Hillside zone, yes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. And what’s your
rationale for that?
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ERIC PHELPS: Not having an impact on the FAR,
based on the lot size, and I think that’s a reasonable size
for an Accessory Dwelling Unit.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I don't know if you’re
familiar with the table that was proposed.
ERIC PHELPS: No, I did not see it.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: The lot sizes that are
proposed in the table are 5,000 square feet or greater, and
10,000 square feet or greater, and for the 10,000 or
greater it’s 1,200 square foot maximum. And again, Hillside
is different, but in terms of these numbers modifying this
chart with your suggestion of 1,500, would you have an
applicable lot size where you would see bumping it up from
1,200 to 1,500?
ERIC PHELPS: Yeah, in these Hillside Development
Standards they have exclusions for floor area, so my
suggestion would be there’s simply an exclusion there for
an ADU, 1,500 maximum. And I think this is a bit outdated,
but when you get into our area there aren’t many horses
around anymore, and you’re allowed 1,000 square feet for a
barn or a stable, but my neighbors would rather us have a
1,000 square foot enclosed garage than have a 1,000 square
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foot barn with horses in it; they don’t like having horses
in the neighborhood.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, well, there’s a whole
discussion about accessory structures versus ADUs.
ERIC PHELPS: Correct. I understand.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: We’ll get into some of that
later, but it sounds like you’re suggesting that on a lot
size somewhat larger than 10,000, that the…
ERIC PHELPS: Well, I’m talking about minimum.
These are a minimum of 43,000 square foot lots, a minimum
acre lot size, yeah.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Can you just confirm for
me, I think you said your property has a 5% slope?
ERIC PHELPS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: And it borders a
residential area?
ERIC PHELPS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: All right, and you don’t
think there would be any privacy issues? If you could go
back to your first slide, I was looking at some of the
issues you were addressing, because your hillside lot is
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probably a little unusual if only a 5% slope, but there are
a lot of hillside properties that they’re on a hillside and
they have a much steeper slope, so I can’t imagine…
ERIC PHELPS: Right, and there are guidelines in
the Hillside Development Standards for accounting for floor
area ratio with slope.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m aware of that, but I’m
just saying that if you’re backing up to a residential
zone, and let’s say that your property has a 60% slope and
you want to put a 1,500 square foot ADU unit that’s parked
right above the residential zone, there might very well be
some privacy issues that I would be concerned about.
ERIC PHELPS: Well, any accessory building on
these lots is 15’ maximum height, so I understand that
there could be issues with slope, but you’d have to take
those by exception.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: It’s different when you get
a live-in unit, because now you’re going to have people
living in there with windows and activities.
ERIC PHELPS: Right, and that’s why I pointed
this out. We’re 60’ from the nearest home, and look how
close the houses are here, here, here, and here. I mean
it’s just different; these hillside lots are huge.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: I understand that, but I
just wanted to point out you have a 5% slope, and there are
a lot of hillside properties that have a much steeper slope
that could have an impact.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Related to the speaker, but
a question for legal. Is the 1,200 square foot maximum not
dictated by the state law?
JOEL PAULSON: We can go higher than 1,200 if we
choose to.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: We can go higher. Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? All right,
thank you, Mr. Phelps. The next card I have is for Lee
Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: Lee Quintana, 5 Palm Avenue. I
think I’ll start with trying to tag onto some of the
previous comments.
When I was looking through the other
jurisdictions there were two tables that I looked at that I
thought were promising beyond what is included in the
draft, and I apologize, I don’t remember the names. I think
it was Campbell and Monte Sereno, but I’m not sure. One of
them had five different categories instead of just two or
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three. One split them between attached and detached as to
the maximum house size. I thought that was a better way to
do it. I thought the table that is in the draft that gives
the number of bedrooms was a good idea.
I do have a question about “or efficiency.” This
is a question. Is an efficiency unit an ADU? And if you
exceed lot coverage in the 15% I call it backyard coverage,
but I don’t know the name—Joel, you can help me on that
one—if you exceed that, are you still entitled to one
efficiency unit, and is the efficiency unit limited to
150’? That’s a question that I have, because I don’t find
it clear from this.
Hillsides. I agree that we should allow secondary
units in hillsides. I think we need to take a more careful
look at it to see what the various consequences could be.
It may be that we need to look at what the slope is, or
what is left of the LRDA to build on, whether you want to
be able to allow two driveways, or you want to limit the
length of driveways, those kinds of things that affect how
much the building will impact the hillside topography, et
cetera.
I had several other things I wanted to talk
about. One is in our draft I didn’t see anything that
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indicated whether you were allowed to have two entrances
facing the street, or if you had an interior or attached
ADU, whether one of the entrances would have to face the
side yard or the rear yard and not be visible from the
street.
The other question I had was on tandem parking
and/or parking in driveways.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: (Inaudible).
LEE QUINTANA: Finish? Okay. With the tandem, I
wasn’t sure whether we were talking about tandem parking in
a side yard setback, but that was beyond the front yard
setback as you see pretty typically in some of the smaller
lots in town. And on the driveway otherwise, is it really
an and/or, or is it tandem parking and you can also do it
in front of your attached or detached garage?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think you’ve used your time.
Thank you.
LEE QUINTANA: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions?
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. I was trying to
understand your point about the attached versus detached. I
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think you said they should be differentiated, and I’m
wondering…
LEE QUINTANA: No, I was saying that that is what
one of the jurisdictions nearby did, and I’m sure that’s a
bad idea, because…
COMMISSIONER HUDES: The reason I’m asking the
question is that is contained in the Staff’s suggestion, to
have different standards for attached and detached.
LEE QUINTANA: I missed that. But in terms of
sizes and size of lots, there was a bigger differential
starting with this particular one which I think started at
10,000, and then every 1,000 square feet that it got bigger
it went slightly larger, and I think it may have even ended
up at smaller than we have, but I’m not sure.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for your
comments. I was wondering if you had an opinion about the
deed restriction? One of the things we talked about in our
last meeting, and it is in the Housing Element currently,
is that if you have an ADU that in order to encourage the
affordability you would have this deed restriction, but we
thought during our last meeting that that might discourage
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the deployment of ADUs, so I wondered if you had an opinion
on that?
LEE QUINTANA: I do and I don’t, because I’m not
really sure how it affects everything, but you bring up on
the ADU, on the incentive program, that it requires a deed
restriction, and that incentive program is in the Housing
Element, so I don’t see how you can’t have a deed
restriction on that.
But I know that I have an Accessory Dwelling Unit
that was legal when it was annexed into Los Gatos and it
was then grandfathered in in 1985, and originally those all
had deed restrictions on them, not to affordability, but
that the owner needed to live in the main house, and that
deed restriction eventually went away, because I guess it’s
just too hard to enforce. But I wish there were some kind
of mechanism to ensure that when ADUs are built that
they’re actually filling the intended purpose of providing
more affordable housing. I don't know how you do that.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? Thank you
very much. All right, those are all of the speaker cards I
have, so unless somebody else wants to talk I think we can
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close the public input to this public hearing, and I will
invite my fellow commissioners to have their comments.
I would just say one thing before I make any
other comments. When I listed to and watched the program,
the 27th of September, and I heard the discussion of
recordation, it’s been my longstanding experience that
recording a restriction is very, very simple, and the good
thing about it is it gives warning to someone who comes
after, and so as opposed to causing a problem for the
person who is getting the initial benefit, it can avoid a
lot of subsequent problems.
Somebody mentioned that it didn’t show up in the
title report. Well, then, the title company would be
liable, because it’s a recorded document that a preliminary
title report should get and a final title report should
get. So when we get into this discussion further, I would
like to revisit the concept of recording a deed
restriction.
That having been said, now I’ll just ask for
everybody’s comments. You had a lot the last time. Some new
proposals have been made, and so I’d like to get your
comments, and also, I found reading those other
jurisdictions very, very interesting, and you may want to
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talk about how that impacts what we’re considering now.
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: This is really a question
for Staff, and reading the other ordinances triggered it.
There seems to be in some of the other ordinances more
about design of the ADU, so I wanted to get your opinion on
this, about whether I’ve missed it and they’re in there, or
whether we decided not to include some of these items that
I would consider design items.
One of them is same or similar building
materials, roof pitch, staircase to a second story unit
being prohibited, exterior staircase, and I don't know,
there are probably one or two others. But what’s your
thinking about—if you don’t mind to share—whether we’ve
included or should include more design criteria for ADUs.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: I can start on that. There’s a
longstanding provision in the existing ordinance that, “The
design for materials and colors of a new ADU shall be
compatible with the primary dwelling unit.” I think that’s
one that’s primarily used, so that could cover roof pitch,
but certainly coverers materials and color. Then, Mr.
Paulson might have something to add to that.
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JOEL PAULSON: I would just ask for
clarification, because I don't know them all off the top of
my head and you probably read them more recently than I. Is
that one of the provisions in the Campbell ordinance, the
exterior staircase?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: It’s in several of the
ordinances that we read, and it’s exactly as Commissioner
Hudes styled it.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: That one is…
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Sunnyvale.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And Cupertino, as well.
JOEL PAULSON: Okay. There is also one in terms
of location of the entrance, and there are some on the
location of the entrance saying it shall not be in front,
it shall on the side. Also, there’s another one that says
that the unit shall not be in front of the primary unit, so
I just wonder if we’ve looked at all of those, or we
should, or we just opened a worms by looking at other
towns’ design criteria, or whether you think that we’ve
written it in a broad enough way to be able to deal with
those issues and to use those to discriminate between
proposals that we think would be appropriate versus ones
that we think wouldn’t be?
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SALLY ZARNOWITZ: I guess I would say a couple of
things.
Yeah, I do think it’s broad and it could cover
many of these issues. I think related to the staircase,
that probably has to do with egress exiting and there are
building code considerations for that, and we have
discussed that with the building official.
The location, that’s what I wanted to speak to.
They’re not allowed in the front setback, so I think that
that in many ways controls whether or not they are in front
of the main unit. I think Mr. Paulson knows more about some
of the existing ones, but it’s not typically an issue
that’s been a problem, so that is something that could be
added, but given a small lot, depending on the situation,
whether or not that needs to be a constraint is a question.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just add that if you want
to recommend that some or all or some other provisions be
added to the code, that can always be part of your
recommendation. I know we do have second units that are in
front of main units, specifically on large lots, and so
that is something that has happened.
The other is that we typically require an
exterior entrance that is not accessed through the house
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for certain types of ADUs, so to not have the allowance for
what we would have to allow in an existing two-story
accessory structure, for instance, they have to have a
separate entrance. So how those other ones handle that I’m
not sure, we don’t have that information, but we definitely
can look at that, and then also check in with the state as
to whether or not some of those provisions don’t meet the
intent of what the actual bills require.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you. Before I
start throwing out individual ones it’s good to hear your
philosophy on approaching it through a broad (inaudible).
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me follow up on that,
because what I just heard you say, I’m confused. Let’s
assume that you have the unit above the existing building.
In other words, we discussed that situation where the
roofline is such that you can actually put a unit in there,
and obviously they have to have access, and I don't know
about the access. At least I know that having access run up
the side of the building can be pretty ugly, and we’ve had
a few of those in town, which also raise a number of
issues, but obviously if you have a unit above another
unit, you’ve got to have access. Are you saying then that
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they would have an exterior staircase, open or covered,
they could just have an exterior staircase?
JOEL PAULSON: Currently, yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And do we have a limitation
then on where that access should be? Some of the papers
we’ve read said that it has to be on the side or in the
back; it couldn’t be facing the front. Do we have a similar
restriction?
JOEL PAULSON: We do not currently.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Well, I would suggest that we
consider that. Okay, are there other questions?
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Along the same vein of
getting into some of the details, because the code is broad
right now, what would be the restrictions on them putting
in a garage, a driveway, and a basement or cellar, in an
Accessory Dwelling Unit? Basements would be counted towards
square footage, I know that, but a cellar wouldn’t, so
would they be able to put a cellar in underneath the
Accessory Dwelling Unit if it was detached?
JOEL PAULSON: They could put a cellar underneath
the Accessory Dwelling Unit. The question would be whether
or not they had an existing cellar under their home, for
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instance. If they have an existing cellar elsewhere, then
it would count as floor area for us in the scenario you
just explained.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Because in our Cellar Code
we allow only one cellar?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: All right. Then I had
another question. I know we’re going to talk more about the
deed restriction, but just a high-level question on this.
Since the Housing Element does have the deed restriction in
it, would we not be out of compliance with the General Plan
if we didn’t have a deed restriction in our ADU Policy?
JOEL PAULSON: Ms. Zarnowitz might jump in as
well. I think the important piece here is the deed
restriction is completely voluntary. We’re not requiring
people to do deed restrictions. If someone wants to have
their fees paid, which is the incentive program for the
Accessory Dwelling Unit, then we are asking them to do a
deed restriction to a lower level than what we typically
take credit for, which is the moderate level for any other
ADU. Someone could make that choice, and if they don’t
choose to do that, then we’re not going to require them to
do that.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So basically right now the
way we have it worded is it would be as an incentive.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Following up on that for just
one second, some of the ordinances we’ve read do in fact
require deed restrictions, and I’m not sure why we don’t.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: You’re referring to deed
restrictions for owner occupied or…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Some of the ordinances require
that one of the houses—I’m calling them both houses—be
owner occupied. In fact, one of the jurisdictions requires
a commitment of 20 years, I believe. But yes, a number of
things they actually require, and therefore they require a
deed restriction to be recorded so the buyer, for example,
would know exactly what it is as opposed to coming down
here and looking for it. So what you’ve just said, and
since we don’t require a deed restriction it is purely, I
guess, at the discretion of the owner of the building,
whatever it is. I don't know why we don’t require deed
restrictions for some of the things that are otherwise
imposed.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think we would require a deed
restriction if there’s a restriction we’re placing on that
secondary dwelling unit. Right now in our ordinance the
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only restriction that we have is that incentive of paying
fees and making it a lower rental, then you need a deed
restriction. If we included owner occupied, which we don’t
have right now, yes, deed restriction. If some other
restriction that comes out through looking at other
ordinances, then you require a deed restriction and you
would do that.
But if we don’t do owner occupied and you don’t
think that’s a good idea, and when the only other
restriction is this we’ll waive the fees and you make it a
lower rental, if they don’t want to do that and there are
no restrictions on the property, we wouldn’t do a deed
restriction on a unit that doesn’t have any restrictions.
That’s what I think Joel was trying to say.
JOEL PAULSON: I would offer that we don’t
currently require owner occupied. If that’s something you
want to add to make it an additional level of security.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: At this moment I’m trying to
discuss it, so we can all discuss it, and there are a lot
of… We have more things now because we read four or five
additional ordinances, and at the moment I happen to be
looking at Sunnyvale, and Sunnyvale says a couple of things
in the first page of this. One of the things it says,
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“Either the Accessory Dwelling Unit or the primary dwelling
unit must be the bonified, principle residence of at least
one legal owner as evidenced at the time of the building
permit approval by appropriate documents of title and
residency. The dwelling unit not so occupied may be rented.
Prior to the issuances of a building permit each applicant
shall provide evidence that a covenant has been recorded on
the title affected property to the effect that the property
shall be owner occupied as defined in here,” and then it
says, which I find a little difficult, “for a period of 20
years from the date the covenant is recorded, or until this
provision is repealed, whichever first occurs.” I don’t
have all of these in mind, but more than not require the
recordation of a deed, and as our attorney just said, well,
yes, but what’s in it, and it depends what we’re requiring.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: Exactly.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: But if we were going to require
that at least one of these units be owner occupied, i.e.
the person in whose name the title is, then that would be a
restriction and we could have a deed restriction, and I
don’t know how the rest of us feel, but this started with
the concept that a property owner wants to add an accessory
structure. Now, if the property owner adds the accessory
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structure and then promptly leaves, so now they’ve got two
rental units, I guess the question becomes is that serving
the purpose of what we’re trying to address? And I heard in
what I watched some people say what difference does it
make? But I think we should we should at least discuss
that.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: And I think, because I’ve had
this discussion in other cities and towns over the years,
even before all of these new laws have come in, and I think
the purpose of that, requiring the owner, is trying to
preserve the neighborhood communities and not have more
rentals, and that if an owner is on property he’s going to
keep the noise and the other issues more at bay, because
he’s there to watch over the other accessory unit that was
behind that. But we have never had that requirement ever,
and it’s not a requirement under the new laws, but it’s
certainly something that could be added if you decided, so
that’s an issue I think you need to discuss and decide on.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Two questions related to
that. Do we have an idea of what the percentage of rental
inventory is in town?
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JOEL PAULSON: Roughly it’s 30-35% I think is
what the General Plan looked at the last time we went
through this, so somewhere in that range, if I remember
correctly.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: It seems like that’s a
fairly high percentage of rental units already. I guess I
can see this both ways, Commissioner O'Donnell. If the
intent is to increase the number of affordable housing
units, then any restrictions we put on the primary dwelling
unit might inhibit that. We’ve got a lot of great renters
in town, so I’m not sure having the primary dwelling as
well as the accessory dwelling as rental units would be a
bad thing, because they seem very dedicated to the
community both ways, both as owners or renters, lots of
people just really, really happy to be in Los Gatos. So my
inclination is to keep it as easy as possible for
additional housing units to be constructed.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me just say based on my
experience, I presently live in a condominium project, and
I will tell you that if you have an owner above you and
below you, more often than not you have a different sound
level, whereas if you have a tenant, not always, but again,
I’ve lived in homes in Los Gatos for many, many years, and
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if the whole neighborhood is rental units, it is different
in my judgment. It is different than a neighborhood that is
mixed with some tenants and some owners.
So I don't know that we are charged by this town
with trying to get as many rental units in town as we can.
The concept here was in essence to help affordable housing
and to increase that. I don't know that therefore you also
have to consider throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The homeowner, you say well lets get rid of you too, and
you can rent your place and you could move, and now you’ve
got two rental units. I think that might have some
difficult ramifications for the neighborhood. I don’t live
in those neighborhoods anymore, but it’s something we
should consider at least. Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I do live in one of those
neighborhoods. There are a lot of rentals in our
neighborhood, and they are quite often younger families
that want to get their kids into the school system and they
unfortunately can’t afford the large down payment, and I
find that these young families take immaculate care of
their homes. They’re proud to be here, they’re proud to be
in the neighborhood. They usually won’t tell you it’s a
rental unless you ask.
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So I feel like there are properties that have a
second dwelling, or there are a couple of properties that
are zoned for duplex that are both rented, the owner does
not live in town, but they take immaculate care. He’s
pretty dedicated; it’s how he gets higher rents on some of
them. So I feel like we may be limiting ourselves with that
with perhaps someone that now doesn’t need the bigger home,
would like to live away, but keep their property for family
in the future or something like that, if we restrict it to
this, and living in a neighborhood where I see a lot of
rentals, I’m quite impressed with most of them. There are
always ones that don’t, but I’ve always been quite
impressed with how they have pride in their residence.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I will just say that of the
five ordinances we’ve read, more than one of them had the
restriction that one of the units is essentially owner-
occupied, and there is a reason for that. You may disagree
with the reason, but there is a reason, and I just want to
make sure that we’ve considered it. If we decide that’s not
necessary, that will be what we’ll say. Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I might have missed it in
our code, and I thought we talked about it last time, about
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short-term rentals. I know we discussed that it was not
allowed, but I was trying to find where it was in the draft
code, and maybe I just missed it.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: It’s interesting, I was sitting
here thinking the same thing, because that’s the other time
when you have that incompatibility with the neighborhood is
when you allow for short-term rentals. Our code doesn’t
specifically allow it, so that we do it by preemption that
way. Since it’s not specifically allowed, we don’t allow
it.
We will be bringing that back to you sometime in
the near future though, and probably next year, to look at
if there are any areas in the Town where we would allow
short-term rentals, but right now it wouldn’t be, and
that’s maybe something we need to add to this section, or
the deed restriction-wise.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That was my thinking on
it, because if the intent is to get more housing for people
to live here, that would be counter-productive to the goal
of the California law and what we’re trying to do with the
ordinance…
ROBERT SCHULTZ: (Inaudible).
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: …so to me, if it’s not
expressly prohibited, I think we might want to add that.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: We currently don’t allow short-
term, and every couple of months we go through and try to
hit the VRBOs and send out notice to them that they’re not
allowed, and we’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it to
a very minimum. We would continue to do that until the
policy would change, but I think there might be a way to
put that in here to make certain it’s known that it’s not
short-term, and that might be where we would even do a deed
restriction that it’s not allowed.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: One of the ordinances that we
have has that restriction, so we can just look at that and
see how they did it, because I think we probably all agree
that you don’t want to have a bunch of short-term rentals.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Could I ask one more
question? Because there are some fairly major differences
with the different ordinances—I mean that all had the same
underlying intent—I wondered if every one of these
jurisdictions had completed the process of going through
the new California law in looking at it relative to their
ADU? For example, Sunnyvale is pretty restrictive, so I
didn’t know if they had actually gone through and looked
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with the goal being to encourage production of ADUs, if
they had thought about changing their code, or if they’ve
already gone through that process and this is what they’re
okay with.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: When I looked at it one of
these, and I can’t think of which one it was, had not done
it, because you can look and see when they amended it under
the little parentheses. In 2016 is when Cupertino did, so
maybe it was Saratoga that hasn’t. When I look at theirs
it’s 2006. Yeah, it is Saratoga. Saratoga has not gone
through this process yet.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So that might have an
impact on what…
ROBERT SCHULTZ: 2009, yeah, so they haven’t done
any update on theirs for quite some time.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay.
JOEL PAULSON: There are a couple of scenarios.
One is the original ones were 2016, so many of these
jurisdictions did do that, but now we have SB-229 and AB-
494, so many of them are going to have to update them again
to come into compliance with that, and Ms. Zarnowitz can
state whether or not we have… Like Sunnyvale is the one
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that comes to mind that recently adopted some modifications
to address SB-229 and AB-494.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other comments? Commissioner
Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m switching gears here
and I’m looking at Monte Sereno, and on page 3, Item J,
where they actually talk about the number of animals that
can be kept on a lot. I don’t think we addressed that at
all, and specificity is extremely important, so is that
something that we should consider? What does our ordinance
say now about the number of animals you can keep on the
lot? Would having an ADU pose a problem with additional
animals on a lot, and should we put a restriction on that?
JOEL PAULSON: We do have restrictions in another
section of code. I don’t have those handy, and I’m not sure
if Mr. Schultz knows what that is, but we do have a
restriction on the number of dogs and number of cats and
horses. Chickens, yes. No roosters.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: All right, for some reason
Monte Sereno felt it important to add the specificity that
it should remain unchanged, the number of animals, with an
ADU unit.
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JOEL PAULSON: Our ordinance, because it
specifically doesn’t say you can have additional animals,
it would apply to a house and an ADU, so that lot is still
limited to the maximum that currently is allowed.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Does anybody have any idea what
the maximum is?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: It depends on the animal.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let’s take a dog, for example.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s two.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is that what it is? Because I
was thinking if the accessory unit is essentially not
larger than half the size of the principle residence, and
in many instances it’s even smaller than that, the fact
that the larger home can have two or three dogs doesn’t
necessarily mean that the smaller home should have two or
three dogs. I don't know, this is not a burning issue with
me, but I’m just saying if you have six dogs on the
property it’s a lot different than if you have two dogs,
unless they’re wonderful dogs. It’s okay, if it’s two or
three we’ll just call it that, but I think we should
consider whether we at all want to limit the number of dogs
on the property. In other words, you wouldn’t have to say
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the auxiliary structure, you could say the total should not
be more than.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: That’s what it is. It’s a
blanket statement for the property.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, and that would be fine.
Then the person who owns the accessory structure could say
oops, I’ve used them all up, you can’t have a pet, so I
don't know. Yes, Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: For Staff. The concept of ADUs,
does it not favorably impact the Housing Element on
requiring dwelling units?
JOEL PAULSON: If by favorably impact you mean we
can count them as housing production? Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So aside from it being the
right thing to do, it’s also going to come in handy with an
onerous Housing Element requirement.
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One of the speakers talked
about abuse, and I’m sitting here thinking what kind of
abuses could there be that’s not covered elsewhere, and the
thing that came to mind was the property owner simply
extends his or her house by creating an ADU, and then
members of the family, two of the boys, go out to the bunk
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house. Well, that’s not going to help us with the Housing
Element, and I don’t think that’s the spirit of the ADU.
Would that be an abuse or acceptable use of the extended
house?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: It’s an acceptable use to use
the ADU however it is used.
JOEL PAULSON: The key is that if they came
through for an ADU Permit to extend their house, we don’t
ask who is going to live there and what their income is
unless they come through the deed restriction process, and
so we still get credit for it regardless of who lives
there.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And we’re not accomplishing our
providing abodes for lower income.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: One of the issues with the deed
restriction in the Housing Element if you look at it is
that the deed restriction is if an owner is not occupying
the ADU, then it would go to affordable. If they’re going
to rent it out to somebody other than someone who lives in
the primary residence, I think that’s the language if you
look at it.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That they’d have to rent?
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SALLY ZARNOWITZ: That’s what the Housing Element
is looking for.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The two young boys in the
bunkhouse, we might have a problem with that.
JOEL PAULSON: We wouldn’t have a problem with
that necessarily, because the two young boys in the
bunkhouse may be making no money.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s what I was thinking.
JOEL PAULSON: Yeah.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right. If I may continue?
The governor signed three senate bills and three assembly
bills into law in 2016 and 2017. They’re pretty
comprehensive and they put some requirements on us that are
brand new, which is the other reason we’re doing this. In a
percentage standpoint, those new laws affect this
discussion of ADUs to what percent? That is to say, how
much room do we have to maneuver under the laws? All of
these pages I’m presuming are our lawful ability to
maneuver. Just how big a chunk is that, given these
substantial, unique, and unprecedented laws?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Again, some of these are
required by the state, some of the provisions. For
instance, one parking space per unit or per bedroom,
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whichever is less, that’s required. There is no discretion
on that on the part of the jurisdictions, and I think we
kind of tried to go through that list of what’s required
and where there is some discretion.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I did not explain it clearly.
That’s exactly what I meant. How much of this is complying
with the law, and how much of this is our ability to design
a better procedure not covered by those six new laws?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: I’d say the requirements are
meant to be in here, so a large percentage of it is what is
required by the state and then what is discretionary—we’ve
tried to point that out—has to do with sizes, the FAR, and
certain other provisions that the Town has some discretion
over. But in terms of the parking requirements, in terms of
having to allow them in certain areas, a lot of that is
required.
JOEL PAULSON: We don’t have a percentage of
what’s required versus what (inaudible) discretionary.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One more question.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Go ahead.
VICE CHAIR KANE: On page 3 of Exhibit 14,
paragraph B-2 up near the top of the page, permitted zones.
Accessory Dwelling Units are allowed. Lots R-1, R-M, R-D,
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5,000 square feet or greater. Okay. “ADUs are allowed on
lots in the HR zones, subject to conformance with the
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines.” I certainly
could be wrong, but I’ve looked through the drafts and the
suggestions, and I’m probably wrong, but that’s the only
language I find protecting the hillsides.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: I think that was a note today
in the Desk Item, if not in the addendum, that actually the
recommendation was that there is specific language here
that the Accessory Dwelling Unit would be in the LRDA, and
then there also is specific language stating that it has to
meet the setbacks of the primary residence, because that’s
what the Hillside Design Guidelines require, so there would
be specific language on that, those two items, per the
Planning Commission’s recommendations.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Does it specifically say LRDA,
or does it say “development area”?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: You don’t have it in front of
you this evening, but I think it’s in your Desk Item that
that will be there. It will be the Least Restrictive
Development Area, and in parentheses LRDA.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Burch shows me
it’s in there; I didn’t see it. Thank you.
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Are we comfortable overall with, again, the
concept of abuse? Are we comfortable overall that that
language and those addendums have been thoroughly thought
out, that we would be looking at a whole bunch of new
houses in the hillsides?
JOEL PAULSON: I would start by saying that we
don’t go into these types of processes thinking about all
the things that could go wrong. We have some state laws
that were handed down; we have existing code that we’re
looking to modify to try to implement the new state laws.
Should there be abuses and issues that come up, then we may
be back before you and the Town Council trying to come up
with some remedies that still comply with the state law
that may handle issues such as many of the issues the Ms.
Quintana brought up of 15 driveways and retaining walls to
a separate existing house, and so those types of things. We
don’t anticipate that. We don’t see very many in the
hillsides.
I can’t remember if we put it in the Staff
Report, but since 2015 we’ve had ten ADU Permits, and so
it’s not a large number yet, but it probably is going to
ramp up, and it has ramped up in 2017 specifically with all
of the attention that this topic got in the news. Many
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people are calling virtually daily and looking at those
opportunities. We can look to remedy some of those abuses
later if they actually come to fruition, or if we would
like to go through and list every single on of those that
you think may be an issue and add those to the ordinance
somehow, then we can do that as well.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Burch, and then
Vice Chair Kane if you have a continuing question, after
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Ms. Zarnowitz, I was
wondering if you could clarify something for me? I was
looking on Exhibit 10, the legislative information that you
provided, Section 1, I think it is D-4 and D-5. We’ve had a
gentleman come up and discuss a little bit increasing the
sizing of a secondary dwelling, and there are two items
here. One talks about an attached Accessory Dwelling Unit
not exceeding 1,200 square feet, and then it says, “The
total area of floor space for a detached Accessory Dwelling
Unit shall not exceed 1,200 square feet,” however, if you
go over to 8-C, it says, “A local agency may establish
minimum and maximum unit size,” so I’m curious how much
discretion we actually have with the square footage of
these?
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SALLY ZARNOWITZ: I can start that, and Mr.
Paulson may want to jump in, but it’s our understanding
that the local jurisdiction does have discretion on the
size of the unit.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: If it’s okay, Chair, just a
follow up question with that…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Go right ahead.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: …while I’m thinking this
through, because that gentleman brought up something
interesting I really hadn’t thought about, which was
looking at it as a ratio of lots. We haven’t seen a lot
come in. I mean we do see some more now, but I doubt we
actually see that many in the hillsides, because of the
slopes and limitations. If we allowed something to be
increased in size based on the Hillside Guidelines that
Vice Chair Kane was just asking about, we would still be
looking at the size of that within the same restrictions
that we look at for any property being developed, correct?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: You’re talking about the FAR,
and right now as it’s written the FAR does apply.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Right. Okay, so if somebody
had a 2,000 square foot house in the Hillside, and then
(inaudible) to a 1,000 square foot accessory dwelling,
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based on how this is written that would be acceptable, but
if it was 6,000 and another 2,000, it would be coming in
front of us because it’s exceeding the FAR, if I understand
this correctly.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: So again, by right these are
ministerial applications, so they have to meet the criteria
or not. They’re an approval or a denial. If they meet the
criteria for the FAR for the size, even for setbacks, then
they’re approved by Staff, and including we believe the
design criteria of matching materials and things like that.
Otherwise, they are denied.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just add that I think Ms.
Kretschmer and Mr. Phelps were both looking to the
Commission to see if there was a willingness to look at
options to exclude, and again, in Mr. Phelps’ case, exclude
FARS in that exclusion list that is in our guidelines to
allow up to 1,500 I believe he said. Then Ms. Kretschmer
talked about the other jurisdictions where Saratoga
specifically allows an additional 10% if the director
thinks it’s appropriate.
I think that was the premise of both of those
comments, and so that’s something that the Commission can
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look at. Last time it didn’t appear to be something that
the Commissioners that were here looked upon favorably, so
we did not modify that. Current hillside and non-hillside
FAR has to be met with an Accessory Dwelling Unit.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: How is it ministerial if
someone has discretion to increase it by 10%?
JOEL PAULSON: They’ve added that objective
standard into their code.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: How is that an objective
standard? If he feels like it, he’s going to grant you 10%.
That’s objective?
JOEL PAULSON: We don’t know the legislative
history behind their writing that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I wouldn’t want to mess with
that. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m not going to presume to
speak for anyone else, but our task that we’ve been given
is to forward to the Town Council draft Town Code
Amendments with a recommendation for adoption. Some of you,
perhaps all of you, have your hands around this thing. I
don’t. It’s huge. It’s huge. I suspect it’s important.
That’s why I asked the question of how much of this is
flexible versus legal requirement, because if the flexible
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is an inch, I guess we’re ready to go. But I wouldn’t want
to send them a mish-mosh, a hodge-podge of this, that, and
the other thing.
The other thing we might consider doing, although
I hate to take more time, is instead of talking about
Campbell and Sunnyvale actually get the best practices,
synthesize the whole bunch of them, because they’ve got
ideas we don’t have that a number of us seem to like.
To rehash, I’m worried. You all may feel and know
better, but I’m worried that I’m not ready to send what
we’ve been talking about in September and tonight, which I
think is huge and overwhelming for some people. I’m not
sure we’re going to give them a decent product, and I
wouldn’t want them to think that we were passing the buck.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: A follow up question to
Commissioner Burch. This is in regard to maximum square
footage. On page 1 of 7 of the California legislative
information I’m trying to understand, and maybe I’m
misreading this. It says, “The total area floor space for a
detached Accessory Dwelling Unit shall not exceed 1,200
square feet,” so does that mean there is a 1,200 square
foot…
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JOEL PAULSON: That means the state law shows
1,200, but if we want to be more lenient than that, we can
be.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: And you could even do it where
anything over the 1,200 has to, then you’ve got the
complete discretion to deny it or not allow it too. That’s
the thing with it. If it’s below the 1,200, and that’s what
your ordinances used, that’s where the non-discretion is
supposed to come in.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that would meet the
minimum requirements of the state if we did 1,200, but it
would be possible to exceed 1,200?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: You could.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I have a question. As I recall,
the various assembly and senate bills, it looks to me like
the latter ones are amending the former ones, so there
really aren’t four of these things, there are really two of
these things. For example, on the Assembly Bill 494, one of
the things that is said, and this is said in no matter
which iteration we get, the local agency, “shall designate
areas within jurisdiction of local agency where Accessory
Dwelling Units may be permitted. The designation of areas
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may be based on criteria that may include, but are not
limited to, the adequacy of water and sewer services and
impact of Accessory Dwelling Units on traffic flow and
public safety.” I read that to say you get to pick. We
haven’t done that. We’ve simply said look at whatever the
residential zoning is, and that’s where the auxiliary
buildings can go in. What am I missing there? I must be
missing something, but when it says, “may,” which is
permissive, we seem to have taken our goal as less than
permissive.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Again, I think Mr. Paulson can
jump in on this, but the state, I think, is requiring that
these be allowed in all areas that allow single-family
homes, and particularly that bill is looking at making that
clearer.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: (Inaudible) the language that
says that, because I just read you a “may.” You’re using a
“shall,” so there must be something in there that says
shall, and I believe there probably is, I just haven’t seen
it.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: And we can come back with the
exact language from that, but in 1069 it really is dealing
with must if it is within the existing space. In all
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residential areas, when it’s within the existing space, it
must be approved. And then I think if you’re looking at the
different bill, which bill were you looking at?
JOEL PAULSON: AB-494.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I was looking at AB-494, but
that’s same language as in the senate bill too.
JOEL PAULSON: It’s in SB-229.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yeah.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer, I actually
have a call in to the Department of Housing and Community
Development on a couple of other issues, and so we can
gather a list of these questions. It’s our understanding
that the goal of all of these bills is to produce
affordable housing, and I know that sometimes legislation,
when it comes out…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: If we have some discretion on
picking the zones, because that’s what that language says,
that would be kind of contrary to what they’re trying to
do, so that’s why I think if somebody after this meeting
might be able to find some mandatory language it would be
helpful, because otherwise it says we can pick. Now, I
would say that obviously one would have to be reasonable
and one would have to have reasons to exclude some of your
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residential zoning areas, which I don’t have as I sit here,
but I find that directive to be very confusing. Yes,
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: In that vein, we had a
recent Desk Item from Britt Rowe that’s about lot coverage,
and I just want to make sure that that’s legal as well. In
their letter they say, “If the lot coverage does not allow
any increase in footprint due to lot coverage restrictions,
then effectively the Town of Los Gatos Planning Department
is stating the new California state senate bill does not
apply to these lots.” So I wanted to get your opinion about
whether we have an issue with lot coverage, or potential
issue with lot coverage.
JOEL PAULSON: We don’t believe we have an issue
with lot coverage. We believe that’s one of the standards
that we can enforce.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: There was another hand up.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yeah, question. There has
been some discussion tonight regarding changing the FAR
requirements for consideration of ADUs, and I’m looking at
our revised Exhibit 14, page 3, last paragraph, number 6,
floor area. I’m confused about how the Accessory Dwelling
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Unit relates to the 28% maximum. In this paragraph it says,
“The detached Accessory Dwelling Unit shall not occupy more
than 15% of the lot.” How does that relate to the 28%?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: The 15% is a provision of the
accessory structure section of the code, and you can see
that also in that other…and that’s another exhibit.
Accessory Buildings, that’s on Exhibit 15; that’s another
section of the code. It actually limits… It used the word
“occupy.” Cannot occupy more than 15% minus the setbacks,
and that’s a standing provision.
Again, a lot of what you’re looking at this
evening is already in the Town’s code, and so that’s
already in there for accessory buildings, and we’re
bringing it into the ADU section to point that out to,
really, homeowners, because oftentimes they come in and
there’s a provision somewhere else in the code, and they
haven’t seen it when they’re designing, or their architect
is designing, a project. So that is a provision that
already exists. It’s in addition to the FAR is this 15%
occupying of the rear yard minus the setbacks.
JOEL PAULSON: And so they really are. The FAR is
the 28%. I believe, or starts at .35, depending on the size
of the lot, and then drops down, depending on the lot size.
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So the .38 I believe Ms. Kretschmer was speaking about was
FAR. This is specifically building coverage, and so we
actually have two building coverage numbers. We have the
15% exclusive of setbacks, and then we have the 40% total
as a maximum coverage of all structures.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had just a general
thought about the (inaudible). I was considering what Vice
Chair Kane had said.
Although there are a lot of questions that might
be behind all this, I think we ought to keep in mind that
the goal is to comply with the California law and try to
make affordable Accessory Dwelling Unit production
increase, but on the other hand we have to ensure we don’t
have any unintended consequences. So specifically regarding
to the hillsides, since we don’t currently allow Accessory
Dwelling Units on less than 5,000 square feet… Well, we
don’t have any less than 5,000 square foot lots in the
hillsides. Is it five acres? Yeah, thank you.
I think we ought to consider this maybe in more
baby steps if we’re going to allow all hillside lots, if
they comply with the Hillside Design Guidelines and the
LRDA and so forth, to have an Accessory Dwelling Unit to
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add on to that by changing FAR and some other things. I
think that might be not fully having the understanding of
it, and keeping in mind these will be ministerially
approved, maybe we just start out with that and see what
happens, and we could always take action to loosen up the
FAR of some other things later on, but with specific regard
to the Hillside, since we don’t know how things might
change. Right now we don’t have a lot of production in the
hillsides, but maybe starting out with allowing it and
making it ministerially approved it would be to see if that
gives us the production we want.
JOEL PAULSON: I just offer a couple of things.
One thing is right now technically our code doesn’t allow
it, period, in any hillside lot. However, because we
haven’t adopted an ordinance that complies with state law
we are required to approve units, even in the hillsides, as
long as they meet our FAR, and so we have done that on a
couple of instances, and we, as I mentioned, have
conversations with folks daily. Some are of the opinion
that we can’t even apply our current regulations to those
and that we simply have to go by state law. We have been
trying to hold that line fairly steadily, but pretty soon
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that will start to erode and we’ll be approving virtually
any of them that come through the office.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So what you’re saying is
that even if the hillside lot has a 60% slope, if they want
to build a 1,200 square foot Accessory Dwelling Unit we
can’t apply the Hillside Design Guidelines?
JOEL PAULSON: Because we haven’t adopted an
ordinance that complies with state law, we are bound to
comply with the state law, which does not have those
restrictions.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right now? Let me just
make sure I understand what you’re saying. You’re saying as
long as we go forward and get these changes approved in our
ordinance we have the flexibility to say that we can apply
our Hillside Design Guidelines, but right now it’s an open
field.
JOEL PAULSON: It’s technically an open field.
Like I said, we’re trying to toe that line, and so the 60%
we would stick with the LRDA and some of the other
provisions, but if push comes to shove, then we’ll be
involving the Town Attorney, and then we’ll have some other
conversations. We can add any of those provisions, and
that’s why we generally want to add kind of a general
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statement that they’ve got to comply with the Hillside
Design Guidelines. Specifically at the last meeting there
was talk of the setbacks, which are in the guidelines, as
well as the LRDA, so those are the two big ones.
There are some extraneous issues that Lee brought
up, and probably that you guys have thought about as well,
that are good comments, and so we can look to address
those, not allowing separate access and some of those
things, and we can pull those things together, look at
other jurisdictions that maybe have hillside lots as well
and see if they have different provisions for theirs, and
so we can do a little bit more work in that area and bring
back some more information.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I’m going to say something
before I recognize the Vice Chair.
The question that Vice Chair Kane raised is
certainly a good one, and one of the thoughts that crossed
my mind as I was reading these other ordinances, statutes,
whatever you want to call them, was ours is different in
many material respects, and that’s probably true because
whichever council finally approved them came at them from
perhaps a different slant.
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We’ve had a lot of conversation about
facilitating this. Some people might not want to facilitate
it; they might want to control it as much as they can.
We’re not saying that. But in a perfect world, I guess, and
I would direct this question to both of you, and maybe you
already have, but have you studied these ordinances which
you’ve given us such that you’re comfortable there’s
nothing in them that now, and you might have had them well
before we did, have you taken them into consideration in
your draft?
JOEL PAULSON: We have taken them into
consideration, but there are things that we did not pull
forward. As you notice, Sunnyvale doesn’t have hillsides,
and Campbell only has one or two residential zones, period,
so there are nuances across these jurisdictions where they
won’t apply, but we can definitely, I think… Again, some
things were brought up this evening that we can definitely
look at and see whether or not…
As I stated at the last meeting, some of the
jurisdictions have taken the liberty with their versions
that are before you now to be more restrictive than we
actually feel you probably can be. That hasn’t come to bear
from Housing and Community Development for those
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jurisdictions, and some other ones are looser. You’ll also
notice as you look at them that some of them are more
lenient in certain areas, and some are less lenient. It
really depends on the jurisdiction, and so we can tailor it
that way, and if there are specific things that you see in
these ordinances or others that you feel would be great
additions to this ordinance, we definitely can do that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me just say this. This is,
again, in keeping with what the state has been doing for
the last number of years: they’re trying to take away
almost all control from local jurisdictions, because in
their infinite wisdom they know much better than we do
about Los Gatos. So on the other hand we can say well thank
you very much, but to the extent that we can push back
legally, we will, because we trust ourselves more than we
necessarily trust you folks.
So I guess I’m just saying if I were in your
shoes I would want to, number one, find out whether some of
these people have fairly current statutes. I think it was
pointed out to us that one of the jurisdictions had an
older statute, which wouldn’t give us a lot of comfort, but
if something is newer, and if something is in the pipeline
for the state, if I were in your shoes I’d like to know
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that to see where they are, because if it turns out they
get those approved, I would like to be on their side of it,
because what they’re doing is they’re trying to keep, I
think, more control locally, and I happen to think that’s a
good thing.
So that is not the way we have progressed, I
don’t believe, to date, because—I don’t mean this
critically—we came with a different objective in mind, and
I think what you’ve drafted satisfies that. But since I’ve
read these other ordinances, I thought wait a minute, these
people are intelligent too, and they’re doing it
differently. Should we be considering doing it somewhat
differently? You’ve now suggested that perhaps by looking
at this again—I’m not trying to put words in your mouth—you
might do something differently. If that’s the case, then of
course that would mean we wouldn’t make a decision tonight,
we would look for you to do that, but again, not putting
words in your mouth, is that what you’ve just told me?
JOEL PAULSON: Generally, yes, what we’ll do is
we’ll look at some of these things and see whether or not
there’s benefit, and obviously take the comments that were
made this evening, and we’ll probably go through a similar
exercise of the questions at our next meeting that we did
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last time. Do we think exterior staircases should be
permitted, yes or no? And so then we can take those things
and craft an ordinance that ultimately would be forwarded
to the Planning Commission, but we can definitely go
through those and take a look. I will, again, reach out to
HCD and talk to them about this topic as well as other
topics and see what, if any, new second units that comply
with SB-229 and AB-494 they’ve actually reviewed, if any.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: How does the Commission feel
about that? Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I was actually prepared to
make a motion with some specifics in it, but in deference
to the rest of the Commission, if the Commission doesn’t
want to do that I would just be happy to state the items
that I think should be included, maybe get the reaction,
and see whether we want to go with a motion that would
include that, or let Staff take another round with…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Go right ahead.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I think that in general the
recommendations are sound, and I would feel comfortable
recommending the report for adoption by the Council. The
items that I would include additionally would be design
items, so I would take the language on roof pitch from
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Monte Sereno, that says it must be compatible. I would take
the location of the entrance door from Campbell, and I
think one other, that says it shall not be in the front or
facing the street, it shall be on the side. I would take
the language from Cupertino saying there shall not be any
exterior staircases. I think if there is a second story
that staircase could be enclosed within the structure
rather than an exterior. And finally that the placement of
the unit shall not be in front of the main unit as in the
Sunnyvale language.
So those items, and then I would add to that
items that are not design related that would state that at
least one unit should be owner occupied, as per the
Campbell ordinance, and that short-term rentals should not
be allowed, as per the Campbell ordinance.
I believe that the hillside is covered, but I’m
not entirely sure whether that is, but those are the items
that I have.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: You’ve heard the discussion
about the hillsides, and if I understood the discussion
correctly the adoption of something soon would in fact help
Staff, if I understand it, so that was a discussion of the
hillsides that I found helpful.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Correct, and I’m thinking
about the additions that were proposed to have larger sizes
in the hillsides. I didn’t think that it was appropriate,
because I think we’re finding with all of the things we’re
looking at a limit of 1,200 square feet for Accessory
Dwelling Units.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me ask you another
question, because we may consider that ultimately as a
motion. We’re all talking about what we want to do, but I
would just ask you, the flavor of the conversation on the
27th was so dead set against recordation, I’m wondering if
you would be willing to say that under proper
circumstances—and I think Mr. Schultz has already mentioned
that that could be fairly limited at the moment—recordation
would be required, because I don’t think we should have
just a blanket saying oh no, we’re not going to record
anything.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, and maybe I’m not
quite on it, but if I recall, that deed restriction
currently is only with regard to lower income requirement,
is that correct?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: But if we took forward your
motion dealing with owner occupied, and it was approved by
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Council, certainly Staff would support a deed restriction
for that also, because it does provide on transfer of
ownership that that is a requirement that they also
understand when they purchase a home, as Chair O'Donnell
said.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Sure. I think both of those
deed restriction requirements make sense.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I find what you’ve just said
very, very helpful. Other comments or questions?
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, just a comment on the
setback with regard to the hillsides. Sometimes on a
hillside lot it’s tough to determine what the front, rear,
side, and back is, and it may make sense for an Accessory
Dwelling Unit to be in what we might consider to be the
front setback of a non-hillside lot, so I would suggest
that when we say it’s placed within the setback on a
hillside lot and not necessarily restricted to not the
front, but… Anyway, that’s clear.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I want you to finish that
thought. Anyway didn’t do it for me.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Okay, propose that the
hillside ADU may be within the front setback if it makes
sense on the property.
JOEL PAULSON: I think given Commissioner Hudes’
comments, I think he was the language as it’s currently
written would not allow ADUs in setbacks, period. I think
Commissioner Hudes was speaking of a location in front of
the house, but it sounds like you’re comfortable with that,
and as I stated, there may be some hillside scenarios where
that does make sense, so that would be something ultimately
if there’s a motion that Commissioner Hudes could consider.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: That would be restricted,
however, to the hillside?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, and I do agree with
Commissioner Hudes to keep the 1,200 square foot as an
upper limit.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Right. Are there other comments
or questions? Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I have both. I was wondering
for my own education, Ms. Quintana brought something up,
I’d like to understand the difference between an accessory
building or dwelling unit, and an efficiency unit, because
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that verbiage is excluded in a number of things in here,
and I’d like to understand that.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: That is language in the state
law that there shall be no regulations that would preclude
the approval of at least an efficiency unit, and efficiency
units are defined by the state and they’re 150’ square
feet. They have their own kitchens, but not… Well, I guess
that’s a junior, but they’re 150’ square feet, so they are
at least that the local jurisdictions have to allow.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: But they don’t become a
junior unit until they have a kitchen, so is it more like a
room for rent or just a type of a thing?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: It could be yes, yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, Commissioner Hudes, we
have recorded everything you said. Can you say that that’s
a motion?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Would you like to make that as
your motion, or would you like to add to it now and restate
it?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Well, before I do I just
wanted to get a sense from other Commissioners as to
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whether they think that Staff should study this some more,
looking at progress that other jurisdictions have made, or
do you think that it’s time to move this forward?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think that’s a good idea. I
would just say that for me, and I had that reservation
before I heard you, as far as I’m concerned you covered the
things that I was concerned with, as added by Commissioner
Janoff, so I’m pretty comfortable right now, but that
doesn’t mean anybody else is, so yes, I think we should
invite comments on that. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I had said earlier that I
didn’t think we were ready to forward something, and then I
heard Mr. Paulson say something to the effect of if we
don’t get that into the format of an ordinance we’re
exposed on some of our more precious divisions, for which
reason I’ve changed my mind and I’m ready to approve, vote,
and forward. If that were a motion, I’d love to second it.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, that’s fine. We’ll get
there. But let me get the comments first, because that’s
what’s been asked for. I’m going to start at the far end
and go with Commissioner Badame, and then work our way this
way.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: I appreciate everything
that Commissioner Hudes said, and I would be willing to
support a motion, should he make one, but I would like to
add that specificity regarding the number of animals.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, we’ll ask him if he makes
his motion.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: In regard to that, we allow two
dogs and three cats.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: As I said a few minutes
ago, I do think it’s in our interest to move this thing
forward and keep it broad, and then if we find that we have
unintended consequences, we can always revisit it, so I
would be in favor of moving it forward.
I just had one question though about the house in
front thing. I mean I know of a particular, because I drive
by it every day, Accessory Dwelling Unit on Shannon Road in
front of the house. What would putting that in our
ordinance and not permitting that do to the existing units?
Would they be thrown out of compliance?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Not the existing.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I don't know how many we
have; I just know that one I drive by every day.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: It would be grandfathered,
wouldn’t it?
JOEL PAULSON: Yeah, it would become legal
nonconforming. The challenge we would run into is if
something ever happened to it and they wanted to rebuild it
or expand it, there would be additional limitations that
wouldn’t otherwise be on other Accessory Dwelling Units.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay. Well, then,
generally speaking I’m pretty much okay with moving forward
if there is a motion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yeah, I’m okay with moving
forward too, but just a question for Staff. We had three
questions on your Staff Report to be answered, and I’m just
curious, I think we’ve covered most of it, except I don’t
recall a discussion about second story Accessory Dwelling
Units allowed constructed above the one-story garage, so
I’m just wondering if we should consider that and add that
to the motion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: What specifically would you
want added?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: The question from Staff is,
“Should new single-story Accessory Dwelling Units be
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allowed to be constructed above existing one-story detached
garages?”
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And you would like it to say
yes or no?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m in favor.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, that’s what I didn’t
know. Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I actually have a couple
issues with the proposed motion, one being the exterior
stairs being enclosed, or not having exterior stairs. I
would rather make the verbiage be that an exterior
staircase is acceptable as long as it meets the
architectural requirements and Staff reviews and approves
it. Once you enclose it, it adds to the square footage of
the overall residence, and having a two-story stairwell is
a lot more square footage than I think people realize, and
it may deter people, for example, from building it over a
garage, it may deter people from taking this step forward
and adding to the housing stock, so I’m not in favor of
that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me just suggest to you
this. Since we are permitted to have in excess of, if we
were to say that the square footage in a covered stairwell
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would be added to the otherwise maximum level, we’re
permitted to do that, because we just can’t be stricter,
but we can be more lenient, so I don't know whether that
would address your issue.
What I’ve got in my mind, there was a property
here in town, which I will not identify, but it was an old
property and it had an exterior staircase, which was…and
that’s another reason I won’t identify it.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I think most of us know the
property.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And so I would not like to
encourage outside staircases, but I think your point is
very well taken, but we ought to be able to deal with that
by saying to the extent that the stairwell itself is added
inside, that would be an add-on to the otherwise minimum
square footage. We could, I think, do that, could we not?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I would be okay with that. I
like the idea if I have a single-story garage and I’m
willing to reinforce it for a residence above it, not to
then be dinged because now I’ve exceeded my lot FAR, and so
I can’t do what I’m willing to invest the money to do. So
if it could somehow be worded that that would be excluded
from the FAR, I guess.
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The other thing is I’m still not comfortable with
the deed restriction of the units both are owner occupied.
I still feel that there’s a bit of freedom with property
and I’m not very comfortable with that; I don’t think I’ll
support that.
Those are my two concerns. Actually, can I ask a
question about one item on this very specifically that I
want to ask about? In Section 29.10.320, Item A, if there’s
a deed restriction limited to the incentive program, should
it note it there so people understand that they have to
take that step for this incentive program?
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Which section are you looking
at again?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: 320, Item A.
SALLY ZARNOWITZ: Oh, incentive program, yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Should it make some kind of
note that you have to take the step of getting the deed
restriction if you’re going to accept the incentive
program? Because I thought those were tied.
JOEL PAULSON: No. It’s on page 5, under number
14.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Oh, okay.
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JOEL PAULSON: But we could look at placement to
see if it should also either be in…
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Oh, yeah, I saw it there,
and that was what flagged me to look at that again. So if
you feel it’s covered, I trust you. I just wanted to make
sure people didn’t read that and not realize (inaudible).
JOEL PAULSON: Yeah, we can look at placement.
Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thanks.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other comments? Yes,
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to comment
on Commissioner Janoff’s question about the second floor
above the garage. I don't remember for sure, but I thought
when we discussed this at our last meeting we were
concerned with the ministerial approval, especially with
all the hearings we’ve had about views being impacted, what
that might turn out to be if everyone started putting
second stories over their garages and there was no check in
place for that. So for that reason I thought we had decided
not to consider that, but since Staff asked the question,
maybe we needed to discuss it more.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me make this one
suggestion. We’ve now had Commissioners who’ve said
generally speaking I like what’s been said, but I have a
particular reservation on this point or that point. I would
suggest that when we’re through discussing, if we have the
motion, when people vote, if they’re voting no, for
example, and they say I’m voting no because, if it
nevertheless passes, the Council will then be aware of what
your objection was, and obviously they could say well we
like that objection. If we don’t get a majority, then it
won’t pass anyway, but I’m just saying we’ve heard two good
objections. I don’t happen to support them, but I think
they’re good objections, and so we could do it that way if
that would be okay with everybody. Okay, now, Commissioner
Hudes, you have something?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I’m ready to move
forward with a motion. I think I’ll try to restate it, and
if I leave something out, I’d appreciate some help.
But before I do, with regard to the second story
over the garage, I am generally not in favor of that. I’ve
seen in some of the other local jurisdictions not having
two stories for these units, so I will not be putting that
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into the motion. I understand perfectly why people may
object.
Let me just go back and say that the motion is to
forward the draft Town Code Amendments to the Town Council
with a recommendation for adoption, and that the Commission
will include comments or recommendations, and recommended
changes, to the draft Town Code Amendments and take the
following actions:
Number one, make the finding that there’s no
possibility that this project will have a significant
impact on the environment.
Number two, make the required finding that the
proposed amendments to the Town Code are consistent with
the General Plan.
And number three, forward a recommendation to the
Town Council for approval of the proposed amendments, with
the following additions:
To adopt the language on roof pitch from Monte
Sereno.
To adopt the location of the entrance door from
Campbell.
To adopt the prohibition on an exterior staircase
from Cupertino, with the exception that if an additional
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staircase is required to get to a second story, that the
square footage shall not be counted in the floor area
ratio.
And that the ADU shall not be placed in front of
the main unit per Sunnyvale, with the exception of
hillsides where it could be elsewhere as long as it
complies with the requirement on setbacks.
I don’t think there was anything else on
Hillside, but I would add the language on owner occupied
from the Campbell ordinance.
And prohibiting short-term from the Campbell
ordinance.
And to add the animal limitation of two dogs and
three cats.
And not to adopt the second story above.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is there a second? Vice Chair
Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I will second the motion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me ask a question of the
maker of the motion. When you say will not be counted
against the FAR on this interior stairwell, does that also
not count if, for example, there’s a 1,200 square foot
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limitation, it would not count against that, the square
footage limitation?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Correct. That was my
intention, and also that it would include the deed
restriction for the owner occupied as well as for the
income requirement.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, so that was what you were
seconding?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, so now is there
discussion of the motion? If not, I’m going to call the
question, and for those of you who may vote not I would
invite you now to say why you’re not supporting the motion.
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I support most of the
motion, but there are a couple of items that are why I
won’t be voting yes tonight.
I still don’t support the owner occupied deed
restriction. I do support the deed restriction for the
affordable housing incentive program. I feel by saying no
to the units over the garages that we are limiting
ourselves on some housing stock that could be added to the
town. So those are my two reasons.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I will not be supporting
the motion for the same reasons, but I would like to
suggest that if we go forward with a motion that’s… Maybe
this is a question. If we go forward with a motion that
doesn’t allow second stories over existing garages in this
particular ministerial decision making process, is it at
all possible to consider Accessory Dwelling Units over
existing garages through the regular design and approval
process? Could they be allowed, but just not through the
ministerial process?
JOEL PAULSON: We can check with HCD and see if
that’s something that would be permitted.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thanks.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, are there other
naysayers? If not, I’ll call the question. All those in
favor, say aye and raise your hand. So that’s four, and
we’re four for, and two against, so the motion passes.
All right, I think we’ll now take a break. First,
we have to have appeal rights, although this is just a
recommendation.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Chair, just want to get the
count correct. Was it 5-2?
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ROBERT SCHULTZ: It’s 5-2.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Oh, I can’t count; I’m sorry.
5-2.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: Burch and Janoff were in the
minority.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Right. Sorry. Okay, so we can
take the five-minute break.
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