Attachment 4 - Jan. 25, 2017 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1/25/2017
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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
(510) 337-1558
ATTACHMENT 4
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Now we can move to public
hearings, and I would just say this, there’s only one
public hearing on this evening.
The Applicant gets ten minutes to start with.
Other speakers get up to three minutes. Everybody is up to,
so when I say ten, it’s not required that somebody speak
for ten, but they can, and when I say three, you can speak
for up to three. So the Applicant will start with ten,
others can speak, whoever wishes to speak, and hopefully
submits a card, and I’ve got some cards here now. They’ll
all each have up to three, and then the Applicant will have
five minutes to sum up and conclude. We will then close the
public input and have discussion among ourselves, and may
make a motion, whether that motion is approve, not approve,
or to continue.
So just to identify the matter perhaps more
clearly, there are two matters we’re being asked to do. One
is an Architecture and Site Application, so we’re being
asked to approve the design, and two, Subdivision
Application, because presently there are four lots and the
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idea is to combine them into one lot. Then third, the
California Environmental Quality Act requires that we give
consideration to any environmental impacts. We have before
us a Mitigated Negative Declaration, so that would be
different than an Environmental Impact Report and different
than simply a Negative Declaration. So those are the things
that we will be considering this evening.
First I’ll ask for the Staff Report. Ms. Puga.
JOCELYN PUGA: Good evening, Chair and
Commissioners.
The project site is located on the northwest
corner of Winchester Boulevard and Shelburne Way. The 1.3-
acre site currently contains three single-family homes and
a second unit.
The Applicant is proposing to merge four lots
into one lot for the purposes of constructing a 30,070 two-
story office building with below grade and at grade
parking. The Applicant is proposing an office building that
is consistent with the property’s zoning of Office and
General Plan land use designation of Office Professional.
The Applicant has proposed a two-story building with a
maximum height of 35’ and a lot coverage of 26.5%, both of
which are consistent with the property zoning designation.
Twenty-two protected trees are proposed to be removed in
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order to accommodate the building and proposed site
improvements, while 12 trees are proposed to remain.
The Town’s consulting architect reviewed the
project and had no recommendations for changes, noting that
the project is well designed with an elevation along
Winchester Boulevard that has varied heights, and façade
treatments to break the building into visually smaller
elements.
The transportation impact analysis was prepared
to identify any potential traffic impacts from the proposed
office use. The report found that the proposed project’s
impact from traffic generation would be less than
significant in accordance with CEQA and the Town’s Traffic
Impact Policy.
An Initial Study and Mitigated Negative
Declaration were prepared for the project. All potential
impacts were reduced to less than significant with
mitigation.
Staff recommends that the Planning Commission
review the findings in Attachment 3 and recommend approval
of the project with proposed Conditions of Approval
included as Attachment 4. There is an addendum and Desk
Item before you this evening that contain correspondence
from the Applicant, a project information sheet that was
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created by the Parks and Public Works Department, and
additional public comments that were received after the
distribution of the Staff Report.
This concludes Staff’s presentation, and we along
with Parks and Public Works Staff and the Town’s
environmental consultant are happy to assist the Commission
with any questions.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, so two matters. One, you
have these Desk Items, so I’m asking you now whether you
had time to review them, or whether one or more of you
wants some more time? No one is asking for more time, so
I’ll assume you’ve quickly read these, because they came in
rather late. The second thing of course is do you have
questions of Staff? Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m probably going to have
a lot of traffic questions tonight. So that I can get
geared up for that, with a 30,070 square foot building what
is the maximum fire code occupancy, so I can get a
realistic picture of the potential commuters that might be
making trips there?
JOEL PAULSON: We don’t have that data before us.
We would have to talk to the building official. The
Institute of Traffic Engineers manual is the document we
use to represent traffic generation, and as Ms. Puga said
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before, Parks and Public Works Staff is available to answer
questions relating to traffic, but we do not have the
building code occupancy for Office in front of us.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a general question.
We got a lot of comments from the public about the traffic
flow, and I understand that the traffic analysis said that
it was less than significant, but if I read the packet
correctly there are no proposed modifications, say, a
traffic light or crosswalks or any of that stuff, or
modifications to the traffic flow that are proposed, other
than that there is going to be a payment of the traffic
impact fee, which goes into a general fund is what I
understand.
JOCELYN PUGA: The project improvements include a
detached sidewalk along Winchester Boulevard and Shelburne
Way, but it does require the installation of additional
streetlights.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And then there are no
modifications to the traffic flow? For instance, some of
the public that spoke talked about the possibility of not
making a left turn. None of that is proposed at this time,
is that correct?
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JOEL PAULSON: We’ll defer to Parks and Public
Works Staff.
MIKE WISE: That is correct, there are no further
modifications.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: When you speak, and so the
public will know, would you identify yourself, please?
MIKE WISE: Sorry about that. Mike Wise,
associate civil engineer.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just add that when the TIA
is done, if there is an impact that triggers improvement
requirements based on the Town’s Traffic Impact Policy,
then those would be required, so in this case they are not
required.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: As a follow up to the
question about traffic, there have been some suggestions
about changes that might be made to access from Winchester
and I was wondering if Staff had the opportunity to
evaluate those suggestions? Right in, right out only from
Winchester and Shelburne to become right in, right out only
as well. Did our traffic engineers have a chance to
evaluate those suggestions?
JOEL PAULSON: Again, we will defer that to Parks
and Public Works Staff.
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LISA PETERSEN: Thank you, Lisa Petersen, Town
Engineer. I would like to direct the Commissioners’
attention to the Parks and Public Works engineering
information sheet that was part of the addendum, and in
that we do discuss the traffic flow that is going in and
out of the entry for the project both on Winchester and
Shelburne; that was analyzed and looked at. What was
proposed and ultimately was looked at from a standpoint of
safety was felt to be safe. It was also felt to be a
minimal amount of cars turning left both in and out of the
project; the left turn in, left turn out is a total of six
cars that are doing that.
Currently we also looked at University Oaks
Townhomes, and also the Park Hill View Apartments, which
University Oaks Townhomes are directly south of that
project, and the Park Hill View Apartments are south of the
University Oaks Townhomes, and both of those have a similar
number of left turn in, left turn out, so those two
projects are actually very similar to what we would be
seeing with this project.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I read the Mitigated Negative
Declaration, I read the Initial Study, and I read your
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project information sheets. I’m not going to give an
opinion on traffic now until we’ve had our hearing, but I
have a maybe cynical question. If there is essentially
nothing wrong here, why does the Applicant have to pay
$273,000 as a penalty for the traffic?
JOEL PAULSON: The fee that is required to be
paid is based on the Town’s Traffic Impact Policy. Whether
or not they have to do mitigation is irrespective of the
fee that they have to pay, so in this case the traffic that
will be generated by the project did not rise to a level
where it degraded the level of service at any of the
signalized intersections more than one grade below, so no
improvements were required. However, even though
improvements aren’t required, they’re still required
pursuant to our policy to pay traffic impact mitigation
fees, and so that is the fee for that. It’s not a penalty,
and it’s not intended to be an indicator of the more you
pay the worse the project is, it is just a function of how
many trips and you pay a certain fee, which I believe is
$879 a trip, and so that is what that fee is based on.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So it doesn’t help us with the
trips, and as was mentioned earlier, it goes to a general
fund?
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JOEL PAULSON: It goes to a general traffic
improvement fund, which is used to do traffic improvements
throughout town.
VICE CHAIR KANE: If I may have another question?
I also read extensive reports by the Town arborist—we have
three of them—and came back to a basic fundamental
question: When is a tree untouchable? We’ve got a tree,
you’ve got a protected tree, you’re got a historical grand
tree, but they all seem to get cut anyway. At what point do
we say, “Woodsman, spare that tree?”
JOEL PAULSON: That’s a decision ultimately for
you to make based on the requirements of the Town Code. I
would say that I couldn’t tell you that there is any tree
that is untouchable.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What does protected mean in
that context?
JOEL PAULSON: The context is that we have
certain findings and considerations that are to be made for
the removal, and those findings and considerations are
different if you have a project before any of the deciding
bodies, or whether it’s just a standing Tree Removal Permit
alone, because there are different requirements and
different standards that have to be met.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there any other questions?
Yes, Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a little bit of a
question on size and comparison to neighborhood. My
understanding is this is a General Plan designation of
Office as well as the zoning, and that entitles them to
build up to a maximum of 35’ with the setbacks that were
defined in the packet, correct?
JOCELYN PUGA: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: What I wasn’t sure of is
the height of the Palo Alto Medical office and any other
commercial… There are a couple of other commercial
buildings. I think they’re shorter and they’re much older,
but if you knew the height of the Palo Alto, I would like
to know that.
JOCELYN PUGA: The Palo Alto Medical building is
30’ along Winchester Boulevard, and along the sides and the
rear it’s 35’.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And it does slope? It
looked like it sloped back a little bit.
JOCELYN PUGA: It does slope back into the rear
elevation. If you’re looking at the rear elevation it
appears as a three-story building with an underground
garage.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thanks.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? If not,
then I would request the Applicant to come forward,
identify yourself, and describe your project.
DOUG RICH: Thank you, my name is Doug Rich; I am
the project Applicant with Valley Oak Partners. A lot to
get to in a short period of time, so I’m going to jump
right into it.
As mentioned, this is a 1.3-acre parcel at the
corner of Winchester Boulevard and Shelburne Way. It is
zoned Office, and as such with the Town Code the setbacks
as required are laid out here, 10’ along the south, 25’
along Winchester, 15’ and 20’.
Now, when we approach the site we recognize that
really good design and understanding adjacencies are the
keys, and so as we looked at this site we knew that we had
residential here and properties adjacent here. We had the
benefit of some public right-of-way here on Winchester and
Shelburne Way, but we definitely wanted to be sensitive to
these uses here.
The other interesting thing is that obviously
this is a fully developed site that unfortunately has had
some years of neglect and maintenance, and so it is
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somewhat blighted, and we knew that we could do something
here.
As we approached the site the first thing that
was important to us was the building size and scale,
because if you create a massive building it’s hard to have
sensitivities to things, and so the first thing we did was
look at that size. As was mentioned, the Office zoning
allows for 40% coverage, but we knew we wanted to shrink
that back so that we could properly place the building on
the site, and so that was brought back to 26% coverage, a
pretty significant reduction over what it could be, because
if we made it too big, obviously the whole building then
starts to encompass the site and undoes the design features
that we did, so that was the first thing that we did was
look at the scale.
The second thing was obviously setbacks. We
wanted to create an oversized setback here along the south
and along the east. We did that by pushing the building a
little bit towards Winchester and Shelburne, but as you can
see, we still wanted to create oversized setbacks versus
were required along these, because of sensitivities to
pedestrians, cars, bicyclists, et cetera on there. We had
one area that is the closest to our setback line here, and
that was because this is a really important visual
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architectural corner here as you come along, and we’ll talk
about what we did here on that.
Obviously height along with setbacks really
creates your massing and your scale. This was an exhibit
that we added to the addendum that kind of combined all the
information into one exhibit. You can see the setback lines
here, and I want to talk about the height.
Now, this height is measured from two different
points. In this particular instance this height is measured
from the sidewalk grade. Understand this isn’t how height
is measured per code, and we complied per code, but wanted
to get one perspective because of the comments that came
relative to pedestrians, bikes, and cars traveling along
Winchester, and with that then you can see that we
significantly pulled down the height. I think you heard,
for instance, the heights of Palo Alto Medical were 30’
along Winchester. We’ve pulled those heights down to 21’
here, 26’ here, and 25’ here, with only two brief
architectural elements that pop up to a height, as you can
see here.
Then I wanted to also add the horizontal
dimensions here, because you can see how much the building
actually continues to get pulled back until you reach that
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max height, almost 60’ from the closest point that someone
would be walking down the street.
In addition, I think this slide does a good job
of showing, as mentioned by the peer review and the
architect, the different articulation and modulation of
each of these pods really breaking up the plane of this
building through here.
You mentioned trees. Trees are a critical part of
the site. We were able to work with the Town arborist to
save these trees here. Not only by saving these key trees,
but also I think importantly it adds to the aesthetic and
maintains the visual integrity of the site, because the
trees here located all along the edges where people as they
travel through would be able to see. In addition, we added
a significant amount of additional landscaping, 49
additional trees; 19 along this side, 12 along the front,
and 18 along the back to create that really rich landscape
appeal on the project.
You mentioned landscaping. This is in your
packet, but I just wanted to emphasize the types of
materials, the high-quality materials, that are being used,
and the natural earthen materials both for sustainability
purposes and integrating within the neighborhood.
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There has been mention of headlights and cars. As
I mentioned in the front we wanted to be sensitive to the
adjacent neighbors, and so I feel like this is something
that had a great mitigation and aesthetic appeal to do, so
we’re placing this metal screen panel along the perimeter
edge of the at grade parking, creating this nice aesthetic,
but also as you can see it will block headlamps to be
sensitive of any light pollution going to the adjacent
neighbors.
The other thing that we’ve learned is if you can
diffuse traffic and disperse it it helps tremendously, and
so we did that by creating two separate entrances to the
property, one here along Winchester and a second one here
along Shelburne. This one through here with 41 at grade, a
great benefit because, it was mentioned in the packet from
Public Works, now you’re talking about only ten trips
through here in the AM peak hour and 14 in the PM, so
really limiting the amount of traffic that would be coming
in and out.
From here I’d like to turn the time over to the
project architect to talk about the design guidelines and
how we utilize those and are compliant with those.
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CHEK TANG: Good evening, Chek Tang, STUDIO T-
SQUARE, principle of STUDIO T-SQUARE. I just want to
highlight a couple of the major design elements.
As Doug has mentioned, the siting of the project
is extremely important, and I think what we’ve done is not
only understand the intent of the Town Code, but also
really using the guidance of the Commercial Design
Guidelines is also a way of kind of elaborating on the
design. So siting obviously is a very important item, as
Doug has mentioned. The preservation of very significant
existing trees not only on Winchester but also around the
site is really important to preserve the integrity of the
visibility the site.
The other thing, the additional setback I think
is really important to also be responsive to the
neighborhood. By the way, our neighborhood is not
necessarily just residential. There is actually service
commercial behind us, it’s a fairly industrial, got a dog
and cat hospital, and farther down the road is actually a
Quonset hut farther down Shelburne, so we’re reacting to
all these different conditions and I think our project has
tried to do that.
I think on the architectural side one of the
interesting things are you see some images of projects
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close by. Obviously the Palo Alto Health Center as well as
there are a couple of single-family homes actually farther
down the street that has some of the similar kind of
architectural treatment that we’re showing here.
One thing that you will see, the office buildings
that have been done in town generally has a very even
roofline, even the Palo Alto Medical Center or the
buildings over by University Avenue; they’re very
consistent. We actually took a very different approach to
this project in really kind of looking at the façade
especially on Winchester being much more of a residential
articulation; that’s why you see the varying roofline that
is very undulating and there are different accents at
different points of the building.
The other thing that’s really important is on
commercial office buildings we generally have mechanical
systems sitting on the roof, and the worst thing to do is
to treat this like mechanical screens; it kind of calls out
the commercial nature of the building. We actually used the
really nice, beautiful metal roof structure to conceal
those mechanical areas as well, so that also helps us to
make this project a lot more residential in scale.
The landscaping is a really big feature of this
project. In addition to the preservation of the trees there
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are a significant amount of screening trees, especially
along the residential uses to the south and also to the
east, but the one on the east is a little bit sparser just
because of the view potential from the east, so the
landscape is a really nice feature.
Then also I think one of the things that we have
tried to do with these four parcels is kind of (inaudible)
it with the public realm, so what this project has done is
essentially tying these four lots together and make it a
much more cohesive neighborhood.
Lastly, would just end with we have actually a
lot of sustainable features in the building with a solar
panel roof as well as EV charging stations in the garage,
and most of all is also operable windows in the office
building so that it could be much more energy conscious.
Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, we’ll have a few
questions, I’m sure. I’ll start with Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: There’s a lot of community
concern with blocking of the hillsides, and we really
treasure our hillsides, so when I look at your plans, and
I’m looking at sheet A-2.0, obviously the height of the
building is maxed out at the 35’, but that ground level
being 13’, is there any way you can reduce a couple feet
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off the ground office and the upper level office in hopes
of bringing down the height to preserve the views of the
hillsides, which would go a long ways towards satisfying
the neighbors?
CHEK TANG: Yeah, it’s kind of a balance of
needs. Most office buildings actually are about 15’ floor-
to-floor. I think it’s a balance. We wanted these offices
to be successful for the kind of tenants that would go in
there. So 13’ is actually quite a slender profile already,
and if you notice on the section we actually have lowered
the eave height in order to accomplish what you’re saying
but allowing the volume inside the space to create that
higher ceiling, so we’ve tried to do that.
The other thing is I think it’s also being
conscious of not pushing the building too far down, because
part of the design guidelines for these buildings along
Winchester do address the street, so the only way that we
can really do that is really just sinking the building down
further, which is not really viable.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: One more question, if I
may? Back to the tenants that might be occupying the
building and they have a certain desire, apparently, to
have higher ceilings. Do you have a proposed tenant in
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mind? Is it built for a single tenant? Are you hoping to
have individual offices? What’s your goal?
DOUG RICH: Ideally it would be a single tenant.
The building has been designed for that professional tenant
that we used in the traffic study. Open, exposed floor
plates and the roof trusses and other things are really
attractive to that type of tenant, and I think that’s the
one we’re targeting and would be a perfect fit for the
site.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m trying to understand the
building height. I’m looking at A-2.0 and I’m seeing a
building height of 32’-2” from the front grade, the
Winchester grade, but I’m seeing a height of 38’-2” at the
rear of the existing grade, is that correct?
CHEK TANG: On A-2.0?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yes. It says existing grade
is 376, and then the height would be 32’-2” from 382, so if
you take 376, that would be another 6’, so the height of
the building would be 38’-2”, is that correct?
DOUG RICH: Joel, do you want to talk about how
height is measured?
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JOEL PAULSON: Height is measured in a plane, so
you see the 35’ height plane that they have labeled Section
A, which followed the existing grade? You see that
notation?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right.
JOEL PAULSON: So we don’t measure worst case
scenario from high to low, which is a component of maybe
you’re thinking of the Hillside Guidelines where you have
two measurements. We have the height at any one plane, and
then we have the maximum high to low. I think to your
point, yes, if you measured it from back there you probably
do get to the number you’re looking at, but that’s not how
the Town Code measures height.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, so it depends on the
pitch of the roof then?
JOEL PAULSON: It depends on the plane of the
existing grade, and if you’ll notice, that plane follows
the 35’ above grade plane that is at the top of that
Section A demarcation.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: But what I’m saying is that
if the pitch of the roof were different, then that
measurement would be different.
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JOEL PAULSON: That’s true, but we wouldn’t be
measuring from the back portion of the building to the
front portion where you’re getting to the 32’-2”.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just as an example, if there
were a higher pitch and more of peaked roof on this
building, and so maybe the height of the building instead
of 32’ it might be 40’, it would still be compliant because
we’re measuring it off of the pitch of the roof, is that
correct?
JOEL PAULSON: It’s dependent on where that pitch
goes. If you want to have a steeper pitch, then you would
have to lower the floor plates, the in between floor
heights that Commissioner Badame was speaking about
earlier, because you can’t… It’s kind of like a pendulum.
They’re at the maximum 35’ height limit for most of that
rear portion of the roof. When you get towards the
Winchester side there is some room in between the 35’
height limit and the actual proposed roof.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wonder if maybe we could
put this A-2.0 up? And if we focus on the top diagram
toward the left, it says, “Existing grade 376.”
JOEL PAULSON: At that point it is 376. If you go
farther up that line you’ll see it says 379, then goes up
to 382.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Three eighty-two, right.
JOEL PAULSON: If you go the other way it goes
down to 372.5, down to 371.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, but the rear of the
building is 376, is that correct?
JOEL PAULSON: There’s an arrow of the 376 that
is not pointing to the rear of the building.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay.
JOEL PAULSON: It’s pointing up there in between
the A and the D of grade.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, I’m missing the
arrowhead there. So at the rear of the building…
JOEL PAULSON: It looks like it’s approximately
375.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that would be even more.
That would put the height of the building at 39’-2”.
JOEL PAULSON: If we measured it the way you’re
looking at it, that’s correct, however, that’s not how we
measure the height.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So could you show me how
we’re getting 35’?
JOEL PAULSON: Ms. Puga, if you can just maybe
show him the 35’ height limit line.
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JOCELYN PUGA: So we’re taking it from the grade
here, which is 375, to the highest roof point, which is
right here, so this point to this point is 35’, and that’s
how Town Code requires that we measure for height.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Why is that the highest roof
point? Isn’t the highest roof point toward the middle of
the building?
JOCELYN PUGA: It’s the highest roof point at
that plane.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: At that plane? Okay. Okay, I
understand how you’re measuring it. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, I think there were
some other questions. Yes, Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question about
sustainability. The CDAC talked about you should consider
LEED certification, and since you’ve already gone down the
path with the solar and the bike lockers and so on and so
forth, why not go for at least the minimum LEED
certification?
DOUG RICH: We’re proposing what I guess we’d
call LEED equivalent, et cetera. It’s everything except
going through the certification process, and the whole
purpose for that is that the cost of the certification is
quite expensive and it’s fixed. It doesn’t scale with the
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size of your building, so certainly for larger buildings it
makes all the sense in the world, because when you look at
it and spread it over a cost per square foot of the
building, it’s not much. When you get down to this size at
30,000 square feet it starts to be very expensive on a cost
per square foot, and so we look at it and say wow, the
purpose of this is to make sure that the environment
benefits, and we can do all those benefits, but the cost
becomes prohibitive on a building this size.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I can understand. I have a
related question to that, if you don’t mind. The BTA looked
at this a couple of times, and you’ve implemented a number
of their recommendations in your plans, but not all, and
they talked about a transportation demand measure type
program, and I wondered have you considered any of their
other recommendations like encouraging your tenant to
have…showing them the things that they could do to reduce
the number of cars with passes or something like that? I
realize they’re going to be your tenant and you can’t make
them do that, but have you considered about how to
encourage some of that so we reduce some of the traffic?
DOUG RICH: We’re actually going to do that.
We’re actually going to be implementing the TDM measures,
and I think we’ve got a good selection that kind of hits
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all the different avenues, so that would be subsidies for
transit tickets, so that kind of handles the public
transportation side. We’ve got preferential parking for
ride sharing, so that handles those people that want to do
that, and then we’ve gone with the extra bike lockers and
bike racks, plus showers, to hit the cycling side, so we’re
absolutely going to be implementing those things.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, so you are
considering most of the things that they said?
DOUG RICH: Right.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I had some questions, but
you’ve captured my attention with this other discussion.
What is the approximate cost of LEED certification, silver
not gold, the plan B?
DOUG RICH: The certification side, you can go
through the different levels, platinum. It’s about the same
cost for that, so that doesn’t really vary, but it’s over
six figures.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Somewhere above $100,000 to get
a LEED certification, and that’s what these other companies
have done when they get LEED certified, they pay that much
money?
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DOUG RICH: Yeah, because there’s a lot. I mean
there’s the process there. You’ve got to get consultants
that go through, and usually there are multiple layers to
check the box and submit the forms and all this kind of
stuff. It’s quite elaborate.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. So I like your phrase,
“LEED equivalent.” It might save a lot of people a lot of
money if you could provide that document, and at the top it
can say “LEED equivalent,” and we can hang it somewhere.
DOUG RICH: Sounds like there needs to be a
competing program, you’re right.
VICE CHAIR KANE: No, I’m serious. If you are
doing all the things that the LEED certification requires,
I think that should be memorialized. You should have a
document that says it, and that would have some meaning.
DOUG RICH: Absolutely. We definitely would
market all the things, because we’re doing solar, we’re
doing all these great programs. We’re absolutely going to
market those, because they’re important to tenants and
they’re important to us.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So does that mean yes, you can
provide…
DOUG RICH: Yes.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. We have some
passionate and articulate letters from the community, your
neighbors, and a couple of them talk about the way the Palo
Alto Medical building has configured its parking such that
the cars are not going to travel out into space and the
headlights are not going to be bothering anybody. Did you
look at their configuration? Or when you mentioned the
additional landscaping, do you think that would totally
cure the headlight problem?
DOUG RICH: We looked at those items. As far as
both safety and light, as I mentioned, along the perimeter
of this we felt like that metal panel was a creative way to
deal with the headlights while still providing a great
visual appeal aesthetic side of it. Then as far as the
safety goes, along here there will be a 2’ continuous curb
wheel stop that stops that, then you would have the metal
panel, and then as I mentioned here we’re planting 19 trees
along there. Trees become one of the best safety barriers
there is; they don’t move. And then there’s an existing
block wall there. We felt like the combination of all those
items dealt with headlight and light pollution, as well as
safety.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Did you communicate
that to the concerned parties, and did they find it
acceptable.
DOUG RICH: I did communicate it. It was not
acceptable.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: We have a letter from
Shauna and Bob Garzee and it’s relating to the exterior
exit stairway on the south side of the property. I don't
know if you had an opportunity to read the advisory
comments on the Conditions of Approval, and it would be
Item 40, and it talks about, “The exterior exit stairway
from the parking garage is less than 10’ from the property
line,” and there are certain building codes that you need
to comply with a fire separation distance of 10’ from the
adjacent property lines. There are two alternatives there.
One solution would be to enclose the stairway in a one-hour
rated enclosure, and the other option would be to move the
stairway into the large fan room area. I’m concerned about
crime, just as they are; it’s kind of my passion. Do you
have any thoughts on that?
CHEK TANG: As long as the rating of the garage
enclosure is within the type one garage structure, what we
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can do is also have a rated door at the bottom of the stair
to create separation so that long great stair could
actually be outside of 10’. Our stair is actually not
inside a 10’ separation at this point. Our minimum setback
is 10’, so we have to be outside of that.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. With regard to
the architectural style, what would you describe as the
architectural style?
CHEK TANG: We took a lot of cues from different
buildings around, and one of them is actually just maybe
two blocks down the road. There’s a house there that we
showed an image. I call it a more modern interpretation of
the single-family home. There you go. On top, the two
images are a little dark on the screen, but it has a
standing seam metal roof, really clean plaster kind of a
condition, but in our case we actually augment that with a
very nice what we call wood-like rain screen material; it’s
very high-quality, very textural, and very woodsy looking
to give it some warmth. But the way we look at it is this
is the anti-commercial feel where we have a lot of breakup
in terms of the architecture that’s more relative to the
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scale of the residential, so I would call it a more updated
kind of residential scale commercial building.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, and just to follow up,
I think you mentioned in your earlier remarks that you felt
that the architectural style was compatible with several
residences in the area. Is it just that one, and are you
referring to the mid-century modern that is across the
street on Winchester, or are you referring to the bungalow
that’s across the street, or the Spanish mission style
homes? Which residences do you feel that this is compatible
with?
CHEK TANG: In terms of the overall massing we
tend to try not to look at architecture as like 31 flavors,
what flavor you put here, but really looking at… I think
actually the design guidelines ask for it too, is how do
you break up the massing of the building, so we didn’t say
this should be Victorian or this should be this or that. We
look at the scale of the building. The scale of the
building we literally kind of crafted it so that it merges
in with the massing of the buildings around it, so that’s
the first thing. It’s not just necessarily stylistic.
We did take some cues from the library, which is
contemporary, but it’s very warm; it still fits in with the
overall town quite nicely. But we are also very
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conscientious, and the library doesn’t fit here, but there
are elements of the library, which is contemporary but
still fits in the neighborhood very cleanly, very warm.
But one of the main things about this project
that I think is important, especially in commercial office
buildings, is the roof. Most buildings tend to have a flat
roof and mechanical screen; that’s the main element that we
thought would really tie into the neighborhood, and you can
see also we’ve crafted the roof very carefully to react to
different conditions within the site.
So I don’t have a kind of stylistic answer,
because I don’t think that’s appropriate for the
neighborhood as well, because Victorian hasn’t been built
around for a while and there’s not necessarily that
immediate context, because we don’t want to draw from the
medical office building next door either, but we want to be
sensitive to the overall massing and forms.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think Commissioner Badame was
in mid-question at one point, so let’s go back to you; then
Commissioner Hudes, we’ll come back to you; then we’ll come
to Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I just have a quick question.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: If you’ll bear with us, he has
one quick question.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: Of course.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Are you saying anything bad
about our library?
CHEK TANG: No, I think it’s a beautiful
building.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Next question. I thought it was
a comment, but go ahead.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: All right. Vice Chair Kane
earlier had mentioned the headlight issue that concerns the
Vasona Oaks townhomes. I would be concerned too if I lived
there. Is there any way that you could consider
perpendicular parking on that south side?
CHEK TANG: You mean parallel parking?
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m sorry, yes, parallel
parking.
CHEK TANG: I think for the circulation it’s
actually kind of tough, because you need to pull into the
space and you’ve got to make a U-turn to come back, because
on that side is the parking. You’ve got to pull in, and
then you’ve got to find a way to come back out. From our
point of view there are literally like four redundancy
measures that we’re applying here, and actually over-
applying on top of the required 6’ block wall, and so we
thought that would be appropriate.
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The other thing that I think is really important
to point out, and I think is a legitimate concern, but if
you look at the sections that we provided, the areas of the
parking is also more in line with the garages that are on
the ground floor, those units.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: And did you work with the
neighbors with those 19 trees that you’re going to plant
along there to make sure that they would buffer the noise
and the headlights?
CHEK TANG: Yeah, we’ve heard the comments on the
community meeting, and Doug can probably speak to that, but
we’ve actually had quite a bit of discussion.
DOUG RICH: We actually increased the number of
trees and certainly could work with the neighbors on
placement of those, absolutely.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes, you were in
mid-question too.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: This is actually on a
different topic, but I think it was raised earlier. How
many employees, customers, clients, people will be on this
site?
CHEK TANG: In terms of the occupancy, the office
building is about 30,000 square feet, so as the typical
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occupancy rate is about 100 square feet per occupant it’s
about 300 people that work in the building. But in terms of
parking, we have 128 stalls per code, and so it’s two
different measurements. So the density of people in the
building would be about 300 if it were fully occupied.
DOUG RICH: It varies by the use, and for the
professional use it’s usually a lot less than that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. Are you contemplating
a particular use?
DOUG RICH: We’re contemplating the professional,
tech, that type of use.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And how many people would
that be?
DOUG RICH: I don't know. It depends on the
tenant.
CHEK TANG: The previous answer was giving you
basically per building code, so for that kind of use that’s
maximum, but most likely it’s not that dense.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is there a number we should
use for consideration other than 300?
DOUG RICH: It depends on the tenant, and I don’t
have a tenant lined up yet, but I can tell you whom we’re
going through. Some of them like to have 500 square feet an
employee; it just varies.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I wanted to make sure about
something. We’ve made references to the letters we’ve
received from the community. In all fairness, you have
received copies of all of those letters, and have you had
time to review them? They have the same letters I have,
yes?
DOUG RICH: I have the same letters, correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Just one last question I
had. As I was driving down Winchester in that particular
area, one thing that I really noticed, other than the Palo
Alto Medical building, which kind of disappointed me, is
that all the commercial buildings were fairly concealed by
trees. I know you talked about your landscaping plan, so I
was trying to come up with an after picture when the trees
that were going to be replaced were mature. Is any one of
these renderings what you would expect the very final…
Because like that one there exposes quite a bit of the
front of the building, so it wasn’t concealing very much.
And the other shots that were the back of the building,
maybe it was because you were just trying to show us what
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it looked like, but it didn’t look like it was going to be
covered by trees, even though I could see that you had that
in your plan. I was just trying to see what it was going to
look like.
DOUG RICH: I think you’re right. I think you
have to look at the number of trees that are planted and
where they’re planted, and we can certainly bring up the
landscape architect to talk about maturity. It’s always
hard with a rendering, because I actually want to be able
to show the building, so we have to pull that back, and
you’ve got trees that are smaller and all they kind of
stuff. But certainly the intent, you’re right, is to really
kind of nest that building in along with those trees.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So that basically you
wouldn’t be able to see a lot of the façade?
DOUG RICH: Correct.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I just want to ask a couple of
things myself.
I went out and looked at the property again
today, and then I went up the block to look at the Palo
Alto Medical building, and realizing the size of the
buildings and the height of the building I was surprised
that the Palo Alto Medical building looks less imposing
than this building, and I asked myself why, and so I’m just
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going to bounce this off you, because I could be wrong on
both counts. It does look lower to me, even though that’s
not the number that’s correct, and all I could think of was
the land there is more precipitous; it goes down awfully
quickly, I guess. You’re talking about excavation and
you’re talking about how many cubic feet you’re going to
remove.
DOUG RICH: About 7,000.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Seven thousand. So I don't know
what they did on the Palo Alto Medical building, maybe it
just started differently than yours, but it does seem to me
that notwithstanding, and I don’t criticize what you’ve
done, it sounds like you were very careful about it, but
nevertheless, and I’m looking at the story poles, it looks
taller and therefore more imposing than does the Palo Alto
Medical building when in fact you’re telling that in the
front it is actually a couple of feet taller I think is
what you told me. Is there some reason for that, other than
the fact that maybe I’m not viewing it properly?
DOUG RICH: I don't know. It’s a good question. I
haven’t really thought about that and compared the two,
because when you talk about absolute terms, correct, we’ve
actually pitched the roof down lower. I don't know if it
just has to do with actually having the building and having
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the visual of the façade there and how it slopes up versus
a story pole. It’s a good question; I haven’t really
contemplated it.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: When I drove into the parking
lot of the Palo Alto Medical building, you really go down,
and then there’s that large outdoor parking area, and then
there are two entrances to their semi-underground parking.
Does your property fall as rapidly as does the Palo Alto
Medical clinic?
DOUG RICH: I don't know that answer. They could
be down quicker than we are. That’s a good question; I
don't know the answer.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Seven thousand cubic feet is to
accommodate the underground parking?
DOUG RICH: Correct.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you. Other
questions? Thank you, you will have a chance to come back
when we’re through here. I’ve got some cards here, which
I’ll run through and I’ll call your name, and you can come
up and speak for as much as three minutes. The first name I
have is Bryan Carr. Please come forward.
I have not said, it’s very helpful, again, when
you identify yourself. If you can give us your address,
that would be helpful, too. Thank you.
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BRYAN CARR: No problem. Thank you,
Commissioners, for hearing us tonight. My name is Bryan
Carr; I live at 17566 San Benito, which is directly across
from the proposed building.
I’d like to start by saying the concept of
compatibility. I would say imagine yourself looking at the
hillside, imagine yourself living there, owning a house for
12 years with our family looking at the hillside, and then
having that building built in front of you, and then ask
yourself how would you feel? Would that be compatible? I
don’t think it’s compatible at all, and I don’t necessarily
think the Palo Alto Medical building is terribly compatible
either, but this takes it even in a direction further from
compatibility in the neighborhood. I wrote an objection
letter for the Commission to review that basically the
height of this building is simply too high, it’s too close
to Winchester, and it just is not compatible with the
neighborhood at all.
There is a lot that could be done with this
building that would make it compatible, but the developer
has no intention of doing that, because it would simply cut
the profit of this project. This project does not benefit
the Town of Los Gatos; it benefits the developer’s
financial needs; that’s it.
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We’re asking that the building be pushed back 10’
and down 10’, and I believe some of the responses to that
were that that wouldn’t be possible and still have the
underground parking, but that would be very much possible
if this were made into a one-story, and the majority of the
buildings in this area are all one-story buildings. They
would still have their desirable 13’ ceilings.
To the developers I would say having this giant
building in our neighborhood isn’t desirable at all, and we
live there, so if compatibility was of an interest to these
individuals and certainly to the Commission, this could be
brought down to a single story, the parking could be easily
done underneath the property. It’s my understanding that
the bio-pond could easily be elongated on the back of the
property, which would allow the building to be pushed back.
To your point, Commissioner O'Donnell, the reason
that it seems so much higher than it is is because of the
way it’s designed where the front of the lid comes to the
highest point on the property, and if that was reduced or
that was turned around, it wouldn’t seem so imposing to the
street, and that’s what we’re objecting to as well. Thank
you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions? Yes,
Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: If you don’t mind, you
mentioned that you had requested that it be pushed back 10’
and down 10’. What do you mean down?
BRYAN CARR: Just the overall height of the roof
is brought down 10’.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I see. So if it’s 23’ now,
then you’re saying 13’?
BRYAN CARR: 35’ by some sort of measurement, and
to your point, I think 38-point-something is the actual
height that the residents see this building as.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, so you’re looking for
a height reduction of 10’?
BRYAN CARR: Of 10’ and also (inaudible).
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Did you discuss these with
the developer?
BRYAN CARR: I have not discussed it with the
developer, no.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: No.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My question is somewhat
following up with Commissioner Hudes’ last question. Were
you contacted by the developer for any community meetings?
BRYAN CARR: Absolutely none. The first that our
family heard about this was the story poles being put up,
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which seemed challenging as well as it was, I think, four
days before Christmas. I don't remember the exact date.
That same day the story poles went up we tried to call the
Building Department to find out what was going on, and it
was already in winter holiday break, so I think there is
definitely a feeling amongst the neighborhood that this is
definitely trying to be kind of slid through under the
radar.
I have to say that any type of approval to move
forward on this now, I couldn’t describe it any other way
except as reckless. I don’t think the EIR is accurate. I
don’t believe the traffic report is accurate. Three hundred
people in the building and then no answer on who is going
to move in. It’s not right for that neighborhood; it just
doesn’t fit.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You live on San Benito?
BRYAN CARR: San Benito Way, yes, at the bottom.
VICE CHAIR KANE: San Benito Way?
BRYAN CARR: Yeah.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Staff, is that within 300’
where you send out the notices, do you know?
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JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have that information in
front of me, but I believe the speaker said it’s directly
across the street. Obviously there are a number of
properties, and then it gets to San Benito Way back there.
I’ll see if we have an exhibit that can show that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You don’t recall a notice from
the Town about the project?
BRYAN CARR: No notice whatsoever, and we feel
that we’re not being given ample time to even prepare a
defense on this, and so I’ve met with Building twice to try
to talk about other types of options, but I’ve had no
contact whatsoever.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Just for the record, when you
send out the notices—it’s been a long time since I used to
do those kinds of things—but we used to use a title company
to help us find the homes that were within 300’. What do
you do to ascertain the distances and the homes within the
distances?
JOEL PAULSON: We have programs through ArcGIS
that determine 300’.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: It’s been a long time for me.
We didn’t have programs. But you’re satisfied that you
noticed everyone within 300’?
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JOEL PAULSON: Yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay. Other questions? Thank
you very much.
BRYAN CARR: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The next card I have is Andrew
Spyker.
ANDREW SPYKER: I’ll say while that’s getting set
up thank you for reading through our extensive comments.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Why don’t you wait, so we don’t
start your time?
ANDREW SPYKER: Okay. Andrew Spyker, 708
Winchester Boulevard. I’m actually the closest unit in
University Oaks and the president of the HOA. I want to
talk about what we consider issues of the project.
The first is size. We’ve talked a lot about Palo
Alto. It is actually half the size in terms of parking
spaces and therefore the size of the building. Many of the
other office buildings are set back. This is going to set a
precedent for the rest of the land that’s directly north of
the project, Green Thumb and others; there’s a lot of space
there to be developed.
The other thing, we live at existing grade. We
don’t live at whatever grade the measurement was done from.
These are two pictures, before and after. The left, my
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oldest son’s window, and the right, my youngest son’s
window, and I’ve superimposed the building plan with the
story poles. You can see we went from looking at trees and
skies to about 80% blocked and about 60% blocked for the
two windows, and my neighbor—Virginia will talk—is about
100% blocked, so from our perspective this is a massive
building. It’s three stories high, starting with the
parking garage and moving up to the other two stories.
Traffic you guys already talked about quite a
bit. That’s just a picture of the left turn lane where you
can’t see anything all the way to the Blossom Hill
intersection. There’s just no way you can let left turns
come out of this property.
From an exhaust and noise perspective, we’ve been
talking to the developer on this, but the current plans
still have all of the exhaust of the garage about as close
as you can get to my neighbor’s front door and our open
windows of our property, so noise and exhaust is a serious
concern for us.
The biggest concern that we really have is this
metal screen is the only way to deal with what they call
“at grade parking.” The reality is by the time it gets down
to us it’s actually 4’ above our existing grade where we
live and I am concerned about the head-in parking, which
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we’ll cover as well. There are trees, but they’re shown at
their mature height. What will they really be when they’re
put in? And my kids play in the driveway that is pictured
down to the right here.
You guys looked at this as well from the Palo
Alto. You can see they did perpendicular parking where it
was really close to the building beside it. They have a
fence that’s very substantial and completely blocks
anything cars could throw at you, and this is facing
commercial, not residential.
So we really want to deal with this, which is
what happened when they didn’t put in a fence across the
street at the ear, nose, and throat when a car went over
into residential with the same sort of drop off, and they
finally had to build a fence to deal with cars dropping off
into their property.
And there are other places where there are
residential to commercial. This at Panera, and you can see
the buffer is quite bigger, much more substantial trees,
cinderblock wall. None of the issues with headlights and
parking from that perspective.
Proposal for us is just reduce the size of the
building, take the parking to actual grade level, and
reconfigure those 13 spaces to not be facing our property.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, thank you very much.
Are there questions? Yes, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’m just going to ask you
the same question I asked before. Were you contacted by the
developer for any meetings, and did you attend those?
ANDREW SPYKER: Yeah, absolutely. I am the
president of the HOA. Not everyone in the HOA got a card
about the development, but many of us that are here did. We
actually attended a meeting on September 12th with the
developer at the Los Gatos Lodge and we voiced some of
these concerns. After that we had a meeting with the
developer where we heard about adding more trees as the
only mitigation from the head-in parking perspective in
early December, and unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of
time to follow up with the developer, because it was after
that, and as mentioned, right around Christmas, that the
story poles went up, and honestly, until the story poles
went up we couldn’t really judge the height of the project.
It was only once they were up that I was able to
superimpose it with my design skills and be able to see
what it really was going to look like.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Chair, may I ask a follow up
question?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Sure.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: In pertaining to the
headlight and the parking situation, when you did meet and
you talked, did you discuss your desire that it be a more
substantial wall or something built there to keep some
privacy?
ANDREW SPYKER: Yeah. We did, and what we heard
was that with adding more trees and our existing sound
wall, which is not really a structural wall, and the
screens for the lights, that that would be sufficient.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? Yes,
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. At the September
meeting when you met with the developer, did he have the
designs that we’re seeing today to show you?
ANDREW SPYKER: No, in fact we actually have
access to a couple different documents that I still don’t
see in your planning documents of the proposed changes with
adding the trees, and he actually developed I think it was
this one. I should say I do believe they listened to us, so
I do believe there is communication, I just don’t think
there were solutions.
We were provided at the December meeting with…
After the September meeting we heard in December that they
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were ready to talk again. It’s September 9th and then
December 9th, or somewhere around there. And we were
presented with this, because we were really asking what was
it going to look like from our perspective? If you look
through the current plans you’ll notice that everything is
chopped off right around where residential starts and there
was really no profile to have an idea what the site was
going to look like. This is what we were provided with and
informed that the mitigation was just more trees along that
border as opposed to changing the height of the drop-off or
doing something better about the head-in parking.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? Thank you very
much.
ANDREW SPYKER: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The next card I have is
Georgina Van Horn.
GEORGINA VAN HORN: I’m Georgina Van Horn. Thank
you for your attention. Thank you also for focusing for so
long on traffic.
I am one of the closest along with Andrew Spyker,
couldn’t be any closer to the building, and I’ve lived in
the townhouse for 30 years. Right now it is very, very
precarious turning right or left out of our driveway. There
are kids going to Daves Avenue, which is around the corner,
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and also to Fisher Middle School, which is very close,
walking and riding their bikes. Very dangerous situation
under the best of circumstances, and not even to mention
that it’s a 25 mile an hour zone and most cars go 40 to 50
miles an hour right there on Winchester, so that’s a major,
major concern.
Another is the size of the building, which you’ve
heard talked about. It does not fit in with that whole
area. It will shout out. Us that have windows upstairs, as
you saw in the pictures that Mr. Spyker showed, it will
block light, we will be facing a wall, we will have the
cars I feel like practically on my doorstep.
There’s another concern with the trees. If you’ve
read the report, most of the trees will be eliminated and
that whole boulevard from Lark is all tree lined, which is
one of the main entrances to our town, and so the buildings
kind of recede, and they’re old, beautiful trees, which are
such a treasure in our town.
There’s an exhaust fan that we’ve talked about,
and I know Doug Rich has worked to change that, but that’s
partly needed for the underground parking. It’s very close
to us. Will it spew fumes all day long, because if it’s an
exhaust fan, that’s it’s purpose? And will there be noise
also?
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So these are my concerns: The size of the
building, the traffic, and the exhaust. Just the looks of
that whole neighborhood will change drastically. I
appreciate the minor concessions that the developer has
worked on. I know it’s zoned commercial, but I know with
your help we really could minimize the impact of that
building in our area, so thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Before I check on any
questions, I didn’t get an address. Could I have your
address, please?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: I am 706 Winchester
Boulevard, and I’m the very first townhouse as you turn
into our driveway here, and Mr. Spyker’s is the second one,
and we’ll be literally right along their driveway and the
cars that will be facing us.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you. Are there any
questions? Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Were you notified, and did
you meet with the developers?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Yes. Yes, the same September
meeting. Yes.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? Thank you
very much.
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GEORGINA VAN HORN: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The next card I have is Kyle
Frandle, and your address, please?
KYLE FRANDLE: 17480 Shelburne. I’m the owner and
operator of Los Gatos Dog and Cat Hospital, and I have 285
feet of frontage on the east side of the building.
We’re the longest continuous operating business
in Los Gatos, having served the community for 70 years. We
moved to this site 28 years ago, and so Commissioner Kane,
you asked when is a tree not a good tree? When it has cost
me about $40,000 over the last 28 years for roof damage to
two separate buildings from some of the oaks, so I’m
somewhat confused by the portrayal of which oaks are being
removed and which are not, because I still have one that
hangs over about 60% of my clinic, and over the years I’ve
had to put a new roof on it because of damage from that
tree. It’s still somewhat confusing to me about which trees
on our border are being removed. It seems to give a
portrait of these trees being completely inside of the plot
when in fact there are several of them above my clinic and
above the house at the back north side of the building as
well, so I’m a little bit confused and I’d like some
clarification, because if these are going to remain, for 28
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years I’ve had these trees being pruned to try to prevent
damage, but I’ve had damage to several buildings.
I’m glad that at least we’re going to deal with
the water, because for 28 years we’ve had to sandbag the
back of our entrance to the clinic to prevent flooding
coming down the grade.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions? Yes,
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I heard what you had to
say. Are you generally in favor of the project, or not, or
you just wanted to express your concerns about the trees?
KYLE FRANDLE: Well, I need to know what the
liability is for this, because we’ve got two roofs, and I
know they’re heritage trees, but they’re dangerous trees,
and I don’t know what their fate is going to be. It’s hard
to determine, because on some of these maps you see nice
little round thing that doesn’t seem to suggest that it’s
outside the canvas or the boundary of the property that’s
being developed.
I’m not against it. I was contacted by email
regarding that there was going to be a project, but I
wasn’t in country when the initial meetings were being
held.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: But your main point is you
wanted to express your concerns about the trees and the
damage they could cause?
KYLE FRANDLE: Yeah, absolutely. For 28 years
I’ve been dealing with them, and I have the entire east
side frontage of this development.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: With your concern with the
trees, did you have an opportunity to read the Town
arborist’s tree report, which is available online on the
Town website?
KYLE FRANDLE: Yes, yes.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: And it wasn’t clear to you?
KYLE FRANDLE: They’re still falling on my roof,
and they’re getting older, and I know that with development
that oak trees suffer. There’s a lot of project going on on
that. I’m concerned, because I have seen other developments
where the trees have died after heavy machinery is in
there, and if they’re moving the amount of dirt that
they’re saying, there’s going to be a lot of impact on
those, and I didn’t see anywhere where that was considered
in the development of this project.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Thank you. Any other questions?
Thank you, sir.
KYLE FRANDLE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The next card I have is John
Eichinger.
JOHN EICHINGER: John Eichinger, 637 San Benito
Avenue in Los Gatos. I’m not on San Benito Way; I’m a few
blocks away.
I do commute every day past this and I always
enjoy coming up Winchester, and when you get just to that
intersection you finally get the view of the mountains
again. That view of the mountains is going to be gone with
this project.
My question is the following: I sat through the
North 40 deliberations. It was very interesting; I got up
and I was vocal about them. Part of the North 40
deliberations was that we had this mandate from the state
that we had to provide more housing in Los Gatos. Instead,
this project is providing more commercial space; it’s going
to bring in 300 people a day with only 120 parking spaces.
Three hundred people a day possibly into Los Gatos,
exasperating the commute project, and adding more people
who are going to be looking for housing in this vicinity.
Why is this project not being zoned for residential
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instead, this property? It’s an acre-and-a-half; it should
be residential. If we have a state mandate that we have to
have more housing, and especially more affordable housing,
in this town we don’t need more office building, we don’t
need more commercial building.
As the other speaker said, this adds nothing to
the Town of Los Gatos but more exasperation. It decreases
the views, it adds more people coming in, more traffic. It
doesn’t solve the problem of residential in this town. It’s
too big, too tall, and not appropriate for this town. Thank
you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions? Yes, Vice
Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Just a question of Staff. In
the report somewhere I read that previously there was a
residential proposal for this property. Is that accurate,
and if so, what happened?
JOEL PAULSON: That is accurate. The Applicant
can probably speak further to this. They did have a
residential project. Given the concerns in general in town
with Planned Developments the Applicant made a choice to
bring forward a project that actually complies with the
existing General Plan land use designation and the existing
Zoning Code.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: As the other one did not
comply?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct, because it would have
been residential in a commercial zone.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think there are no other
questions. Thank you very much. The next card I have is
Angelia Doerner.
ANGELIA DOERNER: Hello, Angelia Doerner, proud
resident of the Almond Grove, and an even prouder resident
of the Town of Los Gatos.
I’m really glad that mention was made about our
schools, because no one has talked about the Safe Routes to
School and which ones this might impact. There are a lot, a
lot, of children that traverse that area before school and
after school, so I’m really glad that that was brought up,
and I didn’t see it really discussed anywhere in the TIA.
Adding just a couple of things to my earlier
comments. We have this tonight. Alberto Way was supposed to
be heard January 11th, but it’s been continued, which will
be done pretty soon. As Chair O'Donnell said, the McCarthy
thing will be done very soon. The story poles on Double D’s
came down very recently. There’s a high probability that
all of these things will be going on at the same time. Also
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a high probability that the VTA routes 48 and 49 are going
to be taken away; they’re going to be taken out of service.
We must somehow devise a holistic plan for traffic impacts
during construction with all the construction traffic and
construction workers as well as ongoing.
I request a study session for a traffic impact
analysis so that people and residents have a better idea of
what is involved with this, because how you can have 300
people, 128 parking spaces, but only have 33 cars going in
the AM, I don’t get it. I just think it’s horrible. Left
turns out of there will be very dangerous. I go to Dog &
Cat Hospital. There are always issues with people trying to
get in and out of there.
Architecturally, I gag when I go by Netflix. I’m
just glad that it’s so far on the other side of town that I
can pretend that it’s Campbell. I can’t stand this glass,
glass, glass. I mean it’s so imposing. And they use the
library as a precedent, but a library is not an office
building, and I’m not saying anything bad about the
library, Mr. Kane, please. But anyway, it’s there, but
there’s nothing else in town that compares to it, and I
hope there isn’t as far as more town closer into town
property. All the glass is imposing. Personally, I think
that it seems higher than other buildings because of the
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glass. It’s totally out of place as to size and style.
Windows, windows, windows. They can see out to the
hillsides, but no one else can see the hillsides that they
see now.
That I think is just about it. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there any questions? Thank
you very much. I have what I think is the final card. Bryan
Mekachuk.
BRYAN MEKACHUK: Hi, Bryan Mekachuk. I’ve got two
properties. One is 55 Roberts Road, and the other is 17509
Via Sereno.
A couple of points. I wrote two letters, and I
think I explained quite a bit in those letters. I just want
to highlight a couple of points that the Applicant raised
tonight.
One of the things is they were talking about the
size, but I think what they did was they worked out how
much parking they could have and then they worked backwards
from that in terms of the square footage, so they couldn’t
get any more… The building is as large as it can be for the
amount of parking that they have.
If you look at the height of the building, they
picked the highest point on the property, that’s the
northwest corner, to establish the 35’.
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They only provided two cross sections, one east-
west, one north-south. I’m asking for a number of other
cross sections.
The setback, they talked about a large setback.
Well, the setback is for the trees so that they could keep
those two trees in the front on the southwest side of the
property. If they moved the building farther west, then
those trees would be gone.
Regarding the comment on certification. Well, you
know what? You don’t have to pay $100,000 or more to go
through and do the check list and calculate yourself how
many LEED points you can get and what certification you
would get. As the Vice Chair said, go through the numbers.
I didn’t see any solar in the plans, so regarding
sustainability, that seems to be an add on. Maybe I missed
it.
Regarding the sustainable elements, if you look
at their initial application and then the comments that
Staff made, the only reason why electric cars, et cetera,
were included was after the fact because Staff asked for
that.
What I’d like to do is just put up this. If you
look in the top right hand corner here, then you can see
that that’s the highest part, and they carry that same
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plane all the way south, and the parking lot that they call
at grade is actually almost a full story at the back.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: We have a question for you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I interrupted when you started.
I wanted you to take the mike with you so that the millions
at home can hear you, because once you move away from that
you’re not being recorded and we don’t have a record. So I
interrupted you. I’d like you to make your last point
again, because I didn’t get it.
BRYAN MEKACHUK: I believe my last point was
saying that they’re measuring the elevations from this
corner. This is the northwest corner. And they only
provided one elevation, and that goes along this line here,
which is north-south, and they provided an elevation this
way that goes east-west.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? If not,
thank you very much, sir. I know that’s all the cards I
have, so if anybody else didn’t get a card in we can
entertain it now. If not, then I’m going to recall the
Applicants and they have five minutes for their final
statements.
DOUG RICH: Doug Rich again. Thanks. The project
was originally submitted as a residential. The application,
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as mentioned, was pulled because of lack of support. It
would have required a zoning change, it wasn’t compatible
with the existing zoning, and then all the impacts that
we’ve talked about in Los Gatos relative to residential
were definitely in play with schools and all these things,
and so we felt it prudent to move forward with this project
as envisioned by the Council and the Planning Commission
and what it was designed for.
The 300 number, just to clarify, that was a max
number based on fire and building code. That’s not the
intent in the design of the building, and so sorry, that
was something that was misspoken.
The design features we feel like are absolutely
compatible as referenced by peer review and the Town
architect who also went through and said that this is
compatible with the project.
Then I wanted to respond to some of the comments
that were made, the first with Mr. Frandle. We can
absolutely work with him on properly trimming the trees
through permitting, et cetera, to make sure that they don’t
impact his roof; really want to do that.
It was also mentioned relative to the exhaust. We
are absolutely and have been working with them to move the
exhaust away from the southern side. It’s been changed to a
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vertical element. It’s not a fan blowing up through there,
it’s actually just a louver and it’s actually just a vent
shaft that would move north-south, and we’ve moved it away
from pointing out towards their property to now 10’ in and
vertical to address that concern.
As far as the parking goes, I have absolutely met
with them. They’re right; we’ve had dialogue back and
forth. I’m not trying to be a pain on this. The thought was
just as follows, and frankly we can fix this if you would
prefer. The thought was simply okay, someone is coming down
through here, and so they’re not coming down the ramp and
accelerating and heading straight over there. You’re
actually going to have to be braking in order to make a
turn, and typically turns are three miles an hour,
especially in the thing.
So the thought was okay, now you’re dealing with
some of this going slow, then you have the wheel stop, then
you have the metal panel, then you have the trees, then you
have the block wall. We felt that was sufficient and really
liked the aesthetics. If that doesn’t work and the
Commission believes that we need to do more, I have no
problem replacing this metal panel with a block wall type
panel in order to address that. I don’t think it’s the best
thing aesthetically, and like I said, I personally believe
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that what is there right now would handle cars at that
speed, but if that’s prudent and you feel it, let’s do it.
My intent is not to fight with that.
I think my last point, as far as intensity,
compatibility, this area along Winchester, which makes
sense to me, has been designated by the Town as Office, and
it runs from our property all the way up. Interestingly,
the property next to us is also Office. This is actually a
nonconforming use, and this is zoned Office as well. When
we looked at the site and we said how do we be sensitive to
the size of this thing we looked at the street, and two
stories, two stories, two stories, and when you look at the
measurement of intensity that the Town uses, which is
building coverage, 47% coverage, you can tell.
Interestingly, they’re at 20%; we’re at 26%. We absolutely
tried to be sensitive and pull it back. We could have built
to 40%. We didn’t do it. We didn’t think that was
appropriate. We looked at what was there and felt like this
absolutely integrates with the street along there in terms
of intensity. 47%, 20%, 26%. We believe that we have
created a project that will be a proud crown jewel.
I absolutely went out and sent out the notices.
There always seems to be someone that falls through the
cracks. I’m really sorry with that. I think you’ve heard
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that I was absolutely available and accessible and met
multiple times with those who had expressed items for me to
follow up with through both email and actually additional
in face. I’m certainly available to do that with other
items too as we work through. I appreciate your time.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Questions? Yes, Vice Chair
Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’ve got a lot of numbers
spinning in my head, and I’m at a decision point, so I need
your help. There are how many parking spaces? One sixty-
eight.
DOUG RICH: One twenty-eight.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One twenty-eight.
DOUG RICH: There are 41 at grade and 87 in the
subterranean.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And the two parking levels are
not connected, is that correct?
DOUG RICH: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You’ve got to drive around the
building? The number 300 on people I understand was a
lawful maximum, and nobody should be shot for that. But
let’s say that it was 200 or something like that. Did you
say ten trips a day earlier in your opening remarks? And
somewhere else I’ve seen 14. I need this to be explained to
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me—what Denzel Washington said—like I’m a six year old. I
don’t see how you get that many trips out of that many
people with no parking.
DOUG RICH: Right, and we can have our traffic
engineer come up. Just quickly, traffic is always funny,
because traffic deals with peaks, they don’t deal with how
many in a day, how many in aggregate, they look at what’s
the busiest time of the day and how many trips are created
at that busiest time of the day, and so when you look at
just that busiest time of the day, then yes, with the 41
stalls at grade it says that you will have at just that
busiest time of the day ten go in that driveway in the
morning, and 14 go in that driveway and out of that
driveway in the evening.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Total?
DOUG RICH: Out of the 41. Now remember, people
leave at different times of the day.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And there are 128 spots for we
don’t know how many people, somewhere between probably 100
and 200. How does that work?
DOUG RICH: Well, remember that’s just 41. The 87
below have to go out Shelburne. They’re not connected, so
out of those 41 stalls at just the peak time of the day you
would have ten going there. Now, people come earlier than
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the peak time, people stay late and work late, so it gets
diffused throughout the day. That’s where that number comes
from.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m thinking if you’re looking
at a single tenant then you’re not going to be retail,
selling, customers, patients, you’re going to have 200
workers, and they tend to arrive at the same time and they
tend to leave at the same time. I don’t understand the 14
trips, or whatever the trips are, and I also don’t know
where you're going to put the cars. You need to educate me.
A hundred and twenty-eight spots for approximately 200
people, does that work elsewhere? Is that one of the
traffic phenomenons where you say oh, it’s really okay?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Whom are you directing your
question to?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Anybody who can answer it.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: You can ask this person if you
want to, and when we’re closed you can ask Staff.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Is that a question you can
answer? Does this work elsewhere? Maybe 200 people, 128
parking spots.
DOUG RICH: We have our traffic engineer, if you
don’t mind, who did this, and we’ll have him…
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GARY BLACK: Gary Black, Hexagon Transportation
Consultants. I think as was explained earlier, typically
when we do our traffic studies we don’t engage in questions
about how many people are actually in the building, but we
relate the traffic to the size of the building, which I can
explain a little more in a minute.
On the parking requirement, this project is
meeting the Town’s parking requirement, so the Town has
determined through studying other projects over several
years that that’s the right number of parking spaces for an
office building with 30,000 square feet. You could ask the
Planning Department for more details about that.
The way that we do our traffic studies to figure
out how many cars are going to come in and out is that we
count other office buildings that are already built and we
see how many cars are going in and out of those office
buildings, we relate that to the size of the building, then
we project that onto this building. That was the basis of
our estimates here.
I think Doug was talking about there are three
different things that are floating around. One would be
daily trips; I believe you asked about daily trips. We did
have an estimate in our traffic study of the daily trips,
and that estimate is 332; so 332 daily trips. Typically we
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do our analyses at the busiest times of the day, at the
morning and afternoon when the workers are coming and
leaving. Our estimates for that, and this is based on
counting other office buildings in Los Gatos, for one hour,
the highest hour, 40 in the morning and 49 in the
afternoon.
Then I think Doug was also talking about the two
different driveways. This project has two different parking
fields and it has two different driveways, and so the
numbers 10 and 14, that’s our estimate of the traffic at
the Winchester driveway, because that’s a smaller parking
lot. We also have an estimate in our report of the driveway
on Shelburne, which is a higher estimate, because that’s a
larger parking field. I hope that answers the question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It may be minutiae, but if the
parking levels are not connected and I’m trying to get in
on Winchester, which is the smaller of the two, and it’s
full, how do I know that and what do I do?
GARY BLACK: That’s an excellent question. We
haven’t engaged in a discussion of how this would be
managed. My guess is that visitor parking spaces would be
accessible from the Winchester driveway that would be
marked for visitors, and employee parking spaces would be
assigned, so you would be assigned to either what’s called
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the “upper garage” or the “lower garage,” and in an office
situation the same people come every day, they know where
to park, and so we don’t see that that would be really that
big of a deal, that there would be very many instances
where a car would come in and not be able to find a parking
place and then go back out on the street to go into the
other garage in an office situation like this.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there other questions? Yes,
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you, another traffic
question. How would one relate the 40 and 49 to the 128
spaces?
GARY BLACK: I guess that question is kind of
getting at what period of arrival do we typically see for
office buildings? I know there is a lot of thought that
maybe everybody comes at the same time, but our studies
have consistently shown that people come over a long period
of time in the morning and leave over a long period of time
in the afternoon, so we typically see people start to
arrive 6:00-6:30am and through maybe 10:30-11:00am, so
typically office parking peaks at 11:00 o’clock in the
morning, so everybody is in by 11:00. Then they start to
leave, and so the parking gradually just decreases
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throughout the afternoon. There are spikes, those certain
hours, but when you watch office building driveways like we
do for a living, that’s what we see.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you would expect to see
40 per hour for five hours, or some number like that?
GARY BLACK: Well, we would not expect that there
would be a need for more than 128 parking spaces, so 40 for
five hours would be 200, so we wouldn’t’ expect that many.
It ramps up. Starts low, gets to a peak of 40, and then
drops down again, and if we were to graph that, I don’t
have a graph to show you but you can imagine what that
graph looks like with a maximum of 40 and the total area
under that graph would be 128.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you’re saying the 128 is
consistent with the 40 number that you’ve represented?
GARY BLACK: Yes, it is.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I have a question. The 128, you
had nothing to do with that, that was just simply meeting
the Town’s requirements, so when you assume 128 parking
spaces, what did you assume for the population of the
building?
GARY BLACK: As I stated, we don’t make
assumptions about the population of the building. What we
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do is we count other office buildings. We know their size.
We don’t know how many people are in there, but we know
their size. We count their driveways; we see how many cars
are going in and out per day, per hour. We relate that to
the size of the building in terms of square footage, not in
terms of number of people that are in there but the square
footage of the building. We do that over multiple
buildings, not just one, we do a bunch of buildings, so the
converge on a number of what we would call typical we use
the term “trip generation” for an office building based on
the size of the building.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: So it’s fair to say you do not
take into account whether one building has twice as many
people as another building, you assume the same load?
GARY BLACK: Well, it’s not even that
complicated.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: That was pretty simple,
actually.
GARY BLACK: We count the cars going in and out
of the driveways of the buildings, and then we relate that
to the size of the building.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: What I’m saying is one building
has 300 people in it, and one building has 200 people in
it, and one building has 100 people in it, you don’t pay
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any attention to that. You look at building size and you
say the composite is a number.
GARY BLACK: Right.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Now, doesn’t common sense tell
you that you have different traffic patterns depending on
how many people are in the given building?
GARY BLACK: Yes, and that’s why we survey a
number of buildings, not one or two, but I think the trip
generation rates are based on over 100 buildings. In this
particular case we also looked at some buildings
specifically in Los Gatos. There aren’t very many office
buildings in Los Gatos of this size, so we only found
three. We did count those, those three buildings, but the
range was not that great.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: What were those three
buildings?
GARY BLACK: 475 Alberto Way, 16795 Lark Avenue,
and 975 University Avenue. Those buildings are all in the
15,000 to 30,000 square foot range.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: You have three of them. Could
you tell me the square footage of each?
GARY BLACK: The square footage? Yes. Do you want
to go building-by-building?
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: There are only three of them,
so yes.
GARY BLACK: 475 Alberto Way is approximately
30,000 square feet. 16795 Lark Avenue is 22,000 square
feet. 975 University Avenue is 15,000 square feet.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And you get some kind of
averaging by doing what?
GARY BLACK: We count the cars going in and out
of the driveways of those buildings, we divide by the size,
we get number of “trips”—that’s our lingo—number of trips
per square foot, per thousands square feet.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: So you take the number of trips
per 15,000, you take the number of trips for the next
number, and the number of trips for 30,000. Those were your
three, right?
GARY BLACK: Yeah.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And then you factor it such
that you take into account the relative size of the
buildings?
GARY BLACK: Yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: So if I were to look at 30,000
I’d expect twice as much as 15,000?
GARY BLACK: Yes, exactly right.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Notwithstanding what in fact is
the reality?
GARY BLACK: And that’s pretty much what we
found, and if you really care to dig into this deeply, the
numbers in our traffic study are actually published.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Oh, I believe you.
GARY BLACK: I don't know how much you want to
dwell on this subject, but yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: If I get really tired tonight,
I’ll dwell on it.
Does anybody else have any questions? Yes,
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: It’s not for the traffic
engineer; it’s for the Applicant. A question following up
though on that conversation is I understand the 128 and how
we get to that, that’s how the Town works, and obviously
for a typical office you can be looking at one per 200
square feet to one to about 300 square feet for typical
office use, so that gets us over the 128 if each person was
driving, and unfortunately we all love our cars and most
people drive. So is your plan when you exceed 128 cars to
park on the street?
DOUG RICH: In our experience you are going to
have a lot of different factors that go into that. One is
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that people take vacations, and so you are never at quite
the peak load. The other one is, as I think I mentioned
earlier, we are going to be utilizing the TDM measure. I
obviously wasn’t here when the thought process went in to
zone this area as Office, but it’s a fantastic location for
getting to from alternative means with bicycling and
pedestrians, et cetera, and so we absolutely want to take
advantage of that and utilize that in order to drive down
that number as well. And the overflow, I think people find
different ways that they deal with that, yes.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: We can’t do that. Can I ask
another question?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Sure, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: So you just mentioned the
biking, and Ms. Doerner had brought up the number of people
that do travel on that road via bike. Have you had a chance
to meet with the Bike Coalition to look at how you may get
involved in that program and assist in maintaining safety
in the proximity of your project for the children and other
cyclists?
DOUG RICH: I haven’t yet. That’s a great idea. I
should…
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’d really like you to do
that, please.
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DOUG RICH: Yeah, I should do that.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: It’s a very active thing
that’s happening in our town, and as a mother of kids that
bike to school it’s very well appreciated and has increased
a lot of safety.
DOUG RICH: That’s a great idea. Can you tell me
the name again, sorry?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Like the Bike Coalition.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: If you call the Los Gatos
Elementary School District, they can refer you.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Yeah, because I don't know
if I could give you like an exact number or anything. And
may I ask one last question?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’m going to switch from
traffic and all to the architecture. In listening to what
your neighbors and all were saying, and I’m definitely
going to agree with some of the confusion on the building
height, because within your own documents you have two
different elevations. If you look at A-2.0 and A-4.0 I get
two different heights, and I definitely understand how the
grade works and how we measure to, but I’m going to say
let’s not take those actual number facts, let’s talk
perspective. If you look at A-4.0 I think as you’ve
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listened to your neighbors, those numbers are what it’s
going to feel like, particularly with the architectural
elements you have on the front, which I think look good,
but I’m not sure are going to be as well received in this
area as they may be elsewhere.
So, for example, if you look on the west
elevation it says to the parapet is 39’-2”, and I think
what’s going to happen for your neighbors, even though you
measure from grade and all the things that I do know how
the Town does that, the feeling is going to be that it’s
nearly 40’.
So my question for you, as you are trying to work
with the neighborhood, and I’ve definitely heard that you
want to, would you be willing to look at some of those
architectural details that drive that height up and create
what feels like a quite immense vertical plane in two spots
on the front, if you would look at other ways of bringing
that height down?
DOUG RICH: I just want to start I guess by
clarifying one thing, and I realize the confusion that
comes from this, so I’m not surprised and this is my bad.
That height is actually measured from the lower level
parking lot, as you can see if you look at section 3 on the
right you’ll see what is clearly labeled as ground 00 is
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well below the ground, and that’s where that comes from,
which is why that number skews so high, if that makes
sense.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I know how to read… Yeah, I
know what this is, but what I’m saying is I actually think
in listening to your neighbors, depending on where they’re
standing, these numbers are what they feel like they’re
going to see, and if that’s the case and there are some
architectural tweaks that don’t mean you’re losing overhead
ducting ability and distribution that I know you need, but
if there are architectural tweaks that could bring some of
that perceived height down, would you be willing to look at
those?
DOUG RICH: Yeah, I think so. I guess did you
have any specific suggestions on what that would be, just
to kind of give me a flavor for it?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I see three architectural
elements that stick up high.
DOUG RICH: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: And I think you can pretty
obviously see them from here too.
DOUG RICH: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Those would be the items
that perhaps could be lowered and softened. I do like how
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you’ve used the roof to screen the mechanical; I wish more
buildings would do that, because it hides it and it looks
very nice. But I think while those architectural details
look very nice in certain settings, perhaps the setting of
where this building is going to be, it doesn’t engrain with
the neighborhood as well, and perhaps when you look at
perceived height and perceived massing those elements could
be softened, and I’d like to know if you’d be willing to
look at that, depending on how this conversation goes
tonight.
DOUG RICH: Yeah, I think I would, and I guess my
one question/request you could call it would be if I can
agree to that if you would be comfortable that I could work
with Staff on that post hearing. Would absolutely do that
to try to soften those; you bet.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I am. I can’t speak for my
other fellow commissioners.
DOUG RICH: Sure.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I trust that Staff does take
these notes down very well, and unfortunately they’ve had
to work with me entirely too long, so they know what I’m
looking for.
DOUG RICH: They know you are. That would be
great. I’d love to work with Staff on that.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: Yeah, but I’d obviously have
to look to my other Commissioners.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have two areas; maybe I’ll
just take one of them first, and that’s trees.
I’m trying to reconcile the report from Ms. Ellis
and the schedule of trees that you have in the document. In
one case I’m seeing in the arborist’s report 23 removed
protected trees out of 36, which is 64% of the protected
trees. I’m also looking at your schedule L-2, which shows
29 removed out of 43, if I’m correct, which is 67%. So two
questions here.
The first one and probably the most important one
is have you looked at other configurations that wouldn’t
remove two-thirds of the protected trees for this project?
DOUG RICH: We looked at a lot of different
configurations. In fact, that was one of our selling points
for residential. Candidly, it could save a lot more trees,
because you have smaller buildings obviously. As we looked
at the building we were trying to balance a lot of
different factors, and it’s really tough, because it’s like
if we save this tree, then I’ve got to push the building
closer to neighbors and the problems with that, and I would
love to have this, but because of grade I can’t do it, and
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so we looked at trying to save the maximum amount of trees
that we could, and we’ve made changes actually as we went
through this process. We reduced the size of the building,
we increased the setbacks, we dropped 2,500 square feet in
order to save some trees, and so we’ve absolutely done that
as part of our process and felt like okay, love to save
more, but based on the realities of the site and
everything, this is where we ended up.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m not saying I’m
convinced, but it sounds like you’ve basically said that in
order to move forward with this project you need to remove
two-thirds of the protected trees.
DOUG RICH: We made changes. We absolutely cut
the size of the building by 2,500 square feet to
accommodate those, and we got to the point where it’s like
yes, this is where we are in order to move forward.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. The second question is
do you feel that there’s a discrepancy between the
arborist’s report and the particular trees that are listed
in the arborist’s report, which is 36, and your report,
which is 43 trees? Have some of these already been removed,
or what accounts for the difference?
DOUG RICH: Staff may be able to help me on this
too. I believe the difference is that there are trees
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onsite that don’t fall under the purview of the Tree
Policy, because of size of tree, et cetera, but we still
show them as coming out, and I believe that’s the
difference.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I was counting the number of
coast live oak, which I think there are 13 on your report,
and on the arborist’s report it’s a different number. I’m
concerned about these trees, particularly the live oaks. We
need to get this right, and so I’m very uncomfortable for
the second reason as well, which is that I’m not sure we’ve
accounted for the trees that are going to be cut, because
there’s a significant discrepancy between the arborist’s
report and what you’re planning to do on L-2, so I would
suggest trying to provide some more information in order to
resolve that discrepancy.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me just verify. Your
arborist is not present?
DOUG RICH: Correct. We used the Town arborist,
Deborah Ellis.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The reason I ask is I recall at
one point there was some discussion of I think it was fir
trees, but it was something that were not, as you said, in
the same category to be saved, but I could not answer the
questions that was just asked, and we apparently don’t have
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anybody… Well, ultimately when we close the public input
we’ll check with Staff on that, but I wanted to give you an
opportunity if you had anything.
DOUG RICH: I believe that’s the difference, yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay. Are there other
questions? Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a few questions. There
has been some discussion from the neighborhood requesting
that the siting of the building be moved away from
Winchester Avenue. Have you looked at that at all?
DOUG RICH: We have looked at that. I don't know,
Scott, if you want to come up. In terms of you talking
about pushing it back?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Pushing it toward the dog
and cat hospital.
DOUG RICH: Correct. We did look at that. It does
entail several impacts, including elimination of more
trees. It also then has drainage. He mentioned how the
drainage comes down in the property. We need to be able to
have enough space there so that we can properly capture the
water and get it away from the site so it doesn’t go into
our neighbor’s property through there as well. And then
there is just cleaning the water, the (inaudible)
requirements, that that is the lowest point of the site and
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so water has to get there and we have to treat it there,
and so pushing it any closer to that 10’ was problematic.
Is there any ability to push it there any closer than our
current 10’?
SCOTT SHORT: I have to come up and speak. Scott
Short, civil engineer. I think the big issue primarily is
the trees. If you push it closer, most of all those trees
along that property line would need to be eliminated.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a follow up question?
If you move the siting of the building back, then there’s a
potential to possibly save two additional trees that are
coast live oak, #18 and #34, both in the arborist’s report.
They’re in good condition and have a fairly sizable tree
trunk, so it might be a reasonable tradeoff. Given the
concern for the damage the trees on the back of the
property are causing to the neighboring property, perhaps
there is a variance that could be negotiated that would
enable everybody to be happy and you push the siting of the
building back a little bit.
DOUG RICH: I think that’s a good suggestion, and
once again, I think we’d love to work with Staff and see if
we can push that back. I understand the suggestion.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: When you say push it back, do
you have any specifics in mind? I mean push it back more
than 5’, for example?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I would say push it back as
far as possible. I don't know the specific dimensions in
terms of what’s feasible, but you’ve got plenty of setback
because the parking is giving you your legal setback at
ground level, so I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t go
back farther.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I was just trying to find out.
I don’t want to use the word substantial, but a material
distance. In other words, people can move something back
2’; I don’t suppose that would do anything.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m not sure about that;
because the nature of this property is that it slopes from
Winchester back toward the dog and cat hospital. Any push
of that building site to the rear is going to effectively
lower its elevation, at least from the Winchester side.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, thank you. You’ve
got another question, I think?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I did, and I’ve lost it.
Thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Well, in case there’s somebody
else who has a question, you can think about it.
Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: If Commissioner Janoff was
looking for a number, some of the letters I read were
suggesting 10’, so would that maybe be a number that you
might be looking for?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: If 10’ will suffice and
it’s possible, then absolutely. What I’m suggesting is that
the parking spaces and the parking alley gives you enough
setback to meet the setback requirements, so therefore you
don’t need to preserve what’s on the other side of the
parking spaces as you’re facing the dog and cat hospital,
so to the degree that it’s amenable to all parties and a
variance is acceptable, I think the neighborhood could
gain. You still keep your square footage, you don’t lose
any parking spaces, and you effectively lower the height,
so kind of win, win, win.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Burch, did you
have your hand up? You did, but perhaps you changed your
mind?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I think I was going to open
up a whole can of worms, so I’m going to keep my mouth
shut.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Oh, well, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: No, I’ll keep my mouth shut.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right. Are there other
questions? Yes, Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m having some difficulty
with the compatibility of the architecture in the
neighborhood. I wonder if you could maybe make a concise
argument about why this is compatible when I see no other
office buildings that look like this in the vicinity and
the only other office building commercial space is of a
totally different style? The only other one that is of
similar scale, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, is a totally
different style to this, so what is the argument about
compatibility of the architecture in this particular
location?
DOUG RICH: I think the Town architect actually
hit on what you’re heading at, which is when you read that
person’s recommendation they say that the project is
compatible architecturally in the site that you are,
however, things north of you on Winchester, the
architecture would not be compatible and it referenced the
sites that you just referenced. I think you’re making the
exact point that the Town architect made, which is you have
to look at Winchester in different sections. In your
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section you are compatible looking at surrounding
architecture. Once you get north of you, we would need to
look at this specifically, and I think you can read that in
their letter.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I did read the letter.
Specifically which buildings in the vicinity do you think
this is compatible with?
CHEK TANG: I think there’s not literally a
stylistic comparison to any of the buildings, but I think
we have taken the cues from the example that we have put up
on the screen of the residential house that has a more
contemporary feel to the materiality. There is context
within the town that the library gave us some cues of some
of the elements.
We went through the Commercial Design Guidelines
multiple times. I think it’s about the quality of the
building and the materials, the warmth, the context of how
it fits into the neighborhood in terms of scale of the
building in lieu of stylistic, because what I read through
this document is it’s not necessarily just relevant to
stylistic things where you kind of pick 31 flavor ice
cream, so to speak. It’s really whole sets of massing,
scale, setback, preservation of the neighborhood, all those
things that are described here. Even though the zoning is
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not in here we’ve taken really to heart all the things that
have been written in this design guideline to come up with
the design.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I agree with you, for the
architect. There is a lot of compliance in here with
respect to the numbers in the Commercial Design Guidelines,
but this is not in a specific district where there are
specific considerations for each district. You could have
license to be a little eclectic out there, but if we’re
going to adhere to the Commercial Design Guidelines, 1.4,
Community Expectations, says near the top, “Maintenance of
a sense of place with views of surrounding hills
preserved.” Boom. And that preservation was not there when
I walked it today, when I walked it previously, and I think
what you’re hearing is if you did a better effort of
preserving those views you could sort of define your sense
of place with that building. This is a (inaudible)
negative. I did not dislike the project the first time I
looked at it, but the closer we look at it and the more we
listen to the community, then there are some cracks in the
ceiling.
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I mean we’re going to end soon, and I wish I had
an understanding of whether or not you thought you could
comply with some of the community concerns and my concern
on preserving those hillside viewsheds by reducing the size
of the project. I think that’s the number one thing you’re
going to hear, and that’s our number one hurdle.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is that a question?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Did you know that?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: That won’t do it. New sheriff
in town.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: You’re officially called
out. So back to the question I remembered. The reason the
architectural design feels so imposing is because in spite
of the fact that you may have articulated the roofline,
which is a nice design, you haven’t really done much to
articulate the front elevation from just looking at it, so
it’s pretty flat and pretty glassy and pretty stucco-y, so
it feels kind of flat and glassy and somewhat cold. By
contrast, the medical building up the street has a larger
square footage, but it’s got a smaller massing on the
second floor than from the first floor, so it has a sense
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of not such an imposing flat mass as you’re looking at it
straight on.
Part of the issue that I have is that I think if
possible the two design elements that you were describing
as a tower, while they have an attractiveness in the
context of your design, when you look at the story poles
they actually exacerbate the problem from the Winchester
view, and they contribute to that sense of big height at
street level.
My question is, is there a willingness to
reconsider that design feature? It’s hard to tell what’s in
those towers, and especially at the top. It’s a very high
ceiling and it would be considerably more than the 11’ or
13’ that you’ve indicated. Can they be reduced some? Can
they you still keep an articulated roofline, but bring down
the overall front-facing block so that it’s not quite so
visually imposing? Question: Would you be willing to
consider that?
DOUG RICH: Yes. I think the two items that I’ve
heard that I think will help improve and address the
concerns that we can absolutely do is to address those
features and to bring them down and to soften that, and
then to work with Staff on that and work with Staff to see
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otherwise far back we can push the building to really
address those concerns.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Just taking what she said,
and I’m remembering the conversation we had at CDAC, and
one of things that we did talk about at CDAC that I think
is tying in to what some of my fellow commissioners are
saying was we did talk about the white façade if you
recall, and we did actually ask can you to not make it be
white, could there be more of a wood element, more of a
stone, something to make it not be…
And at that meeting you had said yeah, but you’re
still coming back with a lot of white, so I think what I’m
hearing up here is when you have a lot of glazing and then
you have white stucco we all know that that the façade
becomes quite bright, so I think what I’m hearing my fellow
commissioners say is some of the impression of what’s
happening here may be softened by removing the white
stucco, implementing more of the wood and that warmth into
it, or stone or whatever can be a warmer texture, that then
offsets the amount of glazing. So I would ask if you would
be willing to look at those types of architectural changes
that would soften the façade?
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CHEK TANG: Actually, since the last committee
meeting we actually added more of the wood rain screen, but
we can definitely look at kind of the proportion of that
even more than what it is right now.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there more questions? If
there are not, I will close the public input to the public
hearing and we will take a ten-minute recess.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you all. We’re now
going to deliberation, so I invite my fellow commissioners
to either make a motion, or further discussion, questions,
please. Yes, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’ll start the discussion
and see what my fellow commissioners feel. We’ve heard a
lot of stuff today, and we’ve heard a lot on both sides,
and I feel very good when I hear an applicant say they hear
the people of the town and they want to work with them, so
I appreciate that. That isn’t always the case, and I always
find that to be a very good sign.
I feel that we probably are going to see this
project again, in my opinion, because some of the things
that we’re asking I think are multifaceted as far as the
change in the architecture, the ability to move the
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building back, and a few other things. Perhaps some of it
just comes from my unfortunate knowledge and sometimes
looking at this and codes are going to require as far as
access and parking and everything, so those are things I
know that I would feel more comfortable if I could see
again.
If my commissioners agreed with me and we were to
see it, I’d also like to see some feedback on what was
heard from some very concerned citizens and how that was
addressed in conversations between the Applicant and
yourself. I don’t expect that everyone is going to get
everything they want, but what I do like to see is that
people did sit down and talk, and it sounds like you are
more than willing to work with the issue as far as the
headlights, which I think is great. I think it sounds like
you’re willing to look on moving the building back, and
some things like that, which I think are very positive.
So that’s my feel on it. I think we’ve given some
clear direction on that. I hope we have, but I would love
to hear from my other commissioners on your thoughts.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me make this suggestion.
Commissioner Burch has specifically mentioned maybe three
things—she can tell me it was more or less, but something
like that—so if any of you either have additions or you
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would rather have some other kind of motion, let’s hear
from you now. Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I would say this project
does have merit, but it needs refinement, and what struck
out at me was the community expectations that Vice Chair
Kane had quoted, that the, “Maintenance of a sense of place
with views of surrounding hills preserved,” is very
important within our Commercial Design Guidelines.
Also, too, page 7 of the Commercial Design
Guidelines does say that, “A project needs to have
sensitive interface with the adjacent residential
neighborhood,” and we did hear from the adjacent
residential neighborhood.
I had itemized a list of concerns that I would
have that I would like to see done in addition to what
Commissioner Burch mentioned that I would be happy to make
a motion to continuing this to a date certain, because some
of the items that I jotted down included what Commissioner
Burch had mentioned, so I can go ahead and read those off
and make the motion, unless somebody else would like to
add…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me make this suggestion,
because it would make it more likely that we could reach a
point where we would do more, so I’m not against you making
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a motion at all, but if you have something to add that we
could all listen to, because before you make your motion
people might say well how about one thing more or one thing
less, and would make the motion I think probably better for
everybody. So if you don’t mind holding off for a minute on
the motion, if you could give us some more things, that
would be fine.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Sure, I’ll read my list. I
would say that I’d like for the Applicant to meet with the
neighbors, specifically the neighbors at University Oaks,
to address their concerns, other members of the community
included. Swap the metal fence for a solid wall, which they
agreed to do. Consider architectural tweaks to lessen the
perception of the height, or consider reducing the height
of the building. Consider moving the building back. Meet
with the Bicycle Coalition. And at our next meeting I would
really like for the Town arborist to be present, which I
think might make Commissioner Hudes happy.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: That’s always worthwhile.
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I won’t repeat that part,
but I appreciate that, and I would maybe be a little bit
specific that I’d like to see a decrease in the number of
trees removed. I’d also like to see a reconciliation of the
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Town arborist report to the schedule that’s submitted in
the application so we know which trees would actually be
removed. Then I think there was a point that was raised
about the noise and exhaust location that I would like to
see added as well.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commission Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Commissioner Badame
touched on this. I don’t think it’s the Bicycle Coalition,
I’m thinking it’s Safe Routes to School, given the
proximity of this building to Daves Avenue School as well
as the kids that are commuting to Fisher. It’s really
important, and irrespective of the transportation analysis
and the comments by our Parks and Public Works, I don’t
feel like the way that this is set up is going to be safe.
I think things should be considered, including maybe not
allowing left turns across Winchester, or potentially
adding a light there, or a cross walk or something,
something that will make it safe for pedestrians and also
slow down the driving going down Winchester when you
consider all these goals. But I would leave it to them to
work with Safe Routes to School to get the specifics on
that, but I don’t think leaving it alone is going to work
and I think there are going to be accidents and people are
going to get hurt. I know that’s really important for me.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other comments? Vice Chair
Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I just want to underscore what
was just said about the traffic. I spent some time there
today. Most of us, as one of the letters said, start to
accelerate after we pass Blossom Hill, and every time I do
that I’m reminded that Daves School is there. But when I
was standing there today watching, there is speed monitor
device, and if you’re doing 26 it will come on. You’re
doing 26, stopped at 25. I didn’t see a lot of numbers
today, because when the machine gets really mad it just
say, “Slow down. Slow down.” I saw about 40 of those. We do
accelerate when we’re coming out, when we’re heading north,
and we have a hard time slowing down when we’re headed
south. I don't know what the Applicant can do about that,
maybe some creative thinking when they get back together
with Staff.
But I would have strong concerns about a left
turn out onto Winchester. That doesn’t seem to be a good
idea. The letters addressed it. I looked at it myself
today. I could live with a left turn in, because the cueing
line is adequate. I have concerns about left turn out. You
could make a right turn, go down Shelburne, it’s a short
distance to University and that would get you south. But a
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left turn, unless the traffic people tell me that that’s
just simply naïve, that would be one of my big concerns.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other comments? Let me say
this, and then I’m going to invite Commissioner Badame to
make her motion.
When you hear all these things, obviously you
have to decide what you can do and what you want to do, and
then when you come back you either say I did it, or you say
I didn’t do everything, and here’s why. Nobody can tell you
how to do your own project, but hopefully you will benefit
from the concerns we have, because I share those concerns.
So I just want it said that we’re not telling you how to do
your project, but since we’re going to have to pass on it
we’re probably giving you fairly good hints about what
we’re going to do. So that being the case, Commissioner
Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I will make my motion, and
I move to continue to a date certain with specific
direction to consider the comments made by the Commission.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is there a second?
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’d be happy to second that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane. Now, are there
any comments on the motion? Seeing none, I’ll call the
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question. All those in favor of the motion? It’s unanimous.
Pardon me?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: We need a date certain
first.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Oh, we do need a date certain,
yes. I’m sorry. Good point.
JOEL PAULSON: Not knowing how long it may take
the Applicant to pull this together, I’m going to assume
it’s going to be at least a four to six weeks out to
accomplish the evaluation of what’s being requested,
including meeting with the neighbors, so the absolute
earliest I would suggest is March 8th. You can bring the
Applicant back up.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: For the limited purpose of
seeing we’re on the same page with you on that, I’m going
to reopen the public comment, but just for that one limited
purpose, so I’m asking you whether that date of March 8th is
realistic from your work standpoint.
DOUG RICH: Is the next meeting after that
available?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, the next meeting would be
March 22nd.
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DOUG RICH: I think that would be suitable to
make sure we can address these, meet with the appropriate
people, and have time to prepare the materials.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Well, that’s fine. Thank you. I
will now close again the public input and ask the maker of
the motion whether that date is acceptable to her.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: That date is acceptable to
me.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: And the seconder?
VICE CHAIR KANE: That date is acceptable.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Same question then. Let’s just
revote. Is everybody in favor of the now more detailed
motion? It’s again unanimous. We don’t discuss appeal
rights, because it’s continued. Okay, so thank you all very
much. We’ll see you on March 22nd.