Attachment 9 - Apr. 26, 2017 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 4/26/2017
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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 9
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Now we can move to the first
public hearing, which is Item 2, which is Winchester
Boulevard 15860, 15880, and 15894. May I have a Staff
Report, please?
JOCELYN PUGA: Good evening, Chair and
Commissioners.
The proposed Architecture and Site and
Subdivision Applications were last considered by the
Planning Commission on January 25th of this year. The
Commission continued the applications with direction to the
Applicant to consider incorporating comments made by the
Commission at the January 25th meeting.
In response the Applicant has made revisions to
the plans, which include modifications to the architectural
elements of the building, siting of the building, site
elements, and clarification to the landscape sheets with
regard to the consulting arborist’s report.
Additionally, the Applicant’s traffic consultant,
Hexagon, has provided a letter that is included as Exhibit
26 to address concerns raised regarding traffic and safety.
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Lastly, the Applicant continued neighborhood
outreach by meeting with the neighbors twice on February
16th and March 2nd to discuss changes to the project. Meeting
attendees for the February 16th meeting are included as
Exhibit 25.
Should the Planning Commission determine that the
direction provided has been adequately addressed it can
take the following actions contained in Exhibit 21 to
approve the project with the Conditions of Approval
included as Exhibit 22.
There is an Addendum and Desk Item before you
this evening that contain additional public comments
received after this distribution of the Staff Report, in
addition to a revised project information sheet by the
Parks and Public Works Department.
This concludes Staff’s presentation and we are
available for questions, along with the Parks and Public
Works Department; as well as the Town’s traffic consultant,
TJKM; and the Town’s environmental consultant, EMC.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: We do have two Desk Items,
which I think were earlier sent to us by email, but were
given to us physical today. Does anyone need any further
time to look at these? All right, are there any questions
of Staff? Yes, Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had two questions, and I
may very well have missed this point, but the existing
residences at 15880 and 15860, those will be demolished,
correct?
JOCELYN PUGA: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that’s part of the
application to demolish those?
JOCELYN PUGA: That’s part of the Architecture
and Site Application.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, and was there historic
consideration on those properties?
JOCELYN PUGA: There was. The homes went to the
Historic Preservation Committee and were removed.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So I missed that. Thank you.
The other one was about occupancy, and I wondered if there
are any options to limit occupancy? I think there has been
discussion about how many people may be working there, and
the Applicant has suggested some numbers ranging from 125
up to 300. Are there any options for the Planning
Commission to limit the occupancy?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I defer back to Staff. I have
my own opinion, but I’m not sure Staff heard the question;
there was another conversation going on. If I understand,
you’re saying if we assume for the moment the occupancy
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might otherwise violate some of our ordinances, is there
something we can do about it, is that the correct question?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yes, that’s correct.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, so I’ll direct that
to Staff.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer that building
code is what regulates occupancy. If you want to modify
that in some way, I guess it’s possible. I haven’t seen
that tactic taken to date, at least with my time here, and
I would look to the Town Attorney if he has any additional
input on that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I’m not sure if that’s what
you’re asking, or is it?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: It actually is what I was
asking: Were there any options for the Planning Commission
to limit occupancy?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: In retrospect? In other words,
are you applying it to this matter, or just in general?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: No, to this matter as we
consider this particular project in front of us.
JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer in addition, we
don’t have the actual Building Code occupancy here today,
so I wouldn’t be able to give you a starting point and
whether or not your number would be limiting it by some
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percentage or not limiting it at all; it actually may be
over what can be proposed.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me just ask Counsel, were
one to amend that and somebody is already there, they might
have some vested right, or not?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: We do have in our municipal
code, in our zoning, that restricts that we can do,
restrictions based on occupancy levels. We use the Building
Code, as Joel mentioned. If that’s something we need to
look at, we need to look at it globally and not just start
discretionarily determining project-by-project. It’s the
same as we’ve dealt with this issue with, let’s say, for
restaurants. We do have a seating requirement that might
say you can have seating for 24, but that doesn’t limit the
occupancy to 24 people; they can have much more in a
restaurant based on their occupancy. So it’s something that
we’ve wrestled with in both the restaurant and with
possibly office, but our code does not give us that
opportunity to restrict occupancy levels.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Is there a reason the story
poles weren’t updated on the southern side of the property
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so that we could get a perception of the reduced height on
the southern side?
JOCELYN PUGA: The Applicant can respond when
they’re speaking to Commission about why the story poles
weren’t modified.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question about
traffic, and it might be partly for Staff and partly for
the traffic consultant. We did receive a detailed letter—I
don't know if members of the audience had a chance to
review it—from the traffic consultant addressing two
specific questions about left turns onto Winchester and the
traffic light, whether it had a traffic light at Shelburne
Way. I appreciate those answers, and then Parks and Public
Works in addition gave us a comment letter and went through
some of these issues.
I had a more general question about the traffic
situation and it was this: A number of the residents are
still concerned about traffic turning left onto Winchester,
so I just wondered if the current proposal which had
basically roughly a third of the parking on the ground
level and facing Winchester and coming out onto Winchester
with the remaining parking underground coming out onto
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Shelburne, I wondered if that was the best solution for
safety? Like is it possible that it might be safer if all
of it were, as some of the residents proposed, coming out
of Shelburne, or would that cause more concerns or
unintended consequences?
I don't know who is the best person to answer
that question, but I just was trying to understand if that
is the best design from a safety perspective.
JOEL PAULSON: We have Parks and Public Works
Staff here to answer that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Before you do that, could I
just ask one question? We do have a traffic report that
does, were one to take that, answer the question. The
question I guess I have is is that traffic report something
that the Staff would stand behind? In other words, does
that express your opinion?
JOEL PAULSON: I believe Ms. Petersen can answer
those inquiries.
LISA PETERSEN: Thank you, Lisa Petersen, Town
Engineer. Yes, we do stand behind the traffic report. We
have looked at the layout currently as it is and we do
believe that it is safe as it is currently laid out. I
don't know that we have analyzed it in a different manner,
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but we certainly do believe it’s safe as it is currently
shown.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is there a follow up question?
Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and
again, I thank you and the traffic consultant for the
detail that you gave and the detailed answers that
explained it and gave us all that comfort.
I was thinking about there was the traffic
analysis that would talk about coming in and out in the AM
and PM. Since this is relatively close to downtown and
there might be 300 people, I didn’t know if it was
something to be concerned about, but I wondered about the
lunch hour as well. It’s not normally considered a peak
hour, but I would imagine a lot of people turning left,
whether they came out of Winchester or Shelburne, and going
downtown, and I wondered if that was something that would
trigger a concern from safety that we should have looked
at. I know it’s not normally part of the traffic analysis,
but it occurred to me to think about that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: So is that a question?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes, I’m wondering if we
should be concerned about that.
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LISA PETERSEN: So again, we’re very comfortable
with the layout and what is shown, and we believe it’s
safe.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff, did you
have your hand up? No, okay. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s a question on procedure,
and I have a traffic analysis, and I’d like to know when it
would be appropriate to provide it, even though it’s not in
the form of a question?
JOEL PAULSON: If you have information that you
have prepared, that should be brought up during
deliberations after the public testimony.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I’d like to clarify that. You
have before you, looking over your shoulder, so to speak,
that is not your report; that is a report prepared by
experts, is that correct?
VICE CHAIR KANE: This one?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I don't know what you’re
talking about. Do you have a consultant…
VICE CHAIR KANE: My question was when would I
present my analysis. This is their analysis. I have an
analysis and I’ll wait for deliberation.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: So you’ve made a… Is this a
written analysis?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I guess the question I have is
is a Commissioner any different than anybody else as far as
submitting something that is to be considered by the
Commission and the public has a right to see it?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I haven’t seen the document
myself. The time to do that in your analysis is during the
deliberation after you’ve received all the input from
everyone else. If it’s a written document, then we can deal
with it at that time.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: If we close the public hearing,
then the public cannot respond to that.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: They won’t be able to, just as
they don’t as anything else you deliberate though on, and
we don’t have any rules that require Commissioners to
provide information before the deliberations.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay. Any other questions or
comments? If not, and no other Staff reports, I think we
can now go the public, and I would ask the Applicant. The
Applicant has ten minutes, and when you come up, please
identify yourself. Do I have a card from you?
DOUG RICH: I don’t think I filled one out.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: After you’re through, would you
do that, please? Thank you.
DOUG RICH: Douglas Rich, Applicant with Valley
Oak Partners.
After the last public hearing we held two
neighborhood meetings, and then I also had an opportunity
to meet with individuals. The changes that I’m presenting
you tonight are the result of those meetings, as well as
the feedback that we received from the Commission at the
last public hearing, as stated by yourself. We couldn’t
accommodate every request, but I think that we made a lot
of significant changes and I wanted to run through those
briefly, as we did prepare an exhibit that hopefully you
have seen that summarized a lot of those, so I don’t want
to become redundant, but I did want to point out some
things.
One of the main things that were discussed at the
last meeting was this concept of views and view corridors,
and so we took a step back, and this was one of the things
that really led to a lot of the changes. As you are aware,
we’re going to be retaining a fair amount of existing
trees, and here’s an exhibit that shows these existing
trees. You have this tree, this tree, tree over here, these
two over here, and as you look at this from Winchester I
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think one of the things that immediately popped out to us
was you kind of have two “windows,” I’ll call them, because
clearly the views here, here, and here are obstructed by
the existing trees which we are retaining. So as we looked
at the changes to the architecture, we said we want to
attack those windows, because that’s where really your
views come through, and so that led to these changes here.
We redesigned the roof entirely. Here was a front
to back ridge at a high height; we changed that to a shed
roof running through. That dropped the height significantly
through that window, as you have seen in your exhibit here.
Then, as I’ll talk about in a minute, here on the southern
side we dropped the height significantly both to deal with
view corridors as well as to address adjacencies with
neighbors. I just wanted to point out, I think it is
important to remember as you look at the building the
existing trees, which is represented here, that will
remain.
Here, as I mentioned, on the southern end we
revised the building significantly, taking this down from a
two-story element to a one-story element, moving the
setback here that stayed the same at 78’, another 18’ to
22’, so call it 100’ until you start hitting the two-story
elements.
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We eliminated, as mentioned, the tall
architectural features here and here, eliminating through.
Another tall architectural feature that we removed on the
southern end. We relocated the fan vent entirely away from
the southern property line over internally through the
building. And then we replaced the decorative metal panel
with a masonry wall for safety and light.
In addition to those change, we went back and
redesigned the materials, colors, et cetera. Here is
before: very stark, metallic, and lots of glazing.
Architecture is in the eye of the beholder, but we added a
lot of earthen materials, darker colors here, along with
the roofline. I really feel like this starts to look like a
home along here, and on the other end as well.
The last thing was we were able to push the
building back. The request was 10’. Doing that had some
grading, drainage, and tree impacts, but we were able to
push it back an additional 6’ away from Winchester beyond
what it was before. That did have the impact of eliminating
two trees along the rear. We (inaudible) would have saved
some, but we were able to save one additional tree along
the front.
And here is the artist renderings of the two,
before and after.
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At this point I’d like to turn the time over to
our traffic engineer to discuss the driveway access as well
as the circulation traffic signal, based on the comments
that were received at the last public hearing.
GARY BLACK: Good evening, Gary Black with
Hexagon Transportation Consultants.
At the last hearing the Commission asked us to
look at a couple of issues. One of those is preventing left
turns from the driveway onto Winchester, and also the
possibility of a traffic signal at Shelburne. Since the
hearing we went out and studied both of those issues, and
we did issue a written report that I think is in your
packet, but I just wanted to summarize that. We end up not
recommending the left turn restriction and also not
recommending the signal.
The reason for not recommending the left turn
restriction is that we think that would lead to some
unintended consequences of cars trying to make U-turns when
they were prevented from making left turns. Let me get my
bearings here. Let’s see, that’s Daves Avenue, so our
project is in this vicinity, so here’s Shelburne.
So a car that wanted to travel towards the
downtown but was prevented from making a left turn would
then make a right turn, and then need to make a U-turn here
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is Via Sereno in order to head that direction. Similarly, a
car that was coming down Winchester and wanted to turn left
in and prevented from doing that have a couple of ways they
might try to make that turn. They might make a left turn
into the driveways of these condominiums and try to turn
around, or they would turn onto Bruce and make a three
point turn and come out and make a left turn and then go
in. We thought in both cases that those maneuvers would be
more problematic than just having the left turns at the
driveway.
Regarding the signal here at Shelburne, when we
consider traffic signals we look at something that are
called “signal warrants,” and that’s lingo, but you can
think of those as criteria for the installation of signals.
We typically don’t ever recommend the installation of
signals unless the location meets the warrants, or meets
the criteria. We looked at the signal warrants at that
location and we found that that location did not meet the
warrants for a signal and therefore we would not recommend
that a signal to be installed at that location.
DOUG RICH: I just wanted to mention in closing
in relation to traffic.
Obviously you heard from the traffic engineer;
you asked the question with Staff as well as they’ve
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reviewed the safety of this driveway. I just want to
mention too the Town’s own traffic engineer also reviewed
it and came to the same conclusion.
So as I look at it, say, if I need to understand
something about geotech or soils or the foundation, I go to
a geotechnical engineer; they describe what it is and we
follow that. I don’t rely on my own interpretation or view
on what I think it is; you go to an expert. That’s what we
did. The safety of this is really important to me as well,
so we went to two separate experts and the Town and their
safety review, and all three have come to the conclusion
that this driveway is safe, and so that’s what I rely on. I
trust the experts; this is what they do for a living, this
is what they’re trained for, and that’s what we’re relying
on, so with that then I can feel comfortable saying I truly
believe that this is safe.
In addition, one of the last things that was
mentioned, I did have a chance to go meet with Safe Routes
to Schools; I met with Karen Briones, the director of that.
Karen reviewed everything, said that she was very
comfortable with our design, didn’t feel like that had any
safety implications for their Safe Routes to School and in
fact felt encouraged and thought that our design improved
the safety overall, in particular with the bulb-outs coming
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and shortening the crossing across from Shelburne as people
were coming up to head to Daves and the driveway, et
cetera, so she felt very comfortable and we did reach out
to them. I wanted to confirm that for you. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, are there questions?
Yes, Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Before we probably get into
a lengthy traffic conversation I’m going address my concern
that I brought up at the last hearing, and that was the
interface with the residential neighborhood, especially on
the southern side. It seems we’ve taken things in a
different direction, or a new direction, with a corner
office that has floor to ceiling windows, so I’d like to
hear from you how that is sensitive to the residents that
live on the south side.
DOUG RICH: We looked at that, and as we were
redesigning that side, I think you say how we dropped that
southern end down, and that did have the change then of
including a window on that corner there that looked in that
was not there before. I feel like hopefully I’ve always
been up front and honest about things, and I was here as
well I think with the neighbors, and they didn’t like the
answer and I understand that, but that was look, we’re
designing this, we’re trying to attract high-quality
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tenants, and one of the corners there was already removed
because of stairway and bathrooms. So then despite the
design for whatever type of tenant and open all those
things, you do tend to have executives that want certain
types of offices, and I said that would be the corner
office and that’s what it was designed for, so I was asked.
Now, with that being said, can that be changed?
Yes, of course it can be changed; there are a variety of
ways to do that. One is to just simply wall it off. Another
is to play with the type of windows that are done there,
and whether it’s frosting or whatever to make them so that
you can still let light in, but not have line of sight that
you can make anything out from. Another would be kind of a
combination I guess where you walled some of it off, but
maybe went to high clerestory bullet type windows up above
where it’s kind of a compromise; no one can see, but it
does let light in. So those are things that we could look
at, if needed.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you for that.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: One of the things that I
don’t think you mentioned in your presentation, or maybe I
just missed it, was in our packet there was a big concern
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from the residents to the south about the parking that
would be facing them, especially since it was a little bit
uphill from them, so you had proposed to remove the
decorative metal railing and replace it with a 42” wall.
My question was this: One of the residents is
still concerned about the privacy that’s in that complex,
and they mentioned that their own car has their headlights
at 42” from the ground, so I just wondered why you wouldn’t
make a wall that was a little bit taller, or would you
consider that? Because it seemed like that would be an easy
fix to address some of that.
DOUG RICH: We obviously saw that letter too; it
was after we had submitted all those things. So after we
were able to come up with this. It’s a hybrid, I guess; it
maintains the masonry wall. In my experience large masonry
walls are never the most aesthetic and appropriate thing,
so the compromise there was to keep the masonry wall that
addressed the safety side of it from cars coming off of
there, but then adding back the decorative metal panel
above there to have the appropriate height to shield the
headlight or any diffusion of diffraction, or whatever you
want to call it. that came over there. So we did have that,
and I added then so we’re certainly comfortable doing that
along that side to address that concern.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So what would be the
height including the metal railing?
DOUG RICH: Right now, so it’s 42” and we were
doing another 2’ beyond that, so that’s 66”.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: All right, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a follow up. There was
some concern at our last hearing with the decorative metal
panel that didn’t provide sufficient blocking of the light
that might be coming from car headlights. Is this metal
panel different in design such that it would block the
light coming from the taller headlight cars?
DOUG RICH: A couple things. One was that
although headlights can be above that, most of them are
not, and so the masonry wall was meant to capture 80-90%.
The rest there, this panel is designed so the amount of
openings and slits in it is very small, so the amount of
light getting through feels de minimis. If that’s a
concern, we could go to something that’s just completely
opaque and doesn’t allow any light through, if that’s
needed. I was trying to get something that did have a
little bit of design to it and still had… But it did have a
little bit of design to it.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Mr. Rich, on the Shelburne
intersection with Winchester, would you consider striping
that pedestrian walkway? In your photos and overheads I
didn’t see any provision for that. You have a bulb-out, but
there’s no striping on the walkway to alert traffic coming
up Shelburne. Would you consider helping the Town by
striping that out?
DOUG RICH: I’d have to defer to Staff and see if
that’s something that they would want.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I don’t think they’d be
opposed.
DOUG RICH: From a developer cost, that kind of
stuff, yes, we can absolutely stripe. No issues there. I’m
not a traffic expert, as I said, so are there other
unintended consequences to striping that? Oh, and as I
speak they just pointed out to me that we’re already
striping it.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, I appreciate the expense.
DOUG RICH: So I could have saved us all five
minutes had I known that. That’s great.
VICE CHAIR KANE: May I?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, your follow up.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s not a follow up.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Question, then.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: The corner office that somebody
wrote a letter and said this corner officer for executives,
we have the future people, we have the present people, and
I wanted to lend my support to the idea that you gave on
elevated windows; I’ve seen those in a lot of fine, fancy
offices where as you said, they’re up 8’, and they could be
2’ high, or 1’ high, they let in plenty of light, and the
windows on Winchester could be as transparent and as low as
you would like. Is that something you would consider?
DOUG RICH: That is.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Back to that masonry wall.
Without going with a decorative feature, would you be
amenable to 6’ solid concrete wall.
DOUG RICH: Boy, aesthetically I would really,
really struggle with that, but I mean we could certainly
implement it.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Next question, and this is
going to address safety and security issues, and that’s
that stairway. Is there any way to secure it?
DOUG RICH: We can do one better.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Let’s go for it. Let’s hear
it.
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DOUG RICH: How about we eliminate it entirely
there and move it here internally? This is something we
worked with today as everything came through, so I hope you
saw… I sent you everything I had at the time, but things
are dynamic and letters come, and so this came down to the
wire. I think we had a call with the Town’s building
official at like 2:00 o'clock today that was able to review
it and say yes, we think this can be accomplished code-
wise, and so with that then it was like okay, we can get it
in. So that will be internal to the structure and come up
and be tied into the existing stairwell, and so it’s gone.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Bingo. I just want to
comment to the author of one of the letters that I did go
look at the other building on Winchester, the medical
center, and there is signs of homeless and vagrants, and
that concerned me greatly, so I don't know if the Town or
the police department wants to take note of it, but I’m
glad you took care of that for our community. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. I have a number
of questions, but I think I’m going to hold most of them
until after the public testimony. My questions were mostly
about trees and architectural style, and those can wait, I
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think. But I did have a question about the traffic flow and
the parking situation.
First of all, I would like to commend you for the
changes that you’ve made with regard to the height and the
architecture and the ability of this building to be more
compatible with the neighborhood, and I think listening,
taking feedback, and then actually doing something about
it, which is the case, I think is very, very important and
I think it’s going to lead to a much more successful
development when this is further considered.
My question about the parking and the situation
there was given all of the feedback last time about the
left turn situation and the feedback from the Planning
Commission as well, did you consider making the entrance
for all the parking from Shelburne, and what were the
implications of that, being eliminating an entrance and
egress on Winchester?
DOUG RICH: It was something we looked at even
previously as we were just starting from scratch looking at
the entire project. I guess I actually have a lot of
thoughts on this particular subject, because obviously it’s
come up and it’s something we’ve looked at a lot.
The first is it’s interesting, because we sit
here tonight in our particular project and I think as you
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look at design in general, I think most people would agree
splitting up driveway access is smart design, not funneling
everything in through one driveway. It’s better for the
environment, it’s better for traffic implications, and it’s
better for how things get diffused out, so as we first
started this we said that’s a smart move to do that.
In addition, we looked and said obviously this
property is general planned for office. Why is that? We
looked at that, and it’s not just ours, it’s that corridor,
and we said that makes a lot of sense with what the Town
did, because Winchester is designed to handle this type of
project and this type of volumes. With that then in its
proximity to downtown and all those things, it made a lot
of sense to me that this was the funnel for not just our
property, but the ones up along the whole corridor, and
some that don’t have two streets with them, so they will
be, and as we’ve seen have been, designed to access
Winchester.
But with all that being said, could we still just
try to do it off of Shelburne? That becomes very
problematic, because now you’re talking about a dual
entrance driveway. You’re going to have some people who
need to be at grade and some that need to go down. That
poses, I think from my point of view, a very different type
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of safety issue where you could have one car in one
driveway wanting to go right and one wanting to go left,
and now they’re crossing each other at the same time. Every
once in a while as all of us drive around in a commercial
application you run into that, and I think all of us feel
this is not safe. If I’m trying to go there and they’re
trying to cross me, it’s really tough.
So we looked at that and said that creates a
dangerous situation with dual driveways. It also obviously
has impact of dramatically reducing the amount of parking,
because driveways take up a lot of parking as well. Then we
looked at it and as we got further we looked at the traffic
study, and like I said, I rely on the experts to say what’s
safe. Then I take a step back and say well, what are we
talking about here? And the traffic study that’s going to
be using that driveway at the peak time, the busiest time
of the day, you’re talking about ten cars that are going,
and some may be clumped in, they may come in a spurt of
three minutes, or they may be spaced out, I understand, but
I think if you think about it with ten cars, and you just
said if they average that’s one every six minutes. I think
if we were just to say let’s stop right here and I’m going
to time and I’m going to go six minutes, I think it would
be so uncomfortably long we would say wow, I think that
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driveway as far as the amount of volume going through there
makes sense onto a major arterial through the town.
So those were all the considerations that went
into our approach: smart design, General Plan, Winchester
is designed to handle this. Yes, absolutely. I’ll try to be
honest; it would absolutely have detrimental impacts to the
design of the building and safety concerns with dual
driveways as well were all the reasons why we decided the
dual driveway, which has been recommended on so many other
projects, is the way to go.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just as a quick follow up on
that. That explanation makes sense, but I guess one of the
foundations of that is the premise that the building size
doesn’t change, and so when I look at some of the feedback
that came previously and the issues that were raised about
trees, about the imposition on the neighbors in the
townhouse development next door, I guess the question would
be the problems that you’ve raised here with the parking,
could some of those be mitigated if the building were
somewhat smaller?
DOUG RICH: You’d still have the dual driveway
for sure. I mean the only way you get that obviously is if
you eliminate a level and you funnel everything out. That
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would eliminate a lot of those problems. That’s a dramatic
whack, and I appreciate you raising this, because I know a
lot of letters have said you haven’t reduced the size, this
is a token, et cetera. I look at that and say I understand
and I can appreciate that position, but let me point out
some things.
One is—and I think I mentioned this at the last
public hearing—we’re following the General Plan, we’re
following straight zoning; we’re not doing a PD or
anything.
With that being said, the proposal that we have
before you we decided we’re not going to come in with the
mega project and just see how much we can get and see how
much you whittle us down; that was just not our approach
from day one. The max intensity allowed is 40%; we’re at
26%. Just to put that in perspective, we could have come in
and been completely zone compliant with a project over
45,000 square feet in size, but we did not do that. We came
in already saying that’s too big, we get it, we understand;
let’s reduce it.
In addition to that, the Town has set up
processes for us to go through that really help, that gives
feedback for these exact types of instances, and one of the
big ones there is CDAC. We went through CDAC, and you know
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what? The comment back was you do need to reduce some size
and you do need to reduce some of the parking, and we did
that, and that was through that process. We reduced it by
2,500 square feet, not an immaterial amount at all, almost
10%.
And so I feel like we have done those things. It
hasn’t come at the end, which I know a lot of time is when
it comes, but we have absolutely done it and tried to do
that as our approach, and so I just hope that that gets
recognized. That’s my one goal is we didn’t come in with
the 45,000 and be like well maybe they’ll whittle us to
40,000, or whatever. We came in with what I felt like was
already a material less intense project, and we did reduce
it. I understand it wasn’t today, but we did do those
things.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Could you go back, please, Mr.
Rich, to the picture you had up there prior to this one? As
have other Commissioners, I walked the grounds of the
medical building north of your project on Winchester, and
they have the convenience of being right on the corner with
Daves, so they’ve got traffic lights all over the place for
in and out of their driveway.
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But they had an interesting device that I’ve
never seen before. If you put your laser a little bit above
and to the left, right on that corner, they had a pole, a
box, that came out the ground and it had a button on it.
You would push a button to go across the street, but there
was no street, because the way to cross Winchester at that
point is to go to the other side of that driveway and then
cross with the crosswalk. Interestingly enough, this button
was to provide safety in getting across the driveway,
because that’s the only thing it did was control the light
that would stop the traffic in that driveway when a
pedestrian wanted to cross the driveway.
It gave me an idea, as I will report later. I’d
have concerns about that left hand turn coming out, and
here’s consideration and question: Would you consider such
an intelligent device that would be on a stanchion, and on
top of the stanchion would be an electronic light sign that
said either “Pedestrian,” “Oncoming Traffic,” or nothing,
meaning it would be okay to go forward? There’s no other
light, there’s no other indication. The line of sight is to
the left, which is the northbound traffic on Winchester can
be obviated, can be a problem if the cars are parked too
far forward, and yet if they had a sensing device to note
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oncoming traffic, they’d at least have a better chance to
make a better decision before they go ahead.
There are other difficult turns in town, and when
you’re focused on the left you’re not looking on the right
necessarily. That’s where a pedestrian might be coming
from, so that’s why I was saying if this intelligent light,
like the one that’s there that shows you the miles you’re
doing, a device that can measure your speed and tell you
what you’re doing, if this device could measure motion of
pedestrians or oncoming traffic, if that’s a practical
solution for the traffic experts that are here, because I’m
not, I’d feel better about that turn. Would you or could
you consider such a consideration if it had merit?
DOUG RICH: I’ve never seen anything like that.
It’s an interesting idea. I have to admit I’d have to look
at it and see what it would take to implement. Can it be
implemented? I’d love to hear from Staff and the traffic
experts as well to see if they’ve seen anything like this.
I really don’t know.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. I’ll comment on that
further during deliberations, but I wanted to ask your
opinion ahead of time. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Any other questions? If there
are not, thank you. You’ll have an opportunity for closing.
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Now I will ask the public who have given me their cards.
The first card I have is Karen Vincent. So you will have
three minutes, and just to remind you, when the first light
comes on that doesn’t mean you’re over, that means you’ve
got 30 seconds more. When the red light comes on, that
means you’re over. So the yellow light means 30 seconds,
red light means that’s it.
KAREN VINCENT: Hi, my name is Karen Vincent and
I’m one of the owner/occupants and the University Oaks
condo.
I have a traffic analysis. I have been practicing
for more than 25 years. I’m an expert at taking a left hand
turn onto Winchester Boulevard one to three times a day. To
those of us living in this same block, we can testify that
current traffic makes it unsafe and hazardous trying to
pull out onto Winchester just about any time of day. There
is limited visibility, and many school age children on
bikes and skateboards add to the safety equation.
Another thing I’m concerned about are the trees.
The trees that are proposed being preserved on the site are
in danger of death. Damage to root systems from
construction and the disturbances of soil from new pavement
and concrete placed over the root systems can lead to a
death that may take five years after the original damage
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has occurred. Over 90% of the root system is in the top 3’,
often extending a distance equaling two to three times the
tree’s height. If these trees are being used as a visual
screen, that may be a temporary fix. Once the trees are
dead, there will be no screen and no one will be there to
replace the trees with ones of the same size, if
replacement is done at all.
Another thing I’m concerned about is the
occupancy. It is assumed by the developer that because of
vacation and sick days that the amount of vehicles
supporting the staff should be way less than the 300 people
that may be employed at this site. Are these full and part-
time staff that overlap hours? We all know someone who
works in high tech, or worse yet a startup, that has a
project due. No one takes a vacation or calls in sick. All
300 vehicles will be trying to find a place to park on
Winchester, University, and side streets when the facility
parking has filled up.
The size of the planned project is too big. This
is the elephant in the room no one is doing anything about.
Valley Oak Partners of course do not want to change the
square footage, as it cuts back on their profit. This
entire project needs to be downsized. Thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Just a moment. Are there any
questions of the speaker? Thank you very much. The next
card I have is Bryan Mekechuk.
BRYAN MEKECHUK: Hi. I’m disappointed. I’m
disappointed for three reasons.
First, I thought the Applicant was truly engaging
the neighbors, and while we met twice the Applicant did not
revise their plans in any substantive manner.
Second, I was expecting a response to my letter
dated January 30th that asked for, among other things,
specific cross sections. I understand why the Applicant did
not and will not provide these cross sections.
Third, most importantly, I’m disappointed that
the Planning Commission worked so diligently to protect our
hillsides and then the Applicant will realize economic
rents without any of the corresponding costs by taking the
views of the Los Gatos hillsides from residents and
visitors and giving those beautiful views to their tenants.
I’ll explain each of these points in a moment.
My wife, Joanne Sinclair, and I would like to
support the development of an office building at Winchester
and Shelburne; it’s zoned office professional, so that’s
what it should be. The property does border residential, so
there should be a buffer zone. After the Planning
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Commission meeting in January I sent a letter to the
Applicant setting forth what we would like to see to be
able to support their application. My intent was to
establish my expectations and then report during oral
communications at each Planning Commission meeting the
progress the Applicant was making.
Since there were two neighborhood meetings I
reported at the March 6th meeting. I was cautiously
optimistic. Now, I’m disappointed.
Meeting with the neighbors. The Applicant held
two meetings. During these meetings there was a healthy
dialogue where the neighbors described concerns, and the
Applicant appeared to listen. When the revised plans were
published there were some changes, but there were other
changes that were more invasive than the original plans:
the corner office.
During the public hearing you’ll hear directly
from the neighbors what their issues are. The most
egregious change was the corner office suite in the
southeast corner of the building. I’ll address that later,
as the Applicant will generate significant economic rents
with that view.
The cross sections. In my letter of January 30th I
explained the information that I required to understand and
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support this application. If you ask for something and
don’t receive it, there is a problem. There are two reasons
why the Applicant did not provide the cross sections that I
asked for.
First, the Applicant selected higher locations
and is actually proposing a structure that is higher than
allowed, or higher than is stated. I asked for heights
above sea level and the Applicant did not provide that
information. For me, a critical piece of information was
the existing land elevation over the entire building
footprint. This is critical, because it establishes maximum
height of the building. From my analysis it’s clear that
the Applicant is selecting higher locations for the
existing grade and simply drawing a straight line.
I’ll jump to economic rents. Rent for land should
include associated cost. The costs are not borne by the
landlord, yet the markets or tenants are willing to pay
more than the cost and the landlord earns an economic rent
in excess of a normal profit. For this building, the
Applicant will charge his tenants for a two-story building
with spectacular views of the Los Gatos hillside; they will
charge market rent for that. The costs of the hillside are
borne by the people that own the hillside properties that
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must comply with the stringent Hillside Design Guidelines
that you, the Planning Commissioners, enforce.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Pardon me; I’ll have to cut you
off. I think we got your point there. They may be a
question. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I actually had a few
questions. Thank you, Mr. Mekechuk. You submitted an email
on February 8th about changes to the VTA and routes and
schedules there.
BRYAN MEKECHUK: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: How will that impact this
potential development, in your opinion?
BRYAN MEKECHUK: In my opinion, it will reduce
the transportation alternatives available to the tenants
that are there. The VTA is reducing the service in downtown
Los Gatos, and it’s going to reduce the bus trips.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So could that potentially
lead to more car trips than anticipated in the traffic
report, for instance?
BRYAN MEKECHUK: I believe so.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had another question, if I
may? With regard to the evolution of the project, I know
you’ve had numerous meetings. Were the concerns that were
raised addressed in the subsequent revisions to the
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application? I know numerous changes were made to the
architecture and to the building roofline. I don’t know
that anything else was dramatically changed, but those are
the ones that I noted. Is that something that you would
agree with if they did listen and make those changes, or
were there other major areas that were not addressed?
BRYAN MEKECHUK: I think it was a give and take.
For example, they changed the slope of the roof at the
north end of the building, but yet they raised part of it,
so there’s a give and take there. I think there’s more
glass now at the north end of the building. At the south
end of the building they put in clerestory windows and
reduced the height over the entranceway, but then they
added the corner office, and that was done at the very last
minute, and there is email correspondence regarding that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Then the last question I had
was concerning your concern that the building may exceed
the height requirements. Can you point us to some evidence
of that, or could you direct us to some questions that we
might ask in order to get to that particular issue?
BRYAN MEKECHUK: Absolutely. If you look at the
tree inventory, on that page, on that sheet, it shows the
elevation at each tree and also at other different
locations. So if you take that and you put it into BIM
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software, Building Informational Management software, you
can actually create a 3-D model of the ground. I introduced
the Applicant, Doug Rich, to a gentleman who does that type
of work and we uses ARCHICAD software, and the software
that the Applicant’s architect is using doesn’t have that
functionality. It has very limited functionality, and it
can’t produce a cross section of the existing land and it
can’t do a cross section of the building without
significant manual effort, and that’s what the Applicant
explained to us at the meeting. I’m like, “Why can’t you
produce these cross sections?” Then he explained, “Well,
we’re using this software and it simply can’t do that.”
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Were there other questions?
Thank you very much. Next card I have is Georgina Van Horn.
GEORGINA VAN HORN: I’m Georgina Van Horn; I’m at
706 Winchester Boulevard. I’m one of the two that are
closest to the project. Two main concerns, and again,
you’ve heard some of them.
The massiveness of the building that will
overwhelm that whole area. If you drive from Lark into town
you see all the trees that kind of put the building to the
side, and that’s our richness here, and this building will
overwhelm that whole neighborhood.
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It’s connected with my second concern, and that’s
safety. I’ve been in that townhouse for 30 years, so I’ve
seen traffic increase dramatically, as we all have. Cars
come around the bend from Blossom Hill at 35-50 miles an
hours; it’s a 25-mile an hour zone. And you know, there are
walkers, joggers, people with kids walking, bikes; and
there’s no bike lane right there, so we also have adults on
bikes right in the right hand lane of the boulevard.
The bigger the building, the more cars. Will
there be enough parking for everybody? So that will affect
the whole area.
My concern is also it’s a little frustrating to
hear the result the traffic reports when I have been there
30 years. I don't know who else could give a better
picture; I haven’t been asked. I’ve gone in and out of that
driveway that is literally right to the side of the
project, in and out, day in and day out, for 30 years, so I
ask you to consider all this.
Also, I know you give thoughtful consideration; I
can tell by your questions. What I’d like you to think
about as you make your decisions is that the decisions you
make will affect us, those who live there, and those who
drive there, day in and day out, for many years.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let’s see if there are some
questions. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You’ve been making that left
hand turn for 30 years?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Have any accidents?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: No, I haven’t, because I
wait… First of all, I have to make sure I’m back enough and
make sure that both sides of the sidewalks are clear, and
so often there’s a walker, and even then they have to be
quite a ways away to what I wait, and then I make sure
there are no cars coming from Blossom Hill and no cars
coming from Daves Avenue.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So it’s not an easy turn.
GEORGINA VAN HORN: No.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Do you sometimes decide to turn
right and go to Shelburne?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Yes, lots of times. In fact,
I did that today.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Go to Shelburne and come
around?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Yes, exactly.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. It’s been a long
time since I drove that during school hours; I used to do
that every morning with three children and it was pretty
rough then, and then I think they improved the intersection
at Daves Avenue a few years ago.
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Right.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And this relates to the
traffic study that was done. What time of day do you
experience the greatest traffic congestion?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: In the morning.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Like 8:00 o'clock, or the
school hour, or what?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Yes, actually it’s earlier,
7:00, 7:30 to it could be 9:00, 9:30 also, and then of
course we never know. When I had to make the right hand
turn I was actually coming here, so that was about 6:30pm,
so I never know how busy it’s going to be.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: What about when school gets
out in the afternoon?
GEORGINA VAN HORN: That, too, and that we have a
lot of the kids on bikes too from Fisher, and the kids and
parents with the strollers that are going to pick up the
kids also.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
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GEORGINA VAN HORN: You’re welcome.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Thank you very much. Can I
confirm that all of us have visited that property? Has
anybody not visited? All right, everybody has visited the
property. Thank you very much.
GEORGINA VAN HORN: Thank you very much.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The next card I have is Andrew
Spyker.
ANDREW SPYKER: Andrew Spyker, 708 Winchester
Boulevard. First, thank you, Doug, for continuing the
improvements here; we’re just not there yet.
Size is a definite concern. We propose both
single-story, dropping the building more, and the
Winchester entrance is gone, kind of shown here.
We heard more than just safety. We also heard
there were financial impacts to the viability of the
building as well that led to some of the decisions.
Size is a little disingenuous, saying 26%. This
is someone that lives beside, we’re right beside, Georgina
and I. What’s elevated above existing grade is shaded in
the red X here. I don’t feel like this is 26%. Also the
fact that it’s elevated and 35’ on top of elevated makes
this just feel very large.
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Play the guessing game here. Can you pull out in
the 1.3 seconds that you have at normal speed here? This is
just insane. I mean you’ve heard it over and over again. I
pull out of the same driveway. This is taken from where
their driveway is going to be as opposed to what the
traffic report showed with someone taking a picture from in
the street, which was a little disingenuous.
Precedent. Since we last talked, for sale,
available and vacated, all of the properties in between the
two offices, so we’re not making a decision for one
building tonight, we’re talking about potentially 600 cars.
Head-in parking. It’s good to hear that the wall
is being really considered, but really, at the end of the
day we want these head-in parking spaces removed or
reconfigured in a parallel parking way, which we’ve shown
other offices have done.
Just to show you, this is Georgina and my windows
that are at grade with the cars, so you can kind of see the
windows these lights are going to be shining in.
Stairs, awesome. But we haven’t addressed the
dead zone. As the president of the HOA I actually know
there’s a dead zone on the other side and there’s lots of
trash and what’s not between the wall and the next building
over; we haven’t talked about this 10’ buffer. The HOA
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actually met and suggested that we tie our wall into this
property’s wall to get rid of that dead zone, but we
haven’t made any progress on removing that.
Finally, privacy. I mean this is the view of the
corner office from my son’s bedroom. Just totally
unacceptable.
Traffic and parking. We don’t think the traffic
reports have been very consistent. They’re talking about
buildings that are very different, multi-tenant, have very
different traffic patterns. And the parking, we just
haven’t been able to get a guarantee that the amount of
parking here is going to be sufficient for all tenant use
of this building.
So at the end of the day what we’d like to see is
that we preserve and enhance the existing residential
neighborhood in terms of size, and that we protect that
buffer in terms of privacy, safety, and security.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Thank you. Are there questions?
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Can I ask you to go back to
the slide that showed the view from your son’s window? This
is just one (inaudible) that I get. There’s a list of
things, but I’m going to try to knock down things that I
can.
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ANDREW SPYKER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Definitely understand your
concern here. If those windows were changed on that side
there to high clerestory windows that a person can’t walk
up and look out, would that be more acceptable as far as
the privacy. Again, one item out of many.
ANDREW SPYKER: That would be better certainly
than, say, a frosted set of windows floor to ceiling, and
when we saw the original plan it had windows actually for a
hallway. There are two problems with these windows. First
is the privacy concern, the second is this actually opens
up to the entire second floor, so all lighting that
actually is shining out of the second floor in evening time
would be shining into bedrooms as well.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Understood.
ANDREW SPYKER: So I’m a little concerned with
the higher lighting. That’s good that they can’t see out
and there’s light coming in, but I wonder what the egress
of what light would be at nighttime.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, I can think about
that, but thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Burch, are you
finished? All right, Commissioner Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for your
thorough comments and analysis. I’m sure you’ve
incorporated this, but I know in our last meeting one of
the things we were trying to do is have them move the
building back, which they agreed to do, because it would
help with some of this issue with privacy. So is your
current view that you’re looking at given that they already
moved it back 6’?
ANDREW SPYKER: Yes. You can see it’s kind of cut
off on the end; that’s to account for the 6’. I’m not an
architect by any means; I’m doing the best I can with the
tools available to me.
I will say that setting back 6’, I was very proud
of our neighbors that are across Winchester. Setting the
building back 6’ helped Winchester, but it actually made
the problem worse for University Oaks, because they pushed
the building back more impactful. That said, they were in
support of other changes that helped them, we were in
support of changes that helped us, so I think most of the
changes we’re perfectly okay with, because we’re kind of
considering all the neighborhood impacts as opposed to just
University Oaks.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: All right, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Badame.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: How would you propose tying
in the HOA wall with the Applicant’s wall?
ANDREW SPYKER: I didn’t have time to draw a
picture there, but basically what we’re at right now is you
would imagine there is parking, then there is this wall—I’m
not sure what the current height of the wall is—that’s
going to block the headlights, and then it drops down to at
grade, and at grade is well below the current parking. So
the trees that I’m showing here are actually at grade, and
then it rises back up for our masonry wall.
The idea was if they were to not have that be at
grade, actually get their elevated grade of parking, it
would allow these trees that you see here to be elevated up
by the height of the parking structure that they’re
building, so we wouldn’t have that drop-off cavern of 10’.
Does that make sense? I wish I could draw it.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: That makes sense. Thank
you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? Yes, go ahead,
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. Just to clarify,
the trees that we’re looking at in this image on the right,
those are trees planted by the proposed developer?
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ANDREW SPYKER: These are an approximation from
my perspective of if they planted trees.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: All right, but those don’t
exist?
ANDREW SPYKER: Yet. So we have trees. You can
see here, this is right about here their existing masonry
wall. We have trees that are about the height of the
masonry wall on our side, and the developer proposes trees
at existing grade level on the other side, so I basically
estimated grown up trees a little higher than the wall, so
this would be the ones the developer would be planting.
ANDREW SPYKER: Another thing that makes it
really tough is all of the plans have always avoided
showing the southern elevation. There is no direct-on view
that shows the southern elevation I think because of how
challenging it is, but that would help to be able to draw
these pictures.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: So just to be perfectly
clear, if it’s possible, the trees as shown are the
developer’s proposed trees and they would be effectively in
a culvert of sorts between your wall and the park
structure?
ANDREW SPYKER: We could ask the Applicant, but
my understanding is there are trees at existing grade level
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in that 10’ buffer, and then there are bushes at the new
higher level of raised parking.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? Thank you very
much. The next card I have is John Eichinger.
JOHN EICHINGER: John Eichinger, 637 San Benito
Avenue.
One thing I don't know that Andrew of anybody
else has understood, but this is a southern facing window.
This is going to get sun and this window is going to act
like a mirror during the daylight, which is going to shine
right into Andrew’s windows.
I’m going to be very brief. My concern is for
many years I’ve commuted, driven up Winchester Avenue from
Lark Avenue, and I’ve always enjoyed coming over the top,
cresting the hill at Daves Avenue, and then right when you
get to Shelburne you finally get a view of the mountain,
and that view is going to be gone.
That view is going to be sold and rented to
several people who are going to be on the second floor of
that building, and that view is going to be denied to all
the people in Los Gatos that drive up Winchester and enjoy
that view. Not equitable.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there questions? Thank you
very much. The next card I have is Harvey Shand.
HARVEY SHAND: I’m Harvey Shand and I live at
15573 Coral Court, which is just off Daves Avenue and
across the street from Daves Avenue School. I’ve been there
for 30 years, and the reason I chose to live in the Los
Gatos/Monte Sereno area is because of the quality of life
and the amenities and all the rest.
I’ve seen a tremendous decline in the quality of
life in this area over the 30 years, and one of the main
culprits is traffic. Everybody knows that. I don't know if
you’ll get my perspective, as was talked about by the lady
that spoke earlier, but I wake up in the morning and all
the traffic… It seems like kids don’t walk to school
anymore, they all go in their Lexuses and Mercedes, and
their parents drop them off and they take up a parking
space, and typically there is not enough. People park in
front of my driveway, I can’t get out of my driveway,
they’re across the road, and kids are running between cars
and all the rest.
Now, that’s talking about Daves Avenue School,
but the reality is all those cars end up on Winchester
coming and going in the morning and then again at night. In
addition, there is a daycare center, on Daves Avenue again,
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and we have a set of traffic that comes and leaves there.
We get to see the morning traffic and evening traffic to
and from work.
There’s no question that we have a serious
traffic problem, so I think this doesn’t do any good for
the Town of Los Gatos in terms of the quality of life when
we deal with putting out extra traffic on a thoroughfare
like this.
The other big issue that I see is parking, and
that’s the elephant in the room that was mentioned earlier;
it’s been brought up by several people. The problem I see
there is first of all, there’s no parking Winchester, so
one of your main thoroughfares don’t have any place to park
a car. I was first disturbed by the information I learned
about the building, that it was only providing two-thirds,
I believe, of required parking, so one-third is left to try
to find some place to park.
We talked about traffic studies. We did a bad one
in Monte Sereno. They came midday on Daves Avenue, and of
course we don’t have those issues at that time of day, but
my point was going to be that this business doesn’t just
have employees working there, they have clients coming in,
they’ve got maintenance people coming in, they’ve got other
workers, deliveries. There is a lot more parking required
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to service a building like this than is being planned for,
and there is very little parking available on side streets,
which is the only alternative to those employees who can’t
find one of those chosen spots in the building. Those are
my main points.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes has a
question of you.
HARVEY SHAND: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Same question I asked
before. At what time do you see the most issue with the
traffic congestion, particularly on Winchester?
HARVEY SHAND: It’s pretty much terrible in the
morning and evening. In the morning you’ve got people going
to work on Winchester, you’ve got parents coming, and it’s
the 8:30 timeframe, all looking for parking spaces, all
letting their kids out of the cars, running across streets.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is it all morning? Could you
give me roughly the time?
HARVEY SHAND: Probably an hour total.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Around what time would you
say?
HARVEY SHAND: I would say around 8:00 o'clock.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Around 8:00 o'clock? And
then what about in the afternoon?
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HARVEY SHAND: It’s when school gets out, which
is around 3:00 o'clock. But then we have the daycare center
that has people picking up from Winchester onto Daves,
picking up their kids anywhere from 3:00 to 6:00 at night.
So we have that; we see that. And the parking is terrible
during those periods. It’s also very dangerous, by the way.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there other questions?
Thank you, sir. I have two cards left. I have Genaro Diaz.
GENARO DIAZ: Good evening, Planning Commission.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is
Genaro Diaz; I’m a field rep with the Northern California
Carpenters Regional Council and I work locally here out of
San Jose out of the Carpenters Local 405 area.
Whether this project gets built or not, we have a
simple question, and we’ve reached out to the Applicant and
the owner. Moving forward, does he have a responsible
general contractor that pays a correct area standard wage
and benefit, them and their subcontractors moving forward?
Because the reality is a lot of projects in
Silicon Valley, you look at them and people think it’s a
great construction project and people are getting paid the
right wage and benefit. The reality is it’s not. A lot of
people get paid and denied their area standard wage and
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benefit to be able to let alone live in this area, let
alone live in Los Gatos. It would be nice to be able to
live in Los Gatos.
Moving forward we would hope that he would do the
positive thing and give the opportunity to a local general
contractor that pays the correct area standard wage and
benefit, and has an affiliation to an apprenticeship
program where you have young men and women that are not
necessarily just getting into the trade, but creating a
career path for themselves.
So moving forward we’d like to build a
relationship with the developer if that’s possible, if the
project moves forward, to have this implemented if it may
be.
With that, thank you for your time tonight.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Thank you. Are there any
questions? Thank you very much. Oh, a question of Staff.
VICE CHAIR KANE: With respect to the speaker’s
comments, is there anything we could do at our level, the
judicial level, to require, encourage that his request be
respected?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: No.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Boom. Thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: The last card I have is Bryan
Carr.
BRYAN CARR: Good evening, Commission, and thank
you for allowing me to speak today. Bryan Carr, 17566 San
Benito Way. Our home is the closest single-family Los Gatos
home to the proposed project.
First, I wanted to thank all of you for taking a
sincere interest in this topic. I came to this first
meeting so angry, and I really feel like you guys are
listening, and as some of the other residents have
mentioned it’s our life bread that you do what you’re doing
and we really, really plead with you to continue doing
that.
I do want to thank the Applicant for scheduling
multiple meetings to speak with the residents. I’ve
attended all of them, however, I too am disappointed in the
fact that nothing really major to the building has been
reduced.
Certainly some things have been worked out from
angles, and they very much appreciated, but ultimately
where I come into this is is this building something that’s
compatible with the neighborhood? And as you drive by the
building, you look at it and you say, wow, okay, that’s
where it starts. You’re continuing to drive. Like, wow,
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it’s still going. Oh my God, when does this thing end? It’s
massive. It’s absolutely massive, and it’s just too big for
the neighborhood, and I think it’s one of those things, if
something doesn’t smell right, it isn’t right.
It’s just too big for the neighborhood. There
isn’t ample parking. There’s been some very major
recommendations to the Applicant, things like single
stories, things that would definitely work within the
neighborhood, and those have not been addressed, and so I
think what’s happening is this is still being tried to be
pushed forward when the data doesn’t add up and it’s not
going to work out, and I think something major needs to
change if in fact this is to be compatible with the
neighborhood, which I think is a major priority for all of
us. Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Questions? Thank you very much.
Before we have the closing, we’re going to take a five-
minute break, and we’ll resume then.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, we’ll resume our
meeting if I could ask everyone to sit down, or in any
event, be quiet.
We have one other speaker before we get to
conclusion. One of our people who had been sitting through
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all of this had not turned in their card, and I now have
it. It’s John McLaren, so I’ll call on John McLaren.
JOHN McLAREN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s John
McLaren, I’m at 17560 Daves Avenue; I’ve been there about
12 years. First of all, thank you for hearing me out of
order. I apologize for not submitting the card; I didn’t
realize I had it.
I’ll be brief. In general I’d just like to lend
support to the comments that you’ve heard from other
neighbors here tonight.
I feel very much the same way first and foremost
that the size and the footprint of the proposed development
is out of character with the area; too big. I think it sets
a poor precedent for future development to come if this
moves forward. The big issues around that footprint are
simply compatibility, view impact, traffic, and parking.
Traffic is a big, big issue. One of the residents
I think in Coral Court spoke to the traffic in that whole
corridor and that area given the school and the daycare. I
see it day in and day out. Over the 12 years I’ve seen it
progress to where it’s virtually intolerable. I think one
of the big points that no one has raised is in the evening
commute when traffic is heading downtown, or southbound on
Winchester, oftentimes traffic is at a standstill. There is
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nowhere to pull into traffic onto Winchester, and I think
that’s a concern that needs to be carefully considered.
In general, that’s it. I’m not in favor. I think
it’s too big a development. I think it needs to be right
sized and made compatible to the area. Thank you for
hearing me.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, let’s see if there
are any questions of the speaker. If not, thank you very
much.
JOHN McLAREN: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, now we can get to
the Applicant, so you have five minutes to conclude.
DOUG RICH: I said a lot of the comments I was
going to make that was a function of some of the questions
just in terms of the overall size and how we approached
that trying to have a very, very reduced size at the outset
rather than maximize it at the 45,000, or whatever that
case may be.
I just wanted to respond to some of the comments
that were given at that point. We did not assume any car
trip reductions in the traffic study due to bus trips, so
the reduction in the number of bus routes or number of
buses running up and down would not impact the traffic
study.
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We do not have the capability of the software
that Bryan had mentioned. He did bring that up, but we
don’t have that. He did give me a referral. I did go meet
with the person he referenced. Really cool stuff. In fact,
that person was working on a way to fly drones over the
property to be able to take pictures of the topography and
those things and be able to then create a 3-D model. That
person was just starting to do this and agreed to touch
base in a couple months as he is working his way through
that.
As far as that 10’ zone in between, I’m on the
same page. That needs to be kept clean, and that’s why
we’ll have a property management company that is in charge
of that. We want that looking great so that the trash and
everything doesn’t gather there and that’s kept properly
landscaped and as clean as we want it.
Privacy window, we’ve talked about, and seeing
these pictures and everything, totally understand that
that’s an issue; we need to address it. I guess in thinking
through everything my vote would be for the clerestory
windows up above. I think that that would be a good
compromise.
Reference to the overall size, several of the
neighbors had met with me and had expressed that they
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wanted it to be a single-story building, and I understand
that request. I explained to them that that wasn’t
possible, that if we went to single-story building the
maximum that we could build is right around 12,000 square
feet, so it would go from 30,000 down to 12,000, just a
massive reduction and down to like 25% of the allowed
intensity versus zoning, and walked through the mechanics
of why that wasn’t possible, but that’s why the single-
story was not pursued.
Then finally, I just wanted to go back, I guess,
to one of my opening things relative to views. Totally
understand views, really important. It had been mentioned,
as you’re coming down Winchester your view down Shelburne
obviously isn’t changed; Shelburne is what it is.
Immediately after Shelburne are very tall trees where there
is no view. Then I acknowledged that there was this
corridor window through; that’s why we dramatically changed
the roof and dropped the height through there to address
that. Then once again just massive trees that are staying,
and they exist there, so no views there, and then we
dropped the height down the south side, and then existing
trees.
I just wanted to make sure that that was
understood, that it wasn’t like wow, you hit our corner and
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then it was just completely open. I mean this is the
existing condition today and we’ve tried to address the
remaining windows that will occur there.
I think that was everything I had in my notes, if
anyone had any additional questions.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I’m sure there are some
questions. Yes, Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I want to go back to a
comment that you had just made, because it was what was on
my mind. I need you to explain to me how you came up with
you would only have 12,000 square feet if you did a single-
story. I’m curious to make sure that in asking this that if
you did a single-story structure that maximized the
footprint of that lot with all parking below grade, just by
doing the math, I’m getting a larger square footage.
DOUG RICH: That was the initial proposal to me
by the neighbors, and what I just had to point out was once
you go to a single-story building you can’t economically
build subterranean parking anymore; it does not work.
Subterranean parking gets taken off the table then, and now
you’re talking about purely surface at grade, and that’s
where the 12,000 comes in, which is less than what would be
just literally lopping off half of the building, because
the building is currently 30,000, so lop off half, that’s
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15,000, but the 15,000 only has 41 stalls and when you
multiply the 41 by the 235 you get like 9,635, but you do
have to acknowledge you picked up 5,000 square feet, so
then you kind of triangulate in, and it basically works out
to where every 500 feet of extra space gets you 235 square
feet of building, and then you get to 12, 000 square feet.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: So the increase of the floor
print and the square footage there, and the lease rates you
would get, would not substantiate the underground parking?
DOUG RICH: Correct, we could not do underground
parking.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: So essentially am I
understanding you that this isn’t a viable project unless
it’s two-story?
DOUG RICH: Correct.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I don’t mean to split
hairs, but what about a story-and-a-half? I mean you’ve got
a portion of the building that you’ve taken to
approximately a single story on the southern side. Is it
possible to also reduce other areas of the building to a
single story to preserve some of the hillside views,
perhaps expanding the footprint if necessary?
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DOUG RICH: I feel like that’s what we’ve tried
to do, and if you look at that southern end, which is up
against the neighbors, your two-story element does not
start. It’s 125’ away from their building. So when we
started looking at that we said, okay, we feel like that’s
got to be an adequate buffer; it’s 100’ to the property
line and then 25’ obviously from that property line to
their building.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: There’s been a lot of
emphasis on the southern side of the building, but what we
heard tonight and previously is the concern about the view
as you’re driving south on Winchester, and what you see is
the corner at Shelburne and Winchester first, and that’s
where the views are. My question is is it possible to do
anything to affect that perspective? I mean you’ve done a
little bit with color, but the overall height hasn’t
changed dramatically.
DOUG RICH: The height has changed dramatically.
This used to be a front to back ridge, so it’s going up as
you head east, and this entire stretch here was 31-32’
high, and this was on one of your slides. We switched that
from a front to back ridge to now the shed roof going down,
so now you’re at 24’. We reduced the height 8’ down to
address this exact corridor, and you can see that we
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haven’t changed the height of the building or anything
relative to the… But you can see relative to the tree how
much farther down, how much greater view there was, to
address that exact point.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just to continue on this
line, while you’ve reduced that corner you’ve added what
looked like transom windows or clerestory window element
at, again, back up to the 32’ height, so that is an
obstruction. Perhaps you have a rendering or perspective
that illustrates the mass of the building from the
Shelburne and Winchester point of view, not the opposite
corner which is heavily, heavily provided in these
renderings, but the opposite end of the building looking at
the hillside view. What I’m looking for, if you have it or
if there’s some reference that we can look at, is what
impact this mass has on the actual hillside surrounding it.
Because I don’t see hillside in that rendering, I see blue
sky.
DOUG RICH: Yeah, I know what you’re saying. I
don’t have that; I’ve never created that. And that would
get back into having to factor in topography and elevations
and all that stuff, and I didn’t have that.
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I did think though in the package I sent, did it
have a focus on the northern end and showing the before and
after? I’m trying to remember.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Essentially the same. Very
similar architecture, but didn’t show the…
DOUG RICH: The background, yeah.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Continuing on the discussion
about the views. I appreciate the pointing out of the
window between the trees, and I spent a fair amount of time
walking back and forth on that sidewalk there. But what
you’re illustrating here is a 90° view from Winchester,
correct? So the issue is that the hillside, and the major
mountain there is called El Sombroso, and that hillside,
which is what people are looking at, is actually at around
somewhere between a 30° and 40° angle, not a 90° angle, so
when you are walking down that street, and I understand
that the trees are obstructing, but my question is is there
a way to think about this in terms of preserving the
hillside views from the perspective of particularly the
approximately 60’ from the corner of Via Sereno walking
south on Winchester where you have that hillside view as a
pedestrian, or the view from a vehicle looking in that
direction? Because I think what you’ve designed is
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preserving a 90° view, but not preserving a view of the
actual hillside that’s there.
DOUG RICH: So the question is?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: The question is have you
thought about designing the roof to preserve a hillside
view rather than a 90° view? The hillside is not behind the
building, the hillside, which would be a 90° view from
Winchester. The hillside is around a 30° to 40° view when
you’re headed south on Winchester.
DOUG RICH: This shed roof runs vertically
towards Shelburne; it’s not angled up towards the back or
to the side, and so as you’re coming down… I’m trying to
think, are you saying coming down Winchester looking kind
of this way?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Actually, no. It’s coming
down Winchester in that direction, but looking toward the
hillside, which is diagonal rather than at right angles.
DOUG RICH: The height along here is the same as
the height along there, of the roof, right?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yes.
DOUG RICH: And so once again, if you’re coming
down, looking this direction, that height should be the
same; it’s not arcing up.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: But what I’m saying is the
windows where you’ve designed a lower roof don’t
necessarily correspond to the hillside, and you’ve answered
essentially that they don’t, they correspond to a front-on
view from Winchester, correct?
DOUG RICH: This particular picture is a front-on
view, absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And your description of
those windows is looking, I guess, that’s east from
Winchester, not looking southeast.
DOUG RICH: Correct. I guess the point I was
trying to make is that while this is looking directly east,
that roofline from the southeast heading there, that
roofline is the same running around that whole edge, and so
that’s not going up, it’s not arcing, it’s not blocking the
view more even if you swing that view around.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you. I had
questions on some other topics, but I’ll let some other
people.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I’ll get back to you.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just to be clear, while
that may be the lowest point as you’re looking from that
angle of that corner of the building, let’s pretend you’re
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standing in the middle of the intersection at Shelburne and
Winchester—that’s the point of view we’re asking about—and
that roofline is relatively low, however, it continues to
step up as you take in that entire view and you take in
essentially the entire length of that building, and that’s
what we’re not visualizing with these renderings and that’s
kind of what we’re missing.
You have a low point that you’re talking about
with the new shed roof design, you have a new high point
back up where those clerestory windows are, and it
continues to step a little bit up as you move south along
the front of the building. So the building continues to
rise; it doesn’t stay or decline in height from the
perspective that we’re asking about.
DOUG RICH: So that I’m clear, too, I’m not
trying to say… This obviously is higher here, absolutely,
totally agree. What we were trying to do is blend that in
with the existing trees as someone is coming down
Winchester, as they are driving through, so that they would
still be able to get through here, recognizing yeah, this
probably protrudes out a little bit relative to the
existing trees out there.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, go ahead.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just a quick follow up on
that. This may have been answered before. Were the story
poles adjusted with the second revision?
DOUG RICH: They were not.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Why were they not adjusted?
DOUG RICH: That was a function of really two
things. One was timing and cost; its very expensive to redo
that. But also, it was probably my error. I was thinking
that it was more conservative not to, because everything
only came down in height versus the last time, and so that
may have been an error, because it would have told my story
better to do it, but those were the two reasons why.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Are there other questions?
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had some questions about
the trees. Could we just talk about that now? Could you
describe to me what the net change has been since the
previous hearing with regard to trees?
DOUG RICH: That was in the package that we sent
to you—it was on this sheet right here—summarizing the net
change in trees.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And so could you tell me
which trees are being spared and which trees are being…
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DOUG RICH: The net change from the building
changes was that there were two trees here that were being
removed because of the building pushing back, and then
because the building pushed back, this tree right here was
able to be retained.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had some questions about
other trees on the lot and whether it might be possible to
retain those, so I wonder if we could put up L-2 of the
current packet, which is the Tree Preservation and Removal
Plan?
My question is about some specific trees, and if
you could maybe first confirm that they are slotted to be
removed, and then comment on whether it’s possible to
retain them. So Tree 40, which is on the east border. It’s
a Valley Oak.
DOUG RICH: Tree 40 is to be removed.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And is it possible to retain
that tree?
DOUG RICH: Looking for where it is right now.
Oh, there it is over on the east. That was the one we had
previously to be retained, and is being removed because of
the building shift away from Winchester.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: But it’s not close to the
building, so what the…
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DOUG RICH: Oh, the parking structure.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: It’s the driveway and the
structure?
DOUG RICH: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Tree 39.
DOUG RICH: Tree 39 is right in the middle of the
parking structure as well.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. Tree 34, which is on
the south corner.
DOUG RICH: Correct. That’s right in the middle
of the parking as well.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Tree 18.
DOUG RICH: Tree 18 is to be removed. That looks
to me like it’s on the driveway entrance down and the
circulation aisle for the parking.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: It’s very difficult to tell,
because you’re showing the existing buildings on this, not
the planned development.
DOUG RICH: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So I’ll just verify this
with Staff, then. And then Tree 12.
DOUG RICH: Tree 12 is to be removed.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Large Coast Live Oak.
DOUG RICH: Tree 12 is underneath the building.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: In shifting the building
back by 6’ off of Winchester, did you consider sparing any
other trees from the ax?
DOUG RICH: From the building shift, I guess our
preference would be not to shift the building and to go
back and to be able to save the additional trees along the
rear, and as I mentioned in the last public hearing, our
whole approach on this was, and I think you can see… Well,
we can go back, but you’ve seen a lot of great trees around
the perimeter of the site, and we wanted to save those, but
the comment was made and the direction to shift the
building, and so we do understand that need and we decided
okay, that makes sense to get thing farther away from
Winchester, so let’s do it.
And I do think eliminating Tree 40 will probably
help the viability of Tree 41 that’s right next to it, so
they’re not competing for resources there, but that’s my
opinion.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just had a follow up on
the trees; just to make sure I understood it.
I do understand that in our Terms and Conditions,
were this to be approved, that there is a requirement to do
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replacement trees, but I was just trying to get the big
picture, and I was looking at C-2.0, if that’s accurate,
it’s also another version of the tree diagram, and I
counted that 31 trees would be removed based on counting
Xs, and 11 would remain. Does that sound about right to
you?
DOUG RICH: Staff, do you recall how many trees
were being removed?
JOCELYN PUGA: I don’t have that information
available with me at this time, but it does sound correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So my question is you had
what looked like theoretical landscaping designs unless
they were actually where you would put the trees. My
question is is it realistic given the footprint of the
building to put that many replacement trees onsite? Because
in our Tree Ordinance it does say that if it’s not possible
that there can be funds put into the Town fund for trees.
So the landscaping plans, are they in enough detail at this
point that we would know you could replace…
DOUG RICH: Yes, they are. We looked at that and
we have enough… It was really close, kind of right there,
depending on some sizing things that we would be able to
completely mitigate onsite.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think, Commissioner Burch,
you had a question?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I have a couple, Chair, if
that’s okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Go right ahead.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Can you remind me, what is
the square footage of your parking garage?
DOUG RICH: I don’t think I have the actual just
square footage.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Your architect is behind
you, right?
DOUG RICH: Chris, do you know the total square
footage of the parking garage? I don’t think that’s a
calculation we have on any of the plans or anything.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Can you ask him to politely
take… Because your measurements on here are so broken up, I
can’t figure it out. I need to know how many square feet
your parking garage is.
DOUG RICH: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: But while he’s looking at
that, of your building how many square feet are actually
what you’re going to be considering leasable square
footage? On each floor would you consider, what, 2,000
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square feet are taken up by what we’ll call multi-tenant
space: hallway, bathroom, lobby, stairwells?
DOUG RICH: About 15% would be common area.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Yes, thank you, that word
was escaping me for some reason.
DOUG RICH: So that would be about 4,500 square
feet. That excludes on each floor, and we can talk about
occupancy, that’s just purely common open space to all
tenants. Then within each floor print then obviously you
have reception, bathrooms, break rooms, circulation
hallways, kitchens, copy rooms, all those types of things.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: But those still, as far as a
lease goes, get divided up among the tenants. I’m thinking
about the space that’s kind of that dead space, trying to
figure that out.
DOUG RICH: Yeah, that pure dead space would be
about 15%, correct.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay. And then while he’s
still looking for that, I may have missed this. I know
Commissioner Janoff had asked you this idea about perhaps
this is more of a split-level. Perhaps adjacent to the
residential side you had more of a single-story, and it
moved into a bit of a two-story or some configuration.
Would you consider something along those lines? I’m trying
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very hard to find a middle ground between your needs and
the needs of our residents. Are those numbers you’d be
willing to play with and see if they would pen out?
DOUG RICH: I mean it’s so tough. I feel like
that’s what we tried to do with that south end already, and
we’ve definitely tried to push and pull and pull back, and
I understand it hasn’t been right here at the very end that
they wanted, but…
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I was at CDAC, I know what
you’ve done, so I’m not discrediting the steps you’ve
taken. I’m just listening to the Town people.
DOUG RICH: I would love nothing more than to say
yup, that’s easy, that’s doable, let’s just go for it. As
you can see, I’m really struggling with that.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I mean I’m not asking you to
commit to doing it, I’m asking if you’d be willing to put
pen to paper and see if it pans out.
DOUG RICH: I mean I can go back and do it. It’s
something I’ve done already, because once again, if I
thought that I could do it and that would solve all this, I
would have done it, I guess. I mean we’ve looked at this.
We’ve tried to pull back as far as we can and still make
everything work, and I feel like that’s kind of where we’ve
gotten to, and I’m just being candid.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: No, please. I want to help
you too, but we…
DOUG RICH: Yeah, I understand. I totally
understand.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: We get, and I’m not trying
to overly speak for my fellow commissioners, but there are
two sides to this.
DOUG RICH: Yup.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: There’s wanting to put good
development in town, but also needing to care deeply about
our residents, so I’m just trying to figure out how we may
be able to not have this be in limbo for you for a long
time, yet meet the needs, which I greatly respect and I’m
sure you do too—you would not want your child’s bedroom to
be staring at an office—and how we can make this work for
both of you.
My thought was somewhat being you already had
reduced some of that south end in pulling that back a
little bit more. I mean there might be something that you
could create that would bring your lease rates, like a nice
patio for dining up there, or something. If there was
something like that that could offset that a bit, making
the underground parking a little bit bigger and reducing
some of it on the ground level. I’m not trying to do your
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job for you, I’m just trying to find a middle ground and
see what you might be amenable to checking for us.
DOUG RICH: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Has he still not been able
to figure out the parking garage square footage?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think we may have another
question, and perhaps while they’re doing that, we can come
back to you.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Yeah, that’s fine. Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me know if, as, and when
they come up with the square footage.
DOUG RICH: Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Thank you. I think did someone
down there have their hand up? If not, we have Vice Chair
Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: While they’re working on that,
let’s talk about the parking again. I cannot get it
straight in my head. The parking is being provided
underground and at ground level meets the requirements of
whatever formula we have for approving that concept. But I
can’t get it through my head if we have as many people
there as was discussed in our last meeting why there would
be so few cars actually parking above and below ground. It
seems to me that there are going to be more cars than
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spaces available. Where would you anticipate that overflow
parking going?
DOUG RICH: I don’t anticipate overflow parking,
and let me just run through everything with you. This was
mentioned in one of the public comments and I should have,
I guess, addressed it.
You have a building that starts with 30,000
square feet. As mentioned to Commissioner Burch, 15% of
that gets eliminated with this common area, so that takes
out 15%. Then on top of that, all the other items that I
mentioned then go into each floor plan, which this is where
you start talking about reception, hallways, bathrooms,
break rooms, kitchens, conference rooms, copy rooms, all
those types of things, and a very, very common, accepted
load, or percentage, for those types of things is 35%. So
you take the 15% and the 35%, and that gets you 50%. So
what is remaining for offices or cubes is about half of
your building, so that’s 15,000 square feet.
If you were to Google “What’s the average square
footage per office?” the national average is 150, but
acknowledge in the Bay Area sometimes that gets lower, and
so as was pointed out and maybe not too much lower, but
let’s just go really aggressive. Let’s say it’s 125. So
then if you take the remaining 15,000 square feet and
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divide it by 125, you would get about 120 employees, and we
have parking for 128.
Then that’s where I went in, and this was
mentioned, so I guess I didn’t explain myself very well,
that’s then when I went into the whole okay, and then on
every given day not every single 120 people come to your
office. Some people are on business trips, some people are
on vacation, some people are sick, and so you don’t have
every single person there every single day. I said so we
already have enough parking, but then on top of this you
have this kind of added in as I guess I’ll call buffer or
contingency, and so that’s where not only from our point of
view is the parking adequate, but also of course it
satisfies the Town’s parking, and so from my point of view
you don’t need overflow parking; we’ve got the adequate
parking.
VICE CHAIR KANE: May I?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The sidewalks as I see them
moving north on Winchester, there’s a bulb-out and then a
recession along the property, and a bulb-out as you get to
Shelburne. Is that intended to be parking?
DOUG RICH: Are you talking about on Winchester
proper?
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes.
DOUG RICH: I don’t recall. Does Winchester allow
on-street parking?
LISA PETERSEN: Yes, it does.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So that would be intended for
parking? Okay.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: You have further…
VICE CHAIR KANE: I had a follow up. I’ve gotta
read my bad handwriting; I’ll come back to it, Mr. Chair.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: How are we doing on figuring
out the size of the basement?
DOUG RICH: We have it. The size of the parking
footprint is 35,600.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Now we can go back to
Commissioner Burch and see if that helps her.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: It does, with my scribbles.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Do you want to follow up with
some questions, or do you want to take a moment?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: No, I’m fine. Thanks.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It comes back to me now. What
do you envision these businesses being? I think we may have
said last time that they were not to be medical, is that
correct?
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DOUG RICH: We talked about it last time, yes,
and the answer was our intent was not to do medical. We
have not designed any of this for medical. That’s a big
part of why we did the ceiling the way we did, and the open
floor plans, and all those things. Our intent is to have
these be professional offices. That was the need that we
identified in the Town, and that’s what we’re absolutely
targeting.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m not sure how you can
control that, but be that as it may, I can get over it, but
I just don’t envision people not coming to work for a
variety of different reasons. It just seems to me like what
we’re doing these days, everybody comes to work and works
for as many hours as they can; that just seems to be the
current work ethic, for the kind of building you’re
describing I think in particular.
But if you’ve got X number of employees with the
likelihood of filling those 120 people in the building, you
said, and 128 spaces, would those extra spaces take care of
the visitors, the clients, the patients, the vendors? See,
I see a lot of overflow in an office building, not just for
people who work there, but for people who have business
there, like I have clients, like other people would have
vendors, like people would have meetings with other folks
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coming in. That’s where I see the overflow parking. If
you’ve got it maxed out at 128—it was 128 or some number
like that—and we’re depending upon folks not coming to work
for one reason or another, which is practical to some
degree, especially when you mention business trips, where
do we put all those folks who don’t work in that building
per se?
DOUG RICH: So yes, absolutely, that leftover,
and remember, once again, I went way conservative on 125. I
think if we were all to pull out our phone and say what’s
the average square foot per person right now, the number is
going to pop up as 150, so I personally think that the
number of excess stalls is greater, but I went really
conservative, and you do have that street parking, and as I
mentioned. We all work, we’re all workaholics, we’re all
here tonight, but absolutely I think the number of people
that travel and do all those things, you will not have
every single person there every single day.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Is it likely on the ground
level parking, especially as you enter it from Winchester,
that someone, because you may not have the power in the
future, will dedicate ten visitor slots?
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DOUG RICH: The visitor parking I would
anticipate would absolutely be at grade. That’s what’s
noticeable and that’s where people would go.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Though that would subtract from
your 128, would it not? Because you’re talking about the
120 people in there.
DOUG RICH: The 128 would include visitor
parking.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Which might then cause some of
the employees in that building not to have a place to park.
DOUG RICH: I understand what you’re saying, and
so let me go and say what I think is going to be it, and if
someone could divide 15,000 by 150, that’s that parking
that I think will be available for visitors.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Do we have other questions?
Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I’m not certain
where we are at this point. First I wanted to recognize
that you did take into consideration some of the Commission
comments last meeting and they are reflected in the plans,
however, there were a lot of puts and takes in the sense
that the building got lowered, but the windows got bigger;
the ceiling got lowered, and the windows got bigger; so it
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was kind of an odd sort of well, yeah, but that’s not quite
what we had in mind.
I have a number of comments about your current
design that I could run through if that would be useful,
but I’m not sure where we are in terms of retaining the
current design, so I’m kind of at a loss.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I think you probably have a
choice. You can wait until we close the public hearing and
when it’s considered whether this be approved, or whether
there will be a request to do further modifications, or
whether it will simply be denied, that’s one time you could
do it. If you think you want to be asking some questions
that would be helpful to you, go right ahead. But that’s
the choice you have, I think. You can either ask questions
now that might help you, or you can wait and say this is
what I’d like to see.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’ll wait.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m very interested in
Commissioner Janoff’s comments, and I have some comments as
well that I think can all wait until deliberations, so from
my perspective I’m eager to hear those comments.
I had one other question for the Applicant. We
had some testimony that the building height might exceed
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what’s allowable due to not having an accurate map of the
topography of the site and the need to maintain what I
understand is less than 35’ in plane along existing grade.
If I’m not correct on that, I’m sure Staff will correct me,
but can you assure us without having that accurate
topographical map that this building will not exceed 35’ in
height?
DOUG RICH: We looked at it. The building is 32’
from the front, and from there it slopes down. We sloped
the building to follow the topography on down to match the
35’ and stay within that boundary.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you basically used an
average rather than a specific point by point sampling of
the topography in order to do that, correct?
DOUG RICH: I don't know how to answer that,
because the answer is kind of both, I guess. In any given
part, maybe someone dug out something or there was an old
tree that got pulled out, and so a spot grade next to a
tree may dip down really low, but if you look at following
the code and everything down, we absolutely did that at the
35’ following the grade, if that makes sense.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. I may follow up
with Staff on that, so thank you.
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CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Burch, did you
have a comment, question?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: No, mine is actually more of
a question of Staff, so I’ll wait.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Yes, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: One question. We asked that
you move the structure as far back as possible, 10’; you
got 6’. What is the effective reduction in height from the
standpoint of a viewer at Winchester with that shift back?
DOUG RICH: Pushing back, and that’s why we
started to try to really play with rooflines and
everything, because pushing back only dropped the building
6”. I think the impact of pushing back is much more
dramatic just on view angle rather than aggregate drop, and
the reason why is because you have your underground parking
and that slopes down, and you can’t just push the whole
building down, because then your ramp down gets way too
steep.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? If not, thank
you and I will close the public comment portion of this
public hearing.
Now I will ask my fellow commissioners to make
comments or anything else they would like. Commissioner
Burch.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: I have a question for our
traffic engineer, please. I heard a lot of comments about—I
wish I had a map—the grade level parking and coming out of
that making a left, and some of the discussion was can’t we
make it all go out on the side street, but I’m trying to
understand why that would be a better or worse option. To
me it creates a bottleneck on one street, and people are
still making a left hand turn onto Winchester. Can you
explain to me, would it be better to have it on one street?
Would it be creating a greater problem? Are we truly
benefiting by having two access points?
JESSY PU: Jessy Pu, Town Traffic Engineer. From
a traffic engineering perspective it’s better to have two
driveways to serve the same amount of traffic than just one
driveway.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: So there’s no benefit in
your mind at all of having… I know we like it better. I
usually like it better too, it creates a bottleneck, but do
you perceive any benefit though? If this left hand turn at
that particular spot on Winchester is such an issue, would
there by any perceived benefit on creating one access
location on the side street where people would be making a
left hand turn onto that spot? Shelburne, thank you.
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JESSY PU: We have not analyzed just serving all
the traffic excess off one driveway on Shelburne; however,
my gut feeling is it would still work, although I’d prefer
having two driveways.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just to follow up, what is
the preference? Is it an aesthetics, is it a preference
because of the building tenants, or is it a preference for
two entrances because of the neighborhood traffic? Where
does the preference lie with the reason for it?
JESSY PU: The preference lies when you have two
driveways you can spread out traffic, so you don’t have the
traffic concentration, and that will reduce your
congestion.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: So you’re referring to the
ingress and egress to the property, not surrounding
neighborhood type of traffic?
JESSY PU: When traffic gets out of the project
they will head to where they want to go; Winchester mostly,
or maybe some would use University. The only difference is
around the corner of Shelburne and Winchester, and that’s
not major changes in the traffic pattern.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: As a follow up to that, I
understand the comparison of two driveways, but I think
what we’re talking about in this situation is the
comparison of the left turn onto Winchester from a driveway
and a street, and just a street, correct? Because that’s
really what the concern is about the impact on the
surrounding neighborhood, and the traffic isn’t the traffic
coming out of the two driveways per se, it’s that one
particular driveway. If we were to eliminate that driveway
and have it all come out a street would you say that the
site lines would be better from Shelburne onto Winchester,
because of the width of Shelburne, than from a driveway
where there’s parking that’s allowed up to just a few feet
of that driveway entrance, is that correct?
JESSY PU: I think it depends on where the
parking is permitted. It depends on where that red curb is.
You come out of the driveway or come out at Shelburne,
eventually you have to enter the travel lane and follow the
same alignment. So if you come out at Shelburne, you look
to the left. You still have on-street parking to your left,
and you still have to inch out into the street before you
can make a left turn.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: What’s the normal parking
setback to an intersection as compared to a driveway
cutout?
JESSY PU: Every intersection and driveway is
different, especially with driveways. There are driveways
that don’t have a red curb, there are driveways that have a
red curb, some driveways have longer red curbs, and some
driveways have shorter red curb. We try to balance the
needs of on-street parking by ensuring traffic safety, and
it all depends on the configuration. But in this case, the
way that the new configuration is, you can come out of the
driveway safely, and you can also come out of Shelburne
safely.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Provided there’s an opening
in traffic, et cetera.
JESSY PU: Right.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: But wouldn’t you say that
the site lines would be better from Shelburne than they
would be from a driveway?
JESSY PU: I would say yes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And I think that’s an important
yes, Mr. Pu. The issue essentially is we need two
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driveways, because of the size of the building. If it were
a Quonset hut, we’d just need one driveway. So the need for
the two driveways is being created by the size of the
building, and I’m thinking of…
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is that a question? Are you
asking him a question?
VICE CHAIR KANE: No.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Well, that’s what we’re doing.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Did you know?
CHAIR O'DONNELL: That won’t work.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Come on, Tom. I’m getting
around to it.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I don’t want a speech; I want a
question. You don’t have the time for a speech, but if
you’re going to talk to him, you ask a question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I thought this was speech time;
we’re done with the public hearing.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Then don’t ask him a question
and you’re fine. You don’t want to ask him a question? Or
you want to speak to him?
VICE CHAIR KANE: I want to speak to him.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Don’t. Does somebody have a
question? Commissioner Badame.
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COMMISSIONER BADAME: I have a question, and it’s
actually changing the subject. Sorry about that.
There is concern with the perceived building
height, so back to the Applicant’s presentation. Does Staff
verify the topography measurements independent of their
presentation? Are we to know that there are accurate
numbers? Can we request an additional study, as Mr.
Mekachuk had recommended that that Applicant do? I believe
the Applicant had met with a consultant to consider some
further analysis.
JOCELYN PUGA: Staff is comfortable with the
sections that the Applicant has provided. Additionally,
during the building permit process the Applicant is also
required to do a pad certification, so at that point we
would also have verification of the building height and
that it meets the 35’.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Questions for Staff on story
poles. Is there a requirement for story poles to be
adjusted when major revisions are being made to a project,
as the Applicant has indicated?
JOCELYN PUGA: No, there is not a requirement.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: So the story poles, if they
were originally lower than the revised project, the story
poles would not have to be adjusted?
JOCELYN PUGA: They can remain. It’s the
Applicant’s choice if they’d like to revise them or not.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: This is a question for
Staff. I know we went over this at the last hearing, but
can you remind us of the height and the square footage of
the Palo Alto office building down the street?
JOCELYN PUGA: The square footage is 14,560
square feet. The height is 30’ along Winchester Boulevard
and increases to 35’ along the sides and the rear of the
building where the property slopes down.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Other questions? I have a
question of the engineer. There has been some discussion as
to whether there should be one or two driveways, and I
think we understand that discussion. I’m wondering if you
said there is no left turn into the driveway on Winchester
and out of the driveway on Winchester, what your opinion of
that would be.
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JESSY PU: It would add six cars turning in and
out of the driveway on Shelburne.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: It would add that?
JESSY PU: Yes. The traffic that would use the
driveway on Winchester would now be using the driveway on
Shelburne, so you would add more traffic load to that
driveway access. We have not analyzed that situation, but
my gut feeling is that it should still work.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: All right, thank you very much.
Other questions? Okay, we’ve finished with the engineer.
Does anybody have comments, a motion, whatever you’d like
to do? Commissioner Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: My concern with the left hand
turn is substantial at this point. Earlier I said I had an
exhibit, and I was being flip at the time, but the fact is
I drove to the building at about 10:15 and I parked
outside. I’ve got a big ol’ Jeep Grand Cherokee monster
brick truck, and as I was parking there two cars went by me
so fast that my car shook, and I thought well, that’s
interesting, I didn’t expect that. I grabbed the closest
thing I could, which was this tissue box, and from 10:45 to
10:55 63 cars went by me heading north. Of those, eight
were equal to or lower than 25 miles an hour, 44 were going
substantially over that, up to 30 miles an hour, and 19 of
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them didn’t even show the speed, because the sign just kept
flashing, “Slow Down.”
That’s the experience I had out there. I’m not a
traffic engineer, I’m just a guy sitting in a car that’s
getting rocked, and I went this is different, and most of
us, plural, that is to say, 50-something out of 63, don’t
obey that speed limit.
Now, I don't know if a scientific study is going
to account for that or not, but it’s going to be hell to
pay to get out of there making a left onto Winchester
unless there’s a flashing light to tell people that cars
are coming, and you’re focused on this speeding guy coming
from the left and you don’t see the bicycle coming from the
right. It just strikes me as a disaster waiting to happen.
Now, that’s what you have to put up with. I’m not
a traffic engineer, I’m just a guy who took an oath to try
to do the right thing, and my experience is very
disturbing, and I want to share that with my commissioners
and hear what you think, because I think in watching the
traffic I could live with a left hand turn in if we had to
try to find a way to make this project viable.
I imagined I was coming out and made the right
turn, like the lady does sometimes, and I went down
Shelburne despite the fact that there are 85 potholes
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there; it wasn’t inconvenient to get down there, turn on
University and go up Blossom Hill and get back to where I
was. So my position currently is that maybe I can live with
the left in, but I cannot live with the left out.
And this was 10:00 o'clock in the morning. This
was 10:45 to 10:55. If I’d had more time, I would have
stayed there, but I’m sure the ratio wouldn’t have changed.
It was extraordinary. Twenty guys flying by over 35, eight
people out of 63 obeying the speed limit, and two of those
made a right on Shelburne. And by the way, nobody made a
left into Shelburne coming down. Now, I’m no scientist, but
that’s my ten-minute experience. I’ve been concerned about
that from the beginning.
I went down to the medical building. They’ve got
the advantage of the Daves Avenue intersection, and they’re
all tied up. They’ve got red lights, and children lights,
and push button to cross the street; everything is tied up
tight, so I don’t see the buildings as comparable in that
sense.
What I do see as analogous is when we have a
house in the hillsides sometimes we have to say all of your
objective numbers are right, but it doesn’t fit the site.
There’s objectivity on these numbers fitting, the
subjectivity is it turns out to be a really tough site,
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because of the view down Winchester and the need to get out
on Winchester, and I don’t think that’s a good idea
currently.
So that’s my issue on traffic and left turns.
I’ve got issues on the Commercial Guidelines, but I’ll come
back to those later.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: To step back at a higher
level, and I believe Commissioner Kane had alluded to it, I
think this is all coming back to the size of the building.
If we analyze traffic, traffic comes from the number of
people, and the people are from the square footage of the
building.
I’ve been sitting here trying to look at it and
I’m not easily finding a solution, and it sounds like you
are equally backed into a corner as far a solution, which
to me begs the question to my fellow commissioners, do we
continue it or do we look to deny and let him move on? I
typically try to find that compromise and find a way to
continue, but I’m not sure I’m seeing it, and I would just
like to get my fellow commissioners’ read. As we go
through, we can talk about the weeds, but I just feel like
there’s this higher level we need to talk about.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: To respond to a couple of
things that other Commissioners have said, with regard to
continuing versus denying I think there is probably still
more to be discussed here before I can reach an opinion on
that particular branch, and I think it comes back to this…
But I do agree with the comment that the root
cause of a number of the issues is the size of the
building. For instance, the number of trees that are being
cut down, which I think is excessive, relates to that. The
setback. For instance, we clearly asked for a 10’ setback,
we got a 6’, but that’s because they held the size of the
building as a constant, and we don’t know how much of a
reduction. I don’t think we’ve talked about any
alternatives or things like that yet, but just to respond
to that.
With regard to Vice Chair Kane’s comments on the
left turn situation, I’ve observed that and I understand
the Daves Avenue traffic and the sensitivity with the
number of children on that street at particular times of
the day, and so I think we have a situation where we’re not
only looking at an ordinary risk profile in terms of a car
to car accident, but I think we’re also looking at a risk
profile that could involve children walking or on bicycles
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as well, so I think we need to be extra careful in
consideration of that
While I understand the position of the traffic
engineers and the traffic study that a two-driveway
solution is generally better, I don’t think that holds in
this situation, because you don’t have two driveways going
onto the same thoroughfare. You have one going onto a
dangerous thoroughfare and one going onto one that could be
much safer, so I think you have to consider that, and with
that I think that serious consideration should be made to
eliminating the left turn, or having all the traffic flow
in through Shelburne. I think there’s been some discussion
of it, and we had some testimony from the Applicant tonight
that it would potentially be a tradeoff that we might have
some situations of safety within the parking lot if it were
a Shelburne only egress.
However, I weigh that and I say how serious is
that? Because those cars are traveling at three miles per
hour and there is not children back there, whereas on
Winchester you’ve got, as Commissioner Kane rightly
observed, 30-40 miles an hour-plus traffic going on with
children. My opinion is in order to approve a project like
this we would need to really look at the Shelburne entry
and exit alternative; I think it would be something that we
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really should look at and not quickly try to make that
tradeoff without examining that as a safety alternative, in
my opinion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Before I go to any more
questions I want to just say something; I don’t think I’ve
said too much tonight.
I personally think that we would be better off
denying than going back to the drawing board, because the
questions being raised tonight are not only important for
this project, but we know fairly close to it is a fairly
large former nursery which will also come. It seems to me
that the zoning and everything in that whole area is
totally consistent with what the Applicant has asked for.
On the other hand, people have raised serious
questions and have said, notwithstanding that it meets all
the requirements, at least the height requirements, we can
limit the left hand turns where really we don’t want to do
it. We’ve also heard from the Applicant who said I couldn’t
substantially reduce it any further.
I would like to know where the Council comes
down, because this is not the only question we’re going to
have on this street, and we know this street is a gateway
street, and I think the Applicant would be benefited from
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finding out from the Council, because it’s zoned for the
way it is.
The Town has done everything. We have a
recommendation from Staff. We’ve heard from the traffic
engineers, and as far as they’re concerned we ought to
approve this project. I have not heard one of my fellow
commissioners speak in favor of this project, so to say
let’s go back to the drawing board, to me, would be unfair
to us, because I’d like to get some direction from the
Council, and it would be unfair to the Applicant, because
it isn’t free to keep doing revisions, particularly when
we’re not agreed on what those revisions should be and how
small it should be.
So I just want to throw that out. Whatever you
want to do, obviously we’ll do what the majority wants.
Now, I think Vice Chair Kane had his hand up
before I said something, so I’ll look to him.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Maybe I’m speaking to Council,
and maybe I’m speaking to the Applicant. I think the
architecture is outstanding. I love the drawings. I love
the thought that went into it. It could be a beautiful
addition to the town if it was half its size, if we could
just get 3’ people to be there, because it is the size that
is the problem.
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In the required findings that, “The site is
physically suitable for the type of development. That the
site is physically suitable for the proposed density of the
development,” and density because of the size is at least
my issue, and I go to the Commercial Design Guidelines, and
the common ones apply to this and any other project that’s
not in one of our special districts, and it says, “Maintain
a building scale that is consistent with the Town’s small-
scale image.” I could be overruled or straightened out by
Council, but I say it’s the biggest house in the
neighborhood. That’s the analogy, and that’s the problem.
It doesn’t maintain the Town’s small-scale image.
“The sensitive interface of commercial
development with adjacent residential neighborhoods.”
You’ve got a right to build there, and you’ve got a right
to make a profit. If the site is such that you can make a
profit, we’ll work with you, try to figure something out,
but I just don’t think you can create the havoc that we
have on the part of these neighbors with so many letters
and so many speeches; that just simply can’t be denied.
We have present people; we have future people.
The present people need to be heard and respected. The
future people go to the development of the Town, and that
needs to be heard and respected. But when I go to
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Commercial Guidelines, “Maintain a sense of place with
views, surrounding hills preserved.” Boom. It’s coming
right out of the book. “Design to maintain and reinforce
the unique scale and character of Los Gatos.” This
beautiful building may not do that. It’s in the wrong place
and/or it’s too big. Otherwise, it’s aces. It would be a
great addition if it were in the right place or if it were
in the right size. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: We had some other hands up?
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I, too, thought that the
revisions that were made I liked the architecture very
much, and I’m troubled because I hear that this is in
compliance with the building code requirements and whatnot,
but then we have to consider neighborhood compatibility,
and if this were actually on University it probably would
be a much better fit.
The reason I asked about the Palo Alto building
is although there are buildings somewhere on Winchester
that are 30,000 square feet, they’re not there, and that
particular intersection is a block away from Daves Avenue,
which is problematic. I personally have never driven 35
miles an hour, because I got a ticket for speeding going 35
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miles an hour, but nonetheless it’s a big problem and
that’s probably why they had the speed trap.
You know, neighborhood input isn’t everything,
but it’s a lot, and normally when there’s a compelling
reason to approve a project there’s usually at least one
neighbor that thinks it’s a good idea, and right now the
current proposal isn’t where it needs to be in that we
haven’t heard any neighborhood support for the project as
it stands now.
So then we’re at this crossroads where
economically it may not work to reduce the size enough to
get it there, but I, too, was hoping that there was some
kind of compromise to maybe reduce parts of the building to
single-story. I don't know if it’s going to make sense to
continue it or deny it and then see where it goes from
there, but right now I don’t think that the project is
where it needs to be.
Relative to the traffic, I, too, share the
concern, and I do think independent of all the traffic
analysis that it would be a superior solution from a
traffic and safety perspective to have all the traffic
routed through Shelburne. Those people are going to turn
left on Winchester anyway to go downtown, or go to Highway
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17, go south or whatever they do, but it would be in my
mind safer to do it from there.
But to go into the traffic and try to make
changes right now when we don’t have a basic proposal for
the building that is something that appears that can be
approved, then I think we should leave it to decide whether
or not we move forward before we start making those kinds
of changes.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just echoing the views of
my fellow commissioners. I think that there is work to be
done on the design. I don’t think all of the requirements
or the requests that we have made from the last meeting
have been satisfied, as I mentioned before, so there is
work there. Your neighbors obviously still have some issues
(inaudible).
But overall, at that 30,000 square foot place,
this is an overly constrained problem. You push one place,
you get a bigger problem elsewhere, and I don’t think it
makes sense for us, or for you as has been said, for you to
continue to go pick up another rock and we find out it’s
not quite the right rock, so it’s a little bit of an unfair
situation.
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I personally would be in favor of denying it to
push the issue to Town Council, assuming that we can frame
a question to Town Council that would yield an answer that
we can work from going forward.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Let me suggest one thing. It’s
been fairly clear to me that most people when they come in
and satisfy all of the written requirements, that project
ought to be approved, except as the Vice Chair says, in
some cases the uniqueness of the situation would say no,
you don’t. The problem that I’m concerned about, and that’s
why I think the Council could be helpful, is that whole
street is zoned consistent with this project, so if we want
a smaller project, then I think the Council ought to weigh
in, because it isn’t just going to be this project, and
that is not what they’ve said in the past, so I would like
to hear.
Now, we’ll start with Commissioner Burch and
we’ll go down the line.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Thank you. This may or may
not be the right time to say this, but I’m going to
formally request a joint study session between the Planning
Commission and the Town Council for Winchester Boulevard
planning. I think we have a lot of stuff coming up on that
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street, and while we’re always looking at applications one
at a time, I think we need to have a global review of this.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: I would like to. Yes,
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I hate to make that
elephant even bigger, but we’ve got a lot of other issues
in close proximity to this Winchester Avenue project. We’ve
got the McCarthy at the corner of 9 and Santa Cruz, we’ve
got the two projects on Alberto, and other projects that we
don’t yet know about, all of which boil down to a very,
very similar dilemma on our part: they meet the
requirements, and yet there is something major that seems
flawed about them, so I would agree that a study session is
a very reasonable thing, but I would like to see it
broadened so that we’re really looking at if it can’t be
town-wide, at least within that square mile.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I guess I am in favor of
denial in order to further the process for all the reasons
that have been said. I would respectfully disagree with the
Chair that all the written requirements have been
satisfied, because I think there are a number that haven’t.
One of them would be the requirement to preserve views of
the hillside. My opinion is that that hasn’t been
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maximized. Also, I think there may be some architectural
compatibility issues.
I would actually love to hear Commissioner
Janoff’s requirements on those, but I think that that
relates back to the Commercial Design Guidelines, and I
think my own uneducated opinion about that is that in the
last redesign where the square footage was held constant
some of the features and articulation of the building was
flattened, and to me it looks more like a boxcar than it
did before this in terms of the outline, so I think that
it’s less compatible and it may be not compatible with the
Commercial Design Guidelines.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Could I suggest that it appears
to me that we have a majority for denial? All the questions
that are being discussed now are good questions, but again,
I think we probably need some guidance from the Council,
but I think the idea of a joint study session is a good
idea, too; probably both those things.
It is now quarter to ten. We have another matter.
I would encourage someone to make a motion. Who will make
the motion?
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’ll make the motion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Okay. Commissioner Burch is
going to help us out.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: I’m going to move to deny
Architecture and Site Application S-16-023, Subdivision
Application M-16-002, and Negative Declaration ND-16-003,
property located at 15860 through 15894 Winchester
Boulevard.
I am going to make the note that I actually find
the project to be architecturally great. I think that style
is good. I hope that in this that there can be some work
that can be done between the Applicant and the neighbors
that benefits both, but I think we are at an impasse and we
need Council to weigh in.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: Is there a second? Commissioner
Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Second the motion.
CHAIR O'DONNELL: The motion is seconded. All
those in favor, say aye. It appears that we are unanimous.
So can we have the admonition about appeals?
JOEL PAULSON: We can, thank you. Anyone who is
not satisfied with the decision of the Planning Commission
can appeal that decision. The appeal must be filed within
ten days. There is a fee for filing the appeal, and the
appeal form can be found in the Clerk’s Office.