Attachment 9 - July 12, 2016 Special Planning Commission Meeting Verbatim Minutes
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Item #2, North 40 Phase 1
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Mary Badame, Chair
D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair
Charles Erekson
Melanie Hanssen
Matthew Hudes
Tom O’Donnell
Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney: Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(510) 337-1558
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR BADAME: I will move to our public hearing,
which we’re all waiting for, which is Item 2, the North 40
Phase 1. Architecture and Site Application S-13-090,
Vesting Tentative Map M-13-014, requesting approval for the
construction of a new multi-use, multi-story development
consisting of 320 residential units, which include 50
affordable senior units; approximately 66,000 square feet
of commercial floor area, which includes a Market Hall; on-
site and off-site improvements; and a Vesting Tentative
Map. APNs: 424-07-024 through 027, 031 through 037, 070,
083 through 086, 090 and 100.
May I have a show of hands from Commissioners who
have visited the site? Are there disclosures from
Commissioners? Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had incidental contact
with Ms. Baker when I was doing a site visit.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I was with Commissioner
Hudes when he had incidental contact with Ms. Baker, who
led us through the site, but we did not discuss the merits
of the project.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no
one, Mr. Paulson, we’re ready for the Staff Report.
JOEL PAULSON: As you mentioned—and you went
through a number of items from a detail perspective that I
was going to go through—tonight we’re really here to
continue discussions and deliberations on the Phase 1
applications.
Previously, on March 30th, the Planning Commission
received a very detailed Staff Report that went through a
lot of the particular aspects of the development
application, and then received a Staff Report verbally at
the Planning Commission hearing on the 30th, but
unfortunately given some challenges with the story pole
installation the Commission could not take any action and
did not go through full deliberations, and continued the
matter to April 27th.
Before the April 27th meeting the Council
considered a modification to the previously approved
exception for the story poles. Again, on April 19th that
request was considered and denied, therefore the Planning
Commission couldn’t consider the application on April 27th
either.
Following that information there was also a
request with that denial that a study session be held,
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which allowed an opportunity for both Planning Commission
and Council, as well as the school boards, to get some
additional information and ask questions, and allow members
of the public to ask additional questions regarding the
adopted Specific Plan, which is currently in place, the
Certified Environmental Impact Report for that document, as
well as the Housing Element. That occurred on June 15th.
There are verbatim minutes in the packet, so anyone who is
interested in reviewing that who wasn’t able to attend can
look through that on the web site.
Tonight’s written Staff Report really is a little
bit of a continuation and deals with really four general
topics relating to the development application. Given the
lengthy history, the Town Attorney is here as well, as well
as Public Works Staff, to address any questions as they
relate to either the traffic components, any of the off-
site or on-site improvements, as well as the issues and
topics of by right development and State density bonus
implications as they relate to housing, and what
limitations there are.
Generally, I will just state that the Commission
should be looking at development applications in light of
the adopted Specific Plan and the objective requirements of
the adopted Specific Plan, as well as any objective
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requirements of the Housing Element or the General Plan
itself in relation to the Specific Plan.
With that, as was stated by the Chair before, we
have two applications before you this evening.
One is an Architecture and Site Application for
320 residential units. As mentioned, there are 50 total
affordable units; 49 of those are proposed to be senior
affordable units, affordable to income levels of Very Low
income and Extremely Low income, and then one manager’s
unit will be Moderate income level.
Additionally, there is a commercial component, as
was previously stated, and it’s approximately 68,000 square
feet for the commercial component that will be part of the
Phase 1 application.
Lastly, as was previously stated, there will be a
number of on-site improvements as well as off-site
improvements. The off-site improvements predominantly
relate to wet and dry utilities as well as traffic impact
improvements, so mitigation measures that are required to
reduce the traffic impacts. Those were required by the
Specific Plan EIR to reduce the traffic impact to a less
than significant level.
With that, Staff is available to answer
questions, and we’re interested in receiving additional
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public testimony this evening, and you’ll obviously have an
opportunity to hear from the Applicant as well, and then
following that, depending on the time of evening it may be
when we conclude the public comments, then the Planning
Commission will go into their deliberations.
As mentioned before, there is an addendum and a
Desk Item for this item tonight. The Desk Item that was
originally sent out had an error in the tabulation that
Staff missed, and so we have corrected that, and that
correct version is also online.
Lastly, again as a reminder, the Planning
Commission will be forwarding a recommendation to the Town
Council, and then the Town Council is the final deciding
body on both of these applications, because Town Code
requires a Vesting Tentative Map to be acted upon by the
Town Council.
Again, Staff is available for any interim
questions. Otherwise, we’re prepared to go into public
testimony.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Paulson. At this
time are there questions of process or procedure from the
Commissioners? Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. My question is
about story poles. I asked this question at the hearing on
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March 30th, and I was told no. Is the project in compliance
with the applicable public notice and story poles, and
since what date did they become in compliance?
JOEL PAULSON: I’d look maybe to the Town
Attorney. At the time of March 30th they were not in
compliance with the exception that was previously granted
by the Council; that’s why the Commission couldn’t take
action on the item.
Subsequent to that, and I want to say May 4th is
ringing a bell, but we’ll pull up an exact date the poles
were put in place. Subsequent to that, the Town Council
considered… Actually, I believe it was last week when they
had a special meeting. The poles from the original
exception interpretation were permitted to be removed
beginning, I want to say, July 3rd. Prior to that the
Council took an action to extend that timeframe to August
9th, and with the allowance of some of the poles along Los
Gatos Boulevard were permitted to be removed, and those I
believe began being removed on July 8th, so 16 or 18 poles
were permitted to be removed along Los Gatos Boulevard.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thanks, and that pretty much
matches with the information that I have, but do we know
how many poles have been removed?
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JOEL PAULSON: We can look to some past
information. If we can’t get that for you this evening,
we’ll definitely be prepared, should this go to a meeting
tomorrow. Sixteen or eighteen is the number that’s sticking
in my head, but I will try to pull up some information
relating to that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I just wanted to make sure
that the public notice is in compliance, and there were
questions about that. Thanks.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions from
Commissioners? Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: This is more
substantive, just to review before we launch off. We are
required by the Housing Element to rezone 13.5 acres of the
North 40, and on that 13.5 acres to have 20 units or more,
is that correct?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And that basically
started with the State government’s essentially mandate. So
somewhere on the North 40 we have to have at least 13.5
acres having a density of 20 units to the acre, and that is
something we are required to do, is that correct?
JOEL PAULSON: Pursuant to the current Housing
Element, that’s correct.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: In addition to that
question, where are the 13.5 acres required? Are they
required in the Phase 1 application area?
JOEL PAULSON: I will start, and then the Town
Attorney may weigh in. There is nothing that specifically
states where those acres have to be in the Specific Plan or
the Housing Element; it just has to be in the North 40
area, but there is no specificity as it relates to that.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a follow up question
about this, because it came up in one of the previous
meetings. The requirements from Housing and Community
Development to certify the Housing Element requires only
the zoning of the 20 units per acre without having any
material barriers to development, but is there any other
certification of checking that they’re going to do to
determine if the units are actually affordable?
JOEL PAULSON: I guess there are interim stages
where we do annual reports that go to HCD as to the
progress that we’ve made in the prior year to meeting our
Housing Element objectives, and then ultimately when the
next cycle begins we’ll get a new regional housing needs
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allocation, and then we will prepare a new Housing Element,
and one component of that will be looking at the progress
that we’ve made over the prior eight years as far as what
was developed, and then they would be put into their
individual categories when something is developed.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So hypothetically
speaking, if 200 units were developed on the North 40 and
they cost $1 million each, could that reset our housing
allocation for the next cycle, because even though we zoned
it for 20 units per acre, they wouldn’t count it?
JOEL PAULSON: There’s no direct correlation.
Those would go in the Above Moderate category as far as
housing produced.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The Phase 1 before us
includes what we’ll call Lark, I guess, plus what had been
part of the Transition zone, is that right?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But not all of the
Transition zone?
JOEL PAULSON: No, there still is a little bit of
the Transition District that is left.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Do you know
approximately the acreage of that?
JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have that information, so
I wouldn’t be able to answer that.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’m just curious,
because one word is “shift” some of the 20 units per acre.
As I understand it, the north property you can only put
residential above retail, right?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct, residential above
commercial.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And there is a height
limitation?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Has anybody ever looked
at the possibility of getting 20 units per acre above
retail?
JOEL PAULSON: The Applicant has provided some
information that was prepared and presented in the addendum
that talks about the difficulty related to that, but Staff
has not done an analysis of trying to prepare a site plan
to get to 20 units per acre.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So the Applicant thinks
it would be hard, but we’re not sure?
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JOEL PAULSON: The Applicant doesn’t think it’s
feasible. I believe the units were in the 750 square foot
range above commercial, given the restriction of the 35’
height limit in that area.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you very much.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions from
Commissioners? Seeing none, I will open the public
testimony portion of the hearing and allow the Applicant
and their team ten minutes to address the Commission. I
don’t see speaker cards for you. I know you’ll fill one
out; I know who you are. Please state your name and address
for the record.
DON CAPOBRES: My name is Don Capobres. We have a
presentation that we need to queue up.
Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the
Planning Commission and residents in Council chambers and
watching on video. I am Don Capobres, representing
Grosvenor on the North 40 development team.
Many of us have participated in years of policy
debates on the North 40. The joint study session
highlighted most of the outcomes of these policy decisions,
and our legal council has submitted our position related to
Town and State law.
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We are proud to have been part of the process to
respond to the design that has comprehensively addressed
the Town policy in many related discussions over the past
eight years. We sat together during the crafting of the
General Plan in 2009 and 2010. We were observers of
Albright in 2011 and 2012. We sat through the Lexington
School expansion hearings together. Multiple iterations of
the Housing Element. We responded to three major economic
studies conducted by the Town on impacts to the businesses
downtown. This is all in addition to all the subcommittees,
focus group sessions, and the North 40 Specific Plan
Advisory Committee. For over eight years the public process
surrounding the North 40 has been comprehensive,
transparent, and open to all.
Our proposal meshes all of these approved
policies together. We now hear a single-family detached
subdivision scattered throughout the entire planning area
should be what is built. Had the policies pointed us in
that direction, that is the proposal that you would have in
front of you today. Had the policies pointed towards a
light industrial complex, I imagine that is the proposal
that would be in front of you today. But these are not the
policies of a Specific Plan that was made by the Town
leaders after decades of public process and input.
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Wendi Baker and I would like to take our time
here to focus on our proposal and what makes us different
from any other application that may come through to develop
any portion of the North 40, as with or without us the
North 40 will be developed and multiple applicants can do
it. Because we have been involved for over eight year we
are in a unique position to go beyond the bare minimums
required by these policies.
To start, this application is a model for an
agrarian neighborhood. The Historic Preservation Committee,
in making its findings, said the Committee reviewed the
agrarian feel of the proposed plans and determined that
that agrarian history is effectively integrated in Phase 1.
The concept of the model agrarian neighborhood permeates
our design team’s thoughts. Its anchor is the open space
program of our application. We have several critical
success factors working with us on this front.
First, urban farming is trending upwards. People
are more interested in how their food is grown. Farm to
table restaurants are no longer an anomaly, and so there
will be demand for the community garden program. We are
blessed with good weather and soil, and there is growing
awareness and focus on public policy that facilities
growing and selling of fruits and vegetables in community
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gardens. Zach Lewis on our team has been instrumental in
moving this legislation forward.
With Zach’s help, the open space program will
feature 39 community garden plots, one senior garden, one
community demonstration garden, and 2.2 acres of orchards
and vineyards, which include 544 fruit bearing trees and
over 1,900 new trees that we’ll plant. Overall, we project
we’ll be able to grow an estimated 14.5 tons of fruit and
vegetables per year. This produce can be distributed to our
seniors, restaurants, and the produce can find a way to be
used or sold in the produce section of Market Hall.
Market Hall is envisioned to be a specialty
market that will focus on the daily needs of restaurants of
the North 40 and surrounding neighborhoods. We hope it will
feature the best the region has to offer in terms of
produce, dairy, protein and baked goods.
Picture a neighborhood, whether it is Blossom
Manor, Aventino, Charter Oaks, or the Almond Grove where I
live. Imagine community garden plots interlaced throughout
your streets, a park the size of downtown’s town plaza, and
other smaller parks connected by landscape paseos leading
to a specialty market where some of the fruits and
vegetables you just walked by may be sold. Without
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question, our proposal is genuinely a model for an agrarian
neighborhood.
WENDI BAKER: What describes the look and feel of
Los Gatos? We have been asked this many times in the past
eight years. While this is not an objective measurement or
policy, one approach to this question could be based on
architectural form and the quality of design, which the
Town’s own consulting architect uses as his basis for
analysis. He states, “I feel that the applicant has adopted
an approach to providing high quality design with the
detail and diversity necessary to give the overall
development the ‘look and feel’ of Los Gatos.” We’re happy
to expand on this during questions and answers. We know to
measure a town based exclusively on aesthetics would be an
oversimplified approach.
So what makes Los Gatos special, and how can we
capture this as developers of the North 40? Los Gatos is
about community. It’s about residents of this town coming
together and putting on the Holiday Parade; or parents
working together to fund raise for schools; or homeowners
putting dog bowls along Jones Road or College Avenue for
your thirsty best friends to get a cool drink on your way
down from hiking Los Gatos Creek Trail; or the cyclists,
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Town Staff and Safe Routes to School working to get green
bike lanes around the schools.
To capture the community of Los Gatos we have
gone beyond simply proposing a project that meets the
objective policies within the Specific Plan or Housing
Element. The North 40 will not only be a community, the
North 40 will connect community. Don just spoke of how this
agrarian neighborhood will bring people together. In the
past 18 months the dialogue between your Town commissions
and Town residents about bicycle safety and pedestrian
opportunities has flourished. We will connect the North 40
not only inwardly and along the project boundary, but to
the Los Gatos Creek Trail through the installation of our
three-quarters of a mile of bicycle trails, coming together
to connect the community by identifying the missing links
and then working collaboratively to find a solution. That
is what the community of Los Gatos is all about.
And what about traffic? The traffic impact of the
Town’s recent developments, including Albright, Laurel
Mews, Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Lester Lane, you
feel how these have added about 13% more cars to Lark and
Los Gatos Boulevard since 2012. That 13% increase in cars
results in a delay for everyone. We found a way for the
North 40 to be part of the solution.
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Instead of only constructing our required EIR
mitigations that cost about $1 million, we will do ten
times more, over $10 million more towards traffic
improvements for overall community benefit. This will
result in—even after the addition of the North 40—a 26%
reduced delay at Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard.
The Town is required to rezone for additional
residential units, as are all Bay Area jurisdictions. The
North 40 has been included in the Housing Element, but
we’re proposing benefits that are far beyond what is
required of us. Therefore, in addition to the one-time SB50
fees and the annual taxes being paid to the District, we
have worked with the school districts, discussed facilities
challenges, entered into a voluntary agreement based on
their identified facility expansion needs, sat on LGUSD’s
Reimagine 2022 Task Force, and are working closely with the
District to find property for school facilities.
Further, facilities are only one of the
challenges. We have also engaged our regional partners to
find a solution for the school traffic, which is an
existing issue that impacts residents well outside of the
boundary of the North 40. This town now has an opportunity
to support a future school bus program that could be funded
regionally, and this is the approach that community takes:
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identifying a challenge and working together towards a
solution.
We’re not asking to only mitigate the bare
minimum that’s required. We are neither proposing a
Specific Plan amendment nor a Planned Development. If the
Specific Plan and other governing documents stated that the
Northern District was the primarily residential district,
and the Lark District was to be primarily commercial, or
that there should only be two-story, single-family,
detached estate homes throughout the North 40, then our
application would look significantly different.
What the Specific Plan calls for is a diversity
of residential housing type, which we have achieved through
19 different floor plans in three different styles of
housing, plus an unprecedented Very Low income senior
affordable program. We have spread these units out with 193
residential homes in the primarily residential Lark
District, 127 homes in the Transition District, and a
remaining 45 homes that can be proposed in a future
application in the day-to-evening entertainment area
Northern District.
The Town of Los Gatos, its residents, elected and
appointed officials, and Staff all have worked very hard
over the last eight years to draft and then adopt a
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Specific Plan that encompasses the spirit of this great
town. We’re now before you as a future part of your
community. Not only do we conform to the required objective
criteria in the Specific Plan and Housing Element, we
proposed a model agrarian neighborhood that comprehensively
addresses both Town policy and the many related discussions
from the past eight years.
We and our team are available for any questions
now or after public comment. Thank you for your time.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Do Commissioners have
questions of Mr. Capobres or Ms. Baker? Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I would first like to
compliment you, because I’ve been involved in this process
a long time and I think you’ve done an excellent job.
Obviously, however, it’s a very difficult project and there
are many who would just as soon the project did not go
forward.
Just so we all know, however, your position, I’m
looking at the letter of your attorneys dated July 7th of
this year. In particular I’m looking at page 7, which I
think summarized your position. It’s very short. I’m going
to read it to you to make sure that that is your position.
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You say, “The State law provisions discussed
above require that the planning application may only be
reviewed for conformance with existing objective Town
policies which must be applied to facilitate development of
320 units. The Town may not reduce density, require project
phasing, relocate units to other sites on the North 40,
place units in other school districts, reduce height or
impose any other requirement not already contained in the
adopted development standards, nor can the planning
application be denied based on subjective standards such as
those contained in the Vision and Guiding Principles.”
You conclude by saying, “In the event the Town
denies the planning applications, or approves them with
conditions that violate the legal framework described
above, the applicants do intend to fully enforce their
legal rights and remedies,” which I understand to be
litigation. Is that correct?
WENDI BAKER: We would prefer no litigation, but
that is correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I understand that, but
that threat at the bottom of your letter I take to be a
threat of litigation.
WENDI BAKER: That is correct, and that is our
letter on public record.
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CHAIR BADAME: No clapping. I don’t want to have
to give another warning tonight, but please be considerate.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane has a question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Ms. Baker, you said the
improvements at Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard would improve
delay times by 26%?
WENDI BAKER: That’s correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m embarrassed. Is that in
here somewhere?
WENDI BAKER: That was provided as supplemental
documentation to Staff from the traffic engineers, and it
is a 13% change in volume, but a 26% reduction in delay.
And it is also in the EIR, to go back to the EIR,
because these improvements were considered as part of the
EIR, although not required, they are required community
improvements for the Specific Plan.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The 26% is in the EIR? I just
don’t remember the number, because it’s impressive. Mr.
Paulson, is Staff in accordance with that number?
JOEL PAULSON: We’ll have to look through the
Phase 1 and the EIR to confirm that, so we’ll get back to
you with that information.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: No, I’m meaning to be
complimentary. If you can do that…
WENDI BAKER: That’s correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: …far out, because that is the
main concern of the whole project.
WENDI BAKER: We would not want to spend $10.5
million on transportation improvements if there was not
some sort of recognizable delay improvement.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, good, that’s outstanding.
Mr. Capobres, when we did our tour of the
project, and also when you appeared before the Planning
Commission with Commissioner O'Donnell and I, we talked
about a memorial. We’ve got to preserve the agrarian
history, but also there’s some other history to be
preserved, and I haven’t seen that in any of the reports
yet. Is that because its time has not yet come? Is it a
Phase 2 issue?
DON CAPOBRES: The project had to go through the
Historic Preservation Committee. As we stated, the HPC
recognized our treatment of agriculture. The historic
issues really fall on another part of the North 40 related
to the red barn, and potentially an adobe house on the
second phase.
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As I stated on public record previously, we’ll
work with the Yuki family. They’re an important Los Gatan
family. We’d be very happy to celebrate their contribution
to the Town. They’re also immensely private as well, and so
we don’t have anything to legally compel them to do
something, but we would be very happy to commemorate this
family.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I recall my interest in
something generic in respecting their privacy. There are a
number of families out there that were interred during
World War Two, and that’s part of what I want to weave into
the fabric of the history of all that property out there.
Not just the immediate family; there are other families
involved as well, and I’m sort of passionate about that,
that that could be put on the old barn that we agreed to
preserve and that the children can read and understand it.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, thank you for the
comments. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have a number of follow up
questions on the letter of July 7th, since that’s been
opened at this point. I took notice of the letter and the
tone of the letter, and I have a number of questions about
it.
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Coming back to the point about the application
being in compliance with design standards. Is it your
position that the Planning Commission may recommend denial
if the application is not in compliance with design
standards?
DON CAPOBRES: If we’re not in compliance with
any of the objective standards, clearly.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Another question. The
description on page 3 says, “The Housing Element also
requires that at least 270 units be permitted at a density
of at least 20 units per acre. Does the Housing Element
specify that those 270 units, or the 13. 5 acres, be in the
24 acres that are in the Phase 1 application?
DON CAPOBRES: Neither specifies where the 13.5
acres has to be, nor does it preclude where it can be. The
fact that we have a proposal that meets the State’s
requirements to qualify for affordable housing is kind of
the issue and is the basis for our legal position.
The conversation in the Housing Element Advisory
Board over the last couple of years is pretty clear, and
the decisions that were made on that board were very clear
in terms of the by right nature of any of the properties
that were included in the Housing Element.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: So basically you’re saying
that it’s not limited to Phase 1?
WENDI BAKER: I believe what we’re trying to
clarify is much like residential units are not prohibited
from the Northern District, nor are retail or commercial
uses prohibited from the Lark District, it doesn’t require
one or the other to be there. I believe what we’re trying
to say is that it neither requires it all to be one place
or the other; it is a subjective decision on where it goes,
but it’s objective that it must occur within the North 40.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: The other question I had
dealt with language in the letter that really got my
attention. On page 5 it says, “This history of animus
toward children,” and it goes on from there, and then there
was another page that wasn’t numbered, but it said,
“Additional statements and policies regarding desire to
exclude families with children,” and I wanted to ask if
this is your recollection of the facts, because mine is
very different?
I served on the North 40 Advisory Committee, I
served on the Housing Element Advisory Board, and I don’t
believe that the deciding or recommending bodies that I’ve
observed expressed animus toward children; quite the
contrary. They expressed concern with school overcrowding
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and the welfare of children, and I found these assertions
to be aberrant, and so I would like to see whether I’m
remembering that differently than some of you who were
there as well.
DON CAPOBRES: Having been probably involved in
the North 40 process longer than potentially anybody, I
understand why only maybe 20 minutes was given
consideration to single-family detached homes when the
discussion regarding residential types were discussed at
the Advisory Committee level. It was specifically because
of concern that single-family detached home student
generation numbers were higher than multi-family or higher
density residential type. That was specifically discussed
during the deliberations of the North 40 Specific Plan.
There was language specifically in drafts of the North 40
Specific Plan without question that talked about designing
units to avoid school age children.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Again, my recollection of
that is that draft language that was cited was language
that was removed from the Specific Plan before it was acted
into law, that that language was proposed by RRM
Consultants, who I believe were paid by the developer, and
then that language was rejected by the Town Council and the
Advisory Board.
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DON CAPOBRES: (To Ms. Baker) You want to take a
shot? I’m happy to take it.
WENDI BAKER: All right, so I think there’s a
conflict in what you might feel is the letter’s intent,
that this entire process that we’ve been a part of and that
many people who have been in the room, there’s been a lot
of discussion about impacts to schools and making sure that
the units that are out there have the least impacts to
schools as possible, and that was not just exclusive to RRM
but to much of the conversation that occurred at the dais.
Whether or not you personally contributed to that, I cannot
say specifically.
The letter is specific to not wanting to
discriminate against families, so it’s a little bit of a
different spin that you’re taking, which is that we’re
trying to say that that’s not legal.
However, the unmet needs discussion as a part of
the Specific Plan was not only exclusively trying to target
housing types—which is what we’re proposing—that are not
typical within the Town, which is mostly a single-family
detached. There’s a lot of discussion of is that being
specific to a type that does not generate children, and I
would imagine that might be a topic of conversation tonight
and going forward as well.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I just want to revisit
that for one second. I’m looking at the summary, which is
Exhibit 34, and it says that there will be 126 one-bedroom
units, there will be 140 two-bedroom units, and there will
be 54 three-bedroom units. Now, the suggestion that perhaps
that configuration was somehow unfriendly to children
surprises me. If you have a three-bedroom unit, is that
unfriendly to children?
WENDI BAKER: What I was specifically noting is
the discussion that has taken place over the years on how
we can design away from families, and that has been in
there. Now, a three-bedroom unit, according to my focus
group that we met with both before and after design,
although they are single professionals they are interested
in more than one bedroom and more than two bedrooms,
because they might want work space, they might want a den,
they might want guest space. So that type of unit, yes, can
house children—and I don’t think that that’s a bad thing, I
think that’s a great thing—but it could also appeal to a
diversity of buyers.
Probably if I were to come in in a traditional
setting, even at a 20 units per acre setting, I would
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probably be much heavier on two- and three-bedrooms than
what I propose in this application. However, we do see the
need for the young professional and we’re designing units
smaller and so forth to hit different price points for that
young professional to get into the market and that housing
type.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I want to be clear. It
may sound like there’s some attack going on. I’m not trying
to attack you. You people have done a very professional job
and you have actually been a pleasure to work with, but I’m
just trying to get to some serious questions, and it’s
without suggesting that you’ve done anything that you
didn’t tell us you would do.
I’m thinking it through with you now, and I
notice that two-and three-bedrooms will be more than half
of the total units. Now, that’s fine, because nobody is
trying to prevent children, but on the other hand one has
to consider the impact on the schools. You’ve offered
substantially more than you’re required to offer to the
elementary school, and I personally appreciate that. I’m
just trying to think this through with you, that’s all, so
if there was any suggestion of otherwise, I’m not. I’m
trying to get the facts; that’s all.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: The presentation that you
gave was very helpful. It doesn’t exactly map to your
justification letters, so I’m wondering if you can provide
us a copy of that today, so that we could consider that as
we deliberate?
WENDI BAKER: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions for the
Applicant? Seeing none, thank you very much. I’m sorry,
don’t go away. Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: One question. I just
want to be very clear on this in my own mind. If I read
your lawyer’s letter correctly, and I may or may not,
basically your position is we do not have the ability to
change anything at the moment, now.
WENDI BAKER: Our attorney’s letter specifically
focuses on what we believe are the objective criteria of
the Specific Plan, and we believe that things that are
subjective… You can act on the objective if we do not meet
them.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, my question
doesn’t go to objective versus subjective. Objective could
be where you put the homes. In other words, you’ve got
Phase 2—what I call Phase 2—and you’ve got Phase 1. Those
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are objective issues. I’m not talking about subjective; I’m
merely saying your lawyer specifically says you can’t move
it. Now, that’s objective. So your position, as I
understand it—I can reread the paragraph if you like—is
there is absolutely nothing we can do this evening. Is that
your position?
WENDI BAKER: That is our position. Staff has
also found that we’re in conformance with the objective
standards of the Specific Plan.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
DON CAPOBRES: The point of the first part of the
presentation was all of the years of policy that’s gone
into the North 40, and observers and participants of that
process, it would be amazing if not embarrassing for us not
to get it right and provide to you an application that was
in compliance with all the objective standards of the
Specific Plan, because of how much participation we’ve had
over the years.
I’ve dealt with this over the last couple weeks
of having to answer this question, but it shouldn’t be a
surprise, because of our participation in the community
dialogue, that we have come up with an application that is
in conformance with all your policies; not just the
Specific Plan, but the Housing Element and all the other
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policies. What we would typically find in architecture and
site type discussion is it is about architecture and not
about whether or not housing is allowed, or what types of
housing are allowed. That is already in the documents that
have already been approved here.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I understand the State
requirement of right, so I’m not talking about that, but I
am saying that there are roughly 40 acres here; we’re
talking about 22 of those acres. A portion of the
Transitional Phase is not in this plan, and then the north
part of the property is not in this plan. Your lawyer, I
think, takes the position we couldn’t move any of the
housing that is otherwise scheduled for the first phase
anywhere else; for example, on the balance of the property
that is in the Transitional and not before us, nor in the
North 40. Her letter says you can’t move the housing. Now,
that’s a pretty strong statement that has nothing to do
with subjectivity, and so I’m saying is that your position?
DON CAPOBRES: It clearly is. We comply with open
space requirements, we comply with setback requirements, we
comply with height requirements, we comply with everything,
and then exceed those in most cases. So if it is a land use
that is allowed within a certain section of the North 40
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and we comply with that, then we should be allowed to move
forward with that.
That would be true for any other applicant, and
there are 14 property owners on the North 40 who come
through. We don’t control all of the property on the North
40. We have the ability to move forward with this piece. We
comply with all the objective standards. All the land uses
are in compliance, so we should be allowed to move forward.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: What portion of the
Transitional area… When you look at the map you see the
Lark area, you see the Transitional area, but the
Transitional area with the map on it excludes part of that
Transitional area. How much is excluded, acreage-wise.
DON CAPOBRES: We can get that for you. We’re
over two-thirds of the Transition District as it is, and
the reason why, and I can state this publicly now, is
because the Yuki family has elderly members of their family
living just to the north of the Transition District
boundary. They literally counted kind of rows of trees to
be able to protect their quality of life for the
foreseeable future. It’s essentially a life estate, but
there is some time that needs to pass before we are allowed
to move forward with the North 40.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I understand what you’re
saying. Just to confirm it then, that portion of the
Transitional area, which is not included in your plan, is
because of the same reason the northerly portion is not
essentially now here discussed, because of the Yuki’s, as
far as I’m concerned, very reasonable request? I just want
to make sure that’s part of that, is that right?
DON CAPOBRES: That’s right, and there are other
property owners on the site. As a matter of fact, if we
were really trying to max things out, we might have just
gone ahead and plant without having control, but we need to
move forward, we need to control the property that we can
make traffic improvements on, and so we did not max out the
number of baseline units. That is why precisely there are
45 additional units available for development throughout
the rest of the…
And it does make sense that there is a tapering
off of residential from the Lark District through the
Transition District to the Northern District, because of
how the Specific Plan was developed.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But one thing that I do
recall is there is a limitation on the northern portion
that any housing must be above retail. That does not
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however apply to that portion of the Transitional, which is
not part of this project, is that right?
DON CAPOBRES: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Are there further questions for
the Applicant? Seeing none, thank you very much.
DON CAPOBRES: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: I will now invite comments from
members of the public. I will be calling your names three
at a time. Our first three speakers are Diane Dreher, Tom
Picraux, and Peter Dominic. When you step up to the podium,
please be sure to state your name and address clearly for
the record.
DIANE DREHER: Good evening, Diane Dreher, 223
Arroyo Grande Way, Los Gatos.
My statement: I strongly recommend denial of the
current North 40 plan. Los Gatos is a historic town, not a
commercial industrialized complex.
I find the developer’s plan dishonest and
disrespectful. Dishonest because it violates the Town’s
Specific Plan, substituting high-intersection development
instead of the required “lower-intersection residential and
limited retail offices uses,” crowding too many residential
units in the Phase 1 space.
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In addition, I find the vague promises about
traffic reduction highly confusing, and I seriously doubt
how that would happen. I find the developer’s plan
disrespectful, because it threatened a lawsuit and proposes
a dense set of industrial sized buildings instead of
respecting the unique character of our town with a
harmonious plan that would look and feel like Los Gatos.
I urge you therefore to reject this proposed
commercial industrialized complex at Lark and Los Gatos
Boulevard and think more cooperatively and creatively about
solutions.
The current plan would drastically increase
traffic and industrialized sprawl, impede vital access to
Good Samaritan Hospital, and undermine the safety of our
children, the character of our schools, and the quality of
our lives. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Dreher. Tom
Picraux.
TOM PICRAUX: Tom Picraux, 108 Panorama Way. I’m
chair of the Los Gatos Community and Senior Services
Commission, and I have a question regarding senior
services.
In particular, we’re very happy that there are 49
units for Very Low income senior housing, but my question
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is have there been provisions for the services that may be
needed in particular by Very Low income seniors? For
example, such things as their housing, healthcare,
nutrition needs, case management. These are things that
we’ve been concerned about, in fact struggling to enhance
for meeting the needs of Los Gatos seniors now.
Now my question has to do with has there been
provisions for these to be met by the Eden Housing or by
some other part of the development, or will this fall on
the shoulders of the Town, and the adult recreation center
service is what they have, and other services that we’re
trying to provide for seniors?
So the question is has provision been made for
that, or not, and if it has, what type of provision has
been made, or will it all be on the Town to develop those
needs? Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, sir. When the Applicant
returns to the podium at the end of the public testimony,
perhaps he can address your comments at that time.
PETER DOMINIC: My name is Peter Dominic, and
live on Blossom Hill Road. I would like to thank the
Planning Commission for giving us this opportunity to
speak, and I would like to thank the entire Town of Los
Gatos for having patience with this ongoing process.
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I support development in the North 40, but I
believe the current application is invalid for the
following objective reasons.
First, the developer is inconsistent in their
definition of the 49 units that they propose to build on
top of the Market Hall building. In a letter from their
lawyers dated March 10, 2016 they repeatedly refer to these
units as a “senior housing development,” but they also ask
in the same letter that they be considered Very Low income
housing. The Density Bonus Code states that any proposal
for Very Low income housing must meet the definition in
Section 50105 of the Health and Safety Code, and Section
50105 states that Very Low income households means persons
and families whose incomes do not exceed the qualifying
limits for this Very Low income.
The key words there are “persons” and “families.”
If the units proposed by Grosvenor are truly Very Low
income, then they must be eligible to persons and families
based on income; however, these units will have an age
restriction on them. If they are not eligible for all
persons and families to be considered, then they do not
meet the standards of Section 50105 and they must be
considered some type of other unit.
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Second, even if you still believe that 49 senior
housing units that are called senior housing units that sit
in a single building, because that’s required senior
housing, are also Very Low income housing and should
quality for the density bonus as such, then I would submit
that the base number of units of 237 proposed by this
project is not valid according to the law. The Density
Bonus Law states that a city shall grant one density bonus
when an Applicant for a housing development seeks and
agrees to construct a housing development excluding any
units permitted by the density bonus awarded.
The 237 units proposed by this application
include numerous units that would not be allowable unless
we waive our design guidelines for building height, and we
do not have to waive any standards until we grant that
density bonus. I would propose the developer must submit a
base number that would actually be feasible to construct,
given our guidelines, and then we can consider a density
bonus and any standard waivers.
Finally, and apart from the two preceding issues,
the fact that there are two developers actually working on
this project under the banner of Grosvenor seems to
(inaudible) the intention of the Density Bonus Law. Again,
the Density Bonus Law states that a city shall grant one
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density bonus and incentive when an applicant for housing
development seeks and agrees to construct a housing
development.
In this project we have SummerHill that is
building out Lark, and we have Eden Housing that will be
building the senior housing unit, but because these two
developers are paired under Grosvenor the units being built
by Eden will benefit the development being built by
SummerHill. I firmly believe this is a gross distortion of
the intention the Density Bonus Law, which is supposed to
provide developers with a way to recoup costs.
In that final point that Grosvenor may only
violate the spirit of the law and not the word of it, when
it comes to my first two points I firmly believe this
application is out of line. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Dominic. No
clapping. Thank you. Our next three speakers: Helen
Cockrum, Anne Robinson and Barbara Dodson. Anne Robinson,
why don’t you come up first?
ANNE ROBINSON: Anne Robinson, 201 Charter Oaks
Circle.
I support the 270 housing units, 50 senior
affordable housing units, and 66,000 square feet of
commercial development.
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What I’m opposed to is locating the housing units
in what Figure 15 of the North 40 EIR delineates as an area
that is considered a high health risk area along the 17
freeway. According to the six sources I reviewed, which you
should have received as a Desk Item, there are significant
health issues associated with building residences within
the designated are. Here are a few of them.
Increased risk of children developing leukemia.
Children are not only more likely to develop asthma and
other respiratory diseases, but their lung development may
also be stunted permanently. Fine and ultra fine
particulate matter in the air is linked to cardiovascular
disease, leading to premature heart attacks and strokes.
Pregnant women are more likely to have premature and low
birth weight babies, putting the children at risk for
multiple lifelong chronic diseases. Pregnant mothers
breathing higher rates of air pollution give birth to
children who have higher rates of several types of rare
childhood cancers. Women exposed to more traffic related
air pollution have a higher rate of breast cancer. Chronic
exposure to traffic air pollution increases the risk of
lung cancer. Toxic air pollution is linked to a shorter
lifespan for nearby residents. Five times more deaths are
due to air pollution than traffic accidents.
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I understand that other communities are doing
this, but that does not make it right. Putting housing
units along the 17 freeway within the designated area is
irresponsible. Children don’t have a choice, but you do.
Recommend to the Town Council that the developer move the
housing units farther away from the freeway, at least 500’
or approximately 150 meters, like they’re required for
schools. The proposed buildings are 30-57’ from the
freeway. Put an office building in the designated area with
fixed windows and filtered HVAC.
I heard tonight that the developer does not see
it feasible to put housing at 20 units per acre in the
Northern District, but the Town has not researched this
possibility. I was told the Town Council has the power to
amend the Specific Plan. Could they increase the height
limitation in the Northern District and make it feasible
for the mandatory housing component?
I just think we need to get this right, and the
housing should not be allowed along the 17 freeway where
this area is designated as a higher cancer risk area. Thank
you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Robinson.
ANNE ROBINSON: And you should have in the Desk
Item the sources I referred to.
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CHAIR BADAME: Yes, we did receive it. Thank you
very much. Barbara Dodson.
BARBARA DODSON: Good evening, my name is Barbara
Dodson; I live on Marchmont Drive.
Please deny the proposal so a more fitting
proposal can be brought forward that spreads out
residential, provides housing more suitable for Millennials
and seniors, and adds open space.
I’m against high-density housing in the North 40,
but it seems our Housing Element traps us into having 20
units per acre on 13.5 acres, so for now we’re stuck with
density.
But we’re not stuck with the developer’s
approach. We can have 20 units per acre with much more open
space. The Specific Plan calls for 320 residential units,
but doesn’t say how big they units need to be. We’d get as
much credit toward the 320 total with homes that are 1,000
square feet as with homes double that size.
Let’s look at one of the developer’s six
(inaudible), which is what I’ve got up there. We could have
the six large units shown here, or we could reduce the
height, eliminate three other row home units, divide each
of the remaining three large homes into two one-story flats
and end up with the same number of units, six. We could use
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the leftover acreage for green space instead of a three-
story attached building. At up to roughly 2,000 square
feet, we could have six flats at roughly 1,000 square feet
and three attached buildings.
Which would you prefer? Six tall massive row
homes that block views and suit families much more than the
supposed audience of Millennials and seniors, or six
smaller flats that really suit the target audience? The
proposal has 97 three-story row homes larger than 1,500
square feet, and 28 garden cluster homes larger than 1,700
square feet. This isn’t Millennial or senior housing. It is
massive, boxy housing that doesn’t look and feel like Los
Gatos. It is housing that could be built to really address
the intended audience.
I believe the original intent behind the 20 units
per acre was to satisfy affordable housing requirements
from RHNA, but in fact we’ll end up with very little RHNA
credit. Los Gatos is supposed to build 619 affordable units
by 2023. I believe the Town expected 310 of these units to
be on the North 40, however, the developer has plans for
only 50 affordable units; all other units will be market
rate.
I am afraid that because enough affordable units
won’t be built on the North 40 the Town will need to find
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roughly 11 acres elsewhere for the affordable housing. The
overdevelopment will just go on and on. To me, the high
density, high priced housing in this proposal is a complete
lose-lose for our town.
As I said, I’d rather not have high-density
housing, but if we have to have it, we should at least try
to reduce the space it takes up and fulfill our RHNA
requirements for affordable housing. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Dodson. Helen
Cockrum.
HELEN COCKRUM: Hello, I’m Helen Cockrum and I
live at 159 Escobar Avenue in Los Gatos. First of all,
thank you, everyone, for working so hard on all of this. I
don’t have the expertise of some of these people that will
describe exactly how many units are where and so forth, so
my comments are a little bit just general.
When the people that are going to develop that
say that it resembles the Town of Los Gatos, it’s not in
any way near the Town of Los Gatos. It doesn’t have old,
interesting buildings, and it doesn’t fit in with Los
Gatos. I assume eventually that’s going to be developed,
but then I think that it should be much smaller, not so
many units, and more traffic mitigation so that the traffic
is really terrific on Los Gatos Boulevard.
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I don't know if any of you travel up there.
Almost any time of the day you try to get to 17 and 85, on
or off, and take a left on the Boulevard, go up and go into
85, then the traffic is coming in from Good Samaritan
Drive, and it’s very, very difficult. With this many more
units planned, commercial and housing, families, children,
cars, our town cannot handle it, and it will not be the
town that it used to be.
The Specific Plan actually sets forth certain
things, which I don’t have time to talk about, but the
Specific Plan is wrecked with what you’re trying to do
here, as far as I can tell. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Cockrum, for your
comments. The next three speakers are JoAnn Disbrow, John
Thatch, and Emily Bartolomei. Please remember to state your
name and address for the record.
JOANN DISBROW: I’m JoAnn Disbrow and I live at
16500 South Kennedy Road, and I have lived here for 33
years.
I had not been quite as aware of what was
happening until these meetings started to happen, and I
think that’s a problem that a lot of us have. This is so
much more than what we want or what we need, and I’m not
sure, is it the money, the taxes they’ll pay? What is doing
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this to this sleepy little town that is going to be
impossible to drive through? Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Our next speaker is
Emily Bartolomei. Hello, Emily.
EMILY BARTOLOMEI: Hi. My name is Emily
Bartolomei and I live at 131 La Cienega Court.
I would like to say that I don’t like how this
beautiful orchard is being cut down to build houses for
people to live here, because more houses means more cars
and more traffic, and more traffic means the longer the
ambulance will take to reach the houses to serve the
medical attention, and the more time that takes to reach,
that person could either die or their health could decline,
and I think that’s a problem if they are waiting so long
because of the traffic; it shouldn’t happen that way. Thank
you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Emily. We really
appreciate your comments. I just want you to know that we
appreciate your participation this evening. Thank you so
much, and Vice Chair Kane actually has a question for you.
Not a statement, a question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Did you send us one of those
picture drawings about the project?
EMILY BARTOLOMEI: No.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, they were lovely, and
thank you anyway.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Emily. All right, our
next three speakers are Lucille Weidman, Tony Alarcon and
Jak Van Nada.
LUCILLE WEIDMAN: Lucille Weidman, 215 Carlester
Drive, Los Gatos.
Upon looking at the renderings of the conception
of the drawings of the project, I felt, as so many have,
that it’s not Los Gatos. What I wanted to show you, I have
two minutes, is a 50-second slide presentation of what we,
the residents of Los Gatos, feel and believe is the look
and feel of Los Gatos. So with your permission.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes.
LUCILLE WEIDMAN: It will just play.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, we’re having some
troubles with the presentation. Is that Mr. Weidman coming
to the rescue? Thank you.
LUCILLE WEIDMAN: I knew I was going to get in
trouble.
CHAIR BADAME: We will be resetting the clock, so
you don’t have to worry about your three minutes running
out.
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LUCILLE WEIDMAN: I appreciate that. I’m a jinx
any time it comes to anything technical.
(Slide presentation is shown.)
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for the slide show. We
very much appreciate it.
LUCILLE WEIDMAN: I just wanted to emphasize what
is Los Gatos, what is not Los Gatos, and with your
consideration, please deny the application. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Thank you. Tony
Alarcon.
TONY ALARCON: Hello, my name is Tony Alarcon,
229 Johnson Avenue. Many of you may have watched me speak
before. Hello to the Planning Commission.
Before I start, I’d like to thank my wife who let
me come to speak tonight on my 19th wedding anniversary. She
feels it’s important enough to our children for me to come
speak tonight, and I appreciate the hundreds of hours that
she’s let me put into this process.
Mr. Capobres stated something, and I’d like to
correct his misstatement. He has not been involved in the
North 40 longer than anyone. R.J. Fisher, who was master of
our Masonic Lodge across the street in 1954, and other
stewards of our town have recognized this property and done
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what we can to protect it, to control the feel and maintain
the development of our town.
I would like to accommodate the last speaker and
acknowledge the film that she did. I think it truly
represents what Los Gatos looks like.
I’d also like to quote Mike Wasserman, because I,
too, have been a developer, and Mike is probably one of the
most respected politicians to come out of Los Gatos. I
proposed to put a development on the Los Gatos Shopping
Center, which is 30,000 square feet. I proposed to make it
45,000 square feet with a street between the buildings, and
to put 32 senior units above it with some above age, and
what he told me was, he said, “This is not Santana Row.
That’s not the look and feel of Los Gatos. Do not even
bring the plan forward.” And I think, Commission, that you
need to consider that.
I’m a littlie upset, because I’ve attended every
single meeting on this North 40. I’ve been involved from
the very beginning. I’ve seen it as a child when it was an
orchard. And I’ve seen the developer get in bed with the
Town in the Specific Plan. The developer should have been
at arm’s length. They never were.
I’ve attended the Los Gatos Community Alliance
meetings, and it’s sad to say that we were sold a plan that
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I think was a lie, which will prove out post this
development to be a lie. We were promised 273 RHNA unit
credits for this development, because we had to do
development with the State, and it’s my understanding that
we’re only going to receive about 50 units.
You can say that there’s been community
involvement and we’ve gone through the process and we must
now approve this project, but I don’t believe that’s true.
I don’t think that we’ve been told the truth, and I think
there is still time to modify the plan that’s been
presented by Grosvenor to make it fit within our Specific
Plan, because I do not believe that it complies, and that’s
especially with the density bonus, as another speaker
earlier pointed out. It’s for a specific builder, I know
that best, having mapped 1,000 doors in the past as a
developer, so please deny the current plan as it stands.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Mr. Alarcon, thank you, and Happy
Anniversary to you and your wife.
TONY ALARCON: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Nineteen years. Thank you. Mr. Van
Nada.
JAK VAN NADA: Good evening. I brought my
teleprompter with me. My name is Jak Van Nada and I am here
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to support this project, the project’s developer, and the
Specific Plan.
A group of us started the Los Gatos Community
Alliance about five years ago as we were watching the Town
develop well past what we thought were sustainable
development levels. As we learned about land use we came to
understand that there are property rights of landowners. On
a smaller scale, many of us exercise our property rights
when we remodel our homes, and we can remodel them as long
as they fit within the zoning restrictions of our
neighborhood, and so can large landowners.
With only three minutes I picked the following
three major reasons we support this Specific Plan and the
developer.
Traffic will be mitigated beyond the level
required by law. The developer will contribute an
additional $10-12 million to improve traffic back to 2012
levels. They do not have to do this, but they have
committed to do so.
Schools are crowded, and yet Lexington School is
underutilized even though it is a highly rated school. The
North 40 developer is required to pay $976,000 to help
defray the costs of any additional children. We know this
is not enough. The developer knew this also and sat down
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with the school board, who, by working together, negotiated
an additional payment to the schools of $6,369,000, or two
contiguous acres of land.
Those of you who want the housing to spread
around the 44 acres should read and understand the costs of
doing it, not to the developer, but to you, to me, and the
school district. It’s substantial, and you can read about
it on our website, lg-ca.com.
My third concern was the density and intensity of
the development. The Specific Plan calls for 30% of the
land to be open space, which are about seven-and-a-quarter
acres. Over four acres must be green, and one-and-a-half
need to be open to the public. No other development has
this percentage of space required, and no other developer
has even 5% open space.
Santana Row, which is over three times the
density of the North 40, has less than 2%. Only one other
developer donated money to the school, and it was Robson
who donated $150,000 with houses that sold for at least
double what the houses on the North 40 are predicted to
sell for. Netflix got our own citizens to pass an
initiative such that they wouldn’t even have to pay our
increased traffic mitigation fees, much less donate another
$10-12 million to make our traffic flow better. Is it any
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wonder that the Lark/Winchester intersection is and will be
a mess without your tax dollars to fix it?
It’s for these reasons that I support this
project and this developer. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Van Nada. The next
three speakers are Susan Buxton, Sandy Decker and Susan
Kankel.
SUSAN BUXTON: Good evening, my name is Susan
Buxton and I’ve lived in Los Gatos for over 40 years.
Like most residents who have lived here any
length of time we knew the North 40 would be developed
someday, and rightfully so. After attending multiple
citizen meetings and presentations from the developers with
my husband and our friends, we were pleased when the
Council approved the Specific Plan.
It stated on the very first page that the intent
of the Specific Plan is to provide a comprehensive
framework in which development can occur in a planned,
logical fashion rather than a piecemeal approach. It then
listed the Guiding Principles, and on the first page of
Section 2 it stated, “The overarching goals are to ensure
future development is compatible with surrounding areas,
complements downtown Los Gatos, and contributes to the
small town charm of Los Gatos.”
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It appears the developers chose not to follow
these very important guidelines, and have presented instead
an application that reflects the use of maximum building
and land use specifications wherever possible. Using the
maximum number, which the Specific Plan makes clear is a
maximum, not a goal, the Applicant has presented us with a
plan that includes the dense and massive placement of 270
housing units in the Lark District built in a grid pattern
with narrow streets, blocking hillside views, and also that
do not fulfill our need for affordable housing or provide
RHNA credits. Except for the additional 50 Very Low income
senior units to be built on top of a three-and-a-half story
parking garage? The architectural style does not, “relate
to the site, adjacent development, or Los Gatos community
character.”
While the Applicant may consider this consistent
with the Specific Plan and the General Plan, including the
Housing Element, the community is telling you it is not. It
is not consistent with the stated purpose of the Specific
Plan, the Vision Statement, the Guiding Principles, and the
overarching goals. All of these were inspired by community
input through Advisory Committee meetings, community
workshops, Town Council, and Planning Commission study
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sessions, and should not be ignored, even if the Applicant
chose to.
“The Architecture and Site Application neither
reflects, celebrates, complements, is respectful of or
enriches the quality of life of all our residents.” All
words from the Council Vision.
The community looks to you to forward a
recommendation for the denial of this application to the
Town Council. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Buxton. The next
speaker is Sandy Decker.
SANDY DECKER: Good evening, Planning
Commissioners. I’m Sandy Decker; I live on Glen Ridge.
The North 40 Vision Statement, as you all know,
is the heart of the Specific Plan for the development of
this 40-acre tract. It’s to ensure the protection of the
uniqueness of Los Gatos.
The development that you are reviewing tonight is
diametrically opposed to the Vision Statement and Specific
Plan for the North 40. May I read you the opening sentence
of the Specific Plan?
“The North 40 will reflect the special nature of
our home town.” Does this reflect our home town?
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“It will celebrate our history.” What part of Los
Gatos history does this bring to mind?
“It will celebrate our cultural heritage.” If the
cultural heritage refers to the agricultural heritage, this
massive development will be responsible for the destruction
of one of the last large-scale agricultural tracts of land
in the entire area, and will leave us with some token
spaces, one called a “garden retreat,” and a strip of
grapevines behind a restaurant, and a large retail space
bordered by parking. To buffer the dense residential units
against the Lark side and from the noise and from toxins,
the developer is providing three rows of trees, and he’s
calling it “the orchard.”
“The Vision Statement and Specific Plan will also
celebrate our hillside views.” When it was announced the
developer would be responsible for the photo evidence of
compliance on this issue, I felt some independent evidence
should be shown. What you have in front of you are four
pictures of the obscuring of our hillside views from the
three sides of the development we could get to. I will show
them to the audience, but I’m afraid we tried this
yesterday and the poles dim. However, you may be able to
make out the fact that there is a tremendous loss of
viewscape.
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Now, these are the viewscapes that we are going
to lose as a community as we drive by this, but picture the
viewscapes you’re going to lose when you’re inside this
massive structure.
The last thing the Vision Statement directs this
developer to celebrate is the small town character of Los
Gatos. What about this is small town character?
I’m sorry, I have to stop there, but please,
please deny this project.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Decker, for your
comments. Susan Kankel.
SUSAN KANKEL: Susan Kankel, 99 Reservoir Road. I
try not to think of myself as old, but here I am, a senior
citizen and an old Los Gatan. I’ve lived here for over 65
years.
As a teenager in the summer I went to my friend’s
orchard on Shannon Road to pick prunes and to cut cots, as
many kids did then. There were also pigs being raised.
There were drying sheds, small barns, cottages and ranch
houses on this and other properties around there. We were
in the country.
This is the agricultural background of this area
of Los Gatos. The last reminder of this is the Yuki
property, and this heritage is not being acknowledged in
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this application, which is a requirement of the Specific
Plan, C-3-2-4. The developer gives us one store and a
couple of rows of trees, when what should be given is open
space, not hardscape, and buildings with a rural feel, like
the picture of 3-6 in the Specific Plan. This application
gives us density and intersection, which sounds a lot like
a city, not a town. It should be denied.
Along with being an old Los Gatan, I am a senior
citizen. When this proposal was first made public, move-
down housing for seniors was included in a cluster like
construction, cottage or garden clusters, like small
villages. This has disappeared in the present application,
thus ignoring the requirement of the Specific Plan to
address one of the unmet needs of senior citizens.
There are 5,236 seniors in Los Gatos who are over
65. Eighty-percent of these own their own homes, probably
larger homes than they need; yet nothing was provided for
them to move down. Perhaps these clusters of cottages could
have been included in Phase 1 had the developer adhered to
the Specific Plan to spread residential units across the
entire 40 acres. Of the 5,236 seniors, 180 of them are
subsidized in some fashion. This application offers 49
senior apartments for Very Low income seniors, and they’re
over a store.
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The lack of agricultural acknowledgement, the
inability to address the unmet needs of senior citizens,
and the refusal to spread residences across all 40 acres
are absolute reasons to deny this application.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Kankel. We
appreciate your comments. I’m going to have to ask you all,
please do not clap. Thank you very much. All right, the
next three speakers are Rod Teague, Lainey Richardson and
Cindy Schneider.
ROD TEAGUE: Thank you, Commissioners. My name is
Rod Teague; I live on Johnson Avenue.
First, I’d like to say that I’ve always embraced
change. I’m from Los Gatos. I was in the real estate
industry. I have a city and regional planning background
from Cal Poly, and I understand healthy conforming
development is a necessary component to any municipality.
But, this current proposal is unprecedented and it’s been
crafted and sold to this community using clever tactics.
One of those tactics was State mandated low cost
housing. This was the premise to approve this application.
I attended some of the meetings with Los Gatos Community
Alliance, and the developers and members of the Housing
Element Advisory Board. Somehow there was an understanding
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that high-density zoning meant automatic RHNA credit.
Unfortunately, that’s not correct.
This is from HCD directly, which explains that,
“Densities of housing for developments do not describe
affordability for the purpose of crediting units against
jurisdictions’ RHNA credits.” The community was told they
were going to get 270 RHNA credits from the 619 allocated
by the State. This is even used by Grosvenor on their FAQ
page up for their website.
In order to achieve this, we rezoned the North 40
at 20 units per acre and gave the developer a by right
privilege. I now understand only 50 units may count towards
RHNA. Again, 270 was a premise to drive this project.
Speaking to the two RHNA authorities at HCD, which are Glen
Campora and Jess Nigretti (phonetic), I understand the
reality. The Town planned for 270 Low to Moderate income
units, which you can see here, but under this application
the developer will deliver 50. The rest of the units are
market rate.
When Los Gatos submits those potential 50
qualifiable RHNA units, HCD is going to say fine, but since
you did not deliver 270 Low to Moderate as stated in the
Housing Element, you now have to amend your Housing Element
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to reflect the locations where those 220 undelivered Low to
Moderate units will be relocated.
The premise for rezoning the North 40 high-
density was bogus from the beginning. Approving this
application achieves nothing, except for empowering the
developer and their lawyers with a by right option so that
they can bully this community into getting everything that
they want. This application makes it impossible to execute
the Specific Plan in a conforming and dignified manner.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Mr. Teague. We are
going to take a ten minutes break. We cannot have clapping.
Lainey Richardson, you will be next. But I don’t want to
have to give any more warnings in regard to the clapping.
So we will take a ten-minute break.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR BADAME: Everyone please have a seat. Thank
you. As a heads up, in regard to the clapping, it just
slows down the process, and we’d like to hear from everyone
tonight, and again as a heads up, we have about 20 speaker
cards remaining. Some still might come through, so we will
hear from everybody tonight, and that was my concern. So
thank you everybody. We will fit everybody in tonight, so
thank you.
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Lainey Richardson is our next speaker.
LAINEY RICHARDSON: Hi, Lainey Richardson, Golf
Links Drive in Los Gatos. Thank you for your time and for
listening to the concerns of your neighbors and
constituents who live in the Town of Los Gatos. I am a 55
year resident of Los Gatos and I am requesting that you
deny this application. I have many concerns with the
current application and design for the North 40.
My first concern is that the Vision Statement
states that the North 40 will look and feel like Los Gatos.
As you can see from the one-dimension rendition that I
printed off the North 40 website, this project does not
look like Los Gatos, it looks like the new Stanford Cancer
Center on the corner of Los Gatos Boulevard and Good
Samaritan Drive. This rendition looks and feels like a
massive high-density apartment complex, not the town I grew
up in.
My second concern is that detached cottage
clusters were promised, and I am unable to locate even one.
I’ve handed you copies of two pages off of the North 40
website which show the types and location of the different
housing models. Cottage clusters are not included in the
rendition. Standalone, architecturally diverse, detached
houses are what I am used to seeing in Los Gatos. The
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developer stated they were included in their application,
but I cannot find one. Another reason to deny this
application.
I realize that I cannot stop the development of
this property, but I am very concerned that the developer
has requested and applied for the maximum allowable units
possible with the minimum amount of open space allotted. I
would like to see a new application that includes the
reduction of square footage for all units on the property,
so as to meet the minimum required units, thereby opening
up areas that might actually represent and feel like open
space.
By reducing the size of the units and
incorporating more detached units, you have the power to
create a new neighborhood in town that actually does
reflect the look and feel of Los Gatos. Less and/or smaller
units will reduce the traffic congestion, school
overcrowding and water usage, which should be a priority
for all of us who live in town.
My last concern is your legacy. The developer
will be long gone once this project is complete. They will
not have to deal with traffic, school overcrowding to
include potential busing of students up and down Highway
17, water shortages, et cetera. You could, however, be
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remembered as the Commissioners who did not represent your
neighbors and constituents’ concerns. Please deny this
application. We can and should do a better job planning for
the future generations of our town.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Richardson.
CINDY SCHNEIDER: Good evening, Commissioners. My
name is Cindy Schneider and I live on Matson Avenue in Los
Gatos; I’ve lived here for 30 years. Thank you for your
time this evening on what is undoubtedly the largest
application and the most contentious our town has ever
seen: forty-four acres of walnut orchards, the last largest
piece of undeveloped land in our town, and one of the last
in this valley.
For many of the Town’s residents, and I know I
speak for many in my oft-forgotten corner of Los Gatos,
what we find most egregious about the application before
you is how it came about, and the entitlement the
developers apparently feel they have been given.
Most residents believe the Commission, Staff, and
Council not only represent them but are also stewards of
our town, land, and all that is Los Gatos. However, I think
it has been made clear by the collaboration from day one
between the Staff and the Applicant that this perception
and trust is unwarranted.
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The Specific Plan, Housing Element, and the
current application have been developed in parallel so much
so that many residents believe the current North 40
application has already been approved, and that those story
poles that were reluctantly installed in the first place
are in fact a finished development. The letter from the
developer’s attorney dated July 7th actually states how the
Town should proceed with the application.
While we appreciate the time and energy that all
parties have taken, it is imperative that there be a
separation of developer and Town, and that all
recommendations be completely objective and based on
information that is clear, concise, and that conforms to
our Design Guidelines and the Specific Plan.
When decisions have been made, and once the first
walnut tree is bulldozed, let us be clear that if this
application is approved the residents will be left with the
adverse affects, including the destruction of open space,
impact on roads, traffic, views, schools, and the sheer
beauty of Los Gatos while the developers and Staff leave
Los Gatos for their homes elsewhere, pocketbooks full.
Thank you.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Schneider. The next
three speakers are Rhodie Firth, Ed Rathmann, and Alex
Rivlin.
RHODIE FIRTH: My name is Rhodie Firth. I’ve
lived in Blossom Hill Manor for 50 years, and the only
problem with what I have to say tonight is I’m repeating
myself, because I said the same things at a Town Council
meeting, but I want to be sure that you know after the man
who represents the developer—and I’m sorry I don’t know his
name—said his company has dealt with total transparency
through this process.
The community was invited about, I don't know,
eight years ago, maybe, to a meeting by the developer to
get feedback from the community, and so about 70 of us went
to this meeting. These women from Grosvenor had huge pieces
of paper pasted on the walls, and they said, “Please give
us your ideas of what to do with the North 40.” So we gave
them thousands of ideas of what to do, and they went
through them and they wrote them all down, and they said,
“As you leave, vote for the one you like the best.” There
was not talk about buildings or businesses or any of that.
And then she said, “Come back in a month and we’ll tell you
what the results are of the feedback that you gave us.” So
we went back in a month, and this is what we saw. They
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obviously had it all planned before they had the community
meeting, and I don’t call that transparency, so let’s not
trust them.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Firth, for your
comments. Mr. Rathmann.
ED RATHMANN: Hi, my name is Ed Rathmann; I live
on Blanchard Drive.
If we take a step back and look at what is going
on here, it’s pretty obvious that the vast majority of
people here tonight, and I would say also the vast majority
of Town residents, do not want this development to happen,
yet somehow we’ve gotten to this point. You’ve been
presented, through email and speakers tonight, with ample
reason to deny this application. This proposal contradicts
the spirit and the letter of the Specific Plan.
Here’s another example of how this proposal does
not conform to the Specific Plan. This proposal calls for
66,000 square feet of commercial space with potential for a
total of 400,000 square feet. The Vision Statement of the
Specific Plan says that the commercial part will be,
“seamlessly woven into the fabric of our community.” How
does this plan do that?
And, “It will complement other Los Gatos business
neighborhoods.” As the owner of two downtown businesses, I
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can say with absolute certainty that this project will not
help the downtown.
The Vision Statement also says that the
commercial component will, “address the Town’s unmet
commercial needs.” I was at the original meeting four years
ago when this Vision Statement was developed and approved.
This section was put in as a protection for the downtown
business community. If the Town does have unmet commercial
needs, they are in the area of businesses like REI or
Target, and not more restaurants, wine bars, and salons.
That is a met need. The Town does not need 66,000 square
feet of small retail, let alone 400,000 square feet.
Frankly, if one wants to do serious damage to the economic
vitality of the downtown, this plan will do it.
Again, this proposal contradicts the Vision
Statement of the Specific Plan. Please help the Council
deny this application by voting it down. The Town will
thank you, and future generations of Los Gatos residents
who will still get to enjoy our downtown will thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: And thank you, Mr. Rathmann, for
your comments. Alex Rivlin.
ALEX RIVLIN: Hello, my name is Alex Rivlin; I
live on Carlton Avenue. I want to talk about two things.
One is what happens after, and the second one is the cars.
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Right now we’re looking at the pictures of the
beautiful development, and typically developments fall into
two categories: successful and temporary.
When I look at some of the new developments, we
talk about the Santana Row analogy a lot, and Santana Row
is well and alive, but it is not as well and alive as it
was when it opened.
And if you look at another commercial development
with a lot of restaurants on the corner of Story and
McLaughlin, when that thing opened you couldn’t find
parking there; it was all marble and crystal chandeliers,
and nowhere to park. Today it’s probably 60%, so if you
need some extra storefront space, probably it is available
right there.
I want you to think about what happens. Say, we
start building units on day one and complete them three
years later. Fast forward another five years, and think
what will happen on that day. I’m not saying it won’t be
successful. It may live very prosperously, like Union
Square in San Francisco has been around 100+ years.
But there are different options, and I want you
to think about and look around at how fashion shifts from
one neighborhood to the next, from Santana Row to Campbell,
et cetera, and just keep it in mind that this development
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will persist for many, many years and we need to think not
on the day one when we move in and cut the ribbon, but on
the day five years passed when the hype is gone.
I have one minute left, and my second message is
about the cars. So 300 units. There were a few
conversations here about the traffic improvement, $10
million. Ten million dollars is a very remarkable amount of
money, and it will probably significantly improve the
intersection of Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard, which is
great.
But I live very close to there, and when I think
about traffic, I think about what happens after that
intersection when I get to the freeway, and 600 cars will
need to get on those freeways, and you have the choice of
two freeways here, 85 and 17.
At the metering light, at five seconds per car,
600 cars will end up being 50 minutes of extra wait that I
don’t enjoy today, but I will enjoy later, and that’s for
me to get on the freeway. But the count argument is that we
have two freeways, which is true, so that will be a 25
minutes wait. So if I am driving 17, you effectively put me
25 minutes behind towards Summit Road and then ask me to
get to the same exact office where I am going right now
without the 25 minute wait.
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Well, that was my message, and I thank you. I
have more details if you want, but it is really eating up a
lot of to our experience of getting to the office and a lot
of pollution.
CHAIR BADAME: Sir, we…
ALEX RIVLIN: Six hundred cars is two miles over
a two-lane freeway if you have 10’ feet of it in the cars.
I don’t drive 10’; I’m old enough to drive 15’ between the
cars. That will be three miles of the cars.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, sir. Sir, we did get
your message. Thank you very much. Jeff Loughridge, Lisa
Martinskis, and Sam Weidman.
JEFF LOUGHRIDGE: Hi, my name is Jeff Loughridge;
I live on Paseo Laura. I’ve never been a fan of what large
groups or communities end up with for a solution to a
problem.
The North 40 project has been on the table for
many years now, and it just seems like now, when many
residents are just hearing it, our town has processes for
how any development is approved. It’s not easy, it takes
many detailed, boring meetings before any developer is
allowed to break ground on a project. I have supported that
process, and will continue to support those responsibly
involved in that process. That includes the Town Staff,
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Attorney, and Manager. That includes the Planning
Commissioners. That includes the Town Council members.
Without this process, things would be even more chaotic in
town.
Throughout this process the one truth is that in
order for it to work, it has to deal with facts. Facts help
to determine the best solution. Misinformation causes much
harm to the process and needs to be cleared up as quickly
as possible. I urge this Commission and Staff do that as
soon as possible, because I’ve heard a lot of
misinformation tonight.
The Town officials are not the bad guys here. It
would be more appropriate to direct anger in the direction
of our State capital. That’s where our high volume of high-
density affordable housing requirements started. That’s
where the SB50, which puts limitations on what towns and
cities can do regarding developments and school impacts,
started. That’s where transportation engineers have written
our traffic requirements about what is mitigatable and at
what level what is determined sufficient. That’s where the
EIR as well as CEQA requirements came from.
Whack a Mole is an arcade game in which players
use a mallet to hit toy moles that appear at random back
onto their holes. I’m using this reference to a situation
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in which we make attempts to solve a problem that are
piecemeal or superficial, resulting only in moving the
problem somewhere else in town.
I was a member of the Los Gatos Housing Element
Advisory Board. We worked long and hard at not only
researching what we were dealing with, but also at finding
a solution for our town that produced the most minimal
impact.
Contrary to what you heard earlier tonight, all
320 units of the North 40 count towards our Los Gatos
required affordable housing number of 619 units, period.
The qualification here was the units must be built at a
density of 20 units per acre minimum. Unfortunately, any
suggested changes that might affect that number will impact
our town in some other way, and based on our work on the
Housing Element Advisory Board, a much worse way by being
relocated. Think Higgins Park on Blossom Hill, or Los Gatos
Lodge on Highway 9, each at a minimum of 20 units per acre.
What qualifies as traffic congestion, school
impacts, and housing density are things that the State has
pushed on us. Don’t blame our Town Council, Planning
Commission, or Staff for something our State legislature
passed.
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I am here tonight to support this process and the
development, and that is a part of it. My hope is that
others will show their support in a positive, responsible
manner.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Loughridge.
LISA MARTINSKIS: Hello, my name is Lisa
Martinskis and I live in 84 Highland Avenue. I was born and
raised in this town, and I’ve seen it evolve over the 39
years I’ve been here. I went away to college, but came back
here to live, because this town has a very special place in
my heart.
My father, Al Martinskis, who I’m sure you’ve
heard from a lot, is a retired architect and he’d say that
the current application is failing pretty miserably at
upholding the Town’s quaint look and feel. He couldn’t be
here tonight, but I’m speaking on his behalf as well as
many of the Los Gatos residents who couldn’t be here,
because we like to believe that our voices matter.
I echo the opposition to this development, but
especially so from a traffic and emergency vehicle
standpoint. That little girl hit the nail on the head. As a
resident of the foothills, I’m very worried that the
traffic and population increase will impede safety vehicles
in the case of a medical emergency or fire and end up in
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disaster. As a member of this community, I have a vested
interest in not only the safety and quality of life for
myself and my family, but that of the rest of the current
residents as well.
I’d also like to add that in the 350-plus page
application that I perused today that you have posted
online, not one page references any sort of a traffic
solution, and I, for one, find that very suspicious. Please
deny this application.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
SAM WEIDMAN: Sam Weidman, Carlester Drive.
Last Friday I received the Staff Report basically
relative to what’s going on tonight and this weekend, and
one of the things I noticed on there is there is a
question: Are there examples of developments at 20 units
per acre in town, and how big are those units? I saw the
list of five locations and decided to go out and take a
look at those, just to find out for myself what 20 units
per acre looks like. Aventino Apartments, Bay Tree, Riviera
Terrace, Lora Drive Condominiums, and Oak Rim Way. I also
found out some interesting information I’ll put out as we
go along.
This is Aventino, which is over behind the
Netflix building, the old one. It’s essentially 46 units
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per acre. That line I drew around the site is basically if
you want the acreage, so it comes out to 7.55 acres. At 46
units per acre, that’s 347.3 units within a 7.5 acre
location. This is basically what it looks like more at an
angle. The interesting part is the buildings; they’re not
all in straight lines like the Grosvenor area is going to
look like. It does have quite a bit of open space in
between buildings, et cetera, and green grass.
Bay Tree Apartments; they are on Massol at the
western end of Almendra. Kind of hard to see here. There’s
a construction truck, part of the street repair. But what
it is, it’s in the middle of—if you want the residential
area—where we have the usual detached homes of eight per
acre. This is the top view of it. Again, this takes up
about 2.32 acres, or 48.72 units if it is a 21 per acre
location. Again, it is amongst the residential areas,
housing all around it; you can barely actually see it with
all the trees now that have grown up around it.
The Riviera Terrace; this is off University
Avenue. It’s a large unit also. It’s designated RM:12-20,
3.33 acres, 119 units at 36 units per acre. That light
colored portion in the middle of the building, right here,
there is residential here, and there are other apartments
over here.
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Lora Drive, Wedgewood Manor. This was originally
senior housing. It was originally designated as eight per
acre, got changed into senior housing. I believe it’s now
open to anybody as far as condominiums. And again, it’s in
a residential area, as shown here.
We also have Oak Rim Way and Oak Rim Court.
Again, this was amongst…
There’s also 600 Pennsylvania, which also has,
again, a higher density amongst residential area, so it can
be done, but also if you look at it as very big, very
compressed. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. The next three speakers
are Markene Smith, Jeanne Torre, and Kim O’Rourke.
MARKENE SMITH: Hi, I’m Markene Smith; I live on
Drake’s Bay Avenue near the North 40 and have family
scattered all around town. I’m very opposed to the North 40
for public health and safety reasons.
First of all, it’s been pointed out to the
Commission and to all of us at several meetings that the
proposed units that we see along Highway 17 as we’re
turning onto Lark are, according to the Environmental
Impact Report, high risk for cancer, leukemia, lung
problems, asthma, all these things, and the developers who
claim that we’re not for kids, the attorney was saying that
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we’re against children, and actually, they’re putting
children, pets, and everybody else at risk by putting just
globs and globs and globs of houses right in the exact most
cancerful region of the 40 acres, and right there, that to
me is a clear reason to deny the application.
Another big thing is the privatization, the
private streets. This development is between two major
freeways, 85 and 17, and let’s say the Waze app directs
people through the development to get faster to Netflix or
to 17 or to wherever, or from 17 to Samaritan Hospital?
They’re going to cut through the private streets, and let’s
say someone… Like these units look so cookie cutter, they
look exactly like the unit that George Zimmerman was trying
to defend on his private street when he shot Trayvon
Martin, who he didn’t expect to be coming through his
street and didn’t recognize as being in the neighborhood,
but we’re asking the public to use private streets. That to
me is a giant danger in a location such as this that is
right on major thoroughfares.
Not only that, but also the children, pets, and
seniors have no safe pathway. Even after the proposed
improvements on Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard they’ll have
no safe path over Highway 17, and there is no place for
children to play.
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I was just going to close by saying that this
also doesn’t satisfy any of the RHNA requirements, which is
to cut down on pollution, and to put all the new
developments near public transit to get the cars off the
streets and cut down on greenhouse gases, so it would be
near public transit, and we don’t have that yet. We have no
Los Gatos light rail station. I think it should be denied
until there is one. Thanks.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Jeanne Torre.
JEANNE TORRE: Hello, I’m Jean Torre; I live on
Willow Hill Court in the Charter Oaks neighborhood.
I’m not universally opposed to development, or
even to higher density development. I have been, however,
and remain concerned by development without a clear plan
for measures needed to address the demands that development
will make on the infrastructure, especially on traffic, and
I don’t see that here.
For the North 40, there is no transit option for
its residents, except for cars, to get to their likely work
places, or even to businesses in other parts of Los Gatos.
Other than Los Gatos Boulevard and Lark, the only plan I
see is for a right turn only lane on Lark between the exit
from the development and the northbound ramp to 17. There’s
nothing that even addresses the bottleneck that will be the
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two lanes each way bridge over Highway 17 or the rest of
Lark Avenue.
We’ve seen the effect of the Albright development
on Lark Avenue. Its mitigation was a free-flowing right
turn lane from westbound lane to northbound University, yet
it’s only half built and we’re regularly seeing westbound
Lark traffic back up over the creek bridge.
I look to the Town to ensure that plans are in
place that addresses the whole impact to nearby roads, and
not just the roads in the North 40 and bordering the North
40 properties, and to do that before development proceeds.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Torre. Kim O’Rourke
KIM O’ROURKE: I’m Kim O’Rourke and I live off of
Rochin Terrace, and I wasn’t planning on coming. I was
actually reading a book on the passenger pigeon today, and
did you know that they lived for 300,000 million years, and
the government and us humans within a decade-and-a-half
allowed them to become completely extinct by slaughtering
them?
It reminded me of the North 40, because once we
allow this huge development to take over that land, we
can’t change it. It’s there. We can’t bring it back. We can
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slow it down. We’ve heard a ton of statistics of why we
shouldn’t have it.
I recently was at a Council meeting for one of my
friends that was developing a business in Campbell, and it
was a similar circumstance where the Council wanted a lot
more restrictions, and he didn’t get what he wanted. They
said, “Prove yourself.” I look at the developer, and I say
work with the Town, work with the people. That’s what they
said to him: “Work with us.” And he, in the last year-and-
a-half, worked with the town, worked with the people, and
now he has a thriving, successful business that the people
enjoy.
So we’re asking the same. We’re asking you guys
to think about slowing this down, thinking about it,
because we’re not going to be able to change it, and for
you, the developer, to start working with us.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. The next three speakers
are Chris Chapman, Joseph Gemignani, and Colin Heyne.
CHRIS CHAPMAN: Hello, my name is Chris Chapman;
I live at 201 Mistletoe Road in Los Gatos.
What I’m concerned about is in the event the Town
Council denies the application, based on the letter dated
July 7th regarding the developer’s intent, or threat of
litigation, I’m concerned that the Town may not have the
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financial resources to mount a legal battle. I’m worried
that the Town will approve the development to avoid lengthy
litigation, and that would have a long-term negative
ramification on our town.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
JOSEPH GEMIGNANI: I’m Joseph Gemignani, National
Avenue, Los Gatos. Maybe in the future call me Joseph the
Weatherman, because that’s my email address. I’m the
weatherman.
I kind of want to echo some of the things that
that lady over there was saying. Getting some water, I
accidently ran into one of the lead architects of the
projects. This person seemed very friendly, open minded,
and I hope this person is listening. I think that they’ll
be willing to at least listen to our ideas and make some
changes to this project; ask the person to make some
changes.
Back in 2011, actually in the summer—and I’ve got
the results here if anybody wants to see it—the Town of Los
Gatos asked us to do a survey, the people that live in Los
Gatos, and I participated in the survey. I’ve got here the
results of the survey that I’d like the architect to listen
to.
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It says here the people wanted traditional
looking buildings, traditional for Los Gatos sense or
California sense; I’m from Chicago, not that kind of
traditional. Traditional Los Gatos California, and it also
said they preferred like Mission style buildings, and
finally they wanted a mix of buildings, which I did too,
because it’s 40 acres.
When you have a big project like that you don’t
want it to look like a subset of a city. That’s a huge
area. By having a mixture of styles, incorporate some
Mission architecture, whatever, our old Los Gatos look. You
can have that agrarian look if you want, too, I don’t mind
that. Have a mixture, but take into consideration what the
people said, otherwise, why do a survey?
We did the survey, and it doesn’t reflect what we
wanted. I mean what did we do the survey for? Suzanne Davis
was the one that I guess handled the survey, and I know
she’s not here anymore, but I do have the results of that
here if anybody wants to see it.
Again, the architect seemed pretty open minded.
Have her revise the project, put in some Mission, go ahead
and do your agrarian look. I think that modern is kind of
way out of place; it reminds me of Illinois. It’s a big 40
acres. A mixture of buildings would look a lot better, so
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when you’re driving you don’t say, “Here’s Grosvenorville.”
You want to say this is part of Los Gatos. It’s a big park;
you gotta have a mixture of styles. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Sir, if you’d like to submit the
survey to Staff, they’ll be sure to distribute it to the
Commissioners, probably by tomorrow. Thank you.
COLIN HEYNE: Thank you, Commissioners. My name
is Colin Heyne. I actually don’t live in Los Gatos. I’m
here representing Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.
Some of you may be familiar with us. We’re a
nonprofit. We have a mission to create a healthy community,
environment, and economy through bicycling in San Mateo and
Santa Clara Counties. We have several members, 2,200 in
all, across both counties and several in Los Gatos.
The way we accomplish our mission, getting more
people on bikes, is twofold. One, we have programs and
services you may be familiar with: Bike to Work Day; more
Safe Routes to School, where we teach children how to walk
and bike safely. Two, we also work to create a built
environment that makes it a safe and welcoming place to
ride a bicycle.
So we’re usually pretty enthusiastic when a
developer contacts us and says we’ve got an opportunity to
change the streetscape to make something safer for
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bicyclists, and to contribute to a community that makes it
possible to get around by bike rather than by car. That’s
what happened with the North 40 development team about two
years ago.
They contacted us and they said, “What can we do
to make this development better than average, above and
beyond for bicycling and make it safe, to make bicycling a
realistic transportation option for people who live here,
work here, and come here to shop?” And we said bike parking
is good, bike storage, safe places for people, maybe some
repair stations. Pie in the sky? Connect to Los Gatos Creek
Trail. Maybe get people safely across Highway 17. And they
said, “How do we do that?” and we said, “Well, you’re going
to have to spend some money. You’re probably going to have
to contact a design firm that specializes in bicycling,”
and they said, “Give us some names.”
So this has continued over the last two years.
We’ve checked in with the development teams several times.
They bring us new options for improving bicycling in the
area, we give them feedback, and every time they bring back
an improved design. We’ve been really happy with our
experience working with them, and we think this is a great
opportunity to promote bicycling in Los Gatos and to give
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people a healthy option, an alternative to driving a car.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Heyne. The next
three speakers are Jeffrey Aristide, Ken Cubbon, and Susan
McElroy.
JEFFREY ARISTIDE: Good evening, I’m Jeffrey
Aristide at 102 Noble Court.
I request that the Commission deny this proposal
for the following reasons:
It’s clear that there is going to be view
blockage from these buildings, especially the tall ones.
It’s definitely not the character of the Town. To me,
that’s a modernistic style. Certainly the density is much
too high, and one of the criteria was low intensity, which
this doesn’t have; it’s just too large. It should be
reworked and rescaled. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Ken Cubbon. Last call
for Ken. Susan McElroy.
SUSAN McELROY: Good evening, I’m Susan McElroy;
I’m the PR marketing rep for The Butter Paddle nonprofit
gift store in Los Gatos, and our address is 33 North Santa
Cruz Avenue. I’m happy to be here.
This evening, to represent our gift store the
best, I’m going to defer to a real special person that has
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a lot more experience with our store and our organization,
and that’s Caryl Pozos.
CARYL POZOS: Hi, I’ll make this short and to the
point. I represent small retail in Los Gatos. Our store has
been operating for almost 50 years. We moved from sleepy
Saratoga six years ago to charming, vital Los Gatos.
We like being there, but we are concerned about
remaining healthy and vibrant and competing against big
commercial ventures. I think I can drive ten minutes and I
can be in Santana Row, I can be in Westfield Mall. Why do I
need to just drive five minutes, and have more people in a
very enclosed area?
I noticed that there was a Specific Plan that was
approved last June 2015 by the Town Council, and it says
that it “would require every applicant for a new commercial
use within the North 40 Specific Plan area to submit an
economic market study to assess the proposal’s impact on
downtown competitiveness.” They’ll submit it. What do we
have to say? How do we know what they’re saying and what
the grounds of your approval are?
I am just concerned that both North 40 and
downtown Los Gatos will not survive. We will not be a
vibrant downtown any longer. It will go the way of
Saratoga.
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In sort of closing my thoughts, when did building
more help to control overdevelopment and overcrowding and
too much traffic?
CHAIR BADAME: Ma’am? Your name was Caryl. I
didn’t catch your last name, but I don’t have a speaker
card for you, so if you could be sure to fill one out. And
we do have a question from Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: As a merchant downtown—and I
meant to ask Mr. Rathmann this question—I’m wondering what
possibility do you see in a reverse argument that this
development might provide you with more business, more
traffic? I see people taking the position that it’s going
to hurt. I’m also thinking downtown is charming. Those
folks may want to come and shop, like everybody else does.
CARYL POZOS: Well, I don’t see somebody moving
from North 40 and saying let’s just run over to downtown,
and maybe we can’t find parking anyway. I just don’t see
that happening. That’s all I can say. I don't know what
would be the grounds to think that because they were there,
that it would bring more business to us.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Don’t forget about that
speaker card. The next three speakers are Michael Gordon,
Tom Thimot, and Mahnaz Tankamani.
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MICHAEL GORDON: Thank you. My name is Mike
Gordon; I’m a 27 year resident of Los Gatos, currently
raising three children in Los Gatos Union School District.
I had some prepared remarks, but I want to just comment.
I think it’s disingenuous of the developer to
threaten litigation if we don’t follow strict guidelines as
in blind men designing an elephant, and not have the
capability to look at the project in total and decide
what’s best for our community. I find that extremely
disingenuous, and certainly not in the spirit of working
with the community.
Secondly, I think some of the so-called facts
that have been indicated by the developer also strain
credibility.
Number one, to believe that with some modest
amount of spending for traffic mitigation, I think they’re
talking about $10 million or something along those lines,
that you would see a 13% increase over 2012 traffic but
would result in a 26% decrease in the time to navigate
those same areas. I think that you can create studies to
get the desired result any time you want, and I think that
this is probably more in that category than not.
I find it interesting that Staff is not really
able to validate those particular facts, I think as was
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stated earlier, at this point. So again, I find it
interesting that those things have not been discussed
already with Staff, but yet made part of their presentation
in support of this project.
Lastly, I think I’d like to talk about the school
situation. When my daughter started at Van Meter—she’s now
in the 12th grade at Los Gatos High School—Van Meter had
roughly 310 students. At the present time Van Meter has
over 625 students. Same area, same physical plan, and yet
we have over double the number of students in that area.
Anybody that believes that this development will not
seriously impact our schools is kidding themselves. You can
come up with all the statistics you want, you can talk
about there are only going to be a certain number of kids
coming out of that development. Life will out. There will
be more impact to our schools than we anticipate.
Secondly, the fact that they’re going to donate
$10 million to our school district, that is a drop in the
bucket. We just spent $14 million building a gym at the
high school, so if that has any impact on our schools,
we’re kidding ourselves.
I just would like to say that I think this is an
ill conceived project that does not take into account the
impact it’s going to have on our community. Thank you.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Tom.
TOM THIMOT: Hi there, Tom Thimot, Johnson Avenue
here in Los Gatos. Together with Rod Teague, co-founded
Town Not City. Thank you very much for your service to the
Town.
I think you’ve all read the 600 or so letters
that you just recently received, the thousands of letters.
Hopefully you’ve taken a look at our Facebook page. This
town does not want this application. You don’t have to
count up the votes; it’s clear. The Town wants you to deny
this application.
Why do they want you to deny this application?
The fact is as much as most of us would like to complain
about the traffic, the EIR pretty much takes that argument
away, and we’d love to complain about the schools, but SB50
doesn’t allow us to do that. So let’s talk about the facts
of why this should not be allowed.
First, the application must adhere to Los Gatos
town character. That’s not Los Gatos town character; you’ve
got 600 letters that tell you that.
The second is the application must embrace
hillside views. Stand anywhere and look up at those story
poles and try to see the hills above them. Can’t.
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Third, the application must be low-intensity
housing in the Lark District. The nice report the Staff put
together talks about high-intensity housing. The Specific
Plan requires low-intensity housing in the Lark District.
That’s not low-intensity. That’s high-intensity. You don’t
need to be a judge or a jurist to understand that.
So when you’re looking at this, please, stand
firm in your negotiating position. This town, if you
surveyed them, would tell you bring the litigation. Bring
it on. We don’t want this project. We don’t want it the way
it’s been designed.
And in the chess game you kind of check mated
yourself, because instead of offering this Commission the
ability to say hey, we’re going to modify this and we’re
going to modify that, you basically said take it or leave
it. Take that, or leave it. Well, we want to leave it, and
we’ve said that, and the Town has said that. You have the
letters. You have our Facebook page with 50,000 comments
hating this thing, and these are from people that are Los
Gatos residents that you represent.
So please, please, listen to those constituents,
hear them out, and then stand firm. This isn’t Los Gatos
town character. It is high-intensity and it does not
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embrace hillside views. Those are objective things that a
court and jury and a judge will defend. Fight it. Litigate.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Thimot, for your
comments. Mahnaz Tankamani. Last call for Mahnaz. Angelia
Doerner, Shawna Rodgers, and Peter Curtis, and we’ll be
done. Not all the way, guys. Don’t get too anxious. We have
a lot to talk about. Two more cards.
ANGELIA DOERNER: Hello, Angelia Doerner, proud
resident of the Almond Grove.
Everybody has already discussed about Policy 01
as it relates to open views, protecting our views of the
hillsides. Obviously our views are not protected, and
obviously no one within this development will ever see a
hillside review. I see no evidence that none of these
pictures are even achievable in this plan, so as far as
Policy 01 is concerned, it has failed.
Let’s go to Policy 02; let’s talk about the
landscaping buffer. It should provide an opportunity to
incorporate sitting areas for passive recreation. The
perimeter buffers are very narrow with abutting on-street
parking. There is no opportunity that has been identified,
therefore we cannot consider that policy fulfilled. Policy
02 failed.
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Policy 03; provide an open space network. I’ll
talk about parks and passive open space in a moment, but
specifically 2.54, the Specific Plan provides incentives
for consolidation of parking, minimizing at grade parking.
There is no underground parking in any of these residential
units. I’m just showing you an example here of a garden
cluster, which I chose, as it is adjacent to the community
park. Thirty-four percent of that mass is related to
parking.
I also have a question as it relates to the
private space within that particular cluster. The developer
has used an assumption that it’s 50/50 between hardscape
and green space. This is very critical, because the green
space in the Lark District is being used to offset
inadequacies of green space in the Transition District, so
we need to have this verified, and until this is verified
it looks to me visually that there is an awful lot more
hardscape in all of those private areas, all these garden
clusters that what they’re getting credit for. So as far as
I’m concerned, let me guess. Failed.
Now, this is a picture of the community park
enlargement plan, which is in the developer’s plans. What I
have marked out here is all private areas related to those
garden clusters. Very misleading, very deceiving, thinking
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that all of that is actually community park, so let’s get
rid of that.
What you’re looking at now is a length of 235’,
78 yards. The width is 85’ viewed about three linear areas.
Visualize the total space as it compares to the football
field on the right. Now, add all of these things. My
goodness. Bocce court, fire pit lounge, café seating,
grill, communal dining, community gardens, and people will
still be able to relax in hammocks and enjoy this passive
space, all in that area down there on the bottom as it
relates to a football field. I don’t think so.
Shadow impact, also troublesome.
Please let me continue.
CHAIR BADAME: Fifteen more seconds, and then
you’re going to have some questions that might allow you to
continue even longer.
ANGELIA DOERNER: Let me go to the Grand Paseo,
because this is very important. Section 2.31 of the
Specific Plan, the Lark District, says, “Lower density
residential is envisioned in this area.” It’s interesting
that the developer, on page 12 of his plan, says, “Moving
from the lower intensity Lark residential area.” You’re
kidding me. He’s even calling that lower intensity?
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But also, the Grand Paseo is actually a tunnel
going through three-story high buildings. It is only 12’
wide.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, I’ve got to stop you there,
but we have questions for you. I’m going to start with
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you, and I’ve read all
of your correspondence. It looks like you have some
additional information in this presentation to what you
previously emailed. Would you be willing to provide this
presentation for us to consider in our deliberations?
ANGELIA DOERNER: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: You can send that to us?
ANGELIA DOERNER: Sure. I believe I sent a copy
of my slides to each of you, but I will give you the
written information, and I think it’s really important for
you to look at this, as it relates to most of our community
parks in the area.
This idea of community park in Grand Paseo is
absolutely contradictory to what our community considered
open green space, and if you look at no restrooms, no
sports, which relates to adults and children, no
playgrounds. We want playgrounds. Look at how many
playgrounds we have throughout our town. We love children,
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okay? And no real area where you could actually do a picnic
of any kind.
CHAIR BADAME: Was your question answered?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yes, it was, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
ANGELIA DOERNER: We have our Willoughby, but for
new residents who we want to be Los Gatans, what will it
be? Thank you.
SHAWNA RODGERS: Hello, my name is Shawna; I live
in the Blossom Hill Manor, and I’m here representing my
family who live on Alpine Road and off of Summit Road. I
went to St. Mary’s in downtown Los Gatos, as did my
brother. I went to Archbishop Mitty and he went to
Bellarmine. We went away to college. We moved back, because
Los Gatos is this green, luscious place where we love
being.
I understand change is imminent with State
regulations, and that new housing has to be developed, but
I implore you to find a different way to do it.
I work in Santana Row, I’m a fresh graduate, and
people don’t need any more stuff. We have enough shops. We
have enough product. I see people everyday that come in
like, “You have anything new?” Like we’re a little bit
dulled to this consumer lifestyle that’s being pushed in
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many parts of the country, and our little town doesn’t need
it. We need more trees, more parks, more places to raise
our children. My brother and I are getting towards the
child-bearing age, and I get really concerned thinking
about do I want to raise my kids here?
I know my family doesn’t want it, and I can’t
speak for other people, and the last thing that I want to
say is that when people speak, you can usually tell like
what part of their body they’re speaking from and like
whether they’re speaking from an honest place or speaking
from a place of really wanting to do good, and humans have
this like imbedded lie detector system. Like we can tell
when someone is selling us something. We can tell when
someone is lying; it’s fairly obvious.
Lawyers, and you may have heard of the sophistry
from ancient Greek times. There’s this thing that they can
do where they can take words and confuse you and make you
think a certain thing, and make you think that they’re
coming from that honest, true, and genuine place, but only
you can tell when someone is speaking from that place.
So I just ask you, when you guys are making your
deliberations, to consider who you’re trusting our town to.
That’s all. Thank you for your time.
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CHAIR BADAME: Ms. Rodgers, don’t go away. Vice
Chair Kane has a question for you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Just one question. Would you
like a job in Town government?
SHAWNA RODGERS: I’ve thought about it.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Very well done. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes. I second that.
PETER CURTIS: I think I was last, yes? Peter
Curtis.
CHAIR BADAME: Peter Curtis, but we have speakers
after you, but you were the last of the three that I
called, so please precede.
PETER CURTIS: Thank you for hearing me out.
Getting this late in the meeting, and after many meetings,
some of which I’ve attended, a lot of things have been
said.
I don't know that I have anything new to add,
other than I think that the number of speakers here tonight
in support of the project as it stands, and somewhat
protesting against the way the project stands speaks very
loudly. I believe I counted only two citizens in support of
what we see on the wall there against it must be 30-35
people against, so I would urge you to consider that.
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There seems to be a lot of confusion over the
RHNA aspect of this project. I haven’t heard definitively I
think from either side what it is. I would really ask that
the Council get this right and communicate it back to the
citizens; it’s very concerning.
Finally, like many people I think, it’s kind of
anecdotal. One of the greatest fears in life for many
people is speaking publicly. For me, that’s very true. I
came here to be sort of a silent supporter of some of my
friends who are not in support of this plan as it stands,
but my fear of this town turning into another cookie cutter
town with a cookie cutter looking development on the edge
of town is greater, so hopefully that’s worth something. I
overcame that. I’d like to see us all overcome this and get
to a better solution. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: You did a great job, Mr. Curtis,
with your public speaking. We do have positions in Town
government, you know. All right, our next three speakers
are Ken Arendt, Bruce McCombs, and the last card goes to
Roy Moses.
KEN ARENDT: Good evening, my name is Ken Arendt.
I recognize most of you. I’ve been in and around this town
for over 40 years. This is not my first rodeo with the
Planning Commission in town, and I have a lot of respect
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for what you guys do and what you put up with, and I
appreciate that.
I did have some prepared comments this evening,
but I’m going to have to change them a little bit based
upon what we’ve heard this evening. I was going to do some
sort of hard hitting recap and make it pretty obvious as to
what’s going on, but you got all of that.
We know that change is inevitable. It’s being
driven by a British firm, ultimately. There are millions of
dollars at stake in this project. They’re determined to see
it through. We know what their agenda is; it’s money.
But I think they made a huge mistake in coming
here tonight, especially in the July 7th letter that was
sent out. A lot of us came here with specific and
objective, and they had some subjective comments and ideas,
but I think with an underlying feeling like we know it’s
going to be developed someday, but lets do it the right
way. But they didn’t come here that way.
I think that you guys in good conscience have no
choice but to go ahead and deny the application as it
stands. If you want to go ahead and tell them something,
it’s to wake up, maybe get better advisors than they have,
come back with something that the Town of Los Gatos and its
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citizenry can support. Right now as it stands, we can’t do
that. You can’t do that. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Bruce McCombs.
BRUCE McCOMBS: Good evening, my name is Bruce
McCombs; I live at 16160 Kennedy Road in Los Gatos. My wife
and I have lived here in Los Gatos all of our lives. In
fact, we first met right across the street in the softball
field of the Los Gatos High School many, many years ago.
Like you and almost everyone in this room
tonight, we love our town very much. There are a number of
areas I’d like to address this evening, however, given the
limited amount of time that we have, I’ll focus on those
areas I believe are most important.
The first is affordable housing. I agree that we
need more affordable housing, and the obvious way to make
that happen is by making the houses smaller. Smaller studio
size units would be less expensive to purchase or rent and
would satisfy the housing demand by young Millennials.
Small one-bedroom apartment or units would be a much better
fit for Millennials than the 1,500 to 2,000 square foot
units being proposed in this application.
This housing should be placed on the northern end
of the 40 acres, where building size is less conspicuous,
and where carpooling and company buses are close to Highway
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85 for the transportation needs of the residents of the
North 40 to travel to and from work.
Seniors who are downsizing want a community
experience with plenty of open space for walking, reading,
entertaining our families, and especially for entertaining
our grandchildren. The Town knows this. So does the
developer. And yet it seems that we seniors have been
completely forgotten. How is this possible?
I’d also like you to know for the record that Los
Gatos currently has a total of three senior housing
facilities. They are The Meadows, The Terraces, and Los
Gatos Commons. My wife and I recently looked into moving
into The Terraces. We were told that the current wait to
move in is between one and two years.
And by the way, if that’s not an unmet need, I
don't know what is. One to two years of wait.
All these facilities feature much smaller units
than the developer is proposing for the North 40. Each of
these facilities provide plenty of true open space, along
with community rooms where people can meet and talk and
hold group meetings on topics of interest. This proposal
doesn’t include any of these important features, and
instead attempts to hide the only senior housing in the
proposed development right above the marketplace. That’s
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not right. We seniors don’t want to live above a bustling,
busy, noisy market with constant noise from cars coming and
going at all hours, along with delivery trucks, and of
course the unmistakable and always very pleasant sound of
commercial trash collection, which invariably occurs first
thing in the morning. We seniors worked all of our adult
lives. Now we’d simply like to retire here in our lovely
Town of Los Gatos to enjoy some well earned, and much
needed, peace and quiet.
In conclusion, this is not the time for the
Planning Commission to say this has gone on long enough,
let’s get it over with. Instead, let’s not be intimidated
into approving something we simply don’t want. I urge you
to please stand together with the residents of our Town
this evening and emphatically deny this application, and I,
for one, believe that we will. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. McCombs. Roy Moses,
and we will have one speaker after that, and that will be
Shannon Susick, unless we get another card.
ROY MOSES: Hi, Commission members. Nice to see
you. My name is Roy Moses; I’ve lived on La Croix Court in
Los Gatos for 47 years with my family.
I’m just coming off a vacation, and I was kind of
waiting this evening, because I wanted to see what was
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going to be said, and everything has been said, and I was
thinking, well, maybe I won’t get up here. But I did write
some things, and it’s probably everything that has been
said but in just a little different way, so I’m going to
just give you these remarks.
And thank you for all the work that you’re doing.
You’re faced with an obvious challenge here, but I know
with you and the citizenry, we can get through this
together.
I’m asking the Planning Commission to deny this
project tonight and return it to the developer, along with
a fresh copy of the Specific Plan. I ask that you require
the developer to carefully read the Specific Plan from
cover to cover, and then propose a project that meets the
requirements of that plan in both letter and spirit.
Land owners and developers, make your plans
consistent with the Specific Plan for the Town of Los
Gatos, which spells out what this town is and should
remain, a Vision that is consistent with the core issues
being raised here tonight.
The Town of Los Gatos is a very precious piece of
earth on our small planet, which does not deserve to have
its landscape scarred. I want to see the whole North 40
developed to capture the essence of Los Gatos, like the
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southwest side of our town, which I believe is described in
the Specific Plan and was shown here this evening on the
screen. We do not want to change the essential character of
this community by defacing it with large, obtrusive, high-
density buildings with inadequate open space, limited
ingress/egress to the 40 acres-plus, and lack of roadways
that cannot currently handle the Los Gatos Boulevard
traffic problems.
With the addition of this small city being
proposed within our town could come the future needs and
burden on the citizens of Los Gatos through bonds and other
forms of taxation to improve growth and maintain all the
services that will be necessary to sustain this
development, for example, building new schools. You’ve
heard this before tonight. Water supply, added fire and
police services, healthcare, and road maintenance, et
cetera.
Please reach back to your roots and look deep
into our souls, especially if you live in and love this
town, and do what is right by denying this North 40 Phase 1
as it exists. We are asking you just to do it right. We
need to develop a comprehensive plan for all 40 acres of
the North 40, and include within that the Phase 1
development of Yuki Farms’ 20 acres-plus, which will help
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accomplish the goals of the Specific Plan. A piecemeal
approach to developing the 40 acres will not accomplish
those goals.
We, the people of Los Gatos, expect you, the
Planning Commission and Town Council, to deny the North 40
project. Let’s make this development something that all of
us can be proud of, and one that we can all enjoy for many
generations to come. Please, and thank you in advance for
all the past, present and future due diligence and care in
this regard.
J.C. Penney was asked how he was so successful in
developing his company over the years, and he said, “I ask
questions of the heartbeat of our company, our employees…”
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Moses.
ROY MOSES: “…and they give me answers that
contain all the best ideas, which I act upon to make our
company great.” I believe this principle should be applied
to running the Town of Los Gatos as well. Thank you very
much.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Shannon Susick.
SHANNON SUSICK: Hi. Shannon Susick, 16407 Shady
View Lane. This is a massing, a mockup of the corner of
Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard. It’s not an artistic
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rendering with trees that are established and 40’ high, and
plants, and kids on bicycles.
I wanted to address the letter that was sent on
July 7th, which I think will go down in infamy in this town.
I mean, gosh, what a way to get people to a meeting.
Threaten to sue.
I’m going to be clear. I’m not a land use
attorney, I don’t have a law degree, but what I do
understand is the Vision and the intent of the North 40
Specific Plan and the mandates and objective criteria that
is set forth.
The Land Use Goals and Policies, page 202, Policy
LU-1, Land Use Designation, here is your objective mandate
for the rest of the plan: “The Specific Plan shall be
implemented through the approval of development projects
that are consistent with land uses and Council Vision as
outlined in this chapter.” So if there are any subjective
items, we can go back to that.
The more I thought about the letter, and each
time I reread it, the concept of being held hostage in my
own town kept emerging in my mind. I can only imagine what
it feels like to attempt to do your job.
The letter submitted outlined how the Town should
proceed with our review of the application, and concluded
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with threat of a lawsuit. While residents in the Town
appreciate the attempt to be educated by the Applicant’s
attorney, what we must, will, and shall do is follow the
Specific Plan.
I’m not going to read that, because of the time,
but I wanted to thank you for your time and effort. We
appreciate the calendar that we are mandated to comply
with, but the application must be denied for these and all
the other findings that you’ve heard.
The Town of Los Gatos may be small in terms of
population, and large in terms of untapped riches in land,
but our true wealth and strength is our residents, the
Commission, the Council, and the fact that we value our
land.
This application and proposed development is the
largest the Town will ever see, and it is with the utmost
respect that we request you consider not only the current
residents, including all forms of life, but also future
residents.
Will it be a development that celebrates our
history, heritage, and views, or will it be blight at the
gateway to our town, and one that impacts us negatively
forever? This is our town, but as Commissioners it will be
your legacy. We’ve had these chambers full time and again
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with those that either don’t live here or underestimate the
amazing civic pride and love of one another. We’re strong,
and after the Applicant is long gone, we will still be
proud Los Gatans. Let’s live that pride. Let’s plan with
pride. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. All right, our last
card of the evening goes to Paul Matulich.
PAUL MATULICH: Hi, everyone, Planning. It’s been
a while since I’ve appeared up here. I represent my own
restaurant, Steamer’s, in Los Gatos, and the reason I’m up
here to speak is something about the business aspect of it.
I’m sure they’ve been said; I missed a lot of it because I
just got done at the restaurant.
I’ve been approached if I want space out there,
but so far I’ve not paid any attention to it.
I want to bring up a couple of names and see if
anybody remembers a store called Roos Atkins? Remember
downtown San Jose? This new thing was coming; it was called
a shopping center. It was a strip center, it was called
Stevens Creek, and it was going to be a new mall. I
remember being in Roos Atkins listening to the gentlemen
speaking about they were scared of what it would do to
their city and the downtown area where it was a little
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thriving community, and now downtown San Jose, it’s finally
coming back, but it’s been 40, 50, 60 years.
I’ve been a resident of Santa Clara Valley all my
life and I’ve been in Los Gatos 50 years, and owned my
business for 36.
I’m sure you’ve heard what everybody said. I just
don’t want to see what I saw happen to downtown San Jose
happen to our town. We have empty space down by Santa Cruz
Avenue that’s totally empty. We can’t keep that area full.
To add more to this, what’s going to happen to your
downtown area? We need to draw. Campbell has done a hell of
a job on drawing parking, new businesses and everything. I
think we should focus our concentration on our downtown.
People that have been here have donated their time and
their money and their efforts to building a strong downtown
area, rather than something out there.
I think housing would be great. I’m sure
everything has been said, but it would nice to see
affordable renting. It would be nice to see the kids that
grew up in this town be able to come back and buy something
in this town. My kids are out there and they’re making good
money, they’ve got straight salaries. They can barely get
anywhere in the Valley. It would be nice if they could come
back to their home town where they grew up. They’re a
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minority now, okay? They don’t need a one-bedroom studio.
They’re having kids, they want to get homes, but the homes
are over what, a million-something? Let’s put some homes
out there for $800,000 for the kids who grew up here and
want to support our town.
We want to support the Town too with our
business, but my business would be on very shaky ground if
you allow something like Santana Row to go in.
The same owners who own Santana Row own our
center downtown and King’s Court, and I think if you gone
over to Santana Row lately, Santana Row has now turned into
a massive condominium development, more shops and services,
but you never see any bags. Walk around there. I’m serious.
Luxury Row has left and gone over to Westfield Mall. There
are always bags from Macy’s and everything else; the rest
is just walking around over there.
So I just want to point those few business things
out to you, all righty? That’s all I’ve got to say. I
wasn’t very prepared, but felt I should come by on the way
home. Thanks a lot.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Matulich, for
coming by. Would anybody else like to speak to us tonight
before I invite the Applicant back up? Seeing no one come
forward, I will now invite the Applicant and their team
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back to the podium for five minutes to add any further
comments about their application.
DON CAPOBRES: Madam Chair and members of the
Planning Commission, again, I’m Don Capobres. I appreciate
the time, and I do appreciate everyone coming out today.
One of the hallmarks of our team since starting
work on the General Plan has been literally working with
the community, not shying away from conversations, and
working hard to try to bring solutions. We’ve been
operating with that has a guiding principle for the entire
team, for the entire time that we’ve been working here.
After eight years when policies have been
approved, and we worked so hard to meet those policies and
believe that we have complied with all these policies, it’s
come to the point where you have to assert your rights. No
one wants to litigate here. I’ve been here for a long time.
I’ve never claimed to be a Los Gatan, but I’ve spent a lot
of time here. We don’t want to go down that route, but at
some point in time you have to assert your legal rights,
because the policies are now in place, we believe we
comply, and decisions have to be made on that front.
This includes the Housing Element, and 20 units
per acre is a minimum, minimum, that the State recognizes
for a town like Los Gatos. We are now part of the Housing
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Element, and yeah, I’ve been at this for eight years, but I
didn’t really jump into the Housing Element fray until
restrictions started getting changed, and HCD started
looking into the other sites that were in the Housing
Element previously, and so we do know it’s complicated,
because it’s not something that we were wired to understand
from the very beginning.
It’s taken a lot of effort for us to get to that
point of educating ourselves, and I will say this about
HCD: The term “credit” is problematic, and you should look
at it and have Council look at it. The town is meeting its
obligation by allowing housing to be built at 20 units per
acre. HCD does not require units to be affordable, and
whether all of our units are market rate or all of them
were affordable, it complies with the Housing Element, so
as long as they’re 20 units per acre. So they can be all
market rate, they can be all below market rate; as long as
they’re 20 units per acre, which is the minimum
requirement, they comply with the Housing Element.
WENDI BAKER: I want to just talk a little bit
about what the Specific Plan requirements versus what our
proposal is, because to think, again, that only having a
conversation about the bare minimum would not be in the
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spirit of how hard we’ve been working over the course of
the last eight years.
For open space, the Specific Plan requires 30%
open space, yet we’ve proposed 39% open space. For open
space that’s publicly accessible, the Specific Plan
requires 20%; we’re proposing 85%.
For the two-story Lark District, only 15% of the
homes need to be two-story. We have 29% of the homes as
two-story, or two-story elements.
The maximum number of units is 270 baseline.
We’re proposing 237. With the density bonus it would be
365, and we’re proposing 320.
The new commercial can be up to 435,000 square
feet. This application has 66,000 square feet.
There’s a 25’ residential setback on Lark and Los
Gatos Boulevard. That’s 50’ deep in the Specific Plan, and
we’re proposing it to go another 15’ beyond that and two-
story of only 65’.
The setback along Highway 17 is 30’. We’re
proposing a 30’-63’ setback along the freeway.
Finally, there’s been a lot of talk about housing
sizes and reducing housing sizes. The Specific Plan calls
out up to 700,000 square feet of residential square
footage. We are proposing 446,000 square feet. We’re
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253,000-plus shy. The remaining 45 units would have to be
over 5,500 square feet each to even get to this number.
Obviously, we’re nowhere near the maximums that
we could propose on this development project, and we just
wanted to let you know that we’re trying to move forward in
this sort of fashion where we’re going above and beyond,
because that’s what we believe is the right thing that we
can do.
CHAIR BADAME: You still have time remaining.
WENDI BAKER: Six seconds. We’ll pass our time.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, thank you. I see that
Commissioner O'Donnell has his hand up, so he will be
asking the first question.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Obviously there has been
some conversation about perhaps spreading the housing over
a different area. It isn’t crystal clear to me that that
makes much difference, but it’s been discussed, and
obviously whether your lawyer thinks it’s possible or not,
I think it’s possible. But it isn’t apparent to me whether
you move…instead of putting it all where it’s proposed, you
put some of it someplace else. It isn’t clear to me how
that helps anything, and you obviously have reasons why you
haven’t done that, and we’re going to be discussing whether
it would help us to do that.
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But I wanted to give you an opportunity to tell
me why you think it would, or you would obviously say would
not, help. I’m giving you an opportunity to say look, even
if you were to move some of this housing to a different
location, for example, on the Transitional part that is not
presently before us, or into the Northern part, either one
or both, why would that not be helpful?
DON CAPOBRES: It would not be helpful because it
presumes that it wouldn’t be backfilled with another use.
The Specific Plan requires 30% of open space, as Wendi just
pointed out. We have exceeded that requirement by a good
margin. And let’s be clear, we are for profit developers.
If you remove uses from the Lark District and are
already exceeding open space requirements, they would have
to be replaced by something else, and we believe kind of in
the spirit of the Specific Plan that the residential needed
to be adjacent to residential.
We spent a lot of time speaking to the Highland
Oaks neighborhood that’s across the street from Lark. That
is a continuation of residential into the Lark District,
which is residential. If we were to backfill it with
commercial, that would not be something I think at least
some members of Highland Oaks would be interested in.
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That’s kind of a political statement, but the
real planning and business statement of it is the North 40
development has already begun. It began with the office
buildings that are along Los Gatos Boulevard, and the gas
station. In looking at planning for the Lark District, you
have visibility that’s impeded because you have office
buildings that are taller than we can build, by the way,
already on Los Gatos Boulevard, and to tuck commercial
behind that we felt was infeasible from a business planning
perspective.
The assumption that you move units around I think
is based on the fact that you would not backfill it with
something, but we are compliant with the Specific Plan open
space requirements, all the setback requirements. We would
look to plan something else there. To pay for all these
benefits obviously some revenue has to be generated, and
that’s what we would look for, and those other uses don’t
make sense in the Lark District from a pure planning
perspective.
WENDI BAKER: Let me address that just based off
of traffic, and you can verify with your Staff if this is
accurate.
Again, if you start shifting things around you
put more commercial uses into the Lark District, and
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commercial is a much higher generating use. About 15,500
trips for the entire Specific Plan area were anticipated,
and we have about 3,800 in this first phase, because
residential is a much lower traffic generator. If you start
moving commercial over into the Lark District or Transition
District or add more of it, you will have much higher
traffic volume in this first phase. While that’s okay, the
idea is to try to get less use out of A Street, which will
go into Lark, and what you’ll end up having is a lot more
people accessing the commercial component through that A
Street, and it just will bog down that area, which is right
adjacent to residential right now, the Highland Oaks
neighborhood.
In our conversations with them, and they’re not
here to speak for themselves, or perhaps that will be at a
future time, but everything that we’re hearing is that
there is a desire of residential-to-residential and not
having more traffic flowing through that area of ingress
and egress.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. I have a number
of questions, and I was trying to organize them maybe into
the way that Chair Badame has suggested that we proceed
with our deliberations. I have one about process, and then
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I have several about housing, some about views, some about
traffic and environmental, some about open space, and some
about look and feel.
Although it seems like things are repeating, the
fact is this Commission hasn’t gone through this thing in
detail in a public hearing. We’ve taken a lot of comments,
but we haven’t in my opinion asked a lot of questions of
the developer about the development itself, and so with the
indulgence of my fellow commissioners, I’d like to start
some of that process of asking a few more questions.
I want to go back to the letter of July 7th and
the statements about working cooperatively with the Town. I
can state from firsthand experience that both of you have
been at many, many meetings and have listened and responded
to concerns, and have done an effective job of listening.
My question is what changes have been made since
the plan and since that model that the Town came in and
looked at? I can’t remember what that date was, but a few
months ago, and the feedback from the 400 instances that I
counted, what changes have been made to the development
during that time period?
WENDI BAKER: For clarification, are you speaking
of when the community meeting occurred?
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, since the community
input on the application started. I’m not talking on the
plan, I’m talking about once the application was there, and
you did that community input, many hours spent in that,
many hours of listening to community input. What changes
have been made to the development during that period of
time?
WENDI BAKER: This application was submitted
before the Specific Plan was ever completed, in part
because we wanted to… Not this application. Let me change
that statement. Not this application, but an application.
Part of the reason for doing that was to try to show folks
what heights would look like, what densities would look
like, where commercial might be, what the street network
might be, and things have evolved quite substantially as
the Specific Plan has evolved. For example, the move-down
building that folks spoke about is not possible anymore due
to the height restriction that was placed on us.
The community meeting that happened in February-
ish, the end of January, I think that was our fourth
submittal of plan sets at that point. The majority of
feedback that we got at this meeting was not suggestive as
far as we feel like you should change your color palette or
we feel that you should change your setbacks. It was
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questions about traffic, questions about what our plan was.
There was no significant change in the plan since that
specific community meeting, because we had already been at
that point 2.5 years into an application process, but there
were questions and answers at that meeting.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: While I appreciate that
response, I respectfully disagree with the characterization
that you’ve been taking community input since the
application has really been exposed. I understand there’s
been a lot of communication, but I haven’t seen it in terms
of changes.
I wanted to move to housing, if we could, because
I think that’s an important area, and maybe start with the
discussion about senior housing and how you determined that
was the correct type of housing for seniors, the placement
of it, as well as the size, I think about 550 square feet
for each unit.
DON CAPOBRES: Commissioner, I’ll take the first
part of that question. We actually looked at potential
locations for the senior housing program. First of all, at
the very beginning no one made us do senior. We thought it
was a good fit; it met the unmet needs. The question was
where would it go? Ultimately, they’re probably in the most
valuable spot in the project, and it was really working
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with Eden Housing, we basically had a blank slate, put a
plan in front of them and had them work through the pros
and con of locating their senior program within the site. I
think it’s one of the most attractive places to be.
I do disagree… Maybe I don’t disagree, but I do
think seniors, and especially with the demographics that we
have, do want to be in a more active environment than they
previously might have. And I’m making a generality. The
premise was to put them in the active area, put them in a
product type that had elevators so they can go up and down,
put them in a location that was close to goods and
services, and that was the thought process behind the
location.
I’ll have Andrea Osgood from Eden Housing talk
about square footage, or maybe expand upon the location
decisions.
ANDREA OSGOOD: My name is Andrea Osgood,
Director of Development for Eden Housing. We’re a nonprofit
affordable housing builder and owner/operator, and we also
have a resident services arm that provides services to our
seniors. We’ve been in the business nearly 50 years and
we’ve built a lot of family housing, but also senior
housing.
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In fact, I go to work every day in our corporate
headquarters, and there are 60 units of senior housing
above, right across from a BART station. It’s actually one
of our most popular senior developments. Seniors love to
sit up on the balcony and watch life go by.
The size of the units is very comparable to
everything we build in our senior developments, typically
between 550 to 650 square foot, one-bedroom units. They are
affordable. The rent for these units will be based on
income, but typically range from about $600 or $1,100 for
this area.
CHAIR BADAME: Ms. Osgood, I’m going to need you
to complete a speaker card.
ANDREA OSGOOD: Sure.
CHAIR BADAME: And Vice Chair Kane has a question
for you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I think this is a question for
you. The affordable senior housing, I gathered from the
report that each unit gets one-half of a parking space.
ANDREA OSGOOD: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So that means if it was a silly
commercial they’d cut the car in half? That means that a
couple living there would not have a parking space if they
had a car; there would be no place to put it? Or are there
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other visitor spots that are usually picked up by people
who live there, which means they’re not visitor spots?
ANDREA OSGOOD: The ratio is half a parking space
per unit, and that is very typical of the ratio that we’ve
built in all of our senior developments. We find that many
of our residents, if they have a car when they move in,
oftentimes once they move in decide they don’t want it
anymore because of the expense, they’re getting older and
they can’t drive, so that is actually a very common parking
ratio that we find is successful.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I understand that, and I defer
to your experience. It just struck me as odd that you
wouldn't get a parking place if you lived there and there
would be no place to park. It’s not the center of public
transportation.
ANDREA OSGOOD: That’s true, but Eden actually
develops in a lot of suburban communities. We just finished
a successful senior projects in Lafayette and Orinda, and
both of those locations are much more suburban and would
feel similar to this location where many of us would think
how do you live without a car? You have to remember, the
seniors that we’re serving are a single person surviving on
social security income. For a lot of them, they’re making
choices between rent, medical payments, and food, and cars
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are very expensive, so many of them just don’t have cars to
begin with.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And how old are they?
ANDREA OSGOOD: Sixty-five.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You can’t have my car.
ANDREA OSGOOD: I don’t want your car.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I also have concerns about
tandem parking. Tell me that in your experience that works
as well, especially if it’s two different couples.
WENDI BAKER: Tandem parking is in the Specific
Plan as a type of parking. We have to think about the
viability of it from a marketability perspective as well,
so you have to start thinking about will these really,
truly be usable parking configurations?
Remembering who our buyer is, this is a buyer who
oftentimes--and we do this through a lot of our post-sale
surveys, et cetera—has their keys on the hooks as they go
through to the garage and they pick the keys for the car
that is the furthest out. This is a very common way,
especially if you’re looking at people who could be used to
urban living that are currently living in San Francisco,
but taking a bus down to Netflix.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What I’m specifically trying to
understand is if you’ve got four couples and they can only
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have two cars, and they’re in an tandem spot, and Couple 1
wants to get out, and Couple 2 is playing Bocce ball, I
don’t see how that works.
WENDI BAKER: I understand what you’re saying.
The tandem units, you would assume that there are two
couples in each one of these units, for example. We don’t
have just open parking lots of tandem spaces; these are all
private garages for whoever lives exactly in those units.
VICE CHAIR KANE: How does Couple 1 get out?
WENDI BAKER: You oftentimes have a set of keys
for both cars there too. I mean my husband and I both have…
VICE CHAIR KANE: They can’t have my car either.
WENDI BAKER: My husband has the set of keys, for
example, for both of… We both have a set of keys for our…
It’s becomes a lifestyle choice.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s difficult; I’d have to see
it. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: I think there might be an
insurance dilemma there, just saying. Commissioner Hudes
has a question for you.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to come back to the
senior housing. Could you walk us through the waivers? I
assume that you are trying to be consistent with the BMP
program, and so there are some waivers. Could you walk us
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through the waivers that you’re requesting? I mean there
are a number of things that are not compliant with the BMP
program for affordable housing and seniors.
ANDREA OSGOOD: I think the first waiver was the
BMP program requires that the units be sprinkled throughout
the development, so in order to do senior housing legally
we have to provide that in one building to have an age
restriction. That’s a Fair Housing law. In order to have
the affordable targeted towards seniors, it needs to be in
one location.
From a practical matter though, too, it’s helpful
for us to have one building so that we can more efficiently
operate the building with our own property management
staff, but we also have services, such as we have a
community room, and we have community gardens where we have
our resident services programs, so it helps create that
atmosphere in that location.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: You said it must be in one
building? Is that a preference?
ANDREA OSGOOD: In order to have age restriction
for senior housing, it has to be a standalone building or a
set of buildings. It can’t just be one unit here in this
and one unit over here.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. But it could be more
than one building?
ANDREA OSGOOD: Technically.
DON CAPOBRES: This issue was covered at the
Conceptual Development Advisory Committee. I believe your
Town Attorney weighed in on the proposal’s standing vis-à-
vis the BMP program. Anyway, this is not a new issue.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Well, I think it’s the first
time it’s come before this Commission.
One of the other requirements is about “placing
all senior living in a unit that is unique. It will be
discernable.” How would it not be discernable?
ANDREA OSGOOD: The easiest way for me to think
about it being discernable is there is one lobby where you
can go in, and there’s one office, if you were interested
in applying; that would be a very discernable. The signage
would indicate that this was a senior housing for that
building.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you’re asking for a
waiver about that as well, because the BMP program
requires, “There shall not be significant identifiable
differences between the BMP and market rate units visible
from the exterior.”
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ANDREA OSGOOD: But it has to be distinct for the
senior, for you to have the age restriction placed on it.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So it will be discernable,
therefore it will be something that needs a waiver from the
BMP guideline.
DON CAPOBRES: Just to be clear, we’re not asking
for any waivers to your BMP program. Your BMP program does
allow for some flexibility within it. The waivers we’re
asking for are under the State Density Bonus Law.
I believe one of them is on height related to the
Eden Housing building, because of some roof pitches that
were included in the architecture, and the second is an
unlimited area where the penthouse elevator penetrates the
45’ height limitation.
The second waiver we’re asking for is to be
measured from finished grade versus existing grade. Both
are being asked for through State Density Bonus Law. We’ve
already walked through where we sit versus the Town’s BMP
program. That conversation has, I believe, concluded that
we are within the parameters allowed by the Town.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe I could direct you to
page 4 of the North 40 Proposed BMP Plan, revised October
21, 2015. Maybe I used the wrong term; maybe it’s not a
waiver. What it says is, “The development team is
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requesting modifications to the BMP program guidelines
regarding the following specific requirements,” and it
looks like some kind of an exception, because there’s
justification cited for each of these.
DON CAPOBRES: Commissioner Hudes, can you repeat
the date of that letter?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I think it was part of a
letter from October 21, 2015.
DON CAPOBRES: Yup, I got it. Thank you. So thank
you for the clarification.
Under, again, the specific law, and I’d probably
say Density Bonus Law as well, we would have been allowed
to have asked for additional waivers, and one of them was
to I guess provide some flexibility towards your BMP
program. Subsequent to that letter it was determined that
that a waiver was not required, because our program was
allowed under the purview of the your BMP program, and I
would confirm that with your legal council.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, great. I’ll definitely
follow up on that. I don’t have anything in there that says
that.
The other question in there that I wanted to
follow up on had to do with rental as a permissible
substitute for an ownership program. In other words, I
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think that it says that in a development where there is
individual ownership, then the below market also needs to
be individual ownership.
DON CAPOBRES: Right. Again, in that letter we
were requesting it as a waiver under State Density Bonus
Law. Subsequent to that letter being submitted that waiver
was said to be not required, and that request has been
removed.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So we’ll follow up then on
that. I have other questions on housing, if we want to keep
going.
CHAIR BADAME: We can keep going. I did see
Commissioner Hanssen have her hand up earlier. Did you want
to jump in with a question before Commissioner Hudes
continues?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes, I just had one
question for Andrea.
One of the residents had asked about the
services. Actually, it was from our Community and Senior
Services Commission, and I thought that was a very good
question. When you’re designating it as senior housing, you
might have people at various levels, and I realize this
isn’t going to be going into full levels of service, but
what kinds of service might be available? Especially since
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they are low income and, as you said, often have to
prioritize maybe medical bills versus car.
ANDREA OSGOOD: As I mentioned before, Eden is
not only a developer, but we also own every property we’ve
ever developed, and we also have a management company and a
services company.
We would have onsite mangers, but we would also
have resident services staff available to really help with
more of the health and social needs of our residents. We
find our goals in our senior developments is to help
seniors live as independently as they can for as long as
they can in our properties, so our services Staff really
focus on that. One of the best things to do is to make sure
that they’re engaged and they’re not isolated, so that they
can identify issues earlier. But really, it’s helping deal
with everyday things, like making sure they’re getting good
nutrition, they’re getting exercise, so we have those kinds
of programs. We have health and wellness programs as well.
Because we’re right there, we have onsite property
management, but also services. We can identify when
somebody might need extra help and connect them if they
need it with more extensive services that are available in
the community, often at the county level, through in-home
health services as well.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And do you have a shuttle
bus type of thing? Especially since a lot of these guys
don’t have cars, and at least in Phase 1 there isn’t going
to be a whole lot of personal services.
ANDREA OSGOOD: We don’t operate shuttles, but we
do help seniors connect with local para-transit or other
kinds of options like that.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Just one last question on
the senior housing. I understand why it’s rental. I just
wanted to hear why they might not… Would they end up if
they were able to buy the units, or would they always stay
rental?
ANDREA OSGOOD: We always do rental, and I think
rental units particularly help serve seniors living on a
much more fixed income who potentially don’t own a home
now, maybe worked their whole life but were never able to
reach that goal, and now may be faced with living on a
fixed income, either social security or maybe a small
pension, and so rent for those folks is unfortunately their
only choice.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So it’s permanent rental?
ANDREA OSGOOD: Permanent rental, yes.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, followed by
Commissioner Hudes.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: We’ve heard comments tonight
about carcinogenic toxicity coming in from Highway 17 and
the units and their proximity to Highway 17. We’ve also
heard about schools not likely being built out there,
because of the proximity of Highway 17 and Highway 85, and
I think the other item that was on that list was gas
stations, building schools too close to gas stations.
Cottage clusters 21 and 24 are on the boundary of
the gas station that’s called MKG Enterprise or something
like that, but it’s the gas station on the southeast corner
of the project. Has there been a concern about the
proximity of those units to a gas station? You couldn’t put
a high school there, why can you put units there?
WENDI BAKER: Residential standards are different
than school standards, and we should all appreciate that,
because we want our schools obviously in the safest
locations. Residential air quality standards were a
measurement as a part of the Specific Plan EIR, and very
specific mitigations were required for any unit impacted by
any sort of particulates or impacts, and all that is a part
of the EIR. There are certain mitigations that we must
adhere to in certain limited areas.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m willing to take your
opinion that it’s in the EIR or otherwise substantiated
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that these two units are not at risk, given that they abut
to a gas station.
WENDI BAKER: That is accurate. Any units that
are will have the proper mitigation measure applied, which
include air filtration and mandatory air conditioning, for
example.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So you’re saying they will have
these mitigations?
WENDI BAKER: Those two units do not have
mitigations.
VICE CHAIR KANE: They’re fine as they are?
WENDI BAKER: Correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to get back to the
senior housing topic. We’ve talked about the low-income
affordable housing. What about provisions for the move-down
units for seniors? I know those were in the plans earlier;
I believe they’re not today. Why were they eliminated, and
are there other residential housing types that you think
are appropriate for move-down seniors?
DON CAPOBRES: Other than (inaudible) housing
units, there’s nothing that precludes anyone from moving
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into any of the other units. There are no age restrictions
on any of the existing units in our plan.
At one point in time, prior to the approval of
the Specific Plan, we had proposed specifically designed
move-down residential homes. Our goal was to create a
multi-generational, multi-income, diverse neighborhood.
To provide for a move-down program, which
features more elevators and structured parking, we had
worked under the an assumption, and it was a longstanding
height offering of 55’ for additional open space. That was
in the Draft Specific Plan for at least a couple years, I
think.
We had designed a move-down program, and this
move-down program was stacked flats, so not multiple floors
that require elevators. Our profile of that potential buyer
said they still wanted multiple bedrooms, because of
grandchildren or children visiting. They tended to drive
the square footage over all of our applications higher,
because they were still larger units; they tended to be
2,000 square foot and above.
It was taken out because we needed a higher floor
to ceiling height for that program. We requested up to 55’.
Not requested, but that was our hope. Town Council, because
of view impacts from the highway, did not allow that height
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limitation for move forward, and it was it in the Draft
Specific Plan, so they decreased the height to 35’ overall,
25’ on Los Gatos Boulevard, which is lower than what
existing height is. They allowed some exceptions for
affordable housing and for a potential hotel, if one were
to be applied, but because that height was removed we
weren’t able to move forward with our program for a move-
down.
WENDI BAKER: Obviously the for sale residential
doesn’t prohibit, I guess, anyone purchasing the property.
Not only are there eight market rate apartments that are
above the retail as part of this application that our
elevator served, but some of the for sale residential also—
I think I mentioned this at the last Planning Commission
meeting—actually operate as flats, so while you will park
on the ground level and you’d have to walk up a flight of
stairs, it’s then single level living once you get there.
When you consider senior population, there will
be a time when stairs may not be manageable, but for a
large period of time one level of stairs might be
manageable, so we intentionally designed some flats into
our residential offering as well.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think one of the things
that I feel the most troubled about it that this proposal
is supposed to address the unmet housing needs of our town,
and it’s a pretty well documented thing in our Housing
Element and in many of our other documents that the average
age in Los Gatos is 45 and it’s been going up, and that we
heard in the beginning of the Housing Element that one in
three residents of Los Gatos during our planning period for
the Housing Element was going to be 65. Yet the seniors are
kind of an afterthought in this thing.
Most of the buildings in this proposal are two
and three stories, and there are just a handful of units
that are flats, as you said. I would have imagined if we
were really trying to address the unmet needs of our town
that we would have a great preponderance of the units being
single story or flats that would address the unmet needs of
our town.
I don’t know why you guys went down this path, so
I was hoping you could help me about what we can say to our
residents that are looking for a place to leave their big
single-family homes and move to.
WENDI BAKER: I think Don just mentioned the
move-down building was a part of our original application
that had at one point 90, and then ultimately 88 on the
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subsequent application resubmittal. The height limits just
made elevator access to those units extraordinarily
challenging, to say the least, and then also when you want
to move down from your big Victorian you probably don’t
want 8’ high ceiling plates. So there’s one thing.
We had to eliminate 90 of those units that
specifically catered to that demographic. However, I have
stated on public record before, Millennials are the largest
and fastest growing, because they are what they are. They
are the largest demographic in the United States, and just
because…
I mean you’ve just heard from several people that
have just come back to Los Gatos. They might be interested
in returning to Los Gatos if they had a place to go, but
because so much of your housing stock is single-family
residential, unmet need becomes a multi-family product, and
so while that is one unmet need, the senior and move-down
buyer is not the only unmet need.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: What evidence do we have
that the Millennials want to live in Los Gatos? Everything
I’ve heard, they’d like to live in San Francisco. In fact,
I was on a call with a planner for San Francisco, and they
just can’t build enough housing for them. I know we have
needs for seniors, and I understand Millennials are a big
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market, but what evidence do we have that they want to live
here in Los Gatos? Especially in a place where there aren’t
a lot of services, at least in the early phase in the
complex, so I would just like to understand that.
WENDI BAKER: Well, I think SummerHill would not
want to move forward with a development application that we
felt like we could not find buyers for and design towards.
We’ve done multiple focus groups, and the reason that we
went into Netflix and we hosted a focus group was to talk
exactly to these people. There are nine buses going back
and forth from San Francisco to Netflix. To talk to exactly
those people, the Millennials, and there was a requirement
on age on who could attend this focus group, to talk to
these folks and say would you live in Los Gatos? Because
some people wouldn’t, and maybe some people raised their
hands and said, “I would not live here. I would rather live
in a city.” And then some people will say, “You know what?
If you had this type of available housing stock in Los
Gatos, I’d love to see it,” or, “If you had accessibility
to some of the things that I enjoy, such as walkability or
bikeability, or access to like a Market Hall,” that we’re
doing. If we have that sort of interconnected neighborhood,
then they would be very interested in coming down here.
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They wanted things that they could not get in San
Francisco. San Francisco can be quite charming for a period
of time, and then some people return back to the suburbs.
In fact, although many Millennials want to live in the
cities, the reality of being able to achieve that is not
always available for people, and what we’ve found is that
the vast majority of Millennials are actually flocking to
the suburbs; not only the urban destinations, but also the
suburbs.
CHAIR BADAME: I’m going to tag onto that one
real quick, Commissioner Hanssen, if you don’t mind. But
what evidence do you have that Millennials want 1,900
square foot homes? I think of them living pared down lives
that 500-800 square feet would do just fine.
WENDI BAKER: Right, some Millennials will want
that 900 square foot unit; that’s why we have it in here.
If you’re going to draw from someone that’s in a city
though and may be living in a 500-600 square foot unit, and
you want to draw them down into a more suburban
environment, they want certain things, and one of them is
more space, more area for open space, bigger decks and so
forth, that they might not have in the urban environments.
The Millennial population, we have to remember,
is not 23 to 25. We’re talking about a population that as
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time goes on is an aging population, probably in the early
20s to about 37, so the purpose and intent of our
residential stock was to have a diversity of housing types,
one-, two-, and three-bedrooms, 900 to 1,900 square feet,
to have this range, and to also offer some units that might
be 1,500 square feet, but one-bedroom that offer big loft
experiences, and again, some of that more urban feel that
they might not be able to afford in San Francisco.
CHAIR BADAME: I understand that, but I didn’t
see very many units on the smaller end of the scale. They
seemed to be on the maximum side of the square footage in
the chart in the sixth chapter of the Specific Plan, but
actually it’s just a hypothetical chart.
WENDI BAKER: It is a hypothetical chart, but
there is a maximum square footage that’s permitted, as I
pointed out, and we are significantly under that maximum
square footage permitted.
In going to these focus groups, not all people
are looking to live in a 500 square foot unit, or a 750
square foot unit, or a 1,000 square foot unit. People do
want to have different choices. They do work from home
oftentimes. They do want to get a roommate a lot of times,
and that enables them to be able to have that flexibility
to be able to afford their mortgage, and then once they’re
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better established to move on to a different type of
housing, or maybe not have the roommate with them anymore.
One thing we heard loud and clear from all the
focus groups that we did was we want flexibility and we
want more space, and we heard three- and four-bedrooms. We
do not have that as a part of this proposal. We’ve heard
actually very clear, we really prefer not having a one-
bedroom, but we knew that wasn’t what the Specific Plan’s
vision was for this, and so we tried to have a large
variety of one-, two-, and some three-bedrooms; 16% three-
bedroom units. Sometimes the square footage might be for
some of those grander spaces that they’re looking for, not
exclusive to bedrooms. It might be very large bathrooms,
because they might want a very large bathroom, for example.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, thank you, Ms. Baker.
Back to you Commissioner Hanssen. Were you done with your
questions? Otherwise, I’ll move to Commissioner Hudes.
Okay, Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Continuing with housing.
Some of the comments have been about the look and feel of
Los Gatos and the concern about views and hillside views,
and it seemed as though one of the possible solutions to
that would be occasionally to use a cellar, and I know that
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was a question that was asked in the Staff Report. Why are
there no cellars, and why isn’t that a viable solution?
WENDI BAKER: Cellars are a really different
thing to utilize in a townhome type product. In this case
we have condos stacked flat, so you might have a garage and
then two levels above you might have a flat, so to get a
cellar in there when you have parking… Somebody did show
that the garage does take up a portion of that first floor,
so you don’t necessarily have your kitchen and your main
living space on that first level with your garage; you’re
really separating the units with a garage in between,
because we don’t have underground parking in this sort of
product type.
It creates challenges with livability. It creates
huge challenges with offhaul, and it will cut your density
as well, because you’ll have to reconfigure your units
unless you also are proposing cellars and the height. What
I’ve heard is put in cellars instead of the extra level of
height. You can’t get the units to work contiguously
together to have… We did a large study on it as a response
to this question, because we’ve heard it many times, and
you end up on each residential unit, if it’s a five-unit
building, you might loose one unit, for example, in there.
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But mostly it’s livability and offhaul. This type of
offhaul was not studied in the Specific Plan EIR.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: My concern is that this is a
solution that could have been explored. It does cost money
to do it, but this type of solution has been employed for
150 years in products like brownstones and townhomes and
things like that, and it’s surprising that we have none of
that.
WENDI BAKER: That could be possible,
particularly if you had a larger townhome unit. Some of the
townhome units you might be looking at might be 2,000
square feet where you have the garage, again, and then you
have large first story living areas where you walk right in
from you garage into your kitchen, and so forth. That’s why
you can find cellars as a more likely alternative in
single-family, detached homes that are a little bit larger
and they don’t have shared walls and all the constraints
that…and building underneath of exclusively a garage. There
are a lot of constraints. Some of the townhouses you might
talk about might even have detached parking; that’s really
common in some of these developments.
So while it might be possible, I think that you
run into a large list of constraints, and if it could be
done with ease or even just for an additional cost, then I
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think you’d see it much more frequently in the Bay Area,
because land is very valuable. So there are a lot of
different components that go along with this.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have more questions, but I
don’t want to dominate all the discussion here.
CHAIR BADAME: I don’t see anybody else. Well,
let’s let Commissioner Erekson have a shot at it, and then
we’ll go back to you, Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have just three or four
questions for the two of you.
The first one is a much more practical question.
In the proposed Conditions of Approval that the Staff has
put together for the project, Conditions of Approval 121
through 126 relate to management of the construction
process in the event that the application moves forward as
proposed. Have you reviewed those particular conditions
yourselves, and do you have concerns about what are in the
Conditions of Approval that relate to the management of the
construction process?
WENDI BAKER: I cannot remember exactly which one
of those Conditions of Approval is specified. We have
reviewed all the Conditions of Approval, and as far as
construction process, I believe there are some items as far
as noticing, and obviously pre-construction meetings, and
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sending out emails whenever there is activity going on
onsite. Those are things we already do. We’re building up
at Prospect Road, so these are things we already
participate in, but if you wanted to specify. I don’t have
them in front of me, but if you want to be specific as to
what they are.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Sure. Let me ask you a
question about something that’s not in those six.
There are time parameters on when construction
can occur. Obviously, they’re pretty typical. I mean the
kind of conditions without worrying about whether you can
remember in a level of detail. They’re relatively typical
of what the Town of Los Gatos would do, or relatively
typical of other projects that you would have engaged in.
One of the things that it does is talks about
when one can do offhauling and some other kinds of
activities that generate traffic on the adjacent streets.
One of the limitations that is not in there would be to put
a parameter on… I’ve not actually talked to Staff about
this, so I wouldn’t know exactly how to phrase this, but we
have particular issues at certain times in the summer—last
weekend was a great example of that—where we have excessive
traffic, not of our own making often, that comes through
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the middle of town and comes down Los Gatos Boulevard and
so forth.
So would you be open—and again, I don't know, I
haven’t talked to Staff about how we would phrase this—with
amending one of those that would preclude those particular
times when we would anticipate having excessive traffic
from the so-called diversion of traffic from 17? Is that a
reasonable thing to add to that from your perspective?
WENDI BAKER: It can be reasonable, and I’ll tell
you there’s a pro and a con always, so we always will look
to Staff for their expertise on when is the best time to do
the construction, especially offsite construction, so that
it’s not during, for example, the school AM or PM pickup
hours or PM rush hour traffic. Then also there is obviously
now the traffic that you’re referring to where there could
be more limited construction hours around that, and that’s
always something that we’ll turn to Staff for.
The issue always is that the more that you
restrict the hours of when you can do something, the longer
the process takes. So as long as everybody is aware that
there’s a cause and effect there, that’s something we can
be agreeable to, yeah.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, thank you. Is it
okay if I ask a couple more?
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CHAIR BADAME: Of course, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I want to return to
something that Commissioner O'Donnell brought up at the
beginning about the relocation, and Don’s answer about if
in fact one were to remove some of the housing from the
Lark District that one would need to replace it with
something else, and that doing housing there—and I actually
agreed with his comment—that putting housing generally as
it is now is the best planning, with one possible question
that I have.
Buildings 24 and 25 back up to residential
buildings and they back up to Los Gatos Boulevard. Now,
from a good planning standpoint here’s what I see happening
long-term, if we’re out 25 years from now, or however long
it takes to develop whatever is developed on the North 40.
If I drive from Lark to Burton, or Good
Samaritan, however you want to look at it, here’s what I
would have if there is housing at that spot. I will have,
starting at Burton, I would assume commercial, commercial,
commercial, commercial, commercial, commercial, commercial,
commercial, housing, commercial, with the only exception to
commercial on Los Gatos Boulevard from that stretch being
the housing that is backed up to it.
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That doesn’t seem to me to represent good long-
term planning, so just from long-term planning I guess I
would wonder why one wouldn’t put some non-residential use
in that spot, and therefore along all of the Boulevard, and
take the housing out of that? I also understand that would
probably mean redoing that particular one, because there’s
a turnaround street, but that’s a different design
question. Do you have some response to that?
WENDI BAKER: Sure, I can respond to that. It’s
not the first time we’ve been asked that, so I think that
hopefully I can give you a few reasons.
Obviously the Specific Plan does not require
commercial there, so we are able to propose residential
there. Residential is not prohibited in that area. But
without understanding why would we do that is really the
question, and to be clear, none of our units back onto Los
Gatos Boulevard; those are front doors along Los Gatos
Boulevard, much like exists right now. There’s actually two
residential right along there that front onto Los Gatos
Boulevard.
But even though residential exists right now, why
wouldn’t we build commercial there? You have to look at
what the requirements of the Specific Plan are. There’s a
30’ orchard setback along that area. There is another 20’
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beyond that, so 50’ that could be two-story, or 25’ for
commercial, that’s probably not two-story. And constructing
something that’s similar to what—so you’re talking about
sort of the continuity—you have right next door is not
feasible, both because of that orchard setback and the
additional 20’ of two-story setback.
Then going beyond that, we actually worked with
Bill Hirschman to look at a land plan for that area of Los
Gatos Boulevard and putting commercial there. That was one
of our first stops when entered into this application and
discussion, and at 45’, which is what he has next door,
that was more feasible. Once the Specific Plan had certain
restrictions of 25’ and the orchard and so forth, it became
less feasible.
Then the biggest issue became access to these
units, and so we actually acquired one of the properties
along there in order to have a secondary access opportunity
onto Los Gatos Boulevard, maybe for commercial or maybe for
a secondary access onto the Boulevard, for whatever it may
be. When we sat down with Staff, the challenge was that
along Lark is where the right-turn lane begins, and so you
would actually have an ingress and egress for that property
into the right-hand turn lane, and the conflict of
movements… We were told pretty enthusiastically by Staff
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that that would cause too many points of conflict along the
Boulevard. Right now as it is, after the Specific Plan is
developed you would only be able to make a U-turn to get to
those buildings.
So then you go into the well, can you get access
to that area along sort of that frontage road, if you want
to call it, that’s along those existing commercial
buildings? And you can’t achieve that because there’s an
orchard setback, and so it’s not a straight shot, so you
can’t get that frontage road to have a linear path anymore.
But then also, that building next door has been
condominiumized, and you would have to have all the people
in there agree to grant you an easement to access your
property through their private property.
So it became a lot of different challenges, and
they just started stacking on top of one another as far as
developing that portion of property as commercial.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay.
WENDI BAKER: I do have one other thing; I’m
sorry. The other thing that we have is a very strong
pedestrian connection between all the park networks, if I
can leave it at that. All the park networks, but in this
one particular area there is a pedestrian paseo that goes
in between the residential buildings, that then connects
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you to the Grand Paseo, that then connects you to the
sidewalks, that then connects you to the community park,
and so one solid building face of commercial, which it’s
not that large of a piece of land right there, really does
start separating you from the rest of the community, and
then taking access through private secondary streets to get
to their retail, that’s not going to be successful.
I think I gave you a lot of reasons. We did look
at it.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay. I understand
everything you said.
WENDI BAKER: Okay, good.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: And followed everything. I
apologize for this being a little bit of an unfair
question, giving you a heads up, but I’m going to ask for a
very specific answer to the question, but I’m okay with an
order of the magnitude response to the question, if you
know the difference between those.
So can you give me an order of the magnitude, if
not a specific answer, to what percentage of the open space
is in the perimeter buffer zone, and what percentage of the
green open space is in the perimeter buffer zone? Which
will then help me understand what percentage is not in the
perimeter buffer zone.
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WENDI BAKER: Hold on a second.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I don’t want to take a
whole lot of time away from other Commissioners.
DON CAPOBRES: Through the Chair, Paula
Krugmeier, lead designer on the project, has the answer.
I’d ask her to come up.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes.
PAULA KRUGMEIER: Madam Chair, my name is Paula
Krugmeier, architect with BAR Architects, and have been
involved in this project with the Applicants for about
eight years.
We did that calculation today, and the landscape
architect shared a number with me that was slightly over
11% of the total open space that is on the three-side
perimeter. So Los Gatos Boulevard, Lark, and then there is
a very small strip along Highway 17. That was at 11.2%.
WENDI BAKER: Then 14% of the overall open space
for this application, so it’s a relatively small amount of
the open space. That’s more the zone you’re looking for.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: If we could have the architect
fill out a speaker card. Thank you. Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. For one last
time, I want to drag myself back to housing and the
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affordable units. I want to come back to the waivers that
have been requested, and I want to understand the necessity
of those waivers, because I believe that those waivers are
to be granted if necessary to achieve the density, and so
if we could maybe understand those two waivers and why
they’re a necessity.
WENDI BAKER: We have a grading component, which
is a measuring from finished grade, and then we also have
an additional height for, as Don mentioned, the elevator
and accessory components of the affordable building. So
those are the two waivers that you're referring to.
The site itself, the way that it would grade, the
way to get utilities to work, it’s a very complex puzzle.
We’re talking a lot about some of the things that you’re
seeing above the ground, but there are a lot of things
below the ground. Trying to get all those things to work,
it ends up that you fill in the site as you go towards the
north. It’s a cut-fill. Most of the cut occurs in the Lark
area. Most of the fill occurs as you go towards the
Transition area, and to try to design every building to
existing grade, and also to attempt to get utilities to
work in that fashion, just makes it infeasible, and I
believe that those have been reviewed by Staff and the
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Conceptual Development Advisory Committee, and have been
determined to be…
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Two questions about that.
One is that if you remember some of the Advisory Committee
hearings and other meetings, the issue about building
height was a very big issue in town right at that time.
There were requests to have some exceeding 35’, and it was
granted to 45’. However, I know a number of Committee
members were very strong in their opinion that that should
be measured from existing grade rather than the proposed
grade, rather than from finished grade, for the reason that
the site slopes away from Los Gatos Boulevard and that
would mitigate against us granting a height that is not
allowed elsewhere in town.
I really want to make sure we’re getting a very
compelling reason why the density could not be achieved
without that, because actually we’ve got a stacking of
these two waivers in that, I believe from looking at the
site grading plan, the area where we have the most grading,
I think it’s approaching 5’, is the spot where the 45’
building is also being asked for additional height, so it
really is 53’, I think, plus 5’, so it’s 58’, if I’m not
mistaken. So could you please make sure that we understand
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the compelling reason why the density couldn’t be achieved
without that height and without that grade exception?
WENDI BAKER: The compelling reason is we have to
grade the site and consider utilities and drainage and so
forth as a part of this design, and that’s not something
that we got into deeply during the specific plan process.
Once this was uncovered and essentially how this site will
work from a grading perspective and stormwater perspective
and so forth, then if you were to take that and you
actually assumed that you could not have the sort of
height, excuse me, measuring from finished grade instead of
the existing grade. We calculated the number of units that
we would then be reduced by in order to not be measured by
the existing grade standards, and I believe we counted
about 90-something units. I don’t have that with me, but we
had submitted that at a previous meeting. Obviously that is
a huge issue for meeting the 20 units per acre requirement
of the Housing Element, so it became a density issue as
much as it layered on top of a true utility reason.
DON CAPOBRES: I was getting jealous I wasn’t
getting any of the action. When you talked about most of
the residential in the Lark District, since you are
specifically referring to the Eden Housing Market Hall
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building, I did want to step up. We do have our civil
engineer here who has worked on the grading plans.
Just to be clear, the 45’ height limitation is
we’re asking for exceptions on the height for two specific
areas that are a very small percentage of that building.
One is for the elevator penthouse, and one area is where we
actually have some sloped roofs to aid on the articulation
of the building. If you wanted to just totally comply with
the height, we would have probably just put a flat roof on
that and just have the mechanical penthouse be there, but I
don’t think that’s what folks were looking for.
In the particular area where you’re talking
about, where those height variations are, we’re looking at
3’ in terms of grade, and so it’s 48’ if you’re going to
measure from, I guess, existing grade would be the total,
but we are seeking these waivers, we are entitled to these
waivers under State Density Bonus Law, but I just wanted to
correct you; it’s not a 58’ difference.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Now, I understand that
you’re entitled to the waivers, but it has to be tied back
to the need to achieve the density, and I see the paragraph
in the letter of March 10th that says that “It would
physically preclude the development of 320 units,” and it
also says, “We estimate that 97 units would be lost.” I
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don’t see any calculations to back that up. Have you
discussed this with Staff, and has Staff walked through
this with you?
DON CAPOBRES: We have had the conversation with
Staff, has everything in the application, so I would answer
in the affirmative, yes. Your issue then is even more
pronounced on the Market Hall Eden building, because just
even a little bit over that 45’ would essentially lop off
an entire floor of Eden housing over Market Hall, which
would exacerbate your issue in terms of feasibility without
a question.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you. Those are
my last two on housing. I have some questions about some
other areas, if that’s okay.
CHAIR BADAME: That would be okay, but I think
that this would be an opportune time for me to poll the
Commissioners for us to go past 11:30; we’re approaching
11:30. So should we continue past 11:30, I would need a
motion.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I don’t (inaudible)
awake.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, Commissioner O'Donnell, is
that a motion?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: It’s just a warning.
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CHAIR BADAME: A warning. Okay, all right. Vice
Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I make a motion that we not go
past 11:30, and request Commissioner Hudes to try to wrap
it up by then, if you think you can. If you can’t, then
I’ll support that. Do you need more than ten minutes?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Let me try. I mean I can’t
commit.
VICE CHAIR KANE: It would be best if we could
wrap it up tonight.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: It depends on the answers
that I get. I want to talk about views. I want to talk
about traffic; there were some figures that were put up
there. I want to talk about look and feel as well, which
were all topics that were laid out by the Chair in terms of
things we’re going to deliberate about.
CHAIR BADAME: I’m going to guess that’s going to
take more than ten minutes. Vice Chair Kane, did you have a
question? That would mean the public testimony for the
Applicant would still be open tomorrow.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And can conclude tomorrow.
CHAIR BADAME: I would remind the public that the
public comment period is closed, but we would just resume
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with the Applicant, and then we would deliberate
afterwards. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I make a motion we not go past
11:30, based on that information.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’ll second.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, I will call the
question.
Commissioner Erekson, did you have your hand up,
or did you just want to chime in?
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I want to ask a question
of the Town Attorney before we vote. Is it correct that
even though we will not be closing the public portion of
the public hearing, that if we do this and we reopen the
public portion of the public hearing tomorrow night, that
in fact the only members of the public who could speak
during the reopening the public portion of the public
hearing are the Applicants and their representatives?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: We are closing the public
comment period for the public comment period, and the
Applicant isn’t allowed to make any more statements and
closing statements. We’re in the process of asking any
questions of the Applicant, but he’s not allowed to make
any more public comments or public statements, as is the
public is not allowed also, because we’ve closed the public
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hearing period. Technically the public hearing period
closes after his five minutes of his rebuttal; that’s when
it closed.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, does that sound good to
you, Commissioner Erekson? Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: That’s fine, yeah. I just
wanted to be sure that I understood what we were voting on.
CHAIR BADAME: Very good. I will call the
question. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Commissioner
Hudes, you still have eight minutes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Let me talk about views,
because it’s not a very long topic. There are several areas
where views are addressed. They are addressed of course in
the Vision Statement, but they’re also addressed in I could
see at least three other places within the application. You
use the term “view corridors.” Could you explain what you
mean by a view corridor? I understand a view. I can see
something or not. What is a view corridor?
DON CAPOBRES: Permission through the Chair. I’m
going to have Paula Krugmeier… We spent a lot of time on
view and embracing the view over the years, and so I
believe you’ll probably hit your time deadline, Madam
Chair, through our presentation here, but it is a very
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important topic for us and I want to be able to present it
properly, but Paula will be handling that.
CHAIR BADAME: Well, if you think it’s going to
go past eight minutes, maybe Commissioner Hudes can go to a
question that would be quicker than that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I’m happy to, because
there is a diagram that I sent yesterday.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, all right.
DON CAPOBRES: I do think it will go… It’s an
important topic…
CHAIR BADAME: It is.
DON CAPOBRES: …and I think one that’s probably
better if you are going to come back tomorrow, that we
should probably tackle with fresh eyes.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So my last question, look
and feel.
DON CAPOBRES: Oh, boy.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I just would like a broad
discussion about this, or perspective on this. Do you
believe that look and feel is important, and do you believe
you’ve addressed that in your application?
DON CAPOBRES: Again, these two topics are
probably the biggest issues that we’ve considered since, as
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you asked the question, since story poles went up, and
since the community meeting went up, and the joint study
session. The answer is yes; we do feel that we meet the
look and feel aspect of it. We have, we think, a good
presentation on that front. So the answer is yes. I don't
know if that suffices. It doesn’t really show you how we
can back that statement up.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Well, it doesn’t square with
the attorney’s statement that the Commission and Council
have no right to modify the application to better achieve
the look and feel of Los Gatos, so maybe you could address
how your statement ties back to the statement in this
letter.
DON CAPOBRES: So we will continue to assert our
rights, given where the policies have been approved over
time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a discussion on
how we think we met those. I don't know, Wendi, if you want
to add anything here. We have carefully thought through
this. Even though we’re not required…
WENDI BAKER: I think that it’s really
advantageous… We have some visuals, which they’re not
coming up. I know that you all as Planning Commissioners
were able to get out onsite, but generally members of the
public haven’t been able to get into the center of the site
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and so forth and see the story poles, and so we’ve taken a
lot of time to put together imagery that shows look and
feel or view corridors, not because we don’t believe that
we satisfy it, but because this team has taken a really
comprehensive approach to looking at those things and we
want to share that from the inside of the side.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe I should just accept
the answer to my last question and save this for the more
comprehensive discussion?
CHAIR BADAME: Yeah, I think I would recommend
that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I definitely accept the
answer to the last question.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: (Inaudible).
WENDI BAKER: Oh, there it is (indicating
visuals). I know it’s five minutes, so…
CHAIR BADAME: All right, so we can continue with
you tomorrow. You can have a seat now. Thank you. We will
be absorbing the new testimony that we received this
evening and looking forward to further discussion tomorrow
night.
Thank you all for your participation and being a
part of the public process. That includes the Commissioners
and Staff who dedicate their time to the community.
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Mr. Paulson, do you have a report for us this
evening?
JOEL PAULSON: I do not.
CHAIR BADAME: All right. Do Commissioners have a
matter to bring to the attention of the Commission?
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I have a concern, and that
is that if we don’t finish tomorrow night it’s been
proposed that there be a meeting on July 20th to continue
the matter. I will not be available on July 20th. I’ve made
that clear to Staff for several months now. So if that
happens, I wonder if Staff might be willing to bring back
some alternatives to July 20th, or just let me know and I’ll
not vote.
CHAIR BADAME: I would recommend that tomorrow
night we work very late. This will be early for us tomorrow
night, so we will burn the midnight oil if I get a motion
as such, otherwise… Mr. Paulson.
JOEL PAULSON: The other thing I would offer is
that I will check evening dates for Council chamber
availability for different dates, and then check and see
who else may or may not be available. It may be just a
scheduling error that we won’t be able to get everyone
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there, but we can talk through that tomorrow and we’ll look
for options.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, this meeting…
FEMALE: (Inaudible).
CHAIR BADAME: I’m sorry; this meeting is
adjourned. Public comment is closed.