N40 Specific Plan Amendments-- Addendum and Exhibit 12
PREPARED BY: JOEL PAULSON
Community Development Director
Reviewed by: Planning Manager and Community Development Director
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● 408-354-6874
www.losgatosca.gov
TOWN OF LOS GATOS
PLANNING COMMISSION
REPORT
MEETING DATE: 01/26/2017 ITEM NO: 2 ADDENDUM
DATE: JANUARY 23, 2017 TO: PLANNING COMMISSION FROM: JOEL PAULSON, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR SUBJECT: NORTH FORTY SPECIFIC PLAN AMENDMENTS. PROJECT LOCATION: 44 ACRES LOCATED AT THE NORTHERN EXTENT OF THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS, BORDERED BY STATE ROUTE 17 TO THE WEST, STATE ROUTE 85 FREEWAYS TO THE NORTH, LOS GATOS BOULEVARD TO THE EAST, AND LARK AVENUE TO THE SOUTH. PROPERTY OWNER: YUKI FARMS, ETPH LP, GROSVENOR USA LIMITED, SUMMERHILL N40 LLC, DODSON, HIRSCHMAN, MATTES, VENTURA TRUSTEE, MOISENCO, LOS GATOS MEDICAL OFFICE CENTER LLC, LOS GATOS GATEWAY LLC, MBK ENTERPRISE, CONNELL, GIN, JOHN & ALLISON DIEP LLC, BERNAL, LG BOULEVARD HOLDINGS LLC, POLARIS NAVIGATION, EW REAL ESTATE LLC, LAZAAR ENTERPRISES LLC, KOTHARY, AND SWENSON TRUSTEE. APPLICANT: TOWN OF LOS GATOS.
REMARKS:
Verbatim minutes for the December 15, 2016 Planning Commission meeting on this matter are
attached (Exhibit 12).
EXHIBITS:
Previously received with December 15, 2016 Staff Report:
1. Location Map
2. Findings
3. October 27, 2016 General Plan Committee Memorandums and attachments
4. October 27, 2016 General Plan Committee verbatim minutes
5. November 17, 2016 General Plan Committee Memorandums and attachments
6. November 17, 2016 General Plan Committee verbatim minutes
7. Potential amendments, based on General Plan Committee discussion
8. Public comments received between 11:01 a.m. November 17, 2016 and 11:00 a.m.
December 8, 2016
PAGE 2 OF 2 SUBJECT: NORTH 40 SPECIFIC PLAN AMENDMENTS JANUARY 23, 2017
N:\DEV\PC REPORTS\2017\N40 SP Amends 1-26-17ADD.docx 1/23/2017 10:02 AM
Previously received with December 13, 2016 Addendum:
9. Revised potential amendments, based on General Plan Committee discussion
(Including Exhibits A and B)
Previously received with December 15, 2016 Desk Item:
10. Public comments received between 11:01 a.m. December 8, 2016 and 11:00 a.m.
December 15, 2016
Previously received with January 26, 2017 Staff Report:
11. Public comments received between 11:01 a.m. December 15, 2016 and 11:00 a.m.
January 20, 2017
Received with this Addendum Report:
12. December 15, 2016 Planning Commission verbatim minutes
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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: Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen. Welcome to the Town of Los Gatos Planning
Commission special meeting of Thursday, December 15, 2016.
If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to
silence your devices.
Mr. Paulson, would you please call the roll?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, Chair Badame.
Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Present and accounted for,
one last time.
JOEL PAULSON: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Here.
JOEL PAULSON: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Here.
JOEL PAULSON: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Here.
JOEL PAULSON: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Here.
JOEL PAULSON: And Chair Badame.
CHAIR BADAME: Here.
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Would everyone please stand and join Commissioner
O'Donnell as he leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance?
(Pledge is recited.)
CHAIR BADAME: The Town of Los Gatos strongly
encourages participation in the public process with verbal
and written comments. To speak on any item tonight, for
which we only have one, please complete a speakers card
located within the bench, follow the instructions on the
back of the card, and turn the card in to a Staff member.
Matters relating to the North 40 will be heard during the
itemized public hearing. Matters not on the agenda will be
heard under Verbal Communications.
We’ve received an addendum tonight, Exhibit 9,
and a Desk Item for Item 2. Have Commissioners had an
opportunity to read the correspondence? Yes? No, Charles
Erekson? Anybody need more time? No.
We don’t have any requested continuances this
evening, and we don’t have any subcommittee reports. Even
though we don’t have any subcommittee reports I’m going to
make a report on the work of the General Plan Committee
regarding the amendments to the North 40 Specific Plan.
In meeting twice, Commissioner Hudes as Chair
provided a very methodical and thorough approach to the
issues at stake. Commissioner Erekson and Commissioner
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Hanssen also provided extremely valuable input for the
focus of this evening’s discussion, so thank you, Committee
Members, for making our job easier tonight.
Verbal Communications, I have one speaker card,
and that would be from Angelia Doerner.
ANGELIA DOERNER: Hello, I’m Angelia Doerner,
proud resident of the Almond Grove, and I just have a
couple of comments very quickly.
Compared to some, I’m somewhat of a newbie. I’ve
only been a resident for a little shy of 20 years, and
although I watched a little from afar in the past, I’ve
only been actively participating in your meetings and the
Council meetings for a little shy of three years. But man,
thanks to your deliberations, intense analysis and
insights, and your agreements to disagree, a lot of which
has come lately, I’ve learned an awful lot; among other
things policy versus practice—policy done above and
practice having to be borne out by you all—EIRs, traffic
studies, public works, design guidelines, architectural
styles, articulation, and lately there has been an awful
lot of debates on numerous applications over size, and most
importantly, compatibility with neighborhood, and overall,
the Town.
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All of these things combined, most of which are
objective, are what results in the look and feel of Los
Gatos. I knew what that meant almost 20 years ago after one
afternoon driving around town, and I want to thank you for
how seriously you take your role in preserving that for us
and the future.
Two nights ago I attended a meeting regarding the
developer’s outreach meeting regarding a proposed
development at Highway 9 and Santa Cruz. Yes, the gateway,
the first impression for all of our downtown, and by right,
our entire community. I believe we were told they would
likely be starting the process with the Town in early or
late spring. I felt I and other residents would have plenty
of time after the holidays to digest, analyze, critically
review, and hopefully really come to embrace the entire
project.
Today I found out it’s actually already scheduled
to come before you on January 17th, so it just means that me
and a lot of other residents will need to get extremely
busy after the new year to ensure that we can be here to
help assist you in making sure that the architectural
style, articulation, and compatibility with the
neighborhood and our downtown are looked after for our
benefit and that of the future.
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Thank you. Oh, and Merry Christmas.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you, Ms. Doerner. Would
anyone else like to speak to us about an item other than
the North 40? If so, please come forward.
Seeing no one come forward, we’ll go straight to
the North 40 Specific Plan Amendments, which is Item 2,
consideration of the General Plan Committee’s discussion
and provide recommendations regarding the Town Council’s
suggestions for amendments to the North 40 Specific Plan.
Mr. Paulson and/or Ms. Zarnowitz, we’re ready for
the Staff Report, depending upon who is going to give it.
JOEL PAULSON: Sure. In the Staff Report you
received Friday there was a background, but I’ll briefly go
through that.
As everyone in this room I’m sure, if not mostly
everyone, is aware, the Council adopted the North 40
Specific Plan as it currently exists in June 2015. In
September of this year the Council considered the Phase 1
application for the North 40, which was an actual
development application. They denied that application at
their September 6th meeting. Following that meeting, the
Mayor set a meeting to discuss potential amendments to the
Specific Plan. The Council held that meeting and forwarded
a list of suggestions that was, as you mentioned earlier,
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discussed by the General Plan Committee on two occasions,
one in October and one in November.
The best exhibit to walk through those is
probably Exhibit 9 in the Addendum. The Exhibit 7 document
that was provided in the Staff Report didn’t have
information on the General/Other category, which is the
final category.
The potential amendments, as Staff had provided
direction to Council when they were discussing it, aren’t
intended to be a complete rewrite of the Specific Plan.
They’re intended to be specific, they’re intended not to
require additional environmental impacts review, and also
not to require modifications to our existing certified
Housing Element.
With that, that concludes Staff’s report. We’re
available to help Planning Commissioners as they walk
through this discussion and ultimately with us this evening
or another occurrence, provide a recommendation to the
Council on these and any other items.
When we get to the Other category, and
fortunately we do have three General Plan Committee members
here, the General Plan Committee also discussed the
potential for adding an assisted living/continuum of care
use. That is not in your package, but we’re available to
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discuss that, and have a couple questions, if we get that
far, that we’ll be looking for guidance from the Commission
on.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Paulson. Questions
for Staff from Commissioners? Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I just saw this letter
from Grosvenor et al. dated December 12th this evening; it’s
in the package we received tonight. I’ve had a chance to
scan it, but I haven’t had a chance to evaluate it. I will
assume and hope that the Staff, including the Town
Attorney, has, because they seem to think that if we do
what we’re proposing we would require change in the
environmental impact work, and I’m wondering where we are?
It’s going to be rather difficult for us to evaluate that
without your advice, and also having just gotten it, it’s a
very significant comment, so I’m just wondering if either
you or the Town Attorney have any comments concerning the
issues raised in that letter?
JOEL PAULSON: This issue also was brought up, I
believe, in a letter that was provided to the General Plan
Committee from Grosvenor as well, so we will be looking at
these different modifications. I believe, if I remember
correctly, it was potentially a traffic challenge, and so
the EIR obviously studied a larger amount of commercial
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square footage. It also looked at a larger number of
residential units, and so we would be weighing that against
the changes.
The changes that are before you this evening we
don’t believe are going to have impacts in that direction.
If anything, many of these suggestions actually lowered
some of those thresholds, but depending on the final
outcome and Town Council’s ultimate decision on any
amendments, we would do a thorough walk-through to make
sure that we don’t create any challenges for the Town in
the Environmental Impact Report.
CHAIR BADAME: One more from Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Just to follow up, as I
understand it, the Specific Plan now is in litigation and
at least the press reports said it might be argued in
March; whether it is or isn’t, it’s on the track to being
argued. Were SummerHill and Grosvenor to prevail, they
proceed under the existing Specific Plan, as I understand
it.
On the other hand, we are proceeding with some, I
think, speed and diligence to change the Specific Plan,
realizing it would only apply to other subsequent parties.
What I’m wondering is we seem to be proceeding, in my
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experience at least, somewhat rapidly, and I’m wondering
what I’m missing? Because the one argument is we’re
proceeding rapidly so somebody else can’t come in and file
under the existing Specific Plan, but that seems so
fanciful since if they were able to file under the existing
Specific Plan one would think perhaps we’re on the wrong
side of that battle in court. Is there any particular
reason why we’re proceeding with more speed than usual, or
are we not proceeding with more speed than usual?
LAUREL PREVETTI: I’ll give it a start, and then
my colleagues will probably join me.
We were fortunate in terms of working with the
General Plan Committee and going through all of the
suggestions in a very orderly way. We also heard public
testimony at both of the meetings, so the Committee had the
full benefit of public input, and as you can see, the
public is continuing to provide comment.
As you work through Exhibit 9 in your packet
you’ll see that there’s still a lot of work to be done, so
while we are at this point of starting to craft amendments
to the Specific Plan, there’s still a fair amount of work,
and we’ll see how far we get tonight and then we’ll
continue our conversation.
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Applications can still be submitted, and they
would be reviewed under the existing Specific Plan. There
is no moratorium; things can certainly proceed. This is
really happening in parallel and independent of any
lawsuit.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Except if someone were
to file under the existing Specific Plan they would be
behind the litigant, would they not? I mean I assume, I
don't know, you process another application under the
existing Specific Plan notwithstanding that we have
litigation on that same Specific Plan? Is that what you’re
worried about?
LAUREL PREVETTI: We have multiple properties, as
you know, and the application that’s currently in
litigation was for the southern portion. There are many
other properties to the north, and whether it’s a small
parcel or a combination of parcels, those are still
eligible for new uses and new development, and so under
that scenario the current Specific Plan prevails.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: And there’s no legal deadline
that we’re doing, and I think part of it was just the
priority from Council to undertake this task, knowing how
important it is to the community and the amount of input
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they received to put this forward in front of the General
Plan Committee, and they did it, but there isn’t any set
date that Planning Commission has to be done, or when the
Council does.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So there’s no date, for
example, when the Council is tentatively going to take this
matter up?
JOEL PAULSON: We tentatively outlined a
timeline, which was January 17th. However, we always knew
that was tentative, and that assumed only one General Plan
Committee meeting and only one Planning Commission meeting,
which we also knew may not work from just the sheer breadth
of information.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So that tentative
schedule would have the Town Council meeting on the 17th?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I have two questions. The first
is is it true that the only difference between Exhibit 7
and Exhibit 9 is the text where “should” has been changed
to “shall”?
JOEL PAULSON: The changes in the last two pages
in the General/Other category previously in Exhibit 7 had
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said that further information would be coming forward, so
that, in combination with the two attachments, one being
the occurrences of “should,” and the other being the Tree
Protection Ordinance, which was a request of the General
Plan Committee.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Right. So we should be guided
by Exhibit 9?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. The second question
is we’ve received another letter from Grosvenor regarding
discrimination based on age, and they cited a number of
cases of apparent alleged discrimination on families with
children, and that—not being an attorney, Tom—got my
attention, because we have the General Plan Committee, and
myself and others in this body, have talked about senior
housing spread out and at ground level as opposed to in
elevated towers. Should we be concerned about that letter,
or are we on firm ground by requesting senior housing,
BMPs, be spread out and be on ground level?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: You should be concerned with the
letter, and the letter states what the law is regarding
discrimination, but there is no requirement from a legal
standpoint that says you can’t dictate how your senior
housing is going to be built. You also have to understand
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the ramifications though of putting that requirement in,
and then realistic expectations, which I said to GPC is
that you won’t get senior housing if you’re looking for
senior housing on the ground floor.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So despite the letter, it may
not be the senior housing spread out…
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I don’t believe the letter… I
only saw the last one with this package, so it must have
been the previous one, but they were just talking in
generality about discrimination and the requirements of
senior housing. You can’t specifically require senior
housing, but if senior housing is an element they want to
do, you can spell out how that senior housing is going to
be done. So discrimination meaning designating specifically
that there will be senior housing? Yes, you cannot do that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And I think the letter pointed
out that there were cases exactly like that.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: And we didn’t do that in the
first one, and we’re not doing that requirement now. I
think what you are alluding to is that if an applicant does
want to do senior housing, then putting that requirement
that it has to be on ground floor and has to be spread out,
the ramifications of that in the real world is you won’t
get senior housing, because that’s not how it can function
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either legally, because of the amenities all having to be
together, and because land is too valuable.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I didn’t look at it that way.
You’re saying despite all the conversation and the merits
to putting seniors on ground floor as opposed to up in
towers dependent upon elevators, that’s probably not going
to happen?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: Unless you subsidize it or do
something else, yes.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen followed by
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to add a
comment since we were on the General Plan Committee. We
discussed this issue at length, and my recollection of the
conclusion we came to is that we wouldn’t be requesting
age-specific housing, but what we were going to try to do
instead to accommodate the needs of our seniors was to make
sure that we were clear on what kinds of features that they
would want in housing if they were to do step-down housing,
and make sure that we accommodated for that in the Specific
Plan.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: This was a question that I
think was asked and answered at the General Plan Committee,
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but I wanted to ask it again in this context, and it’s
about the situation we’re in where the Town, I believe, is
being sued by the Applicant, and so any deliberations that
we have or any changes that we make to the Specific Plan,
can those affect that litigation, and would you advise
anything in the way we would treat that particular event in
regard to our consideration?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I’m glad you raise that question
again, because it’s come up even from Council and from the
General Plan Committee. Anything that we’re doing right now
cannot affect that litigation whatsoever. The
administrative record is done and complete and had finished
on September 6th when the resolution was submitted, so
that’s everything that was the decision making in that
project, and any hearings from this point forward are not
part of the administrative record and will not be
introduced into evidence.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions? Seeing
none, we will now invite comments from members of the
public. I have a few speaker cards, and I will start with
Roy Moses.
ROY MOSES: Good evening, Commission Members, Roy
Moses, La Croix Court; I almost forgot where I live. I
haven’t been home in a while.
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Just wanted to come tonight and say thank you
very much for all the work that you’re doing. I know this
is an arduous task on your behalf. We, the citizens, have
been meeting as well and trying to keep up on what we have
put forth to you in past meetings, and then unfortunately
we weren’t able to get the document. What was it? Was it
Exhibit 7 was the one that came out? Anyway, I read that
tonight for about two hours. I’ve been busy with other
things like family matters and that.
But anyway, I just want to say that obviously by
that document you have addressed a lot of the issues that
we brought up in those meetings and things like that, and
listening tonight, I’m starting to become a little bit more
encouraged that we’re moving forward. It’s very difficult
as a citizen to sit back, and without going through all the
records on a continuous basis and reading every document
that comes to us, to really keep up with all these things;
it’s confusing and the laws are pretty hard to figure out.
But I just want to say thank you to everybody for
being diligent in what you’re doing. The citizens are
aware, even though they’re not here tonight. Obviously it’s
the holidays, and with school and the rain and everything,
but I just want you to know that I speak to a lot of people
every day in my business in the community—I’ve been here
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for a long time—and they’re aware that you’re keeping an
eye on all of us and they’re asking us, the people who are
involved, and we’re trying to get them more involved to
really keep on task and move forward.
I just want to make sure I say a couple of things
I wanted to say here. I think the only other thing I would
like to say, in talking with a lot of people I know that
there are several other development projects coming up, on
Highway 9, the one on Alberto Way, and some other housing
projects. I don't know if things are just really kind of
going to get away from us in this town with all these
projects coming up. We have one on Hilow Court that’s been
a big issue, and I’m not sure if we, the citizenry, or the
Town government, is going to be able to handle all this and
be able to maintain what this town is.
I’d like to just say that I’m in support of
having a moratorium on building in this town for two years
to get everything all sorted out. Traffic issues are not
going to go away, school issues are not going to go away,
impacted by all this development, and the general welfare
of the living that we have here in this town is not going
to go way. So I’d like to put that on the table for
consideration, and a lot of the citizens are talking about
that.
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Thank you for your time. Have a great holiday.
Thank you very much.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Moses. Next speaker
is Rod Teague.
ROD TEAGUE: Thank you, Commissioners. Happy
holidays. My name is Rod Teague and I’ve been a resident
here most of my life.
Please prioritize the following amendments in
order to safeguard the Specific Plan’s true intent and
leave no gray areas to be manipulated.
The first one is spread housing out evenly
through all districts, which you’ve heard. This is a clear
intent of the Specific Plan and it needs to be solidified
and protected.
The second is reduce commercial to a maximum of
225,000 square feet. This would be approximately five times
the size of Trader Joe’s Village Square. This is in
addition to the commercial that already exists there and
would be more than adequate to serve the north end
residents and all the adjacent communities. Considering the
new retail online purchasing paradigm, competition between
the North 40 and downtown is not a good thing. I agree
competition is good within the downtown itself, but we do
not want to fragment or confuse our downtown core. San Jose
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made that mistake. Why would we ever want to take that
chance? We want to foster our downtown success, because
that’s who we really are. Also, because there has never
been a proposal on that North20, it’s completely within the
Town’s justifiable right to make this reduction now.
Number three; make housing affordable to early
career professionals. We’ve been talking about millennials,
but millennials are now requiring larger homes. This can be
achieved by mandating unit size caps, offer housing that
works with the median income for Los Gatos, which is
$122,000. It’s a great benchmark to make units attainable.
Based on the median income for Los Gatos early career
professionals might be able to afford a unit that is priced
at $750,000, that is, if they have $150,000 to put down.
This gives you an idea of what they would have to come up
with. That would translate into 1,000 square foot units at
$750 a square foot. This number does not include revolving
debt for qualifying, so they would be hard pressed to even
qualify for a $750,000 home with an income of $122,000. At
least 33% of the total market price units in the
development should fall into this category. And that’s it.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Mr. Teague, I have a question for
you. With your proposal to reduce the commercial to 225,000
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square feet, does that include any consideration for a
hotel, and could you give me your thoughts on having a
separate square footage allotment for a hotel?
ROD TEAGUE: If that was a consideration, yeah, I
think that’s very viable, but when we’re talking about
retail space I think we need to be extremely critical. That
competition for downtown business in this retail
environment is really scary, especially as I just read in
the Los Gatos Weekly that this last quarter I think we were
down by another 4% in retail sales, so that seems to be the
continuing trend, and adding large retail malls is really a
bad choice, at least in my opinion.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner Hanssen
followed by Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for your
comments. On the affordable housing for the early career
professionals, I think that makes a lot of sense. You
talked about the affordability of owner-owned units. One
issue that the General Plan Committee discussed, and we
didn’t completely resolve it, was there’s nothing in the
General Plan that speaks to having rental units, and of
course those would likely be more affordable, that combined
with reducing the unit size. So I’m wondering what your
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opinion is on that in terms of making housing affordable
for young professionals living in the Los Gatos?
ROD TEAGUE: Through rentals? I think the young
professional would prefer to have a place of ownership, but
that’s definitely an option, I think a very viable option.
But I think it’s the size that’s associated with that, and
having gone to so many meetings and listening about the
sell on the millennial makeup of the development, moving
forward I would like to see that, and I think that should
be comprised of a third of the total development.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Again, with regard to
affordable for early career professionals, you mentioned a
unit size cap. There have been some suggestions from the
Council of a 1,700 square foot cap, and the General Plan
Committee I believe came up with a 1,500 square foot cap.
Do you have any information that would support whether
either of those two numbers would be appropriate for this
purpose, or other numbers?
ROD TEAGUE: I just don’t think it pencils out. I
think the average price for square footage for a new home
in Los Gatos is about $850 a square foot now, and I’m kind
of going based on borrowing power. For somebody that is
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maybe in their early thirties and is looking to purchase a
home in Los Gatos, a realistic buying power level I think
is probably about $750,000 if you’re making that $122,000 a
year, so if there are 1,500 square foot homes for sale for
$750,000, great, but I just don’t think that’s realistic.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Teague.
CHAIR BADAME: Next speaker is Bill Hirschman.
BILL HIRSCHMAN: Good evening, my name is Bill
Hirschman. I am one of the small property owners in the
North 40; it was part of the previous application. Just
making that disclosure, but I’m here really tonight as a
33-year citizen of Los Gatos and 33-year developer in this
town. Many of the projects that I built in the past the
Town now refers to as the look and feel of Los Gatos, so
I’m very familiar with the process in this town.
I spent about three hours this afternoon
preparing some statements, and unfortunately Mr. O'Donnell
took them all away and in a two-minute discussion. I think
you nailed the question: Why are we moving this in this
expedient fashion? There’s no reason. I bought my property
in 1998, and I’ve spent 19 years waiting for decisions in
the North 40, most recently six years as part of that
application. I think there were 17 meetings to talk about
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the Specific Plan, there was a year-and-a-half worth of
meetings, and now all of a sudden in three months we’re
pushing amendments through, not knowing what’s going to
happen with the litigation.
I’m going to offer up an answer for your
question. There is no reason to be doing this. There’s no
solid reason to be expediting this process. There just
simply isn’t, and if there is, I would like a response to
that question if there’s a reason, if there’s another
pending application, if there’s a reason to push this
forward in a manner. This room was filled with hundreds of
people when we were here the last few times. The gentleman
who spoke before me saying it’s Christmas. I mean who shows
up at Planning Commission meetings at Christmas? Only crazy
people like us. I mean that’s the only people that do that.
So why are we doing this? What is the need? I’m
going to jump, because I’ve only got my minute and-a-half
here, but the question that also came up, and I can’t
remember who brought it up, with regard to the traffic and
changing some of these recommendations, and how they don’t
impact CEQA, I’ve been doing this a really long time and I
will tell you that changing uses, and changing traffic
patterns as a result of various uses, will absolutely
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impact traffic patterns and traffic reports. There’s no
doubt.
I have other comments. I’m running out of time.
My only other one is with regard to the CUPs. Before you
start requiring CUPs in a project of this magnitude you
better be prepared to process those CUPs. When you get hit,
as what will happen, with 20 or 25 CUPs, and that’s the way
this process will work to lease these spaces, the Town’s
not going to be able to handle that, and I haven’t heard a
response as to how that would take place.
I have other comments, but I thank you for your
time.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Hirschman. Don’t go
away, we have a question for you from Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you, I appreciate your
perspective very much. You were really asking two questions
about why are we doing this: Why are we moving so quickly,
and why are we doing this at all?
With regard to the why are we doing this at all,
we had testimony from many people at the Planning
Commission. I mean, are you aware that there were 500
individual comments, and that only 3% supported the
application?
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BILL HIRSCHMAN: I’m not aware of that. I don’t
those statistics; I’m accepting that that’s what you said.
However, in this latest process, and I’d be open to hear
your response, have you heard one single comment in your
last go around of this review that you haven’t heard for
the last six years? What’s changed? Is there a single
comment that would lead you to change your decisions that
were discussed, that were voted, and went in the direction
that you decided to go? I would suggest that that’s not the
case. I would suggest that there are agendas that people
that wanted it to be directed in one direction have now…
Those decisions didn’t go in that manner, and so now
there’s another bite of the apple.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I appreciate your response,
and I don’t think it’s appropriate to get into a debate,
but I do appreciate your response and your perspective.
Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Hirschman. Edward
Morimoto.
EDWARD MORIMOTO: Good evening. Thank you for the
opportunity to address you this evening. My name is Ed
Morimoto, and I live at 460 Monterey Avenue.
As my remarks to the Town Council and the General
Plan Committee on amending the Specific Plan are a matter
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of public record I’ll try to be brief, as I trust you all
have or will review these proceedings as part of your
decision making process. In that spirit, I’d just like to
punctuate two points.
I’d like to reiterate my concerns of the hasty
nature of the amendment process, both in regard to its
timing ahead of knowing the outcome of the pending Phase 1
lawsuit, and the rush to make changes with extremely
limited due diligence. Even with the benefit of time,
resources, and funding for study the complexity of the
North 40 Specific Plan was extremely challenging, and these
proceedings are predicated on a notion that despite those
luxuries the plan was flawed. So I’d ask you to consider,
can responsible decisions be made on elements like
residential allowances given the wildly different contexts
in which they will be applied, depending on the outcome of
the lawsuit?
I would also ask you to remember the remorse felt
by many, including those who made a decision, for the loss
of the originally proposed senior move-down building caused
by the simple, but perhaps under-considered, reduction in
building heights made by the Town Council in the final
stages of the Specific Plan hearings.
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I would be the first to agree that the Specific
Plan isn’t perfect, but creating it and even amending it is
a complicated endeavor that I believe requires greater
investment than is being given here.
I would also ask that this Committee proceed
cautiously on further commercial restrictions for the North
40 in the name of protecting our downtown. There are
multiple studies indicating the commercial allowed in the
North 40 Specific Plan doesn’t spell doom for our downtown,
but not a single one that indicates that it does. If our
downtown is vulnerable, as it may be, I fail to see how
restricting the North 40 makes it less so. Shoppers and
diners don’t even slow down crossing Town limits, but sales
tax revenue comes to a full stop. At last week’s Town
Council it was made clear in the quarterly financial report
that Los Gatos faces declines in sales tax revenue when the
state broadly, and the West Valley specifically, are seeing
the opposite. Limited data and Netflix impacts may have
allowed us to miss this before, but the message is all too
clear now.
Now, my background is in business, not municipal
economic vitality, but I believe the same basic economic
laws apply. I have yet to experience a situation where the
answer to helping a struggling part of the business
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requiring investment was to make another part of that
business less competitive, so I have a hard time
understanding how making the North 40 less competitive, and
likely bringing in less tax revenue to our town, will help
address the parking, traffic, and other issues requiring
investment needed to help our downtown.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak, and as
always, I’m available for questions.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Morimoto.
Questions? Seeing none, thank you very much. Anne Robinson.
ANNE ROBINSON: Anne Robinson, Charter Oaks.
As you know, I’ve addressed this concern before,
and I appreciate you listening again.
This is the North 40. The area in orange is the
high health risk area of the North 40 where the current
application that’s in the lawsuit is proposing housing in
that area. I handed out the EIR for this area, and in the
air quality section of the EIR it states, “However,
residential uses could be placed within areas with toxic
air contaminants and excessive standards. This is a
significant environmental impact. Implementation of the
following mitigation measures would reduce toxic air
contaminants and health risks to a less than significant
level.” Then it goes on to mitigation measures, which I’ve
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handed out, and it talks about, “High-efficiency filtration
on ventilation systems shall be required in residential
hotel and office units located in areas along State Route
17 identified in the EIR as having a cancer risk in excess
of ten cases per million.”
I still don’t get how this is going to be
effective for residential uses considering that the windows
will be open. I don’t see how this mitigation measure will
be effective.
The other article I handed out to you, which is
called, “What is a Safe Distance to Live or Work Near High
Auto Emission Roads?” consolidates a lot of the research on
the Internet, and on page 4 it says, “On average,
particulate matter concentration is significantly higher
within 330’, or 100 meters, of major highways than it is
farther away.” So, basically it’s saying that anything
within 330’, or 100 meters, is going to have a higher toxic
contaminant of particulate matter.
My question to you is why are we allowing housing
in this area when you have 40 acres? I don’t understand
that. I lived 30’ from a freeway my entire life. My mom
died of lung cancer. It was horrible, it was dirty, and it
was loud. Why would we want to subject our future residents
to that? I don’t understand.
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What I’m asking is that in Section 2.7.4 in the
Setbacks for Residential you add a requirement that the
residential housing must be 330’ from the State Route 17
boundary, that you seriously consider this. I think it’s
important for you to address this issue. That’s it. Thank
you very much for your time.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Robinson.
Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you, and I appreciate
you sending the articles. I’m not sure I completely
absorbed all of it, but how is the 330’ the right setback?
I saw one article that said 1,000’; I saw another article
that said there was a certain kind of damage within certain
ranges. Why 330’?
ANNE ROBINSON: I think from the research on the
Internet that I’ve read, it’s an average. Of course, this
is eight lanes of freeway; most of Los Gatos is four. This
has a major interchange; this has a lot of other, I guess,
impacts that some other areas don’t. So again, the 330’ is
an average. Why are schools required to be 500’ from major
freeways? Because there’s less pollution 500’ away. I think
the 330’, 100 meters, was just an average from what was
taken as far as measurements from other studies that were
done. But I think what concerns me is this is eight lanes,
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this is a major interchange, these are off ramps, on ramps,
there’s gridlock there hours every day. I don’t understand
why we put housing here. I don’t get it.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions? Seeing
none, thank you, Ms. Robinson.
DAVID WEISSMAN: Dave Weissman. I just wanted to
second a suggestion in Exhibit 7, page 15, regarding the
definition of open space and green space.
I just want to say that I think following, I
guess this is Staff’s research, where they found the EPA in
New England defines open space as green space, schoolyards,
playgrounds, public seating areas, public plazas, and
vacant lots. I think that is a much better definition of
open space than was done in the first version where streets
and sidewalks counted as open space.
CHAIR BADAME: Questions for Mr. Weissman? Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Just a clarification. It goes
to what I asked earlier. You’re referencing Exhibit 7, and
I’m assuming it’s the same as Exhibit 9, which is the
authoritative exhibit that we’re using for examination of
changes.
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DAVID WEISSMAN: Yeah, I’m sorry, Mike, I don’t
have… It says at the top, “Suggestions, page 15,” and I
believe that’s from Exhibit 7.
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, it’s the same.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And I believe Exhibit 9 is the
same.
CHAIR BADAME: He probably didn’t get Exhibit 9,
because we got it as an addendum.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, that’s not fair.
DAVID WEISSMAN: I agree.
CHAIR BADAME: I’m sure he’s referring to the
same thing that we’re looking at in Exhibit 9, so thank you
very much. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you, Mr.
Weissman. Sam Weidman.
SAM WEIDMAN: Good evening, my name is Sam
Weidman. Between my wife and myself, we have over 120 years
in the Town of Los Gatos; I’ve had 70 myself. We’ve seen a
lot of changes.
I think most of you can probably remember we put
up, I think, over 70 slides showing what we felt was the
look and feel of Los Gatos. I never got a chance to
summarize what that was really all about, but this
afternoon I happened to go in on the website and read
Exhibit 10, which had the Desk Items also in it, and I
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happened to read the letter from Leonard Pacheco and I
think he quite succinctly, if you want, summarized what we
were trying to get at, and this is based under the
benchmarks of what constitutes design excellence for the
North 40 development community addressed by the Specific
Plan, and Item 2 he had there was avoid the overuse of
concrete, sleet steel, and glass boxes, particularly in the
central area. I think one thing you’ll find of the look and
feel of Los Gatos is you don’t see a lot of concrete,
steel, and large glass windows, large glass faces on them.
That’s all I have. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Weidman. Sandy
Decker.
SANDY DECKER: Sandy Decker, Los Gatos.
I would simply like to say thank you, especially
to you as Planning Commissioners. You listened to this
community and I want to thank you for supporting our
concerns on the impacts of this development. This is a huge
tract of land. You supported and participated in the
Specific Plan amendment process, making us all hopeful that
we will see what the Guiding Principles of this Specific
Plan was set to do, and of course that’s to make this
something that Los Gatos can be very, very proud of,
because in fact it does enhance the Town of Los Gatos.
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Staff, this is a marvelous document. You captured
the community’s comments, and now we must be sure that this
document does come to fruition.
Specifically, again, I would like to see you
address the amendments without the repetition and the
rewrite that you have in this particular document, and you
did it because there were several things that were
repetitive, so you had to answer the same question again,
but I did find it a little bit confusing. I don't know
about you, Planning Commissioners, but it was a little
difficult to make sure exactly in some cases what the
decisions were or what you were in fact suggesting. I don't
know that you’re suggesting, you’re simply listening and
putting forward to this body what the community was looking
for, but I’d really like to make it clear that what we’re
looking for is a decision going that direction, and not
more confusion.
On the last page of Exhibit 7 there are seven
general comments that I don’t think they’ve been addressed
for the public, and they are the ones where we talk about
“shoulds” and “shalls,” and yes, there was something that
was going to be provided on Monday, December 12th, and I’m
sorry, but I cannot find it anywhere, but these seven
things were apparently either talked about or addressed, so
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I’ll have to look further, but I’d like if maybe at some
point somebody could tell me where they are. Things like
underground parking were kind of glazed over. Several of
the things were mentioned, but didn’t feel like it gave
this body an opportunity to really make a viable decision,
if you will, if that’s the process we’re looking for.
Anyway, I do thank you. I think you did yeoman
service on this particular document. I hope it gives you
Planning Commissioners what you need in order to make this
work for the community, because you’ve certainly done the
work we needed so far.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Decker. Question
for you. Ms. Decker, don’t go away. Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Really not a question,
but hopefully it will be helpful. If you look at Exhibit A,
which is a multi-page discussion of “should,” and you said
you didn’t see that, I’m suggesting that if you look at
that, that will help you decide whether it’s (inaudible).
SANDY DECKER: Now, Tom, was that to you as part
of this?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We got this I believe it
was yesterday.
CHAIR BADAME: It was an addendum, but I don’t
believe the public received the addendum.
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SANDY DECKER: I don’t think we received it, Tom.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The hottest thing is
something we got today, so this is an old one; we got it
yesterday. Anyway, if you look at that, it does address
your questions and you can see whether it does it
adequately.
SANDY DECKER: Thank you very much.
CHAIR BADAME: Ms. Decker, Exhibit 9 is online,
so you can look it up online.
SANDY DECKER: We’ve got Exhibit 9, believe me,
but it’s finding the various… The last page you’re saying
is there? We got Exhibit 7, and Exhibit 9 is online?
JOEL PAULSON: I’ll try to clear this up. Friday,
when the Staff Report went out, Staff did not have time to
get to the General/Other category, so we provided them with
as much information as we had at that point, and the Staff
Report stated that on Monday we would prepare the rest of
those categories, and this is included in Exhibit 9, which
includes two attachments. The one Commissioner O'Donnell
was referencing was all the instances where “should” is
used in the Specific Plan, which is Exhibit A to Exhibit 9,
and then Exhibit B the General Plan Committee requested the
Tree Protection Ordinance, so that also is included in
Exhibit 9, which is in the addendum.
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SANDY DECKER: And that came out on Monday?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
SANDY DECKER: Okay. And again, I’m afraid
getting through our website sometimes is a little bit
difficult, so I’ll go back again. Please forgive me. Mary,
thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
SANDY DECKER: Did you have a question, Mr. Kane?
VICE CHAIR KANE: When you appeared before the
GPC on October 27th you were also talking about some
confusion, and then I got confused as to what is your
preference on the spread out of the homes? If the number of
homes to be built is X, you want those spread out over all
three parcels, or what?
SANDY DECKER: Well, thank you for bringing that
up, because it’s one of the things that I commend Staff on,
on picking up where we were going as a suggestion, which
was a percentage. If you look through this, they do talk
about the option of doing a percentage of housing through
each zone, and then they follow up of course by allowing it
in the tables. So to me, that’s this community. It’s the
opposite to feel like this is an additional neighborhood in
this community.
SANDY DECKER: So that is your preference?
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SANDY DECKER: Mmm-hmm, very definitely.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay.
SANDY DECKER: Yes, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Ms. Decker, can you give me your
thoughts on the commercial, a reduction in square footage,
and separating out for a hotel? Can you give me your
thoughts for a hotel?
SANDY DECKER: Yes, I have many thoughts for a
hotel. In fact, every time I go on a trip and there’s a
wonderful boutique hotel that looks just like Los Gatos, I
walk right up to the manager and ask if I can talk to
anybody who could make a decision about moving one of their
hotels to our town. But you know that I feel like we should
be doing more outreach anyway. There are some terrific
opportunities. The world of hotel is not what we think
about anymore as this huge, huge monolith in the middle of
San Francisco or Dubai. There are some real opportunities
here to embrace a wonderful design for a hotel. It doesn’t
cut the costs by any means, because it’s smaller. We all
have been to boutique hotels, and we know that they’re
costly.
We’re desperately looking for revenue, and triple
occupancy tax is something that we have already approved
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and want to use as our revenue stream. Well, as far as I’m
concerned, I think it should be there.
If we do, and hopefully we do, spread the
housing, I’d like to see small neighborhood-serving
commercial spread throughout the whole complex. I think
that would be something that we see already.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for your comments.
SANDY DECKER: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Markene Smith.
MARKENE SMITH: Thank you, Commissioners. I live
on Drakes Bay Avenue, I’m Markene Smith, and that’s near
the North 40.
I’ve spoken at some of the meetings, and to
summarize why we’re doing this now, we all know it’s
because in the last ten or 15 years things have changed a
lot. We have a much larger population. The housing crisis
is worse than ever before. If you read the Wall Street
Journal, retail has gone online almost exclusively to the
point where it’s actually great, because in my neighborhood
Amazon, Costco, Fed Ex, UPS, the US mail come at all times
of the day and night, including Saturdays and Sundays, and
they’re doing all the packages at once, and when they’re
coming with their 30 or 40 packages for my neighborhood for
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various houses they’re saving 30 or 40 car trips, and it’s
a great thing.
So to capture the leakage, we’re going to have to
go online, or start a hotel, and the hotel is the perfect
thing, because you could see hills from there, it’s
beautiful. In my neighborhood there are all the medical
centers that have gone in, and people are getting cancer
treatments and they’re there for all kinds of reasons, and
hospice is down the way, and family members come during the
holidays certainly. It would be really convenient to have
boutique hotels that were in that area for the residents
and local people and our families, and for people who come
to the various medical facilities.
I wanted to double up on Anne Robinson’s thing
with the trees. I lived in Hollywood in Los Angeles before
I came to Los Gatos like 30 years ago, and in Hollywood, in
Los Angeles, they won’t even allow buildings anymore the
distance from the freeway; if they’re residential they
cannot be that close to the freeway anymore. They’re called
“black lung lofts,” because people do get lung cancer, they
get asthma, allergies, and they have more miscarriages. So
my suggestion, and I put slides up at another meeting, is
to have an at least 100’ large tree corridor to take some
of the pollution up, because trees will suck it up, and
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300’ is what would be optimal. I’m a master gardener too,
and trees, we’ve done it since Earth Day in the 1960s, and
it’s because it’s climate change and it works. So that’s
it.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Smith. No
questions. Thank you. Shannon Susick. This is our last
card, by the way.
SHANNON SUSICK: Good evening, Commissioners.
Thank you so much for the time, and I’m going to double up
on Sandy Decker’s thank you, because although you can’t
tell because it’s raining and it’s before the holidays,
this is a great night for our town, and thank you all for
your time and energy.
I apologize if you’ve seen this before, because I
did present part of this to the Town Council. Maybe in the
holiday spirit it’s like It’s a Wonderful Life. You’ve seen
it again, and a movie can be seen over and over again.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned, and I
apologize for being late to the meeting, but I believe that
Commissioner Hudes mentioned that out of all the
correspondence that you guys received, I think the number
one issue was traffic. Just please put something in the
revised Specific Plan; please put some language in there
regarding traffic.
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(PowerPoint presentation failure.)
I’m going to pretend like I remember what was on
that PowerPoint, and my main point is that I would ask on
behalf of this community that some language be put in the
Specific Plan regarding traffic studies. I know that it’s
costly, costs the Town, but I believe that is the number
one issue. There is only one small smidgen in that Specific
Plan, and it’s that’s if there is a significant change
within the development it will trigger a new traffic study,
and I think in this time and space, and with the projects
at Good Samaritan and other projects planned, that it’s
really vital.
Oh, there we go. Do you want to do it? Does the
thing work? Just keep going.
JOEL PAULSON: And just for the Commission’s
reference, the slides are in the Desk Item.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, we have it as Exhibit 15.
SHANNON SUSICK: Oh, see, I kind of spoiled it. I
already told you what the T stood for: Traffic. Keep going.
You can just scroll through them. There’s no new great
information, I just thought that this might be kind of fun.
Yeah, just keep going.
Please include traffic mandates in the revised
Specific Plan. That is not on any of the lists that I saw,
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and we obviously have an issue with it. I’ve talked a lot
with the Staff and learned a lot about traffic studies, but
I think that regardless, this is a major issue for everyone
here.
It’s all right, there’s nothing really that
everybody hasn’t seen before.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Ms. Susick?
SHANNON SUSICK: Yes?
VICE CHAIR KANE: The entire presentation is
included in our report.
SHANNON SUSICK: But isn’t this more fun…
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, I got what T stood for.
SHANNON SUSICK: …me up here fumbling around?
Okay.
Oh, and that is one issue, and we were talking
about that today, that we are possibly losing our VTA
service in town, no community bus any longer. And
unfortunately most of the people still drive cars; they
don’t ride bikes here.
The Samaritan master plan is a net increase of
365,000 square feet of medical space. They finally have the
Draft EIR out and are holding meetings on it. That has a
significant impact.
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Yeah, you can keep going. The pictures are not
that great. There we go. T should stand for our town, not
traffic. Thanks very much.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Susick. Questions?
Seeing none. I have one more speaker card coming. Lee
Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: Lee Quintana, 5 Palm Avenue.
I’d just like to reiterate what some of the
earlier speakers said about what’s the rush? I submitted an
email to the Town—I didn’t mean it to be included in the
packet, but it was—about Mountain View and what they call
their Specific Area Plan, or something like that, for North
Bayshore area. They approved that two years ago, and then
they immediately, at the meeting I believe that they
approved, initiated an amendment process that they
anticipated taking two years.
I also included it because I felt that if you
read it, it is so much easier to understand. It’s organized
very well, it’s in an manner that doesn’t make it
repetitive and hard to understand, as Sandy Decker was
talking about, so that’s one thing I wanted to say.
I ask you please to ask the Council to postpone
further consideration of this until we know what’s
happening with the lawsuit, because otherwise you may
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approve something that when the lawsuit is settled will
have to come back for another amendment, because it no
longer fits with what has come out of the lawsuit.
Secondly, on the CUPs, I understand that the
downtown wants to be on a level playing field with the
North 40, and therefore they’ve asked for the North 40 to
have CUPs, but at the same time, they’re also asking to
take away CUPs from the downtown, so it doesn’t make sense
to me to consider one without considering the other. That
seems like a separate question that should be answered all
at one time, not only for the downtown and North 40, but
for all the businesses in town.
Thirdly, I thought the suggestion about more
affordable housing for the millennials or for whoever only
makes $125,000, I’m all for smaller houses and less
expensive houses, but if you consider that for the North 40
as a mandate, why not spread that out to the rest of the
Town and require all new housing to fit that same criteria
as a effort of fairness? I don’t think you can do that. I
don’t think you should do it to the North 40. I know you
can’t do it elsewhere. I’m not a development proponent or
anything like that, but I do think fair is fair, and we
need to have a level playing field on fairness. Thank you.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. Diane
Dreher.
DIANE DREHER: Good evening, Diane Dreher, Arroyo
Grande Way, which is pretty close to the North 40.
First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your
hard work on this measure, and also congratulate a lot of
my fellow Town citizens for the incredible work that
they’ve done in terms of research on housing, toxic
pollution close to freeways, the need for open space, the
look and feel of Los Gatos, the possibility of boutique
hotels, traffic studies, and many more things, and I plead
guilty to speaking on the subject of “shoulds” and
“shalls,” being the English professor in the room.
I realize that there has been some concern about
rushing through this, but I don’t see it as rushing, I see
it as a very focused, committed, concerted effort by a lot
of very dedicated Town citizens who have managed to perform
yeoman’s duties in terms of research. Therefore, like our
Constitution says, “In order to form a more perfect union,”
I would commend my neighbors and all of you for working
together to form a more perfect Specific Plan for our
future in Los Gatos.
Thank you very much, and happy holidays.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Dreher. I have no
further speaker cards, unless somebody would like to come
forward at this time. Seeing no one come forward.
Mr. Paulson, would you like to add any comments
before I close the public testimony portion of the hearing?
JOEL PAULSON: No, not at this time. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, I will now close the public
portion of the public hearing.
To stay focused in our discussion this evening
Exhibit 9 will provide the basis for our deliberation as we
proceed numerically through the following categories:
Residential, Commercial, Open Space, Parking, Height, and
General/Other. Starting with Exhibit 9, with Residential,
do any of the Commissioners have any comments? Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Item 1 was the one that
the Staff flagged as a concern, and we also discussed it in
the General Plan Committee. The suggestion in that Lark
Perimeter Overlay Zone was we should set a maximum density
of eight units per acre. I don't know if all the
Commissioners had a chance to read the verbatim minutes,
but the reason that that came up was the cottage cluster
units were completely ignored in the Phase 1 application
simply because they generally couldn’t be built at the
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density of twenty dwelling units per acre, and so there was
a feeling that we should have that kind of housing in the
North 40 to meet the unmet needs of the community, and so
there was a question about doing it.
I had some questions, but a comment that I wanted
to make relative to Staff’s comment is one thing that Staff
flagged that we absolutely don’t want to do is we don’t
want to revise the Housing Element, because it’s already
been certified by the state; that’s a place that we really,
really don’t want to go.
But in the interest of trying to accommodate the
needs of the community, one thing I wondered is we’re sort
of in a I don't know if I would call it a box, but the cap
on units of 270 translates exactly to 13.5 acres at twenty
dwelling units per acre, and so if you put something else
in there that’s eight units per acre, then you don’t have
the ability to meet the requirement for the 13.5 acres at
twenty dwelling units per acre unless you increase the cap
on the number of units, so that’s a big issue to consider.
One thing that I didn’t see in this report that
we discussed in the General Plan Committee that I wondered
about—and I think Mayor Sayoc brought it up—was about
averaging. So if we have, say, X acres that are eight
dwelling units per acre, and we have other ones that are,
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say, 25 or 30 dwelling units per acre, is it possible from
the state’s perspective to average that to net out to 20?
And I don't know if we knew the answer to that.
JOEL PAULSON: No, I haven’t seen that used, and
I’d like to start the apologies right off the bat. Where it
says the Housing Element needs to be revised, actually we
can just make an amendment to the General Plan, but what
that does mean is that that number would have to increase
by however many units are built at 20 units per acre, and
then we could still preserve the language in our Housing
Element.
I haven’t seen the state allow that type of
averaging. There is an opportunity where you may have a
situation where someone builds at eight units per acre and
then you have a higher density, as you suggest. It wouldn’t
be averaged unless it’s part of one project, so I guess
that would be the question. If we average it across the
entirety of that piece of property, then it could be
averaged, but to offset the eight you’re going to have to
be pretty high, you’re going to have to be at least, I
don't know, what Matthew probably has off the top of his
head.
CHAIR BADAME: Yes, and he has his hand up, so I
know he’s anxious to talk.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: I do recall a slightly
different answer in the General Plan Committee, because I
don’t think it’s evaluated one acre at a time, so you don’t
have to have 20 units on this acre and 20 units on this
acre.
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct, and that’s what I
was trying to clarify. You could do an average if it’s part
of one project, but if something came in, hypothetically,
just for that area of the Lark District, and it was just
eight units per acre, that’s where we run into this
challenge.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right. So if it were eight
units per acre on one acre, then you’d have to make up the
difference maybe across several other acres, so not on a
one-for-one that you have to find one other acre where you
have to make it up, but it could be, in my understanding,
spread across what is considered residential zoning, is
that correct?
JOEL PAULSON: That is correct. The challenge is
with multiple property owners and the ability to come in
with a smaller project, if it doesn’t come in as part of a
larger project then you may run into the issue, so you need
to provide some flexibility in that instance to allow for
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more use should that occur, and so maybe I didn’t go as in
depth in that piece.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: If I could follow up, do we
know otherwise how many acres are involved in this
Perimeter Overlay Zone?
JOEL PAULSON: We did a rough calculation and
it’s probably somewhere around an acre.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: One acre?
JOEL PAULSON: Yeah, approximately.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Would it be feasible to make
up that difference over the balance of the 12.5 acres?
JOEL PAULSON: It would be, because that actually
wouldn’t be part of… You’d still have 13.5 acres at 20 that
we still would be producing, so that’s where the challenge
comes in. You still have the 13.5 acres at 20, and so
that’s where the need to raise that number is, because even
though you may be able to… And again, this is strictly if
you have a project that comes in just for that portion
that’s lower than 20 units per acre. Whether it’s eight or
15 or 19, you have to make that up, and if it’s not part of
a larger project we have to have some flexibility to be
able to increase the maximum number for the 270 to be
compliant with our Housing Element.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: This is probably a
question that will have to also be discussed at Council,
because a lot of deliberation went into coming up with the
270 unit number, but if you go later in our packet the
environmental analysis did cover for I think you said 364
units.
My additional question though is about the
density bonus. Presumably if we get another application
with this new plan there would be affordable housing in it,
and if there were enough affordable housing they would
automatically quality for the density bonus, so then if the
cap was raised from 270 to, say, 320 or some number like
that, then the density bonus could be 35% on top of 320
instead of 270, whatever number was proposed?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct. I think the
potential limitation here is that we’re talking an acre or
two acres, we’re talking about a fairly small amount of
units at that density, so it probably doesn’t get up near
that point, but it could get there depending on the layout.
If someone came in and wanted to do more than just the 50’
of cottage cluster at eight units per acre, then again you
just start eating into that property that could be used as
the 20 units per acre, and you may end up with the option
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or the need to have a project that is at a higher density
than 20 units per acre.
CHAIR BADAME: So increasing the units will
increase the traffic and the school impacts?
JOEL PAULSON: Not as long as it doesn’t go above
364, and you can’t take the density bonus units into
account from the environmental perspective, so there is a
possibility there to make that happen depending on the
number of acres that are developed ultimately at less than
20 units per acre.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: We did talk in the General
Plan Committee, and it’s in one of the tables, that the
total number would be not more than like 50 units, but
nonetheless that could, as you said, Chair Badame, generate
additional traffic, because you still have to produce the
additional 270 units as guaranteed by our Housing Element
at 13.5 times 20. So again, I think the balance is meeting
the needs of the community and having some lower density
and lower intensity in the Lark District versus adding more
units total.
JOEL PAULSON: I think just for the Commission,
with this, as with all of these, we’re going to have some
good discussion and there’s going to be a lot of good
input. I think the bottom line is whether or not in general
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this type of suggestion is something that the Planning
Commission ultimately feels should be recommended and move
forward to the Council as part of the recommendation, and
then, as you stated before, we’re going to have the same
conversation. We’ll get more information and provide that
to the Council as well.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further discussion on setting
the maximum density for residential units in the Perimeter
Overlay Zone along the Lark Avenue to eight units per acre?
Would anybody else like to comment on that? Commissioner
O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I assume that the end
goal on the total acreage is not to exceed that which is
now in litigation, so if we’re not careful, we could find
ourselves with a greater number than we’re now complaining
about.
CHAIR BADAME: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And it does seem to me
odd if we take a Specific Plan that we threw out and adopt
a new Specific Plan that is worse than the original
Specific Plan; that probably wouldn’t be progress.
CHAIR BADAME: Well, I can tell you that I’m not
in favor of this particular proposal. Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just to bring back some of
the discussion of the General Plan Committee. I think this
was a tradeoff. There was not an assumption that this would
automatically bump this up to a higher number of units
across the entire area, because already in what we’ve seen
there are some areas that are denser than others, and what
we’re saying with this recommendation is that this
particular zone, which is on Lark Avenue, is not very well
suited to residential and we would not want to see dense
residential along this particular road. So it was a
tradeoff, I understand, but I think at least myself, I
would say that I would be supportive of not having as much
density on Lark Avenue. We may not come to consensus, but
that was my sense.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: It took a long time to
get to where we were with the Specific Plan, because there
was an awful lot of input over a number of years and there
were a number of people who helped us to get there, and now
I find we’re going back, and I think that will involve a
lot of effort, which is good, however, again, I’m a little
concerned about our scheduling.
One of the things the original Specific Plan had,
not because of the plan but just because of luck, we had a
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group of three what I’ll call developers who told us how
they would implement the Specific Plan; this is they had
everything but the north part of the property, I think,
under contract, or at least under control. The last portion
of the property, the northern portion, they had no control
over it. We’re not privy to whatever their dealings were,
but I was given to understand they did not have control of
that. However, if we didn’t have that circumstance and we
simply said here’s the Specific Plan, I assume a number of
developers could come in and take a piece of it.
So, for example, in the 20 acres, if somebody
came in and said I’ll take five of those, and everybody
said fine, you’re going to do exactly what I said, but I
assume that when you said now we need some roads, now we
need some sewage, that the developer of five acres would
say fine, I’ll pay my pro rata share of the roads. But we’d
say but that’s not going to do any good, because now we’ve
got to wait for the other 15 acres to happen, and oh by the
way, the sewage won’t work either, because your five acres
isn’t going to pay for the sewage.
So the new Specific Plan will be really good if
we happen to have somebody come in who wants to do that
Specific Plan. So I guess what I’m concerned with is you
can have the best Specific Plan in the world, but if you’ve
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got ten people implementing it, I don’t see how you’re
going to get the money to do the necessary things like
roadways, sewers, utilities, everything that is paid for,
if you assume that a large portion of the property is
developed at the same time. So I guess I would ask those
who have been studying this now, what do you do with a
Specific Plan that is being implemented over a period of
years by multiple developers?
CHAIR BADAME: Would anybody like to comment on
that?
LAUREL PREVETTI: That’s typically one of the
implementation issues that are considered, and I think
tonight we’re really focused on what is the language, if
any changes were to occur, that the Planning Commission
would want to recommend to the Town Council?
There are a variety of implementation mechanisms
in some communities. They require whomever the first one is
in to build upfront infrastructure, and then they create a
reimbursement mechanism, so that way all subsequent
developers pay their fair share of what the first developer
did.
There are a variety of ways to do it, but I think
for tonight we need to focus on what the Council gave to
the General Plan Committee that has now been forwarded to
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you, and I don't know if you want motions or how you want
to work this, but I think the first issue is really what’s
that character that you want to see in the Perimeter Zone,
knowing that if we do allow for lower density that it will
have an implication on the total number? One way to
regulate that is to cap how much of the lower density
product you want, because my sense is you don’t want it
open-ended, but you’re going to want to have some control
of how much low-density, so that way you know how much
minimum 20 units per acre you absolutely have to have.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: (Inaudible).
JOEL PAULSON: The Lark Perimeter is 50’ and it’s
just along Lark. There’s also a 30’ perimeter along both 17
and 85.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So those would not
address the issues that have been raised of, as I recall,
the 300’, or 100 meters, so it would be our plan to build
the black lung units within 50’, is that right?
CHAIR BADAME: That sounds right. Commissioner
Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I was trying to figure out
whether I was wise enough to answer Commissioner
O'Donnell’s question about plan implementation, and the
only wisdom that I could come up with is that chapter 6 in
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the Specific Plan addresses those issues, either adequately
or inadequately, but I would suggest to Commissioner
O'Donnell to what extent they addressed them adequately or
inadequately the General Plan Committee did not suggest any
revisions to that approach, so there was no judgment that
it was not okay. I’m not suggesting whether it was adequate
or inadequate, but just that the issue has generally been
addressed and there was no impetus to make any revisions to
that chapter coming out of the General Plan Committee. I
hope that’s a sufficient answer.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: One parting thing was
that I don’t remember precisely, but I remember $12 million
dollars; that’s a number that caught my attention. It was
something like that, which as I understand it was going to
be spent upfront on sewage and roads and that kind of
thing, and that was not a function of the Specific Plan as
such, it was that the Specific Plan was going to be carried
out in large measure in one fell swoop.
What we’re doing now is saying we would come up
with a Specific Plan that could be done in any sizes. You
buy your two acres, you do two acre’s worth, and the
concept of having the two-acre guy put up the $12 million
bucks would probably be rather difficult.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: I would just maybe amplify
what Commissioner Erekson said, and if I recall in the work
in putting together the Specific Plan, the phasing came
last, and so it’s sort of you don’t want the tail wagging
the dog. In fact there were no changes recommended to the
phasing section, I believe, and so there are phases that
address some of the issues that Commissioner O'Donnell has
raised in terms of organizing the work and the way it could
be developed into phases, and those seem to be acceptable
to several developers who either submitted applications or
provided input to the process. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t
know that there are things that we’re proposing,
particularly with regard to this item of density in the
Perimeter Zone, that would significantly change that
phasing plan, and I would look to Staff to comment on that
as to whether that would impact the phasing plan.
JOEL PAULSON: It would not.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: In the interest of moving
stuff along, I don't know, it doesn’t seem that we’re going
to get agreement amongst the Commission about this, and
because it’s a big issue I think that my personal opinion
is that it was a great idea to have the cottage cluster,
which we’ll get to in a bit, about not having to have a CUP
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for it, but if we got any proposals for that we have to
recognize that the densities are likely to be at twenty
dwelling units per acre, and that means we’re going to have
to have more units.
So I think we should pass it along to Council and
say although it’s a good idea, it may not be a consequence
that the Town wants to take on, to take on whatever number
of units, even if it was 30 or 40, because as we heard, if
there was a proposal for affordable housing and the density
would apply to an even higher number, we may not want to go
there in the interest of getting less intensity in the Lark
District that way. There are some other ways we can
accomplish it, maybe lower heights and spreading the units
across the different districts.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for those comments. With
that, we’re going to move on to number two, which is
housing units should be spread across all three districts,
which I agree with 100%. Commissioner Hanssen followed by
Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think everybody on the
General Plan Committee agreed that that was a good idea. At
the very end we were saying well how are we going to define
what it is? I think one of us just came out with the
numbers that are in there; it’s hard to know if they’re the
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right numbers. The only thing that I noticed is if you set
it as the number of units won’t exceed, I don't know how
you do that in terms of phasing, because if you have a cap
of 270 units and they’re not in the different… So I’m
asking Staff the question: How does that work with phasing?
JOEL PAULSON: We’d divide the 270 across the
districts, and so it would be first in…
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: First out, okay.
JOEL PAULSON: …first person, and if they took up
that whole allocation, then that would satisfy that
requirement.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So it’s actually going to
be a number then?
JOEL PAULSON: The percentage will translate into
a number.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right. So I did the math.
It’s 108 units in the Lark District, for example, and then
if they get up to that number, then that’s done?
JOEL PAULSON: Then there’s no more residential
in the Lark District absent a Specific Plan amendment.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I mean I couldn’t think of
a better way to write it. When we talked about it at the
General Plan Committee we talked about some ranges and
stuff, and so I kind of like the idea of the maximums, but
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it does actually translate into a number since we have a
cap on the number of units.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, and then
followed by Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: It seemed to me what
happened is I think the people who participated in the
development of the Specific Plan that’s in place today did
it with good intentions, and so it seems to me part of what
happened in the process of getting an application is that,
from the view of some people, we learned that potentially
what we intended didn’t realize, and that’s in fact where
some people needed Rolaids or TUMS to kind of sort through
that. I was trying to figure out, so the Staff has
suggested language that says 40% of the units should be in
the Lark District, 30% in the Transition District, and 30%
in the Northern District, which translates to 108 and 81
and 81. If they all qualify for the density bonus it
translates to 146 and 109 and 109.
So I thought let’s say we adopt that language and
it’s in the plan, if I’m a developer who is going to
develop it, and because the sum of the percentages is 100%,
we don’t necessarily have to choose for them to total 100%,
because we’re setting a maximum in each one that’s against
a total maximum, but because we chose 100%, I believe if I
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were the developer, essentially what happens is the maximum
becomes the actual, because I would never want to take the
land and develop less than I was allowed to do. So if I’m
the developer, either a single one or a collective group,
and I were developing the Lark District first, I would go
to the 40%.
I’m going to leave the density bonus out for the
moment, because if I wanted to do the density bonus, I’d
get there, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.
And then if I were collectively or individually
developing the Transition District, why would I ever not
develop it to the maximum I could? Therefore it would play
itself out, I believe, as the actuals, not just the
maximums. I’m not saying whether that’s right or wrong, but
I’m saying that my sense is the reality of this would be
that we’re setting the actuals, we’re not setting the
maximums, and maybe that’s okay, but I think we should just
try to project how it would actually happen so that we
don’t have something occurring that we didn’t… So we might
even just change the language to say you get 108 units in
the Lark District, and 81 units… Because I think that’s in
reality how it would play itself out, because I can’t
imagine owning the land and developing it for less than
what the maximum is, and so therefore I don't know why it
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would ever materialize other than becoming just the
actuals.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell followed by
Vice Chair Kane.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I guess I’m concerned a
little bit about the concept of the density bonus. It was
easier in times gone by, because we had 49 units going in
that would qualify for the density bonus, and those 49
units were on one piece of this property. Now, if you break
it up into three, I doubt that you’re going to have 49
units on one piece of property.
On the other hand, we’ve heard from the Town
Attorney, and I think he’s correct, that to do something
like senior housing you do have to have the concentration
for many reasons, but we’ve said you can’t have the
concentration, because we’re going to divide it up three
ways, and if you want the bonus then you’ve got to have
this kind of qualifying housing on each of the three
parcels, which means it won’t work.
But the reason it won’t work is if you have to
concentrate the people, if you get small enough, it just
doesn’t pencil out. If you have ten seniors in one piece,
and ten seniors in another, and 30 seniors in another, I
would image that is viewed differently by the developer as
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opposed to 50 units in one place. You’ll recall that we had
the 50 units under the original Specific Plan, and the
objection was you needed an elevator to get to them, but
then somebody said you couldn’t build it on the ground,
because it just won’t happen.
Now, maybe it’s not our concern what just won’t
happen, but I’ll tell you one thing that probably also just
won’t happen is if you divide it up so you no longer have a
project you can put together with some numbers. Now, maybe
I’m missing something. Maybe you could put 50 units on one
of the smaller parcels, I don't know, but I do know also as
you narrow down to the north property, it is surrounded on
two sides, I think, by a freeway, which means the
particulate matter and other matter is more acute when you
have two freeways than when you have one. I tell you, I’m a
senior, and I’m not sure I’d want to spend my declining
years—which I’ve started—surrounded by two particulate
generating freeways. So it’s really nice on paper.
The one thing I’m really concerned about this
whole process is the other process took a long time,
because we were getting some real back and forth. There was
somebody to talk to, is this doable or not doable? If we’re
going to talk to ourselves, we can come up with a really
pretty plan. I don’t think it would go anywhere, but it
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will really be pretty, and I think we can all take pride in
it, and nothing will happen, and then we can all go home
and feel good about it.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I heard what you said and
I’m a little confused. If you take basically 270 units and
you split them up 108 and 81 and 81, there’s no reason
somebody couldn’t make a proposal similar to the Phase 1
proposal that we saw that just wouldn’t have 320, it would
have 180 or 190 units on it and 50 of those could be for
affordable housing. I guess I don’t understand your
question. I had more questions about the table, but I’ll
leave that aside for the moment.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The only way you can get
the density bonus is you have to have the density
qualifying additions, in this case, senior. So the guy or
gal that buys three or two or one, one would think they
might be interested in the density bonus, so all of the
density bonus goes to parcel one, then there’s none of the
density bonus left for parcel two and three. So I don't
know, maybe it will work; I don't know.
I guess what I’m saying is I feel this is
difficult because the other process took so long; the only
virtue of that was there was give and take and you could
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talk about things. Here, the group of us who have no
experience in what we’re talking about, we’ll draw up a
plan and say we like that, and we’ll find out if it works.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: For members of the General Plan
Committee or Staff, if we spread the required units out
over the three districts, which I’m in favor of, and if the
hotel conference center was to be built in the north
division, does the spreading of the housing eliminate the
possibility of the hotel, or does it then require that they
be very dense and next door to each other? Have you looked
ahead to see if both concepts, both ideas, are compatible?
JOEL PAULSON: I see some nodding heads, but I’ll
jump in as well. I think a lot of these conversations are
providing flashbacks to the challenges we had even just
going through the first Specific Plan; there are a lot of
moving parts here.
Density bonus, I’ll try to simplify. It’s based
on the number of units and the number of those units that
are affordable at a certain level, whether that’s senior or
non-age restricted housing. So then depending upon the
percentage of that and the type they get some level of
density bonus up to 35 units, so it’s based on the units.
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In the exercise that you’re speaking of, has
Staff done a site planning exercise to look at a number of
different configurations of what works and what doesn’t?
The answer to that is no, we would be relying on the
development community to come forward, understanding the
rules of our existing or amended Specific Plan and then
coming forward with the site plan for some, all, or
portions of the Specific Plan area, and then we would
evaluate that based on the Specific Plan in place at the
time, and then the Planning Commission and/or Council would
make a determination on that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So we don’t know if we spread
the housing whether or not that would preclude a desired
commercial development or a desired hotel and conference
center; we’d have to cross that bridge when we came to it?
JOEL PAULSON: We would. I think the base desire
here is to spread the units. Then again, I think it was a
suggestion of a General Plan Committee member, and as with
all of this language, it’s kind of the starting point
language. There are other ways to do it, maybe the
percentages should be modified, and so if there’s any
direction in that regard, then we’d definitely be
interested in hearing that.
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I think there, frankly, are just too many factors
involved when you do have the number of different property
owners, and that’s, as I stated before, the whole point of
doing the Specific Plan; so whether it’s half of the site,
whether it’s a two-acre site with the Specific Plan area,
they’re all using the same rules, and so hopefully in the
end you come out with a cohesive plan that works.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I share Commissioner
O'Donnell’s concerns about us talking to ourselves and not
having the benefit of experts, and how that relates to us
moving this very quickly, and I am concerned about that. I
would encourage Staff to flag those areas where additional
analysis or expertise would be valuable in bringing these
recommendations forward.
With regard to the spreading, some specifics
about that. Really, we talked about different methods of
ensuring that housing was spread, and one of them was
particular numbers in a zone; particular percentage was
discussed as well. I think I may have contributed 40/30/30
with very little thought in terms of whether those are the
right numbers. Personally, I think the concept of spreading
reflects the public input with regard to issues that were
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raised during the process as well as specific comments from
Town Council members, and I believe from my perspective
that the percentage is a good one, because it’s a way to
see conceptually what this means in terms of impact when
you see the percentage weight as compared to individual
numbers, and it also allows recalculation if the total
number does change, but I am not comfortable with the
40/30/30 on the basis of my analysis, because it was really
meant more as an example than specific numbers.
This is where I would invite Staff to confer with
some experts on this. I think we have to take this thing
seriously, and I think that this is an example where it
would be valuable to get that kind of input before moving
it.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I guess two points.
I would have to be educated on this. I don't know
how much we paid for the expert advice we got over the
seven or eight years we spent on the first Specific Plan
versus how much we would… People are asking us. I think,
reasonably, the Town ought to go out and hire some people.
Well, that’s all very interesting, but the Town has a
rather limited budget, and so I don't know how feasible
that is, and I also don’t know, therefore, how much did the
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developer pay for the experts in the past go round? Because
there isn’t anybody anymore that’s funding this for us. So
that’s just one question.
The second question is the 13.5 acres. If the
first person that pulls down 10 acres or whatever says I’m
going to take three of those acres and make those 20 units
per acre and the other ones I’m going to do some other
stuff with, we needed 13.5 and the first person only took
whatever they took. Now I guess you’re going to count on
the fact that you’ve still got enough land left that you
can get your 13.5, but since you have no assurance as to
when, if at all, that property will develop under this
Specific Plan, is the state going to be satisfied that you
develop a portion of the property as 13.5, but not all of
it?
LAUREL PREVETTI: That’s a great question, and I
think the state, so long as they see that we have a
Specific Plan where it still is feasible to get the 20
units per acre on the remaining acreage, and just looking
at the map of the three districts, there’s quite a bit of
opportunity. We would have to be tracking, so the first one
in would have the greatest flexibility, because they would
be the first application. The subsequent developers would
probably have more restrictions, because we’re going to be
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under the gun to make sure we produce the density that we
need to for our Housing Element, but there’s still
flexibility, for example, if there’s an interest in doing
some lower-density product, but I think what we’re trying
to do is what are the opportunities that we want to create,
hotels, residential living, retail, and are we creating
those opportunities and spreading them where you want?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If you take 40 acres,
which is the wrong number but approximately, and take 13.5
and subtract it, and you say so long as I have 13.5 acres
left, conceptually I could satisfy the state. So the first
person develops and they have none of this in it. The
second person develops and they have none of this in it.
Now, we know that the third person comes in and we say
guess what, you’ve got at least 13.5 acres and we’re
essentially telling you what you’re going to put on that
property, right? So we can say to the first person forget
about it, don’t worry about it, and the second person the
same thing? So long as there is 13.5 acres left that this
could apply to, we’re copasetic?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct, in theory. You’re
going to get to a point where, let’s just use there’s zero
units in the North 40 and there are only 12 acres left. At
that point we then have to go find another site to
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accommodate those units, and so that would be the exercise
that we would go through, and we would be, as Ms. Prevetti
stated, tracking that. If we got to the point where we were
coming up on the next Housing Element cycle, giving them
our progress on the previous Housing Element, and we say by
the way, there are no units in the North 40 and we haven’t
rezoned anything else, then we would have some challenges
legally.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If we could not as a
town in fairness say to people this burden should be shared
over the acreage, so that’s what people talked a little bit
about. If the burden is you’ve got to have 13.5 acres at 20
units per acre, we want to make sure that the first couple
of developers aren’t skating on that. So do we turn them
down if they don’t have 22 acres on their first… Well,
because again, I told you that a person could come in with
two acres the way we’re doing this, I guess one acre; it
gets very interesting. The old plan had just happenstance,
I guess, of a developer, whereas now there is no developer
and there’s no reason why there couldn’t be 30 developers
over a period of years. But as we’re the goalkeepers, at
some point could we say to somebody wait a minute, we’re
now down to 13.5 acres and we want to make sure that
housing goes on that?
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JOEL PAULSON: That would be a conversation we
have. I don't know that we could require it, but at that
point if we get into a position where, let’s say, we have a
development that doesn’t meet the 13.5 and we haven’t met
it elsewhere in the Specific Plan, and they have a great
commercial product or project, or a hotel, or something
that the Town really desires, at that point approving that
project would necessitate the Town rezoning something else.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And you think the state
would sit there and let that happen?
LAUREL PREVETTI: Well, no, that’s exactly what
we would have to do is we would have to then rezone Oka
Road, or the Los Gatos Lodge, or some other property
outside the North 40, because we did not meet our
affordable housing, our density requirement, on the North
40. I would just add two more points.
One is that even though we’re going through the
Specific Plan amendment process we can’t predict what size
parcel the next developer might have. It might be 30 acres,
it might be 24 of the 44 acres, so just because we’re going
through this exercise doesn’t mean we’re going to start
seeing postage stamp applications. We might see some, but I
would imagine that typically when there is a Specific Plan
it’s very attractive to a builder to try to accumulate
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property and assemble it, so that way they can do a really
nice design and have some nice internal controls for their
own purposes.
Third, I just want to mention that we essentially
have no budget for this effort, so you are seeing your
experts before you, such as they are, and I apologize if
we’re not able to answer all of your questions. We don’t
have the economics that a developer would have, we wouldn’t
be able to run the financials as a developer could, but
what you do have is expertise in planning and legal, et
cetera, so I think we’re trying to craft a Specific Plan
that can be implemented that balances the needs of our
Housing Element with creating a great neighborhood for our
town.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I understand all the
comments that you made, Commissioner O'Donnell. My question
is, isn’t this more about whether they build commercial
versus residential? Because if they build residential,
since we have the cap of 270 and it has to be 13.5 times
20, we can’t have any proposal that doesn’t meet the
requirement for any residential that isn’t twenty dwelling
units per acre. That’s written in stone in our Housing
Element. So then the only question would be is if people
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came in and built commercial instead of residential—and
there are limitations proposed for how much commercial
could be in Lark, for instance—just off the top of my head
it seems like we have our bases covered, but I don’t have
the benefit of professional analysis, I’m just thinking
about the things that I’ve heard, and it seems like we
would be covered on that.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Nicely said.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, well we can have this
discussion and we’re not going to come to an agreement or
consensus on several items. Our next item is a table, which
is 2.1, the Permitted Land Uses, and that has to do with
allowing different housing types throughout the districts.
Would anyone like to comment on that?
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yeah, I thought it was
part of the same thing, but I guess it’s a different
section. Right now I don’t believe the cottage cluster
unit, for example, is allowed in any district other than
the Lark District, is that correct?
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I don’t have my plan open.
I was trying to understand, Staff, why that was proposed,
because if you look at what they were trying to avoid in
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the General Plan Committee is the Vision and Guiding
Principles of the Specific Plan were to have the Lark
District be more residential and adding more commercial as
you moved towards the Northern District, so to me that
speaks to not offering all the same types of housing.
Then on top of that, I don’t think we had any
discussion about removing the requirement that any housing
in the Northern District has to be on top of commercial. So
I don't know how you would build townhomes and garden
cluster homes and cottage cluster homes on top of
commercial. Just help me if I missed something.
JOEL PAULSON: No, I don’t think you missed
anything. This is all under the guise of spreading the
units across the districts, so if you want to create the
opportunity for someone to do residential where they may
not have otherwise been allowed to do that, in your example
the Northern District, yet clearly you’re not going to do
cottage cluster on top of commercial in the Northern
District.
But this is trying to illustrate that if you want
to have the opportunity for residential units to be spread
across all districts, then there are a couple of options,
and this gets a little bit to Ms. Decker’s comments of
trying to follow and when things are in multiple places,
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and the reason is we were trying to deal with that specific
topic where it was, and so then you may or may not have
noticed that when it’s repeated later in the document the
underlined red font turns to underlined black font, and
then the new portion of that is related to that specific
section.
So the conversation here is if there is some of
these uses that you don’t think should be permitted uses
from a residential standpoint across all three districts,
then we can do that. I think you run into the issue,
because there was some conversation on this later on as we
go through the document of whether or not there should be
residential above commercial.
As with many of these, which as we’re seeing will
happen tonight, we’re not going to get any clear consensus
and there will be varying opinions. So we’re just trying to
throw out options again. This is all really starting point
language for a conversation and discussion, and if you
don’t feel any of this is appropriate, then we’re happy to
forward that recommendation and move that on to the
Council, that’s for sure.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I think it’s true, and
perhaps I’m reading something that wasn’t there, but it
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certainly is true conceptually, we’re not locked into
making the north property have to have it above retail,
because if we’re now saying we’re changing the rules and
we’re going to divide the housing up we could say it’s not
reasonable if we’re going to do that to say it all has to
be above the retail. So we could get rid of that and say if
you want to put it above retail, great, but if you don’t,
that’s okay too, because if we’re going to say 30% or
whatever of the housing is going to go in that, it probably
makes no sense to say that 30% has to be second story and
above kind of housing; and I don’t think we’re locked into
that.
So unless somebody feels that we want to be
locked into that, but I would suggest to you that we
probably wouldn’t get the 30% ever built, at least under
present circumstances if you said it has to be second floor
above retail, but the good news is we’re not stuck with
that, we can decide it doesn’t have to be. Now, we talked
about in here that when it’s close to some of the roadways
we said yes, there it would have to be on the second story,
but that’s much more limited and it was spread out better.
LAUREL PREVETTI: And in fact if you just look
ahead to page 6, Item 11 shows a different version of the
permitted land use that essentially would remove that
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restriction from the Northern District, as you say. These
things are interrelated, as Joel was mentioning and the
public observed, so that’s certainly for your
consideration.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had a question of Staff
relating to the comments that we received from the public
about locating residences away from freeways. Have we
researched this at all? Are there either practical or
accepted standards for this? Have other municipalities been
addressing this proactively? I’m sure it’s an area that’s
changing, that’s probably not static, but do we have any
information about whether we should enforce the 300 that
was presented? What’s Staff’s opinion on locating with
proximity to freeways?
JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have any information on
other jurisdictions, Ms. Prevetti may, but as was also part
of the materials that were presented by Ms. Robinson, the
EIR evaluated that, and that was based on requirements and
thresholds that are adopted by the state and then probably
ultimately Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and so
that is the restriction.
The initial—and I don’t have it in front of me—
but I think the initial prior to 2015 when new air quality
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standards were going into place for vehicles or for diesel
trucks it was a larger setback, but after 2015 it was
allowed to be moved down to the 50’, so that meets the
technical threshold. Whether you think more should be done
as a matter of the information that’s provided, I think
that discussion also is farther down in one of the other
sections.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, so that’s helpful. It
does weigh in on this table to some degree and this is
where things are interrelated; that’s why it’s helpful to
have that information now, and I think we should discuss
that in some more depth when we get to that point.
But again, the General Plan Committee did not
propose, I believe, much adjustment to this table, and I
wouldn’t be in favor of having cottage clusters mixed with
the more dense retail environment in the Northern District,
but again, I think this is a little bit of the tail wagging
the dog. I think you start with what do the districts look
like? What percentage of residential and commercial do they
have? Then you work on the housing type that fits into
that. I’m concerned that we’re locking onto the numbers
that I put out there without much analysis and then
revising this table on that basis, and so I’m concerned and
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I would not be in favor necessarily of making changes to
this table.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Actually, from a Staff
perspective, if the goal is to spread the units, whether
it’s 33%/33%/33%, that’s one approach, but actually given
the Vision Statement for the Lark District, which has some
language about primarily being residential, that lends
itself to support a notion of 40%, something slightly
higher in Lark compared to the others. So while the
Commissioner may not have given it much thought, it
actually suits the purpose and is consistent with the
language that’s already in the Specific Plan, so that’s why
Staff continued to promote that idea.
I think when we were modifying the permitted land
uses, all we’re saying is that if you want to spread the
units, then we probably need to create some options for
additional housing types. So if, for example, the
Commission says we appreciate that, but for the transition
zone in Northern cottage clusters is appropriate, it’s too
low of a density, we’re already going to be challenged if
we do any of that up anyway, so let’s just keep that in
Lark.
That could be part of your recommendation, but I
would say you might want to give consideration to townhomes
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or row houses in at least the Northern District, just so
that you have more flexibility, especially if the
Commission—as we’ll be discussing later—takes away the
vertical mixed-use requirement where the housing has to be
above commercial, then your developers are going to want to
have more choice as to what product they could build to
meet the housing objective.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I think we should not
forget that the original Specific Plan had a different
concept than what we’re talking about. The tail end of the
housing got to the Northern District, that’s why it was on
the second floor. Most of the housing went on Lark, and the
name of the Transition District tells us what it was, and
that tells us it transitions into something that isn’t
housing.
But now we’re say it is housing, because we’re
going to take 40%, which leaves 60%, and we’re going to
divide that equally so it’s 30%/30%. The Transition
District will be no different than the Northern District,
so it really, perhaps, won’t be transitional. Those things
are just names and they came from a different Specific
Plan, so I don’t think we should be hung up on those.
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But if we’re sincere about saying we want a
significant number of houses on the North 40, then let’s
get rid of all the stuff that would be an impediment to
that, and that would be building on the second story. I do
think we have to take into consideration things we haven’t,
i.e. is there any problem with the dual freeways, and how
does it lay out? Now, we’re talking like land is just a
shirt and you just cut it; we’re not doing that. I don't
know what it looks like down there, but I know in the past
where we spent seven or eight years we said oh no, we’re
not putting a lot of housing down there. In fact, putting
it on the second floor was almost like we’re not putting
any housing down there.
Now we’re saying we don’t have any background in
this, we don’t really know what we’re doing, but it sure
sounds nice if we spread the housing around. I agree we
should spread the housing around, but then I think we have
to access the new Specific Plan as a new Specific Plan and
not try to jam things into the old Specific Plan.
But one thing I think Staff is worried about, and
maybe I’m wrong, we don’t want to do something that says
wait a minute, now you have to do a new environmental
study, and I agree with that. If we can say we want 30% of
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the housing on the northern property, I don’t see why that
would trigger the environmental problem.
I will say traffic will be different. If you put
40% here, 30% here, and 30% here, the traffic pattern is
going to be different, but I think we definitely don’t want
to defend the old names, the old nomenclature, the old idea
of where we’re going to put it. I think we should start
with we’re going to spread the housing over the whole
thing. I think Commissioner Hudes is right, we just can’t
pull a number out of the air, which is kind of what we did,
and I respect you for saying that. So we’ve got to get to
that, and maybe we have to say a little bit looser. Maybe
we say 40-50%, I don’t have any numbers, but make it a
little bit looser. I think everybody has said let’s spread
the housing, and I’m all for that. How we spread it and
what percentage we spread it, we’ve got to get to.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but let’s
remember let’s not lock ourselves into the old Specific
Plan if we’re going to make these substantial changes.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Just having heard the
discussion, I think we haven’t discussed it, but I agree
with Commissioner O'Donnell that if we’re going to go to
this direction I think we have to consider removing the
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requirement for having residential over commercial in the
Northern District, because you have to offer enough
flexibility to potential developers. Further, I agree with
our Town Manager’s comments.
I would probably just think about this table,
with the exception of the cottage cluster units, as at
least a starting point, but without the cottage cluster in
Transition District and Northern District, as a starting
point of trying to have a flexible enough system that fits
within the existing plan. But we might want to think about
the numbers again, because the one problem with the
40%/30%/30% is although it does make it fairly even, it
does make the Transition District and the Northern District
basically equal from that perspective. I mean there isn’t
anything that’s going to make one different than the other.
We have to look at the commercial uses, but I think that
it’s not going to be that much different.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: To Commissioner
O'Donnell’s point, I raised the question, as Ms. Prevetti
and Mr. Paulson know, at the end of the second General Plan
Committee meeting about if in fact we’re intending to
significantly change the nature of the plan then we might
need to rethink the concept of the districts, and that
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wasn’t greeted with any applause by the other members of
the General Plan Committee, including either of the Council
members who are on it, and I assume Mr. Paulson was
professional enough not to really cheer when they did that,
since it would involve a significant amount of work on this
staff.
That being said, my sense is—and I know from
talking with Commissioner Hudes that he did in fact use
them as examples, not as what he was suggesting—if I assume
that we’re going to maintain the district descriptions in
general from them, then I might suggest that the percentage
difference between the Lark District and Northern District
should be greater than 10%. For the sake of making the same
error that Commissioner Hudes made, I might suggest that
the first number for the Lark District, if you look at the
language in the Lark District, that it’s intended to be—I’m
going to use my language, not what’s in there—heavily or
primarily residential, the numbers should probably be at
least 50%, at least 50% in that area, and so that would
suggest to me if there’s not supposed to be as much
residential in the Northern District that it needs to
shrink down some, so maybe make it half of what it was.
I’m talking about conceptual numbers but also
getting close to actual numbers, so you might have 50% and
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25%, and then I do think the sum of the percentages,
whatever they end up being, should be in fact greater than
100%, because if not we are literally, I believe from a
developer standpoint, just prescribing what it is and we
will take some flexibility away, and we would need to
figure out what the language is that says the maximum is
against these percentages but the total can’t exceed.
I don't know how you write that language, but we
do that with the square footage of commercial and other
square footages where the sum of the parts is greater than
the total that’s allowed, so I assume there’s a way to do
that, because then we provide some flexibility as we move
through the process.
We shouldn’t assume just because we got an
application, and the first time we got an application that
it started in the Lark District, that if in fact the Town
prevails in the existing litigation that the first
application that we could get with a new Specific Plan
would necessarily start in the Lark District; we shouldn’t
assume that, because it might not. It might start in the
Northern District, or it might start in the Transition
District, it might start most any place, so we shouldn’t
assume that. We would need the flexibility to allow that
maybe it starts in the Transition District, so we need the
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flexibility to allow that to be maybe 40% of the housing or
some other, because we might have someone who would come
into the Transition District and take ten acres and develop
it at 20 units per acre, we don’t know, so it seems like if
that sum of the percentages is exactly 100% it becomes
prescriptive and takes away flexibility that might serve
the Town and enable developers to be more responsive to us.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I would agree with both
points that I picked up out of many that Commissioner
Erekson raised, one being to put a mechanism for
flexibility in there, and if we think that one way to do
that would be to have an up-to percentage number that was
greater than added up to 100% in total, that might be one
way to do it, and I’d be supportive of that.
Also, on reflection it makes sense to be
consistent with the language that’s been written for the
different districts, and so something that reflects
potentially a higher percentage in the Lark District would
make sense to me as well.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I think all this is
necessary. You people have gone through it on your
committee and I have not, so bear with me for a minute. I
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don’t know how we stay with the original concept, because
the original concept was housing, transitional, basically
non-housing, and there’s a consensus of opinion that the
only way you can kind of take care of some of these
problems is to make a better spreading across the property,
and nobody is disagreeing with that, but that will change
what the original concept was, and I think we ought to just
say that. It doesn’t do any good to say we’re going to stay
with the original concept; we’re just going to change
everything.
I agree that more than half of it, perhaps, or
half or more, can stay down with the Lark District, because
that just made sense for many reasons. Then the question
simply becomes how much do you put on what we call
Transition versus how much do you put on Northern? I don't
know, and maybe we don’t have to know. We can say there’s
50% less, and we want to make sure that at least X percent
of that goes on each, because otherwise we wouldn’t be
spreading, but there might be some flexibility and I think
that’s what has been said now twice, so that at the end of
the day there will be more housing, for example, on the
Northern than there might be on the Transition, we don’t
know, it depends on the people who come in. But, and this
is Commissioner Erekson’s point, you’re starting with more
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than 100%, but at the end of the day you can’t have more
than 100%, but you didn’t know that going in, but you will
certainly know it coming out, and at some point a developer
is going to say whoops, now I know where we are on this
last piece.
I don’t want us to fall into this concept of
somehow we’re keeping the old plan, because we aren’t,
unless we say it is true that Lark is going to be primarily
residential; that I would agree with. I don't know what
we’d say as to Transition and Northern, because Northern is
now a heck of a lot more residential than it was to start
with. We have said before it’s not going to be primarily
housing; now it could be as much as 25% of the total number
as housing. That’s a lot of housing compared to the
Transition, which also might be 25%, or Northern could be
30%, let’s say, versus 20%.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, I’m going to interrupt
here, because I’d like the Town Manager to address us.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Well, I think this is a really
valuable conversation, because it’s kind of getting to the
fundamental point about what is our responsibility, and
what’s being asked of us this evening and at subsequent
hearings as we consider amendments to the plan?
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The Council gave us some boundaries when they
first started this back in September. They said try to
identify specific changes to the plan that address the
concerns that were raised during the first application, so
that we can have better certainty that the next time an
applicant picks up the plan that they will know what it is
the Town wants and will be able to provide an application
that meets that.
Then they said work within the parameters of our
existing Environmental Impact Report, our existing Housing
Element, and we’re not doing a total rewrite of the
Specific Plan, so I think the delicate line we’re trying to
find is how do we do something like spread the housing
across three distinct areas that have been defined as land
use districts in a way that maintains the integrity of this
notion of three districts? I think the basis of this
conversation is saying that the 40%/30%/30% might have been
a good starting point, but that’s inherently inconsistent
with the notion, so I think you’ve convinced us. Both Joel
and I have moved off the 40%/30%/30%, and whether it’s
50%/30%/20%, or up to 60%/20%/20% or some other range, the
point has been made and that’s been very valuable.
I think as we continue to move forward we’re
going to have to do the additional work of really going
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word-by-word and seeing this is a Transition District,
because it provides a certain mix of uses, and the Northern
District has also a mix of uses, but may have a different
balance of what that mix is. It might have more commercial,
office, retain than housing, but it will still have
housing, so have we met that objective of spreading the
units? So it will take some finesse, but I think we have
not been asked to do a new Specific Plan.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell followed by
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I don't know where we’re
going now. Maybe we’re going to wait for some further work.
I don't know where we’re going, but I believe this exercise
is to attempt to address the concerns of our citizens who
were not happy with the original plan, so I think we have
to do more than tinker with the location of the density,
because if all we’re going to do is to say we could have
had 335 units and we’re to spread those 335 units over the
whole property rather than part of it, aren’t you all happy
now, the answer is going to be no, we’re not all happy now.
So I think we have to decide a little bit about what do we
have to do besides…
Part of the real objection to our look and feel
and things like that, which are going to be very, very
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difficult, I really think this housing thing, when I think
we’ve essentially been told you want to spread that around,
we can do that, and I think we can come up with better
concepts on how to do that, I honestly don’t think that’s
going to be as big a problem as the other problems, which
are what were people really unhappy with? If you had to
summarize it, it would be look and feel. Now, there’s still
the question of can we ever satisfy people on look and
feel, and I don't know the answer to that, but we can
certainly try. We’re going to get to that I assume, but
that’s really going to be where this is.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: With respect to the
comments that our Town Manager and Commissioner O'Donnell
just made, we haven’t talked about the commercial yet, but
as it stands there’s a proposal to, in addition to the
total limits on numbers of square footage potential, put
limits on percentage of square footage in each district. So
if you look at the mix, and I don’t think you were
necessarily having to throw out the intent of the plan, if
it turns out that it’s accepted that there’s going to be a
higher percentage of commercial in the Northern District
than the least percentage in Lark, and then you kind of do
a little of the opposite on the residential, I don’t think
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it completely changes the intent of the districts. I mean,
we’ll have to look at the total picture, but it seems like
we’re not that far off, although when I first looked with
the percentage thing I did have the same concern that
Commissioner Erekson did, which is if you don’t have more
than 100% we might not get what we need, and so we might
want to change those percentages.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I have an asset and a
liability. The liability is I wasn’t in on the ground floor
and I don’t serve on the GPC. The asset is I wasn’t in on
the ground floor and I don’t serve on the GPC. I think the
closer you are to this the more you’re going to beat it to
death, and I’m listening, and I’m listening and I’m
learning. No offense, guys, I love all of you. God so loved
mankind that she did not send a committee.
The Town Council wants us to give guidance, and
what we’ve heard from the people, from the hundreds and
hundreds of letters that we’ve received, and we know what
those are, I would say that we’ve gotten to a point where
on 2-5-1 maximum development clearly there needs to be some
flexibility, and there needs to be a fundamental concept
that the majority of houses, or a larger number of houses,
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needs to go into Lark, so that means you’ve got X, and then
you’ve got smaller numbers in the other two.
Off the top of my head, I’ve always seen—and I am
stuck in the old version, Tom, mentally—that the middle
ground was going to be commercial, and the northern ground
was going to be don’t know, and what I’m thinking for the
northern ground is what I’ve heard from the people, and
certainly it meets my opinion, that that’s a place for a
hotel and a conference center.
So we say to Council this might be a workable
idea, and there’s the flexibility to do whatever numbers
needs to be done to get to the 270 or the other number with
the housing bonus, and what we’ve done on 2.1 is, again, a
whole bunch of flexibility. Now it conflicts with 2.1; we
can discuss that later. I don’t understand, one of them
says Northern District with above commercial, and the other
one says Los Gatos Boulevard, but whatever it is, it gives
support to the idea of flexibility, and that’s, I think,
what Council needs to know, what we think we’ve heard from
the people, and what we think we think, and then they can
take it from there and give it back to the experts to do
the actual language.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you for clarifying
that.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: I just think we’re beating
these guys to death and we need to make recommendations,
common sense, that we heard.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioner Hudes, and
then after that we are going to take a break.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I would just add that I
agree with the Town Manager’s proposal on how to handle
this, and I think it’s adequate in terms of addressing the
public’s needs and responsive to the Council. I personally
am not very good at getting into philosophical discussions
about is this new, is this a change? For me, I’m going to
take these one at a time, and I think that this is within
the direction that we were given by the Council, and I also
think it’s within the direction that we were given by the
public.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, with that we’re going
to take a ten-minute break.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR BADAME: The meeting has resumed, and Vice
Chair Kane would like to make some comments.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I just want to clarify, if I
might, my ending remarks.
I’ve read the verbatim minutes of both the GPC
meetings, and I think they are absolutely outstanding. I
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mentioned to somebody I don't know why we didn’t do this in
the first place, but that’s very complicated, and I wasn’t
here.
I’ve also read the Exhibit 9, and all of the
letters from all the public, and I think Exhibit 9 has got
it right. We can tweak it here and there, but Council wants
guidance on what we think and what we think we’ve heard
from Town people, and I think it’s all here. If you read
those minutes of the GPC and you read Exhibit 9, it’s 90%
all here. This is a great document, and I think we should
accelerate our progress, maybe even take a null hypothesis
approach to what is wrong, what doesn’t work with Exhibit
9? I haven’t found a lot of fault with it, but again, I
haven’t spent as much time as the GPC committee members
have, but I’m not speaking for the Commission, I’m speaking
for me, and I’m advising Council that I think this is a
great document, I think it’s mostly here and it’s vastly
improved, and that’s the message they ought to get.
Then give it to Mr. Paulson, who has got the
expertise to work out these kinks to the degree he can with
the resources at this disposal, and that’s going to be
we’re not expediting, we’re giving Joel the three months he
needs to put this all together.
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So that’s what I think. I think we can run it
through the temptation of beating it death, we can go
through it, but take the position that this is a really
good document, GPC did a great job, and I think the people
are consistent with what’s here, because it’s in their
letters. That’s what Council needs to know, and then Mr.
Paulson needs to get on with his job.
CHAIR BADAME: Well stated. Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Based on Commissioner
Kane’s comments, I think Mr. Paulson should ask the Town
Manager for a raise.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I agree, and additional
staffing, but he says he has no budget, so we’re stuck.
CHAIR BADAME: I’m going to call the question.
All in favor?
All right, we need to move along, and hopefully
we can go quicker, and some of these items might be easier.
So we are on Item 3 about the vision of how we’re
spreading these units to make it fit with other uses and
fit in the neighborhood idea. So 2.7.3 talks about guiding
future residential development that reflects the
traditional character of existing residential architecture.
Comments? Vice Chair Kane.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell has
mentioned a couple of times that the riding factor in the
issue is the look and feel of Los Gatos, and now Council
has heard that again; I think that is a key issue. Given
our housing requirements that is a challenge, but we did
have a gentleman here who gave us 85 pictures last time,
and maybe they could be included as a document or
supplemented by work of our own to give the developer a
better idea of what it is that we’re looking for and what
it is we think the people want and need.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I’m going to be really
quick. I wrote down two words when I read that, and I said
“good idea” about the pictures.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes followed by
Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I agree, I think it’s a good
idea; that was my reaction. I also appreciated the language
from Mr. Pacheco on this, but I believe that wouldn’t fit
here, that that language might fit for appropriately
somewhere else, and that goes into explaining traditional
character of the existing residential architecture. I
didn’t have time to take that comment and figure out where
it goes, but I did want to say that I think that language
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would be a valuable addition to the plan, maybe not in this
spot, but maybe somewhere else.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The problem I have is
I’ve only lived here since 1972. When you look at the unit
sizes, 500 square foot unit, it’s pretty hard to get the
look and feel of Los Gatos out of a 500 square foot unit,
so I don't know, the look and feel. I remember what houses
looked like in the Second World War, and they were pretty
small, and maybe we’re going back to the Second World War
construction. Again, I don't know that that’s the look and
feel of Los Gatos.
I think we have more of a problem, because if we
make the units smaller the concept of look and feel can be
done, I think, but I think it will be a question of how we
do it. I think it would be easier to do it, for example,
with the cottage cluster than it might be with townhomes,
but perhaps not with row homes. Now, we don’t have anybody
helping us like an architect or something, but when I just
sit here and say how many 500 square foot houses do you
know in town, how many 500 square foot anything do you have
in town, and so look and feel, it’s going to be a trick. It
could happen, I guess, but I just don’t think it’s a gimme,
and therefore I think what we’re doing here, going over it
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item-by-item, is necessary. I think Joel did a wonderful
job, but the whole point of everybody is so that we can add
our thoughts and we can take them into consideration.
I’m as troubled by look and feel today as I was
on the original, because that’s a very amorphous concept,
and hopefully we can come up with something that would be
clearer, because if I were going to try to interpret look
and feel, my interpretation, I guarantee, would be
different than somebody else’s. I don't know what we do
about that, but perhaps by going over all this we can.
If there were anything we can do which is
helpful, it would be help the Council know how to talk
about look and feel in a way that somebody could be guided
by it. I’m not guided by the concept of Los Gatos, because
I have a view of what parts of Los Gatos look like and what
other parts don’t, and so hopefully we’ll be able to help
on look and feel.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I’m sorry to interrupt, but
there are a lot of images in the document, and actually I
think maybe for homework, if I could be so bold, there
might be some images that you feel maybe they really don’t
belong in the Specific Plan, they’re too boxy, they don’t
really represent the look and feel, so I think it would be
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of interest to know, well, maybe some of these need to not
be in the illustrative guidelines.
And we do have an architect on staff, so we have
a professional who has expertise both in public and private
sector to help us with this, but I think it would be
instructive to really look at the images in the plan and
say, you know, some of these have got to go, because
they’re sending the wrong message.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: One of the big problems
before was the look and feel of large buildings, for
example. Not everything was going to be residential, and
that was a very difficult concept, because if you’re going
to build a 30’ high building that’s going to be used for
commercial purpose, look and feel then is all over the lot.
You can say it should have looked like Lunardi’s, it should
have looked like Nob Hill. What should it look like? And
those are typically not great architectural buildings, if I
can be so bold, so as we get into this we’ll have to decide
what the heck does look and feel mean? But I will do what
you’re suggesting, go back and look at the pictures.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane followed by
Commissioner Erekson.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, again, the flexibility is
what’s important. Four says require small or more
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affordable. Yes. Five says allow smaller units from 900 to
1,500, and I agree with Commissioner O'Donnell, is 500 a
practical… But again, it’s range, and so if there was a
studio—somebody wrote a letter about people looking for a
small studio as a starter—500 is really, really small. I
don't know if that’s practical, but we give Council a
range, and we make the point that we want some of them
smaller, we want some of them more affordable, and if you
want to start at 500, that’s fine, if you want to start at
900, that’s fine, but we’re giving them the flexibility,
because that’s what people have asked for, and so I’m okay
with four, five, and six, just for openers. Oh, and seven,
if we can do it. Can we apply BMP to all of the land, or is
there a limit on that?
JOEL PAULSON: The guidelines from the BMP
Ordinance do apply to the site.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Great.
JOEL PAULSON: It’s already in the Specific Plan.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m okay with that one too.
Like I said, I think they did a great job.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: The language itself that
was suggested by the Staff in my opinion doesn’t add any
greater clarity; it just adds some other words. It provides
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more words to debate, that is what I think it provides.
That’s not necessarily meant as a criticism, just as an
observation.
I think the residential architecture is eclectic
throughout the Town, because the neighborhoods in the Town
were developed over three centuries, so they’re eclectic,
so I think there’s no harm in the language that was added,
but what I wrote down in my notes coming was, “As
illustrated in,” which is exactly where the Town Manager
was going. So I think there’s no harm in that language,
unless it’s just left by itself, because all it does by
adding it is allow more debate.
But then I would say, “As illustrated in,” and
then how many… Whatever we mean by this language, we
illustrated it then, and then we can say hmmm… So a
developer comes, they give us a picture of a building, we
can say hmmm, doesn’t look like any of these pictures,
apparently it doesn’t reflect the traditional character of
existing residential architecture in Los Gatos, but now we
don’t have any basis upon which to do that.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I agree with that completely,
and I meant to put that in my remarks that I don’t see it
here, but it ought to be added that we’ve included an
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addendum of all of the pictures that you referenced, and
your idea about what doesn’t look right is perfect. I used
to play that game and say what don’t belong in this
picture, and I could do that, you know, this one is out,
that one is out. But it wouldn’t hurt if we just got a
rough consensus and attached those pictures, not only from
the book, but from anywhere else. Mr. Pacheco has probably
got a hundred of them.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think the one thing we
have to be careful of is that so much of the Housing
Element is in the North 40, and with the requirement to do
twenty dwelling units per acre I think something like 80%
of the housing that we have in town is single-family homes,
and there’s going to be a max of cottage cluster homes, if
that even ever gets built, in the North 40. So then that
kind of automatically speaks to the issue that it’s not
going to look and feel like what’s across the street,
because what’s across the street in the neighborhood across
Lark is single-family homes.
It seems like the best way we can address this,
since we’ve gone down this path and that’s what the Town
has committed to do is to look at the architecture, is try
to make it an architecture that’s much the same, or give
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examples of other things where it has twenty dwelling units
per acre that we already have in Los Gatos if we think
that’s look and feel, but that’s an elusive goal given the
requirements of the plan and the Housing Element.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I would just add that most of
the housing, if not all, in the Specific Plan is really
intended to be multi-family and multi-units; so you
wouldn’t see a 500 square foot home all by itself, it would
be within a larger complex. Some of the architectural
photos show two-story buildings and multi-story buildings
with architectural elements that reflect look and feel, so
it would be a different housing type, but the architectural
themes might be similar to what you’ve seen in our eclectic
neighborhoods.
VICE CHAIR KANE: What page and chapter are you
(inaudible)?
LAUREL PREVETTI: I was on page 2-28 and 2-29,
just for images.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I had hoped the maybe
we could come up with dos and don’ts, as we’ve done in
hillside and things like that, and I’m losing hope that
that’s going to be possible to do, given the variety of
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housing types and given the need and the concentration of
multi-family that we have here.
Each time I read this suggestion from Mr.
Pacheco, I get more and more out of it. I think that
there’s a lot of merit in taking a really good look at
including this and referencing this, because it gives some
guidelines that I think do a better job of conveying the “I
know it when I see it,” than trying to come up with
specific dos and don’ts, and so I want to convey that I’m
very enthusiastic about these four points of design
excellence and benchmarks that I believe could be used.
They’re more objective certainly than what’s in there now,
but they are not so specific that it would be difficult for
someone to work with.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I guess I’m not as
concerned as Commissioner Hanssen is about this, because my
sense is architectural style can be applied to single-
family, multi-family, et cetera, so the questions is about
architectural style and how elements of a particular style
are used, so to the extent that we could articulate well,
either with pictures or in language, that certain
architectural styles are how we define the look and feel. I
mean, I’m not an architect. They said that we could
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identify ones that are maybe even predominant in the Town
or something that would reflect and so forth, then you have
a clearer definition of what that is, because they can span
multi-family and all kinds of (inaudible) housing.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I was just wondering if we
could get a consensus on Commissioner Hudes’ suggestion
that we underscore, highlight, or incorporate the letter
from Len Pacheco and the four points? I think everyone
knows Len has served as Chairperson of the Historic
Preservation Committee since Fremont rode in, and he knows
a great deal about architecture and these points, and I
agree with Commissioner Hudes that we pass that on to the
Town Council.
CHAIR BADAME: I would agree in passing those
comments to the Town Council, and I’m seeing a nod of heads
from everyone? All right, I think we have some consensus on
that. We are making progress.
All right, the smaller affordable units, we have
the chart. Are we all in consensus with that, the range
starting at 500 square feet to 1,200 square feet?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Only in so far as it gives them
flexibility, but I agree with Commissioner O'Donnell, it
may not be practical, but it’s flexible, it’s there.
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CHAIR BADAME: Okay. All right, on page 4 it
talks about new residential should be a maximum of 345,000
gross square feet for cottage cluster, garden cluster,
townhome, and row house products, and 207,000 net square
feet for condos, multi-family, apartments, and affordable
products. Any comments on that?
Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Well, it’s the old thing about
giving a number. It’s nice to say they’re maximums, not
goals, but that will be taken as a target sometimes. I
would just say something like, “These are maximums and
shall not be exceeded,” but the numbers themselves have
been reduced, so I think that communicates the desire for
it to be smaller; I would support that.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, it appears we have
consensus on that, so I’m going to move to the next one
where we’ve got some redlining, and that would be don’t
allow residential on Los Gatos Boulevard. It talks about
the Perimeter Overlay Zone and that residential is only
allowed when located above commercial along Los Gatos
Boulevard. Do we have comments on that?
Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: There were the two units on Los
Gatos Boulevard near the gas station that Commissioner
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Erekson brought up and that I brought up, and they just
seemed to be like sore thumbs out place, so I could support
the revision and the red underline. Elsewhere it talks
about, I’m guessing it was 27 and 28, that they come out
for a variety of reasons, and when we get to that I would
support that as well.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I agree with that concept
about eliminating it. I think the wording, I would suggest
rewording it to be residential, “Residential on Los Gatos
Boulevard is only allowed when located above commercial,”
rather than the way it’s worded now.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, do we have a consensus
on that? Would anybody like to add a comment to the
contrary?
Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Not to the contrary, but I
was going to suggest my sense is this was trying to solve
the problem that Commissioner Kane was talking about, so I
would have suggested that parks be also allowed facing Los
Gatos Boulevard, which is another way to have a consistency
facing the Boulevard that could be actually accessed from
the interior and the exterior.
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One of the problems with commercial and the
location that was of concern is it’s challenging to access
it off of the Boulevard and doesn’t make sense from a
development standpoint to access it from the interior;
that’s the real challenge generally. So to put parks or
additional green space on the Boulevard would seem like to
me to be another way to address the concern and have a
consistency.
CHAIR BADAME: I would agree with that,
Commissioner Erekson, and along with that it would provide
a buffer.
Our next item is provide senior housing at the
ground level, and there is wording that states, “If age
restricted housing is proposed, at grade accessible units
and/or units that are accessed via elevator, ramps, and
lifts are encouraged.”
Comments from Commissioners? Commissioner
Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have great sensitivity
to trying to write these kind of things, since I spent a
lot of my career trying to write these kind of things, but
if I had written this my staff would have told me just go
back to the drawing board, buddy, because what it says is
you can have units on the ground floor or you can have
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units above, and if you have units above you have to give
them access to it, so I’m not sure what this… If the
direction is to put units on the ground floor, we should
say that; we should eliminate the second half of the
sentence. As it’s written now, it doesn’t serve any
purpose, it seems like to me.
CHAIR BADAME: Don’t take offense, Mr. Paulson.
You still deserve a raise. Comments?
VICE CHAIR KANE: I glad it wasn’t just me; I
didn’t understand it. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, comments? Commissioner
Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I haven’t really processed
what Commissioner Erekson said in terms of should we only
have it at grade level. I am simply suggesting a reword of
this: “If age restricted housing is proposed, it should be
accessible from grade, elevator, and ramp or lift.”
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: How else would it be
accessed?
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Well, I’m just rewording a
sentence that…
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: (Inaudible).
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CHAIR BADAME: All right, this seems like some
minor tweaking that I’m sure Mr. Paulson is highly capable
of fixing. He has a heavy workload, so I don’t…
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If there is some other
way, would you add it, please?
CHAIR BADAME: All right, Vice Chair Kane
followed by Commissioner Hanssen.
VICE CHAIR KANE: For the benefit of Council,
we’ve talked about seniors being on second and third floors
and subject to the tyranny of the elevator, and that grabs
my imagination. That would be a terrible thing, but we also
had expert testimony from a person whose employment was to
put people up on the ninth floor, and it worked just fine,
so it may be something I don’t understand; this is not my
expertise. I can get rid of the pictures and the movies of
seniors being trapped, but I’d also have someone be willing
to look into do these things actually work, and I think the
report we received it was on the ninth floor and it worked
just fine. So again, some flexibility for Council.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I don't know about the
wording or what, but I know when we discussed this in the
General Plan Committee we did talk about accommodating the
needs of seniors. We also talked about disabled persons and
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accommodating their needs as well, so do we have to
specifically call out the population? I think we have unmet
needs in our town that require grade accessible units, and
so that should be accommodated by the housing that’s built.
I don't know to what extent.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I would say to the extent
possible…
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: To the extent possible.
VICE CHAIR KANE: …because Council has advised us
that we can’t get it. Now, there may be a gray area or an
asterisk or something, so Council should be advised that if
we could get it, that would be wonderful.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If F were omitted, what
difference would it make? It doesn’t say anything. I mean,
we’re all in favor of access, period. So what? You can’t
get in a house without access, so I mean why do we have to
say that?
JOEL PAULSON: I think the suggestion was provide
senior housing at the ground level, and so…
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But that’s not what…
JOEL PAULSON: …I guess we can just add provide
senior housing at the ground level, if that makes you more
comfortable.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Which I don’t agree
with, because we know it won’t happen. Provide something
you know won’t happen and you’ll all be happy.
I think the sentence doesn’t add anything. If you
want to say something, we can decide we ought to be saying
make it on ground level. I mean, you could say “if
possible,” but from what we’ve heard from everybody, if you
say put the senior housing on ground level, that’s like
saying but we’re not having any senior housing, which I
don’t think is a good idea. So then I’m saying if that’s
true--and I’m not criticizing, I think the draft thing is
fine—I just don’t know why we need it.
JOEL PAULSON: And that simply could be that the
Planning Commission doesn’t think this is necessary and
recommends this moves forward.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I guess my advice to the
Staff; you’ve gotten a lot of observation about we should
have senior housing on the ground level. What I would put
in and take forward is, “If age restricted housing is
proposed, grade level accessible is encouraged,” and leave
it at that. That’s what you heard. Now, whether that’s
feasible or not is a different question, and then the
Council has to own the direction that they provided and
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then decide whether or not they want to put something in,
what you heard.
What I think you tried to do was sanitize what
you had heard, which is like okay, this seems like a screwy
idea to say put senior housing on ground level, and you
tried to save people from themselves. I wouldn’t try to
same them from themselves on this issue, I’d just put it in
there the way they provided you the direction and let them
leave it if they want to, or let them take it out.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, good points. Unless there
are further comments, we’ll move on to what probably Vice
Chair Kane would say is a sticky wicket, and that is
consider the possibility of moving the houses away from
Highway 17 and putting commercial in that area. Comments
from any Commissioners? No sticky wicket, Vice Chair Kane?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I don't know what that
means. Consider moving them where, another 5’?
JOEL PAULSON: I think on page 6 there’s
currently you can’t have a building within 30’ of a
property line adjacent to a freeway, so the suggestion is
that that be increased and then not allowing residential in
whatever that increase may be, and that was the suggestion
that was carried forward.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So the increase then
would be the increase of what you provided on the next
page?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Well, then maybe the
next page ought to reflect the suggestion that we think
it’s too small, because I mean those two statements, you
can read them together and say oh, I guess it’s 30’ is
moving it away from the freeway, but that’s not your
intention.
JOEL PAULSON: Thirty feet is what exists in the
Specific Plan today.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Right.
JOEL PAULSON: So whether or not that number
should be increased.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Right, but I’m saying we
ought to link them. I don’t see them being linked, is all
I’m saying. You know the suggestion related to… Where is
it? I guess all I’m saying is if what you’re saying is no
building shall be located within 30’ of a property line—
isn’t that what you’re saying?—let’s consider whether that
30’ ought to be increased.
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I guess if you say that,
that’s fine. Maybe I’m misreading it.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I think what we want to know is
is there another number based on the testimony that you’ve
heard and reading the verbatim minutes. Given the narrow
piece of land that we’re dealing with, if 30’ is too small,
you’ve heard testimony about 100’, 330’.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We have state laws that
provide as long as you take certain mitigation measures.
For example, you have double pane windows that are closed
and you have an air conditioner. They tell you how far you
can do it and get a building permit. Now, if somebody says
I just don’t like that, then that becomes much more
subjective.
CHAIR BADAME: All right. Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Tom said what I was going to
say: Just go with the state law standards. I appreciate
what Ms. Anne Robinson said about the 300’, 100’…
CHAIR BADAME: And Markene Smith as well.
VICE CHAIR KANE: That’s who I meant.
CHAIR BADAME: No, there are two people; Markene
Smith and Anne Robinson actually both spoke to that.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I empathize with both of them,
but for this project, given that it’s narrow, and given
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that we want a whole lot of other things, I’d go with the
state requirements.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I couldn’t support
anything that wasn’t already… I mean, this issue has been
addressed in the Environmental Impact Report and the
mitigation measures, and so it seems like to me that’s
sufficient, and to impose some other what would be a
somewhat arbitrary number seems like to me not to be
something that I would support.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I agree.
VICE CHAIR KANE: We agree.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: I feel like there’s a lack
of technical information here on this particular one. I
mean, it wasn’t only two people who’ve raised this; there
were a number of people that raised it in the hearings that
we had earlier. I think it’s a concern. I am not willing to
throw a number out there. I am suggesting that we do a
little more research and see whether there is a trend in
this, whether this is an evolving area, and whether it’s
something that should consider above and beyond what is
contained in the environmental impact requirements. That’s
my personal opinion, that we ought to get a little more
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information on it; I feel like it’s one that we don’t have
much on.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We have an EIR that says
it’s fine if what we’re saying is we ought to redo the EIR.
There are probably other things that would be interesting
to look into, but we do have an EIR that considered the
issue and laid it to rest. But if we want to reopen that, I
guess the only question is what does that do to out
position that what we’re doing does not require a revision
to the EIR? I would personally just as soon leave the EIR
alone.
CHAIR BADAME: I’d like to leave the EIR alone
too, but the EIR also says that there’s no problem with
traffic, so I would agree with Commissioner Hudes that
perhaps this is an area that does warrant further research,
so I’m not quite sure we have consensus on this item.
Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: This is probably a
question for Mr. Schultz. If the Town decided that it
wanted to increase that number, don’t worry about what
number to increase it to, but to increase this number
because they thought that was the right thing to do, given
that the Environmental Impact Report has answered that
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question, could a developer challenge the fact that the
Town was imposing something that wasn’t supported by the
EIR?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: So at this late night, yes, it
could be challenged. Anytime you’ve got your environmental
document that said there are significant impacts—and to
mitigate those impacts there have been the double pane
windows, the air conditioning, all those things have been
described to you that will mitigate that impact—if you’re
going to pick a different buffer you’re going to have to
have evidence that those mitigation measures weren’t going
to satisfy the impact and that the additional buffer will
do that for you, as opposed to I’m just going to choose a
larger number because I don’t want it close to the freeway.
If that was the direction, yes, we want additional buffer,
we’re going to have to do some evidence to support that
additional requirement, the same as if you looked at
traffic and wanted more to be done, we would need
additional studies that there was an impact that wasn’t
being reduced to less than significant, and this would also
do that, as opposed to just doing it.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Given that input, I’m not
advocating that we change the number. I am suggesting that
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we research and see whether other municipalities…or many
probably are facing a similar issue, how they’re addressing
it, and I don't know that we have that information before
us tonight, that’s all.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, we’re going to move on
to number twelve, which is increasing the total of number
of residential units on the North 40. This may have already
been addressed; there’s no redlining for us to talk about.
Commissioner Hanssen.
CHAIR BADAME: I think you’re correct. Maybe
Staff would want to weigh in, but I think it was related to
the possibility of lowering the density in the Lark
District.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, I’m going to poll the
Commissioners right now. We’re done with Residential, so
we’ve made some progress tonight. The next category would
be Commercial, which I believe will also be lively, so we
can continue on, or we can call it a night and categorize
it.
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: There were a couple things
that we discussed but maybe they didn’t make their way into
the Staff Report, maybe the General Plan Committee didn’t
really decide what to do with them, but I wanted to at
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least bring those up. They’re related to Residential,
that’s why I’m doing it.
CHAIR BADAME: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: One was the subject of
rental. The Specific Plan is silent about rental versus
ownership, and I know we had the discussion about certainly
encouraging a greater mix, and in the Phase 1 proposal that
we did receive for the current existing Specific Plan there
were a small amount of rental units. I just throw it out
there. Since we’re going through the change, is that
something we would want to consider?
We did get testimony during the North 40 hearings
that it was very unlikely that anyone would actually build
a for sale 500 square foot; it was be a rental unit. So I
just wondered, should we keep the Specific Plan silent on
this, or should we encourage to promote more affordability,
encourage a greater amount of rental units? So I throw that
out there.
Then, also, the other one was the continuing care
facilities as a permitted use, although is that commercial
or residential? Because they would be living there.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Clarification question with
regard to rental regarding Commissioner Hanssen’s point. Is
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rental permitted for the senior affordable housing? As I
recall, some of that was.
JOEL PAULSON: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is that the only place that
rental is permitted currently?
JOEL PAULSON: Well, it’s not permitted, it was
proposed. Rental is permitted anywhere; we don’t dictate
ownership type.
LAUREL PREVETTI: And that’s why you didn’t see
it in here is because it wouldn’t be appropriate for a Town
document to have a preference or encourage one tenure type
over another.
Then the continuing care, we have an idea of how
that could be accommodated, but given our time constraints
weren’t able to address all the comments that came, but
when the Commission is ready to discuss that we have an
idea of how it can be incorporated into the Specific Plan.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I was just looking
through my notes on the GPC Residential, and I agree with
Commissioner Hanssen that there was a desire to address
continuing care as one of the uses that fits in
residential; then we probably should come back to that when
we get back together.
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CHAIR BADAME: All right. Would we like to
continue with that, or would we like to move on to
Commercial and hope to tackle the CUP issue?
Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The issue to me is a break
right now would be great, but we’ve been at this for 45 of
the past 48 hours. What does that do to Staff in terms of
the calendar, a date certain? Does that put great stress on
you? Should we plod forward on this, or can we come back to
it on another date convenient to the calendar?
JOEL PAULSON: You can come back to it on another
day. We would poll the Planning Commission to look for a
date in January for another special meeting so we could
continue this discussion. I believe as Ms. Prevetti said
earlier, we’re not bound by that tentative schedule that we
set when we first had this conversation with the Council,
so we would look for dates, poll the Planning Commission,
and then come up with a special date and renotice the
hearing.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Then, Madam Chair, I would
suggest we do that. Let Staff get in touch with us with
suggested dates and see if we could find one that works for
all of us, if you all agree.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I would agree, because
I think the next section may not lend itself exactly to a
sequential process as much, so I think there would need to
be some broader discussion first.
CHAIR BADAME: Agreed.
VICE CHAIR KANE: And we would begin with this
thing on continuing care.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, then we’ll come back
with Continuing Care, and then the Commercial at a later
date to be determined.
So with that, Mr. Paulson, do you have a report
for us this evening?
JOEL PAULSON: I want to thank the Commission for
working through this. Obviously it’s been a pretty busy
week for you guys, with the hearing last night going long.
I’d also like to thank Commissioner Erekson for
his thoughtful service to the Town on the Planning
Commission for the last just shy of eight years. It’s been
a real pleasure working with Mr. Erekson since I’ve been
here, and I just want to recognize him for the great
service he has provided to the Town.
CHAIR BADAME: For Commission matters, I would
like to turn to Commissioner O'Donnell for a special
report.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yes, I would just like
to join in that. I’ve had the pleasure of serving with
Charlie on this for essentially eight years, and I have
done this even longer. There are some people who really
stand out in my roughly 14 years I think so far, and
Charlie is one of those people. He has not only
intelligence—intelligence in this valley is fortunately in
good supply—but he has something which is not perhaps in
such good supply, and that’s wisdom, and his wisdom has
been somewhat unique, unfortunately, and it’s very helpful.
Not only that, he has been a real pleasure to
serve with. I wish he had simply told me he was thinking
about not asking to be reapplied. He told me after the ship
had left the dock, and I couldn’t talk him out of it. I
personally will greatly miss seeing him. Fortunately, I
will see him elsewhere. I’m speaking for, hopefully, and
you can correct me if I should be corrected, I think all of
us will miss you, miss your counsel, miss your humor; we
will miss your presence. So thank you very much, Charlie.
CHAIR BADAME: I will second that. Did you want
to give a speech?
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: No, I don’t want to give a
long speech, but it was just nice for five members of the
Council back a little over eight years ago to take a chance
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on appointing me to the Planning Commission. It’s been a
pleasure to serve the citizens of the Town and the Council,
because we all serve at the pleasure of and support the
Council. It’s been absolutely wonderful to work with the
Staff, as I think I’ve expressed to present members of the
Staff and those are no longer members of the Staff.
When I was a young man I joined an organization,
and when you joined the organization the pledge says when
you become a member of this organization your duty is to
leave the organization not only not less than, but greater
than, when it was entrusted to you; that’s the ultimate
stewardship responsibility. So I will let others judge
whether the eight years that I stewarded a role on the
Planning Commission that I contributed to leaving it not
only not less than, but greater than, when the stewardship
was entrusted to me.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Here, here.
CHAIR BADAME: Here, here. Happy holidays to all.
This meeting is adjourned.