Item 03 - Hillside Development Standards & Guidelines - Staff Report & Exhibits 5-8TOWN OF LOS GATOS ITEM NO: 3
PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT
Meeting Date : December 2 , 2015
PREPARED BY:
SUMMARY :
RECOMMENDATION:
CEQA:
FINDING:
ACTION:
EXHIBITS:
Joel S. Paulson, Planning Manager
j paul so n@l os gatosca. gov
Public hearing to consider adoption of amendments to Chapter II.
(Constraints Analysis and Site Selection) and Chapter V.
(Architectural Design) of the Hill side Development Standards and
Guidelines
Forward a recommendation to the Town Council for approval of
amendments to Chapter II. and Chapter Y. of the Hillside
Development Standards and Guidelines .
It has been determined that there is no possibility that this project
will have a significant impact on the environment ; therefore, the
project i s not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act,
Section 15061 (b)(3): Review for exemption.
• Find that there is no possibility that this project will have a
significant impact on the environment; therefore, the project is
not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act,
Section 15061 (b)(3): Review for exemption (Exhibit 1).
Recommendation to Town Council.
Previously received with the September 23, 2015 Staff Report :
1. Required Findings
2. Proposed Amendments -Chapter II. Constraints Analysis and
Site Selection (six pages)
3 . Proposed Amendments -Chapter V. Architectural Design (12
pages)
4 . Comments from Dave Weissman (1 0 pages)
Received with this Staff Report:
5 . Y erbatim Minutes from the October 21, 20 15 Study Session
(90 pages)
6 . Proposed Methodology previously submitted by Dave
Weissman and Lee Quintana (four pages)
7. Letter from Lee Quintana submitted at the October 21 , 2015
Study Session (four pages)
8 . Letter from Dave Weissman (five pages)
Planning Commission StaffReport-Page 2
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines Modification
November 23,2015
BACKGROUND:
On September 23, 2015, the Planning Commission held a public hearing to consider proposed
amendments to the Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines (HDS&G) regarding light
reflectivity value (LRV) and visibility analysis (link to September 2015 report to the Planning
Commission and supporting attachments for Agenda Item 6:
http ://losgatos .gran i c us.com /GeneratedAgenda Yiewer.php?view id =5&clip id = 14 52).
Following a short discussion and receiving public testimony the Planning Commission continued
the matter to a Study Session on October 21, 2015.
On October 21,2015, the Planning Commission held a Study Session to discuss amendments to
the HDS&G regarding light reflectivity value (LR V) and visibility analysis (link to October 2015
report, Addendum to the Planning Commission report , and supporting attachments for the Study
Session: http://losgatoS.6Jfa nicu s.com /GeneratedAgenda Yiewer.php ?view id=5&clip id = 14 61 ).
Verbatim minutes for the October 21, 2015 Study Session are included in Exhibit 5 .
Following public testimony and Commission discussion regarding the proposed amendments, the
matter was continued to a Special Planning Commission meeting on December 2 , 2015.
DISCUSSION:
The Commission had a number of questions at the Study Session and requested that staff a ddress
the questions provide d by Dave Weissman and Lee Quintana in their visibility methodology
document. Additionally, the Commission requested additional information regarding the LRV
averaging for further discuss ion .
Visibility Methodology
Staff previously provi ded a proposed methodology for completing view analysis for hillside
homes. Exhibit 6 contains additional suggestions for the visibility methodology prepared by
Dave Weissman and Lee Quintana. Staff appreciates the thought and time that Dr. Wi essman
and Ms. Quintana put into Exhibit 6 and their subsequent correspondence (see Exhibits 7 and 8,
respectively). At the meeting, staff is available to answer the Commission 's questions on the
various components of the methodology and suggestions provided in Exhibits 6, 7, and 8. As the
Commission reviews the suggestions, consideration should be given as to the ability of
individual homeowners and their design professionals to complete the methodology. The
Commission could forward some or all of the proposed methodology components in Exhibit 6 to
Town Council if it is determined to be appropriate.
Planning Commission Staff Report-Page 3
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines Modification
November 23,2015
Exhibit 6 also contains the following three additional question s which are followed by staff
comments in italics:
1. Is the 25% visibility cutoff too generous?
This is the current standard in the HDS&G. If the Commission de cides that this
p ercentage should be lowered then that can be included in the Co mmission 's
recommendation to Town Council.
2. Should visibility calculations also consider the square footage of the elevation that is
visible?
The current and staff proposed methodology will use the square footage of elevations that
are visible from th e viewing platform(s) to calculate th e visibility as is currently required
in the HDS&G. It should be noted that visible homes are limited to a height of I8feet.
Therefore, an I8 foot tall home with an elevation that is 100 percent visible would
comply with the HDS&G.
3. Should the all important visibili ty calculations be peer reviewed by an outside source
who has no potential conflict of interest with the applicant?
If the Commission decides that this is appropriate th en that can be included in the
Commission's recommendation to Town Council. It should be noted that this type of
review has cost implications to applicants and the Town would need to go through a
request for qualifications process to select a consultant to provide this service.
Staff is also requesting input on the following questions relating to visibility analysis:
1 . Should a note be added to require a deed restriction regarding replacement of the trees
used for screening in the visibi lity analysis?
2. Should trees with poor or poor/fair ratings be used for screening in the visibility analysis?
3. Should trees with sparse canopies be used for screening in the visibility analysis?
4. Should visibility analysis be done at a specific time of year?
Staff will be available to address additional questions.
Staff also wanted to correct a statement that was made at the Study Session regarding
replacement requirements for trees that are blown over. The Town Tree Protection Ordinance
does not require replacement trees to be planted if a tree is dead or has an Extreme or High Tree
Risk Rating.
Planning Commission Staff Report -Page 4
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines Modification
November 23, 2015
LRV
Staff has pulled the following excerpts from Cannon Design Group 's letter for the Highland 's
PO modification to provide some additional general information regarding LRV:
"Staff has looked primarily at the wall color in interpre ting this standard. That can be
appropriate when homes stand out on valley hills ides, and dra w a great deal of attention to
th emselves by virtue of very light colors and substantial exposed vertical wall areas which stand
out starkly from th eir natural hillside setting. In other circumstances, that interpretation can
lead to some overly s omber home co lors . An LRV of 30 is a relative ly dark value, as shown on
the LRV value scale below. Th e scale can be found at th e following link and includes additional
information regarding LRV: http://thelando{Co/or. com /lrv-light-r eOectan ce-va lue-o(~pai nt
co lorsl
0% 10% 20% 30% 50% 60% 70%
The Los Gatos standard of 30 LRV is relatively low in my exp eri en ce. I have seen an LRV of 45
included in hillside design guidelines for Santa Clara County and also in a f e w places near
Phoenix and Scotts dale w her e the traditional adobe wall co lors fit comfortably with that co lor
va lue. Th e homes so far have been carefully designed with identifiable his toric architectural
styles with a great d eal of attention to authenticity of detail. Th e colors that wou ld be required
by adh erence to a wall color LRV of 30 would, in some cases, work very much against that
authenticity.
The applicant 's proposal to co nsider th e overall weighted averag ing of the LR V values appears
to have merit. Many of th e homes will not be vis ible from areas outside of th e immediate
d evel opment neighborhood. In looking at th e col or studies, /find most of th e wall co lors whic h
have been modified to be much too dark for good design and for th e ir appropriaten ess to th e
individual architectural s tyles of the homes."
Staff is also requesting input on the following questions relating to visibility analysis:
1. Is LRV averaging appropriate for hillside homes that are not visible pursuant to the
HDS&G?
Planning Commission Staff Report -Page 5
Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines Modification
November 23, 2015
2 . Should the roof material be included in the LRV averaging calculation?
3. Should there be a maximum LRV for individual exterior materials?
4. Should a maximum LRV apply to windows and trim?
Staff will be available to address additional questions.
CEQA DETERMINATION :
It has been determined that there is no possibility that this project will have a significant impact
on the environment; therefore, the project is not subject to the California Environmental Quality
Act [Section 15061 (b) (3)].
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION:
A. Conclusion
The draft amendments to Chapter II. and Chapter V. of the HDS&G are recommended to
provide add itional clarity to staff, applicants, and the deciding bodies regarding visibility
and light reflectivity and determining compliance with the HDS&G.
B. Recommendation
Staff recommends that the Planning Commission forward the draft amendments to the
Town Council with a recommendation for adoption. The Commission should also
include any comments or recommended changes to the draft amendments when taking
the following actions:
1. Find that there is no possibility that this project will have a significant impact on
the environment; therefore, the project is not subject to the California
Environmental Quality Act, Section 15061 (b )(3): Review for exemption (Exhibit
1 ); and
2. Forward a recommendation to Town Council for adoption of the amendments to
the HDS&G (Exhibits 2 and 3) with modifications, if any.
Alternatively, the Commission may take the following action:
1. Continue the matter to a date certain with specific direction.
I ~ ...._,/ ~ 't flldad ~W f/2 pproved b y: B epared by:
Joel Paulson, AICP Laurel R . Prevetti
Planning Commission Staff Report -Page 6
Hill s ide Development Standards and Guidelines Modification
November 23, 2015
Planning Manager Town Manager/
Director of Community Development
LRP :JSP:c
N:\DEV\PC REPORTS\2 0 15\Hill s ide_ LR V _Vis ibi lit y 12-2.doc
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Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Town Manager:
Planning Manager:
Town Attorney:
Transcribed by:
A P P EAR AN C E S:
Mary Badame, Vice Chair
Charles Erekson
Melanie Hanssen
D . Michael Kane
Tom O'Donnell
Joanne Talesfore
Laurel Prevetti
Joel Paulson
Robert Schultz
Vicki L. Blandin
(510) 337-1558
EXHIBIT 5
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2 P R 0 C E E D I N G S:
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4 DAVID WEISSMAN : Are these comments to be on any
5 area, or just on the color averaging?
6 VICE CHAIR BADAME: It can be the color averaging
7 and the visibility analysis .
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DAVID WEISSMAN: I want to give one example of
how any obvious financ ial conflict of interest has affected
what Davidon wrote in their letter in y our packet. On page
3, Mr . Abbs discusses Tree 607 as an example of how even a
tree with a very sparse canopy-his words-can provide
screening.
Why select this tree as an example? Because it is
a major screening tree for the proposed house on Lot 7 , but
I maintain that Tree 607 doesn 't have a sparse canopy , and
in fact would get around 60-70% screening credit under Lee
Quintana and my proposed methodology.
Want a sparse canopy tree? Just look at a major
screening tree, Tree 626, seen to the right of labeled Tree
607 i n Davidon 's provided photo. The tree is actually
difficult to p ick out , because it 's canopy i s so sparse as
to be almost t r anspa r ent . The orange netting in Davidon 's
photo is easily seen through Tree 627 e v en during leaf -out.
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But more importantly, another reason for Davidon
to not tout Tree 626 is because the consulting arborist
recently downgraded its structural rating and preservation
suitability to Fair/Poor because of the fungal wood decay
associated with a mechanical injury to its trunk. This
fungus could easily kill this tree. I asked Mr. Abbs if he
really though t the Planning Commission wouldn 't see through
your blatant deception at using Tree 607 as an example. I
haven't even menti o ned that Tree 607 also has a large
mechanical injury.
Mr. Abbs also contends that all oak trees can be
assessed for screening at any time of the year.
Conveniently, he ignores that the consulting arborist said,
regarding Tree 607, that this tree and all deciduous trees
on Highlands should be checked during June to better assess
their condition. Checking a deciduous tree during the
winter may not reveal whether the tree is even alive or
dead.
But then Mr. Abbs also say s in his letter, on
page 2, and I quote , "Da v id on be lieves every tree should be
allowed for screening ." Sounds like that includes even dead
trees.
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Mr. Abbs likes to claim how the Highland 's oak
trees are not doing well because of the drought, but you
are smart enough to have read in just about every one of
t h e consulting arborist 's tre e r eport s for each lot that
many, many trees have also been impacted by lack of
required tree protection fences, resulting in repeated
mechanical injuries, excessive pruning, and compactions by
heavy equipment and storage of heavy materials under tree
canopies.
Lastly, Davidon would like for us to believe, as
they say on page two, that the life expectancy of a tree in
poor condition can be the same as a tree in good condition.
Could be, but highly unlikely, according to the consulting
arborist who says that poor trees can be expected to
decline regardless of management. Clearly Davidon, given
their track record, is the last entity that you should
listen to when you c onsider how to improve the Hillside
Standards .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Dr. Weissman. Do
any of the Commissioners have any questions f or Dr .
Weissman? Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSION ER KANE: Dr. Weissman , therefore what?
What would we do?
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DAVID WEISSMAN: Lee Quintana and I have provided
with you a draft ordinance .
COMMISSIONER KANE: And that specifically
addresses your concern?
DAVID WEISSMAN: That specifically addresses all
of my concerns, and the concerns expressed by numerous
Planning Commission meetings, the Town Council meeting back
in May, and going back to what is expressed in the Hillside
Standards. We have tried to be positive. We have tried to
be objective.
COMMISSIONER KANE: This is page 1 of Exhibit 4,
where you give seven references to past meetings?
DAVID WEISSMAN: No.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Let me rephrase that. On page
1 of Exhibit 4, you make reference to seven different
meetings, and I was at some of those meetings as a Planning
Commissi o ner and you remember them better than I do . It 's
an impressiv e piece of work. Thank you .
DAVID WEISSMAN : Thank you . No, I am referring,
Commissioner Kane, to the pages that are in your packet.
COMMISSIONER KANE: The new one?
DAVID WEISSMAN : Yes.
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1 JOEL PAULSON: Just for ref erence , it 's the first
2 four pages of Exhibit 1 for the Study Session Report.
3 COMMISSIONER KANE : I 've got it. Thank you.
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VICE CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions? Thank
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you, Dr. Weissman. I will now call Steve Abbs to the
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podium.
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STEVE ABBS : Hi , g ood afternoon . I'm Steve Abbs
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with Davidon Homes .
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I have submitted a letter of correspondence to
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express our op i nions of (inaudible) methodology. Basically,
1 2 in a nutshell, we actually think the current Hillside
13 Design Guidelines work. I think what staff is proposing as
14 far as amendments to the methodology are good proposals,
15 but I think there is one thing that we need to know, that
1 6 we're here for , is that there may be come clarifications to
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the interpretations of the Hillside Development Standards
and Guidelines , but I don 't think it warrants a full
rewrite or changing of the rules of the guidelines.
Staff i s very competent . They 're on top o f
things. You have a Town Arborist and a Consulting Arborist
that are well respected and very knowledgeable . I think the
Planning Comm i ssion should listen to what t hey say . They 're
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1 the experts and they should have a lot of say in how these
2 amendments are proposed .
3 Basically this evening I want to make sure that
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e v erybody keeps focused on that the visibility is standing
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on the viewing platform viewing with the naked eye. The
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level of detail in l ooking at Mr . Weissman 's photos , that 's
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a photo zoomed in from a drone; you 're not going to see the
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level of detail of seeing leaves, trigs and branches. What
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you are going to see is a massing of a tree canopy from
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standing on a viewing platform with a naked eye.
12 Screening does occur from these very sparse
13 trees. I 've shown in my lette r t h at i t 's v ery o b v i ous that
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screening is occurring from the very sparsest trees with
very limited foliage. Then also, if you put a house behind
those very sparse trees that have an LRV compliant color to
them , that earth tone color , you 're n ot go i ng to see
anything. Right now you barely see very bright orange
netting behind these trees.
Another interpretation that I think the Planning
Commission should discuss tonight is the fact of using
protected oak trees as part of screening. Back in 2009
Mayor Wasserman actually interpreted the Hillside
Dev elopment Guidelines to reduce v isibility and visible
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impact b y the use of screen trees. Councilperson McNutt
agreed, encouraging that screen trees should be used.
The trees that exist out there are in poor
condition . In the situation we have on Lot 10, there is one
tree that was in fair condition when we started design, it
got downgraded to a p oor condition, and based on some
suggestions by Mr . Weissman , that tree wouldn 't be able to
be used . Now , the q uest i on is why wouldn 't an applicant be
able to install a brand new Coast Live Oak tree that would
provide immediate screening? When they grow over time, they
provide more screening over time. It would be better for
the environment. It provides better sustainability to the
oak woodland , and it would mitigate the visibility of the
houses. It just seems like it 's a win-win for everyone. But
t her e 's a misinterpretation of landscape screening that I
think the Planning Commission should talk about .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you very much, Mr .
Abbs. Commissioner O'Donnell has a question for you .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We 've heard some
references to mechanical damage to various and sundry
trees, and I realize you were not t he first people to
develop this property, so I don't know where these
mechanical injuries carne from . Can you tell us a little bit
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about what care you used to see that there was no damage to
the trees while you were working on it?
STEVE ABBS: The trees that Mr. Weissman was
referring to on Lot 7 were Trees 607 and 626. We have had
no construction activity at all on those lots. Ms. Debbie
Ellis is here; she can speak to what she has seen as far as
what a mechanical injury to that tree is , but as far as I
know , there hasn't been any activity on that lot . Again ,
Debby Ellis can speak to this, but it could have been a
wound from a fallen limb, for all I know. As far as Davidon
is concerned, we have not done any construction actually on
that lot to do any damage to these trees.
The one thing that Mr. Weissman brings up in this
picture is that yeah, in my letter I didn 't specifically
bring up Tree 626, but the sparseness of Trees 607 and 626
are exactly the same . The purpose of my letter was to
clearly identify a very sparse tree and the fact that from
a viewing platform it clearly shows a screen of that tree.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Was your question answered?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yes.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Abbs. Any
further questions? Thank you.
I will now call Bess Wiersema.
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BESS WIERSEMA: Hi. You guys know me . I 'm Bess ,
from Studio3.
I have a lot o f clients over the past couple of
years that we 've bee n bringing to town , and some of the
existing house colors are significantly greater in value
than the 30 LRV that the Town has been looking at with
regard to Hillside Standards, and it poses a problem for
most of the projects that we have.
I understand from your last study session that
you guys hav e considered something in terms of-and I could
be wrong on this-if 25% of the house is exposed , then the
30 LRV number stays intact, but if less than that is
exposed or screened, then you would consider something
other than that.
I just wanted to bring to your attention some of
the issues with LRV that I have a profess ional problem
with, and my clients do as well.
My first bullet point, an LRV of 30 or below.
Note the house color that is far darker than the a v erage
colors used in most homes in the Los Gatos hillside, at
least the projects that we are seeing, except those
reflective of an antiquated Mountain or old Tahoe type
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1 sty le. I brought some LRV color chips I 'll show you in a
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second, if I have time .
An LRV of 3 0 o r below i s inc onsistent with
certain archi tectur al sty les, suc h as Spanish o r
Mediterranean, as we ll as a lot o f the Craftsmans. I just
think it creates kind of a bastardized character from an
architec tural s tandpo int . These are sty les that are often
used in hillside, because their r oo f pitc hes are l o wer, s o
to have to do something that has a co l or that 's
inconsistent with that type of home is often a problem .
I also think that the imposition of LRV of 30 or
below c reates inconsistent c haracter in neighborho ods,
mostly where we 're doing remodels or sign ificant additions .
Most homes in neighborhoods are significant ly greater than
that i n the number.
An LRV of 30 or below is in d i rect c onfli ct with
the design guidelines, even Section 1 of the hillside
spec ific o n e where it say s number three, compatible with
the surrounding neighborhood and respectful of neighbors. A
lot of the houses, e v en most recently one that you guys saw
here on Forrester Road , all of tho se houses hav e an LRV
sitting at 4 0 or above , and often grea t e r than that .
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1 My thoughts on how to make this concept work as
2 intended is to consider an LRV of greater than 30 on a
3 project-by-project basis that is in keeping with the
4 neighborhood a verage LRV so t hat a newer project doesn 't
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stand out as a sore thumb. Consider an LRV of greater than
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30 if it is true to the architectural style, and theref o re
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provides further integrity of the overall design. Consider
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a blended LRV concept for the whole building, and consider
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the use of further guidelines, suc h as if the project can
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be seen from viewing platforms, reduced LRV , matching the
1 2 LRV quotient to the immediate neighborhood a v erage, and
13 addressing materials as part of that color.
14 VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank you, Ms . Wiersema. I
15 have questions. Commissioner Hanssen had her hand up first.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I understood all your
comments, but the proposal that is in the drafted text is
to incorporate LRV averaging, so do you have additional
issues with the idea of t he LRV averaging? I understand all
of the points, but I think that was the whole reason that
the Town Council wanted to go forward with LRV a v eraging
for the houses that were less than 25 % visibl e .
BESS WIERSEMA: But it 's an average of what?
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN : That 's one of my questions
that I would ask of S t aff, but the concept, I mean what
issues d o you have with the concept? Because all o f your
comments that you just made were relative t o ...
BESS WIERSEMA: I think t he number is important.
We did a quick analysis of just everyone 's houses , even for
you guys sitting up here, and I think Commissioner
O'Donnell was the only one that hit the number ; I know he 's
not in a hillside.
But I think understanding what t he number is and
how the average is taken, is it volume surface area as
v isible from the street out of the 25%, just definition
around that, because 30 is a pretty heavy-duty number to
hit, and very inconsistent with most of our existing
neighborhoods.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: A follow up question on
that is that you had mentioned color chips. I actually did
some research on my own and I looked at what LRV v alues are
on the scale, and it occurred to me that especially if you
were doing gray colors, obvious l y the lowest LRV is black
and we don 't really wan t black houses in the hillsides . So
I wondered if there is a way to put some different
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1 boundaries or definitions aro und it to make it what we
2 want ?
3 BESS WIERSEMA: With regard to color chips, I
4 jus t qui c kly too k a pan o f people are beige t o nes, gree n
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tones, and gray tones. They look purple up here, but
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they 're (inaudible).
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COMMISSIONER HANSSE N: I can 't tell what the LRV
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BESS WIERSEMA : The o nes with the Post-Its on it
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are where y ou hav e
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to get to on a r egular a v erage co lor to
1 2 hit at an LRV 3 0 .
1 3 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN : So anything that's lighter
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BESS WIERSEMA : Anything that 's to the right of
that wo uld n o t quali f y for the LRV. Yo u h ave t o get a
significantly dark h o me.
COMMISSIONER HANS S EN: Just my observ atio n in the
case of the blacks and the blues that 's the case , I think
that 's blue , or it 's gray , but as you kind of moved over
they 're not quite as dark , and that 's the thing I was
looking f o r; that 's very helpful to get an idea.
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner O'Donnell.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: That was very helpful.
I'm just curious though , I find it hard to deal with this
on statutory basis or guideline basis, but we in the past
have had sort of a maximum. We said not above 30 under
certain c onditions , whatev er. Do y ou believ e the use of a
maximum at all is helpful?
BESS WIERSEMA : I think that it could be, unless
there is a neighborhood definition as part of that
character of the neighborhood. If you can prove that the
average LRV of a neighborhood is , say ... I think we had it in
here . An average LRV of the neighborhood that you guys most
recently saw on Forrester was 17 .4 for our immediate
neighborhood. Sorry, I have the wrong number. I think a
maximum number could be used, but I think 30 is too tight.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The reason I ask you is
having sat here for a number of years , we don 't take
responsibility for what happened before we got here, so the
fact that we might think what got there before we did was
something we don 't agree with , I guess we 'd like t o kind o f
move on and may be not do it the same way.
On the other ha n d , I hear what you 're sayi ng and
I think it makes sense , but we 're going to have to wrestle
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with that. So we say there was some simplicity in what was
suggested before; t hat doesn 't make it right.
But I do think if we had a shall not exceed or
some kind of number, it would be helpful. I heard you
earlier throw out 40%, but I don't like this thing that
sa y s i f t he y ma de a lot of mist akes in t he past , we 'll just
use that as our baseline, and that i s what you 're saying .
So let 's talk about not that .
BESS WIERSEMA: Right.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Do you have some other
help?
BESS WIERSEMA: If you could take y o ur immediate
neighborhood and have an average LRV of what those homes
were in the neighborhood so that you could fit into them,
and you were within a certain percent of that, or whether
you want to call that average the current max, o r a median
number , I think that that 's something that 's worth looking
at . That way you don 't end up with the black h o le h o use in
the middle of t he neighborhood that 's all light tan and
taupe and white.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So your view of the
hillsides is we have different blotches up there because
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neighborhoods are different? Average each neighborhood and
you 're going to get a different number .
BESS WIERSEMA: I think neighborhoods are
different, and I think architectural styles often call for
a different color palette as well.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions?
Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Should we think about the
roof reflective v alue different from the body of the house,
as opposed to looking at the total house and roof with a
single reflective v alue? Should we separate those two, and
what would the design implications be of doing that?
BESS WIERSEMA : I think that 's worth considering .
I also think it should be careful to not just use language
like on a metal roof that it needs to be an anodized metal
roof. There are many metal roofs; in fact the ones that you
guys generally like better are not the ones that are
anodized, but that have a metallic undertone that are the
ones that have essentially the enamel process put on them.
It alarms me when I see specific language
assigned specific materials without having an understanding
of what those materials are that are current on the market
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1 for residential projects right now. So I think some
2 understanding of, yes, roofing could have a different LRV
3 quotient , so it 's not a big reflective roof, then the
4 fa9ade of the house I think is a great way to look at it.
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I also think materials are important. A super
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color chip no matter what.
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I think there are a lot of things that have to be
12 taken into consideration, and not just a flat number.
13 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for your comments .
14 Any further questions? Thank you. Next up, Angelia Doerner.
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ANGELIA DOERNER : He llo , I 'm Angelia Do erner, a
very proud resident of the Almond Grove.
I 'm here becaus e thi s is maybe going t o throw a
little wrench into something, or at least I think warrants
some consideration at this workshop, is page three of the
Staff Report referring specifically to Items 3-5, with
rooftop colors, metal surfaces, and mirror like window
tinting.
When I was here last time about Assembly Bill
2188 concerning new provi sions about rooftop solar systems ,
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I started thinking-and I can already hear some oh darns
over there-but I started thinking about how this applies to
our hillside homes and how y o u 're going to be dealing with
allowing or approving or determining whether some of these
rooftop solar systems could be causing signiticant issues
or contradictions with what we have in our Hillside
Standards.
Specifically what I think could be c onsidered is
that cited in Section 3, paragraph 65850.5(b) in Assembly
Bill 2188. They do give the authority to the Town to
address or apply for a use permit if they can prov e that
there 's a specific adverse impact upon the public health
and safety of the Town , and what I 'm con cerned about is
rooftop systems.
You guy s do a great job, you put up. this
wonderful color that merges with the hillside and t he
env ironment . Someone puts up a solar system that provides a
glare directl y down Highway 17 with the brightest sun and
blinding drivers . There 's always discussion here about the
lights and the windows and how that 's going to be shining
at night and be visible. What about visibility during the
day wi th solar s y stems all over the roofs?
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I 'm just throwing this out as something that I
think could be considered, or should be at least thought
about, and using that particular reference in the bill to
see if there 's some way around the bui ld ing p ermit process
that you can take a harder look from these same viewing
platforms and the same other things that you 're talking
about now to make sure that those kinds of public safety
issues aren 't encountered.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Do we hav e any questions for
Ms . Doerner ? Seeing none, thank y ou for your comments . I
will now call Mr . Harris to the podium.
SANDY HARRIS: My name is Sandy Harris and I 'm
here in regard to the home on Drysdale. I know we have a
color code associated with the hillsides, which I agree
with completely, because when you look at the hillside and
you hav e street signs up there where people painted their
houses white and v ery reflectiv e colors, I think it brings
down the integrity of our hillsides .
But wha t I 'm not sure of is t hat same app l ication
a p plied t o houses that aren 't visible , they 're down low
enough where nobody can actually see them. It appears as
though that same regulation, because of that purpose, is
being implemented on houses that can never be seen by
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anybody other than the people who live on the specific
street that they 're one , or it's on a street that nobody
would e v er go to unl e ss you did live there type thing, and
it 's not a thoroughfare t o go anywhere .
But I just want to see if there is possible
consideration that could be given for houses in that regard
as far as trying t o hold them to the wire on the 3 0 LRV . I
know why that was implemented to start with, which is
agreeable and I think I 'm very , very happy they did that ,
because if they had put that into effect many years ago we
wouldn 't be looking at all those bright houses up on the
hillside. But if there is possible consideration that could
be given for houses that are visible only to the people who
live on the street that they 're on , I would appreciate some
sort of consideration like that , if it 's possible that you
guys would think about that.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Anything further ? You still
hav e time left. Commissioner Erekson has a question for
you.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: T rying to understand what
you 're proposing to us. Are you proposing a Town-wide
standard of a certain maximum reflective v alue, or for al l
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the homes whether they 're visible or not visible in the
hillsides?
SANDY HARRIS: No, all the homes that are visible
in the hillside shouldn 't be reflected . They shouldn 't be
something that you have to look at that house all the time,
because you can 't help it , it 's ref l ecting back at you and
demonstrating to you that it 's there .
But I 'm suggesting if you have a house that is
not visible from anywhere, and it 's not up in the
hillsides, and the only way s o meone i s ever going to see it
is if the y drive up your street to go to y our home or go t o
your neighbor 's home , because it 's not a thoro ughfare g o ing
anywhere, I 'm just wondering if there 's consideration that
can be given for that situation .
I kno w what the guideline was put in place for ,
b e cause o f all the street signs we hav e all over the
mountains with peo ple painting the houses colo rs that
weren't nature 's true colors . And I 'm not saying someone
going to paint a house pink or white or whatever , but I 'm
just say ing that 3 0 is hard to find a color that really
fits some designs and architecture of houses . And if it 's
not in an area where it 's not visible and n obody can see
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it , I 'm asking if there 's a possibly there could be
consideration given to that specific type of a case .
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Mr. Harris, you and I go way
back .
SANDY HARRIS: Yes, sir .
COMMISSIONER KANE: So I'm going to take little
liberty . What I 'm hearing is if a tree falls in the forest
and no one is there , will it make any noise? If I 'm going
up in the hillsides, why would I want a pink and blue and
o range house? You just said well I 'm sure nobody would wa nt
to paint it that way, but if we lower the standard we get a
pink and blue and or a nge house , possibly . Why wouldn 't I
want to have the hillsides continually rustic and
respectful of e v erything the Hillside Guidelines provide?
It 's not a rhetorical question , it 's like really , why would
I want that?
SANDY HARRIS: Okay, you asked me a question. If
I would take you around the various areas that are
considered hillsides in the Town of Los Gatos ...
COMMISSIONER KANE: And you have.
SANDY HARRIS: Yes. There are lots of areas in
the Town of Los Gatos that you 're never going to have to
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take a look at unless you know someone there and you 're
going to their specific house, and those houses, most of
them are fairly consistent with each other color-wise.
There 's this n ew standard put in to where it has to be 30
or below, which the house, I don't know if you 've seen many
30 or belows, but there are not a lot of colors you can
really pi c k i n t h at are n a and have a house that 's conducive
to certain architecture styles or whateve r, because it 's so
dark . I can understand having some regulation in plac e that
affect s o u r community , because that 's what we 're about is
our community, but not isolating someone that it doesn 't
affect anybody else other than the people who l i v e on the
street and the people, if they are happy with the color,
and nobody else c a n see it , and it 's not a major
thoroughfare of any kind where you can 't go anywhere other
tha n to those people 's houses , I 'm just saying it would be
nice if there was some sort of an exc eptio n f o r that
specific case .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Anything further,
Commissioner Kane?
COMMISSIONER KANE: No, thank y ou.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. I will n o w call
Dennis Razzari to the podium.
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DENNIS RAZZARI: Madam Chair, Members of the
Comm ission , I 'm Dennis Razzari , Davidon Homes .
I wanted to touch briefly on the tree issue as
well, as I may be able to add some insight for you, if time
allows or you want to bring me back, regarding t he color
average , because that 's what we did do also up at the
Highlands project and maybe why this item is before you
again tonight.
But with regard to the trees, the Hillside
Development Standards and Guidelines were adopted in
January 2004 . For almost 12 y ears now t hey 've served pretty
effectively for the Town, and recently with our project it
seems like a lot of attention has been drawn to them . It 's
been drawn to them because of some of the ambiguity of some
of the language.
However, what Dr . Weissman has recommended this
e v ening as far as revising the language for them I think
further introduces more ambiguity into how those guidelines
are interpreted. I think Staff has done a phenomenal job
with the addition of the language.
As Mr. Abbs indicated also, the v isibility fro m
the viewing platforms at the distances that are involv ed ,
and the use of a 500mm lens and a 3 00mm lens is more than
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adequate in determining how visible those homes .are, or the
product is. To take it to a v antage point introduces
ambiguity as to where is the vantage point? We 've had
enough discussion and argument over the viewing platforms,
let alone now determining where the vantage points are from
which you 're going to view this project .
Davidon has spent literally tens of thousands of
dollars on the four homes that we recently had before you,
and for a private party on a single -family to come in and
do that and then we challenged as to that 's not the correct
vantage point , that 's not the correct viewing platform, and
to move it around , it 's a very tedious and onerous task ,
and an expensive task, for a private party to endure.
So I would caution you on that, because I think
you need to welcome your applicants into the Town, not just
developers. Maybe not developers at all, if you choose, but
your owners that are building custom homes or homes in the
hillside, you want to be able to work with them and have a
language and statute that is interpreted, clear, defined,
and I think that that was the intent of what this study
session was to do, to get language that is not ambiguous.
To take trees and evaluate them as to whether
their health is good, poor or great is an interpretation
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that should be left to the consulting arborist. To then
take that tree and say it's only worth 60% value because of
its character I think adds more ambiguity into it . To take
a c alculation around it where for 12 years it sufficed at
25%, and now introduce an average where 25% is now going to
be brought down to 24.5%, is again, a change that is not
necessary . It has worked, and with the clarity that Staff
has recommended, I think it works very well. I think what
Staff has recommended is appropriate language to be
adopted . Thank you.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you . Questions?
Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE: For you and Mr. Abbs, I was
there when we developed this language; at least I think I
was. I remember the sixties, so I can remember that.
I had an issue with the priority of foliage, that
there was a primary set of standards for houses in the
hills, as secondary and then tertiary considerations. I
don't know if the Commission or even the Town Council at
that time agreed or supported the notion that I had that a
tree could be a fleeting thing, bushes, fol iage could be a
fleeting thing, and that it was an amelioration, a tertiary
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consideration to bring in trees as really permanently
a f fecting the 24.5 -25%.
I was thinking when you spoke earlier, Mr . Abbs,
the question is-I hav e to ask y ou questions-do you know if
there 's a law requ i ring a homeowner to put up a giant oa k
tree that just fell down due to natural causes, which oak
t r ee blocked 50 % of the house? Now what do we do? So that 's
how I assigned a tertiary consideration to trees when
ta lking about visibility. I 've been here for 30 -s o me t hing
years , and it doesn 't look like it u s ed to look. May be the
trees all fell down and we need language say ing you have t o
put up an exact replica , which wouldn 't be very practical .
But t hat 's a question .
When you give emphasis to foliage hav ing to do
with visibility , that 's in the hands o f God , that 's
tempo rarily . It c ould be o v ernight; it c o uld b e 50 years.
But what if it all falls down and I can see the white house
with a 50 LRV fr o m 2 0 miles a wa y .
DENNI S RAZZARI: I don't kno w tha t there is any
law within the Town 's statutes that requires a tree to be
replaced. I can tell you that in the brief period o f time
that Davidon has owned the Highlands property, we have seen
a number of rated healthy trees, both within the LR V areas
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and outside of the LRV areas, that have fallen completely .
Some due to windstorms and storms, but some that have just
plain keeled over and dropped . We 've had sudden limb drop
off o f a number of trees that are in healthy v igor.
Mr. Abbs indicated ear l ier that the Commi ss i o n
should consider the o pportunity or allowance of the
planting of oak trees, native trees, within the area. The
Highlands in particular I think has been rated as a second
growth, or a later growth, forest, and so the trees up
there may not be in the best of health. I don•t know if
harvesting is the correct word for it, but they are
secondary growth trees and as a result they don 't have the
vigor and strength of the original tree. If we 're able to
supplement that forest, that oak woodland forest, by
planting box trees, and significantly sized box trees is
what we would suggest, you can augment the screen o f the
house and you 're introducing healthy species and varieties
back into the oak woodland forest that are not second or
later generation growths, that add vigor and health to the
forest in general, and can supplement the screen.
COMM ISSIONER KANE : A brief follow up, but not t o
belabor the point. I said what if? What if that massive oak
tree comes down at the hand of God, lighting, storm,
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whatever , and I 've just paid triple the money fo r th i s
wonderful house on the hillside, and suddenly I can see San
Francisco . What 's going to motivate me putting u p ... You get
my point? Th i s is how I 'd p u t foli ag e in a tert i a r y ligh t
when it comes to protecting the hillsides and reducing
visib i lity . I can 't de p e n d on a "temporar y tree " that a
homeowner is just not going to lose sleep over replacing if
it falls down and then they have one of the greatest views
known to man .
DENNIS RAZZARI : I think currently the Town does
hav e policy that if a tree falls, and this has occurred on
our site where a tree has fallen, a Tree Removal Permit is
still required, and in cases where it has happened a Tree
Removal Permit is required with tree mitigation that is
applied to that.
To address your concern, I think the trees that
we're propos i ng to be used as screening can p oten tially
have some type of deed restriction or something on that lot
where if there is a tree that falls that the homeowner does
hav e someone on title that that tree does have to be
replaced. So there is a potential legal option that can be
implemented, but currently if a tree does fall, a Tree
Removal Permit is required, and mitigation is required.
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COMMISSIONER KANE : Let 's go to Staff and fin d
out from Staff.
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
COMMISSIONER KANE: What is?
JOEL PAULS ON: That if a tree falls, a Tree
Removal Permit is required, and mitigation replacement is
required .
COMMISSIONER KANE: I did not know that. Even on
a homeowner who has been there a while?
JOEL PAULSON: On any property.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Is it a replica tree, or a
certain box tree, or a tree that will eventually dev elop
into the tree that fell down?
JOEL PAU L SON : It 's a number of box t re es based
on the table in the Tree Ordinance, so depending on the
canopy size of the tree before it fell.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Thank you .
ROBERT SCHULTZ: On top of that, it is certainly
possible to put in, through a deed restriction, Conditions
of Approval that require the maintenance of landscaping or
screening ; I 've seen those done also.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Do we regularly do that?
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1 ROBERT SCHULTZ: No, I don 't think we have up to
2 this point .
3 JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer that prior to
4 when I arrived the Town used to do five-year tree
5
maintenance agreements with property owners.
6
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions?
7
Commissioner Talesfore .
8
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Prior to when you
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arrived the Town did what, and can you explain what that
means?
11
12 JOEL PAULSON: Tree maintenance agreement, so
1 3 whatever they planted or was part of the approval, they had
14 to make sure that it survived for five years.
15 COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: And the Town took it
16 out?
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JOEL PAULSON : I can 't recall whet her or not that
went into the Tree Ordinance revisions as well. I 'll try to
pull that up . I 'm not sure if we have the new copy in here ,
but I remember that conversation. I think Dr. Weissman
brought that up when we were having that conversation.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: And the Town checks on
that? They send somebody out there for fi v e years?
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1 COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: I don 't know how it was
2 implemented when it was done prior to 2000 .
3 ROB E RT SCHULTZ : Certa i n l y know that if that 's
4 something the Planning Comm i ssion wants to pursue , that 's a
5
p o ssibility, and then we hav e t o figure out how to make
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certain . Maybe there 's a report that 's done by the property
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COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Which is why I asked. I
1 2 mean it sounds great in concept.
13 ROBERT SCHULTZ: You try to put the onus on them.
14 COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Onus on them , right, and
15 that is sort of the issue here too. Anyway, to the point,
16 that is why I asked the question. Thanks.
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VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Abbs, and
thank you , Mr. Razzari. I will now call Lee Quintana to the
podium.
LEE QUINTANA: Lee Quintana, and I apologize for
be i ng late . I 'd like to talk about several things tonight ,
and they 're just recommendations or suggestions for things
to think about . I 'm probably going to go th rough them fast ,
t hen come back to them when I have time .
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One is from the glossary . Delete the definition
for "visible home " from the glossary . Most people already
know or have an understanding of what visible means, and
just put in the body of the text what is intended.
Also , delete "view i ng platforms " from the
glossa ry and the text and substitute "vantage points"
rather than "viewing platforms ," because the language in
the document refers to vantage points, including those on
the valley floor, not just those on the valley floor.
Platform gives it a different impression.
I 'd also like to talk a bout the origin of the 25 %
and the reason behind it . The re were approximately, that I
have counted and seen, five drafts, and I believ e there are
a couple of more drafts, of this document before it was
actually adopted. It was not until the last draft that the
2 5% criteria were added to the glos sary. The very first
draft had a definition of v isibility as something that can
be seen, which is the definition o f v isibility. We didn 't
redefine visibility until the very last draft , and i t 's not
clear why that particular thing was picked, why 25% o f
visible elevation was picked, or how and why or whether
alternate methods were considered.
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I think there are alternate methods that can be
considered. One will be to decrease the percent of visible
elevation allowed as the useable or potentia lly usable
square f o otage of a home increases. That would include
spaces that are not currently proposed for usable space,
such as cellars, basements, and attics or places that are
covered b y roofs, but that c ould be potentially converted
into useable space without changing the effect of the bulk
of the home.
Another way would be to consider the percent of
the total of the ridgeline as criteria for a cut-off, or
the percent of the roofline elevation that is visible from
a particular elevation. And of course there are other
possibilities.
Lastly, I would really like to see some
clarification or clarity of the language that is adopted
that is clear that even if a project meets the criteria for
visibi l i ty ...
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you , Ms. Quintana. Any
questions? Commissioner Talesfore .
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Thank you . You referred
to 25% after at least fiv e drafts. Five drafts of what ?
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LEE QUINTANA: Of the Hillside Development
Standards and Guidelines.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Are you talking about
the one we have presently?
LEE QUINTANA: No , I'm talking about the first
one that was presented to the Committee, which was I
believe December 19, 2001.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Are you talking about
the Hillside Design Guidelines in 2001?
LEE QUINTANA: Yeah, the Guidelines.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Okay . I wanted some
context.
LEE QUINTANA: Yeah, until it was finally adopted
in January o f 2004, there were at least five drafts. I 'm
pretty sure there were six drafts and there might hav e been
even more.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Were you on that
committee?
LEE QU INTANA: Yes, I was.
COMM ISSIONER TALESFORE : Okay .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Talesfore, do
you have further? Commissioner Hanssen.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for your
comments. I wanted to ask about one of your comments, whi c h
is regarding the viewing platforms . In reading through the
document that you and Dr. Weissman submitted, and also
h earing your comment s , I thought there was some sugges tion
in there-and if I missed it or didn 't interpret it
correctly , let me know-that we should not limit ourselves
just to the viewing platforms, or even the additional
v iewing platforms that might be selected by the Community
Development Director, and maybe choose p l aces that are in
t he hillside, is that correct? And then I had a follow up
question.
LEE QUINTANA : I th i nk that "vantage points u is
the broader term , and then "viewing platforms u was used and
primarily interpreted to be on the valley floor. So I think
t hat makes it confusing . You 're really ~alking about where
can you see it .
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The other thing that you
mentioned in just your recent comments was that the
guidelines referred to vantage points and not vi ewing
platforms, but I don 't know if I 'm missing the plac e that
it is , but I 'm looking at page 13 where the viewing
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platforms are defined in the original document, and it says
viewing platform versus vantage point .
COMMITTEE MEMBER QUINTANA : But if you look on
one of the pages that I just gave you, and I do apologize
for getting it in so late. I was hoping to get it in
earlier this morning, but had personal things that I needed
to take care of. If you look in there, there is a list of
places within the document where visibility is referred to
in the Goals, in the Objectives, in several other parts of
the document that set up what you want to accomplish by the
hillside documents , and they don 't distinguish between just
the valley floor and the hillsides.
Now, I don't know that it would be a good idea to
have different criteria for those two different things, but
I do n't think one excludes the other; you could be visible
from several different points of view.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Was there any version of
the original document that suggested alternate v iewing
locations for determining visibility?
COMMITTEE MEMBER QUINTANA: I don't remember when
that carne in. I think it was from the v ery beginning, but
the definition in the glossary says "established viewing
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platforms ," which is dif ferent, so the emphasis was on
that.
The other thing is that the timing of the
analysis is really important, and as the document is
currently approv ed the anal y sis for v i s ual c o mes after
you 've determined what the LRDA is , even though that is one
of the things that are supposed to be considered in
determining the LRDA, and the timing of it comes so far
down the road that it 's just before a hearing that it
actually comes up. I think in the original draft, if I
remember correctly what I was reading this morning, that
was not the case. It was actually in the document as part
of the initial analysis to determine the LRDA where a house
might be able to be sited.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thank you.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I 'm intrigued by the
alte r nate methods , but I didn 't hear you make an argument
against the percent of v isible elev ation other than it
occurred late , and I presume you 're not maki ng t h e argument
that just because an idea came up late , it 's bad , it 's not
as good as an idea that came up early . I 'd like for you to
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help me understand why that 's not a good idea and why we
should consider alternatives .
COMMITTEE MEMBER QUINTANA: The way that it is
currently stated favors bigger houses , and at least my
understanding whi l e I was on the committee that helped
draft this was that we were trying to limit the impact of
houses in the hillside , and effective bulk or mass or what
y ou see was one of the impacts that was created.
In fact, at that time we were told that there
would be a comprehensive review of the document after a
year of its implementation to see if it was actually
accomplishing what we had intended it to, and that review
has never taken place, and over the years-this is my
personal opinion-the te c hnical meeting o f the law has been
what has propelled the approval of an application, and that
sort of ... If you 'll let me finish what I was going to say at
the very end about c l arifying, in part it will answer your
question.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I suppose if it was
answering my question, you wouldn 't have to get permission .
COMMITTEE MEMBER QUINTANA: Okay . What I was
saying was that whether or not a project meets the criteria
for visual analysis, mee ting it does not mean that the
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project must be approved . The r e 's a lot of discretion.
Any thing that comes to you guys and the Town Council is a
discretionary action, and there are many more factor s that
are inv olv ed, so just meeting the technical criteria, e v en
if you 're meeting the technical criteria of the law of
different aspects, does not mean that the project itself is
meeting the intent, the goals, and the objectiv es of the
General Plan and the Hillside Design Guidelines.
Just to giv e an example, if you have a house that
reaches the maximum height allowed, but it only does it for
10 ' at the ridgeline , t hat 's quite d i fferent th a n a house
that has a ridgeline that is 50-100 ' long and all of the
ridges of the house are v isible. So that would be one
examp le of what I 'm talking about .
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Thank you.
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank you , Ms. Quintana. I
will now close the public portion of the study session. I
was originally going to separate the dis c ussion among
Commissioners between color a v eraging and the visibility
analysis, but we have time constraints and we also have two
Commissi o ners leaving early tonight, one at 5 :30 and one at
5 :45, and we also have the Town Arborist present tonight,
which I think we 'd like to take advantage of , so I 'm going
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1 to leave it open target for Commissioners for open
2 discussion and not separate it out. So, would anybody like
3 to start the conversation? Comm i ssioner O'Donnell .
4 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I just want to ask you,
5
do you have a proposal for the arborist to talk to us now?
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If so, it would be a good time.
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JOEL PAULSON: I think that the arborist is here
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to answer questions.
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, not to give a
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presentation?
1 2 JOEL PAULSON: Correct .
1 3 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: All right, thank you.
14 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen had her
15 hand up next .
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think since the Town
Arborist is here, I agree that it makes sense to ask our
questions so she doesn 't have to wait till the very end .
I was troubled in reading this whole thing about
this idea of the moving target state of tree health, and it
might be that the answer is that you can only look at it
one point in time when you 're t r ying to make a decision
a development proposal, but I wanted to get an idea,
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1 especially in the case of these recent proposals that we 've
2 seen .
3 There are a fair amount of trees up in the
4 hillsides, up there in Dav idon Homes dev elopments, that are
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in fair or worse condition , so if you 're asked to look at
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the tree more than one time , how often is it t h at you 'll
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see a change in the tree state if not caused by mechanical
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failure , just by what 's happe n ing i n the e nvironment , how
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often would y ou see that like in a year?
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank you, Ms. Ellis, for
11
12 stepping up to the podium. I was going to ask you to do
13 that, so thank you for doing so.
14 DEBORAH ELLIS: How often would I see something
15 within a period of a year?
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COMMIS S ION ER HA NSS EN: Or maybe I 'm not usi n g the
right benchmark , but do you see where I 'm going with the
question? I t 's cl e ar to me if s omeone takes construction
equi p ment and doesn 't h ave the proper protection around the
tree and they hurt the tree, that could immediately cause
damage to the tree, but I have this thought like if you go
make y our analy sis-and you do a great job with your
analysis, b y the way-of the state that it is at the time,
would it be typical to see a change in a year or two or
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three of those trees without any mechanical or otherwise
impacts?
DEBORAH ELLIS: The answer is it depends on a lot
of t h ings , and so I can 't g i ve you one particular answer .
It would depend on the particular tree and the conditions
that are going on around it, including things like weather
and drought.
The only thing I can say is if I am asked to
revie w an arborist 's report that's, say , five years o ld,
even one of mine , I would feel that i t 's not current enough
and I would want to go back and e v aluate the trees again .
Then you might as k me what if it 's a yea r old ,
would you still want to do that? My answer would be it
depends. If it 's a fairly stable site , nothing 's going on ,
we haven 't had ex treme weather conditions, and I had a good
report that I was fairly comfortable, I might say I think
that probably things are about the same . I could never
guarantee it ; something could happen and I wouldn 't know it
unless I went out there. I do wrestle with this myself
sometimes , and unfortunately there 's no one answer .
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I can clearly see that,
and I can imagine with conditions like with the drought
having been relatively recent, that may have had an impact,
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and if you 're asked today v ersus a year ago, would you
still want to go see that same thing from a year ago? Maybe
you would now, because of the drought having that impact.
DEBORAH ELLIS : Yes, if the drought has had a
huge impact. The Highlands is a good example, no t just
because of the const r uction , but it 's a r elatively exposed
site, and many of the trees were quite beat up before the
Highlands development began, and so I hav e seen rapid
changes in trees, and some of that may be due to the
development . I think some of that probably would have
happened, even without development. I think some of that
probably would have happened maybe without development just
given the condi tion of the trees beforehand; they were not
strong trees to begin with .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Talesfore.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Thank you . I was going
to ask a question about what changes have you seen because
of the drought within our trees in the hillsides, so thank
you for that .
I'm seeing these words , "sparse canopies ," and I
want to understand the sp a rse canop i es that you 've seen ,
l et 's just say , since you brought it up , up in that area
that we 're talking about. How do you view that? Will they
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1 get sparser? Are those the trees that are fair to poor?
2 Will they be in good condition, but always having a sparse
3 canopy because that 's thei r character? When we see words
4 l ike that , I 'm always confused about how to interpret them .
5
DEBORAH ELLIS: Canopy density is one way to
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evaluate a tree 's vigor , it 's probably t he most convenient,
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easiest way, and canopy density will vary somewhat
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depending on a particular tree species and also its age .
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Even with n o human intervention, as a tree ages generally
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its canopy density will become less . It 's kind of like
12 people and their hair. I used to have to thin my hair,
13 because it was so thick, to try to reduce the density, and
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I don 't have t o do that anymore , and that 's the way it is
with a lot of trees . But a r eduction in density that 's not
due to normal aging and that is because of environmental
excesses or deficiencies, or some sort of a disease
proc ess, will reduce canopy density.
I 'm pretty familiar with the tree species around
here , so I 'm very , very used to l oo k ing at them, and I can
tell an 80 from a 40 right away , because I 'm just so used
to doing it and I 've done it so many times, and so I often
use that as a way to describe what I think is wrong with
the tree , or what symptoms it 's s h owing that are telling us
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that this tree does not have good vigor anymore and is
possibly declining.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Thank you . I 'm glad to
hear that, bec ause I may have interpreted this totally
differently , like it was that species o f a tree or the
canopy would come back later, so thank you.
DEBORAH ELLIS: I 'm really glad you told me that ,
because this tells me that something in my reports is not
clear to people , and so I will hav e to define that.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Thank you . One other
question?
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : It's about fair and
poor . We see that often . We see a lot o f descriptions for
trees, but when we see fair -to-poor , and that 's how you
describe it , which I 'm sure it is , do you ever see those
trees coming back if they were cared for? Do you know what
I 'm saying , on a piece of property?
DEBORAH ELLIS: Yes , it's possible.
CO MMISSIONER TALESFORE : It doesn 't mean this is
it , take it out, because it 's fair -to -poor?
DEBORAH ELLIS: Correct.
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COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : And then I think we saw
one , or maybe I 'm wrong on this , that was described as
good-fair.
DEBORAH ELLIS : The way I read trees is there are
the super categories of good, fair, and poor.
So good i s pretty darned good, and on a grading
scale that 's like a Bon an A to F scale. It 's not
excellent , it 's not A, but it 's pretty darned good and
worth keeping if you c an. Fair is so-so . It 's not a great
tree; it 's not a terrible tree. Poor , it 's a bad tree .
COMMISSI ONER TALESFORE: Yo u me a n declining ?
DEBORAH ELLIS: It depend s . That 's why I always
giv e a structure rating as well as a vigor rating, because
I want to know what am I seeing that is a problem wi th this
tree here? Is it some thi ng wi th the structure or it 's
v igor, or both? So I will giv e you both of those ratings.
COMMISSION ER TALESFORE : Thank y ou very much .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: I 'd like to jump in real
quick. Would you like to comment on tree canopy and density
being seasonal? We may be looking at that as part o f our
proposed methodology .
DEBORAH ELLIS : Deciduous trees drop their
leaves, usually in the wintertime-there are a couple of
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species that drop them in the summer, like buckeyes-and so
those trees will provide less screening during the time
period that they 're normally deciduous .
And then there are some trees, blue oak is a very
good example and there are a lot of them at Highlands,
these are deciduous tree species, but they have the special
ability, a little bit above regular trees, to drop their
leaves early in response to drought, and they will do that
as a survival mechanism. So they can oftentimes look pretty
bad, but what they 're doing is actually benef icial for
them. If they have enough stored energy to put out a new
crop of leaves this year they may have saved themselves a
little bit of stress , because they 're not trying to pull up
water that 's not there and wasting energy on that .
Highlands is a good example where there are some
areas that there are a lot of blue oaks and they look bad,
but I think there is a possibility that if we start to get
normal rains those trees may increase their canopy density
quite a bit.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner
Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to ask another
question about the sparse canopy. I know you have a great
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sense for where a tree stands in terms of its canopy
cov erage, but my question is, is there like an industry
standard that is used in general for this, or is it more a
product of experience that you have in doing this? I just
didn 't know .
DEBORAH ELLIS: I do basically go based upon my
own experience, but there are some guidelines that are used
mainly for forestry in estimating canopy density, and these
are like a litt l e char t that you will see where it 's like a
circle that 's fi l led i n comp l e tely blac k; t h at 's 100 %
density . Then they 'll s t art punching little white holes in
it , and they have a ser i es where they 'll say th i s is 100 %,
here 's 80%, here 's 60 %, here 's 40 %. Mainly in forestry they
use that type of a chart to try to be more objective,
particularly between different observers .
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I ask because I think one
of the suggestions that has been made by the public is to
incorporate the idea of sparse canopies into whether it 's
included in a viewing, and so I just wanted to know what
went behind it.
So you 're saying yes , there is a standard out
there for forestry, and although you hav en't , because of
all your experience and you 're not doing forestry per se ,
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but if you wanted to rely on that you could use something
like that?
DEBORAH ELLIS: Sure, and I would be happy to
look that up and send it to y ou, if you like.
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank you. Any further
questions for the Town Arborist? Thank you, Ms . Ellis .
I will look to the Commissioners to see if they
have any comments on the color averaging. Commissioner
O'Donnell .
COMM I SSION E R O 'DON NELL : I'm t h e o n e that 's going
to leave at 5:30, so before I do leave I did want to throw
out a couple of thoughts.
I think what we 're hearing tod a y is very helpful .
I a l so thin k the complexity o f what we 're hear in g today
makes it very difficult to adequately draft something that
will apply in all circumstances.
Starting with that, I think the Staff has done a
good job, and the beauty of what the Staff has done I think
is to take something that has worked. We can criticize from
time to time, but it has worked. What Staff is proposing is
more than fine-tuning , but it 's less than tota lly redoing.
I tend towards that , because t h ere 's nothing to prevent us
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from continuing hopefully to make changes as necessary. So
I just start with that thought.
Secondly, when I look at the specific proposals
that they have and that are set forth in their report of
October 21 st , I just want to make a couple o f comments.
On page 2 we talk about the installation of story
poles and all that kind of thing, and we get into two areas
at least which are fairly complex, one of which is viewing
platforms versus v ant age points . As far as I 'm concerned ,
the viewing platforms have not been perfect; we know that,
we 've seen examples of it . On the other hand , I wouldn 't
want to throw that out.
What is being proposed here is that other
locations as deemed appropriate by the Community
Development Director could be used, which I think makes it
a little bit easier to use this, because we are trying to
preserve our views and the trees and all that. On the other
hand, we 're not passing a law that says there will be no
further building in hills . If we are, then it makes
everything much simpler, nobody has to waist a bunch of
money trying to come in.
So if the Community Development Director has this
leeway , then I think we get around some of the problems
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that were recently addressed to us, such as the Chevron
station blocking things, so I kind of like that suggestion.
As far as the refl ectivity , that 's really
troublesome to me. On page 2, we use a v isible horne as
defined as 2 4.5 %. On page 3 , we talk ab o ut , "Exterior
colors shall not exceed a reflectivity value of 30." I
think the suggestion on the bottom of page 3, that the
averaging be allowed except to the extent the horne is more
than 25 % visible perhaps is an improvement. I don 't like
the fact that you look at individual neighborhoods in the
foothills and tailor it by group of housing, group of
housing , because that doesn 't help the general view .
I think hopefully the averaging will help a lot .
I do think there is some reason to believ e that may be
averaging will not solve that 30% issue, but it may be
improved by a ve raging. I don't know what you come up with
rather than 30%, because in many cases that 30% is fine , in
some cases, maybe not. I don't know how to deal with that
however, and s o I 'm just going to leave it with saying if
the Staff has any thoughts o n how we deal with specific
types of hou sing, we heard about that-type, styles, that
kind of thing-that the reflectivity value of 30% is really
unfair to the design and the 30% does not benefit the
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v iewing that much, we might want to consider some other
language to deal with that. But for the moment I 'd rather
be conserv ativ e and stay with the 30%, but use the aver age .
As far as the solar goe s , bec ause that was I
thought a good point we should address, I would really
address a question to the Town Attorney.
If I understand the speaker, the speaker said we
would hav e the right under certain circumstances to require
a use permit, but the standards I heard her asserting of
health and safety didn 't seem to help me very much when it
c omes to aes t hetics. S o my question simply is if we assume
f o r the mo ment that it is restri c ted t o health and safe t y ,
which is not very helpful , unless ... One e x ample she used is
blinding drivers as they come down the street, which has
got to be a little rare. How much leeway , if at a ll, do we
h ave if the legislature is say ing gee whiz , we love solar ?
What a bility do we have to say s ola r is fin e , but let 's
keep it so it isn 't very reflective? That 's the question .
ROBERT SCHULTZ : No ne.
COMMISSIONER O 'DONNELL: None?
ROBERT S CHULTZ: None . But we will soon . The
Planning Commission , really , I can 't think of one in the
t wo years , and I asked Joel, as part of a residential
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project, they don 't put the solar on there ; after the fact
is when the solar comes in.
We are dev elo ping a policy in-house to try to
make certain we capture those ones that come forward f o r
the solar that hav e to be processed within three day s over
the counter in some (inaudible), that the ones that are in
the Histo ri c al Distric t and t he o nes that will i n the
hillside , we 'll put an extra eye on them to make certain
there isn 't something t h at we can do . We can recommend
changes that don 't increase the cost by more than $1,000
under it . From an i nterna l standpoint , we 're going to try
to come up with a policy that we try to catch those and we
try to look at t hem from the h i llside if they 're going to
be visible, and see if we can 't make changes a n d get the
applicant to understand the importance o f the reflection.
Maybe we 'll fin d it. I 'm sure the re are ones on
the hillside right now that have solar that might be
visually unappealing , but I don 't believe any of them are
going to be blinding from a health and safety issue. I
don 't see that as a to ol that we can use to go through the
use permit .
COMM ISSIONER O 'DONNELL : That 's kind of what I
tho ught, and I appreciate that, but I also assume that
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Staff, e v en if a person came in with the whole package,
i .e . the house , and said we 're going to have s olar ,
notwithstanding the limitations of your ability, i t doesn 't
prevent you from saying that 's pretty da r ned visible, can
you do something? Because I find a lot of our applicants
are pretty responsible, reasonable people . So we may n o t be
able to say you must do it , but we could say here 's how
other people have done it, it would be much better for y ou,
y our neighbors, and the c ommunity.
So those are my only comments.
ROB ERT SCHULTZ : We 've actually had a few in the
hillside where they 're not on t h e homes , they 'r e actually
on the ground , so we 've had those , a nd as long as those are
setbacks, then those can meet the requirement s also and
then we wouldn 't have that issue . Like you said, most
app l icants are v ery reasonable to try to come up with a
different solution . If it 's not going to be more than
$1,000 cost, then we can recommend it and require i t.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank y ou .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE : Commission er O'Donnell , you
shouldn 't be so shy . I t sounded like a motion to me. At
least it works for me. But since i t 's not a motion , befo re
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1 it becomes a motion I 'd like to discuss your view on the
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average 30%, because somewhere I read there was a concern
about the a v erage 30% insofar as most of the trim being
flat black and the roof being flaming orange and it
a v eraged out t o 30%. If we want to consider some
flexibility on that, we should have a sine-que-non maximum,
an average of 30%, but at no point shall any material
exceed 35%.
The average concerns me . The point was made it
could be 5, 5, 5 and 60, and so that come s out to now we 're
back to averages again, getting ourselv es in trouble .
Flexibility could have limits, but nothing anywhere to
exceed 35%. Maybe we 're again going to shoot ourselves in
the foot, but if we desire the flexibility o n the 30% and
the word "average ,u then we should have a max as well.
Tom, I think the rest o f what you did is a basis
for a motion.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Let me say two things.
One, I agree with what you just said abo ut y ou
don 't want to average if something is 100% and something is
5 %. You can get carried away with that, so I would agree
that that should be addressed.
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Secondly, however, this is a study session, and
my understanding of the session is we really ought to just
talk it out and receiv e all the input, take it home, and
perhaps ask Staff, as I already have, and you implicitly
are asking Staff, to make some more suggestions to us, and
then when I comes before us at a regular meeting, we'll
feel ... We were asked to do th i s before and we felt not
prepared . My understanding is this meeting is to help us be
prepared, not to make motions.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE : Okay, my bad. However,
everything he said should be written down.
The other consideration was brought up by
speakers and some of the text that we have where we talk
abo ut the 24 .5 %. Again , we're getting o urselves int o
trouble with averages , because I made the note that Bobby
could put up a hut that's 100 % vis ibl e , and no, he can 't d o
that, and somebody could put up a Cow Palace and only 24%
of it was visible. So if Staff could come up with a
brilliant way of also having a cap similar to the cap on
the LRVs, a cap on mass or visibility, guidance language
that cannot be hac ked and hewed over time and turn out to
be nothing but watered down sentiment. Stay with the 24.5%
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if that 's what we want , and but in no case shall more than
14 s q uare f oot of b r igh t oran ge be seen . I do n't have the
language myself, but I know where percentages can get us in
trouble, and we have some very large homes at 24.999999%,
coincidentally, and they can been seen from Milpitas. So
that 's my con cern wit h percentages .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Commissioner Kane.
Commissioner Hanssen, did you have your hand up? Okay, go
ahead.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I looked through this and
I made a bunch of comments, and I wanted to just share some
of the things that I thought maybe needed to be addressed.
First of all, I went back and reviewed the
existing Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines in
relationship to these two sections, and compared to what we
have n o w, wh a t's pr o p osed ri g h t n ow i s in f i nitely less
restrictive, and I wondered how we were getting by with the
maximum reflectivity value of 30 on all components of the
h ouse , because th a t 's what t he language says n ow, and if we
actually have houses that are out of compliance, or maybe
this is relative to new houses. That would one comment I
had .
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1 The second comment I had is relative to the
2 calculation the proposed language talks about using the
3 color a v eraging with the exception of any houses that are
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more than 25% visible. So what happens to the houses that
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are more than 25% visible? Do they default to the o ld
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standard of nothing more than 30%? That was another
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question I had, and ma y be I should just throw out all the
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questions before you answer each one of them, or do you
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want to answer them after?
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11
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Can I interrupt real quickly?
1 2 It depends upon h ow many you have, because I know
13 Commissioner O'Donnell has to leave at 5 :30 .
14 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But that 's okay , because
15 I intend to catch up on what I 'm going to miss.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Do you want me to stop s o
he can ask?
VICE CHAIR BADAME: No, I was giving him an
opportunity to bow out right now , but he 's not , so go
ahead .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNEL L : I'm staying for another
minute .
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN : Getting back to the color
averaging , I wondered if there wasn 't a need for some
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def inition about how the a v eraging was to be done relative
to is it all o f the surface area o f the home, and then you
take an LRV v alue for each piece of it and then do a
weighted a verage, or how does the calculation work?
And then relative to the actual colors that are
used , there 's reference to blending in with the natural
vegetation, so does that mean that we need to consider
eliminating certain colors, for example, I mentioned
earlier, black? Maybe gray is okay, but not black. Maybe we
don 't say it because it 's defined as fitting i n with t he
natural environment and it will automatically catch that,
but I did wonde r if there were any colors that shouldn 't be
permitted?
Then on the average itself, I wondered if there
shouldn 't be-I think Commissioner O'Donnell mentioned this-
a maximum, because I was looking at some of the colors,
like yellow and stuff, maximum LRV t hat you 'd have an
average of all the colors, but maybe you don 't want the
window trim t o be bright yellow, because in a square
footage weighted average you could in theory have ye llow
windows other than it doesn 't fit in with the environment ,
but it wouldn't violate the average. So I wondered i f there
shouldn 't be like the average can 't be more than 30 , and
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1 also no single measure could be more than, I don't know,
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50, 60, 70, whatever might be an appropriate number .
Then on the solar thing, in addition to the solar
systems I hav e been taking a lot of course work in
sustainability at UC Davis, and when we went over this
whole thing with roofs the encouragement is to do LRV
va l ues that are much, much higher than 30, because if you
can 't do a solar system ... So t hen it made me think should we
just ignore that because we don 't want t o affect visibility
in the hillsides, or should we consider it because of the
v alue o f the sustainability , which is clearly defined in
the Hillside Standards . I thought it put you on both sides
of the issue and I wondered if we shouldn 't think more
abo ut that for the roofs in particular. And then a gain,
maybe it wouldn 't be more than a maximum , but clearly with
under 30 you wouldn 't be able to do any sustainability with
your roof, becaus e it 's going to be too dark . And I think
that was it.
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank y ou , Commis s ioner
Hanssen. Commissioner Talesf o re.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : I don 't know where to
g o. I hav e so many ; this is going to be a lot.
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I thi nk what I 'm g o i ng to d o , if I don 't g et
t hrough thi s, I ma y submit some comments .
JOEL PAULSON : Any Commissio ner can feel free to
submi t wr i tten conunents and we 'll include that in the next
Pl a nning Co mmi s sio n me e ting.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: But i n the beginning, I
just wanted to say I look at this and I g o what is our
purpose and our intent? And that is what is our purpo se in
looking at what we have here, but more holisti c , what is
our purpose and intent as far as being planning
commissioners and people who make decisions? Who are we
making the decisions for, and what are the benefits? That
really weighs. We are stewards of this town and all of the
d o cuments that we hav e before us, and we hav e v ery strong
documents for the hillsides , and also for a lot of other
areas in town, historic areas.
I think it was brought up, I heard a couple of
comments tonight that reminded me that when we move into
certain a r eas o f o u r t o wn we really hav e a respo nsibility
to maintain the areas that we are moving into. This is a
long lead into this, but here it is . If I mov ed into the
Almon d Gr ove area and I move i n to a his t oric h o me , I 'm
going to have standar ds that I have to adhere to, but I d o
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1 that willingly because I wanted to live there, and so that
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to me, tha t's my purpose and I wil l do that .
If I move into the hillsides, it comes with a
whole document that people put their lives into, as we just
heard from Ms. Quintana and other people on that committee,
and the commissioners at that time, a whole plethora of
people . So for me, that comes with the responsibility that
I would love to live here because it's a special place to
live , but I 'm hoping that the people that move in there
understand that when you want to live among the trees and
the hills and the birds and all the other animals, that
we 're trying to have you l i ve th ere in a way that doesn 't
impact the hillsides themselves, and hopefully not all of
th e an imal s that live the re, an d that also don 't impact the
people here on the valley floor.
Now why is that important? Because in every other
document in our town those hillsides are our backdrop. They
are the crown jewel o f whe re we live , and I can 't tell you
how much it hurts me when I see things not as we intended
them to be. We hope that people will understand when they
move into these areas to please take with you that
responsibility th a t aren 't you lucky to be able to live
here? So that 's my lea d in .
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Let 's just go to color averaging . I 'm very
passionate about what I do up here . I don 't believe that
there 's anybody in this room that can really talk to us
about c olor a v eragi ng . I unders t and color . I don't know
that I c ould really underst a nd t h i s . There are c olo r
experts that make their living analyzing color/ and so if
we 're going to move away fr om what we have here, what has
seemed to work all these y ears-except for the pink house I
did see in the hillsides the other day when I was up there
looking at one of our projects , to Sandy 's point , but he
left-then I would suggest, and I would strongly suggest,
that we do some inv estigation and possibly look for
somebody who makes their living with color analysis that
could actually come and help our town and maybe giv e us a
c o lor standard program that could update us if we hav e
missed something. I couldn 't tell you what is 30 a v erage of
a house 1 and are you averaging the whole house? Is it going
to be all sides? There are too many complications .
So that wo uld be my suggestion. Other than that /
I think what we h ave here seems t o be wo rking . Ma y be there
is every once in a while, and I think it happened with the
Davidon project that came before us one time and y ou asked
for some color a v eraging and that was allowed, but that was
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under a very specific circumstance, and I would not start
into this color averaging. Who is going to decide that on
Staff? Who would decide that? How would that be decided,
Joel?
JOEL PAULSON : We 'd be us ing t he model that the
Counci l a pp roved for Davidon . It 's very thorough. It is a
we ighted a v erage of all of the exterior materials and the
LRV of those individual materials, and then it is
determined whether or not it complies with the average of
30 or not. I t 's the same conversat i on we had , as you
mentioned, that went to Council, and Council actually
directed Staff to bring that back to look at this option
for other hillside homes, and so that 's why we 're here
before y ou now.
COMMISSION ER TALESFORE : Then if that 's the case ,
I would like to see a review of that , I mean how that 's
determined , if it 's so formu l aic .
JOEL PAULSON: I 'll forwa rd you the meetings
where it came to Planning Commission and Council, and there
are a number of exhibits that generally look like this.
COMMISSION ER TALESFOR E : That 's fine , but I think
for me, I would still think that we need to maybe consult
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1 with s o mebody and perhaps update what we are doing. I mean
2 they may hav e some other ideas.
3 VICE CHAIR BADAME : I 'd just like to jump in with
4
a quick question for Staff along those lines. Up unt il now
5
with Dav idon Homes, hav e we had any reque sts in the 11
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years since our Hillside Dev elopment Standards and
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Guidelines were adopted to deviate from our color
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regulations?
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JO EL PAU L SON : Not t hat I'm aware of , but just
11
from a background perspective, I think it was 1997 when the
12 previous Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines were
13 adopted-I 'm looking at Lee in c ase my year is off-before
14 the 2004 version; that was the first time LRV compliance
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came into the Hillside Guidelines. From that point up until
December 2014 Staff had interpreted that as the main body
color of the house; we didn 't look at casement colors o f
windows, 2x6 trim . We looked at the main body of the house,
and if it was natural materials , then we didn 't apply that ,
because they're natural materials and would blend with the
hillside .
When Davidon 's request came forward it went to
the Planning Commission who made the recommendation to
Council. Council said no, we should be looking at all of
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the exter i or materia l s , and so that 's when th i s color
average, whi c h was exactly what they had proposed to do,
was brought forward and t hat was looked at.
Some of the conversations that we've had tonight ,
one spe c ifically relating to whether there should be a cap,
and what that number should be, for any materials so that
you don 't end up with a white house wi th a black roof , or a
black house with a white roof from a sustainability
perspective. So I think those are things that we can
definitely l ook at, and we 'll lo ok to other jurisdictions .
I know there was some information provided to
Council on four or five other jurisdictions, some semi -
local and some elsewhere, with ~illside settings that have
higher LRV caps . I think the county 's cap is 45, and there
are some others that were up to 60 . Now , they weren 't
average and we don 't know the details of whether they 're
l ooking at main body or they 're looking a t all the exterior
materials, but just from a background perspective, so
everyone has that background.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Paulson.
Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE: If you hav e a model and you
consider it fair and reasonable for some variety o n the
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1 house , then I 'm oka y with that . Cap it at some reas onable
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number, 35, 36.9 , but just prevent the abuse of the
average , that 's all.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : And in fact how would
that happen? I think that 's why I don 't find this
foolproof .
JOEL PAULSON: I don 't think we 're going to get
anything that 's going to be foo l proof.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : I think you 're right.
JOEL PAULSON : I don 't want to lead you astray .
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: In all these years.
JOEL PAULSON: But looking at should someone be
able to have a window that has a white casement where
you 're talking about from the valley floor , a 2 " per i meter
around it with grids, is that something that we should be
l ooking at? Or if it 's 2x6 trim that 's white or beige , is
that really going t o be that v isible from the v alley floor?
So I think there are a lot of options there that we can
look, but (inaudible) cap.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : Or where they could be,
if it was may be the fro nt o f the house would be less
intrusive than the bac k o f the house , but who 's going to be
watching all this stuff?
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1 JOEL PAULSON: We want the 360-degree color as
2 well as the architecture.
3 COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Right. But I think then
4 there was one thing in here about the LRV and the average,
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and this whole thing about some applicants have expressed
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concerns to Staff regarding application of this
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requirement , "New homes would have light colored trim," but
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then it goes on to say, "A new a cces sory structure or
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addition to a n existing residence constructed ," t his is on
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page 3 of the report , "prior to the adoption of the
12 Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines would need to
13 conform to the LR V requirements requiring painting or
14 changing the materials for the entire house to meet the LRV
15 30 and having the addition that 's ," blah , blah , blah , "the
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different color, and this would result in significant added
cost to the homeowner ."
They would probably have to do that anyway if
they were repairing or adding onto their home, because when
your house is already painted, it hard to match that color,
and most people end up painting the entire house. So to me
that 's just not a comp el ling reason .
JOEL PAULSON : Th a t's a pretty common t hing we
hear. It 's the same thing with the white casement windows ,
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so we 're going to make them replace all of their windows t o
an LRV casement of less than 30 when they 're changing out
o ne window. We see things that are just at the building
permit lev el, and we have a number of houses if it was
built before 1997 they don 't have th e deed restriction .
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Right . Well, then those
would be on a case -by-case .
JOEL PAULSON: Sure, but we have a lot of those
cases.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: Do you?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes. Right now the requirements
are that all exterior materials must be LRV 30 or less, and
so we 're looking at those on a case -by-case basis , but it 's
just one of those issues that as we move forward. And even
any house from 1997 to 2014, some o f them have white trim,
some of them have white windows, and they hav e the deed
restriction.
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE: I think if you go in the
hillsides you 'll see that not all homes are brown either .
JOEL PAULSON : Very true, and some of that is
because they 're more re q u i red to meet the LRV , because they
d i dn 't have the deed r estri ction from timing .
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1 COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : Right . And how can we
2 follow? We can 't be enforcing that . How do we even check
3 all of that? I mean , really . It 's hard to mo nitor .
4 JOEL PAUL S ON: It is hard to mo nitor.
5
COMMISSIONER TALESFORE : That 's where I talked
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about the responsibility, and what Rob brought up about
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we 're tryi ng to mak e applicants aw are and respo ns i ble . We
8
could have them sign a document, I don't know.
9
You know what? I can 't go on , so I 'll submit my
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other comments in writing, okay?
11
I have to leave . Thank
12 y ou .
1 3 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you , Commissioner
14 Talesfore for your c o mment s, and we will see you nex t time .
1 5 I will look to Commissioner Erekson; I believe y ou had your
16 hand up .
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COMMISSIONER EREKSON: To the Staff, we h ave
public testimony about the impact of different materials on
reflective value using the same paint color or whate ver,
however you look at it. I need help understanding how I
should think about reflective value and variation in
materials, and how to think about reflectiv e v alue and
different a rchitectural styles . I'd like he l p in
understanding h o w I should think about the trim issue and
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the full body of the house, and the roof and the body of
the house. If I should think about those t ogether, if I
should have it together, if I should think about it
differently, and what the differential impacts of those
are .
I might suggest that we have a consulting
architect for the Town who has a lot of experience in the
Town, and it might be useful or helpful to ask him to
comment on some things about architectural style and those
kinds of things . They would be impartial. I 'm not
suggesting that other architects who represent other
projects aren 't objective , but the consulting architects
essentially work f or the Town. So that 's one comment about
colors.
One general comment I have about people being
concerned about their having the expense of it, any action
taken by the Town to change a standard or a guideline is a
moment in time, and it mo v es forward, and there are
reasonable ways to grandfather the past, and reasonable
reasons to grandfather some of the practices in the past
that aren 't the best practices going forward .
But to the extent that we have wisdom and we want
to reshape something going forward in the future as people
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make changes, I think they should be expec ted to update
those things. We can 't go t hro ugh the hillside and tell
everybody to repaint all their homes by six months from
now , but as changes occur I think it 's reasonable to think
about trying to adopt a new standard. I t doesn 't bother me
particularly to adopt a new standard; that happens all the
time . Building codes change, people have to update things,
that happens all the time , so that 's not a new problem .
The other thing I would like to say is Davidon
Homes has been used, and a particular projec t in town has
been used, as an example over and over and over in the
context of these discussions . I 'd just like to say for me
this discussion is not about one deve lopment, not about one
deve l oper , and so I think we don 't want to over -utilize and
potentially victimize one person or one developer. They may
be doing a good job and they may be not doing a good job, I
don 't know , but that 's really at some level irrelevant to
these discussions . I f there are issues wi th that one
particular development with r espect to t oday 's s tandards or
future standards, that's really n ot part of this
discussion . We should be thinking about what 's right for
the Town and right for the hillsides of the Town, b ecause
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that represents only a v ery small portion of the hillsides
of the Town . So that 's two generalized comments .
The other comment , I 'm going to make some
comments about trees , if that 's okay .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Of course.
COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Trees are obviously liv ing
things, and as people are, some trees are healthy, some
trees are not as healthy, and all trees, all trees, have a
lifespan. When we 're doing any kind of visibility analysis
and the coverage , we 're viewing it at a moment in time , at
a moment in time in the history of the Town, and a moment
in time of the lifespan of all of those trees.
I 'm trying to figure out how if I should think
about leaving out sparse canopy trees, for example, or
leaving out trees that are in poor condition as counting
toward the ... Should I ask the arborist tell me t he average,
tell me the remaining life expectancy of every tree also?
Hypothetically a tree could be in reasonable good condition
and have a very short life expectancy left too , so it 's n ot
clear to me how we can exclude trees that are there just
because they have something, because we need to be in the
business ultimately of reforestation in the Town and
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1 replenishing the trees, because all trees will die. All
2 trees do die, and we need to replenish them.
3 I 'm intrigued by t h e deed re s triction ide a in
4 propert ies so that if we have a particular. .. Whatever
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standard we have, whatever that standard is, without
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worrying about what that standard is for the moment, and we
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apply that standard and someone passes the standard, then
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can we create an ongoing responsibility in the hillsides
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for that homeowner , for the owner of that property, to
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maintain that by some sort of deed restriction on that so
1 2 that they replenish and reforest, which is going to have to
13 be done, no matter whether they pass the thing, whether
14 they were way up here passing it or just barely stretch b y ?
15 We all know the tree s are going to die some d ay , so I 'm
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intrigued by how we do that .
I also don 't know fully how to understand how I
deal with the fact that someone is going to be doing a
project at a moment in time , we 're going to take visibil i ty
ana l ysis at this moment , and t hat 's at a particular season
of the year. So do we use as the standard the least amount
of coverage that is provided by a tree and the season the
most amount of cov erage is, irrespective of when the
project is being ... or some average of that over time to give
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the most expo sure or the leas t exposure or some a v erage of
t ha t , or do we take the moment in time when they 're making
the proposal? I can 't figure out how to sort all t ha t out
fo r myself.
If we 're using the least coverage as the
standard-I 'm n ot suggesting we should , I 'm just using that
as an example-and we were nine months away from the least
coverage, then how is it fair ? How do we judge fairness
with having someone postpone moving forward on a project
simply because, for examp l e, t hey cou l dn 't get f inancing ?
All kinds of reasons happen t ha t di ctate when you 're trying
to do somethi ng, s o how do we deal with that issue and make
it both represent what we want it to d o with protecting the
hillsides and v iews, but not being unreasonable and unfair
to people who are trying t o dev elo p pro pertie s? I can 't
figure out how t o sort all that out for my se l f.
I probably have lots of other thoughts , but I 'll
let it go at that .
VICE CHAIR BADAME : Thank you, Com missio ner
Erekson . Any other comments? Commissi oner Kane .
COMMISSIONER KANE: I was talking earlier abo ut
the concept of trees and landscaping as a tertiary
consideration o n v isibility , and I think the point is made
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on pages 2 and 3 of Dr. We issman 's let t er of September 15t h ,
and when I say the point is made, I mean philosophically.
"Providing landscape screeni n g is not a n altern ative to
reducing b u ilding he i ght or selecting a less visible s ite .u
Now I bel i eve the r e he 's quoting a mee t ing of t he Planning
Commission from 2009 or thereabouts , it doesn 't matte r.
What matters is-and I 'll follow this up in writ i ng-he
captures the aspect of visibility not to be compromised
with trees and bushes, which as Commissioner Erekson points
out may be tempo rary , and he 's interested in the contract
for maintaining that kind of flora.
That 's good , but we don 't police folks and we
don 't always know what happens on construction sites , and
we don 't have a daily reference to a tree that 's healthy
and a tree that 's suddenly falling down. Wh at I'm going to
write in terms of my thoughts is not to put an emphasis on
screening, but rather put an emphasis on the purpose of the
Hillside Guidelines .
By the way , if we were taped tonight I 'd like a
copy of Commissioner Tales fore 's opening remar k s . I was
over here weeping . Wanted to stand up and cheer , and I 'm
reasonably serious, because she put it really well as to
what our job is , as long as we have the job , and it 's to
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protect . I don 't want to namedrop , but I used to talk t o
Wasserman a lot when I was new, and I said I don 't wan t
th is, and I don 't want that . He said , "We have an
obligation to the people that exist, but we also have an
o bligation to t he people yet to come that we welcome them.n
So there are two considerations t here , and I don't want to
bury the second consideration about our future citizens,
but I also don 't want to give away our purpo se in
protecting the hills, and Joanne said it really we ll. I
won 't try to repeat it, but I would think that 's why we 're
all up here .
So time shall not erode the equity and we ought
not let our language get eroded for what the purposes were
back in the ~arly 2000s or the first draft came up in 1997 .
I liv ed through some of that period, and what happens to
prohibitive language is erosion and new precedent setting,
and now we 've got a house divisible , so why can 't I have a
house divisible? I made a comparison in the Marat /Sade
scene where the guy finally walks in and says, "Marat , may
I keep this king?n I mean things erode , and I 'd like to
think that what our missi o n is on looking at at least these
two prov isions o f the hillside is to stop the erosion, and
where and as appropriate return to the original intent,
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which was t o protect the hillsides, and if that means we
have to become mathematicians on 24.5%, however nothing to
exceed 35%, that 's all gamesmanship and chess . If we had
strong discretionary language as is on those two pages I
referenced, then maybe we could beef it up a little bit in
going forward in the future.
I d o n't know how we can address this. What
concerns me the most when I sit up here is the heartbreak
of the new neighbors not getting what they thought they
were going to get. Our job is to be impassionate. If there
was a way that we could say every body who goes up there has
to get a copy of this stuff, so they know that some of it
is onerous , and if you're a normal citizen and y o u read it
for the first time, you'd think it 's ridiculous. And if
you 're n ew a n d you just paid a gazillion dollars to get
what you want, it's not fair to see these things . So I wish
we could deal with not the homeowners, but those who
prece de the homeowners to say please ensure that the folks
know what they 're up against .
Just like she said, when you move into an
Historic District, when you move into the hillsides, we
have the s e things, and I don 't want to disappoint and I
don 't want to hurt , but I wish everybody knew what is up in
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front of us so they don 't look at us like we 're idi ots , and
if they do it 's understandable , because they don 't
u nderstand where it came from , they don 't understand why we
have it , and they don 't understand what it is . And when we
try to be good gov ernment, our fi rs t priority should be
communication with the people to know what it is.
Everybody who goes to court has a lawyer, and
this lawyer says that , and that lawyer says this , and it 's
all about persuasion . So when you have a vested interest
you could sound persuasive, and the homeowners may or may
not be able to see through that , or not hear what they 're
being told, and I wish there was a way we could write
language and get signed receipts on Hillside Standards and
Guidelines from every new Los Gatos c itizen, our new
neighbor who is going to move up there, that they know what
we have. And maybe the same thing for the Historic District
as well.
It really bothers us. It did me ten y ears ago,
and it does now , that people can 't get what they thought
they
play
wish
were go i ng to ge t because a bunch of guys are going
nickel and dime . We 're not playing nickel and dime;
we had a better way of communicating that. Okay.
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VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Commissioner Kane.
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I know we only have a few
minutes left, but I appreciate all the comments of my
fellow commissioners and I think they 're all good ones . My
general feeling about where we stand right now is that the
Hillside Guidelines were developed some time ago, and then
t here is this couple of specific things that we 're being
asked to look at in terms of modifying the documents .
I didn 't speak earlier about the trees , but in
the case of trees and also the color analysis I think the
proposed language that the Staff has created in both cases
generally provides more clarity and specificity to the
existing document and would be more helpful to the Town .
The only question that remains is in the case of
the color analysis, adding in the entire surface of the
house versus just the main body color of the house does
create some issues about the a v eraging and what happens ; I
brought those up earlier.
In the case of the trees, I love what Staff
a lready came up with . I wondered if we wouldn 't benefit
from hav ing a little bit more time, because I think Dr.
Weissman and Ms . Quintana put a lot of time into their
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thoughts on it , and we didn 't really get t o go through each
of the questions that were in our packet for today . I 'd
feel better if we ac tually did talk through a couple of
those questions and have a consensus from the Commission
about it, because I think that to not go forward with this
is a mistake, because it 's going to add specificity where
we don't have it now , and even in the current state without
amendments it 's going to make it easier to determine how to
do a viewing analysis, for example, better.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Commissioner
Hanssen. We are out of time, and I see Commissioner Erekson
nodding his head, as if in agreement that maybe another
study session is warranted? Commissioner Erekson .
COMMISSIONER EREKSON : I 'd like to add one real
quick thing for the Staff. I am concerned about how if we
continue to use a percentage of visibility how we should
think about larger homes versus smaller homes.
I 'm n ot sure , Vice Chair Badame , that we need
another study session, but I did find the questions that
were in the Weissman/Quintana thing very helpful. Whether I
agree with their answe rs or not is in question, but I
thought the questions were right on and I thought they were
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very thoughtful responses, and they caused me to think
about some of my answers.
I think if the Staff could structure the item, as
they often do when it 's agendized , a gain , and careful l y
walk us through the questions, and we did that deliberately
that we could accomplish both objectives at the same time
without having another session and then moving this further
and further out into the future .
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Thank you . That was my
thought process as we l l . So at this point I 'd l ike to thank
Staff f o r their proposed draft and modifications . This is
becoming e v en more complex with more information, so I am
confident that the Planning Department will welcome any
email suggestions o r inquiries fro m Commissioners and from
the public and take those into consideration and respond to
us at our Planning Commission hearing when we are ready to
take action as far as a motion on these items. Does the
Staff hav e any thing to add to t hat before we adjourn?
LAUREL PREVETTI: We should probably continue
this meeting to a date certain, and I think giv en the
questions that were asked in th e Staff anal y sis th a t 's
going to be needed, probably the December g th would be the
meeting that we would be prepared to come back.
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VICE CHAIR BADAME: So you are recommending that
we do another session , in essence that it 's continued?
LAUREL PREVETTI: No, not to a study session, but
t o your regular session that 's scheduled for December gth ,
the 7 :00 o 'clock hearing.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Okay. Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Give me a sense of what you
see the agenda as being for November and December. We hav e
two months where-you now what I 'm going to say-people want
to build houses, they want to do this , they want to do
that . I hate delaying. I 'd sooner meet on Christmas Eve if
I had to rather than make them wait another month . We
shouldn 't do that .
But this particular subject may take a long time .
We 've been here two hours and maybe we 've scratched the
surface, and may be we're done, because three of us are
missing , and you know how much we talk . I 'm not opposed to
a study session . Getting here at 4 :00 o 'clock is like
ripping off epidermis , I work, but I 'd rather do that , and
of course it 's up to you , you can recommend. If we have
agendas for people that are waiting to get things done, I
would look to making the effort, the sacrifice , to get here
for a study session and keep on do ing what we 're doing ,
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because i t 's really i mp ortant , and i t 's i mportant that we
get it right, but not at the expense of applicants who want
to get things done.
LAUREL PREVETTI: And we certainly appreciate the
consideration and balancing the long-term protection of our
community, as was articulated by many of the Com missioners
this evening, with those applicants that are currently in
process.
Please know that we are continuing to process the
applications that are before us given the current guideline
standards and ordinances, and please know that ultimately
it 's the Council that will h ave to make any d ecision s on
the changes to the guidelines, so even if the Planning
Commission and Staff could work as expeditiously as
possible, there would still be the calendaring and the
decisions that the Council would have to make.
I would say that if you would like another study
session, our ability given our workload and staffing, would
still puts us in December. December 2 nd could be a
opportunity for another study session to work through the
questions and any additional Staff recommendations.
COMMISSIONER KANE: I don 't want t he r e st of t h e
Commissio n to h at e me , but I 'm just say ing we h a v e one
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 10/21 /2015
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meeting in Nov ember and one meeting in December, and if
this subject was to be one of those meetings, people are
going to be waiting until February to build houses .
LAUREL PREVETTI: They 're not waiting , because we
already hav e guidelines and ordinances that can get them
through the process now . I know we have one housing builder
who is eager to see resolution on color averaging, as
you 've h eard in prior testimon y , but there are ways to keep
t he process go i ng . I t 's just tha t wi th the i s su e s that were
raised tonight, and given the projects that are already
scheduled for your consideration , it 's g oin g to take some
Staff work, and so a special meeting on December 2 nd is one
opt i on . I don 't k n ow if we wo u ld be ready in November . We
have the holidays.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Madam Chair?
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Yes, Commissioner Kane.
COMMISSIONER KANE: Can we ask and see if
December 2 nd is acceptable to Commissioners present?
VI CE CHAI R BADAME : Well , yes , g o ahead . I 'm kind
of concerned that we 're missing three Commissioners . I 'm
just wondering if we do a poll at a later date, but we can
certainly ask the Commissioners present . Commissioner
Erekson.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 10 /21 /2015
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1 COMMISSIONER EREKSON : My guess is that the
2 complexity of this and the number of questions that one
3 needs to wade through could easily take from 7:00 to 11 :30
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on a particular night . In response t o Commissioner Kane 's
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concern, it might be appropriate to think about scheduling
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a special meeting of the Commission just for this topic and
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not agendize anything else for that, and even if that were
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December 2nd and the Staff could be ready by that point in
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time. But I 'm not presuming that they could , because I 'm
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sensitive to the fact that our planning Staff are
12 leaderless at this moment.
13 VICE CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Kane, does that
1 4 sound agreeable to you?
15 COMMISSIONER KANE: How does it differ from ... I 'm
16 not sure. Let 's do something on December 2nd .
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VICE CHAIR BADAME: Would it be open for public
communications?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes . We can continue it tonight to
December 2nd. We'll poll the rest o f the Commission . We 'll
send out an email this week, and then we 'll also have to
check availability of the chambers.
VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen .
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 10/21 /2 015
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1 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN : I 'm available on the 2nd. I
2 would prefer it to be a special meeting . I think that we
3 should try to adv ance this forward and make a decision,
4 because we could spend many, many meetings just discussing
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it, and I think we should put that on the agenda. But I
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think the idea of making it a separate meeting from other
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agenda items, because I do think it will take a few hours
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to get to a motion that we can have consensus on .
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VI CE CHAIR BADAME: Agreed.
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COMMISSIONER KANE: Motion to continue to ...
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12 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Well, we 're n o t making a
1 3 motion though, or are we making a motion?
14 JOE L PAULSON : You're going to make a motion to
15 continue t h is item .
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VICE CHAIR BADAME : All right, let 's make a
motion to continue the item to December 2nd, the date
certain .
ROBERT SCHULTZ: At what time?
VICE CHAIR BADAME : 7 :00?
COMMISSIONER KANE : 6:00?
VICE CHAIR BADAME: 6:00?
COMMISSIONER EREKSON : I 'll s econd the motion if
it 's 7 :00 o 'c lock.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 10 /21/2 015
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1 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Wait a second.
2 COMMISSIONER KANE : 7 :00 o 'clock is what you
3 want?
4 VICE CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Kane said 6:00
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o 'clock .
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COMMISSIONER KANE : 7 :00 o 'clock , I 'll second t he
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motion.
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VICE CHAIR BADAME : All in favor? I 'll call the
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question. Unanimous. All right, do we have any further
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reports from Staff?
12 I have one Commission matter, and I would just
13 like to do a shout-out to a gentleman sitting in the bac k
14 row and wish him a Happy Birthday tonight. He comes to all
15 of our hearings and he 's here tonight on his birthday, so
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Happy Birthday. There are two of you back there, so you
figure it out. The meeting is adjourned.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 10 /21 /2015
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90
To: Planning Commission, Study Session of October 21, 2015
From: Dave Weissman, Lee Quintana
Re: Proposed draft for Visibility Calculations
We h?ve started with Staffs draft template, as presented at the PC meeting of
August 26, 2015, and expanded it to try and include all of those issues and areas that
both the TC and PC expressed an interest in during several public hearings.
Additionally we have tried to remove as much ambiguity and subjectivity as
possible since several PC members e x pressed such concerns.
VIEW METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY
Instillation of story poles:
• Install story poles per adopted Town Policy
Timing of story pole instillation :
• A&S: Early in staff review
• PD : Prior to determination of the LRDA, since visibility is identified as a constraint
to be considered when determining the LRDA
Identify points from which analysis shall be done:
• Determine identified viewing platforms to use
• Identify alternate viewing platform(s) from valley floor
• Identify vantage points within hillsides
If after story poles are installed, staff concludes that the development will be less
than 10% visible, no further visual analysis is required
Photographs:
• Equipment: Photographs of the project site shall be taken with a 300 mm or longer
lens using a tripod. The 300mm or longer lens will facilitate the identification of
individual trees and the tripod will ensure a quality image
• Ambient conditions: Photos shall be taken during the time of day and a111bient light
conditions that provide the best visibility of the site
• Photographs shall clearly show the story poles and/or house and subject property
Timing of Photographs:
•Significant dead branches shall be removed from on-site trees before photos are
taken 1
• Evergreen trees only: Photos may be taken anytime of the year if only (native)
evergreen trees provide screening
•Deciduous trees: Where (native) deciduous trees provide screening, photos shall be
taken during maximum summer leaf-out2 and maximum winter leaf drop.3
EXHIBIT 6
1
Processing of photographs:
• Download color photographs into Photoshop, or a similar application, and enlarge
the story pole area to almost completely fill an 8" x 11" sheet of paper.
• Tones and contrast shall be adjusted to maximize the visibility and identification of
the individual trees that may afford screening for the proposed project.
• No other Photoshop changes shall be permitted.
Trees that shall be counted as screening trees are:
• Native to the immediate site
• Naturally occurring (not planted or proposed as landscaping)
• On-site
• Have a preservation suitability rating of "fair /good, good, or excellent", as
determined in the consulting arborist's final tree report
• Recommended for retention in the consulting arborist's final tree report
• Subject to "low" (or no) construction impacts, according to the consulting arborist
Trees that shall be counted as providing partial screening:
• Native deciduous trees shall be credited with 60% of screening4
• Trees with sparse canopiess. 6
Trees that shall not be counted as screening trees are:
• Trees requiring more than 15% pruning to make way for construction
• Trees subject to potential "low /moderate, moderate or sever" construction
impacts according to the consulting arborist's final tree report
• Trees that have a "poor, poor /fair, or fair" preservation suitability rating according
to the consulting arborist's final tree report
• Trees that are to be removed, or that are injured or harmed during any
construction or grading activity, even if the latter two are incidental occurrences
ANALYSIS
Provide the following color photos:
• Photographs that label :
1. Trees that provide screening on-site when viewed from the viewing
platforms/vantage points toward the project site
2. A photo that physically removes, through photo simulation, those trees that
shall not be counted as screening and indicate which trees provide partial
screening
• Three-dimensional illustrations or photo simulations of structure may be required
when determined necessary by the deciding body to assist in visibility analysis
Determination :
• Calculate the percent visibility of proposed structure(s) for each of the above 2
photos
• If any one elevation of a house (plus related structures) is 25% or more visible,
2
rounded to the nearest whole number, the maximum height shall be 18'
1 Such dead branch removal is also part of the HDS&G defensible space guidelines
z Overall health of deciduous oaks can only be assessed during full leaf-out, usually
in early summer'
3 That will reflect visibility during the late fall-winter months
4 Since such trees are with leaves for approximately 60% of the year
s usually reflective of poor baseline health of that tre~ and poor, long term viability
6As an example, if the solid "block" outline of a tree screens 300 square feet of a
proposed structure's elevation, but the actual tree would only provide an estimated
30% screening of that structure because of its sparse canopy, then the applicant gets
"credit" for 90 square feet.
Other items to consider for discussion and/or inclusion in VIEW METHODOLOGY
AND ANALYSIS
1./s the 25% visibility cutoff too generous? Story poles, when viewed from 1.3 to 3.4
miles away, are essentially invisible to the naked eye. In contrast, completed houses,
such as the house on Highland's Lot 6, are readily visible because of size and mass,
even if their visibility is less than 25%. The HDS&G speak to this issue on page 15:
"The visual impact of buildings or portions of buildings that can be seen from the
viewing platforms shall be mitigated to the greatest extent reasonable by reducing
the height of the building or moving the structure to another location on the site."
OUR PROPOSAL: Reduce the percentage visibility threshold to 15% since the
Highland's Lot 6 house, for which no visibility analysis was required by Staff
because, we assume, it was less than 25%, is, nevertheless, readily visible to the
naked eye from Los Gatos Blvd . This observation supports that the 25% threshold is
too high and should be lowered.
2. Should visibility calculations also consider the square footage of the elevation that is
visible ? In other words, a 5,000 square foot house might have 20% of its elevation,
or 1,000 square feet, visible from the valley floor . Such a house would be permitted
under the present code. But a 500 square foot house, situated in the middle of a
hillside clearing, might have 100% of its elevation visible to the valley floor and not
3
be permitted, despite being less of an eyesore in the hillsides. In fact, it is the smaller
house that is more sustainable and should be encouraged (HDS&G, pages 9 & 33).
The present system favors the bigger, less sustainable, more visible house.
OUR PROPOSAL: That the PC discuss this topic and modify the code to be more
reflective of the goals and objectives of the HDS&G. Consider the "big picture."
3 . Should the all important visibility calculations be peer reviewed by an outside
source who has no potential conflict of interest with the applicant? This is, possibly,
the single, most important number generated in any hillside application with a
potential visibility issue and should be peer reviewed, not because we don't trust
the applicant but because people make honest mistakes. The Town chooses the
consulting arborist and staff requires peer review of submitted documents and
studies all of the time. These important visibility documents should be no different.
OUR PROPOSAL : Require peer review of any critical document, such as a visibility
study, especially where the initial evaluation was done by a company chosen by the
developer.
We also have a quick comment on LRV averaging. Staff proposes the following:
"Exterior material colors ... may use color averaging of all exterior. materials to meet
the maximum light reflectivity value of 30 .... " It thus appears that an applicant could
have a house with sides of LRV 5 but a roof with LRV of 90, but because of averaging
of areas, the overall LRV would be below 30 even though the roof would be
extremely visible. Plus what is averaged? Just the elevation facing the valley floor or
all 4 sides and roof of the house? Since the HDS&G call for hillside homes to blend
with the natural environment, it seems to us that every part of the proposed house
should blend with the hillsides . One only has to look at the built house on Lot 6 in
the Highlands to see what visibility looks like from the valley floor along Los Gatos
Blvd.
4
PC Study Session 10/2 1/2015
To : The Pla nning C o mmi ssi o n
Fr o m: L ee Quinta na
Date: O ct 21, 201 5
S ubject: Revisions to HDS&G -Vis ual Analys is
DELETE FROM GLOSSARY
Lee Quintan a
DELETE VISIBLE HOME FROM G LOSSAR Y MOST PEOPLE KNOW THE
DEFI NITION OF VISIBLE. THE BOD Y OF THE HDS&G SHOULD PROVIDE
SUFFICIENT D IRECTION WITHOUT HAVING TO REDEFI NE THE MEANING OF
VISIBLE.
DELETE VIEWING P LATFORM FROM GLOSSARY AND TEXT AND SUBSTITUTE
VANTAGE POI NTS-WITH CURRENT LANGUAGE VIEWS FROM VANTAGE POINTS
NOT ON THE VALLEY FLOOR TEND TO BE IGNORED WHEN IDENTIFYING POINTS
FROM WHICH VISUALANALYSIS SHOULD BE DONE .
25% ORIGIN AND REASON BEH IND
THE 25% CR ITER lA APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN ADDED AT THE LAST MINUTE.
(AFTER AT LEAST 5 DRAFTS)
IT IS NOT CLEAR WH Y % OF VISIBLE ELEVATION WAS CHOSEN , HOW OR WHY
25 % WAS CHOSEN AS THE CUT OFF, OR EVEN WHETHER ALTERNATIVE
METHODS WERE CONSIDERED. (SEE HANDOUT)
ALTERNATIVE TO CONSIDER-AND I'M SURE THERE ARE OTHERS :
a. DECREASE THE PER CENT OF VISIBLE ELEVATION ALLOWED AS USEABLE
OR POTENTIALLY USEABLE SQUARE FOOTAGE INCREASES .
THIS WOULD INCLU DE SPACES THAT ARE NOT CURRENTLY PROPOSED
AS USEABLE SPACE . THIS WOULD INCLUDE CELLARS , BASEMENTS AND
OR SPACES SHOWN ON THE PLA NS AS CO VERED BY A ROOF-SPACES
THAT COULD EASILY BE CONVERTED INTO USEABLE INDOOR SPACE
WITHOUT C HANGING THE EFFECTI VE BULK OF THE PROPOSED
PROJECT
b. PER CENT OF TOTAL OF RIDGELINE LENGTH
Example : If the tot al ridgeline f acing a vantage point is 7 5' long only 25% (o r X
%) of the length of t he ridgeline could be visible , i.e . 18%
c. PER CENT OF ROOFLINE ELEVATION:
EXHIBIT 7
1
PC Study Session 10/21/2015 Le e Quintana
Example : If the total square footage of the roof elevation facing a vantage point is
1000 sq . ft. only 25% ( or X %) could be visible, i.e. 250 sq . ft.
d. ANY OF TH E ABOVE.
e. OTH ER POSSIBILITIES
CLARIFY DISCRET ION OF PCITC
CLARIFY OR CLEARLY STATE THAT WHATEVER LANGUAGE IS ADOPTED
REGARDING VISIBILITY AND THE VISIBILITY ANALYSIS THAT MEETING THAT
CRITERIA IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT THE PROJECT WILL BE APPROVED.
APPROVAL OF ANY PROJECT THAT COMES BEFORE THE PC OR TC IS A
DISCRETIONARY DECISION AND
THE TOWN IS NOT REQUIRED TO APPROVE ANY PROJECT IF THERE REASONS
NOT TO.
THERE ARE MANY OTHER FACTORS THAT GO INTO A DECISION. A PROJECT
SHOULD ULTIMATELY BE JUDGED AS A WHOLE ON WHETHER IT IS
CONSISTENT WITH THE TOWN'S GOALS AND OBJECTIVES. A PROJECT THAT
PUSHES A NUMBER OF STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES TO THEIR TECHNICAL
LIMIT MAY NOT MEET, IN FACT MEET THE INTENT, OBJECTIVES, GOALS, OR
VISION OF EITHER THE GENERAL PLA
2
PC Study Session 1 0/21/201 5 Lee Quintana
GLOSSARY-HISTORY OF CHANGES TO AFFECTING VISIBILITY ANALYSIS TO
HDSG
SUMMARY OF CHANGES (FLOOR AREA , VISIBLE, R IDGELINE)
Floor Area. (Deleted)
o Originally listed both what was counted and what was not counted (Dec. 2001 Draft)
• Deleted and replaced with Floor area, gross (Sept. 2002 D raft)
Floor Area, gross. (Added Sept 2002 Draft)
• Replaced Floor area above
• Lists only what is excluded from floor area calculations
• Added Barns. and Garages up to 400 sf (Dec. 2003 Draft)
Vi sible. That which can be seen (Deleted)
• Deleted after Preliminary Draft Dec. 2001 )
Vi si ble home. (Added)
• Added to Dec . 2003 Revised Public Review Draft
• Text added : A single family residence where 25% or more of an elevation can be seen
from any of the Town 's established viewing platforms (See Chapter II , section B).
(emphasis added )
Ridgelines (Added , deleted and then added back )
• Added Sept., 2002 Draft
• Deleted Oct., 2002 Draft
• Added back March 2003 Draft
Thees and other definitions or changes to definitions would appear to favor allowing
homes with larger usable floor area, more effective bulk and greater visibility.
3
PC Study Session 10/21 /20 15
Some applicable sections of the HDS&G
il. Constraints analysis and sit e selection
• Page 12 ll.A.1.
Lee Quintana
7th bullet: Visibility from off site ; and last bullet: (emphasis added)
last bullet: Significant ridgelines (emphasis added)
Page 5 . Forward · 4th Bullet: The illustrations provided in the HDS&G are schematic
and meant to show the intent of a standard or guideline.
Page 6 . A. Vision Statement. All bullets, particularly
5th bullet: Protects and preserves viewsheds and the ridgelines of the mountains
Page 6 . B. Overview All bullets , particularly the
1st bullet and the last phrase of the 3rd bullet." ... , and minimize changes to the visual
quality of the hillsides.
Page 6. C . .G.QgJ_
Page 9 . Objectives of HDS&G (all) but in particular
4 . Maintain the natural appearance of the hillsides from all vantage points including
the valley floor. (emphasis added)
5 . Protect ridgelines from development
6 , 7 , 9 ,10,11
4
To: Planning Commission, for meeting December 2, 2015
From: Dave Weissman, November 24, 2015
Re: Visibility analysis methodology
At the prior PC meeting of September 23, 2015, visibility analysis methodology was
considered, and helpful testimony was provided by the Town's consu lting arboris t.
Topics discussed included what constitutes a healthy tree, how significant are
construction impacts from any source, and how have 4 years of the most extreme
drought inCA history in, at least, the last 1,000 years, all played into these
considerations.
Since that meeting I have found new information that addresses some of these
issues and, I believe, should be incorporated into the guidelines b eca use they would
give a firm, objective scientific foundation for these revised standards.
1. There was testimony by the consulting arborist that the drought has had a
significant negative impact on the trees in the Town's hillsides, especially blue oaks.
While no one can predict the long-term effects of the drought, discussions before the
PC assumed that if and when rains come, many if not most stressed oaks might
recover. This issue was recently addressed in an October 20, 2015 article in the LA
Times (http : //www.lati mes.com /local/california /la -me-dying-forests-201510 20-
s tory.html) that discussed studies by Greg Asner, a scie ntist with the Carnegie
Institution for Science. His basic findings were:
a. This drought may kill 20 % of California's trees. Under normal
conditions, forests lo se between 1% and 1.5% of their trees annually.
b. Low elevation forests are in greatest jeopardy.
c. Even if the drought were to end in a historic El Nino this winter, the most
stressed trees will probably continue to fail.
EXHIBIT 8
1
In recognition of this crisis, Governor jerry Brown declared a state of emergency on
October 31, 2015, to help California address fire risk from this m ass ive tree die-off.
I believe that the take away message should be this: when considering which native
hillside trees should be counted as providing screening, their health at the time a n
application is being considered, should be the only relevant information. One can
opine as to the fate of any tree but the most r e levant information is how the tree is
doing at that moment. The rest is speculation.
2. There is an obviously complicated interaction between the health of a tree, the
age of the tree, the tree species, its resiliency to habitat disturbance, and the total
impacts from construction on the long-term viability of that tree. Such information
is critical when discussing which trees should be counted as providing potential
screening for a proposed house. What would be most helpful in making such a
decision, would be a matrix that could be used in an objective manner. And such a
matrix is provided by Richard Harris and colleagues in their widely recognized
reference book titled "Arboriculture. Integrated Management of Landscape Trees,
Shrubs, and Vines." I have attached the title page and the matrix from page 265 that
provides one way to make tree-retention decisions. First off, I exchanged emails
with both of the junior authors, Drs. Clark and Matheny, on 11/11/2015. They
independently said that if one wanted to apply their matrix to the Los Gatos
hillsid es, the relatively disturbance-tolerance species in their matrix, London Plane,
could be interchanged with our most common hillside tree, the coastal live oak. And
that the more disturbance-sensitive species in their matrix, Beech, could be
interchanged with our second most common hillside tree, the blue oak. One can put
these guidelines into practice, as follows: when the consulting arborist says in her
tree report, that a disturbance-sensitive blue oak has fair preservation suitability
and will be subjected to a moderate construction impact, the matrix recommends
that this tree be removed. (If this tree were a less disturbance-sensitive live oak,
then the matrix recommends preserving the tree.) If the applicant elects to try and
save the blue oak, that is their option. But such a tree should not be counted as
2
providing screening because it will most likely die in the near future. The applicant
will no doubt argue that they can preserve the tree. But this subjective
pronouncement is meaningless given the self-serving interests of the developer. It is
best to make such a decision as objective as possible and the attached matrix allows
for just that type of decision based on scientific information.
Now there are A&S applications where developers have made construction
adjustments based on the consulting arborist's concerns and moved retaining walls,
decreased grading, etc. These promised changes usually only occur, in a letter to
staff, entitled "response to arborist." So what happens now? The project gets
approved and construction begins. And nearby trees are affected in the short term,
as predicted by the consulting arborist, but don't start to die until the house is
completed about 6-12 months later. Then the developer or the new owner applies
for a tree removal permit showing the Town arborist the recommendation of the
consulting a rborist to remove that tree. At that point in time, how can the Town
arborist deny the permit? The tree is in decline and dying and is close to the house,
and the Town would have liability if the request was denied and the tree falls on the
house and injuries someone. So the removal permit is issued. That's a win for the
applicant who was able to count that tree as providing screening. A win for the new
homeowner whose view of the valley floor is now improved. But a loss for the
citizens of Los Gatos whose hillsides are now less sustainable and scared with
another large, visible house.
3
-..,.._ ~--. . ---·
Fourth Edition
R Arboriculture
Int~grated Mam,t.gement
of I.aridscape Trees~ S~bs,
and.Vmes
Richard W. Harris
Professor Emeritus
Department of E"'vironmental Horticulture I
University of California at Davis
"'"" .... James R . Clark
Vtee p;.esident
HortS{;ience , Inc.
Pleasanton, California
Nelda P. Matheny
President
HortScience, lnc.
Plea sa nton, California
lllustrations by Vera M. Ranis
P1 l'lll icP
I Ldl -
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
' l
··~
•• 1
' > .
) .
Bl!J!Da
Comparison of tree preservation and removal decisions considering species tolerance to disturbance,
tree condition, and intensity of impact
Intensity of impact
Low
Moderate
Severe
Intensity of impact
Low
Moderate
Severe
Poor
Remove
Remove
Remove
Poor
Remove
Remove
Remove
London Plane C~ t, i V€ CA K
Tree condition
Moderate
Preserve
Preserve
Redesign/Preserve?
Beech 0 I<. ~ L L{£ Olt I(
Tree condition
Moderate
Preserve?
Remove
Remove
Good
Preserve
Preserve
Redesign/Preserve?
Good
Preserve
Redesign/Preserve?
Remove
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Intentionally
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