Attachment 11 - April 13, 2022 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 4/13/2022
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Melanie Hanssen, Chair
Jeffrey Barnett, Vice Chair Kylie Clark
Kathryn Janoff Steve Raspe Reza Tavana
Emily Thomas
Town Manager:Laurel Prevetti
Community Development Director:Joel Paulson
Town Attorney:Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 11
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR HANSSEN: We will move onto Item 3, and that
is review and make a recommendation on the Draft 2040
General Plan and Final Environmental Impact Report to the
Town Council.
I will remind the Commission the our role in this
matter is to carefully consider all the materials received,
including the input and recommendations of GPAC over 35
meetings, the Town Council, this Commission from a study
session, and a couple of other Town Council meetings, to
provide input to the Planning Commission, as well as a
substantial amount of input from the public since 2018 when
this process started, including in-person meetings and a
workshop for communications at meetings, and multitudes of
written communications.
We will be proceeding to make a recommendation to
the Town Council on the General Plan and certification of a
Final EIR. The Town Council is the final deciding body on
both documents, and we will describe in more detail the
procedure we will use to consider the General Plan after
the completion of all verbal public comments, which will be
taken for this meeting.
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It is entirely possible that we will not finish
our review during this meeting and may need to continue the
meeting to complete our review. I will now turn it over to
Staff for their report.
JENNIFER ARMER: Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair,
and Commissioners. Jennifer Armer, Planning Manager. The
item before you is the consideration of the Draft 2040
General Plan and Final Environmental Impact Report. I know
we have all been looking forward to getting to this point
in the process, but you now have the opportunity to discuss
and prepare a recommendation to Town Council.
First, for those in the audience who are joining
us for the first time, this is an update to the existing
2020 General Plan as a document that is updated every 10 to
20 years. Every jurisdiction in California must have a
General Plan, which is a local government’s long-term
framework or constitution for the future growth, services,
and resource management.
The document before you is the result of
extensive work over the last four years by the General Plan
Update Advisory Committee, also known as the GPAC; the
Planning Commission; Town Council; expert consultants;
Staff from numerous departments; other agencies; and so
many members of the public who have shared their questions
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and concerns, praise and passion, in conversations and in
writing to keep improving this document and this vision for
the future of Los Gatos.
As part of this Staff presentation tonight, I
want to share with you a few important points as a
foundation for the discussion.
First, a reminder that this is a high-level
policy document. It doesn’t always get into the details
that we’re looking for, but those can be developed in other
code or guideline documents or programs, and sometimes that
is recorded in the General Plan as an implementation
program.
While this discussion tonight will likely focus
on a few specific components based on the written public
comment that we’ve received, this document includes nine
chapters covering a wide variety of topics. It has an
Introduction with a Vision and Guiding Principles. It has a
Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice Element, which is
brand new for this Draft 2040 General Plan. It has the Land
Use Element; Community Design Element; a reorganized
Mobility Element; Public Facilities, Services, and
Infrastructure Element; Open Space, Parks, and Recreation
Element; Environment and Sustainability Element; and
Hazards and Safety Element.
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What it does not include is an update to the
Housing Element. That actually goes through a separate
process that’s on a different timeline. Instead of being
updated every 10 to 20 years, as the full General Plan
generally is, the Housing Element is on a state-mandated
eight-year timeline for updates. We have actually just
started that process and it depends on the capacity that is
provided within the Land Use Element regulations.
The most substantial changes in this Draft 2040
General Plan from the 2020 General Plan include the new
Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice Element; the
increase in housing opportunities for mixed-use
developments in some of our commercial areas, as well as
missing middle housing in existing neighborhoods with
design requirements; a new Community Commercial land use
designation; new Community Place districts that provide
more objective design standards and focus on community form
or urban design for all development; shifts in focus of
transportation policies to street design, connectivity, and
mobility; reduction in vehicle miles traveled rather than
just road capacity; new goals in the Environment and
Sustainability Element; and expanded policies to prepare
for wildfire, climate change, and community health threats.
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The Draft General Plan is still a draft, and we
expect that the recommendation to Town Council from the
Planning Commission will include modifications based on
your review of the documents, the environmental review
information provided, and further public input received
since the June 2021 release of the Draft General Plan. We
will continue to receive additional input as well. Written
input will continue to be received until Town Council makes
a final decision.
These modifications can be made based on
suggestions that have already been received, and
recommendations. We do include a list, a summary of that
and categorization by chapter in Exhibit 7. That’s based on
all public comment that has been received since June 2021,
and it also includes some of the comments that were
submitted on the Draft EIR, but actually include changes to
the General Plan itself. Your modifications can also be the
results of your review and consideration; they do not have
to be prompted by public comment.
I’d also like to share specific points about the
environmental review. This is a program Environmental
Impact Report, which is different than a project EIR that’s
based on a specific project where you have a specific
amount of development construction, a building that is
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proposed, and so the process and the type of analysis is
slightly different than most of the environmental review
that you see at projects that come to the Planning
Commission. The purpose of an EIR is to provide
information, and so certification or recommendation to
certify an EIR does not indicate approval of the project.
Unavoidable impacts, as there are for this EIR,
are actually quite common with General Plans. A project
plan of this level, especially in a community where we
don’t have any type of high-speed public transit, is likely
to have unavoidable impacts in terms of vehicle miles
traveled and greenhouse gases, and so this is actually
something that we have seen on previous environmental
review for previous General Plans as well.
One final point: the final decision on the 2040
General Plan will be made by Town Council and will be the
result of their deliberations and considerations,
considering the recommendation from the GPAC, the
recommendation from the Planning Commission, and any
further comments received by the public, including written
comments submitted after today’s 11:00am deadline or after
the completion of your deliberations.
This concludes Staff’s presentation, but I’d be
happy to answer any questions you have, and we do have
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consultants as well, so if there are questions that I can’t
answer that we want to get into some details, we can ask
them.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good, and thank you for your
presentation. I would like to take this time to commend
Staff for the excellent support that they’ve given the GPAC
over the last two-and-a-half years that the GPAC worked, as
well as over the last year processing the EIR and
collecting all the public comments and leading up into this
time where the Planning Commission will be reviewing the
General Plan and the EIR, and spent excessive time
responding to every single letter that was received, which
is part of the EIR process, and responding to them in
detail about whether or not it required changes to the EIR
or identified additional impacts, and then further went to
take all of the hundreds and hundreds of comments which we
appreciate and continue to encourage that came in since the
GPAC stopped meeting back in May of last year, and was able
to compile all of those comments and basically help us
characterize them by element so that when we proceed
through the review of the General Plan after public
comments we can do so in much more of an orderly fashion,
so I would like to thank Staff for that.
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I will ask at this time if Commissioners have any
questions for Staff before we begin our public comments?
You will have other opportunities to talk and ask questions
of Staff as we review the document. I don’t see any hands
raised.
Now we will turn to public comments. This is the
time where we would take public comments on the General
Plan as well as the Final EIR, and we ask any members of
the public that wish to speak to limit their comments to
three minutes, and this will be the only opportunity during
the Planning Commission’s review of the General Plan for
verbal public comments to be made during the meeting. We
will be taking all public comments at this moment in time,
even if we have to continue the meeting to another meeting.
We want to hear all public comments up front before we
begin any discussion. So, I would like to see if there are
people from the public who would like to speak.
I would like to add just one more comment, which
is we totally appreciate any and all comments on the
General Plan. One thing I did want to say is that as we
review the General Plan and consider all of your comments,
it’s difficult for us to consider that many people have
advocated for a no growth scenario, and while we on the
GPAC as well as the Planning Commission all share the same
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concerns as you as residents of town, we are mandated by
state law to adhere to providing and planning for housing.
We don’t actually build it, but we have to plan for housing
in our Housing Element, and we have to start that process
through the General Plan by having densities and land use
standards that make it possible for developers to be able
to build those things, so one thing we cannot consider is
any scenario where there is zero growth in town, as much as
everyone would like that to help things settle from the
North Forty, but that being said, you’re welcome to make
any comments that you like related to the General Plan at
this time.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair Hanssen. The
first speaker will be Giulianna Pendleton.
GIULIANNA PENDLETON: Good evening,
Commissioners. My name is Giulianna Pendleton and I’m a
resident of Los Gatos and the Environmental Advocacy
Assistant for Santa Clara Audubon Society. Thank you to
Staff, the GPAC, and everyone who has put so much work into
this General Plan update.
Last year I advocated for a goal to be added to
the General Plan Environment and Sustainability Element for
a dark sky and bird safe design ordinance. I was excited
that the GPAC agreed with protecting our natural night sky,
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reducing artificial light at night, and protecting our
birds, hundreds of millions of which die each year due to
building or structure collisions related to artificial
light at night. I hope you all support the inclusion of a
dark sky and bird safe design ordinance in the General
Plan.
Please also consider removing any goals or
policies within the plan that would lead to over-lighting
our town. Already, I have a bright street light outside my
window that shines into my room each night, and I often
drive by the Creekside Sports Complex that now has
temporary lighting that is bright, unshielded, and on even
when I don’t see any players on the field.
Los Gatos can become a leader in responsible
outdoor lighting, but in order to do so we need to include
responsible uses of light in all of our planning
guidelines.
Additionally, as you review and make
recommendations on the Draft General Plan, please
strengthen biodiversity protections, native habitat
enhancement, and wildlife connectivity whenever possible.
Right in our back yard the newts of Alma Bridge Road are
dying at an alarming rate due to vehicles.
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Whenever we think about transportation, from
roads to slow streets to trails, we need to prioritize both
human and wildlife safety and include safe wildlife
crossings.
Thank you for your consideration and I look
forward to watching how this General Plan will uplift both
the humans of Los Gatos as well as the wildlife and native
environment that also call Los Gatos home.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments. I’ll
ask if any Commissioners have a question for you? I have
one, which is we appreciate all the comments that you’ve
been making during the General Plan process, including now,
and my question for you is, is there anything in your
comments tonight that wasn’t included in the written
comments that you’ve already given us that we have in front
of us to consider?
GIULIANNA PENDLETON: I think they are all
consistent. My letters and written comments go into more
detail of which goals and policies can be considered, but I
think tonight’s comments are more just broad, having to do
with habitat connectivity, native plants, protections of
our night sky, all the fun stuff. But thank you so much for
all the work you’ve done. I’ve really enjoyed engaging in
this process.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you very much. Do any
Commissioners have questions for Ms. Pendleton?
Commissioner Clark has her hand up.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just put it up because I
have a comment that was not a question for the commenter. I
just wanted to say I don’t think that we ever explicitly
said to raise your hand if you want to make a comment, and
I think we’re all familiar enough with that process right
now, but I figured that that’s probably important to make
sure the audience knows.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Oh, yes. The procedure, if you’re
on Zoom and you’re online, you can click the Raised Hand
feature in Zoom and that will let Staff know that you want
to speak, and if you are participating by phone, it is *9,
is that correct, Staff? Yes, to participate by phone, and
so I think those are the options that you need to be able
to speak to us, because we certainly want to encourage
anyone and don’t want lack of knowledge of how to do that
to be an impediment.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. The next speaker
will be Karen.
KAREN RUBIO: Good evening, and thank you for
your hard work on the General Plan. My name is Karen Rubio
and I’ve lived in Los Gatos for 37 years. I’m also a member
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of local nonprofit Plant-Based Advocates, and I’m sure
you’ve been hearing from us.
As a mother and environmentalist, I’m asking the
Planning Commission and Town Council to take action to
ensure a habitable planet for our children by including
plant-based diet education into Section 8.12 of the General
Plan.
On March 31st the Mercury News published my
opinion piece entitled “It’s Time for Californians to Talk
About the Cow in the Room.” In this article I explain how
47% of California’s water goes to meat and dairy production
and how the livestock industry plays a key role in climate
change. The planet’s seven hottest years on record have
happened in the last seven years, and in California the
effects of climate change are inescapable.
We now know that raising livestock is a primary
cause not only of global warming, but also land depletion,
water scarcity, deforestation, pollution, and biodiversity
loss. Shifting to a plant-based diet reduces foods-
associated greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 73% and
cuts in half the water needed to produce our food.
Therefore, any plan to achieve a sustainable environment
must include education about plant-based diets.
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The latest report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel
of Climate Change has outlined the dire consequences if we
fail to address runaway global warming. UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres has called the report “a code red
for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening and the
evidence if irrefutable.”
For elected officials and community leaders, I ask you
to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as this
could be the most important thing you’ll ever do in your
capacity as town leaders. Therefore, I hope the Planning
Commission will support our request for programs to educate
residents about the benefits of eating plant-based, and
thank you for your time.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments and your
continued education of all of us on the benefits of plant-
based eating, and your comments, as well as those of your
colleagues, are duly noted. Thank you. Are there any
questions for Ms. Rubio from the Commission? Commissioner
Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Just a quick question to Ms.
Rubio. I just wanted to get her opinion on if the General
Plan in the draft form is satisfactory to her and achieves
her goals?
KAREN RUBIO: Thank you for that question. I know that
the General Plan has incorporated some of our ideas, but
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what it’s lacking right now is a solid commitment toward
educating residents about eating plant-based, and I just
feel strongly that it’s necessary, because that’s largely
absent today. In general education, kids are not taught it
in schools. Doctors go through their entire education with
less than seven hours of nutrition training, which is just
unbelievable, and we’re bombarded with marketing for meat
and dairy companies. People still think dairy is good for
you. It’s not. So, yeah, that’s why I feel like a solid
education plan is necessary, and thank you for asking.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Thomas has a question for
you as well.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Just as a follow up to
Commissioner Tavana’s question, Ms. Rubio. I just want to
clarify that you want a plant-based diet education program
added as an implementation program attached to Section
8.12?
KAREN RUBIO: Yes, exactly. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett has a question for
you as well.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Ms. Rubio, thank you for your
comments. The question I have is if the General Plan
incorporates a requirement for a plant-based education
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program, what would that mean in terms of actual
implementation, specifics that you’d be looking for the
Town to perform?
KAREN RUBIO: Thank you, that’s a great question. Our
group has been in existence for almost three years, but we
became a nonprofit last year. We’ve actually submitted an
entire program to the town with separate line items
detailing what education could look like, so we’ve already
done that. I guess basically what we’re looking for is a
commitment by the Town, and then the process of
implementing it can be another discussion, but we certainly
have a lot of great ideas on how to do that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments, and it
sounds like you’ve already made some other presentations,
but my question for you is did you know that in addition to
the General Plan, which is general and over a 20-year time
horizon, you also have the opportunity to go directly to
the Town Council? I believe you may have already done, but
I wanted to make sure that you knew that might be a more
immediate way to ensure in addition to what we’re doing in
the General Plan?
KAREN RUBIO: Yeah, thank you, Chair Hanssen. We have
been doing that. In fact, in 2019 in December the Town
Council adopted the Green Monday resolution. It’s a
wonderful, wonderful thing, however we feel that we need
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more than that. It denotes the Town’s commitment to plant-
based, but it doesn’t have, I guess, the necessary means to
implement any educational programs.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, thank you for that. Any other
questions for Ms. Rubio? I don’t see any Commissioners’
hands up, so the next speaker.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, and the next speaker will be
Lisa.
LISA WADE: Hello, my name is Lisa Wade. I’m also with
Plant-Based Advocates, and I’ve lived in Los Gatos for over
30 years. I wanted to thank you for your hard work on the
General Plan and let you know that we appreciate your
efforts.
I wanted to draw your attention to a petition that we
submitted. This petition has 265 signatures asking for a
plant-based education program in the General Plan. We have
the names of 225 residents of Los Gatos, including
community and business leaders who live in Los Gatos, and
in addition we have the names of 40 residents who live in
neighboring towns and cities, including Saratoga, Monte
Sereno, and Campbell, who frequent Los Gatos businesses.
We also have the support of 11 groups, including local
groups and health and environmental NGOs, including the
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter and the Center for
Biological Diversity.
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In addition, prominent citizens both in Los Gatos and
neighboring cities, such as Lucas Ramirez, who is the Vice
Mayor of Mountain View, and Alison Hicks, who is a City
Council member in Mountain View, support our efforts, and
they have a program in Mountain View that we would like to
see something similar.
We have written testimony from the Center for
Biological Diversity in support of our request, and we also
had some verbal testimony from Dashiell Leeds from the Loma
Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club who spoke and gave verbal
comments at an earlier GPAC meeting last year or the year
before in support of our initiative.
In addition, the Planning Commission and the Council
have received numerous emails from Los Gatos residents
requesting a plant-based education program to be added to
the Environmental section of the General Plan. Like we
said, we’d like to see this added to Section 8.12, and it
could be something simple, just a few sentences. The
verbiage could be something like, “To implement programs to
educate and support residents about the benefits of
shifting to plant-based diets, which include curbing
greenhouse gas emissions, reducing biodiversity loss and
deforestation, reducing water usage, and reversing
pollution of our land, water, and air.
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As Karen said, we did submit suggestions. I’ll just
give a few, like cooking classes, speaker series,
informational brochures, and there are many other examples.
It’s really important that we include such a program,
because numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies agree
that plant-based eating is the most effective way for an
individual to help the planet. For this reason, any plan to
address climate and sustainability should include the
promotion of plant-based eating. We have already provided
you with the studies, and we’re happy to provide them
again.
Please do not leave out this powerful, cost-effective
solution and add a plant-based education program to Section
8.12. This section would not be complete without such a
program.
I also wanted to say quickly before I leave that
Plant-Based Advocates supports the dark skies and the bird
safety, and also the wildlife safety and crossings that
were mentioned earlier. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you. Commissioners might have
questions for you, and I see that Commissioner Raspe has
his hand up.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair, and thank you,
Ms. Wade, for your comments. Two quick questions.
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The first is you’re asking that the plant-based
education program be added as an element to the General
Plan. Are you aware of, or do you have any knowledge of,
any other municipalities having similar components of their
general plans that we could refer to?
LISA WADE: Yes, I know that Mountain View has such a
component, and I know that other cites have initiatives.
I’m not sure exactly if it’s in their general plans, but I
know that Berkeley has a pretty strong initiative. I’m not
as familiar with it as Karen is, but I know we can submit
information on that. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has
introduced some things like Vegan Fridays where they serve
vegan food in the schools, and if kids want something that
is not vegan they have to actually request it so that the
default is vegan. He’s also opened a bunch of health
centers to provide education to the public about how plant-
based diets can help with health. I could send you those
articles as well, if you’re interested.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Great. Thank you so much, Ms.
Wade, for answering that question.
My second follow up question is just a favor. You gave
us some language that you thought might be useful for us as
an introduction into the General Plan, and if you send
these other materials, just send those to the Town as well
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so we have that for our records. I would appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
LISA WADE: I definitely will. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Just to address
Commissioner Raspe’s question, yes, we did receive comments
and suggestions in a fair amount of detail from the
Advocates, including Ms. Wade, for plant-based eating
education, so I think we’ll have everything we need to
consider in terms of the General Plan review when we get to
that.
Are there other members of the public that would like
to speak on the General Plan or the Final EIR for the
General Plan?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, Chair. The next speaker
will be Jack.
JAK VANNADA: Good evening, Honorable Chair and
Planning Commission. Jak Vannada from the Los Gatos
Community Alliance.
The GPAC had been informed that a Town consultant and
the Department of Finance for the State of California don’t
believe that the Town of Los Gatos will grow more than
1,954 households in 20 years. My question is why would the
GPAC double that number to 3,738? If you subtract the
maximum build-out of 1,954 from 3,738, that’s 1,784
overbuilt homes. I don’t understand that.
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We advocate a major effort by the Town to provide
affordable housing. In fact, we have consistency said that
the efforts of the HEAB should be focused on the low- and
very-low categories that total 847 units. We know that it’s
going to be a major challenge in a built-out town with such
high land costs. However, at the April 6th study session we
heard from two affordable housing developers that though
this is a challenge, it could be done.
We encourage you to push forward with Eden, Core, or
like companies to focus on the challenge of getting more
affordable housing into Los Gatos. However inclusive we
think we are as a town, we do not have many who would be
classified in the low- or very-low income levels. To attain
more inclusivity the Town and the citizens will have to
make monumental efforts to create truly affordable housing
for the low- and very-low categories.
If you recall, the panelist’s conversation about a
point system to obtain financing, in addition to mass
transit the buildings need to be tall and located close to
shopping and amenities. Affordable housing is possible, but
it will require a large creative effort by the Town,
particularly by HEAB, in addition to a mindset change
within our entire community.
Inclusivity will grow positively with the addition of
affordable housing to the community. Remember that
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inclusivity is a Council priority. The HEAB needs to find
the locations, but that may be the easiest part of this
equation. Financing and mindset changes will be covered,
and with the no net loss rule it’s only going to add to the
challenge.
We strongly encourage the Planning Commission to stick
with the state RHNA number of 1,993, plus the buffer. Thank
you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for all of your comments and
all of the written comments that you and the Los Gatos
Community Alliance have submitted. I would like to ask the
Commissioners if they have any questions for you at this
time? I don’t see any hands raised, but thank you again,
and we do have all of your comments included in our Staff
Report.
Is there anyone else that would like to speak on the
General Plan or the Final EIR?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, Chair. The next speaker
will be Lee Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: First I’d like to comment that I’m
somewhat surprised that the public is limited to three
minutes for the entire General Plan and the EIR. That’s
amazing to me. I think each element should have been
allowed separate comments. The EIR is a separate document
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and a separate vote; that should be also given it’s own
time. However, that’s not going to happen.
I would like to say that as a member of GPAC I voted
to recommend that the Draft General Plan go ahead to the
Planning Commission, but I want to emphasize that I also
placed on the record that I did not agree to the current
form of it. I have many, many problems with this General
Plan and its format.
One of the problems I have is the manner in which GPAC
was conducted. We had very little leeway in recommending or
changing anything. We were given the background documents
already written. I could make comments on it, but we
couldn’t make any recommendations of changes to them.
Basically one of the biggest flaws of the whole process, I
believe, is that the General Plan base map was never
reviewed for consistency between the General Plan and the
Zoning code and those two being brought into consistency
with each other. We were not given the ability to recommend
new General Plan categories or even…
Let me go back. I’m very emotional about this. The
alternatives that we were given for the preferred
alternative essentially was simply one alternative, which
was keep the General Plan categories the way they are and
where they are, and then we were given four variations of
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that based on the number of units and the intensities and
densities being changed uniformly across the whole town.
I firmly believe that we need to first decide what
areas we wish to preserve as they are limited, what areas
we consider transitional that we want to see some change
in, and we have to identify clearly those areas that we
want to see the major changes in. As is currently stated,
we have minimums and maximums in a lot of the categories
along Los Gatos Boulevard and other places being able to
use a mixed-use configuration, minimum/maximum for density,
but it’s not clear to me that that minimum density is
required even though the intensities of the development are
being increased.
There are no incentives that I can see in this General
Plan to help get the type of housing we want: smaller
units. It’s almost wishful thinking. There are too many
terms used in the policies to really give true and clear
direction. Very few of them say, “shall” or “should.” To
me, we’re creating a Humpty Dumpty where we have this
document, we don’t really know what it says, and when it
comes down the line for some changes, maybe down the line
to the zoning code, it is going to be the Staff’s
interpretation of what that means. Alison said that, “It
means what I say it means,” and sometimes that’s not what
the general public thinks.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Ms. Quintana, I saw Director Paulson
had his hand up, so I’m going to have to ask you to stop,
but I understand your frustration and I would encourage you
also to send in written comments that you have, as it will
be helpful to everyone on the Planning Commission as well
as the Town Council as we’re reviewing the document. I’ll
ask if any Commissioners have any questions for you,
because it looks like you had more to say. I don’t see
anyone with their hands raised, so again, thank you for
your input.
LEE QUINTANA: We spent 20 minutes talking about
plant-based diet, but we can’t talk about what going on in
the General Plan?
CHAIR HANSSEN: I thank you for your input as well in
the process. I’m not sure what we could do to adjust the
process in the meeting, but certainly we can talk to Staff
after we conclude this meeting if there is some other way
that we can proceed going forward that would be more
equitable for everyone.
With that, it looks like there are others that want to
speak, so who will be next, Director Paulson?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. The next speaker will
be Matt.
MATT FRANCOIS: Good evening, Chair Hanssen and
members of the Planning Commission. My name is Matt
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Francois with Rutan & Tucker. My firm is the land use
counsel for Los Gatos Community Alliance.
I wanted to start off by first thanking all of you for
your service to your community. I, too, served on a
planning commission and now serve on a city council and I
understand the time commitment and the commitment that you
have to your community that it takes to do something like
this, so thank you for that.
As you’re aware from some of the correspondence that
we’ve submitted, LGCA has concerns with the proposed plan
and the EIR, and to summarize those concerns: The proposal
significantly and seemingly indiscriminately up-zones
almost the entire town, including low-density residential
neighborhoods and your very charming and unique downtown.
The impacts of the changes are not studied in the EIR,
however, as required by CEQA. The EIR studied only a small
fraction of the growth enabled by the land use changes by
applying what we believe are unreasonable and unsupported
assumptions about the amount of growth that would ensue.
Most of the changes to the residentially designated lands
would not even count for the Town’s requirement to plan for
affordable housing units.
Also of importance is major intensification is not
needed to satisfy market demand or the Town’s new RHNA
figure. If the proposed plan is approved in its current
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form, the Town could not legally deny a project that
complied with the new density standards.
We believe that the Town should focus first on the
mandatory changes to its Housing Element, which are due in
just a short six months from now, in January 2023. The
Housing Element will provide critical information as to
where and at what densities housing should be located. In
my experience, that’s what every other agency in the Bay
Area is doing.
If the Town nonetheless proceeds with the proposed
plan, the Commission should recommend that it be amended to
provide for no more than 2,300 units. This meets the Town’s
stated goals of satisfying market demand and the Town’s new
RHNA number, plus a reasonable buffer. On page 6 of the
Staff Report Staff outlines changes that could be made to
achieve this reduction. LGCA supports those changes.
A general plan is a community’s constitution for
development. It deserves careful consideration and
scrutiny. LGCA welcomes your engagement on these important
matters, and I would be happy to answer any questions that
members of the Commission may have.
CHAIR HANSSEN: We thank you for your comments and
your many written comments that you have given to the
Commission so far, and we do have all of them in our Staff
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Report, and so I will ask if any Commissioners have any
additional questions at this time? Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for your presentation,
Mr. Francois. The question I have is I believe you’re
saying that the Town would not be able to down-zone once it
is up-zoned, and I was wondering if that position is based
on any particular statute or other (inaudible)?
MATT FRANCOIS: Thank you, Commissioner Barnett. Yes,
it’s based on the Housing Accountability Act, which states
essentially once an agency is planned and zoned for a
certain density of units, if a developer comes in with a
project that is at that stated density, that law doesn’t
entirely prohibit but it greatly restricts the Town’s
ability to deny that project.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Does that answer your question, Vice
Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, it did, thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Are there any other Commissioners that
have questions? Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair, and thank you,
Mr. Francois for both your presentation this evening and
your correspondence to the Council.
You mentioned that you would appreciate a target of
2,300 units and would accept the six different criteria
that appear on page 6 of the Staff Report. With respect to
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those six criteria, do you feel equally strongly about each
of those, or are there some that you would prefer or feel
more strongly about as opposed to others? Thank you.
MATT FRANCOIS: I appreciate the question,
Commissioner Raspe, and I just want to reiterate that
obviously we’re not in the position of micromanaging your
General Plan update. That’s a community update that the
Commission and the Council weigh in on, but the one that is
very important to LGCA is the increased densities in the
low-density residential, to reducing those densities to
what they are in the current General Plan, which are up to
five units per acre. The new plan would allow for up to 12
units per acre on those lands.
Another important change that was made that we would
wish the Commission to weigh in on is the significant up-
zoning of your Central Business District, your downtown
area where the floor area ratios and housing densities are
being increased by 200%.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thanks for your response.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and do any other
Commissioners have questions for Mr. Francois? Again, we do
have all of your comments for consideration when we do our
review, but we thank you for your verbal comments as well.
Who else would like to speak on the General Plan or the
Final EIR?
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JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. The next speaker will
be Gina.
GINA: Hi, thank you, everyone. I just really wanted
to show my support for some of the other speakers.
I’m really particularly passionate about the wildlife
crossings, if we could get wildlife crossings to protect
the newts and the deer and just in general protecting
wildlife in any way possible, as well as protecting our
open spaces.
I also agreed with the first speaker on the dark
skies, just in general protecting biodiversity and the bird
safety.
In general I wanted to voice my agreement with
protecting the environment and reducing all sorts of
pollution and greenhouse gases.
I agreed with the other speaker on including the
education for plant-based diet. I thought that sounded
great.
I also would much more agree with the approximately
2,000 units versus the 4,000 units. I’m as much as possible
against the high-density and up-zoning.
Back to the environment, I don't know if they’re still
doing this, but it seems like at Vasona and different
places were spraying a lot of pesticides, which is really
devastating to the monarch butterfly population, which we
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have a migration through here, so if there is any way that
we could reduce or eliminate the pesticides altogether, I
think that would be great. So, that’s it. Thank you for
listening.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for all of your comments,
and I will ask if any of the Commissioners have questions
for you? I don’t see any hands raised, but thank you once
again for your comments.
Who else would like to speak on the General Plan or
the Final EIR?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. The next speaker will
be Connie.
CONNIE HAMRAH: Good evening, my name is Connie
Hamrah. I live in Los Gatos, and have been a resident of
Monte Sereno and Los Gatos for over 44 years.
I guess one of my concerns is maintaining the
integrity and the beauty, obviously, of the Town of Los
Gatos, and with all of the proposed changes and the things
that have been mandated from the state, how does water play
into all of this?
In other words, we can plan all of these great things,
and we all see all the building and construction going on
in our area and throughout Santa Clara Valley, and yet, we
don’t have enough water. How are you addressing that in
terms of the continued growth of the Town?
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CHAIR HANSSEN: We thank you for your comments, but
the format of our public hearings is that we can’t answer
your questions directly. We can ask you questions. But
certainly there are sections of the General Plan as well as
the EIR that do address water, and if you have more direct
questions you can send them in to Staff and they can get
back to you.
CONNIE HAMRAH: Okay, thank you. And then I would just
agree that to keep the number of units to be added to our
community at the lowest level possible I think would be
appreciated by most of the people who live in our beautiful
community, because we’d like to keep it that way, as I know
you want to too, so thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you very much. Any questions for
the speaker? I don’t see any hands raised. Then who would
be the next speaker?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. The next speaker will
be Rosilene.
ROSILENE MARTINS: Hi, I just wanted to voice my
opinion in regard to three of the topics.
First one being the plant-based education, I want to
say that I support the plant-based education program even
though I am not a vegan. I have reduced my consumption of
meat because I believe also that the plant-based diet helps
the planet in many ways, but especially by drastically
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reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving water, which
is really important. So, since we all benefit from it we
should all be supporting plant-based diet initiatives
regardless of what we eat.
I also want to support the dark sky petition that was
made earlier. I also have a terribly bright light that
shines into my bedroom, and it is unfortunately really
close to a creek, so it is really terrible I think in
planning expanding so much housing into Los Gatos, because
we need to keep this in mind, because we really have a lot
of birds, and this wildlife is one of the things that gives
Los Gatos its character, its charm, and we should really do
as much as possible to preserve that.
In regard to the planning for expansion, I’m a Los
Gatos resident for close to 30 years now and I was very
involved in the discussions of the North Forty, and one
thing that really puzzles me is that the North Forty was
started with a proposal to address the affordable housing,
and that was the main sale point of North Forty, and once
the project kicked off this was not upheld and I think that
this is a terrible thing that happened to the North Forty.
Once the project kicked off the affordable housing quota
that they were supposed to satisfy fell through the cracks,
and I want to know in moving forward with this proposal,
because we need to build more houses and we need to
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increase density in Los Gatos to satisfy the government
requirements for affordable housing, who is accountable to
make sure that what happened with the North Forty is not
going to happen again in the next development that is
proposed under the guise of satisfying affordable housing
in Los Gatos?
I see you guys are here to represent the Los Gatos
residents, and I am hoping that these meetings and these
discussions will boil down to plans that are advanced by
your team that really satisfy what Los Gatos residents want
and are asking for. Thank you for listening.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments. We truly
appreciate your comments, and as I mentioned earlier, we
can’t directly answer your questions, but feel free to
reach out to staff if you want specific answers for your
questions. I’m quite sure that the Commission will be
discussing some of this as we do proceed forward with our
discussion on the General Plan, and some of what you talked
about. The Housing Element Advisory Board is specifically
working on locations, and levels of affordability will be
addressed in their work as well. Do any Commissioners have
questions for Ms. Martins? I don’t see any, so thank you
again for your comments, and who will be our next speaker?
JOEL PAULSON: The next speaker will be Catherine.
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CATHERINE SOMERS: Good evening, Planning Commission.
My name is Catherine Somers and I’m the Executive Director
at the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce. It’s great to be here
tonight. I, too, actually support the dark skies, but more
importantly, I just wanted to share something with you.
I get criticized a lot actually in my job for not
really looking out for all of the commercial hubs in Los
Gatos, and so it’s kind of an interesting conundrum,
because as much as I try to branch out and go out to Kings
Court and introduce the Chamber to some of the folks out
there, or out to now it’s the North Forty, and to anywhere
along the Boulevard, or out the Belgatos neighborhood or
Harwood, I’m always having a hard time really bringing
those people into the fold of Los Gatos. I think one of the
really important things that you guys have on your plate
is—we talk about inclusivity a lot—how to wrap those
communities into the whole and yet make them really special
and unique in and of themselves that they serve their
individual neighborhoods.
It’s a huge challenge that I’m throwing at you, but I
would love to see reflected in the General Plan something
to that. I think that involves the Land Use Element of
course, or the land use portion of the General Plan. I
think actually Lee Quintana was even kind of talking to
this.
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And so it’s a big responsibility for you guys, but I
think it’s also a really unique opportunity that you have
right now to look from above, a bird’s eye view looking
down, and what will make Los Gatos special 20 years from
now when you look at the different neighborhoods and what’s
going to be that community hub? Maybe it is mixed-use
housing in those community hubs, or mixed-use developments.
But I hope you’ll take that into consideration when
you look through the plan and at the EIR and everything
else that you’re looking at, and think of the Chamber of
Commerce when you’re doing it and how we can really all be
part of the fabric of this community and all add to it and
all benefit our individual neighborhoods. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: We thank you for all your service to
our community in your capacity, and for your comments as
well tonight. Do any Commissioners have questions for Ms.
Somers? I don’t see any hands raised, but I would like to
ask a question. Have you had an opportunity to see our
draft Community Design Element where we actually go into a
fair amount of detail in the Draft General Plan about
different neighborhoods across town and how we’d like to
see them evolve toward 2020? There’s actually a before and
after for each one of those. Have you see that part of the
plan yet?
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CATHERINE SOMERS: Yes, I have, and actually I’m
encouraged by what I’ve been seeing. I get a little
concerned about the potential of up-zoning all throughout
town, because I would really like to encourage you and all
of us to focus our efforts on developing certain areas,
again, to make them unique and special and not just do that
to the whole town. So, yes, I really like what I’ve seen so
far, what you planned. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you. Are there others that would
like to speak on the General Plan or the EIR?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, the next speaker is
Jesus.
JESUS: Yes, thank you. Good evening, Commission
Members. I’m a property owner of a property at the cross-
section of Los Gatos Boulevard and Farley Road. I don't
know if you know where that is, but the property is
actually on Los Gatos Boulevard. This is in regard to the
General Plan zoning map, and right now that property is
part of Santa Clara County and is zoned for Administrative
and Professional Office use.
I was trying to have the building upgraded and updated
into having medical and dental facilities, as it is
currently very old and whatnot and it does serve the
surrounding community in that area, and if we were to get
annexed into Los Gatos it would be zoned for residential.
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If you ever look at the zoning map on that area, it just so
happens that that one commercial property, if it was part
of Los Gatos, would zoned as residential. I think it is
just a technicality in terms of how it is, because for all
the years that it’s been there it’s been a professional
office building and it’s been used as such for over the
last 35 years, as I understand it.
So, please consider thinking about the zoning in that
area. It is already in a Commercial area and it is just, in
my opinion, a technicality that would stop us from
renovating and updating the facility, the road, that
corner, and providing services for the surrounding area,
which includes the Town of Los Gatos. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you very much for your comments.
Could I ask you a favor to write up your specific concern
and send it in to Staff? We do actually have in our Staff
Report one suggestion from Staff about a particular
property to be rezoned from a General Plan designation
perspective, so please do send that in so we can make sure
it’s accounted for, because doing it in verbal comments
will not get the result that we need without sending it to
Staff. Ms. Armer has her hand up.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I do believe that it is one and
the same property that he is speaking to, which is included
in your list of potential changes for consideration.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: So, that’s the address that I saw in
there. Okay, very good, so then I think we’re covered. Do
any Commissioners have questions for Jesus? I don’t see any
hands up, so are there others that would like to speak on
the General Plan or the Final EIR?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, Chair. The next speaker
will be Arvin.
ARVIN: Yes, good evening, and thank you for your
community service. I know it’s late; I just have a very
quick comment here.
I would like to suggest that the plan consider turning
the downtown Santa Cruz Avenue into a pedestrian road. I
think that would allow for Los Gatos residents and others
to come to town, support the downtown businesses, and
socialize. I don't know if it’s in the plan right now, but
I just wanted to make that recommendation. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments. There is
something to that effect in our comments. Do any
Commissioners have questions for Arvin? Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Hi, yes, I do have a question
for the speaker. I saw this as one of the comments, and
Staff did not recommend adopting this, but I was curious if
you would be happy with an implementation program that
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asked the question and went into studying the validity and
ability to do this? Would you be happy with that?
ARVIN: Yeah, I’d be happy with anything that would
make the Los Gatos downtown a little bit livelier, that
instead of people going to other places they actually stay
in Town and spend their money locally. I’m not a business
owner in the downtown, so it’s not a self-interest issue,
but even if just a section of Santa Cruz Avenue could allow
for people to enjoy a little bit nicer, rather than having
concrete blocks in a way that doesn’t really look very
nice.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you for answering
that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Do any Commissioners have any
additional questions for the speaker? I don’t see any hands
raised, and so are there any others that would like to
speak on this General Plan or the Final EIR?
I wanted to reiterate at this point, since I don’t see
any hands raised at the moment, that all of the public
comments that we’re taking for the verbal part of this—
certainly written comments can continue to be made—will be
taken this evening.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Yes, the next speaker
will be Tony.
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TONY ALARCON: Hello. Good evening, everyone. This is
Tony Alarcon. I first moved to Los Gatos in 1991. I moved
to Los Gatos from Willow Glen specifically for the Town
culture, the hillside views, and the trails. I think it’s
important in the General Plan moving forward that we
consider the reasons that many of us moved here.
Personally, if I were on the Commission or the Town
Council I would have appealed the RHNA numbers provided by
the state to Los Gatos. I do not support exceeding the RHNA
numbers, nor the approximately 4,000 units proposed for
consideration in the General Plan by the Town Council and
Town Manager.
One thing I’d like to point out to the Commission and
to the general public listening is that Los Gatos ranks
worse in fire than Paradise did before it had its fire, and
as someone who lives close to the hillside I think it’s
very important that we protect the hillside for the
residents, for public safety, and also for the wildlife.
I think we have to take into consideration the North
Forty and the results. As someone else mentioned, the North
Forty was promised as affordable housing. It’s anything but
that. One thing with affordable housing, there is very
little opportunity for people owning those houses to gain
equity in them, they can only gain inflation, and so I
think our town, with the leadership that we have and the
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Town residents, can come up with other solutions to create
more affordable options for housing, perhaps smaller units.
I would like to see the Historic Districts and the
districts where homes were built in the early-1900s remain
in that character. With legislation SB 9 and SB 10 that was
passed, we’ve yet to see the impacts of that, and I think
we should slow down on the General Plan. We’re being too
aggressive with the number of housing units that we’re
proposing and I think further study should be done before
you make any drastic changes in that direction. Thank you
for listening.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you so much for your comments.
We definitely appreciate it, and I’d like to ask if any
Commissioners have questions for Mr. Alarcon? I don’t see
any hands raised, so thank you again for your comments, and
I would like to invite any other members of the public that
would like to speak to us on the General Plan or the Final
EIR for the General Plan to do so now.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. As the Chair mentioned, if
anyone else would like to speak on the General Plan or
Final EIR, please use the raised hand feature. The next
speaker will be Joanne.
JOE RODGERS: This is Joe Rodgers. I’m going to speak
for Joanne. Maybe she’ll have some comments. Joanne and I
have been residents to Los Gatos for 46 years, so we’ve
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seen some changes in the community. One of the things that
I want to do also is thank the members that are on this
Commission for the time you devote. I don’t think most of
the people in the community realize the time that the group
of you devotes to making certain that we maintain the
integrity of our town. Congratulations, and thank you, and
keep up the good work.
What I wanted to talk about was actually a request
that is being considered by the Town Council for adding one
to three cannabis dispensaries in the Town. Very much
opposed to it. I think it certainly sends the wrong message
about the quality and the nature of our Town, but my
concerns also go to the traffic that three dispensaries, or
one, would create, and problems with parking.
Another one is requirements for PG&E, for electrical
power. Already we’re trying to focus more on adding more
electric cars, but also then water was mentioned. We’ve got
things that we have to deal with in our current situation,
but add the dispensaries…
Initially they’re saying it would just be for the sale
of cannabis, but that’s the gorilla in the room, because
the next step is we’re just going to do a little packaging
and processing, and then after we’re going to add growing.
We already know that we suffer power outages from time
to time, and with the requirements on power that are going
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to be generated by these other activities, adding cannabis
would be catastrophic, so I’m really requesting that this
Commission and the Town Council do an environmental impact
study, include this in your study, and make certain that we
understand the environmental impact of adding cannabis
sales, processing, and growing. It would have a very
negative impact on the Town, including the image of the
Town.
Right now the Town Council turned down the idea some
years ago. What was it? 2016. Said that we would not permit
it. Now they’re considering it for generating revenue. I
just wanted to touch base on that. I’d like to see a
thorough environmental impact study, because they’re
considering doing this without having done very much
homework on it. Thank you very much.
JOANNE RODGERS: The revenue, other towns have said
for every dollar you take in for a cannabis sale you spend
four, and the policing and the trafficking, the crime, etc.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for your comments. I think
your three minutes are up, but I would also encourage you
to send your comments in writing to Staff, because that
would be the best way to make sure that they get attention
by the appropriate people, because we are talking in terms
of the General Plan and we don’t address that at all in the
General Plan, so please do send your comments into Staff.
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JOE RODGERS: When you say Staff, whom do you mean?
Who do we direct written comments to?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Staff, could you jump in and let them
know how to send in comments to Staff?
JENNIFER ARMER: You can send it in to me and I can
forward it onto the appropriate Staff, or you can send it
through the Town Manager’s office, as they are managing the
discussion and consideration of cannabis.
JOANNE RODGERS: As relating to what you’re talking
about here, it’s the EIR report that we’re asking for to be
included.
JENNIFER ARMER: Comments recommending or asking for
an environmental review in association with the cannabis
discussion, I can take those comments and share them with
the Town Manager’s office as they continue forward with
those discussions with the Town Council, so feel free to
send those on into me and I can forward them to the correct
Staff.
JOE RODGERS: Okay, thank you very much.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Are there others that would like to
speak to us on the General Plan or the General Plan EIR?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you, Chair. The next speaker
is John.
JOHN: Good evening. First of all, thank you all for
all the hard work that you do. This is an incredibly
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difficult process that you go through trying to do the
strategic planning and engagement of the local community,
so thank you very much for your time. Just a couple of real
quick comments, it won’t take three minutes.
First of all, when I look through the plan I’m
generally supportive of additional housing units in the
neighborhood of about 2,000. What popped out at me was the
804 opportunities for land development and maybe 1,200 in
the redevelopment section, so that rounds out to just a
little bit over 2,000, which I think is the right number
for a lot of reasons.
One reason, we all know trying to get into, out of, or
around Los Gatos during the summer is very, very difficult,
so if we were to increase population by going for the 3,900
units, another approximate 9,000 residents in Los Gatos, I
just don’t see how that works well in terms of traffic.
Secondly, I think as we look at developing housing it
would be great to try to do most of it in the conversion of
commercial properties that exist along strong road
corridors today to multi-use, so perhaps in the area of the
old auto row in Los Gatos, some of those properties, which
are on Los Gatos Boulevard, which has a lot of traffic
capacity, would be smart.
My final comment is we reference wildfire in the
report extensively, but I don’t see a lot of strength in
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the wildfire, fuels, mitigation, and management, and to the
previous speaker who mentioned that we’re in worse shape
than Paradise was at the time of their fire, that is just
an essential area for us to pay attention to. If we were to
lose a major portion of the hillside to fire, not only
wildlife, but the visual nature that makes Los Gatos so
appealing, and all of the trails and outdoor use that is so
appealing to so many of our residents. That sums up the
high points for me, and thank you very much.
CHAIR HANSSEN: We thank you very much for your
comments, and I will ask if any Commissioners have
questions for you. I don’t see any hands raised, and so
thank you for your comments. I see many people in the
attendees. Is there anyone else that would like to speak to
us on the General Plan or the General Plan Final EIR? At
the point where I close the public hearing, even if you
raise your hand, we won’t be able to take your comments
during the meeting, although you are always welcome to send
in written comments. Would anyone else like to speak?
JOEL PAULSON: I don’t see any additional hands up,
Chair. Let’s give it a few more seconds. I don’t see any
additional hands.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I do know from the names of some of
the people that are in the participants that many of you
have already sent in written comments as well, and you can
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be assured that we do have all of them, and all of us spent
many hours over the last several days reading the hundreds
of comments that we’ve had, I think it was about 600 pages,
so I thank you all for sending them in.
With that in mind, we will close the public comments
portion of the hearing on the General Plan and the General
Plan Final EIR, and given that it is 9:20 we will continue
the discussion, but I’m going to have the Planning
Commission and Staff take a ten-minute recess, so we’ll
come back at 9:30.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR HANSSEN: …in general Exhibit 7, along with
Staff’s general feedback, whether it’s not recommended or
neutral, meaning they don’t have an opinion one way or the
other, and then it would be up to us to consider it.
As far as Exhibit 7 goes, at the beginning of Exhibit
7 there are some comments by entity, not by element, so
there are comments from the Department of Forestry
regarding wildfire. There are comments from Staff, and then
comments from specifically the Parks and Public Works part
of Staff, so we will discuss those as a group before we go
dig into each element.
In addition to what I just said, I also want to talk
about the order of the elements, because the bulk of the
comments that we have received, and especially the negative
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comments, are related to the numbers in the Land Use
Element. We will discuss all of the other elements first,
because they have substantially less comments and we should
be able to get through them, and then we will turn our
discussion to the Land Use and Community Design Elements
near the end, and then finally we will proceed forward and
discuss the EIR and whether or not we should recommend
certification.
As mentioned earlier by Staff, and by myself as well,
our role in this process is only to recommend. We are not
the final deciding body as we are for other land use
matters. We will be forwarding a recommendation to Town
Council and they will be holding their own hearings.
That being said, I always think that the Planning
Commission, and I know this from the Town Council, that
they’re counting on us to do a thorough review of the
General Plan, and so that what they send to us in theory
should be something they will agree with and it won’t have
to be a complete review of everything going past. So that
being the case, if you haven’t already pulled Exhibit 7, I
would ask that you pull up Exhibit 7 so that we could go
ahead and start the discussion.
The first thing in Exhibit 7 is the recommended
changes to the Introduction, which includes the Vision and
Guiding Principles. If you look on page 1 of Exhibit 7,
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which is also on page 217 in your packet, it talks about
the GPAC recommended changes to the Vision and Guiding
Principles and it has summarized what some of the points of
it are, but I’ll just read it out.
Revised division for added clarity and add a sentence
about racial, social, and environmental justice. Deleting
downtown from the Community Vitality Guiding Principle.
Adding a new Guiding Principle titled “Connectivity,” which
came from one of the GPAC members, to state the importance
of connecting all facets of Town. And then deleting the
Towns from the Fiscal Stability Responsibility Guiding
Principles, and replace the word “recognized” with the word
“value” in the Inclusivity Guiding Principle.
That was the comments that the GPAC recommended that
we adopt, and the way that the process worked is we had
considered the Vision and Guiding Principles and they were
voted on by the GPAC, then the Planning Commission, and the
Town Council, and since they were adopted that way we
couldn’t modify the draft plan to do that, so this is the
time when the Commission would recommend or not recommend
those changes that came from the GPAC, so I’ll throw that
up for discussion, and if there’s anything else that you
want to change in the Introduction as well, we can talk
about that. Commissioner Janoff.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I just wanted to
clarify a little bit why these changes are in front of you.
Essentially, we went through such a long period of time
that life around us and the world around us changed. We had
the pandemic occur, we had the racial voices through the
world were speaking to us loudly, and so we felt compelled
to go back and look at the Vision, which was crafted before
all of these world events were taking place, and thought
wow, in light of what we’ve all just lived through we felt
that we needed to add some changes, and so it wasn’t taken
lightly that we were recommending changes over what Town
Council had already approved, but we thought that in light
of the two years that had gone by since the Vision
Statement was initially crafted it made sense to reflect
back and bring us up to the present. So, just to give you
guys an idea of why we wanted to make those changes. They
were well thought through.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I can add onto that that when we
crafted the Vision Statement the GPAC spent a whole entire
meeting, maybe more than one meeting, on every single word
that was in the Vision Statement before we even sent it to
the Planning Commission or Town Council, so it wasn’t taken
lightly to do all that, and the Guiding Principles actually
stemmed from direction from Town Council on how to go about
updating the General Plan, and so we took those pretty much
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as is and then added on and did some modifications before
we sent it on for approval.
It wasn’t on this list, but there was one add that was
late in there and that’s currently in there. Ms. Pendleton
has spoken previously to the GPAC on many occasions and had
wanted to modify the Protect Natural Resources to make sure
we address the biotic communities as well, so that has
already been modified, and I don’t see it listed here as a
change we need to adapt, because it looked like it was
already in the draft.
Does anyone have any concerns about any of the changes
that were recommended? Commissioner Thomas has her hand up.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I don’t have any concerns, I
just want to say that it’s been a while since we looked at
this, and I looked back and I still feel the same about all
the changes that we recommended as members of the GPAC.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, cool. The way that I’m hoping
this process will work—I’ll say it now, because we have
lots of elements to go through—is that even though we have
to vote on the overall plan as a recommendation, Staff and
I both thought it would be very helpful to make a motion to
approve X element or section with changes as noted in the
Staff Report, kind of like we do in a regular hearing. Even
though at the very end we’re going to have make a
recommendation on the overall element, if we can kind of
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come to an agreement on each section, it will make it a lot
easier to do the thing at the very end. Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I just wanted to offer my
congratulations to the GPAC and to the Staff for the
tremendous work they’ve done on this project. It’s much
appreciated, and I know there were many long hours and
numerous meetings to get us to this point, so that’s
appreciated. I certainly support Paragraph 1, Recommended
Changes to the Vision and Guiding Principles.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Great. If there are no other comments
on the Vision and Guiding Principles, would one of the
Commissioners make a motion to approve the changes to the
Vision and Guiding Principles as recommended in the Staff
Report? Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I certainly make that motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And then Commissioner Tavana, you had
your hand up, so would you make a second?
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I second that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to ask Staff, do we need to
do a roll call vote for every single one of these? Can we
just do all in favor? I think it would take a lot of time
to do roll call vote for everyone of these, so I’m going to
ask Staff what you think?
JOEL PAULSON: I’d probably defer to the Town
Attorney. Obviously that being the safest, but if you want
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to just do it by show of hands and I can reflect what the
show of hands is, that might go a little faster.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I would suggest that we do it by
motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: We just did the motion, but do I need
to do a full roll call vote, or can we just do by show of
hands?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: No, we have to do a roll call. The
Brown Act requires it, because we’re not in person.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, then I will do that very
quickly. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well. Ms. Armer, you
had your hand up.
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JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I thought I would
put forward the suggestion—while this recommendation from
the GPAC does kind of stand on its own—that moving forward
often those motions can be a group of these items, and so
you won’t have to make 123 motions, but it really can be
clustered. If there are several points that a Commissioner
wants to make a motion that Items 2, 3, and 4 be approved,
or something like that, we could do them as groups as well
to reduce the votes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That is actually my intent, when we
get to the actual elements, starting with the Racial,
Social, and Environmental Justice Element. There are 11
suggestions and we don’t need to vote on each one. For
instance, I made my own notes and I said yes, no, yes, no,
that kind of thing. We should only recommend the things
that we’d like to see changed, and so we can do that as a
group motion.
I didn’t want to leave the Introduction, because there
was a comment that came in a Desk Item from Commissioner
Clark, and I believe it has been suggested by a few others,
and it was about modify the section called “Los Gatos
Community” to put more explanation of the origin of the
Town lands coming from the Ohlone Indians. I don’t know if
I characterized that appropriately from your perspective,
Commissioner Clark, but I personally wouldn’t have a
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problem with adding a little bit more definition to that
section. Commissioner Thomas, you have a comment?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I support that change.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Are there any other thoughts about
that, and did I characterize that the way that you wanted
it, Commissioner Clark?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Let me take one more look at it,
and Commissioner Janoff can go while I look to make sure.
CHAIR HANSSEN: No, I don’t believe you had suggested
the exact wording, it was more a general comment about
adding a little more depth to that section to explain the
lands had originally been Ohlone Indian land.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah, I got that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Two things. I’d also like to
lend my support for that addition, but in regard to
Commissioner Clark’s comments, which came in late today and
haven’t had the benefit of Staff going through them and
categorizing them the way they have all these other
remarks, because there were so many comments I’m concerned
about taking the time to go through each of Commissioner
Clark’s comments without the benefit of having Staff go
through that process, and just am looking for guidance from
the Chair on that.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, I did want to comment on that as
well, although I called this one out in particular just
because it was low hanging fruit. Commissioner Clark, we’re
very happy that you’re sending your comments, and they were
very thorough and detailed. I don’t know that they will get
the attention from all of the Commission that they deserve
for what we’re going through right now, so my suggestion
about how to handle the balance of your comments would be
to ask Staff to take a look at them and make the same
determination about this is an easy one to fix as
recommended, or this required discussion, and then since I
don’t think that we’ll finish the entire review tonight
that we would have an opportunity to consider the rest of
your comments when we have a follow up meeting. Ms. Armer.
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I would say that
with any suggestions, whether Staff has given a
recommendation or not on it, it would be included as part
of your recommendation to Town Council; that’s one of the
benefits of you making a recommendation rather than making
a final decision. If there is wording that’s suggested by
one of the Commissioners, whether it’s already provided in
writing or it’s part of the discussion this evening, that
could be part of your recommendation, and then Staff can
provide feedback on that when we take that forward to Town
Council if there are any concerns.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, I understand that. What I’m
saying, if I didn’t make it clear, is I don't know that the
Commissioners, myself included, have had the time to really
process the comments from Commissioner Clark because of all
the other comments that we were processing that came in in
the addendum and the Desk Item as well as in the Staff
(inaudible), so I’d like to make sure that we gave it the
attention before we made a determination, and even though I
have a lot of faith in Commissioner Clark, I am
uncomfortable with unilaterally saying just because you
submitted this, even though I haven’t had a chance to
really go through it, that I would recommend all your
changes is what I’m saying. Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Yeah, I completely
agree, and when I wasn’t able to get them in by Monday I
kind of knew that it’s not at all expected of you all to
have taken a thorough look at them or anything, and so I
think I’m happy during the discussion to highlight any that
I’m more passionate about or that are more significant and
require discussion, and I think that they could even be
sent to Council separate from the Planning Commission, or
that since we will probably be continuing our discussion we
might be able to get some Staff input before then.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds like a good plan. That
being the case, I did want to put that one item out there,
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because I definitely have also heard it from a Council
Member as well, and so I’d like somebody to make a motion
to add some of the language about the Ohlone Indians to the
Los Gatos Community section of the Introduction.
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I move to add some
language going more in depth on the origin of the lands of
Los Gatos, particularly in relation to the Ohlone and the
Tamien tribes in the Los Gatos Community Vision section.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, that sounds great, and
Commissioner Thomas, is that a second?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, I second the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’ll just go ahead and take the roll
call vote. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well, so I think
we’re covered for the Introduction. Did anyone else have
anything substantive that they wanted to change in the
Introduction?
Then we can move on to the other comments that are in
the front of Exhibit 7. If you look under Item 2 on page
217, it’s revisions as a result of review by the State
Department of Forestry, and Staff says included in Exhibit
8 and listed here there are quite a number of bullet
points, recommendations to change. In talking with Staff
the recommendation was that we do have to make these
changes, because we have to have the State Department of
Forestry and Cal Fire review our General Plan, and so we
pretty much need to accept all those. Director Paulson, you
had your hand up. Did you want to say anything more about
that? Okay, no. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’d like to just say that
sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, taking us to a modification
suggested in the public comments, these are comments that
are coming from experts in their field. They may be
mandated, they may be otherwise informed, but to me these
are people who we should be taking guidance from, and so I
would be prepared to move that we accept those comments,
which go through the top of page 4, as recommended by
Staff.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s an even better
suggestion, because I have the same feeling that I wouldn’t
want to part ways and opinion on this, especially our
Staff’s recommendation but also from the outside experts,
so I agree that we should do that, and so I’ll second the
motion actually. Are there any comments?
I only wanted to say one thing though, just because
we’re not going to go over these in detail, that on Item 3
as suggested by Staff, which was referenced in the Staff
Report, is to add an implementation program for a five-year
Land Use Element review. We aren’t going to discuss the
Land Use Element until the end of the process, but given
the amount of concern in the community about the build-out
numbers, I think it’s really prudent to have a five-year
land use review because of the uncertainty that we have
about what’s going to happen going forward. It’s already in
the motion and seconded to accept all of that, but I wanted
to make sure that you guys had seen that so that when we do
get to land use you’ll know that we have, assuming that
everyone votes for recommending it and it goes through
Council, that we’ll have some way to help manage the risk.
So, I will go to Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And then I vote yes as well. We’re
going to go to page 220, the modifications suggested in
public comments, and I had missed this, but I mentioned it
earlier. In the Introduction there was the protect the
natural resources Guiding Principle to adopt the concept of
biotic communities waterways. So, Staff, do we need to vote
on that in addition to what we did? I thought that was
already in there.
JENNIFER ARMER: I believe that is an additional
change to what was drafted by the GPAC to have that done
and track changes, but you actually in previous pages have…
CHAIR HANSSEN: I was looking for it when we went over
Item 1, and so that’s why I thought it was already adopted,
but then when I went to page 220 it’s listed as a separate
item from what the GPAC recommended, and so that’s why I
was confused, because I thought the GPAC recommended to do
that change to the Introduction as well.
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JENNIFER ARMER: As I’m reading through side-by-side
what is in the GPAC recommendation and what is listed here,
it does appear to be the same language, so it looks like we
just pulled that out of a separate comment, not recognizing
that it was already in the GPAC recommendations, so no, you
do not need to make any further motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, so then we should go on to
the Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice Element.
Commissioner Janoff talked a little bit about it, but for
those of you that are relatively new to the process, the
origin of the Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice
Element was recognition during the pandemic.
As we were meeting in 2020 we had the pandemic, and
then we had all the protests from Black Lives Matter, and
then Vice Chair Janoff and I said, and we brought up to the
GPAC and Staff, that we had concern that we were not really
addressing the full array of issues that were happening in
the Town in planning for the General Plan, so we held a
special meeting in July 2020 where we invited members of
the public to speak to us on issues that they might have
encountered related to racial and social injustice, or
environmental justice for that matter, and we did have
quite a number of people testify.
At the same time the Town Council was also doing
things. They were interviewing and doing workshops, but
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everyone on the GPAC felt that it was important to address
the racial, social, and environmental justice in the
General Plan at least at a high General Plan level, and
when we did that we recognized that there would be people
that thought it didn’t go far enough, which we’ve gotten
testimony to from the public, and that we could always do
more, and there are comments in here relating to doing
more, but everyone on the GPAC felt it was important to do
it as an element. Even though our consultants said you
could also do this as incorporating that into other
sections and address it throughout the plan, we felt it was
more important to call it out as a separate item.
So there is on Item 9 in here the possibility of
deleting the entire section or moving the Racial, Social,
and Environmental Justice Element to a later section in the
document. The GPAC did vote to keep it up front in the
document, and obviously since we recommended doing it we
wouldn’t recommend deleting it. I just wanted to give you
guys the background on that element in case you hadn’t
heard that when you read it, but that’s where it came from.
In general we’ve gotten very good feedback from everyone in
the public that this is the right direction to go.
That being the case, there are also 10 through 19 that
are suggestions, and what we need to get to is whether or
not we want to recommend any of those specific changes as
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part of the recommendation to Town Council. Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I just have a clarifying
question. For the rest of these, now that experts, etc. are
not necessarily suggesting these, and we are kind of going
to be going through them number-by-number, do we just want
to discuss the ones that we would like to adopt to
recommend, and just not even mention the ones that we don’t
support essentially?
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’ll tell you the direction Staff
gave. They said if we try to discuss every single one of
them it’s going to take a really, really long time, and so
maybe the thing to do would be to call out ones that we
thought… I could go through each one of these and tell you
that no, I didn’t want to include this because it was
confusing and I don’t think that the Town has control over
it, so maybe the better thing would be to focus on the ones
that we thought we could add and tee those up for
discussion.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, I just wanted to confirm,
because I went through all of them and it’s like some I
felt strongly one way or another and then some, just like
the Town said, I’m neutral on, so okay.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Why don’t you start and say which ones
you think were worth including?
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that number 11 is worth
including, that additional language. I think that number
13, I like the use of the word “increase” instead of
promote. And I like 15, the “implement and require,” I like
that language change. Number 18, I also support. For
numbers 17 and number 19, I had some kind of questions
around those. For number 17, I recommended maybe the
language should be changed to “marginalized” or
“historically marginalized groups” or “minority groups” to
be more specific. Then number 19, I don’t think the end of
that is appropriate, but I do like part of that one and I
feel like it needs some discussion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: People have their hands up, but on
number 19 I’ll just weigh in right away and say I wrote a
comment about the last sentence. I don’t know that we need
to go into a lot of detail about what kind of trees in the
Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice Element when we
have other elements that pertain to the environment and
what kind of trees that we should be putting in there, so I
thought that was too specific.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I liked the part about the
habitat valuation and tree selection for the Town’s
planting, but then not including the disallowing of
planting of invasive species. Well, invasive species I
guess is fine, but yeah.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Well, let’s see what other
Commissioners have to say. Commissioner Janoff, I think you
were first, and then Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I generally agree with the
recommendations from Commissioner Thomas, except that on 14
and 15, rather than make those policies I think they have
better language to be implementation programs, so I’d
recommend that we act on that but we move them into the
IPs. Seventeen, I wouldn’t agree with, because I think that
the changes over time, unless there is some very, very
broad wording that would make sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: On 15, I have a question. On 14, I had
a question for you. If you read the thing it talks about
working with colleges, and both private and public colleges
and schools and trade schools. I didn’t see the sense in
calling out a specific college being San Jose State, nor
did I think that it belonged in the implementation
programs, only because it was already a policy. I just
think it was fine as it was. I don’t know what the reason
was for mentioning San Jose State.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: If this person is really keen on
developing a relationship that is a recruiting mechanism
for San Jose State, maybe there is some link there, because
it’s a major university in our community, so I didn’t have
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an issue with it, but I didn’t think we needed to go into
the detail here.
CHAIR HANSSEN: As it stands now, it’s a policy that
talks about working with different universities. Are you
saying to remove it then and move the entire policy to the
implementation program, or just working with San Jose
State?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: If we’re going to mention San
Jose State specifically, we should put it in an
implementation program. If we leave it at university level,
which is consistent with broad topics for the General Plan,
then that’s where I would go.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, fair enough. Then 15 is
already a policy. It’s a question of whether it says,
“develop and implement” or “implement and require.” It’s
already a policy. Are you saying that we should move it to
an implementation program?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: On 15, I think that if you’re
going to require, if you’re going to go beyond developing,
then there’s some more action that needs to be done around
that. That felt more like it needed a little bit more of a
plan-around if we’re going to go for it, otherwise I’d say
don’t go that direction.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, fair enough. I wrote down that
since we’re developing and implementing it for all time and
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place I didn’t think it was necessary to add (inaudible),
but I don’t care that much about it. Let’s see,
Commissioner Clark had some comments.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I think Commissioner Thomas had
one on the one that was just mentioned, if you want to say
that right now.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yeah, let me go back to Commissioner
Thomas then.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I was looking at the
implementation programs, because there is Implementation
Program C that says it is requiring all Staff to undergo
ongoing diversity and implicit bias training, but then it
says that it’s supporting 2.6, which is… I’m just trying to
look back and forth. They were promoting hiring procedures.
I feel like 2.7 needs to be added to the list for
Implementation Program C. It might have been one of those
like we added a thing and it got bumped and it never got
cross-checked again.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I see what you’re saying. Because
Implementation Program C is about Town Staff, diversity,
and other training, and so to not link it to 2.7 seems like
an oversight.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yeah, C should be 2.6, 2.7, and
1.3.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, I agree. I think what I’m saying
is that I agree with what Commissioner Janoff said, but I
also think that it already is an implementation program, so
I think that changing the language is okay, because we’re
already going to be doing an implementation program
associated with it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, fair enough. I don’t see a whole
lot of difference between “develop” and “implement,” or
“implement” and “require” as long as we have an
implementation program that supports it. Commissioner
Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I completely agree on
that. Another comment that I have for number 15 is that I
think that something else that often happens with these
diversity trainings is they become very passive and
something that people just click through in order to meet
the requirement, and that’s something that I’d like to make
sure doesn’t happen with the Town. I don't know if this
goes far enough to really make sure that happens, but I
thought adding a description saying like, “Require an
engaging, substantive, and interactive cultural proficiency
training,” or something like that could help make that
clearer, and that’s in the language that I provided if you
want to look at that; it’s number 3 under A, Wording
Changes. But for the other ones, I agree with the others
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that Commissioners have been in favor of. Another that I
was curious about what others think is number 12, because I
wasn’t really sure, and I didn’t have a problem with it,
but I wanted to know what others think.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Staff did not recommend it. Maybe
Staff could comment on why they didn’t recommend 12. I
think I know, but I want to hear it from Staff.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: And I didn’t catch that, so thank
you.
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. The reason that we
did mark that one as not recommended, and I think related
to some of the discussion you’ve been having here as well,
is I’ll remind the Commission that this is a high-level
document, and so when these do start to get that specific
where it’s talking about a specific score, that’s not the
type of thing that would be appropriate to track a policy
in the General Plan. Recognizing that having quantifiable
ways of measuring some of these things is definitely
important, but specifying exactly how that’s going to be
done through one of the policies in the General Plan is not
something that Staff would recommend. That’s how some of
these policies could be implemented through programs
through the Town as the Town Council prioritizes those
types of programs and development, including details of
Staff training and such that you were mentioning, which are
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very important, but really are part of the development of
what those trainings should be. Some of those details can
be included at this level, but for this particular one we
chose to not recommend approval, because of how specific it
was getting.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I will also go as far as to say that
Implementation Program E, Social and Racial Justice
Equality Survey, which is an annual survey on the
successfulness of advancing social equity and diversity, I
don’t think we need to have policy specifying that we need
to do that, since we already have it as in implementation
program. I don't know if anyone else sees it that way, but
to me that is very much of an action step, assuming that
gets added to the list of things that Staff is going to
work on.
I had a question about the one about a quality living
wage, it’s 13, and my question for Staff is it says it
promotes in the current policy the draft, and then someone
suggested to change it to “increase or improve,” which is
definitely more specific, but my question is the Town
doesn’t actually have control over a quality living wage
for all community members. That is in the hands of the
employers, of which the Town could be one of them, but I’m
not sure from Staff’s perspective if that’s something that
we could really commit to and stand behind.
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JENNIFER ARMER: I’ll start, and the Community
Development Director may have something to add as well.
I agree that while that change in language we did mark
as neutral, it is true that there is only so much that we’d
be able to do in terms of actually increasing. It really
would be more in the character of trying to have programs
that promote it and support the increase in the ways that
we have. It looks like we also have Town Manager Prevetti
with us this evening, and she may have something to add to
this question as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, of course, Town Manager.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Thank you so much. In the past the
Council has been asked to consider increasing minimum wage
above what the state requires, and through its strategic
priorities the Town Council has decided not to go in that
direction. We typically just follow what the state is
doing, but promoting these opportunities is something that
is more in line with what smaller jurisdictions are able to
do. The larger cities tend to be really the big leaders on
this, and we typically don’t have the resources to actually
implement our own living wage ordinances. That would have
to be implemented by other businesses.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s really helpful. Thank you for
that. For me, I would say not change 13, just leave it
where it is and (inaudible) promote. That’s my feeling on
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it. Commissioners Thomas and Janoff, you still have your
hands up, so I don't know which one was first.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My comment is only that I think
I misspoke when I said I supported number 13. I have
written in my notes that I do not. We don’t really have
enough control over this, so I would say no to 13.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree after hearing about
local jurisdiction, so I don’t support that change. But
going back to number 17, perhaps the language could be
changed to “socially disadvantaged and historically
marginalized groups.” I think “historically marginalized”
is a large enough term that can be used that is dynamic and
will change over the next 20 years, and so I think that
that is more specific, but also still broad enough.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes, thank you. I just want to
make sure that we link from the policy in number 12 to the
implementation programs that you mentioned, Chair Hanssen,
to Implementation Program E. I think that’s what we were
referencing, so if we’re going to use that as a metric, it
should be listed probably under that section there.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s not a bad idea. Would that not
be true about every policy though? That’s the only thing.
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COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I’m not one way or another, but
I did notice that it does (inaudible) so if you want to use
that as a way to make sure it is accounted for in the
future. Then, also in number 14 I wouldn’t support adding
San Jose State University and leaving the language as is.
Everything else I’m rather neutral on.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That makes sense. I’m just going to go
back to that thing you brought up, and I didn’t want to
belabor it, but it’s in a list of policies under RSEJ-1,
which is, “Support equity inclusion and access to
opportunities for all community members, employees,
businesses, and visitors.” There’s service delivery,
community budgeting, institutional bias, housing
affordability, Town diversity, welcoming town, and quality
of living wage, so I think where I was going with it is
that if we’re going to have a survey, it would be covering
a lot of these issues, not just whether we’re a welcoming
town or not. If we’re going to do a survey, we should be
addressing more than that issue.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: That makes sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Then under one of these things that
we’re trying to promote, to say we’re only going to survey
on that one didn’t make any sense to me. Does that make
sense?
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: No, it does. It does.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I just think we don’t need to do
number 12 at all, unless we want to put somewhere else in
the policies as a general thing, make sure we have an
implementation program, but we already do, so I think we
would be covered by the fact that we already have that.
Are there any other ones we need to discuss?
Commissioner Thomas, since you started this discussion,
let’s maybe go back and recap the ones that we’re still
thinking that we should recommend for changes and see if we
can get to a conclusion.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Do you want me to do this in a
motion?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yeah, why don’t you do a motion?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Commissioner Clark has her hand
raised, so I think she maybe wants to add something before
I summarize.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, go ahead, Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I just have a quick
question. Before we did this, if I had a couple of changes
that I would like to see that are not in these public
comment summaries, would I want to make sure that this is
included, or would we want to do that separately?
CHAIR HANSSEN: The issue that I had when I started
with this is that you could tell us about it, but I’m not
sure if everyone would have given it the thought that we
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need to be able to process it, that’s all. But we can try
that if you had specific language that you wanted to put
in. We can try and see if that resonates with the
Commission.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Could I do that right now?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yeah, why don’t you go ahead?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Okay, thank you. There are two
things.
One is I think, like Commissioner Janoff said, we’ve
learned a lot since this was created and then also past
that amount of time, especially about equity and equality,
and I didn’t think that the definitions of equality and
equity in the key terms accurately described these
concepts. I talked to some diversity experts who I get to
work with too and came up with some alternative
definitions. For equality, instead of saying, “The state of
being equal, especially in status, rights, and
opportunities,” it would say, “Equal opportunity levels of
support and allocation of resources regardless of different
circumstances.” For equity, instead of stating, “Fairness
or justice in the way people are treated,” it would state,
“Differing allocation of opportunities, levels of support,
and resources based on each person or group’s circumstances
or needs, thereby reaching an equal outcome.” And if that
makes sense to people, then maybe we could do it now, but
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if not, I completely understand if people need to stay with
that for longer.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I can speak for myself. I reviewed the
definitions and what you suggested I thought was reasonable
and was in line with… I don't know how many of you were
able to attend the community meeting on March 31st on Zoom
that was related to the Housing Element. They had a woman
come and speak and she did a slide on equity versus
equality and what the difference was, and it was a cartoon
graphic that I thought was pretty clear to explain the
differences and she talked about that, and so I thought
your explanation was right in line with that, but I don't
know if others had a chance to read through it. I will go
to Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I had a chance to read through
Commissioner Clark’s comments fully, and I do support the
change to these definitions.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I also support, so I can include
that in my motion. Was there anything else that
Commissioner Clark wanted to say in addition?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you, yes. I have one other,
and it’s an implementation program that I think we should
add. If you go to the policy RSEJ-4.1, it’s a policy for
acceptance of government-issued vouchers. I’ve worked very
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closely with the unhoused community and with people who are
on these vouchers and one of the biggest challenges that
people encounter is not being able to use them, and so I
was really, really happy to see this policy and excited
about, but it is such an action-oriented one that I felt
like it needed an implementation program to actually
happen. I think it’s one that would have a really big
impact, and so I think it should be added as an
implementation program for RSEJ after Program K, which is
Community Engagement, and I think that the program should
be implemented between 2020-2025, and I think it should
also include the EJ icon for the cross-cutting icons under
it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s reasonable. I’m just
going to ask Staff about it. We had a long discussion at
the GPAC about the huge volume of implementation programs
that we have and whether or not they would ever really
happen, so I’m just going to ask Staff. I don’t have any
problem adding it in, and then ultimately the way this will
work is the Town Council is the one that will prioritize
what gets worked on in what year because of their strategic
priorities session, and so it comes from the General Plan
and other sources what gets onto the plate. So I don’t have
a problem with adding it, but I just want to make sure with
Staff it is that something reasonable that we can add?
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JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I think you’re on
point in terms of being cautious about adding additional
implementation measures, because really to make those
happen it will have to be prioritized by Town Council at
their annual priority setting. I will also share the
microphone with Town Manager Prevetti, because she has
turned on her camera again.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Thank you. I just wanted to note
that voucher programs are already in effect, Section 8, and
obviously there’s not enough vouchers to meet the need, and
so I don't know if the Town can actually effect this very
important program, because it’s ultimately up to the
individual landlords whether or not they accept it. We
could certainly add it and then do some more Staff
analysis. I think our Council might be a little bit
cautious about adding things that we really can’t impact,
so it’s going to take a little bit more work, and I don't
know if our housing consultant would be able to really help
do anything more than what’s already being done. But we’re
happy to add it if that’s the will of the Planning
Commission, and then we can do some more research so by the
time we get to Council we can answer their questions. Thank
you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead, Commissioner Clark.
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Can I make a
clarification for it? I should have further described this
policy so you can immediately flip to it, but it’s
government-issued food vouchers, and so this would be
things like accepting electronic benefits transfer or EBT
and SNAP vouchers at farmers market and local food venders.
I’d be curious to hear if that changes the answer or if you
have any more comments.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I think our farmers market already
accepts the cards, but that’s something we can certainly
look at, because I think that is consistent with our
current practice of really supporting those who are trying
to feed people in need, so we’ll look at that a little bit
more. Thank you for the clarification.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Other comments? Commissioner Thomas,
are we going back to making a motion?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes. I would also like to add
that I do think that making an implementation program for
this does make sense, specifically because the Town
provides business licenses, and so I don't know if that
could be like changed within an ordinance that new vendors
have to… I don't know if that’s legal or something, but
looking into the fact that new vendors can be required to
accept certain forms of SNAP or EBT or whatever.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I would suggest that if we’re going to
add it as an implementation we word it as like a research-
oriented program. Not like a commitment to do it, but
rather we research the viability of what we can do to
increase support for acceptance of these vouchers.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Exactly, exactly. Thank you. So,
I will start with that. I move to approve or forward the
following modifications suggested for the Racial, Social,
and Environmental Justice Element: to add an implementation
program for RSEJ-4.1 to do some research on coordinating
and promoting the acceptance of government-issued food
vouchers. I also move to make the changes to the
definitions that Commissioner Clark submitted earlier for
the key terms of “equality” and “equity.” I also move to
approve Policy Change 17 with the addition of adding
“historically marginalized” as language to Policy RSEJ-6.2,
and then also approve numbers 11, 15, and 18. I believe
that summarized everything.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Did you want to do anything more on
19?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I don’t think so, because it’s
an implementation program, unless someone feels really
strongly.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. I didn’t. I thought it was fine
the way it was, and like I said, I don’t necessarily think
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we need to go there in terms of lots of detail about what
kind of trees when we’re in the Racial, Social, and
Environmental Justice Element as long as we have policies
about what kind of trees we put in Town. Commissioner
Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’ll second that motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Any other comments before we vote?
What we will be voting on after we finish taking comments
would be recommending approval of the Racial, Social, and
Environmental Justice Element with the changes incorporated
and suggested by Commissioner Thomas. Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I support the motion except for
the wording of the key terms of “equality” and “equity,”
and on those topics I haven’t had an opportunity to see how
those terms are used throughout the General Plan, and I’m
reluctant to approve those changes without having done so.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, fair enough. That’s a valid
comment. Staff, when we were talking about this earlier
today in terms of process and procedure, if there’s a
Commissioner that has an issue like that should they vote
no or vote yes, not feeling comfortable with that comment,
or maybe abstaining? What would be your suggestion on how
to handle it?
JOEL PAULSON: I’m happy to start, and if Ms. Armer
has anything to add, that’s fine as well. I think probably
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for this type of motion that Vice Chair Barnett could vote
yes, but note the objection to the definitions at this
point, and that way we could move forward. There will be
verbatim minutes of all of these meetings provided as well,
and then ultimately if this moves to the next meeting, if
there are some additional comments after his review of
those terms throughout the General Plan, if he had
different thoughts he can always provide those in writing
and those would be part of the public record.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds like a plan. Does that
sound agreeable to you, Vice Chair?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, that’s acceptable. I’d make
a point that I request my comments be considered by the
Council.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, that’s fine. Do we have a
second?
JOEL PAULSON: Commissioner Janoff already seconded
the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Oh, yeah. Sorry, I got distracted on
the second. So, we have a motion and a second, and then
I’ll keep going in the same order. I’ll start with
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And then Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: And then Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, with a recommendation that
the Council consider the terms “equality” and “equity”
after further review by members of the Commission, and that
I will be happy to supply further comment by written
response after my review.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds great. And then I vote yes
as well. I did have a chance to review the definitions, so
I’m okay with that whole thing. So, we’ve gotten through
the Racial, Social, and Environmental Justice Element.
The next element in order of the plan is actually the
Land Use Element, so we’re going to skip that, and we’re
going to skip the Community Design Element as well, because
Land Use and Community Design go hand-in-hand. The next
element will be the Mobility Element.
Just for background on the Mobility Element, Staff,
correct me if I’m wrong, I think the Mobility Element was
one of the ones we might have reviewed five times.
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JENNIFER ARMER: That was definitely one that had
multiple reviews and total reorganization as well to really
show the new priorities that the GPAC felt were important,
and emphasizing certain topics and their importance by
bringing them up to the front.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Then we also had quite a number of
comments from Parks and Public Works pertaining to mobility
in particular, because that’s right in their wheelhouse
that we already agreed to take on.
There are about 10-15 comments on the Mobility
Element, and Staff did say: the first one was recommended;
the second one, outside of the purview of the Los Gatos
General Plan; the third one, not recommended; and the
fourth one, not recommended. We could go through the same
process, which is maybe if one of you felt comfortable
enough about saying what you would recommend and
incorporating those changes we could go from there and then
not have to talk about the other ones. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was going to piggyback on that
comment by saying there was no recommended change to the
General Plan with the exception of three items in my
reading, 62 and 63. We don’t want to get this level of
detail in a goal or a policy, but if it seemed reasonable
to study VTA, I’m not sure what queue jumping is, but if
these are fine points that need to be studied in order to
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improve VTA transportation, then I would recommend that
they be added to or become an implementation program. I
don’t feel strongly about them one way or the other, but
those look like they could take some action.
Then the only other one that is recommended is number
67, which is to add a definition of traffic impact policy
to the glossary, so my recommendation would be maybe two
implementation programs, or one for 62 and 63, and yes to
number 67.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Just to comment on 62 and 63, if you
read the comments from the EIR, VTA wrote a pretty
extensive thing when it was related to traffic. Obviously,
their priority is making sure that the buses get through,
and so they had a number of suggestions on how we could
prioritize bus traffic, so I would completely agree with
you. I actually wrote in my comments that 62 and 63 could
be implementation programs, because it’s not even clear
that they’re feasible for the Town, and so we would have to
study them to see if that was possible, and so I agree with
you on that.
In addition to the not recommended ones, 64 and 65
were clearly designated by Staff as being part of the
Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, not in the General
Plan. So while we could certainly do these things, it may
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or may not make sense to change the draft of the Mobility
Element.
Let’s see, I also have Commissioner Thomas and
Commissioner Clark that have comments, so go ahead,
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. I agree with the
comments so far about 62 and 63 being added as one
implementation program. I looked over the implementation
programs, but I’m happy to know if Staff thinks that those
are already covered somewhere, but I don’t believe that
they are, so I’m happy to add that. Then the second thing
was I also support number 67.
I did have question for Staff about when the Bicycle
and Pedestrian Master Plan would be updated, because that
was recommended for 64 and 65.
JENNIFER ARMER: I believe the Bicycle and Pedestrian
Master Plan was just updated in the last few years, but we
do have WooJae Kim from Parks and Public Works here and he
may be able to give you a specific date.
WOOJAE KIM: Good evening, Commissioners. WooJae Kim,
Town Engineer. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan was
updated in 2020, so we would have to further investigate
when the next round of updates would need to be, and we
could definitely work with our Complete Streets and
Transportation Commission and the Town Manager’s Office and
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CBD to figure when the next update needs to be, but I
suspect it won’t be for another two or three years, so I
hope that answers your question.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, that does. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Just to the question you’re asking,
Commissioner Thomas, I would say that since you sat on the
GPAC with us, although I think it’s really important that
those particular corridors for Complete Streets are some of
the most important ones and they would be talked about in
the Community Design Elements in terms of they’re like the
main street in a couple of our Community Place Districts, I
think it would be too much detail to put in the General
Plan to call out specific streets for Complete Streets, and
it might already be in the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master
Plan, because there is a Complete Streets policy that the
Town has, it may already be in there, but I wouldn’t add it
into the General Plan, so that’s my opinion on that.
Commissioner Clark, did you have comments or questions?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, I agree. I think I’d like to
see 62 and 63 as implementation programs. I hear a lot
about VTA and I think collaboration with the VTA is really
important, and I’m involved with them separately, and it
feels like there needs to be more merging of the worlds and
like it’s really possible, so I think that would be great.
I think that 67 looks good.
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I had one thing I wanted to bring up about
Implementation Program D, the community shuttle system. I
felt like the focus on parking mostly focused on
accommodating more cars and making sure that there’s more
parking, and Staff and I think that there wasn’t as much
focus as I would theoretically like to see on reducing the
need for parking, and I think that the community shuttle
system could be a really interesting way to do this. The
only thing I wanted to bring up for this is I definitely
would not expect it to be implemented before 2026, but I
would like to see work on it happen before then because of
how long this program might take, and so I wanted to
include for Staff and Council to consider moving the
timeline up for the community shuttle system.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s a reasonable request to
consider moving up the timeline, especially when we see
that there’s going to be big, huge impacts from greenhouse
gas from a transportation perspective, irrespective of the
fact that it happens in every General Plan. With planning
for 2,000 units, it’s going to be an issue, so I don’t have
a problem with recommending moving up the priority of it.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Could I just ask a clarifying
question? The implementation program is already 2020-2025,
and I was just confused by your comments, Commissioner
Clark, because you’re saying, if I’m reading it correctly,
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you want the implementation timeline to change from 2026 to
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah, on mine it shows it under
2026-2040, and if it isn’t, if it’s on the earlier one,
then I think that’s great.
JOEL PAULSON: Just for clarification, it is currently
marked in the 2026-2040 timeframe.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Okay, so I have an older
version.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, so then your recommendation
would stand to move it into the 2020-2025 priority.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Good catch, Commissioner Janoff.
Thank you for bringing that up.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I do have a couple of questions to
ask. One was on 58, which was brought up by one of the
speakers, make downtown streets bike and pedestrian only,
and while you guys said not recommended, is there any merit
to studying to make it less car dependent, or do we have
that covered in another implementation program?
LAUREL PREVETTI: I’ll start, and I’m sure Staff will
add on. We have in our Capital Improvement Program a
downtown streetscape project that is a placeholder really
for after the pandemic ends and as we start getting more
revenue from different sources, so that’s really part of a
comprehensive evaluation of our streetscape and looking at
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redesign, and that’s already in our program. I don’t think
we need to add it, because I think there’s already interest
in making sure that we can widen sidewalks and make that
major street more accessible for all modes of travel, so
it’s something that’s actually already in more a short-term
work plan; we’re just waiting to get enough resources to
hire a landscape architect and help us design it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I kind of thought that from the
General Plan Advisory Committee discussions that we had
clearly identified things in that realm as what we needed
to do, not just for downtown but for some other places, to
raise the safety and usability for all modes of
transportation, not just cars, so I thought we were
covered. I only wanted to bring it up, because we had one
of our commenters bring it up and it was on this list here
even though it wasn’t recommended, and so I understand that
now.
I had another question about number 60, and Staff did
respond that adding off-ramps from Highway 85 to Winchester
was outside of the purview of the Los Gatos General Plan,
but in the past I have seen where we did say we would
coordinate with regional agencies if we thought it was our
priority, and I’m not saying it is, I’m just asking the
question. Is that something we should consider to lobby
for?
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LAUREL PREVETTI: The needs of the highway system in
Silicon Valley are so great that it’s just not going to
happen, quite honestly. There’s already a study going on
about Highway 85 and how to improve efficiencies, and I
think we’re even having difficulty coming to agreement
about how to make that artery more effective and perhaps
introducing a transit. There’s so much that we have that’s
needed. This would be one of those action items that we
just would not be able to implement.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Got it. It’s not even clear how much
difference it would make anyway, but I wanted to at least
ask the question so that we can say that we asked the
question.
One last question I had was about the paid parking. We
are silent in the General Plan about paid parking, and
there was a parking study done and I understand we’re
implementing on that, and my only question for Staff is by
being silent about paying for parking are we putting
ourselves in conflict with current policies, or is it
better to just stay silent about it?
LAUREL PREVETTI: The Town Council is already moving
forward on paid parking, and that’s actually on the agenda
for next Tuesday, so there’s no reason for the 2040 plan to
get into that level of detail.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: So there won’t be any conflict,
because we’re not saying that you shouldn’t charge for
parking either, we’re just silent about it, so there’s no
conflict. Okay, good then. I’m good.
That was all my questions, so then I think we had a
motion from Commissioner Janoff to adopt 67 and 62 and 63
as implementation programs, is that correct?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: As one program.
CHAIR HANSSEN: As one program, yeah.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I just wanted to note that
Commissioner Raspe had his hand up a little bit ago.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m sorry; I missed that, so
Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Actually you
asked the question I had with respect to the parking
studies, so thank you for asking, and my question has been
answered. Thank you much.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So we have a motion from Commissioner
Janoff, but Commissioner Thomas and Commissioner Clark have
their hands up. Did you have more comments before we do the
second? We can do that. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I do. I also wanted to, if
Commissioner Janoff is okay with it, change Implementation
Program D to 2020-2025, to that timeframe, and include that
in the motion.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, that’s acceptable to the
maker of the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So is that a second, Commissioner
Thomas?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, and then Commissioner
Clark, did you have anything else now that that was added?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: That’s exactly what I was going
to say, thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So then let’s go ahead, unless anyone
has any other comments on mobility or anything else that
they recommend changing, and take our roll call vote, and
I’ll start with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well.
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So we’ve gotten through the Mobility Element. Let’s at
least start on the next one. It is 10:47, and so we’ll see
where we are at 11:00 and decide whether we should keep
going or we should adjourn to another meeting. I think that
is the point where I had thought that we would at least
decide whether we would keep going, but I don’t see any
scenario where we’re going to finish all of the elements
tonight, but I think we could probably get the next
element. Ms. Armer.
JENNIFER ARMER: I just wanted to clarify that if the
discussion is going beyond 11:00p.m. we will need a motion,
specifically to continue the meeting past that time.
CHAIR HANSSEN: There weren’t an incredible amount of
changes. Well, there actually were quite a few, but let’s
start on it and then at 11:00 o’clock I’ll stop if we’re
not finished with the Public Facilities, Services, and
Infrastructure Element. I’ll stop there and then we’ll
decide if we continue to finish that or defer to the next
meeting.
The Public Facilities, Services, and Infrastructure
Element, there are quite a number of changes in my review,
but I thought most of them were pretty reasonable, but we
ought to discuss what we wanted to add. I had a question on
69, which was considering the following additions. I don’t
know that I even knew what MWENDO is. I tried looking for
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it and I didn’t see it in the General Plan, but maybe I
missed it.
JENNIFER ARMER: I believe that may be indicating
Water Efficient Ordinance. Maybe it was a typo in their
letter.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So it came from Valley Water?
JENNIFER ARMER: I can look up what the wording of
that policy is and see if that makes sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Because they had four different
suggestions. It was consider adopting the MWENDO; encourage
non-potable reuse of water, like gray water and rain water,
which we don’t have in there now; require dedicated
landscape meters where applicable; and require installation
of separate sub-meters in each unit of multi-family
developments within commercial buildings, and you guys had
said on the lot of those that you were neutral.
JENNIFER ARMER: This is adding a lot of detail to a
goal. The goal is kind of the highest level when you’ve got
goals, policies, and implementation measures, but if that
additional detail is something that the Planning Commission
feels is important to recommend, it could be part of that.
I do think they may have intended that to be water
efficient landscape, but we could look into that. Clearly
they are talking about water efficiency.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: You made a good point that that goal
is about water efficiency overall and how far in the weeds
are we going to get in terms of policies. The Town Manager
has her camera on.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Thanks to the teamwork of the
participants that are watching the meeting, it is the Model
Water Efficient New Development Ordinance.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That makes sense to me, because of
what else is covered in there, but like I said, I didn’t
see it. I tried flipping through them and it wasn’t in the
General Plan right now, so I thought it was probably in
something else that I hadn’t seen or had missed.
Commissioner Janoff and then Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I didn’t have an issue with
including these, but I wouldn’t modify the goal EFS-1 if
they should be incorporated under some of the policies
without substantially changing what the GPAC worked really
hard on refining. I could keep them or leave them out,
either way. I thought number 70 was a good recommendation.
I agree with all those that are not recommended.
The question that I had with the two or three items
that refer to the connection between Los Gatos-Saratoga
Rec, we didn’t really get into that level of detail
specifically saying who is providing child care, so I would
think that those kind of comments, that would be 72,
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possibly 73, possibly 74, is too far into the weeds and
things might change over 20 years and who knows if LGS is
going to still be around. We don’t want this to be dated at
any point if we can help it, so I would not recommend
those, even though Staff is recommending… Well, you’re
recommending something else with regard to the figure;
that’s fine. Number 75, we had a lot of input from the
Senior Services Commission, anything related to senior, so
as with many things, the GPAC deferred to those who were
experts in their area. If we didn’t get this comment from
the Senior Services Commission, I’m not sure, so I put no
against that one.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think you have a good point on that.
I mean, we had them come to our meeting, they sent in
written comments, and this sounds like it came from LGS
Recreation saying we’re doing all this stuff and we’re not
being recognized in the General Plan is what I am getting
out of the comments.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: That’s how I read these several
comments and I don’t think the General Plan is the place
for that, so I’m just cautioning against that. Number 76,
once again we’ve got an acronym that hasn’t been spelled
out, or at least I don't know what CPTED means.
CHAIR HANSSEN: It’s in the General Plan right now, by
the way. Is that in their definitions?
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JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, it’s Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design, but it is defined.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I would say no on 77, “Encourage
the private facility or community center to host performing
arts events.” I don’t think we need to add “or community
center,” especially since we don’t have one, I don’t think,
at the moment. Number 79, if we want to do more for the
plant-based diet contingent in Town, then maybe, but how
would we implement that is my question. Who is adding the
trees, and if it’s routing trees to Town property, what
Staff is going to maintain and what do you have to do to
keep the trees working? That seemed like a very specific
thing and a great idea, but not so easily implemented.
That’s all I have.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Did you have a comment on 80? They
wanted to add dark sky conservation and healthy ecosystems
to the existing implementation program for outdoor
lighting.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was okay with adding that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I was as well. Let’s see, I’m not sure
between Commissioner Thomas and Commissioner Clark who had
their hand up first. Let’s go with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. In general I agree
with Commissioner Janoff’s comments, so thank you for that.
For number 69, I believe that we need to add a definition
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of “recycled water” to the list of definitions, because
when I read the goals I felt like gray water, rainwater,
and storm water collection were covered in it already, but
I don't know, so I feel like we just need to add that
definition. What do we mean by recycled water? Gray water
is typically what we mean by recycled water, so if that
could be added to clarify, I think that would address some
of the issues with number 69. I also very much support
number 80, but I don’t feel super strongly about the other
parts.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark, and then
Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Yes, I also generally
agree. I think for number 69 that these can be fit under
some of those policies under the goal. For example, for
“encourage non-potable reuse of water,” I think that could
fit under Policy 1.5, Sustainable Water Use, and so I think
that that’s probably something to explore with that one,
but I don’t think that they should be added as their own
policies. I agree with the stand the Commissioners have
taken on the other ones. For number 76 I think definitely
no for that one. I think that that wording was there for a
reason and I wouldn’t support taking that out.
Then for number 79, the fruit trees, I want to ask
Staff, because they were neutral on it, if that is
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possible? I agree it’s a great idea, but I also have a hard
time seeing how that would be implemented and maintained.
I have a second question for Staff. I was wondering
for number 80 where it adds dark sky conservation, is this
the only place in the General Plan where this would be
implemented? It would also go in like Open Space and Parks
or something, right?
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, dark sky is included in some of
the other sections. In Design of New Buildings, for
example, we’ve got at least one policy that does include
reference to dark sky.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think Community Design for sure.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yeah, there definitely we added it to
a policy specifically in response to those public comments.
In response to the question about the fruit trees, the idea
of having additional fruit trees in Town, we’re neutral on
that. It was one of the less specific recommendations or
comments, so how exactly I think the implementation of that
is, it’s something that’s added to an existing policy. They
talk about possibly under Section 6.13, so a little bit of
a question there as to how you might see implementing that,
but I could see it being part of if there were some local
farms activities. We definitely like to support the Town’s
history of the orchards in Town.
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It looks like Community Development Director Paulson
has something to add.
JOEL PAULSON: The first thing I’ll add is it is 11:00
o’clock. The second thing I’ll add is that we’ll look into
that more. Ultimately, that’s going to be a resource issue.
We’re not going to be looking to create orchard facilities
or some of the farming activities like they’re proposing to
do on the North Forty where they’re going to have someone
actively monitor that. That would be problematic, but we’ll
get some more information before we come back for the next
meeting. We will need a motion to extend past 11:00 to a
specific time, and then we can see where that goes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Should I make the motion or should I
ask someone to make the motion? What I’d like to suggest to
the Commission is that we try to finish this particular
element, and then adjourn to another meeting. Do we need to
do the date certain right now?
JOEL PAULSON: You don’t need to do the date certain
now, but we need to do it before you close this evening.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, got it.
JOEL PAULSON: First motion is to extend it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And it has to be a specific time?
JENNIFER ARMER: And you then would have the
opportunity when we get to that time to extend it further,
if you so wish.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to just suggest 11:30, but
if we finish this element before that I would want to stop
and get to the next meeting, so that’s my proposal.
Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I move to extend the meeting
till 11:30.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, thank you. Is there a second?
Commissioner Raspe, it looks like you’re seconding?
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes, I’ll second that motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, and then we will take our
roll call vote. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well. So then we
also had the hands up from our Staff. Mr. Kim, did you have
something you wanted to say?
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WOOJAE KIM: Yes, thank you, Chair. Regarding the goal
for the fruit trees and so forth, I definitely believe more
evaluation analysis might be needed, getting our Town
Arborist involved. This element is under Public Facilities
and Services, so I think if we’re talking about planting
fruit trees on public lands we would definitely need to
evaluate that further to see if we could maintain such
trees and if those would be ideal in public spaces.
Also, a separate comment about gray water. Again, in
public facilities and maybe parks we do have to evaluate if
that’s even feasible or not, because I know there are
purple pipes of recycled water, that’s a possibility, but
that is not even a feasible option at this time because of
lack of quantities of recycled water available out there in
the county.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s very helpful. So some of the
things that are suggested in 69, what I’m hearing, are not
really practical. Let’s see, I have a few hands up. I’ll go
with Commissioner Raspe, because he’s waving at me, and
then we also have Commissioner Tavana, who had his hand up
before, and then Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. First of all, I
agree generally with all comments made, especially with
respect to some comments noting that some of these
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notations may be dated, so we should be a little careful in
the language that we include.
Specifically I want to talk about the last bullet
point in Section 69 requiring installation of separate sub-
meters in multi-family developments. I think it’s inferred
but not stated that that should be applicable to new
developments. I don’t think we want to create a retrofit
obligation to our existing units, so I think we’ll need
some clarifying language in that bullet.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And that’s only if we choose to
recommend it, period. It is a choice to decide not to
recommend it, so I appreciate that.
I would add on that the one before it requiring
dedicated landscape meters where applicable, the applicable
would be the big question, because to take on having to
retrofit the entire Town with dedicated landscape meters, I
can’t speak for everyone, but we have a San Jose water
meter at the street and if I want to see what our water
usage is I just open the thing up and I can see what our
water usage is. To do that seems like a lot to take on, and
I’m not sure where it would take us. Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you, Chair. Just a quick
two comments actually.
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Speaking to comment 69, I wouldn’t recommend any list
changes. I’d like to keep the language as is currently
written.
Secondly, in terms of the implementation programs,
this is a new comment I wanted to throw out there and that
I would like to see personally move up the implementation
timeline for Program C to 2025. There’s a lot of talk in
Town right now about this notion of artificial turf being
somehow more environmentally friendly than real grass. I
think we should have this study happen sooner rather than
later, in my opinion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: To decide if that’s the case? I don't
know if you saw that there were multiple comments in the
Staff Report totally advocating for stopping any more
artificial turf in Town, period, and including maybe taking
out the stuff that’s at the Los Gatos Creekside Park.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: That’s great news. I can tell
you the windfall from the North Forty, there is budget, and
all the local schools, Van Meter, Daves, they’re going to
put in artificial turf for some reason at these elementary
schools, so needless to say, I would like to see this study
happen sooner rather than later.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you’re adding in a recommendation
that isn’t on the list that we have here to move up the
priority of studying the artificial turf?
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COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Right.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, so duly noted, and we can decide
if we can move forward with that, but that makes sense.
Were there other comments that you had?
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: That was it. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I lost track of who was next, so let’s
go with Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner Janoff,
and then Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Commissioner Tavana,
for that comment. I do agree that Implementation Program C
needs to be moved up, and maybe within that we need to have
alternatives to just regular sod essentially also, because
that is not going to be the good solution moving forward
water-wise either, so maybe this implementation program
needs to be changed to just studying what the appropriate
ground cover needs to be in places where turf is needed,
then that would cover the use of artificial turf but also
hopefully cover some more sustainable and environmental and
(inaudible) alternatives.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yeah, that’s related to the water.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, and people. I think that
that’s some of the concern of artificial turf.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Completely in agreement with
what was just discussed on Implementation Program C, and I
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am also in agreement with Commissioner Tavana that we
should not incorporate any of the changes recommended in
69. It seems like the more people from the Town speak, the
less likely these are viable recommendations to implement,
so my recommendation would be to not incorporate any of 69
to follow on Commissioner Tavana’s recommendation.
CHAIR HANSSEN: The good news is that by keeping it
general it doesn’t preclude the Town from pursuing any of
these avenues under the guise of water efficiency, because
that is our goal. How we go about doing it is still open.
That makes sense, so I like that as a resolution. Let’s
see, Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, I agree about Implementation
Program C moving up the timeline. I also like Commissioner
Thomas’ change to also studying what the appropriate ground
cover needs to be, and I agree on number 69. For number 79,
the fruit trees, I would like to include a recommendation
to Council to explore including this in the plan. I don’t
think that we should even actually include it, but I think
that that might be something worth looking into in the time
between now and their review.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Would you want to have an added
implementation program to study the feasibility of doing
it, or just send it off to Council saying that it sounds
like a good idea but we’re not sure where to put it?
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: I definitely don’t think we
should add it as another implementation program.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Because we have a hundred and some.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah, it seems like we have
enough work to do. I think since we don’t even know if it’s
feasible, that’s another reason not to put it as one, but I
think it is something worth looking into and then
considering including in the General Plan if it does turn
out to be completely feasible.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Great, got it. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I think one thing we want to
keep in mind is that the Housing Element gives us an
opportunity to get more detailed about how we want to
construct neighborhoods and affordable housing that
supports the residents. We had a great piece during our
study session last week. What was it called, agri-hood? It
was a low-income neighborhood built by Core, and it
included a whole agricultural garden and whatnot to support
the residents. I think this would be a great idea to
include in the Housing Element when we get there to
incentivize sort of the holistic affordable housing, low-
income housing concept, so don’t loose it. I don’t think
this is the right place for it. Put it someplace where it
can actually do what I think they’re getting at, which is
we’ve got this opportunity to grow food for our community.
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Let’s put it where it makes more sense to do that, and
maybe it winds up being a public/private partnership or
something that’s a requirement for developers, I don't
know, but don’t loose it, but not in this section.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, sounds good. Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and I think that it can
even be expanded to not just fruit trees, but in general
just everything edible.
I feel like I’m ready to make a motion if people don’t
have a ton of other comments.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think we’re fine. I just wanted to
double check, because Commissioner Janoff might have
mentioned it earlier, but number 70, since Staff was
recommending it, would that be part of your motion to
include it?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: (Nods yes.)
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I move to forward the Public
Facilities, Services, and Infrastructure Element with the
following changes: add a definition of recycled and
reclaimed water; change Implementation Program C up to the
2025-2025 timeline and expand it to looking at artificial
turf alternatives and groundcover alternatives; accept
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number 70; accept number 80; and I believe Commissioner
Janoff also said number 73.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, that’s your motion, and do we
have a second? Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I second.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think we’ve made a ton of comments,
so I will go ahead and take the roll call vote, and I’ll
start with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well. So we’ve
gotten through several elements, and I’m suggesting that we
will stop here and pick up with Open Space, Parks, and
Recreation at our next meeting, which will be a date
certain. Staff had polled all of us to determine a couple
of possible date certains. One date certain was tomorrow.
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That is absolutely a non-starter for me, and I don't know
if there are other Commissioners that can’t do tomorrow.
The other date that they have told us about was the 20th,
which is a week from today, and we would definitely not
have, I believe, two Commissioners for that. When talking
with Staff today they surfaced a couple of other
possibilities. Remind me, Ms. Armer. I think you said the
18th, which is a Monday, and the 25th.
JENNIFER ARMER: The other two options, it’s correct,
it looks like we would likely have five Commissioners join
us if we did it tomorrow night, but also a slightly
different five if we went for Wednesday the 20th. The other
two options would be 7:00 o’clock Monday, April 18th. The
Senior Services Commission has a special meeting at 5:00
o’clock, but we expect they would be done by 7:00. Or
Monday, April 25th. The Finance Commission has a special
meeting at 5:00 o’clock, but again, it’s likely they would
be done by 7:00, so that is also viable, but we don’t know
whether the Commissioners are available for those. Another
point is that it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a 7:00
o’clock in the evening meeting now that we have completed
the comments from the public, if there is another time of
day that works for a majority of the Commissioners, that is
also an option.
CHAIR HANSSEN: You mean like meeting earlier?
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JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Although we have several Commissioners
that are working Commissioners, so I’m not sure if that
would be feasible. I’m not clear on the best way to proceed
on this. Should we list the number of dates and have people
vote which ones they could make? I’m not comfortable based
on the polling of those original two dates that we had
enough alternatives that we’d get enough of us here to make
sense.
JOEL PAULSON: I’ll just interject. Obviously, we’re
going to make the motion. I’m not sure we’re going to find
a date that’s going to work for everyone, frankly, but
ultimately just do a quick raise of hands of folks who
would be available on the 18th, and do a quick raise of
hands of people who are going to be available on the 25th,
and if everyone raised their hand, then we’ll look for a
motion. It looks like Commissioner Tavana has a comment.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead, Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I was just going to say the best
day that would work for me is the 20th. I was going to start
there and you can see what else works for everybody else.
JENNIFER ARMER: I will add that if the 20th does work
for Commissioner Tavana, I think that does bring us up to
six. Then it would be Commissioner Thomas is the only one
unavailable on the 20th.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Can we get a quick show of hands on
who would be available on the 18th to see if we could get to
seven? I don't know if we can or not. I can do it.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Can I ask a question very
quickly?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: What time again was proposed?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s do a starting of 7:00 o’clock
like our normal meeting, but we have done special meetings
where we start at 6:00 before. Given what they said about
the special meeting on the 18th of the Senior Services
Commission, probably starting at 6:00 wouldn’t be as easy
of an option as starting at 7:00, so I would just probably
say 7:00.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m out of town next week, so
I’m just looking at my calendar for what time on Wednesday,
because I might be able to make that work, but let’s see
what works for everyone.
CHAIR HANSSEN: If it’s Wednesday the 20th, it’s
certainly possible that we could start at 6:00 instead of
7:00. I didn’t hear from Staff that there’s another
conflicting meeting that day that they have to support.
Wednesday is the day we normally meet, so I don’t think
there are other meetings that day.
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Let me go back to the 18th and a show of hands on who
could make it on the 18th. So we’ve got six of us for the
18th, and we wouldn’t have Commissioner Tavana, so it comes
down to either the 18th or the 20th, and we could check on
the 25th. A show of hands on who could make it on the 25th.
We still have it looks like six. We have six. Oh, seven.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I’ll be in a different time
zone, but I would chime in.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I have the same issue on the 25th. I’m
going to be out of town, but I can get on Zoom, it’s not a
problem. I’m going to make a proposal that we make the date
certain the 25th since we could have all seven of us
available. I’m proposing a date certain of Monday, April
25th, and we would start at 7:00 Pacific time. Do I have a
second? Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I second that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s see, I will just take the roll
call vote. Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.
COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, but I have a question. If
people are out of town on a different time zone and the
Senior Services Commission is probably not meeting on the
25th and the 18th, is somebody else meeting on the 18th?
CHAIR HANSSEN: The Finance Commission is meeting on
the 25th.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Do you think that would allow a
6:00 o’clock start? No. I’m available for a yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And then Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well. What we
proposed was a 7:00 o’clock start time, but if Staff let’s
us know that we can start an hour earlier, I don’t think it
will be a problem, so let’s put the thing that we voted on
out there now. It would make it late for any of us on the
East Coast. I’ll be in the Central time zone, so it will be
9:00 o’clock that we start, but that’s okay. To me, it’s
more important to have everyone there so that we can finish
our discussion.
I want to thank everyone for all their time and effort
that they put in tonight, and we did make some decent
progress on the General Plan. We hopefully can finish up at
our next meeting that’s scheduled for Monday April 25th.
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