Attachment 14 - April 25, 2022 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 4/25/2022
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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
Emily Thomas
Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney: Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 14
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR HANSSEN: We can go ahead with the agenda
item for tonight, which is the continuation of discussion
of the Draft 2040 General Plan as well as the Final EIR.
Just to recap for people that might not have been
able to attend the last meeting, what we have decided to do
in terms of reviewing the documents is to start out
reviewing element-by-element and save the Land Use and
Community Design elements, which have the bulk of the
public comments that we’ve received in terms of volume,
until the end so that we can put a lot of focus on that. We
wanted to make sure that we addressed any comments that
came in on the other elements.
In our last meeting we got through the Public
Facilities, Services, and Infrastructure Element, and so we
will begin the discussion tonight on the Open Space, Parks,
and Recreation Element. I would like to ask Staff, since
you did do another Staff Report, if you would like to make
any Staff Report before we begin our discussion this
evening?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. You covered most of
what I was going to say, Chair, but I do want to go over
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just to make sure everybody is clear exactly where we are
in going through the review.
So good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, Planning
Commission. We are continuing the discussion of the General
Plan, and we have received verbal public comment and closed
the public comment period. We were going through Exhibit 7
and made it through the Introduction; the Racial, Social,
and Environmental Justice Element; the Mobility Element;
and the Public Facilities, Services, and Infrastructure
Element.
That means that the next one that we will be
proceeding to is Open Space, Parks, and Recreation.
Depending on how much we get through this evening, the
order as we go through that document includes the
Environment Sustainability Element, the Hazards and Safety
Element, then the Land Use Element, and Community Design
Element, and finally, the Final EIR.
We did publish a brief Staff Report on Friday, as
well as a Desk Item today, for your consideration, but this
does conclude Staff’s presentation, but we’re available to
answer any questions.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you very much for that, Ms.
Armer. Do any Commissioners have questions for Staff at
this time? I don’t see anyone hands raised.
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When we get to Land Use and Community Design,
Land Use in particular, I will talk a little bit more about
what I would like to do in terms of proceeding forward on
that, but to recap what Staff had said, we were going
through Exhibit 7.
Exhibit 7 from the Staff Report from the April
13th meeting did contain a wonderful summation by Staff of
all the public comments that have been received over the
course of the last year since the Draft General Plan was
released, and we’ve been using that in terms of making our
comments, and what we had been doing in our last meeting is
for every element there are a number of comments.
Staff has given their recommendation as to
whether they’re neutral, meaning they don’t have a feeling
one way or another about whether or not it needed to be
included or not; whether they did recommend it and
suggesting that we would include that as a comment, that we
would make it a recommendation to Town Council; or not
recommended. Staff has done that for every single comment,
and what we were doing in the last meeting is we were
looking at the comments and making a note of the ones that
we wanted to be sure that we included in our recommendation
to include. However, it’s fine if you want to bring up
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other ones and discuss it and see if we know where the
Commission comes out on it; that is fine as well.
We’ll be on page 10 of Exhibit 7, which is also
page 226 of the Staff Report from the April 13th meeting, so
why don’t we start on the Open Space, Parks, and Recreation
Element? There were about seven or eight comments that came
in.
Would any Commissioners want to highlight items
that we should consider for adding to our recommendation
for modifying the General Plan? Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I’ll just
begin. I thought that recommendations numbers 81 and 84
should be considered as part of our recommendation sent to
Town Council.
With respect to Item 86, while I thought the
notion of additional play fields is a worthy goal, I think
limiting it to soccer fields as opposed to any other kinds
of fields felt inappropriate, and so if you want to
consider that, I would make that a more generic
recommendation.
Finally, with respect to Recommendation 88,
working with schools to make school fields available for
community sports, I think that’s already covered in OSPR-
6.3.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. I thought so
as well. I made a note about 86 and 88, and there was
already a reference in the Open Space element about working
with local schools, so if anything was going to be
modified. And I agree that sports fields should be not just
restricted to soccer fields and we should try to increase
that, but I thought it might have been covered in the
policies that were already in there, so I’m agreeing with
your suggestions.
I’d like to hear what the other Commissioners
think. Let’s see, Commissioner Thomas, and then
Commissioner Janoff, and Commissioner Clark, and then Vice
Chair Barnett.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I will be quick. I just
want to say that I agreed with 81 and 84, the two that I
would want to recommend to include.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s great. Commissioner
Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was just going to say I’m
in agreement as well, with a note that on item number 83
regarding the state Quimby Act, I don't know what that is,
but if Staff thought that it was appropriate to add that,
if that makes sense to connect it, but I don't know what it
is to say yes or no.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I actually am glad you brought
that up, Commissioner Janoff. I was wondering if Staff
could comment on the state Quimby Act requirements, because
when I read through the implementation program and policies
it was fairly generic. The goal is to try to encourage more
open space dedication, but how to go about doing that isn’t
as clear and if there was a Quimby Act that was more
definitive about how to do that, so could Staff maybe
comment on that? Is that something that seems reasonable to
add?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. I’ll jump in, and if
Ms. Armer has anything additional. Generally the Quimby Act
looks at the amount of open space, park space, that a
jurisdiction has based on population. We actually exceed
the number here currently in the Town, so that’s why we
don’t have any Quimby Act implementation measures.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So that really wouldn’t help us
unless we were below that, so we should be covered.
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I am not sure if there’s a
reason we haven’t discussed number 87, like if it’s already
being incorporated, because I know that there has been
discussion around turf happening, but if it’s not already
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being implemented I would be supportive of the inclusion of
number 87 as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m actually glad you brought
that up. I made a note thinking it might merit an
implementation program, because I’ve seen very vocal
arguments on both sides of this to not have artificial
turf, and then also to not have grass, for example, that
requires a lot of water and is not environmentally friendly
either, so to me it seemed like an ideal thing for an
implementation program, but I would like to know what other
people thought. I thought it might be worth at least
discussing, and it looks like the Town Manager has
something to say before I ask anyone else.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I just wanted to say that this
might be one of those areas of level of detail that might
be best determined on a project basis with the Town Council
as opposed to having it legislated here in the General
Plan, and I defer to Ms. Armer, who might already be able
to point us to some direction in the draft. Thank you.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I wanted to share that when
you are looking at the Public Facilities and Services
Element there is an Implementation Program C, which is
specifically about determining the appropriate use of
artificial turf.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you. We went through that
in the last meeting and I had forgotten about that, so at
least it’s already covered, and then there’s also the
thought that there are other ways to tackle the issue in
terms of on an individual project basis as well.
Are there other Commissioners? Vice Chair Barnett
had his hand up before for general comments about this
section, so go ahead, Vice Chair.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I agree with the comments
that have been made so far; I had noted to that effect. But
I wanted to bring up comment 85. I’m not sure what that
means. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems to be kind of
obscure.
CHAIR HANSSEN: My read on this was I made a note
connecting 82 and 85. The first comment in 82, it sounds
like it came from the Parks and Recreation Department
themselves, and that statement was made that their services
are provided on a full cost recovery model, and prior to
that statement it was that they received Town facilities at
a discounted rate, or something like that, so I think they
were reacting to they don’t agree with the description of
the business model. My recommendation was actually to take
out the full cost recovery basis, because I don’t think
that’s a necessary detail in the General Plan.
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Then there is reference to continuing to work
with Parks and Recreation to do services, and as part of
that discussion they might want to renegotiate their
business model in terms of working with the Town, but I
don’t think that needs to be in the General Plan. That was
my thought on it, so what do others think? Vice Chair
Janoff has thumbs up. So my proposal was to delete the
words “provided on a full cost recovery model,” and leave
that as a detail in terms of how they work with the Town
that can be worked outside of the General Plan, so if
nobody has any objections to that, we’ll go ahead and do
that. Thumbs up, okay.
Does anyone else have anything that they want to
discuss with the Open Space, Parks, and Recreation? I think
we ended up talking about every recommended bullet point.
Ms. Armer.
JENNIFER ARMER: Just wanted to remind the Chair
that last time we did do a motion for each of the chapters
as to what the Commission was interested in moving forward
with.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, and I would ask that we
continue to do that for the rest of the elements that we’ll
be discussing, and then at the very end we will have to do
one on the overall General Plan as well as the overall
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Final EIR. So would someone like to make a motion to accept
the Open Space, Parks, and Recreation Element with the
changes that we’ve recommended in this discussion?
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Commissioner Janoff would
move to incorporate the changes as recommended by the
Commission so far on Open Space, Parks, and Recreation.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Is there a second? Commissioner
Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Second.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. And then
we’ll go ahead and do our roll call vote, and I will start
with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: 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 now we can move on, and Staff, you did have a
record of what we discussed, and you had a nice recap of
what we discussed last time in the Staff Report for this
meeting.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, thank you. I’ve got items
81 and 84, and removing the phrase, “provided on a full
cost recovery model.”
CHAIR HANSSEN: Perfect. So then the
Environmental Sustainability Element is the next element we
will discuss, and there are actually quite a few more
comments.
Before I ask any Commissioners for comments, I
wanted to ask Staff a question. In looking at numbers 104
and 105 it looked like it came from Valley Water, and so
what we had done in our previous meeting is since they are
the experts of course on their subject matter we had just
accepted those comments at face value without discussing
them, so I’m going to ask Staff what their thoughts were
about 104 and 105?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. As stated in
the Staff Report, Staff’s response to those was neutral.
That revised wording, if that is the will of the
Commission, we could make those changes. They could either
be considered first or could be part of your motion.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m happy enough to go with
having the Commissioners recommend that, but I’m going to
give the guidance that since we had done this previously
with some of the other entities, that might be worth
considering to do that, but I’m happy to have a discussion
about it if someone wants to bring it up, but since we’re
doing this thing where we’re going to accept certain
comments, then hopefully it will be recommended by one of
the Commissioners.
That being said, like I said, it’s on the bottom
of page 10 as well as page 11 and goes onto page 12 and to
page 13, so it looks like there are about at least 20
comments that we should be considering or not considering.
I would also say that although we’ve been proceeding this
way anyway, if Staff is recommending not to include them,
they generally have a very good and well thought out reason
for that, so unless we feel like we should discuss it, that
there’s no need to bring those up.
I’ll start with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Chair Hanssen. I
was just going to say because there are so many for this
one, do we want to like chunk it out by ten or so, just so
that we’re not talking about all of them all over the
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place, or do like 89 through 96 first, and then the second
page, page-by-page.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s do it page-by-page. Let’s
do the comments on page 10, which are 89 to 96. Of those,
which ones would you want to include?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I would like to include 89,
90, and 91. I think that they are Staff recommended. The
other two are just making things more thorough, which I
think is good.
I think that I also feel strongly about 95 being
recommended, and it would definitely require a list of key
terms of integrated pest management, but that is something
that should be used. That should be the model that we
should be using. That’s like the best model out there for
managing pests and reducing the use of pesticides in
particular.
I do not think that we should include 93 or 96,
because for 96 I don’t think we can actually ensure,
“minimize potential damage to public health, native plants,
birds, and other wildlife,” if that makes sense. And then
for 93, I do not think that we should include, “while
reserving some open space preserved for underserved
habitat,” because I believe that has the potential to be
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used like in a NIMBY way, and I think that it’s covered.
What we need for Town is covered in that policy already.
I did have a question about 94, maybe for
Commissioner Raspe for the Town Attorney. Just adding, “and
natural communities,” is that helpful in informing policy,
or does that make this too big or too grand?
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m glad you asked that, because
I also had a question. I was like how do you define
“natural community”?
Commissioner Raspe, you had your hand up, and
then Commissioner Clark does as well.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: I agree with Commissioner
Thomas’ comments. A couple of points.
With respect to 94, I also had a question. I
think “natural communities,” as currently drafted, I’m not
sure what it means and I would be concerned that it would
be interpreted too broadly to be really useful, and so I
would either not include that language or I would make
natural communities somehow defined.
Then with respect to 96, I also share
Commissioner Thomas’ concern regarding the word “ensuring,”
because I don’t think we can ensure, but I think it’s a
noble goal and perhaps we could substitute the phrase,
“working towards,” so we’re working towards minimized
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potential damage to public health, so it doesn’t put an
obligation on us, but it certainly espouses our desire to
achieve what I think is a noble effort. Thanks.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I thank you for that, because you
have to read between the lines in terms of what we mean. So
your recommendation would be to either delete it or to
modify it to change ensuring to working towards that goal,
because that’s the result of changing the approach and not
using harmful pesticides, but we couldn’t ensure it.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Agreed, that’s my thought.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I was just trying to make sure I
captured in my mind what you were saying. Thank you for
that.
Commissioner Clark, you had a comment as well?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, thank you. I’m in
agreement with all of the ones the other Commissioners have
voiced approval for.
I had liked 92, just because it makes it a little
more specific that the species would be locally native, but
I’d also be curious to hear if other people feel like
that’s productive or unnecessary.
I had been in support of 93, but I think I
understand what Commissioner Thomas is saying about it
potentially being used as a way to like maybe justify lack
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of public access or something, and so yeah, I think that
sounds good.
For number 96, I like Commissioner Raspe’s idea
of changing the verbiage to “working toward,” because I
think that clarifies that reasoning behind the task without
actually trying to ensure something that we’re not able to.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So your recommendation would be
rather than take it out, to leave it in and modify the
ensuring to something more reflective of why we’re doing
it?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, got it. On 92, I’ll see
what other people have to say. I circled that, and my
reaction was how do you define local? Is local Los Gatos?
Is it Santa Clara County? Is it California? So I thought
maybe the species was enough. That was me, but if others
have a different thought on it, I would want to hear that.
Let’s see, Commissioner Janoff, and then
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m in agreement with
everything that’s been said, including the modification of
96, and I do like the idea of incorporating the word
“locally.” More and more you hear people talk about you
should be eating local honey, you should be burning local
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firewood, it’s a real thing to keep materials within the
local environment. If local is unclear, we could say
“regional,” and that might be clearer. That obviously gives
more of a geographical boundary than local, and I would be
comfortable with that, but I think including something that
is specific to our region is a great add.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Just to clarify my comment, as
long as it was clear what local is I had no problem with
that, because what’s good for Southern California might not
be good for us, and so I heard everything that you said.
Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. I did not
mention this one and I do not support it for multiple
reasons. I would say that there are definitely official
resources and documentation of what species are local to
the Town, to Los Gatos, and there are many maps of that.
Many of those are old, and since then climate change has
significantly changed the region and will over the next 20
years, and so I strongly disagree with including locally
native species, because what was local and native or what
is local today is not actually going to thrive here, and
ecosystems are constantly changing, and so making policies
based on what is a locally native species today is not good
for conservation of biodiversity, but that’s because things
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are moving and ecosystems are shifting and ecotones are
moving, so I strongly disagree with that one.
I’m sorry, just because I know that it sounds
good, and I do agree with eating local food and burning
local firewood. I do think that that is a totally different
use of the term and I agree that that’s really important,
but I do kind of feel strongly about this one as an
environmental scientist.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I was going to say well said by
our environmental science teacher.
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I was going to
also make a comment on 92 that was different before I heard
what Commissioner Thomas had to say, but I think a way to
actually get what we’re trying to get at would like maybe
saying, “species that are adapted for the Mediterranean
climate,” or, “that would naturally exist in this area at
the time,” or something like that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So it would be your idea to try
to change the wording so it was clearer and more reflective
of changing conditions?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes. And the other thing
I’ll say is we might be getting a little nit-picky here.
It’s probably okay to leave it as is also.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Fair enough. Let’s just take two
more comments on this and then we’ll move on.
Commissioner Raspe, and then back to Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Two things
very quickly.
First, I think Commissioner Clark made a comment
with respect to 91, the especially native species in
habitat language, adding that. I’m of two minds with this
one. When I first read it, it almost seemed to me like it
created a binary choice, for instance, we were going to
maintain and enhance (inaudible) significant natural
features, giving preference to native species and habitat
as opposed to preserving all that exists. I just don’t want
that inference to ever filter down to the language, but
again, I’m not overly concerned, I just wanted to throw the
issue up.
Then I think Commissioner Thomas indicated her
support of 89, and my questions for the Chair or Staff is
who is going to define “designated creek” and how is that
handled? Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So Staff, could you start with
89, because that actually is a good question, and you did
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recommend it, so could you start with 89 and then if you
had anything to add onto 91.
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. If including a
definition of the term “designated creek” is something that
the Planning Commission is in support of, then we would
work with the consultants and our Public Works Department
to find an appropriate definition to be consistent with the
work that we currently do with creeks and include that as
part of a set of potential definitions, so similar to some
of what was requested by the Planning Commission at the
last meeting. There was at least one term, I believe
“recycled water,” where a definition was requested, and we
would provide some specific recommended language for that
before going to Town Council.
It looks like Director Paulson has something to
add.
JOEL PAULSON: Just a minor addition. We also
would work with our other partners, Valley Water, San Jose
Water, and some of the other folks who have regulations
related to the creeks to make sure that that was
consistent.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And Staff, you did recommend this
one versus being neutral on it, so I assume that you
thought it was a good idea?
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JENNIFER ARMER: Defining terms, if somebody
thinks it’s a good idea, we’re in support of that. If
somebody’s asking for a definition of it, then that
probably means there are a number of people who want to
know what it means.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, great. Did you have
anything to comment on? You were neutral on 91 and 92, so
I’m assuming that we should just work out what we’re going
to recommend, but if you had anything to add, let me know.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I would say on those two
that the language as it was pretty clear to Staff as
recommended by the GPAC, and so those additional terms
could be included, but I think we stand behind GPAC but
we’re open to making those changes if that is what the
Planning Commission feels is improving.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I understand now why you were
neutral. Before I go back to Commissioner Thomas, I’m going
to make a more general comment that as I was going through
this section, and I know exactly where some of the comments
came from, that different people with different interests
came in and they were putting like the word “biological” in
something that was more generic, and I was having the same
reaction as Commissioner Raspe, which is if we’re
specifying biological resources, are we not taking care of
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other kinds of resources? So I was having that reaction,
which is to kind of keep it more general, since this is the
General Plan, as long as we are not excluding something
that needs to be taken care of.
I’ll go back to Commissioner Thomas, and then
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. I’m glad that
these comments about 91 are brought up, because I did not
read it in that way. I read that it was emphasizing that we
especially need to protect native habitats and species, but
I do understand how maybe it’s not necessary.
Going back to 92, I would not recommend including
Mediterranean plants, because a lot of those are actually
invasive species, like all the grasses that we have here
from the Mediterranean, they’re particularly invasive,
because they adapted alongside human disturbance.
I think that native species really does cover
what we want it to cover, because I do think that in the
world of landscape design guidelines native species has a
very specific definition and there are very specific lists
across the state. There’s a county-wide list that already
exists for rebates and things like that, so I do think that
keeping it just at native specific is going to achieve the
goal that we want basically.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. We are so
fortunate to have our environmental expert on the
Commission, so thank you. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, thank you,
Commissioner Thomas. It’s great to have expertise that
augments our conversation, and in light of the comments I
would say that we keep 91 and 92 as written by GPAC, and if
the Chair is ready I’m prepared to make a motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: On this page, yes.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: On this page to include the
changes in number 89, number 95, and then 96 with the
modification of “ensuring” to “working toward.”
CHAIR HANSSEN: Did you not think 90? Because it
was recommended in the beginning to do 89 and 90.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, 89 and 90.
CHAIR HANSSEN: 89 and 90, but not 91 or 92, and
then you said 95, right?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, 95, and then the
modification to 96.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. For my own sake I was
trying to capture everything you said. So there is a motion
from Commissioner Janoff. Is there a second? Commissioner
Raspe.
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COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I second
the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So we will take the roll call
vote, and I will start again with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: 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.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well.
So we got through page 10 of the Environmental
and Sustainability Element comments, and now we will go on
to page 11, and that includes numbers 97 through 104.
Actually, just for the sake of argument, let’s include 105,
because 104 goes onto the next page, and we’ll go up to
105, because 104 and 105 both came from Valley Water, so
we’ll cover from 97 to 105 under this discussion, so
comments on 97 through 105.
Vice Chair Barnett.
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VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I have a couple of technical
issues starting with 98; the word “improves” should be
“improve.”
Then on 100, the way I read it, it’s talking
about a decrease in the mitigation measures.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you’re saying the way you’re
reading it is that we should decrease mitigation measures,
is that correct?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I think it’s saying to
decrease mitigation measures, but I don’t think that’s the
intent.
JENNIFER ARMER: My memory of this comment was
that they wanted to clarify that reducing vehicle miles
traveled is not the only way to reduce noise and air
quality impacts, and so it might be that slightly modified
language would get at that point more appropriately and
more clearly.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I read it the same way that you
described it, Ms. Armer, but maybe others read it the same
way that Vice Chair Barnett did, but we should be clear.
I lost track of who raised their hand and is
next, so I’ll just go with Commissioner Clark, and then
Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner Raspe.
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. For numbers 100
and 101, I felt like if we’re going to do that we need to
at least provide an example or two of what those things
are, because for me it made them a lot more unclear when I
was reading them, and so I think if people feel like there
is an understanding of what that would mean and we don’t
need that, then that’s great, but for me as a reader I felt
like it was a little too ambiguous.
CHAIR HANSSEN: In that same one it does explain
with an example of something that would decrease VMT. So
you’re saying we’re not being clear about other mitigation
measures from the noise and that would help improve noise
and air quality?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: You mean where it says TDM
Programs?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, that’s a good point. It
would just say that and kind of be referring to it, even
though that was already there in a way.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you think it could be clear if
we added examples.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: But I’m good with that
change, like the theory of it.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s see, Commissioner Thomas,
and then Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. I also felt for
100 and 101 that made them too broad. I know this is
supposed to be a big and broad document, but for 100,
because VMT is the gold standard for mitigating air
pollution, I’m not sure if including other options is
appropriate, and I would actually like to hear from Staff
or maybe the Town Attorney on that, because I don’t want us
to get in a situation, but I’m pretty sure VMT is
traditionally most often used.
Then the same with 101, “requiring developments
to incorporate site planning techniques.” Is site planning
techniques just like the standard that it’s people that are
doing this know exactly what that means, and including
other is just making it more confusing and actually not
legal, if that makes sense?
So those are my two comments about 100 and 101,
and I see some people are popping up and their hands are
up.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Kim must be Staff, because
he’s not a Commissioner, and (inaudible) as a panelist, so
yes, if you could help us with this, that would be great.
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WOOJAE KIM: Yes, good evening, Commissioners.
WooJae Kim, the Town Engineer.
Regarding item 100, I would just be cautious
about adding that additional phrase in there, because it is
related to CEQA requirements. I’m talking about VMT. If
anything, maybe changing that word “or” to “and” might
help, but again, I would just be cautious about
substituting VMT requirements with other elements. Thank
you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s a very good point, but we
are treading on CEQA in this comment, and we don’t want to
have something that’s in conflict with CEQA law.
Let’s see, Director Paulson, did you have
something to add?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you. Just for some big
picture context, kind of the intent of this is if VMT is
going to create air and noise impacts, those are all
impacts that are going to be reviewed. VMT will have
impacts. Air pollution and noise, they’ll each have their
own sections, they’ll each have mitigation measures, and so
that’s what I think this was originally trying to capture
is that there are reductions to the VMT, which also might
reduce impacts to both air quality and noise impacts.
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Then the other techniques, again, from a noise
perspective, if you have, for instance, residential uses
near a freeway there are usually a handful of mitigation
measures, whether that’s a sound wall of some height,
whether that’s having a high-efficiency HVAC system so that
folks don’t necessarily have to open their windows and be
subject to those. Obviously, that’s a choice if folks want
to do that, but those are the types of things that
typically are in those categories as mitigation measures in
the document. Just for big picture information for the
Commission.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s helps. Thank you for that.
Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. First of
all, I agree with Commissioner Barnett’s comments with
respect to 98.
Then I think he’s correct in 100 that as
currently drafted it would require a decrease in mitigation
measures, which is actually the opposite of what we want.
Then taking Staff’s comments into account, I think maybe if
we are going to insert a phrase into 100, perhaps a better
phrase might be, “and related noise and air quality
impacts.” That way it’s supplemental to the VMT and it’s
still we are interested in managing noise and air quality
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impacts that are related to vehicle miles, so rather than
casting the net too broadly, so I would suggest that change
to 100 if we want to include language.
With respect to other recommended changes, I
would also recommend changes 103 and 104 and 105 as well.
Thank you, Chair.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, 103 and 104 and 105,
because I was asking you guys (inaudible) those came from
Valley Water. Let’s see what the other Commissioners think.
Commissioner Janoff, then Commissioner Clark, and then
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: On 100, I guess after
hearing discussion, Commissioner Raspe’s recommendation is
a good one, although I think if we just take out, and we’ll
leave the language as GPAC recommended, I think that’s the
simplest.
Same with 101. Rather than trying to get nuanced
about these things, it’s pretty broadly traffic generated
and I think that’s clear enough.
With regard to 103, I wasn’t thinking that we
want to include “composting green waste and chipping
programs” if the Town is not prepared to do that. That’s
more of an implementation program if we want to go there,
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but that’s also already provided by other agencies, so I’m
not sure that that’s a necessary add.
Then I’d be in favor of incorporating 104 and 105
per Valley Water recommendations.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. No one
brought up 103, except for you. I had the same comment. The
way it was before, it says “extended producer
responsibility and innovative strategies,” which could
cover any number of things. Then I thought about 20 years
in the future, I don’t know that it won’t be the case, but
maybe there is something else besides composting and
chipping programs that might be helping them mitigate
environmental effects, so I thought it would be better to
just leave it the way it was.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: We might have waste
vaporization.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I have faith, especially here in
Silicon Valley, for people to come up with really new and
innovative ways to deal with waste.
Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I’ll start just with 100 and
101. I think that we should leave them as recommended by
GPAC. I think if we don’t say, “and these other things,”
it’s not like we’re limited to only vehicle miles traveled.
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We’re not saying only that, and so I don’t see a problem
with leaving that language as is.
I’m very in favor of 97. I think that if there’s
a remodel or retrofit happening, then that’s also a great
opportunity for that bird-safe lighting.
Also, number 98, I liked those changes as well.
I agree about numbers 104 and 105; I’m in favor
of those two as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Can I ask you and maybe Staff
about 97, because I had a big question mark by that. What
was in there before said, “require new development to
increase bird safety by reducing hazardous building and
architectural elements and including bird safe lighting
design,” and the proposal was to add in addition to new
development, which I would take to be where there was
vacant land or a teardown, but it says, “remodels and
retrofit.” In the past when we’ve had these kind of things
come up we’ve tended to leave these things to new
development versus remodels, but I’m going to ask Staff
what kind of issues that might create to add remodels and
retrofits to that statement?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I would start
by saying that there is generally concern about imposing
some of these sorts of requirements on something that’s a
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remodel or a retrofit. It really depends on the scale of
the project, whether there is kind of that nexus that
they’re putting enough money into the project that we’re
not overburdening them with these types of requirements.
It’s also a little more difficult to implement in
terms of a policy, whereas a remodel or retrofit very well
may just be a building permit and so doesn’t go through as
extensive review as a new building would. So new
development, I agree, we would consider that to include
development of vacant land or significant replacement of
existing buildings and redevelopment at the site.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you, that was pretty much
exactly what was going through my head on that one, and you
said it very well. For me, I would be happier to leave it
as it was versus adding on remodels or retrofits, but let’s
see what others think, and you’re welcome to comment on any
of these.
Commissioner Thomas, and then I’ll go back to
Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you for clarifying
all of that and bringing that up, because I did also have
that question about 97. One thing that we could possibly do
to encourage this inclusion of bird safe design in remodels
and retrofits is just add, “and when appropriate in
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remodels and retrofits.” Is that a language change that
would kind of cover the bases, like encouraging and be a
possibility for when policy is being made for it to be
looked into? That is my one suggestion with that change.
Then for 100 and 101, I agree with Commissioner
Clark that I’m in support of how the GPAC originally had
it. If we do want to incorporate any changes, such as the
one that Commissioner Raspe suggested, I think that we just
need to add a verb like, “require decreases to vehicle
miles traveled,” and something like, “other noise and air
quality impacts,” because that’s what is missing from that
phrase. Those are my comments.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to ask you a question
back, Commissioner Thomas. Considering what Staff said,
what I heard Staff say is that when impacts are identified
as significant in the EIR, you have to go back and mitigate
them, and you would have to mitigate any impacts, so if the
impact generated by traffic happened to affect air quality,
it would have to be mitigated, so I’m not sure what it
adds, because in the EIR perspective if noise or air
quality was triggered, then they would have to go mitigate
anyway. So do you still feel strongly about leaving it in
there?
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: No, I don’t feel strongly.
I’m fine with not leaving it in, but I was saying if we
were going to leave it in I think that we need to add a
verb, that’s my only thing that I feel strongly about. But
no, I agree.
I do think that 100 and 101 become redundant in
the way that they’re written, and we’ve covered the bases
with how they were originally written and professionals
originally wrote them.
But for 97, I am interested if people think that
“and when appropriate” would be helpful for adding in
including remodels and retrofit? Staff, I don't know if you
want to comment on it, or other Commissioners.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Director Paulson has had his hand
up for a couple of minutes.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Just to let the
Commission and public know, there actually is an
implementation program to adopt a bird safe ordinance,
which is Implementation Program N. Those are the types of
details that we can consider, and then as it goes through
that process through the Planning Commission and Council,
they can make the decision on when those would be required
versus encouraged, for instance, if it ended up being new
development only, that doesn’t reduce Staff’s opportunity
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when we’re speaking with folks who are just doing building
permits to ask them if they’ve considered bird safe
options, so I think we’re generally covered there, but I
just wanted to make sure the Commission knew that as
they’re going through this discussion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. I had
forgotten that we had put that as an implementation
program, so that helps.
Let’s see, I’m going to go to Commissioner Clark,
and then Commissioner Raspe, and then back to Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Now that we know
that it’s in an implementation program my only concern
would be like limiting it by just saying new development,
so I think I’d like to say require that new developments
increase bird safety and encourage remodels and retrofits
to do the same, just to at least have the idea in there
that we would like for remodels and retrofits to do that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So that’s a compromise statement
that could be modified. Item 97 could be modified.
Let’s see, Commissioner Raspe, you had your hand
up for a while, and then Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. With
respect to 97, as I’ve been sitting here listening, I think
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my mind has kind of shifted a little bit. Initially I
thought we were going to create a line drawing problem with
including remodels and retrofits. As currently stated, any
ADU, any re-siding of a property, could potentially trigger
a whole study of the project to make sure that there is no
endangering of the birds, and I’m not sure that’s really
the scenario that we want to create, and so the notion of
maybe encouraging, as Commissioner Clark says, with respect
to remodels as opposed to making it mandatory, that might
solve that problem, but any requirement that remodels be
required to take into account additional bird safety I
think would be problematic.
Then jumping down to 100, I had earlier suggested
some changes, but as we discuss it I agree with my fellow
commissioners that we adopt the GPAC language for 100 and
101. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Before I go
to Commissioner Thomas, I did want to make a point, and
this happened a while ago, but a personal experience that I
had as a resident. When we went to remodel our kitchen,
when the inspector came in they wanted to check all the
smoke detectors in the house, which I didn’t think was a
bad idea, but it was unrelated to the actual matter at
hand, which was the kitchen. So as I was thinking through
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this I remembered that experience, and that would be my
concern about doing something with this and not just
leaving it to the implementation program to get more
thoroughly vetted, which is that this thing could kind of
create, even with the word “encourage,” some expectation
that if you’re making a very small change like changing
something that’s just a couple thousand dollars, that you
might be having to look at issues in other parts of your
house, so that would be my only concern, but I’m okay with
leaving it in there with the knowledge that it’s going to
get better vetted in the implementation program.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I could go either way on
that one, so I’m happy to do whatever the majority of
Commissioners would like.
I do want to point out for number 103 that there
are essentially like three different implementation
programs that cover how to become a zero waste town, and
they include things like composting green waste, chipping
programs, all of that, and so I do think that that’s too
specific to include in this goal, because we have them as
implementation programs and they’re probably going to be
part of the solution.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. Commissioner Janoff.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m prepared to make a
motion at this time.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: In light of all the great
discussion, I think where we are landing is that 97 could
create problems unforeseen, and that’s not what we want to
do, and so I’m seeing only number 98 with the modification
that the Vice Chair Barnett recommended, I guess as well as
landscape and biological resource; I didn’t have a problem
with that. And 104 and 105, those are the changes that we
would agree to modify.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Is there a second? I saw a thumbs
up from Commissioner Raspe, so I assume that’s a second as
well.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: That is a second. Thank you,
Chair.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, let’s go ahead and
vote on that, and I will go again to Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.
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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 up to 105, and so then
let’s just take the rest of them. It’s 106 through 116, and
that’s like ten of them. I think that seems (inaudible). So
106 through 116 would take us to the bottom half of page 12
and the top of page 13 of Exhibit 7. All right, Vice Chair
Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I have an easy one to start
with. On number 112, I think we should say, “encourage
waste water recycling,” so there’s no implication about a
mandatory program.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I like that. So that’s an easy
one. So you would say yes, add 112 as long as it’s reworded
to say, “encourage waste water recycling.”
On that point, before I take any other comments I
had a question for Staff. I thought, at least when I looked
into it a few years ago, that it was really hard and really
expensive to get gray water recycling for landscaping, get
the infrastructure put in, and it maybe has moved since
then, but I’m offering that in support of Vice Chair
Barnett’s thing. Certainly it’s something that it would be
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motherhood and apple pie to want to encourage, but I don't
know how practical it is in the current environment, so I’m
asking Staff if they have any knowledge of that?
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, thank you, Chair. We don’t
currently have facilities in Town for that, but I will pass
it off to WooJae Kim to add more. It looks like he’s turned
on his camera.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you, Mr. Kim.
WOOJAE KIM: This is WooJae Kim, Town Engineer
again.
Yes, for Town facilities, we don’t have such
infrastructure set up, but we could definitely look into it
further. The waste water for landscaping, the way I read
this policy is that for both private and public to
investigate a separate piping system that could be used for
landscaping, and there are certain gray waters that you
could re-pipe so that it could be used for landscaping, and
that’s how I’m reading it.
It is something, as Vice Chair Barnett has spoke,
to investigate the feasibility of waste water and
encouraging such improvements, and that could definitely be
done for private developments, and maybe they choose to do
that for water conservation and so forth, so yes, there are
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possibilities out there, but definitely adding the term
“encourage” might make some sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, thank you for that.
Director Paulson, you have your hand up, and then I’ll go
to the Commissioners.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. Just to step back, this
is a public comment to add a new policy to this effect.
I’ll just draw the attention of the Commission to
the Implementation Program UU and DV, which are water reuse
and rainwater. UU is, “Develop an ordinance and guidelines
to provide for the installation of gray water reuse in
residential and business uses, particularly for landscape
irrigation,” so there is a program to look into that.
Then rainwater is, “Implement rainwater
harvesting in municipal facilities throughout Town and
encourage residents and businesses to use rain barrels or
other rainwater reuse systems and offer incentives where
possible.”
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that helps a lot, because
I think that the general policy and direction in the plan
is clear, and then with those implementation programs that
add some more definition to how we would do it, but we’ll
see what others think.
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Let’s see, I thought Vice Chair Barnett was right
after Staff, and then Commissioner Clark, Commissioner
Raspe, and Commissioner Thomas. And we’re talking about the
entirety of 106 through 116.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I didn’t mean to have my
hand up. I’m sorry.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, then I’ll go to
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I’ll just say
some of the ones that I am interested in. I was good with
106, 107, 108, and 110, and then I am particularly
passionate about 113 and 116.
I thought that those should both definitely be
included, especially 116. There were so many public
comments about the plant-based eating education program,
and so it’s nice to finally be able to discuss that after
all of those comments. I think that conducing a wildlife
corridor study would be really good thing and that is
something that I’ve been hearing more and more about, and
if we’re going to being doing anything about that, it’s
probably important to understand where our Town is with
those at the moment.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to ask you a question
back on 113, since Commissioner Janoff and I were on the
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Commission when we did the Fence Ordinance. Here’s what we
kind of came up when we did the Fence Ordinance. We had two
groups of people. We had the land advocates and the
environment, and all comments were very much appreciated.
And then we had the land owners, and the land owners were
saying things like, “Well, I spent $3 million dollars on my
home, and it’s my home, and I don’t want deer laying
underneath my kids’ swing set, because they have fleas and
ticks, and I should be able to have a fence to prevent them
from being in my yard.”
So my first reaction when I read this is I
remembered that, and I wrote down the comment, “We can do
this, but what would the outcome of it be?” Supposing that
the outcome was peoples’ homes that were already built and
fences that were already built were impeding wildlife, what
would we ask them to do? Tear it out? That was my reaction
to that, so my reaction would be to not do that, but I
would like to hear what other Commissioners think, so I’ll
just throw that out there.
So you’ve basically said you had several that you
wanted to include, and including 113 and 116.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah, and I think for 113,
that’s really good context to have, so thank you for that.
I don’t think that that’s actually how I was thinking about
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the corridors, and so maybe if we did choose to incorporate
113, like if we do feel that that’s still a direction that
things are going, it could be a study that takes into
account the views and interests of land owners, because
that could actually be a way to find a solution to that
problem.
CHAIR HANSSEN: As long as it went both ways, so
that’s an idea about how to do that. Let’s see, I think it
was Commissioner Raspe, then Commissioner Thomas, then
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Starting
with 113, Chair, you’ve stolen my thunder. Those were
exactly my thoughts. My concern with this one is we’ve
created a policy that is going to apparently study
structures that are already infringing on habitats. If we
create a policy, we then have to create a remedy in the
event of infringement, or is it going to be enough for us
to say yes, the structure is infringing and we’re content
to leave (inaudible). It seems to me a difficult discussion
to have, and I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for it, but
I just spotted the same issue that I think you did.
I also support Commissioner Clark. The 116, I
think this was if not the leading public comment, the
second most leading comment about having the plant-based
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diet initiative in our programs. My only question is it’s
currently phrased as in implementation program. I don’t
recall how it was presented to us. Was it in different
formats? I see Staff nodding, so I think it was as an
implementation program then?
JENNIFER ARMER: I can provide clarification that
the GPAC did accept language from them for inserting into
some policies, and so as a result of that they said in
addition we also want an implementation program, and that’s
what this is.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, I appreciate
that, Ms. Armer. So then I’m fine with 116.
As long as I have the microphone for one second,
given Director Paulson’s comments, I think we don’t need
112. Although I’m in favor of wastewater recycling, it
sounds like we have that already kind of under the umbrella
of what we’ve got existing.
Then the only other thing I would add, I would
include 107. Thank you a bunch.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That was already mentioned by
Commissioner Clark, I believe. All right, let’s see.
Director Paulson, you had your hand up, so before I go to
any other Commissioners, I wanted to let you comment.
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JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Just wanted to
add a little more information regarding 113. That probably
would not be a good policy. We do have an Implementation
Program M, which is Movement Corridor Plan, which does look
at that potential for linkages for wildlife, so I think
that would be covered sufficiently in that, should the
Commission agree.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So what you’re saying is that we
do have an implementation program that sort of gets at
that. I also had that thought about 113, which is that if
we were to go in that direction I would want it to be
important without too much structure to it until it had
more discussion, because we want to avoid unintended
consequences.
Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner
Janoff, and then I’ll go back to Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that numbers 112
and 113 are really covered in implementation programs, but
I did have a couple of questions about that.
With regard to number 113 and Implementation
Program M, do we need to add to the implementation program
not just standards and ordinances designed to conserve
these movement corridors, but should we also be looking
into possibilities of building infrastructure that can link
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corridors? Because I think that, from my experience and
understanding, we’ve already disrupted the corridors, so at
this point moving forward if we really want to achieve
protecting our local biodiversity and ecosystems we need to
relink corridors that we’ve disrupted, for example,
over/under Highway 17. I know that’s a huge project and
it’s not something necessarily that the Town would be able
to just like willy-nilly decide to do and pay for, but I do
know that there is grant money and funding out there for
that, so could we possibly add to Implementation Program M
looking into that possibility instead of just putting
ordinances in? I think it’s more about reestablishing
corridors versus stopping the disruption of them moving
forward.
Then I do feel like we’ve totally covered 112,
except I did have a question also for Staff about that one.
When we say develop an ordinance and guidelines to provide
the installation of gray water reuse in residential and
business uses, does that also include looking into building
the actual infrastructure to residential neighborhoods?
I know that, for example, my school right now,
we’re building a new building. We tore down an old building
and are building a new building in the City of Mountain
View, and the City of Mountain View requires gray water
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installation even though our school doesn’t have the
infrastructure to do that through the City, but it’s part
of their long-term plans, so they’re requiring all new
development and redevelopment to include a gray water
system, like purple pipes. Is that what this is covering?
Is UU covering that where we would develop ordinances that
would require the installation of a purple pipe system so
that then in the future if there is a possibility we can
actually hook up everyone?
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you had some questions you
want Staff to answer about 112, and 113 as well as far as
what more structure to have the implementation program
would (inaudible).
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes. We need to add
something related to the Town actually investigating the
infrastructure part. Okay, thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Kim has his camera on, so I
would go ahead and ask him. I’m sorry, Ms. Armer.
JENNIFER ARMER: I wanted to start off by
pointing out a couple of policies that are already in the
Public Facilities and Services Element. PFS-1.5 says,
“Encourage the use of recycled and reclaimed water,” and
PFS-1.6 says, “Ensure proper provisions and conditions are
in place for the use of recycled water in areas when this
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water becomes available.” Since that’s in the Public
Facilities section of that element, that may help support
that, but WooJae Kim has something more to add. I’ll pass
it off to him.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead, Mr. Kim.
WOOJAE KIM: Yes, I think there are two sides.
There could be a Town-wide network of purple pipe system
that could be considered, but from my understanding at
least a couple of years back there wasn’t a sufficient
amount of recycled or reclaimed water to be distributed, so
I might have to check back to see what the availability of
that type of water system is. And obviously there is all
that piping system that needs to be installed as well, but
I think a lot of the policies being discussed here is like
at the point source, kind of putting the pipe system as
needed to divert… It’s still wastewater, but maybe from the
kitchen sink and so forth. There could be systems
investigated for that and checking on the feasibility,
working with the Building Department, so there are two
different sides to approach this issue, but we could
investigate it both ways.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and I’m going
to ask Staff for some clarification on Commissioner Thomas’
question about an implementation program that was about the
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wildlife corridors. Most of the implementation programs I
remember us putting in, and I don’t have that page open to
me right now in my General Plan draft, the purpose of the
implementation program was kind of to explore the options,
and so I’m going to ask Staff if there is anything
preventing us from looking at more than one way to attack
the problem in the implementation program?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. I’ll start. The
short answer is no. I think before we would develop any
ordinances or standards we would want to do a wildlife
movement corridor plan, and then that would have
recommendations, which would touch on all of the various
options that could be done. I know down in Southern
California they just are kicking off a big program, and
then there is some Highway 17 stuff that’s been in the
works, and some of it may even be completed. So those are
all things that would come out of that, and the plan may
lead to further ordinances and standards related to private
development and/or public projects.
Similarly, from a purple pipe reuse, I think
Engineer Kim spoke about it. I think a lot of it is kind of
site specific where you’re reusing your own water. The most
public infrastructure with public pipe and things like
that, those would be significant Capital Improvement
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Program projects, whether or not that’s the Town or whether
that is another organization, or the Town in concert with
another organization, those would be things that would be
considered a little farther down the road.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So my interpretation of that is
that Implementation Program M is predecessor to what
Commissioner Thomas was asking for, and an outcome of that
study might be recommendations including having an
ordinance.
JOEL PAULSON: We could do some simple
modification to M and just conduct a wildlife corridor
study and then it goes on to say the rest of it, and to
continue to support wildlife movement and things like that.
I think that’s a simple modification so that it’s more
explicit that that study would happen first, and then we
would get into the standards and ordinances.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Ms. Armer, did you have something
else you wanted to say on that?
JENNIFER ARMER: I was just going to add the
thought that when we do look at the language and it’s
talking about conserving these movement corridors, I think
if we get into more detailed discussions of that one of the
components of conserving them is making sure that they are
connected in a way that they’re actually usable for the
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wildlife that is using them. I think that is integral to
that kind of discussion regardless of whether we add
additional language, but a few additional words there, or
adding, as Director Paulson suggested, a suggestion that a
wildlife corridor study might be the first step in that. I
think any of those could work just fine.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. I’m going to
go back to Commissioner Thomas, since she had asked the
question, and see where you’re at, and then Commissioner
Janoff, Commissioner Clark, and Vice Chair Barnett.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you for clarifying
all of my questions, especially about the Implementation
Program M, because how I was interpreting it was more
restricted, so I’m glad that Staff and the Town would be
interpreting it as like including possible buildings and
infrastructure, etc. So I do think that that means that 113
is covered.
I also do strongly support 116, as everyone has
discussed.
I also would just want to say that I support 107
and 108, unless there’s anything that the Town Engineer
actually has to say about 108, but I think that including
ground water is good, because ground water is an important
resource in our community, in 107.
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In 108, I know Director Paulson knows this,
because I have been asking him. I’m trying to redo my
driveway and I originally wanted to do gravel, because it
is a permeable surface and allows for recharging, as
opposed to concrete, and it’s not allowed in Town, so I’m
not doing gravel, but I was just wondering if this could
cause some conflict with our current ordinances related to
surfaces that we can use for things like driveways?
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s a good question to
ask Staff, so if you could comment on that one, and then
we’ll go onto the other Commissioners.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. As Commissioner Thomas
mentioned, that’s correct, we don’t allow folks to just
have gravel driveways. It becomes a maintenance issue as
people track that stuff into the public right-of-way. There
are other alternatives. People in the past have used
grasscrete. There are the Hollywood ribbon strips that you
see in some places where you have a smaller impervious
surface, and then you have some other areas where that can
infiltrate. The challenge is really in the installation. A
lot of folks use impervious pavers, but unfortunately they
compact the subsurface so much they really might as well be
concrete, so a lot of that is really the installation
aspect.
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But ultimately, if there are conflicts, the
General Plan is going to require a lot of modifications to
the Zoning Code and potentially other policy and standard
documents, and so those will be things that we can revisit
moving forward. There may be newer techniques that might
allow for some other impervious surface. We would just need
to investigate that further following, so I wouldn’t be too
concerned about putting us in a position where we’re going
to have a conflict with the Zoning Code. We’re going to
have to evaluate a number of things and that can just be
added to the list.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds good. Commissioner
Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m prepared to make a
motion based on the discussion so far, but will defer if
Commissioner Clark and Vice Chair Barnett have other
clarifying comments.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Why don’t I ask them to add any
more comments they have, and then I’ll go back to you for a
motion? Vice Chair Barnett, and then Commissioner Clark.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I certainly support 116, but
my only concern is what does it mean that we’ll have an
educational program for implementation? And without
overburdening the matter I thought we might consider some
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language to trap what we really mean by that, and I could
suggest something like periodic speakers, classes, and
materials. Otherwise, I’m not sure what we’re committing
ourselves to.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s certainly a
reasonable suggestion. I’m going to make a comment on the
plant-based eating thing before I go on to the other
Commissioners.
I certainly think it’s a great idea to add this
implementation program, but I’m going to go back to the
comment that I made to the advocates that brought this up,
which is that we have more than a hundred implementation
programs in the General Plan and we don’t have a process,
and the GPAC actually decided not to have a process,
because we felt that this is really the domain of the Town
Council in terms of allocating resources towards programs
in the General Plan, and so it doesn’t mean it’s
necessarily going to happen is what I’m going to say, but I
have no problem at all putting that in there. I just wanted
to make sure that everybody understood that it’s going to
become one of well over a hundred implementation programs,
and then they’ll have to get prioritized to get it done,
and if it helps to make it clear about what it might be
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when it happens, then I’m fine with adding what the Vice
Chair recommended.
I’ll go to Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. A couple of
things.
First just back on Implementation Program M, I
think I would like to add just some sort of phrase about
also connecting fragmented habitats, because that is
different from preserving the ones that exist. I minored in
environmental science, so I studied that to some degree and
I think that would be worth including, just to clarify
that.
Then I am really sorry that I didn’t remember to
bring this up before, but in the document I shared with you
all with some of my recommended changes I had a couple for
this section, and they were on 8.17 and they’re related to
clarifying the accuracy of the history with colonization
and the Ohlone and everything, and then also just more
including like them in the process of this. So I don't know
if you want to pull up the wording or if you had a chance
to look at the changes or anything, but I realized I should
bring that up.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for reminding us of
that. Rather than having people have to dig out that, could
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you maybe read what your proposed changes were to us from
the comments that you submitted in writing? I apologize for
making you do that, only that I was like having six people
go dig through it when… I have a lot of paper here.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah, I have a horrifying
amount of paper in front of me, so that’s very
understandable.
So for ENV-13.8, Increase Historical and Cultural
Awareness, it says, “Support a community sense of
stewardship for historic and cultural resources both
through supporting talks, tours, and other programs that
increase awareness and promote Los Gatos as a destination
with historic cultural resources,” and I want to add on,
“and through including Ohlone people in the conversation
and planning,” because I feel like if we’re going to talk
about our cultural resources, we should be sure to include
the origins of that culture.
Then there is A-17, 8.8, Tribal Cultural
Resources, and says, “Before outside contact, Ohlone lived
in base camps,” but I think it should say, “Before
colonization.” Then further down it says, “The Ohlone group
were brought into the mission system,” and I think it
should say, “forced into the mission system.” I just felt
like a lot of the language was too gentle around what
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actually happened. Then later in the paragraph it says,
“The Ohlone population dwindled,” and I think it should say
it was “decimated.” And then it says, “In 1973, the
population of people with Ohlone descent was estimated at
fewer than 300,” and I wanted to add, “after what is widely
cited as a genocide.” Then the last sentence says, “The
descendants of the Ohlone united in 1971 and have since
arranged political and cultural organizations to revitalize
aspects of their culture,” and I wanted to alter that to
say, “and cultural organizations to revitalize, maintain,
and pass on their culture.”
A lot of these changes came from a meeting that I
recently had with the Chairwoman of the Tamien Nation, and
so I do want to just clarify that that was largely what led
me to these changes and that…yeah, pretty much that I had
that conversation.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Before I go to Commissioner
Thomas, let me ask Commissioner Janoff, did you have any
comments on what Commissioner Clark just brought up, or was
this related to your motion? Then I would know whether to
ask Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My only comment with regard
to Commissioner Clark’s recommendations is that I would
agree, and they’re coming from a place of historical truth
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and specific knowledge. I think the more we can create an
accurate document, the better it will stand. We’ve been
really striving for racial justice, and if that goes
forward then it also goes back in history, so that I think
that those are good adds, and presuming that would be
approved by the Commission, I would only recommend that the
changes between Planning Commission’s recommendation to
Town Council and Town Council actually having something,
that those individuals that Commissioner Clark mentioned as
having some expertise would be consulted and just give a
stamp of approval on the changes that are recommended. But
I wouldn’t shy away from a distasteful history; that’s ours
to own.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, thank you for that.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree with all those
changes, and thank you, Commissioner Clark, for bringing
them up, because I do think that when I read them I feel
like the same, and so I do agree with Commissioner Janoff
that we should own them. So I guess Commissioner Janoff was
going to make a motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’ll go back to Commissioner
Janoff. Would you like to make a motion on 106 through 116
as well as Commissioner Clark’s suggested additions to page
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8-17? I think they were all on page 8-17, or maybe 8-16 as
well.
Hold on, Commissioner Thomas had wanted to say
one more thing.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m so sorry, I was going
to say that based on Vice Chair Barnett’s comments, I do
think that the implementation program for the plant-based
education, the beginning should be changed to “Develop and
implement a plan to educate and support,” instead of just,
“Implement programs to educate,” because I think that that
encompasses like we need to do a little research. What’s
going to be effective? What are we capable of doing? And
then implement it. So that was just going to be my
suggestion with regard to that. It might actually happen, I
don't know.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Before you make your motion,
Commissioner Janoff, I also wanted to make one comment
about 116 in addition to what I already said, which is I
like Vice Chair Barnett’s suggestion about giving examples
of what kind of programs. I also wondered if, when I looked
at some of the other implementation programs we had, the
latter part of the sentence about the benefits and listing
what all the benefits are, I’m not sure if the goal is to
implement a program that listing what all the benefits are
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in the implementation program itself is going to be that
helpful to creating it. I think it would be more helpful to
delineate what kinds of things might go into a plant-based
education program, and then clearly in the education
program itself all those benefits are going to be
articulated versus saying it all in that sentence, but that
was just me.
Let’s see, Commissioner Thomas, you wanted to
respond, and then Commissioner Clark had something to say,
and then we’ll go back to Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that it is very
lengthy and I think that we can just simplify it by
changing it to say, “The environmental, social, and
economic benefits of shifting to a plant-based diet.” Those
are like the three underlying components of sustainability,
and so I think that that incorporates the message and the
importance, but it simplifies things a little bit and is
more direct, so again, “environmental, economic, and social
benefits.”
CHAIR HANSSEN: I like that, and then I’m
assuming you agree also with what Vice Chair Barnett
suggested, which is examples which would include blah,
blah, blah. It wouldn’t be comprehensive, but it would give
some structure to what might happen.
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: That is more helpful than
defining the benefits in here.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Yes, for 116 I
completely agree with saying, “environmental, social, and
economic benefits.” In the same way maybe it even allows
for more benefits to be included, and I just wanted to
remind everyone, you might recall from public comment at
our last meeting the folks advocating for the plant-based
diet told us that they have a really big document that is a
very comprehensive example of what this could look like,
and so it might be just good to direct Staff or Council to
connect with them between this to see what examples they
might want to include, but given that they were the ones
advocating for this and creating all of that, I would trust
their judgment for what examples they might want to include
in the implementation program.
CHAIR HANSSEN: In fact, in the comments for this
meeting there was quite extensive examples of things that
they wanted to include, so yes, I think that makes a lot of
sense.
Okay, Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: The motion is to
incorporate the changes for number 106, 107, 108, 110, and
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116, with the caveat that we have a tremendous amount of
information coming from the Plant-Based Advocates that
Staff should use to modify any policies or implementation
programs that would identify, and yes, to include the
develop and implement language that Vice Chair Barnett is
recommending.
One thing I’d like to also acknowledge with this,
and part of the comments that Commissioner Thomas made
regarding the three legs that the plant-based diet stands
on, we’ll be talking later about adding to the greenhouse
gas emissions problem, and this is advocating for a plant-
based diet to help ameliorate the greenhouse gas. It’s a
good balance if we have those things that create more and
those that lessen it. I think it’s a really smart thing for
us to include this and to emphasize to Council it may be
that there are a hundred or more implementation programs,
but this one happens to rise pretty high up for me and I
think the depth of information that the Plant-Based
Advocates have provided us, particularly in the most recent
Staff Report, are very interesting and compelling, so I
would definitely want to do that.
The motion also includes the changes that
Commissioner Clark has recommended, and as we said before,
to seek guidance or validation from the experts who could
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create the language that would really resonate for the Town
and for tribal representatives.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Just a clarifying question on
your motion as far a Implementation Program M, the
additional clarification that was suggested by Commissioner
Clark and as well as I think Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I think that’s fine that
the implementation program as written does call out
linkages, so that the notion of that is in there, but if
it’s the case that conserve doesn’t really cover
everything, then examining linkages or recreating linkages,
clarifying that language does make sense. It makes it more
complete.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So that is Commissioner Janoff’s
motion, and is there a second? Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I second, and I’d like to
echo that consulting the Ohlone is a great thing to add,
and then also emphasis on 116 as priority when they’re
actually sorting out the implementation programs.
CHAIR HANSSEN: When we first had the
Sustainability Plan that was introduced in 2012 there was a
quest to identify low hanging fruit, so I think what I’m
hearing is this would a low hanging fruit to help reduce
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greenhouse gases, so we would hope that it would be sooner
rather than later.
All right, so then we have a motion and a second,
so I will start with Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And 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 that was a lot of suggestions for
environmental sustainability and a very robust discussion.
Let’s go ahead and tackle the Hazards and Safety Element,
because there are only three suggested changes, and then
I’m going to suggest that we take a ten-minute break before
we tackle Land Use.
Before I go into Hazards and Safety, I did want
to ask a clarifying question of Staff. We kind of talked
about this a week or two ago, but on the additional
actions, suggestions, and public comments, since some of
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those are really what I would perceive more as Town Council
decisions, I wasn’t going to cover them, but I’m looking
for Staff’s recommendation.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. I think if
Commissioners have specific comments on any of those, I
believe, four topics, I think it’s appropriate to put that
in the record so the Council has the information as they’re
reviewing these items.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds like a good way to
handle it, so we will at least ask if you want to comment
on any of the items that are suggested in 120 through 123?
Let’s go to the Hazards and Safety Element. There
are only three suggested comments, of which 118 is not
recommended by Staff, because it’s covered in other Town
policies and we don’t want to be having things be
inconsistent in the General Plan versus other policies. So
how do Commissioners feel about 117 and 119?
Vice Chair Janoff, and then Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My thinking around 117 is
that we’ve had County Fire input on our language. If they
feel it’s important to include emphasis on Wildland Urban
Interface, this is really outside of my area of expertise,
except I happen to live in a WUI environment, so it’s not
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so far out of my expertise, but whether we need this kind
of detail isn’t clear to me and I defer to County Fire.
Number 118 is not recommended.
Then 119 looks like a technical clarification,
and I would say that’s probably a good clarification to
include.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Can I ask Staff a clarifying
question? Do we know where comment 117 came from? It did
not come from CAL FIRE per se. It sounds like it came from
a resident or another comment based on stuff they had read
from CAL FIRE, is that correct?
JENNIFER ARMER: Unfortunately, I don’t remember
exactly where that one did come from, but the recommended
changes from CAL FIRE were those changes at the beginning
of this exhibit, so this was not part of what was
recommended as part of their review. Also, we did have
Santa Clara County Fire taking a look at the relevant
sections of this document, so it would have been from a
public comment that we received, but I don’t have it front
of me where exactly that one came from. It looks like
Director Paulson may be looking to see what he can find,
but he’s shaking his head, so I don’t think we’ve got a
direct link to whom that came from.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: It also doesn’t read like a
comment that would have come from CAL FIRE. I don’t think I
can explain why that is, but just looking at their other
comments, it looked like others wrote it.
Let’s see, Commissioner Clark and then
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. So for 117, I
didn’t really when reading it know how important that was
or how accurate, and so I feel like I would defer to the
experts. So I think if we don’t know where it came from, it
might be worth just saying like, “Subject to the approval
of CAL FIRE,” or if the Fire Department already read over
it and hadn’t seen any problems with the General Plan,
maybe we do just leave it out.
Number 118, obviously no.
Then for 119, reading the Section 9.4 I wasn’t
sure exactly where this would go or anything, but I agree
with what Commissioner Janoff said, that this seems like a
technical clarification, and so I would be in favor of that
one.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds good. Ms. Armer had
her hand up, so before I go to Commissioner Thomas, Ms.
Armer.
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JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. I was able to locate
where that comment came from. It was a comment made in a
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space letter. If you’re looking
at your packet from the meeting of the 13th, it is on page
319 of that packet, and it is revised language that they
were recommending.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So Midpen Open Space in my mind
would be a reasonably credible source, so there are a
couple of ways that we could go with this from my point of
view and those would be as suggested. Maybe run it past CAL
FIRE and see if they think that was a good add. I don't
know how much trouble that would be. Or we could just
accept it. Or we could just say that there is enough in
there and it wouldn’t change things and the policies that
much. So those are the three options I see.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: This is really two comments
in mind.
The first one I feel less strongly about
including because I did not actually look up if the
statistic is true, although we know that fires in the WUI
are more of a hazard for humans, but the second part of the
comment is like a totally separate issue and I do think
that requires clarification.
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It says that, “High fire hazard severity zone
does not describe the risk of a fire start, but rather
describes the potential impacts to natural ecosystems known
as fire severity.” So like the fire ignition triangle is
what determines if the fire is going to start, and then CAL
FIRE has the fire hazard severity zones that are based on
the severity, which is how damaging it is based on the
intensity, so I do think that we should make sure that that
is all clarified in the description.
I noticed with some of the other comments, I
don't know if CAL FIRE and Santa Clara Valley Water and all
these other groups that look at our document specifically
look at a lot of our descriptions more of the introduction
pieces, or if they just look more specifically at the
policies and implementation programs, so I’m just saying
that that’s maybe why 117 might have been missed, but I’m
not entirely sure.
So I think that there’s two parts of this and I
don’t really have opinions on the first part, but the
second part should be clarified.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Clarified as to the validity?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: The second part, it just
says, “It’s also important to note that a high fire hazard
severity zone does not describe the risk of a fire start,”
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and then it says that somewhere in the introduction, which
is not true. The fire severity zone maps indicate the
severity of the fire, like how damaging it’s going to be,
not the likelihood of a fire starting. There is some
discrepancy in the wordings and someone needs to comb
through it and make sure that that gets clarified.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Got it. All right, Commissioner
Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I don’t
see any other hands raised, and so my sense of this Hazard
and Safety Element is that we’re all in agreement that 118
should not be recommended, 119 should be recommended, and
perhaps 117 should be recommended subject to review and
appropriate modification by CAL FIRE, and if my Commission
members agree with that, I’d be happy to make a motion in
that respect.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that sounds fine, and
that sounds like a motion, so I’ll take that as a motion
and see if there’s a second.
Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I’ll second the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Any other
discussion before we vote? I’ll go with Commissioner
Thomas.
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: 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.
Okay, that covers the Hazards and Safety Element,
and I’m going to take a stab at talking about 122 through
123, hoping that it’s not going to be a super long
discussion, but if it does turn out that way, then we might
have to take a break.
There were additional suggestions, and you’ve all
seen them in the public comments, and they’re more
generically about the timing of the General Plan, the first
one being a vote or poll of residents on the proposed
changes in the General Plan; the second one being
requesting an exception to the RHNA requirement, which
comment from Staff was the deadline has passed; and the
third comment updating the Housing Element within the same
timeline as General Plan use and Community Design Element,
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which would mean delaying the approval of this document
until the Housing Element was complete; and the fourth one
is conducing a fiscal analysis relative to the fiscal
impacts of the full build-out of the 2040 General Plan, in
which the Town Council actually voted on this at their
April 5th meeting and decided against it.
So are there any comments that Commissioners
would like to make on these in terms of direction that we’d
like to give to Town Council?
I think Commissioner Raspe was first, and then
Commissioner Thomas, and then Vice Chair Barnett.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thanks, Chair. Only with
respect to one, that’s 122, the Housing Element and the
timing of it with respect to the General Plan generally.
Currently the posture that we find ourselves in is we are
moving forward with the General Plan before our Housing
Element is complete, and I know several commentators raised
that as an issue and I thought maybe it might be useful if
we could have Staff discuss that a little bit, maybe how
common is that in this process? Is it something that we see
as part of the General Plan process? Is this an anomaly,
and how is it impacting the rest of our housing discussion?
Maybe some discussion of that would help ally some of those
concerns. Thank you, Chair.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s a great way to go
at it, and I’ve already heard Staff’s comments on this, but
I think it’s beneficial for the public to hear as well from
Staff.
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Commissioner Raspe, I
think that’s a great opportunity for us to share a little
bit of context with these questions.
I’m going to start by pointing out that a lot of
these comments are concerned about one particular component
of one of the elements of the General Plan. A lot of these
are focused really on the potential development based on
the housing densities and other development regulations
that are included in the Land Use Element.
As we’ve seen already in the multiple hours of
discussion that the Planning Commission has already had
going through the General Plan, there are a lot of elements
to this document, a lot of topics covered, and so we would
strongly recommend that the General Plan continue to move
forward with a recommendation from the Planning Commission
with modifications as have been discussed so that it can
move forward and complete its process.
I would say that if those concerns about the
housing numbers and moving forward with those changes
before the Housing Element process is complete, then there
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are ways to reduce those, which will be part of our next
discussion, to modify those and pull them back, but it
doesn’t necessarily need to hold back the rest of the
process.
The next thing that I would share is that the
General Plan was started, when we started this process four
years ago, with the specific idea that it would actually be
fully completed prior to even starting the Housing Element.
One of the goals was to make sure that we had regulations
in place, and potentially even the required changes to the
Zoning Code, before we started on the Housing Element
update so that the rules would be in place that the Housing
Element could clearly show that it would be possible to
allow the construction of housing as required by our RHNA
allocation.
Because of numerous delays for different reasons,
the COVID pandemic not the least of those, we’re still
working through that process, but we still really do want
to strongly encourage that this process continue to move
forward.
Then the last point that I will add, and then I
would expect that Director Paulson might have some
additional points, is that our Housing Element update is
relying on the fact that the environmental impact review
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for the General Plan gets completed and that the EIR gets
certified, because if we do not have that environmental
review completed, then the Housing Element actually has the
extra burden of doing its own environmental review.
So I will pass that off to Director Paulson in
case he has any other points he’d like to add to clarify or
add context.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Ms. Armer. I think you
covered all of the points well. Typically we would have a
General Plan in place, as Ms. Armer mentioned, and then we
would be using that for the Housing Element and relying on
the General Plan that’s adopted.
A lot of the jurisdictions in the Bay Area either
have existing General Plans or they were not going through
that process, and so what ends up happening in that case is
that most of them, as Ms. Armer mentioned, need to do
environmental review, and then they end up with a bunch of
implementation programs that say okay, we all got far more
numbers than we had expected and then we may be able to
accommodate by our General Plan, and so then they end up
with implementation programs to modify the General Plan.
So from a planning perspective and Staff’s
perspective, having the base of the General Plan that can
then inform the Housing Element is appropriate. Ultimately,
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I think the Planning Commission can continue to do their
work and forward a recommendation, and then ultimately the
Town Council will have those same conversations, and should
they choose to go down a different path, then we’ll look
for other options moving forward from that standpoint.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Ms. Armer and Mr.
Paulson for your very thorough responses, and also to each
of you and all Staff for your amazing efforts on this
entire process.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I just would add a little bit
more since I’m one of the three people from this Commission
that sits on the Housing Element Advisory Board, and I was
actually on the previous Housing Element Advisory Board as
well as the General Plan Update Advisory Committee back
2008 to 2010, and one thing that I heard from Staff and
that I didn’t hear mentioned tonight, but I know they know
this and they’ve talked about it many times, is that it is
not expected or common or even typical that you would have
the General Plan of any jurisdiction on the same timeline
as the Housing Element, because the Housing Element is a
fixed thing. It’s always an eight-year timeline, and it’s
not that every jurisdiction in California has the same
eight-year timeline; they do not.
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When we did the previous update of the General
Plan, it was from 2010 to 2020, and then we did the Housing
Element and we completed that and it’s a 2015 to 2023
timeframe, so it is already a precedent for our town to do
it this way.
As a member of the Housing Element Advisory
Board, I would say that everything that I’ve heard in the
meetings that we’ve had with affordable housing developers
and whatnot, it’s not that we couldn’t proceed forward
without updating the General Plan, but it would be like
doing so with our arm tied behind our back, especially with
the expectation from HCD that we have all these (inaudible)
in place to make sure that we’re successful in making this
housing happen, so if we didn’t have the densities that we
asked for it would be problematic.
We even had a proposal in the last year at the
CDAC where they were looking at the possible draft
densities in the General Plan and they couldn’t even get
any very good discussion going because the General Plan
wasn’t approved, and it was for a 41-unit housing complex.
So for all those reasons, I totally support
everything that Staff said.
And Ms. Armer has more to say.
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JENNIFER ARMER: I just had one additional
thought that I did want to share in terms of the processes
we’re going through and these discussions about housing
density and housing numbers and the difficulty of having
the different types of conversations and how they’re
interrelated.
One of the benefits, I think, to having a General
Plan update that’s occurring just prior to a Housing
Element update is that we did at the beginning of the
process have a sense that the RHNA allocation that the
Housing Element update would be required to meet would be
approximately 2,000 units. We didn’t know the exact number,
but we had that sense.
And so when we were looking at the General Plan
town-wide, policy-wide, topic-wide, we were able to keep
that in mind, and so rather than going through the process
to try and show that the Town had capacity for 2,000 units,
in this case 1,993 plus a buffer, just looking at the
Housing Element itself we were able to have those
discussions with the GPAC looking town-wide, looking
strategically on multiple topics in the hope that this
whole document would be set up with Vision and Guiding
Principles and policies throughout that would support that
potential future development in a way that really works for
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the Town, and the vision for the Town, for the next 20
years, rather than just the Housing Element topic and the
eight year timeline.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Let’s see,
Vice Chair Barnett, and then Commissioner Thomas, and then
Commissioner Janoff.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, Chair. Item 123,
I’m going to echo what the Chair said that in the Council
meeting there was an understanding that the preliminary
fiscal report showed that there was going to be negative
fiscal consequences of the General Plan, and it seems to be
although the Community Alliance has done tremendous work in
detailing further work that could be done, the likely
bottom line is that the fiscal impact would just be more
negative, so I’m of a mind not to conduct a further fiscal
impact analysis.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that comment.
We haven’t discussed the EIR either, but there
were several letters from the Alliance regarding why the
EIR wasn’t studied to the full possible build-out of every
maximum density on every single property in the Town, which
would be something in the order of, I believe, 70,000
units. We’ll talk about that more with the EIR, but that
isn’t the way that any jurisdiction would do their EIRs.
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They would be more on a reasonable thing, because it isn’t
reasonable to think that anyone would build out every
single property in town, so that is part of where there is
just a difference of opinion about the way to go about
this.
The Council has already weighed in on this, so
all we would be doing is making a recommendation to Council
anyway for something they’ve already just visited.
Let’s see, Commissioner Thomas, and then
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I would like to echo what
all other Commissioners have mentioned so far, and as a
member of the Housing Element Advisory Board, it’s been
very difficult for us to actually get started on the
process without having an updated General Plan, so I think
that it is really important for everyone in Town to
understand that the Housing Element cycle is on a totally
different cycle in number of years, an eight year cycle
versus the General Plan is a 20-year document. I think that
that is really important for everyone to understand and
that what Ms. Armer said about the guess of what our RHNA
allocation number was going to be really helped inform the
General Plan in a way.
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But now as a member of the Housing Element
Advisory Board we really need the General Plan to be
finalized so we can get to work, and there are serious
consequences from the state if we don’t get our Housing
Element done and certified and turned in, so I don’t want
us to be responsible for that.
So that being said, I do not support any of these
suggested actions because of those reasons.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you, Commissioner Thomas.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I agree with
everything that’s been said by my fellow commissioners, but
I would like to add that one of the provisions of the Draft
General Plan is that it be reviewed on a five-year basis,
so that means if we go forward in the execution of the
Housing Element and we need to make any adjustments to the
General Plan, there are provisions for that. So even though
the General Plan some may think is casting too far into the
future without knowing what that future might look like,
these five-year incremental reviews help make sure that
we’re staying in synch with what is expected of the Town,
how we need to plan, and whether any changes to the General
Plan need to be made in order to accommodate housing or any
other consideration that we may have.
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I’d also like to say the way that I think about
the General Plan and the Housing Element is that the
General Plan provides a framework within which all of the
elements hang and inform how the Town of Los Gatos does
business. The Housing Element doesn’t stand on its own. The
Housing Element can’t go forward if we don’t have the
zoning and the heights and the densities that we are
providing in the General Plan.
It might have been in the past that that was
possible because the changes that we might have considered
under how much housing we’re going to build were much
smaller numbers, but we’re talking about the numbers that
we have now, the 1,993 from RHNA plus buffer. That’s a big
number and we can’t get there with 2020 plan zone, height,
and density ordinances; we just can’t do it. So we need to
have something in place in order for us to reasonably
recommend a Housing Element that has a chance of being
certified.
So I would also say that I’m not in favor of
these four actions from the public for all the other
reasons that Commissioners have voiced. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you, Commissioner Janoff. I
just wanted to make one little correction to what you said,
and maybe I misheard you, but we did approve at our last
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meeting as an add to the implementation programs to have a
five-year review of the Land Use Element, not the entire
General Plan, and so maybe I misheard you.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: (Inaudible) apply to the
Housing Element.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yeah, yeah, and my understanding
of that from Staff and the discussion that we had was that
the whole reason for that was to help mitigate the risk of
if it turned out in 2031 when we have our next Housing
Element that the number is much lower, then we can make
adjustments at that point in time, so that will kind of
bring us more in line in terms of those two discussions
without having to dramatically alter the timeline of the
two documents.
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I agree. I am not
in favor of any those four, and I was wondering if this is
a good place to include anything that goes back to one of
the other elements, so for example, Vice Chair Barnett’s
edits to the equity and equality definitions?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Actually, that’s a good point. I
had that on my list and I was going to bring it up at the
beginning.
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Just for everyone’s benefit, since we’re
straddling over two meetings so far, Commissioner Clark
suggested modifying the definitions of equality and equity,
and then there was a discussion about that at the community
meeting that was a few weeks ago, and Vice Chair Barnett
wanted some more clarification on equality, not equity,
right?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yeah.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So I read the comments. I wanted
to just see where the Commissioners came out on that,
because I’m going to ask Staff, I think we need to vote on
it if we’re going to change it, because we had decided in
the last meeting and then the comment came in from Vice
Chair Barnett. So I’ll start with that.
Commissioner Clark, you still have your hand up.
Is that because you had already brought it up and you
forgot to take it down, or you wanted to make a comment on
the issue?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: No, I’d like to make a
comment. I thought that he was spot on. I think that’s
great to add a reference to equivalent status and rights. I
think that that will make it a lot more well rounded.
Something else I wanted to bring up is actually a
broader change that I had suggested in the document, but it
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was 8-17 where we made those changes regarding the
historical origins of the land, and something that I
noticed is the Ohlone were pretty much only talked about in
the past tense, and so I want to add a third paragraph that
talks about today the Ohlone are doing this and doing that,
because otherwise I think that it made it sound kind of
like they aren’t currently doing stuff. Even a lot of the
things that were discussed as past tense are things that I
learned that they’re still doing, like collecting mussels
and stuff like that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you’re talking about adding a
more descriptive statement about where the Ohlone currently
stand at the time of the writing of the General Plan.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: So it would be a third
paragraph under 8.8, Tribal Cultural Resources, and talking
about what they are doing today.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Oh, perfect. So there are two
things that are on the table. One is whether or not to
accept Vice Chair Barnett’s revision to the definition of
equality, and also Commissioner Clark’s suggestion to add
the section to 8-17. Any comments on that, or a motion?
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: The motion would be yes and
yes to changes suggested.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Sounds good, and do we have a
second? Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Second.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Good. All right, I will go with
the roll call vote, and Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: 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 I think we’ve covered everything except for
the Land Use and Community Design Elements, and there is of
course the EIR as well.
It’s almost 9:20. Why don’t we take a break till
9:30, and then we can go for an hour-and-a-half and see
where we are. I think if we go past 11:00 o’clock we have
to vote to continue, and then we would have to vote again
to go past 11:30, so we can see how far we get, but I do
suggest in the interest of trying to get this completed,
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even if we have to go to another meeting, let’s try to get
as far as we can by 11:00. Does that sound good? Okay, so
let’s take a break till 9:30 and we’ll be back.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, everyone is back. Thank you
for that. I hope you enjoyed your break. We will go ahead
and start on the Land Use Element.
What I’d like to do with the Land Use Element,
unlike what we did with the other elements, because of the
high level of controversy we’ve had over the land use
build-out numbers I think that it’s really important that
we discuss all of the comments and have the Commission
weigh in on them, but I want to defer comment number 20,
which is modifying the number of new housing units, until
we’re done discussing the things that will kind of go
around that, which is all the other comments. I’d like to
take each comment one at a time, and it’s actually in total
numbers not even as much as we had on the Environmental
Sustainability Element, but I suspect that there might be
more to discuss on them.
When we do get to the point where we’re talking
about the numbers, we’ve gotten all kinds of feedback from
the community, and also Vice Chair Barnett had submitted
his suggestions, and Staff has in their Staff Report on
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page 6 some possible recommendations that came from Council
if we were to want to modify the numbers.
With that in mind, I’d like to just start out
with number 21, and I think it’s a pretty easy one. “Modify
the land use designation of the property at 15810 Los Gatos
Boulevard from Low-Density Residential to Mixed-Use
Commercial to be more in line with the existing use,” and
Staff is recommending it.
We don’t have to vote on each one at the moment.
What we’ll do is we’ll go to the end on the ones that we
think are worthy. So generally speaking, we don’t need to
discuss that. That makes a lot of sense.
Number 22, “Building a high-rise condo on the
corner of Los Gatos Boulevard and Los Gatos Almaden.”
Construction is not within the purview of the General Plan,
per Staff, but increased height limits in Mixed-Use
Commercial and land use designations could be considered.
I’m going to ask Staff to comment on that one,
which is that we did propose in the existing Draft 2040
General Plan to increase the height as well as the
densities on Los Gatos Boulevard. Do we think the intent
was to go further than that? Would that prevent us from
building a high-rise condo complex? I was hoping Staff
could comment on that.
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JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. This comment
is suggesting construction of a high-rise, which isn’t what
the General Plan is doing, but as noted by Staff it is the
kind of thing that if consideration of modified height
limits was something that the Planning Commission wanted to
consider, that’s more where this document would lead.
In terms of that location, the changes to the
designation on the Boulevard in terms of height limit are
45’. That’s been raised to 45’ to match the existing limits
in downtown. Generally I would say that in most places it’s
not considered high enough for a high-rise, but the
Community Development Director may have something to add.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, just a couple things.
Ms. Armer touched on the changes. The height is proposed to
increase from 35’ to 45’, and the maximum density is
proposed to increase from 20 dwelling units per acre to 40
dwelling units per acre. I believe the site that this
commenter is referencing is what we refer to as the former
CVS application site. We actually have an application in
for a one-story commercial building there, and we’re
processing that under the current General Plan, so that
site probably isn’t going to be viable. I would say that if
you go down to comment 30, it gets to a similar comment of
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increase over the 45’, so maybe it’s best to have the
conversation when we get there.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I had the same thought as we were
discussing it that this is more about construction, and
there was already another comment in number 30, so we can
just skip 22 and go on to that, because we know that the
issues surrounding that are there.
I will also note for everyone that’s not on the
Housing Element Advisory Board, we just started going
through the site inventory and a very large number of the
potential sites for housing that are on the table right now
for the Housing Element are on Los Gatos Boulevard, but one
of them is not, this particular site, because CVS owns the
property and they’ve already submitted an application for
something that isn’t related to housing.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I wanted to add
that in the discussions with the Housing Element Advisory
Board one of the things that I think we’ll be talking about
is the incentives to builders for building higher density
housing units, so my advice, whether we get to it now or
when I get to number 30 is that we don’t increase the
maximum heights that we have currently in the General Plan
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in the Land Use Element, but we reserve the right to have
incentives in the Housing Element if that’s possible.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s great, and we’ll
get to that when we get to the next one, but I think it’s a
good time to bring that up since someone else brought that
up in the context of this comment.
Number 23 is, “Including opportunity areas in the
General Plan as outlined in the land use alternatives
report,” and Staff said not recommended to previous GPAC
direction, and even though I was the chair of the GPAC I
don’t remember back in our 35 meetings when we discussed
that or why we said that, but I suspect it’s because we did
the General Plan after the Land Use Alternatives Report.
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I can provide
a little clarification on that.
As the GPAC discussed the Land Use Alternatives
Report and made a recommendation to the Planning
Commission, who then made a recommendation to Town Council,
that really was a framework that that was going to be
implemented in the Land Use Element and other elements of
the General Plan.
So in the discussion of that land use
alternative, one of the concerns that came up is how does
that actually get implemented? And a concern about if you
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have something called an opportunity area that covers
properties that are in different zones or different land
use designations, and then there are some properties that
are outside those opportunity areas, and so you have some
portions of, for example, a Low-Density or Medium-Density
Residential designated property, some that are within the
opportunity areas, others aren’t, and it gets very complex
and confusing as to which are in and which are out and
you’ve got different rules even within the same
designation.
So as Staff worked with the consultants to look
at how to implement the framework that was approved by Town
Council one of the things that was discovered through that
was that most of those opportunity areas, the areas that
had high potential for redevelopment and a lot of potential
for doing it in a way that supported of the community, were
our Commercial and High-Density Residential areas, and so
by shifting those changes in maximum allowed density just
to the designations themselves rather than having a
separate overlay zone or district, you simplified how the
rules would work, clarified them, but really had very much
the same effect.
So then the areas that were noted in that
framework as opportunity areas then got concentrated
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attention in the Community Design Element of the General
Plan saying these are the areas where we think there is
opportunity for redevelopment, and so it’s really important
to have some specific vision for each of these areas for
what they look like now and what they could look like in
the future, that that development is done consistent with
the General Plan’s Vision and Guiding Principles.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. I did
understand that and I hope it made sense to everyone. If
you look at the proposed modifications to the densities and
the heights in the Land Use section of the draft of the
General Plan, they’re not specific to what geographic area
of Town they’re in, it’s more we have like Low-Density
Residential, we have Community Commercial, blah, blah,
blah, we have these thing.
And we haven’t discussed the Community Design
Element yet, but when we created the Community Place
Districts they’re intended to be a vision for what the
neighborhood would look like, but when we went through the
General Plan discussion no one wanted to create specific
zoning for those areas. Instead we wanted to say it was
going to be either Mixed-Use Commercial or Community
Commercial or something like that, but we weren’t going to
have different zones for that, so that was kind of my
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interpretation of what you said. You said it better than I
did, but I think that there was really no reason to change
all the things that we did in the General Plan after all
the time we spent on it, and I think we have a framework
that is going to be just fine for moving forward. I’m not
sure who suggested that. Was that from the public?
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, that was in a number of
different public comments that were received suggesting
going back to that as approved by Town Council, though I
will point out that the implementation of that framework in
the form of the Land Use Element and Community Design
Element, we did go for a kind of check back with the Town
Council in November of that same year for them to take a
look at how that was going to be implemented.
CHAIR HANSSEN: But since this went to Town
Council multiple times and the GPAC had already sent
direction, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of benefit to
revisiting it.
JENNIFER ARMER: Staff does not recommend it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And that’s why you didn’t
recommend it.
I’m going to go on to number 24, which we
probably need to discuss more when we talk about the
numbers, but I’ll put it out there anyway.
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A lot of people are very worried about increasing
densities in Low-Density Residential, and so the proposed
General Plan does have us raising the densities as high as
12 dwelling units per acre, and a big part of that is to
facilitate missing middle housing. That’s intertwined with
the things that we have no control over, which are ADUs,
which are ministerial permits and everyone anywhere is
allowed to build a Junior ADU as well as a detached ADU,
and that’s state law.
Then we also have SB 9, which is just new this
year and we don’t know the full impact of that, so a lot of
people have advocated to not increase densities in Low-
Density Residential, because they’re afraid there’s going
to be big, huge high-rises in their neighborhood, and so I
thought it was worth having the discussion now even before
we start talking about numbers to see what Commissioners
thought about that, because the approach that the General
Plan Advisory Committee took in recommending the whole
framework, and I think it was a direct quote from then
Mayor Jensen, which is basically no area should not have to
help support the growth that’s expected of the Town, and it
could be in varying degrees, but that was the direction
that was taken. So I open that up for comments.
Commissioner Thomas.
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that the changes to
the densities were very well thought out and discussed and
analyzed, and I think that the ones that exist in the Draft
2040 General Plan are what we should go with if we have any
chance of getting the Housing Element certified and then
meeting our RHNA requirements, so that’s how I feel about
it.
The changes that are proposed to height and
density, especially in Low-Density Residential areas I do
not think are going to allow for high-rises to be built in
areas, but if we don’t get a Housing Element approved, then
a lot of things could change and a lot of stuff could get
built in places that people don’t want it, so that’s how I
viewed this one, and I think that we should go with the
densities that are in the 2040 General Plan.
Related to SB 9, I think that this kind of
connects to number 26. I’m just curious about if
establishing a new Low-Medium Density Residential land use
category, is that even necessary because of SB 9? Because
duplexes are going to be happening anyway, so I feel like
it’s kind of related. This is another density question
that’s kind of related, so if we felt so (inaudible) 26
(inaudible) might be helpful.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s talk about both of those at
the same time.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: And 25, even honestly. It’s
kind of more specific, but they’re all related to density.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Number 25, I’ll table that one
for the second, but I’m going to make a generalized
comment, because I know the origin of the Low-Medium
Density Residential.
We have Low-Density Residential, we have Medium-
Density Residential, so the proposal, as I understand it—
and Staff, correct me I got it wrong—is that there are some
community members who are afraid of what the impact of Low-
Density Residential increase in possible densities would be
in their neighborhoods have said if we created a new
designation called Low-Medium Density Residential we could
basically put the missing middle housing kinds of things in
that.
My question to Staff when I first heard of it was
where would we put this, because every geographical
location in Town does have a General Plan zoning
designation? The response I heard was then we would have to
decide where it would be, so then it would well be your
neighborhood is going to be Low-Medium Density Residential
even though you have primarily single-family homes now, and
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maybe someone else would stay Low-Density Residential. I
see that personally as very problematic, if I understood
that correctly, but I would like to hear what you all
think.
I think Commissioner Janoff was first, then
Commissioner Raspe, Vice Chair Barnett, Commissioner Clark,
and Commissioner Thomas again.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. The notion that
we could create a separate area for duplexes and triplexes
doesn’t make sense given SB 9, which allows for lot splits
and for duplexes and fourplexes to be created on lots
virtually any size, but it’s more likely to be in Low-
Density or Medium-Density, because that’s where you’ve got
the space to do that kind of development, so I agree that
number 26 presents more complications than it seems to add
benefit.
The rules of the state are going to allow for the
Higher-Density and Low-Density anyway, which is why when
you look at maintaining the level of Low-Density and if you
say let’s go back to the 2020 plan, you could do that, but
you’re still likely to see ADUs in this area. The 200 ADUs
that we’ve got planned for currently in the RHNA numbers,
they’re more than likely going to be in Low-Density. So you
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could say I’m not going to add density, but the state is
going to allow you to do it anyway.
I just don’t think it makes sense for us to put
our heads in the sand and pretend that we can create
isolated neighborhoods where we can prohibit a development
when we simply can’t, so my position on both 24 and 26 are,
as Commissioner Thomas said, go with the recommended
densities that the draft plan advises.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Which would mean not creating a
new Low-Medium Density Residential, because it basically
doesn’t change the issue; it doesn’t accomplish anything.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: It doesn’t accomplish
anything.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, got it. Commissioner Raspe,
then Vice Chair Barnett, and Commissioner Clark, and then
back to Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Revisiting
24, and it’s only because several commentators raised this
comment, maintaining the existing 2020 General Plan
densities for Low-Density Residential, given SB 9, and it’s
a little bit unfair to Staff, because I’m asking you to
project when we’re still in the infancy of this entire
discussion, but given SB 9, if we were to theoretically
maintain the 2020 densities in those areas, is it likely,
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unlikely, unfathomable that we would hit our RHNA numbers,
or do we just simply not know?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Commissioner Raspe. The
short answer is we don’t know. SB 9 is the big unknown. As
it has been mentioned, anyone in a residentially zoned
property can go through the SB 9 process and have up to
four units. Currently on any residential property you can
have up to three units, even if you just do ADUs. Density
is not a factor when considering ADUs or SB 9, so we
already have consideration in the General Plan and then
also in the Housing Element with the eight-year cycle
approximately 25 units per year. We don’t have guidance and
we don’t have a good track record to rely on like we do for
ADUs to tell the state that this is how many SB 9s we think
we’re going to get. I think we have three so far, but those
aren’t even for units; those are just subdivisions so far.
We’ll get more information as the year goes on,
so if we do have the ability we’ll probably at least ask
that question. We’ll definitely ask that question of HCD,
letting them know here’s how many SB 9 projects we have,
whether it’s units or subdivisions, and see if there’s any
possibility to include those.
There have been a number of suggestions and I
think ultimately the low-density, if that is maintained as
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it is and Staff says we’re neutral on that, yes, it reduces
the number, which is something that a lot of folks want.
But ultimately something that also has the impact that we
mentioned in the Staff Report is the work that was
contemplated in the missing middle, which now some folks
say is kind of superseded by the SB 9; that just gets
pulled out of the General Plan.
Staff is comfortable with it either way. The big
push and the big potential unit counts really are more in
the commercial areas, so that’s really where we’re kind of
interested in doing that. The challenge that was mentioned
before is most of those sites are on Los Gatos Boulevard,
so then you run into the issue of we’re going to
concentrate them all on the Boulevard or the predominant
number of them on the Boulevard and that gets to be
challenging from a number of aspects, but Staff is neutral.
We envisioned that numbers were going to change going
through this process, so we’re comfortable either way, and
so I think this is a good discussion to hear different
perspectives of different Commissioners as you ultimately
get to the point where you formulate a recommendation on
specific densities.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Director Paulson.
That answers my question.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: And I wanted have this discussion
without the numbers on the table, because I think the issue
is important to discuss.
I do want to ask a question back to Staff on your
comment, and you brought this up before and I believe that
you answered it, but I wanted to make sure we really
understood the answer.
Since people can build up to four units on any
property I think regardless of even the size of the land
underneath it, why would it make it necessary to take the
missing middle housing discussion out of the General Plan?
Because the people could do it anyway, even if we were to
potentially reduce the densities, why would be need to take
missing middle housing out of the General Plan?
JOEL PAULSON: I can start, and then if Ms. Armer
has anything to add.
The missing middle is really a different
opportunity. You wouldn’t be going through SB 9 for a
missing middle housing project, because we would be
increasing the density, which would allow more units
outside of that. So you really would have two different
paths; you’d have two options. You either use SB 9, which
has a lot of advantages, or you could go through the
missing middle housing component, which would allow more
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units on a site. So there really are two different paths,
two different options, and so that’s something the
Commission and ultimately the Council will have to consider
as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, that helps. Vice Chair
Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, thank you. I support
maintaining the existing 2020 General Plan densities with a
Low-Density Residential, and I’d like to reserve comment
when we get to my submission to the Commission, but I would
note that there is sufficient density in the High-Density
Mixed-Use Office, Service Commercial, and Neighborhood
Commercial designations to achieve that accomplishment, to
achieve that goal, in the RHNA requirements, so I think
that we can do it, especially in view of the SB 9 and the
ADU requirements by state law.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Let’s see,
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I am not in favor
of the changes recommended in 24 and 26, and I just want to
say that I think creating a Low- to Medium-Residential
category would be a really bad idea. I think that it would
lead to some ugly arguments about what zoning goes where,
and I don't know how those kinds of decisions would be
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made, and the purpose of missing middle housing is that it
blends in with the single-family homes, not that it gets
its own designation in its own neighborhood, and so I also
think that it would be kind of circumventing the benefits
that we can get from missing middle housing.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, thank you for that.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree with Commissioner
Clark’s comments, and I just wanted to say that I feel like
it’s really important that we have as many pathways as
possible for people to develop housing, so including having
the missing middle pathway option, as Director Paulson was
saying, and SB 9 option. Having both of those moving
forward I think is important for developers and
individuals.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that.
I just wanted to make a note for the entire
Commission that we’re not making a decision on anything
right now, we’re discussing, and then when we do talk about
the numbers that would kind of go hand-in-hand and we’ll do
like we did with the other elements and take a vote on the
entire list of recommended changes to the element. So if
you find later on in the discussion that something swayed
you in a little bit different direction, it’s not an issue
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at the moment, but I think this is a very good discussion
to have.
Commissioner Thomas, you just spoke. Do you still
have more to add? Okay. Anyone else that wanted to comment
on 24 or 26? Okay.
So number 25 is somewhat related. I should say as
a matter of background for those of you that are not on the
Housing Element Advisory Board, there were some letters
that were submitted to the Housing Element Advisory Board
last week, and Staff would be more able to comment on it
and it’s probably more of a Town Council issue at this
point, but the gist of it was that some people were upset
about the SB 9 Urgency Ordinance, which would prevent
people from doing lot splits in the hillsides, and in the
same letter—and these comments probably predate that—they
were talking about they wanted to be able to take their
existing hillside property, split it, and basically be able
to have two lots and be able to stay in their home.
Along with that we’ve gotten comments about there
are some areas that aren’t truly in the hillsides in the
sense of big, huge slope and small roads and all the things
that the General Plan Advisory Committee worried about in
terms of increasing any density in the hillsides, so the
proposal was to look at certain areas on the fringes of the
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hillsides that don’t have as much slope in the lots that
could be possible candidates for additional density.
So I wanted to share what peoples’ comments were
in that area, but there are kind of a lot of things flying
in the air right now around this topic.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: It’s unclear what fringe
areas adjacent to San Jose might actually be, but we do
have two of them included in our areas of opportunity, the
Union Avenue areas as well as the Harwood Area, so those
are two that border San Jose that are kind of the fringe
areas of the hillside. Well, Harwood for sure, maybe not
Union so much. I’m not really sure what the fringe areas of
Los Gatos would be, so not really understanding this I
wouldn’t be in favor of making those changes. The other
communities that border, Campbell and Saratoga, I can’t see
those fringe areas not being truly hillside and being
susceptible to the wildfire dangers, which drove the GPAC
to saying no development in the hillsides, so I’m not in
favor of 25.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Director Paulson, you had a
comment?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, thank you. Commissioner
Janoff just mentioned one of them, which is this was
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discussed and there wasn’t an interest at the time with the
GPAC to modify the density in the hillsides.
I’ll give one instance of what could be fringe. I
think this gets to the same conversation as creating a new
category of this Low-Medium. I think the more potentially
appropriate option would be, and you mentioned Harwood, so
as you go up Harwood past that shopping center that’s in
the Community Place District there are some Hillside
Residential that come down, and they’re flat lots, they’re
not sloped.
If that was something that either the Commission
or the Council were interested in, that would probably be a
modification to the land use designation, because most of
those abut Low-Density Residential, so it would be changing
it from Hillside to Low-Density Residential, which would
probably be more appropriate. I don't know that we have a
whole lot of those areas. That’s the one that comes to
mind, because we did have a very large lot adjacent to an
R-1:8 subdivision, but they’re designated HR-1, and so that
would probably be that fringe. That’s not adjacent to San
Jose.
The only areas in our hillsides that are adjacent
to San Jose is really probably over by Hicks Road. We’ve
got a subdivision out there that was done through a Planned
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Development, but we don’t really have a whole lot of areas
that abut San Jose and that are zoned Hillside that
probably are appropriate from that standpoint.
I will say some of the ones on Harwood do back
up, they abut San Jose at the rear of their properties, up
Alerche, some of those properties, and probably even some
of the Harwood ones, but that’s probably a very limited
opportunity and I’m not sure if ultimately it’s worth the
consideration to increase just for a handful of sites
rather than potentially modifying the land use designation
to the Low-Density Residential adjacent to it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. That helps to
clarify kind of where it would be. The properties that you
were just talking about off of Hicks Road, I forget the
name of the community, but those are very, very, very large
houses. I mean, I’m having a hard time visualizing how you
would go with those houses that are on pretty large lots
and then add a lot of density, and it’s already fully built
out is my understanding, so this sounds problematic to me
how you would make that work.
Any other comments on this one? Vice Chair
Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I apologize for not reading
all the Staff Reports on GPAC, but I wonder if Mr. Paulson
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could describe the basis for eliminating Hillside from the
density increases? Is it the roads?
JOEL PAULSON: I’m sure Chair Hanssen and
Commissioner Janoff and potentially Commissioner Thomas
could add some additional, but generally it’s wildfire
access. Those are the typical issues, so to look at
increasing the density in those areas, even though they are
a lot of large lots, it was really some of those safety
issues that were a big concern.
JENNIFER ARMER: I would add that while I think
that was the primary element, also an important component
of the character of the Town is the views of the hillsides,
and so additional housing in the hillsides makes it more
and more visible and changes that character, so I think the
fire danger was the primary component, but there were also
discussions about visual impacts with more density in that
sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, and I will agree that that
was a secondary discussion, and I’ll have Commissioner
Janoff comment as well when I finish.
I can tell you that when we initially started the
General Plan we had community meetings, and in one of those
community meetings people were supposed to identify the
things that were most important to them and most endeared
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them to living in Los Gatos, and by far and away the number
one thing was safety, and as we were talking through it—
this was in 2018 when some of the worst wildfires had
happened—a lot of people in the hillsides are in
neighborhoods where they have private roads, and those
private roads are really skinny roads, basically one-lane
roads, and people are terrified of this scenario where
there’s a fire and there might be enough room for the fire
truck to get up, but there might not be room for anyone to
get out. That is actually a very common thing that we see
in the hillsides, and so when we were talking through
everything it was really a unanimous decision of
recommendation of everyone on the GPAC that not only would
we not encourage growth in the hillsides, but there is an
implementation program in the General Plan to study the
possibility of downzoning, which has it’s own set of
implications because people own the land and they do have a
right to build to a certain extent.
The whole idea of what the General Plan Advisory
Committee recommended is we can’t stop people from building
on their land, but we’re not going to encourage a lot of
additional density, because we don’t have anywhere close to
the infrastructure to provide for the safety that everyone
in Town desires.
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Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: What I wanted to emphasize
is that we’re working through the General Plan element-by-
element, but when the General Plan Advisory Committee
considered the General Plan it was as a whole. We’re
looking at land use in isolation, but in this particular
case, this is where it crosses over to the Hazards and
Safety, or as Ms. Armer suggested, it crosses over to the
visual character of the Town, so we’re looking at these in
isolation, but it’s important for us to remember as we go
through this process that the General Plan is a really much
larger picture, and the decisions we’re making, or the
recommendations we’re making, regarding any one of these
elements need to hang together with the other elements, and
so this is one that was really a very robust discussion
over wildland safety, wildfire, and so on, and that was
really the predominant element when it came to discussing
this particular piece of the Land Use Element. So I just
wanted to point out that we want to make this document as
internally consistent as we possibly can, and this is one
of the examples where it really is.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And that was another good thing
to bring up too about the open space. The open spaces that
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the Town is responsible for are all in the hillsides, and
so when everything added up it didn’t make sense.
Now, I did want to add one thing before we get to
the numbers. There was a lot of discussion in the public
domain about the difference between the 3,738 number and
the 3,904 number. I might be off a little on the numbers,
but the difference being the hillsides, and there is a
number in there that says there could be up to 166 hillside
units, but it’s not as a result of any policy that’s
recommended in the General Plan.
That’s simply the fact that people do own land
there and we consistently are still getting proposals from
people that want to subdivide their 22 acres and build ten
new homes, and when they come to the CDAC unilaterally
every response has always been that’s not a great idea, and
a hundred neighbors come out and say that’s not a good
idea, but nonetheless there will be some growth in the
hillsides whether we encourage it or not simply by the
virtue of people that own land that have a right to build
on it and the zoning says HR-1 or 2.5 or whatever the case
may be.
Anyone else have comments on that? Like I said,
we’re not making a decision at this point. I just wanted to
make sure that we put these things on the table, and I
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think it will help when we are talking about any
adjustments we want to make to the build-out option.
So then 27, “Utilize maximum FAR only for non-
residential components of Mixed-Use project, because
housing will be limited by maximum density.”
I wanted to ask Staff a question about this. For
all my years on the Planning Commission we’ve always used
FAR, so this would be a departure from anything that we’ve
done in the past.
JENNIFER ARMER: I will start with we have
treated Commercial in a couple of different ways, depending
on the land use designation or zoning.
For example, downtown there has been a floor area
ratio that’s been consistently used for the entire building
for Commercial, and that’s been in place for many years.
In other Commercial zones, rather than an FAR,
which is the floor area ratio, ratio of the floor area of
the building to the property size, there was a combination
of a height limit and a lot coverage. So if you have a
height limit of 35’ and you’re talking about an office
building, it’s really only going to be two stories, and if
you have a 50% lot coverage, then that is actually
effectively the same as an FAR of 1.0, because you could do
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levels at 50% and you get 100% of the lot area in terms of
floor area.
It’s a little bit of kind of playing around with
how to implement these, and one of the reasons to consider
floor area rather than just lot coverage and height is that
it does really look a little more at the massing of the
building and gives some flexibility of how that building
might be designed, depending on the layout of the site and
the proposed uses, but there are different ways of using
these different tools handled by different communities, and
it looks like Director Paulson has something to add.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Ms. Armer. She
explained kind of the existing rules. Typically we’re
looking at density, and if you have three or more units FAR
generally doesn’t apply, but because we were increasing
FAR—and the GPAC members will remember this fondly—we had
conversations constantly about density versus intensity, so
this was intended to capture that intensity component from
a total square footage standpoint.
So if someone was proposing a Mixed-Use building,
not only would we be counting the Commercial on the ground
floor, but we’d be limiting to some effects the Residential
up above, which for instance, one hypothetical is they want
to go to the maximum density, which generally is going to
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mean smaller units, so it’s kind of balancing the density
versus intensity, and that’s why it’s written as it is
currently.
To Ms. Armer’s point, that really gets to also I
think ultimately trying to deal with if we only use it for
the Commercial component someone could just develop
Commercial and not have Residential. They’re not required
to be Residential in many of the designations, so then you
end up with potentially a much larger, much more square
footage for a Commercial building not having the
Residential component.
So that’s kind of another way to hopefully, as we
implement it through zoning code or other mechanisms,
again, incentivizing the development of Mixed-Use, which is
a big component of the General Plan, so that we do get some
of these sites containing Residential and Commercial. I
think Ms. Armer might have some additional comment.
JENNIFER ARMER: I just did want to add one
additional thought in response to the comment that Director
Paulson shared about density versus intensity, and a
comment earlier from Commissioner Janoff about how
increases in height, or also increases in floor area for
example here, might be a component of some incentive
programs that might be discussed by the Housing Element
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that if you build additional housing that additional floor
area might be a possibility, and I think that is a
component of some of the public comment that we’ve received
related to this discussion of intensity versus density,
that if you’re going to allow additional intensity that it
really should be tied to building more housing, since
that’s our goal. So I think that’s another component to
consider, whether those might be tied in future discussions
of how to incentivize and encourage additional housing.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Staff recommended neutral on this,
so my response as a member of the Housing Element Advisory
Board would be I would only want to go in that direction if
it was going to be an inhibiting factor for developers to
want to build Mixed-Use. As long as the FAR is high enough
I’m not sure that… And it seems like from our perspective
FAR is a useful tool for controlling intensity, and then we
have density and the interplay of those two things. So I
didn’t hear any reason to not use FAR unless developers
were telling us we can’t live using FAR at all when we’re
building a Mixed-Use Commercial. I don't know what other
people think, but that was kind of what I heard.
No comments, so I guess you all agree. Okay,
we’ll go on.
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Number 28 was, “Change development rules to
increase construction of diverse housing types, including
greater density, higher height limits, lower parking
requirements, more transit and connection to light rail.”
I’m not sure what that means in terms of
modifying the General Plan. Does Staff have any thoughts
about this?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. I would say that we
are doing some of that with the policies and changes that
are proposed in the Draft 2040 General Plan. I would say
that this comment is probably encouraging the Planning
Commission and Town Council to consider going farther in
some of those areas. Without specific recommendations, we
shared that general comment just to make sure that there
was that voice, since that is part of the public comment
that was received.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And you did make a comment
earlier on one of the other points that we could consider
higher this or that than what is already proposed in the
General Plan.
I’m going to take Commissioner Thomas’ comment,
but it seems like number 20 doesn’t really give us any
direction in terms of how we should modify the plan unless
someone is saying I wish the FAR was 4 instead of 3.
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They’re not saying what form it would take beyond what
we’ve already recommended.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: In general I support these
ideas, because I think that they are important for covering
a lot of the policies in the General Plan, like a lot of
the goals that we’re trying to reach for our community, but
I wasn’t really sure where it would be put or how it would
change, so that’s really what my comment was.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think we can kind of save 28
for when we actually talk about the numbers and then see if
people… They know Commissioners have a reaction to is
number enough? Do we need to do more based on what we know
today, which might not be everything?
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Again, I think 28, 29, and
30 all speak to the kind of detail that we need to get to
in the Housing Element. They’re all about housing. We’ve
provided the framework in the General Plan to allow for,
and I would just advocate that we allow the Housing Element
to provide the exceptions or the incentives for high or
higher density.
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As Commissioner Thomas said, and I completely
agree with, these are great ideas but it’s not in this part
of the General Plan where they belong, in my opinion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you’re saying you wouldn’t
even address this in the General Plan, you’d save it for
the Housing Element.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, it’s a real detailed
and housing-specific kind of comment on 28. Number 29 is,
“Allow Mixed-Use in High-Density.” Well, we’ve talked a lot
about Mixed-Use and how feasible that is in High-Density,
whether it’s buildable, whether builders build it, that
kind of thing. What it all boils down to, as other
Commissioners have said, is how are we going to get the
housing that we need, and to me these three items, as well
as others, are great incentives, but those details could be
fleshed out in the… Keep this, but move it to the Housing
Element.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I was only wondering about 29.
I’m going to ask Staff. Because there is a permitted uses
table for every land use designation in the General Plan. I
thought we allowed Mixed-Use in High-Density Residential,
but maybe we don’t.
JENNIFER ARMER: No, the Residential designations
do not allow any Commercial.
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CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, and we made a conscious
decision not to do that, so that might be worth discussing
either as part of our recommendation or deferring it to the
Housing Element, but if we didn’t allow it in the General
Plan it would be hard to do it in the Housing Element.
We can think more about that, but I’m going to
take Commissioner Clark’s comment.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Yeah, Chair
Hanssen, your comment that you just made kind of gets at my
question, which is I completely agree with what
Commissioner Janoff said. I think that these conversations
really are best held in the Housing Element Advisory Board
where there is a large group of experts and they’re having
those conversations, but then what is the rule of the
General Plan when we understand that that’s where these
conversations will exist? Is it really important that make
sure all of these ideas that we think are good will be
possible, or do we understand that they might need to go in
and make some changes to the decisions that will be made on
the General Plan?
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to ask Staff to comment
on that one as well so that I know we’re looking the right
way about it. Director Paulson.
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JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Ultimately, as
we go through the Housing Element we’re going to hopefully
get a General Plan adopted, then we’re going to look at the
Housing Element for those land use designations and see
what number we can get to. There is a chance for one or
more sites, or even designations. If we’re not getting to
the numbers, or HCD is not agreeing with all the sites that
we selected, so we have to come up with other ideas, there
may be implementation programs that have to be added. The
hope is that that will be a minimal number of modifications
that would be subsequent changes to the General Plan.
I think specifically 29; in rereading it I
probably should have said this in the beginning. We’re all
interpreting the public’s comments, which we may or may not
be getting 100% right, so if any of these we’re getting
wrong, please feel free to submit additional written
comments.
Looking at 29, we have very limited High-Density
Residential land use designations, and so I actually in
hindsight would say Staff would not recommend 29. Those are
traditional High-Density—from the Town’s perspective—multi-
family apartment buildings and things like that. We do have
High-Density Residential built into some of our Commercial,
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the Mixed-Use specifically, so I just want to provide some
of that context as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I think what you’re saying is if
we want to have High-Density Mixed-Use we should have that
Mixed-Use designation, not modify High-Density Residential.
JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So you’re going to change your
recommendation on 29 to not recommend it for the reasons we
just discussed. Okay, got it. That helps, and that
clarifies kind of what we were discussing when we went
through the General Plan.
I think we’ve covered actually 28, 29, and 30
unless people have other comments.
On number 30, I’m going to go with what
Commissioner Janoff was saying, which is that it might be a
good tool for the Housing Element, but we may not want to
go and create like artificially high General Plan limits
when we could use it as a technique to motivate people to
do affordable housing. We can have that discussion more
when we’re talking about the land use build-out table and
the standards, but right now we’ve gone up to 45’, as Ms.
Armer noted, to match downtown. It might be necessary to go
higher, but we probably don’t need to decide that just yet,
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and we can decide what form it will take when we make our
actual recommendation.
But if people have comments about it, I would
like to hear anyone’s thoughts about it. Okay, I don’t hear
anything else. No hands are raised.
I did want to talk about number 31 in spite of
the fact that maybe it is more of a Housing Element
discussion, but 31 is, “Reducing the maximum allowed floor
area ratio in the Central Business District from 2 to
1.25.” Staff, is it 1.25 in the 2020 General Plan?
JENNIFER ARMER: No, at the moment I believe the
current regulations are .6 for downtown.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Oh, so it’s even less than that.
So putting more housing in downtown, as you’ve seen from
the comments, has been fairly controversial, but I will
share this, that the GPAC, in talking through the thing, it
was a combination of no area should be immune, and
especially we can for the most part rely on our objective
standards to make sure that things fit in the neighborhood.
Then we also had the discussion on Thursday at
the Housing Element Advisory Board as we started going
through the proposed site inventory that there are several
potential sites that housing could be build in downtown.
One, for example, is the post office, and there was a very
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long comment made by Vice Mayor Ristow about how the post
office is really not the best use for downtown and that it
could turn into a really beautiful property with a smaller
post office, you could get more housing, it would fit right
in, so there are definitely people on very polarized sides
of the issue. The Town Council did vote, when we went over
the land use alternatives, to incorporate the Central
Business District having additional housing. Then the only
question would be how much?
But that’s part of this thing with the floor area
ratios, where that all came from, so I would be interested
if people had thoughts, and we’ll have to end up having the
discussion, when we talk about numbers, about whether and
how much there should be in the downtown. No comments.
Okay, I’ll defer to when we talk about the numbers.
Let’s see, there were several comments about the
North Forty, and the general response that was given, and
some of this was in the EIR, some of it was in other
places, but the developers of the North Forty, it’s my
understanding the Specific Plan that governs the North
Forty is separate from the General Plan, but it’s not in
conflict with it, and it has standards for how much can be
built, and because there’s the potential of additional
housing—and Staff, jump in if I’m getting it wrong—that the
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developers can enter into a development agreement with the
Town to build more housing, which would supersede the
limited amount of housing that they’re able to in the North
20. Did I get that right?
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I think you got that pretty
right. One of the things that I would add is that because
the two Specific Plans that we have in Town are included in
the General Plan, both as the zoning designation and the
General Plan designation, it’s there in place of another
designation that might have been there previously, and so
it does kind of defer to the rules that are in that plan.
It looks like Director Paulson has something to add.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Ms. Armer, Chair.
Ultimately, yes, I think most folks are aware
there are a very limited number of units left from what’s
currently allocated in the North Forty Specific Plan, 33
units. There’s been a lot of talk about the potential for
additional units out there. There are multiple paths.
You mentioned one, which the development
agreement, which would probably have to be coupled with a
Planned Development, which is also the other minor change
that was made in the Specific Plan.
The other probably more appropriate option would
be to do a Specific Plan Amendment to increase that number.
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The current General Plan looked at far more units
and they were ultimately approved out there. I believe the
number in the EIR was 750 units for the North Forty, so
there’s some capacity there from an environmental clearance
perspective potentially, but should the Commission think
that more units should go out there, those of you on CDAC
saw a CDAC application that would have more units, which
Staff at that time said would require a Specific Plan, but
as you mentioned, there is the Planned Development
development agreement option that may also be possible, but
if it’s the interest of the Planning Commission from a
recommendation standpoint that that number should be
increased in the Specific Plan or through another
mechanism, I think that would be great input for Council.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Then I think that is something
that we should discuss. What I understand from Staff’s
perspective is that the modification wouldn't happen in the
General Plan, it would happen in the Specific Plan, because
the Specific Plan has all the objective standards of how we
would do the North Forty, and so the right way to go about
adding more housing would be to modify the Specific Plan.
JOEL PAULSON: I think what we probably would
recommend would be ultimately an implementation program
that says modify the Specific Plan to increase the number
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of housing units. For instance, on the Boulevard, which is
a Mixed-Use designation, the current Draft General Plan is
going up to 40 units per acre. The current Specific Plan is
at 20 units per acre, which is the existing General Plan
designation for Mixed-Use, so that could be part of the
conversation as well.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, so probably an
important thing that we should resolve before we finish
recommending any changes to the Land Use Element is whether
or not we would recommend to modify the Specific Plan to
add more housing.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, thank you. I’m in
favor of modifying the Specific Plan to include more
housing (inaudible) since the EIR for the North Forty would
accommodate additional housing, and it’s also one of the
areas that’s probably on the Housing Element Advisory
Board’s site selection list, so we’re already thinking of
it in terms of providing additional housing, so it makes
sense to me that we open it up to that possibility. It may
not go there, but at least it gives us the option, and I
think that makes sense.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s good. Commissioner Raspe.
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COMMISSIONER RASPE: Just to air the contrary
view, my only concern is those units are just coming online
now, and so we really don’t have a full sense of their
impact on this community, and so I’d like to have a further
discussion of what the impact of those additional units
might be to infrastructure, all those areas that various
commentators raised as part of that discussion. I think
that would be valuable. Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That was a good thing to bring
up. I would just point out what Director Paulson said, when
the North Forty phase one application was approved the EIR
was studied for the capacity of 750 units, a much bigger
number than the 320 units that we have.
The Environmental Impact Report looks at
transportation, air quality, all those impacts, and
although I remember that there was significant unavoidable
impacts primarily in transportation, there was something in
the order of $10-12 million dollars of mitigation that was
paid for by the developers to alleviate and that reduce the
impact somewhat, although it was still significant. Did I
get that right, Staff? So I’m not sure if studying the
thing further would have any impact if we already studied
it for 750 units.
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Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner
Janoff.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I understand Commissioner
Raspe’s concerns and I think that we should be very
thorough, but I assume that if there were any major changes
to the plan and then there was actually development that
would happen, we would have to do a very thorough analysis
of the impacts, so I don't know if that’s kind of doing an
analysis now before changing, if that’s putting the cart
before the horse or not, but I might not be fully
understanding the situation.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to put that back to
Staff. Supposing that we modify the Specific Plan to allow
what was proposed in the CDAC hearing, I don’t remember,
was it 300 more units or something? Right now they’re only
allowed to do about I think 30 more units, because the
whole idea of the original Specific Plan was most of the
housing would be in the southern part and then as you move
north you would have more Commercial, and so in the
original Specific Plan they were only allowed to do
Residential over Commercial and not on a standalone basis,
but it’s been moving in the direction of more. Do we need
to redo the EIR if the Town ends up going in that
direction?
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JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. The answer to that
question is maybe. We would evaluate that when we received
an application and look at whether or not we would have the
ability to rely on the Specific Plan EIR or whether
additional environmental review would be required. The big
picture question at the General Plan level is do we think
we should consider more units at this stage for the
Planning Commission, and then we would go through the
appropriate processes should we get applications for the
site.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So it depends. All right,
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I wanted to add
that as we go through the process through the Housing
Element Advisory Board we’re mindful of the big concern
that too much development occurs in an areas that’s already
overloaded, and that’s a consideration at the element
level. We’re at the General Plan level, which says where
might development possibly happen? We’re not saying it
will, and certainly it wouldn’t be North Forty, Los Gatos
Boulevard. We just couldn’t support that and HCD probably
wouldn’t certify that.
So again, we’re at a high level here with the
General Plan thinking we’ve got areas in Town that could be
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developed and it could be beneficial for the Town, we just
need to be able to have the ability to look at those areas
or consider development or not, and I think because our
numbers are so high, it’s beneficial to have more areas to
consider than not to help us hopefully get to where we need
to be. I just wanted to remind everyone that we’re not
saying it’s going to happen, we’re just providing for these
are potential areas that could work if we loosen some of
the bounds that are in place right now.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I would also note, some of you
guys are on the CDAC, I’ve listened in to the CDAC hearing
where Harmony and Park Development and those guys were
presenting their ideas for developing the North Forty, and
the Los Gatos Community Alliance has been very vocal about
limiting the amount of housing in Town and being
conservative. They were all for putting more housing in the
North Forty. You can ask what are all the reasons for that,
but the fact was that that was a big thing, and I’m going
to concur with what Commissioner Janoff said, which is that
we probably shouldn’t eliminate any options unless there’s
a really good reason for doing it, especially when we had
to come up with that much housing.
In the Balancing Act tool that’s out in the
public right now the North Forty is a place where housing
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could be put in terms of the draft site inventory, so we
don’t have to make a recommendation right now, but there
are definitely reasons to consider it.
Let’s see, let’s keep going and see if we can at
least get through the recommended changes.
Number 33 and number 34 are just wording changes
to the existing policies.
Number 33 is adding the word “environment” to
having to evaluate projects that have mitigation measures
with things on the list, which they’re adding the
environment to this. It says, “Urban services, wildfire
risk, including utilities, police, and fire.”
Then the second one, 34, is to add the words
“migration” and “biological corridors” when we’re trying
to, “Ensure that housing in the hillside will not adversely
impact the natural environment.”
So the question for Staff is you said you were
neutral to adding the word “environment” to that policy
statement in LU-3.2. Since we already have CEQA, what would
be the benefit of adding the word “environment” to that
policy?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. I would say that we
labeled this one and the next as neutral because that is
covered elsewhere and through CEQA, that it’s not a problem
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to add that additional language to those two policies. We
haven’t identified a significant problem with that, but
generally the sense is that it is covered either here in
other locations in the document or CEQA.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So that’s why you’re neutral, it
doesn’t really materially change anything one way or the
other to have it in there. Then I assume that “migration”
and “biological corridors” as in adding that to number 34
is in the same category from Staff’s perspective?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. Does anyone have a feeling
about is it important to add it or is it worth it?
Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I would be in favor of both
of the additions for number 33. I feel like the public
feels like that is important to have in there and I’m
perfectly happy to put it in.
And for number 34, I actually think that that
increases consistent within the General Plan just because
we’ve discussed some other areas that talk about wildlife
corridors.
CHAIR HANSSEN: I hate to belabor this point, but
since I heard all the people testify in the hillsides when
we did the Fence Ordinance, in 34 it says, “Ensure the
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housing in the hillsides will not adversely impact the
natural environment,” then adding “migration” and
“biological corridors,” so it’s probably redundant to the
natural environment, but given what was said and some of
the testimony we got from people in the hillsides, would we
have to add like a checklist once that wildlife corridor
study is done and when people are trying to build and say
well you can’t build there? That would basically be
included in the idea of the Least Restrictive Development
Area, because it impacts a wildlife corridor. I don’t think
we know yet, but I’m just asking the question in terms of
where would this go?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’d expect that if we do a
wildlife corridor study that that would result in some
specific recommendations, that we would be looking at how
that study then might be implemented and that that would go
through discussion with the Planning Commission and Town
Council as to what components of that might be, say, added
to the Hillside Design Standards and Guidelines as a new
map or specific restrictions that would be part of the
follow up discussion to doing that study.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, fair enough. And by the
way, for the rest of the Commission, I’m not opposed to
adding those words; I just wanted to make sure I asked some
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devil’s advocate questions about it. So what I heard is
it’s really premature because we haven’t done the wildlife
study, and then there would have to be recommendations that
came out of that, and so there’s nothing to be concerned
about adding those words.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I was just going to second
Commissioner Clark’s comments that if the public felt like
they wanted to add these in and Staff doesn’t oppose it
that we should include them, because I do think it creates
some consistency in a way that it’s not redundant, but I
think that they’re fine to include.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds good. I’m going to
suggest that we don’t need to talk about 35 or 36, because
they’re both in the same genre of what we talked about with
the North Forty, which are the special planning areas. If
it’s just a clarification thing, I would have no problem
adding it, but if it’s going to be to modify the General
Plan substantially to change anything that the place to do
that is in the Specific Plan so that it’s not out of
consistency with the General Plan, so that was my
recommendation.
Just so everyone who wasn’t on the General Plan
Committee knows, we were very specific as we went through
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the entire process that whenever there were wording changes
that didn’t impact the meaning of the General Plan we would
have Staff unilaterally accept them and we didn’t need to
talk about them, because there was hundreds and hundreds of
pages and English and grammar that we don’t have to worry
too much about as long as it doesn’t change the intent.
So I’m just going to say we don’t have to talk
about 35 or 36 unless Staff feels differently.
Number 37 is another clarification thing. It’s to
add the Town is facilitating discussions for residents and
stakeholders, and someone wanted to add other local
governments input into planning activities early on and
through the development process, which seems like an easy
add. I would hope we would be talking to local governments
anyway. I don’t think it creates any conflict, and Staff
was neutral.
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I, personally,
when I saw this kind of thought what would this actually
look like and how important is it to specifically include
local governments at all of these points? Especially I
think the goal really is to reach the general public, and
so first I don’t think that we need it, but second, I would
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definitely want a better idea of how we would even go about
doing this if we were going to add this.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Actually, you raise a really good
issue. If the development wasn’t anywhere near a Town
border, then why would we involve other governments? And
stakeholder could be broadly defined to include local
government, especially if it was near a border.
Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I’d be interested to hear
from Staff why they’re neutral on this point, because it
does seem to be overly broad.
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you. From Staff’s
standpoint, “stakeholders” is the broad term, so that would
be a member of the public and any other local governments
if they were in the vicinity. We do that as a matter of
course. We have other projects where if it’s over a certain
number of units, then we also make sure we reach out to
school districts and other groups, so from our standpoint
stakeholders covers a broad enough range from a General
Plan perspective, but we’re neutral if the Commission
thinks it’s important to add other local governments.
I think what happens with a lot of these, and we
have these discussions at the GPAC, is once you start
adding one group, then do we need to add NGOs, CBOs, all
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these other groups potentially? From Staff’s standpoint
stakeholders covers it, but if the Commission is interested
in adding additional qualifiers it’s not going to be an
impact from our perspective.
CHAIR HANSSEN: And number 38 is similar, about
coordinating with public agency stakeholders such as Midpen
specifically mentioned in this thing. That probably came
from the Midpen, I don't know. What I’m hearing is maybe
keep it more general, because if you start naming specific
agencies, what if they change, and what if you left out
somebody that you shouldn’t have, and we would always want
to reach out to everyone that was significantly impacted by
any development that we did to make sure that we had a
conversation going on about it.
I would say we haven’t made a recommendation yet,
but we could probably just not make any changes per 37 and
38 and it wouldn’t hurt anyone and it would still be
covered.
Then number 39, I wasn’t sure where that was
going and were we not doing enough to communicate with the
public. I wasn’t sure what the change was, because there
was nothing underlined. Does Staff know where this comment
came from, because there was things that were suggested
that was more than what we were doing?
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JENNIFER ARMER: If we look at what the existing
language is for policy LU-20.4, it’s talking about variety
of public communication methods and it says that, “The Town
shall continue to share public information across a variety
of media, technology, and traditional platforms based upon
the demographics of the community,” and so in looking at
this I think it mostly wants to make sure there are
specific examples of what would be included within that
policy rather than keeping it general. I’ll also search and
see if I can find whom that came from specifically.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Several people have their hands
up. I think Commissioner Janoff, and then Commissioner
Raspe, and then Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: The way I read this is
really traditional methods, like I don’t have a computer
and I’m not connected to the Internet, so how am I going to
get informed? As we go to the digital means of
communication, those who don’t have access may feel that
they’re being left out, so that’s how I read it.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s good, because you look at
something and you’re like where did this come from, and so
that makes sense.
Commissioner Raspe.
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COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I read it
the same way as Commissioner Janoff that we were perhaps
missing important segments of our population that aren’t
exposed to electronic media. Specifically by way of example
there were several comments that I think we could put in
the no growth category, and I think if perhaps those
individuals had a better understanding of, for instance, SB
35, some of the limitations that are placed upon the Town
that really dictate this entire process, I think that would
be helpful for the entire community and the Planning
Commission and Town Council as well, so I think any effort
that captures more of the community I think only serves to
enrich the entire process.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds great. Commissioner
Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I actually have a
couple of problems with number 39.
First, LU-20.4 already does say traditional
platforms, and so it’s not like this is currently excluded.
I think it is just specifying for this one and not the
others, which I also think could be a problem.
Another thought that I definitely have is that
this method is bad for the environment compared to other
ones, and if we’re talking about a 20-year General Plan I’d
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like to think that we’re able to find more creative ways to
engage at some point, and since the language says,
“traditional platforms based upon the demographics of the
community,” I think that that does get at the fact that we
want to make sure that we’re using outreach methods that
will ensure everyone is reached, and maybe in 20 years
everyone has a computer or something, so I don’t think that
it’s super wise to include these specifics in the General
Plan.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s very good additional input
on the other side of thing, and that’s where this General
Plan discussion is sort of like how far do you go? If it
says traditional, is it enough, or do you need to have
more?
Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I wanted to agree with
Commissioner Clark on this particular matter. I think that
the existing LU-20.4 is broad enough. We keep talking about
keeping the General Plan at a high level, and I think this
is really getting down into the weeds.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, I think that’s good
for now, and then when we get to the point where we’re
ready to make the recommendation on the entire Land Use
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Element someone can make a motion about just leaving out 39
or whether to add it in any form.
Then number 40, I’m going to add it in the same
bucket as the North Forty. Number 40 says to, “Modify the
North Forty Specific Plan to allow up to 40 dwelling units
per acre to be consistent with the Mixed-Use land use
designation on Los Gatos Boulevard.”
We can certainly include modify the Specific
Plan. I’m going to ask Staff a question though when we get
to talking about numbers and specific recommendations. Were
you hoping that the Planning Commission would make a
recommendation like that specific about what density?
JENNIFER ARMER: I would start by saying that we
did say neutral for a reason, that really moving forward
with additional housing in the North Forty area is going to
be a separate process, but as Director Paulson stated, if
there is an inclination from the Planning Commission based
on your discussions, if that is something that you think
would be worthwhile and that you do want to recommend and
support, that that is a discussion point that we could
bring forward to Town Council.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So it’s probably worth being
somewhat specific about it, but we don’t have to decide it
right now.
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We did get through all of the recommended changes
to the Land Use Element except for number 20, which would
be to talk about whether or not we should modify the number
of new housing units.
Now it is 10:54. We certainly aren’t going to be
able to finish everything tonight, but we could decide to
vote to move forward to 11:30, or we could vote to stop and
then take up the discussion of the numbers and the
Community Design Element and then the final recommendations
on that EIR, so those are the options that we have right
now.
I’m going to ask Staff, I think because of our
agenda we do have to have the report from the Community
Development Director and subcommittee reports and the
normal stuff for our meetings, is that correct?
JENNIFER ARMER: I don’t believe we need to have
those. I guess I could check and see. It could just have
been our standard agenda since those will be taken care of
on Wednesday. Mr. Paulson.
JOEL PAULSON: I would say yeah, we probably
could have struck those from this agenda since we’re going
to be meeting Wednesday anyway. Obviously, you guys have
been going at this for just shy of four hours. This next
topic is going to probably engender a lot of discussion, so
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I’m not sure if it would be good to start it if you don’t
think you’re going to finish it, but that’s my personal
opinion, and ultimately it’s up to the Commission.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff, you had a
comment?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I agree, I don’t think that
we’re likely to get finished with the Land Use Element
tonight, but if it’s possible I think it would be very
beneficial for the Commission to have a framework for how
you would like to carry the discussion forward, so if it’s
a table that you have in mind that we’re going to do number
adjustments, help us understand the structure of the logic
that you want to go through so that we can be prepared to
think through those numbers and the rationale for any
changes or no changes.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. I can tell
you what I had in mind was I’m going to go to page 14 of
the Staff Report that came on April 15th in which discussion
they took the 3,738 number that was out in the public
domain and was the subject of a lot of press, mostly
negative, for doubling our RHNA housing numbers, and
although Staff has continued to explain that, that’s still
pretty controversial.
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They went further than that on page 6 and talked
about if you adjusted it for the fact that the General Plan
is 20 years versus the Housing Element being on an eight-
year time cycle, that we were down to 3,038 units because
of existing projects and the accessory dwelling units that
would built after.
And they said specifically therefore if you
consider the 1,993 times of 15% buffer of 2,292 units,
comparing that to 3,038 in theory we are 746 housing units
greater than the expected need for the Housing Element if
you took it to the minimum.
That is followed by some potential reductions in
housing development capacity that were suggested by Staff
after the result of the meeting that they had with Town
Council back in December where they talked about potential
directions where to go, and the Town Council is not telling
us to reduce the number, they’re just saying that if we
thought it was recommended to reduce the number, then these
are some ways that could do it.
So my idea about doing that was if you look at
number 20 on Exhibit 7, it says, A) No increase in housing
levels. These are possible modifications; B) Reduce the
number of new housing units to a lower, less ambitious
target; C) Reduce new housing units to 1,993, which is the
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exact amount of our RHNA, and remember we’re doing the
General Plan, not the Housing Element; and D) Reduce the
number of new housing units to 1,993 plus a 15-20% buffer.
The place we have to kind of start is I think
number 20, which is can we rule out a couple of those
options, and there is actually Option E that’s not on here,
which would be to leave it exactly as it is.
So that’s where I’d ask you guys to start for
when we do our next meeting and think about what are your
responses to A, B, C, D, and E, and then we can talk about
if the desire is to modify the housing numbers and make
them lower what are the best ways to do that, and I think
that will be a good discussion. Does that give you enough
structure, Commissioner Janoff, in terms of what I was
thinking of?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: (Thumbs up.)
CHAIR HANSSEN: Does that help you guys in terms
of thinking about it for when we continue the discussion?
Okay. Are there questions that you have about how we should
go about this, or suggestions that you would like to make
before we set the date for continuing the discussion?
Commissioner Clark.
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just want to quickly make
a motion to extend the meeting to no later than 11:30,
assuming that we’ll end much earlier than that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s right, because we have to
do that. Thank you. Second? Commissioner Thomas has a
second. I will just do a quick roll call vote. Commissioner
Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: 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.
And as Commissioner Clark suggested, we aren’t
going to go nearly that long, but this would be a good time
to help kind of frame things and ask questions that would
help set us up for success when we continue the meeting so
that we can finish the next meeting.
Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner Raspe.
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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I know that we don’t want
to get into a discussion of everything in detail, but I am
just a little bit curious to hear some of the
Commissioner’s general thoughts on these ideas about where
they’re coming from so that we could kind of like take that
away with us and process it over the next couple of days. I
don’t have any new information, but I know that this is an
important discussion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Here’s a suggestion I have. Why
don’t we take a read on everyone’s feedback on number 20,
and adding in option E that’s not on there, which is not
changing the numbers at all, and see where everyone’s
initial read is on it, and then we’ll have a more in depth
discussion about whether we go in that direction and to
what extent in the follow up meeting.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that would be
helpful to me, because I just have no idea where everyone
else is. I don’t mind going first.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: As a member of the GPAC who
already approved this, and understanding the full extent of
the entire situation and what Staff has provided with us, I
do not support A, B, C, or D. I don’t think we should
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modify. I think we should go with the original number in
the Draft 2040 Plan.
CHAIR HANSSEN: So my suggestion of adding E,
which is not modifying what’s in the draft right now.
Commissioner Raspe, you had your hand up but you
don’t have it up anymore.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: I don’t want to derail the
train of discussion, but I was just going to address a
procedural question. I think it’s clear we’re not going to
finish Land Use and/or address the Design Element tonight,
and we have a meeting scheduled Wednesday. I was curious—
and I think I know the answer to this—can we add this
discussion to that agenda, or is it too late because that
agenda has been published, or should we consider our next
meeting for this discussion? I don’t mean to interrupt; I
wanted to put that out there.
CHAIR HANSSEN: It’s a very good question. I will
hand it over to Staff, but I’m going to guess that because
the agenda is already out there we won’t be able to add it
to Wednesday’s discussion.
JENNIFER ARMER: Actually, Staff recommendation
was going to be you continue to a date certain of the 27th
and we would just add it on as an additional item after the
existing items that are already on the agenda, so it would
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be continued, and it would be Item 4, I believe. Director
Paulson.
JOEL PAULSON: We did consult with the Town
Attorney. We would just do an amended agenda tomorrow,
given the timeframe, and we get that posted.
CHAIR HANSSEN: We can do that after we finish
the question that on the table in terms of recommending the
date certain, right? But that is good to know, because as
your Chair I would rather do that than go to another
special meeting.
ROBERT SCHULTZ: Chair and Commissioners, the
Brown Act specifically allows you to continue a meeting
within five days of the meeting, and you can continue this
item to Wednesday. The Brown Act specifically allows you to
do that and then (inaudible). And then Staff will change
the agenda to reflect that tomorrow, but you’re allowed to
do that if you’re within five days of the continuance, so
you’re able to do that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: That is very, very good to know,
because the other advantage of doing it on Wednesday would
be it will be fresh in our minds and we can kind of pick up
from where we left off without a lot of interruption.
Would others like to comment on number 20, on
what general direction they’d like to go?
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Vice Chair Barnett.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I think it’s apparent from
my submission that I would go with D.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. I don't know if you all saw
Vice Chair Barnett’s submission, but he had a spreadsheet
with specific recommendations that he was advocating for.
Others? Commissioner Raspe.
COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I haven’t
had a chance to review Vice Chair Barnett’s submission yet,
but my thinking is largely similar to his in reducing it to
a less ambitious target, so I will look at his figures as
well as reducing it to the RHNA numbers plus a reasonable
buffer in the 15-20% range. That’s where my thinking is at
the moment, but to be fair to the Commission, I’m still
processing this information and so open to any discussion.
Thank you.
CHAIR HANSSEN: No, that’s fine. We’re just
weighing where we kind of stand right now, and then we’re
going to discuss it more, and then you may still feel the
same way or not after we get through it.
Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I’m of two
minds. I think as Commissioner Thomas said, it was quite a
bit of deliberation that went into the numbers. The actual
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number that was in the General Plan was a surprise to many
of us, because that wasn’t a number that we had seen.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t an unreasonable extrapolation from
the discussions that we had, and keeping in mind that the
General Plan is a 20-year plan and covers three housing
cycles.
In the worst case you could envision three
housing cycles that demand you to create 1,993 units in
each cycle, which puts you in the neighborhood of 6,000
units. That’s probably not going to happen, who knows? But
even if you step back and say we’re not likely to get a
zero housing RHNA number, so what we’ve had in the past is
somewhere in the neighborhood of 500-600, so then you have
2,000 from this cycle, 600 from the next cycle, and perhaps
another 600 from the next cycle, which gets you to
approximately 3,200 units.
I can understand the concern among the Town
residents that the number is too high, and there’s a
difference between planning for a high number and saying
that is the number that is going to be built, so that’s an
important distinction in my mind.
Having said that, I would recommend that we do B,
but probably with a more ambitious/less ambitious target
certainly than Vice Chair Barnett has proposed in his
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table, because I think we do need to be mindful of the
future cycles that will be under the umbrella of this
General Plan, should it get recommended and approved.
Having said that, if we’re going to review the
Land Use Element every five years and make adjustments as
needed to accommodate the trend of housing development
under the current cycle or what we see in the future cycle,
then I can see that we could have a less ambitious number
now, but then the Town would need to understand that it
could get ambitious later.
It’s kind of a question of managing expectations,
and I want to be sure that the Planning Commission and
whatever we recommended is really dead, dead clear on this
is this Housing Element, this is the next Housing Element,
and this is the next Housing Element. So we separate out
all of those pieces so residents can understand what those
numbers are tied to, what are being actionable, what’s
actionable in this cycle versus outlying cycles, and why
the General Plan needs to plan for more than just the
current RHNA cycle, so that’s my short explanation of why
I’m at a fat B.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that.
Commissioner Clark.
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COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Something that I
would like my fellow commissioners to consider before the
next meeting is how many units, not that you want the RHNA
number to be or anything like that, but how many units you
want to be built, because I think that the reality is that
that number is so big, because they’re not going to get
built. It is so hard to develop, and now matter how hard we
tried that’s not going to happen, especially just because
of the amount of time that it does take to build, and so I
think that I’m more in favor of keeping it a bigger number,
because that way we’re allowing for more opportunities for
development in hopes that we might actually meet our RHNA
number.
I think in terms of getting our Housing Element
through, we’ve seen the HCD is very, very strict as we
watched the Southern California cities go through review,
and I think something that would go a long way with them is
seeing that we are prepared for the capacity for more than
we were actually required to, because that makes it a lot
more likely that we actually reach our number, and that
makes it easier to get the Housing Element through as a
whole, because that I think will be one of the most highly
weighted aspects, and then after that there’s going to be
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like AF of H and the policies and the outreach and things
like that.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that.
So I’ll weigh in. This was mentioned a bit
earlier, but when we started this whole process of updating
the General Plan I remember sitting down with a couple of
Town Council members and I said, “Well, if we’re going to
go through this process of trying to manage our growth
kicking and screaming, instead of trying to take the reins
and grow in the way that we’d like to grow, and that’s
hopefully in concert with what is expected by the state, I
would much prefer to be with that kind of process where
we’re not kicking and screaming.
I’ve never been a fan of doing the absolute
minimum and fighting everything every step of the way,
because we have to be thinking that we’re in the role of
planning for the future, and it was obvious at the
beginning of the General Plan process that we’re not
building the kind of housing that is going to be right for
the kind of population that we’re going to have going
forward.
I’m not even considering talking about a lot of
people that don’t live in Town now, which we do need to
think about, but just the seniors that want to go to move-
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down housing, of which there’s none. There is senior member
care and things like that, but there’s no move-down housing
for seniors or for our youth. I have college age kids that
are getting out of collage and they can’t afford to live
here, and we don’t have the kind of housing that they can
do either. Instead, we’re building 6,000 square foot houses
with 4,000 square foot faces that cost $4-5 million dollars
that they won’t be able to afford for decades, if ever. So
I’m definitely of the mind that we need to build a lot more
smaller units.
Getting back to the number, when we started the
General Plan process we didn’t know what the RHNA was. We
talked about 2,000 units and it was big number, but we were
looking at 20 years, and then as it turned out that became
our RHNA, and then so when we were doing the General Plan
we said since we already are at 2,000 units, do we need to
think about planning for even more so we’d be covered, but
now that we’re talking about updating the Land Use Element,
I don’t feel as big about that.
So getting back to the actual recommendation, I’m
sympathetic to all the concerns, and people are terrified
in Town, and I too am a resident of the Town, and I think
we have to worry about managing growth and growing in the
right way, so I think that it would be prudent to think
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about making some kind of reduction from the almost 4,000
number, even though we’re looking at a 20-year timeframe,
and bringing it back to something.
But if you consider, I’ll just give D, for
example, reducing the number of new housing units to 1,993
plus a 15-20% buffer, even that number isn’t going to work,
because just taking ADUs, for example, we have projected 25
ADUs per year for so many years, and then there’s 300 more
ADUs that we expect to get in the decade following the
Housing Element that’s coming up, and so there’s going to
be 300 more housing units that we have no control over
whatsoever that are already going to be part of that
process, so I’m definitely thinking it’s going to be a
number higher than 2,292, and then the question is what is
the right number?
I’m open to hearing what you guys think, but I’m
not keen on the idea of eliminating entire categories of
places where we could add additional housing. So that’s
kind of where I came out, but I’ll be interested to see
where we go with the discussion, and hopefully we can come
up with a good recommendation that will make sense for the
Town Council.
That being said, we don’t need to do the rest of
the meeting stuff, because we’re going to have our meeting
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on Wednesday, but we do need to make a motion to continue
this meeting to a date certain. Would one of you make that
motion for me?
Commissioner Clark.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I move to continue this
meeting to April 27th date certain. Should I include the
time?
CHAIR HANSSEN: No.
COMMISSIONER CLARK: That’s my motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, second? It looks like
Vice Chair Barnett has his hand up.
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, I’d be happy to second
the motion.
CHAIR HANSSEN: Then we will do a roll call vote.
Commissioner Thomas.
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: 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 that
passes.
I wanted to take a minute just to thank you all
for all your time and attention. It’s been a long meeting
and we’ve gotten through a lot of material, and I think
we’re in good shape to continue this and hopefully finish
the rest of what we need on Wednesday, but certainly we
should be able to finish Land Use and Community Design, and
then hopefully the EIR as well. So I thank you all for
that. We will see you in a couple of days, and this meeting
is adjourned.