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Attachment 52 - Part 1 Verbatim minutes from the February 3, 2015 Town Council MeetingA P P E A R A N C E S: Los Gatos Town Council: Community Development Director: Planning Manager: Town Attorney: Transcribed by: Marcia Jensen, Mayor Barbara Spector, Vice Mayor Steven Leonardis, Council Mem. Rob Rennie, Council Member Marico Sayoc, Council Member Laurel Prevetti Joel Paulson Robert Schultz Vicki L. Blandin (510) 337 -1558 ATTACHMENT 5 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 P R O C E E D I N G S: MAYOR JENSEN: We are going to move on to Item #6, which I'm just simply going to identify as the North 40. I will give a little preamble before we start, and that is that as all of you know who are interested in this item, it's been under discussion by the Town, with the Town, through the Town, for many years. It's going through the North 40 Advisory Committee, it's gone to Council a couple of times, it's gone through the Planning Commission, and after the Planning Commission it's come back to the Council a few times. One each occasion that I've cited there has been public input, public testimony and public hearing. At our last meeting on this in December we actually reopened the public hearing after it has been closed and certified the EIR, indicating that the EIR was sufficient under the law, that it met the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, and left any findings or any other required statements to be handled on a different day LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 2 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 depending on what, if any, specific plan ended up being adopted by the Council. Since that time that the public meeting has been closed the Council has continued to receive written input, emails from you, we've received Desk Items tonight. I'll just cite Los Gatos Community Alliance Desk Item, one from Ms. Quintana, one from the lawyers for the Yuki family, and numerous other input that we've received as Council members since our last meeting. So I want to assure everyone that the Council has certainly heard, understood, read and considered all of your input and we very much appreciate it, so we're going to proceed with a Council discussion tonight without public input. I have asked the staff to go through this discussion in a certain way, which I've actually shared with members of the Council, and hopefully the Staff is going to give us those points. We'll keep these bullets up along with, when it's appropriate, a page reference or chart reference so that members of the audience can follow and the Council can follow what our discussion is going to be. So if you look at the bullets that are up on the screen, that's how we intend to start. Ms. Prevetti, is there a Staff presentation? LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan R7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LAUREL PREVETTI: No, you've already acknowledged that Desk Item and addenda that are before you. The team is here, including Parks and Public Works Staff, economic vitality consultants, Joel Paulson has significant experience with the history of the program, Town Attorney and myself, so we're available as a resource as you continue your deliberations. Thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you, Ms. Prevetti. Before we start, let me ask the Council if there are questions for the Staff before we begin our discussion? I don't see any. Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: No question, but maybe we need to do disclosures from the last meeting. MAYOR JENSEN: Sure, let's go ahead. Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Since the last meeting I've met with Grosvenor and SummerHill, and I also had a meeting with several members of the Community Alliance. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Since the last meeting I've met with Don Capobres of Grosvenor, and the residents Lockridge, Quintana, Van Nada and Ristow of the Community Alliance. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: I will simply echo what the Vice Mayor said. I've also had those meetings with those people. I have discussed matters that tangentially relate to the North 40 with school board members, but that's it. Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor. I have met with representatives from Grosvenor, as well as SummerHill, as well as various members in the community. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Well, like others I've met with representatives from Grosvenor, SummerHill, Los Gatos Union School District, as well as many interested members of the community. MAYOR JENSEN: And I'm going to just state for everyone that we have read everything that we have been given regarding this project by email, letter or whatever other device we may have gotten it, and again, thank you. So Council, what I'd like to do is direct your attention to the bullets and /or the outline that you were provided for tonight, and what we're doing is starting from a top down approach with a discussion of the Specific Plan itself, whether or not that continues to be the right planning approach or tool for this project. So let's just LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 start with the discussion of the Specific Plan, if there's anything to discuss. Does anyone have any input regarding continued use of the notion of a specific plan? Okay, no one seems to have an objection to that. I'll just say for purposes of explanation for those who are in the audience and who may be watching, the General Plan calls for a specific plan, which is essentially a framework, an outline, that the Town develops and adopts for development of a particular property, in this case the North 40 Specific Plan area. It is not an application, it is an outline for what the Town would like to see for future development, and that's the direction that the Town has chosen to take in its General Plan. I'm just going to look for consensus. I guess raise hands of the Council for those who think that the Specific Plan continues to be what the Town should be doing. So I'm seeing a consensus for that. So we will move on to a discussion of the Vision Statement, and Mr. Paulson, if you could put that up so everybody can see what we're talking about. If you're following along and you happen to have your very own Specific Plan in your lap, it's that highlighted box on page 1.1. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan G 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The question for us to discuss for the Vision Statement is, those of you who have been following this project, it went through the North 40 Advisory Board for some time, and then the General Plan. It came to the Council, and the Grosvenor representative will know the exact date, I can't remember, but there was a time when the Council decided that what it needed to do was adopt a vision plan, or a Vision Statement, for the Specific Plan, and what you see on the board is the result. So my question for my fellow Council members is does this still reflect the vision that the City Council sees for this Specific Plan area? If it does, do we agree with it? Do we think there are changes that need to be made? Do we think that it needs to be clearer? I would look to the Council for any discussion of the Vision Statement. Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: What I'd like to do is point to the third, "The North 40 will address the Town's residential and /or commercial unmet needs." Given the history of where we were when this Vision Statement was created, the context and the environment of what we are now looking at has changed significantly. What I would like is to add at the end of that "and state requirements" so that LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 it would read, "The North 40 will address the Town's residential and /or commercial unmet needs and state housing requirements." MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, I'm going to make sure that we get this right for the record. The first time you said, "state requirements," the second time you said, "state housing requirements." COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Oh sorry, "state housing requirements." MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so you are looking for essentially a Housing Element statement on the mission. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Correct. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Anyone else? Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Actually, I'll just echo Councilwoman Sayoc. I was thinking exactly that. I would have stated in terms of try to meet our RHNA numbers with this, but the way she stated it sounds fine to me. MAYOR JENSEN: Anyone else on that point? Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Question of Staff. Let's put aside my personal opinion about RHNA numbers and how we may or may not meet them, but LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan El 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to the extent that we have a RHNA obligation and to the extent that housing may be constructed on the North 40 at some point in time, wouldn't those numbers count against our RHNA obligation? LAUREL PREVETTI: We are still in the process, as you know, of identifying how the Town would like to meet its regional housing needs allocation, or RHNA, number. We have identified a variety of adequate sites that the Housing Element Advisory Board is still considering and debating and no decision has been made. Once the board does identify those adequate sites, then those are the sites that we will be facilitating housing through a variety of programmatic elements. So that's the Housing Element where we're planning for housing. The work that you're doing here on the Specific Plan, and in the event that it is approved and ultimately housing is approved, then as we do our annual Housing Element Progress Report we would be able to acknowledge our progress towards meeting our Housing Element obligations. so it depends whether or not this site ends up being within our Housing Element and whether or not we'll be acknowledging any progress regardless, but if in fact it does become part of our Housing Element, we'll be LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 paying higher attention to whether or not it is providing housing. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Madam Mayor, if I might? I'm going to make it easier for myself. Let's say the RHNA numbers say we should have 600 new homes in Los Gatos, and let's say that the North 40 is not included in your Housing Element, but let's say 300 homes are built on the North 40, couldn't the 300 be subtracted from the 600 when we report out to the state? LAUREL PREVETTI: It will be, but it would be essentially extra capacity that the Town has created. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Let me just make a statement for any of you who on the off chance don't know what RHNA is. It's an acronym, Regional Housing Needs Assessment, and it's set by the Association of Bay Area Governments. It is • number of housing units that ABAG has determined through • criteria process that each community in the Bay Area must demonstrate that it can provide for affordable housing. So when you hear people say RHNA, that's what they mean. Councilman Leonardis, did you have any comment on the Vision Statement? LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 10 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Going back to what Ms. Prevetti said, could we potentially mandate that if this project were approved, and let's just say there were 364 units added, could we specifically state we want these 364 units to count toward our RHNA numbers? LAUREL PREVETTI: Yes. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie, before I call on you, I'm going to ask a question. At the Housing Element Advisory Board, and Mr. Schultz may want to answer this as well, the board has been discussing whether to include any residential units on the North 40 in our plan to meet state requirements. My question is if the Council were to specifically designate in the Vision Statement or elsewhere in the plan units towards the RHNA, would there be different development and review standards for those units than there might be under the normal Town processes of review? ROBERT SCHULTZ: Yes, under your housing, your RHNA numbers, once you designate those, and that's what we've talked about, you have by right, so it could potentially be different. Hopefully through your Specific Plan though you're going to have a Specific Plan that has LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 those guidelines that will give the developer or the property owner knowledge of exactly what you're looking for and the type of unit so that it's potentially possible that that project would go through though the same process of just A &S, a design guidelines review, to be approved also. I'm not sure if I'm quite answering it, but it certainly has a different requirement once you designate them as RHNA under your Housing Element. MAYOR JENSEN: I think you've answered it, but just to be absolutely clear that in the Specific Plan there were, for example, a hundred units designated as RHNA housing for purposes of our state requirements, then the review that the Town would make once an application came in for a hundred houses would be limited to determining whether it was in compliance with whatever was in the Specific Plan, but nothing else? No CEQA review, no traffic review, no height review, no nothing? ROBERT SCHULTZ: And that's possible without it being named as your RHNA numbers, and the end game is that they could come in with a hundred units and just go through the A &S process and be approved without any CEQA, because you've already done that CEQA through your Specific Plan. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1s 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: My comment question is along the same lines. My understanding is what we would need to do in the Specific Plan is designated as a minimum of 20 units per acre, which is I think what combination SummerHiil /Grosvenor /Eden's plan is already, then we could include that in our Housing Element and that would allow us to take some of the AHOZ off. My understanding is this would be superior to Los Gatos, because with the Specific Plan we get more local control. As soon as we put an AHOZ zone on we lose a lot of our local control. We can ask for less things, we can put less stipulations on it, it's kind of fast tracked through. Is my understanding correct? LAUREL PREVETTI: The buy right provisions would apply both to the North 40 and to the Affordable Housing Overlay, or AHOZ, sites, as our Town Attorney just described. So if it were the will of the Council to consider the North 40 when the Housing Element comes before you, then the 20 units to the acre would be one way of having it qualify. The act of rezoning essentially establishes the buy right. We've already zoned the Affordable Housing Overlay Zone sites, so that action LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 13 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 already occurred with community process and noticing, et cetera, so you would essentially level the playing field between both. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: If I could follow up. So part of the AHOZ zones is 20 units per acre plus another 35% bonus, but do we have to give the 35% bonus in the Specific Plan also? LAUREL PREVETTI: You probably will, yes, because you would meet the minimum. If the project qualified under the state guidelines and a developer requested a 35% state density bonus, then yes, you would be obligated to provide that. MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. The addition of the wording, "state housing requirements," I think that was the suggestion by Ms. Sayoc, I'm going to have to listen to all of you, but right now it is not something that I would add. First of all, I would not add it because the Vision Statement and Guiding Principles, as they now stand, are not mutually exclusive of that concept, and secondly, those RHNA numbers and their ramifications to our town still have to vetted by the Housing Board, and they're LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 shaving... Well, I don't know if they're having a challenge with it; they may be having a challenge with it. Then it's (going to go to the Planning Commission, and then it's going to go to the Council, so I'm not prepared at this juncture to add that phrase, because it may have the negative ramifications that have just been explained to Council Member Rennie, and it may have very negative ramifications to our North 40 area. As with regard to any specific developers, what that specific developer may or may not have, that is not what is before us this evening. MAYOR JENSEN: I'm going to jump in and make a comment, and then I want to move our discussion somewhere else perhaps. I agree with Vice Mayor Spector. I think that the Vision Statement is broad and very general and an unmet need is certainly an unidentified Regional Housing Needs Assessment per state law, so I think that we are obligated to comply with state law. We are just identifying our broad, general goals in the Vision Statement. We are identifying residential unmet needs as one of those I think by implication that that has to include any kind of state law obligation that we have, so I would tend to agree with the Vice Mayor and not want to be specific in including LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that language. Any other discussion on that proposed addition? Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Given what I've heard, I'm prepared to table this thought and that added language for now, because there are parallel tracks of what's occurring with the Housing Element as well as what's happening here in the North 40. The reason why I put that out there, particularly today as we discuss this, is the Vision Statement, at least for this Council member, has changed dramatically when I look at residential unmet needs from when we looked at it as a North 40 committee versus where we're looking at it now as we're looking at the Town's total housing requirements. So I can understand that there are two parallel tracks, and we can see how those tracks intersect, if they even do, and so I just leave that for others to think about. MAYOR JENSEN: Other comments on the inclusion of the housing requirements language in the Vision Statement? Okay. Actually I have a discussion item about the Vision Statement, again on bullet number three, or actually the entire thing. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 16 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 is 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 If you read it, the Vision Statement refers to throughout the Town. It does not pick out a geographical area, which is kind of interesting, because when you look at the General Plan with respect to the North 40, and there are land use elements, et cetera, that are called out in our Staff Report, it does, in conformance with what a lot of people have had to say to us, talk about serving the residents of the north side of Los Gatos. If I look at this Vision Statement, it does not say that. So number one, I think there's a conflict, and number two, I wonder if it makes sense to have something... I agree with looking at it vis -a -vis the entire town. So if start with the first bullet and I say, "Will look and feel like Los Gatos," that's inclusive of the entire town. "Will embrace hillside views and open space." Everything in Los Gatos should do that. "The North 40 will address the Town's residential and commercial unmet needs," not the north side. And, "The North 40 will minimize or mitigate impacts on Town infrastructure and community services." So I have trouble with the fact that a lot of the testimony has been focused on what's good for the north side, because I don't see that in this Vision Statement. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 17 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I'm ready, willing and able to listen to my fellow Council Members about why I should be looking at just the north side, given this Vision Statement and why this Vision Statement is valid, but I'll just throw that out for discussion. Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I should first say a disclosure. I was one of the two people who wrote the Vision Statement and Guiding Principles, so I have a vested interest in it. That being said, during the entire time that the North 40 Advisory Committee was working on the Specific Plan we had probably a thousand issues, and very often we would circle back to the Vision Statement and Guiding Principles to answer it, or to try to answer it. It really helped. I don't think that there is a disconnect between the wording "unmet needs" and some people's focus on the north part of town, because you can say that the North 40 is supposed to meet the Town's unmet needs. One might argue that a small Target is an unmet need and we should put it in the North 40 and it would address the entire Town's unmet needs. That's consistent with the Vision Statement. Or, one might say that we have no small restaurants way in LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 item #6, North 40 Specific Plan M 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the north part of town, and so you put small restaurants there, because it meets the needs of that part of town as opposed to the south part of town where we are now, so the Vision Statement addresses that along with the Guiding Principles. So I don't see a disconnect between the unmet needs, nor do I think it is just supposed to address the north part of town, but it could address the north part of town. MAYOR JENSEN: Any other comments on that notion? Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I was just going to add that I think I agree with Vice Mayor Spector, but if you're concerned about the north part of town I think we can look at our policies that follow sort of the next level down and make sure that that's added in there. MAYOR JENSEN: Any other comments? Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I concur with Vice Mayor Spector's comments. I think the interest for the north side of town, and primarily where it appears there is some separation or special attention being paid in all of our correspondence to that area, is because of their proximity, but the statement is all inclusive. It's all of LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan Eli 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Los Gatos, which includes the north side of town, so I don't look at any necessary changes to the Vision Statement language in that regard. MAYOR JENSEN: Any other discussion on that issue or any other issue with the Vision Statement? Okay, I'm going to summarize and again look for just a show of hands consensus. What I heard was that the Council is fine with the Vision Statement, that we are tabling for now an addition of language regarding meeting housing requirements in bullet number three, and that the Vision Statement is sufficiently general to include not only the needs of the north side of the town but other places in town as well. So is that what we are hearing and including? So just by consensus? All right. Now we'll move on to the very easy part, the mix of uses in our Specific Plan area, and I'd ask for a chart to go up. Hopefully we can make that lots more visible, maybe move it up a little so that the light's better. That's Table 2.2, which appears at page 2 -10 of the Specific Plan. Mr. Paulson, maybe I'm going to ask you just while you're up there to summarize that for everyone in case they can't see it. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan Pas" 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: Sure. What the table shows, Table 2 -2, is that residential will have up to 364 units; combination of office and /or hotel will have up to 250,000 square feet; and that commercial, excluding office and hotel, so other uses, retail, restaurants, specialty markets, personal service, entertainment, would have a maximum cap of 400,000 square feet. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so Mr. Paulson, just for purposes of our discussion, what I'm going to ask the Council to do —if we can, and maybe we can't, so Council members please let me know —is discuss those very, very broad numbers that are a distribution between commercial and housing without getting into more specifics. If people think that it's not useful to go this high up on our discussion, we could just move to a discussion of housing type and amount and then commercial square footage amount, so I'm looking to the Council to see where do they think that the most productive discussion could happen. Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor Jensen. Regarding the 364 units, to me there should be some kind of limitations in the square footages in those units. For instance, you're going to have housing for the LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 millennials, but what is the limitation of the sizes of those units? Is it 500 square feet? Is it 500 square feet times 364 units? So I think there needs to be a deeper definition of square footages in reference to those 364 units. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so that might be more specific discussion of housing type and amount, and that appears at page 2 -28, section 2.7.3. So if we want to take on housing first, there is the section in the proposed Draft Specific Plan that deals with the number of units, the square footage. Councilman Leonardis, do you want to speak more specifically about that, or just put your comment out? COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: My comment is out there for discussion. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. So does anyone have... Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. A question of Staff, if I may? This provision that we're now looking at on page 2 -28 is very general and does not really speak to Mr. Leonardis' questions, and I'm trying to remember, at some point in time in the evolution of the Specific Plan did we LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 have a chart that delineated the square footages with specificity? JOEL PAULSON: What I'd offer through the Mayor is in the Glossary there's a conceptual hypothetical scenario, and so I'll put that up now. MAYOR JENSEN: Can you let us know, is that in our Appendices or in the back? JOEL PAULSON: That is in the Specific Plan on page 6 -16. MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Just for clarification, since we're going to this, which actually does answer my question of where it is, remind me, the fact that we put it in the Glossary, was that of significance in the sense of how important it was or how controlling it was to the Specific Plan? JOEL PAULSON: I would look potentially to Council Member Sayoc also since she was involved in that conversation. This was originally, as I recall, in the Specific Plan, and so there was quite a bit of discussion about whether or not that should be maintained in the Specific LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Plan and ultimately was moved to the Glossary for a hypothetical scenario rather than hard, fast rule. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: If I may, when we put it in the Glossary... I'm going to take a large discussion on this. When we were looking at residential there was significant debate over one, whether residential should even be there, and two, the number, and because one of our Guiding Principles was to minimize the impact to school districts our thought was what type of residential unit would minimize the amount of children, the child load factor? And this was the compromise that was reached by our committee, that realistically single - family homes, single detached family homes, created the largest school load factor, so we eliminated that. Then we looked at the size of the units, saying that nothing larger than 2,000 would be included, which is why you see the townhomes and row houses up to 1999. We decided to put it in the Glossary. I saw it as that was the limitation. By having it as defined in the Glossary it was clear to those that would then process the application that these were the criteria we were looking at. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. It doesn't really make any difference what I remember or don't remember, but my sense was the Advisory Committee was having a challenge as to what size units we should have, and so we moved it to the Glossary in order not to have to put it into the Specific Plan. But putting that aside, whether it's in the Glossary or whether it's not, I think it is a very good methodology for us to begin addressing the, I think, important questions raised by Mr. Leonardis. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I think the concern that we're trying to address is the student generation rate, and I have been thinking about this quite a bit and thinking well, do we limit sizes below 1,000? If you recall, when we had open testimonies there was a lady that spoke about millennials wanting certain sizes, and actually she was really talking about urban settings versus ours, which is not really an urban setting. I did sort of ask some questions of Grosvenor and SummerHill when I met with them last about this and I discovered it would be difficult to limit to certain sizes. Well, I mean you can limit below 2,000, but I was thinking LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 how many units could be below 1,000, for example. And then they showed me some designs that they were planning where they had a 1,600 square foot unit where the way it was designed there was no way you were going to put kids in there. I came to the conclusion it's difficult to try to limit size to get the limit in the kids. It's also about design, and if we limit it too much, now you're also limiting the flexibility to create a nice product that if it's designed correctly will not allow kids. Potentially we may want to try to beef up our policy more around these areas versus setting minimum limits, or at least not set them too far down. Hopefully that's clear. MAYOR JENSEN: Good enough. Council Members, any other questions before I weigh in on it, because I haven't? When I look at 2.7.3, which is actually part of the Specific Plan that refers to the number of residential units, it refers to gross square feet of various types of uses. Then in 2.7.3(a) it says, "Residential units shall range in size," et cetera, and it refers me back to the Glossary that's here. So I'm just wondering, because it LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 26 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 says, "shall," hasn't the Draft Specific Plan already included these ranges, and why do we have it in a Glossary? JOEL PAULSON: I don't know the exact answer to that, I'll be honest, but I think as is represented here, this was a hypothetical example, if the term "shall," and it obviously does reference back to this Glossary definition, then this is something that could be done. It also allows for some ranges, and I know during the Advisory Committee conversation we had a lot of discussions about ranges and the challenges with ranges, so I believe even if you look here with these conceptual ranges of total gross floor area, the caps are the same as are in 2.7.3, I think the 400,000 square feet and the 300,000 square feet for the various product types. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc, you had your hand up. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I think it's a great discussion, talking about the size, the design. I do agree that all those factors weigh heavily in developing the residential units that we're going to have, but I still maintain that the actual units are of more concern, because each unit will generate a load factor to our traffic, and if you look at what is specifically happening in our LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 community, regardless of the size of the unit ranges of the design you will have families moving into our area specifically to have their children go into our school district. I think it's a common occurrence that we all know, and so I still maintain that the best way to look at this is by the actual units. All these design parameters are great, but it's still the reality of what we're looking at when we're looking at whether or not this is the maximum allowed. MAYOR JENSEN: Before I call on Vice Mayor Spector I just want to ask Mr. Paulson again, so I could read 2.7.3 Residential Units A, as, "Residential units shall range in size," just as a generalized factual statement: they shall range in size. For example, they could be the chart that we're looking at here is... I'm thinking that that's probably what the concept was, and if I understand Councilwoman Sayoc correctly, I don't think that we had gotten to that discussion, but if you were talking about just talking about the number of units to be allowed, like 364 or some other number, then I agree with Councilwoman Sayoc not only for school impacts, but for traffic impacts and other impacts. Reducing the number of LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan [W] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 units to me is a way to achieve that, not only the number of units, but potentially the size. Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I personally agree, and the Advisory Committee agreed, that you can say it isn't just the millennials who were our target group for housing, it was also seniors. In fact, seniors were our fastest growing and largest growing community of residents, so we were looking at those two groups. we were mindful of the fact that generally you can't put limitations on whether or not a family lives there, or a single guy or a senior family. But circling back to what the Mayor and Ms. Sayoc were saying, if we want to start at the 30,000 foot level on housing, it would be to examine the total number of homes and whether or not we wanted it to be 364 or not. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Let me go the opposite direction. I was actually thinking that we want to incentivize senior units and I was going to propose something to the effect... Maybe this starts with a question for Staff. I don't think we can limit something to a certain age in our LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Specific Plan. Is that correct that only the developer can do that, but we can't put age limit in our Specific Plan? ROBERT SCHULTZ: No, we can designate senior housing in our plan. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Okay. So I was under the impression we could not, so that was part of my thought anyway, so let me continue. My proposal was something like what if we put a carrot in there that if you build 60 senior homes, which is what's already planned at 500 square feet by Eden, then you could allow a bonus. You can pick a different number. I said a round number of 100 senior units at 500 square feet per unit above the 364, and my reasoning is the General Plan already allows somewhere around 500 - and -some number of units. Senior housing generates much less traffic and it's likely to not generate it during the peak periods. It goes after one of our growing unmet needs. By 2030 one in four people in the county will be over 65, so to me I'm actually thinking an incentive that would add more units versus reduce units, so I wanted to put that on the table before we got too far down the reduce units side. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. No, we haven't reached any decisions on this yet. We're still just making comments and LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1s 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 asking questions. So I have a question. where did the 364 units come from? JOEL PAULSON: Through the Mayor, that was a number that was come up with at a North 40 Advisory Committee meeting, and that was the number that has been in there since. MAYOR JENSEN: Come up with by whom? The developer, a Staff person? JOEL PAULSON: It was a member of the Committee, as I recall. MAYOR JENSEN: And was there any data, evidence, anything surrounding the 364, or was it random? JOEL PAULSON: I do not recall any data to support the decision. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: A question of Staff. Did that come from the General Plan? Because I don't remember the genesis of that number. JOEL PAULSON: That was in the North 40 Advisory Committee meetings. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I was a Committee member and I don't remember that or who proposed that, but to be LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 fair though, the General Plan when we first began this process had I believe up to 750 units that was being looked at, and it was slowly whittled down. I don't remember exactly how we got to 364. I don't believe it was actually by any one person, because we did do things by consensus, but just so that those in the audience understand, it was a process where there were actually higher numbers that were being looked at. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor. So the specific categories of units, for instance Cottage Cluster, Detached, it shows 40 -50 units, the breakdown of each and every type of unit. Where do those numbers come from? How did that mix get allocated? JOEL PAULSON: I think those were numbers that given the potential product types that we were looking at that our consultant at the time, RM, who is still our consultant, I think that was work with Staff and our consultant to come up with some parameters around that. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: So let me see if I can give us a little bit of direction. Start with just the concept of the number of units. Councilman Rennie has indicated that he LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 thinks there should be incentivized for certain types of units to go over 364. We've had some comments that people might think that 364 is something that should be worked with, if you will, by the Council. So let me just see if we can do a discussion around that, leaving aside the chart that's up on the board right now, around the idea of 364 units, and see where we go, if anyone has any comments on that. Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: A couple of thoughts to that. One is the reality is we're looking at not only traffic generation rates, but we're looking at school load factor rates, and what's great is that there is an ongoing process right now where potential developers are working with the school district to look at what exactly will happen if this is developed, and a demographic study was just created and it looks at the different housing types and how many children we can expect to be generated. I know that discussion is ongoing, and I would hate for us to finalize any number until we have more input from the school district on how that conversation is going and what in their opinion is the best way to mitigate the school impacts. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Leonardis. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 33 1 2 7 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I would say the numbers we should be focusing on are 364 units or less, and perhaps an increased allocation of senior housing within that 364 units. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: If you recall the discussion we started about RHNA numbers, I don't know if we completely killed that off, but if we consider trying to get more RHNA numbers here, the thought process is if we don't go for RHNA numbers here we reduce the number of units. That may mean that we get below the 20 -unit density and we can't get RHNA numbers out of this. That means we put housing here and we still have to put another 617 or 619, whatever the number was, somewhere else in town. I still like the idea of thinking about getting RHNA numbers here and eliminating AHOZ zones in other places. That would say to me increase units — again, I'm arguing for increased units, I guess, but you know —so we can actually reduce units other places, or at least make it less buy right other places. MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector, you have any input on this? Okay. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 34 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So my input is it's very difficult to figure out where you go from a specific number that nobody can tell you where it came from, that we don't have any data that indicates why it's good, bad or indifferent. I disagree with Councilwoman Sayoc that we should not do anything until we get more input from a specific party. I think we've gotten a whole lot of input and that we need to do our best to come up with an idea of where we are going to attempt to mitigate impacts across the board. Not just with the school district, but I mean if we took the idea that we're now going to ask everyone, we would ask Campbell to not development Dell, we would talk to Good Samaritan Hospital, we would talk to Caltrans. It's our unfortunate burden to try to figure how we're going to mitigate these impacts and we've got to come up with something that is reasonable. It troubles me, just because this kind of thing troubles me, that there's no evidence upon which to base the 364 number, so I have to go back and say to myself okay, how do I as a decision maker come up with something that I think is reasonable to mitigate the impacts that we've all heard so much about to include school impacts in looking at these residential numbers? Vice Mayor Spector. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 35 1 2 3 4 5 M 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think that those of us up here on the Council have to understand that the work done by the Advisory Committee and probably by the Planning Commission before us required us to make hundreds of decisions, and most of those decisions had to do with numbers. As I tell my husband, when I get there and I have to make decisions on the North 40, sometimes I feel like I'm on a high dive. I'm going to hold my nose and I'm going to jump in and hope that there's a lot of water, because I don't know. I don't know where we got the 364. I do know that it was a reduced number from where we started. I would imagine, based on everything else we did, that we all discussed these numbers. Do I know that 350 is better than 364, or 390 is better than 364? I don't. But we are going to have to come up with a number, and this is a maximum number. It doesn't say thou shalt build 364 residential units, do I am comfortable with us using 364 or some number in order to move on. I'm also comfortable with us designating a greater specific number for senior housing. I'm also comfortable with us designating the square footage as smaller so that it will accommodate seniors and LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 millennials. But you're not going to get any perfect answer that the light is going to come in and just tell you what this perfect number is. MAYOR JENSEN: I'm still waiting for that. I'm going to throw something into the mix that's not just the number of units, but I wonder, and maybe Staff can weigh in on this for me, whether it's not necessarily appropriate to talk about number of units so much as it is appropriate to talk about total square footage as resulting in a limitation of units? Can anyone make comment on how that would go backwards, if you will? For example, if the Council were to say we don't want 400,000, we want 300,000, is that a rational way of limiting the production of units without designating a number? The plan was written the way it was for a reason, and I'm just trying to figure out if my interest is to reduce the density of this project to mitigate impacts that we've all heard about and I want to reduce density of residential, and I hear the Vice Mayor saying that yes, there have been many years, and I totally understand her point of view, but if I thought based on everything I've read, heard, et cetera, that I think it's appropriate to reduce the density of what we're allowing, is square LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 footage a more appropriate way to do that then picking a number? JOEL PAULSON: Through the Mayor, density is the basis for the calculations. Even if you were to reduce the square footage, if you reduce the number you'd still have the same number of units that may be in different categories, but I believe that the number of units is the way to help mitigate your concern, or your potential concern of the density of the project. The square footage is really more an intensity question. It's the number in combination with the size, so density is the strict dwelling units to the acre for specific projects. We've had conversations in the past on other projects where the technical density isn't really that high, but the perceived density is high because the units are large on small lots, for example. MAYOR JENSEN: Before I call on Councilwoman Sayoc I'm going to ask you just kind of a follow up. Councilman Rennie said that senior housing produced less traffic. We've had environmental studies, traffic studies, et cetera, regarding traffic. I don't recall seeing anything broken down for senior housing. I know that senior housing can sometimes require less LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan W 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 parking, it may produce less traffic, but I am not sure if there's any data to support that, Mr. Morley. MATT MORLEY: On the screen are the IT numbers for the various land uses, and those are the ADT rates on the far side outlined by the type of units that we're discussing. MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you. Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Just in the hopes of moving this a little bit forward, without looking at specific units, the 364, I would be in favor of maintaining the 20 units per acre so that we can hopefully address some of our regional housing numbers allocation, and within that density that differentiation between density and intensity I would actually like to see the square footage of each unit decreased. I think it would address some of the senior housing, affordable housing, as well as millennials housing that we've discussed that we're targeting. I think there are other ways to help offset some of the traffic issues that we're looking at as well as school load issues if you look at the entire parcel and look at realistically where those units, where that acreage could be placed. So if you wanted to look at it strictly on a density level, I could support that. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Let me see if I can attempt to kind of summarize where there might be consensus. What I hear is that we have several Council members, I think maybe four at this point, who are interested in potentially increasing the requirement for senior housing. I'm looking around to see if I'm getting nods, and I'm getting nods. Okay, yes, Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: On that issue, increasing senior housing, I'm looking at page 228, and maybe I'm looking at the wrong page or maybe I'm not looking at enough pages, but I don't see where senior is defined in order to figure out what we're increasing. Am I missing something? MAYOR JENSEN: You're not. It's not called out. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: So then in order to increase it, we would have to know what it is to increase it. MAYOR JENSEN: I think the increase that is getting referred to, which it shouldn't be frankly, is the upcoming proposal from a particular developer, so I think that if the Council wanted to designate of the 364 units a number, for example, for senior housing, set aside, I think we could change the Specific Plan to do that. Ms. Prevetti is nodding. Is that an option for us? LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 is 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LAUREL PREVETTI: Yes, it is. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I wanted to make a comment on that. You know, it's what you know is planned that kind of biases you a little bit, or helps you understand what could be, and then you need to write the words to get closer to that. So we know what they're proposing and Eden Housing will build affordable senior housing that are 500 square foot housing that very affordable for seniors. If you just specify senior housing or you specify a size, it's not going to be the same kind of product that Eden is providing that's quite affordable. I just wanted people to keep that in mind, and that's kind of why I wrote it as an incentive for affordable senior housing, add more affordable senior housing of that style. MAYOR JENSEN: I'm going to ask a question then to follow up with Ms. Prevetti. I'm assuming that if the Council included some designation for senior housing, keeping in mind that this is a Specific Plan for the Town, that an applicant could come in with affordable senior housing, market senior housing. Would the mix that Councilman Rennie is talking about be better addressed LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 41 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 to 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 through a Housing Element designation or better addressed in a Specific Plan designation? LAUREL PREVETTI: From my experience I would recommend that if the Council has a specific outcome that you're looking for that you would actually put it in the Specific Plan so there would be clarity. And it is important to specify the product type, so if you're looking at affordable apartments per the chart that's up on the wall on page 6 -16, Apartments /Affordable has been identified as a range of up to 750 square feet, so that's a very specific category, and if the Council wished you could define that as senior housing. The development community is very creative, so if you're not clear about which project goes with senior, they will make seniors work in cluster housing and in any other product, so if you care about that you'll want to be as clear as possible in the Specific Plan. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Councilman Rennie, since you're kind of leading the charge on this, do you have a suggestion that you want the Council to consider? Not that I want to put you on the spot or anything. You can say no. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: It didn't quite get bought last time. Let me just repeat it that I'm thinking LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 make it an incentive that if you put a certain amount of affordable senior housing, and maybe we describe it a little more so it matches the Eden, because I think that's exactly what we want: 500 square foot affordable housing. Then you get a certain number more affordable housing. I'd like to see it as an incentive, first requirement. One thing I would be careful of is usually what happens is you put in affordable housing, but it's kind of subsidized by the other housing that goes there, so I would be careful saying half of 364 have to be affordable housing, because now you may not make it economically feasible for a development to put it in. MAYOR JENSEN: Comments? Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor Jensen. Moving back to something that Vice Mayor Spector said about we continue to discuss senior housing and amounts of senior housing, but how are we going to define what senior housing is? Council Member Rennie mentioned Eden Housing would be developing a project for seniors. One of the stipulations is it's one person 55 years or older in the house. Is that the way we define it, and do we define it that way across the whole development? LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LAUREL PREVETTI: I don't recall a specific definition. I've seen 62 years of age and other limits in other contexts. I think it's important while there's certainly a pending development application that might help us understand how the Specific Plan were to be applied, I just would like to remind the Council that you're creating the policy that will be applied for future applications, so you can define that as you feel best to meet the needs of the Town. The Town Attorney may have additional advice on a definition. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Now, there are a couple of different requirements in the Fair Housing sections, and I'd have to come back with you on the 62 and the 55. There are different requirements that apply to each and we could look at those if that's the direction Council is going in, and then come up with that language. MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Through the Mayor, I do have a question of Staff. Whether the number is 364 or 300 or whatever other number, 20% of that has to be below market, is that correct? JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan, I think as it currently reads, is a minimum of 20% should be affordable LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 housing. I believe there is policy language to that effect. Additionally, the Town Code currently for that number of units, if a project came in with a hundred or more units, then the BMP requirement normally per Town Code is 20 %. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: At least 20 %, okay. So right now we're at 72.8. Could we specify that the affordable units be senior, or does it have to be open to all available through our BMP? JOEL PAULSON: I'll look to Counsel for Fair Housing modifications. ROBERT SCHULTZ: You can designate in your Specific Plan an area and number of units that you want to be senior housing. That's acceptable. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Okay. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And then we have to define of course what you mean by senior housing, and that's where I'd have to come back with those figures. MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. For the Town Attorney, I just want to clarify; you said you have to designate an area. Did you mean a physical area? I mean just say, for example, we say we want 50% of the units LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to be senior, however you subsequently define it. We don't have to have it in an area, do we? ROBERT SCHULTZ: You could if you wanted to. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: But we don't have to? ROBERT SCHULTZ: No. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Okay, thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, in an attempt to get something out of this, I'm going to look to the members of the Council and just ask the question: Are people comfortable moving forward with the 364 unit number, the max? And if you're not, let me know. Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: You're calling it a max? MAYOR JENSEN: Calling it a max. Okay, so you're raising your hand. You are comfortable with it? COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Yes. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so I see Councilman Leonardis and Vice Mayor Spector are the two that are comfortable with that. Okay, so let's throw that out for a moment. of those who are not comfortable with it, does anyone have an alternate number in mind? All right, I will throw out 300 just to start the discussion. I know I'm LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 going to get lots of anguished sighs about that, but I'll just throw it out in an attempt to get a high, get a low, and get to where we can reach some kind of consensus. vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I sort of feel like I'm playing poker, but I play poker. Anyway, I don't recall any magic at 364, and since it was a maximum I was still okay with it. Is there significance to the number 300, other than it's less than 364? MAYOR JENSEN: Frankly, it's less, and it's my experience that if you write something that says maximum I guarantee you, you will get that number. So I am trying to get to a number that at least as a decision maker I can feel comfortable with saying that it was my best attempt to reach a mitigation for the various issues that have been called out to us on this project. I haven't heard a good data point for 364, so I'm thinking my 300 is probably just as good, but I am actually looking for a reduction. I understand the argument that Mr. Rennie is making about hitting RHNA numbers, and I understand the argument for affordable and for senior, and I do think that senior has a reduced traffic impact. I also think that certain small types of millennials housing, when combined LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 with the right kind of uses around it, could also have a reduced traffic impact. Really what I'm looking for in proposing that lower number is to look to the Council for are people wanting to reduce the square footage or the number of units in an attempt to mitigate some of the issues that have been raised, or are members of the Council comfortable with that number as a maximum and want to go forward with it? So we have two that have said they're comfortable with that. Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor Jensen. You know, this is difficult because we have the state saying we need these numbers and we have to meet these numbers, so in attempts to try to help meet some of those numbers, obviously units are nice in that regard. Of course, in an attempt to reduce traffic and all other impacts that come with numbers, obviously you want less. So it's kind of a tug of war. If the amount of housing were reduced, what would go in its place? Would it be more commercial space, and what would the impact of that be? Would it be more open space? So we have those questions that could rear their heads coming soon, I suppose. Just some random thoughts. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan m 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: For me, I'm going to give you my two largest factors for determining the residential units. One is what can we allocate toward our regional housing numbers? I'm having a difficult time looking at this application just as the North Forty Specific Plan and keep looking at what do we as a town have to look at in terms of housing? Whether it's 364 or 300, if we can allocate that so that it would satisfy our RHNA, I would be comfortable. That requires a density of 20 units per acre, and so I guess I'd have to see how that would pencil out. The other concern for me is making sure that the load factor is distributed fairly throughout the 44 acres, and if you're looking at traffic I don't believe that it makes sense to have all the housing in one specific part of that. I'm also particularly concerned about, again, the school districts. You have two school districts, actually four, and I think if you can offset it and have it equally so that both school districts have the benefit of absorbing whatever school factor load comes in, I think I would be comfortable. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, let me make another stab at this. The Specific Plan area, am I correct, Mr. Paulson or whoever else, is it currently zoned 20 units per acre, or would the Council have to take an action to zone it that way? JOEL PAULSON: The zoning is not currently 20 dwelling units an acre. There is a variety of zoning designations that were provided, I believe today, in the Desk Item. The past projects in the mixed -use commercial General Plan designation have been allotted up to 20 dwelling units per acre, but there is no minimum 20 dwelling units per acre in the Town currently. MAYOR JENSEN: And if you have that chart that we get in our Desk Item, that's got the zoning on it, if you could put that up. And while you're doing that, Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Okay. Sorry if I keep arguing my case, but a couple more facts. I did ask Grosvenor the question about how much retail they thought they were going to get on the site, and based on the size and the height limitations they didn't think they were going to get 560 square feet of the various retail combinations on there. So that tells me if you LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 reduce housing, you're making more room for them to get the rest of their 560 retail, and housing, I think we've learned before, is much less of a generator than retail, so I'm concerned that we're going the wrong way. I guess I didn't put it as one of my reasons, but for adding senior housing, it generates a lot less traffic than half as you saw regular housing, but if they go with the incentive and eat up more of the commercial space, you're actually going to reduce traffic even more. MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I'll go address these backwards on my notes. Reducing housing does not necessarily increase commercial retail. That will all be defined in the Specific Plan. I had a question of Staff on the issue of spreading out the residential. I don't remember right now what we currently say about residential. I mean do we say that it has to be X amount in a certain district, or do we have the ability to spread it out? JOEL PAULSON: I don't believe there is any requirement currently in the Specific Plan to spread it out. There may be some policy language that offers that to LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 recommendation. Can we spread it through? I believe the Council, if that's their prerogative, can make that part of the Specific Plan. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Okay, I would agree. Thank you. And then the last one, on the 20 acres per unit if we wanted to avail ourselves of RHNA bennies, how do we get 20 units per acre —help me out here —on a 40 acre site? How could we use the North 40 for RHNA and accommodate the 20 units per acre? JOEL PAULSON: Well I think there are a number of options. What the plan currently says is up to 364 units. You potentially could say a minimum of 18.2 acres or a minimum number of acres that would accommodate 20 dwelling units per acre would be part of the Specific Plan. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: All right, so if we could do that we could say rather than 40 you're going to have a smaller amount, so then when you put the units there you get the correct number. Okay, thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so just to respond to Vice Mayor Spector, pages 2 -3 and 2 -4 of the Draft Specific Plan describes and calls out the proposed districts: the Lark District, the Transition District and the Northern LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 52 1 2 3 4 5 M 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 District. All of them have residential designated in them with the exception that the Northern District has a particular kind. It says, "Residential (above commercial) - including condominium, live -work flats," et cetera. I'm not sure that I agree with the Northern District designation of above commercial, however, right now there is residential that's per the Specific Plan allowed in each of those districts. I think we understand where the various positions are. Let's see if we can get to something. We're not going to go through and edit this thing tonight, clearly. What we're going to do is hopefully reach some consensus motions, which I've been trying to do, and ask the Staff to come back to us with those obviously at a future meeting I would think at this point, unfortunately, although I never give up hope. Well, let me call on the Vice Mayor first. Maybe she's got an idea. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Given what you just said, I think that you can move forward on this. You can see if you have a consensus on your 300 maximum, or some number, but right now that's at play. You can request or suggest a 20 units per acre to be on a LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 53 I 2 3 4 s 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 limited number of acres so that it gets you the RHNA provisions, and you can have that distributed throughout the property rather than in a limited amount of property. So if you want to go that direction, I think you have enough information from Staff to do that. MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you. I'm going to drop my 300, because I think it's going nowhere. Is there consensus on the notion of designating a particular number of acres at the 20 units per dwelling acre section? I'm getting nods. Let's see what we get with hands. Hands from everyone but Councilman Leonardis. Councilman Leonardis, do you want to convince us why we're wrong on that, what your position is? COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I think if it's just we're working with the Specific Plan, that could be determined later when the design comes through, so I don't know, maybe I don't fully understand it, but I would just leave the flexibility out there for the developer. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, I think we have 4 -1 consensus to designate a particular number of acres for 20 dwelling units per acre. Before I get into a discussion of what that number should be, let's go to the question of distribution LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 54 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of residential across the plan area. Is there a consensus that there should be a distribution of residential across the plan area independent of the Specific Plan sections with respect to the districts that I just talked about? Vice Mayor Spector. Oh, you're raising your hand yes. Are there any other yeses? None. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing. MAYOR JENSEN: The question is independent of what kind of residential it is, the question on the table is are you or are you not in favor of distributing the residential throughout the plan area as opposed to limiting it to a particular district or location? COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I thought that we squeezed it all into the Lark District on the theory that that really fits with the residential that's already in town, and as you move towards the highway, as you move up towards 85, you're now in an area that's really 85 and 17 and that's less appropriate for people to live in. It seems to me that the housing is squeezed that way for that reason. I know we are allowing some above commercial in the Northern District, but I don't think really any planned, so I guess I'm on the fence on your question. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. I'm just going to refer you back to the plan language, again focusing on the Specific Plan. The Transition District allows residential, the Lark District allows residential, and the Northern District allows residential, so the way the plan is written now, residential is allowed throughout the plan. Do you have any objection to that I guess is what I'm asking? COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: It's sort of contradictory to try to get it together in 20 units per acre though if it gets spread out. MAYOR JENSEN: Well then, I think that I'm going to confirm hopefully with Mr. Schultz and Ms. Prevetti that whatever acres are designated in the Specific Plan, if the Council so chose, could put those acres where it wanted, it wouldn't have to all be in one single spot, is that right? LAUREL PREVETTI: That's correct. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: So I'll say yes, you can spread it throughout to make it easy. MAYOR JENSEN: There you go. I'm going to keep beating you down though. No, it's fine. You don't have to agree. We could just do 4 -1. Vice Mayor Spector. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 56 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Actually that's what I was going to say. If we want 20 units per acre, then we know we have to designate X amount of acres in order to get that number, because if we spread it over 40 it won't work, and so that number is just a mathematical calculation, so you come up with a mathematical calculation and you spread it throughout the property. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so we have a consensus on 20 units per acre zoning for a particular number of acres, which could be one spot, two spots, three spots, multiple spots within the Specific Plan area, and we have consensus on distributing it throughout the Specific Plan area. What we don't have is how many acres, or I'm going to go back again to the number of units, and if I focus on it, given what we've just done as a maximum, is there a consensus on a maximum of the 364 units that is now contained in the plan at 2.7.3? Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor Jensen. Again, I think 364 would be a good maximum. It's a number that came from somewhere; it's a number that has been used for a number of years. I think it's been used for so long that we're forgetting the origin of it. It seems reasonable, so I would say the word "maximum" is clearly LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 57 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the word "maximum." It can be less, and based on the conversation about 20 units per acre and the amount of acres that can have 20 units on them, it can add up pretty quick to just a few acres of housing if they're all going to have 20 units per acres on them, so we'll leave it at the 364 max, and down. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, other comments on that max unit number? Councilwoman Sayoc is pondering. COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I'm stuck on the word "maximum." I think I would be comfortable with a 364 maximum if it goes toward all our regional housing needs numbers so that we don't have to look at alternate sites like the Los Gatos Lodge, for example, and if it were distributed equitably throughout the parcel so that it wouldn't be a burden just to one particular school district. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. I agree with what Councilwoman Sayoc just said in some respects. What worries me is that if there is a designation that the 364 goes to regional housing needs, doesn't it then get a density bonus on top and it's developed by right and it has to all be affordable with a 35% bonus, correct? LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan XM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LAUREL PREVETTI: That's correct, but again, we have evidence that there are other product types that still are 20 units to the acre that also can be developed at a market rate price. So for purposes of RHNA, if you want to meet the 20 units per acre, that could certainly satisfy our RHNA needs. MAYOR JENSEN: So I'm going to go back, and then I'll call on the Vice Mayor. On the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, as I understand it, the state case law or develop law is that the state presumes that if a parcel is zoned 20 units per acre that it's going to develop at 20 units, and those units can be counted without anything more, without a sign, without anything else besides the zoning, as a regional housing needs parcel, correct? LAUREL PREVETTI: That's correct. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: That's what I was going to say. But I was also going to say that trying to address Council Member Sayoc's concerns, the 20 units per acre could by definition count toward the RHNA obligation. We can say in the Specific Plan that it's spread out throughout the 40 acres from north to south. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And then we get back to the 364, and I agree with Council Member Leonardis. It's survived the test of time, even though I don't know where it came from. MAYOR JENSEN: That may not be a good thing, but Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'm a little concerned about spreading them out. I guess I agree with the idea of getting some out of the LGUSD school district. My concern is, again, the appropriateness for sticking them up in the Northern District, because I know we haven't talked about retail yet, but the unmet needs that we're targeting there I believe I would argue for, or things more like general merchandising, which we don't have in the Town. We want to create a different kind of shopping experience in the Northern District than we have downtown, so to me that means —let me just pick some —we might end up with an REI and Target or something up there, or something of that sort. And so now I'm imagining what a Target and Target parking lot looks like, and REI looks like, and now I mix in some housing with that and it doesn't sound very appealing to me. And I know that their current plan is not to put any houses up there, even though we're allowing it, because LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan CYO] 1 2 3 4 s M 7 e M 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 they're planning basically a synergistic retail for there where you have two or three anchors, like the ones I've described, and then some other small ones. How aesthetically can you can you fit housing into that? MAYOR JENSEN: And so again, what I'm going to do to try to focus our discussion is to say that the Draft Specific Plan currently does allow housing in each of the districts and that if we wanted to go away from that we'd actually have to change it, and again, the plan being the big picture and then the developer to come in under that plan. Councilman Rennie. COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'm okay with the flexibility. I'm worried about adding more limitations that, again, forces the housing to be where it doesn't really work. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so we haven't talked about any kind of language with respect to distributing housing beyond what we already have in our plan, which is allowing it in each of the districts. What I'm hearing is the consensus is that we're going to designate a certain number of acres as 20 units per acre, and that we want as a consensus to spread that residential across the parcels, which is currently allowed under the Draft Specific Plan. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan W 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 e 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I'm going to look for nods to see if I've summarized where Ocam =x{aM Now, before I go to where those acres might be I'd like to go to the discussion of designating a portion of those maximum units to affordable, where you already have 20 %, or to in particular, senior. So are there proposals on a number or percentage or some other way to designate a goal, if you will, for senior housing? Vice Mayor Spector. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I just want to emphasize we're looking at 20% BMP, so if we had 364 units, 72 would be BMPs, so we would have that if we had 364 units. I don't think we have verbalized a consensus on that. So now we're looking at of the remainder —this is a question of the Staff and of the Mayor —what number, or what percentage, or what size do we want to designate as seniors? Is that where we are? MAYOR JENSEN: That's what I'm asking, yes. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Okay, thank you. MAYOR JENSEN: Any ideas on that? Councilman Leonardis. COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I think we should probably take a look at our current population and see who LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan C:Ya 1 2 3 4 s 6 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 is 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 actually fits in those categories now and how we're currently distributed, and then consider distributing it Ithe same way potentially based on our demographics, not necessarily our current housing, obviously, because we're looking to add senior housing. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Before I call on the Vice Mayor, Mr. Paulson, can I ask you to put up that Glossary chart again? So when I look at that breakdown of the type, size, et cetera, of housing, would it make sense for the Council to consider adding a box, if you will, to the chart that's senior housing that would be described in some fashion? Ms. Prevetti was talking about Apartments /Affordable, but could there be —and maybe it doesn't fit there, because it's talking about a "product type," a term that I don't like, by the way —a box for senior housing? Does that make any sense? JOEL PAULSON: There certainly could be. What I would offer is that that box that Ms. Prevetti mentioned earlier in the Apartments /Affordable in that size range, the senior product type would fit into that, as I think has been currently stated, so I don't think there's anything precluding the Council from adding a box, but I think that type of unit really is encompassed in this chart currently. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan 63 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MAYOR JENSEN: Before we move on, Ms. Prevetti, if it's encompassed in the chart, would then the Council, if it wanted to put in senior housing specifically, put that into what's now our proposed draft 2.7.3 where we're talking about units and square footage? LAUREL PREVETTI: Yes, and you could do it in both places. Add the word "Senior Affordable" if that's the will of the Council to be very clear, and then also reinforce it in the Policy Section 2.7.3. MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Vice Mayor Spector, you had your hand up. VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: All right, I get the senior affordable. Well, maybe I don't. Senior affordable, assuming that we actually call that out on the chart, is there some kind of legal terminology or size that we have to give that type? LAUREL PREVETTI: Again, I would defer to our Town Attorney regarding the legal implications, but based on the discussion that we've been having this evening and the desire to provide and ensure smaller units for a particular demographic, that meets the row that's already in this table regarding Apartments /Affordable. LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL 2/3/2015 Item #6, North 40 Specific Plan X1