Attachment 52 - Part 21
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VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: All right, so we could call
that Senior Affordable. Now, beside the Senior Affordable
in that line item, can we also have a Senior, or is that
where we get into the problematic area?
LAUREL PREVETTI: A different type of housing for
seniors, if I understand correctly?
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Yes. I understand these
smaller units, low- income senior; I understand that
concept. Can we also now attribute a certain amount of the
units to Senior and not violate any legal prohibitions?
LAUREL PREVETTI: I believe you can. I think the
question is whether you want it to be senior and
affordable, because there are a lot of other types of
housing that are now being offered in terms of assisted
living or continuum of care, so there are other choices in
the marketplace, and if it's the will of the Council, you
could also be specific regarding that.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Madam Mayor, may I just ask
one more? What I'm looking for, is there a way to say let's
put aside the affordable, a place where we designate for
seniors and it's not also affordable, it's just a place
where seniors can live and it's designated for them. Can we
do that?
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LAUREL PREVETTI: You can, and again, I would
defer to our Town Attorney, because once we start calling,
let's say, for example, it's a cottage type of housing,
someone could say oh, it's going to be for seniors, there
are a fair number of requirements. How do we make sure that
that's going to be a senior when a family or another type
of household could easily move into that as well?
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: So that's the question.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Yes.
MAYOR JENSEN: Before I go to other comments, Mr.
Paulson, can I get you to put 2.7.3, the language, up there
on the board?
Okay, so Members of the Council and Ms. Prevetti,
I look at paragraph b. Could the Council put a bullet under
b, because b is telling us the maximum number of units, and
put a bullet under there that says X number of senior
units?
LAUREL PREVETTI: Yes.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Other comments of questions?
Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
Jensen. Going back to the previous discussion about
different types of housing, and specifically senior
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affordable or just regular senior housing, I think the
senior population should be allowed to choose among the
chart of the different categories of housing whatever
housing they like. For instance, they might decide to pick
what looked like a 2,300 square foot townhome; that might
suit their needs. Or they might decide that they want the
500 square foot apartment; that might suit their needs. I
think what we're really defining is an allocation in terms
of a percentage across all housing types.
I would just say we take the 364 units and we say
it doesn't matter which units in particular they are, but
35% of them could be allocated to people who are 55 years
and older, or one household member that's 55 years or
older; I would think something like that based on our
existing population numbers. We know how many people in
town roughly are of that age. It would be very useful as a
guide to try to determine what kind of numbers we could
look at in this category and those categories.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: A couple comments. I'll
remind of one of the comments I made earlier. I think it's
the California Department of Finance that says that 25% of
our population by 2030 will be over 65, so we know that
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we're moving in that direction. We're going to get a lot
more seniors than we're allocating the percentage for, and
so that's one comment.
My second comment was if we put a limitation to
seniors, I would prefer us use 62 and not 55. I think 55 is
still going to draw kids into the school districts, which
is part of one of the things we're trying to achieve with
senior housing, and when I think of senior housing I'm
really thinking of much older seniors that want to move
into more of a move -down situation or a small unit. I
turned 50 day. I don't feel like I'm going to be a senior
in five years.
MAYOR JENSEN: Happy birthday. This is how you
want to spend it, right?
I have a follow up question for Mr. Schultz, and
a comment. Mr. Schultz, Councilman Leonardis was suggesting
that a percentage of cross - housing types could be just
designated for seniors. Is that legal?
ROBERT SCHULTZ: I don't believe so. I've got to
look into the exemptions that you do have under the Fair
Housing Act, and so there is the ability in your Specific
Plan to designate an area for senior housing. If that's
where we're heading with it, then we're going to have to do
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more research in exactly how we can implement that and make
the correct findings and have the exemption under the Fair
(Housing Act.
MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you. Just a comment on
Councilman Leonardis' suggestion. Seniors could pick the
type of housing they wanted to move into. Obviously people
can pick the type of housing, to the extent they can afford
it, that they want to move into. But one of the reasons
that I would support a set aside for senior housing is
based upon the chart that went up that the senior housing
produces less traffic, that the senior housing has lower
parking requirement, that the senior housing could maintain
impacts in a particular community, including school
impacts. I would not be comfortable with just saying we
have lots of different kinds of housing types and seniors
can live in them, because the benefits that I see to senior
housing we would not get if we took that approach, so I
couldn't support it. Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: My intention would be
that it would be restricted still; you just take a
percentage. If it's 25 %, if it's 35% of the total of the
housing and the total among all the units, that those
particular units, say, a certain amount of townhomes would
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be age restricted, a certain amount of apartments would be
restricted. They wouldn't be just like okay, here they are.
If you're a senior, move in, great. If you're not a senior,
you can move in anyway. So that's what I was getting at. It
would offer not just the 500 square foot apartments for
seniors, but it would offer more housing choices for the
seniors.
But it would be geared towards seniors having a
choice of housing and it wouldn't be open to everybody.
There are a certain amount of units within each category
that would be senior only.
MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I think we've
been down this road in the North 40 Advisory Committee, and
we probably are going to need for our Town Attorney to come
back to us, because I know we can do the Eden type of
senior affordable and designate that. Once we get past that
into seniors generically, I believe it's more problematic,
but maybe I'm wrong, and we need Mr. Schultz to weigh in.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, let me make this suggestion,
or see if we can wrap up this discussion. Is there
consensus among the Council members that there should be
what I'm going to call a set -aside for senior housing,
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whether that be a number of units of a percentage of units?
Is there consensus with the Council? Okay, so there is.
Does the Council generally with the consensus
agree with Vice Mayor Spector that in order to determine
what that number or percentage should be that we need more
information from the Town Attorney with respect to how
those units can be designated? I'm seeing yes.
And I'm going to add another question for the
Council, to ask Ms. Prevetti. To the extent that the
Council decides to designate a certain number of units as
senior, what effect would that have on any kind of Regional
Housing Needs Assessment or affordability assessment for
purposes of our Housing Element? would people like that
information as well? I'm going to get hopefully a yes.
Okay.
I hope that somebody's keeping track of these
fabulous consensus motions that we're making here.
I'm going to see if we can get a consensus on...
I'm not sure of the proper way to determine this, and so
maybe Staff can help us out in figuring out based upon the
information that we get from Mr. Schultz and Ms. Prevetti,
how many acres the Council should be looking at as
designated for this 20 dwelling units per acre? Not just
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for senior, but for affordable housing. Is that something
that people would find helpful? Okay, I'm getting nods.
Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I guess I have kind of a
question on that, because I'm thinking about the design
that's there now. Maybe I just haven't thought all the way
through, but I'm concerned that the design... So I know the
design that is there I've been told is already 20 units per
acre, but it's also got a lot of interspersed open space
through it, so I'd be careful saying you've got to stuff it
in a small amount; then you don't have any interlace to
open space in there. I haven't thought all the way through
what the implications are, but I want to be careful there.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so I will say stay tuned,
because if you look at your handy outline, we are going to
get to density and intensity, which is going to include
open space designations and discussion regarding those
issues, so I think that we'll stay with the big picture and
then move to those questions.
Have we gotten to the point where if we look at
the outline that I gave people that was to discuss the
housing type and amount, should there be a specific mix,
should there be any affordability designations or age
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limitations? I think we have discussed that and maybe we
can put a check by that and take a break and then move to
commercial square footage. I think we'll do that, and we'll
take a break for about ten minutes.
(INTERMISSION)
MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you for all of your patience
with us. I know this is a painstaking process. We'll see if
we can move it a little faster, but I think it's really
important to make sure that all of the Council people get
their opinions on all these questions out there and that we
have a productive discussion, so apologize for the length,
but we'll try to make some progress.
Our next discussion item is going to be
commercial square footage, because ... just why not? Mr.
Paulson, for this purpose I'm going to ask you to put up,
if you have got it, the table from the May 2013 Draft
Specific Plan, the 2 -7 table. And ladies and gentlemen, the
Council, and the audience if you have a book, we're looking
at 2.6.7, page 2 -26, and the point for us to consider is
how much... I'm sorry; I got the wrong page. 2.6.7. Right, on
2 -26, 2.6.7, Retail Tenant Space, which is essentially
talking about commercial uses. We also have Table 2.2,
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which we can't all put up at the same time unfortunately.
Maybe I'll have you go back to that.
Table 2 -2 has got on it a maximum of commercial
square footage. It has a listing of different uses and it
does not break down the overall commercial use into unit
sizes. That Table 2 -2 is on page 2 -10, so if everybody
could take a look at that for a second, and then Mr.
Paulson, if you could put the other table up again. This
table actually is breaking down sizes of commercial uses
within that commercial number at the 400,000 square feet.
So what I'm going to ask Council to do is first to look at
the 400,000 square feet, determine whether or not the
Council thinks that that is appropriate, and then when and
if the Council does that, should there be a specific mix of
commercial types and uses or should there be any
limitations to units of any particular size?
That's why I put this table up, which was
discussed at the Advisory Committee but then not put in the
Specific Plan. So for those of you who were on the Advisory
Committee, maybe if you could, when we get to that
discussion, tell us something about that.
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So first let me open a discussion about this
generalized 400,000 number for commercial use. Comments on
that? Anyone? Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: This is a question for
Staff. How does that number compare with the total square
footage of our downtown, all the retail in the downtown
Business District?
JOEL PAULSON: I turn to Ms. Renn for the retail.
Staff pulled data from the County Assessor's records, and
so the total of our C -2 zoned parcels, which is our Central
Business District, is around 1.1 million square feet. Now,
that includes everything, that's not just retail, so if Ms.
Renn has any additional information on strictly retail.
MONICA RENN: Monica Renn, Economic Vitality
Coordinator. Recently we went through the records to try to
get an accurate count of just retail restaurant first floor
uses in the downtown, and we came up with about 800,000
square feet.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Thank you.
MAYOR JENSEN: Ms. Renn, can I ask you, did you
break that down in any fashion into 2,000 square foot unit,
5,000 square foot unit, et cetera?
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MONICA RENN: We broke it mostly down by use, and
I can tell you most of the things downtown range from about
1,100 square feet to about 2,500 square feet; that's really
where the bulk of the floor plate sizes are. Of course
there are a few larger restaurants and larger store sizes.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, other questions or comments
just on the 400,000 square foot number? Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Actually, if I could just
get clarification. It's 800,000 square feet?
MONICA RENN: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: So it's from Main Street to
Highway 9?
MONICA RENN: The C -2 District is all of North
Santa Cruz from Highway 9 to 17 basically, and then Main
Street from like Linden Plaza all the way to where the
former Yarn Dogs was, and then there's University as well
that goes all the way to Highway 9, and those streets in
between Elm, all of those are all C -2.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Okay, thank you.
MAYOR JENSEN: Did you break it down at all for
North Santa Cruz Avenue, what people traditionally think of
as downtown?
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MONICA RENN: No, we didn't. I could probably get
that information for you in just a minute. I'd just have to
add it up; I do have it by the streets.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I can just remind you we
got a report from I think it was a San Jose professor. In
that report they listed what's currently in the downtown by
sizes, and in restaurant non - formula, formula, and personal
service by percentages. It's on page four of that report.
MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you. I don't see a whole lot
of discussion on the 400,000 square foot number. Do we need
more information before we can make any kind of consensus
determination on that? Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'll go ahead and make a
comment. I did again ask Grosvenor about what was the
minimum size. We have 400,000 square feet, but I think
there's already about 66,000 that exists now, and so when I
talked to Grosvenor I got the feeling from him that he
couldn't go much lower without losing the synergy that he
wanted to build with his medium box retail anchors and then
adding to that.
While I'm talking I'll go ahead and comment also
on this slide. Grosvenor did request that we allow some
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mechanism to go over the 50,000 square feet, and so I asked
a little bit, "What does that allow ?" and for example, a
Safeway typically is about 55,000 square feet, so a typical
Safeway would not fit under that. He suggested make it a
CUP. I know we had comments, I think from Lee Quintana,
saying how do you CUP for the size of something, so maybe
that's not the right mechanism, but maybe we want to
consider something there.
MAYOR JENSEN: Other comments? Mr. Paulson, did
you have a slide of the actual language of 2.6.7, by any
chance? I may not have asked for that. In any event, if you
don't have it, that's fine.
The only limitation that it's putting on sizes
within that 400,000 square feet is a maximum individual
commercial retail tenant size of 50,000 square feet. That's
what's currently in the plan. So if the Council wanted to
change that or break down sizes, it would need to change
the plan to do that. Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I do
know a problem that the Advisory Committee had on this
issue, and we struggled with this a lot, is what square
footage and how many stores? In doing that analysis we were
examining the typical size of restaurants, typical size of
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retail in the downtown, with the objective of not
"competing." Council Member Sayoc may remember better, but
we weren't able to come to any conclusion, which is
probably why Table 2 -7 in the May draft of the Specific
Plan is not in our current draft. My thinking right now is
that we should have something other than the maximum size
be 50,000, but what that magic number or numbers is, I
don't know.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
Jensen. We can try the approach that we used before with
the housing. We can say choose a number and say that's the
maximum or less, and in order to allow some flexibility in
that number maybe we can select 50,000 or less. I don't
know if that's going to get the boos from the audience or
not, but we can try it.
MAYOR JENSEN: Let's see if you get boos from up
here. Comments on that suggestion? Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: My comment is a question.
Can you or the Mayor repeat or summarize what was the
concept there?
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Sure. I thought being
that 50,000 could be exceeded and we wanted to have more
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flexibility we could select a number; I just threw out
80,000. Eighty thousand or less, have it be the maximum.
MAYOR JENSEN: As I understand Councilman
Leonardis, he's suggesting that the language that we
currently have in our Specific Plan where we limit 50,000
be 80,000.
My comment on that is that I'm not sure I'm
comfortable with 400,000 to start with, and I think that we
should break down sizes into something that looks like what
was proposed at the Advisory Committee. I'd be curious, for
those who remember or were on the Advisory Committee, where
the percentages came from.
I'd also say with the 400,000 square feet, unlike
the 364 I think it actually had a genesis where the EIR was
listing a 580,000 square foot max for traffic purposes. We
had existing commercial already on the Specific Plan zone,
so the 400,000 is actually new commercial, and it can't be
more than that or more than a certain percentage at build -
out. I thought that was from EIR numbers. Is that correct,
Staff?
JOEL PAULSON: I believe the 560 actually is in
the current General Plan, so that's where that number
started, and so backtracking out from there with the
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potential for some office and hotel, the 400,000 was where
we landed for the additional commercial.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so now that I'm looking at
the Table 2 -2 I see it says, "Projects cannot exceed the
maximum traffic capacity evaluated under the EIR," which is
where I got EIR, and so that was the 580,000?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes, which just happens to be the
same number that was in the General Plan.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. I'm looking for comments on
Councilman Leonardis' proposal to just change the language
of the General Plan to 80,000, or I'm looking for comments
on the concept of limiting commercial sizes further as by
the chart we've got up here. Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Also, looking at that
lower end of the chart, the zero to 1,500 square feet, 5%
of the total of the projected 400,000 —I know that's not
agreed to yet —I guess that could be as many as 20 units or
something, if my math is correct, at 1,000 square feet —does
anybody have a calculator —so that seems as if it would
compete with our downtown more.
I would be more inclined to move those
percentages towards the 3,000 to 10,000 square foot level.
I understand that there will be a need for some smaller
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square footages. I mean it's inevitable that not everybody
is going to be able to operate in a minimum floor plate of
3,000, but I think we should try to really minimize those
lower square footages, reduce those percentages, and
increase the larger percentages.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Let me try to remind us
about, again, the report from the professor from San Jose;
I'm sorry, I can't remember people's names very well. If
you recall, he had five different scenarios where he varied
different sizes. I asked a lot of questions, as I usually
do of him, and his minimum size that he was using was 5,000
square feet. I asked about 3,000 and so forth and he
claimed that below 5,000 square feet, it's really not going
to make a difference.
Then sort of related to this, what we're really
trying to do is create a different kind of shopping
experience from downtown, which means discouraging small,
non - formula retail; formula retail is going to tend to be
larger anyway.
In his scenario #3, which he's starting to say is
tipping towards downtown staying more competitive, he has
75% allowance for non - formula retail under 5,000 square
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feet, and he's claiming —if we believe him — downtown is going
Ito be more competitive in that particular scenario. I
thought through this and I was thinking I don't know if we
want to go to just non - formula retail or retail in general,
but I was going to propose maximum of 30% below 5,000
square feet and keep it simple and stop there based on all
the information he gave us that kind of said it really
didn't matter, try to keep it simple.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: If I could just give some
historical perspective from the North 40 Committee. The
reason why the table is not in here, the table that we keep
referring to, is the North 40 Committee could not come to
any agreement on floor plate size, because if you look at
it holistically, it's not just the floor plate, it's the
type of retail. I mean there were so many factors that were
going into, and that's why we couldn't come to an agreement
and ultimately why the request for the urban decay
analysis, hoping that that would be able to provide some
information that would more accurately describe what would
be directly competing with downtown.
Now, I keep going back to what's considered
neighborhood serving, and we had this discussion as well,
when we haven't defined what exactly is this retail going
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to be? Is it neighborhood serving, or is it going to be
this destination shopping center? If it's neighborhood
serving, you need small square footage for the local coffee
shop, for the dry cleaner, for certain things that the
residents in the northern area would like to walk to.
My concern is if you start eliminating the small
pads you eliminate those neighborhood serving businesses
that the northern section of Los Gatos has clearly said
they need, they want, and they should have and be able to
walk to.
I don't know if it's the approach of looking at
percentages. I mean there is a whole bunch of ways to look
at it, and I don't necessarily know what the right thing
is. I was hoping the economist had the magic answer; he
gave us five different scenarios. Perhaps we pull together
economists that can actually look at that and make specific
recommendations, I don't know, but tonight I don't think I
have the expertise to answer that question.
MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. A
lot of issues.
First of all, starting with increasing the 50,000
to 80,000, I'm not prepared to do that right now, because I
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don't know the logic of it. So maybe 50,000 is as good as
80,000, maybe 80,000 is better, but I'm not prepared to
make that jump of a number. Neither am I prepared to say
that I would never do it, but right now I'm not prepared to
do that.
Secondly, with regard to the square footage of
zero to 3,000, zero to 1,500, and zero to 3,000, I agree
with Councilwoman Sayoc: The reason this isn't in the back,
or is not here anymore, is because we didn't know what to
do with it, but we will need some small square footage
sites on the North 40 at a minimum to serve the people who
are living there. Do I know whether this percentage that we
have in this 2 -7 is the right percentage? No, but it was as
good as the North 40 Advisory Committee could do at that
time.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie, help me out. I
believe that your proposal was not to break it down as per
the chart that we have up here now, but to propose a
maximum 30% below 5,000 square feet, was that your
proposal?
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COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: That's correct.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Let me go back up to the
400,000 square foot figure, and again, asking everyone to
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keep in mind that it's a plan, not an application, is there
consensus that we're comfortable with that square footage
given the EIR information we had? Forgetting for a second
commercial ramifications, economic ramifications, but
traffic, what you're serving, et cetera, are people
comfortable with the 400,000 square foot designation?
Councilman Rennie is saying yes. Maximum, sorry. vice Mayor
Spector, you're okay. Okay, so we have a consensus that
we're... Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I have a question for
Staff. Is there a real world comparison with the 400,000?
Obviously we try to compare it to our downtown, which is
800,000. What is a local mall or shopping area that is
400,000 square feet? Is there something like that that
we're aware of? Like Santana Row, what's the square footage
of that?
MONICA RENN: I roughly just did the calculation
of just North Santa Cruz from Highway 9 to the spa
basically to get that office space that's kind of past
that. Mindful this isn't anything that's on Montebello, but
that's at about 318,000 square feet for just that stretch
lof North Santa Cruz.
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Then I can look really quick in just a moment and
tell you what Old Town is square footage -wise and that can
kind of give you an idea. That's a pretty good mix of
bigger stores and smaller stores.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, that would be helpful. Well,
if you could do that really quick we can figure out the
consensus on the 400,000 square feet. Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'm not sure that what we
have in Town is a good comparison, because I don't think
that what we're trying to build is something... I know what
Grosvenor is trying to build, and I agree with it. Again,
it's trying to build a different kind of shopping
experience with general merchandising, which probably I'm
guessing would have three anchor stores and around 50,000
just for argument's sake. So you've already chewed up
150,000, you've already got 66,000 out there, so you're
already over 200,000 before you've started adding other
stores in there.
If you're going to do a comparison I think you
need to look at some different kind of strip mall, maybe
something where the REI is or something like that, versus
something in our town that we don't want to copy anyway.
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MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, thank you. Let's just get
the answer.
JOEL PAULSON: For all the tenant spaces for Old
Town, that includes the upper floors and then also some of
the below ground at the rear by the amphitheater, is
approximately 95,000 square feet.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, thanks. Yes.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Is that inclusive of the
University side?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: So Gap and all that?
JOEL PAULSON: Correct.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Ninety -five thousand, thank
you.
MAYOR JENSEN: All right, thank you for the
information. So knowing that, is there a consensus of the
Council on the maximum, again, I'm going to emphasize
maximum, 400,000 square foot figure? I'm seeing people nod.
Councilman Leonardis is undecided.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I was looking for
another comparison. I mean how large is Santana Row? Do we
know square footage -wise? Because our downtown is spread
out, it's less dense, it's spread out over more acreage,
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and so I'm trying to figure out in a smaller amount of
acreage square footage.
JOEL PAULSON: Ms. Renn will see if she can get
specific information on that and then we'll get back to
you. Just for clarification, all of the C -2 parcels, based
on MetroScan data, the square footage for those is
approximately 39 acres.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Yes, I'm aware of that
portion. Thank you.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so right now we have a 4 -1
consensus with a one iffy on the 400,000 square feet. Let's
discuss limitations on size within that 400,000 square
feet, and we have Councilman Rennie's suggestion on the
table.
I have a question for Staff before we start.
Hypothetically, if there is a market hall that's developed...
You guys want to figure out what you want to figure out, or
tell me something?
LAUREL PREVETTI: We were just trying to do a
quick web search and the Town Manager found the square
footage for Santana Row; it's about 647,000 square feet of
the retail commercial space.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, Councilman Leonardis.
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COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Does that also include
any hotels? Is there a hotel there?
LAUREL PREVETTI: There is a hotel. Yes, that
would include the hotel.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Okay, thank you.
MAYOR JENSEN: And we're going to get to the
discussion of the (inaudible) hotel, which is designated at
250,000 square feet separately, but right now we're just
doing commercial.
So Councilman Leonardis, does that affect your
opinion with respect to the consensus on the 400,000?
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I'm going to say it
seems kind of large for me, but I'm one of four.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so we have a 4 -1 consensus
with a kind of... And remember, everyone, as we do these
consensuses, this is obviously going to come back to us. So
to the extent that you're not comfortable with it, when
there gets to be a formal motion on what the Specific Plan
looks like, obviously you don't have to stick with the
consensus; we're going to get new information.
My question with respect to the sizing or
limitations on a particular unit is hypothetically if there
is a market hall... When I think of a market hall I'm
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thinking not necessarily of the Ferry Building, but there's
one in Napa called Oxbow Market that's a large structure,
and within the large structure are many individual units,
and they could be cheese, they could be wine, they could be
food, they could be sandwiches, they could be chocolate,
they could be whatever they are, but they're individual
users with a large space. I don't know if this was
discussed at the Advisory Committee or if Staff has some
notion about this, but how might those spaces be counted
toward a total square footage? Would it be the square
footage of the container, or would it be the square footage
of everything inside the container?
JOEL PAULSON: I would look to the North 40
Advisory Committee members that are on the Council, but I
believe it was contemplated that it be looking at the
container.
MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: I don't recall us discussing
that specific issue at all. I definitely don't recall us
making a decision on the container. I mean that would be my
inclination, but I don't recall any discussion.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc.
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COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I'm going to have to agree
with Council Member Spector. We didn't get to that level of
specificity.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. So I'm just going to throw
out in our discussion of the limitations on the spaces how
the Council and Specific Plan might be looking at that kind
of space, because I could imagine there being a market hall
that has all those spaces in it that I may not count
against the percentage of each unit, or I may, depending on
if that's the proper way to look at it. Or I may not count
each of the spaces in there where I could buy a hunk of
cheese as a restaurant, which is why we're all going
through our policies and figuring out what specialty retail
is. If I sit down with my hunk of cheese, does it become a
restaurant?
So there are all kinds of ramifications for that
kind of concept that I wouldn't want to necessarily limit,
encourage, whatever it might be. I'd want to write a plan
that would allow for that type of use, but at the same time
put what I think are reasonable limitations on other square
footage uses in the plan. Anyone have comments on that?
Councilman Rennie.
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COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I meant to suggest,
didn't get to it, that we should exclude the market hall
from it, and I'm making the assumption that the market hall
is going to be food items and things. If it turned into
stalls of dress shops and shoe shops, then we would be
competing with downtown and we'd end up with what we don't
want. I don't understand completely market hall maybe, but
I'm assuming that won't happen, that it will be food kinds
of shops, in which case I'm okay having little ones for
that, because I don't think that competes with downtown.
MAYOR JENSEN: Other comments? Councilwoman
Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Specifically with the
market hall we did not get into a level of are we counting
it pads of zero to 1,500, but definitely as I was going
through it I was thinking of the square footage as a
container, and there was a lot of discussion of having that
container be flexible on the inside to change based on the
seasonal items that were being produced in that area.
So yes, the majority of items under consideration
were food, but then you get into is it retail if it's a
bottle of oil versus sitting down to eat with a bottle of
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oil, and that's where we didn't make any of those
distinctions.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so having thrown that out
there, well, I can ask us to consider a couple of things.
First let's consider Councilman Rennie's
suggestion of the maximum 30% below 5,000 square feet.
Where are people on that suggestion? Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: With a question. So if we
say less than 300 on... Give me the numbers again, please.
MAYOR JENSEN: I believe Councilman Rennie
suggested a maximum of 30% of commercial space at below
5,000 square feet.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: So does that make it
120,000?
MAYOR JENSEN: Don't ask me. Ask (inaudible).
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: A hundred and twenty
thousand maximum of less than 5,000 square feet. I'm not
ready to raise my hand on that one yet.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: The trouble I have
with that is you could have 120 shops at 1,000 square feet
potentially. I don't know if that's what they had in mind,
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Ibut it could allow that based on Council Member Spector's
Imath.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Councilman Rennie, are you
holding up your hand?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I guess so. I mean if I'm
reading the economist —I guess that's what we're calling
him, the guy from San Jose State —he doesn't think it's
likely that they were going to end up with a bunch of small
shops like that. He actually even has a scenario that if
you put no restrictions you'd end up with something that
doesn't compete with downtown; it would be much larger type
sites. Some of the reason for that is, believe it or not,
the retail space up there is going to be more expensive
than it is downtown.
I think the common myth is downtown is more
expensive than other places, and it's actually not. If you
look in the report, downtown tends to be around $3 a square
foot; there's some even less than that. They're expecting
up there to be more $4 or $5 a square foot, so the ones
that are going to want the small spaces are probably non-
formula retail, which we're trying to scare away, but
they're not going to be able to afford to be there. The
formula retail, or these others, are going to want larger
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sites, so we're probably even wasting our time limiting it
at my suggestion. I'm not too worried we're going to end up
with 30,000 square foot spots.
MAYOR JENSEN: Are you withdrawing your
suggestion?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: No, I'll keep it.
MAYOR JENSEN: All right. I'm not prepared to go
with your suggestion for the reasons that I've heard raised
by other Council people. Let me throw something out, and
I'm not eliminating your suggestion, Councilman Rennie, I'm
just throwing this one out.
But if Council Members turn to page 2 -26 of their
Specific Plan, or recall it, 2.6.7 on page 2 -26 —there we
go, it's up on the board —I'm wondering why that couldn't in
large part mirror the language that we have for the
residential uses where the residential use says there shall
be a mix of residential? So here we say we allow for a mix.
Couldn't we say something like there shall be a mix, blah,
blah, blab, and then include a chart that is the same or
similar to the 2 -7, like we do for the housing, as a
hypothetical mix that people could refer to? Then if there
is a market hall type thing proposed under the Specific
Plan, I would imagine that would be who knows how big it
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is, but if it's bigger than 50,000 square feet, allow that
kind of container use to come in as a Conditional Use
Permit. So that's what I'm suggesting as a possible
approach, which I'd love to hear people's comment on. Vice
Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. Retaining 2.6.7,
Retail Tenant Space, I agree with that. A chart such as 2-
7, I agree with that. I can't remember if you put specific
numbers in there, but I would want the numbers of the small
ones to be limited. I'm not prepared yet to have the market
space to be a CUP. As we get into this I want to try and
limit the CUPs, so I'm not prepared to go there yet; it's a
possibility.
MAYOR JENSEN: Other comments? Councilwoman
Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I like the flexibility
that the language allows for, but I'm trying to think of
implementation. Should an application come forward, who
decides what the appropriate mix of retail is? Who decides
what's smaller neighborhood serving versus the larger
space? I think that's what the North 40 Advisory Committee
was grappling with, because if you don't limit, whether
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it's by pad size or percentages, then 20 years from now we
just really have no control over what goes there.
We'll get to that eventually, but is there a way
to combine pad sizes with other mechanisms so that there's
a constant scrutiny is the theme, is the retail mix, is the
whatever is being proposed, envisioned, does it meet the
vision of what the Specific Plan is?
MAYOR JENSEN: Before we move on I'm going to see
if Staff has any ideas, which they probably vetted with the
Advisory Committee to achieve the kind of scrutiny that
Councilwoman Sayoc is talking about or to allow for a more
specific kind of oversight, if you will, of who decides
what the mix is that's right. I think you're going to say
well, put it in the plan, but is there something else that
you could suggest?
JOEL PAULSON: Well, to go back to one of the
question of who would make that decision, it would be the
initial decision of the Planning Commission, I think, as
it's written currently for the A &S for commercial projects.
Now, the Council could change that to have to Council be
the decision maker, but down the line, short of your
typical mechanism, which would be CUPs —and the Council will
discuss further — otherwise, other commercial uses and
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commercial centers in Town. We have requirements for CUPs
Ifor certain uses and other uses can just switch out and
levolve as the economy changes and those things change.
So we can look at other mechanisms to control
that. Based on our current Town Code of how we regulate the
rest of the Town currently, probably the easiest link would
be it's the discussion of should the North 40 have more
CUPs or less than the downtown or some of the other areas
of town? So unless Ms. Prevetti has anything else to offer.
LAUREL PREVETTI: I just want to say that as you
look at the larger container of space, so say something
does come in at 30,000 square feet, for example, it's not
unusual for tenants to want to reconfigure that space over
time, so if it is the will of the Council to make sure that
it doesn't get carved up into teeny, tiny tenant spaces, we
would need some kind of policy. That way when and if a
tenant improvement program comes in through our Building
Division where there is no additional discretionary policy,
we can at least do some plan conformance and make sure that
that tenant space still meets the Specific Plan.
I'm just trying to think downstream 20 years from
now. We might have approved a CUP with all intentions that
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it's basically just two tenants, but over time maybe that
gets carved up.
JOEL PAULSON: And I think that goes back to the
Table 2 -7 with the percentages. If something like that is
included in the plan, then it would have to go through
potentially a Specific Plan amendment if, say, they started
wanting to carve up those larger spaces, because they would
no longer meet those percentages that are reflected in the
Specific Plan.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, other comments or questions?
Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I just wanted to throw out
there, one of the specific suggestions we received from the
North 40 Advisory Committee as well as through public
testimony is that we look at an economic task force of some
sort, whether it's a standing committee that looks at our
commercial areas on a permanent basis, that could be a
mechanism that Staff can consider that could look into
these issues.
Because one thing that I've heard consistently
when looking at this North 40, as well as other areas, is
that retail will continually change based on the economics
of the time, and so we get to this dilemma of how do we
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write a plan that can actually be flexible to reflect the
economics and the retail of that particular timeframe?
MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've
heard the concept of having an external group that gives
input, and so far it hasn't been an idea that has appealed
to me. I really would like the Specific Plan to be a final
document. I understand that there are challenges with that,
but it is a preferable challenge for me to having an
external group.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, let's see if we can go back.
Right now we have a consensus on a maximum of 400,000
square feet. Let's do an up or down on Councilman Rennie's
suggestion of a 30% limitation on below 5,000 square feet.
Who is in favor of that? Councilman Rennie. So I'm thinking
that we're going to eliminate that.
The other suggestion was to look at 2.6.7 and
where, if you look at the chart, on the first sentence
where it says, "The Specific Plan allows for a mix of
retail uses," and instead say, "The Specific Plan shall
create a mix of retail uses," and then include some kind of
hypothetical example such that was included for residential
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types in the Glossary for the residential. Is there anyone
who is interested in pursuing that idea? Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I will support that idea.
I'm not sure I like the "shall." It seems like we're going
in the wrong direction, we're forcing maybe things smaller
just so that we meet that. I know we said we want some
smaller, but I'm struggling with it a little bit. What are
we really trying to achieve with "shall" and does it really
have any meaning there?
MAYOR JENSEN: I guess as the suggestor, what I
was trying to do was mirror the language that we have for
the residential use so that we can have consistency across
the Specific Plan where for residential use we said shall
have a mix of different kinds of product types, and then
referred to the Glossary chart. So what I'm suggesting
simply is a mirror here with a "shall" indicating that we
want a mix, and then referring, as we did with the
residential, to a chart. The complete notion was to have
some consistency in the references.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'm not quite sure that
we really want a mix. I think what we want is something
that doesn't compete with downtown, which may be different
than trying to get a mix.
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MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Other comments on that
suggestion? Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: The chart that it would
refer to, do we have a chart in mind?
MAYOR JENSEN: Nope.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Okay.
MAYOR JENSEN: No, I was using the 2 -7, and I'm
just throwing these things out for discussion. So if it's
got support, fine, we can discuss it further. If it doesn't
have support, we'll move on to see if there's another
suggestion. So I think it's me and Councilman Leonardis.
Yes, Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I guess the devil is in
the details. I would support the idea, but it gets into
what does the chart look like?
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so let's see if there are
other suggestions on how to tackle this. Does anyone have
another suggestion on how to tackle it? We could of course
just leave it the way it is; that's always an option.
In the outline that was distributed for
discussion it was, "Consider the commercial square footage.
Should there be a specific mix of commercial types and
uses ?" We've discussed that. "Should there be any
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limitations on units of any particular size ?" I think we've
done those discussions. So the question is do we think that
we should change what we have, or should we simply leave it
the way it is? And if we want to change it, what are the
suggestions for changing it? Vice Mayor.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. Okay, I think
that 2.6.7 is too general. I believe we do need
specificity. I believe a table such as 2 -7 would be
preferable to not having a table, and other than liking a
small number of store sizes at zero to 3,000, I have no
further input.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Again, I will support
the idea of the table and the zero to 3,000 categories, the
zero to 1,500, and whatever the two bottom tiers were. I
would recommend cutting those in half, having them 2.5% and
2.5% of the total.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. Let me try this. Is there a
consensus on whether the language in 2.6.7 is too general,
as the Vice Mayor indicated? Do people think that it's too
general, or are they okay with it? I think it's too
general. We have two that think it's too general.
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Okay, I'm going to go at it this way, because I'm
getting blank looks. Let's try this. I'm going to have you
raise your hand. Do people believe that there should be
some form of definition, limitation, whatever, beyond
what's written here for the type and size of commercial use
within the 400,000 square feet? Raise your hand if you
think that that's the case. All right.
Raise your hand if you think that there should be
some kind of chart, whatever form that might take, that can
be used as a reference for this language that we can
include in our Specific Plan? Okay.
Now, how many people think that there should be
anything added or changed about b on 2.6.7, the maximum
individual commercial retail tenant size is 50,000 square
feet? People think that that's fine, should be higher,
lower, what do they think? Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I think we should
consider it to be higher. I'm thinking of all possibilities
here. There could be a car dealership or somebody wants to
come in, I don't know, so I was just thinking in reference
to what Councilman Rennie has said previously about Safeway
being 55,000 square feet. I don't know if there'll be a
Safeway there, but if it were just over 50,000, if it were
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60,000, if it were something, it would be nice to have the
options. I believe you can always chop it down smaller, but
you can't necessarily chop it up bigger, so that's why I
said 80,000. I also thought about perhaps a building with a
one -acre footprint with a second story that would be up to
80,000.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I think what we want to
avoid is large box, and I'm not sure where that starts.
Maybe Counsel can help us. What's a typical Walmart, for
example, or a Costco?
MAYOR JENSEN: While they're looking, the Vice
Mayor has suggested that she is not comfortable with a CUP
designation. How do other people feel about keeping b as it
is, but saying, "The maximum individual commercial retail
tenant size shall be 50,000 square feet absent a CUP
approving a greater square footage "? So putting a CUP
designation on, how do people feel about that? Councilwoman
Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I don't think CUPs are the
appropriate way to regulate pad sizes, but I'm wondering —
I'm looking to Staff —are there alternative ways to do it?
Should an application come forward that's 55,000 square
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feet, it would have to come for a Specific Plan amendment.
How difficult is that, I guess is the first question?
JOEL PAULSON: Well, I would look to Ms.
Prevetti, but you end up going through a similar process to
this one, maybe with very specific topics, so probably not
taking as long. But there are specific legal requirements
that you have to meet to go through that amendment, whereas
if you provide flexibility up front, you avoid going
through that Specific Plan amendment.
LAUREL PREVETTI: A Specific Plan amendment is
very similar to a General Plan amendment, so you would need
a recommendation from your Planning Commission, notice of
public hearings, et cetera.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, let me try this. We had a
consensus on modifying the language to include different
sizes and types. We had a consensus of spaces. We had a
consensus on including some type of chart. Could we get a
consensus on the chart, including proposals for units over
50,000 square feet, and do it that way? Because right now
we've maxed our chart out, or at least our sample chart, is
there consensus that we should think about? Will I get an
answer? Oh, the size of a Walmart.
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MONICA RENN: These types of places can range;
they're typically in the 150,000 square foot range. Places
such as Target and Walmart have moved to creating a smaller
floor plate for areas such as this. Sometimes they do do a
two -story type of thing. There's a Whole Foods in San
Francisco that's about 40,000 square feet on each floor, so
you get closer to the hundred there. There's also a rumor
that a Target can do somewhere in the 50,000 to 60,000 with
a very small, small floor plate.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so just so we can try to
move forward on this, summarizing the consensus items
again: the more specific language, a mix to size and use, a
possible example hypothetical chart. My question now is
should that chart include contemplated uses in square foot
plate size of over 50,000 square feet? Councilman
Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I think it's a good
idea to add that to the chart in the absence of committing
to a number of 80,00 or less.
MAYOR JENSEN: My problem to committing to just
picking another number is that you could always pick a
number, and so if we're going to go through an exercise of
talking about how big things should be, or how small, it
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makes more sense to me to say you can have one of them, you
can have two of them, you can have whatever. If we're not
going to go the CUP route, then just picking a number,
because somebody will always come in with something higher.
So I'm looking to see, I think I got a consensus
on a chart. Now I'm looking to see if I have a consensus
for maybe we should think about it, as Councilman Leonardis
had said he wants the smaller square footages reduced on
the percentage in the 2 -7 chart. Do we have a consensus on
that? Yes? Yes. Okay, so we got that. Yes?
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Before I raised my hand, or
I already raised my hand, but are we doing 2.5% of total on
the zero to 1.5, and 1.5 to 3,000, is that what I just
raised my hand for?
MAYOR JENSEN: That's what I understood
Councilman Leonardis' suggestion to be.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: That's fine.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, so let's see who's raising
their hand on that one. Okay, we got four.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Well, question. So that's
2.5 % of the zero to 1,500 and the 1,500 one to 3,000,
right? Those two?
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MAYOR JENSEN: I think that's the suggestion,
yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: My intention was to
make the 5% 2.5 %, the other 5% 2.5 %.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Okay, so that comes to
about 10,000 total per each.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: The logic was say you
have 1,000 square feet at 5% and that was 20 units at 1,000
square feet, it would bring it down to like ten units, if
my math is correct on that, based on 400,000.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Okay.
MAYOR JENSEN: So I think we have a consensus on
that, which I'm going to say is 2.5% on zero to 1,500, and
2.5% on 1,501 to 3,000. Then leaving aside other figures
for now, how many people believe that there should be an
added "square," for lack of a better term, for any units
above 50,000 square feet?
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Can I comment on that?
MAYOR JENSEN: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I have to confess, I
did a little research based on what Ms. Renn's comments
were about the size of a Target Express, or the one at
Westgate, so to speak, and that is kind of what is driving
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my idea, not that I'm suggesting that Target goes there,
but there are instances such as the Whole Foods where they
do a second story and it's a 30,000 to 40,000 square foot
on top of each other.
So with respect to what Council Member Rennie
said earlier, a Costco or a Walmart or something, that's
150,000 square feet. I mean when we think in terms of big
box, that's way big box; that's not what we're looking for.
But when I think of 50,000, that was about the size of the
Borders in Old Town before they divvied it all up or
something. I'm pretty sure that's what it was, like 55,000
square feet.
I don't want to limit us to be so small that it's
not attractive to a potential tenant, and I don't believe
in the CUP process of saying okay, well let's add 5,000
with the CUP. I'm trying to add flexibility. It doesn't
have to be 80,000, but it could be more than 50,000.
MAYOR JENSEN: So I hear you arguing that yes,
there should be an additional section on whatever chart the
Council decides to attach to this that should include
units, however many percentage or whatever it is that's
over 50,000, correct?
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Yes.
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MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: It's not that I disagree
with Council Member Leonardis that we could have something
above 50,000; I'm just not seeing the magic in these
numbers. I mean is the magic that it's greater than 50,000
and 50,000 is written on this page, or is there logic to
it? My mind is open to it, but I'm just not seeing the
rationale.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilman Rennie, did you have
your hand up?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: On a different subject,
but I'll address the subject. It doesn't sound like anybody
can remember where the 50,000 came from, and Councilman
Leonardis has come up with some potentials that are larger
than that, and I know Grosvenor is thinking of some that
are larger than that. It just feels like 50,000 is the
wrong number. I think we'd be okay at 80,000. I think I'm
happier changing that number to 80,000; I think that would
fit most of what we want.
Let me go to my other comment. I guess I raised
my hand, but I think I'm a little uncomfortable reducing
the percentages on the small size. You know, this is a
pretty big area, and remember, it's any kind of commercial
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that you might also put in the Transition District or mixed
in with the residential for coffee shops and so forth.
Councilwoman Sayoc reminded us we're trying to do some
neighborhood serving. I don't know what the size of a
coffee shop is, but I'm worried that we've limited it down
too much. Maybe we can compromise and keep the 15,000 to
3,000 at 5% and lower the other to 2.5.
MAYOR JENSEN: So here's what I'm going to try to
do. I'm going to see if the Council agrees that we ask
Staff —just like we asked Staff for information regarding
the residential units —to come back to us with suggested
possible edits for 2.6.7, which include language regarding
mix and size limitations, that we get a proposed chart —and
when I think about the chart I'm not thinking of it as a
mandatory chart, I'm thinking of it as the same kind of
chart that was included for the Glossary as a hypothetical
for the residential —and just have that come back to us in
an iteration from Staff that at least we could take a look
at so that we have something specific that we can discuss.
How do people feel about that suggestion? If you're okay
with it, raise your hand. Okay, so that's what we're going
to do on that.
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Those are kind of the questions I had regarding
the breakdown of the commercial, which included square
footage, Conditional Use Permits; we've discussed that. I
think the Council's consensus is that they do not want to
include Conditional Use Permits.
We did not discuss, because it's probably better
left for another discussion that the Council is going to
have, one of the notes I put in the outline, which was
another way to address issues with respect to the downtown
would be to discuss eliminating what I'm going to call
competition issues for regulations that are in the
downtown. So formula retail, outdoor seating, whatever it
might be, if we're talking about we want there to be a
level playing field, how do we create that level playing
field and if the Council so desires, is there a way to put
that in the Specific Plan? So I'm just going to ask people
if they want to just comment generally on it, that notion,
but I'm not sure when I look to Staff, if the Specific Plan
is where we ought to be discussing that, or we should be
discussing that independently. Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Not in the Specific Plan.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, and I'm getting nods on
that, so I'm just going to put that on the table to not put
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in the Specific Plan, but to discuss at a future meeting
where it's appropriate.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Madam Mayor, if I may?
MAYOR JENSEN: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I agree it should not be
in the Specific Plan, but I do think we have to have that
conversation in parallel, because there are certain
policies we could do downtown that would help and they're
part of the discussion and the overall context. So would we
have those conversations on a parallel track?
MAYOR JENSEN: I don't know that we'd necessarily
be having them on a parallel track, but your Mayor has put
on the agenda a discussion of those items. I can't remember
which date I put it on right now, I think May, but it can
also come up on March 17th when we discuss the Alcohol and
Entertainment Policy. Okay, so not in the Specific Plan.
It's now ten minutes to eleven. We're gotten
through point 1 in the outline, point 2 and point 3. We
still have point 4, point 5 and point 6. Oh, we have to do
office. Sorry.
So lets discuss office. I'm going to tell the
people in the audience that where we're probably not going
to get tonight is a discussion of the density /intensity of
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what we put in the plan, which is going to include open
space, orchard set - asides, trees, structures, public open
space, private open space, how open space is determined
across the plan, height, commercial residential; that's a
section.
The next thing is going to be transportation and
sustainability, which is going to include traffic
mitigation, alternate transportation, bikes, parking
strategies, et cetera. We might be able to do... Well, we'll
see.
Let's discuss office and hotel first, because if
we look back, Mr. Paulson, at that chart, there we go, at
the very top, it's 250,000 square feet for office and
hotel. Comments? Questions? Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: This discussion I do
remember from the Advisory Committee; I think so does Ms.
Sayoc. This was not a big debate in the sense that the
Committee felt that giving the property the option of
having a hotel was a good thing, that our financial
analysis and economic analysis that we received indicated
that a hotel would be used, or could be used, especially
with the plethora of people using or going to the hospitals
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around there and having friends or relatives stay over
night, and also business uses.
And the same thing with regard to the office.
There was not a big debate there. I know that there are
some individuals who have concerns about medical, and I can
appreciate that, but our Committee and the economic
information that we received indicated that offices such as
start -up offices, that kind of innovation office, whatever
you want to call it, that those were needs in our community
that were not being met. So that one I do remember.
MAYOR JENSEN: Thank you. Other discussion?
Councilman Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I think we might want to
consider breaking out office and hotel. I would be scared
of 250,000 square feet of all office in there. I definitely
like the idea of a hotel and a conference center. I think
there should be some office. I think I'm buying the
argument that we should maybe limit not allowing medical
office, but the way it reads you could end up with no hotel
and 250,000 square feet of office, which is quite a bit.
MAYOR JENSEN: Vice Mayor Spector.
VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: I remember that discussion
also. The reason that we have the 250,000 is because we
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were told again from experts and economic analysis a hotel —
and this is a relatively small one — shouldn't be smaller
than that in order to be viable. Now, that might beg the
question of whether or not there should be office at all or
whether there should be an "or" there. But that was the
rationale for that number, as far as I can recall.
MAYOR JENSEN: Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: I'm definitely in favor of
keeping hotel, and the discussion definitely centered on
250,000 with the idea that conference centers was an unmet
need in town and that a hotel is a logical to add the
square footage so that we could provide some conference
facilities for our town.
The office, given what we now know about our
job /housing balance as well as the impacts to traffic, I am
perfectly comfortable taking office out.
MAYOR JENSEN: So I will comment on this. I am in
favor of the hotel as well. I would argue for office. I
would argue against medical office; I think it's no longer
an unmet need, particularly in that area of town. I think
it's a huge traffic generator. Because we've discussed the
types and designations of residential, I would also put a
limitation on the types and designation for office.
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I don't know what this would be, the square
footage, for example, of an incubator or a start -up space.
That may be something like, not called that, but like an
office for ten people, for example, and I could see that
office as being symbiotic with a small residential area
where a 25 year old would work all day in the office, come
back to his 1,000 square foot unit, go to coffee, go to get
food, do whatever, all in the same space, and I actually
see that as a potential traffic mitigation. That may be an
idea world, but you have to build for that kind of thing.
So when I say I don't have a problem with office, I would
limit the type of office I was thinking of, and that may be
• limitation based on a square foot of unit, not calling it
• particular thing, but by making it smaller.
I also see that as working with the hotel,
because if I am an office space I could bring people to the
hotel, talk to them about my product, whatever it might be.
That would create some kind of working space within that
plan, rather than bringing cars for whatever it might be
for the medical.
So I am for office and I am for hotel, but I'm
for some kind of designation of office space. Vice Mayor
Spector.
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VICE MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I don't disagree.
What we have to keep in mind is that 250,000 is a plan. I
mean this is the Specific Plan. We're not building a hotel
and we're not building offices, and so if we get rid of
medical and we say it's office and hotel, that leaves the
individual or company that ultimately develops the property
the option of one and /or the other. So I agree with the
Mayor that there are certain kinds of offices, and we can
call them whatever is appropriate and we can specifically
exclude medical. In my ideal world two years ago when we
were first working on this, there were incubator offices by
the hotel and they worked together really well, but that
may not be the real world.
MAYOR JENSEN: Other comments on this? Councilman
Rennie, were you putting your hand up?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Yeah, I just want to go
back to my comment, because it doesn't sound like it was
understood very well. My concern is getting all office. I
sort of like your idea of maybe creating a chart, but I
don't want to get too much detail. Another alternate may
just be it's 250,000 office /hotel total with office not to
exceed 100,000, or something like that I would feel more
comfortable with.
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MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, having that in mind, what
Councilman Rennie just said, is there consensus on keeping
an office and a hotel, but limiting the office in some
fashion? Raise your hand if you think that's fine. Okay, so
Staff, we are going to look to you to come back to us with
a chart or language that will be indicative of the
direction that the Council wants on that, which is 250,000
is fine, hotel is fine, and office is fine with limitations
as we've discussed.
I'm going to ask Council if they want to tackle
the question of one of the things that's been raised by the
public and has come up a lot with respect to the Specific
Plan, whether or not there should be any, again, I'm going
to say set - aside, within the plan for a school site? Do
people want to take that on tonight at 11:00 o'clock, or do
people want to defer that to a next discussion?
Councilwoman Sayoc.
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: There's an education
summit next week that all Council members and Planning
Commissioners and the public have been invited to, and I
actually think next week's discussion might provide
valuable information for that specific item.
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MAYOR JENSEN: That's is an excellent point, and
that is on February 12th, I believe, correct?
COUNCIL MEMBER SAYOC: Correct.
MAYOR JENSEN: 8:00 to 2:00 at Los Gatos Lodge,
for those of you who are interested.
Okay, looking to the Council again, I think we've
had a productive discussion. I know it's been slow, so
thank you for your patience, but we want to be thorough and
fair and try to make the best decision that we can.
Do we want to try to take on density /intensity,
open space, heights, et cetera, tonight, or do we want to
save that for another day when we get back information from
the Staff on the other points? Councilman Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
Jensen. I say we save that for another day.
MAYOR JENSEN: Others?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: It's not a very
straightforward discussion, and so I think maybe we should
save it also.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay. I'm not getting any protests
about that. I hesitate whether to ask Ms. Prevetti or Mr.
(Larson to tell us the consensus motions that you heard; I
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don't particularly want to do that. I think we've been
pretty clear in the record.
I think our next decision is when we will come
back to this, and ladies and gentlemen, at our next meeting
we are going to be discussing Hillbrook, so I'm not so sure
we want to put this on. Perhaps, Mr. Larson, you can remind
us, March 3rd we have the Joint School Study Session, and
remind me what else we have on that date?
GREG LARSON: We have tentatively scheduled,
pending Mayor's concurrence, the mid -year budget review and
the fees and charges, and those are substantive items. I'm
looking to Ms. Prevetti for any land use matters coming
forward that night.
LAUREL PREVETTI: Minor ones. Annexations, et
cetera.
GREG LARSON: Okay.
MAYOR JENSEN: Okay, I'm going to look to my
fellow Council people and try to get some indication. Does
March 3rd, given those items, make sense for continuing the
discussion? Okay, so I'm going to then make a motion to
continue this matter to March 3`d. Is there a second? All
right. All in favor? Opposed? Passes unanimously. So we
gill next consider the North 40 and continue our discussion
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on March 3rd. Thank you all very much for attending. Thank
you all for your input. We appreciate it very much, and
good evening.
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