Attachment 31
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A P P EAR AN C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners :
Town Manager :
Community Development
Director:
Town Attorney:
Transcribed by:
Mary Badame, Chair
D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair
Charles Erekson
Melanie Hanssen
Matthew Hudes
Tom O'Donnel l
Laurel Prevetti
Joel Paulson
Robert Schultz
Vicki L. Blandin
(510) 337-1558
A1TACHMENT 3
LO S GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7 /2016
Item #3 , 15975 Uni o n Avenue
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P R 0 C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR BADAME: All right, we are moving on to our
new public hearing, which is Item 3, 15975 Union Avenue,
Subdivision Application M-15-001, Architecture and Site
Applications S -15-009 through S-15-011 . Requesting approval
to demolish an existing San Francisco residence, subdivide
one lot into three lots, construct three new San Francisco
residences, and remove large protected t rees on property
zoned R-1 :10 . APN 523-42-017 .
May I have a show of hands from Commissioners who
have visited the site? Are there any di s closures from
Commissioners? Vice Chair Kane .
VICE CHAIR KANE: While visit i ng the site I had
incidental contact with a number of the neighbor s, three or
four .
CHAIR BADAME : Thank you. Ms. Walters, c an y ou
provide us with a Staff Report this evening?
ERIN WALTERS: Yes, good e v ening, Planning
Commissioners.
This site is located at the northwest c o rner of
Union and Blossom Hill Road. The site slopes downward and
sits below Blossom Hill Road in some areas. The existing
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27 /2016
Item #3, 15975 Union Avenue
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4,300 lot contains a single-family dwelling, _and the site
is zoned R-1:10 . The Applicant is proposing to subdivide
the one lot into three different lots.
At the August 2014 CDAC meeting the site access
off of Union was preferred to the subject site. All three
lots would be accessed from a shared driveway off of Union
Avenue. The CC&Rs will require that the shared driveway and
the garage apron for Lot 3 must remain clear and free for
fire access and turnaround.
The project includes required right-of-way
dedication for Union Avenue and Blossom Hill Road. Public
improvements also include curb, gutter, sidewalks on Union
and Blossom Hill, traffic signal relocation, upgrading
traffic signals, and pedestrian cross improvements. The
Desk Item tonight provides you with a conceptual layout of
the offsite improvements.
The Applicant proposes to construct three single-
family homes with attached three-car garages . Each home has
a different architecture style, and colors and materials
boards are located behind you, as well as attached in
Exhibit 4 of the Staff Report.
The Development Review Committee rev iewed the
project last August and neighbors raised several concerns
regarding building structure height, as well as site
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drainage. The Applicant has redesigned the project t o
capture the site 's water all on site in three bioretention
ponds , one on each lot . Water from indi vidual sites is also
directed around the homes and into a bioretention p o nd and
swale along Union Avenue.
The Town 's architectural consultant found that
the proposed build ing 's mass was in keeping wi th the
surrounding properties , however , the Appl icant has sinc e
revised the plans to lower the building height, t r y ing to
address neighbor 's concerns.
The project is being forwa r ded t o the P l anning
Commission, because neighbors have c oncerns that cou l d n o t
be resolv ed . This includes building mass, shadows,
enfo rcement o f no parking on the shared dr iveway, Lot 3 's
driv eway for fire access and turnaround, main tenanc e of the
storm water site design measures, and o ffsite improvement s
along Union Av enue .
The Appli c ant has me t with t h e neighbo r s to
dis c uss the project and concerns and rev isions .
This concludes Staff 's repor t . Both Planning and
Public Works is here to answer any questio ns you may have .
CHAIR BADAME: Thank y ou, Ms. Walters. VI CE CHAI R
KANE has a question for you.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7/2 0 16
Item #3, 15975 Union Avenu e
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1 VICE CHAIR KANE: Do you know if the power is
2 still on to the house?
3 ERIN WAL TERS : Th a t 's a g r e at ques tion . I d on 't
4 know that.
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Then I would ask Staff to make
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a note that the electrical panel box is wide open, there
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are wires hanging out, some of which are cut . A vacant
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house would be a great place for a kid to play, but the
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open electrical panel could be a bummer, so maybe we should
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pull the switch on that .
1 2 You mentioned fire access and turnaround twice.
1 3 Help me with that. What are you saying? Can a fire truck
14 turn around , or can 't?
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ERIN WALTERS : Working with the Fire Department
and the Applicant, the shared driv eway allows fire acc e ss
all the way down. In order to have fire access, no cars can
be parked on that street, so it would be red striped, and
in the CC&Rs it would have a condition that it would not
allo w parking o n that shared driveway. In addition, to have
the turnaround maneuver in order to turn around that we 're
utilizing the driv eway apron in Lot 3, and that in addition
would not be allo wed to hav e surface parking.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So the driveway in Lot 3 is big
enough f o r a fire eng i ne to turn around?
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ERIN WALTERS: Yes.
VICE CHAIR KANE: There 's no prob l e m with t h at
b ig ol ' thi n g t urn i ng a ro u n d?
ERIN WALTERS: Yes .
VICE CHAIR KANE: You mentioned the height was
recently reduced. Now, what does recent mean? Do I have the
reduction in height, or was there a subsequent reduction in
height?
ERIN WALTERS: You do have the most current
drawings with regard to the height reduction, and they also
moved the buildings over a bit to de c rease the shadow
impacts .
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Commis s ioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: I 've been try i ng to
understand the driveway, the parking, and all that kind o f
stuff , and I 've read back to the Town Code , and I think as
I 'm prone to do sometimes , I 've over t hought this . I guess
it would be helpful to me if you could review exactly what
the parking requirements and access requirements are, and
how they 're being app lied and how all of this meets t he
Town requirements, so that I c an get out of my funk of
overthinking this .
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27/2 016
I tem #3 , 1 5975 Uni o n Aven ue
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.ERIN WALTERS: The shared driveway is wide enough
for required driveways meeting three residences, as well as
meeting fire requirements, as long as we maintain that
there is no parking on the shared driveway . Each single-
family home is required by Town Code to provide two spaces;
that can covered or uncovered, the code does not specify
that. In this proposal, each home provides three covered
garages.
In Lot 1 you can see that they do not have a
driveway apron to park in . In that case, they chose to add
additional two parking spaces that are to the right of the
garage, so for Lot 1 there are three covered parking spaces
and two uncov ered .
For Lot 2 there are three cov ered for the garage,
and then driveway parking.
Then Lot 3 would be the three covered garage
spaces.
Agai n, they 'r e only required to provi de t wo
spaces.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, go ahead.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: So the two offsite parking
spaces that are essentially inside of Lot 1 are not
required, is that c orrect?
ERIN WALTERS: No.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7 /2016
Ite m #3 , 1 59 75 Union Avenue
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COMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, got it .
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: What you just described
presupposes that people will not park , and it isn 't clear
ERIN WALTERS: I described in Lot 1, there is no
driveway; it 's just a straight three -car garage, and then
two surface spaces .
Lot 2 does have a driveway and three-car garage .
They can park in their driveway as well as their garage.
Lot 3 though would haye to be included in the
CC&Rs and a deed restriction. It would state they couldn 't
park in their driveway; that would have t o be free and
clear .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: There will be nobody to
enforce that, so that if the Fire Department has to come
down that path and somebody is parked there, it might slow
them down.
ERIN WALTERS: That's correct, and I 've talked
with the Fire Department at length about this, and the
CC&Rs would be between the property owners and they would
have to regulate it. It is a shared driveway , it 's not a
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public road, and so PD would not respond or do t owing of
any sort. It would have to be regulated by the property
owners themselves.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Are these condominiums
or townhouses? Are they rentals? What are they?
ERIN WALTERS: They 're single -family homes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, so when you say
somebody is going to have to enforce this, you've got th ree
different owners, right?
ERIN WALTERS: Mmm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And the guy at the first
lot is hardly impacted at all. The pers on at the third l ot
is a turnaround , and he 's the only one of the three houses
t ha t can 't park in his ow n driveway?
ERIN WALTERS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME : Any further questions?
Commissioner Hanssen.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a couple of questions
along the same line of what Commissioner Erekson said . I
went through , because there are so many different
discussions with the neighbors and different times o f the
CDAC versus the Development Review Committee. I wrote down
LOS GATOS PLANNI NG COMM IS SION 1/27/2016
Item #3, 15975 Union Avenu e
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1 the conce rns that were still left, because I wasn 't s u re
2 myself what was still left and was most important.
3 In the case of building mass, as far as I could
4 tell the Staff Report indicated that the houses are in
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compliance with the Residential Design Guidelines and our
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Building Code, but some of the neighbors thought maybe that
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you could look into their house. But t hen it was mentioned
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in the Staff Report that it was far enough away that it, in
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Sta ff 's opinion , shouldn 't be an issue . Tho se words weren 't
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sa id , but...
12 ERIN WALT ERS: That's co r r ect.
13 COMISSIONER HANSSEN: So then to me , I don 't know
14 if building mass is really still an issue, in your opinion?
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ERIN WALTERS: From Staff 's opi n i on, it 's not . We
feel that the Applicant has reduced the height of the
building, and with it set back, as well a s vegetative
screening and the way that homes are oriented, we feel that
it meets the standards, our Residential Design Guidelines,
however; we still have received letters from neighbors who
have concerns.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN : And t hen the shadows, I saw
that there would be some shadows at certain times o f the
day during the winter, which is I presume the time that the
study was done , and I didn 't see any possible resolution
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for that. Is there a resolution for that that the Applicant
could make, or is it just a case of build or not build?
ERIN WALTERS: Our code requires that we look at
two different times of year for shadow studies-one is
summer solstice and the other is winter solstice-and three
different times during the day . The attachment for the
shadow study illustrates that of course in the winter
months the sun is lowest and it casts a longer shadow.
Tha t's one of the r easons the Applicant shifted
the buildings, to move the shadow farther away from the
rea r neighbor 's back yards , so they attempted to d o so. And
this doesn 't also take into account existing trees that a re
also there on site.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: So in your opinion the
shadow issue is addressed as much as possible in the
Applicant 's standpoint?
ERIN WALTERS: Staff feels that the Applicant has
made an effort to modify that, and based on the site
planning, they 're done their best .
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: And the driveway, I think
you just went through that, and I think that was the major
issues : the driveway, and related to that the fire access.
Then I had a couple of questions for my vantage
point. The t hing that struck me the most about this is
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where it is relative to Union, and I think we all know that
that 's a crazy busy intersection , and they 're right there
at the intersectio n. The majority of the traffic issue is
coming south on Union, and it would be right in front of
their driveway. It gets backed up as much as half of a mile
a lot o f weeknights.
I saw that there is a plan for some improvements,
but I thought there was already a right-turn lane versus a
left or ... We can really go straight through t hat
intersection, but I thought the lanes were already divided .
Maybe there's someone that did the plan for the traffic
improvements , but it wasn't clear to me what was going to
change really from where it was today, except for that
there is a small portion of a bike lane put in there, so
maybe I just mis sed something?
ERIN WAL TE RS : If I c ould , I 'd like to d e f e r t o
our traffic team to talk about that. Is that okay?
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: That 's fine .
ERIN WALTERS: Should I do it now?
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen , I 'm going to
recommend that we wait to ask a lot of these quest ions
until the Applicant has had a chance to come up and give
his presentation, because we have a lot of speakers and
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some of this could be discussed during our discussion
period.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Th a t 's fine .
CHAIR BADAME: Okay, thank you. All right, we
will now open the public portion of the public hearing and
allow the Applicant and their team ten minutes to address
the Commission. Mr. Kohlsaat, and his team.
TIM CRONIN: Good evening, Commissioners. Thanks
for letting us get in front of you today. My name is Tim
Cronini I represent the Union Avenue Betchart Partnership.
We are D&C Development and Carney Construction Consulting,
Inc.
We 've been building in this area for a long, long
timei probably hav e 60 to 80 years worth of experience.
Most recently we 've bee n building these t yp es of project
infill, little projects like this, from Redwood City to
Almaden. We have projects going now in Los Altos, Palo
Alto, Mountain Vi ew, Sunnyvale, and many others.
Our group has worked closely since July/August
2014 with Staff, and both Planning and Engineering has
worked with us t o help us with the neighbors' concerns .
We 've me t r egularly with t h e ne i ghbors as much as we can .
We 've listened t o all their feedback, talked to Staff about
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27 /2 016
I tem #3, 1 59 7 5 Uni o n Aven ue
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we 've come up wi th t h e plan we now have t oday .
We build high-quality stuff all over. We build
custom homes in the Los Altos hills and all over the place .
We 'll do the r i ght t hin g by the To wn of L o s Ga to s a nd
provide a quality project.
By the way, the power is off.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you.
TIM CRONIN: The power was cut from PG&E a long
time a g o , s o the re 's n o ris k t h e re.
We 've worked with the ne i ghborhood and done as
much as we can to mitigate some of thei r conce rns. With
th at said , I 'll turn i t ove r to Ga r y and let him give you
more detail, unless you have some questions f o r me.
Oh yeah, the Union Avenue situation, the traffi c
plan does add another lane; it widens it so t hat t hat left-
hand/right -hand turn situation will not be a problem. The r e
is actually 25 ' of Union Avenue f r o m our property being
dedicated to Union Avenue , plus a 3 ' sidewalk . On the
Blossom Hill side the r e 's 15 ' dedicated to the Town. And
this project, through the Conditions of Appro val, has to
improve that whole perimeter with curb, gutter, sidewalk,
two parking spaces i n the front, extra parking spac e s , and
whethe r there could be mo re addi tional parking alo ng
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Blossom Hill Road, that would be up to Staff and everybody
to talk about.
CHAIR BADAME : Thank you.
GARY KOHLSAAT : Good evening, everyone, Gary
Kohlsaat, architect .
I wanted to address the home design and our whole
concept, but I did want to add one point, that Tim has
assured me time and time again that this shared driv eway
agreement program that they use has worked successfully on
several of their projects , and so we wouldn 't be at this
point with this project without a tremendous amount of
history and success with this system.
We had originally asked for a modified flag lot,
and that was denied at the CDAC, or not denied but
suggested that we don 't that , so we didn 't go that tact .
But I'm sure we can answer more questions about that and
have more discussions about that . That seems like a hot
topic for you guys .
As far as the architecture goes, the first thing
I always do when I walk the property is walk the
neighborhood, because I know how important it is to be
compatible . Our pro ject needs to be compatible with what 's
a djacent to it and aro und it , and it 's pretty clear that
there are several subdivisions that are very, very similar
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to what we 're presenting today , so we 're in that pattern ;
the mass, the scale and size of everything, and there are
many three-car garages. We don't care for t h e arch itectur e ,
no offense . I know you guys didn 't design it . We 're n o t
mimicking the architecture , but we're using that as a basis
for what we 're presenting today.
Obviously this is a very important corner, and
we 've acknowledged that . We are not going to d o
architecture that wouldn 't be relevant to and
representative of Los Gatos , so that 's importa n t for us to
do these nice designs.
Also, it was refreshing when I first met with the
ownership group, because they weren 't interest ed i n pushi ng
the limits on FARs, on setbacks, on the heights, and even
the lot sizes are greater than they need to be . Th at 's
something that I think is important to remember through
this whole project .
The three different styles that we have , they 're
different, b ut they 're complementary to each ot h er , and
they all represent a piece of Los Gatos. Lot 1 is oriented
to Union and the corner, so you 're not seeing the side of
the house; you 're seeing the front of the house at the mo st
exposed part of the house on the lot . Then Lots 2 and 3 are
oriented to the north, which is the o fficial rear y ard, but
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we flipped everything around to be creative and to make
this project work, so we have our access off of Union.
Access off of Blossom Hill is not going to work.
We 've all looked at that several times, because we dedicate
15', we h ave to ra i se up that road . Now you can 't just
drive down that slope . Now you 've r a i sed it up 6 ' or 8 ', so
it makes it even worse than it is if it would be just
coming off the road today .
We 've been trying to explain this to the
neighbors: We orient the back of our homes towards the
south, towards the sunlight, which is more enjoyable for
outdoor entertaining, but all of that a c tiv ity and noise
and action is away fro m the ne i ghbors to the north, and we
did that on purpos e. I think having these homes just with
the garages on the front is the least impact to the
neighbors to the n o rth.
And as we said before, all these homes feature
three -car garages, which keep parking off the streets. They
all are under the cap for the FAR. They all exceed the
minimum setbacks , and they all are well within the 30 '
height limit.
We have prepare d a couple of slides here . The y're
not s uper clear , but the ide a i s to illustrate j ust how
tall these home s are.
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This is Lot 1, and you see just a sliv er of the
roof. Tha t's Lot 1.
Lot 2 , and what we 've done is created a glass
ceil ing 25 ' above grade. Our maximum height limit is 30 '.
So this is how much of the homes stick up above just the
25 ' height limit , like you would for a hillside .
And this is for Lot 3.
All of these homes are planned with newer
standards; 10' high ce ilings on the first floor , a nd 9 '-10 '
high ceilings in the second floor . We need to have these
10 ' ceilings. We want to have these 10 ' ceiling for resale;
that 's important to have this newer standard , but also
because of our system that we have to use for this
particular project is we're not using conventional raised
floors. There 's so much moisture in the ground that that
would be a disaster ; we 'd have too much moisture underneath
the house , so we 're going with a concrete flo or , and that
allows us to drop that floor betwe e n 16n -20" from a
standard conventional raised floor . So we 've lowered the
house j ust by that construction method 18 " from your normal
house.
The one drawback is we have to heat and cool from
up above ; we can 't heat and cool from underneath t h e slab.
We have to come in and drop in between the second floor and
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come in and heat and cool through that, so we have a lot of
soffits, and those would be between 8 '8 "-9 ' h igh , so it 's
not like we have these massive, tall ceilings throughout
this house.
This last slide shows how we set the thre e pads
in re lationship to the existing grade, and you can see
probably 50% or more of each house pad is submerged in the
existing grad e , except f o r Lot 2 , and t hat 's becaus e the
existin g h o u se is the r e ; i t 's a l rea dy been graded .
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Kohlsaat. Are there
any questions for Mr. Kohlsaat? Comm issioner Hanssen.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question . I saw the
plan was to remove all of the trees on the site, and sinc e
I drive down that street almost every day , I didn 't even
know there was a house there until I l ooked at this from a
planning commissioner perspect i ve. I was just having this
imagination where I didn 't notice the area , because of all
the trees, and now there are not going to be any .
I see there is a plan to put some kind of plants
and a fence there . Could you walk me through what I 'm going
to be looking a t? And then there is also maybe parking
wh ere I 'v e never seen anyone park o n Blossom Hill . So just
tell me what I 'm going to be seeing when I drive down
Blossom Hill .
LO S GAT OS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7 /2016
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GARY KOHLSAAT : Okay , I 'll do my best . Firs t of
all, these trees, the majority of them are not in the
greatest of shape. The owner did not take very good care of
these trees, and ironically, of the 67 I think that were
identified in the Staff Report as protected trees, 45 of
them are along the easements , the dedications that we 're
giving back to the Town on Blossom Hill and Union. So
that 's two -thirds of the protected trees are actually in
wha t 's now going to be Town property . So the Town is
actually removing the trees! No.
There are a couple of trees that look pretty
signifi cant within the site . There 's a giant redwood t hat 's
right there on Union that we attempted to save, but heroics
would have been for naught, because the tree is in not that
good of a shape, and the minimal stress that we put on it
from the sidewalks and house and all that stuff, would have
damaged that tree.
All the other trees fell right where the
subdivision lines were, and the Town arborist supported our
arborist report to say that these trees are not really
worth saving.
We can start over now . We can plant trees that
are more appropriate. Not that the oaks are not
appropriate, but the oaks are lining the road, so what
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you 're going to see is these three homes with trees that
are ... We 've had to up the size a little bit so you can have
more mature trees from the beginning; they 're 36 -inch box
trees along the front.
You 're going to see light and air , but you 're
also going to see what you see along that road anyway , and
you see fences, and we 're going to continue that pattern.
So this is all about continuing the pattern to be
compatible with this . So it 's goi ng to look more uniform
that it 's this one little forest thing and then everything
else is straight .
Along Blossom Hill we get nine extra parking
spaces, and we ge t three to four parking spaces on Union,
so those are all probably g oing to be used up by the
neighbors, and maybe a Hillbroo k School bus, I don't know.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you f or that. We see
many proposals for a development where a lot of the trees
can 't be saved , and we rely on the consulting arborist to
make the call , so that 's fine.
I think what you said was you 're going to put a
fence at the south end o f t he property along Blossom Hill,
and in fro nt of it will be these parking spots, that space
that you're giving back to the Town , as you 're coming
towards Blossom Hill. And then the trees that you're
LOS GATOS PLANN ING COMM ISSION 1/27/2016
Item #3, 15975 Union Avenue
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1 replanting, or vegetation, is going to be inside or outside
2 of the fence?
3 GARY KOHLSAAT : There 's no plan for any street
4 trees, that I know of, from the Town, but we will be
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planting within out property significantly, all over, at
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all the perimeters.
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COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think your conc lusion was
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that it 's going to look much neate r and cleaner and have
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better conditioned trees than are there today, is that
correct?
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12 GARY KOHLSAAT : That 's for sure . You 're also
1 3 going to be able to much better merge lanes onto Blossom
14 Hill . What I 've been told by Town Engineering is that there
15 is really no plan to widen Blossom Hill to three or four
16 lanes at that point, it 's going to stay two forever , so
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this will allow that extra parking and width for the merge,
and also for safety , and the sidewalk . Now you 'll be able
to walk that sidewalk all the way around , in addition to
picking up and improving all the street drainage.
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: A couple o f questions.
You indicated a grade differential of when the
improvements are made along Blossom Hi ll . I didn 't qui te
understand that , so I 'll come back to that i n a minute .
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What I would like you to explain to me is if
there is a gray difference between where Blossom Hill is
going to be on this property, because you also said it was
not possible-I think you said that-to access, I guess it
would be Lots 1 and 2 , from Blossom Hill. I 'm not sure you
said it would be imposs ible, but i t wasn 't a good idea . I
thought I might ask about that.
Then the third thing, it 's all of the same idea ,
is what you 've done then is you have access coming in on
the far side and running down the lots, and as an example
that it works , it 's been done before , I'm wondering how
many times you've had a f i r e truck have to reach a house at
the end of that driveway?
We 'll get to one at a time. Is there a gray
differential because of what you 're doing between t h e edge
of your property and Blossom Hi ll?
GARY KOHLSAAT: I think I woul d direct you to
page A-4 .4; it 's towa rd the back , o ne of the last pages .
CHAIR BADAME : Exhibit 14, I believe ,
Commissioner O'Donnell .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you.
GARY KOHLSAAT: We also have it up on the screen.
Thank you, Erin.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I 've got it , thank you.
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GARY KOHLSAAT : We have these site sections here:
Lot 1, Lot 2, and Lot 3. If you look at Lot 2, for example,
it 's kind of cut off , but right here you can see the dash ed
line .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yes.
GARY KOHLSAAT: That's the existing grade. You
see this hard line th at's horiz o ntal? That will be fill for
the roadway and the sidewalk, so we have to retain all
tha t, a nd then we 've terraced it d own to our rear yard .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And the elevation
differential between the top straight line and the building
platform?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Down here?
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Yeah.
GARY KOHLSAAT : That 's between 10 '-12 '.
COMMISSIONER O 'DO NNE LL : And you 're go i ng to have
a fence along that line, so peop l e don 't fall in?
GARY KOHLSAAT: It will have a fence right t here,
right inside of our property line; it will be a redwood
fence. The people walking on the sidewalk need at least a
minimum guardrail , which would be 42". Everyone else up and
down that part of the road has redwood f ences , so we 're
continuing that pattern.
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1 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But the fences then are
2 not merely like a normal fence would; these are to prevent
3 people from falling down 10 ' .
4 GARY KOHLSAAT : It 's a regular neighborhood type
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fence.
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pad.
GARY KOHLSAAT: Correct.
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12 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL : So if somebody is
13 walking along the sidewalk and there 's no fence and they
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GARY KOHLSAAT : That 's correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So the fence will
preve nt that.
GARY KOHLSAAT: It will.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Now, when you go to Lot
1 and you want to access Union, that's on grade , then?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Yes. Actually, there 's a little
bit of grade difference that we have to make up , but it's
essential l y ... Like right now you drive right onto that
property.
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COMMISSIONE R O 'DONNELL : So that 's why you say
the only access you can have of these three properties has
to come in on Union?
GARY KOHL SAAT: That 's correct .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNE LL: And the three homes will
be owned indiv idually, and I don't know whether there would
be a homeowners association. Who regulates the roadway to
keep it clear?
GARY KOHLSAAT: It 's a shared maintenance
agreement between the three property owners.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL : So somebody or some
group is supposed to make sure people don 't park in the
access road ?
GARY KOHLSAAT: That correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Why would they d o that?
GARY KOHLSAAT : Why would they not do that?
COMMISSIONER O 'DONNELL : If you 're Lot 1 , it 's
no t really a problem, is it?
GARY KOHLSAAT: No.
COMM IS S I ONER O 'DO NNEL L : If you 're Lot 3 , it 's a
big problem. Also, the turnaround takes away some of the
parking of Lot 3, right?
GARY KOHLSAAT : It take s away the driveway
parking, but we have the three -car par king garage.
LOS GATOS P LANNING COMMISSION 1 /27/2 01 6
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COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The other two properties
have driveway parking?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Correct.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Have you designed
something like this before, in person?
GARY KOHLSAAT: No , I haven 't .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay, thank you ve ry
much .
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: One quick question. The red
lines on the curb, are they on both sides?
GARY KOHLSAAT : Yes, they are.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I've got mo re , b u t that's the
first one I wanted to know . That 's going to be an
interesting good neighbor policy . Get your car out of the
driveway.
GARY KOHLSAAT: Yeah. We all are hoping that this
is going to be one of those small communities where the
neighbors are friends, and they get along, and they watch
each other 's back.
VICE CHAIR KANE : Did you hear? So teenagers are
prohibited . Thank you .
GARY KOHLSAAT: Mine are, for sure .
CHAIR BADAME : Thank you, Mr. Kohlsaat.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27 /2 016
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I am now going to invite comments from members of
the public, and I am going to start with the first speaker
card, calling Gideon Gimlan to the podium.
GIDEON GIMLAN: Hi, my name is Gideon Gimlan; I
reside in the property adjacent to Lot 1, which is 100
Lasuen Court, which is immediately to the north of Lot 1.
The main focus of my concern here is we 've been
living in this house immediately adjacent to Union Avenue
southbound for 28 years, and the roadway adjacent to us has
always been a parking area, and there is a phy sical fence .
I don 't have a drawing here , but I think some of the
Commissioners have visited the site and there 's a physical
white fence in the roadway before the area that 's dedicated
t o the Town, the area that 's still owned by the lot , that
prevents cars from zooming through and making a right turn
onto Blossom Hill Road.
My understanding is that the plans call for
dedicating that area to the Town and tearing down that
physical fence, meaning that cars heading southbound ... As
mentioned numero us times here today, right after around
3 :00pm till about 7:00 or 8:00 at night there's a nonstop
line of traffic trying to get through there; some cars
trying to make a left turn, some trying to make a right
turn.
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If that area is opened up it 's going to become a
raceway for people trying to make a right turn onto Blossom
Hill Road, and it will severely impact our way of living,
because suddenly we're going to have a new road of traffic
Union Avenue. Not only having traffic, but unfortunately
some drivers like to blast their radios. They do now, but
now they 're going to be 10 '-15 ' closer to our house, and
motorcycles and cement diesel trucks and whatever.
So my plea here is that that physical fence
remains there to block traffic from zooming through and
using that as a raceway to make a right turn onto Blossom
Hill Road.
And additionally, if they 're going to have a
driveway where the new neighbors are going to have to try
to pull out onto Uni o n Avenue, if there are cars racing
right there , they 're never going to get out safely, so it
would be to their safety to continue to have that fence
there so that they don 't collide with cars and they can
pull out a little bit and at least take a look before they
make a turn, so for that issue .
My time is up .
CHAIR BADAME: Oh no , you 've got 30 seconds left .
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GIDEON GIMLAN: Thirty seconds left. About the
shared fence? My wife is upset about we don 't want to have
a shared fence, we want them to be responsible for the
fence , and they 're not going to put it on our property.
What else, lights from the driveway? Also no
neighbors across the street. We 've had a rock and roll band
there, and a driveway, and a drug house and all that, so
having a garage facing you is no panacea, especially if the
neighbor has a kid with a rock and roll band.
CHAIR BADAME: Mr. Gimlan, stay put . We might
have questions for you . Commissioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: Back to your concern about
extending the second lane, which precedes the fence, there
are two lanes farther on Union at that point in time, so if
one were to assume the amount of traffic going on Union is
not a function of whether or not there is one lane at t he
intersection of Bl ossom Hill and Union, so the volume of
traffic is a function of whatever it 's a functi on of . I
mean it 's why people are driving that direction. Volume of
traffic isn't dictated by where there 's on e or two lanes
there, so why would putting two lanes there not cause less
backup at that intersection rather than one lane being
there, which there is now, so that those people that could
turn right won 't have to wa it in line , and so t h e r efore why
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wouldn 't it cause less congestion and less backup adjacent
to your home? I 'm not following the logic that you 're
using.
GIDEON GIMLAN : Good question, and I 'll answer it
right away. There 's a school up Alta Vista , up the road a
little further north on Union Avenue, and starting around
3 :00 o 'clock there is massive traffic heading southbound on
Union, and even when I try to go home, southbound on Union,
I don 't want to drive there because of the backup.
If we increase the amount of volume of traffic
and flow, that will encourage more people to come down
Union , because now it 's got the nice raceway to make the
right turn into Blossom Hill Ro ad. I t won 't lessen the
traffic; it will increase the traffic. As you know, when
you open up a highway and you provide more lanes, they
always fill up, and so this is just going to fill up the
road e v en more with more traffic, rather than less.
Additionally, because we are the house
immediately adjacent to Union we 're going to get hit with
the smoke, with the noise, car accidents, whatever, and of
course there will be a loss of parking, because it will be
dangerous to park there with all that traffic racing by.
CHAIR BADAME: Doe s that answer your question?
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1 COMISSIONER EREKSON: He expressed an opinion
2 about the question.
3 CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. No further questions
4 for Mr. Gimlan , so I 'll be calling the next speaker. We
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have Joni Gimlan stepping up to the podium, and you 're
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allowed three minutes.
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JONI GIM LAN: Hi , I'm Joni , I 'm (inaudible) wife .
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I'd like to discuss the traffic also on Union Avenue as one
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Originally, according to the builder there were
12 going to be arrows to go away from our house before they
13 make a right turn . They were planning on having parking on
14 the side of Union Avenue and then having a green bike lane,
15 and that would make it more of a distance for the cars to
16 be a little bit away from our bedroom window, so we
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wouldn 't have to hear all the noise on Union Avenue , that
they would have that green bike lane with the parking on
Union Avenue instead of going directly next to our house
Union Avenue. If no one is parking there, they're just
going to go right there anyway and make a sharp right, so
it would be helpful if we could have a bike lane and
parking on Union Avenue to prevent that from happening.
The other thing is the other homes, the garage
does face the bac k yard to the homes; it's to the sides .
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But on Lot 1 the garage faces our back yard, so the opening
and the closing of the garage , we 're worried about t he
lights going into our yard . I know the y proposed a 6 '
fence, but we would like to propose at least a 7 ' fence ,
and some way to keep the lights out of our back yard every
time that the garage opens and closes.
I 'm not exactly sure how they're going to pull
in , becau se they're going into this one driveway , and then
they have to make a sharp turn into the garage in Lot 1,
because there it just g oes straight. They 'd have to make a
complete 90-degree turn into the garage, where the others
h ave some leeway to get into the garage , so I 'm not exactly
sure how that 's going to work either .
And again, the fence that would separate o ur home
from their h omes , from this dr iveway, we do n't want to be
responsible for it. We want it to be said in the deed with
their homes that the homeowners are responsible for the
fence that they 're going to build . Because are they going
to keep t h e upkeep of this fence? It 's r ea l ly n ot going to
be right near their house , it 's going to be a roadwa y
fence.
So that 's pretty much what I wanted to say.
CHAIR BADAME: Thirty seconds.
JONI GIMLAN: I don't know; that 's i t , I guess .
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CHAIR BADAME : Vice Chair Kane has a question for
you.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Mrs. Gimlan, if I understand,
you 're a s king for a bike l ane and a right-hand turn lane as
they approach Blossom Hill?
JONI GIMLAN: It 's hard f or me to imagine this ,
but it was supposed to be ... We hav e parking on the side o f
our house right now, and they were originally going to have
a bike lane there . I guess if you 're taking the wall off to
make it a bike lane going around to Blossom Hill Road, but
I 'd be happy if you just had it towards our hou se so that
it prevents people from going near our window.
And there is a light there , so people , when i t 's
not green , are going to stop and go , stop and go , and it 's
going to be very loud . My bedroom window is right there. I
have unusual working hours; I really need to sleep and I
don 't want to hear horns blowing . So this little buffer
helps .
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Ms. Walters, could
you put the right-hand turn diagram back up?
The diagram we had up as you appro ached the mi c ,
I 'm thi nk ing it indicat es what you're aski n g for. The
right -hand turn lane , the bike lane in the middle , and the
one lane for making the left turn , and t h ey 're giving away
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7/2016
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1 a chunk of property for that right-hand turn lane, for the
2 bike lane, neither which currently exist, as well as room
3 for parking-it doesn't ext end down to your house , but just
4 alongside of their house-and a sidewalk .
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JONI GIM LAN: What I 'm suggesting is by my h ouse
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to ... We have the parking there now , but to put t he bike lane
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after the parking, because otherwise people are just going
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to go straight near here to make this turn, and if I have a
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buffer of a bike lan e , so they'll be at lea st farther away
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before they go into the turn lane to make the turn, instead
1 2 of right next to my house on Union Avenue.
13 VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, come back to the
14 podium . Let me ask Staff . Where 's that bike lane going to
1 5 start, do we know?
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JOEL PAULSON : You 'll have t h e opportunity to
talk to Engineering Staff who are here, who can answer that
question.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. Well, I 'll save that
question, because it may help address some of your
concerns.
CHAIR BADAME: Do we have any other questions?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes, I do. I don't know if the
Town wo uld allow o ne, if safety indicates there be o ne, but
what about a traffic control device, like a speed bump,
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say, right about by your bedroom window? Do you think that
would help? If they hit it going fast , you 'd never know ,
because th ey 'd just go straight up.
JONI GIMLAN: No . My husband says no .
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions? Thank you.
I 'll be calling the next speaker , whi c h is Amanda Wilson .
You 're part of the te am? All right , next speaker , Jan
Murray .
JAN MURRAY: My name is Jan Murray ; I'm a
resident at 104 Lasuen Court, which is adjacent to Lot 2,
and we 've been there for over 17 years . I wan ted to say
thank you to Erin and Mike and Jennifer and the whole DRC
f o r helping , and oh my gosh, to Ian and Gary and all of you
all.
We 've really had a lot of conversations since
last March . Not since 2014, but I did give them a call in
March when the dumpsters were coming and making a lot of
noise on that property, and Ian took care of it right away.
And I thank you guys for listening to our concerns and
reading through our big booklet.
I have some outstanding concerns, and I have one
real quick question. Are the CC&Rs part of this approval
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process that we 're going through tonight , or are they
later?
CHAIR BADAME: That would be later, ac c ording to
Mr . Paulson .
JAN MURRAY: I have a tre me ndous concern that
part i cular design elements are dependent on these CC&Rs,
b ut they 're not approved i n concert with the dependent
items , so I don 't think it should be approved without the
CC&Rs that are correlating being articulated
simultaneously.
Again, pushing it down to future home o wners to
keep that r oad c lear f or fire sa fet y a n d f o r eac h other is
a great conc ern t o me, e specia lly for Lo t 3 where they
can 't even have a guest come over and park in the driveway
and have a conversation , because it 's the CC&Rs, so they
ought to have a place there.
The o ther concern in regard to the CC&Rs i s the
groundwater management . Again , I don 't know what the
requi r e ments are on t he future h o meowne r s , but my
under s tanding is they may have to do ma intena nce every s ix
months o r more freque ntly t o e n sure that t he g roundwat e r
s ys tem i s r unning f ree a nd c l ear, but I d o n't know , I
haven 't seen the CC&Rs for that .
LOS GATOS P LANNI NG CO MM ISS I ON 1/2 7 /2016
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I think that before we enter into a very complex
engi neeri n g s y stem wh ere we 're a llowing a n i n c r e as e in
impervious area relative to going to the original planning
i n orde r to ma na ge the ground wate r r unof f, we 'd r ea lly want
to see what are we expecting of future homeowners? Maybe
i t 's very reasona b l e , b ut we h a ve n o idea wh at i t i s , and
so, aga i n, I 'd like to see that with the plans.
Last, with regard to height and mass, I know you
a l l k now it 's con s i s te n t wi t h t he e xist ing plans fo r t his
sort of residential area, but this is a unique property,
it's act ua lly a s l o p e wi t h a fa irly s i gn ifica n t g rade ,
tha t 's wh y the y can 't get from Blossom Hill into Lot 3 with
the driveway, and so therefore although this is not zoned
hillside, it is at the bottom layer of a hillside, and
there are a lot of concerns with that, and therefore these
homes sit above my home , so t hey 're not a d j acent at 30 ' or
below, t h ey 're a ctua lly abo v e i t , s o I t h i nk that it 's not .
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you .
JAN MURRAY: I had fiv e minutes in the email t hat
I received.
CHAIR BADAME : I 'm sorry , you just have three
minutes, and out of fairness, I have to allow three minutes
to all the speakers. But you can stay there, because we
might have questions for you .
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1/27/2016
Ite m #3 , 15 975 Union Av enue
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1 JAN MURRAY: Okay.
2 CHAIR BADAME : Do any of the Commissioners have
3 questions? Seeing none, thank you.
4 JAN MURRAY: Okay, so it does say five minute s in
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the email I received.
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CHAIR BADAME : I'm sorry , I haven 't seen your
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email, but I 'm going to have to ask you to sit down. It's
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three minutes.
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JAN MURRAY: Okay.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. You can send us written
12 communications.
13 JAN MURRAY: I will. Thank you .
14 CHAIR BADAME: Thank you Suzanne Belshe.
15 FEMALE: Suzanne is not here . She 's sick tonight .
16 She sent a letter to you (inaudible ).
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CHAIR BADAME : Thank you. Peter Costigan .
PETER COSTIGAN: Hell o , my name is Peter
Costigan; I live at 104 Lasuen. Jan is my wife, so same
house as Jan.
Jan has covered most of my concerns . I 'd like to
echo thanks to these guys, because they really have been
listening to us and working with us, but we too still have
a few concerns h ere .
LOS GATOS PLANNING CO MMISSION 1 /27/20 1 6
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Let 's see , I 'm just trying to pick up anything
that Jan didn 't have time fo r.
L et 's see , Joni mentione d one , which is on my
mind, because it was the last thing I heard, and that was
about garb age. We 're not too clear in the shared driveway,
are the garbage trucks going down it? Are people picking up
garbage, or do they have to take it all the way to the end?
Is that a part of CC&Rs, et cetera?
I personally on the driveway have the concern
that there isn 't a sidewalk or a walkway for anybody. I
mean this is families, presumably there will be kids, and
it 's just a driveway with red striping on both sides.
What's in it for me is maybe if they put in a
sidewalk they 'll set the houses back farther . There is some
self interest in this also, but I also think how do people
walk up and down the street? How do you park your car and
then walk to the house without walking in a driveway that
presumably has traffic coming and going on it.
The next issue is about the height. The developer
has several options to reduce the mass and height of the
proposed homes. One example is to continue the Lot 3
deve l opment, remove the rooms over the two-car garages, and
reduce ceiling heights on the first floor ceiling from 10 '
to 9 ' and lowering the second floor ceil ings. The current
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proposal of 9 '4 " and 10 ' ceiling heights is both
unnecessary and energy inefficient.
Another option is to explore re-designating
property (inaudible) with one-story homes under 18 ' in
height .
I think that 's it . I too , actually , in te rms of
privacy , I would like to see a higher fence than the 6 '
limit that Los Gatos has, because they are looking directly
into my back yard fr om thos e homes . That 's i t. Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Costigan. I believe
we 've got a question for you , and that would be from
Commissioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: So they adjusted the roof
pitch and the pitch of the garage in the redesign I believe
in both cases. Does that from your perspective adequately
address what I understood were concerns from the
documentation that you have about height relative to your
house?
PETER COS TIGAN: We would still like t o see the
houses shorter . The y 're up above us , so the elevation of
the whole lot is significantly higher than our home. They
have reduced the height of the buildings, but they still
are pretty large. The trees are all going to be gone on
this lot. We see a l ot of those trees also, and what we
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think we 're going to be seeing is just building. We won 't
see mountains , we'd miss some of the sky , and we would
prefer shorter buildings.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: So they haven't adequately
addressed your concern about height, is that the simple
answer to my question?
PETER COSTIGAN: Yes. Bottom line, y eah.
COM ISSIONER EREKSON: It wasn 't apparent to me ,
because I didn 't go in your back yard , but I 've been on the
site probably half a dozen times. How much of the tree
vegetation was in that separate ... I mean basically now all
of the house s that back up to it has pretty significant
vegetation between them . It wasn 't between your street and
the adjacent property . It wasn 't clear to me how many trees
were on your property that was contributing to that, and
how many o f t hem were on the subject property?
PETER COSTIGAN: Yes, we have three large redwood
trees on our property that block one corner of the house,
but there are some thinner trees for the most part for the
majority of our fence there.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: So then an 8 ' fence , which
they are comfortable with, and your three redwood trees,
and the tree s that they 're pr opos ing to put in in that
space wouldn 't provide adequate ...
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PETER COSTIGAN: Those trees start off at 8 '. I
mean they 've made them taller , but I think t h ey start off
f ai rly low , and t h e y didn 't put any r ight alon g the other
side of the fence from us .
COMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME : Thank you, Mr . Costigan. Our next
speaker will be Terry Tersini.
TERRY TERSINI: Hi. I also reside on Lasuen
Court , but I 'm at the end of the court . I 'm h ere to s upport
t h e develo p ment of t hese n e w homes , b ecause they 'll be a
really nice complement to the existing neighborhood and
clean up what has been a real blighted site for y e ars, as
we 've all driven past it .
I also support the project because I believe the
site improvements will help improv e the s afety o f the turn
mo v ement onto Blossom Hill Road from Union going westbound.
We can 't control the traffic patte r ns , but I think it will
help alleviate that backup on Union, and as people approach
Blosso m Hill i t will giv e peo ple a right turning lane .
I would only like t o request that coming out of
Lasuen Court that we c ould paint a Keep Clear o n that road,
becaus e it 's really hard to exit our cul de sac turning
left , going north on Union , because cars don't seem to see
us, e s pecially in the e v e n ing time, and it would be nice to
LOS GATOS P LANNING COMM I SSION 1/2 7 /2 016
I tem #3, 15 975 Union Avenu e
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1 get that painted. There is a sign I think that says Keep
2 Clear , but nobody sees it , because it 's far away .
3 I respectfully encourage the Planning Commissio n
4 to approve this project.
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CHA IR BADA ME: Than k y o u . Don 't go a way .
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Commissioner Erekson has a question for you.
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COMISSIONER EREKSON: Could you remind me, on
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your cul de sac are there sidewalks?
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TERRY TERSINI: Yes.
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COMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, I thought so. Thank
12 you.
1 3 CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane has a question for
1 4 you .
1 5 VICE CHAIR KANE: I just want to make sure; your
1 6 cul de sac is just opposite the project?
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TERRY TER SINI : It 's r i gh t adjacent to the
project .
VICE CHAIR KANE: I t 's a cross the street or same
side of the street?
TERRY TERSINI: Same side of the street .
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you . Commissioner Hanssen.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to ask,
because I was on your street, do you have the same
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differential and grade between the property and your home
i s the oth ers? You didn 't me ntion the height as being a
concern.
TERRY TERSINI : No , because I 'm at the end of the
c u l de sac , so I 'm a litt le b it hi g he r .
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: And I thought your street
maybe we nt up a ...
TERRY TERSINI: It kind of goes up, right.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Our next speaker,
Thomas Mangano.
THOMAS MANGANO: Tom Mangano, 112 Panorama Way.
The only reason this project can go the way it 's c onfigured
as I understand it, as Paul explained it to me, is because
they 're saying Bl ossom Hill is a frontage road , therefore
that allows them to build a shared driveway.
I 've been after this issue for five years , and
I've yet to get any legal answer on why this is legal , but
I'm not here to debate .
But I think a shared driv eway is a real problem
issue. Any time you have CC&Rs, that puts a burden on
neighbors, it puts a burden on the future homeo wners,
puts a burden on the Town, and the Town has a problem
these things.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /2 7 /2016
Ite m #3 , 1 5975 Union Ave nue
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In my case, I was here three years ago. We have a
problem with my CC&Rs. The Town approved a pull project to
destroy the CC&Rs. So the price that everybody has to pay
is you hav e to abide by the CC&Rs, and that includes the
Town . The developer makes his money , he go es away , and it 's
the neighbors and the homeowners that get stuck with the
CC&Rs.
The Town needs to do its job , and I don 't t hink
this town is staffed to do it correctly. In our case, they
haven 't d one it . Why in th is case? Yeah , this who le issue .
Who enforces n o parking? Who enforces it?
Now , in the case of Lot 3 , couldn 't we make the
house a li ttle smaller to get some parking on it? Why is
every house 3 ,330 feet, or whatever it is?
And there are also laws that say Lot 2 doesn 't
even meet the 10,000, if you take away the shared access .
In a flag lot you can 't count that pole , you ca n't count
that square feet, but given this me thod , you 're count i ng
the square feet when people don 't even own it .
And from the neighbors ' viewpoint , these people
don 't even have a back yard . There 's no vegetation between
their house and the house behind them. It 's not right . It's
a loophole that is j ust not right.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Mangano.
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1/27/2 016
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THOMAS MANGANO: I don 't think they 'll have any
questions.
CH AI R BADAME : Ther e 's a q uestion f o r you f r o m
Vice Chair Kane. You can't escape .
VICE CHAIR KANE: In your letter of July 30 you
mentioned Love Ladies Properties Owners Association.
THOMAS MANGANO: Right. And (inaudible) or
whatever it is, yeah.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Were you citing a precedent
c a s e o n wh a t we s h o u ld do r egarding ...
THOMAS MANGANO: Ironically, if you look at the
rules of a flag lot, they apply to these two rulings. You
can 't count the pole square footage . I n this case , to get
around the flag lot issue , we 're a llowing a sh ared
driveway. Not only can you use a shared driveway, you c o uld
also capture all that square footage, and I just think that
there 's nothing in the Town that says you can do it
s p ecifically . If I g o to Palo Alto 's code , there 's a code
that says you can d o that . I go to Los Gatos ; it 's not that
clear.
I just don 't thin k it 's r i ght . I thi nk it 's a
loophole, and the only reason they can do this is because
to the county Blossom Hill is a frontage road. Howe v er,
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27 /2016
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they then tu r n around and say we c an't use Blossom Hill ,
it 's too high . So it 's not ri ght.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you.
THOMAS MANGANO : It 's not right.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Our last speaker will
be Lee Quintana.
LEE QUINTANA: Lee Quintana, 5 Palm Avenue . It
seems to me that this whole issue on this lot revolves
around whether to use a s hared driveway or a flag lot, and
it appears that while CDAC made the recommendation that
they preferred Union Avenue and a shared driveway and not a
flag l o t, those recommendations were made prior to CDAC
knowing that there we r e i ssues with drainage, issue s with
the fa ct that they can 't access off of Blossom Hill Road ,
and without having any knowledge of the problems of
enforcing the fi re turnaround, or even knowing that there
would b e no real fire turnaround.
I don't know o f any other project in the Town
that has t hi s kind of arrangement for a fire turnaround,
r equiring that an owner cannot park o n his own driveway. I
think that 's tota l ly unenforceable .
I think the slope of the lot, the characteristics
o f the lot, the f act o f the high water table that prevents
the ability to use o ther kinds of mechani s ms t o meet the c-
LOS GAT OS PLANNING COMMISSION 1/27/2016
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able to reach the conclusion that you can make the
findings, either C or D, that this project should not be
approved.
I want to say that Staff was very helpful to me
in understanding the question of the fire truck turnaround,
how that would be not enforced, that it would be simply
voluntary enforcement. They gave me some indication of how
the C-3 requirements would be met, but I still am not sure
how you enforce the homeowner from not altering the
bioretention basins, not altering the type of landscaping,
or using it as open space where you compact the soils and
destroy the ability of those things to function.
I think that there are reasons that this project
can be denied, and that a flag lot makes a lot more sense
here . You don't h ave all the issues of shared easemen t s ,
shared driveways, and shared responsibilities and things
that are not enforceable.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. We might
have questions for you. Do any Commissioners have a
question for Ms. Quintana?
LEE QUINTANA: There are no other examples in the
nearby area of a driveway, but there are flag lots .
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1/27 /2016
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you . Thank you. We have no
more speaker cards, so now we will allow the Applicant and
his team five minutes to add further comments about the
application.
GARY KOHLSAAT: I appreciate everybody talking
and bringing up their concerns. We have done our best to
adjust and alter and make everybody happy, but we
understand that that 's not alway s going to be the ca se, and
in this case we feel that we are very reasonable as far as
the height of this house.
I just wanted to point out a couple of things.
One of the new Conditions of Approval is that
they 're not only allow i ng us , but they 're actually almost
requiring u s to do an 8 ' tall fence along the north
property line , and we 're okay. We actually asked Jan and
Peter if they would like an 8 ' fence , or if they wanted 7 '
or 6 ' or whatever , so we're going to work wi th them .
Our shared driveway actually curves around away
from their property by a couple of more feet to h e lp
protect the redwoods that they have . They have three large
redwoods , and so we certainly don't want to hurt those .
That 's one reason why we don 't have a fire truck turnaround
in the middle lot, that we have it at the end lot, because
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we just didn 't have as much room t o make that happen , so
the road is away from them a little bit more .
We did not put any more trees. If y ou look at the
landscape plan there is a lack of trees on their property,
because they have such dense vegetation there and they were
conce rne d a bout sun and shadows and stuff , so we didn't
want to add to that . But when we met with them we offered,
we would be happy to plant our trees in between their trees
and create a better screen, if that 's possible , but that 's
on the table there.
If you look at Condition of Approval 58 it
clearly states what the CC&Rs have to address, and we are
all about that. We can make all that happen.
This notion of policing the shared driveway
happens a lot . Commissioner O'Donnell asked me if I 've ever
done something like this . I haven 't done something exactly
like t h is , but I 've certainly done hillside homes wh ere you
have a shared driveway and multiple driveways. There 's
actually one in Creffield Heights; there 's a shared
driveway where Mr. Lochner lives and everything like that,
and they keep that clear, so this happens in many places.
Ms. Walters pointed out there is a street down
just a way that serv es nine homes, and if you look at that
road it looks like a bike path, so this is not impossible
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and this is not impractical. And when they see these homes,
it 's full disclosure that that 's going to be on there , that
they have to be away of these situations when you purchase
these homes . So it's not something that 's just going to
hide.
The Conditions of Approval a l so include
maintenance of these bioswales, and Amanda Wilson, who is
our civil engineer, is an expert at all this kind of stuff
and she can address it more, but she tells me that every
six months or something like that, or year, the state can
check in on you, so if something is going wrong the state
can come down on the homeowner .
I think that 's about it . Mr . Betchart would like
to speak for the last minute or so , and he 's the main owner
of this group here. He has a speaker card for you?
CHAIR BADAME : Yes, and please state your name.
WILL BETCHART : My name is Will Betchart. My wife
and I have a principal ownership interest in the project.
We live in Cupertino, or actually just outside of
Cupertino. I'm a civil engineer in water resources .
Anyway, I understand and appreciate what you
folks do, so thank you very much for your civic
participation. I 'm glad this isn 't a water project , because
it would be controversial if it were a water project.
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1 I 've as ked our planning team to be very
2 conscientious in communicating with the neighbors and
3 re s ponding to thei r conce r ns . I b e l ieve t he y have . We 've
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made every reasonable adjustment that we could to
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accommodate the concerns of the neighbors. In my view, the
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project has been very carefully and responsibly planned.
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CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Mr. Betchart, your time
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is up, although you can stay there. We have questions for
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you, and Commissioner Hanssen has her hand up first .
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COMISSIONER HANSSEN: This is for the Applicant
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13 CHAIR BADAME: Yes.
14 COMISSIONER HANSSEN: All right, I wanted to ask
15 about the bioretention ponds and the maintenance.
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WILL BETCHART: Amanda (inaudible).
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Because I actually just got
done taking a class on sustainable dev elopment and water,
and so bioretention ponds I think was a great solution to
the problem, but the first thing that occurred to me is
that t hese are in p e ople 's yards , and my understandin g was
that they 're going to ultima t ely drain into a per forated
dra in tha t wil l f eed into the Town 's storm water management
syst e m, correct? Now , t h e y're in people 's yards . What a r e
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they supposed to do to maintain them? Because this i sn 't
stuff that most people know anything about?
AMANDA WILSON: For maintenance , if they 'r e built
prop erly , whi ch they will be, there's not much maintenance
except for you need to establish the plants, which you
would in anybody 's front yard, and then it 's weeding and
making sure that the flora and fauna is still there so that
the plants are still there to function as the whole system
will.
These are somewhat new, so in general from what
I 've heard from people that come from Washington state that
have more knowledge on these, that in five to ten years you
may need to gut them and rebuild them, the system. These
systems are actually going to be lined. There wil l be a
lining on the bottom, there will be the special soil to
treat the storm water, so no water will actually infiltrate
into the ground.
There will be a maintenance agreement t hat will
be recorded , and we'll get Mike to confirm , but the y'll be
recorded against the property so the property owner has to
maintain it, and the Town could come and check in on the
property at any time to make sure that they are maintained.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: What happens if something
go es wrong? I don 't even know what might go wr ong , b u t wh at
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27/20 16
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1 happens if something goes wrong? Because thi s isn 't
2 something where they call their yard guy, this is more
3 specialized than that, so what happens when something goes
4 wrong, if it does?
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AMANDA WILSON: You 'll be surprised, because
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these are becoming more and more common, and more and more
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people know how to maintain them and fix them. The only
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thing really special about them is the soil , and now it 's
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more available in different facilities. You just need to
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put in the special soil and put in the plants that we 're
12 expecting.
13 COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Has your firm implemented
14 bioretention ponds in a residence before this?
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AMANDA WILSON: Yes.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: And it's been successful?
AMANDA WILSON: Yes . Like I said , it 's all
relatively new , I mean the last five to ten yea r s . We don 't
have one that 's 20 years old .
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Fair enough. But th i s isn 't
going to be your first?
AMANDA WILSON: No.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions?
Commissioner Hudes.
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COMMISSIONER HUDES : A question for Mr. Kohlsaat .
On the parking issue and the design of Lot 3, did you
consider other alternatives that would allow driv eway
parking or more flexible parking for Lot 3?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Yes , we did . There 's actually a
backup on Lot 3. On Lot 3 the re 's a shaded area that 's
required for their fire truck hammerhead turnaround .
There 's also a backup here , which was larger until we had
to increase the size of the bioswale. The bioswale used to
be about a third of this size when we had the previous
original design that was submitted . There was a parking
space here .
We think we might still be able t o finagle a
little parking space if we can move this back . If we could
move this back, y ou could actually get a parking space
legally on L o t 3 . But keep in mind , you already hav e three
parking spaces on Lot 3 , and you 'll have four and nine , so
13 extra parking spaces for three houses.
COMMISSIONER HUDES : In te r ms of t h e i ssue that 's
causing
changing
reducing
parking
something in the CC&Rs, could that be eliminated
the parking configuration on Lot 3, maybe by
the size of the house, or adding additional
in the garage or something?
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GARY KOHLSAAT: Yeah , you certainly could get a
fourt h parki ng space , if that 's what you 're asking . I 'm not
sure why you 're asking fo r more than the standa r d . I 'd l i ke
to unders t and what 's y our concern .
COMMISSIONER HUDES: My question was would it
change the need for something in the CC&Rs if there were
more parking for that lot?
GARY KOHLSAA T : No , it wouldn 't change the CC&Rs .
COMMISSIONER HUDES : Okay, thank you .
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson .
COMISSIONER EREKSON: Thanks for the design and
the hard work and the responsiveness to the customers. I
understand e x actly the solution that you 've chosen with the
shared driv eway and the parking requirements and so forth,
and that it 's all perfectly l egal and would be recorded. I
understand how that all works .
From a practical standpoint, my sense is the best
solutions are those that don 't require high knowledge;
they 're kind of passive solutions . Hopefully the people who
live in these houses are friendly with each other, a s you
suggest they would . That also suggests that they might hav e
friends come visit them periodically, s o the opportunity
for me to come visit them and driv e my car and park, if I
know the people in Lot 3 , is fo r me to park o n Un i on or to
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park in the two non-required offsite parking spots, which
are actually at Lot 1, so two houses away.
My question is you 're an exceptional architect in
my experience with coming up with great solutions to
things, so are there ways that one could have laid out the
lots and met the R-1:10 zoning requirement and not have the
two offsite parking spots that are inside of the parcel,
not adjacent to House 1?
Because I can park on Union when I come and visit
House 1 , so I 've located all the potential visitor parking
adjacent to Lot 1, and it seems to me I would expect that
you would have some creative ways to help make the parking,
adjust the lot lines or something and potentially the size
of houses, that would make compliance more passive, rather
than active? Passive compliance works better than high
knowledge and active compliance, in my opinion. So while
it's al l perfectly legal, and I understand it would be
recorded , we 're requiring knowledge and active compliance
as opposed to more passive compliance.
GARY KOHLSAAT: I agree with you on all counts.
It is much better to go that way . Sometimes you can 't
always g o that way . I 'm going to ask my civil engineer a
question real quick .
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As I mentioned originally, we had located our
hammerhead turnaround on Lot 2, which met Fire Department
standards as well, until the arborist said we need to move
our driveway away from the redwood trees on Lot 2. We had
two par king spaces all the way at the end , whi ch were o n
the parking on Lot 3' so that was kind of like the perfect
scenario .
I 've as k ed Amand a to take another look at this to
see i f there 's a possibili t y that we can sh ift the required
fire truck turnaround to happen on the middle lot, and then
what that does is that preserv es the two parking spaces
o v er there, which is much better for Lot 3, and Lot 2 has
some right over here by Lot 1, and then et cetera . That 's
what our original design had .
We had a lot of complications with the C-3s . We
got all the way through, and then the neighbors complained
that the plan that we had essentially approved by the C-3
consultant was not going to work, it was ridiculous, it was
wrong. Fletch Parsons came on in the interim and agreed
with them and demanded that we completely change our design
to this new bioretention system that does not infiltrate
into the ground. Conv entional wisdom is lik e g o t all this
water ; we want to bring i t into the ground, righ t? We 'r e
paving paradise. We want to bring the water into the
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1 ground . Well, that was what we did . They said no, we
2 already have so much water in the ground that it 's not
3 going to work , it 's going to make our life mi serable
4 downstream, and so we changed everything. It was a major
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redesign, and in doing so we moved the houses back and
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everything.
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I think it would be in the best interest of
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without doing some hard study, but that certainly would be
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the preferred perfect solution.
12 CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Erekson has o ne mo re
13 question , and then I 'll move to Commissioner O'Donnell
14 next.
15 COMISSIONER EREKSON: One o t her ques t ion . I 'm
16 skeptical about the abi lity to turn left onto Union coming
17 out of thi s. Would it be objec tionable to the developer or
18 to t he project to restrict the turning o ut o f this project
19 only to a right turn? Would that be a deal breaker?
20
GARY KOHLSAAT: I have to say that the man who
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lived on that property f o r many years, he was able to laugh
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about ever y thing. Every time that I go over there, I know
t h at there are heavy t imes of traffic ; it's usual l y a ft er
sch ool , and then it dies down again, and then i t come~ up
around 5:00-6 :00 o 'clock. Even that, I've been on t hat
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property, and I know that Tim and Ian have been on that
pro perty before, and there are a lot of kind people. When
they 're waiting on a light , when they know someone is
waiting to make a left turn , they 're going to leave a
space. I mean I kno w you do for people . I do for p eople . S o
I don 't see that as a major deal breaker for the people
that buy these houses to be able to turn left during the
rush hour. You might have to wait a rotation, but certainly
I think you can make a left. I think that would be harder
than saying you can 't park on this driveway , I think .
COMISSIONER EREKSON: There are design solutions
that can accompli s h that.
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMI S SIONER O 'DONNELL: I t hink I may hav e b een
on the CDAC when you folks c ame before us , and we discus sed
flag l o ts versus this l o t, and I remember, I t hink t h e t wo
Co unc ilwomen de c i ded -I 'm going to ask S ta ff a bout i t i n a
mo ment-I don't kno w whether it wa s a Town p o licy aga i n s t
flag lots or whether it was jus t a perception and the y
didn 't like flag lots , which I assume that hea ring t h a t y ou
didn 't pursue flag lots.
But I 'm just curious , because people have said
we ll what a b o u t a f l a g l o t ? If you we re to employ a flag
l o t o n t his property , did y ou ever give a n y t h o ught to
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that, and would that work? I'm not saying i t 's a good idea;
I'm just curious how it would work .
GARY KOHLSAAT: We were basically told by
everybody not even to go there, so no; we didn 't pursue it
past our initial concept designs.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The only reason I 'm
asking is I think there are some serious issues to this. It
doesn 't mean that you wouldn 't necessarily lose or
anything , but we 've been talking a bout this and there are
issues, so I was trying to find out is there any other way .
Commissioner Erekson was asking a "what if" k i nd o f
question. This obviously may be just impossible, but as I
sit here and say well what if they did do a flag lot, I
don 't under stand how you'd apply that to t his .
Forgett ing for the moment that maybe you couldn 't
do it, because of the Town, you have been experienced
enough to have worked, I believe, with flag lots in your
experience, is that correct?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Yes.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Hav e you had a situation
where you had to access a front lot and two back lots with
a flag lot?
GARY KOHLSAAT: Yes, you still have the fire
truck turnaround . The two flag lot s don 't work , because
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then you have to have two flagpoles , so the n you 'd have to
have two, so you can only do a flag on the single one, and
it still might impact Lot 1 as far a minimum square footage
area.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I was having the same
p r oblem , but I just wanted to make sure I wasn 't missing
something.
GARY KOHLSAAT : No . Yeah, yeah .
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: All right, thank you .
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: The tree that you 're talking
about that affected the turnaround on Lo t 2, could you go
to the schematic and show me approximately where that tree
is?
GARY KOHLSAAT: There are three redwood trees,
one , two , three, and they 're root zone is out here. Our
driveway is above that , and so the arborist said we 're not
going to be impacting their roots like it would if we were
downhill.
VICE CHAIR KANE: So they 're not on the property
its elf , they 're on the driveway?
GARY KOHLSAAT: They 're on this property . You see
our driveway, it goes like this and it curves?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yeah.
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1 GARY KOHLSAAT: It goes back, so it moves out a
2 couple feet away from the redwood trees, and this is what
3 imp acte d t h e min i mum of 20 ' of width that you need for this
4 T-hammerhead. In order to take this hammerhead and put it
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o ver her e, we 'd h ave to move th is h o us e ba ck 2'.
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VICE CHAIR KANE : Is there any way you could liv e
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with two parcels where Parcel 2 would essentially be a
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on a 45-degree angle facing that balloon.
1 2 GARY KOHLSAAT : We tried all different scenarios
13 for different shaped lots . None of them worked. None of
1 4 them were conforming .
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Cost -wise?
GARY KOHLSAAT: No .
VICE CHAIR KANE : Because what I 'm proposing
seems to be pretty safe.
GARY KOHLSAAT: No, no, as far as the Subdiv ision
Ac t, I mean the rules, the zoning, we could not make all
the dimensions work.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I 'm talking a bout two lots on
that s ubdivision.
GARY KOHLSAAT: Oh, making two parc els instead of
thre e ?
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VICE CHAIR KANE: Yeah.
GARY KOHLSAAT : No , fina ncially it 's not viable
at all. Each one o f these lots is well over 10,000 square
feet as it is.
VICE CHAIR KANE: Size doe sn't matter. It 's not
safe.
GARY KOHLSAAT : The project would go poof if they
don 't have three lots.
VICE CHAIR KANE: All right, thank you.
CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions for Mr.
Kohlsaat? All right, seeing none, thank you.
I am now going to close the public portion of the
hearing and take a five-minute break.
(INTERMISSION)
CHAIR BADAME: All right, the public portion of
the hearing remains closed, so I will now look to my fellow
commissioners for any questions, comments, or a motion .
Vice Chair Kane had his hand up first.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I 'm very worr ied about the
driveway , I 'm worried about the pa rking configu r ations in
there , and I share some of the neighbors' concerns . We
don 't design from up here , but I wish I could see a clear
way around this . We 've had two sugges tions ; o ne was a bad
one from me of putting in two units, but they could be
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really nice units, and the other was to reduce the size of
the house on Lot 3 and try to get around what seems to be
a ... We ' r e just c ruis in ' fo r bru i s in ' to t ell people they
can 't pa r k in the i r own d ri veway , and then God forbid ,
something goes wrong. Those are my concerns and I look to
my fellow commissioners for a way around this .
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Erekson .
COMISSIONER EREKSON: I have pretty much
confidence in the design team, that they can address some
of the issues which present concerns for the Planning
Commissioners , so I 'd li ke to offe r a motion , that we
continue this item to a date certain that the Staff will
help us to determine to give the design team an opportunity
to address the issues that have been of concern to the
Commissioners this evening.
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: I would second that, and ask
also that i n the e vent it 's not i n front of us, just more
detail on what can be done about the water problems that
they have, whether the Applicant can be a participant in
t h at . I know you 've tal k e d about t he drainage systems.
Denzel Washington said , "Talk to me like I 'm a six year
o ld ." Te ll me t hat when you 'r e d one, i t 's g oing t o be o k ay .
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27 /20 1 6
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I was out there today and the water is running
down the gulley; water is running . I t 's sky blue , and the
water is running. I went and there 's a pipe coming out of
the ground, and the water is just pouring o ut of that. That
cou l d have been a sump pump, or it could have been that
mysterious ... That place, if Governor Bro wn finds out about
that place , he 's going to put in a pipe , because they got a
lot of water.
So when we come back, talk to the neighbors and
talk to us about in addition to these other great
modifications you come u p with a de s ign that we 're
definitely going to improve a serious water p r oblem in t hat
are a .
CHAIR BADAME: Co mmissio ner O 'Do nnell.
COMMISSIONER O 'DONNELL: I am going to suppo r t
this , but just to help out , so people will know where I 'm
coming from , I 'm very , very troubled .
I 've dealt with CC&Rs as a lawyer ; I 've dealt
with them individually. They are not self -e n for c ing, and
when you 've got three people that supposedly are dealing
with CC&Rs and o nl y one of the m gets nail e d on the m, t h e
other two don 't care ; it doesn 't bother them. But the thing
that wi l l b o t h e r a ll three o f them is i f you c an park your
c a r in a n acc e s s t hat the fi re truc k i s s upposed to u s e ,
LOS GATOS PLANNING CO MM I SSION 1 /27/2 016
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it 's going t o h appen . CC&Rs are all well and good, and
they 're o f ten 50 page s, and nobody pays any attention to
most of it unless somebody does something.
I am very concerned about the fire access . I 'm
very concerned about the parking. This is a very strange
lot. The fall off Blossom Hill is dramatic , and therefore
there really aren 't two frontages i n a sense . There 's a
frontage i nsofar as yo u front , but there 's not a frontage
insofar as our access is concerned.
If they can come up with something that works,
I 'm all for it , beca us e I 'd rath e r ha ve people do something
than not do something. I do not want to see a project go in
that a year fro m now, two y ears from now, whatev e r , there 's
a fire and s o mebody loses a house, loses a life, whatever
it is , beca use somebod y's pa rked r ight in the way and that
somebody isn 't right there . I guess they could take a truck
and push the car a way , maybe they would, but that just
doesn 't sound safe to me , so I ha d that concern .
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you, Commissioner O'Donne l l.
Co mmissioner Hudes.
CO MMISSION ER HUDES : I 'm generally supportive of
the motion as well, but I wanted to probe a little bit
deeper into some of the traffic and fl o w issues tha t we may
want Staff to look into prior to considering this again .
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I had a few questions about whether there was a
provision for making a left turn from the driveway, if
there were any alternatives that were looked at for doing
that? Whether Staff had considered adding a stop sign prior
to Blossom Hill Road on Union Avenue, whether that would
help? Whether the addition of the lane would increase the
traffic flows in their opinion, or decrease it?
I don't know if we want to do that now, or I have
a few others as well that are sort of traffic and flow
related.
JOEL PAULSON : We have traffic and engineering
from both the drainage perspective and the traffic
perspective here this evening, if the Commission is
interested in having that information tonight, or just
interested in hav ing additional information in the next
Staff Report and/o r they 're availability the n to answer
those questions , I 'd leave that to the Commission.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen had her hand
up, and then Commissioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I'm generally in favor of
the motion as well. I too have big concerns, having been o n
t he Transportation and Par k ing Commission. There 's no way
that t h ey 're going to be able to enforce having someone not
park in their own driveway . And I know for a fact that the
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Town has only four officers dedicated to parking for the
entire town, and they 're going to be much more focused on
down town t han t he y 're going to be about some shared
driveway, and so I share the concern about the safety.
I also share the concern with having parking for
some people on Blossom Hill and on Union, and the children
walking up and down the shared driveway on top of that
without there being a sidewalk in the property itself . I
think there are a lot of concerns .
I also, along with Commissioner Hudes, had a lot
of questions about the whole plan for traffic, although I
didn't realize when I first looked at it that some of the
proper ty would be given up to add the additional lane, and
I think that makes sense . I 'd like to hear from our traffic
engineers what the whole thinking is on that and how the
flow of the bike lane works and all that kind of stuff .
It doesn 't have to be tonight , it could be in the
form of some othe r explanation , but I 'd li ke to know more
about that.
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: I would make a suggestion
to the Chai r that one act upon the motion , a nd then if it 's
possible for the Commission to then interact with the Staff
about their concerns about the public i mprov e me nts, because
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those are designed by the Staff, not by the property owner
and their design team and they simply react to what the
Staff does, so my sense is we could separate those issues
and move the motion along, and then give the Staff
feedback , i f t h at 's acceptab le .
CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for your recommendation.
Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I agree with that. I
guess the only thing I want to talk about is it might be
helpful, because we have Staff here, if we at least chat
briefly with them so that if to the extent they have more
time to reflect we will share with them some of our
particular concerns, rather than forego giv ing them any
input of what we 're concerned with . So I would support the
motion and to take the vote now.
CHAIR BADA ME : All right , so let 's take the vote .
I 'm going to call the question . All in favor? Passes
unanimously. Commissioner Erekson .
COMISSIONER EREKSON: We just need to incorporate
in the motion a date certain, but we would need the advice
of the staff for that.
CHAIR BADAME: Can we set a date?
JOEL PAULSON: We can definitely set a date. We
will look to the Applicant to try to figure it out. Right
LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 1 /27/2016
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1 now we 're at January 27th . I would think the absolute
2 earliest, which would require the Applicant to get us
3 information by probably no later than the 12th to get on the
4 March 9th meeting , but I 'd look to the Applicant t o see if
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they think they're able to pull that together that quickly.
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ready, then we would just continue it to another date
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But March 9 th would probably we the earliest we would be
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able to set that for a new hearing.
12 COMISSIONER EREKSON: I would so move.
13 CHAIR BADAME: All right, so Commiss ioner
14 Erekson, was your part of the motion that we open up the
15 Commission's questioning to Staff while they're here with
16 the traffic engineer, or just wait until the next hearing?
17 COMISSIONER EREKSON: My motion didn 't address
18 that, but what I was suggesting to the Chair was deal with
19 the motion, the date certain, put that to rest, and then
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continue conversation with the Staff tonight so that they
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have the opportunity to hear the feedback, because if the
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Staff needs to make some adjustments to the public
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improvements they need to be able to get them to the
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Applicant in a timely manner-that might or might not result
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from our feedback-so that they can get them so that they
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can incorporate it in their revised proposal to the extent
that they choose to revise their proposal.
CHAIR BADAME: Very good. Thank you. Staff, get
ready. Did you have questions?
JOEL PAULSON: We still need to make sure the
seconder is okay with the ninth, and then take the vote on
the date certain.
CHAIR BADAME: Is the seconder okay with the
date?
VICE CHAIR KANE: Yes.
CHAIR BADAME: All right, all in favor? Passes
unanimously. Commissioner O'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O'Donnell: Questions. One of the
things I 'm just going t o throw o ut as a possibility is if
Staff would d iscuss with us now , they 've been sitting there
listening to t hi s , we have the i ssues o f the bicycle lane ...
One argument is an argument against freeways and
roads, because it says every time you build one all you
just get is more people, which seems to suggest that if you
didn 't build r oads you wouldn 't have pe ople , which I find a
little difficult to believe.
So I guess the question is if you add another
lane there, will that help traffic, or will it, as one
suggests , attract more traffic? I 'm sure you folks have had
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1 experience with everything, and we would anticipate the way
2 the Valley grows that someday, even if it doesn 't attract
3 more traffic today, there will be more traffic.
4 But anyway, I was just wondering if the Staff has
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some comments on the issues we have been raising, which
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just again t o tick things off:
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The people are going to come out of this
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development and they 're going to rig ht , and they 're also
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going to go left , so I'd like your comments on t hat .
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There was a request that the bicycle lane perhaps
12 be longer than it is shown .
1 3 Then there are questions about the access for the
14 fire trucks getting all the way into the third property
15 with the hammerhead turnaround.
16 You folks deal with these kinds of issues all the
17 time , so if y ou could just give us comments , I 'd appreciate
18 it.
19 JESSY PU: Jesse Pu, Town Traffic Engineer.
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A driveway at this distance from intersection is
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not uncommon. This (inaudible) configuration provides clear
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delineation. If you are turning left, you stay on this
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lane. You are turning right, you should use this lane .
There was a request for a bike lane along the
curb line to encourage traffic staying away from the curb.
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Staff can work with the Applicant on whether we can extend
the delineation farther up. If we can do the same thing as
we have here with a parking lane along the curb line, which
is wider then the bike lane, it will help more. Staff can
work with the Applicant on whether we can extend the
delineation farther up.
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Hanssen .
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Just to confirm, there are
a lot of places that the Town wants to have bike lanes, but
there are no bike lanes that I recall, at least not on that
portio n of Union , and I don't think at least up till maybe
Lo s Gatos/Almaden; it might be more on Los Gatos/Almaden. I
don 't r e member see ing it. If it does n 't change , basical ly
it 's just g oing t o b e that litt l e tiny st rip of bike lane
and t hen nothing bef ore it? They just have to ride along
the curb?
JESSY PU : Yes. Staff tries to implement Complete
Streets p o licies wherever we can, and that includes a bike
lane wherever we can. This bike lane here will help
bicyclists trying to make a left turn onto Blossom Hill
Road .
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Well , it 's a start .
I wanted to also ask about the parking on Blossom
Hill. You don 't see a lot of people parking on Blossom
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l Hill, so what 's going to make that safe? There's no t much
2 traffic on Blossom Hill all day long. I realize it 's going
3 t o be a lit tle bit off f rom the road, but what's going to
4 make it safe ? That 's going to be peop le ; they 're going to
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hop on the sidewalk and walk around to the property?
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JESSY PU: Staff continues to look into how to
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improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, and completing the
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improvements connecting the sidewalk on Union and the
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sidewalk on Blossom Hill gives Staff an opportunity to look
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into a future capital improvement program to stripe a
1 2 protected bike lane here and contain the vehicle traffic
13 close to the center line.
14 COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Is that area of Blossom
15 Hill in San Jose?
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JESSY PU: I believe San Jose is farther west.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I thought Los Gatos '
responsibility on Blossom Hill ended at Camino Del Cerro; I
remember hearing that when I was involved in it, but maybe
something has changed.
But clearly the parking and the sidewalk would
basically the property of the Town of Los Gatos once set
aside for this, but when you 're on the street itself, I
think that part is San Jose.
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1 JESSY PU: The entire street width is in Los
2 Gatos.
3 COMISSIONER HANSSEN : So that section is the
4 responsibility of Los Gatos?
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JESSY PU : Yes.
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COMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay. So the intent would
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be to stripe the area around there to make it safe?
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JESSY PU: Yes.
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COMISSIONER HANSSEN: And there 's enough buffer
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in between the parking area and the street for people
12 getting in and out of parked cars?
13 JESSY PU : I'm sorry?
14 COMISSIONER HANSSEN: There 's enough buf fer from
15 the parking area and the street for people getting in and
16 out of parked cars?
17 JESSY PU : Yes, yes.
18 CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes .
19 COMMISSIONER HUDES : What 's your thinking about
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residents leaving these three homes and turning left, or
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turning right and t hen try ing to turn left o n Blossom Hill ?
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There 's not a lot of oppor~unity farther down Blossom Hill
to make a u-turn or anything.
JESSY PU: My estimate for the three single-
family homes is there will be about t hree cars exiting the
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1 driveway during the commute hours , and that's the peak -peak
2 hour, and that 's like one car coming out of the driv eway
3 every 20 minutes. Assuming half of them turn left and half
4 of them turn right, we are talking about perhaps every 40
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minutes there will be a car making a left turn, trying to
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cross the queue of the vehicles , and that 's only during the
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commute hour .
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For the rest of the day it wouldn 't be an issue .
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But if you are coming out during the peak commute hour, you
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may have to wait a little bit for someone to give you a
1 2 gap. But I 'm describing the more (inaudible) condition .
13 CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Hudes, do you have
14 another question?
15 COMMISSIONER HUDES : Yes. So you would not
16 recommend a left turn from the driveway?
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JESSY PU: I would not.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you .
CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane.
VICE CHAIR KANE: You know better than I do, but
that 's what I was going to sa y , because i t's not different
for them than it would be for the folks on Lasuen Court;
they're going to make them a right turn only. Plus, as it
exists right now , if you do make that right turn , you've
got nowhere to go. You (inaudible) Blossom Hill, you go ten
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miles one way or the other try ing to turn around, and most
of what you want is to the north, not the south . If they
want stores and the shopp ing center , they 're going to want
to make that left turn.
The p eople heading south-if that 's the right
direction-on Union are not the pro blem, because they will
stop. The problem is the folks making the turn off of
Blossom Hill and heading no rth ; they 're like a bat out of
hell, because those are the ones that almost got me today.
Not the ones coming this way , they 're like I'm going to
stop. But the guy coming around the corner, maybe he even
thought he had extra points for hitting a planni ng
commissioner, I don't know, but they come around there real
fas t , and that 's certainly wh at I would be concerned with.
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson.
COMISSIONER EREKSON: That 's precisely my
concern, because if my measurements are correct , if I
walked it out, there are three t o four car lengths from the
corner to where this driveway ends , so I 'm going to be
turning left, crossing two lanes of traffic after this is,
and the slope from the Blossom Hill intersect ion to this
driveway is downhill, which me a n s the people that regularly
drive at a reasonably quick pace on Blossom Hill are g oing
to turn right, and they 're not naturally going to slow down
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as if they were going uphi ll, they 're going to naturally
speed up. I think it increases the probability that there
would be an accident, and while I would not dispute your
numbers, I don 't want to be the one person who is turning
left who has the accident.
JESSY PU: The difficult time to exit the
driveway is during the commute hour when there is queuing
on the street. In that situation, if you want to make a
left turn you have to look, and either you will have to
wait until the end of green when cars come out, or you wait
for people to give you a gap and you come out with caution
and look both ways . Th at 's driver 's caut i on .
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O 'Donnell.
COMMISSIONER O 'DONNELL: What I would do of
course is I 'd wa i t for the gap to appear , t h en I would
cross two lanes to the gap , th en I 've go t t o look to my
ri ght , so I 'm going to sit there. The nic e people who gave
me the gap , two lanes , and I 'm going to sit there bloc k ing
them because I can 't complete until the guys coming t h e
other way go through it, s o I think you 're going to find
that the friendliness of people giving that gap may not
wear well.
Secondly , if you 've got six adults in those three
houses , it 's been my experience that a lot of people work ,
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and the concept that at the rush hour you 've got six adults
paying for these houses, and only one or two of them are
going to go out in the rush hour makes no sense to me . It
flies in the face of experience, and I have of ten found
that with traffi c engineers, but they still say that .
CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I share the concern about
the left turn. I 'm just visualizing myself doing it, and
not only do they have to go across those two lanes of
traffic , but you 've got all the ... Let 's just say in the
morning the traffic is all going west on Blossom Hill, so
if they want to go down Union they 're going to take a
right, and they 're go ing to be taking a right , and there 's
no reason for them to stop , and then you 've got this other
guy corning out of this new development turning left, and
not only are they corning across two lanes of traffic, but
they have the people that they can't see that are on
Blossom Hill turning right. Is there anything that can be
done to make that safer?
JESSY PU: Staff will look into that.
COMISSIONER HANSSEN: I don't know if maybe
there 's a right turn signal on Blossom Hill going down to
Union or something like t hat, but to me that just seems
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like there 's going to b e an accident ; it 's just a q ue stion
of when.
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Hudes .
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Another area that I was
concerned about is the Blossom Hil l parking, and t hat fence
wh ere there 's a 10 ' drop. Fi rst of al l , is parking on
Blossom Hill beneficial to the Town, or simply to getting
these houses built over there? Is that something that's
needed?
JESSY PU : All on -s treet parkin g benefit s t h e
publi c. In general, red curb parking pro hibits i t where
there is a safety issue, and then we will prohibit for on -
street parking , but in general if there is n o safety issue,
we allow on-street parking .
COMMISSIONER HUDES: In y o ur o p i ni o n, is there a
need for parking o n Blossom Hill over there?
JESSY PU : It will be needed if t here is ove r flow
parking, because o f visito rs, a party , o r the h o liday
season . But in general, I have not seen a l ot of c a r s park
o n that sectio n o f Blossom Hill Road .
COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that wo uld be the benefit
for t h o se houses that are being built there primarily.
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In terms of the discussion about the fence, is
that sufficient to prevent a car from going through and
into that 10 ' drop into the yard.
JESSY PU: There is a sidewalk, but there will be
a curb cut in the sidewalk. I 'll probably have to consult
with my co-workers if there is a standard design for that
situation, a particular type of a guardrail; t hey'l l
probably have a look into that.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, that would be
something I'd be interested in hearing. I had one more
question.
CHAIR BADAME: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER HUDE S: It was more general. This
was related to the Town 's experience with this type of a
parking configuration on private property. It was stated by
several people , but I don 't t hink from Town Staff , whether
this exists elsewhere in town , and so I 'd be interested to
know wheth er Town Staff can answer that question: Does this
exist elsewhere in town?
ERIN WALTERS: There are two exampl es that come
to mind where there are shared driveways, and that would be
at the Sister 's project on Prospect , and then also on
Reservoir, the project there .
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COMMISSIONER HUDES : And are they in some way
analogous to this?
JOEL PAUL SON : I'll jump in . They do have the
shared driveway scenario, but they do not have the same
scenario where you have a property and a shared driveway
where you cannot park in your driveway or on the apron in
front of y ou r garag e . So they don 't have that ; the shared
access is the similarity .
COMMISSIONER HUDES: And related to that , I 'm a
big believer in trust and verify. I know we 've from the
developer that they 've done this elsewhere , but I 'm
wondering if Staff can check and look at some of these
other configurations that they say are identical to this to
see how we ll it 's worked, particularly in the issue of
where there is a situation where neighbors are t o ld they
can 't park in their own driveway?
JOEL PAULSON: We will definitely provide that
direction , and the Applicants are here , they 've heard that ,
so if they have other more similar scenarios to bring
forward a nd some input relating to that , then we 'll have
them bring that forward.
COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you.
CHAIR BADAME : Commissioner Erekson.
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COMISSIONER EREKSON : I think in general the
traffic, parking, and circulation improvements that are
being proposed are terrific. I understand why we would
allow the parking to go on that stretch on Blossom Hill,
but if in fact there 's a way in the Town 's future vision
that they can eliminate what is arguably one of the most
dangerous biking areas in the Town ... I live in that end of
town and I bike all the time, and I can tell you I never go
over Blossom Hill . So there 's an opportunity to initiate a
biking lane, or at least to reserve that in the future.
I 've walked that whole thing to try to figure out is there
enough space to add biking lanes, because people regularly
bike over there, and there is no shoulder for a good share
of it.
To the extent that we could capture this as part
of a long-term solution and not have people become
dependent on parking so that one has to then at some later
moment in time argue with them about why we 're removing
parking, that could be part of a longer-term significant
safety improv ement for biking in that area . I might
restrict parking o n that basis if there is any possibility
that one could figure out how to get bike lanes over the
hill.
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JOEL PAULSON: And so I think the first piece
will be that Staff will take a look and confirm that even
with on-street parking there is still room for a potential
bike lane, and then we 're also going to begin a bicycle and
pedestrian master planning proces s, and we 'll make sure
that some of the feedback is in there. I 'm sure this will
be one of the areas that we'll look at, beca use we 're going
to be looking town-wide, but those are a couple of
opportunities that come to mind.
CHAIR BADAME : Any further questions for Staff?
Seeing none, thank you so much.
JESSY PU : Thank you.
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