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M06-15-16 N40 Study Session TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A P P E A R A N C E S: Town Manager : Laurel Prevetti Community Development Director : Joel Paulson Town Attorney: Robert Schultz Director of Public Works: Matt Morley Moderator: Dr. Shawn Spano Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin (5 10) 337 -1558 TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 P R O C E E D I N G S: DR. SPANO: …and I’ll be your facilitator for the meeting tonight. I wear a couple different hats. One hat I wear is I’m on faculty at San Jose State University, and then I also do consulting, and have been doing consulting for 20 years doing these kinds of meetings for local governments primarily in the Bay Area. We’re here for the North 40 Special Study Session, and for right now the one document that you should have —it was on the table out front —is the agenda for tonight’s meeting, and we’re at the point in the agenda right now where we’re doing Welcome and Introductions, and I’ll walk us through the Preview Purposes, Outcome and Format and get us ready for this evening’s meeting. I want to acknowledge tonight that we have the Mayor and members of the Town Council. Los Gatos Mayor and Town Council are here tonight, as well as Planning Commission members are here, and also School Board members and superintendents from the four school distr icts are here: Los Gatos, Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint High School District, the Los Gatos Union School District, Cambrian School District, and the Campbell Union School District. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I also want to acknowledge here the number of people that are in the room and the turnout tonight. In my experience it tells me when I see the number of people here —there are actually some people in the overflow outside —that this is a community that cares. I’ve done some work years ago in Los Gatos with the Town Council and the Planni ng Commission, and this is a community that cares. You’re committed. You’re invested in this community, and that’s why you’re here tonight. I also know that the North 40 is a very important, big issue in Los Gatos, and that’s obviously the focus of our meeting tonight. It creates a lot of passion, it creates a lot of interest, it creates a lot of spirited discussion, and that’s wonderful, that’s part of democracy . So we’ll work through the issues tonight around the North 40, and my job here is to help guide the conversation so that we maximize our time and that we’re as efficient as possible. I’m moving on to the next agenda item. What are the purposes of tonight’s meeting? Two purposes. One, provide information and fact sharing around the key documents leading into the North 40 development: TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the North 40 Specific Plan, the Housing Element, the EIR and the Environmental Impact Report. We’re using those documents to frame the foundation of tonight’s meeting. The other purpose tonight is to provide an opportu nity for you all to ask questions. I did not introduce Staff. We have Staff here at the table. We have Staff here, and Christina over here. Staff is available, utilizing their expertise to answer the questions tonight. As you look at the agenda you’ll see Questions and Answers a couple of items down. The bulk of the meeting tonight is built around the questions and answers, and the questions and answers are probably going to fall into some main areas; we’ll have an Other category. We’re anticipating quest ions around school impacts. That why we invited them, and the superintendents and School Board members are here. We expect to have questions around housing issues, and we expect to have questions around traffic impacts. In addition, you might also have que stions around those foundational documents: the EIR, the Housing Element and the Specific Plan. And any other questions you have about the North 40 as well. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So we want to address those questions. This meeting is for you tonight. It’s for the community so that there is a clear understanding about how the North 40 will be developed. What we’re not doing tonight is we’re not talking about specific development applications. There’s a process fo r that, and as a matter of fact part of that process is described on the back of your agenda, where the Planning Commission will be holding meetings on development applications. There will be an opportunity for verbal input at those meetings. Obviously the Planning Commission will offer their advisory recommendations to Council. There are multiple Council meetings that will take up North 40 applications, and ultimately Council as the policy makers and decision makers will be making decisions around those applications. At every one of those Planning Commission and Council meetings there is opportunity for you to provide comment around those applications. Tonight is about understanding the groundwork that has been laid. Council, Planning Commission and Staff have put multiple years into the Specific Plan, EIR and the Housin g Element, getting ready for development in the North TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 40. What those documents do is they provide a framework, a foundation, and the parameters around how development will proceed. That’s the focus of our meeting tonight. What is that foundation? How will the development proceed in terms of the frameworks, the boundaries that have been established? Your Town Council has established some of these , and others are mandated, and we’ll hear about that a little bit from Staff in terms of State mandates and State regulations. So that’s what the focus of the meeting here is tonight: understanding the groundwork, the frame work, the foundation for the North 40 development, and how those applications will be reviewed and ultimately evaluated. I hope we’re okay with t hat in terms of the core focus and core purpose of the meeting tonight. I want to walk us through the format tonight, and how we’ll b e spending our time together. We have multiple hours to spend tonight. It says on the agenda 6:00 o’clock. We can go till 1 0:00 o’clock. If there are enough questions, we’ll go to 10:00 o’clock. The idea here is that, again, this is your meeting, wanting to hear your TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 questions, providing Staff answers, and we want to reserve as much time as possible for a broad range of questions. In just a moment Staff will give a relatively brief presentation around the foundation, as I mentioned, a little bit about the history of the Specific Plan, a little bit about the Specific Plan EIR, the Housing Element, et cetera. So we’ll have a pre sentation, and that presentation will help provide a common starting point for us tonight, and common vocabulary for us tonight. We will then move into questions and answers. We can go ahead and pass those out, Christina. There is going to be one key card for the questions and answers, and that’s this blue card here. So if you have a question that you want to ask tonight around anything about the North 40, traffic, housing, the foundational documents , put your questions on this card here. Here’s an optiona l name on the back as well as an email address if you want to be on the list to receive information. When you fill out the card, please hand those to Christina. Christina will collect the cards, and then I’ll be reading the questions to Staff, and then Sta ff will answer the questions. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Part of the reason for having the question cards and me reading them is to have as much efficiency as possible in how we’re utilizing our time tonight. One of the things that is likely to happen, we might get lots of questions around, say, just for example, housing issues, a lot of the same questions. We’ll consolidate those together and maintain the integrity of the questions, but we’ll have a series of questions around housing, and as I anticipate, other questions around traffic and other topics that might arise tonight. So please, you can fill out the blue card right now with questions that you have. If you don’t have a question but you have a comment, yellow card. And that’s a comment about anything related to the North 40 tonight, from the presentation or any other comments that you want to provide Planning Commission, Council and Staff on the yellow card. As we work through the agenda, you’ll see the second to last item on the agenda is Verbal Communications, so there wil l be an opportunity at the end of the meeting tonight for you to provide verbal comments, and it’s really an open forum. We anticipate questions around the North 40, but it’s an open forum and you can make comments on other TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 topics as well related to the Town. Here is the Verbal Communication s card here; it’s on the beige. I f you want to speak at the end and provide verbal comments, it’s the beige card there. As we’re moving along here there might be some questions tonight that Staff is not prepared to answer, or they don’t have the answer tonight and they have to go back and do some research and collect some additional information. We’ll have a parking lot. Any of those questions tonight, they’ll have a parking lot for those. The other aspect tonight is so me guidelines for your questions. Please, stay focused on the informational and fact sharing purpose of the meeting tonight. Again, we’re not dealing with the any specific applications in terms of development. In asking questions about the Specific Plan, the EIR, around the Housing Element, implications of that around traffic and schools, those are wonderful questions to ask tonight. Anything that you are focused on, not clear about, need some information, need some guidance from Staff in terms of how this all develops, those are great, great questions to ask. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 There are some refreshments, as you saw in the lobby , and we hope you enjoy those; and enjoying them in the lobby would be great, not really wanting to have food or drink in Council chambers. Make sure I captured everything here, and I did. Okay, so I think we’re ready to move. As w e’re looking at our agenda here the next item on the agenda is the Presentation on Key Topics, so I’m going to turn it over to Staff and let them walk you through the PowerPoint slides. Was there a question? Did I see a question? AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: The questions online. You want to take that, Laurel? LAUREL PREVETTI: Good evening, I’m Laurel Prevetti, the Town Manager for the Town of Los Gatos. Thank you all for taking your time to join us this evening. Many of you have submitted questions online. We have answered some of them. We know that there are other questions. We recently posted another 20 or so answers this afternoon , and we have another 10 or so that are not yet TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 answered, but we have them and we will get getting those answers posted promptly. So thank you to those of you who have submitted questions. That’s going to be a living document online at the North 40 website, and we encourage all of you to visit that. It’s perfectly fine this evening if you wish to write a question that you also submitted in email form; we’re happy to discuss those as well this evening. Thank you. DR. SPANO: Okay, so I think we’re ready to move into the present ation, so Joel, you’ll get us keyed up here. And then I did not introduce Staff. Laurel introduced herself , and Staff can introduce themselves as they get ready. JOEL PAULSON: Great. Good evening, I’m Joel Paulson, the Community Development Director. I’m going to go through a little bit of the background and history. The Town has gone through a somewhat lengthy process to get to the point of the Specific Plan adoption, so I’m going to go through some of that background information quickly. So generally what is a specific plan? A specific plan is used to help provide additional guidance for specific areas of town. In this case, we have the North 40 TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Specific Plan area. It gets incorporated into the General Plan, and then once it’s adopted , as we currently have applications they are weighed against the adopted Specific Plan to make sure that it conforms with that. History goes way back. The Town actually drafted a Draft North 40 Specific Plan that was completed in 1999, but it was never adopted. The Town was getting ready to begin a comprehensive General Plan update, and so they tabled it from what I understand, and then didn’t consider it any further. In 2010 the Council adopted the most recent General Plan update, which we call the 2020 General Plan. In tha t document there was reference to the North 40 Specific Plan. It set some parameters that were evaluated in the EIR for the General Plan, and those parameters were up to 580 ,000 square feet of commercial used and up to 750 residential units. Those were used to help frame the evaluation and the cumulative impact of the Environmental Impact Report for the General Plan. One of the requirements of the 2020 General Plan was that a North 40 Specific Plan be prepared. That led to the more focused direction of drafting the plan. The Town TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 hired a consultant to help us out with preparation of that Specific Plan. The Council also appointed an advisory committee, what we call the North 40 Advisory Committee. They began their work in 2011, and for approximately two-and -a-half years they completed that work and forwarded their recommendations on to the Planning Commission. Along the way at the North 40 Advisory Committee meetings, all of the Planning Commission, all the Council meetings, and obviously public input as pro vided, both written and verbal, depending on the meeting. For the Specific Plan we had to do an EIR, so a Draft EIR was prepared and circulated in early 2014. That EIR evaluated the project at the time, which was up to 580,000 square feet of commercial, and up to I want to say 364, but I can’t remember the number off the t op of my head; I will try to get that information. So that was circulated and then the draft document, both the Specific Plan and the EIR were submitted to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission performed their review over two meetings in July and August of 2014, and from there they provided their recommendations TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to the Town Council, and then the Town Council evaluated that information and all of the public record. Obviously there are Planning Commission and Council members here with us this evening. The amount of information was lengthy and voluminous, and so there was a lot of input that was provided. The Council considered the Specific Plan and the EIR on a number of occasions and in June 2015 ultimately the Specific Plan was adopted. The Specific Plan contains a number of development parameters, but it also contains a Vision and then Guiding Principles to implement that Vision. Hopefully everyone has had a chance to look at the Specific Plan itself. I t’s online, and there you can walk through all of the specific parameters, but I just want to bring focus to both the Specific Plan Vision as outlined on the screen, and then the Guiding Principles to achieve that Vision. With that, I will give you a little bit more information on the development that is allowed. The maximum capacity ultimately in the adopted Specific Plan was up to 501,000 square feet of commercial uses, and up to 270 residential units. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The Specific Plan also contains open space requirements. The minimum amount of open space that must be provided is 30%. It also speaks to design elements that reflect the orchard heritage that currently exists on the site. We’ll add new bike and pedestrian paths. Also there will be improvements obviously that are required of the EIR to nearby streets. With that, I will pass it to the Town Attorney. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Good evening. My name is Robert Schultz; I’m your Town Attorney. I’ve been with the Town now for about two-and -a -ha lf years. When I came along the Specific Plan Committee had already completed their work. The Specific Plan for the North 40 was in its draft, and as Joel told you, in 2014 and 2015 I was part of those hearings when it went to the Planning Commission and ultimately to the Town Council. As with the Housing Element I was with that process pretty much all the way through, and we did our update through 2014 and 2015. So I’ve been here for those processes, but I wasn’t here for the early stages of the Draft Sp ecific Plan. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Tonight I’m kind of the bearer of bad news. I have two subjects that I want to talk about: school impacts , and the relationship between the Housing Element and our Specific Plan. I guess I drew the short straw. I think they said, “You’re an a ttorney. They hate you anyway, so you can cover these two subjects.” I’m here to talk about school impacts. We’ve had just a tremendous amount of comments at all the hearings about school impacts, and we all I think understand how impacted the schools are with overcrowding and lack of facilities. T he bad news is that the State has preempted us on this issue. The State has decided that it will regulate the impacts from schools, and not the local jurisdictions. It’s been that way since the 1990s when SB50 was passed, and that basically says that the Town, or any city or county, can’t prohibit a development based on any type of finding that says the schools are overcrowded or impacts. We just do not have that ability to make that finding in order to deny a pro ject. SB50 does authorize the school districts to levy a fee on new development, and it establishes the amount in TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the State law, exactly what they’re going to be able to levy on each new development and it’s basically a formula, and that formula continues to rise. I would be of the opinion that it hasn’t risen enough to keep up with the cost of real property and that there need to be some changes made, but that has to be done at the State level; the Town doesn’t have the ability to do that. Right now it’s $0.56 per square footage for commercial and $3.48 for residential. The school districts do have the ability to try to raise that up. You can go from Level 1 to Level 2 and Level 3. They had to do an analysis and a study to raise those levels up above the 2 and the 3. They do that; the Town doesn’t have the ability to do that. The different school districts have looked at possibly raising those levels up. So what can we do? Well, we did zone and allow for uses in the North 40 for public school. We can do that; we can use that as a use. We can’t zone specific properties, because the problem with that is if we took three or four acres and said this will be a school, and then a school doesn’t purchase it, it’s basically then TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we’ve taken someone’s property, because it can’t be used for any other purpose. But we did allow for the use of a public school on the North 40 property; it’s one of the approved uses. What else can we do? Well, we put in language specifically in the Specific Plan that says we encourage, we require , the applicants or the developers to work with the school districts on overcrowding. That message I think went through because I think most of you know now that the actual applicant for the North 40 did meet with the Los Gatos Union School District and agreement was reached for additional money above what the State al lows, and that’s allowed under State law. The Town wasn’t part of that agreement; we just encouraged them to try to work that out. That agreement is a public record; anybody can look at that and see what funding will be provided, and representatives from the School District are here that maybe can answer those questions , if there are questions, about that specific agreement. So really what the bottom line is on that is I know you’re pas sion ate about your school impacts. Y ou’re more than welcome to continue to comment about school TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 impacts for each project, not just this and any others, but the hands of your local government officials are really tied. They don’t have the ability to, like I said, deny or modify a project, any project, based on school impacts. What we really need to do is get the State to change the methodology that is allowed up there so that more money is coming into local governments from developers. The other issue is the Housing Element. The State has currently determined that there is a major and severe shortage of affordable housing and there is an immediate need to encourage the development of housing. This is continually going on. I’ll talk a little bit later about Governor Brown’s brand new proposal for even more legislation to take away local control. In order to meet these regional housing needs California law requires the Town to adopt a Housing Element. We adopted one from 2007 to 2014, and our next one was jus t updated recently. Every jurisdiction —we’re not alone in this, we’re all dealing with it —we all have to take care of our fair TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 share and plan for the new housing of all income levels in the community. In order to comply with the State law, what did the T own do? It appointed a Housing Element Advisory Board to help assist with the update of the Housing Element. The HEAB , as we called it, consisted of the General Plan Committee and four members of the community. The General Plan Committee consists of Council members and Planning Commission members. In 2013 and 2014, when I first came on, I was part of numerous meetings that were held in the chambers here and give public input on all the different ways that we could meet the State requirements and get a certified Housing Element. All housing elements have to be certified by the State . In June 2014 what HEAB decided to do was to satisfy all its numbers that were required by the State. W hat it did was it used its existing Affordable Housing Overlay Zone sites. That’s what we have done in our previous version; we figured that would work and we’d be able to show we can meet all our numbers for affordable housing by what we did in the last one. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 This went in front of the Planning Commission and the Council in September of 2014. Then it was approved and we sent it on up to the HCD for their approval. Unfortunately the State said they’re not going to certify it. They said that we weren’t demonstrating that we had the ability to approve those sites for affordable housing. What we had done, we had put an AHOZ, and I ’ll just use an example. O ne of our AHOZ sites is the Lodge property, the Los Gatos Lodge, and we were saying that has the ability to produce X amount of units of affordable housing, but unfortunately that w asn’t mandatory. So when an applicant came in and said they wanted to produce those X amount of units, the Council, the Town, had complete discretion to deny that and say they still wanted it to remain commercial since it was just an overlay, and the State said you’re just playing games with the numbers of the amount of units that you’re able to build, because there is too much discretion allowed amongst the Council on whether to approve any of those projects for those AHOZ sites and that you really have to show that you’re able to meet those numbers for affordable housing and allow for development to occur. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So in order to obtain certification the HEAB got back together and met, and we went over all these different sites and tried to find out where we could meet our RHNA numbers. One of the ways they did that was by taking the North 40 Specific Plan and taking 13.5 acres at 20 units per acre, and that’s how they were able to meet those numbers that were missing to be able to get it certified. What they also had to do was list that the development on the Specific Plan and the North 40 was going to be by right, and what that means is 13.5 acres at 20 units per acre has t o be done by right. What means is that if an applicant comes in and wants to do that amount of units, then you don’t have the ability to say we don’t want those units. We’ve already said you’re able to do them by right, you’v e allowed for the development of those units. We were able to have some discretion of the design review, and we have to make certain that it still complies with the Specific Plan. What that means is we’ve heard many a time that the maximum is 270 units in the Specific Plan, and it does say maximum. So many people say well that’s just a maximum, we can only allow 200 units. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 N ot with what we did with our Housing Element. When we approved our Housing Element and said 270 units are by right, that basically means if an applicant comes in and wants to develop 270 units, the Council has to approve it at that number of units. Now, they do have discretion within that to make certain that it does comply still with the Specific Plan, but they can’t simply say we don’t like 270; we want 200. Because that’s what we were doing before on other projects and the State said no, you’re not actu ally carrying your weight to meet their RHNA numbers. Just as a final note, what I said before, Governor Brown has just proposed sweeping new regulations that this wouldn’t just apply to our 619 RHNA numbers , or 270 where we set by right; it would apply across the board. If a project comes in and proposes I think it is 20% of affordable housing in a project, you have to allow it by right. You don’t have the ability anymore to deny projects, and there will be very little CEQA review. I would strongly suggest you look up this law and talk to your legislators about it, because it takes away tremendous local control. Bills are being proposed to take TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 away local control. I serve on a housing committee with the State , and we’re continually trying to fight to keep that local control, but time and time again the State is trying to take it away for what they believe is a State purpose. Wi th those two pieces of bad news on the Housing Element and the school impacts , I’ll pass it over to Matt Mor ley. MATT MORLEY: Go od evening, I’m Matt Morley, the Director of Parks and Public Works. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about traffic impacts and how the Town handles that. I’ll start by talking about the standards the Town has set in place, and these standards are in place through the General Plan that both Joel and Rob have talked about a little bit. To set the standard the Town has identified six levels of service within the Town. We rate those on an A through F levels, and we do include E, not like your school grad es. For the sake of identifying the traffic levels of service, Level D is considered acceptable in the General Plan. T he level of service is measured in terms of delay in seconds. What this means when it comes down to it TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 is that the Town looks at individual intersections and the amount of time and delay that you would expect or anticipate when you come to that intersection to wait for your opportunity to progress through. How does this translate to developments? In terms of intersections that are in the area of an A through C, they’re allowed to drop one level, and this is in the General Plan as well. The standard is that those intersections within development can degrade by one level. The intersections cannot drop below a level of D. D is the lowest level of acceptable service for an intersection, so if it hits a D or below, there has to be some sort of mitigation to bring that intersection back up to a level of D. In addition, if an intersections drops more than one level, so if it were to drop two or mor e levels, then it needs to be brought back up and there needs to be a mitigation to address that as well. How do we go about figuring all this out? It starts with a traffic impact analysis, or TIA, and that’s part of the Environmental Impact Report. For the Specific Plan 31 existing intersections were analyzed, and then one TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 26 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 new intersection that is created with the Specific Plan was added and analyzed as well. The analysis includes anticipated vehicle trips, so how many trips were going to be generated with the development, and that’s all a standardized calculation based on industry standard. It also considers the type of development, so the residential versus the commercial. And it considers the time of day, so what happens in the worst impacted period of the day, the peak periods, and typically there’s a peak period in the morning and a peak period in the evening, an AM peak and a PM peak. In Los Gatos’ case we include an analysis of other anticipated developments. In many communities the anticipated developments are those that are already permitted. In Los Gatos, if we have it on the radar and we can identify the scope and scale of the project, it’s included in the analysis. With that, there are several projects that were included in the analysis for the North 40 Specific Plan. These are the six projects that were included, and those were included based on the information that was in the Town’s possession at the time that the EIR was completed. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Once these impacts are identified and we know that the development is going to bring more traffic in, we have to figure out how to solve the impacts of the traffic increase. T o do this we’ve looked at many different ways of reducing the level of service —again, it always goes back to the level of service and the calculations and the data —and bringing that back to the alignment with the Town Code, with the General Plan. In order to do that for the North 40 there are several areas that we’ve incorporated, including multi model improvements. There’s a bike and pedestr ian path that goes around the perimeter of the properties as well as through the center of the properties. There are Lark and Highway 17 intersection improvements. This is the northbound on-ramp to Lark and 17. There’s an additional right turn lane to han dle the additional capacity that’s necessary. There are improvements at Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard to provide for left turns, both from Los G atos Boulevard onto Lark Avenue and from Lark Avenue onto Los Gatos Boulevard. Those extra lanes will help to de crease the delay at that intersection. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 28 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 There is a new intersection at “Neighborhood Street” that will be a new signalized intersection. “Neighborhood Street” is in quotes on the screen, because it’s not yet fully named, but the new intersection that I tal ked about was added to the analysis, and a new signalized intersection will help to provide access to the project and will help to alleviate traffic and congestion from vehicles going in and out of the area. Finally, there are improvements in the Specific Plan for Los Gatos Boulevard at Burton and Samaritan. In terms of traffic it’s important to note that the Gener al Plan acknowledges that there is an increase of traffic with developments and works hard to mitigate those impacts. The mitigation measures a s I’ve listed here are efforts to accommodate that additional capacity need and address the traffic in that means. As I mentioned, there are ways for intersections not to get fully mitigated, so some intersections don’t get fully mitigated back to the level. There is an allowance for a drop, but the General Plan does establish a standard, a mini mum level of service at that D Level, and the documents ensure that that level of service is met. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 With that, that concludes the traffic impact section, and we’ll t urn it back to Shawn for the wrap up. DR. SPANO: This slide here is the same slide that you have on the back of our agenda, as I mentioned earlier about the process going forward and opportunities for public input; just want to remind you. In July the re will be Planning Commission public hearings regarding Phase 1 development. Expect multiple meetings on that aspect from the Planning Commission, and every one of those meetings is an opportunity for public input on those applications. Then the same thing with the Town Council public meetings. T here will be multiple meetings and opportunities for public input and verbal comment at those meetings as well. W e are being televised tonight on KCAT, and there will be a verbal transcription of the meeting here to night as well. We are ready to move on to Questions and Answers. Christine is collecting questions —I’ve got three categories here —and Christina will collect your blue cards. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So far I have three big categories. The two questions around the EIR and Specific Plan, we’ll start there. There are several housing questions here , and several traffic. Let’s take up housing after the EIR and Specific Plan question. Question: What agency or consulting firm performed the EIR? JOEL PAULSON: I’ll take that. EMC Planning Group is the consultant that the Town used to prepare the EIR for the North 40 Specific Plan. DR. SPANO: Okay, excellent. And a question around the Specific Plan is: “W hy is the North 40 Specific Plan not adhering to Town Council and resident concerns?” We’ll take that question as it is. I might respond this way: In what ways did the Specific Plan respond to Town Council and resident conce rns, and which ways did it not is another way of phrasing the question. Go ahead, Joel. JOEL PAULSON: I’d say, as I spoke of earlier, the Planning Commission, Council, North 40 Advisory Committee, there was a lengthy public process. Ultimately a policy document was adopted, which is the Specific Plan, taking into consideration all of the concerns that were TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 raised, many of which are similar to many of the concerns we have been hearing recently. I believe those were all taken into consideration by the Planning Commission and then ultimately the Council before taking an action on that item. LAUREL PREVETTI: Let me just add a specific example. As Joel mentioned in the opening presentation, when the Advisory Committee was doing its work the plan was considering about 350 or so housing units. As the plan worked through the process, ultimately the Council reduced the housing development capacity to 270, so I think that is one example of how the Council was in fact listening to some of the public comments that were coming forward during that time. There are other examples. We did an economic study to make sure that the North 40 Specific Plan would not compete with our precious and very unique downtown, and so the elements coming out of that study were also incorporated. And there are numerous other examples. Our Council and Planning Commission reads all of the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 correspondence, so as we move forward, again, we encourage you to continue to stay engaged and participate. DR. SPANO: Thank you. A question just came in, and this question is related to the Specific Plan, so I’m going to take that question now. You can see what I’m doin g. I’m trying to take questions that fall together in the same category, since we’re on that topic. This question asks, “Does the Specific Plan involve the City of Campbell as a joint municipality affected by the overall plan? Is there coordination between the two? How much additional…” Let me just hold on that second question. So, coordination with Campbell? JOEL PAULSON: I will turn this over to Mr. Morley. It’s not a joint plan between Campbell and the Town. This is the Town’s Specific Plan for this sp ecific area. The traffic, through the environmental process, we do coordinate with not only Campbell, but also San Jose and other neighboring jurisdictions where there may be impacts that could be created by this proposal. MATT MORLEY: Thank you, Joel. Great question in terms of what the regional coordination looks like. There TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 33 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a re two examples and they were on the list, and I’m going to flip back in the slides real quick. Two additional projects that were included in the analysis. T he Dell Avenue plan, which is a Campbell plan, was incorporated into the traffic analysis, so that definitely has been considered, as well as the Samaritan area improvements that were on the books at the time, and those have been considered from the Council as well. DR. SPANO: Excellent. I have some other questions here around the Specific Plan. “Since the purpose of the North 40 Specific Plan was to develop the property with a cohesive, unified plan covering the entire 40 acres, how can we consider only Phase 1 in a vacuum wi thout seeing how it fits into the whole? Why doesn’t the Town require this comprehensive plan that covers the entire property?” JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan, for those have read through that, does anticipate phasing. There are a number of different pro perty owners across the North 40 Specific Plan area, and so to facilitate the development phasing was reviewed and taken into consideration and included in the Specific Plan itself. I don't know the total number currently of property owners out there, but TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 34 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there are still a number of property owners across the Specific Plan area, and the application that it’s currently in is only for the first phase, because that’s the property that they have control over. Then I would turn it to anyone else who wants to ad d anything additional. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think, as Joel mentioned, it is specifically in the Specific Plan. Section 6.2 addresses that issue and states that it will be implemented over time and in more than one phase. Each phase shall stand alone and sha ll be dependent on the improvements in that. So each phase does have to do its own public improvements that are necessary, but each phase was addressed, and that issue was brought up during all the hearings that were held. LAUREL PREVETTI: I would just add that because we are working through an application for the southern part it needs to anticipate the infrastructure needs for the entire plan area. You will see in the drawings stubbed out streets and other elements that indicate that in the future, when the northern portion is ready for private development, that we’ve anticipated the inf rastructure needs accordingly, s o while we don’t know exactly the form TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 or the shape of what the northern section would look like, the plan anticipates that it’s going to happen over time. This is not uncommon for a large tract of land such as this one that’s over 40 acres. It would be highly unusual for a single development proposal to happen in one fell swoop. Typically it does happen over time with multiple applications. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And although not part of the question, a lot of the questions that have been submitted so far that have talked about three phases. There are not three phases. There are three different districts, but there are only two phases of develop ment. The first application that’s in is dealing with the first two districts, and then the third district would be the second phase. There might be parts in that Northern District that could be broken into smaller phases, because there are multiple owner s, so it’s pretty much impossible in a project this size to get everybody to come in at the same time, because there could be a property owner in the northern area that doesn’t plan on developing their project TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 consistent with the Specific Plan for ten or fifteen years even. DR. SPANO: Okay, are we good here? I have an EIR que stion: “Can the Town have another follow up EIR?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: The Town can always request additional environmental studies, a city or town, if it determines that an addendum is necessary or there are new facts and circumstances under CEQA. That’s why I hesitated; there is specific language that allows for that to happen. We ’d have to look at and see if that was a concern of the Planning Commission and Town Council when it goes further, that there are issues that they feel were not addressed in the original one, and there have been circumstances that have changed. Then we would have to look at that and see if we could make the findings to allow for additional environmental review. DR. SPANO: Along those same lines, “Can the Specific Plan be amended?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: Yes. Chapter Six does specifically call out the administration of the plan and plan amendments, so at any time the document can be amended by Council. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: A S pecific Plan question: “Are there any contingencies related to the sale of Yuki’s property at all that could impact the outcome of the North 40 development?” Contingencies related to the Yuki property. JOEL PAULSON: The Town Attorney may jump into this as well. We don’t get involved in the private land transaction, so we are not always privy to the specific contingencies, whether there are contingencies there or not. I know during the public hearing process there were discussions at the public hearings about the anticipated phasing, for one, and then two, some loose terms regarding some of the transaction issues moving forward, but that’s not something the Town gets involved in. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Nor do we even have copies of those agreements between the property owner and the potential buyer. DR. SPANO: A Specific Plan question: “Since the Yuki family is now keeping 22 acres, how can the Specific Plan still be relevant?” JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan was prepared specifically because there are so many owners out there, and we want to be able to maintain the private property TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 rights of the individual property owners, but they don’t own the entire North 40 Specific Plan area. They do own a large chunk of the Specific Plan area, but they do not own all of the parcels. DR. SPANO: Another Specific Plan question: “Three districts that will work together as self sufficient neighbors, but self sufficiency must wait until a future phase. What happens if Phase 2 and beyond never gets built? Would we just have a lot more housing?” Does that question make sense? You want me to read that again? ROBERT SCHULTZ: No. There’s always the potential of a property owner, as I mentioned, not wanting to do a project under the Specific Plan and leaving the land just the way it i s right now with some of the outlying individual homes that you see out there, but any time when they come in they would have to file an application and comply with the Specific Plan at that particular time. There is the maximum of the 270 units, so if someone was to say that the 270 units had already been built out by previous applicants and someone came in and wanted to propose more housing units, it would require, as we TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 39 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 discussed, a amendment to be able to do that, because it wouldn’t be able to fit the Specific Plan requirements. DR. SPANO: Another Specific Plan question: “The plan dictates 270 units, but there is a bonus. How does the bonus apply, and what is the number of bonus units the total on the site would be?” JOEL PAULSON: I’ll start, and if Ms. Prevetti or Mr. Schultz need to add anything in. The bonus is up to 35%. I know we’re not here discussing the application that’s currently before us, but they requested the 35% bonus, and so the total number, if I remember correctly, if you did the 35% density bonus across the 270, you end up with 364 units, so that is possible. Also note that any residential project in town can utilize the density bonus; they just have to request that. ROBERT SCHULTZ: As Joel mentioned, they have to request that, and again, that’s a State law that we cannot circumvent. W e can’t say no, we’re not going to allow you to have a density bonus. It’s allowed if it’s requested by the developer and he meets the requirements to obtain the density bonus, which is providing a cer tain amount of TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 affordable housing, a nd depending on whether that’s Very L ow, Low or Moderate determines how much of a percentage, and as Joel mentioned, it’s up to 35%. DR. SPANO: Here’s a question: “Is it possible to purchase the property, or has the adoption of the Specific Plan precluded that ?” JOEL PAULSON: The adoption doesn’t preclude any private land transaction. I’m sure the property could be purchased. Obviously there is a lot of work and time that’s been invested, and so whether or not the parties that currently hold any rights to that property would be interested in having that conversation, that would be a private conversation that would need to take place. DR. SPANO: The follow up: “If purchase is possible, could a bond measure be proposed?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: The first question dealt with whether it could be purchased, and as Joel mentioned, that’s a private transaction. We don’t have the documents between the purchaser and the person that has that option right now to purchase it, so if a third party came in and wanted to also try to purchase it, there are all sorts of TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 41 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 contracts that would have to be terminated and brought into. The second question is about issuing bonds, and I think that goes to the Town purchasing the property. Currently we wo uld not want to get involved in a voluntary purchase of the property, because of the fact there’s a transaction that’s already pending and there could be all sorts of ramifications of interference with a contractual relationship that we wouldn’t want to. B ut the Town does have the ability under eminent domain proceedings to take property for public use. That is always a possibility. I would say that’s a very complicated procedure. We did give a very detailed answer in our questions that are online about the eminent domain and the experts that are hired and how you go through that process, but certainly at any time a purchase can be taken for public use through the eminent domain procedures. JOEL PAULSON: Just to follow on, for those of you who aren’t aware , the Town does have an FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions, posted online, so please, if you haven’t taken a look at that, take a look at that. We’re evolving that and adding answers to questions as they come in. We TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 actually just updated it again this afternoon with some additional information, so I’d encourage folks to take a look at that as well. LAUREL PREVETTI: I just want to moderate some ex pectations. While it’s theoretically possible, it’s highly unlikely, because if the Town were to get involved, not withstanding any contractual challenges that we might have, we would have to pay fair market value, and because there is a Specific Plan with the specific development capacities, that’s going to be very expensive land for the Town to buy, so it’s highly un likely for not only practical reasons, but also legal reasons, that that would happen. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I was preferenced just from a legal Specific Plan, and there are all sorts of financial issues that would be involved, and the bond measure and timefram e that would take. I was just looking at it from a standpoint of yes, the Town has eminent domain ability under State law to take property for public use, but accomplishing that under these circumstances would be very, very difficult. DR. SPANO: There’s a follow up question here that I’m not going to have Staff answer. It’s about the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 developer’s proposal and whether it meets the guidelines of the Specific Plan, and as you recall that’s really not the focus of the meeting tonight. That will be taken up by Planning Commission and Town Council. We’re staying on the Specific Plan EIR questions here. “If we have another EIR, how can the Town meet the deadline of the current application if there was another follow up EIR?” JOEL PAULSON: I’ll start. I think it would be highly unusual. The circumstances haven’t changed to the point where those thresholds probably are met. The other important piece to understand is that as other jurisdictions, other projects, come in, they all have to take into account the traffic that is proposed to be generated by the North 40 Specific Plan. They then will have to accommodate whatever impact their project is going to have in the cumulative analysis, also taking into account the North 40, the Dell Avenue plan, and many other proj ects. So they’re required to go through their own environmental process and then make those determinations with this as background data included. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible) the question was how do we for (inaudible)? JOEL PAULSON: That’s something I t hink that we won’t be able to answer right here, so the Town Attorney can maybe provide some additional input. ROBERT SCHULTZ: During the process, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re focusing on the Specific Plan as opposed to an individual application, because an applicant do es have due process rights. That issue will certainly come up at the Planning Commission where there will be at least two hearings in July for the Planning Commission, and at least two hearing s in front of the Council in August and September. So that would be the time to ask for additional environmental review, at those hearings. There are many complicated issues that overlap with regard to the Permit Streamlining Act in regard to the Subdivision Act that we would have to work through if in fact that was a requirement, and we could make the findings. As I said earlier, there are strict findings to require additional environmental review, and until we get TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 really into the meat of the project and hear the elected and appointed bodies is when those issues will arise. DR. SPANO: A question here about the Specific Plan: “The Vision Statement in the Specific Plan states that the 40 acres should not be developed piecemeal.” There’s no question, but I’m assuming the question that follows from that is related to the earlier question about developing in phases. So reiterate the same answer? Is there another way of answering that division plan statement in the Specific Plan states that the 40 acres should not be developed piecemeal? JOEL PAUL SON: Bear with me. I’m just going to make sure I’m looking at the exact words. So looking at the Vision Statement, I don’t see… DR. SPANO: Could you repeat that? It was under Purpose 1.1. Thank you. LAUREL PREVETTI: The bottom paragraph on page 1.1 says , “The intent of the Specific Plan is to provide a comprehensive framework in which development can occur in a planned, logical fashion rather than a piecemeal approach,” and that’s really the whole purpose of the Specific Plan, that it brings together all of the properties under a TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 common Vision, which is also articulated on that page, and a common set of design guidelines and rules and regulations. I t is intended to be a comprehensive plan. I recognize that there’s concern that we may have multiple applications, but the first application is for a fairly large portion of the total area, and so as a subset that’s still considered a comprehensive plan that anticipates the future. So again, it is related to phasing. I know ideally we would all love to see wha t’s it all going to look like ultimately, but it isn’t uncommon for projects of this magnitude and this size to happen in segments. E ssentially it’s the plan that knits together those future applications to make sure that it is going to deliver an integrat ed neighborhood for our town. DR. SPANO: Thank you. A Specific Plan question: “The Vision of the Specific Plan paints a pretty picture for a conforming development, however, the maximum density and intensity drastically conflict with the Vision. Can the Town amend the Specific Plan to be in compliance with itself?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: Obviously the Planning Commission and Council, when they evaluate the Phase 1 applications that are currently going through the process, will be taking into consideration the Vision, the Guiding Principles and all of the elements of the Specific Plan document to make a determination for the Planning Commission, a recommendation to Council, and then ultimately the Council to take a final action on the project and to ensure that it complies with the Specific Plan. Those are important pieces that will continue to be discussed in July by the Planning Commission, and starting in August probably in front of the Town Council. Offer anything else? LAUREL PREVETTI: Just under State law we are required to make sure that all specific plans are inter nally consistent and that the Specific Plan is consistent with the General Plan. Those findings were made during the process of the Specific Plan preparation, so the document as approved is internally consistent. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 48 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 As mentioned earlier, there is a process for amending the plan, and that could be considered at a later date. DR. SPANO: “Does the Specific Plan protect the Downtown District? If so, how?” JOEL PAULSON: There are a number of policies and language in the Specific Plan, because that obviously was a large component of having the conversation of going through the development of the Specific Plan and not wanting to negatively impact the downtown that we have. T here are a number of policies that were put in place specifically to try to limit that and really focus on complementing the downtown rather than competing with the downtown; that was a lot of the conversations originally when the Specific Plan was going through the process. I will thumb through and see if I can find any specific policies that relate to that. The Town did do an economic study as part of the Environmental Impact Report, and that study did look at the potential impact on downtown, and that impact was not evident based on what was proposed. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 LAUREL PREVETTI: I would also just add, there is a table called Table 2.2 that identifies the maximum development capacity and the maximum amount for different uses, including retail, restaurants, et cetera, and those numbers were carefully considered in light of the entire economic segment of our community. In addition, there is a table of uses that identifies which uses need a Conditional Use Permit or some other development permit, and that’s Table 2 -1, and that was carefully considered by the Town Council, and I recall that there were some modifications along the way to make sure that we were complementing the downtown and not comp eting. And again, all these elements could be subject to future Specific Plan amendments if we find that additional changes are necessary. JOEL PAULSON: The other thing I’d point out for the commercial uses, the Specific Plan requires them to be presented to the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee, which is a body that’s made up of two Council members and thr ee Planning Commissioners. Then they are also required to do additional economic impact analysis, which is brought TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 forward to the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee before going through the process. A ny future commercial or future phases will have to go through that same process, and that will be taken into consideration at that time too, and depending on the length of time may give you a similar or different economic story, but that evaluation will be provided with each application that comes forward. DR. SPANO: Specific Plan question: “Would it be accurate to say that if somehow the Town successfully reduced the density of the Specific Plan it would essentially just be kicking the can down the road and result in denser future redevelopment s?” JOEL PAULSON: That is one possible outcome. Obviously if the 13.5 acres in the Specific Plan is not developed at 20 units per acre the Town has to identify additional sites that will accommodate 20 units per acre by right development, which Mr. Schultz has discussed at length, and that has to be done immediately following any action that would be taken to reduce the adequate sites inventory for the Specific Plan area. That was a big TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 conversation throughout the process with the Advisory Committee and Housing Element Advisory Board. T he challenge is the Town in the last cycle used Affordable Housing Overlay Zones to accomplish our RHNA numbers, and this time they chose to remove some of those, given some of the new requirements with by right and 20 unit per acre development to utilize the North 40 in that case. So anything that gets reduced on the North 40 will have to be accommodated elsewhere in town. DR. SPANO: Thank you, Joel. I checked with Laurel. I wasn’t sure if this was an application question or not. “I’m proud of Town Council for rejecting Shannon Road/Los Gatos Boulevard development due to high-density application request. Why is North 40 application density not b eing rejected under the same pretense?” JOEL PAULSON: The Town took specific actions through our Housing Element and Specific Plan to accommodate our regional housing needs, and that was to say that we’re going to have 13.5 acres of the North 40 area be developed at 20 units per acre on that site. I think the Shannon Road project was actually probably far less then 20 units per acre. I t’s just TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 obviously a smaller site, and the determination was made that the proposed development wasn’t appropriate and the project was ultimately denied. LAUREL PREVETTI: I think the context is also di fferent, because that site was designated primarily for commercial use, so that was not a Housing Element site, it was not a site that we had identified for residential. The first question is really do we want housing at that Shannon Road and Los Gatos Boulevard location? Secondly, that project went through the entire process, so it went through all of the development evaluation. It went through Planning Commission and it went through Town Council, so it went through the whole process. With the North 40, wi th the application that’s currently pending, we’re still in that process. We don’t know what the outcome of that is going to be, but as was mentioned on the slide that’s up there, we do have Planning Commission hearings starting on July 12 th , and we’ll see what it s recommendation will be and ultimately what the Council’s decision will be in August or early September, so we’re still in process. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SC HULTZ: I’ll just add to that. I t was a totally different scenario, because of the fact mentioned. It was commercial; an applicant is asking for it to be changed to residential. That’s within the discretion of the Council whether to allow or not. It wasn’t a site within our Housing Element. But more importantly, I’ll go back to Governor Brown’s proposal. If h is law passes, that project would have to be approved by Council. They would not have had the discretion, because if it had that 20% affordable, which is 11 units, i f there were 20% of those units, they would not have had any discretion, it would have had to be approved without any CEQA allowed. That’s how far the State is trying to go take away local control. DR. SPANO: Thank you. Still on the Specific Plan : “The Specific Plan states that 13.5 acres will have a density of 20 units. Do all 13.5 acres have to be in the Lark and Transition Districts, or can it be spread throughout the entire 40 acres?” JOEL PAULSON: It can be spread out , ultimately. That’s a determination the Council will make on the application. There is obviously language, and as was TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 54 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 disc ussed before the Specific Plan talks about three districts. This first application is taking up almost two of the districts, so if that’s something that the Planning Commission through their recommendation and/or Council ultimately think it is appropriate, then that’s something that they can consider. I think the challenge gets to be there are a lot of other areas, and I’ll turn to the Town Attorney relating to density bonus requests and where our discretion lies there, as well as some of the by right conce rns that were raised before. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I’ll just come back to the Specific Plan, because that’s really why we’re here, and not the specific application. But under the Specific Plan the 13.5 acres are not designated, it just says there will be 13.5 a cres designated at 20 units per acre. That allows for it to be spread if the Council so desires. DR. SPANO: Okay, Specific Plan: “If there are so many property owners, which was known prior to approving the Specific Plan in January 2015, then why was the entire 44 included in the Specific Plan?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: I think as Ms. Prevetti mentioned before, that’s the whole point of creating a specific plan, when you have multiple owners, so that way everyone understands what the requirements are for the entire plan area, so that good planning can move forward, whether it’s done all at once, w hether it’s done in multiple phases, or whether an individual property owner wants to just develop their specific piece of property, it provides that framework for the future applications to be tested against to make sure they comply with the Vision, Guiding Principles and developments parameters that reside in the Specific Plan. DR. SPANO: Follow up question to that: “Why not a North 20 Specific Plan?” JOEL PAULSON: A North 20 Specific Plan would have been doing a Specific Plan for only half of the site, and so we ’d have the challenges that we have now, which would be someone could come in with a development application for one acre or 20 acres. The area is bound pretty sp ecifically by Highway 85, Highway 17, Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard, as everyone is aware, so that really TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 56 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 actually makes sense to create Specific Plan for that entire area. But again, the Specific Plan really is a tool to help the planning efforts moving forward when there are multiple property owners to make sure everyone understands what the rules are, and you get to set the rules for that specific area. DR. SPANO: Joel, I think this next question falls in the same category: “Can the plan be amended to i nclude only the current option to parcels?” JOEL PAULSON: The plan could always be amended. I think Mr. Schultz explained there are processes laid out in the Specific Plan for amendment. I will make a statement , and then the Town Attorney can correct me if I go astray, but generally the applications that are currently before the Town, they have to be act ed upon given the parameters that are currently in place. Amending the Specific Plan may not have an impact on the current proposal, but there is a process for amending the Specific Plan and that is always possible. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 57 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: “Where in the Specific Plan does it state that all 270 units plus bonuses be located in the Lark District?” JOEL PAULSON: It does not say that. DR. SPANO: Next question: “How impo rtant are the Vision and Guiding Principles to land use decisions? In other words, if the Town determines most of the development is inconsistent with the important element of the Vision and Guiding Principles, but is otherwise compliant with the technical standards and guidelines, must the Town allow development to go forward? JOEL PAULSON: I think it’s been mentioned before, that’s obviously a big part of the evaluation. The Council ultimately will have to make the determination as to whether the first phase, or any subsequent application that comes before them , complies with the Specific Plan. That will be a specific finding that will have to be made, and so that’s very important. We get this question a lot with the General Plan. If you read the General Plan, there are a lot of policies, goals, vision language in there, some of which, depending on the project, can be construed in multiple ways. So it’s TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 really taking a look at the application, taking a look at the foundation of the Specific Plan, and then ultimately that determination is going to be made by the Town Council. DR. SPANO: “So invoking langua ge from the Specific Plan, can the ‘look and feel’ of Los Gatos be interpreted to include the diversity of buildings, architecture, styles, et cetera, and not emphasize cookie cutter, which is scarcely found in Los Gatos?” So can the look and feel of Los Gatos be interpreted to include the divers ity of buildings, architecture and styles? Is that what is meant by the look and feel of Los Gatos? JOEL PAULSON : Yes. DR. SPANO: Good. And as I understand the question, encouraging that diversity and not wanting the cooking cutter, and you’re saying that yes, that’s what the Specific Plan enables and allows? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. DR. SPANO: Excellent. “Was th e Specific Plan changed when the size of the development was reduced by one -half?” JOEL PAULSON: I guess I can try to interpret what that question means. I’m assuming it means did we cut TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the Specific Plan in half because we were only looking at half of th e first phase, only dealing with half of the application or the area? DR. SPANO: Or that the Specific Plan changed in some way when the area was reduced. JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan area was never reduced; it’s always been the same size. The applicat ion that’s currently in is a Phase 1 application, which is half, so there are no changes required to the Specific Plan because we have an application in for the first phase. DR. SPANO: This question then I think operates off the same premise about a reduc tion: “How many planned units were lost by the reduction in acreage?” What I’m hearing you say is there was no loss. JOEL PAULSON: There is no loss of acreage. The acreage that the Specific Plan governs has not changed. It provided the requirements for the entire North 40 area, even buildings that are intended to stay. DR. SPANO: “If the Specific Plan is discovered to be in conflict with the General Plan, must one of them be amended?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: The General Plan was amended when the Specific Plan was adopted, and the Specific Plan was determined to be in compliance with the General Plan, and so from Staff’s perspective there is not a conflict between the Specific Plan and General Plan, because it’s not permitted. DR. SPANO: “What is the definition of ‘open space’ in the Specific Plan? How will it be achieved?” The questions are great. You’re right on track with the questions and the guidelines, so you’re doing great in terms of the guidelines. I’m taking some application questions; they’re off in a sep arate pile, because again, we’re not looking at applications and anything about any specific proposal. Joel. JOEL PAULSON: Open space is defined on pages 6 - 13 of the Specific Plan, and I will go ahead and read it for the audience. “Open space means a grou nd plane open and generally unobstructed from the ground plane to the sky. Balconies, shade structures and roof eaves may extend over a portion of the open space. Open space includes green open space and hardscape, plazas, courtyards, pathways, sidewalks a nd pedestrian paseos. Plazas, courtyards and TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 61 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 planters over podium parking or on roof decks also qualify as open space.” So it is broadly interpreted across from hardscape to greenscape. There is also a requirement in the Specific Plan that a minimum of 20% of the required 30% open space be green open space. DR. SPANO: And then the second part of that is is it achievable, that definition of open space? JOEL PAULSON: Yes. DR. SPANO: Great. “Where in the Specific Plan does it say that housing units have to be spread out?” JOEL PAULSON: It does not say that either. I’ll just offer that it does speak to where residential can be implemented, and that is across the entire Specific Plan area with the caveat that in the Northern District any residential that’s p roposed has to be above commercial, so you have to have a vertical mixed -use setting for any residential that is in the Northern District. DR. SPANO: Very good. Christina, how are we doing? Any other EIR Specific Plan questions? I think we’re good. I thi nk we’ve covered all the EIR Specific Plan TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 62 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 questions, and I know they obviously feed off into traffic and density and so forth. Let’s move over. I’ve got a couple of cards on schools here. And we can come back. If you still have questions about the Specific Plan, fill out a blue card and get it in. We don’t need to stay all regimented; we can move around a little bit here. Schools: “Is a school considered a non - residential use, and if so, is it excluded by way of Table 2.2?” which I’m assuming is Table 2 .2 in the Specific Plan. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Under Table 2.1, Permitted Land Uses, which is found on page 2.8, it says that public and private schools are allowed in all three of the districts with a CUP, so it’s not considered a non -residential use , it’s jus t a specific category that allows it anywhere within the North 40 plan. DR. SPANO: Thank you. Another school question: “Is the plan to divide the North 40 project to be received by several school districts? For example, is a portion of the development to be serviced by Campbell Union Elementary and High School District, and not servi ced by Los Gatos TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 63 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Elementary and High School District? As a 34-year resident of Los Gatos, I live in the Old Adobe Road area serviced by Campbell. The Town of Los Gatos has nev er been inclusive of fringe areas. I would strongly state that two different schools districts is disjunctive.” So the key question, is the plan to divide the North 40 project to be serviced by several school districts? LAUREL PREVETTI: A completely different process determines our school districts and their boundaries. As you know, we have many school districts that serve the residents and families here i n our community and we’re very fortunate for that. The southern portion of the Specific Plan area is g enerally served by the Los Gatos Union School District; this is our elementary and middle school age group, and then for the high school it would be our Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District that serves that southern portion. To the north we have o ur Cambrian School District, and we again thank the participation, as well as the Campbell Union High School District that takes care of the northern portion. That’s why we’ve invited four different TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 64 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 school district boards and superintendents to be with us tonight. Those boundaries were predetermined long before the Specific Plan even came into fruition, but we look at school issues for all of our districts, and that’s why it is identified specifically as a use within the Specific Plan area. DR. SPANO: “C an the School Board ask that the builder build a school on the property? How do they propose that we intake a large number of students in already impacted schools?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: No, the School District can’t demand from a developer that they build a school. As I mentioned (inaudible) there’s a formula for the levy and the fees, and that’s all they can do is collect fees based on the square footage of the development, so there isn’t that ability to do that. In this case though the developer and the Los Gatos Union School District did voluntarily meet and discuss and enter into an agreement for additional money above and beyond the State requirements that I mentioned about the square footage. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 65 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: I have a question here for a school superintendent on supporting the Governor’s proposal, and we’re going to hold on to that, because the school superintendent is not answering questions here this evening. Okay, so we can move on. That’s all I have on schools. Christina, we good? Any other schools questions? Okay, I’ve got traffic. Let’s move over to traffic. Some other categories that are coming in —and again, don’t feel bound by these categories —I have traffic, we’ll move to housing after that, and then there are several questions on commercial as well. S o I’ve got a handful of traffic questions here. “If intersection LOS levels can drop by one level each time there is a development, we could theoretically eventually land at D Level for all intersections. Is there a minimally acceptable distribution of LOS levels, i.e. 25% of A, 25% of B, et cetera?” Matt. MATT MORLEY: Level D is the General Plan’s determination for what is acceptable, so that’s the lowest level that the intersection can go to within the Town. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 66 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 There is no distribution across that; that’s been determined to be the level of service that is acceptable. DR. SPANO: Here’s another traffic question, really comments. I think I can find question in here. “Three major concerns: Town’s loss of identity as a special town; education, schools impact now; and then traffic. More cars, really?” As you said, I believe, Matt, that in the TIA it does say for more traffic, so just say a little bit more about that. MATT MORLEY: The Traffic Impact Analysis is exactly that, it’s an analysis of the impacts from traffic. It acknowledges that a development will bring additional vehicles to the road and it looks for alternatives to mitigate those additional cars, those additional vehicle trips, and to reduce the impact of those trips on the community. As I mentioned in my opening, several projects around the development that accommodate these impacts and help to mitigate that and to keep the traffic flowing, so that when you reach an intersection your delay is managed and controlled. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 67 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: Thank you. Traffic: “Why can’t a new traffic EIR be required before development is approved, because clearly traffic in Los Gatos has changed significantly since 2014 to now, 2016?” So the heart of the question: Can the EIR be required before development is approved to inclu de the traffic? MATT MORLEY: I think the answer is consistent with your responses previously that the Council can look for additional EIR studies, and the TIA is a portion of that, and so that is a potential for the future. I would say that traffic analysis is a snapshot in time. The Traffic Impact Analysis captures the traffic at that time and the increases that the project brings, so it’s very specific to the increase created by the project, regardless of when that traffic analysis is done. JOEL PAULSON: I just offer one other thing. I don’t have the project or the files in front of me, but that is a question that we’ll also answer online as it relates to the Phase 1 application to illustrate what traffic review has happened as part of that Phase 1. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 68 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: I have a couple of specific traffic questions coming up here. “Is the Town looking at the need to change the traffic flow on Winchester south of Lark for the two residents that will need to avoid Bascom Avenue and still need…still need the (inaudi ble) at Bascom?” Am I reading that right? I don’t have a name on that. So, “Is the Town looking at the need to change the traffic flow on Winchester south of Lark for the two residents that will need to avoid Bascom Avenue?” Are we okay on that? Are you f ollowing that, or is this a parking lot and we need to follow up with a little bit more… (To audience member) Help clarify. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: Okay, thank you. MATT MORLEY: The intensity of Winchester and Lark specifically was addressed and it is in the TIA. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). M ATT MORLEY: There is not a project, because the impact associated with that intersection did not change it so that it needed mitigation. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 69 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: There are additional dollars set aside from the Netflix project to address that local area. One of the commitments we’ve made is to hold those dollars until we see what the result of that full Netflix build-out and occupation is, and that will allow us some flex ibility in using those dollars, s o that’s the potential for mitigation in the future. There were projects associated with Netflix that address the traffic in that area. I think as you see that area settle out a little bit it will allow us an opportunity to continue to do the assessments in there and identify where we need to program those dollars. DR. SPANO: Very good. Thank you for the clarifications, and the next time when that needs to happen I will repeat that for the people in the overflow so they can hear the follow up question. “Will there be any pedestrian or car access from Bennett Way?” MATT MORLEY: Bennett Way is a Phase 1 application question, I believe, although there is car access to Los Gatos Boulevard in the Specific Plan. What TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that looks like specifically will come out of the Phase 1 application. DR. SPANO: Thank you. And again, we’re on very specific traffic questions here; so let’s just do the best we can. MATT MORLEY: Let me just finish off with that. DR. SPANO: Please, please. Yes. MATT MORLEY: There is significant pedestrian and bike access in the project in its entirety. There’s a loop around the perimeter that is a very wide multi model path, as well as a requirement that there be a multi model paths through the project Specific Plan as well. The large amount of open space will also contribute to the ability for bikes and pedestrians to move about. DR. SPANO: “When turning right onto south Los Gatos Boulevard from Neighborhood Drive, will there be a No Right Turn on red? I believe this will help surrounding businesses get out of their driveways.” MATT MORLEY: That as well will be addressed through the development of the Phase 1 application. DR. SPANO: “Lark and Winchester intersection is currently now a congestion problem. Sh ouldn’t the EIR TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 71 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 address this intersection too?” So that’s Lark and Winchester. MATT MORLEY: As we mentioned previously, Lark and Winchester was addressed through the Traffic Impact Analysis. The study included that analysis and what the delays at that int ersection were. What we’ll do, I think we’ll see if we can pull up the analysis on Lark and Winchester and get that up in a few minutes on the overhead. DR. SPANO: Okay. (To audience member) So the question was? AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: So did the analysis and what actually happened, are they consistent with one another? So that was the question for the overflow audience. MATT MORLEY: The analysis considered the development of the project, of the North 40 Specific Plan, and ultimately an answer won’t be known until the full development is in place. DR. SPANO: “Why wasn’t the Oka Road/Lark intersection considered in the TIA?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 72 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: The Oka Road/Lark intersection is an intersection that has less load from the Oka Road feed ing i nto that intersection, and it was determined not to be a significant intersection and without impacts, so it was not considered through the TIA. DR. SPANO: “Much of the current Lark traffic in the evenings is due to restricted capacity of Highway 17 and H ighway 9. Why doesn’t the Town allow Caltrans to widen 17 to 9?” MATT MORLEY: The Council has a General Plan policy that prohibits the widening of…or identifies the widening of Highway 17 as not something that the Town is accepting of. DR. SPANO: “Los G atos Boulevard from 85 to Lark is already overwhelmed due to only two lanes existing each way. Why won’t the Town use eminent domain now to take the eight properties to widen the road so we don’t have to wait 30 more years?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: That’s certain ly a possibility, and I would go on that question that will answer any type of eminent domain question where I’ve answered that about the process you have to go through, and I think as Laurel TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 mentioned, it’s a process that you do have to pay the fair marke t price for that property, so each property would be entitled to it if we were to pay for that. Normally the way we have done it is that we wait till that development comes through and it’s part of the development. Then we’re able to extract that as a nexu s from the project’s impacts so that we don’t have to pay for that property. But certainly the eminent domain process does allow for that to happen. DR. SPANO: “Is it possible to have a new traffic study, a new TIA, that uses local standards versus the TIA formulas that aren’t truly relevant?” MATT MORLEY: The Traffic Impact Analysis standards are identified in our Town’s General Plan, so very specific to the Town, adopted by the Town, and even more stringent than, for instance, the VTA standards, which g overn a little bit more broadly. So the Town has its own standards that it has adopted and follows. DR. SPANO: “Given that traffic has become significantly worse in years since the EIR, will a new EIR be done?” Let me just ask that. We’ve asked that quest ion. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 74 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 “If traffic level of service is shown at D or F, will all future development be halted? How often will traffic EIRs be repeated?” Let’s just take the levels of service is shown to be D or F. Will all future development be halted? MATT MORLEY: If an intersection is at E or F it needs to be brought back to a Level D, so the acceptable level of service; there are multiple ways to do that. The Town collects traffic impact fees that allow the Town to do projects along the way, and it also can be incorpora ted in to a project development. DR. SPANO: “How often are traffic EIRs done?” This is requested. An EIR is requested, so it’s done at the request of Council? MATT MORLEY: Yeah, the Town has triggers on where a Traffic Impact Analysis is done, and the threshold for us is 20 trips, so if the project generates 20 vehicle trips or more, then it’s required. LAUREL PREVETTI: If I may? DR. SPANO: Please. LAUREL PREVETTI: If I could just add that typically the driver for when we do traffic analysis is TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 75 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 when we have a private development proposal . It’s unusual for us to just do a traffic study just on our own, but we typically do it when we have a specific proposal that is asking us to evaluate some new development. MATT MORLEY: It gets a little into the weeds, but I did want to talk a little bit about the question on Winchester Blvd and Lark Avenue, and if I can bring your attention to the screen. On this line where you see the arrow, Number 7, Winchester Blvd and Lark Avenue, identifies the traffic for both t he AM and the PM peak periods, the time when it’s most impacted. Under background, background is what was analyzed and seen as what existed . What’s the existing situation? The most telling there, you see the letter grades; both of them are B at Winchester and Lark, so that’s what the… AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). MATT MORLEY: Let me finish, and then we’ll get to some questions. I’ll run through the scenarios here. You can see that the delay was 17 seconds; that’s the number right to the side of the B, so 17.4 in the AM and 17.7 in the PM. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 76 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Two projects were analyzed; we called them Project A and Project B. When you add those projects you can see what happens to the delay; it increases by .7, or by roughly 3 seconds, to a B - and a C+. That’s how the anal ysis is done, and that’s really a little bit in the weeds on the details, but that’s where the comparisons come from, and this level of analysis happens with all of the intersections. DR. SPANO: So the question is what year was this analysis done? MATT MORLEY: The analysis was done in March 2014. DR. SPANO: The question is traffic analysis since 2014? MATT MORLEY: The traffic analysis, as with the rest of the EIR, is a snapshot in time, so it has captured a particular point in time, and that’s the info rmation that’s had when the decisions are made, and that’s the information that goes forward. The information that we’re dealing with is a comparison between the existing traffic and how the development will cause the traffic to increase, and so that TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 77 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 snap shot in time identifies what that increase from the development will be, and the developer is required to mitigate that delta. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). MATT MORLEY: Based on the information, yes, the information at the time. But the capture is that delta in impact, and that’s the mitigation that’s required. DR. SPANO: Okay, and so I’m hearing very clearly the request here for an updated traffic analysis. MATT MORLEY: We’ll provide a more detailed summary of the traffic analysis online in the Q&A, so that you’ll have that for the future. DR. SPANO: Very good. Thank you. Christina, we okay on traffic questions? Any other traffic questions? AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: Thank you for your comment. And so we can record what you have, it would be great if you filled that out on the… Thank you very much for that. Thank you. I’m not hearing any other questions, seeing any other questions on traffic. A couple school questions came in , and we’ll circle back to those. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 78 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 “The North 40 developer promotes on his Facebook page that it is working on an agreement with the Los Gatos Union School District. Why are they not talking to Cambrian School District who has unused schools in their ownership?” I’m not sure we’re in a position to answer that que stion since it’s a School District question. I’ve got one other school question: “If there is overcrowding in Los Gatos schools, what was the rationale to put the residential housing within Los Gatos School District boundaries and not Cambrian School Dist rict?” AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: They are here in a listening role tonight, not in a speaking role tonight, and they were told that they would be in a listening role and not in a speaking role tonight. So the rationale for residential housing in Los Gatos School District boundaries and not the Cambrian School District? JOEL PAULSON: I’ll offer that obviously that was a topic that was discussed at length through the Specific Plan process and through the Environmental Impact Report process, and ultimately the determination was made to allow TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 79 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 housing and to allow housing across the site, with the caveat that the Northern District would only allow residential that is above commercial. So that anticipation, the reduction over time of the number of units. T he school districts did participate and wrote letters, the ones that were interested and concerned, and that documentation is in the Council and Planning Commission packets from when the Specific Plan went through the process. I’d also offer , I ’m sure most if not all of you have already been to the Town’s North 40 website. There is an abundance of information, and background material as well , to be pulled from that specifically, and I’d then point to Ms. Prevetti if she has anything additional to offer. LAUREL PREVETTI: I just want to add that one of the large topics that we talked about when we were going through the Planning Commission and Council meetings was what kind of community are we trying to create, and one of the Guiding Principles is that the North 40 should address the Town’s residential and/or commercial unmet needs. What that means is that we have a lot of family housing already TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 80 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 within our community, but we know we have people who are choosing to age and continue to live in our community, which is great, so there is a need for senior housing, and then there’s also a need for all of us who have kids who are graduating high school and going to college or whatever and starting to get jobs, and we would love for our youth to be able to come back into our community and live here as well. Those are some of the unmet needs that we’re trying to address through the Specific Plan. It’s kind of an indirect way to get to the school issue, but it was something that we debated pretty strenuously. DR. SPANO: “Please clarify. Did the TIA include the Netflix development and other proposed anticipated projects?” MATT MORLEY: Yes, it did. DR. SPANO: Very good. Thank you. Question was, “Only half of those buildings are now currently occupied.” MATT MORLEY: The TIA considered the Netflix build -out for its entirety, not for what was currently occupied. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 81 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: The question is the traffic now is only half of what it will be when it’s currently occupied, and that is correct, and the analysis that was conducted for Netflix incorporated the full traffic study for full occupancy in Netflix, not what the current level was. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: The question was, and this is for our friends in the lob by, “Do you audit the results?” Matt. MATT MORLEY: Our traffic engineer reviews the traffic on a regulation basis, and although it’s not an official audit per se, it is a review of the traffic levels within the Town, and you can see from traffic study to traffic study what the impacts are. It does become difficult to attribute the traffic, because there are many factors that contribute to traffic at a particular intersection. It’s difficult to identify specifi cally where that traffic is coming from over time. LAUREL PREVETTI: Let me just add, as Director Morley said earlier, we have some funds that have been set aside, so that way after Netflix is completed we can do some analysis to determine what within that vicinity can the Town do to try and reduce th e impacts further, and that TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 82 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 may in terms of vehicles, but it also might be in terms of introducing other modes, such as bicycle and pedestrian improvements. So there is more work to come, because we still haven’t done those studies since Netflix is still u nder construction. DR. SPANO: This question here is about beach traffic, so we won’t take that up. It’s not North 40, but just so we air the question here. “The Town doesn’t want to widen 17, however the struggling with beach traffic and Santa Cruz Avenu e is not a solution.” Okay, I’m going to jump around a little bit with another school question. “A payment to the School District. Agreement includes a provision whereby the District cannot contest any aspect of the development as the School District represents the Town residents. That in essence precludes a significant voice of the residents. How could the right of residents to contest or voice dissent be taken away? Is that provision legal?” How can the right of residents to contest of voice dissent be taken away? (Applause.) ROBERT SCHULTZ: I guess I heard clapping, but I’m not sure I understand the question. The voice of TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 83 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 residents can still be heard. They come to the Planning Commission meeting and they come to Council. The School District, their fees that they collect from the developer are set by the State. That’s the .56 ¢ per square foot and the 346, so it’s set. They were able to negotiate additional amounts that will benefit the School District, and whether that was not enough, whether that was too much, that can be debated, but I’m not sure how that agreement that enabled them to obtain more than State law would allow them to obtain somehow took away the voice of the citizens of Los Gatos. Maybe they can go to the School District and say it wasn’t enough, but any amount above and beyond is more than what was allowed under State law. DR. SPANO: And just maybe by way of clarification, the premise here: “The agreement included a provision whereby the District cannot contest any aspect of the developme nt.” So that’s a premise that’s leading to the question. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And that would just be the School District, and that’s an agreement between the two parties. It still allows any of the citizens to contest the actual project. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 84 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: We’re goi ng to jump back to specific planning questions; I’ve got a couple here. “I appreciate the strenuous effort done with the Specific Plan regarding youth housing, but is it realistic under the current application if 274 proposed units are above market income rate?” Is that realistic for the youth housing? JOEL PAULSON: Again, Phase 1 application information, I don't know, because I don't know how much they’re ultimately sold for. We can look to get some of that data. And obviously it’s going to depend on the youth. Folks coming back to town, it’s challenging for some of them to get into the market, because it is a good market here, and so I don't know that they’re going to be on the order of magnitude where folks can come back and then they’ll automatically ha ve a spot. It will provide an additional type of housing, which is important for the unmet needs piece, but the specific circumstances would dictate whether or not certain individuals are going to be able to afford these types of units when they’re constru cted. DR. SPANO: This question here circles back to the unmet needs that we talked about: “Does the Town have TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 85 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 any quantification of the unmet needs by market?” The preamble: The Specific Plan talks about unmet needs for residential. Appendix C talks about seniors. Does the Town have any quantification of the unmet need? LAUREL PREVETTI: I wasn’t with the Town at the time that the Advisory Committee was doing all of its work, but I believe there were several market studies that were done to help inform the preparation of the Specific Plan. I know the Housing Element has to do a demographic analysis to identify the needs across all income spectrums, so that analysis is definitely in the document. Typically the State focuses more on housing for older persons as opposed to our younger population, but I think here in Los Gatos we’re really interested in making sure we can house all segments and all types of households within our community. We’ll look a little bit deeper in our documents and put something up on the FAQ regarding that. DR. SPANO: Still Specific Plan: “Are there any other areas in Los Gatos that have 20 units per acre? If not, what is the largest?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 86 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: There are areas of town that have 20 units per acre, and there are existing developments around town that exceed 20 units per acre. We can pull together some of those sites and get that information posted on the Frequently Asked Questions as well. DR. SPANO: The question from the audience was: “What’s the definition of a unit?” JOEL PAUL SON: It’s an individual living unit, whether it’s a single -family detached house, an apartment, condo or townhome, that is a unit. It could be a secondary dwelling unit. There are a number of different definitions for what a unit is. The density is based on the number of units per acre of the site, and that’s where the density is driven. DR. SPANO: “The Town used to have standards for open space and parking. Does the Specific Plan reduce this? T hat would be private and public open space .” The Town used t o have standards for open space and parking. Does the Specific Plan reduce that? And including both public and private open space. JOEL PAULSON: I’ll speak to the parking first. There are some opportunities that are allowed by Town Code, TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 87 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 but the Specific Plan explicitly allows them, whether that’s shared use of parking, there’s some allowance I believe for reduced numbers for a certain project or unit types, s o with the parking, yes. Open space, we have required setbacks, so that’s not necessarily open space, but we do have General Plan language that speaks to providing open space. I don’t recall an actual specific number for either commercial or residential that is in place currently, and so if someone has reference to when that was in place or whether it was commercial and residential, or not, we can do some research on that. DR. SPANO: We’ve had questions about amending the Specific Plan, et cetera. This one is: “Can the Specific Plan be amended while there is a pending application?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: It depends where in the planning process that pending application is. Under the Permit Streamlining Act and the Subdivision Map Act there is what i s called being deemed complete, and once an application is deemed complete, that then locks in your rules, regu lations and laws that are in effect at that time. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 88 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 For example, the application that is in right now has been deemed complete, so if any amendments were proposed and changed while that application is still pending and deemed complete, it wouldn’t affect th at application. DR. SPANO: “The hillside views are obliterated based on the orange story poles. Can you require that the buildings be lowered?” JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan sets maximum height. Those are maximum heights, however, again, getting back t o the by right and the State density bonus provisions which allow concessions to any number of topics, they can request those exceptions as part of the density bonus project. So then it’s whether or not we can make the findings, and I think it’s a finding that has to be made, if we don’t think that concession is appropriate. DR. SPANO: We’ll go back to traffic: “Does the TIA conclude that the Winchester/Lark Avenue delay from current to the full development of the North 40 in the AM be only a 0.7 seconds?” The delay. MATT MORLEY: That is correct. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 89 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: Okay, very good. Thank you. This is for Staff: “Do you live in Town? If so, how can you recite these traffic findings with a straight face?” Okay, so I’m not (inaudible) that one. Not sure that question followed our guidelines in staying focused on the information and fact sharing aspect of our question asking tonight. Another traffic question: “How can you say that the plan won’t impact downtown when traffic is currently preventing people from getting downtown now, and it will only get worse with the density of the North 40?” MATT MORLEY: I think I’ll start by saying that the Council and Staff spend a significant amount of our time managing traffic, and we look for every opportunity to help to manage the traffic and to lower the impacts of traffic in the Town, so anything that we can do that achieves that is something that we would take on. We are limited by the standards that are set fourth through the Traffic Impact Analysis, and that guides us real ly on the analysis. Then the alignment of the impacts from the project really drives the direction of where the improvements can occur. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 90 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 This particular project has very high standards, higher standards than are regionally adopted, so the efforts continue to look for every opportunity to manage the traffic, but I think what the heart of the question is, is there an increase in traffic? A nd there ultimately is. It’s been determined to be within the tolerable standards that the Town has set forth for itself. DR. SPANO: Very good. I have about five or six commercial questions, and I’ve got a big stack of housing questions here. I’m thinking it might be a good time to take a break. We’re just about at the two -hour mark; so let’s just take ten minutes. There ar e refreshments. If you keep those refreshments out in the lobby, that would be great. We’ll take ten minutes, and we’re going to reconvene here at five after, five after sharp. We’ll do commercial questions, and then housing. (INTERMISSION) DR. SPANO: Le t’s get started for the second half. Please find your way back to your seat. We’ll go ahead and get started here for the second half. Want to just remind you about the cards, and please fill out the blue card for questions, the yellow TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 91 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 card if you have comments, and Staff will collect those comment cards. We won’t be reading the comment cards tonight. T hen the beige card if you do want to speak tonight in Verbal Communications. Also, if you do have a follow up question, fill out another blue card, and we’l l get the blue card in here and we’ll do the follow up question as well. We have had a couple questions about the School District, the Superintendent and School Board members that are here tonight. T hey are here tonight as the Town’s invited guests, and just in the way that we designed the meeting, they were not told to be prepared with a presentation or to answer questions. I have talked to a couple superintendents, and they invite and encourage you to contact them directly if you have any questions related to their agreements or how they’re handling North 40 issues within their school boards and districts. Okay, we’re going to move forward. As I mentioned, we’ll have some questions around the commercial development aspect, then there are lots of questions around housing, and then during the break a couple more Specific TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Plan questions came in, so let’s just tackle those before we move on to those other topics. “What process is availab le to revoke the Specific Plan? Not amend, to revoke the Specific Plan.” Is there a process available, and what would that look like? ROBERT SCHULTZ: The Town Council is who approved the Specific Plan, so they can as part of an amendment actually revoke it and make those changes to it. As I stated though, if it was revoked to morrow that wouldn’t affect the current application that’s in place, because it’s been deemed complete. So that’s the Town Council always has control over its own document. If the question is could the citizen do an initiative or referendum to revoke the Specific Plan, no, that’s not available. The timeframe for when the Specific P lan could have been referendumed by the citizens has passed. DR. SPANO: “Since there has not been an application for Phase 2, can the Specific Plan be amended to state no devel opment, retail or anything in Phase 2?” Can it be amended for Phase 2? TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 93 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: There has to be some potential to develop a piece of property, or then we go back to the whole argument of the taking of someone’s property. Certainly the second phase could be amended. There is no application pending and changes could be made. It could result back into its original development potential, but even doing that at this point in time could be deemed to taking if you were down-zoning and then taking away, bec ause we’ve allowed by approving the Specific Plan a certain type of development. People could say they’ve already relied on that passage of that Specific Plan, and if you were down-zone it to open space then the argument would be that would be a taking. D R. SPANO: “Does the Specific Plan allow for land to be set aside for open space and community recreation as set forth in the General Plan for Los Gatos Boulevard, or will all 44 acres be developed and cemented over?” JOEL PAULSON: As I mentioned before, there is an open space requirement and a minimum of 30% has to be open space, and a minimum of 20% of that 30% has to be green open space, so it will not be paved over completely. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 94 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: “Where did the follow up fu nding for the EIR come from? Who paid for the EIR?” JOEL PAULSON: As with ev ery application process in town we receive funds from an applicant, and then we use our consultants and we are the overseers of the document, its preparation and its final release. The developer funds it , which is the same process we use for all of our projects and environmental documents. LAUREL PREVETTI: I would just add that if there is a con cern with an EIR it’s the Town that’s the one that gets sued. The dollars just essentially allow the analysis to occur, but we are ultimately accountable for the information that’s in the EIR, and the Town has a process for certifying that it does in fact meet State law. DR. SPANO: Very good, thank you. I have a couple of traffic questions: “TIA measurement by car does not re flect whole delay, seven seconds times number of cars. Why does Town oppose widening 17?” The first one, let me just find the question in there, “TIA measurement by car does not reflect whole delay, seven seconds times number of cars,” if that makes sense, Matt? TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 95 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: I’ll make the interpretation. I think the interpretation is that the number of cars coming out of the development would seem to equate to more than seven seconds, so I’ll answer that as a question. As vehicles come out of the development they will go multiple directions, and the Traffic Impact Analysis considers that and identifies what vehicles will go to what intersections and what those vehicles at that particular time will create in te rms of a backup at that intersection; that equa tes to the delay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: The question was: “How do you quantify that?” MATT MORLEY: So how do we quantify the delay to the flow of traffic at a particular intersection? If you think of yourself as an individual coming up to an intersection, what you can anticipate is the delay being to you as you approach that intersection, so it doesn’t necessarily multiply. If there are five people coming to an intersection , it doesn’t multiply that seven seconds times the five people , it simply identifies the impact to you specifically. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 96 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: Here’s another traffic question: “Ther e are 270 three- to four -bedroom, two- to three- bedroom, with a studio that can be converted into different units. An average of two cars per unit. Since the market price in Santa Clara the vast majority have to be dual-car households. How many cars are estimated in the plan?” How many cars are estimated in the plan by household is the question. MATT MORLEY: Whether it is household or commercial space or office space, the Traffic Impact Analysis considers the number of trips. Not the number of vehicles, but the number of trips that are generated based on the industry standard for that particular use. It uses standards that are set for us, and those are the requirements that are set forward based on our complying with CEQA. DR. SPANO: “Has a comparison been made to other new high -density developments in town such as Bluebird Lane? Can one be done?” MATT MORLEY: The TIA looks at a much bigger picture than independent development, so it’s a look TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 97 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 holistically at how impacts in similar developments occur and not at a small cross-section or a smaller subset. DR. SPANO: So it can’t be zeroed into a Bluebird Lane or any particular street in that way. “Does the developer have any liability if the traffic estimate in their plan is wrong?” MATT MORLEY: No. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). MATT MORLEY: The question is: “How many cars are in the plan?” and the follow up is, “Do we base it on the number of trips tha t are expected out of the development?” Yes. If you consider that a vehicle may or may not leave at a particular time, the analysis is based on what can be anticipated on the trips generated out of a particular house. The example would be a residence that in the morning somebody may go to work and somebody may stay and work from home, and those average over the entire development across the sample sizes, the samples that are included that drive the standards that are used in the analysis, so it’s a standar d space analysis. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 98 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: The question is, “Does density impact the number of trips?” Yes, the density does impact the number of trips. The density is important in that the trips are generated by unit. DR. SPANO: And it would be great to put those follow up questions on a blue card so we have those and they can put them into their question pool. I’m not sure if this is going to be answerable here: “What is the current status with Grosvenor regarding the schools? What h as been offered and on the table?” Do we know that, or do we need to go to the schools for that? JOEL PAULSON: The only agreement we’re aware of is the agreement that has been entered in with the elementary and middle school district, Los Gatos Union Scho ol District, and we’re not aware of any other agreements or negotiations between any other school district and applicant. LAUREL PREVETTI: That agreement is available through the North 40 website if someone is interested in seeing it. DR. SPANO: We’re going to move over to about five or so commercial questions. “Table 2.1 requires a CUP TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 99 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 for a yoga studio, but not a restaurant with a bar. What is the thinking behind that?” Table 2.1. CUP, Conditional Use Permit for a yoga studio, but not a restaurant and bar, so what was the thinking? JOEL PAULSON: This is one of the additional answers that we provided on the website today. I think the reference to a yoga club actually is really into health club, not a yoga studio. This was one of the main things that we re considered, this table, throughout the North 40 Advisory Committee as well as Planning Commission and Council , as far as what uses should be permitted and what uses should require a Conditional Use Permit. When it went through that process that was dis cussed, this was the ultimate decision that was made by the Council for what uses would be permitted in the various districts and what uses would be required to get a Conditional Use Permit. DR. SPANO: “What makes the developer think any additional retail space is needed in town in light of lengthy vacancies of old?” and mentioning Blockbuster Video, Wolf Camera, the Hallmark shop. So is the developer doing an analysis that additional retail is needed? What TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 are they basing that on? First, are they doing that, and if so, what are they basing that on? JOEL PAULSON: Ultimately there were a number of leakage studies showing what categories the Town is lacking and where folks that live in town have to leave the Town to get certain goods and services. That study did show that there was capacity from the leakage perspective to accommodate new retail and other commercial uses. DR. SPANO: “Table 2.2 specifies a maximum of 400,000 square feet of commercial. Does that mean the Council can approve less than 400,000 square feet, any amount it wants?” JOEL PAULSON: Generally, yes. Those are maximums, so the Council will have to consider whether or not they think whenever the commercial comes forward whether that’s the appropriate number or whether it should be less. T h at will be evaluated during the planning process that we’re currently going through, as well as any future applications that might come forward. DR. SPANO: “Is there anything in the Specific Plan that would prevent the developer from leasing all 400,000 s quare feet to restaurant use?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 101 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: Generally, yes, there is, because it does talk about that all of the applications, again, are going to be considered, and it does speak to a mix of uses to help complement the rest of the Boulevard as well as d owntown, so someone coming in with that amount of all restaurant is not only highly unlikely, but it also would be challenging to show that that actually conforms with the Specific Plan. DR. SPANO: “Is there any limitation around restaurants at all in the Specific Plan, the amount of restaurants?” JOEL PAULSON: I don't know that there is a specific limit, no. It’s just part of the greater application review of where restaurants are anticipated, or as they move forward through the process. DR. SPANO: “I f the Specific Plan was to be revoked, what happens to the land in the North 40?” If the Specific Plan was revoked? JOEL PAULSON: If the Specific Plan is revoked, then it would revert back to its former zoning designations or the zoning designation that complies with the General Plan. So if it gets revoked, then I would guess that would TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 1 02 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be the likelihood, but I will look to the Town Attorney to see if he has any additional input. ROBERT SCHULTZ: We did make changes to our General Plan to make it consistent with the Specific Plan. I still look at it as an amendment. If in fact Council wanted to make changes, it isn’t just a revocation of it; there has to be some discussion about what the underlying designation is going to be. I t just wouldn’t automatically go back to the previous, because that’s already been amended and is no longer applicable, so a complete revocation would put it in a very precarious place, because there has to be some designation of what that land can and cannot do. DR. SPANO: “Can the o riginal 750 homes and 586,000 square feet from 2010 take over if that was to be revoked?” JOEL PAULSON: As Mr. Schultz was explaining, there would be necessary Zoning Ordinance amendments as well as General Plan amendments if the plan was revoked. The pr evious General Plan designation, if I remember correctly , was mixed-use commercial, so that does allow up to 50% coverage for the site, and so you can take 20 acres TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 103 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 times 50%. Theoretically that would kind of leave your building envelope, which could be far in excess the 501 that’s currently the maximum cap. I think it’s important to point out that one of the previous questions, there is also an additional cap of commercial with the exclusion of office and hotel; I think office and hotel. That cap is actually 400,000 square feet for the other commercial uses, but I just wanted to offer that. DR. SPANO: Another commercial question, not directly related to the North 40, but we’ll see if we have an answer here: “What is the total square footage of retail curr ently in downtown Los Gatos?” JOEL PAULSON: We will pull that information from the previous documents and add that to our FAQ. I do not recall off the top of my head. DR. SPANO: A couple Specific Plan questions before we move over to housing. “Will the sewer system of the North 40 be serviced by Campbell? If so, that system is antiquated and needs upgrades.” T his related back to our earlier question about coordination with Campbell. Will the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 104 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 sewer system be coordinated with Campbell? Will Campbell servic e it ? MATT MORLEY: The sewer system is West Valley Sanitation and they will maintain that sewer system. DR. SPANO: And the comment, not a question, that that system is antiquated and needs upgrades, and somebody is going to have to pay for that. You want to comment on that, Matt? MATT MORLEY: Significant analysis has been done on the sewer system and its capacity for the site, and upgrades will account for all of the need associated with that sewer system. DR. SPANO: And then who would pay for that? M ATT MORLEY: That’s part of the development. The development creates the impact; the development pays for the improvements. DR. SPANO: This is a Specific Plan question: “Has Staff or anyone working for the Town examined the negative impacts on property values all the development will have with downslides, schools, traffic, et cetera? What is a homeowner’s recourse?” Have the negative impacts been examined in terms of the impact on property values? TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 105 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: I don't know that we looked specific ally at property value impacts; t hat’s not an evaluation that we typically do. I know that does come up quite often with even just a single -family home improvement where neighbors have concerns, and so that is brought up. I haven’t seen that personally analyzed, and so we might be able to say that we definitely have not analyzed that. I’m not sure if Mr. Schultz or Ms. Prevetti has anything additional. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Just with regard to the impact for property values. I know no case law that ever been undertake n where a homeowner has sued over a development project from the impact of that development project on their property value. Most of the legal challenges come from a CEQA challenge or a findings challenge, but not on the impacts from a property value. DR. SPANO: “Does the maximum commercial FT have the same bonus percentage as residential FT?” JOEL PAULSON: Generally the State Density Bonus Law only applies to residential; it does not apply to commercial. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 106 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: We’re back to commercial. “Is the No rth 40 commercial element targeted the same as the Downtown District?” Is the North 40 commercial element targeted, treated the same way as the Downtown District? JOEL PAULSON: Ultimately the Specific Plan sets the parameters. There are provisions in the Specific Plan that have requirements that are less stringent than some of the downtown properties, so that clearly was set up when it went through the process. There are differences between how downtown applications are provided for when compared to proper ties that are going to come forward in the Specific Plan. DR. SPANO: Good. “With the maximum commercial development, how many jobs are anticipated? Is that provided by planned housing adequate to support these jobs?” So if there has been a jobs analysis. JOEL PAULSON: That is evaluated in the Environmental Impact Report. I will pull that data as well, so that we can get that posted online. It does anticipate based on square footage, and they do anticipate a number of employees that will be generated by th e various uses. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 107 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: “Why are CUPs, Conditional Use Permits, different for downtown and North 40? Why do developers get easier rules than downtown businesses on the North 40 side? JOEL PAULSON: That was a discussion along the way as well, obviously, with the concerns. So when it came forward and went through the process, ultimately given the additional detail and development standards that are being applied to the Specific Plan, I can’t speak that there was actually anything specific that I recall that was stated other than typically in a development like this you are going to have… It’s important to understand where you are from a potential tenant perspective. I think some of that information was provided as well when it went through the process, a nd then ultimately it was determined that there probably is going to be, for instance, restaurants in the North 40, and so anticipating that, knowing that, analyzing the impact of some percentage of restaurants, it was determined that, for instance, that use where a CUP is required in downtown, it is not required in the North 40 Specific Plan. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 108 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: There’s a question here asking, “Why is Los Gatos not joining with other California cities and towns to push back against State mandates,” mentioning som e of the State mandates here in terms of water supply and pollution report. I’m not sure if this relates directly to the North 40 or not. Was there a water analysis done? Was a pollution report? Was that related to the North 40, tied into the North 40? MATT MORLEY: The North 40 is required to comply with stormwater requirements within the State, and will do so. A large amount of that includes retention of stormwater onsite and ensuring that the stormwater that’s released is cleaned and unpolluted, and that will certainly be a part of the project. DR. SPANO: And the question here is asking why Los Gatos isn’t pushing back against those State mandates, joining with other cities and towns in California, pushing back against those mandates? MATT MORLEY: Los Gatos is part of a broader coalition of cities that provides input to the State on stormwater issues, and the Town provides their voice through that coalition and does provide input to State TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 109 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 requirem ents as they come forward. The State requirements do get stricter and stricter over time, and we do work with our coalition to provide input that would help to manage the continued requirements. LAUREL PREVETTI: If I could just add that we did do a water supply assessment, so there was an analysis done and it’s included in the Environmental Impact Report, and working with the Water District and the water retailer we found that there is adequate water supply. I want to just add that we know that we are still in a drought condition, and so we do have local ordinances that encourage and require more conservation than what the State is requiring, so I think, again, our environmental history here in the Town is continuing, and our legacy, and so we tend to be more proactive in making sure that we’re protecting our env ironment, whether it’s regarding stormwater, drought, water supplies or other issues; it is something that we’re very mindful of and this plan was intended to make sure that we continue with that pattern. DR. SPANO: Thank you. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I’ll add o ne more. DR. SPANO: Please. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: We do push back, if that’s the word you want to use, against the State. As Matt mentioned, we participate in a coalition of what’s called the League of California Cities. I serve on and was appointed by that Le ague of California Cities to sit on a housing committee. W e meet four times a year to discuss the various bills that are being proposed, to keep us informed, and we do vote on oppose or support for those bills. We are part of a coalition with many of our n eighboring cities and keep track and inform Council of the different bills that the State is trying to impose on us to take away local control. DR. SPANO: Okay, we are moving over into housing now. “What is the definition of ‘affordable housing’ as requir ed by the State?” JOEL PAULSON: There are different levels of affordable housing. There is Moderate, Medium, Low, Very Low , and there’s actually a new category, Extremely Low. Generally it’s based on and starts at Moderate is up to 100%, and so it’s using the Santa Clara County average median income is what the basis is, so they evaluate that and then they look at which different categories they can go into. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Our policy generally looks at having a mix between Low and Moderate units being what we start off with. I f a development comes in and they’re proposing a certain type of project, then we would ask that half of the required BMP units be of Low category and half be in the Moderate category, or Medium. LAUREL PREVETTI: And if I may just add some quantif ication to that. We follow the United States Housing and Urban Development Guidelines for determining affordability, and it’s all based on our county median income, so we are a high-income community compared to other counties throughout California. By way of example, in 2014 if you are a household of four persons and you made essentially $100,000 a year, you would be right at that median, that’s kind of the benchmark. To be Moderate, you would have to be $120% of median, so if you’re a family of four and y ou earned $120,000, that would be considered above Moderate. And then Extremely Low, just to kind of put the other side, that would be 30% of the area median income, and that would mean a family of four earning essentially $32,000 a year. So again, those numbers mean that you still TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 112 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 are earning income, but you’re essentially qualifying for affordable housing. And Very Low is 50%, as Joel mentioned, and for a family of four that’s essentially $54,000 a year. So working families are essentially considered aff ordable housing in this county. DR. SPANO: “How will the Garden Cluster homes look and feel like Los Gatos?” JOEL PAULSON: I’m assuming that’s speaking specifically to the Phase 1 project that will be analyzed. T hat was one of the residential unit types that was spoken about in the Specific Plan itself, so there was some anticipation that there be some multi-family units to be produced onsite, and so that will be evaluated and that will part of the Planning Commission and Council purview as they move forw ard to determine whether or not that does look and feel like Los Gatos, the proposed project as it currently sits. DR. SPANO: You want to add anything to that, Rob? Are we good? TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 113 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 When we were talking earlier about youth as an unmet need, the question here is: “Are you talking just about Los Gatos youth that went to our schools?” JOEL PAULSON: No. I can elaborate a little bit. We can’t restrict housing in that fashion, and if the Town Attorney needs to add anything else, but generally we don’t have the abi lity to make those kinds of restrictions. DR. SPANO: This question is related to the earlier question about pushing back against State mandates, ABAG, et cetera, mentioning Los Altos and Monte Sereno successfully legally circumvented those and why Los Gatos is not doing what the question asker says Los Altos and Monte Sereno are doing? ROBERT SCHULTZ: I’ll have to research both of those, because I’m not aware that they were able to circumvent State law. There is an appeal process; Saratoga went through it. I know they lost. There is an appeal process when they come out with the RHNA numbers that you can appeal and provide factual evidence that the numbers that they have given you are too high. Sometimes those appeals are won. I’m trying to think of the num ber, Saratoga, they were giving I believe in the high-400s as TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 114 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 opposed to ours; it was 600s. They wanted to try to lower it down to the 419 number , and they lost. So whomever the person is that knows Monte Sereno and the other community and how they circumvented the law, if they know more, I can certainly look into that and provide a more detailed answer, but anyone who has tried to circumvent the law has lost in any lawsuit that I’m aware of. LAUREL PREVETTI: And in fact just recently the Monte Sereno City Council had to zone a property for multi- family development. Of course it was very controversial there, but that was to implement its housing element. So again, they needed to show action to zone adequate site for affordable housing and so the Council did take that action. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: Okay, so the comment here is about using granny units and so forth, and Laurel, that’s for people in the lobby. LAUREL PREVETTI: Right, thank you very much. So again, like many cities we use a combination of sites to try to meet our housing needs, and the Town of Los Gatos TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 115 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 has a plan to expand its secondary housing unit provisions to also count towards our affordable housing needs. Because of the way Monte Sereno did it and reduced the density on the Hacienda site, they had to find a replacement site. The replacement site was found, and so they are in compliance with their housing element. ROBERT SCHULTZ: So it wasn’t to circumvent the law, they just found another. And this is the many meetin gs that were discussed on coming up with our RHNA numbers, and if you did not zone the North 40 to use our RHNA numbers, where else were you going to use that? There were a number of sites: the Knolls, the Lodge, Oka Road, and those are available that we c an provide you with that they looked at very detailed in many meetings to determine which were the ones to use, and we are using some of our secondary units and are trying to expand that, so that we can use more of them. DR. SPANO: We had the earlier question about definition of affordable housing. This is: “Define Low Income and Very Low Income.” LAUREL PREVETTI: I believe I just did the Very Low Income. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 116 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). LAUREL PREVETTI: Yeah, homeless. We do have working homeless in this county, so that is an issue, but like any affordable housing program, our BMP, someone would have to demonstrate that they qualify because of income, and ultimately it’s the property owner that would decide whether or not an individual qualifies, together with our housing program administrator. So it’s theoretically possible, but again, we’d need to look to house all income segments of our community, and to the extent we have working homeless that are looking for permanent housing, that could be one population served. DR. SPANO: The question here was whether homeless for eligible for the affordable housing units. Here’s just an interesting little question, sort of trivia question: “Is the Governor’s bill AB 250, by our own Assemblyman Evan Low ?” Does anybo dy know that? We can move on. ROBERT SCHULTZ: We can make certain. In my mind it’s Governor Brown’s bill, because it was trailer bill and it was tacked onto the budget as a gut and amend, so it didn’t go through any committees whatsoever. I don’t know TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 117 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the particular assemblyman or senator, but we can check on that and say who actually help sponsor it with the Governor’s office. DR. SPANO: “If housing is spread into the Northern District, is it possible, given height limits and requirements of residential over commercial?” JOEL PAULSON: Can you repeat that? DR. SPANO: “…is it possible, given height limits and requirements of residential over commercial?” Can residential trump, supersede, over commercial? JOEL PAULSON: It is possible within the height li mits to have a vertical mixed-use development, and the Specific Plan permits that, so that is a possibility. We would have to see it. I think the other challenge gets to be depending on how many acres still have to be at the 20 dwelling units per acre . I think it gets interesting from a site planning perspective to try to get that type of density above commercial, but I couldn’t say it’s not possible at all. We’d have to look at that. DR. SPANO: “What is the affect on the Los Gatos Union School District d eal to obtain extra mitigation?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 118 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think we’ve addressed that. The agreement is online and you can look at exactly what their deal was and what they did get through that agreement. Again, the Town didn’t participate in those negotiations. DR. SPANO: “Our Town Attorney has painted a bleak picture. Please state what the options are. It doesn’t sound like the number of units can be reduced. It doesn’t appear there will be another EIR. The Los Gatos schools received the settlement. The quest ion: Can the application be denied?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: That will all take place during the application process. The Applicant has due process rights. I’m not even a member that would be voting on this, it’s the Planning Commission and the Council, and they’ll weigh all the evidence and determine whether it is in compliance with the Specific Plan. I certainly said that yes, there are by rights for 270 units, but certainly they do still have to meet the design guidelines and the standards that are set forth in the Specific Plan, and so that’s going to be the issue that they need to decide. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 What I think I tried to get across is I’ve heard quite a bit of let’s reduce it, and that’s a maximum of 270, but because of the Housing Element that is also on top of that Specific Plan they do have the by right of doing 270 units plus a density bonus. So, yes, that is bad news for the development, if you wanted to reduce the density, but there are many, many, many issues that are still on the table for the Planning Commission and Council to look at and decide, one being, I think it’s been brought up, a unit is described in many different ways, and what is the size of those units that fit within the parameters of the Specific Plan ? DR. SPANO: “With Town opposition on density and intersection of North 40 application, and we know as a town we need a housing unit of 619, why not create a lottery of more in -law units?” JOEL PAULSON: I don’t understand the lottery question, but maybe providing opportunities where they currently d on’t exist is the idea of a lottery. I know that there was a time period in the, I’m going to say mid- eighties , where we did grandfather a lot of second units in town. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Then we actually are looking at modifying one of the General Plan or Housing Element action items to allow second units where we currently don’t allow them, so we’ll be doing a Zoning Code amendment for that and taking that through the process. I t’s not a lottery per se, but we are going to try to loosen up the restrictions that currently ex ist for certain properties, and that will make it easier, but we can’t force people to apply to build these units , and they still need to meet some other parameters. LAUREL PREVETTI: T he Housing Element identified 28 of the 619 units as being the share that would happen through secondary units. We could certainly exceed that. That’s , again, going to be up to the individual property owners in terms of whether or not they want to pursue the new opportunity to build more secondary units. DR. SPANO: “Why does North 40 housing not need to follow square foot ratio?” JOEL PAULSON: There are certain parameters where FAR applies. FAR applies to single- and two -family dwellings, and so those are going to be detached. Once you have three or more attached units, FAR doesn’t actually TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 121 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 apply in the Town Code either. Here, same thing: there isn’t an FAR for multi -family units. DR. SPANO: This has to do with the distribution of housing in the North 40: “Why is it crunched into one small area of the total project area. Can Town Council require that the housing be equally divided among the 40 acres?” JOEL PAULSON: We answered that earlier. Any of that that is spread, or if they can’t accomplish it in the Northern section, then we will have to find additional sites to accommodate that housing. DR. SPANO: “Why was the maximum number of units changed from 364 down to 270?” JOEL PAULSON: It was discussed during the hearings; I’m going way deep into my recollections. During the process of the Specific Plan and the Housing Element there was some overlap, and so there was a conversation, because we did have a lot of conversations about these by right density bonus concerns that were raised just through the Housing Element. It works out that if someone were to take advantage of a density bonus on this site, then 270 is the number where if you apply 35% bonus you’d get back to TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 122 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the 364, so it’s accommodating the up to 364, which was also the number of units that was analyzed in the Environmental Impact Report. DR. SPANO: “Is the North 40 subject to the Los Gatos Boulevard Plan?” JOEL PAULSON: I believe we answered that in one of our FAQs. Let me take a look. I think the short answer is it is not applicable. The Specific Plan creates the development parameters for all of the prope rties within the Specific Plan area, but I will look and see if there is anything to add to that. DR. SPANO: “How will publicly accessible space be ensured in the future? What is considered defined as privately owned and maintained, and public access spac e?” JOEL PAULSON: We are still, again, working through the development application process. T here is a significant amount of area that is going to be publicly accessible, private open space, and we will be working through that with ultimately probably CC&Rs and other agreements , and there are conditions of approval that will deal with that to make sure that it remains publicly accessible. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 123 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: “Does the 13.5 in the North 40 that is by right 20 units an acre all have to be in the Southern District, Lark?” JOEL PAULSON: The answer is no, and we’ve added additional information on that in previous questions as well. LAUREL PREVETTI: We can go back to the Los Gatos Boulevard Plan. The Specific Plan incorporates or complements the concepts and guidelines from the Los Gatos Boulevard Plan where applicable. Essentially, when the Advisory Committee and Planning Commission were working on the Specific Plan the Boulevard Plan was one of the inputs into that process, so strictly as we evaluate the development application we’re going to be evaluating it against the Specific Plan, and not the Boulevard Plan. DR. SPANO: “As one of the many renters that will now be displaced by the North 40 development, what provision for relocation assistance and affordable housing will be provided for us?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: We’ve also answered that one in the Frequently Asked Questions. The Town doesn’t have any ordinances, rules or regulations that call for relocation TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 124 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 expenses, so we don’t address that. There are a number of stat e laws that can address those issues, one being the Ellis Act. I don't know the circumstances of each individual renter and what their agreement is. For example, the Ellis Act applies only for multi-dwellings, so I’m not sure of the situation. What we’ve done is we’ve tried to connect the renters with people with the county, with our Hello Housing , and with our mediation and arbitration service, because we do provide mediation and arbitration service for landlord/tenant issues, but we don’t have any ordinan ce that we could enforce that requires that of a developer in this type of situation. DR. SPANO: “My analysis suggests that North 40 development is being done at maximum levels. Highest possible buildings that zoning allows, highest possible density as zoning allows, highest possible low-cost housing as zoning allows. Is this true, and why is Los Gatos taking that approach?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think, again, that’s a specific application question, and I think those are great comments. T hat’s what needs to b e analyzed by the Planning TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 125 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Commission and by Council as to what are those height issues, those setback issues, and whether they comply with the Specific Plan, and to look at and analyze those. It doesn’t specifically address anything in the Specific Plan, so we’ll wait for those questions and comments and for the deliberation by the Planning Commission and Council. DR. SPANO: “Why can’t the Town require the height of the houses to be lower by requiring the developer to build basements instead of three to four story buildings?” JOEL PAULSON: Obviously we look at a development application when it comes in and we compare that to, in this case , the Specific Plan, Zoning Code or General Plan, those documents. The applicant could propose to do cellars to basemen ts, but that would be for them to propose. I think it gets back to the same challenges with by right and density bonus concessions where we will be looking to see what , if any , options there are as they relate to that. DR. SPANO: This question is about a ffordable housing and State mandates, and the question is: “Is it really a State mandate or is it more of a suggestion? In other words, stating that housing is an issue although TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 126 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 nothing is mandated or enforced, only suggested? Is that true?” JOEL PAULSON: I’ll go ahead and start. I think it really gets back to there is State law that says you have to have a Housing Element. I think the question that comes up often is that the Town is required to plan and show that we have adequate sites to accommodate that housing. We are not required to build it or to go knock on developers’ doors to have them build housing, but we do have to show that the adequate sites are available in town to accommodate those affordable units. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think Joel addressed it by saying yes, there is a State mandate to have a Housing Element, State mandate to show that you have adequate sites to build your RHNA numbers. We don’t have the ability to go do what the developer does. I did a memo about a year ago and I can repost that again, as to the litigation that has developed over towns and cities that either dragged their feet or failed to produce adequate sites that could be developed for affordable housing, and in each and every case they lost, they’ve had to pay hundreds of thousands in legal fees, and they had to develop a Housing Element. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 127 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 It has even been very close to where the State has said they’ll even take away your planning authority if you don’t. I f you want an analogy, because I’ve worked in a lot of coast al cities , is every coastal town has to have a local coastal plan with the Coastal Commission ; it’s the same type of thing if you’ve got a State organization implementing themselves on and tell ing the town or city what to do and what they shouldn’t do. Malibu was one that almost was in litigation for many years, because they refused to follow the State mandates of a coastal local plan, and they came very, very close to having their planning powers taken away. There are many other towns that have just said okay, we can’t do this, we’re going to turn over your planning powers. In many local coastal towns they don’t have even a planning commission, because the State has taken it over through the Coastal Commission. Does the State have funding to do that? No. Do they h ave the funding to even file suit against the towns and the cities? That’s not really where it’s coming from. The lawsuits come from the building associations that will sue because you haven’t complied with State law. It’s not TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 128 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the State that has to sue you; any individual can sue you over the fact that you haven’t complied with State law. DR. SPANO: “We know 20 homes per acre. What will the square footage of the homes be?” JOEL PAULSON: The development plans for the Phase 1 application are online. I do not have that information. I know there is a range of sizes. We will try to pull some of that together and add that to the FAQs, or create some other document for the Phase 1 specifically. DR. SPANO: This might have been asked earlier. Let’s see if there’s something new here. “If we spread the housing over the 44 acres it would seem that we could reduce the height of commercial and create mixed use, commercial and housing, and include large open space. Does the Specific Plan allow for that?” JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan allows a number of alterations. Again, I’ll go back to what we are doing is we’re required to analyze any applications that come forward against the Specific Plan that’s adopted. Is it possible to have lower buildings spread out? It’s pos sible. I can’t say that it’s not possible. But you end up running into, depending on the types of units, trying to achieve TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 129 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the reduced heights and then also get to the 20 dwelling units per acre, that site plan exercise you have to work through . So t hat’s something that is possible, but we again are evaluating the projects as they come through from an application perspective. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And I think if you turned to 2.7 of the tables, Permitted Land Uses, you would find in the Lark District, though tha t was primarily in the Specific Plan . S upposed to be residential and you’ll find m any retails uses aren’t allowed; the formula retail businesses aren’t. S o there are different things that are not allowed in that Lark District, because it was supposed to be primarily residential. DR. SPANO: And Rob, I know you explained this in the PowerPoint, but if you’d add a little bit to that. “What is the concept of by right development as it applies to the North 40?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: By right development means that basically you have that right to develop that many units at that density. You don’t have the ability to reduce that number of units if an applicant comes in. You’re able to apply design review, and that’s maybe the look and feel and TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 130 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 how it orientates with the neighborhood. You’re able to make sure it complies with all the Specific Plan standards, but you don’t have the discretion. This where the State said t hat we had the discretion, for example, for the Lodge properties, to say, “Well, we said the maximum was 270 but we’re only going to allow you to have 200 units,” or, “We decided we want all commercial now and no residential,” because that truly would not allow for those RHNA numbers to be met. So the by right development is just as if you have your home and it’s on an R -1 property. You can come in and build your one residential home on there. You have to meet all the standards, the setbacks, the height restrictions, but the Town can’t say to you, “We don’t want a home on that piece of property,” and that ’s the same with the by right development. There are rights on this property to develop it with 270 units. DR. SPANO: “What specific latitude in the area of design review does the Planning Commission and Town Council have in regard to the upcoming application? Revisions, approval, not approval? Are there examples from TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 131 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 other communities we could look to?” So the latitude of Commission and Council on design review? JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have it with me, but March 30 th was the first time the Phase 1 application had gone to the Planning Commission, and there is a Staff Report associated with that that did lay out and speak to some of that discretion. As it continues additional Staff Reports will be prepared for the upcoming July 12 th meeting and then following meetings with the Planning Commission, and also with Council. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Didn’t mean to grab the mic, but it reminded me that I needed to discuss deadlines. As Joel said, the application will be coming back for Planning Commission discussion on July 12 th . That will be a public hearing, public comment will be open, and we welcome all your public comments. After all the public comment is taken, then the Planning Commission will make a recommendation to the Council. The Planning Commission has to make a recommendation to the Council by August 31 st per the Permit Streamlining Act and the Subdivision Map Act. Then the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 132 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Council has to make a decision under the State law by September 7 th . Those dates are very close together, so from a S taff standpoint what we plan to do is have the Planning Commission have the public comment period and everything that ’s need in July, even if there will be special meetings, and to have hearings in August in front of Council so that we can make those deadlines. It’s very imp ortant to make those deadlines so the applicant doesn’t have any argument that because we didn’t act within the State law that their application is approved, so we need to comply with those deadlines so that by September 7 th there will be a decision made. The Council has the ability to approve, deny or modify the application that is in front of them, if they can make the findings that they need to in regard to the Specific Plan and the Environmental Impact Report. DR. SPANO: Very good. I have three questions here that are about what we just heard in terms of why are the Planning Commission and Town Council meetings being scheduled for July and August, vacation time, obviously it’s not conducive necessarily to public meetings, and so TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 133 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that’s the reason why, because of the deadline that the Town is facing, and so we can answer those questions. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I did a memo to the Mayor and Council on May 24 th and we’ll put that online also for you. It explains all the dates under the Permit Streamlining Act an d the Subdivision Map Act that requires us to act within those timelines. DR. SPANO: “How much additional housing is planned for the additional phases of the project?” JOEL PAULSON: Until we have an application I can’t tell you whether it is going to be none or the total amount that’s left. I have to do a little math. I want to say in the range of probably 30 units, and I’ll look to my left. In the 270 capacity, so there’s capacity for the potential for up to 44 units on any future phase that comes forwa rd. DR. SPANO: Very good. The next question, “They don’t all need to be in Phase 1, right?” And so the answer then is right. Yeah, they don’t need to all be in Phase 1. “If 270 units can be developed by right, can we use the Specific Plan to determine whe re they can be built in the 44 acres and how they will be designed?” TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 134 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: I think that’s been addressed quite a bit throughout the evening tonight. The units can be spread across the site, and then there will be design review as it relates to the Specific Plan guidelines and parameters that will be reviewed when it goes through Planning Commission and Council. DR. SPANO: “The estimated purchase price of the studios, a one-bedroom, a two - or three-bedroom?” Just a ballpark, if you have that. JOEL PAULSON: We do not have that. DR. SPANO: “What revenue is anticipated to be generated in property taxes?” JOEL PAULSON: I don't know that we’ve even done that calculation, frankly, so ultimately wh atever transaction takes place the Town typically receives I want to say 9.6% of each dollar of property taxes. DR. SPANO: Right, and I think that’s helpful for people… JOEL PAULSON: 9.6 cents on the dollar. DR. SPANO: On the dollar on property taxes. JOEL PAULSON: That would be entitled and come to the Town , as well as any portion of the sales tax that TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 135 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 might be generated by the 60,000-70,000 square feet of commercial that is proposed in the first phase application. DR. SPANO: “How does the size of the Campbell side of the overall project…” Not clear. “H ow many residential units in Campbell? How much retail square footage in Campbell?” JOEL PAULSON: For Campbell, I think we just spoke about this as well, I think the line is pretty close to where the first phase line is, but I don’t have that exactly, so it could be up to 44, but I think we can take a look at that piece and get that answer up as well. Then the Northern District, we talked about that would be predominantly commercial if the project that’s currently before the Town is approved. LAUREL PREVETTI: And I would just clarify that none of the North 40 is in the City of Campbell, so when there’s reference to Campbell in this response, it’s really pertaining to the Campbell Union High School District that serves the northern portion of the area together with the Cambrian School District. DR. SPANO: I think we’ve answered this, but let me ask it just to make sure. “How does by right project TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 136 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 apply when majority of the units are market rate, not affordable housing?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: We have to meet RHNA numbers of 619 across the entire board, not just for Low Income, not just for Very Low, but it’s across the board of providi ng units across all the needs, s o the 270 by our Housing Element has the by right for the entire 270, not just for affordable housing. DR. SPANO: “How does the Town plan to meet our 619 RHNA allocation? By my calculation we would need to build 3,669 to meet that number with a developer density bonus.” LAUREL PREVETTI: Our Housing Element identified different ways to meet the need, and one of them was to include the North 40 Specific Plan, so that’s 270 units. The other approach was the secondary units that we talked about; that was about 28 units. We also talked about doing an enhanced secondary unit program; that would bring anot her 27 units. We do include the South Bay site as another housing opportunity site in the Town with a yield of about 148 units, and then we have other sites such as Oka Road, which is 99 units. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 137 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We also were able to take credit for the recently approved Kn olls development that was happening at the time that we were developing or preparing the Housing Element, so we actually got credit of 57 for approved units that the Town had done. So there are a variety of strategies that ultimately came into our Housing Element at a variety of densities. DR. SPANO: “Project seems dense. Buildings seem high. Why is there not park area or other public use space that would reduce the number of units?” JOEL PAULSON: I think we’ve answered this as well. We’re still working with the 20 units per acre, and there is publicly accessible open space that will be part of the development. I would encourage folks to go online and/or attend the Planning Commission meeting on July 12 th , and you can take a look and see what is proposed. DR. SPANO: “Can the Town force the developer to spread out the units across the property that is not part of an application?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think we’ve answered that. I don’t like using the word “force.” The Council has the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 138 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ability to approve, deny or modify any project that comes in front of them. If an applicant doesn’t want to do that, then they don’t have a project. DR. SPANO: “Other than the numbers required by right in the Housing Element, does anything else require encouraging that maximums be reached or minimums be reached, heights, setbacks, open space?” Does anything else require encouraging that maximums be reached, minimums be reached? ROBERT SCHULTZ: No. But again, when we go through the project, when you ask for a density bonus, there are concessions and waivers that an applicant can ask for, and again, State law says we have to allow those. T hat’s the push back we’re going to look at when we’re analyzing this with the density bonuses: What type of waivers and concessions is the applicant looking for? DR. SPANO: “Is it accurate to assume that part of the motivation for such a large, high -density project is at least partly to prevent any additional smaller sites scattered all over the city?” So if you concentrated the high -density, high height in one area, then it wouldn’t be TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 139 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 scattered across the city, but it would be localized in one area. Is that part of the motivation? JOEL PAULSON: I don't know if that’s part of the motivation, but that was definitely part of the discussions as the Housing Element Advisory Board, and then ultimately the Planning Commission and Council, struggled with should the North 40 be used? Should we go back to the AHOZ opportunity? Should we look at other sites? Ultimately the decision was made to incorporate the 13.5 acres for up to 270 units at 20 dwelling units per acre in the Housing Element, and that was the strategy that moved forward. We’ve talked at length about options and opportunities if that number was changed, then we would be looking at a similar evaluation of going back through and finding sites to make up for whatever density in units have been lost. LAUREL PREVETTI: I would just add that overall the Town has a General Plan that identifies the appropriate uses throughout our community, and we really want to make sure that we put any new development in the right place, so as there are other development applications pending or in TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 140 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the future will be applied for, we would encourage all of you to be just as actively engaged as you are now. We do have pending subdivision applications, for example, that would increase housing in other sites that are not even in our Housing Element. I know there is a lot of attention right now on the North 40, but this isn’t the only application that’s moving through the process. We do have a Pending Planning P rojects portion of our website, so I would encourage all of you to become familiar with it. There’s a map -based approach, so you can see what’s happening, a What’s Proposed in My Neighborhood, and then the project p lanner’s name and contact is available . So you can take a look at those applications as they are pending, and definitely please participate in our process as those move forward as well. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). LAUREL PREVETTI: The question is, “If we approve North 40, does it prevent things like Laurel Mews in the future?” Really, all land use decisions are unique and they’re considered on their own merits, determined by consistency with the General Plan, zoning and other TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 141 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 applicable codes, and guidelines. We have a lot of properties here in town, and with the strong economy there are a lot of property owners who are trying to make sure that they get what is in their opinion the highest and best use, and those applications are going through a similar process. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). LAUREL PREVETTI: Not necessarily. Again, ultimately our deciding bodies, Planning Commission and Council, make those decisions on their own merits. DR. SPANO: “If additional commercial development is allowed at this site or anywhere else in town, does that trigger more State mandated housing?” Additional commercial. JOEL PAULSON: I’m not familiar with the methodology and what goes into that. Maybe Ms. Prevetti can offer. LAUREL PREVETTI: No, i t’s essentially a separate discussion. We have our housing need numbers that were identified , and we’ve adequately planned for them, we’ve identified sites. If there is new commercial development TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 142 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that happens, there is not a housing requirement that follows. DR. SPANO: I t hink we’ve answered this, but just in case, “How are housing needs determined?” LAUREL PREVETTI: Housing needs are determined in a very complex way for purposes of our Housing Element. There is a strict methodology that is outlined in State law in terms o f who makes the population projections for the State of California, and that’s the Department of Finance. T hen they give the number for the nine county Bay Area region to the Association of Bay Area Governments, and then that regional agency sets forth a methodology to distribute all of that new population and the equivalent in terms of housing to all of our respective communities. So that’s a very public process. The Town is able to participate and comment on those numbers before we then do our Housing Ele ments. For this county, in the next cycle for housing elements , we’re considering doing our own methodology with our colleague cities within Santa Clara County so that we have even more local control of the distribution of that housing. That won’t happen until 2020, but again, that will TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 143 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be a whole other process, and we are looking for how we can maintain the local control and have more of a voice, instead of a regional agency telling us how much housing we need to plan for. DR. SPANO: “Do other developme nts in Los Gatos have the same square footage, unit number, acre density?” JOEL PAULSON: The short answer is there are other projects that actually even exceed the density for what is being proposed on the North 40. I think earlier I had mentioned I would look to pull some of that information and get that posted, so that folks have an idea of what that looks like. But there are other projects in town that have more density. Now, with square footage and those things, we would have to look at that. This probably is the biggest combination the Specific Plan would allow, but you also have to take into account a lot of other factors of when some of these other projects may have been built, and what size the properties are, so we’ll try to pull some of that info rmation together and get some information posted on the website. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 144 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: “What is the current approved number of housing units and commercial space square footage not yet built out?” The number of housing units, commercial square footage not yet built out. JOEL PAULSON: We don’t have that data, but that’s something we can try to pull together. DR. SPANO: “You mentioned that Saratoga has lost its appeal to reduce RHNA number, yet we don’t see orange monster development story poles in Saratoga. Why ar e we letting developers dictate what is best for RHNA needs? Granny units, please.” So the question: “W hy are we letting developer dictate what is best for RHNA needs?” JOEL PAULSON: This process was done through the Town, so this is the Town’s document. The Town took this through the public process and we had a lot of conversations, some of them very similar to the conversations we’re having this evening, and ultimately the decision was made to use the North 40 Specific Plan site as one of the components to meeting and achieving our regional housing needs for this Housing Element cycle. DR. SPANO: “Any plan s for solar panels on roofs, gre ywater systems built into the residential and commercial TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 145 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 structures, rainwater capture systems?” Any plans for any of those with North 40? JOEL PAULSON: Again, that’s going to be part of the Phase 1, so we will take a look at that information, but there is green infrastructure that encourages it, if not requires it. Speaking to what Director Morley spoke about before, C -3 requirements now require a lot more treatment onsite, so typically some of those components get added in, but we will specifically pull that information up. LAUREL PREVETTI: And the Specific Plan does have sustainability guidelines. There are specific guidelines in Section 3.3.8 that promote a lot of the sustainability issues that were raised in the question. DR. SPANO: “You mentioned single -family home has to follow FAR requirements, but multi-units do not, yet the developer application is waiting to sell each unit as a single unit. Why the discrepancy? Should the Town reduce the intensity of the application to comply with other single unit FAR requirements?” JOEL PAULSON: Appreciate the question. The difference is the distinction of attached units. They’re TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 146 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 still single -family units that are being proposed, they’re just attaching three or more, which for the Town makes that a multi -family dwelling unit. For discussion purposes, you have on e building that has three units in it, but they’re all sold to three different property owners. T hat’s a multi -family development, and based on current Town Code those do not have FAR requirements. DR. SPANO: “Did the Town impose requirements on the construction phase? I can’t imagine huge construction and materials trucks flowing from the site to Los Gatos Boulevard for years.” So did the Town impose requirements on the construction phase, staging and that kind of thing? MATT MORLEY: That’s specific to the first phase project , and that will come forward through the improvement and the conditions with that project. DR. SPANO: Okay, very good, and obviously opportunity for public comment around that. We are down to our last question card, and this really is about sort of ethics and the Brown Act. “What are the polic ies, ethics and standards regarding Staff and Council interaction with developers and/or vendors? How is TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 147 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 this monitored to ensure residents are protected from undue influence on Staff and Council?” ROBERT SCHULTZ: We have specific policies that address th is issue. For the Planning Commission policy, they’re allowed no contact. They’re allowed what we call incidental contact. For any project they go out to, if they’re going on someone’s property they’re able to at least say hello and maybe get oriented to where the facts are. But our Planning Commission is not allowed to have any of what is called “ex parte communications ” with developers, with citizens, with no one. It’s a very, very strict rule. I’ve brought it back a couple times for Council and Planning Commission to discuss, and both the Planning Commission and the Council wanted to keep that rule intact. For the Council, it’s different in that they are allo wed that ex parte communication, and we specifically even say the reasoning is that they’re elec ted officials, they need to hear from the public, they need to hear from you as to the issues that are coming forward, so they’re allowe d to have that ex communication with you and with the applicant. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 148 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 It does require though that before any hearing where p roperty rights are involved that they do have to disclose those ex parte communications, so when it comes in front of Council, and even when it comes in front of Planning Commission, we have the ex parte communications and that’s why they’ll say they did a site visit and they might have had incidental contact. But with Council they have to state who they’ve met with and whether they gained any other information that’s not in the public record, because it’s very important from a due process and Brown Act sta ndpoint that any information they receive outside the hearing is brought into the hearing, so not only they know that, but the rest of the Council knows that, so everybody has the same information to make a decision. DR. SPANO: Thank you. Okay, so no other questions. We’ll move to the public comment period of our meeting here, and this is the beige card. If you want to speak, you’ll have three minutes, and just fill out one of these cards and you can hand that to Christina. We’ll queue up over here for pu blic comment, and I’m just going to hold the microphone while you make your comments, and Shelly will be keeping time over here. W e’re going to be pretty TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 149 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 strict on the three-minute limit so that everybody gets the same amount of time. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). DR. SPANO: Okay, so the follow up is Staff interaction and how that plays into the ethics and Brown Act, et cetera. Thank you. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Under the Brown Act Staff isn’t even a part of that. It applies to elected officials or appointed of ficials, so we don’t even have any requirement of the Brown Act. For myself, I have an open door. Any time any member of the public wants to come in and talk to me about the Specific Plan, I’d be happy to do that. We also have meetings with developers to make sure we understand their proposal and how it does or does not apply, what our fee lings are. They always want to know whether we’re going to be supporting this project or not supporting it, and we have to take them through our analysis, just as we would for any member of the public, so we don’t include developers and not include the public, or include the public and not include the developers. You’re open to speak with any of us at any time. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DR. SPANO: Thank you. Okay, public comment, verbal communication. Chris Chapman, please come over here. Roy Moses. We’ll queue th ree at a time. And Bruce McCombs, please. We’ll start with Chris, and then go to Roy, and to Bruce. CHRIS CHAPMAN: My name is Chris Chapman; I live at 201 Mistletoe Road in Los Gatos. M y concern is that I’m astonished that this plan is going to have two or more school districts service the development. I find that now is the time to address a consolidation of schools. You’re approving a development to where kids on one side of the development will go to one school, and kids on another street will go to another school. I look at the School District members here, I look at the Town Council, and I heard a comment from the Town Council that said, “We have nothing to do with boundaries.” I, a s a resident of Los Gatos, look to the Town Council, the Planning Commission and the School Districts to work together to allow for one school district to service these 320 house. I finding it kind of amazing that we’re talking about a bicycle path going a round this TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 151 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 development for our kids to ride their bikes on, but oh well, Johnny’s going to go to Cambrian and so -and -so is going to another district. I implore everybody here to work together with the State to make it a consolidation of one school district serving this development. Thank you. DR. SPANO: Thank you, Chris. We have Roy up next if Roy Moses is here, and then Bruce will be after Roy. ROY MOSES: Thank you very much, and I want to thank all the Council members and the Planning Commissioners for getting this meeting together. You’ve got a big job to do. This is our town. I don't know how many of you that work for the Town are actually citizens of Los Gatos, but I’ve lived here for 48 years. It definitely has changed. I don’t like the change, but change is inevitable; I mean we all know that. I’m in a second career; my kids will probably have three careers. When you’re young you try to make some plans , and you have a family and you plan for your finances and you look ahead. The kids got to go to school. They ’re going to get out of school and hopefully they’re not going TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 152 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to be dependent upon their parents, they’re going to be out living on their own, which ours are, and all these things. So planning forward and looking ahead is very, very important, and sometimes cities kind of just look right here, because they’re got obligations to the State, and they have obligations to this person and this particular development, whatever. You have to look beyond and look to the future. You know what this communi ty is going to look like in 25 years? Just imagine. I’m going to be dead, and my kids have to live here, and a lot of other people don’t want to live here. Low-income people really cannot live in this town. You all know that. The State is crazy. Send Jerry Brown a copy of this meeting tonight, this video. Let him listen to the citizens of this small town. I’m sure the big cities are talking about the same thing. We have to start getting to the State and say you’re full of bullshit. This has been going on for years. You cannot continue this. I mean this Town cannot hold more people. What are you going to do? Stack them on top of one another? You talk about road rage? There’s going to be a lot of things happening as a result of this. TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 153 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 You have a tremendous responsibility. You inherited most of this. All you people that are sitting here, the Commissioners, you inherited this, but we have to start mitigating some of these things. So I ask you, passionately ask you, there are ways of mitigating the density, all the other things that are going to impact traffic and local services, all the things that we talked about here tonight. You’ve given us a lot of good answers in all the things; you’ve done a lot of homework and all these other things. It still doesn’t stop the fact that we have a problem, and every other community is going to have a problem. I think I’ve got 30 seconds. DR. SPANO: Continue on. ROY MOSES: I’ve been here before. So I want to thank you all, but I’m just telling you, we’re going to be here, t he citizens are going to be here. It ’s unfortunate it’s going to be in the summertime again. All these big issues come up in the summertime. There are 40% of the people that are not here tonight, because they’re gone with their kids enjoying someplace else . But they’re going to come back and find out about all these things. We’re going TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 154 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to be here, we’re going to be guiding you, so please listen to us. Thank you very much. DR. SPANO: Thank you. So Bruce is up next, and then after Bruce, it will be John Hechinger. Bruce. Very good, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. So, John. Is John here? No, don’t see John. How about Ted Halunen? Is Ted here? Nope. Joan. Is Joan Langhoff here? No, she’s not here either. That’s all the comment cards. Come on over. ROD TEAGUE: I have a question. DR. SPANO: We won’t be responding to the verbal comments, but please, ask the question. That’s okay. ROD TEAGUE: My question is regarding the density zoning. I had a conversation with a senior planner at ABAG, Gillian Adams, and I guess what I’m worried about is that the RHNA deductions are really worth their weight in gold. Of course we want to be sure that we’re getting every single one of them, and if we based our plan on receiving all 270 units do we have any assurance from Housing and Community Development that we’re going to get credit for them? Because I see in the Housing Element it shows that we’re knocking most of these RHNA deductions out by Very TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 155 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Low Income, Low Income and Moderate Income, and we know that most of those units are just market rate. Is there any chance that down the line when we submit to HCD for our credit that they look at this and they say, “W e don’t base it on density, we b ase it on income and qualifying”? Only 50 of these units actually qualify for Low Income, so is it sort of futile and pointless, or do we have a guarantee from HCD that we’re going to get credit for all 270 units ? It would be a crime, because I don't know if people really understand the implications of how much housing he have to add t o our pool of housing here, and if they came back and said, “N o, we’re only giving you a 50 - unit credit ,” I mean we have to add somewhere in the range of 4,000 -5,000 new homes if we count on the developer to sponsor Low -Income housing. Did you get that? Thank you. DR. SPANO: Thank you. Excellent. As we move toward o ur wrapping up the meeting, again, on the back of your agenda you have the loose timeline and schedule for the upcoming Planning Commission and Town Council meetings. I’m hearing July 12 th is th e Planning Commission, is that correct? So that’s been confirmed. July 12 th will be the TOWN OF LOS GATOS TOWN COUNCIL NORTH 40 SPECIAL STUDY SESSION - JUNE 15, 2016 WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION, LOS GATOS -SARATOGA JOINT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT LOS GATOS UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT, CAMBRIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND CAMPBELL UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 156 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 next opportunity for you to provide public input around the North 40, but then obviously they’ll be taking up the developer application and you’ll be able to comment on that as well. Laurel, do you want to wrap us up for the rest of the meeting? LAUREL PREVETTI: I just wanted, again, to really say thank you to all of you for participating. Thank you to the Staff who answered all these questions . Thank you to our Town C ouncil, Planning Commission and School Board members and superintendents who joined us. Thank you to the community. I know there are a lot of people who are probably watching on either television or on the Internet, or will be watching in the future. We ar e doing verbatim minutes, so all of this transcript will be recorded, and we will continue to add to the FAQ, as mentioned. So again, thank you all very, very much. We look forward to your ongoing participation in the Planning Commission and upcoming Town Council meetings, as noted, and then as well as with other issues happening in our Town, so thank you all very much and we’ll see you soon. Thank you.