M08-16-16 Certified TranscriptTOWN OF LOS GATOS
TOWN COUNCIL
ARCHITECTURE AND SITE
APPLICATION S -13 -090 AND
VESTING TENTATIVE MAP
APPLICATION M -13 -014
CERTIFIED
TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO RECORDING
Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Time: 7:00 p.m:
Location: Council Chambers
110 East Main Street
Los Gatos, CA
Reported By: Noelia Espinola, CSR
License Number #8060
#52197
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1083 Lincoln Avenue, San Jose, California 95125, Telephone (408) 920 -0222, Fax (408) 920 -0188
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A P P E A R A N C E S
Town Council: BARBARA SPECTOR, MAYOR
MARICO SAYOC, VICE MAYOR
MARCIA JENSEN, COUNCIL MEMBER
STEVEN LEONARDIS, COUNCIL MEMBER
ROB RENNIE, COUNCIL MEMBER
Community Development JOEL PAULSON
Director:
The Reporter: ADVANTAGE REPORTING SERVICES
BY: NOELIA ESPINOLA,
CSR #8060
1083 Lincoln Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125
(408) 920 -0222
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.1 P— R— O— C— E— E— D— I —N —G —S
MAYOR SPECTOR: We have one public hearing
this evening. This is agenda Item 4. Architecture and
Site Application S -13 -090 and Vesting Tentative Map
Application M -13 -014. Property Location: Southerly
Portion of the North 40 Specific Plan Area, Lark Avenue
to South of Noddin Avenue. Applicant: Grosvenor USA
Limited. Property owners: Yuki Farms, ETPH LP -- LT
[sic], Grosvenor USA Limited, Summerhill N40 LLC and
Elizabeth K. Dodson and Bill Hirschman.
So before we -- this is a continuing or
continued hearing. So before we go forward, I just
want to give some process. The way the process will
begin this evening is I will ask Staff if they have
anything further they wish to provide us, any
information. I will then look to Council and ask
Council if they have any questions of Staff. And after
we get through those two steps, I will then explain to
everybody how we will be proceeding.
So starting with Staff.
STAFF: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Staff has
nothing to add.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Do we have questions. of
Staff? I do have one question of Staff, but I have to
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1 find it here.
2 I was reading the General Plan -- that's what
3 I do - the housing element. And one section of it
4 states "If housing affordable to very low and
5 low- income households is part of a mixed -use
6 development, it will occupy at least 50 percent of the
7 mixed -use development." The affordable housing will
8 occupy at least 50 percent of the mixed -use
9 development.
10 So, to Staff, for the purposes of the
11 application before us this evening, did the
12 lower- income housing occupy at least 50 percent? And,
13 if so, how was that percentage calculated?
14 MR. PAULSON: Thank you, Mayor.
15 So Staff looked at the mixed -use building
16 which contains the affordable housing for the very
17 low- income seniors. And those square footages were
18 used to determine whether or not it was 50 percent of
19 that commercial space.
20 Additionally, there are -- there is one other
21 building that contains mixed -use development. Does not
22 contain any affordable units. And that is Building Al,
23 which has the eight apartments and the two live /work
24 units above it, across from the market hall and senior
25 housing.
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So the other calculation there is not giving
credit for the nonaffordable residential but including
the commercial for that component as well, and that
also meets the 50 percent threshold.
Staff did not include the three standalone
commercial buildings as they're not mixed -use
buildings.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you.
And any questions on -- for Staff on that
issue?
Seeing none, all right. Then the way I am
asking the Council to proceed on this is for the
purpose -- well, first I'm going to talk to the
community.
You may be hearing things from the Council
this evening that you like; you may be hearing things
from the Council that you don't like. But I would ask
you to give us all the respect that we have given you.
And I would ask that there be no audible expressions of
your liking or disliking of what we say. So that's the
,first thing.
For the Council, I'm going to suggest that we
begin with discussion, if there is any discussion,
before we get to a motion.
And also with regard to the Council, it may
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be that somebody on the Council will say something.
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And if we were in a social setting, you would just like
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to ask them a question. "Mr. Rennie, what do you mean
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by that ?" But, as our rules require, everything does
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go through the chair or the mayor. And so I will ask
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that -- that we do it that way tonight.
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So, for example, if Mr. Leonardis makes a
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motion, you have a question about the motion, that's
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fine. But just state the question and then -- not
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directly to him, but just state it and then we'll see
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if he wishes to respond or not.
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Any questions on that? Nothing unusual.
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That's how we do things.
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All right. So then let's get to the council
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discussion, motion, since we have no further questions.
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And Ms. Jensen.
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(Inaudible)
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And is this discussion or motion?
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COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: This is discussion --
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it's going to be long. So maybe Ms. Lombardo can make
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that a little bit bigger.
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But at our last meeting on this item -- and I
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stand up because I try cases, and I'm way more
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comfortable standing up. So that's why I'm doing it.
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The red outline portion is the -- what I'm going to
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call the specific planned area.
When I started getting involved in planning
in Los Gatos in -- I'm not going to tell you because
it's too long ago -- I was on the General Planning
Committee, and way back then we were discussing a
specific plan for this North.40 area. We discussed it
for many years.
In 1999 we came up with a proposal, which we
put together in a nice book, nice specific plan. It
was presented to the Council at that time. It had
commercial uses. It had office uses. It had no
residential uses. It had limitations on traffic. It
was pretty straightforward. And it was never adopted.
So why would the Town want to do a specific
plan? Because if you look at this parcel here, it's
all trees. There's no infrastructure. There's no
streets. If you look at the property around it, you
see all the streets. You see how it's configured. It
makes sense to plan for a particular area. That's what
zoning is all about.
The specific plan is a zone. It is zoned in
different districts. Just like the almond grove is
zoned residential, this specific plan is zoned for
particular areas for particular uses, with the.idea
that it will be developed over time. When the almond
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1 grove was zoned residential, no one dropped all the
2 houses in at once. No one planned for the houses at
3 once. Those houses get evaluated per the zone, and you
4 have a right to build your house in that zone. So
5 every time you hear "the buy right development," it
6 means, if I'm in a residential zone, I could build a
7 house. So there's a specific plan area.
8 And so if you can show me the next slide.
9 That was -- it's not the right one. Oh, no. That is
10 the right one. Sorry. So that's why we did a specific
11 plan as we have.
12 People -- and before we get to this, people
13 have asked, Why aren't we seeing the rest of the plan?
14 Just like we're not seeing the other houses in the
15 almond grove, we're not seeing the rest of the plan
16 because that property is not owned by everyone.
17 And I think there's another picture there,
18 Shannon, that you might have skipped which shows
19 pretty -- may not be there. There's a picture of the
20 planned area, in any event, that shows the northern
21 portion, which shows -- that's it -- if you look at the
22 northern portion, the yellow and the red, those are all
23 developed areas. So when you talk about, well, why
24 don't we see it all? There's multiple property owners,
25 multiple land uses. And so the specific plan was
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1 developed with having to.take those into account. So
2 we're not starting with a blank slate and filling it
3 in.
4 So thank you. Now we'll go to the next one.
7 So that's the general explanation of the
5 specific plan and why we would do it. And I'm going to
7 take the various issues that have been raised by the
3 many meetings that we've had, the many e -mail
i communications we've gotten, in order.
These represent -- you're going to see slides
that look like this. These are the minutes of the
meeting where the specific plan was adopted in June of
t last year. And it highlighted specific areas. And
then I put in pink at the bottom -- which,
unfortunately, doesn't show up very well. But this one
is about infrastructure, traffic. And it indicates
that the developer is going to pay for infrastructure
improvements, it's all going to be funded by the
developer and the developer.has to pay school and
impact -- traffic impact fees. And that motion passed
unanimously.
So the next one. We did a -- and this is --
these are tiny, so I apologize. As part of this
development, all of you know an EIR was done.. And part
of that EIR was a traffic study. Traffic studies are
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tricky things because traffic studies are done by
charts and data.
Traffic study in this particular instance was
done by looking at charts that are put together in
giant books by the international traffic engineers, and
they take a particular use and they assign a number of
trips to it. All of us that drive around say that
can't possibly be right. And so we need to have more
studies. So the Town did look at different things and
did include different things in the studies. And I'll
get back to the charts after I talk about this.
But the Council looked at that EIR, and it
said, You know what? We haven't talked about all the
traffic impacts. We need to talk about Dell Avenue,
Samaritan office building, Samaritan E.R., and we need
to talk about alternative ways of competing traffic
because we might not trust the international traffic
engineers. And also up there are other things that we
want to have come back to us, a school demographic
study and additional economic report. But staying with
the traffic.
So we did get that information back. It
included Dell Avenue. It included Good Sam. It
included office buildings. And it also included
alternative traffic calculations. The fact is that
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1 when all of that came back with what people had to do
2 to make that work, the Council accepted that because
3 that information was valuable and it was accurate,
4 based on the means we used to calculate traffic.
5 Many of you have said, That traffic study and
6 that information is old. It's from 2014. Have you
7 seen the traffic now? Of course. I drive in it.
8 But the reason we used data, to get back to
9 that, is -- picture, if you will, something you're all
0 familiar with. If I did a traffic study today -- or
1 actually; let's say on Tuesday, October 1st, at 8:00
2 o'clock in front of the high school. The conclusion
3 would be tear down the high school, widen the street to
4 six lanes, and then perhaps you would achieve traffic
5 mitigation for that. If I did the same study on
5 Tuesday, June 15th, at 8:00 a.m. in front of the high
7 school, the conclusion would be you can build five high
3 schools. And, in fact, you can make this a lot
a narrower. Just have bike traffic.
So traffic studies are a product of when
L they're done, how they're done, why they're done.
That's why people end up using data. And it's
3 uncomfortable. We don't like it because it's not -- it
doesn't necessarily reflect our experience. But that's
i what we have to go with,. and that's what the Council
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1 accepted.
2 So we have the traffic study and we have
3 requirements in the EIR and this specific plan for
4 actual improvements to infrastructure that need to be
5 made around any development that happens on the
6 North 40, be it this application or any application
7 that comes forward. So, actually, what this requires
8 is infrastructure getting built in our town. It
9 doesn't exist now. And I'm not here to say whether
10 that's going to be good, bad or indifferent. 'But
11 traffic engineers say it will make it better.
12 The next issue that I've heard is with
13 respect to schools. And we can't absorb the impact on
14 the schools. There's a motion that the Council heard
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15 on June -- in June 2015 regarding schools. Council
16 Member Rennie asked to make sure that developers worked
17 closely with the school district to project enrollment
18 growth and address overcrowding. Again, you can't see
19 it, but it passed unanimously.
20 And so the next slide is -- there's a letter
21 from Superintendent Diana Abbati indicating that the
22 school district and the developer reached an agreement
23 independent of state law, which I'll discuss in a
24 second, to contribute either two acres of land or
25 $23,500 per house, market -rate unit, built on the
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application to the school, which ends up being about
$6.5 million.
So the school did actually engage in that
agreement, and the developer actually did what the Town
Council wanted them to do in working with the schools.
We also had an extra demographic study, which you saw
in the last slide, which indicated that there would not
be particular impacts from this project. But we still
have this agreement.
And then going back to the state law, state
law severely restricts what local jurisdictions can do
with respect to schools. We can't consider the
impacts. All we can do is collect a fee from a
developer for any development that goes on. It's a set
fee. That's required by state law. We can't do
anything about that unless this legislature changes the
law. It hasn't. So that's schools.
The next issue that I hear about is housing.
This one is very complicated. We had a -- I'm not even
sure what that is.. That's the school agreement. Okay.
Never mind. We don't need to do those.
Let's skip to Number 7.. This is the motion
with respect to mixed use and housing. And affordable
housing in particular. We just had a question from the
mayor regarding mixed -use housing. This is an
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1 indication of when it can be built, what categories it
2 needs to be in. And again, in the pink line that you
3 can't see, it passed unanimously.
4 So, again, we can't see it, but the
5 implication is, well -- that we have state requirements
6 for regional housing needs assessments. We need to
7 chip in. By state law, we need to do our part. Los
8 Gatos needs to build 619 houses. We had a very
9 dedicated Housing Element. Advisory Board that was
10 developers, business owners, citizens that worked
11 really hard to figure out, Where could we plan for
12 that? Not where we could build it. Where could we
13 plan for it?
14 And one of the things that we did was plan
15 for it to occur on thirteen and a half acres on the
16 specific planned area. Not this application. The
17 specific planned area.
18 What are the consequences if we don't have a
19 certified housing element and we don't plan for it'?
20 Well, they're up there, and it's basically lawsuit. It
21 could be a suspension of any right for any building
22 permit in town. So if you wanted to redo your house,
23 you couldn't if we didn't have a certified housing
24 element. It could be challenges. It could be
25 court - enforced housing elements or state - enforced or
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court - enforced decisions on land use, which we don't
have now. So there are real significant consequences.
What's another consequence if we don't do
something here on this application or if we don't do
something that we planned for that's in our certified
housing element, we need to put it somewhere else. And
what we discussed in the Housing Element Advisory Board
is rezoning land on Los Gatos Boulevard, the rental
place next to'Classic Burgers. The Ace Hardware.
There is other places that we discussed. But we'd have
to put it somewhere else. We can't just bury our head
and have it go away. So that's part of the housing.
The other thing that I hear -- and I think --
I'm going to look at the slides that you have. No.
Not that one. We already did that one. But that
indicates why the housing is hard to move. So, you
know, I've heard, It's too dense. It's too intense.
Well, here's one about open space. This was
a motion that was made on open space. Our specific
plan calls for 30 percent open space; 20 percent should
be publicly accessible. And we actually opted to use
communal open space rather than private. Again, that
motion passed unanimously.
As you heard -- I know you all are following
this very carefully -- at our last meeting, we have
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I limitations -- again, state law limitations on what we
2 can do, what we can't do. We can't require a park. We
3 can't require more open space. We can require what's
4 in our plan. Our plan requires 30 percent.
5 And, finally, I'm going to get to the
6 economic -- that's for -- this is one about a motion
7 regarding drought. Many of you said, Well, we need
8 green open space. And by that I think you mean lawns,
9 et cetera. We made a motion that we need
10 drought - tolerant plants and a water - efficient landscape
11 ordinance. Lawn doesn't fit in there. And the trees
12 do -- again, that passed unanimously.
13 And now our downtown economics. And, again,
14 I've got pink. This is the only place where the
15 Council disagreed. When we got to the end of the
16 meeting, there was a motion made by now Mayor Spector
17 to include a chart in our specific plan limiting the
18 square footage of commercial space. And without
19 specifying numbers, that motion failed. Another motion
20 was tried. That motion failed.
21 But the motion that did pass included not
22 putting a table in, keeping a maximum number of
23 commercial space, and requiring that any person that
24 comes in and applies for commercial open space needs to
25 present an individual economic study about the impact
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1 of that space on the downtown.
2 Vice Mayor Sayoc then added a condition that
3 not only did it need to do that, but it needed to go
4 back to our Conceptual Development Advisory Committee
5 for public input on the impacts of that space. That
6 passed 3 to 2, with Councilwoman Spector and Councilman
7 Leonardis opposed.
8 And then the only other motion on the
9 economics was a comparison of initial use permits to
0 the North 40 and downtown. Again, that passed -- or
1 the first one failed. The second one not to do that
2 passed, again, 3 to 2, with Councilwoman Spector and
3 Councilman Leonardis opposed.
4 With respect to the economics of downtown,
5 we've had three independent studies. One that was done
o for the EIR, a second that was done pursuant to a
1 motion before the EIR was certified in 2014 . and a third
3 that was a supplement to the Planning Commission.
And so where we are now is we have a specific
plan, which was -- we moved to adopt it on June -- in
June of 2015. Again, that -- that passed 3 to 2.
And, as you saw from the motions that were
t made, the opposition was basically for downtown
economics. And the split on the Council on downtown
economics has gone beyond this motion to whether to
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1 retain former retail, whether to allow outdoor seating,
2 whether to allow entertainment.
3 And what I would say to the downtown business
4 owners is competition is good. Rather than trying to
5 build a wall off to other people, work with your
6 council to make the downtown the best it can be. Work
7 with us to deregulate so that you can compete on an
8 even level and make our downtown great -- greater than
9 it already is.
10 The next thing I wanted to talk about was
11 look and feel. And the only thing I wanted to say that
12 is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some of us
13 might not think of three -story Mediterranean with --
14 white Mediterranean with red tile roofs would blend
15 well in an orchard or look good from the freeway.
16 I was actually in Yountville this weekend,
17 and I visited a place that was built on a winery that
18 was owned by an Italian family who had lived there
19 forever. And the place that was built won all kinds of
20 architecture awards, had a plaque up to honor the
21 family. Its architecture looked like this. It was
22 flat - roofed, using reclaimed wood and steel. It had a
23 meandering path with, believe it or not, community
24 gardens on the side of it. It had artwork. And it fit
25 that space in Yountville.
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We can all disagree about that, but that's a
? subjective standard. So this council is going to have
S to decide whether that matches or not.
And I only have -- bear with me. I have two
more things to say. Or three,.actually.
So litigation. Lots of you have said, Don't
worry about litigation. We'll deal with that:
Unfortunately, Mr. Schultz said we shouldn't worry
about that. I happen to think it's irresponsible,
being a lawyer myself, not to consider litigation and
litigation risks and the cost of that litigation. I
wouldn't do that as a steward of the town. I need to
think about that. Litigation is expensive, and we need
to know what the risks are.
And, frankly, being a lawyer, coming from a
family of lawyers, if I get a letter from a lawyer that
says, We reserve our rights to do X, Y and Z, that's a
lawyer doing their job.. That's not a lawyer bullying.
Bullying -- and I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to do
this. Bullying is being called a murderer in a town
council meeting. Bullying is getting an e -mail that
says you're going to be run out of town if you vote a
certain way. Bullying is getting cars broken into and
trashed. Bullying is tagging a sign next to your
freeway. That's bullying.
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1 And for me to stand up here and say what I'm
2 saying, I recognize that there are going to be personal
3 consequences to it, but I have to be courageous enough
4 to stand up to that and do what I. think. Some of you
5 have said you were hired to do X, Y and Z. I think I
6 was hired to be a responsible steward for the Town.
7 And I think that -- where I'm going to end up on this
8 is what I think that is.
9 And where I'm going to end up is -- many of
10 the communications we've gotten are pitting developer
11 versus town. And what we're forgetting is the Yuki
12 family. Yuki family has lived in Los Gatos since the
13 1940s. In.the 19.- -- in the 1930s and 1.40s, Takeo Yuki
14 bought some land in the Salinas area and started an
15 iceberg lettuce farm. He developed that into the most
16 successful Japanese farming operation in the area.
17 In 1942 Takeo Yuki and his family were
18 interned during World War II. They were fortunate
19 enough that they had a white male business partner who
20 was able to keep that property for them during the
21 three years that they were in a concentration camp.
22 Mr. Yuki could not farm anymore, so he became a cook.
23 When they got out of that concentration camp, they had
24 property.
25 But Salinas was not friendly to Japanese at
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that time. So they bought land in Los Gatos, a
welcoming community, a place where they could go and
start their business and put down roots for their
family. That was in 1945. They've been here since
1945..
They have given property in 1956 to
Highway 17 so that it could be built. Why? To
circumvent the downtown, ironically.
In 1960 -- we heard a suggestion a couple of
nights ago that the Yukis should donate six acres of
their property for a school site, and we could name it
after the Yukis. In 1960 the Yukis donated the land
for Ralph O. Berry School. It wasn't named after the
Yukis. It was named after Ralph 0. Berry. I don't
know who he is, but they have donated land for a
school. It's now a community asset, as a JCC.
In the late 1980s they donated land -- thank
you, Ms. Wideman [phonetic]. I never walked out on
you. That's fine.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Please.
COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN:
donated land for Highway 85.
So the Yukis have been
community. They have done a lot
And to ask for them to give more
I'm sorry. They
a steward for this
for this community.
at this time seems to
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I me to be a bit unreasonable and a bit unfair.
2 We all live in houses that probably were once
3 an orchard. We all expect to be able to dispose of our
4 property. We spend time in the Planning Commission and
5 we spend time on the Town Council figuring out how
6 property should be used, how it can be used. But we
7 try to be fair. We don't really say, No, you can't.
g We figure out how to do it.
9 That's why we spent time since 1999 figuring
10 out how to do this specific plan. And I happen to
11 think that it's the right thing to do for the Town. We
12 are getting an infrastructure improvement. We are
13 getting various other -- the school is getting an
14 agreement.
15 But some of you have said, Well, what will
16 your legacy be? And I don't know what my legacy will
17 be after tonight. It's probably going to not be too
lg pleasant.
1.9 But for me and far my children -- by the way,
20 my son works in Los Gatos. He cannot afford to live
21 here. He rents a house with four other people in
22 Almaden because he can't afford it. Many of you read
23 the letter from the planning commissioner in Palo Alto
24 who moved because she's a lawyer, her husband is a tech
25 professional. Couldn't afford to live there. It was
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poo -poo'd on social media as not reality.
Well, there are professionals -- my child,
who works in a tech startup -- who cannot live here.
And the fact is that a $900,000 house in Los Gatos is
really cheap. My son still couldn't touch it, but at
least it's something.
And I want my legacy to be that Los Gatos is
an inclusive community, it's a forward - looking
community, it's a freethinking community and that it
treats people fairly and goes through a process and
then tries to do the right thing.
So my motion would be to approve the
application, and I probably won't get a second. But
that's -- that's my speech and that's my motion.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you. I have a motion.
Is there a second?
Seeing none, the motion dies for lack of a
second.
We will have -- I will be making a motion
now, and I will ask the Council to please listen to it
because it is going to begin with provisions from the
specific plan before I get to the actual motion itself.
And these. -- this motion is based on actual
specific plan requirements. The specific plan requires
smaller cottage cluster - --the specific plan suggests
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1 smaller cottage cluster in the Lark area. It speaks to
2 lower- intensity residential envisioned for the Lark
3 district. That's Paragraph 2.3.1.
4 It anticipates lower- intensity shops,
5 offices, residential land uses envisioned in the
6 southern portion. That's Paragraph 2.4.
7 Appendix 6C of the specific plan says that
8 the specific plan development should address Los Gatos'
9 unmet needs. And those unmet needs are identified as
10 Generation Y and baby boomers.
11 The development standards within the specific
12 plan in Section 2 provide that we should ensure future
13 development is comparable -- is compatible with
14 surrounding areas, complement the downtown and
15 contribute to the small town charm of Los Gatos. The .
16 development standards of Paragraph -- or Section 2 say
17 that "the application project should be consistent with
18 the land uses and vision of the" -- "as outlined in
19 this chapter."
20 This is an architecture and site application.
21 Our architecture and site ordinance states,
22 Paragraph 4, "We must examine site layout, including
23 its appearance and harmony of the building with
24 adjacent development."
25 Paragraph 6, we must address exterior
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architectural design of the building and structures.
The effect of the height, width, shape and exterior
construction and design must be examined. Our specific
plan once again states the application, the
development, must seamlessly fit, must complement, the
existing town character and charm.
Paragraph 3.4. It states in the specific
plan, We.must connect this part of Los Gatos to the
rest of the town. Paragraph 3.4.
Last time we had a meeting, I talked a little
bit about the history of the vision statement. I like
to think of this as its -- you know, as legislative
history, but that's because I too am a lawyer and we
talk that way.
And we had guiding principles. And on
January 9th, 2012, that is actually considered in the
Planning Department as a reset. So on January 9th,
2012, this Town Council had a reset on its development
of the specific plan. It -- instead one of the council
members said, It is unfair to the developer and the
Town to go forward without a vision statement. We will
have -- if we go forward without a vision statement, we
will have discomfort and dissension. We must decide
and this is what we were saying on January 9th.. We
must decide, will we have a continuation of what we --
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currently exist in Los Gatos that will continue past
Lark to 85 or will we have a distinct district?
On the meeting of March 5th, 2012, this
Council unanimously answered the question with a vision
statement and guiding principles that continue the Los
Gatos look and feel past Lark onto 85.
That look and feel is identified -- actually,
this was -- I thought this was-really helpful. Because
lots of people talk about look and feel. This look and
feel was identified in the Applicant's Exhibit G to
their Attachment 17, I believe it was. And they talk
about a blend of elements, of variety. They have
photographs of the look and feel. They identified the
look and feel by pictures taken throughout the town of
Los Gatos.
And that look and feel is consistent with
what I would identify as the look and feel based upon
what I, throughout my history here in this Los Gatos,
have seen what the town looks like. It's not a
uniformity. We don't match. We don't have a
uniformity. But we blend.
What we have here in this application is a
disconnect. Not a blending. We have a disconnect. We
have a disconnect in the style and the size and the
massing. It isn't that Los. Gatos doesn't want modern
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L buildings, doesn't want, you know, flat -roof buildings.
That's not the point.
3 The point is that we have -- we want an
1 application -- a development that blends. We don't
i want to have a distinct district that Council, in
i 19- -- in 2012, unanimously voted against.
7 I actually am going to -- it's my intent to
t address the specific plan, as it relates to
I residential, separately from economics. So based on
I those provisions of the specific plan and the other
provisions and items which I just addressed, I am now
going to move that, based on that information, we deny
this application for failure to comply with the
specific plan, as stated. This could be a long
evening.
All right. That motion dies. Ms. Sayoc.
VICE MAYOR SAYOC: Just a question on the
motion. You mentioned that you were -- you were
intending to discuss residential separate from
commercial?
MAYOR SPECTOR: Correct.
VICE MAYOR SAYOC: So then this motion that
is specific to this is just on the residential aspect
of the application?
MAYOR SPECTOR: It's based on failure to
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comply with the specific plan for the reasons stated.
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VICE MAYOR SAYOC: All right. Thank you.
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MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. Do we have a
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second?
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Seeing none, motion dies for lack of second.
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Mr. Rennie.
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COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Thank you, Mayor
8
Spector. And I want to thank Councilwoman Jensen for
9
the courageous going first and the history of the whole
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thing.
11
So I'll frame my thoughts here but with a bit
12
of a long story. But I want to start, actually, with a
13
story. Shortly after I got elected, I met with
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supervisor and former state senator Simitian, and he
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asked.me to lunch. It was kind of a give advice to a
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newly elected.
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And I told him I was looking forward to
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getting out into the community of Los Gatos, meeting
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people, learning about their problems and concerns.
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And, you know, I looked -- and concerns that I could
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look for solutions and improve the quality of life.
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But I told him my biggest worry was how do I make a
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decision when there's many people on both sides of a
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passionate issue, and whatever decision I make will
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make some people unhappy?
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1 So his advice to me was to always lead with
? your values. So let me share some values with you.
3 First, when I got elected I made myself a
1 promise that I would always vote for what's good for
i, the community and Los Gatos over what was best for my
i reelection. In this application there's been a lot of
pressure and even bullying to just deny the application
t without even really looking at it carefully and doing a
i thorough analysis of the pros and cons in this case and
i also gaining a thorough understanding of the legal.
issues. . It kind of felt like a siren song, trying to
lure me into the political cover of a denial. So I'm
resisting the siren song.
From my analysis, it looks like a denial is
actually worse -- a worse result for Los Gatos
because -- several reasons, but we'll start: State law
requires us to approve this housing element site if it
meets all the objective criteria. I listened carefully
to Councilwoman Jensen and others who tried to poke,
prod and beat on the legal requirements and the
objective standards, and I heard nothing that would
give us any kind of chance to win a lawsuit. I think
it's bad for Los Gatos to knowingly invite a lawsuit by
not following state law. We heard Thursday night this
could cost us a million dollars if we win or two or
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more if we lose.
But beyond costs, I think it's even worse
because we're going to lose -- we're going to lose the
ability to ask for changes to the proposal. If we lose
the lawsuit, which I think strongly that we would, we
get exactly what's there. We get an approval, which --
I believe there's many things we can change in the
proposal to make it look and feel much more like Los
Gatos. Thus, I believe a straight -out approval or a
denial, which is the same as an approval, is not the
best for Los Gatos.
I would add that there are some that think
it's worth millions -- you know, it's worth the Town's
millions to delay building anything. But there's laws
that are coming that are going to -make it even harder
or impossible to play such games. I want to mention
AB -2584 just passed the Assembly yesterday, is on the
way to the Governor's desk, which will further
strengthen the Housing Accountability Act. And two key
points in that is the judicial review of lawsuits will
now have to be done within 60 days. You can't draw it
out for five years. And also it makes it easier for
third parties, such as building associations or housing
advocacy groups, to.sue without the developer even
being part of it. So the State is trying to tighten
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this up even more.
So let me go to another value of mine, which
is compromise or meeting somewhere in the middle.
Especially on contentious issues. Although the --
although the issue of not following state law is
forcing us into a compromise in my analysis, this is --
this is where we should -- a compromise is where we
should start anyway and see if there's -- a reasonably
acceptable proposal can be created from it.
What can we change in the proposal? Many do
not like the density and the number of housing units,
but these are both required by our state housing
element. If a developer proposed less density, we'd
have to reject it because it didn't meet our housing
element.
If we could wave a magic wand and make this
developer go away, we could get -- we would get another
proposal that is the same density and potentially even
more units since the current application doesn't ask
for the maximum number of housing units. But we could
be worse off on many standards we care about, because
the current application does not push any of the
limits. We could get in the Lark district 30 percent
open space instead of the current 43 percent open
space. We could get 15 percent two -story buildings
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instead of the current 29 percent. We could -- we
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could get more residential square footage than the
3
current proposal. It's only 62 percent of the maximum
4
residential square footage allowed there. We could
5
lose the .bicycle improvements and.amenities that have
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been added.
7
We could lose the 6 million in extra payments
8
to the school district. Maybe we should get more units
9
not in the Los Gatos Unified School District, but maybe
10
we would get more units not in the Los Gatos Unified
11
School District but be forced to take the students
12
anyway, as almost always happens when district lines
13
split a neighborhood. But now Los Gatos Unified School
14
District would not get the extra payment. They would
15
not get the SB -50 payment. They would not get property`
16
tax. And they would be much worse off. And since we
17
cannot make land use decisions based on schools, we'd
18
be stuck with whatever situation -- you know, worse
19
situation for the schools without being able to deny it
20
because it's worse for the schools.
21
Another thing to remember is that this
22
application is required to put in traffic improvements
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to offset the maximum possible build or at least most
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of the improvements for the maximum possible build in
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1 be significant net improvement in traffic. I know
2 people won't believe it. But at least until Phase 2 or
3 the rest of it is built, it will actually be a net
I positive in traffic.
i So, again, I think there are many things we
i can change to make this application much better without
7 taking the high risk of getting no changes and paying
3 dearly for it.
! So I'd like to give my list, if I could, take
1 a little more time, if that's all right with the mayor.
And I would add -- I would add one more value
here. I -- one -- another value of mine is seniors.
Service for seniors is very important, along with
housing and even low- income housing. Some have
belittled the low- income senior portion of the project.
And if I could tell another story. When I
was campaigning, I was knocking on doors in a
neighborhood off of Los Gatos Almaden, bounded by
Carlton over there. And I -- I knocked on a door, and
there was an older lady in a duplex. And she was
telling me the story about how she lived in Los Gatos
all of her life and, you know, she didn't have any
family to help her, and she was running out of money.
And she didn't know how much longer she could .live
there, and where she would have to move to -- I'm
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1 sorry. This always breaks me up. So she -- she cried
2 for ten minutes on -- while I stood in her doorstep.
3 So I told her I was -- I would always remember her
4 need. Let me recover from that story. Sorry.
5 So let me go to my list of changes that I --
6 I would like to do. And these are all changes to the
7 satisfaction of the planning director. So they're
8 ministerial reviews that.we can do without prompting a
9 lawsuit, in my belief.
10 First, I'd say views are a -- views are an
11 important value to Los Gatos. So I would say that down
12 the streets, looking to the west, that we replace -- so
13 these are. the streets that are running towards 17 -- we
14 replace a few of the trees in that Highway 17 screen
15 with a shorter variety of tree. Again, this is to the
16 satisfaction of the planning director to work this out
17 so that there's a chance to keep some of those views.
18 Second, I would change the Highway 17 screen
19 type of tree from the 65 -foot trees to an evergreen
20 that is something in the 40- to. 45 -foot maturity.
21 Again, planning director to approve this. I would
22 plant the Highway 17 and Lark screen trees. -- there are
23 three here -- screen trees as soon as possible and
24 before the first building, as is feasible, ensuring
25 that - the survival of the trees during the
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construction. So, basically, get these trees growing
as soon as possible so that we can get the site in
its -- so all of these kind of go to -- well, view
quarters but also this value we have in Los Gatos that
we drive down the highway; we want to see trees and we
want to see ridges. So by lowering it from 65 to 45,
we won't wipe out the ridges. And by getting trees
planted sooner, we can see more trees and less of this
project.
So, Number 4., I would say that the applicant
work with a consulting architect to change the
architecture of market hall and the surrounding
commercial buildings to choose materials that are less
like this cold steel and glass and more - -.the words
I've -heard are materials that age or that kind of blend
a little more with the farm setting and probably even
blend better with the materials that have been used on
the housing units, the wood and the metal.
Number 5, I would say change the architecture
and possibly materials on Buildings 24 and 25, which
are the two on Los Gatos Boulevard, the two residences,
to better blend between the existing commercial
buildings.. These are sitting between the gas station
and the one building and then the Herschman building,
those commercial buildings. To better blend with
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1 those -- to those and then also to blend to the rest of
2 the site that is going to be behind them.
3 Number 6, I would say change the flat -roof
4 row house Elevation A style to the Spanish -- Spanish
5 or Mediterranean style that the developer showed us
6 they have available. So we're getting some Spanish
7 into this. What they showed.seemed like it would also
8 blend together with what's there.
9 I would also change the buildings on Lark
10 Avenue. I think Lark is important because this is
11 where the houses blend with the neighborhoods across.
12 And, again, they look -- they look.too modern. They
13 maybe blend with the Netflix building but not really
14 with the neighborhood. So I would say change
15 Buildings 1, 6, 12, 18 and 21 to either Spanish or
16 Craftsman. And, again, the applicants showed us that
17 they had some -- some ready -to -go architecture for
18 those.
19 And then, Number 8, going to my senior value,
20 they also said that they could, without changing the
21 bones of this, integrate ten more first -floor flats in
22 the market -rate condominium clusters to provide an
23 additional housing opportunity for seniors. These
24 couldn't be -- we can't require them to be
25 age- restricted, but they would be more appealing to
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seniors because they would be single -floor flats on the
first level.
S And I believe that is my list. So should I
make that a motion or just --
MAYOR SPECTOR: That's -- right now we do not
have a motion on the floor. So --
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I'll go ahead and
make that a motion.
MAYOR SPECTOR: If we could -- if you -- so
that we know what the motion is -- because, obviously,
this is very important -- would you tell us what
portions of that are the motion?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: So my motion is to
approve the items that I listed. I can list them
again:
MAYOR SPECTOR: If you would, please.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: These would be to
satisfaction of the planning director. So they would
be to remove a few trees that block -= the Highway 17
screen that block the view quarters down to the west.
Change the Highway 17 tree screen to a 40- to 45 -foot
evergreen variety. Plant the Highway 17 and large
screen trees as soon as possible without increasing
danger or damage from construction.
Work with a consulting architecture on the
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market hall and commercial building architecture. And
change the architecture on Buildings 24 and 25, which
are the two on Los Gatos Boulevard, to something
that -- there's still going to be housing units but
something that blends a little better with the
commercial buildings next to them.
Change that -- all of the flat -roof row house
Elevation A styles to a Spanish or Mediterranean style.
Change building architectures, Buildings 1, 6, 12, 18
and 21, to Spanish or Craftsman.
And then Number 8, integrate ten more
first -floor flats in the market -rate condominium
clusters. Those are the big hookeys at the top up
there. They had units that faced away from the
highway. That would be ideal for that.
That's my motion.
MAYOR SPECTOR: We have a motion. Do we have
a second? Ms. Jensen.
COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: I'd be prepared to
second the motion. However, I would like to.ask the
maker of the motion if he would consider making some
changes to his motion.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: I would consider.
I'm all for --
MAYOR SPECTOR: Wait. This is what I
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? COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: No questions. Sorry.
3 MAYOR SPECTOR: So, Ms. Jensen, if you could
! just make your suggestions.
i COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: I will.
i So, as a potential seconder, I accept the
replacement trees, the tree height and the planting of
the trees prior to the buildings. Accept the changes
to Buildings 24 and 25. And I accept the change
proposing ten more first -floor flats for seniors.
What I would propose be changed are those
suggestions from Mr. Rennie or those things included in
his motion that refer to architecture. And rather than
specifying a particular style -- for example, Spanish
style or no flat roof or the other specifications that
are listed -- I wonder if Mr. Rennie would consider
making that change to be have the applicant work with
the consulting architect to develop alternative styles
to the satisfaction of the planning director.
MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. Mr. Rennie, you
have a motion. It's not seconded yet, but there are
suggestions. Do you adopt those suggestions?
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Yes, I'll adopt those
suggestions.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Do we have a second?
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1 COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: Then I'll second the
2 motion.
3 MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. We have a motion
4 and a second.
5 Now, discussion?
.6 Well, I will weigh in on this a little bit.
7 When the maker of the motion was first discussing
8 the -- basically, the foundation for making this
9 motion, he was talking about there are -- what we --
10 what does one do when there are people on both sides.
11 And it's difficult. And, quite frankly, there is
12 almost always people on both sides.
13 And so what you do when you have people on
14 both sides is you look at your ordinances.and your law,
15 and you let that be your guide. And so, therefore,
16 that was the reason, when I made my motion, I based it
17 all on the provisions of the specific plan.
18 With regard to lawsuits, the lawsuits or the
19 threatened lawsuits have been raised several times
20 during our hearing thus far this evening. And, ,quite
21 frankly, lawsuits and threatened lawsuits have been
22 raised in my history here on the Town Council. But
23 lawsuits are not a basis for making a decision. The
24 law and your standards and your plans are the basis for
25 making a decision.- Not lawsuits.,
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Further discussion?
Ms. Jensen.
COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: Just some further
discussion and then another request for an amendment --
I guess I can't request it, so I'll.make it a second
motion, depending on what happens with this.
But lawsuits are no part of my decision. I
think that we have complied with our specific plan,
which is the ordinance now and general plan and zoning
of our Town. And so, for that reason, I think that the
motion to approve is also in compliance with our town
ordinances.
With that -- and I have previously seconded
the motion.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Further discussion.
All right. Ms. Sayoc.
VICE MAYOR SAYOC: Okay. So this is a rather
difficult decision, I think, for all of us, as you
could probably guess by the many -- -many questions,
many comments, many hearings that this has entailed.
But I think what's particularly difficult
is -- based on what everyone has said, I find I agree
with Council Member Jensen, I agree with Councilman
Rennie, I agree with Mayor Spector. The issue is how
you craft whether it's a motion or a decision that
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1 encompasses the direction you want for us to move
2 forward. Overall, I'm always trying to look for the
3 compromise.
4 So the difficulty I have in this particular
5 motion is, when we have asked for these changes in the
6 past as a planning commissioner, as a council member, I
7 have always wanted to see what it is I'm approving.
8 And with a project so large and so controversial and so
9 visible as this, I have significant reluctance in just
10 saying; Okay, and I'm going to hope for the best. I
11 have utmost respect for our staff. I think they would
12 do this, but I also don't think it's particularly fair
13 to place the burden of all of these hearings onto their
14 decision as.this moves forward. That's my biggest
15 impediment.
16 You know, we talk about our values. We talk
17 about our wish list. I -- frankly, I wish I had more
lg time to -- because I do think there are some very
19 positive attributes of this project that we have been
20 able to reach based on the many years that we have.been
21 working on this. Whether you like it or not, this will
22 be developed. And there's some very positive things.
23 I think they have been enumerated.
24 I think I need to mention it again. The
25 traffic improvement on Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard has
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? community gardens. I'm a big believer. And that's
3 something that will significantly retain the agrarian
history of that area.
There's many areas that we can look towards,
i but unfortunately the sheer size and complexity of this
project just makes it difficult for many people to look
towards the positive-. We talk about our values. I
mentioned in the last one, this evolution of thinking.
I am a big believer in that we need to help address the
housing crisis in our area. That was the biggest
reason that I approved -- the housing element, one of
the biggest reasons I approved the specific plan. I'm
totally committed to that.
But, again, as I mentioned last time, I just
don't think that our commitment to build 270 units has
to fall on the 20 acres. That's the biggest area.where
I'm stumbling at, and that's the biggest reason I can't
support this, moving forward.
Now, we talked about the -- the -- where is
it in the specific plan that says that? Well, where
does it say that the 20 acres have to be in the area
for it?
And if you were looking at the intent, which
I also discussed, Public Policy 101, the intent -- as
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discussing specific plan, there was an intent, at leasti
on my part, that this was going to be spread out in a
fashion so that it would seamlessly blend with Los
Gatos. Do I have the architecture and the plans to do
that? No. But do.I know that this is it? Also no.
And so, with great reluctance, I can't
support this current project. Again, there are so many
attributes. And it's not a "he" -- it's not an "us
versus them." You know, this need to find a villain
out of all these many years of working on this, it
doesn't have to be there. We're trying to provide
housing for people.
And working on controversial projects
remember Netflix. And I remember so many people that
said our community -- our character is not -- it's
not -- you know, we don't define it by the buildings.
And that was a project that was looking at 85 feet. We
define our character in our small town by ourselves.
And so the fact that it has gotten so nasty,
that's -- that's an awakening that if we don't want for
this project to fail from the outset, we have to do a
little bit more to make sure it's something that we can
stand behind.
And at this time, I just don't think this is
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MAYOR SPECTOR: Further discussion?
Mr. Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
Spector.
By this time of the evening you're probably
looking at me saying, Hey, that guy is the swing vote
up there. And that's always a position that a council
member may or may not want to be in.
First of all, I want to thank everybody for
their extensive writings and participation in this
community process. As you can see, there are four
council members up here who have spoken so far, and
there's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of pressure on
us to make a decision on behalf of.the community.
There has been talk about our legacy. There
has been talk about what's best for the housing, the
people of Los Gatos in the future, the traffic. All of
these things. And this project can solve problems. It
can create problems. We've heard from both sides.
For me, the difficulty I have moving forward
at this point in time is we've received significant
feedback from the community. Some of that feedback
that I want to bring to light was about the existing
units on the property that were occupied by renters.
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There were 16 of those units. And they were available
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to low- income applicants -- or low- income residents, I
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should say. And those don't appear to be replaced, per
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se, other than in the form of senior housing. That
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senior housing is limited to residents that are 55 and
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older. So I'm not sure of the direct replacement, even
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though there would be 49 low- income units -- how that
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comes into.play with other things that are tied to it,
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such as the density bonus.
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There's three individuals that spoke at our
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public hearing -- also submitted written
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correspondence -- that have brought up points that give
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me pause, going forward this evening with any kind of a
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decision until I get more information on these topics.
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One of them was a guy named Jeff Eisenbaum.
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He spoke about the grading. And I thought that his
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presentation was something very unique.
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Before -- how can I say it? Not the kind
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of -- a lot of us come in with a lot of emotion.
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There's parents who worry about school overcrowding.
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There is people who worry about the traffic. Those
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kind of arguments. There is people that worry about
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the look of the property.
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But these are points that I'm bringing
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forward that if there were to be any kind of
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? but I want to get resolved on these things in a way to
3 avoid a potential litigation. Because litigation isn't
i good, whether it's brought forth by the community or
i the developer.
i It just -- as Mayor Spector mentioned, she's
been a part of that ever since -- you know, she's been
on the Council. And I, in my career of six years, have
witnessed it on a number of occasions already.
So, you know, looking at some kind of a
compromise, going forward, I think these points have to
be clarified. So one was the grading issue. Another
was a letter presented by a gentleman named Peter
Dominick regarding the density bonuses. He brought up
a lot of good points. And those points could affect
the overall amount of units throughout the -- the
course of the project.
And last but not least was Angelia Doerner
brought up the existing rental units and how the
elimination of those, with the replacement of -- with
the senior -only housing, might affect density bonus law
and all of these things.
Now, I know the developer and Mr. Faber, the
attorney, presented a good case last time and what
their interpretation of those laws were and the density
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1 bonuses and the grading and such. But I'm still not
2 satisfied, after receiving even more correspondence
3 from the community, that we have all the answers on
4 these things. This could adversely affect the number
5 of housing units in this project. And, to me, I think
6 we really need to nail down that number before we start
7 talking about where the housing will go, what type of
8. housing it will be, and who -- what income levels would
9 be in those housings and in those types of things.
10 So I, at this point, want this to be very
11 well vetted, because this could be the basis of
12 litigation or something moving forward. And I don't
13 think we have all the answers. I think, if we as a
14 council voted this through this evening, in some form,
15 without having this information, inevitably one side or
16 the other could bring litigation, and these points can
17 come up again. And it would -- it would be either the
18 basis of the.litigation or it would be -- how can I say
19 it? I can't say it. It would be probably the basis of
20 the litigation.
21 So, for me, I need more information before
22 I'm willing to move forward with a decision this
23 evening. And that's where I lie on this particular
24 motion.
25 MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you.
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With regard to the pending motion, I'll speak
to some of the things raised when that motion was made.
There are a number of items that the motion
suggests be revised on the application. And those will
be done by Staff on a ministerial level. Because this
project is so large, because these issues are so
significant, that would not be the kind of thing that I
would be comfortable having vetted on a staff level as
opposed to the Planning Commission and the Council.
One of the reasons we are in that
situation -- -i.e., the situation of having this vetted
by the Staff as opposed to the Planning Commission and.
the Council -- is because there is law that the
developer is using that puts a time frame within which
this Council.must make its decision. And that deadline
is now September 7th. So there would be no way for any
issues to go back to Staff, Planning Commission and
Council. But to the extent that this motion is sending
things back to the Staff, I think they are far too
large and far too significant.
With regard to the statements in the motion
about how this project will -- will have improvements
for traffic and gardening and maybe .even bicycling -- I
can't remember all the things that were said -- those
are good things. And those are good things that will
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happen with a future project. But for me it has to be
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a future project that is consistent with the specific
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plan. And this is not.
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And lastly, with regard to housing, yes,
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there is a -- a push by government entities at various
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levels that the Town and other cities provide
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affordable housing. But the reality is, in this
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application, we're getting 49 below- market -rate units
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for.seniors. That's great. But the remainder of the
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units -- the hundreds of the remainders of the units
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are going to.cost, we are told today, somewhere between
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900,000 and the one and a half million that the person
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who buys it is going to have to be able to put a
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20 percent down payment and is going to have to have a
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salary of something like 130 -.to $200,000.
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So we are -- we are asked to face a burden of
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density and intensity and traffic. But we're willing
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could get more below - market -rate units. But we are
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getting relatively few, and we are getting a lot of
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expensive homes.
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Further discussion'on this motion.
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All right. We have a motion. It is
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seconded. All in favor?
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MAYOR SPECTOR: Opposed?
(Three members respond No.)
MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. I'm going to have
to have a show of hands. All in favor.
(Two members raise hands.)
MAYOR SPECTOR: Okay. Mr. Rennie and
Ms. Jensen, yes.
And let's raise the hands on "No."
(Three members raise hands.)
MAYOR SPECTOR: Mr. Leonardis, Ms. Sayoc,
mayor, no.
May I have another motion, please.
Mr -. Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I'm prepared to
make a motion at this time. But I think what I'm
hearing from the.discussion is we have a council that
has two different points of view or more. And we have
a council that has brought up points about compromise,
moving forward, changes to the specific plan. We have
somebody who is looking for more information to make
sure that we dot all our is and .cross all our t's.
Moving forward, I would like to see a
third -party opinion of some of these things that could
become legal issues. Because, again, I don't want this
thing to end up -- it's not beneficial to the community
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I or to the developer if this ends up in a protracted
2 legal battle. Therefore, I think we need to get this
3 information up front.
4 So, for me, I hear compromise. I hear more
5 information. I hear -- that's "what I hear.
6 MAYOR SPECTOR: Thank you.
7 Motion?
g I might as well try the second component of
9 my first motion. The first one was so successful. I
10 figure the second component will be equally successful.
11 And, again, this motion will be based on the specific
12 plan and express provisions of,the specific plan. The
13 specific plan Paragraph 2.4.2 requires an applicant to
14 do an economic study to assess the economic
15 competitiveness of the application vis -a -vis the
16 downtown. The specific plan includes Appendix A, which
17 is a marketing study.
18 The applicant's Attachment 17, Exhibit 7,
19 attempts to address the Planning Commission's motion.
20 The Planning Commission, as part of its motion to deny
21 this application, referenced the fact that the economic
22 study provided by the applicant was inadequate.
23 So the -- when it came before the Council, a
24 new Attachment 17, Exhibit 7, was provided. That
25 economic study failed because, first of all, its center
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opinion is that the North 40 does not have a leasing
advantage. That leasing advantage opinion is not the
kind of information our specific plan was addressing.
What we were looking for -- and also the specific
plan -- the application did not address what the 26,000
square foot of commercial will be other than the market
hall. The economic study did not address the Town's
identified commercial leakages, which included general
merchandising. It does not address the identified need
for 10,000 square feet or above of commercial units.
It did not address the new office and hotel uses which
were suggested. And it did not address the number of
commercial units by square footage; i.e., X percentage
at a certain square footage.
So because.of these deficiencies in a
mandated requirement of the specific plan, I'm going to
move that we deny the application.
Is there a second?
Mr. Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: I'm not prepared
to second that motion. But what I hear you saying is
that we are lacking information. And I'm looking for
information. I don't believe --
MAYOR SPECTOR: Mr. Leonardis, I'm going to
cut you off there. Because, if I don't have a second,
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we're not going to have discussion.
So do I have a second?
Seeing none, motion fail's for lack of second.
Now we can get into discussion.
Mr. Leonardis.
COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
Spector.
So I being one of the two that voted based on
the economics, which was eloquently pointed out earlier
in the presentation, not being exactly -- we were
trying to look at things like CEPS in the North 40, we
were trying to look at square footages of businesses.
That was where, when we were making the motions last
time, it fell short for me and I voted "No" on one of
the categories.
So what Mayor Spector just brought forth was,
in my opinion, a request for more information. And I
would be in support of that request as well as the
items I mentioned earlier.
And I want to elaborate on that a little bit.
Again, we hear the developer's point of view. We here
the public's point of view about things like density
bonus and how many units you're entitled to and who can
live in those units, whether the units are occupied by
persons 55 years or older, whether those count, whether
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the existing below -- or low - income rentals on the
property should be applied towards below- market -price
t units and whether that meets the intent of the Town of
Los Gatos's ordinance regarding the below- market -price
units.
And, for me, I would like to get an expert
opinion on this from somebody as well as perhaps an
opinion from somebody at the state level, somebody who
would recognize -- we've heard a lot of talk about our
RHNA numbers and how this could impact that and what
would happen with our RHNA numbers. Considering there
might be potential -- or information in this approval
that, if it were errant and we made an assumption that
our RHNA numbers are all fine and this application was
put forth but it really wasn't, then -- and it was
challenged and it turns out that the citizens were
correct, what would actually happen.
I don't want to make any more assumptions
about this. I want to get all the facts up front. I
mean, for me, I would rather get a little bit of
information now than spend the next two years wrangling
over this thing in closed session and having everybody
walk away with less than what they had wanted. I mean,
to me, it is really important to get all the details up
front, verified by a third party. Because we have a
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I developer and we have the community -- they do not see
2 eye to eye on this -- and we have a Council who is
3 caught in the middle, trying to make a decision on
4 this.
5 But, for me, it's all about the facts. I
6 need to have the facts.
7 MAYOR SPECTOR: Ms. Jensen.
8 COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: I'd like to, if I
9 can, convert Mr. Leonardis's comments into a motion and
10 try that.
11 What I hear Mr. Leonardis saying is that we
12 need answers on specific things. One is, have the .
13 density bonus units under the density bonus law been
14 replaced, quote /unquote, adequately under that law.
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15 And that would be the 16 -unit repla- -- 16 units
16 replaced._ I know that there is an argument that this
17 plan and application was valid and filed in 2013, so
18 this law doesn't apply. But we are -- I'm hearing a
19 council person who remains unsure about that, and we
20 need a legal opinion on that.
21 Help me out, Mr. Leonardis.
22 But also the question of how does the density
23 bonus apply, as raised by Mr. Dominick. We have his
24 communications on our record, both of the Planning
25 Commission and by e -mail.
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1 We also have questions from Mr. Leonardis
7 regarding litigation risks, as I understand it. That
3 could either be a confidential memo from our town
I attorney or closed session so that we understand that
i depending upon which action we take, what does our town
i attorney believe the ramifications of that to be.
' The other piece of information is how does
I this application comport with our RHNA requirements.
Do we need to supply additional low income? Do we not?
What gets credited? What does not get credited? How
does it get credited?
And finally, economics. I don't actually
have a question about that, but I understand that
there's a dispute about the three studies that we've
had. And, to me, whether leasing is included, whether
hotel is included, whether office is included, all of
those were included in the original EIR. .
The Council just has a disagreement. That
doesn't mean that there's a factual error on one side
or the other. It means that there's a disagreement
about how to proceed and how to best help our downtown
and how to best -- to create competition. But I hear
Councilman Leonardis wants more information on
economics, so I'm happy to include that in the
information we get.
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1 In support of the motion, we have two more
2 scheduled meetings on this -- I know you're all r
3 thrilled to hear this, as I'm thrilled to hear it -- on
4 September 1st and September 6th. Seems to me that we
5 can get that information back by the September --
6 hopefully the September 1st meeting.
7 And so my motion is to for that information
8 to come back and, if necessary, a closed session to be
9 scheduled to discuss litigation.
10 MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. We have a motion.
11 Do we have a second? .Mr. Leonardis.
12 COUNCIL MEMBER LEONARDIS: Thank you, Mayor
13 Spector. I will second the motion. And I would like
14 to ask the maker of the motion if we can have the Town
15 reach out to our representatives at the state level and
16 find out what the ramifications are of previously
17 submitted RHNA numbers and if for some reason there is
18 some kind of an error in the specific plan because of
19 the information that was brought forth by the public or
20 whatever -- if the housing units do not add up to be
21 what we thought they would be, what would the
22 ramifications be.
23 I'm sure this has happened before. So I
24 don't want anyone's decision to be based on the fact
25 or -- a potential ideology that you have to do
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? to accept the mistake or an error. I want the public's
3 information to be incorporated into our decision. And
! if, in fact, they bring forth information that is valid
i and if, in fact, that were to reduce the amount of
i units on this property, then we need to find out what
the ramifications of that are.
So I would like us to reach out to the State
and find out that information.
MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. We have a motion
and a second.
Question of Staff: Before I get into my
discussion of these various elements of the motion, is
Staff prepared to respond to us by September 1st?
STAFF: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: Madam Mayor, before
you begin your discussion, I heard Councilman Leonardis
made his comments as a request to add to my motion. So
I think that I need to accept or reject that.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER JENSEN: And I do accept it,
and I believe it's appropriately made to the State
Housing -- HCD -- I don't -- I forget what that stands
for -- to request information from them and an opinion
from them with respect to our -- and I would add to
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that our housing element, should we do something
different. And all of those comments that were made by
Mr. Leonardis.
MAYOR SPECTOR: Further discussion?
Mr. Rennie.
COUNCIL MEMBER RENNIE: Thank you, Mayor
Spector.
I'll just add for Staff, in case they don't
realize it, that Attachment 15, Page 7, there's a
letter from the assistant deputy director from Housing
Policy Division of HCD that addresses a lot of those
questions.
MAYOR SP.ECTOR: . Further discussion?
I'm not going to support the motion because
there's one component in it with which I disagree, and
that's the economics component. I don't believe we
need any more information on economics. I believe that
it is contained in the specific plan.
When I made my motion, I must not have been
clear. My motion was that the application failed to
comply with the requirements, the specific plan
requirements regarding economic analysis, not that
there was not an economic analysis attached.
Further discussion.
Seeing none, all in favor?
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1 (Four members responded Aye.)
2 MAYOR SPECTOR: Opposed?
3 (One member responds No.)
4 MAYOR SPECTOR: And the motion passes 4, 1.
5 Mayor, no.
6 I believe that is all we have. Staff,
7 anything?
8 No, thank you.
9 MAYOR SPECTOR: All right. Meeting is
0 adjourned.
1 (End of video recording transcription.)
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OL�lG13
I, NOELIA ESPINOLA, do hereby certify:
That the foregoing video file was taken down
by me in shorthand, and thereafter reduced to
computerized transcription under my direction.
And I hereby certify the foregoing transcript
is a full, true and correct transcript of my shorthand
notes so taken.
I further certify that I am not interested in
the outcome of this hearing..
Dated: August 22, 2016
NOELIA ESPINOLA
CSR #8060
62
REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING
J
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