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Attachment 3LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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: Los Gatos Planning Commissioners: D. Michael Kane, Chair Matthew Hudes, Vice Chair Mary Badame Kendra Burch Melanie Hanssen Kathryn Janoff Tom O'Donnell Town Manager:Laurel Prevetti Community Development Director: Joel Paulson Town Attorney:Robert Schultz Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin (619) 541-3405 ATTACHMENT 3 LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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: CHAIR KANE: We’ll now move to Item 4, which used to be Item 3. Town Code Amendment Application A-17-006 and GP-17- 003. Project locations is town wide. Applicant is the Town of Los Gatos. Consider amendments to Chapter 29, Zoning Regulations, of the Town Code. Also the General Code, and also other policy documents regarding Planned Development ordinances and the Conditional Use Permit Table. As I read the application, the Town is the Applicant. Ms. Armer will present the Staff Report, after which we may ask questions of the Applicant, and we will invite comments from the speakers in public. If you have not turned in a speaker card and intend to speak, please pick one from the back of your chair. Ms. Armer. JENNIFER ARMER: Good evening. The item in front of you is consideration of a new Planned Development Ordinance proposed by the Planned Development Study Committee, developed over the last few years and forwarded to you from Town Council for your recommendation. The recommendation from the Planned Development Study Committee is presented in three parts: First is a draft Planned Development Ordinance. The second is a draft of changes to the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 Table of Conditional Uses; this is primarily focused on residential uses in commercial zones and a requirement that they be part of mixed-use project. The third is minor edits to the General Plan for consistency with the two previous items. In addition to these three items, a list of other important issues was also developed by the Planned Development Study Committee, with the recommendation that these eight topics be considered. Staff has provided additional background information for each of these, and articulated for each one, or in some cases, two, questions to be considered. This concludes the Staff’s presentation, but we’d be happy to answer any questions. CHAIR KANE: Any questions for Staff? Commissioner Burch. COMMISSIONER BURCH: Ms. Armer, can you explain, maybe for some clarity for myself, about the comment that you made about the PDs for residential being part of the mixed-use? In the couple of places that I read it, it almost felt like it contradicted itself, so I wasn’t that clear. JENNIFER ARMER: There were two tasks that were presented to the Planned Development Study Committee. One was to look at modifications over a new Planned Development Ordinance. The other was to look at possible modifications to the Conditional Use Permit Table, the conditional uses, to allow LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 residential in commercial zones, but only as part of mixed-use project, so that’s independent of Planned Developments; that would be conducted through the Conditional Use Permit process. These were the two main subjects that were considered by this study committee. JOEL PAULSON: Just for additional information, currently through a Conditional Use Permit you can request an all residential project on a commercial site. In the general vicinity of the timeframe there was a project that was being considered, that the Planning Commission considered and Council as well, so as they developed the study committee that was another task that they were asked to look at, and ultimately the recommendation was to still allow residential in those zones, potentially with a Conditional Use Permit, but to require that they also have commercial attached to them, or in the same project, so that they meet more of the intent of the General Plan designation. CHAIR KANE: Other questions of Staff? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: For the rest of the Commissioners, I believe Commissioner Hudes as well, I sat on the Planned Development Study Committee, so my question kind of pertained to, since it’s been almost two years since we looked at this. Everything else was familiar except for Item 8 that we LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 were supposed to discuss, the addition of General Plan land use and/or zoning designations, and it said we had recommended that we consider adding one or more General Plan land use or zoning designations, but I could not recall what they were. Or did we leave it that we didn’t think there was enough zoning designations generally and that we ought to make sure that we have the right ones. So what was the intent of that? JENNIFER ARMER: My understanding is that the list of eight items, which are included as Exhibit 7, were topics that were discussed by the committee and that came up as important topics, but beyond the scope of that committee, and so if you look at the last item there listed, it’s, “Consider adding one or more General Plan land use and/or zoning designations. JOEL PAULSON: I would also offer that you’ll probably hear this evening from one of the other study committee members. Ms. Quintana will speak this evening, and I believe it was she that brought up the possibility of considering a mixed use General Plan or zoning designation. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yeah, I was thinking it might have been that. Then just one other quick question. Since we’re embarking on the process of the General Plan 2030 this year, and I watched the Council hearing when they talked about the scope and it sounded like they had definitely been in favor of doing a public input process. I don't know what LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 the other Commissioners will think, but there are at least a couple of items here where it might be beneficial to get some public input, and my question is would that be an appropriate venue to do that, because there’s a Land Use Element in the General Plan? Is that reasonable to think that we’ll have opportunity to do public input when we do the General Plan process? JENNIFER ARMER: The General Plan process will definitely involve significant public outreach and public input, and it’s likely to cover all topics. There will likely be some focus on topics of particular interest and importance from Town Council that my understanding is we will receive comments and suggestions from the public as an integral part of that process. CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Other questions for Staff? Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR HUDES: I very much appreciate the opportunity to have served on the study committee. It was a great learning experience; it ran over two calendar year boundaries, I think. My question is how does the Staff Report here today’s proposed amendments reflect the recommendations of the PD I see? Are they being taken as the starting point for this, or were there recommendations or amendments by the Council that reviewed the work of the PDSC subsequently? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 JENNIFER ARMER: Council’s direction to Staff was to forward the recommendation from the study committee to the Planning Commission for consideration. VICE CHAIR HUDES: It looked to me like there were some places where Staff was making… On number three it says, “The draft PD Ordinance removes the 40,000 square foot minimum lot size, however the PDSC recommended the Commission consider requiring a minimum lot size for PDs.” So that recommendation to remove the minimum lot size, did that come from the Council, or where did that… That didn’t come from the PDSC, obviously. JENNIFER ARMER: It did, actually. The removal of the minimum lot size was incorporated into the draft ordinance presented to you this evening, however, in addition to the language of the draft ordinance that was forwarded by the study committee there was also this list of eight items for consideration, and so in addition to the agreed upon ordinance language there also were these items that should be considered, one of which is considering a minimum lot size threshold for Planned Developments; it’s the third bullet point on that list. VICE CHAIR HUDES: So while it was a recommendation there seemed to be enough votes on that committee to say that should be considered and relooked at by whoever looks at it next. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 JOEL PAULSON: These eight items were specifically referenced by the Planned Development Study Committee at the end of their deliberations, and you referenced one that’s a perfect example. The Planned Development Study Committee recommended removing it, so in the ordinance you see from their recommendation it’s not included. However, as we continued and had more meetings and discussion came up, some of these topics kind of got regurgitated and there were some different ideas, and so that was one of the topics that the Planned Development Study Committee said Planning Commission and Council really should weigh in on this, and so they can either agree with us or they can decide to go a different direction. VICE CHAIR HUDES: Okay, thank you. CHAIR KANE: Other questions for Staff? Commissioner Badame. COMMISSIONER BADAME: My question follows up on Commissioner Hudes’ question. I noted that the Planned Development Study Committee had 12 members, and Exhibit 9 mentions a consensus vote on the revised ordinance, so was there a motion with a vote so that maybe we know it was unanimous in forwarding it as proposed, or was it maybe a 7-5 vote, so we can kind of gauge how the committee was leaning? I couldn’t find it in any of the minutes. JENNIFER ARMER: It was a consensus vote. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 COMMISSIONER BADAME: So a consensus vote means unanimous or… JOEL PAULSON: It does not, and so we’ll have to look. We don’t have those exact numbers, and we’ll see if those are available. I’ll dig through my other binder. COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you. JOEL PAULSON: Unless Matthew or Millie remembers off the top of their head. CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Commissioner Hudes may also want to weigh in, because like I said, it’s been almost two years. But my recollection is we spent a lot of time discussing every single issue across many meetings. When it came down to drafting the ordinance we actually went through every part of the ordinance and every bit of the language, and we walked through whether people were in agreement with it or not, and I don’t recall anyone saying I can’t live with that and I won’t move forward, so my sense is the consensus was unanimous. CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner Badame. COMMISSIONER BADAME: This is very minor. It’s nit- picky, but it’s a housekeeping issue. If this goes forward, Exhibit 5, Section 29.80.080, Section A, I believe we should insert the word “and” between “standards guidelines.” CHAIR KANE: Excellent point. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 COMMISSIONER BADAME: Thank you. CHAIR KANE: Other questions or directions for Staff? All right, seeing none, I’m going to go to the public portion of the public hearing, and we have one speaker card. Ms. Quintana. LEE QUINTANA: I, too, was on that committee. I have lots of comments, but I’m not going to be able to make them all, so I’d just like to make some general comments. My general comment is this took place over a very long period of time. It started in 2013 with the Town’s Policy Committee looking at it, and then it went on and on, and when the committee was appointed there was a gap of six months before we actually met, and then was additional time that we met, and then there was a big gap again before it came back to Council, and then finally to you, and now back to the Council. My point in saying that is that I think that in that period of time there have been some changes that have happened in the legislative domain that may affect what the conclusions were in this report. In addition, we’re going into the General Plan cycle pretty soon, and as I think one of you indicated, some of these issues are really General Plan issues, such as new General Plan designations, or relooking at all of the General Plan designations to see if they still work, that they don’t overlap, that kind of thing. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 I’m going to run out of time, and I think I’m going to ask you to let me speak longer, because I think I have some important things to say. You talked about it earlier today, objective standards versus subjective standards. That’s something that the Town Council wants to look at very carefully during the General Plan, because that’s the way the legislature is moving, that if we don’t have the specific objective standards you won’t be able to turn something down or approve something, and I’m saying that because in your packet, at the end of the executive summary the Vice Chair added some discussion about the public benefit, and that whole section really bothers me, because you read the proposed zoning draft, and it’s pretty specific, and then it goes to… and it has to be consistent with the General Plan, and it has to be this, and it has to be that, except as stated in section blah, blah, blah, and then when you get to section blah, blah, blah, you have terms that really are not defined and are very subjective, and as the Vice Chair said, it seems like the total effect has been just moving the deck chairs around. We are substituting one set of language that is not very specific for another set. CHAIR KANE: Ms. Quintana, your time is up, however, given your depth of experience you have in this area, I’ll give you another minute or two. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 LEE QUINTANA: Well, I’d like you to ask some questions, I think that would be better, but I will point out that on the Table of Conditional Uses we did add that condition that the residential uses could be allowed through CUP in the commercial zones, but it had to be in conjunction with a use that was authorized by that zone, so that we weren’t de facto doing a General Plan amendment without doing a General Plan amendment, and not preserving the integrity of the zone. I would add on that one in particular though, I question whether one single-family unit should be allowed as one of those conditional uses, since we are looking to increase our housing supply, and using single-family in commercial districts, unless they provide a large part of the mixed-use, doesn’t seem logical to me. CHAIR KANE: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. I’m sure there will be questions for you. But again, given the amount of time and expertise you have in this area, I believe this item is going to be continued, and if time permits you might want to put a list of bullet items together for us. And also, as Commissioner O'Donnell has mentioned in the past, you give us some very substantial, meaty, heavy, weighty stuff, and I got your 19 pages at 2:00 o'clock. LEE QUINTANA: What 19 pages? CHAIR KANE: You submitted guidelines from Menlo Park. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 LEE QUINTANA: Oh, no, what I submitted is the brief from Greenbelt Alliance on just this question, and I submitted it on Monday morning so that it would get to you by Tuesday, but apparently it didn’t. CHAIR KANE: All right. Questions for the speaker? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had the same thought as you in the sense of the General Plan starting, so here is where I came out. I, too, was thinking about the new laws that came out that are encouraging housing production, and I think they have impacts on a number of these definitions, including the minimum/maximum density and so on, so forth. So I wondered if your recommendation was to spend more time studying it before we approve it, or is it worth trying to put it out there because it’s better than what we have now? Because the whole reason for this was that developers were willy-nilly, especially in the case of residential just saying I want a PD so that I can go way above the FAR and so on, so forth, and so what the Planned Development Study Committee did is make that a lot more specific and with a lot more requirements, so I wondered even what the other changes out there, if it wasn’t much better than we had before. So I’m asking your opinion about it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 LEE QUINTANA: I think that in some ways it’s better, but I also think that by not… Under Section 2980.080 it lists what the Planned Development Overlay is not intended for, and it’s, “Not intended for uses inconsistent with the General Plan or proposed development that can reasonably be done under existing Town Code or a relaxation of the standards.” And then it goes on. There are bunches that have to do with physical features. Then it goes down to number 8… Oh, and number 7 is for affordable housing. Number 8, “A property being considered for a use or combination of uses not allowed in…” (Microphone gives out. New one is brought over.) LEE QUINTANA: Okay, we’re back. “Not under one of the existing zoning districts.” Well, that makes sense, but then it says, “A property being considered for the creative use of the site consistent with the base zoning district.” Well, that’s very subjective. In my opinion that’s not better than the language that we have now, which really allows you to do anything you want from 180-degrees to zero. And also the lack of definition of what is a public benefit? And that’s why I sent in that thing from the Greenbelt Alliance, because they talk about that, and at the committee there was discussion about what is the difference between a public benefit and a community benefit, because the Town had LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 just eliminated community benefits, and I honestly could not distinguish a difference between the two, and in the Greenbelt Alliance paper they more or less state that, that it’s the idea of getting a benefit from a PD that you wouldn’t necessarily otherwise get, but whether it’s called community benefit, or a public benefit, or a development agreement, or whatever, is basically the same type of thing. And then they go into how different jurisdictions have done it, and they looked at whether the more successful ones, it seemed, are the ones that had public hearings and very clearly defined what the benefit was and what you got for the benefit, or vice-versa, rather than the case-by-case, which is the way this would work, as does our current one. They gave one example of Palo Alto and they said it really did not work very well, because there were no specific guidelines and it just made the process longer. CHAIR KANE: Thank you, Ms. Quintana. We have a question from Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR HUDES: I have kind of a bigger picture question, having been part of the process and having firsthand experienced your very involved input to the process, as other members. The work of the committee went through many, many iterations where we actually looked at an issue once and then LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 came back to it. In the end I support the recommendations of the PDSC, and to me that’s a starting point. My question for you is do you support the recommendations of the PDSC, with maybe the exception of legislative changes that would compel us to do something otherwise? LEE QUINTANA: I would support it if there was specific as to what constituted public benefit and what was being—I think somebody used the word “horse trading,” which is essentially what you’re doing—what was being horse traded for it, and this leaves that totally open. You can get one project that maybe gives a tiny little benefit and gets a huge deviation from a standard, or vice-versa, so that’s one part that I don’t agree with. The other part that I really am disappointed in not having come to a conclusion from the committee, although I thought there was pretty much a consensus, is that the A&S should take place at the same time as the Planned Development zoning, because in essence if you have a Planned Development zoning and you’re doing a subdivision, and you can’t approve the subdivision until you approve the zoning, but once you approve the zoning you have to approve the subdivision, because it’s already been approved, and the same thing with the A&S, you really don’t have any discretion anymore. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 CHAIR KANE: Thank you. We have a follow up from Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR HUDES: If I could. Since I don’t think it’s our job or purview to recreate the Planned Development Study Committee and go through every point and take every possible input to it, but instead to use the Planned Development Study Committee as a starting point, would you be willing to provide in writing, so that we can consider this in a future meeting, any areas that you think are either not reflecting the decision of the PDSC, or are something that has evolved since then, rather than providing alternative points of view on every possible issue that there could be? LEE QUINTANA: I can’t promise. I am limiting the amount of time I spend on Town items below what I have been, and I will try, but I can’t promise. But I do think that given that the General Plan is going to be looked at and given these new laws that I don't know how they’re going to affect us, and given lots of other things, the need for objective criteria. VICE CHAIR HUDES: As to my question, if you could provide those things in writing, that would be helpful to us. Thank you. LEE QUINTANA: If I can provide it in writing not coherently but stream of consciousness. Where I get hung up is I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 have all of these ideas and I want to get it into a perfectly logical sequence, which is hard to do. CHAIR KANE: If I can read William Faulkner, I can read you. Thank you, Ms. Quintana. LEE QUINTANA: Oh, and one other thing I want to say is that the final consensus vote—we took consensus votes along the way and they weren’t always unanimous, some of them were, some of them weren’t—the final consensus vote that was made was made so fast that it was already declared approved consensus before I was able to say wait a minute, so it was a consensus vote, but I don’t think it was a truly unanimous vote. CHAIR KANE: Thank you very much for all of your input. Thank you. LEE QUINTANA: And I hope you continue it. CHAIR KANE: I’m going to close the public portion of the public hearing. Does the Applicant want their last five minutes? JOEL PAULSON: (Inaudible). CHAIR KANE: Then I’ll turn to the Commission. I have an idea, if I can quickly find it, regarding how we proceed from here. I’m going to read Staff’s recommendation on page 10 of the Staff Report, as that may provide a guideline. “Staff recommends the Planning Commission review 1) the proposed draft PD Ordinance; 2) the proposed changes to the Table of Conditional LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 Uses; and 3) the proposed edits of the General Plan; and to discuss the eight questions highlighted in this report. Following our discussion, Staff recommendations that this item be continued to a date certain with specific direction from us so they can bring back additional information and revisions to the four items we’re going to discuss. Does that work for everybody? Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR HUDES: I actually am concerned about that, because there have been some issues raised here that I would like to consider and think about before entering into a discussion of all of these eight items, including particularly the one that concerns me are the legislative impacts that may direct us to some of these things. I’d like to see an analysis of that before entering into these, since it’s been alluded that there are some that impact that we have. Also, I would like to consider some of the comments from Ms. Quintana, both in the document that she submitted that I have to admit that I did not have the opportunity to review in as much depth as I would like to, although I did read it as we’re required to, but I would like to take more time to that. And also, if there’s additional input, particularly on the issue that I raised about legislative changes that impact this, and other issues that are just not representing the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 consensus of the PDSC, I’d like to have that in front of me before actually going into that discussion. CHAIR KANE: So what is your proposal? VICE CHAIR HUDES: My proposal would be to take the second part of the Staff recommendation first, which is to postpone with additional information analysis from Staff. CHAIR KANE: I don’t disagree. Your point has merit, but what I’d like to do is go down the row of Commissioners and see if they have questions. It reminds me of the question how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, and we’ve got an elephant on our hands here. But speaking of which, this has been going on since 2013, as has been pointed out, and it’s very important work, and it was a huge undertaking, and I just want to put on the record who these people were, because I think they did a fantastic job. Marico Sayoc, Councilmember; Marcia Jensen, Councilmember; Joanne Talesfore, Planning Commissioner; Charles Erekson, Planning Commissioner; our own Melanie Hanssen, Planning Commissioner; Matthew Hudes, who at that time was a General Plan Committee member; Todd Jarvis, Bob Beyer, Lee Quintana, Jak Van Nada, Jim Foley, and Jeffrey Barnett. Thank you to them all. So, additional comments? Commissioner Badame. COMMISSIONER BADAME: I’m in agreement with Vice Chair Hudes on his suggestion, and what I would like in front, or that LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 I would like to absorb ahead of time, is getting additional comparative studies from neighboring jurisdictions on a number of items, and that would be mixed-use definitions for jurisdictions other than the ones provided, and specifically maybe some cities that are more like us, like Saratoga and Los Altos. Also, too, I would like to see Planned Development ordinances from other neighboring jurisdictions, and again, Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Campbell. Also, too, I would like to get comparative studies on definitions for minimum and maximum density for residential units in commercial zones, and again, from neighboring jurisdictions; that might be Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, and Campbell. CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Other comments? Commissioner Burch. COMMISSIONER BURCH: It might be a bit of a question to Staff, too. Since we are talking about how legislation is changing how we’re approaching housing, the comment, as you clarified then for me with the multiuse, like if it’s in a commercial zone, maintaining that. As we are looking at these changes, is that something that we would now maybe want to shy away from? I’m thinking of a couple of particular properties that may although they were zoned commercial may actually be LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 more suitable to residential, and so is there maybe a different way we could look at that to bring in more of the housing stock, and not make that just a set if it’s in the commercial it has to be the mixed-use? Is there a way we could look at it differently, reword that? JOEL PAULSON: Well, there’s a way. The way would be leave it as it is and not require the mixed-use, which isn’t currently required. COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, I like that. JOEL PAULSON: I think any of those things could be part of the motion. I would just also offer it was a lengthy process, which has been referenced over and over. Laws are going to change every year. I would hope that we can get some progress, if not on all of this, shortly, but not this evening. It sounds like we have consideration of additional information, which is perfectly fine, but I also don’t want to have this end up being we’re going through the General Plan Update, lets’ wait till that’s done, and we’d be back here in about two or three more years and we’d sit on this information, so hopefully we can come up with a good game plan to move forward. Our conversation with Council at the last hearing regarding the General Plan Update work plan included interest in separating out and having parallel tracks for the larger General Plan Update, but also looking at the potential for getting more LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 objective standards in the General Plan even earlier, so actually doing General Plan amendments concurrently with those, which would probably go quicker and could be adopted and then ultimately incorporated into the final document. This objective standards conversation is going to continue to evolve, and I think we need to see what additional information the Commission is interested in getting; we can provide that information and continue that conversation. CHAIR KANE: I agree the item requires more study, but what I’m driving at is can we get anything specifically done tonight? Any questions? Any likes, dislikes, clarifications? Commissioner Hudes has given us some, but give Staff a general sense of how we individually feel about the four items in front of us. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to weigh in since I also sat on the Planned Development Study Committee. I do believe that the current document in front of us is vastly superior to the existing PD Ordinance, and I don't know if the other Commissioners noticed, but there was the interim version also done by the Policy Committee, and which was more limited than what the Planned Development Study Committee did, and two of the Councilmembers sat on the Planned Development Study Committee. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 After all that time I think that the document that we have in front of us is vastly superior to the existing PD Ordinance and that we ought to consider going with that, but I do share the concern, especially with the new laws encouraging housing production. It impacts things like the minimum lot size and other aspects of what is required for PDs and so on, so forth, so I would like to hear more about what those housing laws are relative to what’s in front of us to go forward with it, but I don’t want to see this thing get protracted into the whole General Plan cycle. The one thing I would say could go in the General Plan cycle is the specifics about public benefits. If you look at the document that Ms. Quintana gave us, every one of those jurisdictions did a fairly lengthy study to get to the point where they had a very defined list approved by the public of what constitutes a public benefit, and then how to incent developers to do that, like what kind of incentive work, and then they even had where you could quantify the incentives. This is not something that can be done very quickly, so that being the case, we could at least put a placeholder definition, such as the one by Jak Van Nada, into the Planned Development study language that we have, which would at least give a general scope to what defines a public benefit, and then take it on as a task in the General Plan process, or maybe what LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 the objective standards are, or I don't know, but to do that. But I don’t see that getting a good list of public benefits that the Town really feels good about is something we could do in the short term. But I do agree with Commissioner Badame on some of these defining minimum open space requirements, defining a minimum lot size. Is there a minimum lot size for Planned Developments, minimum and maximum density? I think all of these are things we need to understand the law about, and it would be worth checking with additional jurisdictions just like you did in the definition of the mixed-use project, to see what’s happening, because if we come out and say our minimum lot size for a Planned Development is 40,000 and everyone else is doing 10,000, then we’re either not being competitive, or we’re perhaps even violating the intent of the California laws, because if we try to make it too big, maybe there’s a good, affordable housing development that could go on a 10,000 square foot lot. It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive thing, but specifically on a couple of these—I think Commissioner Badame gave a good list—get a little bit of data from some of the jurisdictions that are like us, and then also this analysis of the California housing laws and if it changes the way we think about some of the language. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 JOEL PAULSON: I just offer we are not going to provide an in depth analysis of the 17 bills that were passed. What I will say is that the Town Manager and I have been discussing this, actually, and Councilmembers have been discussing this, and the intent is to try to find someone… There have been a number of workshops all over the state, as you can imagine—I was just at one in San Francisco yesterday—and so there are a number of speakers who are attorneys generally, and they have been going around providing presentations. We are hoping to bring somebody in for a joint Planning Commission and Council study session. The details haven’t been finalized, I can’t give you a timeline, but just so you know that that is in the works, and as we get more information I’ll definitely be providing that to the Commission. CHAIR KANE: Other questions, comments? Commissioner Burch. COMMISSIONER BURCH: I just have a quick question, if I’m taking some of this away and reviewing it. Why did the committee want to get rid of the minimum lot size in the first place if we’re revisiting this? JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer that I think, for me, whether it’s flashbacks or Groundhog’s Day, I think Commissioner Hanssen kind of hit the point that you may have a lot that’s smaller than 40,000, which is our current LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 requirement, that is totally appropriate for a small affordable housing development but needs some concessions and would otherwise have to go through the variance process, and so that’s ultimately why it was eliminated, I believe, from the committee. So again, what Staff did was at the end of all of those hundreds of motions and conversations about the individual topics there were these eight pieces that came out where in that case specifically they made a recommendation, which is included, but they also wanted to make sure that that was an item that the Planning Commission and Council considered. COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, thanks. CHAIR KANE: Other questions or comments? Commissioner Badame. COMMISSIONER BADAME: Again another nit-picky issue, but I’m just looking at Exhibit 5, and it’s Section 29.80.080, and this is kind of a wordsmith issue. It says, “A relaxation of standards applicable to similar types of development.” It seems to me that the word “deviation” would be a better fit rather than “relaxation.” Just a comment. CHAIR KANE: Where are you exactly? Exhibit 5. JOEL PAULSON: She’s on page 1 of Exhibit 5. COMMISSIONER BADAME: Exhibit 5. JOEL PAULSON: 29.8.0.080, A-3. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 COMMISSIONER BADAME: Section A, and then number 3. It talks about a “relaxation” of standards. I think a “deviation” of standards would be a more appropriate word choice. CHAIR KANE: Comment, Mr. Paulson? JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have a comment. I think we can have those wordsmithing conversations, which we had many of those at the Planned Development Study Committee as well, as we move forward, so we can take a look at that. I think once we get closer to formulating a recommendation, again, we’re going to have verbatim minutes of all the meetings the Planning Commission holds as we forward a recommendation to Council, and possibly Commissioner Hudes or Commissioner Hanssen might have additional comments on any of these changes that might be suggested. CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR HUDES: I wanted to just say a couple of things about it not only reflected the work of all those folks that Commissioner Kane listed, but it also reflected quite a bit of community input, and I think we really need to take that seriously. And a lot of that community input actually started with the Albright Way development and the need to address some of these issues. I am very much in favor of substantially supporting the recommendations of the PDSC. I think it’s a very significant LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 improvement over what we currently have in our General Plan and in our variance and other zoning ordinances, and I think it’s also a very positive evolution from where the Policy Committee started in a way that I think is very beneficial to the Town. While there are points that I was not in favor of during the total discussion, I am very much in favor of the whole, and so I’d like to just weigh in on that, that I am not in favor of reopening every point that was every considered, because I think a lot of it does reflect the will of the community through a democratic process. The other thing I just wanted to say is that I think while some things may overlap with the General Plan, I am concerned about the timeline and I would like to see this come through more quickly than the General Plan is likely to come through, and so with the exception of areas that are really better addressed in the General Plan I’d like to see most of the items in the PDSC recommendations go forward. I think the example that Commissioner Hanssen used about public benefit is a good one to defer final resolution to the General Plan, because public benefit applies to many things beyond Planned Developments that are referenced, and it would be good to get that process resolved. But I do think the bulk of what is in the PDSC recommendations and in the language that’s LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 been proposed does reflect the will of the community, and so I’d like to support that. I’m also prepared to make a motion at some point. CHAIR KANE: When you say you support the work, the findings of the PDSC, does that mean you feel they have ruled or had input on all four items that are before us today? VICE CHAIR HUDES: I think the last items of additional considerations were ones they didn’t deliberation on, but I think the others, yes. CHAIR KANE: So you’d support the first three, and then we still need to do the eight questions. VICE CHAIR HUDES: Yeah, for the most part, although some of these eight questions were also addressed. CHAIR KANE: Okay, good. I’m okay with that. Other comments? Commissioner Janoff. COMMISSIONER JANOFF: To that point, it sounds like, if I’m not reading into your words, Mr. Paulson, that it would be beneficial to have this policy in place. Presently there may be modifications that in the future, as the result of work on the General Plan, would then cross-reference and make some changes, but if that’s true from your perspective, and we’ve already gone through the deep and diligent process of the PDSC, I guess I’m finding it difficult to understand why we wouldn’t approve what we have before us tonight to put working documents LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 in place, and then take the eight items that were outside of the purview of the PDSC to the future discussion. CHAIR KANE: I think the intent was that we had a chance to review them. Commissioner Hudes, you wanted to make a motion? VICE CHAIR HUDES: Maybe I’ll respond and say while I think the bulk of the items I would be perfectly happy to support just as they are, a couple of things have been raised. One is that there are potential legal or legislative changes that might impact some of these things, and I’d like to hear specifically from Staff on that, and I also think that Commissioner Badame raised a number of points for clarification in terms of definition that would be very helpful to consider as well, so for that reason I’m ready to make a motion. CHAIR KANE: Let’s hear from Commissioner O'Donnell first. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’m not saying anything different, except to say we see the changes coming out of the legislature by simple reading the newspaper, and all kinds of scary things are coming down the tracks, and I think Staff has already said this, that to the extent that we can take care of things sooner rather than later, definitely not waiting for the General Plan, the better off it is, because somebody is going to LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 zip in here and have a project nobody wants, and they’re going to point out to us why we have to take it. We’re not doing anything wrong by saying we want to have objective standards. That’s the best we can do, and to the extent that this would help us have objective standards, then I, for one, would like to see us do it soon. I don’t think tonight is the right time to do it, but soon. CHAIR KANE: I agree with you completely, Commissioner. We can comply with the laws as they evolve, but we should more forward on this. Commissioner Janoff, we were going to get a motion from Commissioner Hudes. What would you like to do? COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a point of clarification. Staff has said that they won’t be presenting us with detailed legislative analysis… CHAIR KANE: That’s right. COMMISSIONER JANOFF: …and that the definition for public benefit, I guess the conversation among Commissioners was that it’s a lengthier conversation that would be more suitable to the track of the General Plan, so that being said, I’m not sure… Those are the points that we have questions about. What else do we want to continue this for if we’re not going to get that information in a timely manner? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer I think there are a couple of ways to deal with some of this stuff. The public benefit, for instance, Jak Van Nada submitted an option. I think we polled other options. We used to have an option, we just called it “community benefit,” and so we have a lot of starting point language. If there are things like Ms. Quintana mentioned, or you guys have mentioned, where the public benefit maybe should have some objective standards in it, we don’t necessarily need to create all those at this point. That could be part of a recommendation, and then as this evolves we can get that direction from Council. The forum I was at yesterday, it was “How Objective is Objective?” or something along those lines, and everyone is dealing with this issue. There will be a lot of work coming out of other jurisdictions that we may be able to utilize, but everyone is still kind of in the same boat with that, but I think some of that stuff can be rolled into a recommendation once we get there. I think we optimistically assumed two meetings. Again, that’s probably optimistic; the reality is probably all along it was going to take three meetings potentially to get through this, depending on how the next meeting goes, and so that’s fine from that perspective, but I think we do want to try to be somewhat timely, and then we can always course correct in the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 future. We’re already hearing that those that were adopted last year were just a start, so this session we’re expecting quite a bit more work to be done from our legislators, and so we’ll wait and see what comes of that. CHAIR KANE: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I hear your issue with the legislation. A)it’s a moving target; and B) there’s a lot of it, and everyone is still trying to process it. In thinking through this thing—it’s probably having also worked on the Housing Element—it seems more likely that all the legislative changes are really going to be more targeted at all housing code and standards versus specifically the Planned Developments, which are sort of a special case. I don't know if my thinking is accurate on that, but I think we’ll probably have more of an issue about the legal aspects of this with our other land use standards than just the Planned Development Ordinance, would that be fair? JOEL PAULSON: That is an accurate statement. I think there are some opportunities potentially in the PD Zone, but typically when someone is coming in for a PD Zone they’re asking for deviations, relaxations, from the standards. Ultimately we are going to need to enhance or modify our existing objective standards in our General Plan and in our Zoning Code, and that’s really what’s going to drive it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 I think Ms. Quintana brought up a good point about the public benefit, in that if you want this, here is an example of what the Town considered public benefit. So those can be more objective than leaving it open to the decision makers, which is one of the challenges I think some folks have with the community benefit, which is why we no longer have that, along with the nexus challenges. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right. So I’ll hear Commissioner Hudes’ motion, but I did want to bring that up, but in hearing the conversation I wouldn’t want an exhaustive review of the law with all the new housing law to make this delayed by months and months and months, and so that being the case, for me personally I’d be happy if we could just do a sanity check on some of these definitions, like the minimum lot size and the minimum open space requirements, and relative to what other jurisdictions are doing, so that we’re not like way out of line. JOEL PAULSON: Yeah, and we’ll pull some more comparative information, and we’ll probably have to put some of it in the table. Frankly, I think why we don’t have some of that information for certain jurisdictions is many of them don’t have it, so we’ll just put that in table so you know we at least looked at those jurisdictions, and if they don’t have we will delineate that in some way. CHAIR KANE: Thank you. Commissioner Hudes. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 2/14/2018 Item #4, Town Code Amendments A-17-006 and GP-17-003 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 VICE CHAIR HUDES: I think my motion is going to be a bit of a dud, but after all this it’s pretty simple. I would move to continue the item to a date certain, and the date would come from Staff, with specific direction that includes the comments made by Commissioners tonight and to consider those carefully in recommending a date and in providing us with information for the next meeting. JOEL PAULSON: Staff would suggest March 28th. VICE CHAIR HUDES: So the motion would be to March 28th. CHAIR KANE: Is there a second? Commissioner Badame. COMMISSIONER BADAME: So seconded. CHAIR KANE: Any discussion? I’ll call the vote. All in favor? Opposed? Passes unanimously, six-zero. Are there appeal rights? Seven-zero. Oh, she’s back. Seven-zero; sorry. You’re out so much, I didn’t know. COMMISSIONER BADAME: Hopefully no more.