Loading...
Attachment 10 - July 13, 2016 Planning Commission Meeting Verbatim Minutes LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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: Mary Badame, Chair D. Michael Kane, Vice Chair Charles Erekson Melanie Hanssen Matthew Hudes Tom O’Donnell Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti Community Development Director: Joel Paulson Town Attorney: Robert Schultz Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin (510) 337-1558 LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 BADAME: We will move to our public hearing, which is continued from July 12, 2016, Item 2, North 40 Phase 1, Architecture and Site Application S-13-090, Vesting Tentative Map M-13-014, requesting approval for the construction of a new multi-use, multi-story development consisting of 320 residential units, which include 50 affordable senior units; approximately 66,000 square feet of commercial floor area, which includes a Market Hall; on- site and off-site improvements; and a Vesting Tentative Map. APNs 424-07-024 through 027, 031 through 037, 070, 083 through 086, 090 and 100. May I have a show of hands from Commissioners who have visited the site? Are there any disclosures from Commissioners? Seeing none, Mr. Paulson, we are ready for the Staff Report. JOEL PAULSON: Tonight we’re here to continue the Commission’s questions of the Applicant. As you mentioned before, there is a report that contains items that were received from the public either at last night’s meeting and/or via email for comments, as well as a document from Commissioner Hudes that relates to hillside views, which I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 think was one of the topics that was still left to be discussed. CHAIR BADAME: At this time are there questions of Staff related to process or procedure? Seeing none. Again, the public comment portion of the hearing was closed last night; this includes the Applicant’s presentation. Due to time restrictions, Commissioners were unable to complete their questioning of the Applicant, and I believe we have more questions. I will look to the Commissioners to see if this is true. Yes, I see nodding of heads. So, Applicants, you have been summoned. Please step up to the podium. All right, I will look to the Commissioners. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. I believe we have a question that we started last night, and I would put it in the category of housing. I also have some questions that will follow about traffic and environmental, including the economic report, open space, look and feel, those categories, which are the ones that Chair Badame suggested that we think about. First of all I wanted to correct myself from when I said that it looked like the height of Building A-1 was 58’ from existing grade. First of all, I think it’s LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Building B-1, and it looked to me like it was 48’8” plus 4.6’ of grade adjustments, so that would be 53’8”. Then with the elevator portion, it would be a total… So it would be 53’8” plus 4.6’, so it would be 57’ and some fraction. That’s my understanding. Is that correct? DON CAPOBRES: That would be reflected in the grading plan. We do have our civil engineer here to (inaudible). COMMISSIONER HUDES: It was a combination of the grading plan plus the elevation. DON CAPOBRES: It does sound about right though, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HUDES: This relates to this next topic, which is about views. I think I started to ask last night, how do you define view corridor? I think it’s used in the justification letter. DON CAPOBRES: It’s our position that we were to use the Vision Statement, which talks about hillside views and the look and feel of Los Gatos as a filter with which to look at and view the objective standards of the Specific Plan. For example, look and feel and views of the hillsides led to the 30% open space requirement, or the height restrictions, or the setbacks. Again, we comply on LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 all fronts, because these are objective development standards. But to give you the perspective of a filter that we use we have asked our architects to put together some presentations to demonstrate how we looked at things, so I’ll call up Paula Krugmeier. Reflecting on the hearing last night, our answers to some of your questions showed maybe some frustration because the discussion was at a zoning level or Specific Plan level. It’s at that stage that unit types and sizes, et cetera, are discussed, and the Specific Plan was approved last year along with the Housing Element, so some of the frustration. What we’d like, and what we would expect at this stage of approval, is a discussion about architectural style, materials, landscape pallets, et cetera. We have worked with your consulting architect on that. Ultimately Mr. Cannon rendered his opinion on our application, which we shared with you last night. But those are the types of comments we would expect to be having at this stage, and we would expect to not be discussing rewinding approvals on the objective design standards. We would welcome talking about architecture, about landscape palette, about those types of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 issues, and we’re willing to consider Conditions of Approval that would approve the design. Again, we’ve worked really hard with your consulting architect, and after five submittals got, we think, a really good result out, but those are the types of things we do want to discuss. Paula will give you an idea of how we looked at view corridors. She can probably touch on look and feel as well. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’ll try to keep my questions pretty specific, relating back to things that are in documents that are part of the planning application. PAULA KRUGMEIER: Good evening, Madam Chair, Commissioners, and distinguished members of the public. I’m Paula Krugmeier with BAR Architects. We wanted to cover the topics of embracing views, as you have asked, as well as the look and feel and the architecture. First of all, I just wanted to acknowledge that being here last night, in addition to many other hearings, I have taken notes on every speaker’s points. I understand this is a very important topic to everyone within the Town, so it’s something that we as architects took very seriously, as well as the look and feel, so we definitely wanted to present our thoughts and share our vision with you tonight. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 With that said, we have two parts of the embracing views. One of them comes from the views from Highway 17, which were studied in the EIR and later updated in July for our latest application, which is lower than our previous application in terms of height based on the Specific Plan. We’ll start with from Highway 17, and then we’ll move to examples within the Town, and then we’ll move to views from within the site. There are two views here. One is what was in the EIR, and the other is updated as of July of this year. Photos taken showing the heights of the buildings that are proposed. So these are the buildings proposed. We have four views here that are taken from the EIR generated exhibits. The second one here, there is a key plan. Can you all see where the view was taken on the key plan? It’s right there, and there. So this was when we had the move- down buildings there. Then the lower image on the slide is what the current proposal is, which is now 35’ instead of 45’. This image here, the upper view is what we had at 45’, and the lower view is what we’re currently proposing, what’s in your package up for approval now. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Then, finally, this view is looking laterally, and as I’ll show in the next slide, the hills are off to the right here and the proposed buildings are basically not in front of the hillside. I think what these slides, which were created by an impartial third party, demonstrate that the views of the hills definitely continue to be embraced as one passes through. As I recall from many of the Advisory Committee meetings early on, Los Gatos is kind of a gateway to the Santa Cruz Mountains and this view is very important. We’ll continue on with other views within the site. What we did, the North 40 is at the top of the image, and then we took two examples. We had many examples, but given the limited time we’re going to show two tonight. One is “D” for downtown, and the other is “N” for neighborhood. We’ll start with downtown. As we’re downtown, what we see is that even one-story buildings occasionally block the views of the hills, and where we do find view corridors to the hillsides are straight down the axes of the streets. This is a much more common pattern of embracing the views of the Los Gatos community. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 I’ve done a lot of looking at hillside views. I noticed in the look and feel slides we saw last night that there were about 70 images of homes and about three of those had views of the hills in them. I just want to make sure we have the views of the hillsides in perspective. So anyway, I looked at all 70 photos. As we’re going down North Santa Cruz Avenue, there are views of the hillsides if you’re in the center of the street. For North Santa Cruz Avenue further north than this the views of the hills are actually blocked by the sycamore trees. So again, we found a lot of views of the hillsides, but a lot of times they’re framed within the axes of streets, so you have this interplay between buildings and hillside views. Moving on to the next example, what we did was we chose a number of neighborhoods, and we’re showing the one in which the streets, Benedict Lane and the streets near there, are actually rotated towards the hills. Benedict Lane has a lovely view of the hills that is directly down the axis of the street, and there are parts of Benedict Lane that have greater views of the hills, but those are areas that are not landscaped at all. Again, a lot of times the landscaping in addition to the buildings is what is complementing and embracing the views of the hills. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Moving on, just near there, on Garden Lane, there are hills back there that you can discern, but again, this is an area where we feel like this very much is the look and feel of Los Gatos, and hillside views in this case are not necessarily embraced in favor of the landscaping in the foreground. Just to set the context, we did a lot of looking at embracing of views, and what we’d like to show you here are four views that show what the views will be from within the site. The first one is parallel to the freeway. Again, we are farther from the hills than downtown, much farther, a couple of miles farther from the hills, however, the hills are there. By the way, there is a key plan here, so you can tell exactly where these photos are taken, and these photos were all taken with the story poles up, so I know I’m not looking through a building; in this case I’m actually looking down a street. These are the key plan here, so there is the first view there. The second view is interesting in that when we’re back in the Transition Zone we will have a view here of the hillsides, but at the moment the walnut trees that are no longer going to be there are blocking that view. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 To the contrary, as we go south of South A Street we no longer get a view of the hills, because the tall landscape of Highland Oaks blocks the views of the hills from that location. So again, there’s interplay between the height of the landscape and the views. From this part of A Street you will be able to see them; from the other part you will not be able to see the hills. The next view is taken from the Lark District, right by the intersection between the Lark District and Transition District, and it’s taken over the community gardens. When you’re in the community gardens, this is the view you will have. Our main impediments in this area are the existing commercial buildings along Los Gatos Boulevard, but to the extent that you can see the hills over those buildings that are already there, we have embraced the views of the ridgelines and hillsides there. Finally, we have a diagonal street on the site, which is right there. It’s North A Street, and as you come down this street this will be a much more framed view. What I did here was I drew the lines of the story poles on the slide, so the story poles are here, and here, and here, and we’re looking down at a two-story building, and just over that two-story building you will be able to see the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 ridgeline. That view corridor is a little bit more framed by buildings, but again, it’s there. So that is the presentation we had on the embracing of hillside views, and we felt like it was very comparable to what we’re seeing in other areas of Los Gatos. COMMISSIONER HUDES: As a follow up to that, Example 1 that you showed next to the freeway, there’s a sound wall there, isn’t there? You want to go back and show us where that would be? PAULA KRUGMEIER: The sound wall is along here, and there is parking. There’s a setback. There’s the sound wall, then there’s some landscape, then there’s some parallel parking, then there’s a road, and then there’s more landscape, and then there’s the building, so there’s actually quite a bit of space here from which one will get this view. The sound wall will be lower and off to the right. The sound wall is typically lower than any landscaping we’ll have. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had some questions about the layout of the site, how it relates to the views, and how the housing is organized on the site. I spent about an hour-and-a-half on the site a week ago Friday on a second visit, and with the exception of the diagonal street, I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 couldn’t find any interior location where I could see the views, interior location meaning one that’s open to the public. So I walked down the area where the paseo is, spent some time where the park will be, and because of the arrangement of the buildings that are at an angle to that— and I’ll illustrate that in a minute—it was not possible to see the hillsides. I walked and I noted at 12 different points, and as I said, there was only one, and that was at the diagonal street where I could see it. I’m sure there are other points, particularly as you get to the exterior, but in the interior I had trouble. If fact, not any point along the paseo, not any point within the park, not any point in the service road, except for the very end of it, the road that is adjacent to the freeway, and that was being blocked. I could not find another location actually in Los Gatos of comparable size where the hillsides would be as obscured as they are in this particular layout, and maybe I could illustrate with we could look at Exhibit 38. A question is coming here in a minute, but I want to just relate that to my observations on the site. I wish the public had been able to see the interior, either with photographs or somehow to see the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 orientation of the story poles across the site and the arrangement of the buildings I think is obscuring many, many of the sites. Could you go to the next slide, please? The intersection of those lines is the middle of the North 40 plot, and the dominant hillsides here are El Sereno and El Sombroso, and behind El Sombroso is Loma Prieta, and Mt. Umunhum is actually in between those as well. It’s really interesting, because they are about at a 45° angle from the center of the site, each of those. The dash line represents the general way that you can view from the site, given the grid pattern. Could you go to the next slide for me? This is zooming in, with the solid lines representing the view of the hillside, and the dash lines representing the grid layout and the general direction of the views. What I’m saying is that because of the way buildings are arranged on that grid, it pretty much blocks those views, even as you walk along the interior of it, until you get to the exterior of it. My question is—if you can go to the next slide—is it possible to have the streets laid out in a fashion that is 45° from what’s been proposed in a way that would, I think, truly allow you to see the hillsides from many, many LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 more sites? It’s a little dark, but you can see that in the surrounding neighborhoods there are curved streets that afford views as well. So my question is, is it possible to lay out this so that more views from the interior of the site could be achieved? PAULA KRUGMEIER: It’s a very good question and a very good demonstration. As I sought to demonstrate with the views from Benedict Lane, which are even a little closer, these hillside views, even with rotated streets, will have basically a small view corridor down the center, given that all of the streets will be lined with street trees, as is the case in Los Gatos. This is jumping ahead a little bit to our look and feel conversation. I’ve been the master planner on this project for eight years, and done master planning in a lot of different places, and what we looked at here was that the majority of neighborhoods in Los Gatos are oriented parallel to the arterial streets that they’re next to, so there are some curved streets. There are many curved streets in the hillsides; many curved streets. We’re not in the hillsides. Our streets, but not all, are more or less parallel to the arterials that are near to ours, and our views are very similar to the views of neighboring LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 residential districts and downtown that are similarly oriented. COMMISSIONER HUDES: My question is could even some of the streets in Phase 1 be oriented along a 45° from the way they’re currently oriented, or could some of them be curved? Even in the drawings in the Specific Plan there was a suggestion of curve, and I know that there was testimony when the Specific Plan was being created; a number of residents made the strong suggestion to have some curved streets in there. PAULA KRUGMEIER: All right, I’m going to go back to a suggestion that was made in 2013. Back in 2013 we received a suggested site plan that was rotated at 45° from Los Gatos Boulevard, and when I get to the look and feel part I’ll talk a little bit about walkability and block sizes and the idea about the balance between softscape and paving. In theory, the suggestion is great. Yes, we can have 45° angle streets. When you look at it practically on a site, given that there are some very large missing teeth from the Hirschman properties cut out of it, once you get to the potential use of diagonal streets—I just have to say it this way—you end up with a lot more paving and a lot more green space, because it is less efficient, and when LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 you have more paving and less green space, it didn’t seem to us like the look and feel. It’s a fairly simple geometric problem. In order to overcome that we would have had to go to large mega- blocks to get that green space within the mega-blocks, and we felt that the block sizes that we have that are comparable to the block sizes in the rest of Los Gatos and that are parallel to the arterials, and given the big missing teeth that we had on Los Gatos Boulevard, that we were able to provide the most open space by the plan that we had; and that where we created the community garden, where we created the diagonal street, where we created other axes, we were embracing hillside views. We were balancing all these thing. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just one last question on this. If you didn’t have as many homes, but you did have them at the required density, at the required density, would it be possible to incorporate other street layouts such as we’ve discussed? PAULA KRUGMEIER: I will answer in theory, and then Don and Wendi can answer more specifically. When I left here last night one of the members of the public suggested that we could have a lot more green space if we built a tower next to the freeway, and I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 thought about that, and I said, “Yeah, that’s true, you can have more green space.” There are different ways to gain more green space, even though we already exceed the quantity. Doing diagonal streets doesn’t necessarily increase the amount of green space. I’m sorry, Commissioner, could you please repeat your question? COMMISSIONER HUDES: I said in an attempt to maximize and actually have views of the hillsides, would it be possible to change the layout and configuration of the streets, perhaps by reducing the number of homes but keeping the required density? PAULA KRUGMEIER: Well, if we reduce a number of homes on the same amount of land, then we have arithmetically reduced the density. Then going back to the diagonal views again, going back to Benedict Lane, in comparing the views that we have, the linear views that we have to the hills, we have similar views to Benedict Lane, which is rotated. The hills, if we go back to my slide, there’s a green line. The hills are on two-and-a-half sides of the site. Even though it’s a little bit far away, they’re on two-and-a-half sides of the site, so we can orient those LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 streets to embrace hillside views with a variety of directions and with open spaces like our community garden. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Would any of the other Commissioners like to add to the line of questioning? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to ask a question. It’s not related necessarily to hillside views, but it relates to views as it pertains to the small town character. I know that a lot of the residents and friends of residents have reacted badly to seeing massive 35’ tall buildings from Highway 17 when they’re coming home, including my own kids. But it did look like your position is that landscaping, the trees that are going to be planted, would be covering that up to a large extent. I just wanted to understand if this was (inaudible) forward as it was, what we could expect, or would it just be that we’d have to stare at a wall of 35’ buildings? PAULA KRUGMEIER: The landscaping shown in the EIR was taken as trees after a certain number of years of growth; in other words, it’s not just the first year. But the trees will for the most part all be higher than 35’. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Some of the orchard trees… The landscape architect is here and will be able to speak specifically about tree heights. DON CAPOBRES: The EIR covered aesthetics and views, and as we underscored already, the Specific Plan EIR, which was approved and adopted by Town Council last year, shows on the top that was the aesthetic that was approved, so to speak. The proposal that we have in front of you is less impactful from any objective standard, and again, we do think we comply. To answer Commissioner Hudes’ question directly, the grid pattern has already started on the North 40 on the south side of the property; it started probably in early 2000 with essentially the first phase of development on the North 40 with the medical office buildings. What happens now on that portion of the property, it kind of gets locked in, because we do have a balancing act to do with infrastructure and other things. So the answer is no on being able to orient streets 45° and balance everything else. We have to balance related to the objective standards of the Specific Plan. Having said that, as you move further north we do start to introduce some diagonal streets. I’m not going to jump ahead, but the thought of that diagonal street is that it does plug in someplace, and there maybe will be future LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 development where we do free up opportunity to introduce streets that aren’t on the grid, but because development was already allowed to start in the 2000s with three relatively large buildings that are taller than any of the buildings we are proposing on Los Gatos Boulevard, the grid pattern has already begun, and we need to fit into that from an infrastructure perspective. COMMISSIONER HUDES: If I could just follow up quickly. The buildings you’re referring to, those are the ones that are placed and accessed along the Boulevard, correct? DON CAPOBRES: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HUDES: There are no internal streets that address those? DON CAPOBRES: The streets that access those, and the entrance that access those buildings, all lead into the interior of the site and have parking on the interior. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, but the access if from Los Gatos… There’s no other street through the North 40 that’s accessing them, correct? DON CAPOBRES: No. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And the opportunity for diagonal that you were referring to, that’s in the Phase 2 application, or possible Phase 2 application? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 DON CAPOBRES: Well, there could be multiple phases to the North 40, because as we know and we’ve stated multiple times, there are 14 property owners on the North 40. The fact that we have two phases to our transaction with the Yuki family does not necessarily mean that’s the only phase coming forward. Because we are forward thinking, our planning is we intend to make this portion of the property fit in to the rest of the North 40, which is why you have a specific plan, so that as pieces develop individually, they do so in a cohesive manner. Our plan is to kind of continue on there, using that diagonal street. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I appreciate that, but my understanding is that this Phase 1 application—I think that’s what it’s called—has to stand on its own relative to objective standards that are in the Specific Plan. DON CAPOBRES: And we meet and exceed all of those specific development standards, without question. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions from Commissioners? Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: Questions for Ms. Krugmeier. Prior to February 2, 2016, I think the Town consulting architect wrote a letter of his concerns about the project, and there was a good response written on February 2, 2016. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 It’s not signed, so I don't know who wrote it, but then he writes back, and they write back, and he writes backs, and there was a response from Debra Lehtone. PAULA KRUGMEIER: Yeah, she’s present tonight. She’s my colleague. VICE CHAIR KANE: She’s with BAR, and you’re with BAR. PAULA KRUGMEIER: Yeah, VICE CHAIR KANE: So I can assume the February 2nd letter was written by her? PAULA KRUGMEIER: It’s written by the team, yes. We collaborated. This whole development is a team effort, so yes. VICE CHAIR KANE: So I’ll put the team on here. CHAIR BADAME: Can you confirm which exhibit you’re referring to? VICE CHAIR KANE: Exhibit 8; I’m sorry. CHAIR BADAME: Exhibit 8 for the Commissioners to refer to. VICE CHAIR KANE: In her response to Larry Canon’s initial letters, she details what kind of tenant design or modifications may be made by a tenant, and then it occurred to me, I wondered, do you have an approximation LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 of how many commercial tenants would be in and around the marketplace? DON CAPOBRES: That’s a great question, and exciting question, actually. The marketplace is intended to be one, single entity, which was what was discussed in the Specific Plan. How we populate the space and program the space, we’re still working on, frankly. The direction we are going in is very exciting, however, if you think of your typical grocery store departments. So think of produce; think of protein, which could be beef, chicken, fish; think of a bakery; some sundries; and think of the best of the local market and the local growers, and of populating each one of those departments. So right now it could be between four, five, six types of tenants within Market Hall. We’ve done quite a bit of research on these markets. At one point we thought they could be small little kiosks with 100 square feet each, and there are examples of that throughout the country that we’ve looked at. But we are gravitating towards more of grocery store departments. Not quite a grocery store, but a specialty market that has individual vendors that celebrate the local growers and celebrating the food locally. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 That’s still a working model. We are working very hard with partners who we have identified previously on that, but that’s kind of where we’re at, and we’re excited by it. VICE CHAIR KANE: So the commercial square footage that’s been assigned to Phase 1 would contain possibly four, possibly six, tenants? DON CAPOBRES: Oh no, that was just for Market Hall. I’m sorry, Commissioner. VICE CHAIR KANE: Total number? DON CAPOBRES: Yeah, and I’m happy to walk through the retail program. VICE CHAIR KANE: Rough total number? DON CAPOBRES: I have to go through each building. The building on the immediate north as you enter is intended to be a standalone restaurant; that’s Building B-2. Building A-2 is intended to be a standalone retail building. Again, these are all preliminary points. Then you have Market Hall, which is B-2, which I just spoke about. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Building C can be demised as a standalone restaurant of about, say, 5,000 square feet, with an additional 2,000 square feet of retail. Then Building A-1 is all neighborhood serving, kind of small shop space where you would find typical neighborhood uses. Maybe there are some hair salons; maybe there are other uses that you would find in a neighborhood setting. VICE CHAIR KANE: Would you be the leasing agent or have a supervisory effect over the leasing agent? DON CAPOBRES: Grosvenor typically hires local leasing folks who have the best connections in the local market. Grosvenor does not manage and lease directly; we hire a third party generally. VICE CHAIR KANE: In the many, many, many meetings that have preceded this one, has there been any discussion of a fair consideration for non-compete with the downtown? DON CAPOBRES: Yes, that has been discussed many, many, many times. VICE CHAIR KANE: Do you agree to that? DON CAPOBRES: I do have some notes here so I get it right. The question is about tenants downtown, and this issue was debated for years, frankly, at the Specific Plan LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 Advisory Committee process as well as Town Council deliberations. We all remember them; they tended to be some of the most interesting conversations that we had. After all those deliberations, it is not a requirement under the current Specific Plan, so the answer in short is no. You’ve got numerous economic studies. You had one in 2011 commissioned by the Town of Los Gatos that showed $80 million leaking out of the Town of Los Gatos every year. You had a second one, which is the Urban Decay Study in the EIR. You had a third one to support the Specific Plan last year by San Jose State. All of them indicated that there is significant unmet demand for comparison shopping in food and beverage, and so this shouldn’t be an issue. VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m sorry; could I ask you a question? What does “comparative shopping” mean? Competitive shopping? DON CAPOBRES: No, comparative shopping. It could be soft goods, clothing, things like that. The final point is probably maybe the strongest point. It could potentially hurt the viability of both the downtown establishment as well as the retail program on the North 40, and I’m starting with the assumption that we want both to succeed. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 For example, this could cause a situation where a downtown business that is not able to renegotiate a lease downtown is forced out of Los Gatos to seek premises outside to continue its operation. There are numerous examples of downtown also, downtown establishments seeing this unmet demand in the trade area, which we can talk about, so examples of downtown establishments wanting a second or third store or restaurant, or wanting to try a new concept and staying within the trade area. If you had a prohibition of them going to the North 40, they would do what they’re doing now, frankly, which is ending up in Campbell, or Willow Glen, or someplace like that. You have multiple restaurants—and this is the easiest example—that have both the presence within downtown Los Gatos as well as within the exact trade area that the North 40 would be serving, and they see this unmet demand. We can go through the numbers. Tim Kelly from Keyser Marston is here to present the economic numbers, but this was discussed ad infinitum, and that is why it’s not… I think it would end up potentially hurting the downtown operators as well as potentially the North 40. VICE CHAIR KANE: What would? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 DON CAPOBRES: Making requirements restricting tenancies on the North 40 (inaudible) downtown. VICE CHAIR KANE: Some kind of a non-competitive clause would hurt both? DON CAPOBRES: Could potentially hurt both. VICE CHAIR KANE: May I? CHAIR BADAME: Yes, you may. VICE CHAIR KANE: We’ve heard a number of speakers, town merchants, long-time well established, kind of know their business; and maybe that’s foolish of me, but I find that more persuasive than studies that say gee, it may not be a problem. If the proprietor is telling us I may go out of business, that’s the kind of thing I’m concerned with on non-compete. A lot of analogies in the 610 letters we’ve read talking about comparisons to downtown San Jose, Saratoga, and that get’s my attention. I don’t have the depth and the advisors that you do, but I need some reassurance that there is an awareness of what the downtown merchants are saying, and some kind of concern for them. DON CAPOBRES: Absolutely. VICE CHAIR KANE: Or I will so advise Town Council that this needs to be worked on. DON CAPOBRES: Absolutely. The first study in 2011 identified synergistic solutions, and this wasn’t our LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 study, this was a study commissioned by the Town of Los Gatos by the Economic Vitality Department. It showed synergistic opportunities aware of the North 40 and downtown, and don’t forget about the Boulevard, and wineries. All of them could actually complement each other, and I thought that those were very good suggestions in terms of how that can happen. Co-branding and co-marketing, was an example, working with, which we already have a transportation kind of demand management responsibility with the North 40, coordination with VTA on getting shuttles and a back and forth. We talked about marketing, and this is a discussion we’ve had, frankly, Commissioner, for eight years, and again, none of those policies that you talk about ended up in the Specific Plan as a direct result of the conversations and all the studies that we’ve had. But there are things that we can do together, and there are other businesses downtown that don’t share the opinion that others share. There are opportunities for folks. In Market Hall, for example, my one example that I always give is if someone makes pizza downtown and they want to sell pizza sauce at Market Hall and say if you want us to make the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 full thing for you, come downtown. That’s a great example of synergistic opportunities. We think because there is such strong demand it warrants going through the economic analysis here. Strong demand in the marketplace that if you don’t capture it on the North 40, it is just going to go across the border to Campbell and South San Jose, so working together we can increase the pie for Los Gatos instead of looking at who is competing against whom within the Town boundaries. Again, that was the conclusion of every report. Report, after report, after report was commissioned to evaluate this particular issue, and the last one was probably the best one, because it did look specifically at competitive advantages between downtown and the North 40, and the conclusion was there should be no impact to downtown. VICE CHAIR KANE: Life is a bell curve, and there may be those merchants who profit from the increased residency on the North 40, and in the middle are going to be merchants who want to be in both places, but at the other it’s going to be the merchant who fears for their livelihood and their business. All I’m asking is that keep that in mind, have a medium, some forum, where those LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 concerns could be expressed to you, and you would have that sensitivity on the tenants to whom you lease. DON CAPOBRES: We welcome that conversation. I live downtown. We are here because of what downtown means, and so we are ultra-sensitive to this issue. I’ve been accused of trying to lure a lot of businesses to the North 40, but it’s just conversations. We understand, and we have talked to businesses and restaurants downtown all throughout the years. We’ve participated and had conversations continuously, had a joint session with your Chamber of Commerce; and I’m not saying they’re endorsing the North 40, but we have participated in the business community for years. We understand that, we are sensitive to that. We would welcome that conversation, and to be a part of that conversation, in terms of how we can work together. Ultimately, this phase of development is only 66,000 square feet however, and it is neighborhood-serving; it is intended to be for folks on the north end of town and to service the new residents on the North 40 and the neighborhoods that are around. CHAIR BADAME: Mr. Capobres, I’m going to stop you right here. I do believe that the question was LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 answered, and what I do hear you say is that there is awareness, but not a guarantee. At the same time that Vice Chair Kane had his hand up, Commissioner Hanssen had her hand up, and I know Commissioner Hudes is waiting to speak. So Commissioner Hanssen, did you still want to ask your question? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes. One thing that struck me in looking at the Phase 1 application and looking at the Specific Plan is there are a lot of references in the Specific Plan to all three districts needing to work together so that it can be self-sufficient. This gets to not having everything be adding traffic to the Boulevard and stuff, so as many things that can be taken care of inside of the North 40, and with the limited amount of commercial in Phase 1, I worry about how much of that can possibly be achieved, and then leading to the whole traffic thing. So I was hoping to understand what… You mentioned a little bit that in Building A-1 there would be some personal service ones, but I heard (inaudible) like putting Patagonia in one of the buildings, and that didn’t seem like something that was going to help the problem I’m talking about, because permitted uses in the plan include like banks and hair dressers and whatnot. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 DON CAPOBRES: At this stage of the game we don’t typically have tenants. It’s really hard to lease up space without being able to kick the tires, but we have obviously an anchor. Typically I would have a named anchor right now, but this time we’re trying to do something special. We’re trying to deliver to the Town this specialty market that we call Market Hall. We don’t have to. The Specific Plan doesn’t require us to do that, but we had said it over the years, and we think it’s a good idea. We think you have all of the grocery stores already represented on the Boulevard, but you do need to service the residents of the North 40 through some type of food, so Market Hall is being designed as we speak for folks who can go there four or five times a week to pick something up. We’re looking at convenience of trying to get in and out, so I assure you first and foremost on our minds are servicing folks who are going to be there frequently. It’s not a regional destination of any sort. Sixty-six thousand square feet is about the size, and maybe a little bit larger than some of your other… The Trader Joe’s that Grosvenor used to own, Los Gatos Village Square, the Whole Foods center, it’s in that scale, and so you should be able to provide those neighborhood services that we want people to walk to instead of having to drive LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 to. That’s our goal. It’s kind of what drives us in terms of our vision for the property. Just by the size of it, by the nature of it, it is neighborhood serving and we are programming it as such. It is not being programmed to be a tourist attraction or anything like that from a regional perspective. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. This has been an area of concern for me for a long time, and I concur with many of Commissioner Kane’s concerns that he raised, and listen carefully to a number of the business folks in town. I’m glad to see that there is a report in here, and I have to apologize to my fellow commissioners, but I would like to actually ask some questions about this report, because this is the first time that it’s been seen in a public setting, and I think it’s important, because I also think that this is the type of thing that was envisioned for this ongoing; even more retail comes in. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes, have you got the exhibit number? COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m talking about the Keyser Marston Associates economic report. CHAIR BADAME: And the exhibit number is? COMMISSIONER HUDES: It is Exhibit 9. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 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 CHAIR BADAME: Okay, Exhibit 9, Commissioners. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HUDES: From the March 30th packet. I’ll try to keep it to just a few questions, because I think this is very, very important, and I’m glad to see the work done. The first question is how is it possible to do this analysis without having a floor plan of the retail space and knowing what size there is within a building? I don’t believe there is a floor plan within each of the retail spaces. TIM KELLY: Good evening, my name is Tim Kelly; I’m with Keysor Marston Associates, and we prepared the report. That’s a fair question, and if you look at the report, it’s generic. The types of tenants, they’re broken up into three basic categories, which were the assumptions behind it, which was the food hall for 20,000 square feet; the food and beverage, which is essentially restaurants for 20,000 square feet; and specialty retail, which also includes services like personal services, banks, things like that for 26,000 square feet. There is no information beyond that, and that was evaluated in a context of how LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 would it affect the downtown, and would it have a negative effect on the downtown? Maybe I can stop there. Do you want me to keep going? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Sure, because then I have questions about the next step. The estimate on the impact to downtown and other areas, did it look at both potential declines in those areas as a result of having the retail here, as well as the possible synergies or increases? TIM KELLY: Those are all really good questions. When we wrote the scope up, what we were asked to do was just evaluate whether Phase 1, which is 66,000 square feet, not the 400,000 square feet that is the number that is thrown around for the overall, but just the 66,000. Would that have a negative impact on the core area of the downtown, the Santa Cruz Avenue portion of the downtown? We did not look at the other areas. We were not asked to look at the other areas. I’m not sure if that answers your question, but it was just related to the core. COMMISSIONER HUDES: It answers my question, and it raises a question for Staff. TIM KELLY: Okay, fair enough. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: It looks to me like your conclusion is that it will not negatively impact downtown. TIM KELLY: That’s correct. COMMISSIONER HUDES: How certain are you of that, and how would you measure that going forward? TIM KELLY: I feel highly confident it won’t have a negative impact on the downtown. Let me just explain the context. Some of this information was confidential, so it had to be put into a bulk set of numbers so we couldn’t look at individual businesses, as you might have mentioned, so we asked the Town Staff for the square footage in downtown, the number of businesses in the downtown, and the actual taxable sales in downtown, and by different categories. One category is referred to as Soft Goods Comparison; it’s sort of the specialty group. The other group is Food and Beverage, which is the restaurants, and then a third group, which is very limited, is Convenience. Within downtown there is approximately 500,000 square feet of space, of which I think 350,000 is in service and comparison goods. There’s a lot of space, and 172 businesses. Food and Beverage, there are 62 businesses and approximately 160,000 square feet. So that 350,000 and the 160,000, the downtown has a half a million square feet. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 39 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The annual taxable sales, I guess would be now 2014 or so, were almost $175 million. So downtown is a very strong economic unit; it has been for a long time. It’s obviously a model in the Bay Area of what other cities would like to have; they very much would love to have your downtown. It has survived the expansion of Valley Fair, it survived Santana Row; it survived expansion. It’s a very successful, healthy downtown. Does that mean nothing should be done? Does that mean you can rest on your laurels? No. Obviously markets are dynamic; you always have to reevaluate. But in the context of the North 40, if you take 20,000 square feet that’s in a food hall, there’s no food hall downtown, so there’s no impact there. If you take the food and beverage, you’re talking about 20,000 square feet. Food and beverage right now in the whole southern Santa Clara County is a very big, growing market. Restaurants are popping up everywhere. As the Applicant has mentioned, restaurants are opening multiple restaurants. It’s a very high growth area. And the downtown has almost 80 million… We think just the population growth and what’s going on in the market, I think (inaudible) food and beverage as a whole will not have an impact on downtown. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Finally, the last category, which is the 26,000 square feet, which can be service, it can be dentists, it can be medical, it can financial, it can be exercise studios, but it’s 26,000 square feet. If you took an average of 2,600 square feet a tenant, which is not very big, that’s ten tenants. It’s hard to say ten tenants would have a negative impact on downtown. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Sure, I understand. One of the concerns, and I didn’t see much about it in your report, was the fact that there are certain constraints and restrictions in the downtown, which there would not be in the North 40, such as Conditional Use Permit, or difficulty parking. Are those things that you thought about or considered when you were making this recommendation? TIM KELLY: (Inaudible). COMMISSIONER HUDES: Actually, what I was speaking about is the case of a restaurant that has to comply with a Conditional Use Permit downtown, but there’s not need for that in North 40. TIM KELLY: (Inaudible). COMMISSIONER HUDES: I would suggest if you do this in the future, perhaps consider looking at some of the requirements that are elsewhere as well, because I think they do have an impact. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 41 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 My last question is, is this report and methodology repeatable, in your opinion? Could you take what you’ve done here and, for instance, look at the impact of Phase 1 at a later time using this methodology, or could it be applied to Phase 2 or something else? TIM KELLY: It’s a yes with an asterisk, because as you know, there are multiple variables that affect a lot of things that go on, like you were mentioning parking requirements. There are lots of variables that are out there, but it certainly could be used as one of the tools for sure, yes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioners, any further questions on the economic report? Seeing none, thank you, sir. TIM KELLY: You’re welcome. CHAIR BADAME: All right, I believe we have further questions for the Applicant. Commissioner Hanssen, if Ms. Baker and Mr. Capobres can step back up to the podium. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had some questions about the housing again. I know we talked about the Millennials and seniors yesterday, but I wanted to just talk about—one of the community members brought this up yesterday—I do LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 recognize that in the Specific Plan it’s not required to use all the housing types, but just for the sake of asking a question, because it would be less intense, why were no cottage cluster units included in the proposal? WENDI BAKER: I think this is in your exhibit, but I’ll put it up for the public to reference as well. We asked our architect to take all of the standards within the Specific Plan, such as setbacks, open space requirements, parking requirements, and so forth, as well as overlaying this with the cottage cluster requirements which are drawn actually from a different document, which was in your Affordable Housing Overlay Zone document that originally contemplated the cottage cluster unit at about 1,000 to 1,200 square feet, where again, some of those regulations are the first floor; the second floor can’t be more than 50% of the first floor space. So we did a density study to establish what the density would be, and it’s about 12-13 units per acre at the most aggressive, most perfect square that we could find, or in this case a rectangle, so we sort of maximize those units. So with that, it brings down the density substantially, and it’s not a product where utility is compatible if you are being told at 20 units per acre. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I’m sure it was in one of the tables that we saw, but that brought up a question that I did have, which is of all the acreage where there is residential, are all of those producing 20 units per acre? WENDI BAKER: Yeah, I think that this exhibit that Staff has up here reflects what you all… We worked with Staff and HCD. I believe they worked through their experience with HCD on how we could go to HCD with a straight face and say we are delivering 20 units per acre. Some areas you can remove, such as the main corridors, for example streets, and so that exhibit is what is reflective of how you get to 20 units per acre, both in each zones. You have to look at it as in zones you are getting there, and then overall you are getting there. In this instance I believe there are four zones and then a comprehensive density as well, and in each of the zones you have to meet it, as well as comprehensively. Again, this is a delicate balance where if you move to this type of a product, perhaps in that area those units may not be able to be counted towards your Housing Element. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And then on the other side of that, there are one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, and three- bedrooms. There are no studios, and in the Specific Plan LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 under the Gen Y discussion, for better or for worse you can argue that that might not be right, but it’s in the Specific Plan. It says that the Millennials want studios, and often no bedrooms, and loft units. There are a couple of loft kind of work units, but even those aren’t studios, so I wonder about that, because that would be another way to bring down some of the intensity and also make things more affordable. WENDI BAKER: We do understand that. Now, this is a for sale product, and the Specific Plan was not looking at for sale or for rent. We do have the for rent affordable units, but studio units, I did talk about the focus groups we went to. Folks in a suburban context are looking for more space rather than being in a studio unit. The other complexity with studio units can be I’ve never built a for sale studio units, particularly in a suburban context. I mean that is extraordinarily rare. Then, usually when you can support these sorts of housing type, like micro-units, you end up with a lot of transit opportunities in an urban context. This is not an urban context, and so we do have to look at balancing the market demands with the Specific Plan, and nowhere in the Specific Plan were there a studio requirements. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We did go as low as we felt we could market and sell a unit, which is far below a typical for sale condominium product, which was about 900 square feet, we also have the 550 square foot senior unit to give a wide range. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That brought me to another question I wanted to ask, and I kind of knew the answer was they’re all for sale, but why are all the units for sale except for the senior affordable, which is being done by a separate group, Eden Housing, versus a mix of that? WENDI BAKER: That’s a really interesting question, and it’s going to be a little bit subjective in my answer. SummerHill, we’ve very fortunate. We’ve built everything from for rent to estate homes, so we’ve built apartments in San Francisco, and we’ve built estate homes right here in Los Gatos. So we have a wide portfolio to be able to draw from experience. Ultimately, when we were looking at unmet needs and what that was, there are apartments that are available for rent in Los Gatos. It is very rare to find a 900 square foot for sale product, however. So when we were looking at that, for someone that wants to enter into the marketplace and not rent and wants to buy, what could they buy in that LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 type of zone? Those products are extremely limited, not only here in Los Gatos, but in the Bay Area as a whole. Generally you are either for rent in this type of square footage that we’re talking about, or you hop up to a higher bedroom count and higher square footage. In looking at this, to us, when we were trying to establish all the different ways that we could land plan and design and offer products that were meeting unmet needs, we found that the for sale Millennials product is absolutely an unmet need. There are Aventino Apartments, and there are other examples of apartments in Los Gatos. CHAIR BADAME: All right, I have a question for you, Ms. Baker. Which city did you resource your focus groups in? WENDI BAKER: I mentioned we had focus groups right at Netflix, and those workers came from all over. I don’t actually know where everyone resided from in the first focus group, but it was about 20 individuals, and we actually held it in the East Bay… CHAIR BADAME: Okay, that’s helpful, but 20… WENDI BAKER: …which we are drawing from a variety of places where people might live right now and commute into Los Gatos, but really want to live in Los Gatos. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BADAME: Okay, so I heard you say 20 people in one group. How many individuals were surveyed in totality of the focus groups? WENDI BAKER: As far as a survey, this was a very large and expansive and extended dialogue, so I don’t want to exclusively look at it as a survey where we just pushed out a bunch of paper to folks. This was a dialogue of what are you looking for? What are your needs? What kind of housing types? Where do you live right now? It was a conversation, and our architects were there and they took all the notes. Then we designed product after that point, we designed our units, and then we decided ultimately at 20. Since this process started, Netflix was approved, it’s built the expansion, and we went into Netflix because that is where we do see a lot of the Millennials that could want to live here and are tired of that commute back and forth. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Further questions of the Applicant? Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Were you going to add something to that? DON CAPOBRES: I would just say on the multi- family and the rental question, your General Plan allows for 750 residential units. When we started the process on LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 48 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the Specific Plan, the Draft Specific Plan considered heights in the 55’ range, and so our original view, Commissioner Hanssen, was to provide more of a mix of tenure for sale and for rent, and from the exhibit I saw yesterday, a lot of the rental homes that you have in Los Gatos are at a density well in excess of 20 units per acre. Seven hundred and fifty residential units kind of fit our program a little bit better, and we had planned quite a bit of rental at that time. In 2012, when Town Council called a time out essentially and set Vision Statement and the Guiding Principles—which have become our filter for everything—the number of units that were contemplated on the North 40 decreased, and all of a sudden we ended up with lower heights. That’s when we brought SummerHill on board to help us design the homes that we have now, which is lower intensity than had originally been contemplated, which would have had a better mix of tenure. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: One of the residents did a nice analysis yesterday. If you took even portions of the property and built, say, an apartment building full of studios, 500-1,000 square feet, you could overdo the density there, and you could have less density somewhere LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 else on the property. I mean there are other ways to look at it. WENDI BAKER: You can do a thousand land plans; you can have ten different people come in (inaudible) for applications. Again, we’re looking at running this through setbacks, open space, what the market demand is, and what type of aesthetics we’re trying to draw. We have a certain— as we’ve been referring to them—objective criteria, but then we’re also trying to continue with some of these other more subjective criteria so that we can achieve a balance. That sort of concept, you can’t fault it, and I can’t necessarily say that they’re incorrect, but ultimately we have to sell these units. Building all 1,000 square foot units is neither a requirement, nor can we find any example of you must stay within these exact lanes with respect to bedroom count, units sizes and so forth, and so we drew upon our experience with our conversations to address what we felt was the target audience, while satisfying the Specific Plan requirements. PAULA KRUGMEIER: I would like to add to the answer to that question about a hypothetical apartment building. For one thing, the one apartment building that we do have seems to be the most controversial element within the plan. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Going back to the look and feel of Los Gatos, the Lark District has much smaller scale development than the Transition District. The Transition District has much smaller scale development than places like Santana Row or other developments that the North 40 has been compared to. That said, if we were to build, for example, a 25-unit building instead of a 50-unit building with units that were twice the size, about 1,000 square feet on average, which would be typical for the South Bay, we would have a building of the same scale as the affordable housing, and we would have a parking garage that would be much larger, because it would have to be parked at 1.5 per dwelling unit rather than .5 per dwelling unit. So you would start to get a big garage and a much more massive building. We had many alternates like that over the course of the years where we fit parking in in ways which we don’t think, based on the look and feel that we’re trying to do in Los Gatos, would be accepted today. So as we have the Lark District full of a lot of relatively small buildings and blocks, this, to us, was a lot more along the lines of the look and feel of Los Gatos. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and I understand what you’re saying. You made a comment that the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Lark District is less intense than the Transition District, but I’m not sure what measure you’re using for that, because there are lots of row homes. I mean, I see the same housing types and clusters in both the Lark and the Transition, and of course there’s quite a few more units. Could you help me understand how… PAULA KRUGMEIER: I was referring to the scale. Behind the Commissioners here there is a figure ground plan with yellow shown on the buildings, and the scale of those footprints is quite varied within the SummerHill home project area, and certainly much smaller than any 25-unit apartment building would be, given that that larger building would have to accommodate 30 cars. The other advantage of this plan is that every building in those units self parks, and so we don’t end up with any large garages or anything like that. If I can come back to the parking thing very briefly, the only place where we have the super low parking ratio, which is .5 per dwelling unit, is in the senior housing that’s combined with the Market Hall. The tandem parking that was discussed yesterday is only used where two residents would be in the same unit. I just wanted to clarify that confusion as well. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to get back to the question I was going to ask about traffic. I think there’s going to be quite a bit of discussion when we begin deliberations on traffic, so I just wanted to get maybe one more perspective on the 13%, 26% claim or position. Also, I had a question about considering actual traffic loads, but let’s get that one first. WENDI BAKER: I did want to add on one other thing about the Lark District versus the Transition District. We have two-story homes in the Lark District, and then the Transition District actually is three-story homes, so there is a difference and step up. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Other than in the permit overlay within the setback from Lark Avenue, if you move away from those units, it’s basically the same, looks like the same. WENDI BAKER: There are two-story units that also front the community park. We did that intentionally, so that it was lower scale into the park, and you don’t have that example in the Transition District. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay, thanks. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So my question was on traffic. WENDI BAKER: Yes, the 13% and 26%. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yes, please. WENDI BAKER: Thank you. Yes, we have our traffic engineer here. She also has provided information to the Town that is specific. The 26% is specific, as I mentioned, to the Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard intersection. So 13% of an increase in traffic can cause a more substantial delay than just the 13%, because you’re putting more cars in an already constrained environment, and Katie can speak about this. This was specific to the Phase 1 build-out and the traffic that the Phase 1 application will create. That 26% reduction will happen, even with the Phase 1 inclusion. KATIE COLE: Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. My name is Katie Cole; I’m with Fehr & Peers Transportation Consultants. Our office is at 160 West Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose. I prepared the traffic analysis for the EIR and then subsequent analysis for the Phase 1 project. I think this question is best answered by stepping back and telling you a little bit about traffic analysis, so that we can talk about where those two numbers come from. When we’re doing a traffic analysis the Town and other jurisdictions, like Caltrans and VTA, have standards for what we look at. We typically evaluate either level of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 54 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 service or quality of service for transportation facilities. For intersections specifically we look at peak hours, so we look at the AM commute time and the PM commute time. That typically corresponds to 7:00 to 9:00 in the morning, and 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. What we do is we take traffic counts at locations that could be affected and we evaluate how they’re operating today, and we do that by using average delay. We look at the intersection and we look at how much vehicle traffic is there. We count bikes, we count pedestrians, we got some computer models that help us evaluate average delay at those intersections. It looks at every single movement and approach and it figures out if you were to approach that intersection, how long on average would you be stuck there? When we did the traffic analysis for the EIR we looked at the full build-out of the project, and we did counts at the very end of 2012 and 2013 at numerous intersections around Los Gatos and Campbell and San Jose to evaluate how they were operating at that timeframe. We also then added in all of the traffic that would be caused by projects that were either under construction or already approved, for example, the Albright project was included in that, and that’s called the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 “background traffic.” It’s existing traffic, plus traffic from all these other things that are happening, and that gives us the background traffic. When we were asked to do some subsequent analysis for the Phase 1 project we were asked what happens now that we are adding in Phase 1 on top of the background traffic? So 2013 traffic, plus we added about 16 developments that were in process, under construction, or approved, plus Phase 1. Then the other things we added were all of the improvements that were part of the Phase 1 project, for example, at Los Gatos Boulevard and Lark there are additional lane configurations, so an additional northbound left turn lane and additional eastbound left turn lane, so from Lark onto Los Gatos Boulevard. There are also a variety of pedestrian improvements, crosswalk changes, and things like that. At the intersection of SR 17 northbound on Lark there is an additional right turn lane to get onto the freeway. So we added all of that into our traffic analysis. Where those percentages come from is when you look at just background traffic analysis with no lane configuration improvements at those intersections, you get a certain average delay. Then when you add in the North 40 Phase 1 project, you end those traffic improvements. What LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 56 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ends up happening is you actually decrease delay a little bit, because you’ve added additional lanes, you’ve added additional capacity. So that’s where those numbers come from. We did it at two intersections. For Phase 1 anyway we looked specifically at more contained and adjacent to the site, because we already looked at build- out for 20+ intersections. We were really trying to understand the localized impacts of Phase 1 and make sure that it is conforming with the EIR, so that’s where those numbers came from. If you compare background to background plus Phase 1, plus the transportation improvements, you end up with a 36% reduction in delay in the morning. So you go from 51 seconds of average delay down to 32.7 seconds of average delay, and that change is 36%. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you for doing that, because I think we’re probably going to get into some detail on that later. I did want to hear it, because this is what I saw here. The second question I had was about what’s included in the TIA. I looked at Fact 9 in the Staff Report that lists six future, I guess, significant pending development projects. When I look at that list, five of LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 57 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 those six are complete now, and they’re all occupied, and I believe one of them is only 50% occupied. To what extent did you rely on projections on those five versus taking counts after those five were in place? KATIE COLE: The last time we took counts was January and February of 2013, so we have not taken additional traffic counts since then. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Do you believe that we should take another look at those counts, given that those are before those projects, or some of those projects, were complete? KATIE COLE: It’s always fine to take additional traffic counts, that’s fine; I think you would get some information from that. However, when we did the background analysis for the EIR, we added in 16 approved and pending developments at their full build-out on top of those existing counts, so we have in essence accounted for what those projects would be like at their full occupancy, and so I feel confident that we have accounted for those other things that are happening in the Town, and also in adjacent towns. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Which raises two other things. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 One is did you in any way analyze the impact of the WAZE Apple/Google situation in beach traffic? KATIE COLE: You mean like where it’s routing people? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, and the impact that it’s having, the actual impact in town. KATIE COLE: We didn’t look specifically, although I do understand that particularly on weekends and during holiday time periods there is diversion from the freeway onto Los Gatos Boulevard. We specifically analyzed per state of the practice and what’s required by standards, the commute periods, which you don’t tend to get as much of that diversion happening. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, and the last one was something you mentioned a little bit, and that’s holiday traffic. I’m sure that holiday traffic would be a much bigger issue for Phase 2, but even Phase 1, do you anticipate traffic entering and leaving at a much higher rate around the holidays? KATIE COLE: The project site or just Los Gatos in general? COMMISSIONER HUDES: No, the project site and the adjacent Los Gatos Boulevard and Lark Avenue. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 KATIE COLE: I think you’ll continue to have what you have now, which is around holiday time you get busy traffic conditions on weekends; it’s pretty common in Silicon Valley. We don’t typically analyze for that condition, because then you’re building roads for your worst-case scenario. We can’t maintain and we can’t build capacity to cover the worst-case scenarios that you have. It’s just not a good use of funding, and it makes your roads really, really big, and there are tradeoffs to that, because the minute you start to expand the roads, you’ve now made it less desirable for bicycling, you’ve made crossing distances much longer for pedestrians, so there’s a balance when you’re adding capacity to roadways. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So is anything in Phase 1 in any way analogous to the traffic at, let’s say, Valley Fair at the holiday season? KATIE COLE: No, and we did not analyze it that way. It’s a small, mostly neighborhood-serving, commercial type of a use. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Since we have you, can you help me think through an issue? There’s an additional left- LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 turn lane heading east on Lark that would turn left going north… KATIE COLE: Onto Los Gatos Boulevard. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: …onto Los Gatos Boulevard, which your analysis, and I respect the analysis and I assume that it does, would reduce the wait time. Now, if I understood you correctly, and my own review of the traffic analysis earlier, there is no additional capacity added going north on Los Gatos Boulevard between Lark and, however you look at it, Good Samaritan and Burton, depending on which side you want to call, so despite the fact that there is a long-term build-out plan to expand Los Gatos Boulevard and the plans of the Town, we don’t own all the right-of-way and that kind of stuff at this point in time. Can you help me understand what the impact will be, or the effect will be, of adding that additional turn lane onto Los Gatos Boulevard headed north when you’re providing the opportunity for a greater number of cars to pass through, and not adding any capacity to accommodate them in the stretch between Lark and Good Samaritan? So help me understand how to think about that. KATIE COLE: Just the physical design, so clearly when you have a three, so you would have three left-turn LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 61 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 lanes going from Lark onto northbound Los Gatos Boulevard. You have to have receiving lanes to accept those cars. For every lane that turns left, you have to have a lane for those cars to enter, so what the physical design looks like now and can be easily accommodated within the existing space that is available on Los Gatos Boulevard is as a merge lane. One of those three lanes that are turning left will merge back, and then you would continue to have the two northbound lanes on Los Gatos Boulevard. The reason that that works is because as you process traffic through a signal, let’s say that the left turn gets 30 seconds of green time, so you process as many cars as you can turning left in, say, 30 seconds. Then the light turns red, stop says left turns, they have a chance to merge in, spread out, and continue on their way through the street. CHAIR BADAME: Does that answer your question, Commissioner Erekson? Did you have further comments? KATIE COLE: Where you get bottlenecks from merges is when you have a continual flow of traffic that never gets paused. In a traffic signal situation, you’re cycling through all of the movements of the traffic signal, and so you’re getting little breaks. After you’ve processed big platoons of traffic, you get a little break after every LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 62 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 time the light turns red. It allows cars to continue on and merge. We’ve got a lot of examples of this situation. It could be at ramps, it could be at intersections in the middle of town, in the middle of cities. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I don’t want to get off on this too much, and I don’t want to pretend to be a traffic engineer, because I’m not. So the other complication that would occur would be the northbound traffic? The light will change and the flow of northbound traffic will go north, but you’re going to control that by the way you control the light… KATIE COLE: Right. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: …because you wouldn’t allow that to happen, you have let the turn… Okay, I got it. KATIE COLE: And I think another good point… COMMISSIONER EREKSON: That’s fine; I got it. KATIE COLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: And we have traffic engineers for the Town that I can… KATIE COLE: I also just want to mention that the improvements that are being constructed at this intersection are not to accommodate Phase 1 of the North 40 project. These are improvements that were part of the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 63 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Town’s Capital Improvement Program and are being constructed as part of an improvement plan to help traffic flow in general in that area. We looked at what would be necessary for just Phase 1 of the project, and you would not necessarily conform to the standards that the Town has; we would not need to construct those improvements. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: Along those lines, I think, of the extent to which the offsite improvements are being provided, and this may not be a question for you, and I may follow up with Staff later, but in the original—it’s called the original—March 30th Staff Report, there are 14 bullets on projects that are going to happen to mitigate new traffic, and as you just pointed out, existing traffic. I was wondering how exactly that works. Ms. Baker, you had a slide up yesterday that showed $10.5 million being earmarked for these projects, the offsite improvements, that didn’t include the onsite improvements. WENDI BAKER: This is exclusively offsite. Offsite there is about $1 million worth of traffic mitigations that would be required per the EIR. However, the Town has identified certain areas. We are out there digging up utilities, putting in new pipes. It’s the right time to go out and do the capital improvements that the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 64 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Town has as part of their long-term vision, as well as have integrated as a community benefit for the Specific Plan. VICE CHAIR KANE: I misunderstood. That $10.25 million is not for these offsite improvements? WENDI BAKER: That is for the offsite. The onsite improvements are exclusive from this number. This number is only with relation to Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard improvements. VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s Item 2, and it’s the Staff Report from March 30th, and it’s very ambitious. It’s the clearest one I’ve seen on how much work is going to be done to help us out, and you’re saying that’s what the $10.25 million is for? WENDI BAKER: That is correct. VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. So how does that work? I start building this, and you write checks to the Department of Parks and Public Works, or they bill you? WENDI BAKER: Typically it would be much more efficient for a developer, because we’re already out there doing, again, the pipes and so forth, to also do the work here. We would obviously also bond for this, so that if something happened and the developer did not finish, then the Town could finish it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 65 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE CHAIR KANE: So these funds are dedicated, specifically marked, for these 15 or so projects? What if there was an overrun? What if the $10.25 million wasn’t enough? What have we done to ourselves? WENDI BAKER: Then we’ll be paying for the increase. This is on us, so we’ll be paying for the increase. Costs go up, right? Cost of concrete goes up, cost of asphalt goes up, cost of everything goes up, construction, costs, labor, and so if costs have gone up and this now becomes $11 million additional, then we’ve now completed $11 million worth. VICE CHAIR KANE: So you have a commitment with the Town. We’re estimating $10.25 million, all these improvements being put in to a large part for this project, but if it goes over, you’ll cover the overage, not the Town? WENDI BAKER: That is correct. VICE CHAIR KANE: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Further questions? Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had one more area I wanted to get into from my perspective, and that’s open space, and I had a few questions about open space. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 66 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Is it correct that the park is less than half an acre, and the orchard is about less than half an acre? And related to that, if the rest of the open space is spread across the site, why not consider concentrating more open space in larger areas, as compared to having it spread as much across the site? WENDI BAKER: Do you have the slide from our slideshow that shows the breakdown? Maybe that will be more helpful than this, I think. The community park includes the 39 garden plots, and there are orchards throughout the entire Specific Plan, so this application is not only a half an acre of orchard plantings, but that community park is about the size of Town Plaza, which is about 22,000 square feet, so that is about half an acre. When we are looking at this area right here, what we’re very cautious of, we weren’t including some of these paseos that run into there and so forth. There are other areas that are open space. The idea was to have interconnection, to have great paseos, and great pedestrian connections, to have the setbacks on Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard, and within the Specific Plan. It’s not contemplating one large turf, one soccer field; the intent in the Specific Plan is to spread out the open space. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 67 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: The two largest areas are the park, and the orchard that fronts Lark Avenue? WENDI BAKER: Well, no. I think we have here the perimeter lot coverage is about 40,000 square feet. That includes this area right here, and this area right here. That’s about 11.2% of the total open space. Not 11.2% of the 30%, that’s 11.2% of 100% of the 30%, if that makes any sense. It get’s a little bit complicated. So these areas, while significant, are not the only areas within the Specific Plan. This area here is about a 12,000 to 13,000 square foot open space; it’s about the size of a large single-family lot without the home on it, so that is a nice park area. We have other areas. I’ll give an example. When you drive past the recently completed Lester Lane—I don’t want to draw on any previous developments as bad examples—but they have a small park in there that’s about 5,000 square feet, which is similar to some of these parks that you might be looking at, and it actually has a sign on it that it’s for private use only and that it’s only for residents and you had… AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). CHAIR BADAME: I’m sorry, members of the audience, I have to ask you to refrain from speaking. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 68 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 WENDI BAKER: So if you drive back in that new subdivision that was at the Swanson Ford site, there is a park in there with that sign. All of these spaces are open to the public, as we mentioned last night, 85% of them open to the public. The orchards I believe are 2.2 acres. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just maybe if you could get to the other question, why focus on spreading out the open space versus having it more concentrated and creating larger areas of open space? WENDI BAKER: I’m going to try to pull up the information within the Specific Plan, and if you don’t mind, it’s just going to take me a moment, because the Specific Plan has certain sections that identify having smaller, more neighborhood, if you want to call them “pocket parks,” and then also having interconnectivity with pedestrian ways. CHAIR BADAME: While you research that, I believe Vice Chair Kane has a question, if it’s a quick one. No? All right. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I did have one more follow up on open space when I get this answered, if you don’t mind. CHAIR BADAME: Certainly. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 69 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that has to do with some of the things that were raised by Ms. Doerner yesterday about the open space and what percentage is open green versus hardscape? I know it’s all shown as green on here, but what percentage is hardscape versus actual green? WENDI BAKER: We have that calculation for this area in its entirety, and that’s what you see when we have to break… I think it’s in your Staff Report; 22+% of green space versus the, I believe it was, 39% of overall, which includes plazas, and it includes the multi-use trails, which you cannot include as part of our green open space, which we have both within the project as well as on the perimeter of the project. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that does not include hardscape? WENDI BAKER: Again, the 39% does, but the 22+% does not. She was specifically referring to a very small portion of our plan where we do have some enclosed first level spaces for private use, and we are referring to that in our plan as private open space, and that is not within the 85% of publicly assessable open space that we (inaudible) yesterday. The assumption is in those spaces that we would have about 50% hardscape and 50% softscape, but even if LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 those private open spaces were 100% hardscape, we would still have far above 20% of the green space that’s required for the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Perhaps I should reframe my question. I was talking about the public open space. What percentage of that is hardscape versus green? WENDI BAKER: I don't know if we have that exact calculation, but we have 22+% that’s green, and then 39%, so you end up with… The idea was that you would get about 10% of sidewalks, multi-use paths, plazas and so forth, minimum, and we end up with about 19% as those things. Some of that is adapting 10’ wide multi-use paths to have great pedestrian and bicycle connections, and you do not count that towards your green space. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, and then Commissioner Hanssen. WENDI BAKER: Okay, to get back to your original, in Policy 03, Neighborhood Open Space Network, it says, “Provide an open space network of neighborhood parks, passive open space, plazas, pedestrian paseos, landscape buffers, and/or common open space per Specific Plan open space standards.” Then it goes on to discuss what might be appropriate uses. No requirements, but what might be appropriate uses. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 71 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: What number are you referring to? WENDI BAKER: That is Policy 03; it’s on 2-11 of the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I got it. WENDI BAKER: The goal about that says, “To integrate an interconnected system of open spaces, parks, and plazas with the Specific Plan area,” and right before that it says, “The Specific Plan area shall encourage outdoor activity by integrating a variety of open spaces such as pocket parks, parks and plazas, common gathering areas, courtyards, pedestrian paseos, clubhouse and barbeque areas, walkable streets lined with large shade trees and active streetscape, landscape buffers, and ample seating areas.” COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HUDES: You’re welcome. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, followed by Commissioner Hanssen. VICE CHAIR KANE: Last night at about 11:15 I thought Commissioner Erekson asked an outstanding question, and I think I remember you giving some outstanding answers, but it was late. So what I actually did is I went back to the tape during the day and found the segment, and came up LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 72 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 with some additional issues. This concerns buildings for Complex 24 and 25. I’m looking at page 1.0. CHAIR BADAME: Of the application. VICE CHAIR KANE: I had earlier talked about Building 24 sort of sticking out and being right on top of the garage and gas and concerns about distance from gasoline, and Commissioner Erekson was talking about not just Building 24, but Garden Cluster 25 as well. He didn’t say this, but I’m saying it: They just kind of, sort of stick out like sore thumbs, like they got squeezed in there, and I may need to talk to Ms. Krugmeier about that. Commissioner Erekson asked questions along the line of is this excellence in planning and good long-term planning? He made the point, and I remember the mantra: “Commercial, commercial, housing, commercial,” and they just stick out in the middle of that whole commercial row. Larry Cannon had some concerns with…my interpretation is the isolation of the two buildings, and in his last letter asked that you do something about that, and I think—and Ms. Krugmeier may know—the other architect responded that they put in more lanes and more access and more something, and I’m just saying I appreciate that, but it tends of underscore their isolation that they would put in more roads and lanes, and so the question I suppose is… LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I heard your answers to Commissioner Erekson last night. You’ve got these guys opening on Los Gatos Boulevard, and you’ve got them in the middle of commercial, and they just seem alienated. The question is have you thought about trying to put them somewhere else? Move the other thing to the east, and maybe have some open space there? Garden Cluster 24 is a building, and then it calls itself a five-plex. So that means what, there are two dwelling units in Building 24 itself, and then three separate little tiny condos? WENDI BAKER: The way that those buildings function is they are three units in the front, and there is sort of like a carriage unit above the garages, so you end up with, I believe, five units in that area. What our constraints were, which was what I was speaking about yesterday, is that this is Los Gatos Boulevard. You can confirm with Staff whether I made an accurate assumption, but we were told pretty early on that ingress and egress out of this area, given the right turn lane, how people are starting to merge onto that right turn lane, there’s a conflict of movements, so you ended up with a… You have a 30’ orchard setback, you have a 20’ two-story LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 74 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 setback. Actually, our two-story goes to right about here, so we don’t go to 35’ until beyond there. You’re right, this is a constrained area, and perhaps you could put open space in this area and instead put more units to get to your 20 units per acre. In the community park, for example, you starting shifting buildings around, and we didn’t feel that ultimately placing open space on the Boulevard was necessarily going to be the most useful open space, nor is there a requirement for us to not have these buildings on there; in fact, they’re a permitted use. So while I understand where your thought process is with respect to continuity along the boulevard, long range planning and so forth, these are permitted within the Specific Plan. VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m sure they’re permitted. It doesn’t make them a good idea. I’m talking about those six tiny, little units that open out onto Los Gatos Boulevard. They’re children waving in the wind, and those six could be relocated, whereas the Garden Cluster Buildings 24 and 25 have a huge setback right where they are, and it looks like it was necessary to squeeze those guys in, and that just doesn’t strike me as good design, especially when they’re LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 75 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 surrounded by gasoline stations and large commercial buildings. WENDI BAKER: We obviously are constrained in this area by the existing build-out in this area as well as access. Ultimately, the buyer of these units will know that these units are fronting onto Los Gatos Boulevard. We’re not going to somehow shield Los Gatos Boulevard. VICE CHAIR KANE: I think they’ll figure that out. Even if they’re young Millennials, they’ll figure that out. My opinion is—I’ve got to put this in the form of a question—you may want to relocate those, because it doesn’t seem to be the best design characteristic of other good designs in the project, and I don’t think it goes to the look and feel. It goes to the look and squeeze in. WENDI BAKER: I do appreciate your comment, and it’s something that we can continue. CHAIR BADAME: All right, I’m going to take that as a did you know, and I’m going to move on to Commissioner Hanssen. CHAIR BADAME: I had a question about the parks relating to Ms. Doerner’s presentation yesterday. Is it true that none of the parks have any playground equip? WENDI BAKER: There is not playground equip. If you have feedback that you would like to have playground LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 76 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 equip, we would enjoy hearing that. But there is, again, no requirement for playground equipment, and given who our target buyer is that’s not necessarily what this audience is interested in. But that is something that we would be happy to discuss. CHAIR BADAME: I don't know that we did or we didn’t; I just wanted to understand, and given that I think most people are assuming that with three-bedroom and four- bedroom places that people with children will move in there. At least when I raised my kids, we used to take them to the park with the playground equipment. WENDI BAKER: We do oftentimes when we’re building communities integrate a tot lot. There are spaces for a tot lot within this community. We’ve put in other facilities like Bocce ball courts, fire pits, a dog park. We’ve put in other types of amenities, again, to fill the unmet needs of Los Gatos. So there is an opportunity. There is a lovely park right nearby at Highland Oaks, and there is a tot lot that’s there, and again, because you can find this in other areas of town, and because we are running everything through these unmet needs filter and the “shalls” within the Specific Plan, we did not provide a tot lot, but that’s something we’re open to talking about. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That’s fine, thank you. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 77 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BADAME: I’m going to take a moment to just remind the audience to please refrain from any comments, or any booing or hissing, and please respect the differences in opinion that we all have. Thank you for your cooperation. Was your question answered? All right. Do we have further questions for the Applicant? Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: A couple of minor ones about the plans. Maybe this was covered, but I might have missed it. Who manages the community gardens and orchards? Is the orchard parking considered open space? And are there walnut trees that are being utilized in the plans? WENDI BAKER: I can start with we do have our agrarian consultant here, Zach Lewis. He’s helped us design the varietals of the orchard trees. We’ve put a tremendous amount of time and thought into how we maintain this. Ultimately, this is owned and maintained and managed by the HOA. There will be an operating plan in place, which Zach can talk about. There are some walnut trees integrated. They’re in this region, I believe. There are also some vineyards along here, so there are both in that area. We are open to talking about different varietals, or more walnuts, as we spoke of in the last Planning Commission meeting, but I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 78 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 think Zach might want to talk about how we arrived at the 544 different orchard trees and species. ZACH LEWIS: Good evening. Could you just rephrase the question again? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Three questions: Who manages the community gardens and orchards? Is the orchard parking considered open space? And when and how are the walnut trees being utilized? ZACH LEWIS: In terms of how the orchard and the gardens will be managed, that’s going to be a part of the design process based on the perspective buyers and the people that will inhabit the community. I’m putting forward a package of recommendations and ideas on how to maintain community gardens and the orchard. There are a variety of examples. Through the HOA and being able to pay for somebody that’s going to manage that, you can have that person manage the orchard entirely, and I’m giving an entire packet on how to manage it. Or if there is interest from the people that are actually living there, they would have the opportunity to maintain a role in that as well. That’s one way to go about it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 79 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 With the community gardens, again, an individual that runs the landscape could manage it, but the better way to do it would be to integrate it and have people that are actually living there manage the plots themselves and take home and share in the produce. What was the second question? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is the orchard parking considered open space. PAULA KRUGMEIER: Regarding the open space calculations, we used what were the dimensions and specifications within the Specific Plan on every calculation for open space, so the answer is that if there are elements within the parking that I believe are 6’ or greater wide, then they can be counted in open space. If they are narrower than that, then they cannot be counted as open space or green space. COMMISSIONER HUDES: If I could direct your attention to 2.2. There’s a picture on the bottom that says “Orchard Parking,” and then right next to it is an area that looks like that might be what we’re talking about. Is that the orchard parking, and is that entire area considered open space? PAULA KRUGMEIER: No, it’s not. Just the part that’s actually planted; a little strip where you plant the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 80 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 tree is permitted to be counted as open space. The parking lot is not open space. The paved area is not open space. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. PAULA KRUGMEIER: I would also like to add that there has been a tremendous amount of thought put into the open spaces here, not just in two dimensions, but the experience in three dimensions. How one travels through these spaces, where they get narrower, where they get wider, where they open up, where you have this kind of landscape environment or you have a different kind of landscape environment; so as you travel through the North 40 you have a variety of experiences, as you have a variety of experiences in the Town of Los Gatos. The open space also accommodates a multi-model path, and as we get into the Transition District the open space embraces a pedestrian environment that’s a little bit different than the Lark District. There’s just been a tremendous amount of thought going into the exact dimensions of these spaces. How the tree canopies are, how the walkways are, how they relate to stoops, how the fact that all the garage doors are facing the back and not facing the streets. So anyway, there’s a lot of layering that has gone on here, and that has gone into the open space plan. Thank you. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 81 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions for the Applicant? Seeing none, the public testimony portion of the public hearing is now closed, so you may have a seat, Ms. Baker. Thank you very much. Yes, we will take a break. We will come back in ten minutes. (INTERMISSION) CHAIR BADAME: If you could all please take a seat, the ten minutes are up. Please take a seat. Thank you, everybody. We have a multi-faceted application, which requires a thorough analysis, so before we evaluate the items on page 5 of the Staff Report, do Commissioners have any questions or comments? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question, because this is the first time since I’ve been on the Commission that we’ve looked at a Vesting Tentative Map. It seemed to me that the answer would be yes, but if you’re looking at the Architecture and Site in the Vested Tentative Map, could there be a scenario where you would say yes to one and no to the other, because they’re kind of tied in to each other? Does my question make sense? JOEL PAULSON: It does make sense, and generally they are locked together when you have the map in the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 82 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Architecture and Site, because the map actually lays out the footprints, so they are tied together and there are separate findings for both the Map Application and the Architecture and Site Application. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right, and that’s why I asked the question, because the findings were different, but it seemed to me they kind of went hand-in-hand. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have a couple of questions for Staff. My guess is the first couple of questions will be for Mr. Morley and his Staff and relate to traffic and offsite improvements, and then my subsequent question will be either for him or potentially for Mr. Paulson or Mr. Schultz. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I just wondered if the Chair wanted to structure this section of the discussion at all, because we have the possibility of being in a lot of different areas? CHAIR BADAME: We do, and my hope was to walk through the items on page 5 with Housing, and Open Space, and View Corridors, moving to Traffic and Additional Environmental Review, which Traffic would be second. Would you mind holding off on that, Commissioner Erekson? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 83 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I serve at the pleasure of the Council, and at meetings at the pleasure of the Chair. CHAIR BADAME: I’m so glad. Thank you for your understanding. VICE CHAIR KANE: Before we begin that journey, I have a question of Staff. The eventual motion on this project is reasonably huge compared to other motions we have had. Is the net result of that binary? In other words, if we found compliance with 15 of the 16 requirements and someone makes an issue on number 16, would that cause a motion to fail? It’s not a motion though; it’s a recommendation, isn’t it? We’re not voting to approve or deny, we’re making a recommendation to Town Council, so if one of us had an issue with certain planks in the 15 conditions and findings, what would that do to the motion to recommend or not recommend? JOEL PAULSON: That would be reflected in however the Commissioner votes on the item in total. There could be additional comments added to the record as far as I agree with X, Y and Z, but not A. VICE CHAIR KANE: So we don’t have to agree to everything? Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 84 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: This is a question I guess maybe for the attorney. I read the letter from the Applicant, the July 7th letter, and there was a lot of discussion about objective and subjective standards. When I go and I read the Specific Plan, which contains the standards that are going to be applied, I don’t see anywhere that says this is a subjective standard; the following is an objective standard. I take all the words seriously and I want to see whether this is acceptable, so when I look at the words I say it’s how do you apply the standards that are in there, and some of those words can be supported or denied by facts, and that is where I see something being objective. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And I agree with that statement. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Where I can’t see something supported by facts, then it falls in the subjective category. Is that a fair way for me to operate? ROBERT SCHULTZ: That’s a fair way to operate, yes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Okay, let’s get started. We will start our discussion on page 5, under Analysis, with the Housing topic, which was quite a hot ticket based on public LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 85 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 testimony and written communication. So would anybody like to start the conversation as it relates to housing? I have a question then, and this will be for Staff. There was testimony we received last night about the RHNA requirements. If this gets built, how many units actually meet the requirements? Is it 50, is it 270/320? What is it? JOEL PAULSON: I’ll begin, and if the attorney wants to jump in. For the planning exercise of creating the housing element, the Town is required to show how it can accommodate the Town’s regional housing needs. Through that exercise different sized jurisdictions have default densities for what housing and community development allows that jurisdiction for the Housing Element portion of the planning exercise to count as affordable. The Town’s is 20 units per acre, and so that’s where we got these 20 units per acre, the by right developments for the 13.5 acres for the North 40. We are simply with the Housing Element planning and showing that we can accommodate that housing in the Town. The Town ultimately isn’t building all of that housing, so the market will come forward with applications, which may or may not be on some of our housing sites for LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 86 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the housing sites inventory, and then when those are built they will be credited into the category for the affordability level. That’s Staff’s understanding. In this case we will have 50 of the units will be in one of the affordable level categories, and the remainder of the units will be in the Above Moderate category, which is a category of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment. We will get credit for those units, but all of those units above the 50 will not be credited as affordable housing units, because they won’t be restricted. That is Staff’s understanding, unless the Town Attorney has any additional. ROBERT SCHULTZ: What you have to remember is the Housing Element is just a planning document. It’s just to show the State, because the State has mandated us and every other jurisdiction to come up with a plan to show what your RHNA numbers are, and that you have the ability somewhere out there to make these types of units available. Certainly the Applicant could have come in with all of those different categories, but we can’t require him, even though our Housing Element says that that’s just a planning document. The application in front of you has the 50 Very Low, which we’ll get credit for, and then we’ll get credit LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 87 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 for the above market rate, but they’re still part of our total RHNA numbers of the 619. Then when we come back at this in 2022, it will be reevaluated and we’ll have to show where the numbers can be met, if not on this site still, elsewhere. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I just wanted to also check my understanding, and my understanding is that under the Specific Plan and under various requirements on us, including what started with the State, we are required to take 13.5 acres of the North 40, which is more than the first phase, and see that that has the 20+ units; not less than that, but that many. We have talked about the possibility of being able to move those, but we’ve also talked about the fact that we’ve heard from the Applicant the difficulty of moving them, for example, on the northerly part it has to be above retail and that makes it very difficult to achieve 20 units to the acre. So I guess the question simply is, somewhere on the North 40 there must be 13.5 acres with 20 units per acre, so we don’t have any discretion on that. We may have discretion, may have discretion, on moving it, but we don’t have discretion on reducing it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 88 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: Correct. Let’s say down the road the entire North 40 area is built out and we are still in our current planning period and we haven’t hit the 13.5- acre threshold, then we would have to accommodate another site that would provide 20 units per acre, and rezone it for the buy right development. So really, there are some factors that weigh in there as far as where are we at in the Housing Element cycle and how long does that timeframe take. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: You said the next cycle starts when? JOEL PAULSON: 2023. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And we have no knowledge of when the north portion, if at all, will develop? JOEL PAULSON: We don’t, and we’re currently just evaluating the Phase 1 applications. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just as a follow up to that, this is something that although I’ve been involved in this for a while, I’m not quite clear on. The 13.5 acres, do they have to be contiguous? JOEL PAULSON: There is nothing in there that says that they have to be contiguous. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 89 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: So how do you get to density if you have, let’s say, 13.5 individual acres peppered across that? How is density measured in that case? JOEL PAULSON: The density is measured on the dwelling units, so using your example, you could have 13 one-acre sites at 20 units per acre, and then another half acre at 20 units per acre, so that would be 20 for each of those acres and then ten for the half-acre that’s left over. Typically that’s not how things would come forward, and that’s not how development generally occurs, but I don't know that there’s any restriction as to that being a possibility. Obviously there’s a (inaudible). COMMISSIONER HUDES: How is the site defined? I said acres, but is it a parcel? What is a site? How does that relate? JOEL PAULSON: The example that they put up earlier, and it’s on the back wall, is how they are calculating, and that is Exhibit… So we’ll find the exhibit, but how they’re calculating it is those blocks of gray contain a certain number of acres, and then they are looking at the number of units that are within those blocks, and that gives you the dwelling units per acre. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen, followed by Commissioner O'Donnell. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 90 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question about the density bonus, because it came up in the letter from the Applicant’s attorney, and it was in our packet as well. I worked on the Housing Element part, so I had some understanding of it, but this is fairly complex. My understanding of the density bonus is that what kicks in the density bonus is if you have the required percentage of affordable units as a percentage of the total units that are being requested, is that correct? JOEL PAULSON: That is correct. There are varying scales. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right. So just hypothetically, if it was 100 units and 20% of them or 40% of them are affordable, you could get the density bonus, whatever the table says? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. Some percentage of density bonus, that is correct. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And as it stands right now, not all of the potential units are being built out? They could be built out anyway, so the density bonus that they would get if this particular project were approved wouldn’t be 100% of the bonus that they could get if they built out the other 44 units? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 91 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: Correct, and actually doing 237 in the first phase is their base, so to get to the 270 there are 33 units left that could be accommodated in a future phase, and so that, coupled with the 33% bonus if they met the particular criteria, I think it’s 2/44 or 2/45; there’s a rounding question that’s there. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: It’s our understanding that the statement that was made in the Applicant’s attorney’s letter is not correct, that they can get the 35% bonus on the amount of units they build, as long as they meet the required affordable percentage? JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Before I get to my question I want to make sure I understood that last answer. You say that is inconsistent with what their lawyer said? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: If I read the letter correctly, and perhaps I read it incorrectly, it said that if you don’t approve the current proposal we can’t get the density bonus. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: You won’t get the density bonus unless you build something, right? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think it said the full 270 units. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: You mean the 35% is applied to the 270 units? I guess I’m not following the question. JOEL PAULSON: How I understood the question was that if they get the density bonus that they have to be approved at the current density that they’re proposing. Is that the statement that you were looking at in the letter? Or do you have it in front of you? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I probably should pull up the exact wording. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: While she’s doing that… I would like to go back to it when she gets there, because it’s an important point. Somewhat on the same line, the Applicant has said look, we’re required to get 13.5 acres at the higher density, and they said we’re doing it. Now, there’s been discussion, and I’m going to pin this down, that there is a piece of the Transitional area that is not before us tonight, but there is a piece and nobody has told us the acreage. Well, I guess it’s three or four acres, I don't know. And then in addition to that Transition acreage, which is not before us but apparently under the control of Grosvenor, there’s the north 20 acres, or whatever it is. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 93 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I’m wondering, if an applicant comes in and says you’re required to have 13.5 acres at higher density, and they submit that, can they be denied on some basis like we don’t want it within that geographical area? Yes, we want it in the 40 acres, but we don’t necessarily want, for example, all of it in the first phase, because that is what the attorney said we could not do. What is our opinion on that? ROBERT SCHULTZ: If I understand the question correctly, once the 13.5 acres have been developed out at residential completely and you have the number of housing at 345, then the Specific Plan is built out and it would not allow any more residential units on the North 40 unless an amendment was done. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But that’s not my question. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Okay. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: My question is an Applicant comes in and says here’s your Specific Plan. One of the things that is in your Specific Plan is I’ve got to develop 13.5 acres. Now, we could say to him you don’t have to develop it, the 40 acres has to develop it. So, as I read the attorney for the Applicant, the attorney for the Applicant said look, we’ve submitted LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 94 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 everything “in their view” pursuant to your Specific Plan, including the 13.5 acres, and, the letter goes on to say, you don’t have the discretion to tell us to move some of that high density acreage. So for example, say well, we’ll take ten acres here and we’ll take 3.5 someplace else. She has said no, you can’t do that. So really what I’m asking is do we have a position on that? Are we going to accept that as correct, or do we think no, you could require it to move? ROBERT SCHULTZ: I’m going to allow the Planning Commission to move those units for the discussion for this evening. We’re still working through it and that comes down to whether it’s an objective or subjective, but for you, since it’s a recommendation, my opinion at this point in time is you do have that ability to move units. That could change when it gets to Council, but I’d rather give you the ability to make those changes. But again, you have to at least tie that somewhere between the objective standards within the objective standards within the (inaudible). COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So I understand you to say at the moment that’s true, but by the time it gets to Council you have had sufficient time to have done more and more legal analysis, and that’s fine, because it’s not binding on that. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 95 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 (To Commissioner Hanssen) Did you find the question you wanted? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I did. I think the difference in what I asked and what is actually said in here, it says, “Density Bonus Law requires the Town to grant the density bonus and approve the 320 units the project is entitled to. Density Bonus Law contains no grounds in which a density bonus may be denied.” My question was around the number of units, not whether they would get the density bonus or not. What I’m saying is if instead of 320 units, let’s say, I’m just throwing out some number, it was 200, and 120 were deferred to Phase 2. As long as they met the requirement for the affordable housing, they would get the density bonus against the 200 units? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And we wouldn’t question that anyway, because we have a policy, an ordinance in Town that says that yes, you get that? JOEL PAULSON: Yes. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: In the below market program, I had a few questions about that, and I had some questions LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 96 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 last night referring to the Staff Report of March 30th, page 8, and the attorney’s letter of October 21st. JOEL PAULSON: Can you please let us know what the Exhibit letter is? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Exhibit 8, Attachment A, isn’t it, October 21st? Yes, thank you. Let’s start with the Staff Report, page 8, March 30th. Item B, “Is the application in conformance with the Town’s BMP program?” What are the consequences if it were not in compliance with the BMP program? ROBERT SCHULTZ: To drive it down a little bit further, I think the question you’re asking is regarding whether because our BMP says it has to be integrated within and spread out throughout the project as opposed to being on one site, does that make it a violation of our BMP? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Correct, and those are the things that are in the attorney’s letter. ROBERT SCHULTZ: What it does say in our BMP is “where feasible,” and so when State law requires senior housing to be located all together, to me, my opinion was you can reach the opinion that yes, it’s not feasible to spread it out in this scenario, because State and Federal law does not allow you to do that. That’s the opinion I rendered to the CDC when it was in front of them. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 97 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Because throughout all the talks with the Specific Plan the senior housing was such a viable component to the project, it’s very easy to make the argument that it is in compliance with the BMP, because of the fact that the Federal and State law do not allow you to spread this out. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So despite the fact the housing is concentrated in one area, and that it is something that you can recognize as being separate, and also has smaller square footage, those, I’m calling them exceptions, are allowed, because that’s the only way that this would be feasible? ROBERT SCHULTZ: If you want senior housing. COMMISSIONER HUDES: That’s the finding we have to make. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Certainly the other part would be to do away with senior housing and disperse the BMPs throughout the entire project. They would not be senior housing, because you’re not allowed to do that, so you would lose senior housing in order to do the BMP. Finding whether it’s in compliance or not is a whole different product. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 98 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that’s the combination of senior and BMP? It’s not senior in and of itself; it’s that combination (inaudible). ROBERT SCHULTZ: Senior in and of itself also has to be even if it was senior without it being Low income, it needs to be connected. CHAIR BADAME: And senior would be considered one of our unmet needs. Further comments on housing from Commissioners? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Back to this issue about where the units are located. The Specific Plan is silent about how the units should be distributed. The guidance that is given is that the amount of residential is mostly in the Lark District, and then goes down as you go to the Northern District, but residential is permitted in all three districts, with the limitation especially in the Northern District that it has to be over commercial. We had discussed this yesterday, and in the case of the Northern District, aside from the fact that it looked like it might be difficult, it may not be impossible, and also it might be the case that that’s something that Millennials might want, which is one of the potential unmet needs. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 99 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 My question is since there isn’t really any guidance about how this stuff should be distributed, then there isn’t any guidance that you can’t distributed, then there isn’t any guidance that you can’t distribute it, so I’m trying to understand what latitude that we have, because you can make an argument certainly that having the housing distributed is going to be a significantly less strain on resources by just having units in different places, but the Specific Plan doesn’t tell you how many could be where? ROBERT SCHULTZ: It does not, so that’s where on the strain on resources you need to tie that to the infrastructure or other objective standards that you can find within the Specific Plan. CHAIR BADAME: I would say you’re referring to the un-specificity of the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I am. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: The only testimony we have so far is that putting 20 units per acre on the northern portion is not only impractical, but is impossible under the height requirements and the requirement that it be on the second floor. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 As I understand it, the Town has not independently tried to determine whether you could do 20 units per acre above retail. The testimony we received was that you could not. So were we to find that do it anyway, apparently we have nothing in the record to support that. JOEL PAULSON: And I think what’s important is, as I believe the Town Attorney said before, you need to tie that stuff to evidence that’s in the record to support those findings from the objective standards. COMMISSIONER HUDES: In my mind, as an example, the senior housing that’s currently in the Transition District could be in the Northern District, for instance. I think the statement I’ve seen is that you could not do all 270 at 20 units per acre in the Northern District; that’s the testimony that I recall. I’m not even sure that we can back that up, but that’s what I’ve seen; not that some couldn’t be done in it. JOEL PAULSON: I think the testimony that was provided was for a 2.34-something acre site, so that was the testimony that was provided by the Applicant that’s in the record. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Could you repeat that? JOEL PAULSON: I’ll get the exact. I think it’s 2.34 acre site is what their example was showing how it LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 101 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 would not work, because it came out to 13 or 14 dwelling units per acre, even at that size of unit. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Taking that to a different point, I don’t know what would happen if it went to the logical conclusion, but I have to believe that when the Specific Plan was created and the decision was made to put residential only over commercial in the Northern District that this particular issue that we’re in where you have to have 20 units per acre wasn’t a consideration. Because of the Housing Element, although it got completed before the Specific Plan, it didn’t come to a logical conclusion, and so I find it hard to think that we’re in a situation where you can have literally all of the units, other than the bonus units, have to be zoned at 20 units per acre, because 270 are allotted and 270 are required. That basically says you can’t have housing in the Northern District unless it’s with the bonus. I don't know if the makers of the plan would have intended it that way, or if it’s even valid that you can’t possibly do it, but clearly the senior housing that’s in the Transition District that’s proposed, as Commissioner Hudes pointed out, has a waiver on the height restriction. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 102 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 BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, followed by Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I’m just going to comment that my recollection of the testimony from the Applicants with respect to whether or not one could meet the 20 units per acre standard in the Northern District was a combination of the limitation on the fact that it had to be built over commercial, and the height limitation that is imposed on that, and so the combination of those two made it not possible to develop 20 units per acre; that’s my recollection. I could be wrong, but that’s my recollection of the testimony of the Applicants. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: That is my recollection too, but my point was that what I recall being presented to us was that were this built out as proposed there would still be 45 units for the Northern District. Now, that’s a recollection, but I think that (inaudible). JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay. So it isn’t that there would be no units for the Northern District; under this scenario there would be 45 units that could be built on the northern portion. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 103 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, followed by Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Let me ask the Staff a clarification of that. If I understand how the numbers work, there are only 33 what I would call base market units left of the 270, so that without qualifying for a density bonus, the maximum number of the units that could be built on the…remaining in subsequent phases, assuming this phase were passed as proposed, there would be without a density bonus only 33 units allowed, and at the maximum, if they qualified, there’s either another 11 or 12, depending upon whether you put in an Excel spreadsheet round up or round down, so there’s a 33 to potential 44, 45 range that’s possible, correct? JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Could we try to get our numbers straight, because they can’t both be correct. I just said something diametrically opposed to that. I’d like to think they could both be correct. Just give me the numbers again. Forget the density bonus; I’m just forgetting for the moment. How many units were to be put on it? It was 750 or something, but it broke it down to a lower number. What was that number? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 104 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: The maximum in the Specific Plan is 270. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: That’s for the whole 40, or for the first phase? JOEL PAULSON: For the whole Specific Plan, however, the base dwelling units for this first phase are 237. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And that’s what the 35% is applied (inaudible)? JOEL PAULSON: That is correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: So 235 minus 270, it gets down to what Commissioner Erekson (inaudible). JOEL PAULSON: That’s 237 minus 270 is the 33 units base that are left, and then should someone apply for a density bonus they could get up to an additional 12 units; that’s where the 45 number comes from and the range that Commissioner Erekson was speaking of. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes, did you want to chime in? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, I did want to understand clearly whether Phase 1 equals Lark and Transition 100%, or are there elements that are not part of that? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 105 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: There is a portion of the Transition District that is not part of Phase 1. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And so if there were a desire, there would not be the inability to have units going into those areas, correct? JOEL PAULSON: That’s correct. There could be units in the remainder of the Transition District in some future phase. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that could be either in the northeast corner or whatever direction that is on the upper right, or potentially in the parking lot area behind the buildings? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. Generally, that kind of chunk that’s cut out, and I think there’s a little bit more as you come down to the Boulevard. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So if there were reconfiguration that caused things to shift, that same number might be achieved in some of those areas in addition to whatever might be achieved in the Northern District? JOEL PAULSON: That is possible. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We had a number on, I don't know what to call that, but it’s part of the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 106 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 transition that is not before us, but does anybody have a number for the acreage? JOEL PAULSON: We do not have that number. We can get that number. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: We know the total acreage of the property. We know the Northern area, and we know what’s being developed. JOEL PAULSON: We don’t have all the districts broken down by acreage, and if we did, then I wouldn’t be able to do that simple calculation for you. I can definitely get that, or as part of the recommendation we can carry that forward. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Just so we had some orders of magnitude, does anybody have… Oh, here, this may be it. CHAIR BADAME: We may have some information forthcoming. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: It would be helpful to us to have some idea. JOEL PAULSON: Just for the record, this is a document that the Applicant provided and they’re showing 4.8 acres, and we can put this up on the overhead if that would be helpful. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 107 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Just for the purposes of discussion, if we were to assume 4.8 acres. COMMISSIONER HUDES: There’s also a diagram that shows a sliver of Transition District to the right of Phase 1 development. Does that exist, or is that an error? JOEL PAULSON: That does exist. Why don’t we just put this up on the board, so everyone can take a look at it, and that way we’re all talking about what we’re… CHAIR BADAME: That would be helpful. Commissioners, does this help? JOEL PAULSON: So that blue area is the notch, and then as you can see to the right of the proposed Phase 1 there is a leg of additional Transition District, hence 4.8 acres, correct. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The numbers aren’t adding up completely for me. It says the Northern District is 10.4 acres, and if I add the 10.4 to the 4.8, that’s like 15.2, and I thought there are more like close to 20 left. Is it that five acres that they have as a cutout? JOEL PAULSON: I don’t have the whole thing in front of me, so I can’t tell you. Apparently we’re having some technical difficulties. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 108 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The Northern is the combination of the gray and the yellowish color? JOEL PAULSON: Yes. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That must be. If I’m doing the math, it would have to be. Yeah, okay. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But the only thing that is not encumbered with the second story requirement, in addition to what we’re going over, is that 4.8? JOEL PAULSON: Correct, and so I guess to Commissioner Hanssen’s, I wish I could read that far, but the 10.4 and the 5 is the 15.4 that you mentioned, and another 4.8 gets you up over 20 acres. You actually are about half, so that is probably accurate. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So question to that is about how many units at 20 units per acre could be in that 4.8? You can’t just divide and come up with whatever it is, 96 or whatever, because you’ve got setbacks and other things, streets and things like that. JOEL PAULSON: But that’s the maximum; we would look at the maximum. So the maximum that could be accomplished there would be 96, based on 20 units per acre. Now, whether or not that could be achieved from a site planning and layout perspective, that’s an exercise that would be for another application. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 109 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: So is that a number that we can work with as 96? JOEL PAULSON: 4.8 acres times 20 units per acre yields you 96 units, so that is the number you (inaudible). COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But we know that’s a gross number. JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And we don’t know how much would have to be dedicated for streets and whatever else, so it is a gross number. JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Okay. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Are there implications of us using a gross number—and this may be for the attorney— rather than an examined or planned number? ROBERT SCHULTZ: You can go ahead and use any number you would like. JOEL PAULSON: I would say that using the gross number, the implications potentially are that when someone comes forward with an application that a) they’re not able to accomplish 20 units per acre, or b) they don’t propose any residential in that 4.8 acres, then you’re at zero, and then you’re left with that moving forward to the Transition LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 District, which has the height and above commercial restrictions previously discussed. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, but that application could be denied though, correct? JOEL PAULSON: Which application? COMMISSIONER HUDES: That had no housing. CHAIR BADAME: The potential one. JOEL PAULSON: Yes. I mean you’d have to look at the standards in the Specific Plan, so yes, someone could come forward with all commercial and the Planning Commission would make that determination. CHAIR BADAME: Do we have further questions on housing? Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Let me be sure that I understand what the Chair’s pleasure is. Do you want questions or comments at this point in time? CHAIR BADAME: Actually, I want both. Because we might have questions of Staff as we’re asking questions now, but I would like the comments at the same time so that we can do our analysis on housing, traffic, open space, and look and feel. So to your pleasure, Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, so I have a comment, and I want to do a preface to the comment and say that I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 fully understand that we cannot make decisions on housing issues based on school impacts as a lead in to it. But we’ve had a lot of public testimony about the fact that a motivation—I’m not talking about a motivation by the Commission, but an expressed motivation of the public—would be to relocate housing in more northern and across the school boundary lines in order to address crowding in the schools. I want to suggest that that may or may not be a smart strategy that would serve the residents who are in the Los Gatos school districts well, just as a matter of information so it’s on the record. Here’s some information. Property tax revenue is an important source of review for the school districts, both the high school district and the elementary school district; since they are basic aid districts, they do not get funding from the State on an average daily attendance, so to the extent that there is property developed inside of the school district, they get property tax for them. The Los Gatos Union School District has also entered into a voluntary agreement with the developers that provides for them to be compensated, either in the form of land or in the form of monetary compensation; I believe that it’s $23,000, if my recollection is right, per LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 112 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 residential unit that is owned by the Applicant at the point in time that they develop it and is in the school district. Let’s assume for the moment that this or some other number of units were built in the side of the school district, and let’s assume that some number of residential units are built in the north part of the thing that are not in the school districts here. It is highly likely that the families that would live in that area will apply for inter- district transfers, and the district will likely turn them down, and those people are likely to appeal that to the County Office of Education, and one of the important criteria that the County Office of Education uses to resolve those kind of appeals has to do with neighborhoods, and we have been very public about the fact that this is a neighborhood. The risk is if in fact we push them more out of our school districts—and I’m classifying the two Los Gatos ones north—that in fact we will reduce both in perpetuity the property tax revenue that goes to the school districts, and we will reduce the short-term funding that comes to the Union School District to address them, and if in effect they were to grant the inter-district transfers, the school districts would be burdened with the expense of educating LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 113 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 those students with no revenue associated with it. That’s a big risk to it. That’s not a basis upon which we could make any decision about it, but just for the record it may not be the best strategy to reduce the number of residential units if the unspoken motivation would be to try to address crowding in the schools. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for those comments, Commissioner Erekson. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I appreciate that. It’s very helpful to understand that. For me, personally, I’m going to stay totally away from that area in my deliberations. I don’t have the comprehension of all of it that you do, and so for me, my exploration about the movement and relocation of units has to do more with could the layout of the site be reconfigured in order to achieve some of the other design standards that are in the plan? That’s why I was pursuing the number that could be moved, and that type of thing. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, followed by Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I was going to say, the reason why I said in the preface my understanding is we cannot consider what I just said in our deliberations, so I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 114 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 wouldn’t intend to either, but I felt the responsibility to help educate the public. We’ve had a huge number of public, verbally and in writing, help us, and in an effort to help educate the public about if they think that’s a good strategy, and if they were to criticize us for—and I’m not saying we would or wouldn’t—to not have pushed them, and that was their motivation, it would be helpful, I think, for them to understand. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell, followed by Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Again, our discussion isn’t so much to ask Staff, at the moment at least. The other thing that I am mindful of when we ask the Applicant what would happen essentially if we removed some of the housing from this project, and we didn’t talk about where it would go, but they basically said if you do that then we have to fill in whatever we can’t put housing on, and of course we don’t know what that would mean, but it’s obviously going to be non-residential. Then we’ve had a lot of testimony about why the first part is so heavily residential, but we can all remember that. The only thing we don’t have any evidence on is if you said let say instead of having 300+ units there, let’s take 100 units or whatever, and move them wherever LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 115 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we’re going to move them; you’re going to move them to the 4.8 acres, or somehow move it so part of it would be on the 4.8 and part of it would be on the Northern District. All I’m saying is if that were to occur, and if Gosvenor nevertheless pursued this development—and I don't know whether they would or they wouldn’t—we won’t know now what that means for the project. I mean there will be a project, and whether it will be Grosvenor or somebody else, there will be a project and we couldn’t possibly know what the fill-ins would be, so that’s just another uncertainty. Now, some people may prefer the uncertainty to the certainty, but that is something that I’m concerned about. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen next, and then Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: While we’re not considering the school districts in our deliberations, this is simply a fact that when we were walking around the site we were informed that the line for the school district is actually at the Northern District boundary, so that if there was some housing deferred to the rest of the Transition District it would continue to be in Los Gatos schools was my understanding. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for pointing that out. Is that correct, Mr. Paulson? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 116 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JOEL PAULSON: I looked at the map on the school’s website today for Los Gatos Union School District, and that’s where it appears to be. We would have to go into assessor’s records and those things to see; sometimes those aren’t exact maps. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe I could comment. I looked at both school district maps, and they didn’t match up. JOEL PAULSON: They don’t match up. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah, one of them had sort of a big blurry line on it, and I couldn’t really tell. But coming back to the comments about the fill- in, I did listen very carefully to that, but also in participating in the development of the Specific Plan it was clear that these numbers were maximums, and the only place where we seem to be hitting minimums is in the housing and density and all of that. And again, we could go to the specifics, but I don’t believe that there are minimums that say they would have to fill in to achieve only a 30% open space, for instance, if it were not residential use. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 117 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I’m not suggesting that they’re required to do that, I’m merely suggesting that most developers I’ve ever dealt with do try to maximize their profits, and if you take away five acres, let’s say, of housing, they probably aren’t going to turn it into a city park. CHAIR BADAME: Any further comments on housing? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to talk about some of the non-numerical what I consider objective standards for this housing, and I’m referring to 2.4 in the Specific Plan. It says, “Residential development shall be focused,” and shall means we must do it, “on multi-family and unmet needs.” So the first part of that is multi-family, meaning that single-family detached homes are not encouraged or even permitted, other than the cottage cluster type, which isn’t truly a single-family detached home. The second part of this is about the unmet needs, and I just wanted to make the comment that I remain very troubled that we would enter into any project to build over 300 units and not address the very most important and well- documented unmet need that we have, which is the seniors LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 118 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that are living in our town right now that are looking for step-down housing opportunities. I heard all of the discussion from the Applicant about why we can’t do it, but I can’t in good conscience feel like we’re in compliance with the Specific Plan to go forward with the plan of over 300 housing units that does not address probably our most important unmet need. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Depending on your view of seniors, and speaking as a senior, they have 167 one- bedroom units, and I can tell you that that’s something that a senior could definitely go into. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Do they have stairs? COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Let me finish. And they have 235 two-bedrooms, and some seniors even like two bedrooms, like I do. Then they have 98 three-bedrooms. So yes, you were going to tell me what it should have to better appeal to seniors. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think one issue, and even the Applicant mentioned it, is about not having stairs, so having a single-story unit and not having to climb up stairs. The bottom line is the Applicant went and did a whole focus group with the Millennials, but we have this LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 whole unmet need of seniors, and maybe it’s not clear exactly what the requirements are, but it’s not clear that this is going to meet the requirements. If you look at the application, there are actually no single-story units at all; it could be because they have the ground floor garages, and then there is a smaller percentage of two-story units, and other than the senior affordable housing, which is a very specific market, there isn’t any unit that doesn’t have stairs. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I just wanted to concur with Commissioner Hanssen in that in looking at the configuration of the units themselves it did not seem to me that they were particularly senior-oriented, and it seemed as though there was the opportunity to do that in more of a flat type of an arrangement, but the developer chose not to pursue flats, I think because they couldn’t get as many on the lot, but for whatever reasons I think those were conscious decisions that were made to have particular housing types that were not necessarily appealing to that demographic. CHAIR BADAME: I would also concur with Commissioner Hudes and Commissioner Hanssen, and I’m looking at the square footage of the units. I don’t think LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 seniors want to have big units; it’s more house to clean, more personal belongings that you want to get rid of. And Commissioner O'Donnell, I don't know what the square footage of the units is over at Forbes Mill, but I would venture to say that they might be under 1,200 square feet. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: My unit is 1,600 square feet. CHAIR BADAME: So is mine, and I’m a senior, and it’s too big. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I had a question for Staff on the requirements for denial, and there’s an Ordinance 2209, which is Exhibit 18, bottom of page 2, 29.10.420, and I wanted to understand whether this was a ground for denial. “The Town has adopted a Housing Element as part of the General Plan, and the Town as met or exceeded its share of the regional housing needs for the income category proposed for the development project.” I want to make sure, because I think that in the letter from the Applicant’s attorney that was not one of the conditions that was listed as grounds for denial. I wanted to understand, number one, is it a condition? Does 2209 apply? And then the second part of that question is has the Town met or exceeded its share of regional housing needs as of right now? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 121 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: I don’t think we need to get to the first one and the legal issues attached to whether we can or cannot, because we can’t meet the second one. We had not met our regional needs for the affordable housing that’s proposed. COMMISSIONER HUDES: As of right now, not in the future? Right. Okay, thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Further comments, questions on housing? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to bring up an issue, and I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’ve seen all the resident reactions to the 35’ mass of buildings, and I realize that it is permitted to go up to 35’ in the Specific Plan, but with all of our standards it’s usually the number is a maximum, not a goal. So I wondered about this 35’. There is the cutout for the perimeter where they have to have it a two-story, 25’, but that’s just a portion of the edge in the perimeter overlay, and then they did mentioned that there were a couple of other units near the community garden that were also two stories. What I’m struggling with is I asked the question of the architect, the Lark District was supposed to be lower intensity, and so then I look at all these 35’ LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 122 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 buildings and we walked the property, and I’m not seeing that it’s lower intensity. I wondered what could be done to make this more in compliance with the plan, but it doesn’t seem to me to be lower intensity, and maybe I’m the only one that sees it that way, but it’s clear that the Lark District is supposed to be primarily residential, there’s not doubt of that, that’s clear in the plan, but the lower intensity, when you look at buildings that tall and you’re walking through, and you can see with some of the paseos and stuff that you’re going to be having 35’ buildings as you’re walking down, I’m struggling with that being lower intensity than the Transition District, so I wondered if anybody had a thoughts on that? CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I guess when I found out that the 13.5 acres had 20 units to the acre it occurred to me that density would be high, and if the density was high and there was open space, something has got to give. I guess you’re right, it would be nice to have all smaller buildings, but I’m not quite sure how you do that if you have to get the density that they believe is required. You give up one thing or another. If you got rid of all the open space, maybe you could get lower buildings. If you keep the open space, maybe part of the tradeoff is you get LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 123 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 somewhat higher buildings. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have this imposition on us, telling us we’ve got to have 13.5 acres at 20 units per acre. That, to me, is the stumbling block that I don’t think we have any discretion over, except to move it, although the Applicant was credible insofar as they thought that wasn’t a good idea. But when we say it’s too intense or too dense, I think that’s probably true and I wish we didn’t have to do that, but my understanding is we have no discretion in that regard. Now, if you can figure out a way to get 20 units per acre for 13.5 acres and have all single stories, I’d go for that. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Well, one of our residents submitted a document to us with lower sized units, and so it certainly is technically possible, but you’re correct. I know the reason why that 35’ maximum was established in the Specific Plan; it was anticipating the density issue. But I’m troubled about it being such a big part of the Lark District. CHAIR BADAME: Another thought that I have is that there could be some undergrounding done as well, perhaps cellar space or underground parking, and that would reduce the height and perhaps some of the intensity. I don't know what comments other Commissioners might have on LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 124 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that; I’d be interested in hearing them. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I was going to agree with that, and when we asked the Applicant about the possibility of cellars or undergrounding it seemed to be more of an economic issue than a real feasibility issue, so faced with the possibility of not having that housing, potentially they might think about other configurations than what has been proposed. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell, followed by Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: My recollection of why they said they didn’t have cellars was because they have parking on the ground floor; that was the reason they didn’t have cellars. Most of the towns require cellars; they’re single-family homes usually where you don’t have parking on the floor above the cellar, so that to me was not an economic issue, that was a practical issue. I suppose you could always say why don’t they have underground parking? You could say anything, but the reason that you said they didn’t have cellars was because of the parking. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I believe they said that you could have parking in one portion and residential in LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 125 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 another portion. I don’t think the cellars would necessarily take the full (inaudible). COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: If you put a two-car garage on a house this width, it would be interesting to see how that would pencil out. COMMISSIONER HUDES: They’re proposing some interesting things, like tandem parking and others. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). CHAIR BADAME: I’m sorry, sir, the public comment is closed. We cannot hear from members of the audience. Please respect us up here. Thank you. AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). CHAIR BADAME: I’m going to ask you to leave if you’re going to continue to interrupt us. Thank you. Commissioner Erekson, did you have a comment? COMMISSIONER EREKSON: My understanding is it was a design issue, it wasn’t an economic issue; that was my recollection of the testimony from the Applicant with respect to that. You could hypothetically do it, but it would take a more significant design change than some simple design, so they’d have to redesign it, which is fine. My other conclusion from their testimony, and I don't know whether this was my own analysis of what they LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 126 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 said or that they said it, I don't remember that, is that it would be challenging then, because I’ve got to create a larger unit in order to not split the living areas, and so if I do that, if I create larger units, then it might not be possible for it to meet the 20 units per acre requirement. So it would seem like to me one would need to be sure one could do that with a cellar design issue, so it’s not clear that that presents a solution which would not be incompatible with the 20 units per acre. CHAIR BADAME: All right, further comments, questions, or evaluation on the Housing section of the analysis? Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to have a little more discussion about the view aspect of the housing and in the way the housing is oriented. My opinion is that it blocks the views rather than embraces the views, and while I understand that some of the language about that is in the Vision Statement, there are also some standards and policies, I believe, about views that go beyond the Vision Statement. My concern is that the current street grid pattern, the way it’s oriented, prevents views from occurring from the pedestrian paseos and the parks and things like that, and so I have a hard time understanding LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 127 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 how the site layout meets the objective standards in the plan there. In fact, as I said, I think that you could not find a place that size where hillside views would be as obstructed as the way that they’ve laid out currently, so that troubles me. CHAIR BADAME: Any other comments on the views? Seeing none, we can move to Section B, which is Traffic and Additional Environmental Review. Commissioner O'Donnell, followed by Vice Chair Kane. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Just so we’ve got our ground rules straight, my understanding is that once the EIR was approved, we had to accept the EIR as being correct unless we find sufficient facts as you change to essentially attack the EIR, but to the extent that the EIR is complete, finished, and accepted, that EIR has traffic studies supporting it. The only evidence we have at the moment is the testimony that was presented tonight. To the extent that some of us, and I’ve been in this position before, scratches their head at the engineering reports, I don't know how we go around that, because I have heard no evidence which would contradict the traffic studies that were a part of the completed and adopted EIR. I just throw LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 128 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that out, because I don't know how we go around that, and maybe somebody could tell me how we do that. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, followed by Commissioner Hudes. VICE CHAIR KANE: Mr. Morley, is it correct that the traffic study was done in 2013? MATT MORLEY: Yeah, that’s correct. VICE CHAIR KANE: So if I made the argument that I think there have been substantial changes in the traffic since that time, would that be a viable argument that there are significant changes out there, and if it was a viable argument, would I be jeopardizing the Town insofar as the streamlining requirements? It’s going to take some time to do another traffic study, if another traffic study is warranted. To me that’s a tactic. What does it do to the strategy of putting us in a situation of liability? ROBERT SCHULTZ: It’s not a substantial change that’s out there that’s occurring, it’s a substantial change from the project that was evaluated to now. If they had come in with a substantial change in the project and said I want to build 500 homes, I want to build a different project than was analyzed, that’s a substantial change that you’re looking at between the project; it’s not substantial change in (inaudible). LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 129 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE CHAIR KANE: But that’s lawful definition, that the substantial change has to be caused by them, because there’s a heck of a substantial change out there. ROBERT SCHULTZ: That’s not a reason to do another study. VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: This may be more for the traffic engineer, but I understand that these things need to be built on projections, and projections based on projects that are in play, and then further projections are done for the new development over the baseline. My question is when do you stop building projections on top of projections when you have real data? At what point do we say okay, there’s been a lot that’s happened and that potentially we ought to look at actual data at this point to see whether the base projections are valid or not? MATT MORLEY: There are, I think, several layers to the conversation, to the question. The initial analysis of the traffic study through CEQA identified with the size of the project what the impacts were going to be, and what the traffic levels were going to be. That all fell into the Specific Plan and were identified there and approved as the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 130 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Specific Plan was approved. That CEQA and that traffic study have been accepted at this point by the Town. Subsequently, with the Phase 1 application, which I think is what we’re looking at now, there is additional analysis that the traffic consultant completed that looked to compare the Phase 1 project with the previously approved Specific Plan project, and the finding there was that Phase 1 falls within the scope of what was identified in the Specific Plan, such that further analysis isn’t necessary and the traffic is less than what was envisioned through the Specific Plan. It’s important to note that with any development project you are bringing additional traffic; I don’t think anybody would dispute that. The goals of the study is to identify the mitigation measures and what you can do to accommodate that traffic so that the impacts are mitigated to the extent that’s set forward in our code, and that’s all straightforward. The difficulty with the traffic, I think, from a non-engineering perspective like me and you is that it seems like there’s an impact and the traffic is worse out there. The numbers actually show something slightly different, and the projections are used to get there, so it’s a difficult thing to wrestle with. One of the things LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 131 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 about engineering is it’s pretty matter of fact. You follow the process, we have the standards set forward, and if you comply with the standards, then by definition it’s compliant. COMMISSIONER HUDES: But really my question is the basis on which you make assumptions, and I appreciate the rigor of the analysis that’s gone into all the traffic studies, but it’s only as good as the assumptions. I looked at the community input, because those folks drive, and traffic was the number one issue; it was not schools, as has been stated earlier. It was cited by somewhere around 356 out of the 500 communications that we received, and that includes last night as well; I updated it tonight. That, coupled with the fact that five of the six development projects that were used we actually have the opportunity to get actual data for, correct? MATT MORLEY: Yes, some of those projects have been completed and are online. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Five of the six have been completed. MATT MORLEY: I’m sure that number is correct, yes. This particular project needs to mitigate the impacts from this project and not from the other projects. Those LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 132 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 other projects are responsible for their mitigation, so assuming that there is a baseline that grows with the project, this project should have identified what the impacts are there. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane, followed by Commissioner Hanssen. VICE CHAIR KANE: I’m just sort of playing with you. Did you just say that the other projects didn’t provide adequate mitigation? MATT MORLEY: I did not. VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. Well, why does it not seem like it was mitigated? MATT MORLEY: Every project identifies what their impact is going to be, and they make a list of projects that they need to address with that particular project. There are times an entity can find that those impacts cannot be mitigated, and that could be the case in some of the projects; I don't know what the specific mitigation measures associated with these projects were. I’ll say that the Specific Plan identifies and makes the North 40 project responsible for a significant amount of that mitigation, even to the extent that it is above and beyond what the impact of the North 40 project is. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 133 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAIR BADAME: I have Commissioner Hanssen, followed by Commissioner Hudes, and then back to Vice Chair Kane. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to ask exactly about where you’re going. The Applicant stated that the $10 million that they’re spending was not a required mitigation. Well, I mean it actually is in the EIR, but it was something that was in the Capital Improvement Program already. Could you help us understand how that… Are they going above and beyond what they needed to do? MATT MORLEY: That’s an easy question. The bike lane across 17 is above and beyond what is required with the project, so the answer to that is yes, they are doing work that is above and beyond. The Specific Plan identifies elements of improvements that are necessary for the project, and it identifies who does those improvements, and that includes things like the multi-model path around the perimeter, and the bicycle paths and pedestrian paths through the interior of the project as examples. The project contributes to traffic along Lark and Los Gatos Boulevard, and those mitigation measures are required as a part of the project, and from Staff’s perspective those are impacts that the project is creating and mitigating. As I said earlier, the project doesn’t do LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 134 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 all of the impact for those particular projects, but the project is responsible for the mitigation. In terms of where these projects are, the General Plan has a list of projects that the Town has identified as being necessary. They’re not necessarily in the CIP, although a couple of the projects definitely were or are in our five-year CIP, and we do continue to work towards completion of that list of projects. That list of projects is identified and we typically address it through traffic impact fees, so the developments that are part responsible for paying an impact fee where they can’t mitigate, and those impact fees go towards completing those projects, so the Town is collecting funds from developments, and as those funds accrue we’re able to address some of the projects that have been identified through the General Plan and other sources for growth. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: To take it one step further, if this project didn’t happen, there would still be a need for these improvements, or there wouldn’t? MATT MORLEY: Through the General Plan the Town has identified that these will be areas that there will be improvements, and then it’s just a matter of which project triggers those improvements and when that project comes along. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 135 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: So this intersection was on the list in the General Plan is what you were saying? MATT MORLEY: It was. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And you have to find an opportunity to address it? MATT MORLEY: That’s correct. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: There have been recent traffic problems due to some things that are different. It seems to me that there is a fundamental shift in what’s causing traffic with regard to the WAZE, Apple Maps, and whatever, so that the normal problem that we’ve had with beach traffic has become not just a little bit worse, but to the point where entire neighborhoods are gridlocked and an entrance to a freeway had to be closed, which was probably never closed before. Would you characterize that traffic problem as a fundamental shift as compared to something that you could calculate based on whatever you looked at in 2012 or 2013? MATT MORLEY: I’ve certainly experienced it, over the last several weekends especially, and I don't know that there’s anybody that… LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 136 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 VICE CHAIR KANE: You didn’t take the traffic engineers with you? MATT MORLEY: We spent a lot of weekends, the traffic engineer and I, out here observing traffic and trying to become educated on what the dynamics are. It’s certainly a very fluid situation, and the apps and the dynamics in the Valley with the growth and the economy are all contributing factors, and how they play off of each other is, I don’t think, something that is identified. In terms of how that factors into a project like this, there are set methods for doing a traffic analysis. Those are accepted methods, they’re a standard way of bringing your project through the CEQA process, and it’s important that those methods are adhered to and followed. In a particular case like a project with the North 40, where some of the mitigation measures are above and beyond, that’s great. There are areas that are improvements, and we heard about the delay time at particular intersections. There are also areas where there are degradations in that, and that’s where our standard comes in where the Town accepts a D level of service, and so what we’re targeting is a higher categorization at the D level of service, and not looking necessarily at the time delay at each particular movement of intersection. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 137 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just as a follow up, is there any place in the TIA or the EIR where that fundamental shift occurring from the WAZE and Apple Maps problem that we’ve had in town, was that factored in any way into the EIR or the TIA? MATT MORLEY: We would not, because those would not be trips that would be… As I see the app, for the weekend WAZE issue that we face, I think I see that as a regional issue where folks are coming from out of town, trying to get from one point to the other and Los Gatos happens to be right in the middle of that, and so they’re looking for the quickest, most expeditious way through town. Those trips probably would not be generated through a North 40. I think maybe in an aggregate there would be additional traffic from the North 40, but those trips are I think above and beyond a different concept as a regional issue of folks trying to move about the community. COMMISSIONER HUDES: But the effect of those things on Los Gatos Boulevard could be measured if we wanted to measure them, or I think we probably are measuring them now. ROBERT SCHULTZ: If we’re still on the CEQA discussion, I think a fundamental issue that we’re not addressing is that CEQA looks at a project and determines LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 138 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 what the impacts are from that project. So let’s assume, as Commissioner Kane was saying, that there’s way more traffic out there, because of WAZE, because people love the beach more, because for whatever reason the economy is doing so well. That’s not the fault of this project. CEQA doesn’t say it has to mitigate not only your project, but problems caused by WAZE and problems caused by people wanting to go to the beach and because the economy is doing so well. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I understand. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And only impacts. That’s why I said unless you can find that the project has substantially changed, you can’t redo CEQA because you now have more traffic than you had before. COMMISSIONER HUDES: But it seems to me that the baseline has fundamentally shifted. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Right, but it won’t change the mitigations from the project. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have one quick question as a follow up to that, and then what will probably be a less controversial and maybe even easier questions for you to answer. While I understand when Commissioner Hudes had been talking about it would be better to have actual data LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 139 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 than projection data, it would just seem to me—and this is a common sense thing and I’m going to test this—that it would be challenging to attribute specific increases in traffic to particular projects. Is that a reasonable statement? MATT MORLEY: That is reasonable. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: So I wouldn’t necessarily mean that if I had a certain increase after Project A, Project B, and Project C had been completed—A may be Albright—that I could attribute an increase in traffic to that particular project? I assume that’s an impractical thing to do. MATT MORLEY: Generally impractical if you think about controlling for all other factors. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, just as a clarification, what I think are probably two easier, simpler questions. One is what’s the status of the multi-model path over Highway 17? What’s the status of that? MATT MORLEY: We refer to it as a bike lane over 17. The requirements the Town has placed on the Phase 1 project is an enhanced bike lane that goes across the overcrossing and provides connectivity towards the Creek Trail, and that is a condition of the project. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 140 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I understand that portion of it. That will take work with Caltrans and so forth, where those conversations with Caltrans are, et cetera. I mean I assume it takes work with Caltrans, since it’s passing over a highway. MATT MORLEY: It absolutely takes work with Caltrans. The initial conversations with Caltrans have occurred. Caltrans has generally acknowledged that it’s a desirable thing and they’re interested in participating. Once we have a project, then that would be sort of the trigger for the next step. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, thank you. Then here’s my next question. The property owners of the existing medical office buildings that are located on the Boulevard that are within the Specific Plan area, they’ve given a letter to the Town and to the Commission that they would prefer not to have the median that’s provided for as an offsite improvements completed, so that it would continue to allow left turns going north into their property, and left turns going north out of their property. Do you have some comment about their request, and some recommend about how we would take that request into consideration? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 141 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MATT MORLEY: I think Engineering has looked at that extensively, and it’s a challenging location; there’s a lot of traffic going both directions, so it becomes a balance, like many things, where there are the sacrifices in order to ensure that the traffic continues to flow adequately and safety is considered within the process. I think from the Town Staff’s perspective, having a left turn in or a left out of the development is not something that we’re recommending, and it’s something that is not included in the project. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Now I want to go back to the Boulevard, and going south on the Boulevard, approaching the Los Gatos intersection with Lark. Both Commission Kane and I have raised questions about Buildings 24 and 25 and that site, and about whether or not one should look at that as being commercial property, et cetera. So I went to the site today, and if my walk-off is correct, the third lane, the so-called right turn lane, only starts at about one-third of the way from the south of it, so about two-thirds to three-fourths of it is where there are only two lanes, very similar to the properties they’re adjacent to. I believe part of the Staff concern LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 142 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 about not providing access from that direction had to do with crossing the right turn lane. One arguably could put a driveway on the very north part of that and still be a considerable distance from where the third lane appears. I’d like for you to comment on that, but I want to add one other thing. On Lark Avenue going east approaching Los Gatos Boulevard, there is a dedicated right turn lane from Highland Oaks all the way to Los Gatos Boulevard. There are three pieces of property that enter there; one I believe is the Water District edge that comes in there, and the Classic Car Wash, and then the office building that’s on that site also has one of its exits onto that, so we are okay with those crossing there, entering into a right turn lane, but we’re not okay with it on Los Gatos Boulevard when it can be done where it’s not even into the right turn lane? I’m just trying to understand your reluctance to allow site access at that point. MATT MORLEY: In discussions about this topic today I think the Applicant’s recollection on previous conversations, and Staff’s understanding of previous conversations, may differ a little bit, however, generally from an engineering perspective, we look with caution at LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 143 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 providing access at busy intersections, and it’s something that has to be done with open eyes. What I was trying to show on the screen was the queuing diagram that shows what the lanes are going to do, and it’s not focusing real well, but it shows the queues in those lanes passing what would be residential properties. There is some congestion there, and adding additional cars, especially if you’re thinking that some of those may want to go across a turn lane and try to go straight, or even worse, go all the way across and turn left that could provide some congestion, would be the concern. There are also some grade differences between the street level and the property level at that point that may provide some potential challenges, and then more importantly, I don’t think Staff has actually explored that, nor has the traffic engineering really had a detailed look at that. It’s been something that’s come up recently from our perspective, and if it’s something that the Applicant was going to consider, we’d need to do some further evaluation on it. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: So would it be your Staff recommendation for us that it would be the best path not to pursue site access into that property? MATT MORLEY: That is correct. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 144 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Any further comments from Commissioners having to do with traffic and additional environmental review before we move on to open space. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to direct to the March 30th Staff Report, page 12, a couple of quick questions on that. I wanted to see whether there was support for some statements that were made in there. The Lark Avenue/Los Gatos Boulevard to State Route 17 northbound ramps, the second bullet, “Will the tapering of lanes cause a new bottleneck, or should that right turn lane just end there?” MATT MORLEY: In what particular location are you speaking? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Page 12, G, bullet, Lark Avenue, second sub-bullet. The last sentence: “Westbound lanes will taper from three lanes to four lanes starting immediately of A Street,” and the question is, “Will the tapering of lanes cause a new bottleneck, or should the right turn lane just end there as well?” MATT MORLEY: Maybe Jessy, you can help me with this one? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 145 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JESSY PU: Jessy Pu, Town Traffic Engineer. Westbound Lark Avenue is proposed to provide three westbound lanes, and when they pass the A Street intersection the curb lane, or the #3 lane, will start opening up to another right turn lane, so there will be four lanes approaching the northbound 17 intersection with two through lanes and two right turn lanes. Basically, you would taper from three lanes to four lanes between A Street and the northbound 17 ramp. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And then the right lane as you come around onto Lark, that lane ends, is that correct? JESSY PU: There are two lanes on the on-ramp as of today, so the two right lanes will feed into the two existing on-ramp lanes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So that right turn lane that turns on there, that lane ends, is that correct? JESSY PU: There is the right turn lane for entering A Street on the project site. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right. JESSY PU: So there are actually three through lanes and one right turn lane. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right. Will the ending of that lane cause a bottleneck? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 146 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JESSY PU: No, it will not. That right turn lane is a deceleration lane, right turn lane, for entering the project site. COMMISSIONER HUDES: There will not be cars trying to move over to the other lane there? JESSY PU: No. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is there any separation of that lane? JESSY PU: This is a schematic drawing. It’s not showing the physical right turn lane, which would be a fourth lane. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. Just from the written description it sounded like there was a possibility. Seeing this has helped me to understand that it may not be the case. I had one more, which was on page 13, second bullet, Lark Avenue at Highland Oaks. You may be able to pull up the diagram here. My question was will the queuing at this left turn be adequate, given the anticipated seasonal traffic or additional traffic after Phase 2, or will this need to be widened again with the development of Phase 2? JESSY PU: Yes, this left turn storage capacity has been analyzed multiple times; including Phase 1 and the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 147 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ultimate build-out, and left turn lanes are adequate for the ultimate build-out. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And have things like holiday traffic patterns been looked at, given that there is nothing to prevent someone from cutting through into the traffic? I know we’re not looking at a Phase 2 application here, but I don't know whether these improvements are meant to take us through that or not. JESSY PU: The Specific Plan requires traffic calming measures along A Street, for purposes of discouraging cut-through traffic. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So you’re confident that with holiday traffic, that lane will be big enough to accommodate, and we won’t have a backup onto Lark Avenue? It looks short compared to other shopping centers where there is a permitted left turn. I just want to make sure that you really looked at that circumstance when that lane was designed. JESSY PU: Yes, the standard design guideline is providing a 95% queue lanes storage, and this meets that criteria. COMMISSIONER HUDES: And that’s been looked at for the circumstance where there’s a shopping center there, and people are using that entrance to get there? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 148 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JESSY PU: Yes, it takes into account the traffic calming measures to discourage cut-through traffic. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have a two-part question. My guess is that the first part of the question you will defer to Mr. Schultz. How much of the right-of-way on the east side of Los Gatos Boulevard does the Town have under its control from Lark to Good Samaritan? I believe that’s less than 100%, so what’s the process for acquiring the balance, and in your judgment, if in fact the Town Council—without causing Mr. Morley a cardiac arrest with respect to his CIP budget—were to decide to help address traffic issues by taking whatever measures it required to acquire the additional right-of-way and do the full build-out of Los Gatos Boulevard, how would that help the general traffic in this area? MATT MORLEY: I’ll start and we’ll fill in along the way as we need to. The diagram that’s here, although it wasn’t intended for this purpose, does a pretty good job of showing the saw tooth pattern along Los Gatos Boulevard where there is a right-of-way already, and then there are areas where there are not, so there are significant areas LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 149 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that still need to be acquired. We’ve done no analysis on what that might be or what it would cost. In terms of capacity on Los Gatos Boulevard, the traffic analysis shows that there is capacity along the Boulevard to carry the traffic that will be generated through the project. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Can you repeat what you just said? MATT MORLEY: In the current design, which is identified through the Specific Plan, Los Gatos Boulevard has the capacity to carry the traffic that will be generated in the area, so there’s no degradation of service along that area. The big concerns of traffic are at the intersections, especially signalized intersections, and you can see in the project, that’s where the focus on the improvements are to carry through that. It’s also why, for instance, where the merge occurs on Los Gatos Boulevard, it’s less important that it’s a merge midstream and more important that the traffic is moved through the intersection. By moving traffic through an intersection, you allow a lessening of green time at that particular movement, and that by definition allows for extension of green time elsewhere, and improves the service level. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Okay, thank you very much. That was very helpful. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioners, are we ready to move on to Open Space and the Look and Feel of Los Gatos? All right, Mr. Morley and Mr. Pu, thank you very much for your help. I’m going to combine these two together, because they are interrelated, and it’s starting to move on to the eleventh hour of the evening and we still need to look at the different components of the application. So I will look to Commissioners for their comments on open space and look and feel of Los Gatos. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: My comment on open space was I didn’t have a lot of problem with it. The issues I have are more related to other parts of the project than the open space. The look and feel was another matter, though. I read and reread the Specific Plan, and although I could see pictures of things that looked like they were in the plan proposal, I was having trouble tying it to anything that I could think of in Los Gatos. We don’t have a development like this in Los Gatos. I know that we have some townhouses that are 35’ or so in height, but I was struggling with that. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 151 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 There is some language in the Specific Plan about it complementing what we have and going to a new place, but I’m still left with I couldn’t place it with anything else, and especially when you consider this isn’t really a neighborhood analysis thing, but if you looked at the closest residential in Highland Oaks, and then also across the street from Los Gatos Boulevard, there are single-story houses, so I struggled with that. It isn’t clear in the Specific Plan that it doesn’t comply, but there were some pictures that… And there were some guidelines about how to vary the roof forms and the walls, but it didn’t look like anything else I know of in Los Gatos. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: This is an area that to me is very difficult, it gets very close to subjective standards, and so I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. But two things did occur to me that I want to mention, and maybe get some reaction from other Commissioners. One of them is the individual architectural styles, and if an individual architectural style can’t be found anywhere in Los Gatos, and that individual architectural style is used frequently in the project, such as a row house, then is it possible to for us to even make a finding of fact that that architectural style is LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 152 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 consistent with the look and feel? Again, I’m trying to just say are there facts that can lead me to conclude one way or another? The other point on this is, and I think as Commissioner Hanssen pointed out, the assembly of buildings in a grid pattern of this size. Again, is that something that is consistent from a factual basis with Los Gatos? Can it even be found anywhere that would allow us to make a finding of fact that it is? So I’m just kind of putting that out there. I’m not advocating that these are necessarily objective, but they are getting somewhat close to the line, in my opinion, about what’s a fact. CHAIR BADAME: I would agree with that. I found that the architecture was a departure from what we want as the rural history of the site, or even architecture that I found throughout the Town. It’s modern urban design. Any other Commissioners? Although I know the Town Architect put his approval on it, but he’s an independent consultant. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Just adding onto that, I have great respect for the Town Architect, and he did bless this, but I also remember that during the public testimony yesterday some of the people that participated in the LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 153 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 survey had chosen the traditional and Mission style, and I didn’t see any of that in this proposal, so I wonder what happened between then and now? If I look it, a lot of it looks similar to things you see in Santana Row, maybe not as tall, but the look and feel of the buildings. I feel like something happened in between, so I just wanted to add that. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Architectural style from my perspective is only one piece of the look and feel, so what I’m going to say next is really only applicable to architectural style. What I’m trying to understand is architectural style and how it’s consistent with the look and feel of Los Gatos. I would suggest that Los Gatos has a rich collection of architectural styles that reflect the historical development of the Town during different periods of time. That’s what we have in town. We don’t have a single style, we don’t have a dominant style, we have a rich collection of styles. That’s what makes the place, from my perspective, as I came to appreciate when I served on the Historic Preservation Committee. When I evaluate a particular building or set of buildings, I need to do that in the context of the time LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 154 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 period in which they were constructed. If I were to use the historical neighborhoods of the downtown area as a standard by which to evaluate the South Kennedy Road, the Aventino Apartments, et cetera, I would not be using a proper kind of standard to judge them by. So I thought how do I then think about it, and how do I pose the question to myself to understand whether a style would be, so the question for me is, is this architectural style that’s being proposed an appropriate contemporary architectural interpretation that captures the spirit and intent of the Vision Statement and the Guiding Principles of the North 40 Specific Plan, and in particular is it respectful and captures the history and agricultural heritage of the site such that it makes a positive contribution to the rich collection of architectural styles that the Town has? So I understand the question, and I feel not particularly prepared, because I’m not an architect, to answer the question. The only guidance that I have is the guidance that the consulting architect has provided and the Historic Preservation Committee has provided, and they would suggest that it’s at least nodding in that direction. That doesn’t necessarily convince me that it’s making a positive contribution to the rich collection, but it also LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 155 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 doesn’t suggest to me that it is not consistent with the look and feel of the Town. It’s a question which I’ve kind of wondered about, contemplated about, that I don’t know exactly how to answer, but I think the real question for me is, is it an appropriate contemporary? Because these are being built now; they’re not being built in the 1950s, they’re not being built in the 1800s, they’re being built now, so how do we think about it as a contemporary architectural interpretation now? CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I also sit on the Historic Preservation Committee, and it did come before us, and ultimately it was approved. The Town Architect also approved it. I believe this guideline is subjective. If there’s anything that’s subjective, I think this discussion illustrates it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder almost is the way this conversation is going. But if this is not subjective, then we don’t have to worry about subjective, because nothing is subjective. That will simplify what we’re doing. But if it is subjective, then we don’t get to deny a project based on a subjective guideline. CHAIR BADAME: Understood. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 156 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: The whole discussion, I’ve let you go a while, but I’ll draw you back to my first one. We need you to connect any of your statements with actual… Whether it’s objective or any standards, I haven’t heard anybody say… I’ll give the cellar example. They should have cellars. Well, tell me where in the Specific Plan it says they should have cellars, because if you can’t find that, then you’re not going to be able to connect that and require cellars. Same for the comment is, well, I don’t see row houses anymore, so it doesn’t have the look and feel. Our Specific Plan specifically says they can do row houses, so you’re not going to be able to connect the dots there. That’s what I’d like to see is you connecting the dots as to the standards that are in our Specific Plan if you would like to see changes made. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: I can’t do that, and that’s regrettable. The Specific Plan is telling me, the Town Architect is telling me, the Staff Report is telling me, that it has the look and feel, and I’d rather go to the Supreme Court definition of pornography. “I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I look at it.” It doesn’t look LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 157 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 like anything that I’ve seen in Los Gatos, so how can that have a look and feel? It can have a look and feel because three authorities say so, and I can’t connect the dots between the subjectivity and date, but it doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in Town. If there is disagreement with that, tell me where there is something comparable, and I’ll stand corrected. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m saying the first time I saw that line, “To preserve the look and feel of Los Gatos,” I just went, “Why did they put that on there? Just do what you want?” because it doesn’t, and yet three authorities say it’s acceptable. So I’m answering your question. I can’t do it, and that’s regrettable. That’s my opinion. CHAIR BADAME: All right, we’ve heard Vice Chair Kane’s opinion, and unless we have any other comments or questions on those two items, we can move on to the application for which we have five components to work through, and we’re going to be approaching 11:30 before we know it. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Why don’t we see where we are, because we can always make a motion to extend it at 11:25. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 158 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 BADAME: I understand that. I’m trying to move the conversation along is what I’m trying to do, especially since two of you won’t be here on July 20th. So back to the Open Space and Look and Feel, are we done discussing that for now? All right, let’s get our applications out, if we don’t mind. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe I could comment on that, because I had suggested that we go through this at this point, and I’ve found I’ve been able to weave in my individual comments on there, with the exception of a few questions, that I don’t feel the need to go through it, at least personally, to do that, because I’ve been moving stuff from the plan page-by-page to the four topics as we’ve been going through this. So I have a few questions, but they’re almost check the box kind of questions that I want to make sure that we’re okay on, and I don't know if that would be okay for me to go through those and just try to get a quick answer. CHAIR BADAME: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER HUDES: There’s a section called the Illustrative Plan, and 3.13 uses that term, and a number of others do in the plan. Is that an acceptable submission for LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 159 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 project approval, to use illustrative rather than to use actual elevations and things of that sort? JOEL PAULSON: And you said 3.12? COMMISSIONER HUDES: 3.13. It appears throughout. There are a lot of these illustrative elevations. JOEL PAULSON: I think if you look, there’s illustrative and there are also the technical elevations, so both are provided. COMMISSIONER HUDES: They’re both? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So the technical is required, and the illustrative is nice to have, maybe? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I want to just quickly, 315- A, which deals with the height, and I want to make sure that we understand this. What elements are permitted to go beyond height limits of 35’ and 45’ per the General Plan? JOEL PAULSON: I will pull out the Specific Plan. I’ll have to pull out those exact areas. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m sorry, I meant specific. JOEL PAULSON: Right, so I’ll pull those areas specifically out, but it’s roof pitches over, I want to say, 6/12, and then some other architectural features, and LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 160 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 will pull out the exact language as we go through the further deliberations. COMMISSIONER HUDES: My understanding is that those elements are not permitted, except that they are asking for a waiver in order to have those? JOEL PAULSON: I’m sorry, I thought you meant just in general for those, but they are requesting a waiver, so those limits can be extended above. COMMISSIONER HUDES: This was about the square footage, 321, the square footage of the senior affordable units. We had testimony from the Applicant that 580 square feet is fine. I think they said maybe 600 or something. I wonder if Staff or anyone has verified as to whether 580 square feet is really adequate, and is it an average size of senior affordable housing in the Bay Area? It looks pretty small. It’s a little bigger than a typical garage. JOEL PAULSON: Staff does not do that analysis. We have technical experts from the Applicant’s side, but we do not regulate the size of any of the units, regardless if it’s senior or any of the other types of units, or how those compare to other developments, either in town or throughout the Bay Area. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right. The reason that I’m asking is that I think this relates back to unmet need, and LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 161 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 there needs to be an unmet need for a dwelling unit of this size, and so I was hoping that Staff would verify we didn’t only have to take the word of the Applicant that that’s adequate, given that it looks like a pretty small number to me. JOEL PAULSON: I think that things like that, those are topics that, when the Planning Commission makes a recommendation and it moves forward, we will be prepared to handle as well with the Council. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to make a comment that when we were on the Housing Element Advisory Board I asked Laurel Prevetti for an introduction to Eden Housing, because I wanted to get more information. I spoke with the president of Eden Housing and we did actually discuss this, and this size of unit is very typical for the kind of projects that they do, and they do a lot of this affordable housing—I think it was testified last night—and typically over commercial. So I took comfort in that. I don't know if that’s helpful, but that didn’t come from the Applicant. Well, Eden Housing is part of the Applicant, but they’re the ones that are going to own it and manage it. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 162 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 HUDES: Along that vein of trying to trust and verify, on 322 there was a comment from the consulting architect about providing below grade parking for the senior affordable. Has that been provided, and is there a security gate to segregate the senior affordable from the other parking area? JOEL PAULSON: There is an underground portion of the parking garage. That is the lower level, obviously. I believe the senior parking is above, in one of the upper levels, and I will have to check on the security of that, whether or not it’s gated. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Then along the lines, again, we had testimony from the Applicant that one-half space per unit is adequate. Has Staff looked into that, and do we believe that that’s the case? JOEL PAULSON: That meets the requirements of the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Then 6.3, the lot coverage. There’s a lot coverage chart, and maybe I have the wrong number. There are two 6.3s. JOEL PAULSON: 6.5? COMMISSIONER HUDES: No, 6.3, the one that says, “Phase 1 lot coverage diagram.” JOEL PAULSON: Mmm-hmm. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 163 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 HUDES: That is lot coverage that is consistent with the density, et cetera. How does that lot coverage relate to other similar developments in town? JOEL PAULSON: The lot coverage requirement for the Specific Plan is a maximum of 50%. The lot coverage for the proposed Phase 1 application is 31.4%, so they comply with the requirement of the Specific Plan. COMMISSIONER HUDES: This one is a question about open space and setbacks on 6.4. There are setbacks that are also open space, correct? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Particularly the orchard along Lark. Are setbacks normally considered open space? JOEL PAULSON: The Specific Plan requires those areas to be landscape buffered, so the perimeter area was considered to be that. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Is that normally considered then in other developments, or is that something that’s unique? JOEL PAULSON: Well, it’s not unique, because we don’t have an open space component for commercial that’s a requirement of any other development. COMMISSIONER HUDES: But what about for residential? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 164 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: For residential you’d just have the front setback, which typically is landscaping, but there’s no open space requirement. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’ve seen it in some other zoning land elsewhere. JOEL PAULSON: Correct. We don’t have an open space requirement. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. That’s the last of mine. CHAIR BADAME: Any further questions or comments from Commissioners? Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: (Inaudible). COMMISSIONER HUDES: 3.21. VICE CHAIR KANE: Mr. Paulson, is it relevant and/or within my purview to ask what are the anticipated rents? None of these can be purchased, the seniors; they’re all rentals, right? JOEL PAULSON: These are all proposed to be rentals. VICE CHAIR KANE: And they’re supposed to be below market. JOEL PAULSON: They will be. VICE CHAIR KANE: Do we know what that really is? What would I pay for 580 square feet, do we know? LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 165 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: It’s based on the income of the individual, and then there is a percentage of that, depending on the income level, so there’s a formula that generally changes, I believe, every year and puts out standards, and so rents follow that metric, but we don’t have a number. VICE CHAIR KANE: We can’t ballpark this? JOEL PAULSON: I believe that the Applicant in their testimony said $600 to $1,000. VICE CHAIR KANE: For this one? JOEL PAULSON: If I remember correctly. VICE CHAIR KANE: So indeed, it would be affordable, even though it’s Los Gatos, because sometimes we do BMPs that can’t be afforded anyway, but this is really a low rent for Los Gatos. JOEL PAULSON: Correct. VICE CHAIR KANE: And I think the BMP is all spelled out in the March 30th Staff Report. I’ve seen the complexity of it before, but I couldn’t translate it to a number, and that seems to be a decent number. Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: Any further comments, questions, entertain a motion, Commissioners? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Maybe I’ll start some discussion that someone could challenge or add onto, but I LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 166 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 would move to deny the application, based on findings that the project does not address identified unmet needs; that the views are not addressed by the layout of the site as required in not only the Vision Statement, but in Policy OS Policy 01, page 2-11, the Commercial Design Guidelines, page 3-2, and additional requirements for views on 3.2- 6.B.I, page 3-9 where are the requirements for views, and that’s where I would just get things started. CHAIR BADAME: We have a motion to deny. Commissioner Erekson has his hand up. Did I see you had your hand up? No, okay. Do we have a second? Commissioner O'Donnell has a question. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: A question. There are several matters before us. That’s a motion, but does it deal with the Vesting Tentative Map? It isn’t clear to me what the motion pertains to. COMMISSIONER HUDES: That was actually a question that we asked, I think, before, and I looked for some advice from Staff about how far we have to go if denial is each of the requirements. JOEL PAULSON: The Vested Tentative Map has specific findings. You would have to make one of those specific findings to recommend denial of that. However, without the Architecture and Site approval, and I look to LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 167 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 Town Attorney, if you’re recommending denial of the Architecture and Site approval, that’s specifically tied to the Vested Tentative Map, so the recommendation could be for denial for both of them, but again, we want to make sure we’re tying to the findings and providing the link to those objective standards. CHAIR BADAME: So can you repeat the motion and see if we can get a second? COMMISSIONER HUDES: There are several parts to this. Is it adequate to make a recommendation to deny the Architecture and Site Application, which is described in S- 13090 in the Vested Tentative Map, and 13014, and to not move forward to the density bonus, the waiver development standards, and the subdivision, or do they need to be considered together? ROBERT SCHULTZ: No, if you make the determination that the Vested Tentative Map and the Architecture and Site is denied based on specific standards in the Specific Plan, you don’t have to get to the bonus issue and the other denials at this particular time. COMMISSIONER HUDES: So to clarify Commissioner O'Donnell’s question, my motion would be to deny the Architecture and Site Application S-13-090 and the Vested Tentative Map M-13-014. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 168 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ROBERT SCHULTZ: Based on the policies that you stated a few minutes ago, and that’s a recommendation of denial to Council, not an actual denial. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson, you kind of had your hand up, or you don’t? COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Ultimately, if the motion has a second and stands as a motion, I have a question of clarification, but I’ll hold the question of clarification until such second. CHAIR BADAME: All right. Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I’ll second the motion. CHAIR BADAME: All right, so we have a motion and a second. Commissioner Erekson, we’re ready for discussion. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I would ask either Mr. Hudes or the Staff to repeat the basis for the denial, because it went real fast, and it seems to me it’s critical to understand what the basis of the denial is before one can vote on it. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’d be happy to expand first, maybe. The basis for denial is that it is not consistent with the North 40 Specific Plan; the views are not consistent with regard to Policy 01, page 2-11, the Commercial Design Guidelines, page 3-2, and Section 3.2- 6.B.I, page 3-9 that addresses the requirement for views. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 169 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 Also, with regard to the unmet needs for senior housing, as described in 2.4 for Residential Development, and those are the two that I included in my motion. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Then I have a question for Staff. Part of the motion is based on not meeting unmet needs, so can you help me understand the language? Is the obligation of an Applicant to meet all of the unmet needs for the Town, or in fact if they meet some unmet needs, is that adequate? JOEL PAULSON: I will start, and then if the Town Attorney has any additional. There’s nothing in the Specific Plan that requires an Applicant to meet all the unmet needs of the Town. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: So then, hypothetically— I’m not saying that this would be the case—if in fact one met one unmet need of the Town, that would be sufficient, given the language of the Specific Plan, to be consistent with meeting the unmet needs of the Town? JOEL PAULSON: It could be, and that would be a determination made by each individual planning commissioner. You, as individual Commissioners, will decide whether or not it meets the unmet needs requirement that Mr. Hudes has pointed out. I’ve told you it doesn’t need to LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 170 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 meet all of them, but if it does meet one or more of them; then it’s clearly meeting unmet needs. There’s no threshold there that’s an objective standard that says you have to meet the certain objective unmet needs. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: Thank you. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: I will not be supporting the motion, but the good news is we’re not making the decision, the Town Council is. What I’m concerned with is that if there’s ever been a project we’ve worked on that doesn’t have as strong a possibility of litigation as this one does, I don’t recall it, but I’m sure the Council will do a somewhat different job in analyzing what they’re doing than we have given it. As I understand it, the Town Attorney is in fact getting some additional legal advice, and that I assume will be helpful. I can respect the motion and the reason for the motion, but I don’t think this motion will be of much assistance to the Town Council, but that may be okay, too. I’m just very glad we don’t have the ultimate responsibility. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 171 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 KANE: Commissioner O'Donnell, was there something you wanted to put in its place? COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Not that would be supported. CHAIR BADAME: I will add a comment, in that the intensity of this project is out of character for the Town, and when I look at the Specific Plan, it relies on hypothetical data and a glossary to characterize the intensity of unit sizes; that’s hypothetical data. Real data provided by the Town on page 6 of the Staff Report provides documentation that high-density housing in Los Gatos typically ranges from 516 square feet to 1,484 square feet, so that is powerful to me. Scaling it back with the intensity could have the effect of providing more open space, greater building articulation, possibly reduced building height, possibly reduced building footprint, quite possibly greater affordability in unmet housing needs, and it would protect hillside views, so I will be supporting the motion. Any further discussion? All right, we are coming up to 11:30, so I will call the question very quickly. All in favor? Opposed? All right, so it fails. We have a tie vote. I need a motion to go past 11:30. It’s 11:30. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 172 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 O'DONNELL: So moved. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Commissioner O'Donnell made the motion. Seconded by… VICE CHAIR KANE: I’ll second it. CHAIR BADAME: All right, all in favor? All right. Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: I didn’t support the motion, because I felt that unless one watched the tape much of what we said and what we’re concerned about was not reflected in the motion. I thought the motion would be like 14 points long. Am I off base? One of the things I’d like in the motion is a reflection of whereas I appreciated the economic analyst’s report, and I appreciate the Applicant’s willingness to have a dialogue with those merchants who are threatened, or think they’re possibly threatened to go out of business, I’d like that in the motion, as opposed to just in the film, and other things that we talked about that were of concern. So how detailed does this have to be? JOEL PAULSON: I think we need another motion. There have been instances where there’s a motion and a second, and folks want to have things added to it, so they request that of the maker and the seconder, but at this point we will need a new motion. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 173 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 BADAME: Commissioner O'Donnell. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: Just to verify, if we have a tie vote, it doesn’t mean that it can’t go on to the Council who will make the ultimate decision, it will just fail, is that correct? ROBERT SCHULTZ: Correct, but I’m sure Council would like you to at least deliberate a little bit further to see if a motion gets a majority, if after a period of time, like deliberations for a jury. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: And that’s fine, it’s just that Mr. Kane’s point is well taken. That is, if anyone reviews the record they’ll see a lot of things that were said that I’m not altogether sure necessarily has to be in the motion. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Has to be in the motion, correct. COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: But so many things were said by the citizens and by us that I don’t care how long the motion is, it’s not going to get the full flavor of peoples’ concerns and why the majority of this Planning Commission has made the motion they have. That is not to say we shouldn’t go ahead and try; I just want everybody to feel comfortable with what will happen. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 174 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 KANE: To the maker of the former motion, if you could repeat your motion and add the we’re serious about the full flavor of whatever Commissioner O'Donnell just said. You’ve been talking for a very long time, and you’ve done a great deal of research, and I thought the motion was almost myopic in terms of the stated concerns that you’ve had, the other Commissioners, and I didn’t know if they’re just going to read the executive summary or listen to these two days of deliberation, not to mention the 610 letters we’ve received. JOEL PAULSON: I would just offer, before Mr. Hudes jumps in, that the verbatim minutes will be prepared for both the meetings and they’ll be submitted to the Council. Everything that the Commission has received will also be forwarded to the Council, so they’ll receive all that information, plus any additional information that the public wishes to submit prior to the Council meeting. VICE CHAIR KANE: Consider remaking your motion, and I’ll have more faith in the process. ROBERT SCHULTZ: I think what Council is really going to be looking for though is those standards that you felt it was not in compliance, like Commissioner Hudes mentioned in the open space. Whether they’re subjective or objective, I’ve left that open to any standards, so if LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 175 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there are any other standards you want to point out in not only that motion, or any that are added, I think that would greatly help the recommendations to Council. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question and a comment. I thought your comments, Chair Badame, were very good about the intensity. Did you have a specific section of the Specific Plan that we could refer to on the intensity? CHAIR BADAME: I was dealing with unit sizes, and that’s part of the unspecificity of the Specific Plan, so all I could go off of was the hypothetical data that was provided in the glossary, rather than real data, about what type of intensity with square footages we might be looking for for units of this size, with this particular density, or with this acreage. I felt it was out of character for what we have in Los Gatos with similar parcels. VICE CHAIR KANE: Would that be an element of a potential motion? CHAIR BADAME: That was the element of why I supported the motion. VICE CHAIR KANE: We don’t have a motion now. I just wanted you to put it in there. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 176 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 O'DONNELL: If I understand it, you can add things to the motion if the maker is willing to do that. ROBERT SCHULTZ: But the motion was (inaudible). COMMISSIONER O'DONNELL: What I’m suggesting is rather than go to that motion again, you can say the same motion, you don’t have to repeat it, and then you can ask for amendments to that. I’m just trying to save some time. CHAIR BADAME: I’d be happy to make an amendment if you want to start that motion again, then we’ll hopefully get the second, and I will make my amendment with the discussion that I had about why I supported the motion. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, I’m happy to do that. I wanted to explore one additional area, and that’s the economic impact to see whether there were some things that Commissioner Kane might want to suggest as grounds for denial with regard to that area. VICE CHAIR KANE: It goes to the Mission Statement or some of the LEED Statements in the North 40 Specific Plan, having a concern or preservation for the downtown district, I don't know what the reference is right now, but that’s my concern, that there’s not enough concern spelled out where it could be a regulated part, and I just want to protect the downtown. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 177 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 HUDES: So let me ask, then, there was an inclusion of an inclusion of an economic report. How does that tie back to the Specific Plan? That was a required document, correct? JOEL PAULSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Where is that tied in, if I could? Because I don’t have the number. VICE CHAIR KANE: I do. JOEL PAULSON: I believe it’s on page 24, but let me just check here. VICE CHAIR KANE: It’s Exhibit 9. If we’re looking for this document, it’s Exhibit 9. JOEL PAULSON: He’s looking for the requirement in the Specific Plan. VICE CHAIR KANE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Could you point me to the requirement? JOEL PAULSON: I’m attempting to get there. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay. JOEL PAULSON: I’m sorry, it’s on page 2.6, it’s 2.4.2, Commercial Uses, “Projects proposing new commercial square footage must present the proposal to the CDAC.” COMMISSIONER HUDES: Right, so I would suggest that the economic impact study was flawed in that it did LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 178 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 not consider the true circumstances of the downtown, where the downtown has Conditional Use Permits. I believe the consultant stated that he did not recognize or consider that, and also analyzed the differences in the parking ability in the downtown as well, so I would maybe suggest that might be a way to address this economic issue, and that is why I think, in my opinion, that the report is flawed. ROBERT SCHULTZ: So if we could get a motion on the floor, and as I understand it, the motion right now would be based on three that I’ve heard, so if we get a motion that is based on the open space and the standards that you mentioned in your first motion, it’s based on the statements made by Chair Badame about the intensity of development and that it does not meet the standards set forth in the glossary for square footage requirements, and then the third one is the economic study. So is there a motion that we could put on the floor for that and get a second? Then you can add anything else to it. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to make a comment relative to Commissioner Hudes redoing the motion. There was a question in the discussion of the original motion about the unmet needs. In addition to Section 2.4 LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 179 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 where it describes that the development shall be focused on the unmet needs, Appendix C clearly outlines that there are two major populations for unmet needs. Now, it would be up to the Council to determine whether or not meeting the needs of the Millennials will be sufficient, but it clearly spells out in the second page of Appendix C that baby boomers are an unmet need of the Town. It’s documented in the Specific Plan, and it documents what their requirements are, stacked flats, elimination of stairs and such. That was the basis for my bringing it up to begin with, so if we could add that to the evidence. ROBERT SCHULTZ: As long as we get a motion and a second. COMMISSIONER HUDES: One second, just want to get it all. Chair Badame, what section were you citing, please? CHAIR BADAME: Mine had more to do with the General Plan as it relates to the Specific Plan, and that was with intensity relating to the character of the Town and that the project as proposed is too intense, and that reducing the intensity… And again, the intensity is not spelled out in the Specific Plan. There is a hypothetical chart in the glossary that talks about unit sizes that is not based on real data, whereas the Town on page 6 of the Staff Report LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 180 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 has provided documentation that high-density housing in Los Gatos with this particular 20 units per acre typically ranges from 516 square feet to 1,484 square feet. So this is a departure, it’s out of character for what we have in Los Gatos. We’ve got units that range from at least almost 2,000 square feet, so I’d like to see the intensity scaled back, and doing so would provide more open space, greater building articulation, reduce building height, reduce building footprint, give greater affordability for unmet housing needs, and protect hillside views. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And the chart she’s talking about is a conceptual model of residential sizes, which is on 6-14. CHAIR BADAME: Thank you for providing the page. Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: In our Residential Design Guidelines, Commissioner Hudes, there’s a requirement for excellence in design, and what I can find similar to that in the North 40 Specific Plan is on page 3.1, Design Guidelines Under Architecture and Site, talking about complementing the existing character of Los Gatos, and under Design Guideline 6, Architecture, “Produce high quality authentic design,” et cetera. I have concerns about LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 181 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 those two units, 24 and 25. They really seem crammed in there and I wish they were somewhere else, and certainly not on Los Gatos Boulevard, so that’s my citing for… COMMISSIONER HUDES: Do you have a page number? VICE CHAIR KANE: 3-1, Article 3.1. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I wanted to come back to Chair Badame’s concern, the intensity concern, and I wanted to ask the attorney about whether that is something that he would support with regard to the requirements that we have for certain kind of density of 20 units per acre, and are those consistent? ROBERT SCHULTZ: I don't know. I wouldn’t know if it’s even consistent with still being able to meet the density requirement of 20 units per acre. Is that your question? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Correct. ROBERT SCHULTZ: And I don't know that. I’m assuming when we went through that with the Specific Plan that it would meet it, but I don't know that for a fact, but certainly you can use that as one of your… At least you’ve tied your reasoning to something within the Specific Plan, which is where I’m trying to guide the discussion. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I’m a little concerned, because this is an example with a hypothetical example LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 182 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 rather than a requirement. I believe that’s what this table says, so I’m a little concerned. Maybe we can have a little more discussion about that. CHAIR BADAME: Well, it’s not specified in the Specific Plan what square footage units should or shouldn’t be, so it’s left open ended. When I look at what is characteristic of Los Gatos, I don’t want to use a hypothetical chart. I don't know who made up those numbers or where they came from. I want to look at hardcore data, what is more typical for Los Gatos for this type of density, and what I see, what’s been provided to me by Staff, is on page 6 of the Staff Report, and they give five examples of similar types of development at 20 units per acre in town. Aventino Apartments, 516 square feet to 1,418 square feet. Bay Tree Apartments, 782 square feet to 1,114. Riviera Terrace, 639 square feet to 1,035 square feet. Lora Drive, 800 square feet to 1,000 square feet. So if we’re going to be cramming a lot of units in there, I want them smaller in size to reduce the intensity, to have the effect that we want for a better project for Los Gatos that gives us all those extra benefits of open space, building articulation, reduced building height, et cetera; I’ve gone through the list. That’s what’s more characteristic of the Town of Los Gatos LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 183 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that I would like to see that celebrates our town. Does that help? COMMISSIONER HUDES: It does. I may ask you to amend my motion with that specific part. So let me try again. ROBERT SCHULTZ: Are you going to make it now? COMMISSIONER HUDES: Yeah. I’m going to start with the previous motion. So the project is not in compliance with the applicable goals and objectives of the General Plan; the project is not in compliance with the North 40 Specific Plan with regard to views; not consistent with the policies that I cited earlier; the pages that I’ve cited earlier with regard to that; and with regard to the unmet needs for senior housing as in Section 2.4 not addressed. Then I would include the quality of architecture as expressed in 3-13.1, in particular two units, 24 and 25, not in compliance with that; and then I would also cite the failure to meet the economic report in 2-4, “The application submittal must include an economic impact study to assess economic competitiveness,” and that that study is flawed, as it didn’t consider certain elements of the downtown, including the need for the restrictions in downtown that include Conditional Use Permit and parking LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 184 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 restrictions were not considered in the preparation of that report. So that’s where I am. I would maybe stop there and see if I can get a second, and then if Chair Badame would like to add something about intensity. I wanted to make sure I got that language correct. I think we need to get a second before we can do that. VICE CHAIR KANE: I’ll second it. CHAIR BADAME: All right, Vice Chair Kane and Commissioner Hanssen seconded it at the same time, so I don't know who to give the credit to. All right, Commissioner Hanssen, since she seconded it the first time around. All right, so I would ask the maker of the motion if they would add that the Specific Plan envisions lower intensity residential for the Lark District. To me, the lower intensity residential equates to smaller square footage in unit size. Based upon that, I am referring to what I think is real data as to what’s characteristic of Los Gatos for low-intensity residential, and that would be the information provided on page 6 of the Staff Report with the examples given of similar development in Los Gatos. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 185 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So the intensity, the square footage of the unit sizes, need to be less intense. Would the maker of the motion add that? COMMISSIONER HUDES: I would add that. CHAIR BADAME: All right, does the seconder accept that? COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes. CHAIR BADAME: All right, any further discussion? Commissioner Erekson. COMMISSIONER EREKSON: I have a request of the Chair. I would like for the Staff to outline in writing all of the bases, because this is both complicated and important, to outline and put them up on the screen and give us a five to ten minute break to figure out whether or not we could—because I’ve lost track of them—kind of come to grips with whether or not they provide an adequate basis for supporting the motion, or not. That’s a request. CHAIR BADAME: All right, I would like to honor that request; it seems reasonable. JOEL PAULSON: At least ten minutes. CHAIR BADAME: Ten minutes. We will take a ten- minute break. (INTERMISSION) LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 186 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 BADAME: All right, Commissioners, per Commissioner Erekson’s request, we have the motion on the overhead. JOEL PAULSON: I will go ahead and read it, and then we would be looking for confirmation from Commissioner Hudes and Commissioner Hanssen as to whether or not that captures the essence of their motion. The motion is to recommend denial of the Architecture and Site Application and Vested Tentative Map Application to the Town Council, based on findings that the project is not consistent with the General Plan and North 40 Specific Plan; because it doesn’t meet the unmet needs, as it doesn’t address unmet housing needs for senior housing as outlined in Section 2.4 and Appendix C of the North 40 Specific Plan in relation to views; as it doesn’t incorporate views adequately in the layouts as called out in Open Space Policy 01; and also as related to Design Guidelines 3.2.1.D, and then relationship to the economic study from Section 2.4.2 of the Specific Plan, that the study was flawed because it did not consider the downtown CUP requirements and parking requirements; in relationship to intensity, that the North 40 Specific Plan envisions lower intensity residential in the Lark District; and the units should be smaller, typical of the examples cited in LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 187 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 Planning Commission Staff Report for July 12th on page 6, which stated examples of other developments in town; and then from the Design Guidelines, Policy DG-6, that Buildings 24 and 25 do not comply with this policy. CHAIR BADAME: Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I think under views there was an additional item, which is very long, 3.2.6.E.I., on page 3-9. “Special care shall be taken to avoid obstructing views to the surrounding hills.” CHAIR BADAME: Are all the Commissioners able to read the material that’s on the overhead? Yes? All right, we have a motion on the table and second, so I am back to any further discussion before I call the question? Commissioner Hanssen. COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just had a comment. I wondered what we should do with the discussion that we had at the beginning about distributing the units differently for any proposal that would go forward. It could pertain to view and intensity. I don’t think it’s a ground for denial, and I certainly the Council will get a transcript of our discussion, but I thought it was important that we include that in our recommendation. Maybe you guys don’t agree that that should be part of the recommendation, but I’m going to throw that out there. LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 188 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 BADAME: All right. Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: I just want to add that that tied in with my thinking about views in that site configuration could be adjusted from the application, because there is some ability to move units within the site and within the application area as well as within the district, so that’s how it tied in. It’s not an additional item; it’s just my thinking behind why it’s okay to look at the views as an issue as well. CHAIR BADAME: Vice Chair Kane. VICE CHAIR KANE: I think it’s an adequate representation of what we said. It could help with the motion being voted on. I’d just prefer that we know that the actual text of the motion as from the verbatim minutes is what in fact we said, just in case there’s some bad grammar up there or whatever; what we said is what we said. CHAIR BADAME: All right, any further discussion? Commissioner Hudes. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Just since I’m somewhat new to this, is it possible to vote for and support the motion without supporting every one of the points that are on there? ROBERT SCHULTZ: Your motion will be taken as a whole, and whether you’re for the motion, because it’s all LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/13/2016 Item #2, North 40 Phase 1 189 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 parts, but you certainly can put on the record, say for example, you’re going to support the motion, because overall you’re in support of it, but you do have an issue with one of them, to let Council know that maybe you didn’t agree with that, but you can’t vote on part and not the other. COMMISSIONER HUDES: Okay, thank you. CHAIR BADAME: All right, so again, I believe we have a motion on the table, and we have a second by Commissioner Hanssen. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I will call the question. All in favor? Opposed? Passes 4-2, with Commissioner O'Donnell and Commissioner Erekson opposed. Mr. Paulson, are there appeal rights of the actions of the Commission on a recommendation to Town Council? JOEL PAULSON: There are not.