HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-11-17 Architectural Review Board Summary Minutes
City of Palo Alto Page 1
Call to Order/Roll Call
Present: Chair Robert Gooyer, Vice Chair Alexander Lew, Board Members Peter Baltay, Wynne
Furth, Kyu Kim
Absent:
Oral Communications
Chair Gooyer: Is there anyone in this audience who would like to address the Board on any item that's
not on the agenda this morning? Seeing none, I'll close that portion of the public meeting. I'm sorry.
Come on up then. You'll have 3 minutes, and please state your name.
Josh Davis: Josh Davis representing the Zane [phonetic Partnership on the Forest item. I work with
Davis & Co. Realtors. I manage the building at 647-651 Emerson Street next to the proposed project at
Forest Avenue.
Chair Gooyer: Wait minute. You said you're doing this as part of the fourth item?
Mr. Davis: Yes, the Forest Avenue project.
Chair Gooyer: This is intended for anything that is not on the agenda today.
Mr. Davis: Sorry about that.
Chair Gooyer: No problem. When?
Vice Chair Lew: (inaudible)
Chair Gooyer: What do you think? An hour or so?
Vice Chair Lew: (inaudible)
Chair Gooyer: Something like that probably.
Board Member Kim: If you could feel out a speaker card in the meantime.
Chair Gooyer: I'll close the public portion and bring it back to the Board.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Chair Gooyer: Agenda Changes, Additions, Deletions.
ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD
DRAFT MINUTES: November 17, 2016
City Hall/City Council Chambers
250 Hamilton Avenue
8:30 AM
City of Palo Alto Page 2
Jodie Gerhardt: No changes.
City Official Reports
1. Meeting Schedule and Assignments
2. List of Staff Approved (Minor) Architectural Reviews
None.
Action Items
3. QUASI-JUDICIAL MATTER/PUBLIC HEARING. 693 Arastradero Road [16PLN-00089]:
Consideration of applicant's request for approval of an Architectural Review permit for the
demolition of three existing single family homes and construction of a new preschool (60
children) and expansion of the Bowman School on Terman Drive. There is no proposed change
to the existing enrollment limitation of 300 students. Three new structures will have a combined
floor area of 17,132 square feet and will be used for the preschool, gymnasium and classrooms.
Environmental Assessment: An Initial Study is being prepared. No action from the ARB will be
taken at this meeting. For additional information contact Victoria Hernandez at
Victoria.Hernandez@cityofpaloalto.org.
Chair Gooyer: We'll start out then with Item Number 3. A public hearing, 693 Arastradero Road,
consideration of applicant's request for approval of an Architectural Review permit for the demolition of
three existing single-family homes and construction of a new preschool, 60 children, and expansion of the
Bowman School on Terman Drive. There is no proposed change to the existing enrollment limitation of
300 students. Three new structures will have a combined floor area of 17,132 square feet and will be
used for the preschool, gymnasium and classrooms. Environmental assessment, an Initial Study is being
prepared. No action from the ARB will be taken at this meeting. Staff.
Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you. Good morning. Jodie Gerhardt, Current Planning Manager. I'm pinch hitting
for Victoria Hernandez, who is the Project Planner, who's out on vacation right now. This is 693
Arastradero. As you mentioned, it is approximately 17,000 square feet that they're asking to add to this
sort of satellite expansion of the Bowman International School, that is already located a couple of doors
down. The proposal would be a single-story classroom and administrative buildings, another single-story
science lab, art building which would have a basement and has kind of that garden courtyard as well.
There's a single-story gymnasium. The campus also includes play areas, the sunken learning circle that I
was speaking about. There is a variance needed for that, because this is R-1 zoning which is built for
houses. We're only used to these kind of small below-grade patios. This sunken learning circle is a little
bit larger than that but does help to reduce the noise at the same time, which is why staff is supportive
thus far. There's also a 20-space parking lot, and there would be drop-off provided through that parking
lot as well. This project does remove three existing single-family homes, so there would be a small loss
of housing there with the implementation of the school. We do have a site plan here, showing the three
buildings that we discussed along with the 20 parking spaces in the front. There is also a nice mature
oak tree in the front that we are working to preserve as part of this project. This map just gives you
some neighborhood context, showing you the existing Bowman School at the top there, and then the
proposed expansion at the bottom. Older students would be walking back and forth to attend classes in
the gym and go to the science lab and things like that, but the younger children would stay on this one
campus, I believe. Key issues. Staff does have some concerns about circulation issues. We just want to
ensure that the drop-off and the pick-up, that there would be sufficient queuing for those types of
activities. We want to ensure that that doesn't back up onto Arastradero because there is a narrowing
down of that particular main road. The loss of housing there is three housing units being lost, and that's
a critical issue in Palo Alto. With that, for the moment we're not asking for a recommendation. We're
just asking for you to review the project, and then we would bring it back at a later date. We also have a
parcel map going forward to combine two parcels. That will be a parcel map with exceptions because the
resulting lot would be over the maximum zoning limit. Thank you.
City of Palo Alto Page 3
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Is the applicant here? You'll have 10 minutes for your presentation.
Mary Beth Ricks: Good morning. My name is Mary Beth Ricks. I'm the Head of School at Bowman
International School in Palo Alto. I have brought with me my architecture team, Jon Daseking
representing Pacific Peninsula and Bob Cleaver representing Cleaver Design, my landscape team. My
project manager is stuck in traffic, but she's on her way as well to answer questions. I also have Robert
Eckols, who works for Fehr & Peers, and he did our traffic study. Bowman is a not-for-profit kindergarten
through eight Montessori elementary school that was founded in Palo Alto in 1995. We're a year-round
school, and we serve families in Palo Alto as well as families who work in Palo Alto. We have provided
education for over 700 children for the last 22 years. We're committed to keeping our school in keeping
with the environment and our neighborhood. We've held three neighborhood meetings and talked a lot
with our community about what we're doing and how we're working together to make this a really
outstanding program. The project will allow us to have a preschool, which is expanding our program by
40 children. The idea lab is a design thinking laboratory, much like the Stanford School of Design. We
will be one of the only schools on the Peninsula that will have this outstanding idea lab, and one of two
Montessori schools in the nation that will have one as well. It's a really great opportunity to be an
outstanding leader in progressive education. We're here again; we came last October. We took your
advice; we held our third meeting. We made a few design changes at your recommendation, and then
we submitted our proposal in March. We've been waiting to get the feedback, and we're here again not
for approval but for a study session. Jon, did you want to …
Jon Daseking: Good morning. My name is Jon Daseking again, the architect for Bowman School. As
Mary Beth mentioned, the charge that we got from Bowman in terms of the project is to basically design
a project that would provide facilities for existing programs that they have but that have inadequate
facilities at Terman. With that, they also gave us the vision that they wanted, which was a learning
village assembly for the project, something that was residential in character, low scale and that reflected
sort of the Montessori approach to teaching, which is individualized learning, and also taking advantage
of both indoor/outdoor. There's a place—in any situation, there's learning that can happen. That's what
we were trying to do. As Mary Beth mentioned, the last time we were here in front of the Board was for
our preliminary Architectural Review, which was actually over a year ago. I did go back through, and I
wrote down a few notes, just some of the highlights from that meeting, just to refresh your memory for
you. When you looked at this before, there were a few issues or items that you had brought up. One
was traffic, wanting to make sure that the project—we all acknowledge that traffic is heavy at times on
Arastradero with the schools, with Gunn and Terman. To look at that and make sure the project had a
minimal impact to any kind of traffic situation there. You also were wanting us to look at bicycle
circulation. We hadn't fully shown that. Even though we were thinking about it, we hadn't fully shown
that on the previous submittal. Since that was very preliminary, we didn't have a lot of detail in it.
Especially bikes with trailers was what you were concerned about. Also, I would mention that we have—
wait a minute. I'll show you this central sort of fire access. You wanted us to look at how can we
incorporate that with the big oak. I had mentioned to maybe center that access on the oak to try to tie
the two together. There were concerns voiced from Diane Chambers, who is the head of the Young Life
Preschool next door, about shadows cast into the playground area on the church property. We've looked
at that, and I think we've addressed that issue as well. You wanted to have a little bit more definition on
the circulation of students between Terman and Arastradero or the Arastradero site. Also, a little bit
more on the architectural style of the building, since we were pretty sketchy at the time we were here
last time. A few things that you'd said that you liked were the site, building and the parking arrangement
that we had had, the siting of the buildings and how that worked with parking. You liked the
organization of the smaller-scale buildings in the front of the property with the gymnasium being the one
taller one, because of the basketball and volleyball functions, towards the rear of the property. The scale
of the project, you liked. You liked the idea of the learning circle that we had. I think Board Member
Lew referred to it as one of the Indian step wells, sort of that same idea, which I liked because our idea
was that it had a very functional aspect to it, but also by its nature trying to bring in a little bit of the
ceremonial meeting, gathering, sort of more of a civic function to it as well, which we're trying to get
things to be dual functional. As the focus for today's meeting since it is an interim meeting, it's been sort
of a long haul through the City so far. What I'd like to do as much as possible is to basically—ideally it'd
City of Palo Alto Page 4
be great if we could approve the project in theory with the formal approval coming when we come back
after the City is done with their final reviews, the department reviews and so on. That would be my goal
of the project. We've spent a lot of time and gotten a lot of reflective and sincere thought about the
comments from you as well as our neighbors, the owners, the City departments. I think we've really
covered our bases here pretty well. From a design approach, one of the things too that came up was
Bowman is currently housed at the Terman School, the 4000 Terman site. That building and that campus
was not designed for Bowman School. It was designed for the Jewish daycare or day school. It's sort of
more institutional style; it's not really in keeping with what the Bowman—if they were doing it today, that
would not be the building that they would design even though it's been working well for them. For the
Arastradero site, their vision was something that was more reflective of their learning philosophy, which
is individualized learning, not group learning in a big classroom, the Montessori heritage which is
repurposing homes for classrooms. Also a desire to have something a little bit more informal and organic
in feel to its design. That was sort of where—and the indoor and outdoor learning that I had mentioned
before. That was sort of our starting point on that. For site, I'll let Bob talk to you a little bit about the
site.
Bob Cleaver: Good morning. A pleasure to be here. My name's Bob Cleaver, landscape architect for the
project. I just wanted to start off with a little bit of a review of the site context. As you saw in one of
the earlier slides, along Arastradero where this school is proposed there is a Hetch Hetchy right-of-way,
which is a very nice open space corridor through the neighborhood. We have apartment buildings to the
south. We have a church and small daycare center to the east, and to the west of the Hetch Hetchy is
the Memorial Park, the cemetery. The point of that is that with the developments that are proposed on
Arastradero the school is—I'll use the word remote but somewhat separated from the residential sections
that are on the north side of Arastradero. We felt that the school, although the design of the school has
a residential quality, the function of the school works well with the neighboring context. I just wanted to
start off with a little bit of site organization. There is a large live oak that is along Arastradero, and it is—
thank you, Jon—a very good, a great specimen. Dave Dockter, on your staff, has been very happy that
the organization was to keep the tree. Our measures are to preserve the tree. It became a focus for our
design. We coordinated the design of the fire access as sort of a central spine that coordinates with the
tree. The remaining square footage on the site really has some perimeter trees. They are mostly live
oaks. There's a few jacarandas in very poor shape. With the exception of this oak tree, the other trees
have been struggling mostly because of the drought and lack of water. None of them are nearly the
scale of this tree. Really the primary focus has been this tree.
Chair Gooyer: Your time's up. If you'll just finish it up. If you've got a finishing thought, that's …
Mr. Cleaver: I wanted to pass it off to Jon to take a few more steps.
Mr. Daseking: I will try to go through it quickly. We've developed the site plan further. If I only have a
few more minutes, I want to go a little quicker on this. Quickly on the site plan. We have our parking in
here. We have a circulation plan. I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. It's shown on this
plan; it's a little hard to see here. We've included bicycle circulation onto the site from both directions. If
I go back to the main site plan, I can show that a little easier. We have circulation for bikes through here
as well as pedestrians up. We have walkways on both sides. We were showing our bike racking. Also
with our drop-off and pick-up which occurs here for the cars, we have a nice area here for bikes with
trailers and so on to be able to pull in and basically unload and have some time to undo that in a
comfortable fashion without obstructing other people. I'll let Bob talk a little bit about the landscaping
further. I can talk a little bit, if you have questions about the architectural style and so on. I don't want
to take too much time here.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. If we have any questions, we'll ask you.
Mr. Cleaver: Perfect. Should we hold off to hear if you—I'm happy to talk a little bit about the landscape
and site development or do you want to wait for (crosstalk)?
City of Palo Alto Page 5
Chair Gooyer: Why don't we leave it as if anyone has any questions, then I'll call you up?
Mr. Cleaver: Perfect. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. I have one speaker slip at the moment, that's Diane Chambers. Come on up.
You have 3 minutes.
Diane Chambers: Hello, hello.
Chair Gooyer: That's right. It only starts when you get to the microphone. You don't have to run up.
Go ahead.
Ms. Chambers: I'm Diane Chambers. I'm the director of Young Life Christian Preschool, which is the
adjoining property. I've been there for 25 years, and the school has been there for 20 years before me
also. It's a very long history in Palo Alto, serving the neighborhood. We currently have three teachers at
Terman and a teacher at Nixon, who their children have been to our school. We have over 600
graduates just from my experience. Our concerns started with competition as we serve 2 1/2 to 5 year
olds. I think we are more family oriented. We include Montessori ideas, principles in our school also with
a mix of other things. The main issue that we have is the gymnasium. It extends the entire length of
our playground. That's the south facing area of our playground. It's obviously important to Bowman
students because that's in their pamphlet that they sent out a year ago. They mention that the south
facing—they wanted that for their students. In putting the gym there—it's three stories—it completely
takes away our sun for all afternoon. Our children will be in the shade basically. Especially in the winter,
it's very cold. I don't know how that could be resolved, because it's a very huge building. The only thing
would be to extend the playground beyond—if the shade is going to extend into our playground this
much, maybe it needs to be extended into our parking lot further the other direction. We can't afford to
do that. Another issue that we have facing is traffic. With putting that many children next door to us,
we've already had our only left-turn exit from the school taken away from us. We have no left turn. The
parents have to turn right, find somewhere on Arastradero to turn around. Probably they will be going
into the neighborhoods and bothering the neighbors. We don't want that. Another issue that we are
thinking about with construction next door is noise and dust for our students who will be in the
playground.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you.
Ms. Chambers: More time. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: That's okay. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to address
the Board?
Board Member Furth: Can I ask a question?
Chair Gooyer: Sure.
Board Member Furth: Is yours also a year-round program?
Ms. Chambers: Yes, it is.
Board Member Furth: Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Seeing none, I'll close the public portion and bring it back to the Board. First of all, are
there any questions of either the applicant or …
City of Palo Alto Page 6
Board Member Baltay: Yes. I have two questions that are unrelated. Perhaps back to the person who
just made some comments. Could the applicant explain to us whether there will be shadows cast on this
playground from the gymnasium?
Ms. Ricks: Sure. I think …
Board Member Baltay: I know there were shadow studies done. Rather than having me dig through all
the …
Ms. Gerhardt: Also, Board Members, if you take a look at MAR25, we do have a shadow study included
in the plan set.
Board Member Baltay: Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just asking if they could explain it to us for the
record. Will there be any shadows cast on the adjoining playground by the gymnasium?
Ms. Ricks: Go ahead, Jon.
Mr. Daseking: Yes, no.
Board Member Baltay: No, it's a fairly straightforward question.
Mr. Daseking: The diagrams will show you why. When we were here for the preliminary Architectural
Review, the gymnasium building was actually 90 degrees to where we currently have it. In that position,
it had a higher elevation towards the Young Life Preschool playground area, the church playground area.
We looked at that, and we said, "Let's rotate the building 90 degrees so that we have a lower elevation
on that side." We did a series of studies here. The upper row is for the winter time. The middle is for
the spring and fall equinox. The bottom is the summer. Starting on the bottom, there are no shadows
cast. My eyes are not the best, but I think we were looking at 9:00, noon and 3:00 at the times of the
day. The shadows that are in the playground area, which is in this area here, are from the trees that
exist on the church property as well as the fence. The building itself, its shadows are all within the
Bowman property. Even on the equinox, sort of the same thing is true. It's more the shadows from the
Terman Apartments or the trees on the Terman Apartments that are casting a shadow in the morning.
At the noon time, again it's just the fence. Later in the afternoon at 3:00, there's just a little hint of a
shadow now being cast. It really only happens when we get to the winter solstice. Here again, in the
morning, it's the trees from the Terman Apartments. At noon, we now just start to see a little bit of our
building peaking over the shadow of the fence that's there. At 3:00 in the afternoon, the sun is getting
low enough, it's getting close to sunset by that time; the shadows are being cast. Now there are some
shadows being cast. It's not really until 3:00, late in the afternoon, at the lowest angle of the sun during
the year, winter time, that there will be some shadows that are cast.
Board Member Baltay: I think you've answered the question. Thank you. Robert, if I may, can I ask the
person from the school if they're aware of this shadow study and what they think about it? Is that
acceptable to do?
Chair Gooyer: Sure.
Board Member Baltay: Could you come back to the microphone and tell us please have you seen and
reviewed these shadow studies? Is this an unreasonable amount of shadowing in your opinion?
Ms. Chambers: We never got the shadow studies.
Board Member Baltay: As you're looking at them right now, it looks to me like maybe 15 feet into your
playground in the middle of the winter is about the only time there's reasonable shadow (crosstalk).
City of Palo Alto Page 7
Ms. Chambers: We're open 'til 6:00. Like right now, we still have the children outside until quarter to
5:00.
Board Member Baltay: The question is have you seen these. The answer is no, you haven't.
Ms. Chambers: No, I have not.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you. My other question, Robert, was totally unrelated but to the staff. As
I understand it, this project requires two variances. One is for the subterranean, excavated space, and
the other is to merge these parcels into a lot greater than 20,000 square feet. I'm wondering if there's
any proposed findings for these variances at the moment. I didn't see anything in the staff report. How
are we going to justify that?
Ms. Gerhardt: No. We're not asking for a recommendation at this time, so we haven't gotten quite to
that point.
Board Member Baltay: There's nothing been put together even tentatively as to what those findings
might be?
Ms. Gerhardt: Not right this second, no.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you.
City Manager: Any other questions? Go ahead.
Board Member Furth: This is just for clarification. What is the categorization of Arastradero Road at this
point?
Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you for that. The staff report mistakenly called it, I think, a local road. It really is
a residential arterial. We in the next round will change some of the policies to address that correctly.
Those new policies still talk about pedestrian-friendly and things of that nature.
Board Member Furth: When I read the draft Transportation Element, it looked to me like this had been
reclassified as a nonresidential arterial, but that's incorrect. Right?
Ms. Gerhardt: The new map is still in draft form. The colors are a little hard to read. To the best of my
knowledge, we are not changing the designation of this street.
Board Member Kim: I have a question for the applicant.
Chair Gooyer: Okay.
Board Member Kim: You've gone over the change of the gymnasium and rotating it 90 degrees. Can
you highlight any other changes that are significant from the last time you've been to the Board?
Mr. Cleaver: Would it be helpful to deal with landscape development or are you hoping for just building
changes?
Board Member Kim: It would be nice to hear about landscape too, but I just don't want the answer to
linger on for too long. Is there a way that you can kind of condense it or keep it as short as possible?
Mr. Cleaver: I can, sure.
Mr. Daseking: I think the two biggest—landscape, we really didn't have anything per se on that before.
That's why it's the biggest change, in answer to your question. The other change is that we've refined
City of Palo Alto Page 8
the design of the architecture of the buildings more. I can speak to that, if you'd like. The biggest is
how we've really developed the site for the project. I'll let Bob speak to that.
Mr. Cleaver: I'll try to be brief. The fire access lane, central to the project, was turned into a form of
paseo. It's got swirling and more organic shapes of paving. It has a drainage feature, that works with
the existing topography. We're draining from the southern and, as you're looking at the drawing up top
on the screen, it's drawing right is the higher portion of the site. It is draining towards the specimen oak.
We then spill the decorative paving from the fire lane paseo center and incorporate it and bring it to
embrace the tree. Along Arastradero, we came in with an organic, curving wall of gabion cages.
Basically, we're using a local rock and cages to provide a barrier, if you will, a protective barrier. Along
with that, did the bioswale planting and made it a lot softer and the overused word organic. The intent
was to use native planting and complement the existing oak with the development there. The remaining
areas we used larger canopy trees, nearer the gymnasium. Surrounding the gymnasium, organic open
space for the preschool. Developed an adventure area, if you will, that is a little bit untraditional but very
in keeping with the Montessori style. I'll hold it at that. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Anyone else? Why don't we start with you then, Kyu?
Board Member Kim: Thank you for coming back to the Board, and thank you for your presentation. I
think overall I'm very appreciative of the design effort that's gone into this project. Taking a look at the
buildings, it's evident you've gone through the long process that you've explained and that there has
been a great deal of detail paid, attention to each building. I do have a couple of comments. As I look
closer into each building, especially the two buildings that front on Arastradero, while in site plan they do
look fine, I think. I was a little bit surprised that, for instance, if you're looking at the Children's House
from Arastradero, that pocket, what looks like to be almost kind of a main entrance to the Children's
House isn't actually a main entrance. It's the mechanical room and the bicycle parking. You do have
these two double doors, and then immediately above these double doors, you have a chimney that's not
really a chimney, but a flue for the bathroom and other mechanical equipment. In addition to the idea
lab, where you have another pocket that's facing Arastradero, it seems to be fenced off. I understand
that's a sensitive site and a sensitive project. It's a school. Maybe if there's a way to make the buildings
kind of face the street and present itself as a more friendly gesture, maybe it's a thought that can be put
into play. Also the fence along the idea lab and that nook, does it have to be a completely enclosed
fence? Can it be an open fence so that perhaps other children on their way to school can see what's
going on inside the idea lab? That's another comment that I had. As far as the variance that would be
required for the learning circle, I'm completely fine with that. I think it's okay to do that. I'm
appreciative of the fact that there's been thought as far as noise and sound control in doing that. Some
other overall comments. For the idea lab, I think if you have some children, students, even teachers or
helpers that are a little bit more challenged accessibility-wise, it seems to me that to have them go all the
way outside and use the elevator to go up and down the two floors and to access the learning circle
seems a little discriminatory to me. I understand that there are some programmatic challenges in trying
to incorporate that. Some other things. I do have another question actually. On the cover page, the
beautiful illustration that you have here, should we be actually seeing the gymnasium building in the
background? Is that something that's been left out or is this really a true representation of what the site
will look like?
Mr. Daseking: The drawing was developed from a CAD program. We put in the topography, the location
of the buildings, the size. They're all modeled. This is the viewpoint from here. That's what you see.
To answer your question, no. The gym is there, it's just that you're not seeing it.
Board Member Kim: It's just you're not seeing it.
Mr. Daseking: I think we had done a couple of studies. I think we have included in one where you're
across the street and on the second floor. One of the neighbors was concerned what he'd see from his
upper floor. That's the only time you get a little hint of the roof of the gymnasium coming through from
that side.
City of Palo Alto Page 9
Board Member Kim: Thank you. As you come back for the formal decision, it would be nice to see kind
of a narrative of how children actually access the site, how children are dropped off, whether it's an
animation or additional eye-level perspectives. From that main paseo area, what does it look like, how
are the children moving about the site, things like that. I think a lot of my questions were answered.
Maybe in closing, I'm just thinking are there ways to encourage the students to either bicycle or to
carpool or is there any kind of plan in place for the majority of the students coming to the site to be
dropped off at the main Bowman site and then walk over. I'm concerned about the traffic. As
Arastradero becomes a narrower street—I live closer to another school on San Antonio Road where the
traffic has backed up on a main street. I just don't want to see that happening here. I realize there are
traffic studies, but I'm just curious if there have been other thoughts put into play with regards to how
we can minimize the backing up of cars. Also for staff. In the title description of this project, it
specifically states that it's construction of a new preschool. To me it seems like the gymnasium and the
idea lab will actually serve the rest of Bowman School, not just the preschool itself. I'm wondering if
there needs to be a revision to the text there. I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Does staff want to answer that comment about the relabeling?
Ms. Gerhardt: We can certainly take a second look at it. We had tried to say that it was a new preschool
and expansion of the Bowman School. We'll look into that.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Alex.
Vice Chair Lew: Thank you for your presentation. The project has come a long way. It's looking really
good to me. I like that you've really gotten down to some really great elements in the design. The
central spine, from what I can tell, and the landscape and the architecture are really handsome. I think
the columns and the trellis at the gym with all the glass doors is really fabulous. I like your description
about all of the native plants and the gabion walls and native trees. I think that's all good. It seems to
me the staff is concerned about the potential for backup. We do have the neighbors concerned about
the shading on the neighboring property. On the backup potential of like backing up on cars, it seems
there are two—I think we've all seen that on regular schools, that it is an issue. Most of the schools in
Palo Alto weren't really designed for that kind of drop-off that happens today. It seems to me there are a
couple of things. The school doesn't have—you don't have a start time, a fixed start time. That to me is
huge. It also seems to me in the traffic studies for your project and from what I've seen on other schools
the morning has a higher peak than the afternoon. The way that I observe Arastradero and also the
traffic numbers is that what you're doing is going to be like the reverse commute from what's happening
on the traffic. In the morning, when the traffic is heading west, your traffic is going to be heading east
on Arastradero, if you're just looking at the peak numbers. The reverse is true in the afternoon. I think
that helps. Those two things, to me, seem to help. Also, you have more parking than is required.
There's some flexibility in the drop-off. There are extra spaces there That should be able to help. I
think the other thing is that we have—there are just some rule of thumb numbers from the ITE. They're
looking at—actually these are other states. There's some rules of thumb about the amount of linear
footage per student. That equates to the length of the drop-off. It seems to me that they have space
there. Maybe the official drop-off could be even longer. It seems to me to be workable, but I'm not a
traffic engineer. I do support the staff trying to look at that in more detail.
Ms. Ricks: (inaudible)
Vice Chair Lew: If you have a quick question, yes.
Ms. Ricks: I just was going to clarify. I already have 40 students on my current campus that will be
moving there. They're part of the same families. I'm only adding 20 new students. Just to clarify. The
number 60 keeps coming up, but it's really only 20 new students added to this drop-off. I just wanted to
clarify that.
City of Palo Alto Page 10
Vice Chair Lew: I think we understand. That's in our paper. I think our concern is the—you're moving
them to a different—moving them down the street.
Ms. Ricks: They'll still be dropped off with their siblings. Their drop-off isn't changing.
Vice Chair Lew: Thank you for that.
Mr. Daseking: We have further information on—we looked at the queuing issue, the length of queuing,
how many were coming. Robert, if you want, he can—we haven't had a chance because the issue came
up a little later.
Vice Chair Lew: I understand it was a late issue.
Mr. Daseking: We haven't shared the information with staff. Robert could speak to it if you want to at
this time or we could wait until staff has had a chance to look at it.
Vice Chair Lew: Thank you for that. I do support the staff if they want to do more studies for that. I
think I would—for me it would be pay more attention to the special events. To me, that's huge. Things
like the first day of class and back to school night. If you see what happens at a regular elementary
school, there are cars parked all throughout the neighborhoods. That's fine; I don't have an issue with
that. On this particular street, say people are parking in the neighborhood and across the street and
want to cross, it's really difficult. There's no crosswalk proposed here except there's one at Terman.
There's a light, and also there's a light at Gunn. I think that some thought should be given to that.
Here, I think, the studies—everybody is saying that the parking is going to be at the church and Terman,
the overflow parking, and also on the street. I would argue that we're at like—the distance between
Terman and the proposed new school is like a quarter mile, maybe even 0.2 miles. To me that's like the
upper range of what people will walk. I think a lot of times urban designers use the quarter-mile radius
for downtowns as the distance that people are willing to walk. I think you should pay attention to that. I
think the temptation would be to park in the neighborhood, which would be closer. The other concern,
which I think I mentioned last time, was the planting strips along the street. I think you're just showing
it as beige in the landscape plans. I'm curious to see what those will be in your future landscape plans. I
also do share Kyu's comments about the fences in the front. I think there are a lot of Craftsman
buildings in Berkeley. They're like wood plank fences, but there are small openings and notches and stuff
like that. I would encourage you to consider something that's mostly private but has something fun and
interesting in there to make it a little bit more transparent. The last item that I have is the sunshading.
A quick question for staff. By Code, they're following the R-1 daylight plane, which is 10 feet up and a 45
degree angle. Right? Some of the daylight planes are drawn in the plans, but I'm not sure that that one
was drawn in the plans.
Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. There is the standard R-1 daylight planes on the sides. We can have that better
shown in the plans.
Vice Chair Lew: If this weren't a school, my hunch is that it would be two houses. That frontage along
the church is 300 feet. It could easily be two houses, possibly even three if they were much smaller lots.
I would say that the gym is—if you look at the gym and the idea lab, it is bigger than what two houses
would be. I think there is a shading impact. It seems minimal to me. It's the winter time mostly. In my
mind, if it's following the daylight planes, then it's close to—it seems to me it's complying.
Mr. Daseking: Excuse me. Just for your information. I just put up MR13, which on the upper left shows
the section through the gym and the daylight plane.
Vice Chair Lew: And the 45-degree angle. Also, I think that Ms. Chambers had mentioned that it was
three stories in apparent height. The height, as I looked at it, was about 26 feet, which is comparable to
a two-story house. I think the issue for the Board is actually the length, as you had mentioned, the
length of that facing your property. That's where (inaudible).
City of Palo Alto Page 11
Chair Gooyer: Wynne.
Board Member Furth: Thank you, and thank you for the presentation and for the comments from the
neighbor. This is certainly a desirable use in this City. We're not being asked that, but we're always
asked about Comprehensive Plan conformity. This certainly advances one of the City's goals, which is to
have enough spaces for small children to get educated. My concerns have to do with circulation, the
shading and accessibility. I look forward to hearing more about how accessibility actually works. When I
look at this—I'm looking forward to seeing full-size plans next time—I think about how inviting and
welcoming is this to a child who has difficulty or an impossibility in navigating stairs or that child's
parents. I'm not reassured yet. We accept that in older buildings where you're going to have to go
around to the back and use special access points, but not in a new one. On circulation, I'm going to be
interested in—I'm glad that you have what looks to be a fairly long drop-off point. I'm reassured by the
fact that you'd have a conditional use permit, that you have the opportunity of having a lot of drop-off
taking place at the other campus. I think schools tend to be places where it's relatively easy—it's not
easy if you're doing it. From the outside world, it's possible to modify behavior, starting hours, and
whatnot in a way that can avoid what would be a really serious problem of any backup into Arastradero
when you're starting your program. I'm a little concerned also—I'd like to know more about how does
this two campus program work. I very much agree that this would be completely unproblematic if this
were a preschool that was being established here. Preschools don't have full-size basketball gyms. The
effect of people going back and forth as pedestrians on access to the Palo Alto Reform Church site, it
seems to me that you're going to be—it's quite possible that people will be trying to get in and out of that
preschool program. I forgot to ask. Is your program 7 days a week or 5?
Ms. Ricks: Five.
Board Member Furth: Thank you. In and out of that preschool program at the same time they're trying
to go up and down that sidewalk, which could create quite a problem for them. I'm also concerned,
perhaps more than my colleagues, about shading of the playground. I have very fond memories of
preschool at the Institute for Child Welfare in Berkeley and of the trees and whatnot. Sunlight is
important, because areas that don't get regular sun get dank and unattractive and are not good play
spaces. Outdoor play is important all year-round, particularly in the winter. I would like more
information about not when it doesn't cause a problem, but in the seasons of the year in which it could.
I think preserving significant sunlight on that playground compared to what is there now is an important
aspect of this project and its impact on an adjacent and equally valuable use. I was just wondering is it
possible to sink gymnasiums. I realize I'm not such a diehard—I understand basketball is important. I
understand it's important to your program. I'm not going to question that. I do question casting
significant shade on your neighbor. In order to accommodate it, I understand that in order to sink a
basketball court you might have serious access problems, so I don't know what's possible. I'm concerned
about this aspect of the project. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Is that it?
Mr. Daseking: Can I stress a—just to help clarify a couple of points. One, in terms of the pedestrian and
the students back and forth, the primary is basically there on Arastradero. There's no movement of
primary kids between the campuses.
Board Member Furth: That's not true if they're being dropped off at Terman, which is what we were just
told.
Mr. Daseking: The idea is that you have kids who reside on the Terman campus. There are students
residing at—the primary ones are residing at the Arastradero campus. The thinking is that if you have a
primary student, you're going to come into the Arastradero campus and drop off. If you have an older
child, you could either drop them off there and let them walk or you would continue to Terman and drop
off the older child.
City of Palo Alto Page 12
Board Member Furth: What I'm looking for is a plan that tells me how you can avoid any problems.
Chair Gooyer: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you for your application and very well prepared set of drawings. I find it
very helpful to have a comprehensive package in front of me. Thank you again. I'll start from the large-
scale stuff. I find it problematic but not really part of our purview that you have two schools that are
separated by 167 yards. Just point blank, it's going to create complications. I'm sure you're aware of it.
I think we leave that to the Planning Commission and City Council to make decisions on. I don't have
any issue with that as an Architectural Review Board member. I find that the architectural character is
exceptional. I find it really fits in very well with what I perceive to be the nature of your school, to the
nature of the community, to the residential or quasi-residential section of Arastradero you're on. The fact
that they're all one-store or appear to be one-story buildings is wonderful to me. The fact that they're
not quite like houses, to have some essence of institutionalism to them still, is really also quite nice. I'm
very complimentary of the overall design style you've picked. I also find that having the parking and
drop-off area in the front is well done. It's about as best an arrangement as I could imagine doing given
this condition. Yes, I think there might be a few backups during peak occasions. I think it'll certainly be
within the realm of what's been accepted in Palo Alto. I think it will work very well. I'd like to address a
couple of smaller issues perhaps. You have a large oak tree in the front, which we're all talking about
saving. It seems to me if you were to slightly reconfigure your parking, you might be able to get a real
bulb-out around that tree. I wonder if we could come to any one of the site plan pages, where I could
demonstrate that to you. I'm looking at Sheet MAR5. Any one of these will do fine. If you were to
create, say, a 10 or 15-foot landscaped area sort of in the radius around that tree, that would form a
really nice visual termination of your entry access and really help a lot, I think, to preserve the tree.
Right now, you have parking coming fairly close under the dropline and stuff like that. You could do that
just by removing the other tree that's in the parking area, and just sliding a few of these spaces down. It
seems to me that's an idea worth studying, just to really say that that one tree is really what we're
concerned about, not just to create the technical space that Dave Dockter is pushing you about or to go
with some special soil and things. Just pull back farther from the tree, give it the breathing room visually
that a tree like that warrants in a town like Palo Alto. That's just one comment. I understand that you're
meeting Dave's requirements, but it seems to me you could do a notch better and it would help you with
the access and saving the tree without too much of a change. If I could address the shading on the
neighbor's playground. I do find that the building is quite below the daylight plane by 2 or 3 feet. I find
that the shading really is only a small portion of the playground at certain winter hours. That said, it also
seems to me that again a fairly modest adjustment to your plan could help mitigate that and not really
make much difference for you. Again, if you could shift please to the sectional drawing of the
gymnasium. I have that page sorted out here. It's Sheet MAR13, Section AA. If you were to look where
you have on the upper left corner, that's the drawing I'm referring to. You seem to have a series of
telescoping bleacher seats to watch the basketball games. There's a flat roof over those. As I
understand it, it's the top corner of that flat roof that's really casting that shadow in those winter hours.
If you were just to slope that roof or somehow cut it down a little bit over the bleachers, you probably
could reduce the shadow even further without really mitigating or hurting the functionality of the
gymnasium. I find in every other respect the design of the gymnasium is exemplary. It really has so
many features around it, as Alex pointed out, the trellis, the columns, the whole wrapping around,
breaking up of the mass, that do wonderful things to break down the fact that this is a very large
building. I agree that it's well within the height that you'd find for a two-story residence. A two-story
residence may well cast even bigger shadows. Because it's such a large volume, I compliment you on
how well you've designed it to fit into the character of your building, your campus and the community. I
really think it's one of the better examples of how to do a gymnasium for a school. I'm very, very
complimentary of that. I'd like to address Wynne's comments about accessibility. We all share the need
to really make buildings feel welcoming to all of us. I feel, though, that this is actually a very accessible
site. If you think of your basic site design, almost all the buildings are one-story, so there's no need to
go up a level. The one place where you do have a lower level, which is the learning center, that sunken
pit, you do have an elevator right front and center. It's celebrated architecturally. It's this very nice-
City of Palo Alto Page 13
looking tower feature that all the kids are going to want to go up and down in that elevator. It seems to
me you've actually made this friendly to a person in a wheelchair. That's about the only place where you
need to use the elevator. Everything else you've managed to keep at grade with a central access point
that you walk in from the parking at-grade again. I find it actually very well done for a school. There's
no raised steps. There's no two stories. There's really not too much else. From a very functional,
architectural point of view, I think you've merged the aesthetics well with keeping it welcoming to most
people. I find that the sunken learning circle is a fantastic design feature. I wish I'd thought of it. It's
going to be a wonderful space for kids to be outdoors, connected to their lab underneath with making
that downstairs space have lots of daylight. You've done a great job of protecting the neighbors from
excessive sounds by making it below grade, while still giving kids a really neat outdoor space. I find in
the rendering you've provided it to be a very persuasive space. I think it really will be quite nice. It's
just a great idea of how to fit that kind of outdoor space into a residential neighborhood in a graceful
way. I'm very complimentary of that. Obviously I like it very much. I'll come to Kyu's comments about
the front of the—I guess both buildings. The one on the right, I'm not quite familiar with the name of it,
the Children's …
Male: House.
Board Member Baltay: Children's House. When he pointed it out to me, I confess I didn't notice it. You
do have a double door into a mechanical space, which looked like the front door of a house. It seems to
me a minor slip up on the design. What I wonder is if you couldn't consider some sort of bicycle parking
area that would do the opposite on that. My first comment looking at this was, "Where's all the bike
parking?" That's something you'll notice in every school in town. The bicycles end up being put in some
chain-link enclosure that an administrator builds when they realize they don't have 16 bikes coming,
which is what you're required, but they have 100 coming every day. When you factor in all the students,
the teachers, the aides, the parents, everybody is riding their bikes around here. It seems to me that it's
an opportunity to acknowledge that you need more bike parking, which I think you do. Put it someplace
which is front and center. You could make a very nice enclosure in that niche there for bike parking. It
would mitigate the fact that it doesn't look like a front door any more. You could design something nice
to deal with that issue. That was my third small thing that I suggest you consider. The tree and the
parking around it; the way you do the gym roof over the bleachers, and then something on the front of
the Children's House perhaps as bike parking, but certainly do something to get it so it just looks a little
bit better. My last comment. I guess I'll address this to staff, but I'm trying to be consistent with how
I've been looking at these projects over the past year or two. As I see it, you need to make a finding for
a variance. I don't quite see what that would be. Variances are not related to the use of a property.
That's what would make this finding make sense. That large sunken area is a great use for this property.
It makes sense from every design point of view. I'm very curious to see how staff will justify that
otherwise. The same thing applies to the 20,000-square-foot maximum lot size. Again, clearly for a
school you need a bigger lot than that. It all makes sense. When you read the Code literally, I'm
concerned about how we find that. Not we, because it's not an Architectural Review Board finding.
Somebody has to make that determination. I would counsel the applicant that that is an important issue,
to make these findings. They have to be correct. I'm not sure that's so easy to do. I'll leave it at that.
Thank you very much for what I see is a good application and a very nice design.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you, Peter. I like the way this is progressing. As you said, now that the buildings
have some clarity, it's really helped a great deal. There are basically two concerns that I have. One is
the shadowing of the neighbor's play yard. Even though it is only in the winter time, the winter time is
when the kids want to go outside and play. That's when it's going to be coldest, so that's when you want
the sun. It sort of works against itself. The second one is the queuing. I've been up and down
Arastradero, and it's real easy for queuing to get out of hand even if you have half a dozen volunteers
out there. I've done work on various elementary schools. When we design the queuing, we figure it's
complete overkill. When the reality kicks in, it's still not enough. I had thought about the whole idea of
wrapping the road around the back side and all this, but you're wasting way too much site on roadway
that you are on this one. I've a couple of suggestions. First of all, with the gymnasium, I agree with my
fellow Board Member Peter that—two things. I think that area where the bleachers are, the roof could be
City of Palo Alto Page 14
sloped and do a great deal to help that. Also, I think the gymnasium can be designed somewhat so it
could actually be pushed down or south. Even an extra 5 or 6 feet moving the building south would help
on the shading on the adjacent property. That along with the sloping of the roof, I think, should
eliminate most of it, so it gets pretty close to the fence. It allows the play area to stay completely lit. As
to the queuing, I think you've done a good job. Based on also what we talked about the idea lab, where
we've got these magnificent double doors leading into a utility room basically, I'd like to see the queuing
area—I should say the drop-off point moved north about to where that one car is. That way it extends it
probably by two or possibly even three car lengths. Just more time there or even further that you put
the exact drop-off area where your trash enclosure is, and then relocate that somewhere. You push it as
far south as—I should say as far north as possible to get the longest available queue. Invariably, no
matter how you say you're going to stage it—I've seen it enough—nobody says, "Absolutely, my child will
be there at 8:15 every morning." It just doesn't happen. This morning it took me over an hour to get
here from San Mateo. Usually it takes me a half hour. You don't know. Those are my two main things.
Also, if the drop-off area is actually in front of the idea lab, it also relates a little bit better to the whole
concept of possibly making that more of an entryway into the building, rather than a—to me, there's
nothing worse than a phony dormer or a set of doors that lead into nothing. I'm more realistic. I'd like
the old "form follows function" concept. I really don't like gorgeous double doors leading into a utility
room or that sort of thing. The same thing on the other side. I agree with you that both of them
probably need to be—so that the function actually does make it more of a concept where you enter from
the front or at least make it so that it doesn't look like that's the intent. That's mainly it for me. Any
other comments from anyone?
Board Member Kim: I have a quick comment on the gym actually. One of the things that I've noticed
going to several other school gyms is the fact that when the bleachers are on the opposite of the
gymnasium from the entry, if there's a game going on, people have a hard time getting around to the
back of the gym to the bleachers. I can foresee that possibly being a problem here in this case. It's not
a huge deal for me, but just something I thought I'd make a comment about. Also, while I really
appreciate and I like the trellis and the doors opening up from the gymnasium, I'm just curious how often
is that really going to be used. It seems like a nice design feature that has a flow, but realistically if you
have children in here, you're not going to allow them to escape like that. They're obviously not for the
people that are going to be watching the game. Maybe for people watching something going on at the
platform stage area. That was another comment. I also was able to find the older site plan here in the
traffic study. I see that previously the stage was oriented with the gymnasium and bleachers such that
the telescoping bleachers would serve as the seating for the stage. In the current plan, the bleachers
won't necessarily do that. I'm curious how people are going to sit for the stage. Finally, my last
question. I remember there was a gate in the initial design. There was a gate into the main paseo,
which seems to have been removed. I like that move, but I just wanted to confirm that there is no
longer a gate.
Mr. Daseking: The gate is still there.
Board Member Kim: The gate is still there?
Mr. Daseking: Is still there, yeah.
Board Member Kim: There is a main gate in the paseo?
Mr. Daseking: In the paseo, yeah.
Board Member Kim: From the parking?
Mr. Daseking: From the parking.
Board Member Kim: That doesn't show up to me in the latest site plans. It does; I do see it here.
City of Palo Alto Page 15
Mr. Daseking: It's shown here. There's a pedestrian-scale gate, and then there's a section of fence
that'll open up in terms of fire access.
Board Member Kim: Will that gate be closed or open during the day?
Mr. Daseking: The big one will be closed. It's just the pedestrian gate coming through.
Board Member Kim: It's an open gate?
Mr. Daseking: It's a control gate. It's in front of the office. The admin …
Board Member Kim: Visibility wise?
Mr. Daseking: Visibility wise it opens.
Board Member Kim: When the gate is closed, can you see through the gate fairly easily?
Mr. Daseking: Yes. They're meant to be open, and it's not meant to be a solid wall.
Board Member Kim: Understood. I missed that gate. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Good luck and look forward to seeing the final result.
Mr. Daseking: Thank you.
4. 480 Lytton Avenue [16PLN-00257]: Prescreening for an Architectural Review Application for
Proposed Exterior Modifications to an Existing 6,222 Square Foot Building, Including Changes to
the Parking Lot Design and Other Site Improvements. This Application is not a Project Pursuant
to the California Environmental Quality Act. For additional information contact Adam Petersen at
APetersen@m-group.us.
Chair Gooyer: The next item on the agenda is 480 Lytton Avenue, prescreening for an Architectural
Review application for proposed exterior modifications to an existing 6,222-square-foot building including
changes to the parking lot design and other site improvements. This application is not a project pursuant
to the California Environmental Quality Act. Staff.
Adam Petersen: Good morning, Chair Gooyer, members of the Architectural Review Board. I'm Adam
Petersen from the Planning and Community Environment Department. I'm here today to present a
preliminary review for 480 Lytton Avenue. This project essentially consists of a remodel and exterior
alterations to the building at 480 Lytton. It seeks to, number one, develop a stronger façade along
Lytton Avenue; number two, replace all the existing windows with band aluminum-frame windows;
number three, replace the gravel roof with a standing seam metal roof and clerestory windows; number
four, it seeks to create landscape pockets around the parking lot and also construct parking lot
improvements. This is a preliminary review of the project, and staff is requesting your comments related
to the proposed design. These next slides will take you through the existing site and sort of the site
surroundings. This is a view of the project site. This is the building sort of in the middle of the picture.
It's a brick building with street trees around it. It's looking south from the corner of Lytton and Cowper
Avenue. This is the back side of the building with the existing parking lot. It's essentially a one-way
parking lot. You enter from Lytton Avenue, and then you exit along Cowper. Just the back side of the
building here. This is a view down Lytton Avenue. This is the existing building on the right-hand side.
This is some of the context of what you see down the left-hand side. This is looking to the east. This is
the proposed site plan for the project. As you can see, there's going to be some driveway improvements.
You enter the site from Lytton Avenue, drive into the parking lot. The site currently has 16 parking
spaces, and the applicant is retaining those parking spaces. They're increasing the conformity. Right
now, the site does not have conforming parking to the standards, but they are proposing the stalls along
City of Palo Alto Page 16
the building will be conforming to City standards. Right now, there's no trash enclosure on the site.
There's just two bins. The applicant is proposing a trash enclosure and also some enclosures for the
HVAC equipment. This is the proposed renderings for the site. In the top rendering, we have the view
along Lytton Avenue here. It's sort of the long elevation. On the left-hand side, we see the view along
Cowper of the building. The top, we have the clerestory windows. The bottom side shows the view of
the parking lot and sort of the back side of the building. The applicant has proposed design options for
the Board to consider. These are just various takes on what they're looking at. The primary project
concerns or the primary role of the Board is to evaluate the project relative to the Architectural Review
findings. In particular, consider the project's response to historic buildings in the area. Also consider the
project as it relates to the Context Based Design Criteria and performance criteria and also the
pedestrian-oriented enhancements. Staff recommends that the Architectural Review Board review the
project, provide comments to the applicant, and continue the project to a date uncertain. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Would the applicant like to … Good morning, Ken. You know the routine.
You've got 10 minutes.
Ken Hayes: Good morning. Let me just make sure this works. Good morning, members of the Board.
My name is Ken Hayes with Hayes Group Architects. I'm joined this morning by my client, Hilary Strain,
from Wing VC. The project, staff did a great job explaining it. In terms of location, it's on the corner of
Cowper and Lytton Avenue, located there. It looks like this is distorted. It's in the CD-C (P) zoning
district. It's completely surrounded by that district. Across the street diagonally is an RM-30 district, and
that imposes a 35-foot height limit on the building. Not an issue in this regard because we're dealing
with an existing building. The views of the building. The upper left is the parking lot side from Cowper.
It shows the—the entry to the building is actually on that parking lot side. It's a stucco building, kind of
mid-century modern, defined horizontal roofline. The access to the parking lot from Lytton is located
here, sort of on the west side of the property. This side of the building is all poured-in-place concrete
while the rest of the building is wood frame. It kind of has this pattern of sheer walls and openings, a
really simple or simply constructed building. The project statement is to renovate the existing mid-
century building for a modern office tenant, Wing VC. They have needs for flexibility, energy efficiency,
daylighting. They wanted to have an iconic image, just sort of upgrade the image of the building,
embrace sustainability design practices and contribute to the living and working environment in
Downtown Palo Alto that we so much love. Existing site plan. Very limited landscaping, no landscaping
on this entire side. Here there's a wood fence and an office building. Cars enter here, through the
parking lot, one-way diagonal spaces, and exit out onto Cowper. The existing entry, like I said, is located
there. We're proposing—we'll have a landscape architect involved. This is just conceptual. We want to
get landscaping in the parking lot, because we want to look at green trees and foliage from the second
floor. We would try to get an abundance of trees. As staff pointed out, a new trash enclosure here
where none exists today. Get the mechanical units off the roof, and put them down in an enclosure on
the ground so they don’t have vibration issues. It'll be probably a VRF-type system, very highly efficient.
Cars will come in the same way. We'll have an entrance—we're actually talking about adding benches.
You can't quite see them; they're highlighted. A bench here with new landscaping; benches along Lytton
Avenue with new landscaping. It says Kipling there; that is Lytton. We'll actually have an entrance from
Lytton and an entrance from the parking lot that will come into a new two-story space that will start to
integrate the building on the interior. The solar diagram here on the left kind of gives you an idea. The
southwestern façade facing Lytton Avenue is going to have a lot of solar (inaudible). We want to work
with a vocabulary that's modern and provides for sunshading techniques, a deep overhang, very clean
lines, a very defined base and body to the building, lots of glass. Like I said, we want to really look into
the canopy of trees that we both plant and that are there at the corner of Cowper and Lytton. We're not
really pursuing these three any long. We're hoping we can get your support today on the direction that
we like. We did start off with something that didn't modify a whole lot. Worked with the sheer walls, put
a new roof on the building and new glass. We moved to some other ideas, more along the lines of the
imagery we're beginning to develop and work with. This was going to be—the upper right would
highlight the corner and sort of the north side of the building and begin to kind of lift up and create more
daylighting opportunities. In the end, we really felt we didn't want to be that dramatic, kind of like lie
low behind the existing canopy of trees and use clerestory techniques to bring light into the building
City of Palo Alto Page 17
instead of having the corner pop up. We're focused now on this option here. This is the streetscape, the
BofA building there on the corner. We think the clarity of our concept, the simplicity and boldness of the
imagery that we're pursuing will be strong relative to this brutalist building next door. I think that
compatibility will work. The delicacy of the building, the detail that we're adding to it, sort of the fine,
light sort of line work, the sloped roof is a way to begin to pull the building towards the historic homes
that are on Lytton. I'm sorry, on Kipling, located here. We think it's kind of a nice bridge between the
two environments. It is an existing building as well in terms of the overall mass. There it is. That's what
we're proposing. The roof's going up about 2 feet, not including the clerestory window behind. The idea
is we have a strong base, differentiate that with some solid material and some punch-outs, keeping the
existing sheer walls, creating all kinds of planter around the building. These are the benches that we
were talking about, could be placed on those planter walls. Open up the corner with lots of glass to look
out into the landscaping. This is the entrance from Lytton. The deep overhang here would be metal
cladding. We're employing glass fins in kind of a seemingly random way, so it's not a regular pattern but
random, to kind of relate to the organic nature of the trees. You'll sort of look through the trees and see
this kind of random shadow pattern happening behind. This is the side that faces the BofA building.
Give you an idea, we're going to wrap the corner with the glass. It shows the raised planter around the
perimeter. Anybody could sit anywhere on the planter, but we're going to provide some wood benches
on top of that, that would kind of float. You can see the sloped roof. Section through the building,
letting the light through. This is the two-story space that you'll walk into from the parking lot side here
or the Lytton Avenue side here. The idea there is to try to integrate this office space. They'll have
conference facilities on the ground floor. They'll have more of their workspaces upstairs, and they really
want to sort of flood it with light. Just a diagram of the plan. It shows you—this area will be the hole in
the floor. We'll have the vertical circulation located there. We're actually going to have to add another
stair. There was some ambiguity in 1021.2. We thought we could negotiate away one of the stairs, but
this will be under the new Building Code, and they've clarified what we thought was an ambiguity. We
will have another stair, so we need to add a stair to this. Most likely it will be over here and handled a
similar way as to what the existing stair does. This yellow area is the area under the clerestory windows
and the vault above. That'll be all the open office area. It's how we see it. We would take the
patterning of windows and sunshades all the way around the building to give it some continuity. We
understand that you don't necessarily need it all the way around the building. I think it will give the
building a more complete look. This will help on this side in terms of early morning sun. Obviously, this
is where you really need it, on the western side. We did a little blow-up. You can't see the highlight
there, but this is sort of a blow-up. This is the interior, and this is the glass line. We have the deep
overhang. This is the metal panel eyebrow. These would be this random sort of layout of the glass
panels. They do not go all the way back to the window wall. They sort of float independently, but
they're always under the canopies or between the two canopies. Just to show you all sides of the
building. This, again, is the concrete side of the building, and then the other areas of the building. This
is pretty much staying as is with new material, but that structure needs to remain too. The slide that
staff had. This is from the corner, the frameless glass, the raised planters, the benches and then this
form that floats above, that's primarily glass and metal panel. A view from above. I think that's my
presentation. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Are there any questions?
Board Member Furth: Is this a multiple-tenant space now or is it a single-tenant, the building?
Mr. Hayes: I'm sorry. I thought it was to staff.
Board Member Furth: No, it was to you.
Mr. Hayes: It's multi-tenant. It's very chopped up inside. The demising walls inside pretty much provide
the support for all of the roof structure and the floor structure.
Board Member Furth: When you finish this project, it would be a single-tenant space?
City of Palo Alto Page 18
Mr. Hayes: Correct.
Board Member Furth: Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: One question for you, Architect Hayes, on the exposed concrete wall on one
elevation and then the glass fins. What is the exact materials you're thinking for the concrete?
Mr. Hayes: Mr. Baltay, this end of the building has the concrete wall that's an existing structure. We're
actually going to wrap it with the same material that we would treat the base of the building with. It
(crosstalk).
Board Member Baltay: What is that material?
Mr. Hayes: We're thinking that it would be either a porcelain tile or a stone tile.
Board Member Baltay: Color, texture, feeling?
Mr. Hayes: It would probably be in the darker tones, in a smooth, honed-type texture. It's not polished.
We're showing gray right now. I'd love to do something in that sort of color range. Probably not a very
colorful material, but one that's more of the earth.
Board Member Baltay: The glass fins you've described, are they just clear, tempered glass? How thick?
Mr. Hayes: No, they will be a laminated glass. It'll have a translucent film, the laminate.
Board Member Baltay: Will they have that bluish tinge that glass tends to have or what are you thinking
here?
Mr. Hayes: It'll probably be more of a greenish tinge. I'm not sure. I don't think we're going to be using
like a low-iron glass, so it'll have a bit of a—kind of like the building across the street.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you.
Mr. Hayes: Which is more of a green. If you get on the edge, it's a little bit green.
Board Member Baltay: That's what you'll be seeing, the edge of this, a lot.
Mr. Hayes: Yeah, but it's not blue.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you.
Board Member Kim: I have several questions for staff. The first question for staff is an explanation of
the two parcels. It seems like at one point the applicant was trying to merge them and they decided not
to. If you could explain the history behind that.
Mr. Petersen: There are two parcels on the site. The project sort of straddles—not straddles, but there
are two parcels. The dividing line between the parcels is in the parking lot.
Board Member Kim: Originally were these residential parcels?
Mr. Petersen: I don't have any history on the use or the historic use or …
City of Palo Alto Page 19
Vice Chair Lew: You can look in the Sanborn maps. There's everything here. Lytton and all the side
streets were all Victorian houses.
Board Member Kim: Next question for staff. I have more experience on the residential side. There's a
certain boundary line between a rebuild versus a remodel. A certain deciding point in which a building is
considered almost new construction, even if parts of the building are kept. Is there a rule that applies to
that in this case?
Ms. Gerhardt: There isn't a bright line between remodel and rebuild for the Planning Department. There
may be a more brighter line for the Building Department.
Board Member Kim: My concern for that is that if Building later along the line says this is actually a
rebuild and not a remodel, then I think you would also kick into play a lot of additional Code updates
such as parking and accessibility and some other issues there.
Mr. Petersen: If I can provide some insight. For this project, they're not adding or subtracting any
square footage from the building. It's staying substantially the same. In terms of the parking, it's not
going to trigger an increased demand in parking. (crosstalk)
Board Member Kim: I understand that. It seems to me that the second floor, at least all the walls are
being torn down. I understand that they're going in the same places, but it's a brand new wall
essentially.
Jonathan Lait: Thanks, Board Member Kim. We do need to look at that. As Jodie said, we do not have
a clear definition of rebuilding, renovation. It is something that we do struggle with not only on the
residential but also on the commercial side. There are some guidance in the Code in the R combining
district, I believe. We can look to that. Understand your point that if it is a rebuild, parking may be an
issue regardless of whether they're adding square footage. As a prelim, I don't think we've done an
extensive amount of Code analysis on this yet. We're just sort of teeing it up for a conversation. We'll
definitely take that comment and make sure we do that thorough Code review.
Board Member Kim: Thank you very much. The remaining questions, I think, then get canceled out.
Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Anyone else? You gave me a speaker card that says Item 5. Was that supposed to be for
this one or the next one?
Male: Next item.
Chair Gooyer: Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address this Board on this particular
item? Come on up. Did you fill out a card? If not, do so after you give your presentation. Please state
your name.
John Shenk: I will. I apologize for that, but I will do so. John Shenk with Thoits Brothers. We're the
owner of the building and many buildings in the Downtown. We happen to own the building next door
and the Victorians behind it. Not all of them; the one on the corner we don't own, but three of the other
Victorians on the back side there we are proud owners of. I just wanted to share that we're excited at
this opportunity to work with this particular tenant and Mr. Hayes on what I really look at as a significant
improvement and reinvestment in the neighborhood. The building's got functional obsolescence in a lot
of ways. This is an opportunity to make it healthier, make it brighter, filled with light, all of those kinds
of things. Far more energy efficient than the existing building, because old buildings just are not very
efficient in the systems and the guts of it. Just to how it feels. We're really excited by that. We're
keeping it within the existing square footage. My take on single tenant, multi-tenant, I look at all of our
buildings as being either. They just move over time. The current tenant is a single tenant. We could
put—just as the building is now, we've gone from single tenants on the upper floor to four tenants on the
City of Palo Alto Page 20
upper floor. This same thing could happen in the future in terms of TIs and such. The opportunity today
is to really transform the structure itself. What happens inside as we move ahead as very long-term
owners—the Thoits family has been in the Downtown since the late 1800s. We'll ride this building for
another 100 years as things go for the family. I just wanted to share we're very supportive. We are
really a big owner in terms of owning the neighboring buildings as well. We love this concept, and our
neighbors and the tenants in the other buildings share our excitement. We'll see how we go through.
Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll close the public portion and bring it back to
the Board. Alex, you want to start?
Vice Chair Lew: Thank you, Ken. I don't really have that many comments on the building. I think
everything that you've been doing is generally great. It's very handsome. The only things that I have
are—there's the existing wall facing the driveway which is kind of blank. That seems to me a weakness.
The perimeter of the project, like the existing conditions on the site and the transitions to the neighboring
properties are pretty rough. Like the sidewalk's lack—no fences and all of that kind of stuff.
Mr. Hayes: Lack of vegetation.
Vice Chair Lew: I think you're not really presenting that today, but I just wanted to say that. That's
what I'm looking for in the future. For staff, you had mentioned in the staff report that the project plans
do not provide the pedestrian overlay amenities in our Downtown zone. I just want to say that the
architect's intent is that the planters and the benches are the amenities. I think in the staff report you're
saying that the building has a zero setback, but actually the building does have setbacks on Cowper and
Lytton. I think it would actually meet the intent of the P zone, which is awnings, canopies, recesses,
benches, seating, landscaping. I think it does do that. That's all that I have. Thank you, Ken.
Mr. Hayes: Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Wynne.
Board Member Furth: I admit I've been sitting here (inaudible) this is interesting zoning because it's CD-
C and it's pedestrian overlay, but it's not ground-floor retail. We're supposed to be looking at this
building to see how it provides pedestrian interest and essential to foster the continuity of retail stores
and display windows. This is an office use perhaps. I'm trying to think of how to make sense of all these
goals and requirements. I suspect it's not going to have display windows or retail display areas, but
windows that could be used for that purpose at some future date, which would be enough.
Mr. Hayes: That's the thinking.
Board Member Furth: I'm glad you have benches. I don't quite see this as yet being an enticing
pedestrian experience. I wanted to ask staff a question. The ultimate in non-enticing pedestrian
experiences is the Bank of America building across the street, except that it does have an elevated, open
courtyard, which has its attractions. It has zero landscaping. Is that City standard in design for that site?
Ms. Gerhardt: Certainly zero landscaping is not City standard.
Board Member Furth: When we have this back, I would appreciate understanding a bit more about that.
Lytton's in some ways a very beautiful street. I was driving up it at 6:00 in the morning coming back
from the airport recently. You have a clear shot to the western hills. We have big trees. Most of its
beauty comes from the fact that people have done some good architecture along it. They've preserved
some old buildings that were good architecture at the time. We've got big and significant street trees.
This block kind of fizzles out. I am hoping that, when this otherwise much more interesting and
improved building happens, it will be a lot greener and a lot less glary over there than this drawing
makes me think it might be. I realize the drawing is designed to show something other than landscaping.
City of Palo Alto Page 21
This is the street that's the edge of my residential neighborhood. There's this kind of scrim of alternating
residential and nonresidential buildings across it. For me at least, it's fine to look at a beautiful office
building, but I want it to look like a beautiful office building that's intended to be reached by pedestrians
and that is an attractive place to find when I try to go from my residential neighborhood to the
Downtown commercial area.
Chair Gooyer: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you. Before I start, Architect Hayes, could you confirm for me please the
existing roof structure, the cantilevered second-story part, is that being retained?
Mr. Hayes: No.
Board Member Baltay: It is not.
Mr. Hayes: No, that's not being maintained.
Board Member Baltay: Did I understand you to say it's being raised up?
Mr. Hayes: Yes. We're raising it because the ceiling heights inside are barely 9 feet. All the duct work
would need to be up on the roof of the building to get a modern mechanical system to work well. We're
trying to increase the volume of the space inside. The roof structure is changing. Hopefully it'll be
column-free, so we'll have a very flexible layout on the second floor.
Board Member Baltay: I'm sorry, but I just can't find in the drawings how much it's going up by. What's
the dimension?
Mr. Hayes: 2 feet.
Board Member Baltay: 2 feet. I'd like to see more detail on that certainly. I find it's a wonderful change
for the neighborhood to have this building revitalized. It's sort of a sorry and old looking corner with
tremendous potential, notwithstanding that the BofA building across the street is infinitely worse in my
opinion without being remodeled. I find your idea of the continuous band of second-story glazed area
with these light glass valances to be wonderful. I think it'll really be a neat effect on the street. It seems
to me just about the right touch for being an office building but just two stories high. That said, I'm
concerned. If you're raising it 2 feet higher, that could really be an issue, Architect Hayes. Right now, it
feels about right, the scale of it, the mass of that building. 2 feet more makes that thing a little bit too
top heavy in my opinion. I'd caution you to really study that carefully. I'm looking at the slanted
clerestory element on the top, and that feels too top heavy to me. First I thought it just wouldn't be
visible. Thinking about it more and as you approach Lytton from the west, I think it'll be quite visible.
Mr. Hayes: You see it right here.
Board Member Baltay: It has the risk of just being too top heavy in the (inaudible), which I don't think
your intention is. Reflecting back on the building you proposed to us 6 months or so ago on El Camino,
where you had a similar central courtyard with a covered area as a light well and you put more or less
horizontal solar panels there, it had the same effect of letting light into the center of the building. I'm
wondering if you couldn't tweak your design a little bit to try reduce the heaviness of it. I'm concerned
especially …
Mr. Hayes: (crosstalk) this is preliminary. We haven't gone real far.
Board Member Baltay: I'm just throwing an idea at you.
City of Palo Alto Page 22
Mr. Hayes: Our concern is we want it to be high enough so that the clerestory windows are functional,
so that we get some light in.
Board Member Baltay: We all want it to be functional. What you proposed on that building was, I found,
successful and attractive. Something like that—it also had a lighter feeling to it, and that might help
here. When you come back next time, if you could be sure to have good renderings, showing the
context of all three corners, all three public corners of this building. That affects what I was talking
about earlier, the choice of materials on that, I guess, west-facing wall, the large, blank concrete wall.
My first reaction was why couldn't you modify it somehow. I can understand why it's very difficult to do.
That said, your choice of material on that wall is critical.
Mr. Hayes: We're also thinking that that wall will be where we put our core essentially. The functional
core (crosstalk).
Board Member Baltay: If you could make sure that we have renderings especially of that corner showing
the context, showing how it fits into the community. That's an especially important concern of ours these
days. Good renderings showing that will go a long way to selling your point or explaining to us what
needs correction. On all three corners of the building, we'd really like to see good, eye-level, street-view
renderings of the building and its context. I'd like to come to my biggest concern about this. This
building is in the pedestrian overlay. That's something that the City and the City Council is especially
concerned about these days. If you read the text of the Code, it clearly says that any renovations also
trigger the Architectural Review Board to review this and make sure it complies with the pedestrian
standards. I respectfully disagree with Alex saying that just by having planters there you meet the letter
of the Code, I agree. I don't think you're creating pedestrian-friendly, outdoor spaces on the front of
your building. I think there's some basic structural planning choices you've made that get you there.
Could you put the main entrance to the building not off the parking lot but off of Lytton? Buildings that
are public, buildings that people go in and out of …
Mr. Hayes: We have an entrance on both sides.
Board Member Baltay: Let me finish please. Buildings that are public have main entrances, things where
the address is marked, where most people go in and out of, on the street, not on a parking lot.
Mr. Hayes: That's exactly what we've done.
Board Member Baltay: It looks to me like you have the two-story space, the main celebratory entrance
on the back of the building.
Mr. Hayes: No. You're going to walk in and be in a contiguous lobby that goes from street to parking
lot.
Board Member Baltay: I'd like to see if you couldn't also then get some additional entrances at the
ground level off of Lytton and, I guess, Cowper there. Again, that may not be the need now for a single
tenant, but as the buildings evolve that leaves the potential for having retail uses on that building. As it
is now with the planters, that makes it impossible. The intent to …
Mr. Hayes: We could certainly lower …
Board Member Baltay: Please, Ken, let me finish.
Mr. Hayes: I thought you were asking me questions.
Board Member Baltay: I'm not asking questions; I'm trying to make statements. It would make it
possible for future uses to be closer in conformance with the pedestrian overlay design idea, which is to
make retail spaces, which is very much the intent of and the desire of the town now, to save our retail
City of Palo Alto Page 23
stuff. Understandably this is office space now, and you have the right to keep it that way. If you could
make the design so it's possible to change it to future uses, that would be better. That would entail
some more entrances along the edge and not having a continuous planter, but rather some give and
take, places for not just a bench but a small seating area, an outdoor spot. If you study across the street
where the taqueria is and a barber shop and a bunch of stuff like that, it's an incredibly active curb,
street side. You just look at the two, and it's a dramatic difference in vitality of street life. Ask yourself
why is that. As an architect, I'm sure you're well aware of what I'm talking about. If there's things you
could do to the ground floor of this building to bring that into play, that would do a lot towards making
me feel that you're addressing in a real genuine spirit the pedestrian overlay requirements. I'll leave it at
that. I think that's the single thing that needs change the most. Just somehow get it more pedestrian
accessible. Thank you.
Mr. Hayes: Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Kyu.
Board Member Kim: Thank you for bringing this project as a preliminary review. You always do an
exceptional job of giving an example of how the process should be done, starting with the preliminary
review. I'm appreciative of that. The first thought that I had looking at the plans for this building was
just the amount of generous daylight that you're presenting. I think the existing building does kind of
make it feel much more enclosed and dark. I think this can be a very nice and exciting space inside,
which is great for the occupants. Also the way that that translates to the outside will be a better
architectural experience for those passing by the building as well. I think it's a very good-looking
building. I think it doesn't seem forced to me. It seems very elegant in the way that it's been done. My
hope is that it can remain as a remodel, so that it won't trigger additional Code issues. I think the overall
design is just very simple and clean. I'm appreciative of what you're trying to do with the renovations. If
I have any criticisms, it might be that—I think it's just part of the fact this is a preliminary package. It
seems maybe a little too sterile right now. I think it's going to progress, so I'm not too worried about
that. The planters, to me, on the ground level seem a little too long. Maybe they can be broken up or if
there can be another look taken at that. I appreciate the benches that have been added, with the backs.
I don't think they necessarily have to be wood. Maybe they can kind of blend in with some of the other
building materials that you've got going on. I'm appreciative of that. Maybe take a look at the height of
the planter and the bench. To me it looks a little high right now. I'm sure it can be adjusted. Kind of on
a fun note, I was almost thinking that those glazing fins that you have, maybe in bar code they say
Lytton or Palo Alto or something. I think that's kind of a fun idea with the fins that you've got going on
there. I look forward to seeing more of the construction details, the materials as they get panned out
and some of the other service things that are going in the building, such as the kitchens and bathrooms
and what have you. Thank you for the preliminary package. I think it's a very good looking building.
I'm excited to see this corner be a little bit more revitalized.
Mr. Hayes: Thank you, Mr. Kim.
Chair Gooyer: I think it's a great improvement. A couple of things responding to my fellow Board
Members. I don't really have a problem with the extra 2 feet. I don't think it'll do much. The main
thing, when I first saw it, is to me the clerestory seems like it was dropped on as an afterthought. It just
doesn't really relate to the building. Part of that may also be the color, that it's a drastic change.
Whatever the case is, I'd like to see it integrated a little bit more into the building itself. I guess the main
other option is I agree with Peter that putting the planters all the way around the building like that with a
rigid wall limits the flexibility of what could be done with the ground floor. You could still put some pots
or whatever if you want to get some planting in there. I think it needs to be left a little bit more free
flowing than a rigid—pardon me?
Mr. Hayes: Like at grade level so you could actually walk …
City of Palo Alto Page 24
Chair Gooyer: Right, that sort of thing. I don't have a problem with—I like the concept of the elongated
lobby so that it connects to both sides. That does give you a lot of flexibility. All in all, I think it's a real
good start. Like I said, my main concern is the clerestory. Any other comments from anyone? Wynne.
Board Member Furth: I was just thinking is 245 Lytton the great big, huge, long building? Mozart
Development.
Mr. Hayes: Yeah, the Kings building.
Board Member Furth: That's an example of something that is quite big and is quite pedestrian-friendly,
partly because you look at their through-lobby and you see this spectacular flower arrangement every
day. When I'm looking for pedestrian amenities, I'm not just looking for a bench that faces the street. I
really do think it's nice to have a place where you can sit and talk to somebody, where things …
Mr. Hayes: Maybe we turn the benches and create alcoves or something.
Board Member Furth: So that there are spaces that actually seem as though I'm invited. In this
particular rendering, the landscaping looks like a moat. It's the opposite of inviting.
Mr. Hayes: You know why the benches are there.
Board Member Furth: This is why you have architects who can actually transform these drawings into
(crosstalk).
Board Member Kim: (crosstalk)
Mr. Hayes: I wanted this conversation. We have benches, but let's figure out how to make them …
Board Member Furth: This is not going to urge me to be there. I want to think I can go over and get
my—as long as they let Sancho stay there, I can get my food and come over here and sit there and not
feel I'm trespassing. I would be in favor of landscaping that isn't just below my knees. I want to have
things blooming and hummingbirds doing whatever they do at ear and head height. I'm serious. There's
a lot of intensively used—you're not very far from the creek. There's a lot of bird life over there.
Chair Gooyer: Anything else from anyone? That's it.
Mr. Hayes: Thank you all for your comments.
Chair Gooyer: Hopefully you got some information that you need.
Mr. Hayes: That was very good, very clear.
Board Member Furth: Question for staff when you come back. The reason I was asking the question
about multiple and single tenants is because it seems that most of the projects that we see involving
office space involve the elimination of small, professional offices where people have therapy practices. I
remember all the therapists emerged when we had a tax proposal. All of a sudden, we found out how
many people actually operate Downtown in all those small consumer-serving businesses. We seem to be
eliminating more and more and more of that kind of office space. I'm not entirely clear what kinds of
uses the CD-C district permits in this regard. Good to know what your views are before we see this
again. Thanks.
Mr. Hayes: Thank you.
5. QUASI JUDICIAL MATTER/PUBLIC HEARING. 203 Forest Avenue [14PLN-00472]:
Recommendation to the Director of Planning and Community Environment for the Denial of an
City of Palo Alto Page 25
Architectural Review Application for a 4,996 Square Foot Residential Addition Above an Existing
4,626 Square Foot Commercial Building. Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA) Section 15270, CEQA Does not Apply to Disapproved Projects. For additional information
contact Adam Petersen at APetersen@m-group.us.
Chair Gooyer: With that, we will move to Item 5, public hearing for 203 Forest Avenue, recommendation
to the Director of Planning and Community Environment for the denial of an Architectural Review
application for a 4,996-square-foot residential addition above an existing 4,626-square-foot commercial
building. Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, Section 15270, CEQA does not
apply to disapproved projects. Staff.
Mr. Petersen: Good morning, Chair Gooyer, members of the Board. This is the 203 Forest coming back
to the Board for the subsequent hearing. As a quick background, the Board heard this project, I believe,
on September 15th or September 1st, and recommended denial of the project. The project is before the
Board for denial. I wanted to give the Board a quick update that staff did reach out—excuse me. It was
heard September 1st. I do want to give the Board a quick update. The staff did reach out to the
applicant just through phone calls and emails and tried to work with the applicant in terms of making
design changes recommended by the Board at the last hearing. The applicant stated that they did not
want to pursue any design changes and requested that it basically move forward to this hearing for
denial. I want to run through the presentation pretty quickly here, so I can answer any questions that
you may have. As noted, the project is a four-story building. The first and second floor existing offices,
and the project proposes to add a 4,996-square-foot residential addition to it. It's on the corner of Forest
and Emerson Street. This is a view of the building on the left-hand side. Again, this is really quickly just
the existing environment. This is looking north along Emerson Street. As you can see, there's a taller
building on the left side. On the right side along Emerson Street, you're primarily looking at single-story,
1 1/2 to 2-story buildings. Again, a view looking north on Forest. The project did come before the Board
more than just on September 1st. This was the initial proposal before the Board. This is the site plan,
again with two parking spaces, a handicapped parking space over the curb with pedestrian areas located
here in front of the entry and also here next to the covered garage. This is the building that the
applicant is proposing. Again, the rendering of it from Emerson Street. As you can see, it has sort of a
concrete mesh with a modern designed building on top with glass windows. As noted, the project
encroaches into the rear yard setbacks. The parking crosses the sidewalks, and we're concerned about
its consistency with the Architectural Review findings and Context Based Criteria. I did want to note to
the Board that staff did receive correspondence from an existing neighbor—excuse me, from a neighbor
nearby. They noted that they were concerned and they opposed the proposed project. They might be
here to speak on that. Based on this information, staff requests that the ARB review the project and
move forward with a recommendation for denial.
Board Member Furth: Excuse me. Do you have a copy of that?
Mr. Petersen: I believe I requested that was sent to the Board. I don't have a copy with me right now.
Board Member Furth: We need to read that.
Mr. Petersen: It's not in the staff report. It was received yesterday, that correspondence.
Board Member Furth: We still need to read it.
Chair Gooyer: I understand that the applicant is not here today.
Mr. Petersen: Correct, the applicant is not here.
Chair Gooyer: I have one speaker slip at this point. Let me open it to the public. That would be Josh
Davis. Josh, you have 3 minutes.
City of Palo Alto Page 26
Josh Davis: Thank you. Good morning. I'm here representing ownership of 647-651 Emerson Street,
next to the proposed project. Ownership has asked me to read a letter. I have two letters. I believe
both were sent to Mr. Adam Petersen, but I'll read one of them. It's from a preservation consultant,
Marla Felber. I'm a preservation consultant who has lent my experience to numerous historically
significant buildings in southern California. I'm a member of several historic preservation organizations
including the Los Angeles Conservancy, the California Preservation Foundation and the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. Since 1995, my company has been solving real-world problems that impact the
restoration and reuse of historic buildings. I have been retained by the Zane Partnership, LLC to provide
input on the proposed project on 203 Forest Avenue. The Zane Partnership owns 647-651 Emerson
Street in Palo Alto. The proposed project does not appear to maintain the scale and character of the land
uses adjacent to this proposed building. A four-story building adjacent to a single or two-story building
with no gradual transition dwarfs the existing building. There appears to be no attempt to respond to the
architectural context of the buildings along Emerson Street. The usage of materials in itself seems
incompatible with the context of the neighborhood. Furthermore, proposing a solid wall with no
fenestrations or overhangs does not create a pedestrian-friendly experience, which would seem to be a
conflict with Palo Alto's overlay zones. It is, therefore, my recommendation not to approve the current
proposed project of 203 Forest Avenue. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address the Board? Seeing none, I'll
close the public portion and bring it back to the Board. Wynne, would you …
Board Member Furth: Sure. I apologize to my colleagues for my legalistic tendencies. When we turn
down a project, I think it's really important—when we recommend that the Director turn down a project,
I think it's really important to articulate our reasons in a way that makes sense to us, that makes sense
to the public, that makes sense to the applicant, and perhaps most important makes sense to a reviewing
judge, should it come to that. I realize that we are just the first stage. This will go to the Director. It
may go to the City Council on appeal. Would that be where it would go? There are a lot of things it
could do or be. There are a couple of things that are important. One is judges do not flip through a file.
What you do is you provide the record, which is a big huge stack of papers and drawings. Judges do not
typically flip through the drawings. The law in California is that if we want our decisions to be upheld, we
have to clearly lay out the specific facts that led us to the specific conclusions that led us to the specific
recommendation. Of course, the law in this City also is you don't have to articulate every reason why
you think a project is inappropriate. You can confine yourself to the ones that you consider most serious.
You have in front of you—I'm sorry it's three pages long, but it is—a draft of what I tried to draw out of
staff's able summary of our previous comments. It seemed to me that the things that leaped out from
our discussion was that we don't believe that the design is compatible as required by Finding 2; that we
don't believe it's appropriate for the function of the project; that the amount and arrangement of open
space isn't appropriate; that it doesn't exhibit green building and sustainable design, is highly energy
efficient; and that it has big problems with the—I forgot to say this. No I didn't. It's got zoning
inconsistencies. It intrudes into the ten—we have an oddity in the Code that there's a setback for the
residential portion of the project, not for the ground-floor portion. As designed, it intrudes into that.
While the parking facility design standards allow tandem parking in the Downtown Parking Assessment
District, the Director has to find that this parking will serve the proposed uses. In our case, it's just one
residential—actually both. They don't. The skinny, tandem garage backing out over a sidewalk onto
Forest Avenue and a handicapped space backing into the corner of Forest and Emerson, neither of those
designs conveniently serve the uses. It doesn't provide the pedestrian amenities required by the
pedestrian retail combining regulations. I laid out in those bubble points what I thought were the
comments we made in more detail. I offer this as a draft of something that we might adopt in the way
of explaining to the applicant, the public and any reviewing bodies why we don't think this project is
suitable for approval. I don't know if you'll agree with my analysis. I thought it was a starting point.
Chair Gooyer: Thank you. Let me go out on a limb here and say that I suspect that all of us feel the
same way. I read the document this morning. Everyone is more than free to have some opinions. Is
someone willing to make a motion at this point for denial?
City of Palo Alto Page 27
MOTION
Board Member Furth: I'll make a motion. I move that we recommend that the Director of Planning and
Community Environment deny this application for an addition at 2003—is it Forest Street or Forest
Avenue? It appears both ways.
Mr. Petersen: Forest Street.
Board Member Furth: Forest Street. I will correct that here. I think it shows up somewhere else as
Avenue. On the basis of the findings of fact and conclusions included in the draft document dated
November 16th.
Chair Gooyer: Can I get a second from someone?
Board Member Baltay: Can I ask …
Chair Gooyer: Sure.
Board Member Baltay: I support what you're doing, Robert. I want to go forward with this. I guess I'm
just confused or concerned. It seems to me we had a series of findings that came to us from staff.
Wynne has written up other findings that make perfect sense to me. What we're proposing to do, what
she's moved is that we use the findings she's written up as justification for our denial. I think we need to
be sure that we're working with staff on this, that they also agree with doing it this way. I totally take to
heart what Wynne is saying, that we need to be careful. She has much greater legal experience than I
do, than probably most of us.
Chair Gooyer: The main reason I do this is because had changes been made to the documents, had any
thought been given to any of the comments we made last time, but they weren't. These documents are
exactly the same. In fact, the dates still predate the last meeting. I didn't really see the need to …
Board Member Baltay: I'm just concerned by what Wynne is saying about the form by which we'd
recommend that it be denied and which findings are used to support that. I support what Wynne has put
forth here, but I really would like to be sure that we're doing something that staff (crosstalk).
Chair Gooyer: Let me ask staff. Should we include both sets of …
Mr. Lait: I don't think that's necessary. What we'll do is—this is a recommendation of the Board. A
Board Member has presented some findings. If the rest of the Board thinks that these findings make
sense and is reasonable to justify denying the project, then you can make a motion on that. The Director
will look at these findings. There may be some tweaks here or there that are made, but the final
determination will reflect that decision, which may in fact be a blend or some variation.
Board Member Baltay: That said, I'm happy to second the motion.
Chair Gooyer: All those in favor.
Board Members Baltay, Kim, Gooyer, Lew: Aye.
Mr. Lait: Just for the record, it's Forest Avenue.
Board Member Furth: Could I say to staff also, when I was reading over all of this, I continued to be
very confused by the parking calculations. The Parking Assessment District uses a unified standard of
square footage and parking. This building was assessed for substantially less in square footage than
they're now proposing as commercial square footage. I'm not asking for an answer today, but this is sort
of like the situation of the church that was not assessed. As a church use, they only parked on Sundays,
City of Palo Alto Page 28
and it became an office building after having paid no assessments. If they paid—their assessment is
based on 3,306 square feet of usable commercial area. They're now claiming substantially more, another
1,320 square feet, which would be another four or five spaces. One space per 250 square feet. At some
point, I'd like to understand that; not today.
6. QUASI JUDICIAL MATTER/PUBLIC HEARING. 1451-1459 Hamilton Avenue and 1462
Edgewood Drive [16PLN-00174]: Recommendation to the Director of Planning and
Community Environment for the Approval of an Architectural Review Application to Allow the
Demolition of Two Single-Story Houses and Two, Two-Story Houses and for the Construction of
Three Single-Story Houses and One, Two-Story House on Four Separate Lots. Basements are
proposed for two of the houses. The Proposed Project is Categorically Exempt From
Environmental Review Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Section 15302
(Replacement or Reconstruction). For additional information contact Graham Owen at
Graham.Owen@cityofpaloalto.org. THIS ITEM WILL NOT BE HEARD AND CONTINUED TO
A DATE UNCERTAIN AT THE APPLICANT’S REQUEST.
Study Session
None.
Approval of Minutes October 20, 2016
Chair Gooyer: The final item is the approval of the minutes of October 20th. Has everyone had a chance
to read those? If so, are there any comments?
Vice Chair Lew: I just had a general comment on them. I think we had a really good system for the
summary, for doing it. This one seems different. It seems more like verbatim minutes.
Chair Gooyer: I noticed that.
Mr. Lait: I can speak to that.
Vice Chair Lew: I know it can vary depending on the item.
Mr. Lait: We've had some challenges when items are going to the—the Council's very clear that when an
item goes to them, they want to see the verbatim text. We have found ourselves sort of scrambling at
the last minute, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, in getting those minutes to the Council. For a
nominal cost to our operations, we found it to be more efficient and convenient to have the transcriber
give us verbatim minutes. We're trying to make them slightly modified verbatim. We're cutting out all
the natural way that—like I'm talking right now. That's the idea. We're trying to get to the essence of it.
Where it's garbled or where there's over talk, we're just making that statement and just picking up the
stuff that we can hear. It'll get longer. We'll try not to make it too ...
Chair Gooyer: The intent is this will be the standard format then.
Mr. Lait: That's correct. When we go back to the Council for budget, we're going to ask for a modest
increase in our budget to do this. My guess is that it would be supported, but you never know.
Board Member Furth: That means you are going to expect us to speak in complete sentences.
Mr. Lait: You may continue speaking as you choose.
Chair Gooyer: Come on. Every word is money.
City of Palo Alto Page 29
Board Member Baltay: I'd like to go on record in saying I don't think that's a good idea. I think we're
not serving the public as well. There exists a video recording of this online for anybody who wants to see
exactly what went down. The public is well served by having a condensed version of these minutes.
What we were doing before encapsulates what we said but also makes it readable. This is very difficult
to figure out what went on. If you could be sure that gets referenced back to Council. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: To a certain extent I agree. It's a lot easier to read the encapsulated version than every
word. I know it would be additional cost to take the verbatim and then trim it down to a smaller version
for us.
Mr. Lait: We can explore doing like a final action agenda that summarizes the action the Board made
and the votes in addition to the transcriptions. We wouldn't necessarily need to send that to the Board.
If we're looking to get a short synopsis of the action, we can certainly do that.
Chair Gooyer: I'd be happy with that sort of thing.
Board Member Baltay: Just for trying to serve the public and somebody who wants to read what went
on, this is pretty opaque. If you have to sit through 2 hours of video recording, it's also opaque. The
result of this is that nobody knows what happened. Whereas, a two-page summary, what we had been
doing up 'til now—I think most of us agree—had really been working quite well. It wasn't just an action
summary, though; it had some meat to what we were saying.
Board Member Furth: It took a skilled person to listen to the tape and turn it into the coherent minutes
you were giving us.
Mr. Lait: I hear your comments. Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: Other than that, any comments?
Board Member Furth: Can you give us any insight into what will be on our next agenda?
Vice Chair Lew: If staff could also mention that the Council took action on the ARB findings on Monday
night.
Mr. Lait: To answer Board Member Furth's question, there is Fire Station Number 3, that is being torn
down and rebuilt. I believe that is the only item that you have on your agenda on the 1st of December.
That packet might arrive a little bit early.
Chair Gooyer: I don't mean to interject, but can we finish this and move on this, and then we can go
into additional information?
Mr. Lait: I'm sorry. Finish what part?
Ms. Gerhardt: The minutes.
Chair Gooyer: The minutes. We hadn't done that yet.
MOTION
Board Member Kim: I'll move that we approve the minutes.
Chair Gooyer: Second.
Board Member Kim: I'm sorry. For the record, I need to state the date, I think. I move that we approve
the minutes for the meeting from October 20th, 2016.
City of Palo Alto Page 30
Chair Gooyer: Can I get a second?
Board Member Furth: Second.
Chair Gooyer: All those in favor. Opposed.
Board Members Furth, Kim, Lew and Gooyer: Aye.
Board Member Baltay: I abstain. I wasn't there. I abstain.
Subcommittee Item
3225 EL CAMINO REAL [15PLN-00003]: Subcommittee Review of Revisions to a Landscape Plan,
Including Changes to Proposed Hardscape Improvements (Benches/Planters) and Street Trees. Review
was Required as a Condition of Approval. Environmental Assessment: A Negative Declaration was
Previously Prepared and Approved for this Project.
Motion
The ARB Subcommittee convened on November 17, 2016, to review three recommended items (listed
below) previously included as conditions of approval necessary for issuance of building permits for the
3225 El Camino Real [15PLN-00003] project. The subcommittee reviewed and approved all three items.
The subcommittee determined to leave the final orientation of the public benches (Item B) along El
Camino Real to be approved by Planning Department Staff.
A. The carports shall use translucent photovoltaic panels, or if not feasible, return for review and
approval for an alternative design;
B. The details (seating, screening, amenities, etc.) of the front half of the courtyard and options for
planter spaces along the El Camino Real frontage; and
C. The final design of the street installation (install tree grates per Public Works standards).
Board Member Questions, Comments, Announcements
Mr. Lait: I'm surprised I missed that procedural piece right there. As I'm confirming now, the fire station
will be the only item on your agenda coming up. I'm sorry. You have a subcommittee item for the San
Francisquito Creek flood protection, whoever participates in the subcommittee process. To the other
question that Vice Chair Lew had mentioned, the City Council on Monday did approve revised
Architectural Review Board findings. We will send those to you in an email. Obviously this Board had a
lot of involvement. We appreciate your help on that. We'll send these revised findings to you. They
won't be effective probably until late January or February. It should memorialize the concept that we've
done with grouping some similar findings, but now they're all individual findings. There are six of them.
I think it's going to get at some of the issues that we've been having to address.
Board Member Furth: Could I comment that I really like the revised format that you used on one of the
reports we got. It looked good to me.
Mr. Lait: Which (crosstalk)?
Board Member Furth: I will have to look at it and see which one it was. I found it very readable.
Mr. Lait: Thank you.
Chair Gooyer: With that, anything else? We're adjourned.
City of Palo Alto Page 31
Adjournment