HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-08-17 Architectural Review Board Summary Minutes
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Call to Order/Roll Call
Present: Chair Alexander Lew, Vice Chair Kyu Kim, Board Member Wynne Furth, Peter Baltay
Absent: Board Member Robert Gooyer Oral Communications Chair Lew: Thank you. Now is the time for oral communications. The public may speak to any item that’s
not on the agenda. I don’t have any speaker cards for that. I do have lots of speaker cards for item
number four, which is the hotel on El Camino Real and for everybody here who is in the audience, I just
want to let you know that we’ll probably get to it in, I would probably say at least an hour and a half and
so that would be 10 o’clock. It could be as late as 10:30 depending on how the first two items go so you
are welcome to stay or if you want to go out and come back as well. Then if you do want to go out, it is
on the – what do you call it? The webcast so you can also kind of follow it and see where we are in the
meeting and then you can know what the right time is to come.
Ms. Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: If I may Chair, just parking downstairs is usually 3-
hours but you can get the day passes from out front here.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Lew: Are there any agenda changes today? No.
City Official Reports 1. Transmittal of the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and Administrative Staff-Level Architectural Review Approvals
Action Items
2. PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI-JUDICIAL. 3001 El Camino Real [16PLN-00097 and 16PLN
00220]: Recommendation on Applicant's Request for Approval of a Site and Design Review to Allow for Construction of a Four-Story Mixed-Use Development with 19,800 Square Feet of Retail and 30 Residential Units in the CS Zone as well as a Three-Story Multi-Family Residential Building with 20 Units in the RM-30 Zone. The Project Also Includes a Request for a Preliminary Parcel
Map for a Lot Merger to Allow for the Proposed Development, a Design Enhancement Exception,
and a Parking Adjustment for Shared Parking. Environmental Assessment: A Draft Mitigated
Negative Declaration was Circulated for Public Review on July 3, 2017 and the circulation period
ended on August 2, 2017. Zoning District: CS (Service Commercial), RM-30 (Multi-family
ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD
DRAFT MINUTES: August 17, 2017
City Hall/City Council Chambers
250 Hamilton Avenue
8:30 AM
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Residential, and R-1 (Single-family Residential). For More information Contact the Project Planner
Claire Hodgkins at claire.hodgkins@cityofpaloalto.org
Chair Lew: Then we can move onto the first item which is number two, 3001 El Camino Real.
Recommendation on applicant's request for approval of a Site and Design Review to allow for
construction of a four-story mixed-use development with 19,800-square feet of retail space, 30 residential
units in the CS zone; as well as a three-story multi-family residential building with 20 Units in the RM-30 zone. The project also includes a request for a preliminary parcel map for a lot merger to allow for the proposed development, a Design Enhancement Exception, and a parking adjustment for shared parking. The environmental assessment is a Draft Mitigated Negative Declaration was circulated for public review on July 3, 2017, and the circulation period ended on August 2. The zone district is service commercial, and RM-30 (multi-family residential), and R-1 (single-family residential). Our project planner is Claire,
welcome.
Ms. Claire Hodgkins, Project Planner: Good morning, Claire Hodgkins, Project Planner. The proposed
project is located at 3001 El Camino Real. This is, as you mentioned, a 19,800-square foot commercial
retail area and 50 residential units proposed. It includes two separate building, so the first building is
located along El Camino Real. It’s a mixed-use building, four-stories and then the building fronting Acacia
is a multifamily residential development located within the RM-30 zone. The project site is currently three
parcels that would be merged into one as part of a preliminary parcel map application. The site has split
zoning so it’s a CS, RM-30 and then a small portion of the site is zoned R-1. The site also includes a split land use designation; service commercial, multi-family residential and single-family residential. It’s currently developed with two buildings along El Camino that total 9,100-square feet of retail commercial surrounded by surface parking. This just shows a map that shows the complete project site with applicable zoning and how it’s split. Based on ARB comments, the applicant made changes, in particular,
to add to the El Camino Real frontage to add better pedestrian amenities, to better define the corners
and their transition to the entrances, the proposed materials, better definition to the base of the structure
and to add a residential entrance. Along Acacia, based on ARB comments the applicant made changes to
bring down the first floor to 4-feet; previously it was 13-feet above grade. Decrease the overall – that in
turn decreased the overall height of the structure so there is a portion of it that goes up to 35-feet but
the majority of it goes up to about 25-26-feet. The added pedestrian amenities, added vegetation, and
provided the balconies to better signal habitation and made changes to the proposed materials. Key
consideration for today, the project provides multi-family residential rental housing on a housing
inventory site, which fulfills a need for the City. It also is close to office and transit and this use is
consistent with the Comprehensive Plan vision for this area. Parking, the proposed project is providing four fewer parking spaces than required by the code for the site which requires a Director’s adjustment. Also, the loading space, they are asking for an exception to put that on the street instead of on the site. Design Enhancement Exception is required to allow the garage ramp to encroach into the setback. The Draft Mitigated Negative Declaration was circulated on July 3rd and the circulation ended on August 2nd
but you can, of course, comment on that document and we’ll be preparing a final that will go to Council.
The project received preliminary feedback from the ARB at the end of last year and changes to the
design since that hearing are summarized in the Staff report, so following your review we would go to
Council. The PTC has already reviewed this and recommended approval and Staff are recommending that
the ARB take the following actions. Consider the Mitigated Negative Declaration and mitigation
monitoring and reporting plan and recommend approval of the Site and Design application, parking
adjustment, and Design Enhancement Exception to the City Council based on findings and subject to
conditions of approval in the record of Land Use Action. That’s all.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you very much. We will do the applicant presentation now, you have 10-
minutes. Mr. Tim Steele: While she is doing that, good morning. My name is Tim Steele and I’m with the Sobrato Organization the applicant. First, I want to thank the Architectural Review Board for the opportunity to
present our updated application for the mixed-use project at 3001 El Camino. That is in response to our
first visit with the ARB in November of last year. Second, I would like to also thank Staff for their hard
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work and I agree with her analysis and their findings and recommendations in the Staff report. I’m
pleased to present to you that we started this project with a design process with a directive with being
compliant with the existing zoning designations. In this case, there are three different zoning
designations on the subject property. Also, important to the design approach is to consider the context
and be sensitive to all the street neighbors and minimize traffic patterns there while predominantly
focusing this to the Acacia side of the project. As our architect presents to you this morning, I think you
will appreciate that we’ve developed a careful, responsive and thoughtful design project that has accomplished these goals and more. This mixed-use project provides 50 new, well amenitized rental units and in responses to Council’s expressed desires, they are smaller rental apartments with an average size of 750-square feet. Additionally, the Council has shown interest in preserving retail. In this case, we are required to replace 9,100-square feet of retail but we can build as much as 20,000-feet of commercial. We are dedicating all 20,000-square feet to retail only. On a parking note, we are proposing the two
complementary uses share a small portion of its guest parking via the four, for a total of two percent of
the total project parking. This is supported by a parking analysis in your packet. Additionally, the CS
parking is currently designed to provide traditional retail parking in keeping with the City of Palo Alto
parking requirements. However, we’ve also designed a CS garage to accommodate future parking lifts
and this would be accommodated by adding the lifts in the current residential area but shifting the
security fence between the unsecured commercial and the residential, to keep the allocation of residential
parking exactly what it is today. While allowing to enhance and add additional parking for the commercial
side so that we can use a higher intensity use in the space, such as a restaurant and not have the project
not have enough parking in anticipation that potential use in the future. With that, I would like to introduce our design team that’s here today which we are available to answer any individual questions you might have. I’ll start with my architect Rob Steinberg, he will be making a further presentation in a second. We have Nick Samuelson with the Guzzardo Partnership, our landscape architect. I have Nick [phonetics] [Tarious] Mathew from Kier and Wright (inaudible). I have Gary Black from Hexagon, our
traffic engineer and my associate with Sobrato Robert Tersini all in the audience. With that, I would like
to introduce you to Rob Steinberg and he’ll be walking you through our changes on the project, thank
you.
Mr. Rob Steinberg: Good morning, I’m Rob Steinberg. I just – I don’t want to be difficult in the beginning
but I noticed that the screen is kind of cutting off part the image. Is there any way to adjust that? None,
ok. Alright, well we’ll work with what we’ve got.
Vice Chair Kim: If it makes you feel any better, on our screen it’s much less cut off if any at all so we’re
looking at the whole picture. Mr. Steinberg: Ok, great. The last time we met, you asked us to go back and really focus on three areas that you would like us to -- be further develop, the repetitive character along El Camino Real, the sense of access and clarity of entry into the El Camino building and then how to make the RM-30 building on
Acacia a little bit more pedestrian in nature. Let’s just start with a quick refresh, three separate parcels
merged into one. You know as a designer you think, that’s going to give me great flexibility so that’s very
positive but keep in mind that each of the three still has their specific zoning requirements. Then the
(inaudible) merge site needs to respond to the El Camino Real Design Guidelines, the South El Camino
Real Plan, as well as the Cal/Ventura Area Plan so there is a lot of direction as to how this should work.
There are two important characteristics to the site that I’d like you to kind of keep in mind. First of all –
let me just get use this pointer. People are going to be coming to the site from the corners. You can’t get
across El Camino directly across our site so everybody is going to be coming from either the Olive side or
the Acacia side. Then the second thing is you can see in the drawing is that our site is a little unusual
because it’s got this bulge where there’s a 2-foot level change in the site, which is not really common or
desirable the fact that it’s low, then it goes high and it ends again low. So, there’s kind of two options for dealing with our garage there. One is we put it at the top of the crown, in which case a good proportion of it – of the garage is going to be exposed along the sidewalk and the street; which is obviously counter to making it pedestrian friendly. So, what we’ve done is we’ve lowered the garage completely and what
happens is when people come from the corners, we now have the flattest area of the site and that allows
us to utilize that for public activity for gathering and for socialization. I’ll just orient everybody, Olive is of
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course at the top, El Camino and Acacia at the bottom. So, let’s start looking at pedestrian access. The
first thing that I would like you to note is that we’ve moved the buildings as far to address the street – as
close to the street as possible so that maximizes the distance away from the homes. If we look first on
the El Camino building, our mixed-use building, we’ve tried to make that building both pores from the
front and in the back to have the opportunity to spill out to the corners. For example – it’s a little hard to
see but you can enter the retail here from the Olive side from the corner or get into the middle from the
Olive entrance. From the other corner on Acacia, you get into the retail from the corner, from the middle and then there’s a second shared entrance that is both residential and commercial in the middle of the site. Both the corners have plazas and ideally that would-be restaurant or activities that could spill out and activate both the El Camino corners. On our residential street, because we only have residences on the Acacia building, we tried to develop a sense of arrival both motor court and pedestrian for the residential. You can see that we’ve got two lobbies that sort of flank that and activate it and then we’ve
got the potential for a restaurant that could also spill out and activate that space. Then we have another
entrance farthest away moving east. In respect to the parking, just very simple on the left is the
residential and the residential only accesses the site from Acacia; one hundred percent. On the right is
the retail and retail can come in and accesses about 15-20 cars here but everyone else needs to exit and
come from Acacia so we’ve really limited the impact of vehicles along Olive. We talked about the
planning, let’s focus a little bit now on the elevation. This was the original elevation that we looked at last
time on El Camino and I think there was positive feedback on the transparency for the retail at the lower
level but there was concern about that there wasn’t a strong sense of clarity and hierarchy of entrance to
the building. There really was one major entrance on the corner and the second thing was there was a little bit of concern about the repetitive nature of the middle of the building. When we went back and looked at it, I realized that not only are all three of the bays the same but the spacing between the bays is also almost the same and so it really makes a very static, repetitive pattern. Our goal here is to activate the street and to make it pedestrian friendly. To do that we’ve prioritized the two corners and
we’ve made oversized entrances. Glass that comes in the corner and then goes vertically and to the left
of that you can see we’re flanking it with a yellow and with a warm wood material to give some accent;
some residential character to that. Then we’re doing that again, that same strategy, on Olive but a little
bit smaller scale. It steps down but the same idea of the vertical glass and the warm wood material
flanking that to talk about entrance. The transparency we’re retaining and then the question was what do
we do in the middle? What we’ve tried to do is anchor the corners with two lobbies, one that allows you
get into the building here, here and a shared entrance that allows you to get into the residential, as well
as retail. We’ve taken that same idea along Olive where the retail comes up and the glass comes up and
it’s flanked by the wood so that’s a comparison of the two. This is a view from Acacia, you can see we’ve
recessed the first floor so that the (inaudible) is still out. We’re stepping the building down as you move away from El Camino and you can see we’re introducing these wood type materials, warmer materials that really begin to talk about sense of entry and also pay homage to the redwood trees across the street. We did a similar strategy on Olive, room for gather on the corner and you can see the warm wood material really flanking and calling attention to the sense of entry and we’re emphasizing the corners with
variety, both in plant and elevation. Then lastly, real quick we’ll look at the Acacia building. This was the
original building and the basic concern was the garage was too far out of the ground – it’s exposed. So,
up at the top is a section that we just looked at. You can see the garage was out of the ground about 11
½-feet. What we’ve been able to do now is to lower the entire building 7 ½-feet so our height comes
down, the garage comes down, the building comes down. By lowering the height, we were able to create
a little finer grain scale to the bays. We were able to connect them to the ground and then we
punctuated it with two lobbies, one at the head and one in the middle. So, that’s a comparison of the two
and I think that was very good advice from the ARB and from Staff and I think this is a really good
improvement. On Acacia, there’s the shared pedestrian motor court plaza and it’s activated hopefully by a
restaurant, the two lobbies, people going back and forth with the amenities. As we move further away
from El Camino, the building steps down to the two-story, we’re anchoring and grounding the building, we’re creating a sense of entry, a place to sit. If you were being picked up by Uber or Lift and maybe you don’t want to be in the main plaza if you are leaving with your suit case, we’ve got another entrance. It’s not just a back door but it’s a dignified way of coming and going from the building. We’re excited about
the collaboration with you and Staff of what we’ve shown you and we look forward to hearing your
thoughts now. Thank you.
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Chair Lew: Great, thank you, Mr. Steinberg. Now is the time for public comment on this particular item.
Staff, there was – I think there were some late cards. I don’t know if it was for this item. Great, so we do
have one speaker which is Mr. Moss and you will have 5-minutes.
[Mr. ?? Moss]: Thank you, Chairmen Lew and Commissioners. Well, the development meets the zoning
requirements so there are no issues about compatibility but anything that’s developed on this site is going to create a problem because it’s a block or two from the most congested intersection in Palo Alto; El Camino and Page Mill. No matter what you put there, it’s going to be a problem. I’m going down El Camino at 10 o’clock in the morning and traffic is backed up past Acacia so there is going to have been some attention paid to how people get in and out of that site. Putting the parking entrances on Acacia or Helen is probably the only way to do it. You can’t get in and out along El Camino, they’ll just be a block
forever. If there was a way to go from Acacia around past Fry’s and go down Park and (inaudible) town
to Page Mill and El Camino, that might actually work more effectively. So, you might want to take a look
at that and whether it’s possible or not. As far as the design, I’m not sure what I saw was the last one
but some of the accents where vertical and it made the building look bulkier and taller and I think if you
are going to put accents, then the accents should be either square or horizontal so the building doesn’t
look as bulky and it has more of an extension rather than the height emphasis. Take a look again at the
way that the building is laid out and the way the accents are put on. Maybe I missed it but it looked to
me like it was mostly vertical rather than horizontal and I think we should take another look at that.
Finally, we should have as much landscaping as possible along El Camino and that’s not just trees along the street but also you can have planter boxes in front of the building so that you have some greenery and you make the building look like it’s more environmental, rather than just a structure. I think that would be an improvement also. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you, Mr. Moss. Are there any questions from the Board? Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Yes, for the architect, please. I’d like to understand the raised floor of the back
residential building. You said it’s 4-feet above the grade but I’m not sure which end of the building. It
seems like the grade at Acacia Avenue is sloped towards the bay. In the rendering, the people are maybe
not the best way to judge it but at the main residential entrance, sort of closest to El Camino, how high is
the main floor plate of the residences above the ground? Then how far – how about back at the other
end?
Mr. Steinberg: That’s a good question and I’m sorry I wasn’t clear on that. If you look at the bottom
section, the lobby closest to El Camino is right here and that’s at grade; flush. Then you can see this dotted line is the slope of the grade dropping down and at the highest point, it’s 4-feet. Board Member Baltay: I’m sorry, I’m missing this. Then the lobby – is the lobby at the same level as the
residents?
Mr. Steinberg: The lobby – there are two lobbies, one on the left, do you see it there?
Board Member Baltay: Yes, that lobby.
Mr. Steinberg: Is at grade; flush with grade.
Board Member Baltay: I guess I am then referring to the floor level of the residences themselves, not the
lobby. How high is the residence above the grade?
Mr. Steinberg: At the highest point, it’s 4-feet and at the lowest point, it’s probably a 1 ½-foot. Board Member Baltay: Thank you.
Chair Lew: Wynne.
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Board Member Furth: Thank you. Could you take me through how a person either using a wheelchair or
are not able to climb steps accesses both the retail and the residential?
Mr. Steinberg: Sure. I lost control of the – did I do something? Let’s start with the retail, so retail is the
whole lower floor here so you can get in at grade from here from Olive. You can get in at grade where
we’re stepping the building back from the corner and you can get into the middle of the building about here, about three-fifths of the way -- two-fifths of the way to the top of the building. So there… Board Member Furth: And that’s from the rear? Mr. Steinberg: … are three entrances from the front for the top half of the building and similarly on the
bottom, you can access the building from Acacia from the corner. We’ve stepped it back so that you can
get into a second division and we’ve actually added an entrance here so that you can get into the top of
the lower portion…
Board Member Furth: So…
Mr. Steinberg: Yes?
Board Member Furth: So, essentially, I’d be able to access any retail space from the sidewalk? Mr. Steinberg: Yes… Board Member Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg: … you would and you would also – I’ll just point out that you could also access them from
the back side as well where there’s convenient short-term parking.
Board Member Furth: That part I got. Then on the residential?
Mr. Steinberg: On the residential -- you know I neglected to say one very important thing. Not only did
we try to generate the lobbies here to have a sense of that entry but this building has shared amenity
space for both buildings. For example, it’s got a barbeque and outdoor dining and this outdoor space has
a spa. It’s available of course to both buildings so we wanted the main lobbies to be close so that if I lived in this building and I wanted to go down in my swim suit to go to the spa, I could kind of go through the back and I don’t have to go out. So, to get into the residential, you would either come in this lobby or you would come in this lobby.
Board Member Furth: Thank you.
Chair Lew: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: I’m sorry to keep beating to death but again, back to the grades and the elevation
of the building.
Mr. Steinberg: Sure.
Board Member Baltay: What’s confusing me is when I look at the – what’s called you Olive elevation of
the residential lower building in the back and I’m trying to make sense of FAR again, the residence is? The floor of the residences is above the ground and in this case, above that outdoor back area – the open space? You said it’s a foot and half at the high end and four at the lower end and I’m looking at your drawing and the lower end is clearly above the height of a person. Then on the upper end by the
lobby, it looks like it would be 4-feet. Is there a grade change across the site transversely as well or am I
missing something or hopefully these drawings a bit inaccurate?
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Mr. Steinberg: You know I’ve been so focused on the public side of it that I’m not – I’m less aware of all
of the details. I believe that the site does fall to the back but I’m going to get some support here from
our engineer.
Board Member Baltay: Great, yeah, if you could just – it would be nice to get that resolved. We’re looking
at elevation two on sheet A-3.3 for anybody who is following this. Mr. Steinberg: Oh, I see, the back. [Mr. Nick Tarious:] Talking about Olive?
Mr. Steinberg: He’s asking about the front and this is no more than 4-feet. He’s asking – this looks taller,
why?
Mr. Tarious: On Olive?
Mr. Steinberg: On the back side. He’s asking about the section going perpendicular.
Mr. Tarious: Oh, ok. Hello, I’m Nick Tarious with Keir and Wright. So, yes, the back side of the site does
drop down from El Camino and that’s why you have a taller section. Board Member Baltay: By how much, can you say? Mr. Tarious: Off the top my head? Do you know (inaudible)?
Mr. Steele: Also, I would add that in our landscaping plan along Acacia, that from the side walk up to the
building, that we’re sloping the soil up to reduce the sense of how the 4-feet is out of the ground. So,
from the front, it doesn’t read like – so there’s a sense of that being added to the delta when you’re
looking at the images. We wanted the back to be at grade so that we could do the amenities on grade
but we have a slope on the front side to reduce the sense of the building being a little higher than the
street level. We also pulled the building closer to the street than prior images that you had seen
(inaudible).
Board Member Baltay: We’ll get to all that but I would just like to get a number. At the back of the building, on the low end and the high end, how high is the floor level of the residences above the grade? Mr. Tarious: Along Acacia (crosstalk) 8 ½-feet.
Board Member Baltay: The ground level is 8 ½-feet below the floor of the apartments?
Mr. Tarious: The finish floor of the building is 8 ½-feet. The ground level is 8-feet below the floor.
Board Member Baltay: And it’s 4-feet at the street so it’s a 4…
Mr. Tarious: No, it varies so when you start – the worst condition…
Board Member Baltay: That’s pretty far, that’s why I’m asking these questions. Well, help me out, get an
answer, Alex, for me.
Mr. Steinberg: Well that’s the curb. Mr. Tarious: The curb, yes. (Inaudible)
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Chair Lew: Can you – why don’t we move – I was going to say, should we – we’ll move on and then
maybe go back – can I ask you to do – can I ask you do a little bit more homework because I would just
say that the existing grading plan, it’s relatively flat. So, if you have to do – if you’re doing something
else for the building to get it to work, I understand but there isn’t that much a change front to back.
There seems like there’s an existing landscape strip back in the back that’s higher but let’s…
Mr. Tarious: The grade generally is flat, that is correct, yes and the building is raised to compensate for that. That’s why you have the stoops and the podiums coming out the front. Chair Lew: So, let’s – we’ll get back – why don’t we get back to the grade but I think we can move onto other questions (inaudible). Let’s not get stuck on one item. Wynne, did you have another question?
Board Member Furth: No, thank you.
Chair Lew: Ok, your light – ok. I have a whole bunch of questions.
Mr. Steinberg: Ok, sure.
Chair Lew: Is there a public art requirement for the project and then what is – how is that being
handled?
Ms. Hodgkins: Yes, there is a public art requirement and it’s going to be paid in lieu. They are not proposing any public art on site. Chair Lew: Ok and then I was looking for it in the conditions of approval, I didn’t see it but that doesn’t
mean it wasn’t there. I just…
Ms. Hodgkins: It was just noted as the in-lieu fee would need to be paid as a condition before the
building permit is issued.
Chair Lew: Thank you. There is – for Mr. Steinberg, there’s a – I guess there is a car wash requirement in
the conditions of approval which is number 68 and I think there’s a car wash space on the landscape
plans but it looks like it’s just space. So, are you building a whole pavilion structure for the car wash?
Mr. Steinberg: The condition allows us to -- that sense it’s a rental property, not to provide one and have a lock off on the water source and prohibited in the lease agreements. That will be the choice because of the various spaces that the residents would have to park and we’d have to do the oil separate so we’re going to elect not to have a wash station.
Chair Lew: Thank you. Are there air conditioner condensers for each unit and if so, where are they? Are
they on the roof or are they on the balconies?
Mr. Steinberg: They are on the roof.
Chair Lew: Great, good answer. Are there Z-Ducts on the El Camino frontage for ventilation? I mean like
you don’t have to have it if you have air conditioning?
Mr. Steinberg: I don’t – we haven’t quite got to that level of development.
Chair Lew: Yeah, that’s fine. Mr. Steele: Yeah, we don’t have the MEP but we would be looking at meeting code for fresh air make up, which has changed recently and either it would be incorporated into the window systems themselves or
designed in a way that they would complement the architectural exterior.
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Chair Lew: Let’s see, I think for Mr. Steinberg, you’re showing a lot of soffits like exterior corridors, the
corners on El Camino, what are all the – what’s all the soffit material? Is it just stucco or is it – or do you
have different material or will it vary depending on…
Mr. Steinberg: It’s going to vary so like on Olive, you can see the inside is the – the soffit is going to be
wood. On – generally, it looks like it's wood but it’s going to be contiguous with the material that it’s
adjacent to. Chair Lew: You’re trying to make it look 3-dimensional – you’re not trying to (crosstalk) (inaudible). Mr. Steinberg: (Inaudible) look like wall paper, we’re trying to make it look 3-dimensional, yes.
Chair Lew: That’s – thank you. Then on the railings, I think in some of the renderings it’s looking like
glass but in some of your drawings it’s called out as metal, it’s sometimes a mesh.
Mr. Steinberg: Yes.
Chair Lew: Are there – yeah, so what…
Mr. Steinberg: It’s a decorative metal mesh so what we’re trying to do is to strike a balance between not
making it so clear that you see everything that somebody has up there but not so opaque that you can’t enjoy the view when you are sitting down inside. Chair Lew: Ok, that makes sense. On the building along Acacia, the RM-30 zone building, you’re showing balconies on the – I guess it’s the first residential floor.
Mr. Steinberg: And some on the second ones. (Inaudible) (crosstalk)
Chair Lew: Yeah, so I guess I was mostly concerned with the ones on the – I guess the ones that I
noticed was on the – let’s see. I guess this is – I guess my question is that you are showing some privacy
screens between units but not every unit and like on the back of the building you are showing three stair
cases down to the open space. I was wondering how that is going to work? Like because of you – I mean
that’s somebody’s private deck, right? Each – they are private decks but some of them are shared
between units so you don’t necessarily have privacy between every unit.
Mr. Steinberg: So, you are correct. That we missing some perpendicular separations on those balconies. Some – one or two are shown and there are a few that are missing but for the stairs, for example, the two units on the left would share a stair, the two units in the middle would share a stair and the bigger unit on the right would get its own stair so I apologize about that.
Chair Lew: Ok, I think we can discuss that later and then – ok, I think that’s all the questions I have or I
have one last question. I’ve been reading a lot of complaints about one of our new mixed-use buildings
on El Camino and the complaint is from – retail customers cannot figure out how to get into the building
garage and then get from the garage to the stores. So, I was wondering if you could explain, like if I am
coming to one of the stores in this future building, how – as a customer and not as a resident of the
building. How do I know to get to the front door of the store and I think part of it is signage, which isn’t
in your – part of your – part of the project today but I think that’s something that we’re – I’m curious
about.
Mr. Steinberg: Let me see if I have a better drawing to explain this. I was looking for the floor plan but it’s pretty straight forward really. You – if you are coming to the retail and you want to park in the garage, you could come on El Camino, turn on Acacia, come in our main entrance and go down the ramp. This part, the northern part, two-thirds of it or half is the commercial parking and in there is an
elevator lobby right in the middle of that building. So, centered in the middle of the commercial dedicated
parking is an elevator that takes you right up.
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Chair Lew: Can you differentiate it from the residential elevator lobby?
Mr. Steinberg: Yes, it’s separate.
Chair Lew: I know it’s separate but make it – actually make it – that’s not really part of the ARB’s purview
but design wise, make it look more public. So, like we have some of the garages here in downtown
where the elevator enclosure – like elevator lobby is all glass so it’s pretty clear that it’s a public lobby but then the residential… Mr. Steinberg: I see what you’re saying. Chair Lew: …elevator could be more solid walls. It would look like it’s something private and I understand
(crosstalk) that you have a fence or a gate and everything too.
Mr. Steinberg: No, no, I follow your point. That elevator lobby that is dedicated just to the retail is on the
same plane as the glass retail and so it’s going to be of that same vocabulary. It’s going to be quite clear
that that is an elevator dedicated to this use. It will speak the same language and I take your point that it
should be obvious and clear that that’s an asset to the project. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Then also to maybe consider possibly have consideration for signage to the ramp – the
garage ramp. So, if I came – if I was a customer and I came down Olive and I turned into the parking lot and the parking lots full. I might not know to make a little U-turn through the roundabout and go down to the – go down the ramp. Mr. Steinberg: So, there should be some signage at the end that explains – yeah.
Chair Lew: Because to be honest with you, Acacia doesn’t have very good – as good of visibility as Olive.
That’s just my take on it, I don’t…
Mr. Steinberg: No, you’re right. Here’s one of the things that we found, particularly on El Camino and
with retail, that if you can get a clue of where the parking is before you see the retail as compared to
seeing the retail and then seeing oh yeah, you can park here. It gives you a few minutes to process but
your points well taken.
Chair Lew: I agree. Ok, any other questions? Wynne. Board Member Furth: I’m sorry, this is a complicated site and I like your proposal and all that but take me through a resident, when I come home at night, late, I’m going to feel secure about where I’m parking and how I get to my home?
Mr. Steinberg: Ok, so we have two different conditions. For the El Camino building, you would drive into
Acacia, you’d come through a nice entry plaza that would be glass and the lobbies would be lite up and
we have columns and lighting in the sense of an arrival. Then you would go past the turnaround and you
would go directly down to the garage, straight ahead, no turns. You would go into the garage and you
would go past the commercial and there would be a secondary security gate. So, at this end of the site is
all residential and in the middle of that residential parking would be an elevator that would take you
directly up to your unit. On our Acacia building, you would make the turn on Acacia, you would go past
the building, you would turn into the site and make a left and go right into a double loaded parking
garage. If you were at this end of the site, you could go on that elevator and if you were here, you could
go up a secondary lobby directly to your unit. Board Member Furth: And that’s a secured garage in the evening?
Mr. Steinberg: Yes, oh, yes.
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Board Member Furth: Thanks, nice answer.
Mr. Steinberg: Ok, thank you.
Chair Lew: Ok, Kyu?
Vice Chair Kim: Alright, thank you, Mr. Steinberg, for your presentation. I think overall the project has made a lot of improvements since the last time we’ve seen it. I especially appreciate the fact that you are trying to accommodate our wishes for that Acacia building to be lower and closer to the ground than it was before. I do agree with Board Member Baltay that there’s a little bit of open-ended to exactly how far above grade that building is. I was looking at the building sections on A-4.0 and it seems to actually fairly clearly call out that on the garage entry portion of the building, that the finished floor of the residences is
8 ½-feet above ground but I guess that’s closer to the garage ramp so perhaps it’s a little bit higher than
it is actually at the side walk of Acacia. I do think it’s definitely an improvement over the 13-feet above
ground that it was.
Mr. Steinberg: Excuse me, I apologize for the confusion here. On sheet A-4.0…
Vice Chair Kim: Yes.
Mr. Steinberg: If you look at the section closest to the bottom right corner, you can see that there – the grade – the existing grade level – I see what’s causing – the section is taken not a that the street. It’s setback from the street but if you look at the notes that the curb is at 00. That’s where the street is and level two is 4-feet higher than that.
Vice Chair Kim: So, the (crosstalk)…
Mr. Steinberg: (Inaudible)
Vice Chair Kim: … sidewalk of Acacia…
Mr. Steinberg: The section that we’re looking at is showing the grades ramping down to the garage.
Vice Chair Kim: So, Acacia is essentially parallel to the building? There’s no additional slope along Acacia?
Mr. Steinberg: No, there is. If you… Ms. Hodgkins: It seems like it slopes…
Mr. Steinberg: The street is sloping but we are building up the grade with a series of planters and
landscaping (inaudible) (crosstalk).
Vice Chair Kim: So, it still to me and maybe I am miss reading the drawing but you seem to call out that
dotted line saying sidewalk grade change and it comes down basically to the garage entry. Which would
indicate that it’s still 8 ½-feet below the residential finished floor? I mean it’s ok, it’s just something to
maybe take a look at and confirm with us.
Mr. Steinberg: Sure, so I just want to point out one thing to you. This is the construction but if you look
at the rendering on the screen, you can see that the lower part, we’re actually naturally berming the land
up and we’re doing another layering with a retaining with a secondary planting so that we’re really trying to make the building feel grounded. Vice Chair Kim: Right and I think you’ve done a much better job of this than it was previously so thank
you. I guess my comments are a little unorganized but I’ll just make them as I go so I want to reiterate a
point that was made previously. That I feel strongly that the long-term bicycle parking should be
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accessible at grade. I think given the location of the site, it’s actually a great location because it’s on a
busy street; El Camino. Where I feel we can use the greater density and its also convenient access to the
Caltrain station on California and just being to get around from this location is a great asset for the
project. I think for those who are taking their bicycles everywhere, to have to ride your bike down the
ramp or to have to shove it into the elevator to go down to park your bike seems like a bit of an
inconvenience but I understand that that’s not a requirement but I did want to reiterate the point.
Mr. Steinberg: You know, we’ll take that heart. Of course, we’re fighting for all these different things but I… (crosstalk) Vice Chair Kim: (Inaudible)
Mr. Steinberg: …recognize what you’re saying and we’ll try to accomplish – we’ll try to address that.
Vice Chair Kim: Yeah, thank you. I can’t help but really applaud your take on the project because it is
such a difficult project with the three different zones and just the awkward shapes that you are trying to
merge to make this project happen. One comment that I have when looking through the drawings set
was that I think the perspectives at eye level of the different views of the residential entries and the
corners of the building are excellent. They give us a nice feel of what the building is going to look like
and how people are going to interact with it. Maybe a comment that I don’t make too often is maybe we
could – I was looking for maybe a view of – a bird’s eye view that would show both of the building and how they relate to one another. As opposed to simply having to look at the elevations and make my own compare and contrast observations but that’s a relatively minor comment. The reason why I wanted to look at that was that I think the material pallet that you are using between the two building is quite similar and there’s a lot of repetition of materials. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I
think you can use that to your benefit in this project. Especially because you’ve got those shared
amenities that you were explaining in your presentation. The elevation along El Camino, I think is much
better and the fact that you are kind of staggering these elements and you’ve moved the ins and outs of
the building in such a way that I think begins to feel much more interesting and less repetitive. I like the
fact that you’re reoriented the residential lobbies to face one another and to really make that feel like a
residential entry for pedestrians, bicycles and automobiles alike from Acacia. I think looking at the
elevation drawings, one thing that’s a little misleading is traditionally we use a lot of line weights to
indicate what elements of the building are closer and what elements are further away. I know that you
are attempting to do that using some kind of an opacity layer in some aspects of the building. I think it
can read a little bit more flat than you are actually proposing and so that’s where I think the 3-D views really help me to understand exactly how far back certain elements of the building are pushed back and pushed forward and where the soffits are coming out to extend and create over hangs. Overall, I think I can make the findings to recommend approval of the project. I think there are a couple things such as a real materials board and material samples that we can look at. Especially for the cement plaster and the
colors and the materials such as the metal mesh railing that you mentioned, as well as the wood, of
course. I – you know I think the fact that this is a very large project at a site that deserves a large
project and the fact that it’s mostly residential is excellent and it’s something that the City really needs. I
understand that with the Site and Design Review Process, that this project will go to Council nevertheless
as well so I don’t have very many hesitations in recommending approval. I thank you for trying to
address our comments and additionally listening to the other comments that I’ve made today and taking
them to heart. Thank you very much and I hope to see the building built.
Mr. Steinberg: Ok, thank you.
Chair Lew: Peter. Board Member Baltay: Ok, thank you. I am very impressed and pleased with the overall site planning of this project. The way you’ve accommodated the parking and the pedestrian activation of the corners. In
fact, I would like to say to Staff and hopefully this gets to the Council level even but this is a good
example of how to create pedestrian friendly spaces on corners along El Camino. The way they’ve
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stepped back these plazas and they have a few trees and plants to shelter it a little bit. They’re not
expecting it to be the main public space of a residence but for a café, a Starbucks, it really works. It’s
also attractive looking on both ends of the street. It’s something that we see repeatedly, especially in this
neighborhood, as being developed intensely now and we’ve repeatedly said that. That pedestrian
activation is important and this is, in my opinion, a good example of how you can accomplish that at the
ground level. I also think that the parking is well done in that they have some spaces up at the grade
level. When those people are looking for the store, there are 15 or so spots right there. So, most of the time you can just run in and out. You also can sort of see where the store is before you go down the ramp so you have a little bit of the visual sense of orientation. You have a mix of parking that for the residences it’s all the way in the back where they need it to be and understand it. We’ll see in other projects even today -- I think this is a good example again, of how to mix it up a little bit with the parking and meet the needs of all the tenants in the building. I find that that planning really works quite well.
Again, that circle in the middle again, really helps to find the space, it gives you the sense of slowing
down, how to drive around. I applaud you on your site planning for building and I’m very impressed with
the design at the grade level along El Camino, especially. I’m also fine with the Design Enhancement
Exception for the ramp. We’ve repeatedly approved that kind of thing and it’s necessary to make this
work. It’s actually a good use of the land close to the residents and shields them so again I think that’s a
good idea. Ok, I have two sets of concerns I guess. One is on the El Camino frontage, as handsome as I
find the building to be, we have design guidelines that call for buildings to have base, a middle and a top.
I find that this building has a wonderful base and a clear middle but there’s no top and if I pull your
attention to some of the renderings. Maybe elevation one on 3.5 for example, if you look at that corner. That’s a very dramatic sculptural bit of building there and it certainly marks the corner and it creates a wonderful pedestrian space but I’m afraid that I can’t find that it meets the El Camino Real Guidelines of having a top. We’re trying to create a grand boulevard and that requires the buildings to have some sense of relating to each other over the time. Generally, that means some capping element, some kind or
another. When I just sort of poke around on your elevations, say elevation one on sheet A-3.1, the –
what I call the middle. The large residential portion of the building again, has these white pieces which
are nicely mixed up in massing and as you pointed out in your initial presentation, they do create a less
monolithic feeling to the street than your plans. I put it to my fellow colleagues on the Board though how
far do we push to get some kind of a cap? Some kind of a roof element on the top here and I guess I
feel that we have to force these guidelines. That’s what they are for and I don’t see it on this façade
here. It would also be nice to see the actual materials that you are proposing. I don’t know why that’s
not here now but it is pretty important what color that plaster is and what that wood finish would be.
Then my second issue really had been with the building in the back when it was – the residences were
13-feet above ground and it was just unacceptable. I find the drawings unclear but if the residential floor level is 4-feet above the grade at the street, I think that’s great; 4-feet at one end and 2-feet or so at the other. That seems to me just the perfect amount of grade separation. I think from walking on the site and from looking at your grading and drainage plan and stuff, the back area should be similarly situated. I don’t see how you can get it down 8-feet and I suspect that there’s some inconsistencies on the
drawings that -- I can’t believe that ramp coming off of Acacia drops down 4-feet before you go into the
garage. That doesn’t seem realistic and you're showing it connecting to the existing parking lot. I walked
over there just yesterday and there’s no notice of a grade change and I think it’s fine. I think I’d like to
say though that we should ask that the building remain at about 4-feet above grade, which is what
you’ve stated and I think that’s a really nice amount of grade separation. I think it does have the effect
that we wanted to bring that building down to a more residential scale. I think the planting and the
landscaping you’ve done along Acacia are quite handsome and they do a nice job. That the plantings do
a – give it a residential feeling. I know I had mentioned earlier that having balconies or stoops but I think
what you’ve proposed seems good. My concern was related to the open space on the back. It’s the kind
of place where a mother may want her children to be able to play and the difference between being 8-
feet above ground and an average of three is a big difference. That’s where it’s important that I think that space to be activated and closer to grade you can get the residences is better. So again, if it’s 4-feet at the back and 2-feet at the front, I believe that works. Then when I look at the design of the buildings on the back, I’d like to pull up your rendering two on sheet A-3.6 and just comment to my fellow Board
Members that I find that the design of those balconies, it seems to be some sort of a steel frame with an
X-brace. It’s just not quite residential enough, I don’t think. It could use a little bit of revision just to
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down play it a little bit more. So again, I’m eager to hear what my colleague’s think but that rendering
shows it to me that it’s just not quite right. So, with that I’ll finish my comments and see what everybody
else has to say. Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg: Excuse me, Mr. Chairmen?
Chair Lew: Yes, Mr. Steinberg? Mr. Steinberg: Would it be possible for me to respond… Chair Lew: Yes.
Mr. Steinberg: … those (inaudible) while it’s fresh in everybody’s mind? The – let’s go backward, X-
bracing, we can certainly look at that. We can certainly look at the detail, how the mesh is attached and
the framing so we’re more than happy to continue to refine that. On the Acacia and the height of that
building, I think I wasn’t perfectly clear and I just want to make sure that we’re meeting in the mind and
where I think the confusing is, is if we look at A-4.0, there is about an 8-foot difference from the existing
grade at the sidewalk to the first floor. In the setback, as I showed you on the rendering, we are
landscaping that to elevate it so that we minimize so that it’s about 4-feet from the grade against the
building. Do you follow?
Board Member Baltay: I follow. I find that you guys are being deceptive, frankly. These drawings are not showing it at 8-feet and they are not showing it at 4-feet. The Staff report and what’s been stated in the public is that it’s 4-feet above the ground; now you’re saying it’s 8-feet.
Mr. Steinberg: No, I’m saying it’s 4-feet above what will be the finished grade.
Board Member Baltay: Ground I mean is a sidewalk. It’s a flat site right now because you’re building up
the grade next to the building, it’s deceptive to claim that that’s the grade. We’re all talking about the
ground right now at the sidewalk. So, the question that I will ask you once again, at the low end of
Acacia, if I am standing on the sidewalk, how high above me is the floor level of the first floor of the
residence?
Mr. Steinberg: Eight feet.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you. Ok and then I put to my Board Members in that that’s too high. It really needs to be 4-feet. That’s what’s we asked for the first time around and playing (inaudible) tricks with the finished grade is not really doing it. Your elevations and renderings are showing something different. Look at the rendering on the screen, that many standing there, his head is above the finished
floor of that balcony; that’s not 8-feet. It’s important to present it honestly and this is beautifully done
and you’ve got very good design stuff going on…
Mr. Steinberg: Well, so that’s the…
Board Member Baltay: … but these are back and forth. I’m sorry, I don’t want to argue back and forth
but speaking to my colleagues here that we need something that works and I feel like this should be…
Chair Lew: If you look on section A-4.1, which is the cross section through the building along Acacia. So,
the one – so, drawing number one, that’s actually at the exit stair, right? So, they are showing the 4-feet
plus an additional 20 inches. Board Member Baltay: Which drawing are you looking at, Alex?
Chair Lew: The section on the bottom number one.
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Board Member Baltay: The bottom section number one.
Chair Lew: Right and see the exit stair?
Board Member Baltay: Yes, that’s…
Chair Lew: Ok, so we’ve got – so that – what we’ve been mentioning is that there’s a 4-foot difference between the first resident floor and the elevator lobby, right? Then there are an extra 20-inches down to the street. So, that would be under 6-feet so it doesn’t – maybe it’s 8-feet at the far end near the garage but it’s not 8-feet – there isn’t an 8-foot change all the way through, right, so it’s confusing. Board Member Baltay: Is the street sloping that significantly? There’s 2-feet of slope (crosstalk)
(inaudible).
Chair Lew: I don’t know. There are – there is a grading plan – there is a topographic survey on C-1.0.
Everything slopes, slightly right? I mean this 31.5 versus 31.2. If we think this need to come back, I’m
fine with that but…
Board Member Baltay: I would…
Chair Lew: I think we’ve got – we understand that there’s a problem. Ok, Wynne? Board Member Furth: Thank you. I’m feeling a little better about being confused about some elements of the plan. First of all, it’s a wonderful project to have come before us and to have this kind of development. It’s been in general a very good presentation and it’s exciting to think of this number of
residential units being built here. I think you’ve successfully, as I say, engaged the street and it’s easy to
imagine this as being a very successful place to live, to walk through, to walk by, to go to for retail uses.
I think the parking is thoughtfully and effectively designed. I agree that having some surface parking for
retail uses is basically essential in this still – this City that still thinks it’s a suburb and I very much
appreciate the thoughtfulness that’s gone into thinking about how people navigate through this site at
various times of the day. For varies purposes, I very strongly second my colleague Kyu Kim’s comments
about bicycle parking. I’m a person who rides a bike to get places like the dentist and the grocery store
and I do not want to go wandering off into the garage with my bicycle. I was a little puzzled by what
seemed to be continuous first floor balconies along Acacia, is that a drawing error?
Mr. Steinberg: Yes, we’re missing the (inaudible) (crosstalk). Board Member Furth: It’s not actually an external…
Mr. Steinberg: No.
Board Member Furth: …walk way?
Mr. Steinberg: No, they are individual.
Board Member Furth: Because I would not support that. I also agree with my colleague Peter Baltay’s
comments about the design of the second-floor balconies looking a little bit over designed. They look like
the Alcoa building and this is not appropriate (inaudible) I think. I’m completely bewildered by what the
grades are at Acacia but I will tell you that from my point of view, grade means when I’m standing on the
sidewalk because that’s what’s going to affect my perceptions of how high the first floor is. I thought it was 4-feet and I thought that was terrific; I hope it turns out to be somewhere like that. You know the drawings of this project get ever more beautiful and I suspect that I’m not the more critical viewer of such drawings. I like your proposal for dealing with the plazas. I think that you addressed Mr. Moss’s
concern about having the significant feel of landscape and greenery as you go along this project and as
you move within it. When I look at the plant list -- I forget which exhibit that is, I took some notes but I
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know you can find it and look at the plant selection; I guess it's L-40. No, it must be L-46, any way you
know where it is. If you look at the list and all the boxes checked no on whether these are native plants,
then I don’t have enough information about your landscaping plans to make the required findings about
your landscaping being suitable habitat and using native plants where possible. This is a big site so you
should have significant non-human wildlife here. Preferably of the desired type but at present, I can’t
understand the plant choices. One last look at my notes. I think that addresses everything I looked at.
My notes from the first round say great proposed use, like the corner treatments, still a little muddled on how it all fits together in terms of access but you’ve addressed that. I’d say the way you handled the parking is not only good, it verges on visionary. I mean this seems to be finally an appropriate use of puzzle parking or whatever we call it these days and this is really thoughtful. So many of the issues that we raise on other projects, you’ve thought about ahead of time. Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg: Could…
Chair Lew: Yes, Mr. Steinberg?
Mr. Steinberg: Well, I just wanted to say that we are certainly agreeable to re-looking at the cross
bracing. We’ll certainly – will work with you on making sure we get a good balance with the drought
tolerant plants and we’ll give a good try to see what we can do for the long-term bike. Those I just want
to – we’ll work with you on that no problem. If the issues come down to a material board, whether to put
some detail on the caps along El Camino and clarifying and refining the corner of the Acacia building. If those are the things that are troubling, I might ask that we be able to do that with a Committee and expedite that. We’re trying to stay on a schedule to get to the Council if possible. Thank you. Chair Lew: Ok, so I have – I’m generally in agreement with my other Board Members. I do want to thank
you for doing a great packet of drawings. It’s very clear generally and easy to read and thank you, Claire,
you did a great job on the Staff report. My concern – here are my concerns, one is I think it gets to Mr.
Moss’s point, which is that I don’t think there is enough landscaping on the El Camino frontage. You’re
showing some planters at the corner and then you’re showing some really, really skinner planters in the
middle portion of the building. I was scaling them and they might be 12-inches deep and the ones that
I’ve seen where we’ve done it really skinny, like at Bloomingdale’s, they just don’t – they just barely
work. I would argue that in the 12-foot effective sidewalk – right, so we have the sidewalk but it looks
like a public sidewalk but it’s on your private property. I would argue that you have room there to do
something else. We have like the furnishing zone of the sidewalk, you can make those – you can make
them deeper, thicker and get more plants in there and I would like to see a detail for that. I don’t – I didn’t find any detail for that. I do want to see a detail for railings and may be soffits as well and I think to your point – also awnings. You know I’ve been torn in my mind about this, I was thinking that the details could come back to the subcommittee and then I am also reminded that some of the Board Members weren’t happy with your – one of your other projects. Just the way the – well not the design of
the project, it’s just the way it was handled. So, like the Epiphany Hotel, where things came back to the
subcommittee but the subcommittee wasn’t aware of all the changes that were happening. I think we will
have to (inaudible) it here on the Board. On the awnings along El Camino, I do want to caution you that
I’ve done that on the big mixed-use building and when you have the grade sloping, sometimes at the
high point of the grade the awnings look to low. You don’t see it in elevation, it’s only once the awnings
go – once they’re installed, then you realize that they are too low and you don’t see it in elevation. Also
on the store front windows along El Camino, I think I would like a detail at the sill. I didn’t – I was
looking at your drawings and I couldn’t figure out exactly what you were doing but I think generally we
like to have some sort of nice detail at the base there and not just have a standard store front going
down to the concrete curb. So, I don’t know if that’s tile or some sort of detail or an extra channel or
something; I think that would be appreciated. On the – I think I also would want to see more information on the – so, in addition – like the Board Members have mentioned the materials board and in addition, I would include on the landscape, like the decking. I think you’re showing wood decking on Acacia and I just want to caution you, you know wood decks look great when they are new but a year later they often
look terrible if they’re – if the stain is wearing out. Then in the most high traffic areas, they get worn
down pretty heavily. So, I want to know if this is stained wood, is it pressure treated wood, is it Trex,
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what exactly is it? I agree with Board Member Further on the landscaping. I would not be able to – I
don’t think I could make the findings for that and it’s not just drought tolerant anymore. Our findings
changed earlier this year so it’s California or local native plants that can provide habitat to wildlife to the
maximum extent possible; factoring in maintenance. In your planting plan, I mean there are a lot of very
good garden plants like – so like fortnight lily, I mean that could be – I would say just out of the top of
my head maybe that could be a native iris possible. It’s showing lavender, it seems to me that maybe
could be Eriogonum or Zauschneria or possible a Salvia. Showing like Rhaphiolepis and Rosmarinus, those could also be native plants, so it seems to me that there’s a whole bunch of them that could increase your ratio of non-native to native plants. Some of the – also, I have some trouble keying the plant pallet to the drawings. I’m not sure – they may not be final yet and so I think that could be revised to get them – to get the plan and the plant legend perfectly correspondent. So, that’s all – oh, then I think my last item would be that I would argue you for more – maybe one more – one or two more
colors on the stucco between the two buildings like an accent color; maybe at entrances or something. I
think the dark gray or the gray that you are showing, I think is compatible with the Equinix building. My
hunch is that the white is going to provide a lot of glare in the late afternoon and I think that’s
undesirable. I think that – yeah, I think the other caution that I would have on the white if you don’t
want to have a cornice is that all the dirt comes down on the cornice and it looks terrible. We have that
here on our – I think we have a Studio (inaudible) project on Alma where the dirt is just oozing down the
sides of the building and it looks awful. Ok, we’ll bring it back to the Board now, what do you guys – do
you want to see this again as the Board or do you think this can come back to a subcommittee or it could
even come back to Staff? And or – yeah? Board Member Furth: I would be in favor of bringing it back to the Board. Vice Chair Kim: I’m in favor of subcommittee.
Chair Lew: Peter?
Board Member Baltay: No, I don’t understand how the subcommittee could handle all these things so I
think it has to come back to the Board.
Chair Lew: Do we (inaudible) of every or do we have any internal disagreements about the things that
we’ve been discussing?
Vice Chair Kim: Well, Board Member Baltay asked us to comment on the notion of a base, middle and top. Chair Lew: Yes.
Vice Chair Kim: To me, I can see a top. I don’t think the top necessarily has to be a crown or an eyebrow
or anything like that. I clearly see elements of the building that extend higher and I think it’s more of a
contemporary treatment of a top so that doesn’t bother me too much. I understand that other people can
view that in different ways but that would be my response to that. The architect also said that he would
take a look at the long-term bicycle parking. I just wanted to be clear that that really should be
incorporated into the building. I just don’t want it to end up at the – on top of the garage ramp or
anything because it’s a matter of safety and being able to bring your bike into a secured area very close
to your home so I just want to throw that out there as well.
Chair Lew: The language – I read – we read the language of the code yesterday for that. I mean it does
ask that it be at grade or it could be in a garage but it’s in the garage and it needs to be next to the stair and the elevator. I would argue that... Vice Chair Kim: (Inaudible)
City of Palo Alto Page 18
Chair Lew: … it’s not – well, there’s residential and there’s also commercial but I would actually argue
that they are not in the best place.
Board Member Baltay: I fully support the notion of getting much better accessibility for the long term and
short-term bike parking as Kyu has been pointing out. I want to caution and ask my colleagues, I think if
the architect just puts a trim band at the top of these white units on El Camino, the building will be much
worse off. What I am really doing is trying to point out to us that we’ve been tasked to enforce these guidelines which require a top. I would really like to see the architect give a very creative effort to how do you make a contemporary building meet this guideline? It would really require you to go back and try to understand what the intent of the guideline is. The intent is to create a boulevard of buildings which create a sort of a height line like the [phonetics] [Champ La Seine] in Paris. That’s what the planners, that’s what everybody is dreaming for and we’re just tasked to try and enforce it but I would be really
sad if this comes back to the subcommittee with a 12-foot – 12-inch trim band a different color at the
top. That we stuck our foot in the wrong place and it made it a lot worse. So, I think if we are to require
that, it has to be something that’s done very carefully. I think we, as a Board, should think hard about
that this is a fairly well-designed building as it is but it just doesn’t quite meet this guideline. Do we really
want to jump into that?
Chair Lew: Ok, I was trying to pull up the – pull it up on the – the actual wording on the – in the
guidelines. That was under building design, right? So, section four…
Board Member Baltay: As well as I (inaudible)… Chair Lew: Well, it doesn’t really say that you have to have cornice. It’s saying that you have to have a parapet edge so it’s pretty vague. It has to have something, right? Ok.
Board Member Baltay: My understanding is that the idea is to give the building a cap. A roof that’s
connecting to the other building up and down the street.
Chair Lew: I’m not sure it says that.
Board Member Baltay: So, yeah, it is vague. What I am trying to do is avoid us just having the architect
for the sake of expediency give a trim band…
Chair Lew: Right. Board Member Baltay: …which makes it a lot worse. Chair Lew: Ok.
Board Member Baltay: It is a well-designed building and I don’t want to make it worse. I’m just pointing
out that we have this other requirement. So, I think we’re speaking with one voice on that?
Chair Lew: Yes, I – well I agree with you, more is better on big buildings.
Board Member Baltay: The other issue Alex, I think we talked about a lot is the height of the residential
building above the ground and how we establish that. I think we’re better off giving them a clear
direction than leaving it vague. I had thrown out there that the floor plate of the – the floor should be no
more than 4-feet above the ground level at the sidewalk adjacent to the building. Maybe that’s too much
but I think we should give him some direction. It’s really a matter of how the parking access works in the garage. Chair Lew: Right. Well I get – that was my point is that they have to get the ramp to work down to the
garage so why don’t we say that we want – well, that’s what we want and then we will see what we get.
City of Palo Alto Page 19
Board Member Baltay: We started this when they came to us when it was 13-feet above the ground. We
asked them to bring it to four. We were told that it was four when we’re looking at it, it’s 8-feet and I
don’t know how to put it to you more bluntly but we asked for four. I think that’s a perfect amount as far
as design relative to the street. Maybe I would say 6-feet would be acceptable to me given that you have
other constraints but leaving it like it is, is not good enough in my opinion. I think we should, as a Board,
speak how we feel about that so we don’t go around in circles on this issue.
Chair Lew: I’m in agreement with you. Question for Staff, so they’re in a hurry to get to the Council, as everybody is, right? What is the calendar looking like and is there an anticipated Council date that you – that Staff is thinking about? Mr. Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director of Planning: I’ll take that question so it really needs to – it’s a Site
and Design Application. It’s gone to the Planning Commission, it goes the Architectural Review Board and
you have up to three reviews. I believe this is your second formal hearing and our schedule is based on
when it gets passed this process. So, we do have some tentative dates scheduled but it’s contingent on
what happens here.
Chair Lew: Thank you for that. Ok, Peter, I’m going to leave it to you. I think you’ve got a motion, you
just have to make it.
MOTION Board Member Baltay: Well, I move that we continue this project to a date uncertain subject to the comments we’ve made. I’d like to stipulate in particular that the residential building be no more than 6-feet above the ground adjacent to the building at the sidewalk.
Chair Lew: I would just – I go ahead with the – all the cornice piece.
Board Member Baltay: Do you want me to list all those things?
Chair Lew: Yeah, cornice, materials and all that.
Board Member Baltay: Ok, that the design of the building facing El Camino be reconsidered to have some
sort of a cap or element at the top on some portions of the façade. That the long-term bicycle parking be
placed at grade or otherwise easily and directly accessible. That the landscaping be revised to incorporate native and drought-tolerant plants. That we have a color and materials board presented. Railings -- that the balconies and associated railings and awnings for the residential building on Acacia be reconsidered. As well as – do we have an issue with the railings on El Camino?
Chair Lew: Well, they haven’t really – there’s no design detail presented so why don’t we just (inaudible).
Board Member Baltay: So, we’d like to see some of that design detail. I think we also asked for some of
the detail on the store front glazing.
Chair Lew: I would say window details.
Board Member Baltay: Window details in general? Ok, so window details be provided. That the planters
along EL Camino be reconsidered to be slightly wider, is that right? Deeper. I think that covers everything
so that’s my motion.
Chair Lew: Any seconds? Board Member Furth: Second.
City of Palo Alto Page 20
Chair Lew: Ok, all in favor? Opposed? None, so that’s 4-0 with Board Member Gooyer absent. Thank you,
Mr. Steinberg, great and Mr. Steele. We’re going to take a 2-minute break and then hear the next item
which is 4190 El Camino Real.
MOTION PASSED 4-0 WITH BOARD MEMBER GOOYER ABSENT
Study Session 3. 4190 El Camino Real (17PLN-00195): Request for Preliminary Architectural Review of a Proposed 5,340 Square Foot, 22 Foot Tall Service Building Addition and 14,380 Square Foot, 27 Foot Tall Solar Canopy Over Existing Parking at an Existing Auto Dealership. Environmental Assessment: Not a Project. The Formal Application Will be Subject to California Environmental
Quality Act (CEQA) Review. Zoning District: CS (AD). For More Information Contact the Project
Planner Claire Hodgkins at Claire.Hodgkins@cityofpaloalto.org.
Chair Lew: So, let’s resume, we have item number three. 4190 El Camino Real request for Preliminary
Architectural Review of a proposed 5,340-square foot, 22-foot tall service building addition, and a 14,380-
square foot, 27-foot tall solar canopy over the existing parking lot at an auto dealership. The
environmental assessment is that this is not a project. A formal application will be subject to CEQA and
the zone district is Service Commercial (CS) with an AD overlay. Again, we have Claire Hodgkins our Staff
planner, welcome Ms. Hodgkins: Good morning again; Claire Hodgkins, project planner. The proposed project is located at 4190 El Camino Real. So, as you mentioned, this is a Preliminary Architectural Review for a new solar shade structure and service building addition to the existing McLaren Volvo Dealership, which is located
at the corner of Arastradero and El Camino Real. The project will also require a certificate of compliance
to merge two lots and this corner parcel is adjacent to an auto dealership along El Camino Real and
single-family residences along Arastradero Road. This just is a quick view of the zoning on the site and
the adjacent uses and the single-family residences are just to the left of the site along Arastradero. So,
site plan, this just shows what the – which part is the new building addition so not along the – either of
the frontages. This is the new solar ray addition, I’ve tried to show where the shade structure would go
and how it would be over the existing parking and then with the solar over it. This is just a quick view of
the project from El Camino Real showing the shade structure right here and the existing buildings. Today,
key considerations would be the consistency with the context based design criteria, South El Camino Real
Design Guidelines and performance criteria. All of these are going to be implacable to the proposed project. Just very quickly on parking, I won’t get into that in too much detail but it seems like there are a couple of issues that need to be resolved. Although it does seem like there are a few different options of ways that they can resolve that parking and provide some more clarity on that. No formal recommendation is requested at this time but following this hearing, the applicant would choose to file a
formal application for a Major Architectural Review if they choose to move forward with the project and
that’s all.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you and do we have the applicant here? Ok, great and you have 10-minutes.
Mr. Christian Oaks: Thank you, Claire. My name is Christian Oaks with TWM Architects, good morning.
This project is a bit smaller than the previous one. The first image that I’d like to present to you is the
street image. The existing site has two very high-quality show rooms. These are very high-quality cars
and we are not really going to change the image that you see of this site. The work that we’re doing is all
really pretty well hidden in the back. Behind these two show rooms which were completely rebuilt in
2011, are – is an L-shaped service building which is in very good condition and functions very well and is intended to stay. The problem with this site really is the service yard in the back and I’ll show you a couple pictures following this one of the existing conditions back there. They’re storing all the service cars, they’re storing some equipment, trash is kept back there and it's sort of a non-customer area.
Claire, if you could go to the next photo or who is? Oh, do I, have it? Ok. They are parking all the service
vehicles back here, moving them around rotationally. There are some storage bins – shipping containers
City of Palo Alto Page 21
that are holding a lot of materials. Let’s see, there’s an electric transfer station to one side and there are
some nice existing trees back there. The service building is not – addition is not really a service building,
it’s really a storage facility for inclement weather; to store some of these really nice cars and protect
them and store parts. There is a small office back there as well. The – those will – are also flanked with
completely enclosing the back of the site with a CMU – 8-foot CMU retaining wall, which will offer privacy
to the neighbors. There’s also a 10-foot setback at the rear so that’s sort of the first issue that we’re
dealing with, with this. The second issue – then the addition will match the existing that’s out there essentially. The second addition is the facility is very poor on energy and a consultant has been brought in to evaluate the entire facility. They are called Candle3 and they are a nationwide energy company and we’ve been working together to figure out how to virtually eliminate the power demands of this high energy using the facility. They’ve gone through the facility and replaced virtually all the lighting with LED lights and the second phase of this is the solar. The analysis of the solar to offset these costs and work
with Palo Alto’s program called Palo Alto Clean, which is supported here heavily and has come up with a
pretty large solar ray. In solving the problem of supporting the ray, some structures were studied that
introduced a lot of columns into this back area and the solution that you are seeing today is to create one
large canopy. We tried to get the canopy to cover the entire area without introducing any columns but
you’ll see that there are two columns that do drop into the area. It’s really important with the heavy
movement of these cars to minimize the amount of columns. We’ve come up with a really nice solution
with a space frame. It is open air and it needs a little tilt to the south, which you’ll see. We believe in
studying this on a 3-D model, that it will be fairly unvisitable from El Camino or Arastradero. I do have a
sample of the material here if you would like to see that. Regarding the impacts, this really doesn’t change the use. It really helps – it really doesn’t change the parking of the site. It doesn’t add any real parking need. The entire site really is a huge parking lot. We’re fencing the back which will help the neighbors. The enclosing, some of the functions will help acoustically and screen some of these functions. There’s only really one residence that look into this area. The glass on the PV panels has an anti-
reflective coating so there’s no issue with that. With me today, I have [Jou Lew] who represents Candle3,
if you have any technical questions and understanding Palo Alto Clean a little bit better. She’s looked into
that pretty extensively and putting this together and the mathematics behind making this very efficient
and working with the City’s program to generate power for the City. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. If there is a member of the public that would like to speak to this item, now
would be the time. Otherwise, we can go to the Board Member questions. Peter.
Board Member Baltay: A question for Staff please, the portion of the site that adjoins the residential uses
at the back. Is there a daylight plan or a setback plans required? Ms. Hodgkins: Yes, there is a daylight plan required and it’s based on the adjacent residential use so it’s going to be consistent with the R-1 zoning district standards, which I believe start at 10-feet and then 45 degrees. They didn’t provide that and I noted that in the Staff report that that wasn’t provided as part of
these plans and we would need to see that as part of a formal application that it meets that. It appears
to probably meet that but it’s unclear at this time.
Board Member Baltay: How about the individual review guidelines, things like that for privacy issues? If
we felt we wanted to get some landscaping back there, is there some requirement for that?
Ms. Hodgkins: Yes, not under the individual review guidelines but under – I believe under the context
based design criteria and possibly also the performance criteria, there is a 10-foot requirement so we can
push for that 10-foot requirement on landscaping adjacent to those – that R-1 district.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you. Vice Chair Kim: I have a couple questions for the applicant. Yeah, you can come up to the mic. My first question is why are you doing this? There are other ways to provide shading or weather protects. Why
are you proposing this solar shade structure?
City of Palo Alto Page 22
Mr. Oaks: Because there’s not enough roof area to put the quantity of panels that we need.
Vice Chair Kim: So, you’re looking to provide these panels for what? Just to generate energy for the
building? For the charging of hybrid model McLaren’s? For -- is there…
Mr. Oaks: It’s for the – to offset all the energy costs for this particular site and generate some costs.
(Inaudible) (crosstalk)…
Vice Chair Kim: So, many for building usage – for building energy usage, you’re going to try to recuperate that using these solar panels? Mr. Oaks: Yes.
Vice Chair Kim: Ok, I’m just…
Mr. Oaks: This facility uses quite a bit of energy compared to other businesses.
Vice Chair Kim: Right and then I notice that with the proposed shade structure that you are going to have
to install several of these columns for the space frame in front of the existing service space.
Mr. Oaks: Right.
Vice Chair Kim: It looks like it’s going to have to penetrate through the roof of the existing service space. Is there any – how do you propose on doing – propose constructing that? How does that work? Is there a problem with that? Has that been studied?
Mr. Oaks: The penetration all occur in the cantilever front canopy so it is basically a wood frame, plywood
sheathed roof. So, it would be as simple as a roof jack.
Vice Chair Kim: Ok and then could you speak to perhaps – I don’t know if there’s a separate application
but I believe there was another project that was proposed that never fully was built out. Do you know
anything about that?
Mr. Oaks: In 2013, essentially the same service addition of a tiny bit smaller was – I don’t know the exact
history. I understood it was approved but we couldn’t find any records at planning on it so I’m not sure –
that’s what I’m not sure of. It went all the way through the permitting and then when the energy issue took life the owner decided to let that go, which we probably should have extended and then added the solar on because it’s the same basic building that would have been built. Vice Chair Kim: Alright, thank you.
Mr. Oaks: It’s – it’ll – more carefully designed at this point.
Chair Lew: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Is your firm designing this space frame solar panel support or is that done by the
energy subcontractor company?
Mr. Oaks: The energy company oversees that construction but that’s a design build by a specific
manufacturer.
Board Member Baltay: Is it a custom design just for this site or is this a space frame assembly that somebody picks out of a catalog or something?
Mr. Oaks: Well, it’s a proprietary system that is custom engineered and designed for this site but it is a
system that has been used similarly.
City of Palo Alto Page 23
Board Member Baltay: Ok, thank you.
Mr. Oaks: If you continue to the end of this, here’s a couple other – let’s see if I can get this. A couple
other systems that have been built by this same company. This is in southern California and this is in a
school yard pavilion.
Chair Lew: I have a question for you. We had some other photovoltaic projects in Palo Alto where the architects and the developers were trying to use the translucent photovoltaic panels. Mr. Oaks: Very expensive.
Chair Lew: Expensive and then one of the companies went out of business but there may be another one
but I was wondering have you considered that?
Mr. Oaks: It doesn’t balance the cost. We’re trying to save (crosstalk) energy costs…
Chair Lew: You’re trying to save money.
Mr. Oaks: … and that system is – just doesn’t work into the math.
Chair Lew: Then you do have to add – you’re going to add lighting… Mr. Oaks: Right.
Chair Lew: … below it, even during the day time?
Mr. Oaks: There will be LED lights installed.
Chair Lew: All the – they are running in the day time.
Mr. Oaks: Run by the solar.
Chair Lew: Ok, thank you. Board Member comments anybody? Kyu.
Vice Chair Kim: Thank you for answering our questions. I guess I was just trying to figure out what the driving force behind this project was and it’s kind of – well, it’s very different from the majority of the projects that we review. I think my primary concerns have somewhat already been brought forth such as studying the daylight plane, any kind of landscape area between the single-family residence and the site
along Arastradero. I guess my primary concerns are that this structure is very massive. From the pictures
that you’ve shown us of the sample or the existing examples of similar space frames, it just looks very
large and I don’t know if that’s a result of the space frames in those example pictures being much closer
to the ground than what is proposed. I notice that you have some sections and elevations here but you
don’t have a clear dimension on the actual height of the space frame. I kind of deduced that it was about
4-feet high, is that relatively correct?
Mr. Oaks: It’s 5-feet.
Vice Chair Kim: Five feet, ok and so although in your presentation you said that from El Camino and
Arastradero that you would partly be able to see it. I am not convinced of that yet, especially when it hangs over the existing roofs of the existing L-building. So, perhaps when this comes back as a formal application if you could provide either an in animation or digital 3-D views from El Camino and from across the street from the single-family residences. Perhaps that can show us clearly that this isn’t as
obtrusive as it might seem to be right now. Then of course, along with the daylight plan issues, I just
encourage you to take a look at all of the criteria that is being used for us to evaluate your project and to
City of Palo Alto Page 24
make sure that you’re addressing those items as well. As far as the electrical equipment for the charging
of the – of what’s being charged with the solar panels, where does that equipment go?
Mr. Oaks: [Jou] might best answer that question but it’s fed back through the meter into the City’
system.
Vice Chair Kim: Directly? There’s no other transformer equipment or… [Ms. Jou Lew:] Good morning. My name is [Jou] and I work for Candle3, the consulting construction company for the systems. So, to – first of all, I want to address Kim’s question why we’re doing this? First of all, we evaluated the utility bills of this customer, McLaren Volvo Palo Alto. We noticed that the utility bill is quite high compared to all the other commercial facilities so the first reason why we are doing this
is to reduce the utility consumption for this commercial facility; to make it more energy efficient. We did
an LED retrofit for the high-end showrooms, we put solar on top to solve a generation problem. By doing
LED we reduced a base load of their utility consumption. Then the second step is to do the solar to
provide renewable energy generation too, first of all, address the rest of the base load for this facility and
also secondly, this is the more important reason because Palo Alto is called CPAU (City of Palo Alto
Utility). They have a very strong incentive program to encourage commercial facilities in the City to
generate renewable energy and in the meantime, feed it back to the grid. There is an incentive program
in place, it’s called Palo Alto Clean so Palo Alto City has the three-megawatt capacity to allow the solar
program that has an incentive, which is 9 or 16.5 cents per kilowatt hour I believe for the first year with a 20 or 25-year contract. Then after that, once we meet that three-megawatt cap, it’s going to be reduced to 8.9 cents per kilowatt hour for a 20-year contract and 9.1 cents per kilowatt hour for a 25-year contract. So, we’re really trying to be participating in that program and support a local incentive program for renewable energy for that purpose.
Vice Chair Kim: So, where does that inverter go?
Ms. Lew: Inverter, you mean the solar inverters so the connections of the solar system will be going
through an interconnection (inaudible) with the City of Palo Alto Utility Company. There will be an
inverter between the solar panels and the interconnection. From our site walk of that building, it’s a 208
system so a solar inverter will be next to the electrical panel which will be doing the interconnection for
the system.
Vice Chair Kim: Ok, so I just don’t see any notation of that on the plans as far as where is the electrical meter? Where does the inverter go? Does it need to be set on a platform? Things of that nature are additional questions and information that we would need. I had some other comments or questions as far as coverage and FAR but I think those have been addressed with some further research. I guess my other – my only other comment is does there need to be some kind of a wind study or weather study
with regards to this in the fall or winter. If there’s a storm of some sort, are you actually going to create
more of a howling wind underneath the panels but those are things that can be answered perhaps after
the other Board Member comments. Thank you.
Ms. Lew: Sure, thanks.
Chair Lew: Wynne.
Board Member Furth: Thank you. This is a project that I’m glad to see. I have worked on sites in the City
working on these carport solar installations. They are not easy to do and it would be good to see one that
works. The first thing I noticed when looking at the plans is that it says on sheet A-1.1, no new landscaping proposed, which I think is going to be in the way of me being able to make all the necessary findings here. I did tour the site and certainly, this area now looks sort of like a military encampment with storage containers and tents and people scurrying about and I think it would be much better to have it
enclosed. I think that the locate electrical generation makes sense too but it does back up on what
appears to be an entirely vacant R-1 lot, is that right? There’s no – has that cleared recently?
City of Palo Alto Page 25
Ms. Hodgkins: Say that one more time.
Board Member Furth: The residential lot off the court, is that a recently taken down building or was that
never occupied or (crosstalk)…
Ms. Hodgkins: No, (inaudible). Board Member Furth: …(inaudible) split or what? Ms. Gerhardt: It’s been vacant (inaudible).
Board Member Furth: It’s a traditionally vacant R-1 lot?
Ms. Hodgkins: Right.
Board Member Furth: But we need to handle it as an R-1 lot and it does seem to me it interesting
because this is right next to a City electrical sub station which does provide landscaping between it and
the R-1 properties adjacent to it and that would be a model – a starting place for what I think we would
need to have here. If would be very helpful, probably essential, to have a good idea of what this
installation would look like for people driving or walking by on the public right of way and very much from the adjacent lot. I think it would be important not only to have landscaping installed behind the new building and structure and power plant but to take a look at the compliance of the existing other landscaping on this site with current rules. I don’t know what Staff’s view is on that but this is not a large site and I think this should be an opportunity to improve that significantly. There are some good plants
there but they are sort of whacked into a state where they are not going to provide any kind of a – either
human sense of landscaping or certainly neither bees nor birds are going to find those attractive in their
present state; they’ve kind of been neglected. It would be – I’m curious to know what landscaping was
originally planned for this site and does this conform to that? I think the concept is good. We’ll need to
see more information to know if this one works, I hope it does.
Chair Lew: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Thank you. I agree with my colleague comments we’ve heard so far. In analyzing
this project, I first had a series of questions about the zoning which we’ve touched on already but then walking around from El Camino, believe the solar shade structure is going to be visible from the sidewalk and the street and the corner traffic driving by. I don’t think that’s a problem necessarily. It’s not a large structure but it does beg for a little more detail. As our questions were probing at us to how that’s built and how that appears from the edge and then I think also, certainly on the Charleston Road frontage the
landscaping could be improved there and it would change – it would improve how the whole building
would appear. As I’ve driven by that so many times and it seems to be a storing and unloading area.
There’s always a bunch of cars wrapped in white plastic there and it’s not terribly attractive. This project
changes how that looks and additional landscaping or changes to the landscaping along Charleston would
help it even more. Given that the function there is fairly utilitarian and a little more shielding is probably
the answer. I was most surprised however when I ventured in the back. I had never been back there
before and how close this is to a big power station, to the Tesla Dealer and also to the residences back
there. It struck me that you really have to do something to provide screening from your project to the
neighboring lot; even though there is no house there now. I would suggest that takes the form of some
serious landscaping, some kind of a hedge or plantings there. Also, you would really have to meet the
daylight plan requirements as any other structure would. Then I question whether even the piece of the building, the corner facing the Tesla Dealer next to you, there are a few residences on that cul-de-sac. Are they looking over that corner at this structure and if so, you might want to consider that wrapping the landscaping a little somehow just to see how it looks? What I can suggest is go back there yourselves
on this little cul-de-sac and it’s really a neat little community of houses and just imagine how these 22 -
24 tall structures will look to them and see if you can do something to mitigate it to make it fit in. It’s just
City of Palo Alto Page 26
not fair to the neighbors to have some very industrial thing that’s so visible from their front porches and
their curb and cul-de-sac. It seems to me that it’s not that complicated or difficult to screen it but I’ll
certainly be looking for that level of screening from the back, from the residences. Ideally, they just
shouldn’t see this or they shouldn’t notice it being there. Then I had some thoughts about your solar
structure and this has come up on several projects recently where people are trying to get these solar
panels on the roofs or covered parking, which is a great thing to do. We all want to support it but it
always seems to be that it’s some solar consultant who just throws together the support structure without giving it much design thought and several times recently we really had problems with that. On this one, it’s an attractive idea what I wonder if you couldn’t just think through the design of the structure. A little more as a free-standing piece and then say you’re going to put the panels on top of it. The thought that goes through my mind is if you could somehow get the edge of it, especially the edge facing Charleston and El Camino, to be level; flat. Maybe you could accomplish that by sloping it back
inward to some point. What happens when you make it the way you’ve got it designed with a slight
slope, it just looks all the more utilitarian and industrial. I think this sort of structure if you sloped it two
directions inward to a center point or two supporting posts, could be a very attractive design. Which is
what your customers certainly expect when they are coming to buy a McLaren, that it’s not just some
canopy out of a catalog. Which is sort of what makes sense looking at this but rather give some
architectural effort to getting an edge to this which is the visible part from the street. Then when a
customer does peek inside it, make it look cool which maybe if you sloped them into two columns or
something that could be neat. Somehow, I think a little more design work and thought is to how the
canopy structure is built would be effective. Again, I have no issues that it overall is compatible and I think the design is fine but some more detail. Thank you. Chair Lew: I would just say that I generally support the overall concept of the project and that here in California, our goal is to have each building generate as much power as it uses. That’s the plan that’s
being incorporated into our building codes and it gets – we’re moving towards it slowly but I forgot
exactly where we going. Is it forty percent by twenty…
Board Member Baltay: (Inaudible).
Chair Lew: Yeah, I forgot (inaudible) modified the – we’re generally trying to have all buildings generate
as much power as they consume so to that end, I do support the project. My – I was on the Board when
the previous project went through and just for the other Board Members, it was just one bar. I wasn’t the
L-shape and they did provide – they were proposing a solid fence and land – like a hedge – like a
pittosporum hedge or something like that. Also, an employee break room or break patio in the back corner so there was an effort to make the back nicer and to make a transition to the cul-de-sac. I think that I would suspect all of those things that were previously proposed in this particular project too. My generally take on it is if there is a way to make it smaller or lower, that would be better. It seems – I don’t have a great idea for that other than I think what Peter is suggesting that if it’s more inset into the
project I don’t – it seems to me that they would have it – if it was – if the footprint were smaller, then
you would have columns in the parking lot, right? Anyway, if there is a way of making it – if there is any
way of making it like 4-feet lower, I would support that because it’s really tall at the moment. Then my
next question would be is if you are doing all this with the space frame, are you creating a place for
pigeons? Like usually when you go – when I go into the City and underpasses and whatnot, it’s usually
just all full of pigeon poo and it seems to be that would not be desirable. Then if that is – if you think that
is a problem, then how would you mitigate it? Usually, people end up covering everything with nets so I
would want to see that and then I think as well since you are going to have to light this, then I think we
would want to see the lighting for underneath the photovoltaics. So, that’s all that I have and I don’t
think that the – I’m not sure to me that there’s a standard that says that the space frame can’t be visible.
I think our standard is that if fits in with the context and the existing buildings on the site and the neighboring buildings. At the moment, I think it’s kind of a stretch but I think that you could get there and I guess my question would be is there a way to treat the edge of the space frame or is it better to leave it exposed; that’s just an open question in my mind. So, I think that’s all we have today. Any other
closing comments?
City of Palo Alto Page 27
Board Member Baltay: I wonder if I could point out to my colleagues if you look at the front of the
package, the second image there, the Arastradero Road view from the south. It could use some more
landscaping and I wonder if we can collectively give them that (inaudible).
Chair Lew: I asked for that last time around and I didn’t get it. I looked at it again recently and I still
think that there should be landscaping along the sidewalk.
Board Member Furth: Yes, I agree with you. Board Member Baltay: So at least three of us have made that point. Chair Lew: Then also, we do have the Arastradero Road Project – median project so the City is going to
be doing stuff in that vicinity as well; some improvements there.
Board Member Baltay: I feel that because the shade structure will be visible from Arastradero, the
landscaping is an intricate part of this project.
Chair Lew: Yep and they are going up so I think it warrants more screening. Ok, thank you. We look
forward to seeing this come as a Formal Application.
Ms. Hodgkins: Thank you. Mr. Oaks: Thank you. Chair Lew: Ok, it is 10:50 and we have one more item. I know some – you have a time – you’re ok? Ok,
why don’t we – we’ll take a 2-minute break so that the next presentation can get set up.
4. 4256 El Camino Real: Preliminary Review for a New Hotel with Condos 4256 El Camino Real (17PLN-00085): Request by Mircea Voskerician for a Preliminary Architectural Review
for the Review of a New Hotel Located at 4256 El Camino Real. The New Five-Story Hotel is Proposed to
be 50' Tall, 51,581 sq. ft., and Would Include 39,173 sq. ft. of Hotel Amenities Including 69 Guest Rooms
Over 5 Floors, and 11,758 sq. ft. of residential space including 8 townhomes (each townhome is
proposed to be 3 bedrooms and 3 stories tall). Additionally, the site is proposed to have 85 underground
parking spaces (78 spaces utilized with mechanical lifts, 4 surface ADA spaces, 2 valet surfaces spaces,
and 1 undesignated surface space). Environmental Assessment: Is a Project. The Formal Application Will be Subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Review. Zone District: CS. For More Information Contact the Project Planner Samuel Gutierrez at samuel.gutierrez@cityofpaloalto.org Chair Lew: We – I think we are ready for the last item today. 4256 El Camino Real requests for a
Preliminary architectural review for a new 51,581-square foot, five story hotel including 69 guest rooms
and eight townhouse units with 85 underground parking spaces and parking lifts. The environmental
assessment is it’s not a project. The Formal Application will be subject to CEQA and the zone district is
service commercial. We have Samuel Gutierrez, welcome. You’re first Staff presentation to the ARB,
welcome. We won’t –we’ll try to be nice and then we’ll do the Staff report, applicant presentation and we
have 8-10 public speakers and then we’ll bring it back to the Board. It’s a preliminary – just a study
session so no action is going to be taken today. There’s no recommendation that will be made by the
Board.
Mr. Samuel Gutierrez, Project Planner: Thank you and good morning Board. As said my name is Samuel
Gutierrez and I am an associate planner here for the City of Palo Alto and we have a preliminary application for a proposed new hotel on El Camino at 4256 with eight residential units. There is a photo there of it, the street view. Moving on, the proposed multi-family hotel – I do apologize, it’s slightly cut off there the text. We had some issues with the monitor but it will be 51,000-square feet approximately
with eight units. The FAR will be two to one and it is proposing 85 parking spaces. Those are in
mechanical lifts and the project will range from 50-feet high at El Camino and towards the back of the
City of Palo Alto Page 28
parcel it will drop down to 34-feet 9-inches so it does taper down as you go further back in the lot. The
parking as mentioned is mostly a mechanical lift system and we do have new regulations that were
implemented this year for parking lifts. We do have some concerns over these parking lift configurations
currently as they are proposed in a two-level tandem setup and there is also three level tandem parking
meaning you will drive through one of the puzzle lifts system to get to another puzzle lift system. So,
Staff has concerns over that as mentioned in the Staff report, although most of the parking lifts will be a
valet for the hotel portion. The residential portion is currently not proposed as that – to have that service and they will need to drive through one lift system to get to the other and VMR is required per the new ordinance that was adopted this year for the eight. Moving on, we have this example of the existing conditions on the site. There’s currently a restaurant that occupies the site and it’s rather small. It’s about 3,000-square feet and it’s mostly a parking lot, surface level and I did want to highlight the location of the existing restaurant relative to the location of the entrance for the adjacent residential complex. You
can see here on the slide to the – on the right photo I point out that there is an entrance a little obscured
by some street trees there but that’s where you would enter the large Palo Alto Redwood Residential
Complex. To the left of that is an overview of the site in question as there’s a lot of speakers here from
that complex, I wanted to highlight that. A few things that we would like the Board to comment on are of
the following. We want to get some feedback on the parking lot lay out. It’s all subterranean with the lift
system. The porte cochere driveway that would be the queuing space for the people who would stay at
the proposed hotel and the valet would actually take your car and then drive it down to the subterranean
parking lot. Right there right in front of El Camino so we do want to get your feedback on what you feel
would be appropriate. The other thing that we’d want to get your feedback on is the layout of the site and the design of the site relative to the protected redwoods that are on site and adjacent. There’s a number of large redwoods on the site and even a greater amount of redwoods on the adjacent Palo Alto Redwoods Residential Complex so your feedback on that would be great. Also, your feedback on the potential shadows that would be cast on the residential open space on the adjacent complex, that would
be great to know. The proposed overall design and its compatibility with the area and its open space that
they are suggesting along with the conformance of the El Camino Design Guidelines and that’s really it.
Do you have any questions? That concludes the presentation.
Chair Lew: Great, well done. So, let’s do the applicant presentation now and you’ll have 10-minutes.
Mr. Mircea Voskerician: Hello, my name is Mircea Voskerician and I am the project applicant and also a
Palo Alto resident. I’m just going to take a few minutes or two to just kind of introduce the project and
then I’ll pass it to my architect to (inaudible) over the technicalities. First of all, thank you so much for
giving us this opportunity today to present this project. I would like to thank also Sam, he’s been tremendous of helping us to process all of the information and everything we had to do to date in a very, very efficient way. I would like to point out in the matter of last year that I’ve been engaging with the Palo Alto Redwood Residence who is also here and I’ll be here – if I was living in those units. I have engaged them up front, I think it’s very important to me and that’s what we did. We’ve already had three
meetings and I would like to emphasize a couple of things that we did for the residents up front, which I
incorporated in the current design. One of the major things that we have to adjust was on the town
homes layout because it literally was impacting their privacy and we were very receptive to that. We also
have been able to illuminate the pool that was proposed for the hotel because of the noise concerns so
we removed that. We also started – we’re looking at blending the colors of the exterior of the buildings to
kind of match more of what Palo Alto Redwoods looks like. So, those are just a few things that we’ve
been very receptive to and worked with them. At the same time, I just want to point out that our goal is
to ensure that the building – that this project development meets all the zoning regulations. We are not
expecting and asking the City for anything that we are not allowed. We want to make it easier for
everybody and as efficient as possible and work with our neighbors. Thank you.
Mr. Chek Tang: Good morning, Chek Tang from Studio T Square, Principal of Studio T Square. First off I just want to thank the Board for allowing us to come before you early in the process design process. We really appreciate that and I appreciate also Sam’s guidance and the process. As well as all the different
agencies that we’ve met with and in addition to the neighbors that we met with so we really appreciate
everyone’s insight. Although the project is in a preliminary stage, one thing that I want to highlight is that
City of Palo Alto Page 29
we’ve been trying to be really thoughtful about the analysis of the site. Not just the architecture but the
siding, the existing landscape, the trees (inaudible) and how we meet the existing conditions. So, one
thing that I really want to point to is the existing conditions because this is really important to the site
planning and the zoning of the building. As you can the majority of the building of the Redwood -- the
Palo Alto Redwoods, unfortunately we have a kind of V-shaped kind of on the rear of the property with a
lot of beautiful redwood trees in place. However, the entrance of the Palo Alto Redwoods really is
adjacent to our site so that’s something that we need to kind of deal with in terms of circulation. If you look up on the screen on the number three, I’ll just highlight number three, this is a view of the – I guess the northwest corner of the site. We’re up against the condominium project next door. There’s actually a couple redwood on our site but if you can see, actually the sidewalk and the condominiums are very close to the property line and it’s actually 3 ½-stories tall. The majority of the balconies are actually fronting on the pool deck area and if you look further back – pull back a little bit, there’s actually quite a bit – this is
actually looking at kind of the rear lot line of the site where the building – that the ‘V’ starts to pull away
from our property line. This corner of the building -- on kind of the south corner of the building is actually
quite close to the property line as it exists right now. Then on the southerly property line, we actually
have a two-story block wall that really becomes our adjacency. Then also on – along the pool deck and
the recreational area of the adjacent property, is actually on -- it’s essentially on the property line so we
are dealing with essentially a zero-lot line on two sides of our property. First off, I think the one thing
that we were very conscientious of when we looked at the site was we have four redwood trees on site
that we definitely – in addition to the existing redwood trees along the adjacent property line, that we
absolutely want to preserve. So, the four trees are here from this corner, as well as here. Then the other consideration is there is also a series of redwood trees on the – at the front entry gate of the Palo Alto Redwoods that we also worked with our neighbors to preserve these redwood trees here as well. The site plan I think is a really kind of interesting notion of coming to and from the – from our point of view, it’s almost going to the urban edge on ECR and kind of migrating to a much more, almost a (inaudible) type
of environment to the back. We have tried very much to kind of look at the existing curb cut condition
because at the existing there’s a curb cut right here going into the restaurant. That’s fairly close to the
existing driveway of the apartment – of the condo project next door. What we’ve elected to do is create a
street edge, kind of Boulevard edge that was mentioned but really pulling that driveway into the hotel –
the porte cochere of the hotel further away so that we can create some separations here between that
driveway on our proposed driveway. The idea of the whole concept is the notion that our client is really
actually very artful. She actually has talked about public arts even before we started the project so the
idea was maybe creating the porte cochere here with some of the public functions that flows out to the
street edge. We do have a larger sidewalk here but have functions that really activate that street. Having
a porte cochere with some public arts that actually could be apparent from the street edge coming out to the front here. The whole project is really organized by this sculptural court yard that is facing out to the redwoods. So, the idea is that as you come through the lobby, there’s a really transparent connection to the Redwood – visual connection to the redwood and as Mircea had mentioned that we previously had a pool conditions here. What we have done is because of the comments from the neighbors, we have
relocated all the activity space closer to our lounge area here. The lobby/lounge area is actually a double
high-volume space. The guest rooms are over here and on top of this bar here and the eight
condominium units are positioned here. The – however, the access to the units are actually coming
through the hotel lobby and coming through the courtyard and into those townhomes, not necessarily
from the back. The other thing that I want to highlight very importantly is the reason why we did the
parking lift system is so that we don’t have to build out one hundred percent coverage on the site in
terms of a parking garage. As you can tell from the garage plan, the garage plan basically follows this
footprint right here so that’s allowing us essentially natural landscaping along the side yard. As well as a
substantial amount of space on the rear yard for natural landscaping and I think it’s really important
because we are adjacent to essentially zero lot line conditions. We actually learned some lessons from
the Hilton Garden Inn next door, where they are forced into this service drive and it's mostly parking underneath. Then the adjacency to the neighbor becomes really kind of barren back there. We don’t – this is really – I mean the way we looked at this site, is these are front doors because we do have neighbors who are looking in this area. So, we really treated this rear property line quite generously in
terms of the landscaping. Before we get into the architecture, the massing, we’re also very sensitive to
the neighbor. We have the five-story which is basically mostly on the El Camino Real edge and also along
City of Palo Alto Page 30
the commercial office building next door. The condos are actually three-stories; as a matter of fact, it’s
actually lower than 34-feet. The condos are at a maximum of 30-feet so we’re complying with that height
limit there with a shed roof. The shed roof will change based on the community’s comments to kind of
lower on the south -- on the north side of the property so that it creates less shadow on the neighboring
property. In addition to that, we know that there’s a tight spot right here with the adjacent property.
Even though it’s quite close there – the building is quite close to the property line but we have made a
real kind of conservative effort to create a massing step back as you – as it comes to the property line here. There was a comment from an adjacent neighbor that there’s a unit here that is also very tight. We have a three-story town home here and I think being on the north side of the complex that this is something that we would consider as we go forth on the design. As you can see, there is essentially a screen of redwood trees all the way around this edge so that kind of creates a buffer between our site and the adjacent property. This is a section of the cutting through – so this is the pool deck area, the
recreational area. There’s a very tall wall, as well as the kind of sidewalk of the building right here so
what we’ve done is create a three-story element here. Even setting back on the third floor so that we can
even diminish the amount of impact – solar impact to the adjacent property and to the pool. We actually
ran solar – different solar simulations and when we go through with the formal applications we can share
with you all those conditions. As you can see, this is kind of a 3-D view of that condition and what we are
suggesting is that as we develop – again, because the garage is not taking all the way to the property
line, we are able to get real landscape along the edge. Our landscape architect is proposing a couple
different landscape option to create additional screening there. The other view is basically cutting through
longitudinally through the court yard. As you can see there is a step down from a five to a three-story edge along the rear property line. In addition to the substantial setback that we have back there. The other thing that I want to highlight is so because this is a five-story building, we are actually doing a type three building. That means that no far better pad would need to be along the perimeter and we’ve checked with the Fire Department. What it does is it really allows us to activate the edge so that you
have a lot more landscaping and more softer transition as you can see here. We tried to – this is
obviously not the view, it’s higher than the building but we want to make the point that the redwood
trees here on the rear property line really creates kind of a buffer. We understand that through the lower
branches you will probably see or some of the branches you will see into the court yard but the idea is
that this court yard would be a really pristine, beautifully – our clients have an image of this being a
sculptural court yard; a very nicely manicured and sculpture garden there. In terms of the architecture, I
think it’s interesting on the previous project that it was mentioned about this El Camino Real Boulevard
datum and so we tried to take a – I guess a more interruptive – instead of having a birthday cake kind of
effect, we tried to take a more creative approach. Where the port cochere and along with the lounge
area, that becomes the frontage to activate the front but what it does is a portion of the building actually steps back with kind of this base, middle and top to create a more contemporary look. We didn’t feel like that if this was continuous, it would be almost too boring and to monogamous. So, one of the things that we thought about was what would happen if we shifted the top and middle – this middle block to create a little variation and play. In terms of material and finishes, we’re looking at plaster. There is going to be
some porcelain tiles on the base to create some real quality of the base but we thought the Los Gatos
Library, which is a building we really like in terms of the quality of the material and finish, that we were
inspiring to kind of get to that point of the detailing. The idea of the building is contemporary but what
we want to do is also bring some warmth in the material, especially on the upper floors. We’ve heard
some comments from neighbors that their issue is not only about the shadowing of the – potentially of
the trees and the project but the ambient light that goes into the – especially the lower floor. So, one of
our thoughts was actually to create a little bit more plaster – kind of a lighter plaster finish and then have
a more woodsy material up on top. So, where the building kind of engages the ground, especially the
three and five story conditions, those lighter colors of the plaster would actually create some reflective
light in the lower floor. Not only for the hotel but also kind of create some ambient light at the lower
level. As you can tell, one of the things that we tried to do is also when we were addressing the side yard conditions, we’re trying to create a more creative way – have these kind of scissor or serrated edges along the edge so that we create more – a little bit more interesting articulation; maybe even having the window viewing out to the views. In terms of the material pallet, we’ll continue to work on that but the
idea is to have this very rich combination of the lighter plaster and darker aluminum or wood kind of
finish. This is quick snap shot of the pool deck. As you can tell, we’ve also been hearing from the
City of Palo Alto Page 31
neighbors that privacy is definitely an issue. Although the privacy is somewhat partial because this is a –
the club house has a blank wall and the units are actually looking out onto the pool deck. Nevertheless,
we are respectful of the privacy so if you look at the floor plan, the floor plans are mostly more private,
more incidental area. We’re not opening up living rooms and bedroom windows onto the adjacent
property so it creates a little bit more of a neutral façade there. This is a – I think it could work. Hopefully
it will work. It’s actually a video. I cannot get to this point here. So, I tried to do a quick tour but the
video is moving slower than I am. Ok. This is kind of a quick video walk through of the site. We wanted to respect the grand boulevard vision and have articulations of the building so it doesn’t feel like one giant block but have some finite parks but a very strong space element. The reason why we did a single lane and there’s some discussion about why we don’t do two lanes and again, it’s kind of lessons that we learned from the Hilton Garden Inn Project. That is, it really – I thought it really took away from the urban nature of that street and what we really wanted to do is honor the presence of this grand
boulevard notion. The idea of that by the way, is being able to –if you are on Uber, you can drop off and
you can just take off but if you are checking into a hotel, the idea is that you don’t drop off your luggage
at the porte cochere. There will be a valet/bellhop there to tell you to pull downstairs and pull in and
check in there. This is just a quick overview of some of the massing things that we’re talking about. The
pitch roof that we’re pitching now, the lower end of that pitch roof is actually due north so that is less
impact on the adjacent property. The more solid element here on the upper floor to minimize the amount
of privacy issues that we have. One thing about the parking lifts that I wanted to refer to is there was a
question and we’re arranging a trip for Staff and some of the folks at different departments to go tour
the parking lift. As a matter of fact, it’s an automotive parking lift so you don’t have to literally -- as a resident or as a hotel guest, you don’t have to drive into the tandem garage. It’s like a puzzle – it’s what we call a puzzler. It’s basically like a vending machine so the tandem would take your key – there would be plenty of spots there or you can stack even on the ramp or down below in the parking garage. They would take your key, they would pull the car into the first tray, there’s one tray and then the tray itself is
automatic to get that spot to the right places. You don’t necessarily have to drive through the different
tandem conditions. With that, I’ll just open for questions. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. So, we’re going to do the public comment now – period now and each
person will have 5-minutes. The first speaker will be Sharlene Carlson, followed by Ann Mason and then
Neil Murphy.
Ms. Sharlene Carlson: Good morning, my name is Sharlene Carlson and I have resided in Palo Alto
Redwoods for 20-years. Today I am speaking as president of Palo Alto Redwood Homeowners Association
to strongly emphasize that we, as a multi-family neighborhood community, vehemently object to the proposed development of the Su Hung property. The Board of Directors provided written comments which are included in your agenda packet and I will highlight information about our community and our concerns. I will say that I’m going to fess up that I’m the one hugging the tree in your photos there. Many residents are attending today to oppose the development and I ask them to please to stand. Palo
Alto Redwoods was built in 1983 and designed on a former redwood tree farm to take advantage of
existing heritage redwoods. We are proud that we share the redwood tree symbol with the City of Palo
Alto and Stanford University. We won multiple awards and the association maintains our property in the
original design to respect its unique architectural integrity. Most of our buildings are three-stories high,
we have 117 households and 117 large trees; predominately redwoods, one per household basically. We
have always lived in a peaceful, beautiful, private redwood forest that is a hidden oasis located
surprisingly on a transportation corridor. We are a diverse community of multi ethnic backgrounds and
ages with a grouping number of families. We have 265 residents, including 35 children and a number of
older residents who no longer drive. Our youngest resident is a newborn and our oldest is about to turn
96. Most residents work in the Silicon Valley or are associated with Stanford, however some work out of
their homes or are retired. Seniors, parents, and children on foot stroll the complex or enter next at the property to walk to nearby services. Adults and children ride bicycles in and out for transportation or exercise and one resident maneuvers the neighborhood in a motorized wheelchair with a service dog. There is only one way for the vehicles to enter and exit the Redwoods and that is through a driveway on
El Camino Real. We are a self-contained community with adequate parking for residents and visitors, as
well as service delivery and emergency vehicles. We do not intrude upon neighbors with vehicles or block
City of Palo Alto Page 32
traffic on El Camino Real. There is no such thing as an absolute right based on ordinance maximums.
Every proposed project must be carefully scrutinized through a lens of reasonableness to assure that it
meets the ARB goals of encouraging the attainment of the most desirable use of land and improvements
and enhancing the desirability of living conditions on the immediate side or in the adjacent areas. The
proposed development has not passed the reasonable test – reasonableness test as it dwarfs neighboring
residences, blocks sunlight and air to neighboring building and trees, encroaches upon the neighs by not
providing adequate self-contained parking and poses unreasonable health safety and environmental risk to neighbors. The Redwoods Board in our submission wrote that there is not one single thing about this development that benefits our community but there are many things that pose harm. The next speakers will focus on significant concerns regarding zoning, environmental impact, traffic and parking and safety. What I say is when they high, we say no. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. The next speaker is Ann Mason and then Neil Murphy.
Ms. Ann Mason: Good morning. I’ve owned a home in the Palo Alto Redwoods since 1999 and my home
is directly adjacent to the hotel property line in the south tower. I’d like to discuss three topics today and
for brevity, I would like to refer to the 4250 El Camino Real as the Redwoods and 4256 El Camino Real as
the hotel. The first topic is zoning, as Sharlene mentioned the Redwoods were built in 1983. We are a
one hundred percent residential neighborhood with an HOA and BMR units. There is no commercial
activity whatsoever at the Redwoods. Adjoining the Redwoods on Keller Lane as apartments and across
El Camino Real are town houses and homes behind the Elks Lodge. If you were to zone the Redwoods today, what land use designation would you give it? Well, the McKellar Apartments are residential multi-family and the homes behind the Elks are residential but the land that the Redwoods was built on what used to be a plant nursery. Somehow the City or County never updated the land use designation of the Redwoods to residential multifamily, which is appropriate and accurate. None of us would be here in
chambers today if the Redwoods where zoned as residential, which it has in fact been since 1983. The
residential multi-family land use zoning designation would prevent the owner and developer for proposing
such aggressively dense and tall and offensively harmful structures in the midst of surrounding Palo Alto
residents. The Redwoods should, by rights, be zoned residential multiple families with all the intended
protections. Secondly, I’d like to talk about below market rate residents. The entirety of the 12 BMR units
abuts the hotel property line. The BMR units will disproportionately suffer from the impacts of the
development in noise, darkness, fire hazard, construction risks, tree damages etc. This is discriminatory
on the part of the hotel owner and developer. Third I want to talk about hotels. Hotels contribute no
services to Palo Alto residents, only to visitors. They do not make the neighborhood more pedestrian
friendly or give it a higher walk score. Palo Alto residents desire services and attractions within walking distance to have a higher quality of life. Hotels make neighborhoods resident hostel. Hotels increase the already critical Bay Area housing shortage crisis by utilizing the valuable land. Is the City keeping track of the maximum new commercial development limit of 3,257,900-square feet of new non-residential development in planning areas evaluated in the 1989 City wide Land Use and Transportation Study? A
hotel is open and serving customers from 10 PM to 6 AM and this will cause night noise at the Redwoods.
The u-shaped design of the hotel concentrates all the noise like a horn and sends it into the Redwoods
property; wedding noises in particular. The four-floor roof garden will broadcast hotel guest parties and
conversations directly into the Redwood resident windows. The South El Camino Real Design Guidelines
designates the section of El Camino Real south of Meadow as the hotel zone. We already have seven
hotels in this region, Crown Plaza, Dinah’s, the Hilton Garden Inn, Palo Alto Inn, America’s Best Value
Inn, Homewood Suites by Hilton, and The Oaks Motel. This list sounds more like a description of Highway
101 than a stretch of the historic Royal Road. This hotel places a new burden of responsibility for
hospitality on our neighborhood in Palo Alto. It is unfair to us who make our homes here and it treats us
as an inferior compared to the rest of Palo Alto. In summarize, on finding number two of the ARB goals,
the project has a unified and coherent design that A) creates an internal sense of order and desirable environment for occupants, visitors and the general community. The hotel is intrusive to and does not respect our privacy. It increases noise and traffic congestion (inaudible) the desired amenities and services in favor of the visitors, not residents of Palo Alto. B) Preserves, respects and integrates existing
natural features that contribute positively to the site and the historic character, including historic
resources of the area when relevant. The hotel obscures the natural features of the environment from
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both residents and passers-by and makes historic El Camino Real feel like a highway. D) Provides
harmonies transitions in scale, mass and character to adjacent land use and land use designations. The
hotel is aggressively dense and offensively taller than any other building on El Camino Real. Except for
Crown Plaza, which was built in the 1950’s before land use management and has ample setbacks, ample
parking, and beautiful landscaping. E) Enhances living conditions on the site if it includes residential uses
in adjacent residential areas. The hotel damages living conditions in all Palo Alto Redwoods Residents,
most especially the BMR residents and all those living on the property line. The Hotel destroys the livability of South El Camino Real neighborhood which is already a large hospitality – bearing a disproportionately large hospitality burden. It is as if it were designed with the intent to drive our quality of life and property values to zero. The hotel meets none of the criteria for harmonies co-existence with the adjacent residents of Palo Alto in general. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Thank you. We have Neil – next speaker will be Neil Murphy and then Gale Curtis.
Mr. Neil Murphy: Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to make a public comment. I’d like to
reiterate as Ann mentioned, we are a residential community and have been since 1983 so for 34-years,
despite the CS zone. My name is Neil Murphy, I’m a homeowner of 6-years in the Palo Alto Redwoods
Community. I’m here to address our concerns about the environmental impacts of this project. These
include significant loss of light to our homes, the significant negative impact to our many heritage
redwood trees and the negative health impacts from air and noise pollution. First loss of sunlight, access
to sunlight has a profound impact on our well-being as humans. It is so important in fact that simulating this exposure to sunlight is an effective treatment for depression. Depriving a person of access to light can directly cause actual phycological harm. Despite the fact that our complex is covered with beautiful redwoods, a significant amount of sunlight passes through them into our homes every day; both as direct sunlight and indirect ambient light. Both are valuable and both will be significantly reduced by this
project. If this project is approved, many units including my own will lose massive amounts of daily sun
exposure. For the 27 homes in our community facing the proposed project site, that is the only sunlight
we get every day. We’ve calculated the amount of light we will lose based on the season and angle of the
sun and found that this project will take away thirty percent of our daylight in the winter and up to
eighty-two percent in the summer when days are longer and we should be getting more sunlight.
Additionally, our sunny pool and spa will be cast into the shade, dwarfed by the immediately adjacent
townhomes. Removing our light represents an unacceptable decrease to our quality of life, our property
values, our abilities to re-sell and the current enjoyment of our own homes. Next, harm to our heritage
redwood trees, we have approximately 30 mature, decades-old redwood trees that are threatened by this
project. A five-story hotel depriving out heritage redwood trees light to their lower branches will cause those branches to die off, removing our existing privacy barrier. Instead of looking out over beautiful redwood branches where finches perch and squirrels play, we will look through naked trucks to see the side of a building. Further, the root system of these trees has been developing slowly over decades and they cannot be replaced. If they are damaged by construction dewatering, our heritage redwoods will die
from water deprivation, this is also unacceptable. Additionally, the five – the dense five-story hotel is a
heat mass and will likely reflect heat onto the trees altering their climate and redwood trees do not thrive
in climates with additional heat. Also, it’s not clear that the proposed building is sufficiently outside of the
drift zone for the corner lot trees at the back of the Su Hung parking lot. Next mental and physical
health, this sunlight or it’s absent determines if a home will be a warm, comforting refuge or a dark hole.
Sunlight deprivation causes depression and many of us will end up forced to live in dark depressing caves
that were not the sunny homes that we initially purchased. Further, our body’s circadian rhythms are
directly connected to how much sunlight we get and this can cause sleep disruption. This significant loss
of light to our homes will directly cause a negative phycological and physical impact to our well-being. A
lack of sunlight also contributes to dry rot and mildew and can lead to repertory health problems for our
residents, as well as a deterioration of our structures. It is critical that an independent and objective light and shade study be undertaken to assess the negative impact to our community. Next, air pollution from tobacco smoke, the Palo Alto Redwoods is a non-smoking facility. The proposed hotel currently has no place to put the designated smoking on El Camino that would be further than 25-feet away from the
building. This means that employees, guests, and residents will out to the back of the property to smoke
where our residents will have to deal with the toxic fumes wafting through our windows. Next, sound
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pollution, the structure of a 50-foot tall hotel would reflect and amplify the already incentive noise from
the Crown Plaza Hotel HVAC unit. Guest cars and hotel service crews working 24/7 will add noise, as we
already experience from the parking lot of the Crown Plaza Hotel and any noise on the proposed
courtyard will be focused and reflects at our homes. We are also concerned about sound pollution from
construction, which we are told is permitted to begin at 8 AM on Saturdays, due to the CS zoning and
continuing for at least 18-months. Many of us work all week long to be able to rest and sleep in on the
weekends and being forced to wake up at 8 AM to the sound of construction will interfere with our right to the quiet and enjoyment of our homes. May I continue? Chair Lew: Can you wrap up your last sentence? Mr. Murphy: Final paragraph?
Chair Lew: No, maybe a last sentence.
Mr. Murphy: Oh, well that’s why we did the double sign up and setting the time and you said that would
be ok?
Chair Lew: Two speakers who are willing to set time but I will differ to Staff on this one.
Mr. Murphy: I need one, max. Chair Lew: I think it’s fine. I think it’s fine to give you one minute. Ms. Lait: It’s your discussion and if you do that, I would offer that – you would make the same
concession for others as well.
Chair Lew: I think it’s fine. Aw, yes, equal accommodation. Ok.
Mr. Murphy: Thank you. In summary, this project represents a significant and unreasonable negative
impact to our quality of life. Including a massive loss of direct and indirect light causing harm to our trees
and our well-being, Ongoing air pollution nuisance from tobacco smoke and an ongoing noise population
nuisance from hotel events and construction. Such a damaging project fails to meet the ARB’s findings
number two B, to preserve, respect and integrate existing natural features, like our trees, and number
two E to enhance living conditions in adjacent residential areas. As such, it should not be permitted to proceed. Thank you. Chair Lew: Great, thank you. [Gale] Curtis and then [Tillmon Shilty].
Mr. [Gale] Curtis: Good morning, I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you all and I will try to keep
it to my minute here. My name is [Gale] Curtis and I may – I have been a home owner at resident at Palo
Alto Redwoods for – since 1992. I am here today on behalf of the Palo Alto Redwood community to
express our concern over parking, traffic and safety issues around the proposed project. Every day at the
Redwoods we have many delivery vehicles coming into our driveway, such as FedEx, UPS, and the postal
service and we have space to accommodate them while they work. There are also many service vehicles
such as Xfinity, gardeners, plumbers that come in and they come in frequently. In addition, there are
trash trucks and moving vans that need lots of space and often more time in the driveway. The site plan
for the Palo Alto Redwoods takes these needs into account and gives space for them to park, turn around
and exit quickly. With the proposed project, we don’t see much support for this kind of activity. They say
trucks can park in their driveway or on El Camino but what happens when they all come at once and they do. All those drivers that are trying to meet their deadlines and at 10 AM you see that the place is full. The problem for us is that the line of trucks stacked along the El Camino curb quickly creates a problem on our driveway entrance and exit. Even if the truck or van doesn’t block the driveway out right, it may
obscure the sightlines into oncoming traffic. This creates a havoc for everyone who needs to exit our
property and get onto El Camino. There’s a related problem when passenger cars such as Uber, Lift or
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taxis come to pick up their customers. They tend to park along the curb and wait, often seeming
indifferent to the needs of other drivers to move in and out of driveways. We would like to see how the
hotel will provide enough space for these pickups and drop off vehicles, even when other cars or trucks
are in the way. Finally, we find an apparent lack of guest for (inaudible) parking in the proposed project.
It is reasonable to assume that the townhouse residents will have visitors from time to time and there’s
no reason to think that a hotel occupant won’t have the same. Where will these visitors park? Palo Alto
Redwoods has 22 guest parking spaces and then three of them are right at the front entrance on El Camino. These are regularly used by our service vehicle and for our own guests, especially those participating at an event in our club house. We see that it would be very for someone to come and visit the proposed hotel and residence and would pull into one of our three parking places and walk away. We don’t have that to happen, we need those spaces. The site plan for the Palo Alto Redwoods has provided for the parking needs of our community and dedicated space for them. We believe that it’s only fair that
the proposed project should do the same on its own property. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. [Tillmon Shilty] and then Julie Baskin.
[Mr. Tillmon Shilty:] Good morning, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is [Tillmon Shilty]
and I’m living at the Redwoods apartments at El Camino and I’ve been here for the last 10-years with my
family. I want to highlight a personal note; my son is going here to the Palo Alto School District and is
not a freshman at Gunn High School. For the first time now, he bikes to Gunn High School and my
biggest concern regarding this proposed project is increased safety risks for children to commute on bikes to school. In our community, there are over 30 children, as you heard, going to different kinds of schools in Palo Alto. We have say, for example, Juana Briones Elementary school, Bowmen International, Turmen Middle and Gunn High School. However, there is no safe passage for our kids to go to school independently and our community must put into consideration that building a giant hotel complex with a
townhouse on a very small property will contribute to increasing traffic, parking and ideally safety risks.
We have already had experiences and my son confirms this that the increased traffic and biking hazard
from the new Hilton Garden Hotel to our left, with incoming and outgoing traffic, is blocked from view
onto the approaching building forcing us to go the other way for a safer commute. Now creating another
giant building to the other side of our family living community cuts the last option for using a bike to
commute to Palo Alto schools. Starting with construction, there will be trucks blocking the road for
several months or even years. The sidewalk may be completely blocked as it has happened during the
Hilton construction and even after completion, the enhanced traffic will create risks from entering, exiting
and stopping vehicles from El Camino Real that will make it difficult to use the sidewalk for pedestrians
and bikes or even pass at traffic on the street. I can’t see any benefit for the residents of the Palo Alto Redwood community and all those going to Palo Alto schools. In my opinion, this project adds immensely to traffic hazards and would directly impact the safety of our kids and of our community who are using the sidewalk and traffic lines to go to their school in our area. As a community, it should be one of our highest priorities to ensure safe route passages to schools, enforce those rules and independence for our
kids as the charge of the environmentally friendly daily commute. I was astonished if I see this picture,
here you see this bike rider, I don’t know. Think about all the delivery trucks, parking, people who are
blocking this. If you have a child, consider this on how safe it might be going on the sidewalk and will
they be able to maneuver to their target – to their school so I’m really concerned about that. Thank you
for giving me the opportunity to share this with you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. Julie Baskin and then we have two speakers who are willing to see their
time to other speakers which were Joan Vox and Loise Hoe.
Ms. Julie Baskin: Alright I’m the cleanup hitter so I’m wrapping up. My name is Julie Baskin and I’ve lived
at the Palo Alto Redwoods since 1988. To recap on behalf of our community, we cannot stress enough our rejection of this proposed aggressive development as submitted today. We’ve been mindful of some of the stated goals and purposes of the ARB to enhance the desirability of living conditions upon the immediate site or in adjacent areas. As well as the desirability of residences or investment in the City.
Among the many objections to this project, we’ve identified the three most important, previously
highlighted by my friends and neighbors. They are one, the Redwoods are improperly zoned commercial
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and if it were properly zoned, residential multi-family, we would not be discussing this today. The
proposal is too massive and of inappropriate size leading to extreme loss of light to our residents and
damage to our wood shingled buildings, pool and spa area, and most dear to us, our heritage redwood
trees. Finally, number three, our overall environmental impact concern, health, safety, parking, traffic,
congestion for our 265 plus residences. We invite you to come visit our community anytime to experience
our uniqueness and see why we are so passionate that this project no proceeds. Thank you very much.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you and we have two more speakers. We have John [Hootar] and Jake Logan. Mr. John Hooter: Good morning, I’m John [Hootar] and I have the privilege of serving as General Manager for Dinah’s Garden Hotel at 4261 El Camino. I say honor because I’m carrying on the legacy that Raymond Hadley started. His vision was realized by employing Robert Royston at the landscape
architect, the April 1958 cover of Architectural Record features Dinah’s Garden Hotel as a forward modern
vision of hotel design. As early as last week we had a guest, an architect by trade visiting Stanford,
admiring that magazine and taking it all in on what our humble little block there has to offer as far as
architecture. The proposed project at 4256 El Camino has several significant flaws among the many
issues. Density for the site is too high, the parking solution is significantly flawed, and increased traffic
will make the nearby section of El Camino and neighboring streets unsafe. I did provide Staff a letter that
I’m taking exhibs from and has our beautiful Koi fish for easy reference. As it relates to project density,
it’s not clear how this will be evaluated given that there’s a residential and commercial component but on
the low end of the calculation, the site would need to be 46,558-square feet or 1.07-acres. A more conservative calculation would be 51,750-square feet or 1.08-acres and the – table three in the report indicates that the site is .595-acres or 25,960-square feet. So, no matter how you add that up or what view you take, it seems to be woefully short and there’s more information in my letter. The flawed parking solution, from my experience running casinos with huge parking operations, mechanical lift and
parking just aren’t a good idea. That’s more for the developer but the parking puzzle is unclear and how
vehicles will traverse there is unclear. It just seems like it’s going to be a nightmare and the fact that
they haven’t seeming incorporated peak flow is problematic. Guest tend to arrive around the same time
and guests depart a hotel around the same time and you’re not designing for flow throughout the day;
you have to address the peak flow. In addition, it’s not clear – though I learned today that there is some
food and beverage component to this. The information that I had in this writing, it wasn’t clear what food
and beverage offerings would be but that opens the door to trash pickup, recycling pickups, towel
extraction and that flow of those trucks adds more complexity to the situation. Thirdly the traffic pattern,
if you are approaching the subject property from the north on El Camino, it requires a U-turn to enter. If
you are exiting and wanting to go north, you will have to proceed south and make a U-turn. Going in a U-turn in both directions will cause congestion on both sides but particularly the U-turn at Dinah’s Court which is already tight given the traffic from the (inaudible) hotel. In conclusion, I respectfully ask that you join me in opposing the project as proposed and I ask that you seek alternative project that is less dense, a development that would enhance this and not detract from the present-day character of our
community. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you and our last speaker for this item is Jake Logan.
Mr. Jake Logan: Hi everybody, thanks giving me a moment here to express my concerns. I wanted to say
I have lived at the Palo Alto Redwoods for 10-years, starting in 2005 and I now rent the unit to a young
professional working here in Silicon Valley. I share the concerns that have been raised by all of my
friends and neighbors here; each and every one of them. The four or five that are most important to me,
I think our property values. I’m concerned that the property value will be impacted by this new
development. Privacy, I think -- my unit is probably one of the very closest to the property line and I’ve
seen from some of the diagrams that it’s about 10-feet away. I think people who are renting from me and also people in the hotel won’t have very much privacy. Light is also a concern, although my unit is on the fourth floor, it’s probably less of a concern for my unit than a lot of the other folks but it is a concern. I think probably the biggest one is just the overall impact to the quality of life. I think that’s a serious
concern for every resident, not only ones right next to the property. The last one is one I think that
others have made too but I honestly can’t see any single significant benefit to the Palo Alto Redwoods
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from this development. I just can’t see a single one and so that’s all I have today. Thank you for listening
to what I have to say, I appreciate it very much.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you and we do have one last speaker, Mr. Moss.
Mr. Moss: Thank you, Chairmen Lew and Commissioners. I’m going to begin by saying I urge you to
reject this project. It’s totally incompatible with the El Camino Design Guidelines and any rational use of that site. I wanted to give you some background, about 40-years ago three of us in Barron Park created the El Camino Design Guidelines. At that time, almost half of the commercial properties between Page Mills and Adobe Creek are automotive related. Give you a couple of examples, where Happy (inaudible) is today, it was a repair shop until it burned down. The building, which until recently, was the exercise place. Two doors down from Matadero was an auto parts store; just two examples. So, what we did was
we created an intent to minimize automotive related uses along El Camino and emphasize commercial
uses which benefit the neighbors; where people can go to the shop. A restaurant fits that description, a
hotel does not. Hotels don’t serve the neighborhood. Furthermore, because most of the people who
would be staying at that hotel will want to go to Stanford or Stanford Research Park. They are going to
create a huge traffic problem. Leave the hotel, turn down El Camino, zig zag across the street, make a U-
turn by Dinah’s or the next street down, back up El Camino to Charleston/Arastradero and turn down
there which is totally jammed at 9 o’clock in the morning because of people going to the Research Park
and school. If you go down El Camino, that’s jammed until 9:30-10 o’clock in the morning so it’s going to
create a massive problem for traffic. It’s going to have a negative impact on the neighbors living near us and it is not going to comply with the intent of the El Camino Design Guidelines because it’s not going to serve the community. The carbon monoxide which will be generated by the cars stalled in traffic from that hotel is also going to be a problem. You’re not required to approve a project just because it meets the basic outlines of the zone. You can reject it because it’s incompatible with the community, with the
intent of the design on El Camino and because it’s too massive. This project meets all three of those
criteria, it should be rejected and killed for (inaudible).
Chair Lew: Great, thank you Mr. Moss and we’re not making any decision today, this is just a study
session. Questions from the Board? Wynne.
Board Member Furth: Could Staff give us a little more background on the zoning of the Palo Alto
Redwoods site and among other things, what’s the actual residential density – development density on
that site? RM what?
Mr. Gutierrez: Sure. It seems that in the past the CS zoning, which is actually what the Palo Alto Redwoods is zoned, allowed for residential multifamily as an allowed land use. Board Member Furth: Exclusive use.
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, so it wasn’t required to be a part of a mixed-use development at all or adjoining a
hotel. At some point, from 1983 when it was built to now, the zoning changed and only permits housing
in mixed-use developments or hotels. That is just something that happened in the past and currently it
wouldn’t be relocated under the current land uses that are permitted in the CS zone. As far as the
residential density, I am not sure of that. It seems that it’s more likely leaning toward the RM-40 just
because of the number of units but I haven’t fully investigated that.
Board Member Furth: Thank you, so they became a legal nonconforming use some time ago when the
zoning was changed?
Mr. Gutierrez: Correct. Board Member Furth: At some point, it would be interesting to know if we have a zone in which they
would be a lawful use or if we no longer have a zoning category which would permit this kind of
development; not today obviously.
City of Palo Alto Page 38
Mr. Gutierrez: We can investigate further.
Board Member Furth: That’s my only question right now.
Chair Lew: Then Wynne, I think – just a follow up on that. My recollection is after the Arbor Real project
was built, that the Council made the – decided to go forth and try to make a change to not allow all residential projects because it’s a missed opportunity to have a commercial at the corner. Peter. Board Member Baltay: Just to follow up further on that. Several of the speakers today from the community mention that if the property were zoned RM-35 or something, this project would not be allowed. Can you enlighten us what that would be or what that means?
Mr. Gutierrez: It doesn’t necessarily mean that it wouldn’t be allowed. It would need to change because
then certain zoning requirements would be triggered. For example, the height might need to change,
there could be implications with the daylighting plan potentially.
Board Member Baltay: Could you be more specific, what would need to change? What would they be if
this were zoned residential?
Mr. Gutierrez: If this was zoned residential it would depend on that zoning density, so if it was RM-40, it would be less restricted. If it was zoned RM-15, which is not likely due to the number of units there, it would have a daylight plan requirement and then that would be more restrictive on the height as it’s approaching the property lines. Currently, the way the code is written for CS zone, for example, the daylight isn’t required because it specifically calls out zoning districts as opposed to land uses. So, its
residential zones versus land use.
Chair Lew: Then, for example, we had the Marriot Hotel on an San Antonio so the Green House
Condominium project was a PC zone. So, then there was no requirement for the hotel to step the height
down from 50-feet to 35-feet. If it were RM-30, it would have to go down. RM-40 the height limit would
still be 50-feet.
Board Member Baltay: Yeah, I just wanted to have out there what the conditions would be. One other
zoning question for Staff. My understanding is that they are allowed to go to an RAF of 2.0 because this
is a hotel. What I am seeing here is they are using a .25 FAR for residential. If it were not a hotel, they would only be allowed to go to – is it in total 1.0 FAR? Mr. Gutierrez: Correct, that would under the mixed-use and…
Board Member Baltay: So…
Mr. Gutierrez: Go ahead.
Board Member Baltay: At what point do you let the residential FAR kick in? At the beginning or the end of
counting? I think the Council’s intention in allowing a 2.0 FAR hotel was to get a hotel that that’s big and
when they are putting in residential as part of that and still allowing for a more massive building. I’m
wondering if that’s – if there’s anyway—have Staff interrupt that or if there’s a question mark about that?
Is that clear?
Mr. Gutierrez: Well, the – yeah, the code section is 18.16.060 subsection D and that would-be hotel regulation in the CS zone. It specifically states that hotels with condos being proposed should not have more than twenty-five percent of the FAR dedicated to the residential use. That’s the category three in that subsection D that has that limitation.
Board Member Baltay: Great, thank you.
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Chair Lew: Kyu.
Vice Chair Kim: I just had a quick question on the existing public utility easement that’s on the site. Do
you have any information on what utilities are going through there? Any history behind the POV to begin
with?
Mr. Gutierrez: During the DRC meeting, utilities did comment on that and they did say that part of it seems to be an older easement so some of it would be vacated. However, another portion of it is still utilized and they did request that when the project comes in formally that a utility survey would be conducted to figure out exactly what’s there. It seems like a number of what used to be there may not currently be utilized by our Utilities Department.
Chair Lew: Any other questions? No. Wynne, will you start us off?
Board Member Furth: Certainly. Thank you to the applicant and the public for that intelligent, thoughtful, informative set of presentations. I think a case like this is probably why the ARB exists because we have a lot of directions from the Council. One of them is that this is a suitable place for a hotel and another is that extensive series of performance standards and approval standards that we have to apply. I am very grateful that the applicant brought this forward as a study session because this is complicated proposal
and it’s a complicated neighborhood. I am also grateful because I never would have known that Palo Alto
Redwoods existed, even though it appears that I have friends there. Before I went to do a site view there
and it is a spectacular development and all the good sense of the word. Not that is draws attention to
itself but once you look, it’s quite beautiful. It’s interesting that it’s so close to Dinah’s Garden Hotel
which is also is a striking example of the architecture of its era and Palo Alto’s effort to be – combined
both urban pleasures and suburban ease. I don’t quite know where to begin. In looking at this project,
the first thing that I’m going to be looking at is how it affects its residential neighbors because that’s one
of the things we’re called in to look at; whatever the zoning is. So, I’ll be looking for much more detailed
information about light and shadow and noise. The vision of everybody in the lower two floors having seasonal affective disorder is not attractive and in all seriousness, I think we need some very good light and shade studies to understand what would happen here. I’m also looking forward to some really good and detailed studies about the continued health of the redwoods trees and other trees. This site is fortunate in that it is – it does benefit from the landscaping adjacent to it but of course, it also has its own obligations to provide landscaping in that regard. I’m grateful that the proposal does not try, as
some have had recently, to excavate to its boundaries but understands that you need to not do that in
order to accommodate essential landscaping. I have a number of concerns about circulation. First of all, I
understand that the code – I think I understand that our new regulation about using puzzle parking and
other lifts does not require, as a matter of law, that they are used for non-hotel uses be coupled with
valet service. In other words, you could in theory and we’ve seen other proposals use mechanical lifts for
parking without valet service if it was a purely residential use for example. I cannot imagine how this
combined use would function without valet service for everybody all the time. It just – I literally can’t
imagine it, if somebody could make the case but I don’t see it yet. I’m very concerned about the
accommodation of all the trips to this site that would occur that aren’t somebody driving up in a car to go to the hotel or me returning to my unit. So, I am think about people coming to provide caregiving or housekeeping services in the condominiums. I’m thinking about people with their repair vans coming or contractor’s white pickups coming to do work at my house and they have to go back and forth to their trucks to get equipment and materials. I don’t understand how trash services and deliver services would
work for either the hotel uses or the individual units. I think there’s a serious concern about how you do
construction management circulation program as well but that, I think, is less in our purview. I’m looking
forward to learning more about what the safe routes to school are from this site, which has a significant
number of children and how this would affect this. One of the things that concerns me is that the porte
cochere two driveway design or two curb cut design means that’s a very large portion of the frontage is
not sidewalk and I don’t understand how – there’s gaps and I don’t understand whether I’m supposed to
walk in and out. If we’re going to have bells and whistles going off all the time, which have their own
impacts on the neighborhood, to alert us to the presence of cars. The design as it stands doesn’t look to
City of Palo Alto Page 40
me like it’s going to work. I mean we have struggled with this in all of the hotel proposal I’ve seen. We
struggled with it in San Antonio, which is a much bigger site with much deeper spaces to do porte
cocheres that are perpendicular to the street, rather than parallel to it. We don’t know if that’s going to
work yet but we’ve been assured that it will. This one, it seems to me creates serious problems for
pedestrians. Also, if this is an area where the place that bicycles are supposed to go is on the sidewalk,
which as I understand it is generally permitted in front of residential properties, I don’t know if it would
be permitted here. I want to know how bicycle circulation is going to work along here also. At the moment, it doesn’t seem to me to work. With respect to the mixed-use, I don’t – I think it could work to have residential units that are separately owned as part of this hotel. I actually like the entrance being through the lobby though how me carrying my groceries and my laundry or my child through the lobby is going to be compatible with other uses I don’t yet see; or taking out my trash for that matter. I’m concerned about – I like the fact that there’s an internal courtyard that’s buffered from El Camino, that is
oriented away from El Camino and so might in fact be a pleasant place to sit and talk and eat or
whatever but I’m concerned about two things. One is how is it going to be buffered from the residential
uses to the back? At the moment, it does look like it’s just a noise channel that goes out that way. I live
in a residential development that backs up on a non-residential development but it’s office and there’s a
big garden between us. In fact, they are very effective noise buffer for us and they make it more quiet
because they buffer us from the noise of in my case Lytton, which – well not as intensive – not as noisy
as El Camino which is significantly noise. So, for us this higher building adjacent to the noisy street has
an upside because it makes it quieter and with the beautiful garden behind it, it makes it generally nicer
but it’s much lower density than this. It’s not designed to be a social space late into the evening that is focused towards my residential uses. So, I’m concerned not just about decidable level but what are people actually going to hear when that space is used as it’s intended to be used for the hotel use. I’m also concerned about how much light would reach that internal courtyard. If it’s going to work well, it needs to be effectively landscaped and it needs to be light. Both for the residents whose units will front
on it and for its own attractiveness so I’m concerned and would like to know a lot more about light and
shadow on that space under this proposal. I’m even more concerned about light and shadow and privacy
impact on Palo Alto Redwoods but I also care about it internally. Let’s see what my notes are from
before. Oh, if this was – is this a housing inventory site?
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, it’s (crosstalk)…
Board Member Furth: For how many units?
Mr. Gutierrez: … identified in the housing element and I believe it’s – the density would be twenty. One second, let me verify. Oh, realistic is twelve, I’m sorry. Board Member Furth: How many?
Mr. Gutierrez: Twelve.
Board Member Furth: Twelve units. Then also, there’s cross hatching on this site and in this area on the
zoning map, what’s that about? Some kind of overlay zone? We can get the answer to that later.
Mr. Gutierrez: I believe that has to do with the height limit. Oh, I’m sorry, on the zoning map that you
were given in your packet?
Board Member Furth: No, I was looking at my big zoning map.
Mr. Gutierrez: Oh, the big zoning map. Board Member Furth: We can talk about it later, I was just puzzled by the site zoning. The proposal seems to me to be under landscaping. I do have one question about the use of what looks like giant
bamboo, which I remember when all the giant bamboo in southern California died in the same year
because it was all cloned from the same plant. Perhaps these difficulties have been resolved but I would
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want to know that that wouldn’t happen here and I think redwoods and bamboo, in theory, might work
but the site generally looks under landscaped to me. It doesn’t seem to engage the public very effectively
on El Camino. If in fact, it does include an element over 50-feet, I cannot, based on what I’ve seen so
far, support that. Again, at present, I can’t how I could make the required findings on this proposed
parking. I am really troubled by this anomaly that we have a lawfully built and permitted residential
development that’s big. It involves a lot of people and while our code does not protect denser housing in
the way it presents – protects perhaps more vulnerable single-family housing, we need to – I think I want to know that a building we approve on this site does not diminish the quality of life on the adjacent parcel. That seems to me one of the things that we’re required to do. Thank you. Chair Lew: Peter.
Board Member Baltay: Yes, I find most of the arguments that we’ve heard from the community to have
quite a bit of merit. I find this project has quite a few issues that need to be resolved before it can move
forward I think. Let me try to summarize thing quickly because I think otherwise we’d be going over it all
day. Overall, it just seems like it’s a little bit too massive. I say that because you have a number of issues
that just aren’t readily resolvable. You’re really just too close, you’re too heavily leaning into your
neighbors. You’re surrounded by this residential community that’s strong and vibrant and it’s just a little
bit too close to it. You’re court yard really doesn’t work, it’s just too narrow. It’s not the beautiful space
you’re thinking it is. It’s too narrow because you’re too dense. You just don’t have enough space to
spread it out that way and the last reason is that your parking just doesn’t work. You don’t have enough space to make parking for this size of a building. I say these things because the only reason you’re allowed to make this level of a building this size is because of the City Council’s special exclusion just for hotels. That does allow you to go FAR of 2.0 but you do have to meet all the other design and compatibility guidelines. I think you’re going to find it very difficult to meet all those other requirements
and be compatible with the neighbors to make the parking work. To make a building have the quality
sense about it and to be at the 2.0 FAR. It’s not our place to tell you how big the building can be and
how many square feet you can develop but I really think you’re going to find this to be very difficult. If
you look at the past two hotels that have been before us, the same issue comes up over and over again.
The Council has directed us to allow a 2.0 FAR for hotels and I put that to the community as a whole,
that’s a political decision Palo Alto has taken. 2.0 FAR is a building that is twice as big, twice as massive
as anything that would normally be allowed because our City Council feels that’s an important community
benefit and we have to support that. Nonetheless, as an applicant, you have to find a way to make it fit
and the burden is very high. To drill in a little bit deeper, your parking just plan doesn’t work. We had an
application earlier today where we were praising them for having a mix of some at grade parking for people stopping by quickly and dropping off something. Some down below parking but still easy for people to get in and out of without a machine. Sometimes you can have a valet operating a puzzler lift or something but to have one hundred percent or almost ninety-five percent puzzler parking is just not going to work. It’s not sustainable, you would be very sorry if you built it that way but I don’t think you’ll
even get much traction towards getting it approved. I think you will have to be very honest with
yourselves about finding a way to get a substantial amount of the parking easy for any person to use.
You have to find a way to get some spots at grade to have places at grade for people to jump in and out
of their car, to get a cab, to have a UPS truck stop. You just – on this application you haven’t really
addressed any of those issues. It’s almost – it’s just too bad, you just really haven’t thought through what
is it like for somebody who’s living here or going here and it just has to be made to work. We’ve had
several applications in the past year or two where we’ve said the same thing. The building at the corner
of Page Mill and El Camino had the same idea and we’ve given them back the same response. We’re
being consistent here and just because you’re allowed to use these new puzzler lifts doesn’t mean you
can use it extensively and complete. They have to work with the basic functional requirements of this
building. I have a reservation about your mix of residential and hotel uses. It’s not to say that it can’t work and doesn’t work some places but if it’s going to be done, it has to be designed very carefully. The idea of sharing this public court yard with both the residences and the guests is not realistic. Suppose you have a guest reception that’s right outside their residences front door, that’s not good design. You really
have to think about these things. We’re tasked to make sure that the building is functional and that’s the
leg I stand on here but I think you really need to think hard that if you want to have residential mixing
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with a hotel, it’s a very special kind of residential development. You really need to design it very carefully
to get the mix of entrances, logistics, how people live there because it’s a very different use really. I think
that you really need to focus on that distinction. Another I have with your building and it really relates to
the massiveness, you just don’t have space and that you don’t really have enough pedestrian activity on
the sidewalk. Again, I refer to you the project we looked at earlier this morning. We were praising them
for having places to sit, some plants out in the front and doing things to make it pleasant for people to be
walking and living around here from the sidewalk. I’m afraid what I see here really is a wall of limestone punctuated by a few openings; windows and a port cochere but it’s making no effort what so ever to embrace the pedestrian and the pedestrian friendly aspects that we’re tasked to find and we want as a community so badly. We want a place for a small table and bench to sit next to while you’re waiting for your friend. You just have to think through your design, look back at other architects working on El Camino and please, try to find some way to get pedestrian quality on the street. When I look at the form
of the building, I find one, two, three, four different chunks, different masses; a red one, a white one, a
brown one, a tan one. It’s not really artfully composed, I’m sorry to say. It needs a little bit more of a
quality of design to it and it’s just not there yet. I know we’re not even close to designing the building
itself yet but I do say to you that what you have here isn’t quite right yet. You do need to address bicycle
parking. We’ve mentioned several times today that we want to see that at grade, easily accessible. There
are more and more bike riding taking place in Palo Alto. You need to think of it at the beginning as an
architectural issue and how do I address this? It’s not something that you throw in at the last minute
when you are going through your check list and is put next – down in the basement some place. We’re
really asking you to anticipate five people are coming by bicycle, where are they going to stop? Where will they put their bicycle? How does it work? Are they blocking traffic? Are they comfortable leaving it there? Is it unsightly? You have to design that sort of stuff. On your landscaping, I find that the existing redwood trees are magnificent and I think you need to embrace that as an existing condition. So, I’m really baffled that you’re proposing to put clumping bamboo right underneath them. I mean what are you
thinking? It’s just – is there any connection? Do you know what a redwood tree looks like and how it
lives? You can’t do that so I’m not asking for an answer, I’m just pointing out to you that you really need
to get a good landscape architect to come up with some very solid ways – probably you need to just put
more redwoods in on your site as well to enhance and continue that effect but certainly you have to do
something. Then I think you do need to create and so some shadow studies and see what your impact is
going to be on the community. I’m not so sure that -- in the back you have done careful stepping of your
building and I think you will have less of an impact than everybody is saying but we have the technology
to make a clear study of that. You owe it to the community and yourselves to do that study to make sure
you don’t have undue impact on the neighbors. Lastly, let me speak to both the applicant and the
community here. You’ll save yourselves and us a lot of trouble if you find a way to work together a little bit. As the applicant, this is a challenging project and if you really want this big of building, it’s going to be difficult. As the community, he has the right to develop this property. You cannot insist on it being an empty parking lot all the time. The fact that it’s an empty parking lot to the back of a Chinese restaurant now is not the best thing either. There’s a possibility that they will make it better not worse as an
amenity to you and everybody else. I urge you to try to work together. Listen to his concerns, allow him
some latitude. He’s going to build something there. As an applicant, try to make it so it’s better for them,
not worse. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Kyu.
Vice Chair Kim: I don’t have too much to add to that. I remember going to the Dennys actually. So, we
went to the Dennys when my family was looking for a place to live in Palo Alto and we stayed at what
used to be the Palo Alto Hyatt, right before the fire. Then I also worked as a bellboy at Ricky’s not too far
across the street before Arbor Real. So, I’m familiar with the site and what’s been there previously and I
think Peter did a great job at the end there of explaining to both the applicant and the community that there needs to be some kind of a working together. I understand that it’s – I guess it’s kind of a shock when you are used to one thing and you’re all of a sudden seeing something that’s this massive. I wanted to speak maybe with regards to the massing. Just make a couple comments that haven’t been
brought up quite yet. When I first took a look at this cover sheet and the perspective image that’s there,
it’s actually not that bad to me at first take but I think there are a lot of things that you’re trying to do
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with that El Camino Street elevation that aren’t necessarily fully played out in your floor plans. We don’t
see the exact ins and outs of where the floor plates are drawn in or back and how far – how deep are
those recesses and exactly how do those materials come together? What are the additional reveal lines
and the stone and the siding and so on and so forth? To me, it just seems at a first overall glance that
you’re really trying to pack on as much density and max out the lot as much as possible. When I take a
look at the ground level floor plan, my immediate reaction was to eliminate that 8th unit on the end and
really – I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to take advantage of a wider court yard that opens up on those redwood trees; I think that would be quite spectacular. That leads into the overall sense that I’m getting from the other Board Member comments is that it’s just too – it’s trying to do too much with the site and I think it’s gone a little bit over. I also agree with Board Member Baltay’s comments that I think there can be something developed here that can serve as an asset to the community in a better way than just the parking lot to the back of Su Hung’s currently. I also wanted to express concerns regarding the
mix circulation and circulation overall with this project. If you are a resident here, you have to either drop
off your car or drop it off at the valet or the lift and then take the elevator up to the lobby and exit the
lobby into the court yard and then into your unit. That seems like there’s a lot of mixing that could on
there that maybe isn’t quite so desirable. So, maybe there needs to be another look at a separation of
pedestrian and user circulation. Then I just noticed some other things looking through the plans set and I
understand that there have been some changes with regards to moving the reflecting pool to the middle
of the court yard than where it was previously. Some of the floor plans show that 8th unit on the end with
the entry facing the court yard, some of them have it facing where the reflecting pond use to be. Also,
with regards to the landscaping plan and what you’re showing on the perspectives, sometimes there are trees shown in the court yard, while the landscape plan calls them out as bamboo. There was another image or maybe it was in the animation of a bridge crossing the pond and I don’t see how that works with the site plan that we’re looking at. I understand that things are in flux and that it’s a study session but I do feel strongly that what you have currently is a bit too massive, as least in the way that the
building form is currently. I don’t think I have too much to add on the – oh, another – the last comment
maybe is the stair tower at the corner. I’m not a fan of stair towers that are just emergency egress
towers that aren’t ever used. They just end up being kind of dark glass towers so if there’s an
opportunity to maybe use that as a real method of circulation other than something that comes down to
the back of the kitchen on the first floor or maybe it just has to be rethought and maybe that’s not the
best place for an architectural element like that. I would at least applaud you attempting to reach out to
the community and bringing this forward as a study session. I look forward to seeing how it can be
rethought and changed and evolve as we go on. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Thank you to the Board for all the comments and thank you to all the members of the public
who came out to speak today. I know we also – I do want to acknowledge that we did get some emails from people who couldn’t attend the meeting today. I think my main concern on this particular project is twofold. One is that I think you’ve got some really beautiful president images showing in the drawing set but those are for different building types. I think you have to acknowledge that if you want to do a hotel
– like a five-story hotel, that’s like a different type – it’s a different mass of the building. I would argue
that once you are up to five-stories that you actually have to do a whole set of architectural ideas. I think
we saw –we’ve seen some of them today like deep pilasters, deep cornices, materials, colors, railings, all
of that and when I look at the plans, everything is flat and there’s one setback along El Camino. There’s
not enough – if you look at the Hilton Garden Inn, it has – I think the windows are recessed a foot, there
building modulation in the order of I think maybe 8-feet in the façade, 3-foot deep cornices, and
balconies and you’re not showing any of that on your El Camino façade. I think there’s a lot of work to do
on the El Camino frontage. The – Also, similarly in the court yard, the height to width ratio is fairly
narrow. I mean it seems comparable to new buildings that I’ve seen – new mixed-use building that I’ve
seen in San Francisco. In Hazy Valley there are a lot of new buildings that were on the old freeway site
and the spaces – those spaces can be pretty nice but I would say that they are more of a -- what do you –I don’t how to say – what to call them? More like a court – more like a passage way or court yard. They are kind of like court yards but they are not really large gathering space or it’s not a Japanese court yard and that’s just because of the height to width ratio; they just feel different. I think that you have to
design it with that in mind and not try to pretend that it’s a one or two-story building. I think – I’ve been
talking to Staff, I think my understanding is that we want a really robust arborist report and we don’t
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have it yet. I think that’s critical I think to the City – for the City Staff, as well as to the neighbors. Then I
also wanted to point out to you some problems that I’m having with the lack of a residential entrance.
We’ve got several things in our Comp. Plan and zoning and our design guidelines so in our Comp. Plan on
page L-16 there’s policy L-14. Our CS zoning, we have our contact space criteria, which is on page 20
and then in our South El Camino Real Design Guidelines on page 35 we also have item 4.2.1 and it’s all
about having a – that the multifamily residential units have some sort of presences on the street. The
zoning doesn’t really say what it is if it’s a front door or front porch or a gate or balconies but I think the real clue is that in the Comp. Plan there’s a picture of some front porches. The intent is that the people who live there are a part of the community and that they have to be – they have to have some sort of presence on the street to be part of Palo Alto. It’s very explicit that they don’t want any units – we don’t want any units that are walled off or completely internally oriented, which is what, I think the townhouses that you are showing are doing. There would be no sense that they exist unless you get past
the hotel lobby. In my mind, we would not be able to meet the findings for that. If there is some other
type of residential units like a time share or whatnot, it seems to me that the design that you are
showing could work or if it’s corporate – a lot of the companies here rent out apartments so it seems to
me that could work. If the intention is to have it – a for sale unit open to the public, then I don’t think it’s
going to work. Also, if you’re showing three-bedroom units, then I’m going to presume that there are kids
and they need to have something – they need to have somewhere to play. I’ve been reading some books
– I might share it with you, Wynne. Is that it’s a statistic that seventy-five percent of parents think that
the play area is inadequate in new building – in new multifamily buildings and I haven’t really thought
about it but I suspect that number may be right. So, I think that has to be a consideration as well and I do want to encourage Staff to require a solar study. I think I’ve heard two things mentioned, one is for residential units but then also for trees. I did talk to Dave Doctor this morning before the meeting and he was asking for something for the trees as I understand it. We did try to do something like that on the Hilton Garden Inn, there’s an existing oak tree that was being shaded by a big 40-foot high wall. So, we
do need some – I guess – I think the Board would be interested in seeing that. I did – Then I just do
want to highlight to the neighbors that I think the way our zoning is written in the context based criteria,
is that we’re going to try to minimize any impacts on shading but we have no standard in the zoning. It
doesn’t say no impact, it just says for the Board to minimize it. So, we’re going to have to take it as it
comes. Otherwise, I think I’m in agreement with the rest of the Board on a lot of the other issues so I
won’t repeat them. I think the Board has made the right – is making the right comments on this
particular item. Are there any follow ups? Anybody or if you want to have any closing comments.
Mr. Voskerician: Yes, sure. I have some notes that Commissioner Baltay mentioned. For the tandem
parking, we also talked to Sam and we offer actually a visit in Oakland at City Lifts where Staff and transportation (inaudible) can go and take a look at how they operate. Then absolutely, this is going to be a 24-hour valet parking so that was the plan. Then for the residents, we were not planning – we wanted the residents to park their own car but if the transportation engineer will require for valet parking for the residences, we absolutely would like to do that if that’s what would be the requirement. If
transportation engineer mentions to us that we are over parked at this time so we’ll have to work with
Planning and Transportation Engineering Department to see what we can do. I also want to mention that
Dave Doctor was on the site twice and we actually have a full arborist report which we can provide
immediately. This design complies currently to preserve the four major redwood trees on our property
right now. I think that was a couple of the questions that you had and I don’t know if I clarified it. As far
as the bamboo, we actually have three options so we don’t have to go bamboo. It was a suggestion and
then this will actually be all contained so the roots will not run – it’s not a running bamboo type of plant
but we are very open to working with the neighbors to do whatever landscaping that will help with the
privacy. Thank you.
Chair Lew: Great, thank you. Ok, so I think that’s it for today on this one. Again, we don’t have a formal application so we will look forward to seeing it come forward in the future and then for the community members, just keep your email comments coming. Your welcome to come to all the other hearings and I think that’s all. That’s a wrap for this one.
Approval of Minutes:
City of Palo Alto Page 45
5. Draft Architectural Review Minutes of August 3, 2017
Chair Lew: For Staff, on the agenda, we do have meeting minutes listed but we – the Board did not
receive any so can we bump that item to the next meeting?
Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, then we’ll differ that to the next agenda. Chair Lew: Great. Ok, thank you, everybody, we’re adjourned. Subcommittee Item Board Member Questions, Comments, Announcements
Adjournment