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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-09-06 Architectural Review Board Summary Minutes City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Wynne Furth, Board Members Alexander Lew and Robert Gooyer. Absent: Vice Chair Peter Baltay and Board Member Osma Thompson. [Roll Call] Oral Communications Chair Furth: Our first agenda item is oral communications. This is a time to address this Board on items that are not on the agenda but are within our purview. I have two cards, one for Valerie Stinger and one from David Carnahan. I'll let you two decide who should go first. Valerie Stinger: Good morning and thank you. Valerie Stinger, Chair of the Human Relations Commission. I'm here to tell you about something that we're doing that we hope will interest you, and that you'll take part in. We all know that communities are strengthened when everyone feels welcome and works together for the common good. In that regard, the Palo Alto Family YMCA has built a community collaboration, which is broad - Human Relations Commission, the libraries, city art department, the Palo Alto history museum, the media center, PAUSD. All are working to support Palo Alto Welcome Week. This is a celebration that will occur between September 14th and September 21st of this year. Welcome Week is part of a growing movement of communities that fully embrace new Americans and their contribution to the social fabric of our community. It's a chance for neighbors, both immigrants and US-born residents, to get to know one another, and to celebrate, which unites us as a community, and to celebrate the contributions made by the diverse mixture of people who live in our community. I wanted to highlight some of the activities. Welcome Week kick-off part will be at the Arts Center on Friday, September 14th. That's one of their quarterly art events that are always so popular. And, that will be our kick-off. There will be walking tours hosted by the Y that will highlight the stories of immigrants in our community. Videos and stories will be displayed at the Palo Alto Library. Videos will come from Made in America, which was done by MidPen Media Center. And then, the closing of that will be a full moon festival at Avenidas. An important part of the Welcome Week is people sharing stories. I don't know if you have any stories to share, but if I could just leave you a website that you can post them on. Chair Furth: (inaudible) Ms. Stinger: Say that again? Chair Furth: (inaudible) Ms. Stinger: I would. The website is PaloAltoWelcomeWeek.org. That will take you to...I happen to be one of those people who likes small. I realize the limitations of that for a screen. On my iPad, you can see it will take you to a website, Welcome Week. There are events, partners, walking tours, and a place at the bottom to share your story. Thank you. ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD DRAFT MINUTES: September 6, 2018 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue 8:30 AM City of Palo Alto Page 2 Chair Furth: Thank you very much. David Carnahan, City Clerk's Office: Good morning, Chair Furth and Board members. I'm here to share with you some exciting opportunities to influence the future of Palo Alto and give back to the community. These are upcoming openings on boards and commissions. There are three terms that are going to be coming open on the Architectural Review Board, which those of you whose terms are up, we encourage you to reapply. Three positions on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and two on the Planning and Transportation Commission. As you know from your service, these are great ways to really give back to the community and help shape the future of Palo Alto. The Clerk's Office comes to all boards and commissions to share these recruitments because we know you are deeply embedded in the community. And then, we have our community members that attend, and those that are at home, and we hope to help spread the word that way. Applications are accepted through October 17th at 4:30 p.m., and they are available on the City's website, CityofPaloAlto.org/Clerk. I will be giving you your homework assignment, which is between now and October 17th, you can, hopefully, reach out to at least two members of the community that you think would be a good fit for one of these positions, and encourage them to apply. Thank you very much. Chair Furth: Thank you very much, Dave. Like all boards, we rely on the support of the Clerk's Office, and it's always good. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Furth: Any agenda changes, additions or deletions? Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: We do have an agenda change. As Board Member Thompson is out sick today and Board Member Furth will need to recuse herself on the 429 University Project, we will need to continue item number 4 to the next hearing. Chair Furth: All right. I would suggest we make that motion now. I can't make that motion, but if somebody would like to make that motion. That we continue item number 4, which is 429 University Avenue. Actually, I can, it's not a substantive motion. Until...What's the next date? Ms. Gerhardt: It would be September 20th. [Lost video for a few seconds, did not capture vote.] Chair Furth: Okay. Item number 4 has been continued to our next meeting. That leaves us with two items. The first one is a quasi-judicial hearing. Actually, I don't know if...Yes? Ms. Gerhardt: There is City Official Reports. City Official Reports 1. Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, 2) Tentative Future Agenda items. Chair Furth: Beg your pardon, City Official Reports. I always skip something. Ms. Gerhardt: That has our standard schedule on there, and as far as the future agendas, we have 250 Sherman Avenue, which is the Public Safety building; the 3705 El Camino will be, that will be deferred to another hearing, so that will not be on the 20th. The 1700 Embarcadero, though, we are anticipating that to be on the 20th. We also will do a comp plan policy informational item, and there also is, as part of the housing work plan, there is going to be a discussion about rooftop open space standards. City of Palo Alto Page 3 Chair Furth: All right. And just for clarification, is 1700 and 1730 Embarcadero the site that we previously reviewed? Ms. Gerhardt: We have reviewed that before. It's the Ming's restaurant... Chair Furth: We have recommended approval before. Ms. Gerhardt: ...soon to be Mercedes. Yes. But this is a new project. Chair Furth: Okay. Thank you. Board Member Lew: The Council is, I think next Monday, the Council is talking about the response letter to the County's grand jury housing report. Chair Furth: Yeah. I guess it's too late for us to make any comment with regard to that, but individual members are certainly welcome to do so. And you did provide us with a copy earlier on. Now, I believe it's time for item number 2. It always surprises me that we have so many items before we hit item number 2. Action Items 2. QUASI-JUDICIAL. 3241 Park Avenue [18PLN-00192]: Request for Preliminary Architectural Review of a Proposed Two-Story, Approximately 10,100 Square Foot General Business Service Development and At-Grade Parking. Environmental Assessment: Not a Project. The Formal Application Will be Subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Review. Zoning District: General Manufacturing (GM). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Sheldon S. Ah Sing at sahsing@m-group.us. Chair Furth: This is a preliminary architectural review for a proposed two-story, 10,000 square foot general business service development and at-grade parking. It's found to be not a project under CEQA, which our planner will explain to us. The zoning is general manufacturing, and the planner is Sheldon Ah Sing. Sheldon? Sheldon Ah Sing, Planner: Yes, good morning. I did provide a PowerPoint presentation. The applicant also has their presentation. As described, this is a preliminary review for development of a 10,000 square foot building on a half-acre site. In the future, the official request entitlement would be a formal major architectural review. The project is not subject to the City's office cap because of the general business service use that is proposed. A summary on the project. It is a site that is zoned GM. That's the City's light industrial zoning district, and it's across from a property that is zoned RM-30, although there is no residential uses in the area. The site is bound by the Matadero Channel and the City's electrical substation. The existing development on the site is a one-story 3,450 square foot automotive use and enclosed surface parking. The proposal is to construct a two-story 10,000 square foot building with about .49 FAR, with surface and tuck under the building parking, along with mechanical lift parking. The project is 33, 34 feet tall. It includes contemporary design, includes pitched roofing, deep overhangs, using stone and dark aluminum framing for the fenestration. Clear glass, as well as standing seam metal roofing. Most of the occupied space is on the second floor, elevated from the entrance lobby and the service rooms. There is a combined trash and recycling enclosure that will be located on the first floor, and the base of the building includes a screen for the parking areas. In terms of project consistency, this being preliminary, we did evaluate the project and provided some comments for the future evaluation of the project. The project will need to address the streamside corridor setbacks in that area because it is adjacent to this engineered channel. There is a setback of 20 feet landward from the top of the bank to a point measured at a ratio of 2 to 1 landward. That needs to be determined on where that is. We don't have the technical studies yet to do that. The project as proposed does encroach into that setback area. However, the code does allow an exception by the Public Works director through the evaluation of a City of Palo Alto Page 4 geotechnical study to determine whether or not the stability of that slope would be compromised. There are also mechanical lift parking that's visible in the rear. The code, which has been amended recently to address some of these issues, while most of the lifts are tucked under the building, there is a portion of this system that is visible to the rear. At the rear, as mentioned, there is the channel, and then there is the CalTrain railroad, and then there are some trees, and Alma. The visibility is really just from the train tracks and the other adjacent properties along Park. The other issue is that there needs to be five-foot landscaping setback in the parking lot. That needs to be included. And then, there is the issue that because of the amount of square footage that the use is containing, anywhere from 10,000 square foot to 99,999 square foot requires one loading space. They are slightly over on their square footage that would require a loading space, so that is not provided on these plans, but would need to be addressed in the future. We are seeking direction and comments from the Board regarding scale and mass of the project, as well as the context of the project fitting in with the neighborhood, and other interests by the Board. The project is not subject to CEQA because this is not a project, not a discretion inquired by the Board at this time. We do recommend that the Board review and provide comments, and no formal action is requested. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Chair Furth: Thank you. Any questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? Applicant, please. Good morning. [Applicant setting up presentation.] Chair Furth: I'm sorry, you need to speak very close to the mic. And you have 10 minutes. Jeff Galbraith, Hayes Group Architects: Good morning, Chair Furth, and members of the Board. My name is Jeff Galbraith. I'm with Hayes Group Architects. I'm here to present our design concept for 3241 Park on behalf of our client, Dan Cunningham, who couldn't make it here this morning. The site, as Sheldon mentioned, is located south of California Avenue, actually south of Page Mill Road. It's here in red. It's located along Park Boulevard, between Park and Caltrain and the Alma Street corridor. Fry's Electronics is the large white roof that you can see on the left hand side of the image there, for some context. Zoning- wise, as Sheldon mentioned, it's in the GM zone, a strip of land that extends along Park up towards California Avenue. Again, the large yellow parcel here is the Fry's Electronics site, now zoned RM-30 for future development. Some of other adjacent sites include zoning in the CS - Service Commercial category, some of them with an automotive designation, and some nearby in the ROLM designation. That's the site. In terms of existing improvements, again, there is a single-story structure built in 1970 that has been predominantly automotive-related uses. The rest of the site is all asphalt parking on grade with very little landscaping. You can also see here on the left of the left image the access ramp down into the Matadero creek way that is now concrete lined with concrete slab and walls for utilitarian purposes. The elevation of the street shows that the site is ready for a new project. Our project goals were to redevelop the site with a modern general business service building that provides user flexibility, energy efficiency, daylighting, and a unique identity embracing sustainable design practices and enhancing the working and pedestrian experiences of this neat little part of Palo Alto. Back to the site quickly to look at a few of these surrounding forces here. Again, we've got the Matadero stormwater spillway that wraps around two sides of the property, and the electrical substation on a third site. It's a bit of a unique context. The train, again, is northeast of that. North is up left on the screen, so the major solar exposures are the southeast façade facing the substation and the southwest façade facing Park Boulevard. Park Boulevard is a bike boulevard, as well as providing two-way vehicular traffic. Our site design proposes to bring automobiles onto the site through a single car wide curb cut in the south corner. Those cars can circulate on site and then leave through a second single car wide curb cut on the northwest end. Pedestrian access would be direct from the sidewalk into a lobby, with additional access in the rear for those who park on site. Showing here a few of our early design concepts. I looked at just how to arrange the building mass and the parking on the site. Some early determinations were made that drove us to keep parking, for technical reasons, up above grade. To me, the parking requirement of 40 stalls - which is what is required for 10,000 square foot of development - we needed to add some parking lifts to the site. Our preferred option, those were determined best located along the southeast edge that faces the electrical substation. Just a quick look here in section at a simple diagram of the formal City of Palo Alto Page 5 concept. What we've done here is taken the majority of occupied space, elevated it up onto the second floor to allow parking underneath it. You can see how the site has a natural slope, an existing slope about two feet from the northwest corner down to the south end, which, again, was a second driver in locating the lift parking along that edge. A key aspect of the design to make this concept work of elevating the occupied space is to create a linkage back to the public zone. A key feature of the design, as you'll see as we move ahead, is a two-story glass lobby with an exposed stair that creates a visual and a physical connection back to the pedestrian realm. And a second important aspect of the design is introduction of architectural screening elements that create an urban street edge, that enhance the pedestrian experience as you walk along the site, and really shifts the visual focus of the design back to the occupied space. A technical section of the same elements. We'll skip over that in the interest of time. This is a formal precedent. It's a project that we looked at in thinking about this concept of raising the occupied space up to the second floor. This is in Belgium, completed a few years ago. Some of the things we felt were encouraging and very positive about this design was how the occupied space is expressed and celebrated on the second floor, and the dynamic interplay. They complement each other well. When you look at the second floor, it's a very simple expression, a very unified expression, contrasted against the ground floor, which is completely opaque, more opaque than we want for our site, but works well with the second floor. It contrasts it, but it adds variety through the shifting of planes and colors. We sought to employ some of those techniques in our design, as well. A few more images of the same project. Shifting gears a little bit to the exterior material quality of the building. A lot of our early design studies focused on trying to bring an industrial character into materiality, looking at metal panels and perforations and lattice work. We ultimately moved on for that in preference of a more classic material palate with a monolithic stone base, glass op, thinner dark steel accent elements, and a soaring roof. This is a precedent project nearby that led us in that direction. This is on Stanford campus. You can see the effective use of the monolithic stone and the lighter steel elements, the soaring roof, and a lot of the nice, simple, subtle but effective detailing of the window systems. All of that comes back together here in our main elevation that faces Park Boulevard. Working from the top down, we start with a strong, simple geometric expression of the soaring roof that extends past the facades. The second floor, the occupied space is floor to ceiling glass with a repetitive module that is support posts, three panels of glass, a support post, and so forth. And that module is only modulated or changed at the areas of inflection of interest, of focus, right at the main entrance lobby and at a gathering space that would be on the second floor next to it. That language then shifts to a more opaque, yet still very vibrant and engaging ground floor, where the stone walls are allowed to move in and out of a façade, to break away, express themselves with lines, to carve out space for a landscape area, to be come a tightly-spaced colonnade. The wall is very active and engaging for the pass-through experience. Its layout responds to the grid that's established in the second floor above it. I skipped to the material palate, too, in the interest of time. Talk through those. Just to revisit the plan layout of the project, vehicles are brought into the south corner of the building, circulated around and leave through a second curb cut here. Trash enclosure and facilities are screened behind the architectural wall. Pedestrian access is through the front and the rear of a two-story glass lobby in the center of the building, which takes you up to the second floor. The second floor is conceived as just a single continuous open space to be flexible. It can be subdivided into two tenants if desired. Floor to ceiling glass around three sides of the building, and there's a blue dashed line on the right-hand side. Those are clerestory windows with the wall that faces the electrical substation to limit views out to the utility yard. Finally, there is a second floor terrace on the back side of the building. It's at a location set back from the property line enough to allow the tree scape around the parking lot, to nestle it into the rear yard. The last few slides here are technical illustrations of the elevations of the building, and some more three-dimensional rendered views showing the façade design. I think I talked faster than I expected to. Chair Furth: Are there questions of the applicant? I'd like to know about your materials. Mr. Galbraith: Okay, let's jump back to that. We're in the early phases, of course, and haven't drilled down exactly on precise materials, but the board that you'll see here...Our primarily materials are, of course, a monolithic stone cladding at the base. The images here show a limestone, a nice, sort of cream... City of Palo Alto Page 6 Chair Furth: I have a question. What do you mean when you say "monolithic stone." I think of a "monolith" as a stone standing upright, Stonehenge. Mr. Galbraith: What I mean is, stone used as a way to express volume. There's a distinction where the stone isn't used in thin tracery elements, but it's used to anchor the building down at the base. Some of the rear-facing facades, such as the back side of the parking enclosure, would be plaster, smoothed-out plaster to match or to complement the stone quality. The posts and some of the second-story elements would be dark painted steel, sort of between a bronze, a dark-bronze color. Some of the panel elements of the second floor, we're considering either a metal panel or a fiber cement panel. Something smooth and complementary. The roof is a standing seam roof, similar color to match the mullions, the bronze mullions. And then, we're looking for different options for the underside of the soaring roof. Could be a wood linear soffit material or a linear metal soffit material. Chair Furth: Thank you. Any other questions? Alex. Board Member Lew: Thank you for your presentation. I have a question about how you placed the building on the site. It seems to me like the other buildings on that side of Park have a larger setback, so maybe there's a 10-foot setback on top of your easement that you already have put into the project. It seems like they have the street trees in board of the sidewalk, so it's more of a suburban development model. I was wondering how you came about the placement of the building. Mr. Galbraith: One of the requirement for the site is to...Well, the property line extends all the way out to the curb. There's a minimum depth required for the sidewalk, and I think that's intended to provide enough space to allow street trees and planters along that edge, so there is a layer of landscaping. You'll see the sidewalk that's established now at the adjacent property, as it flares out and is wider when you get to our development. In terms of locating the building on the property line, we felt it was appropriate to create an urban street edge there. If it's set back, we felt that space would be less engaging to the public as they walked by. There was also just dimensional constraints about the depth of the site and fitting the parking requirements on the site with the landscape buffering requirement, as well. Board Member Lew: I would say, as I was looking at the site plan, I think your site is the only one that has the creek in back of it. Also, it seems like it has a shallower, the lot here is shallower than the other lots further down on Park. Mr. Galbraith: Yeah. Board Member Lew: Okay. Thank you. Chair Furth: Okay. We have a public comment, a member of the public who wishes to address this. Becky Sanders? Oh, here we go. I've got two members of the public, then. I have Jeff Levinsky [phonetic] and Becky Sanders. Jeff Levinsky: [Did not state his name.] Good morning, Board members and staff. Chair Furth: Good morning. Mr. Levinsky: I'd like to talk about a couple of issues. First of all, there's a notion that this is going to be a general services building and not an office building, which would be subject to the office cap and such. Realistically, general business services are things like commercial bakers and cabinetry repair and high-volume print shops. We wonder if that's what really is planned for this site, or it will become office. On page 4 of the plans, it says "office," at the beginning of the staff report, it says "office," so this may actually be an office building, and we should think about the implications of that, including how it matches up with the office cap and such. We've had problems where we've had the downtown commercial cap and buildings didn't, all their space didn't get counted when they converted, or something like that. So, it would be better for it to be really clear as to whether this is going to be an City of Palo Alto Page 7 office building, or not. The second issue, and that is of loading areas. The staff report says that no loading space is required, but in fact, general business services is not listed in the table, other than there is an entry that says, "To be determined." For 5,000 square feet or larger, manufacturing warehouse or distribution, you do need a loading area. For this quarter-acre building, which we're told is going to be some sort of bakery, or a print shop, or something like that, you would think a loading area would be required. The problem has been that the City has exempted buildings from these requirements, putting the loading areas out on the street. Well, Park Boulevard here is a bike boulevard, and there is a bike lane right there. So, converting that to a loading area for this building wouldn't really be appropriate. Also, by ignoring the implications of not providing adequate loading areas, the City has created lots of problems already. I live near Edgewood Plaza and we have people there who are woken up every night by trucks who don't have proper loading areas on site. Instead, they use the street, there are lights, there's the bell that goes off when they back up, and their ramp, and so forth. Wake people up, and people are furious with the City for not enforcing the rules that require these to have been on site. Here is an opportunity to get it right, so I would ask that the City not overlook what its own code says on loading areas. Thank you very much. Chair Furth: Thank you. Becky Sanders. Becky Sanders: Yes, good morning. Chair Furth: Good morning. Ms. Sanders: This is my first time speaking to the ARB, and thank you so much for your service. I am Becky Sanders, spelled Sanders, because of my grandpa. I am a moderator... Chair Furth: Excuse me, just for the transcriber, that's S-A-N-D-E-R-S? Ms. Sanders: Yeah. So, yeah, got a dysfunctional English grandfather. I am also the moderator of the Ventura Neighborhood Association. That was a joke about my grandfather. He's amazing. I want to echo some of what Jeff said. Thank you, Jeff, for bringing up about the loading zone. Yeah, so, I was looking this over because Ventura is the neighborhood most...Actually, it's in Ventura neighborhood. GM allows for general business services, right? And the previous use was an auto service repair shop that I actually used myself. Even though it's a small quibble, this is an actual loss of community-serving business. Now, I know we have a retail protection ordinance, but there's no ground floor here, so I guess there won't be any ground floor retail or any obvious community-servicing business. That's just a concern. Maybe it's a quibble, but Ventura is really losing retail space. We have, I think, eight projects in the pipeline along El Camino. I went to the City's website, and if they waive the retail use, well, that's our downtown. As unattractive as that part of El Camino is, we in Ventura do shop there and use their services. Please keep in mind that the development is in a residential neighborhood, and with the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan, the Fry site being redeveloped at RM-30, that's going to be diagonally across the street. I think we really want to consider that with regard to the uses of the building. Very concerned about the loading zone issue. We have just been in agony on Park Boulevard with the incessant construction, with our bike boulevards, bike lanes, often, always blocked. I mean, I think for three or four years we've had to deal with, you know, lots of construction. I just don't think we can take a permanent loading zone fobbed off onto the street. If there were a need for a loading zone, like if we do ascertain that this is general service business and they deem it a loading zone, we would really like to have that on the site. I do think the building is attractive, but it does seem to have some wish-washy things, and I would hate for the residents to suffer because we didn't, from the get-go, find clarity and specificity with regard to what is this building going to be used for. Seriously, we have hidden software companies all over Ventura, and we have parking impacts, and maybe 15 or 20 people in a space that used to be reserved for, say, like physical therapist office. Things like that. Thank you for hearing me. Sorry I went over my time. Chair Furth: Thank you for coming and speaking. Anybody else wish to speak? If not, I'll bring it back to the Board. Does staff have any comments in light of the comments from the applicant and the public? City of Palo Alto Page 8 Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, thank you. Just to address the annual office limit. We are aware of that concern. This property in the GM zone does allow research and development as a permitted use, so we will be talking further with the property owner about how they want to move forward. They certainly could have a general business service use, but still take advantage of the office limit and have that as a future potential use. We could go that direction, or we could heavily condition the property, that it only be the general business service. We have some options, and we will continue to discuss that with the owner. As far as retail preservation, auto service is not a retail-like use, so, unfortunately, that is not protected. Chair Furth: Thank you. Who would like to begin? Board Member Gooyer: I'll start. Chair Furth: All right. Board Member Gooyer. Board Member Gooyer: Okay. Well, backing up a little bit before I get into the design of it. First of all, I'm not a big fan of soft-story buildings, and the main thing I noticed with this is sort of, I guess, which some of the other members of the audience indicated, this is a service-oriented building and, to me, that's very tough to do if all you've got is a second floor accommodation. You're not going to carry stuff up to the second floor if you're a store, or whatever. It doesn’t make sense to me. That's why some of the other options seem like you've thought about that and they make more sense. The option 3, I guess it is, or option C, I don't know what the exterior design would look like based on that, but it does fit into the reality of a service-oriented type building. I agree, as one of the members indicated, I also had my car serviced there in the past. And that's not that I’m expecting another auto mechanic place to go in there, but still, any kind of facility that is service-oriented I feel has a hard time on a second floor only. And I think what ends up happening with that is exactly the case, is that it might start out for a year or two with that, and then, after a while, people sort of forget about the cap and everything else, and then, it's a matter of just three or four years down the line, a tech company comes in and they end up converting the building to an office space. Having said that, it's refreshing to actually see a design that has a roof on it. I'm so used to getting square boxes in here that...Everything that I've seen over the last three years, it seems like, is maxed up to whatever the height limit is so they can get an extra floor in there, and it's nice to see that there is actually a roof on this. I do have a question, though. Three sides have this fairly large overhang, and then, the fourth side is stopped right at the building. I don't know if there is some reason for that, but at least not that I could see. So, if you're going to do something like that, I'd like to see all four of them do the same thing. It looks like they attempted to put the roof on and didn't quite get it right. They shifted it over too far to one side. It's nice to see that, the way you've done the...I'm not a big fan of mechanical parking, but at least in this, you've got it somewhat hidden and it's not too bad. Like I said, the biggest problem, though, is I'm just not a big fan of soft-story buildings, and not that I'm expecting hundreds of people to walk by this, although there are people that walk to the train, so you may get some of that. It just doesn't do much for the ground floor. All you see is walls and maybe some planting. I think that needs some work. I think that's it for now. Chair Furth: Alex. Board Member Lew: I'm going to follow up where you left off. I was actually just looking at the new building on Park yesterday. It's still under construction and the bike lane is all fenced off and closed, but on the soft story, there's a planted wall. And I know you're not a fan of planted walls, but this one looks fabulous. It looks stunning. I poked through the fence to take photos and stuff. I think they can work if they're done really well. I'm not saying this one is done well, yet. And I had reservations when it went through, and I don't think that the Board even ever saw this planted façade. I think it was just proposed as vines. I think it is possible to make something nice. I would encourage you to take a look at that one. It's the one near the courthouse. Yeah, it's just a blank poured-in-place...what do you call it? Board- formed concrete wall. There was nothing on it. My concerns on this particular project, one is the creek. I think Sheldon mentioned the setback. I do want to encourage you to take a look at the comp plan. Which section is it? The natural environment section. It does talk about trying to enhance the creek, even where there are concrete channels. It talks about discouraging fences, encouraging native plants. And I think City of Palo Alto Page 9 just from my take on it, if I just look across the street at what your neighboring properties are doing, to me, that's nicer than what you are proposing with an 11-foot concrete wall and gates. I think trying to keep the fences as low as possible and having planting along the edge of the creek is desirable. It is just a concrete channel, but I do use a lot of our bike paths around town. And wildlife do use them, even if it's all concrete. You'll see ducks feeding on fish in certain places. I do want to encourage you to take a look at that. Another issue that I'm concerned about, I haven't really made up my mind on it, it just the placement of the street trees. I think where you're showing it is not the pattern on Park. We have different patterns on one side of the street versus the other side of the street. It seems to me the existing trees are all lined up and you're proposing to do something different. I'm not saying no to that, but it seems...It's unusual, so I do want to look at that more carefully. Regarding the creek and the substation, I vaguely recall some discussion about the City trying to do a bike crossing there years ago. I don't know whatever happened to that. I know the bike path that was proposed for going down the Matadero Creek in midtown met a lot of neighborhood opposition, but I would think we would still want to try to get something to cross the train tracks some day. I would be curious to see where is that from the City, where were we thinking about doing that. Because there's just the substation and then there's the creek. There's not a lot of area there. Also, on the site planning, I think you're showing two curb cuts. I think one is better. I think the site exists and has two, as is existing, so it's not like you're making it worse. I think I agree with Mr. Levinsky and Ms. Sanders about the loading zone. I use the bike lane all the time, and I used it today, and it's actually all filled with RV's, so the bike lane, you can't really use because those RV's are wider than cars. So, presumably if there is a loading zone and there's a truck, it's going to be wider than the parking space size there. On the building, I have mixed feelings on the building. One is, you know, all the proportions and massing are very handsome, as all of your buildings are. My take on it is that the building looks like it would have a setback in front of it. Like something on Sand Hill Road, or something maybe in Los Altos. It doesn't quite seem like an urban building to me. It seems a little unusual. There are some really beautiful details in there. I'm seeing some of the fencing, I recognize from, like the Apple campus. There are some really very elegant details in there, and I do want you to encourage you to pursue those. With regard to I think Mr. Levinsky's comment about business service versus office, when I look at the plan of this, I think it's an office building. It's laid out as if it were an open office plan that could be one or two office uses. It doesn't seem like a business services building to me, but I’m not an expert on that issue. I think we should have...I think Planning staff should have a discussion about that. And, I think all the materials are very handsome. They look good. I have some reservations that recent new buildings on Park Boulevard, they don't really have any relationship to each other. Just most subtle or slight relationships to each other. And that's partly because we never required any contextual compatibility between the buildings and the GM zone like we do elsewhere in Palo Alto. But, I think Park is suffering because of that, and we've got a lot of new projects and they don't really all work together very well. It doesn't look great. It looks okay, but it doesn't really look as good as it should. That being said, I think this is a pretty challenging site. There's not a lot to work with. I think you've kept it fairly quiet and subtle and cool, so I will encourage you to keep on that track. I think that's all that I have on this one. Chair Furth: Thank you, Alex, and thank you to the applicant for a very clear presentation, and for the members of the public for putting in comments. When I was driving Park this morning, I was thinking about how rapidly it has transformed. Most of the buildings I think are statement buildings. They make statements. Their statements may clash a bit, but they don't...They're not, sort of quiet, recessive buildings that your existing building on this site is. With the possible exception of Groupon and its parking lot. I was going to ask staff. Is that parking lot expected to stay a parking lot forever? The Groupon parking lot? Ms. Gerhardt: To the best of my knowledge, that is the parking lot for that adjacent building. Chair Furth: Right, and so, they could do underground parking or something, but until then, it's going to stay. Talk about the small issues, first. I was concerned when looking at this, about loading zone. I think there needs to be provision for loading on site. I bicycle along this, too. It's a challenge, and it's going to be a much more residential site soon. Basically, across from you at the moment is a fairly incoherent land use, but that's going to change, and I can't see on-street loading. I don't really completely understand City of Palo Alto Page 10 what is or is not permitted in GM, but I'm concerned that this building is designed to be office, essentially. And it should at least accommodate a reasonable range of the permitted uses. I'm concerned about changing the pattern and rhythm of the street trees. They are one of the few things that unify Park, and I think that needs to be strengthened rather than weakened. When I look at the site plans, when I look at the elevations, I'm not clear what the landscaping at the front of the building is, but it needs more, in my view. It's too inorganic at present. This is also teaching me a lot about the importance of drawing style because I read these things in a much more credulous way than my colleagues. When I look at the elevation that's on the cover and also in the plan, it looks to me like Stanford in the 70's. It's sort of pastel, and the roof could be tile, and it's got these...It looks like it's instantly been there for 20 or 30 years, which I don't think is desirable. When I look at some of your other elevations, they look much more contemporary. I would like it to look like a building that's being built now. And I don't know how you signal that, but I would like that to be the case. And I would also, I think you now have a pretty well- defined context along Park. A lot of buildings have either been built or approved, and I hope that when you bring this back, we see how this building responds to what you find yourself surrounded by. It's a difficult site with the creek, and the channelized creek, and the power station - or substation, rather - and the train tracks. On the other hand, that sort of gives you some not-very-sensitive receptors on a couple sites. I do think that a better approach to the creek needs to be taken. I don't know about the setback. I guess when we see this again, we'll have a geotechnical report. I don't think the setback is as important as what you do adjacent to that, and I certainly don't think an 11-foot-high wall is a good idea. If we were looking at this in SOFA, if we were looking at this...This is the kind of design that we have rejected almost everywhere else in the city because it's enclosed, ground-floor, above-grade parking. Or at-grade parking. It gives you a lot of building volume for the useable square footage. This building doesn't seem too big for the site. Is that right? If you can get the loading zone on somewhere. Board Member Lew: I think what happens here in the GM zone is that when you're next to a residential zone, which we are within 150 feet of residential zone, the height limit goes down. It goes from 50 to 35? Chair Furth: And across the street is the RM-30. Board Member Lew: That's why you'll see differences in height on Park. The height here is similar to the old BMW Akins Body Shop that we approved recently. It's a similar size. Chair Furth: But does the mass of the building strike you all as too big, or just about right? Board Member Gooyer: Uh-huh. Chair Furth: Which? Board Member Gooyer: I'm sorry, what? Chair Furth: Does the mass of the building, which has all this parking in it, strike you as okay, or just about right? Board Member Gooyer: I'm just not a big fan of a soft-story anyway, so it...Yeah. Board Member Lew: Microphone. Board Member Gooyer: [Inaudible] building it over parking. But they don't have a whole lot of options here. Chair Furth: It's pretty constrained. I think my thoughts are needs a loading zone; needs more green. It's going to be across the street from housing. How is that going to be a good thing for those future people? And, if there's something you can figure out to do to add more coherence to Park, that would be a bonus. I think those are my thoughts. Those are all hard. And if the drives get too pastel, they look dull. Okay. City of Palo Alto Page 11 Board Member Lew: And I have one other thought, too, is that if and when the Fry site redevelops, gets rezoned - Right? The height limit on this one may go back up to 50 feet. Depending on what the actual zone is for the Fry site. And that's a ways off. I mean, the Fry's, the North Ventura Coordinated Plan is not even, it has not started yet, so you're a ways off from anything happening there. But, I would keep that in mind. Chair Furth: Thank you, Alex. I mean, this did strike me that you're not getting very much from this project, and I'm sorry. All right? Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you. All right. Five-minute break while we set up for our next item. Thank you. [The Board took a short break.] Chair Furth: Welcome back. It is time for our public hearing, and this is a real one. This is not just a...They are all real public hearings, but this is not just a study session or preliminary review. This is the real thing. 3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 3223 Hanover Street [17PLN-00225]: Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Major Architectural Review Application to Allow the Construction of a New Two-Story 67,200 Square Foot Office / R&D Building. Environmental Assessment: An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration was Circulated for Public Comment From June 28, 2018 to July 30, 2018. Zoning District: RP (Research Park) and RP(L) (Research Park with Landscape Combining District). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Graham Owen at graham.owen@cityofpaloalto.org. Chair Furth: This is a quasi-judicial hearing on a major architectural review for 3223 Hanover Street. It's a request to allow the construction of a new two-story, 67,000 square foot office and research and development building, an initial study. A mitigated negative declaration was circulated for public comment. That public comment period ended July 30th of this year. The zoning district is Research Park and Research Park with Landscape Combining District. The planner is Graham Owen. Mr. Owen. Graham Owen, Project Manager: Thank you, Chair Furth. I'm working with the applicant on this project that is here before you today. As you mentioned, this is the third hearing for an architectural review application for a new 67,000 square foot office/R&D building. As a little bit of background, the Board previously reviewed what we're kind of calling Building 1 or Phase 1 of this project, for a 115,000 square foot office/R&D building back in 2017. The current application was filed in July of last year, and this is for a new 67,000 square foot office/R&D building. The first hearing for Building 2 was held on March 15th of this year and the second hearing was held on July 5, 2018. We held the public comment period for the ISMND and held the hearing for that at the previous hearing. There were a number of issues that Board and staff identified with earlier iteration of the plans, but before I go any further, I just wanted to mention that we do have Mike Campbell with David J. Powers, who assisted the City with preparation of the ISMND, here with you today, if you have any questions about the ISMND that was previously circulated and the changes that have made. Going into the questions that the Board had raised and staff had raised, they generally focused on a couple different areas. The first is just the location of the building. I think that there are a couple of comments. There wasn't a true consensus on the Board or with staff about the location of the building, but there were some comments previously about the location of a second building in relation to the first, as well as in relation to the main drive aisle. With the second and third hearing, the location of the building hasn't shifted, hasn't changed. However, the applicant has provided some additional, kind of comparisons of how this building relates to Building 1 in comparison to similar plaza areas and similar situations where you have adjacent buildings. I'm going to let them go into that, describe their design intent with that courtyard - and the placement of the building in particular - with their presentation. The second, larger comment was regarding the design of the lower parking lot, which is on the lower terrace of the site. There have been a number of improvements to this area between the second and third iteration of the plans. The largest change is that the number of parking stalls that are on that lower area have been reduced by 38. This is below the minimum standard City of Palo Alto Page 12 for the City's parking requirements, but what is going to be happening with this is that the northern side of the property line - to the right in this plan view - 38 parking spaces would be proposed in the landscape reserve, in the area that's adjacent to the Bol Park bicycle path. This represents about a five percent reduction over what the site would be required to have if it were just parking to the standard minimum, and about an 18 percent reduction in the total number of spaces in that lower area. The applicant could, with submission of a parking demand study, as outlined in our draft conditions of approval, use those spaces and fully park the site. They are able to park the site to the minimum standard. The second biggest change is that the pedestrian circulation in that lower area has been improved. One of staff's comments in particular is that the lower area was designed predominantly for cars - obviously, it's a parking lot - but that additional focus needed to be made to the pedestrian circulation - pathways, crosswalks, that sort of thing. With that, this iteration of the plan does show a total of, I think it's five modules, I guess, or pathways between the modules of the parking lot, so these would be areas where people could, they would park, and they could take those pathways, which would then directly lead them to the upper module. Crossing the main drive aisle, you have a couple different areas where you could have pavement changes, so, coming from asphalt to a lighter material so that those areas are highlighted to people in cars, with the intent of slowing people in cars down so that they are aware of pedestrians. The third biggest change is the increase in the total amount of area that's going to be shaded with trees. There's a new landscape intent in this area and the proposal is now to do tulip trees, which have leaves that are bright yellow in the autumn. Here is a site axiom showing the site plan in relation to a couple of the adjacent areas. These are the key considerations. The placement and design of the building and the plaza, surface parking lot, landscape reserve, and also the Bol Park bicycle path improvements. There were some previous discussion about this at the other hearings, but the applicant is proffering some Bol Park bicycle path improvements, lighting and landscaping, in the section of the path that runs directly to the north of the site. They do have an improvement agreement with Coulier [phonetic] the lease holder for the Coulee [phonetic] site, which is immediately to the north, to do improvements on their side of the Bol Park path as well, so it's not just confined to the site. One of the things that was mentioned at the second hearing is that there is a Barron Park association that works on the Bol Park bicycle path, and in particular, on wayfinding. They are working to have some additional striping and that sort of thing, to make the Bol Park path safe for both, for pedestrians and cyclists. I've distributed an at-places memo that includes an additional condition of approval. That would essentially memorialize the Bol Park bicycle path improvements as part of the plants, and also require the continued coordination between the applicant and that particular committee, as well as the City's Office of Transportation, to ensure that we're planning that area that's on the site and immediately adjacent to it, properly. With that, we are recommending approval of the project. We think that the applicant has successfully addressed not only the Board's comments, but also staff's. We have findings in the staff report, as well as draft conditions. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. Chair Furth: Thank you. Any questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? We want to hear from the applicant. Good morning. You have 10 minutes. Which won't start until you are set up and ready to go. [Applicant setting up presentation.] Bob Giannini, Form4 Architecture: Thank you very much. Good morning, members of the Board, Chair Furth. I want to thank you for comments. I want to thank Graham and staff for working so hard with us over all these months, kind of getting the project to this point. I also want... Chair Furth: Excuse me, just for the record, would you give us your name. Mr. Giannini: [Introduces self.] Chair Furth: Thank you. City of Palo Alto Page 13 Mr. Giannini: Thanks. Also, before I begin, I do want to apologize for the fact that we broke the project into two phases, two applications. We didn't appreciate how difficult that was going to make it to sort of review the project. That idea won't happen again. Anyhow, as we heard your comments, we wanted to go back a little bit and re-address some of the things we've talked about, as Graham mentioned, and also point out how we really re-visioned the whole idea of the butterfly habitat, the lower parking lot, to really think of creative ways to address concerns. Jumping into that first topic. First off, the placement of the buildings on the site. Like a lot of projects in the Research Park, this project has topography. They were developed maybe 50 years ago, where they created terraces and the buildings were located on these terraces, and then, trees were planted around them. Now, it's 50 years later. The trees are mature. What we've learned from experience is that really, if you can use that topography more or less as it exists, there are three really good sustainability benefits of that. Number one, you're not moving around much dirt, which is good. The existing trees that are around the site will survive because, as you know, you can't change the grade around a tree or it will die. It allows us to maintain the existing mature trees, which I know is a big Palo Alto objective. Also, the conforms around the site remain the same, so, how we relate to our neighbors, how we relate to the street and everything is as it's kind of blended in over the years. Our first inclination was to try and use the existing terrace on the site as we've done in other projects. And, as you look at the site, you can see we have a 30-foot slope on the top, a 20-foot slope in the middle, and about a five-foot slope down to the bike path. We've also worked with our neighbors throughout the project to locate the buildings in a way that pushed them toward Hanover, give more of a landscape buffer to our residential neighbors. We've positioned the buildings geometry so it kind of contains what would be the people spaces of the building toward the street, and it keeps sort of that back landscape area quiet and Zen-like, so we create as little disruption as possible for neighbors. Also, we're doing several measures on the buildings, automatic blinds and what-have-you, to try and control lighting. I could go into that in more detail as, you know, if you would like. But, once we've decided we'd like to put the buildings...Oops, now I'm not moving forward. There we go. Once we decided we wanted to put the buildings on the terrace, the challenge was to see if the buildings actually fit on the terrace. We do that in a couple of ways. One is we do a lot of these kind of 3-D images to see what the character of the space would look like. Once you do a computer model, you can sort of pump these out and really look at the thing from a lot of different angles. This is the view from the drop-off. Again, the goal here is to see, does this courtyard feel like it's the right size for a project like this? This is kind of the impression you'd get from Hanover because Hanover has existing mature trees, and you'd really just get little peek views in from the street, into the project. These are a couple images that just show what some of the seating areas would look like in the building. Then, there was also a question, there was a concern that maybe the architecture of Building 2 didn't match Building 1, but they are identical. This is an image of going into the lobby of either of the buildings. The lobby design is the same. The other thing we did is just kind of check it with a couple other courtyards to see if it's the right size. This is a comparison of 1400 Page Mill, which is just around the corner. It's a 110 foot wide courtyard. Our courtyard is 145 feet wide, so, again, it feels like that's been a real successful kind of relationship for two-story buildings. And just to compare with downtown, here is Lytton Plaza, just to show how that would fit into our courtyard space. We felt really good that the space was right, and again, as was brought up in the last meeting, we do want the two buildings to be together because even though we didn't have a tenant back when we did this plan, we assumed it would be one person taking both buildings. We knew it would be two buildings at 40 percent FAR, and for a campus to work, you have to be able to walk easily between buildings. It's just a functionality kind of issue. The parking would be at the lower level, which is adjacent but buffered from the building. Then, I wanted to quickly get into the evolution of the project as we've worked with you over these past several months, and kind of address what we didn't realize, and what we've done to kind of change things. In our original project, which was approved, Building 1, we had a building sitting at the top of the hill, and then, introduced this notion of the butterfly habitat garden that was going to be in front of the building, a naturally vegetated slope, and we knew we want to put the parking, most of the parking for the project underground, and we wanted that to go in with the first building. When we did that, we had to take the parking off what was the existing parking lot or we would have been way over-parked. Cleverly, we called it a meadow, and that was the end of Phase 1. Then, when we came in with Building 2, it was the way we had envisioned the site. Again, it would be the butterfly garden sort of as the courtyard between buildings, Building 2, a naturally vegetated slope, and the parking lot would go back in. But, that raised many concerns that we hadn't appreciated. The biggest City of Palo Alto Page 14 is, what happens with the whole issue of being able to see the building across this habitat of butterfly garden? That went away. After the last hearing, we came back and re-thought the whole way that butterfly habitat would work. Now, it flows through the entire site, so now, rather than thinking of Building 2 as sort of containing the courtyard, we're thinking of it as a building in the garden, very much like we thought of 1400 Page Mill, which I think came out, you know, really executed that concept. Then we changed the natural planting on the slope to more of the butterfly habitat. Of course, we'll keep the existing mature trees there, but the whole under-story will be butterfly habitat. Initially, we were going to roll that underneath. I'll talk about this one in a minute, but what we perceived of is this huge grove of trees that would become the parking lot, where you would park amongst the trees. We thought, wouldn't it be nice if the butterfly habitat rolled under there, too? But then, we realized what kind of tree...Well, actually, we didn't realize anything. We thought, what kind of tree should we pick for there? We didn't want fruit dropping on cars, and what-have-you. Our landscape architect, Rich Sharp, who is here, located a tulip tree, which actually is a host tree for butterfly habitat. And then, we sort of had the epiphany of how cool would it be if you were actually inside the habitat when you park your car. That's what we're proposing today, is now the butterfly habitat, while it does continue as under story, the best part of it is the blossoms that are created over the canopy, so when you enter that parking lot, you're actually in the habitat. And that leads right to the second point, which was, you know, parking lots that are a sea of asphalt are just not acceptable. We looked at, as Graham said, we reduced the cars, actually from the original submittal of Building 2, we're close to 49 cars down from what we had originally submitted. And then, what we've done is we've actually increased the number of trees, so all that lost parking went into landscape. That increased the number of trees in the parking lot by 50 percent. And just to jump in, talking more about the parking lot, that is the blossom of the tulip tree that would be up in the canopy. And as Graham mentioned, what we've also done is made the medians between all the parking spaces much wider. They are 10 feet, typical, 20 feet at the main one, and the main one actually has...They all have pedestrian walkways. The main one, though, jogs around, as you see up at the top, so that you can get benches and little seating areas in there, too. And the end result of all this, it did clarify the circulation that we worked with staff on as we went along. Here are images now of what it would look like to enter the site and kind of the re-imagining of the site is we wanted it to be kind of like entering a botanical garden. Here is the butterfly habitat on the hill, the parking lot to the left. We re- introduced the portals that had been a theme on the project, sort of the (inaudible) lane portals, to be an open trellis area marking the pedestrian entrances to the parking lot. I'm out of time. Chair Furth: With the permission of my colleagues, we'll let you go on for another three minutes...? Board Member Gooyer: Yeah, that's fine. Mr. Giannini: Thank you very much. Yes, there were many issues. Anyhow, this is what it would look like. The solid portals on the other side are the entrances to the garage that are part of Phase 1. What is butterfly habitat? Again, Rich could go into much more detail, but these are the kind of plants that would be the ground cover throughout the site. This is an image of what it would be like going into the parking lot and parking the car. Every single car is adjacent to a pedestrian sidewalk that brings you to the main circulation and up to the building. And just as a reminder, this is how Phase 1 works when you go into the garage, if you choose to go that way, and there is the major ADA path that goes through the path, you come in, it's well-lit, and you go through this light well that brings you up into the courtyard. There are many, sort of natural, sort of graceful kind of ways to get to circulate through the site and get up to the main courtyard. There was another issue, quick issue about can we look at bird-friendly glass on the building. We actually had H.T. Harvey as our environmental consultant on the project. They have bird specialists on staff. We talked with them quite a bit. This area actually is not one that is prone to bird strikes. However, they did point out that our transparent corners of our building could pose a danger as birds try and shortcut through the site. So, we are proposing bird-friendly glass, which is a glass with horizontal striations on it every two inches on the four corners of the building. This is sort of a lead building, where the other building is sort of tucked into the slope, so Harvey didn't think there was really much chance that there would be any significant issue back there. And finally, on the bike path, Allison Koo with Sand Hill has been meeting with the Bol bike path committee numerous, numerous hours, working on this together with them. They are very excited, very supportive, and as Graham mentioned, City of Palo Alto Page 15 we would be improving the landscape and lighting. The lighting we're proposing is bollard lighting, but we're wide open to make it be a lighting that's more consistent with what else exists on the path. The type of lighting, we would defer to the committee and the City on what would be appreciated. Hopefully that responds to many of the concerns that came up last time. It was fun to kind of re-think some of the major elements of the project. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. Chair Furth: Thank you. Any questions of the applicant's architect? All right. Graham? Thank you. I have three cards. Michael Palmer, Jessica, and Trom [phonetic.] If we could start with Michael Palmer. Mr. Palmer, you have three minutes. Michael Palmer: Okay. My wife is going to give me her time also. Chair Furth: That's not quite how we work, but why don't you start. Mr. Palmer: Okay. My name is Mike Palmer. It's good to see you all again, good to see the developers. I'm representing a group of neighbors that live in this area, adjacent to the property. You can see, we're right close to the back fence here. There are basically two things I want to talk about today. In the past, we've talked a lot about this green buffer that the developers went to a lot of effort to place between the, kind of the lights and noise of the commercial building and the residences here. There's this kind of green zone of this landscaping. One addition recently to the plans has been this detailing of the bike path in the bottom right of the drawing. You see there, there's this little jog in the bottom-right corner of the drawing, or where the bike, the kind of spur of the bike path, the building connects to the main bike path. This is basically the closest, kind of intrusion of all this activity to the residences. My neighbor's house is actually, his back yard is right here, next to this, next to this bike path. There are two things I want to talk about. One is the routing of the bike path, and then, two, is about the lighting. I didn't actually understand until Bob's presentation, there's this nice area through the middle of the parking lot where pedestrians can cross across the parking lot, and they're calling it the butterfly garden. One very nice alternate routing for the bike path across the property would be through that butterfly garden, right? Pedestrians and people are going to come walking down the stairs, out of the building, they're going to be walking across to the bike path that way anyway. Right? Why not formalize that? You see what I'm talking about, in the middle there, right? Why not...The middle on the right side of the diagram. Why not formalize that and have an actual good cross walks and well-designated walking and biking path? In addition, in the current drawing, the bike path, you remember the site goes up, toward the left, so bikes will go up the hill to the upper level. And the bike room is actually, you see that diamond structure close to the middle of the building? Sorry, my mouse doesn't work. Close to the middle of the building is that diamond structure. The bike room is actually on the P-2, at the bottom of that elevator. So, the bikes will have to go up, and I suppose ride an elevator down. Why not instead have them going across this middle area, go basically at the same level into the garage and to the bike room. Then they can take one elevator up to their office. That's the way I would end up going if I was biking to work every day. Even if this path wasn't here, I would probably cut through instead of going up two elevator rides. That's one alternate route for the bike path through that middle area. Another one is at least... Chair Furth: Take some more time to finish your thoughts. Mr. Palmer: Thank you. Swap the position of...There's a berm now to the north of the bike path. At least swap the bike path with the berms of the bikes, on the other side of the berm, right? So that all the people going by are not looking into the neighbors' back yards. Also, this boulder area, there is a little boulder seating area. I would move that up, as well. If you see that moving. People will congregate there. We had problems with smoking before when Lockee [phonetic] was at that site, so that's kind of the first nice place, I'll stop and smoke here, you know? I (inaudible) the property, I'm going to smoke here, and it will be right in my neighbor's backyard. Okay. So, quickly. Oh, yeah. Wouldn't it be nice here if you were adding, instead of through the middle of the butterfly garden and directly into the building, as kind of a grand entrance, actually. Right? Instead of sneaking along the side of the property and near the neighbors. Okay. The second issue is just the lighting selection. I don't know if this is intentional or not. This is the current routing of the bike path. These - there's my mouse - these lights along the path are City of Palo Alto Page 16 designated as S1. Those are 12-foot-tall pole lights, right? We went to all this trouble and discussion to put landscaping here in a hedge, and then, we're going to put a 12-foot pole over the top of the hedge. And I was eyeballing it this morning. The sites up...This is the ground level of the site there, is basically the second floor building level. Okay. So, could we put bollards there. Chair Furth: It's 12 foot light poles, location of the bike path... Mr. Palmer: Yes. Chair Furth: ...location of the boulders, nobody smoking across the fence. Thank you. Mr. Palmer: Thanks for your time. Chair Furth: Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak? Or was that just time being...? Yes, go ahead. Tram [phonetic]: Hi, good morning. Chair Furth: And if you could give us your name. Tram: My name is Tram, and I am the neighbor on the back. Just a couple of items. I just want to reiterate what Mike has said, too, is some of the requests I'm asking is that moving the boulder seating away from the residences towards more Hanover Street, to avoid... Chair Furth: I'm sorry, can I ask you to speak closer to the mic? It doesn't pick up very well. Tram: Gotcha. Again, my name is Tram. A couple of items I'd like to discuss is boulder, moving seating away from the residences and towards Hanover Street to avoid smoking, noise, conversation, so on and so forth. The bike path entrance onto the site is extremely close to the residences. Again, if we could...And that's on page 18 and page 66. If we can kind of push the bike entrance in the middle or towards Hanover, that would be great, because right now, if you have it existing towards the bottom, it is sort of dangerous because traffic is coming out at a 90-degree angle. It's kind of like, you know, you go towards, down, and then a sharp turn over to the right, and then, down and over again. That whole area is sort of dangerous, and it's just safer to move the bike entrance towards the middle or, again, in the front of Hanover Street. The third item I wanted to discuss is preserving the greenery, tall hedges. I think you have some photos there. Currently, there is these tall, giant hedges along the bike path. I know that there is a lot of improvements, you know, you're going to put in trees and those low shrubs, but if we can somehow move forward, to just keep that in mind, just to create the greenery aspect. And the bottom line is we are here to be good neighbors. We are here to support, but just please keep the noise and lighting exposure to a bare-bone minimum. That's all we're asking. Because we care deeply about the whole project. It's just that, you know, we have to live here. Thank you. Chair Furth: Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak? That it? Then we'll close the public hearing, bring it back to the Board. Does staff have any comments? Mr. Owen: Just wanted to bring up that the Phase 1 approval for the project included a review of the screening between Barron Park and the Phase 1 building. That buffer zone, that buffer area. With that understanding, that was going to come back to ARB subcommittee before that landscaping plan was approved through the building permit process. Just thinking through some of the comments that we heard from the public about this particular area. That's just one option, is to include, if the Board is in a position of approving the project, to consider that through a subcommittee. Chair Furth: We already have a subcommittee referral from Phase 1? Mr. Owen: We do. City of Palo Alto Page 17 Chair Furth: It's on the, it's on there. Mr. Owen: It hasn't been schedule yet, but... [crosstalk] Chair Furth: Hasn't happened yet, but it's going to be... Mr. Owen: ..hasn't happened yet, but it needs to. Chair Furth: All right. We already have...Before that gets done, it's going to come to a subcommittee of this Board. Did we appoint somebody to that? Mr. Owen: To the subcommittee? Chair Furth: Uh-huh. Mr. Owen: I don't believe so. Chair Furth: Okay. That would be another opportunity for...whatever. And those are meetings that are held in the well after our regular meetings, with just two Board members discussing these things. And we appoint people ad hoc for each project. All right. Colleagues, who would like to start? Yes, go ahead. Alex has a question. Board Member Lew: I have a question for staff. In Phase 1, we had that condition of approval for the automatic night shades, and I was looking for it today. I couldn't find it. Is that in there? Or do you think that Phase 1 can apply the...? Mr. Owen: Yeah, we can do it... Board Member Lew: Is adequate and we don't need something for this space. Mr. Owen: Sure. The Phase 2 project description and project plans included the, you know, the understanding that you're going to have, especially on the side facing the neighbors on Matadero Avenue, that you're going to have screens incorporated into the project. That's been something that was brought in with the project description, so it's considered a part of the project, and obviously something that... Chair Furth: Let me short-circuit this a bit. It is so easy to lose conditions of approval, and this is very important to the neighbors. It's something the applicant is very willing to do, so I would like to ask that you include that condition as a condition of approval for this project, as well. Mr. Owen: I don't think that will be a problem. Chair Furth: And then, people can point to it instead of wading through the files. Or, even worse, the plans. Alex, anything else? Board Member Lew: Yeah. On that, I think the previous neighbor, previously, a neighbor had asked for that condition of approval to include the word "opaque" as opposed to... Chair Furth: That's right. Board Member Lew: ...translucent shade. Those mecco [phonetic] shades, those...They come in all sorts of different colors and levels of transparency. And then, I think the other thing is, I think in Phase 1 we used the word, that somehow that the developer had to put it in the lease. Because what happens is, City of Palo Alto Page 18 tenants come and go and they change the interior design and they will remove window shades and stuff like that. Then all the work that we've done just disappears and nobody knows what to do with it. Okay. That's all the questions I have. On the project, thank you for the revisions. I think they all look good. I think I generally can recommend approval of the project today. After our last meeting, I think I do have to agree with, I think it was maybe Robert's comments. I actually do think that this project has an Achilles heel, which is the ADA access from a bus stop, going through the parking garage. To me, that's really undesirable. Now that I think about it more, you should actually have a lobby, one lobby at the lower level that would take you up and sort of connect you in with the rest of the project. We used to have a finding that mentioned having, like, equal access from bus stops, and parking lots, and what-not. When we changed the finding, that one kind of disappeared. Generally, though, I think I will recommend approval of the project today, but it really seems to me to be a big weakness on this particular scheme. Also, I think last time you had mentioned that you thought the courtyard was too small. I think Bob gave a couple examples. And I think the best example that I can think of is actually Stanford Shopping Center, down near the Apple store, believe Macy's and Neiman Marcus. Because it's kind of triangular... [crosstalk] Chair Furth: [crosstalk]...thing. Macy's, Nieman Marcus, got it. Board Member Lew: Yeah, Apple store. That area. Most of the shopping center has a 60-foot-wide walkway, which is kind of a street size, but that one widens out to, it's triangular, but it's, like, 120 feet. I think what Bob is showing is more like 150 feet wide, but it's basically that kind of space. To me, that's actually one of the most comfortable, attractive people-gathering spaces in town. Chair Furth: I find that persuasive. Board Member Lew: Yeah, so, I think the courtyard design is actually very, is very nice and well scaled. I can recommend approval. I had some concerns about the tulip trees, only because they are so tall. I'm working on a house in Atherton that's, there's a tulip tree right in front of the house, and it's huge. There's no way that you're going to see a flower on a tree that's 100 to 200 feet high. I mean, the flowers that are way up there, you can't really see anything. Anyway, that was my only reservation. I think it's approvable. I think the landscape is generally very handsome. The plant list is very in depth and comprehensive. It has a large number of native plants. The neighbors' comments about the bike path spur alignment, I think I'm open to making changes there. It seems to me to be a logical place to have the bike connection. I could see moving boulders. And I have been to the site. I do know that there is that, that corner house is right on the back property line, so I do understand that it is an issue. If we want that to come back to subcommittee, I'm open to that. Generally, I can recommend approval today. Chair Furth: Thank you. Robert? Board Member Gooyer: Based on the changes, I'm happy with the way everything looks, so I could approve it today, also. I'm still disappointed, like I said, that there is no lobby on the ground floor, but then, that's not really what we were discussing today. I could approve it the way it is. Chair Furth: Thank you. And thank you to everybody for their work, both as neighbors and applicants on this project. I lived on a street lined with liriodendron, with tulip trees. They are big. They don't necessarily have to go to 200 feet. You're supposed to bonsai them, somehow. And I hope that this is as lovely as you suggest. This sort of pattern of walkways, and seating, and places that...It reminds me a little bit of the Nike parking lot up in Beaverton. Or maybe that's extreme west Portland; I'm not sure. Or Hillsboro. But, anyway, very big parking lots, lots of landscaping. No butterflies, as far as I know. I do feel we got off on the wrong foot on this project. I regret that we didn't plan the whole thing out and understand more deeply where the parking would go, so I see this as some seriously missed opportunities. But, I also see this as some creative and generous responses to those problems. I am very concerned about - because this week I'm sort of mobility-impaired, in particular, maybe - I'm very concerned about access for people who have difficulty moving. The proposal is that it come through the garage. We spent a lot of time for the downtown, the new downtown Hamilton Avenue parking garage, City of Palo Alto Page 19 thinking about...Well, asking for and receiving advice on how to transform that experience so that we raise the ceiling, we change the alignment, we use special lighting, we use special flooring, so that it's a fairly attractive and will be very heavily used by both people with no mobility impairment and people with mobility impairment, to get through. Can you take me through what it's like to go through the garage once you get off the sidewalk? Mr. Owen: The architect might be... Chair Furth: Yeah. Mr. Owen: ...best equipped to answer that question. Chair Furth: Whatever. Whoever. Mr. Giannini: Can we go...? I have pictures. Go back to that other one. First off, I appreciate the comments on that, and talking about ADA in general, there's actually many ADA ways to get to the top of the hill. The problem is the project is on a hill, and we are very familiar with that. Chair Furth: I think the problem is there is a bus stop, and then there's a big grade change, and there is not a lobby with an elevator to get me up there. Instead, I'm going to wander through the garage, so, tell me how it's going to be a great experience. Mr. Giannini: Okay. Well, since this picture came up, this is actually the path through the garage. When you come in...First off, let me say, you can also enter the courtyard at grade at the courtyard. Chair Furth: [Inaudible] Mr. Giannini: Yeah. And then...But, the bus stops are down at the bottom corner of the site. So, we needed to put an ADA path there. There are two. Actually, there's a stair at the corner of the project that we, working with staff, we added in. That's one ADA way to get up. But then, the most comfortable way to go up would be through the garage. You come down through the sidewalk...Anyway, you can see there is a dedicated sidewalk that goes through the garage. The good thing about this garage is that at this level of the garage, we have the ADA parking, so this is an especially high garage. It’s not a really low kind of garage. Then, we actually call what happens at the end there with the light well and everything our lower lobby. I'm going to go back to that picture. The idea, the way we thought about this, you know, the way you can tackle any architectural problem is, okay, here it is, but what's a creative way to kind of address it? And sometimes the best design comes out of solving those kind of problems. Actually, with the suggestion of the Board, we created this light well that connects you to the main courtyard, drops you at both building lobbies. There is the elevator, stair and bike room there. The reason the bike room is down there is because that is where Traffic actually asked us to put the bikes in this particular case, so we located them at that level. This would be the experience of going through this garage. It's tall, it's light, you're heading toward the light, and then you're going up, either through stairs or an elevator, up to the pavilion. Chair Furth: When I'm coming from the bus stop... Mr. Giannini: Yes. Chair Furth: ...and hobbling over towards this elevator, which...? In that drawing, in that picture, where am I coming from? Over on the right? Over on...? Mr. Giannini: Yeah, you're coming from right behind that car. The sidewalk is just beyond that car that's shown there, and then, that car is actually like a hotel drop-of. If an Uber was coming to pick you up, or something like that, they would pull up there, you'd hop in, and off you go. City of Palo Alto Page 20 Chair Furth: And this is a sidewalk with a change in grade from the car traffic? That I'm walking along? Mr. Giannini: It is. It is. It is a six-inch curb. Chair Furth: And then, we've got the gaps where the drive aisles are. Mr. Giannini: We do, and what we would do is we would transition that down so you're actually not stepping off a curb. Chair Furth: And tell me about the lighting. When I'm not in this lovely sunlit place, or it's night. Mr. Giannini: Yes, you're right, it does get to be night sometime. We're not showing lights in there, but it would have typical parking lot lighting. We could also, it would be very easy to sort of improve the quality of the light, make it brighter. Chair Furth: I think that would be a great idea. Seriously. I mean, it's now possible to have LED path lighting that really helps you find it and (inaudible) a way, and feel safer. Thank you. Mr. Giannini: Sure. We would have no objection. Chair Furth: Appreciate it. Okay. I agree that it is a very interesting plant list. The landscape architect is here? Mr. Giannini: Yes. Chair Furth: So you won't feel you wasted your morning, I had a couple questions. These are points of curiosity more than anything else. What made you decide to use magnolia grandiflora? They are beautiful trees, but what else? ??Male: I would say for similar reasons with the tulip tree. For us, it's a leaf scale. When we look at our plant palate, not only are we looking at water use, which I know magnolia is more on the medium than the low water use, but they work with bioswale conditions. A lot of times that's logic for placing them in the bioswale zones. They are a larger leaf. We tend to use a cultivar called Majestic Beauty because it doesn't have the rusty brown underside. It's a green underside, so it doesn't look like trash bags when the leaves do drop. Chair Furth: I beg your pardon, I like the classic runs. ??Male: Personal preference. Chair Furth: I grew up in Berkeley. They are street trees. ??Male: That's right, that's right. And then, against the oaks and some of the other native trees that have a smaller leaf, it's just a nice contrast in plant texture. When you look at our plant palate, the ground plane, it's all about fine grain plant material with delicate flowers set against larger leaf plant material. It's texture as much as color for us in our planting compositions. Chair Furth: Thank you. I was partly asking you because they've sort of fallen out of favor as street trees, and I was curious as to what your using... ??Male: And just real quick, on the tulip flower, for us, it's not about people seeing the flower because the flowers are on the top of the tree, it's about the butterfly habitat, landing on the top of the tree and taking the nectar and using the tree as a host. It's not necessarily for the people to [crosstalk]. City of Palo Alto Page 21 Chair Furth: In my experience, they drop enough small branches with blossoms, so you get to see them every year. Yours may be different. I'm impressed that you can make bucause [phonetic] flourish, but I believe you can. I find it a disastrous plant. Thank you. ??Male: You are welcome. Chair Furth: Okay. We have, for this project on this site, a pending subcommittee referral. Anybody want to volunteer to be on that subcommittee? Just going to be thinking primarily about landscape, buffering. Don't all speak at once. All right, we'll appoint...Go ahead. Board Member Lew: It's fine, I will do it. Chair Furth: Great, Alex will do it, and we'll find another volunteer when we have everybody here. Thank you, Alex. We have two additional conditions. One is this condition that Graham Owen provided for us, a new condition of approval number 6. Is it pronounced Bol Park or Ball...? Anyway. It's not "ball park," for the benefit of those who don't know. It's Bol Park, right? Bol Park bicycle path improvements. The approved plans include landscaping and lighting improvements to the portion of the Bol Park bicycle path along the northern lease line of the site. The improvements shall be in substantial compliance with the project plan dated September 6, 2018, and subject to an improvement agreement received by the City on July 3, 2018, with adjacent leaseholder for improvements in their lease area. The applicant shall coordinate the landscaping and lighting improvement with the Barron Park Association's - sorry - Bol Park pathway committee, and City's Office of Transportation to the satisfaction of the Planning Director. Just a question to staff. That agreement also provides adequately for continuing maintenance of these improvements? Once they are built, do they require any maintenance, or are we all good? Mr. Owen: Right. I can double-check in the agreement really quickly. I imagine it does. Chair Furth: I'm sure it's a problem you'll solve before it gets done. We usually call these improvement and maintenance agreements, is what made me think about it. Okay, so, we are also adding a condition for automatic opaque blinds, to avoid light...To avoid adverse light impacts on the adjacent residential properties. What do we want to do about this issue of double-checking the design and on-site bicycle path to minimize adverse effects on the neighbors? Add a condition about that? Add it to the subcommittee referral? What do you want to do? What does staff want to do? We have a lot of people consulting on the bike path. Mr. Owen: Sure. One suggestion, you have this new draft condition of approval number 6. One suggestion is to bring the Bol Park bicycle path committee improvements back to subcommittee. You could just take condition number 6 and have it be subject to review of the subcommittee. That way, the neighbors would have an opportunity to work with the applicant, as well as participate in the subcommittee process on the final design of [crosstalk]. Chair Furth: Okay, so, we're all clear that it's not just the bike committee, but the neighbors as well, that we want to consult on this process. Mr. Owen: Right. Chair Furth: Are we happy with that? Is that enough? All right. Well, with that modification of condition of approval number 6 and the addition of the condition with respect to opaque automatic blinds, does somebody want to make a motion? MOTION Board Member Lew: I think you just made the motion. I second it. City of Palo Alto Page 22 Chair Furth: All right. I move approval subject to those conditions, and seconded by Board Member Lew. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Hearing none, it passes three-nothing. MOTION PASSED WITH A VOTE OF 3-0. Chair Furth: Congratulations. Thank you all for your participation. 4. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 429 University Avenue [18PLN-00240]: Recommendation on the Applicant's Request for Approval of a Minor Architectural Review Consistent With Condition of Approval #3, for a Previously Approved MixedUse Building (14PLN-00222), Requiring Architectural Review Board Approval for the Proposed West Elevation Wall Design, Landscape Details, and Exterior Building Materials, Colors, and Craftsmanship. Environmental Assessment: Use of Mitigated Negative Declaration Prepared for 14PLN-00222. Zoning District: CD-C(G)(P) (Downtown Commercial with Ground Floor and Pedestrian Shopping Overlay). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Adam Petersen at apetersen@mgroup.us Chair Furth: As previously noted, we will not be hearing item 4, 429 University Avenue, which is continued to our next regular meeting. Approval of Minutes Chair Furth: Our next items are the draft Architectural Review Board meeting minutes for July 5th and July 19th. Just a note to staff, whoever did the work on the July 19th minutes did a terrific job. We sound so coherent. It's really well transcribed. However, I believe shear wall is s-h-e-a-r in this circumstance. I'll give you my other notes. We can take these as a single item unless there are additional corrections. Board Member Lew: On July 5th, there is, on the...there's a speaker, and I think it's Bob Giannini... Chair Furth: Yes. Board Member Lew: ...and it was on page 5. On July 19th, page 7, there's a mention of "lamp black," and that is correct. Chair Furth: Yep. Board Member Lew: That's page 7. Page 25, there's something that should be "at places," and then, page 34, there's a mention of CAP, which is Coordinated Area Plan. Chair Furth: Which is a message to us all. On page 10, it says that I measured the height of my seat this morning and it's 12 foot six. It was not; it was one-foot-six. And I've got a couple other clerical notes that I will give you. Would somebody like to move approval of those minutes? MOTION Board Member Lew: I will make a motion that we approve the minutes for July 5, 2018, and July 19, 2018. Board Member Gooyer: I'll second. Chair Furth: All those in favor say aye? All those opposed? Hearing none, it passes 3-0. MOTION PASSED WITH A VOTE OF 3-0. City of Palo Alto Page 23 Subcommittee Items Chair Furth: We have a subcommittee meeting - is that correct? - on 3877 El Camino Real? Male??: Yep. Chair Furth: And we have the subcommittee members here, Mr. Gooyer and Mr. Lew. Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements Chair Furth: Any other board member comments, questions or announcements? I think we're good. Thank you, all. We are adjourned. Adjournment