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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-08-20 Architectural Review Board Summary MinutesArchitectural Review Board Staff Report (ID # 11634) Report Type: Approval of Minutes Meeting Date: 10/1/2020 City of Palo Alto Planning & Development Services 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 329-2442 Summary Title: Minutes of August 20, 2020 Title: Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for August 20, 2020 From: Jonathan Lait Recommendation Staff recommends the Architectural Review Board (ARB) adopt the attached meeting minutes. Background Draft minutes from the August 20, 2020 Architectural Review Board (ARB) are available in Attachment A. Draft and Approved Minutes are made available on the ARB webpage at bit.ly/paloaltoARB Attachments: • Attachment A: August 20, 2020 Draft Minutes (DOCX) 3 Packet Pg. 60 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Peter Baltay, Vice Chair Osma Thompson, Board Members Alexander Lew, Grace Lee and David Hirsch. Absent: None. Chair Baltay: Good morning. I'm Peter Baltay, Chair of the Architectural Review Board. Welcome to our August 20, 2020, meeting. Before starting, I’d like to read a statement. [Reading] Pursuant to the provisions of California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, this meeting will be held by virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. Spoken comments via a computer will be accepted through the Zoom teleconference meeting. To address the Board, go to zoom.us/join. Meeting ID is 932 2779 7046. When you wish to speak on an agenda item, click on “Raise Hand.” The moderator will activate and unmute speakers in turn. When called, please limit your remarks to the time limit allotted. Spoken public comments using a Smartphone will also be accepted through the Zoom mobile application. To offer comments using a regular phone, call 1-669-900-6833, and enter Meeting ID 932 2779 7046. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on your phone so we know that you wish to speak. [Roll Call] Oral Communications Chair Baltay: Next item on the agenda is oral communications. Do we have any members of the public who wish to address any item not on our agenda today? Vinh Nguyen, Administrative Associate: Yes, we do have some raised hands but I’d like to remind everyone that oral communications are for comments on items that are not on the agenda. If you are here to speak on either San Antonio or Castilleja please lower your hand now and you can raise your hand again later when we get to that item. Chair Baltay: Do we still have people then, Vinh? Mr. Nguyen: It looks like everyone has lowered their hands. We don’t have any oral communication today. Chair Baltay: Okay. We will get to everyone’s comments on the specific items. I can promise that. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD DRAFT MINUTES: August 20, 2020 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue 8:30 AM 3.a Packet Pg. 61 City of Palo Alto Page 2 Chair Baltay: Okay. We will get to everyone’s comments on the specific items. I can promise that. Next time is agenda changes, additions and deletions. Staff, do we have any agenda changes, additions or deletions? Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: No changes at this time. City Official Reports 1. Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and 2) Tentative Future Agenda items and 3) Recent Project Decisions Chair Baltay: Very well. The next item is City Official reports. Can you have a transmittal of the future meeting schedule and attendance record, please? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. As it's coming up here we do show that the September 3rd meeting would be canceled; however, it’s possible we have two major items on the agenda today. It is possible those may get continued to September 3rd. The next hearing that we have on September 17th is potentially open to hearing more testimony about Castilleja as well. If we go to the next slide we can see this. On October 1st we’re looking to hear the ARB objective standards. We have started a webpage about the objective standards. I believe it is attached to our pending projects webpage. I will make sure to send out that direct link to everyone. That concludes the presentation. Action Items 2. PUBLIC HEARING/ACTION ITEM 1310 Bryant Street, 1235 and 1263 Emerson Street [19PLN-00116]: Architectural Review of Castilleja School's Phased Campus Redevelopment Proposal for Site Modifications, Demolition, Construction of a Below Grade Parking Garage and a new Classroom Building, and Minor Alterations to one Facade of a Historic Inventory Category 3 Building on Campus. Redevelopment is Associated With a Request for Conditional Use Permit (CUP) Amendment and Variance for Gross Floor Area (GFA) Replacement. The Primary Project Also Includes Requests for a Tentative map With Exception and a Variance for Below-grade Setback Encroachment Into the Embarcadero Road Special Setback (the Alternate Project Does not Include These Requests). Zone District: R-1(10,000). Environmental Review: A Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was Published July 29, 2020. For More Information Contact Amy Contact Amy French, Chief Planning Official, at amy.french@cityofpaloalto.org Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Jodie. Moving on then to our action items. We’re going to start with action item number two, which is the public hearing for action item 1310 Bryant Street, 1235 and 1263 Emerson Street: architectural review of Castilleja School's phased campus redevelopment proposal for site modifications, demolition, construction of a below grade parking garage and a new classroom building, and minor alterations to one facade of a historic inventory category 3 building on campus. Redevelopment is associated with a request for conditional use permit (CUP) amendment and variance for gross floor area (GFA) replacement. The primary project also includes requests for a tentative map with exception and a variance for below-grade setback encroachment into the Embarcadero Road special setback (the alternate project does not include these requests). Zone district: r-1(10,000). Environmental review: a final environmental impact report (EIR) was published July 29, 2020. Before we get started on that, I’d like to go through any disclosures we may have. Does anyone have anything to disclose? David, do you want to start? Do you have anything to disclose? Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I visited the school, given by a vice principal there, to see the buildings on- site, and the open area of the playground, and generally through the school. As well as to see the materials board at City Hall. Chair Baltay: Any other disclosures? David, did you meet with any neighbors? 3.a Packet Pg. 62 City of Palo Alto Page 3 Chair Baltay: Yes, thank you for the reminder. Previously met with a neighbor’s group who requested -- Peter and I met with them this past weekend and listened to their concerns. It was a small group of about six people with us in a backyard. Chair Baltay: Thank you, David. Osma, any disclosures? Vice Chair Thompson: Yes, I went to see the materials board and I visited the site. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Osma. Grace, any disclosures? Board Member Lee: Yes, I also visited the site over the years. I went and saw the materials board. I did want to note that I did sit on the Board back in 2006, I believe, when the gym/fitness building came to the Board. I have been in contact with the applicant, and I have reviewed community member’s… what they have shared. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Alex, any disclosures? Board Member Lew: Yes, I do have five items here. In November of 2019, I talked to David Bower [phonetic] from the HRB. He said that he would like to see the new stair at the Gunn Building come back to the HRB. I think that that is in our staff report. There’s no new information there. I downloaded two aerial photos; one from 1941 and one from 1965. Photos from that era were mentioned in the historic evaluation but I didn’t see them in the report. I wanted to actually see the photos and I was looking for the relationship of the school to the neighboring houses over time. I did exchange emails with Mary Sylvester regarding meeting with the neighborhood group that I declined. I did visit the site yesterday, and I also regularly pass by the site weekly over the past ten years. I visited the materials board at City Hall yesterday. That’s it. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Alex. I would like to disclose that I have met with a neighborhood group led by Mary Sylvester at their home near the property. I didn’t really learn anything that’s not in the public record. I also met the Assistant Head of School, I believe, Mary Layendecker. She toured the campus with me and David Hirsch. The only thing I learned that was perhaps not so clear in the public record is that the alternate design proposes to not have all the students enter through the underground garage. It would rather be distributed around the campus. That wasn’t clear to me from looking at the drawings. I've also spoken with several other neighbors in the community who have mixed support. Some are very strongly in favor of this school and some opposed to the project. Okay, with that can we have a staff report, please? Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes, I would like to share my screen. I've been trying to get that permission but still unable. [Setting up presentation.] Jonathan Lait, Planning and Development Services Director: While Amy gets that set up maybe, Chair, if you don’t mind, I’d like to just preface her presentation with a few remarks. I'm Jonathan Lait. I’m the Director for Planning and Development Services. I want to acknowledge that the City’s been processing this application over the past several years as it has evolved. As you noted, Chair, a moment ago, there clearly are a lot of strong opinions about this project from those who support it and those who are in opposition to the project. While there’s been a number of meetings with residents and the applicant team, we’ve had some public meetings regarding the historic resources and the environmental analysis. The meeting this morning is really the first opportunity for the applicant to present the project and for the public to really engage in sharing their comments on some of the specific aspects of the application itself. Because of the very number of applications that are involved in this project, there will be hearings before this Body, the Architectural Review Board, the Historic Resources Board, the Planning and Transportation Commission. Once we have gone through all of those Boards and Commissions with their 3.a Packet Pg. 63 City of Palo Alto Page 4 recommendations, the project will ultimately be presented to the City Council. That Body will take final action on the project. For today, you'll likely hear a lot of comments that range across the spectrum of areas where these different boards and commissions have interest or focus. We’ll try to identify in our staff report and in our presentation that Amy’s about to present the area where the ARB’s focus will be most helpful. We do know that there are a lot of aspects of the project that the community is interested in discussing related to enrollment, activities, and things of that nature. Some of those will be addressed by the PTC and fall outside of the role of the Architectural Review Board. For staff’s part in this, as you know, we receive applications and it is our job to objectively review those applications and process them to the various boards and commissions and make recommendations based on findings that are set forth in the City’s Municipal Code. To that end, I want to thank Amy French with her 21 plus years of experience with the City of Palo Alto, her deep knowledge of the code and the City’s processes, for her stewardship of managing this project and getting it to a place where we can begin these public meetings. Amy has made herself available to community members and has done an amazing job putting a lot of data on the City’s website. Thank you, Amy. Appreciative of your efforts and with that I welcome you to start you presentation. Thank you, Chair. Ms. French: Thank you. Good morning, all. I'm Amy French. I am the Chief Planning Official and the steward of this process. I’m happy to be here today in this clean air giving you the presentation. This is really the first time that the applicant’s are going to present their proposal in a public hearing setting. It’s a first hearing after the final EIR was published a few weeks ago at the end of July. This is the first ARB hearing on the project. This is our order of the presentation today with staff. We’re going to cover the brief history. We’re going to give a project overview, and the required applications to get through this process, and the final Environmental Impact Report. I'm supported by Katherine Waugh of Dudek. Then we’ll get to the applicant’s presentation, and the ARB will have questions for staff and the applicant. Then, we’ll launch into community comments and the ARB comments. As noted, we are asking for a continuance of the hearing. This is the site. This is Castilleja School. All of these properties but one are Castilleja owned. We have a property on the corner here under separate ownership. Now for some history. Castilleja School started in Professorville at this location, 1121 Bryant, for several years before moving to their current location. They had about 68 students and it was kindergarten through twelfth grade. They moved to 1310 Bryant in 1910, starting with several buildings as you see here. You'll see the Recitation Hall is still on campus. This is the Gunn Administration Building that is a historic resource on the City’s inventory. By 1924, they had quite a few more buildings. Again, you see the Gunn Administration Building is still here. None of the other buildings pictured here still exist. Ten years later, we have the Recitation Hall existing still, and now we have a Birge Clark Building, the Chapel. Lots of changes; tennis courts came, etc. You'll see the historic building here, the Gunn Administration Building. It’s attached to a 1960’s building called the Rhodes Hall. Then we have the Birge Clark Chapel. Here is the view from Bryant Street of that building that does attach to the historic building. Here on the other side at Emerson we are seeing the two houses owned by Castilleja, and this third property that’s a residential home on this side of Emerson. Here’s a view of those homes. Here’s a view of the property as it exists today and the buildings that are there today. Now for a project overview. Castilleja is seeking to change the campus and upgrade the buildings and relocate the pool to below grade. They submitted a master plan with their conditional use permit for phased development. They want to rebuild the above grade floor area, and expand the basement to create the capacity for a student enrollment increase up to a new cap of 540 students with the phased development that’s subject to architectural review. Here in this image are buildings to be demolished with this proposal. There are five buildings in total. This is the original project submitted in 2016, and later updated with the architectural review application in 2019. Plans have been updated over the several years we have been at this. This is the current version of the original project. It shows the new building, which is the Academic Building here, the new Library -- these are also connected -- the pool below grade, removal of two Emerson homes, and other changes. This is the project alternative that came in this year in February, and updated. This shows retention of those two homes. It also shows a different circulation pattern called the dispersed circulation. Below here is a reduced garage size. A garage that doesn’t encroach into the Embarcadero setback. You'll hear about student enrollment. This is the thing that has been of concern and a code enforcement case. The original use permit allowed for 415 students. Today’s enrollment is 426 students. The proposed enrollment is 540 students, as I mentioned phased over time. This just documents here the case that the City handled in 2013 with a penalty payment, transportation demand management 3.a Packet Pg. 64 City of Palo Alto Page 5 implementation, annual enrollment reductions, and leading to this conditional use permit application. I have this very wordy table showing the changes in gross floor area. We can come back to this but basically demolition on this side. They're going to demolish 84,572 square feet in these buildings. Above a gross floor area, and they're putting a proposal in that replaces that 84,572 square feet slightly above grade. Then the alternative project also replaces slightly less than the existing above grade. There is some below grade expansion. That will handle additional classrooms that are needed for the additional students and other functions. I will come back to this later because it is a lot of detail, as needed. This is the project components. Again, the five buildings to be demolished, replacement in the new academic building with expanded below grade area. We have subterranean garage access from the Bryant Street parking lot and exiting over onto Emerson, opposite Melville Avenue. The proposal is to complete the garage and begin student enrollment increases after that. There is a pedestrian passage that goes from the garage below grade over to the campus buildings for students that would be dropped off. There is a proposal to demolish the pool and reconstruct it with a sound wall. Then, there are deliveries and enclosures for those types of functions that are near the Circle and under the academic building, and, of course, the landscaping. This shows an image that came with the original project showing the park or open space landscape area that would replace the homes on Emerson Street. With this project, the garage did extend under these homes under the park area and into the setback on Embarcadero. All drop-offs were to occur inside the garage and then the cars would exit on to Emerson and all turn right and this caused an impact. The project alternative has a garage exit at the same location onto Emerson. In this project alternative, the cars are not all leaving and turning right because of the dispersed circulation proposal. This is an image showing the original garage here encroaching under the Embarcadero setback, and encroaching under these two homes. The reduced garage alternative is this configuration retaining homes, retaining these trees, and not encroaching. Again, another image showing parking spaces. The parking spaces in the project alternative meet the code rather than exceeding the code, which is what the project included. The project alternative was submitted by the applicant to address several community concerns, remove the significant and avoidable CEQA impact, and it enables the withdraw of the tentative map and variance for the Embarcadero Road encroachment. It reduces the ground floor level of the Academic Building but this is offset in the basement with additional floor area. I believe this is a typo. I think they are retaining 11 more trees than the proposed project. Retaining I said, not removing. The main thing with this project alternative is that it would not require a statement of overriding considerations by the Council if the Council were to approve the project alternative. Now, we get to the discretionary review and the required applications. We are here at the ARB because of the Architectural Review application. We’re looking at all these things. We’re looking at potential hearing dates. We’ve published that September 17 is the next ARB date but that’s a flexible situation. We have other potential dates in October as needed to come back with some tailored architectural findings and plan refinements as needed. The Planning Commission meets next Wednesday, August 26. They have quite a few applications in front of them. The top two are CUP and Variance for floor area replacement. Those are the two associated with the project alternative. The project has all four of these applications associated. Again, we have published September 30 as our second Planning Commission meeting on the project. The HRB met last September to discuss the draft EIR, which had a cultural resources section looking at the historic buildings on site and the neighborhood adjacent the historic building. The image here on the screen is the preferred option between the two that the HRB saw back in September. Then, of course, City Council I have a November/December target after all of the other boards and commissions have had several meetings. What the Council would be doing is certifying the final EIR. They would be approving a record of land use action that addresses the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, and those applications we discussed: architectural review, conditional use permit, and variance. Now, in the staff report, I noted seven topics that relate to architectural review findings. These are the seven topics, packet pages 18 to 32. Again, these relate to findings that the ARB would eventually have to discuss and come to an agreement on. These are the findings, of course. We have several findings. We have the proposal for phased construction. This is through the architectural review process. Up to five years are enabled through the architectural review process. The applicant requests three years of construction, the first phase being the garage; subsequent phases noted in the staff report. Then the final EIR. There’s been quite a history. As I noted, our consultant Katherine will be presenting on the final EIR but we’ve been through a few years of preparation, publication, comments, responses to comments, and here we are now after the final EIR was published. We have a vehicle and circulation parking design. This is a topic that is an ARB topic 3.a Packet Pg. 65 City of Palo Alto Page 6 because we have various parking lots around the campus. There are three surface lots now. They are going to two surface lots plus the underground garage. They are proposing the use of tandem spaces but we don’t count those tandem spaces toward the parking requirements. They are, as noted earlier, putting some service functions under the Academic Building and the buses would use the Circle perimeter driveway. The underground circulation uses a double row of one-way drive through. This does enable if there is an emergency necessitated through this morning drop-off situation there's a second drive. There’s also this pedestrian tunnel, as noted earlier, going from the garage to the campus in both project and the project alternatives. Noting that this pedestrian tunnel has been studied and looked at through the City Staff for compliance. It would be a permanent encroachment within that 25-foot public easement. We have bike parking around the campus increasing to 140 spaces in both long-term and rack spaces. Then the compatibility. Of course, the applicant has a long presentation to get to so I’ll leave it to them to show their studies for capability and architectural treatments there. As noted, the materials board is on display at City Hall. Again, the ARB has a finding related to historic preservation which, you know, for this campus we have this historic building that will be separated by 50 feet from the new academic building that’s proposed, and there will be some landscaping there. These are the materials. Then we have sustainability. This is the goal is a LEED building, and these are some of the things that Castilleja is proposing. They’ve cited the benefits of achieving these goals and some strategies. I’ll turn it over in a minute. This is what Katherine will be presenting. These are the five categories that are most related to the architectural review purview regarding the final EIR. I’m going to now, I think, share Katherine’s screen. Let me check with her. Katherine Waugh, Senior Project Manager: Good morning. Thank you, Chair, and Board Members. As Amy mentioned, my name’s Katherine Waugh. I am a Senior Project Manager with Dudek, and we are the City’s environmental consultant for preparing this EIR. This slide outlines what the required contents of a draft and a final EIR. The draft EIR was released for public review last summer starting in July, and it includes a detailed project description. In the environmental analysis, a really important component of CEQA is that we start with what exists currently. We look at the baseline conditions of the existing setting and we compare the effects of a project to those existing conditions. The analysis is based on a defined threshold of significance and those come out of City Code, the City Comprehensive Plan, other planning and regulatory documents that the City has adopted, as well as any applicable State or Federal criteria depending on the resources we’re looking at. We then determine whether an impact would occur and whether it would be significant or remain below any particular thresholds, in which case we would find it to be less than significant. Where there is a significant impact, CEQA allows, or requires, that we provide mitigation measures that can reduce or avoid or provide compensation for that impact. These mitigations measures need to be commensurate with the level of the impact so that there is a nexus between the impact and the mitigation measure, a direct nexus, and that they are comparable in scope to the level of that impact. Another really important component of a draft EIR is to look at project alternatives. In the final EIR, we expanded that alternatives analysis based on some of the public comments, and as Amy mentioned, based on the project alternative that Castilleja School has proposed. In that final EIR, we have a series of master responses. There is a large volume of comments that were received on the project and the EIR. We wanted to be able to provide comprehensive responses to those issues in a complete way rather than in little bite-sized bits, directly responding to individual comments. We took the whole body of comments and tried to distill them down into the major topic areas that were addressed. This slide just lists the topics that were covered in the master responses. I am happy to answer questions on them but I didn’t want to bog things down by trying to get into the details of each one. As Amy highlighted, it is really important to understand the differences between the proposed project here and the project alternative that Castilleja has suggested, which we call the dispersed circulation reduced garage alternative. I’ll go through this quickly since Amy’s already done a really good overview as well. I just wanted to present it in a slightly different way in terms of what elements are common to both project versions and then how those two differ from each other. You can see easily it is the same enrollment level, the same amount of special event activities. There are no changes in how the pool would be designed or operated. They both provide a very similar pedestrian and bicycle circulation plan showing how students and faculty could move throughout the site and how they would access the site if they're not coming in a single-occupancy vehicle. Under the proposed project, as Amy pointed out, the project would demolish the residential structures on Emerson Street and replace that area with a landscaped open area, whereas the dispersed circulation reduced garage alternative would retain those 3.a Packet Pg. 66 City of Palo Alto Page 7 existing structures and the other features on those two parcels. Amy did a really good explanation of how the garage would differ between the two alternatives. Obviously, it’s a little bit smaller under the dispersed circulation alternative. Then there would be a drop-off lane added to Kellogg Avenue in generally the same location where there is one currently. Then there would also be drop-off and pick up and the Bryant Street/Luke Driveway, closer to the Kellogg side of that frontage. Then the building size; the Academic Building would be nearly the same size under the two alternatives. As Amy pointed out, there is a slight change in the above grade square footage because of adding the Kellogg Avenue drop- off lane. Then that is made up for with below grade space. I just have a few more slides where I wanted to highlight the findings of the EIR related to those five topics that Amy pointed out as being most relevant to the ARB purview. The first one is the land use impacts. We broke this down at different components of the project. As Amy noted, there is a significant and unavoidable impact under the proposed project that’s related to traffic volume. Specifically, it was the TIRE index analysis, which stands for the traffic infusion on residential streets or in residential environments. We found that there would be a significant increase in the number of trips of cars on Emerson Street between Melville and Embarcadero on a daily basis. That impact would be reduced somewhat by implantation of an enhanced TDM Plan, as required under Mitigation Measure 7a, but that that would not be sufficient to bring that traffic volume down to a less than significant level based on the TIRE index thresholds. In the final EIR, we added some text to Mitigation Measure 7a to clarify some of the monitoring and enforcement provisions, and strengthen the performance standard. The City has a set of metrics to evaluate how well. Castilleja would be attaining the standards set forth in the that TDM plan and allow for a process of adaptive management so that that TDM plan can be modified. The specific strategies that are implemented each year can be modified to reflect changing conditions in where students are coming from as well as background conditions and what specific strategies are more feasible and more effective as those conditions change. We also looked at impacts associated with noise. We found that specific to the pool there is a lot of [distortion] the alternative proposed to place that pool below grade so that that provides a lot of noise attenuation. Then there would also be a sound wall constructed along the projects Emerson Street frontage. The wall would be set back 20 feet from the public right of way, and the wall height relative to the street elevation would be consistent with the City’s codes at six feet. There would be a kicker, which is an angled wall facing in towards the pool area to further reduce sound levels without adding height to the perceived height of that wall. The one mitigation measure require under noise related to land use compatible is the Mitigation Measure 8a, which requires further analysis of the loudspeaker system and where those speakers are set and faced to ensure that noise levels remain acceptable. We also looked at activities associated with special events. Again, we looked to what the existing condition is and how many events are currently being held each year. This Mitigation Measure 4a would slightly reduce that and define a set cap on the number of special events that the school would be allowed to have in any given year. There are also requirements related to providing floor circulation and parking plans. We also found a potentially significant impact under land use related to whether the project would be consistent with the City’s tree preservation and management regulations. The project plans and the project alternative plans include tree protection measures and landscaping plans that did demonstrate consistency with the Tree Preservation and Management Regulations, but we required Mitigation Measure 4b to further give the City the tools to be able to monitor that and do additional plan review as the individual construction phases are proposed. We also, in that Mitigation Measure 4b, added a little bit more stringent of a requirement than the City’s codes in terms of monitoring the trees that are on site. Even the ones that are retained, which is not typically required, but to have the monitoring program for five years after each construction phase that’s proximate to those trees that are retained to ensure that their health is not compromised by the construction process. Finally, we concluded that impacts related to aesthetics would be less than significant and the next slide goes into a little bit more detail on that one. We had to address it both under the land use chapter but it had its own chapter as well under aesthetics. There’s much more detail in that second chapter. This finding, again, was less than significant with mitigation and the only mitigation measures you see on that final bullet is related to lighting plans and making sure that those plans meet the City’s standards related to light spillover. The other issues we looked at were comparing the proposed building against the existing buildings in terms of their scale and massing and materials and colors. In the final EIR, we added some exhibits that provide photographic stimulations of the view from Emerson Street. Amy included a couple of those in her presentation as well. Again, the pool sound wall was something that we spent a lot of time on because there was concern about its height and whether it would conform to the City standards and how it would 3.a Packet Pg. 67 City of Palo Alto Page 8 appear from Emerson Street. As I mentioned, it would be set back 20 feet with landscaping between the sidewalk and the wall. Again, we looked at the tree removals and relocations and replacement and because the site plans do demonstrate consistency with the City’s regulations and Tree Technical Manual, from an aesthetic standpoint we concluded that that impact would be less than significant. As I mentioned in the land use context, we looked at noise, as well in a more detailed way. Some of the things I didn’t mention earlier were that the building orientation… the configuration of the new academic building would actually provide some additional attenuation from noise that happens when there are special events held on the Circle. We found that there were some houses for which that noise level could increase slightly but in all instances the noise levels would not exceed the City Code or would not exceed the increase above ambient level that’s allowed under the City Code. Again, we talked about the effects of the pool reconfiguration and relocation on sounds and we have the mitigation measure related to the loudspeaker design standards. There is also a mitigation measure related to construction noise levels but that’s a very standard process of developing specific noise reduction strategies for each individual construction phase. Finally, the impact analysis related to cultural resources. As Amy reviewed, the project would modify the eastern façade of the Administration Building, which is a historic resource. Those proposed plans are consistent with the Secretary of Interior standards and, therefore, that would not be a significant impact. There are no other historic resources within the project site. Mitigation Measure 6a requires protection for both for the Administration Building and the neighboring historic resource building during construction to ensure there is no inadvertent damage during those processes. I believe that is my last slide. Thank you, Amy. I did want to keep my presentation really short because I know we have a lot to get through this morning but I am happy to answer questions on any of these topics as well as anything else that’s addressed in the EIR. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Director Waugh and Amy French, for the EIR presentation. I’d like to ask if we have any questions from the members of the Board for the Staff but I’d like to try to keep it at a high level. We want to hear from the public as much possible and the applicant. Are there any questions from other Board Members? Okay, then. Board Member Hirsch: I do have one. Just to emphasize this. The garage will or will not be used as a drop-off location, then? Has that been eliminated from the program? Ms. French: I can answer that. In the project alternative that is to be presented, the drop-offs occur around the site as they do today. The new drop-off in the garage would be another place for drop-off but not the only place. The applicant can share what their plan is for that. Board Member Hirsch: Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you for that question, David. Anything else from the Board? Vinh, do we have the applicant keyed up? Could they give their presentation, please? Mr. Nguyen: Amy, who’s the applicant? Ms. French: It’s Adam Woltag. Mr. Nguyen: It looks like Adam Woltag is in the meeting as a panelist. Adam Woltag, Applicant: Good morning, this is Adam. Chair Baltay: Good morning, Adam. We’ll give you ten minutes to speak and then you'll have a chance to rebut community comments. Please do let me know if you think that’s not adequate though. Go ahead. Adam Woltag: We’ll try to get through this in ten minutes. Chair Baltay: Vinh, if you could time that, please. 3.a Packet Pg. 68 City of Palo Alto Page 9 Adam Woltag: Great. I am going to share my screen. Chair Baltay: Adam, if you could please spell your name for the record. Adam Woltag: Sure. It’s Adam, A-D-A-M. Last name is Woltag, W-O-L-T-A-G. Chair Baltay: Thank you. Go ahead. Adam Woltag: Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to your comments and questions. I’d like to open up by saying that this project is designed to respond to many things. It’s a combination of buildings and landscapes and spaces that help frame the experience of this really beautiful place. This project is designed to respond to the educational advancement of our next generation, and is also designed to be sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood. In so doing, our overall sustainable approach responds to and reflects the City’s sustainable guidelines. Let’s start with a view of the existing campus looking southeast. The red contiguous roof of the two and three-story classroom building that joins with the historic Guinn Building, and wraps the edge of the campus along Bryant and Kellogg. This is a site plan of the proposed design. This page shows three diagrams that compare the existing and proposed footprint as well as height. On the upper left the orange existing and the gray proposed. Note that the overlaps of what we’re proposing and what is there is roughly the same. Regarding height, the diagram on the lower right illustrates that our proposed roofline is lower than the existing condition. In fact, we’re actually not taking advantage of the full City’s allowable mechanical roof equipment. We think that’s actually a really good thing to try to keep this as low as we can. Our original submitted campus plan on the left received comments which we have responded to in the alternative number four campus plan. Amy touched on this a little earlier. There are a few key things I’d like to touch on as we move through here. One is illustrated in blue, the reduced garage footprint, which has allowed us to preserve the two houses both owned by the school along Emerson. As well as reduce the impact to existing on-site trees. With some subtle shifts in the massing and some interior re-planning, the introduction of an additional campus pedestrian entry along Kellogg has allowed us to maintain the existing Kellogg drop-off that supports an overall distributed drop-off strategy. Now traffic engineers have studied the impact of this model and concluded that this distributed approach, which is the current practice, is superior to a consolidated model where all traffic is funneled through the garage. This approach mitigates the traffic impacts identified in the DEIR. This approach has minimized curb impact along the streets with vehicular ingress and egress. It results in few curb cuts that are now thoughtfully organized around use and flow. Really key to this is how service, trash, loading, and deliveries have been moved inboard to campus away from the neighborhood and moved below grade. We think that’s an excellent way to mitigate those impacts on the surrounding neighborhood. As noted earlier, this project’s sustainable goals are aligned with the City’s sustainability and climate action plan, focused on resource efficiency, the use of healthy materials, and a commitment to eliminating fossil fuels. It has really guided our design approach of three floors of academic program, one below grade and two above, that are connected together through day-lit teaching and gatherings spaces, and landscaped elements to ensure an experience of comfort, health, and delight. Skylights cover teaching patios, sunken gardens, and the use of clear stories will help ensure good daylight penetration at every floor in an effort to create a welcoming environment and reduce energy needs. Windows and exterior covered walkways and teaching spaces bring the outdoors in connecting teachers, students, and staff to nature. For example, looking at the below grade garden level, which benefits from generous open double-height stair spaces, those are opportunities to bring in daylight into those public spaces that are below grade. Light-colored wall finishes and interior classroom clearstories will allow that light to flow into hallways and teaching spaces. This is a section through the upper school hub space. This is the upper school’s living room. This illustrates how we are approaching maximizing daylight penetration through glass curtain walls and skylights to get light into that garden. For the middle school hub space, that space bends upward to the second-floor classrooms and a central sky-lit hallway. This slide graphically illustrates our sustainability approach, which is summarized. There are a lot of icons here. It is really summarized to say that everything is working together to achieve our goals. Building elements, like walls, roofs, floors structural systems, our NEP systems, material site, and landscape design all has a purpose and has to if we’re going to achieve our ambitious goals. As do the edges of the campus that face a neighborhood where they address entry, acoustics and safety, security, 3.a Packet Pg. 69 City of Palo Alto Page 10 service access, storm water, and we hope beauty. As an example, our roof design highlights day-lighting opportunities in yellow and energy generation which you see highlighted in blue. It is reflective of our design and our goal toward net-zero energy. Now in response to neighborhood and contexts, we began this process by walking the campus and taking in the neighborhood that surrounds this campus. We looked closely at the street elevations across the street from our campus. We studied the relationships and textures of solid and void, of building surface to open space, of accents and elements of the houses across the stress, the cadence of glazing, and the roof height and roofline, and the overall comprehensive texture of that street. We began to layer this into how we might approach each campus street edge, not as a singular gesture but taken into account how landscape and the existing street trees comprise the whole experience. Now, I’ll walk through some of the proposed building elevations in perspective and follow up with some more conventional flat elevations and some photo-montage images to show how the proposed design works in the existing context. I will also show you images that have the tress on and off. The Bryant Street view, trees on. Emerson Avenue view, trees on. The Kellogg Avenue view, trees on. I’d like to pause here and point out our approach at the sidewalk edge. We really tried to focus on scale and the fine grain patterning of the surfaces. The very eave edge that goes from Bryant to Emerson, and the cadence of windows and the depth of the façade and how it will play with shade and shadow. A view highlighting the distribution of the various materials across the elevation, and I’ll touch on this more a little bit later in the presentation. Also, our approach to designing the new quite entry off of the Kellogg Drop-off that we feel is trying to be sensitive to that activity along Kellogg. A view of the corner of Emerson and Kellogg, and the deep express roof eave of the second floor recessed planter at that corner entry. Now to help respond to the scale and the exiting contacts, we have photo montage six street-level views of the proposed design, two views of the proposed Bryant and Emerson garage entry and exits. The Bryant Street existing; you can see the Gunn Building and the existing classroom building that are joined together, and the proposed design. Bryant Street and Kellogg intersection, existing. Now the proposed. The Kellogg Avenue looking toward Emerson elevation, existing, and proposed. Then Kellogg Avenue looking toward Bryant, existing, and proposed. Emerson Street corner, existing, and proposed. Then about midway down Emerson Street, existing, and proposed. Now off that intersection of Bryant and Embarcadero, this is a view of the existing entry parking before and after the incorporation of the garage entry. Then moving to the other side of the site to Emerson. This is the exit right now off of Emerson, and this is the proposed. Moving on to some more conventional flat building elevations, what you'll see is on the upper portion of each of these drawing is the elevation without trees and then the elevation below with trees. This is the Emerson Street elevations. The Kellogg Avenue elevation. I am going to pause here for a moment just to show a perspective diagram with some hash marks where we’ve stitched in areas where we really tried to shift the massing of the building elevation to highlight where we’ve broken the plane of that side. This is a building cross-section that illustrates, along with the program richness of this project, the various day lighting strategies we are applying to bring natural light into every possible space. It also helps to describe our use of dowel laminated timber system, or DLT, which is a wood structural decking system that has a very low carbon footprint and allows for greater spans, reduced structural members that in turn results in faster assembly, a lower impact on construction time, and eventually lower impact on the surrounding neighborhood. We feel that it has many benefits and we also think it’s beautiful when exposed and there is lots of opportunities in the project to do that. These are a few wall section elevations to show how we are using wood as an exterior material. Here, as vertical [distortion] siding as well as shingles that we think hark back to some of the historical resources on campus as well as some of the residential resources within the neighborhood. Now, this is a view of our material palette. This is what we think pulls from the campus and we believe it is a warm and natural palette. It’s a durable palette and one that has taken views from history and also reflects some of the texture of the surrounding residential neighborhood. We really feel it provides the right frame for the experience of the campus center. This is a view from the center of campus, the Circle, looking towards the middle school entry. As noted earlier, we have… Chair Baltay: If I could break in for a second. You're now at twelve-and-a-half minutes. How much more time do you need, please? Adam Woltag: A minute-and-a-half. I’ll get through it very quickly. Chair Baltay: Go ahead. 3.a Packet Pg. 70 City of Palo Alto Page 11 Adam Woltag: Great. Real quickly, we’ve met with the HRB. We’ve received comments and we’re looking forward to going back and meeting with them. I’ll touch really quickly on landscape. It’s very important because our landscape design has been developed to ensure perimeter edges of the campus gather rain water and storm water to help with infiltration and help reduce the impact on the City’s infrastructure. This is the same strategy we’ve been suing for the interior of the campus where bioswales and flow-through planters help reinforce place making and gathering spaces. The topography along the perimeters are also designed to help screen the campus but also provide opportunities to help highlight our storm water strategy. Our palette is pulled from native and drought-tolerate plants, and brings nature into the over campus experience. This approach provides an opportunity to use landscape as an educational and infrastructural tool, and tells a valuable story about this place, our climate, and is central to the core values of Castilleja. Thank you. Sorry for running over time there. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Adam. Very nice presentation and I especially appreciate your before and after photo montages. They make it very clear. Vinh, I believe we have some public comments. I’d like to open the meeting up to public comments at this point. Can you tell me how many people we have to speak? What should we anticipate, please? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, it looks like the number is quickly rising. Let’s give everyone 30 seconds to a minute to raise their hand. If you want to speak on this item, please raise your hand now. If you’re using the Zoom app, there should be a raised hand button at the bottom of your screen. If you’re calling in from a phone you have to dial *9 in order to raise your hand. We do have a couple groups who will be pulling their time together. If you are part of that group where you’re going to be donating your time, please raise your hand as well. Let’s give everyone maybe 30 seconds or so. Chair Baltay: To the public, I would like very much for everyone to have an opportunity to speak and I’d like to maintain it at the full three minutes that we typically allot. I would hope that everyone could recognize that that might be a lot of time and while this is a very important project it would be great if you could limit your time to less than or try not to repeat what someone else is saying. We’ll listen to everyone’s comments, however, and we very much want to hear every member of the public who has something to say. Vinh, as soon as you could I’d like to get a count of approximately how many people we have. Mr. Nguyen: It looks like we have topped at 31 speakers. Chair Baltay: At three minutes each that’s a lot. Okay. I think we should get started then. Vice Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay? Chair Baltay: Yes, Osma. Vice Chair Thompson: Will we ask questions of the applicant after public comment? Chair Baltay: Do any of the Board Members have questions? Would you like to ask something, Osma? Vice Chair Thompson: I just have a quick question. It’s about the material choice for the shingle. I just wanted to confirm that it’s a straight-edge and not a scattered or shake. Adam Woltag: Yes, it is. We’re really looking at that shingle to match the same profile that’s on the historic Gunn Building. We’re looking for that continuity. We think that’ll be a wonderful response, right, to the historic resources. Vice Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Sorry, I have one more question. I noticed that you had a corrugated metal siding but when I looked at the material palette I didn’t see it. Where does that occur, the corrugated metal siding? 3.a Packet Pg. 71 City of Palo Alto Page 12 Adam Woltag: The metal siding is one of the options were looking at at the Kellogg elevation. There’s kind of a drawer that’s pulled out of the building that creates a second-floor planter box. We felt it was a nice contrast to the overall wood elevation. If you look at the Kellogg elevation, you'll see a call out for a metal panel system. We are right now considering standing metal seams. There will be some texture to those metal panels. We think that will help really accentuate the shadows across that facade, especially on that part of the project. Vice Chair Thompson: And does that use the MT1 anodized aluminum finish? Adam Woltag: No. We’re looking at a couple different options. I think the one we’ve settled on we were looking at a zinc or a zincalume or something that really doesn’t need a lot of paint. Something that doesn’t have high reflectivity but still has a nice robust feel to it. Vice Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Osma. Are there any other Board questions? I’d like to get started. Board Member Lee: I had a quick question if it’s allowed at this time. Chair Baltay: Absolutely, Grace. Go ahead. Board Member Lee: My question is about the modular classrooms. I just didn’t see anything in the applicant’s project materials regarding how many, what kind, and perhaps this is forthcoming at the continued meting but I just wanted to put it out there for the applicant. Chair Baltay: I believe, Grace, I saw a drawing of the proposed modular layout and whatnot. Would it be acceptable to you, Grace, if the staff or the applicant could find that drawing and bring it back when we have comments from you directly? Board Member Lee: Absolutely. (crosstalk) Chair Baltay: I’m eager to get to public speakers. Amy French: It’s available on the webpage, so I can bring that up during the comments. Board Member Lee: Okay, thank you. Chair Baltay: Are there any other Board Members have any other questions for the staff or the applicant? Then let’s get back to our public hearing meetings. Vinh, do we have the first speaker, and is it possible to get a list of some kind or something, Vinh? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, if you click on the participant's tab at the bottom it will bring up the list of speakers. You should see that there is 31 raised hands. Chair Baltay: Great, okay. Well, I’ll count on you, Vinh. Please announce each person in turn. Give the next person a heads up. To each speaker, please state and spell your name and you'll have three minutes. Let’s get started, Vinh. Announce the first person, please. Mr. Nguyen: Okay. I’ll go ahead and announce the next five people so that way they can know who is coming up next. First would be Cath Garber, and I do apologize if I mispronounce anyone’s name. After that will be Rebecca Eisenberg, followed by Nancy Tuck, followed by Tom Shannon, and then Rebecca S. Up first would be Cath Garber. If you could please unmute yourself on your computer you may speak. Cath Garber: Hello. My name is Cath Garber, C-A-T-H, last name Garber, G-A-R-B-E-R. I’d like to share my thoughts regarding the final EIR for Castilleja. I'm a Principal at Fergus Garber Architects and have been practicing architecture in Palo Alto since the mid-90’s. I designed a number of new homes in the 3.a Packet Pg. 72 City of Palo Alto Page 13 neighborhood. One each on Kellogg, Emerson, and Waverly, and two on Kapper. I am currently working on two historic remodels across the street on Embarcadero. I live next to Green Middle School, and my children, both boys, attended Palo Alto Schools. My strongest relationship with Castilleja is that I ride my bike right on my way to the office near Town and Country. In all of my years, I have never witnessed anything other than calm and courteous parents, staff, and students getting dropped off. I feel very safe as I ride by on my bike. As with other interested community members and as a curious architect, I've looked at the proposal. I like the overall design and its attention to the surrounding neighborhood. I was pleased to see that the historic Gunn Building will remain. I think the new construction is complementary. The new buildings are quite and the materials nicely complimented the historic building. Being lower in height and having recesses in balconies, incorporating the variation in materials, and the scale and massing feels right on the new construction. I agree with the EIR, which states the project improves the neighborhood aesthetics. I also wanted to comment on the landscaping. I think that the gates and the fencing are handsome. They are better detailed than you see on most commercial projects. I was also impressed with the plant and tree selection. I think the landscaping looks dense and is as attractive as found on most of the residential projects found in the neighborhood. In summary, I wanted to commend the school for proposing this alternative that they are today. It saves the homes, preserves trees, reduces the scale of the garage, and eliminates erratic impacts associated with the original proposal. I think this is evidence of Castilleja’s responsiveness to the input from the DEIR and from the neighbors. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Vinh, next person, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, our next person will be Rebecca Eisenberg. If you could please unmute yourself you may speak. Rebecca Eisenberg: Hello. Thank you so much for your time and for allowing me to speak. I greatly respect and recognize the amount of time and the many years that this commission, as well as the other commissions and departments of Palo Alto, have spent on this issue. Chair Baltay: Excuse me, Rebecca. Please spell your name for the record. Rebecca Eisenberg: Certainly, sure. It’s R-E-B-E-C-C-A, last name, E-I-S-E-N-B-E-R-G. Chair Baltay: Thank you. Rebecca Eisenberg: Yeah. I am calling because it is extremely clear that this very hearing is in violation of Palo Alto’s Municipal Code, Chapter 18, Section 7-6. As well as California State Government Code Chapter 8700, and the various provisions held within it. The City and this Commission have absolutely no legal right, and Castilleja has even less legal right to be presenting an EIR at his time. In particularly, because of the way that it is misrepresenting the purpose of this project. The purpose of this project and the purpose of these hearings is to determine specifically, not whether or not Castilleja has mitigated its recognized extremely large impact that it would have on the community, should it be allowed to build this school according to its amended CUP. But rather, the purpose is to ask and evaluate whether Castilleja School, a private entity that offers zero public interest and shares zero of its facilities with the public in any way, has the right to take 55 residential lots and destroy everything in them and convert them to a private school that would offer zero benefits to the public. Also as admitted, it would actually provide a great deal of harm. To ask to be at the state where [distortion] is illegal stage in this hearing. I’m not blaming you. I am just pointing out that this is where it is. Now, just to explain a little bit of the background of this, given the proposed use of this six-acre parcel that some value at as much as one billion dollars by the applicant that pays zero in any property taxes into the City, as it now needs to be taken is whether or not Castilleja has a right to build anything on these residential lots other than 55 residences. Castilleja only has the right to use those residential lots for purposes other than residential if the City of Palo Alto were to grant Castilleja those rights. The City of Palo Alto doesn’t have the right to grant Castilleja any variance whatsoever because of an agreement that Castilleja signed with the City in 2013, where Castilleja agreed that if it did not comply with the schedule to reduce its enrollment to 415 students by the year 2018, and if it didn’t reduce its traffic to 365 cars by 2018, Castilleja signed an 3.a Packet Pg. 73 City of Palo Alto Page 14 agreement that would be happening here is a revocation hearing of its permit. I’d like that to happen according to the law and contract. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Vinh, next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Nancy Tuck. Nancy, if you could please spell your name for the record, and then you may speak. Hi, Nancy, if you're there please unmute yourself. [Adjusting Audio.] Nancy Tuck: My name is Nancy Tuck, N-A-N-C-Y, last name is T, as in Tom, U-C-K, and I’ve lived on my home on Melville Avenue, a couple hundred yards from the school, for the past nine years. I’m also a parent of a 2017 Castilleja graduate. I haven’t had any contact with the members of the ARB. You can add me to your list a strong supporter of this project. I've attended countless outreach meetings graciously hosted by Castilleja over the years. As someone who has been directly involved in the conversation and collaboration over these many years, I can attest to Castilleja commitment to transparency and meaningful dialogue with its neighbors. Even more important, the plan itself speaks to the steps Castilleja has taken to listen and respond with solutions that address neighbor's concerns. Castilleja’s proposal to significantly decrease their garage size and maintain multiple or distributive drop- off and pick-up locations are key examples of this. So was the meeting they held with neighbors whom we could provide direct feedback to the architects on design elements. Now, Castilleja has a plan with no significant impacts and a beautiful design, which is a win-win for everyone in the neighborhood, the school, and the City. As a neighboring property owner, I find the proposed upgrades to be far more aesthetically pleasing than the current structures. I appreciate that there is no increase in the building height, the modern architecture, the proposed landscaping, as well as the environmental benefits of the reduced carbon emissions. I am also pleased with the amended traffic plan, with the additional drop-off and pick-up spots, as well as the options for disbursement direction for autos leaving the proposed garage. At various times over the years, my support for this project had made relations hard for me in the neighborhood, but I stand by my conviction because I see how hard Castilleja has worked to make the design changes to respond to input. Castilleja is an excellent and considerate neighbor. I feel lucky to own a home nearby. The administration and the Castilleja community always work to be mindful of neighbor’s needs and requests. In recent months, I have especially appreciated how Castilleja has delivered to neighbor’s doors detailed information about their new project alternative. We’ve been informed of the progress and the updates to the plans at every step along the way. This smaller less- impactful project is the result of a successful collaboration toward shared goals to improve the neighborhood and the campus. The renderings on the Castilleja website are significantly more attractive than the dated buildings that we look at today and would greatly enhance our community. Thank you. Mr. Nguyen: Thank you, Nancy. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Vinh? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, our next speaker will be Tom Shannon and Tom I believe you have a presentation for us. Yesterday you had indicated that you might have a neighbor who is going to be donating some time. Can you confirm that’s still happening? Tom Shannon: The neighbor was Allen Cooper [phonetic], but we weren’t sure that the Chair was going to allow that. Chair Baltay: That’ll be fine, Tom. How much time do you need to make this presentation? Ms. Gerhardt: Chair Baltay, if I may? Chair Baltay: Sure. 3.a Packet Pg. 74 City of Palo Alto Page 15 Ms. Gerhardt: In order to combine speaker times, we need a group of five or more people to combine speaker time. Tom Shannon: That’s what I heard, yes. Chair Baltay: I would like to make an exception to that and allow -- you want to combine with one person, Tom? Tom Shannon: Yes, my neighbor’s named Allen Cooper. My presentation shouldn’t take more than three-plus minutes. It just rolls over slightly. Chair Baltay: Okay, go ahead, please. Let’s see what happens. Thank you. Tom Shannon: Okay. Good morning, Architectural Review Board. My name is Tom Shannon, T-O-M, S- H-A-N-N-O-N. I am a 40-year resident of Palo Alto, 31 years directly across the street from Castilleja. I am also one of the four creators of the neighbor’s alternative plan in your staff report, but there’s no time to talk about that this morning. The picture on your screen shows two simulation models. The top picture depicts Castilleja’s drop-off traffic pattern for the draft EIR published in July of 2019. The bottom picture is Castilleja’s proposed drop-off traffic pattern for the final EIR published on, what I heard was, July 29th. We got it July 30th of 2020. Note the significant difference. The top one was made available for public comment though. The bottom one had no public comment. That’s a significant problem, we find, with the final EIR. Not to mention a public relations credibility problem for the City. Notice that the bottom diagram depicts a powerful visual of the native impacts Castilleja traffic pattern would have on all the surrounding neighborhood streets, including the Bryant Street Bike Boulevard. Now, what's the ARB’s role in this? I would ask them to look at the context. Study how the applicant’s proposal will interface and affect our surrounding neighborhood. We cannot understand how the City concludes that this traffic plan is compliant with the Code, quoting the code “the proposal shall not be detrimental to property and improvements in the vicinity, and will not be detrimental to the general welfare of the surrounding communities.” In granting a conditional use permit, reasonable conditions or restrictions may be imposed to assure the conditional use is compatible with the existing adjoining properties in the general vicinity. I would believe that our neighborhood is “in that general vicinity.” We have to ask ourselves why does the City continue to give greater priority to the needs of Castilleja, a private education foundation business, over the neighborhood and communities needs aimed to preservation of one Palo Alto’s historic residential neighborhoods? Let’s talk architecture. We all acknowledge that mistakes were made in the past. How a three-story dormitory got built on Kellogg Avenue in the 1960’s across the street from seven craftsman-like homes leaves one to question that approval. Now Castilleja proposes an industrial-sized horizontal high-rise with little articulation to replace this dormitory and classroom building. The proposed building would stretch nearly the entire length of Kellogg Avenue, equivalent in size to Palo Alto’s City Hall, situated directly across from seven early 20th century craftsman homes. We would ask the ARB to study this building in scale and carefully decide if it’s consistent without neighborhood’s architecture and does it deserve to be called compatible. We have an opportunity to correct past mistakes and reestablish preservation of our neighborhood. Let’s jump on it. Here is a six-point plan for the ARB to consider implementing. Send the plan back to staff and ask for a revised plan that’s in keeping of the scale, design, and architecture of the neighborhood; two, correct past architectural mistakes by recapturing the residential feel of the neighborhood; three, design a creative compatible campus that mirrors the surrounding historical context; four, eliminate traffic impacts. If we can’t get an Embarcadero entrance, require the school to shuttle all students to campus. Per the EIR, this could reduce traffic on some residential street by over 1,400 trips per day. Five, hold a community meeting, or hold as many as you have to. The public deserves a right to comment. Six, be transparent. Correct a flawed EIR process. If you want to stand behind the so-called mislabeled final EIR, schedule a comment period. Thank you very much. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Tom. Vinh, could we line up the next speaker, please? 3.a Packet Pg. 75 City of Palo Alto Page 16 Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Rebecca S. Then the five speakers after that will be Nanci Kauffman, followed by Gary Paladin, followed by Barbara Hazlett, followed by Sonali, and then followed by Jeff Levinsky. Rebecca Sanders: Yeah, my name is Rebecca Sanders, spelled R-E-B-E-C-C-A, S-A-N-D-E-R-S. I have arranged to yield my time to the Lawyer Leila Moncharsh. I just want to go on record I will stay online until she is able to speak. Mr. Nguyen: Thank you. Chair Baltay: To be clear, she is using your time, Rebecca, and speaking on your behalf? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, that’s correct and they actually had emailed beforehand. Our next speak will be Nanci Kaufman. Nanci, if you could unmute yourself, identify yourself and you may speak. Nanci Kauffman: Good morning, everyone. This is Nancy Kaufman, N-A-N-C-I, K-A-U-F-F-M-A-N. I am a Castilleja neighbor and homeowner for more than 20 years. I am also the head of Castilleja School for the last ten years. I want to start just by thanking all of you, the members of the Architectural Review Board, the staff and all the consultants for the time and attention you’ve given to revealing Castilleja’s master plan, and especially for studying the new project alternative. As you know, Castilleja is over a 100-year-old institution. Our classrooms buildings are over 50 years old. We must modernize our facilities to meet the needs of our students, and to update our systems to enhance our sustainability. We’re fortunate to be working with a team of architects who understand how to design with the community in mind. You’ve seen the stunning architecture that Adam has shown you, but beneath that there is a real programmatic rationale for our new campus. Every aspect of the new building is there for a reason, contributing to learning, minimizing environmental impacts, and enhancing the neighborhood. Over the past five years, we have participated in over 50 meetings with our neighbors to gather feedback to incorporate into our campus plan. Whether it was a large group setting or some of the intimate smaller ones the goal was always the same: to find a way to modernize our campus in a way that improves the neighborhood and reduces our impact. Many of the key elements of a modernization were driven by neighborhood feedback. The garage to move cars off of the neighborhood streets, the below grade pool and deliveries to minimize noise, and the commitment to preserving trees and housing to protect the residential feel. The proposed alternative is the most recent evolution of our project as we’ve gradually scaled back and refined our design to do more with less. We are very proud that the final EIR report found our proposed alternative to be the environmental superior project alternative due to the robust transportation mitigations, and the preservation of trees and housing. For all of these reasons, we would like to proceed with project alternative number four as our project. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Ms. Gerhardt: Chair Baltay, if I may, I just want to be clear to the applicant that anyone speaking for the applicant should stay within the ten-minute presentation window. I believe the last speaker is also a neighbor but anyone speaking for the application should not be presenting using this public review. Chair Baltay: That’s a fair statement, Jodie. Let’s try to keep an eye on that. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you. Chair Baltay: Vinh, next public speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Barbara Hazlett. Barbara, if you could unmute yourself, identify yourself, and you may speak. Barbara Hazlett: Good morning, Commissioners, and everyone. My name is Barbara Hazlett spelled B-A- R-B-A-R-A, last name H-A-Z-L-E-T-T. I have lived very near Castilleja School just across Embarcadero for over 40 years. I feel very fortunate to live near this important institution. We all need to be reminded 3.a Packet Pg. 76 City of Palo Alto Page 17 that much like Stanford, Castilleja is a nationally ranked school. How lucky are we to have these kinds of educational institutions in our backyard. Specific to this haring, I wanted to speak today about the building design and how pleased I am with the proposed plans. The schools’ architects have carefully studied the surrounding homes to select materials that mirror them. The new rooflines are at the same height, or lower, than the current structures reducing the overall size and allowing for more sunlight. I’ve looked at the renderings Castilleja has shared on their website and the landscaping, including all of the trees, blends the buildings beautifully into the surrounding neighborhood. Without increasing any floor area ratio, Castilleja modernization greatly improves on the current aging structures we see on campus now. All of us as immediate neighbors will benefit greatly from this design. In conclusion, the school is an excellent neighbor. The school predates all of the neighbors having been at this location since 1910. Castilleja should have the opportunity to modernize as have Ohlone, Paly, Addison Elementary and Stanford. I look forward to seeing this plan come to fruition because I know it will quickly become part of the architectural fabric of our residential streets. Castilleja’s always been a gem in Palo Alto and I hope they can finally modernize their aging campus. Please support the school’s plans, and ensure that inspired architecture and exceptional educations continue its foundational and timeless values in Palo Alto. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Barbara. Next speaker, Vinh, please. Mr. Nguyen: The next speaker will be Sonali. [Adjusting Audio.] Sonali Simgh: I just wanted to note I'm a community member. I’m also an alumni of an all-girls school and a Stanford grad. I have personal friends who are Castilleja grads. I support girl’s education and I support intentional community building. Chair Baltay: Excuse me, Sonali. Can you spell your name for the record. Sonali Simgh: What? I’m sorry. Spell my name? Chair Baltay: Spell your name. Sonali Simgh: Sure. My name is S-O-N-A-L-I, last name S-I-M-G-H. I'm a community member. I’m also an alumni of an all-girls school and a Stanford grad. I have personal friends who are Castilleja grads. I support girl’s education and I support intentional community building. Male: Can you start the timer? Sonali Simgh: Should I start again? Okay, I'm a community member. I’m also an alumni of an all-girls school and a Stanford grad. I have personal friends who are Castilleja grads. I support girl’s education and I support intentional community building. It is absolutely absurd that you think you need to build a parking lot to expand girl’s education. There are many ways to do this; expanding enrollment that doesn’t include spending an unnecessary amount of time and money and creating significant community disturbance for a parking lot. With your clear financial surplus, you could be extending by ensuring scholarships for girls from East Palo Alto. You could be using charter buses for students and faculty who live close by, and allocating existing parking permits based upon distance. Again, I went to an all-girls school and I do support girl’s education. I don’t support dishonesty about the impact to the environment around it. I don’t support the disregard for disadvantaged girls in this community who are separated from us by only a highway. I believe that given Instagram accounts that have amplified personal testimonials racism at Castilleja, including bypocatcasti [phonetic], Castilleja could use rethinking and self reflection about where your funds go. What are you really doing to desegregate your school? What are you doing to increase enrollment for disadvantaged students who are in our community? What are you doing to address institutional racism at your school. If you’re building a parking lot instead of answering those questions, you certainly cannot use the excuse of not having the funds to resolve the more important issues at hand during our community public health and public crisis. This pandemic, the 3.a Packet Pg. 77 City of Palo Alto Page 18 devastating effects of climate change we’re seeing, and rampant institutional racism. None of this needs to involve building a parking lot. That picture that Adam denoted of historic Castilleja is hardly anything to hold up. It shows exclusively what its students -- it denotes a time in which the school embraced racist harmful segregation policies. Make no mistake, there are people of color out here that Castilleja refused to admit into its school. These dynamics still exist in the community. I'm not sure why we’re so focused on the appearance and exteriors when we’re not talking about the alternate ways that Castilleja could be achieving the same goal that cost the same amount but involves less disturbance and do not involve spending money on a parking lot. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you Sonali. Vinh, if we could move to the next speak, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Jeff Levinsky and then the five speakers after him will be Nelson NG, Sonali Simgh, Cathy Layendecker [phonetic], David Yee [phonetic], and then Angie [phonetic]. Jeff, can you please identify yourself, unmute yourself and you may speak. Jeff Levinsky: Okay, this is Jeff Levinsky, J-E-F-F, L-E-V-I-N-S-K-Y. I’d like to share a screen. Is that possible or not? Mr. Nguyen: Unfortunately, that’s not possible at this time. Jeff Levinsky: Okay. All right. Mr. Nguyen: If you would have submitted it before the meeting we could put it up for you. Jeff Levinsky: Okay, I asked about this in the EIR but the EIR did not address the specific question that I asked, which is about the laws governing whether Castilleja’s proposed underground garage should count as floor area. The ARB members are familiar with this topic in general and they are being asked in their finding number one to certify that the project complies with the Palo Alto zoning laws, and it appears that there is a problem. In four separate places, our zoning laws say that a garage in the R-1 zone, in which Castilleja sits, does count as floor area. I’ll just briefly rattle off what those are. They're in the definition section 65. It says in the R-1 single-family residence districts as that gross floor area includes “covered parking.” Further on, it goes on to say “garages shall be included in gross floor area.” Then in the site development standards for R-1 it says that gross floor area includes “covered parking.” Further on down there’s a table, table three, which is in the letter I sent in yesterday. It shows specifically garages and carports and there is a star to say included in the gross floor area. The only argument that the EIR made in opposition to this is that it was a basement. That the garage is somehow also a basement and basements are or can be excluded from floor area. There is an explicit law that says that basements may not extend beyond the building footprint. The garage that’s proposed is under a playing field, not under any building footprint, so it cannot be considered as a basement. One last point, by the City’s not counting the garage as floor area, I calculate that the City will be losing almost a million dollars in impact fees, most of which would go for affordable housing. This problem is not only a violation of the law, it appears, but is also something that will harm the community beyond. I’d like to see it addressed in the EIR, which it wasn’t, and corrected. Thank you very much. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Jeff. Next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, our next speaker is Nelson NG. And Nelson I see you have two accounts in this hearing and both of them have a hand raised. Can you confirm if it’s the same person or if they are two different individuals? Nelson Ng: It is two different individuals. One is my wife Kimberley Wong. This is me. She's going to be speaking as well but she is on the iPad and I am on the… Mr. Nguyen: Understood. Okay, go ahead. 3.a Packet Pg. 78 City of Palo Alto Page 19 Nelson Ng: My name is Nelson N-E-L-S-O-N, N-G is the last name. I have been living in Palo Alto across from Castilleja on Emerson Street for over 24 years. In the next three minutes, I will just cover two issues of the incomplete study of the impact and providing inaccurate information of this EIR. I am asking the commission to reject it until these are corrected. First issue, from page 44 of the appendix E Traffic Impact Study, they stated after revealing the (inaudible) data between March 2015 and March 2018, only found one single non-injury collision occurred along the studied segment during this time. The finding concluded given the lack of crashes involving bikes along Bryant and Embarcadero and I quote, “a safety concern involving bicycles along the study segment has not been demonstrated.” Therefore, the study is not focusing on it. However, there was indeed an accident of a bicyclist and pedestrian on a scooter struck by a car going westbound on Embarcadero at the intersection of Bryant and Embarcadero on February 13, 2018, at around 5:00 p.m. That accident shut down both sides of Embarcadero for over an hour. You can find the details of that accident on the weekly articles titled Two Injured on Embarcadero Road Collision. The next issue is about the proposed project found that the results is significant and an unavoidable impact even with mitigation because the garage would direct an increase of 80 percent of new trips coming off bound on Emerson to eastbound Embarcadero to make a right. That will increase it from 842 trips to 1,521 daily trips. In order to address that, the new alternative proposal was that without any study in the EIR validating assumption. It just says that the alternative assumed that only 10 percent of the traffic will go into Bryant Street into the garage. Therefore, by further splitting up the garage’s traffic coming out they’ve reached that goal by reducing the traffic by 21 percent to only 51. Their assumption is just not correct. This is just like with our studies. If the student got an F minus they should not be retested to pass the class because they are assuming that the student is getting better. What I am asking the commission to do is basically to restudy all the incomplete findings and inaccurate issues. Then asking them to come back to them to present the EIR. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Nelson. Next speaker, Vinh, please. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, next speaker will be Kimberly Wong. Kimberley, I believe you sent me a presentation yesterday. We’ll get that up for you. If you can please unmute yourself, identify yourself, and then you may speak. Kimberly Wong: Hi how are you? Mr. Nguyen: Good, thank you. Kimberley Wong: My name is Kimberly Wong, K-I-M-B-E-R-L-E-Y, W-O-N-G. I've lived across from the Lockey House for 24 years. With the construction of the gym in 2007, we were affected by the noise, dust, and dewatering of the construction. The project Castilleja is now proposing is monstrous in comparison. The Palo Alto Municipal Code requires that a project enhances the living conditions on the site and in the adjacent residential area. It also says that a project should promote visual environments, which are of high aesthetic quality. This project does not take into consideration neighborhood livability as residents need to bear the brunt of traffic and noise brought on by this massive project. Cars traveling in and out of the garage and around campus will compete with bicyclists on the Bike Safety Boulevard and neighboring streets causing unsafe conditions. I suggest that a no garage option be returned to the table and studied to provide a safe and a more aesthetically appeasing alternative within a single family neighborhood. Here’s slide one. The proposed three-fourth block long building on Kellogg also fails to blend in with the classic Spanish tutors, craftsman colonial revival homes around the campus. This goes against the mixed-use area L6 to avoid drastic changes between residential and non- residential areas. For slide two, please. To illustrate the size and massing of this building. To the left is Target, which is 600 feet long and Castilleja, which is currently 200 feet long. Though there are different sizes, the relative building length to the street is just the same and as much of an eye sore. Adding a row of trees in the front of this does not change that fact. The new structure should be broken up and redesigned with more pass through views of greenery and open space, and be more compatible to the administration and Chapel Building in a manner with Gustav Laumeister first envisioned when he created the campus for Ms. Mary Lockey more than 100 years ago. Thank you very much. 3.a Packet Pg. 79 City of Palo Alto Page 20 Chair Baltay: Thank you, Kimberly. Next speak, Vinh, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker is Sonali, who I believe will be donating your time to Rob Levitsky. Can you please confirm if that’s correct? Vice Chair Thompson: Didn’t we just hear from Sonali? Sonali Simgh: This is donating my time to Rob Levitsky. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Vinh, did we already hear from her or is this… Mr. Nguyen: I do not think we have heard from Sonali yet. Vice Chair Thompson: The person who was on Zoom who had written her name as Sona, when she spelled her name for the record she spelled Sonali Singh. Mr. Nguyen: Okay. Sonali, can you confirm if you're the same Sonali speaking from earlier? Sonali Simgh: Hi, yes this is the same person. Mr. Nguyen: Since you already spoke you won’t be able to donate your time to Rob Levitsky as well. Sonali Simgh: Okay. Sorry about that. Mr. Nguyen: Thank you. Chair Baltay: Rob, you have three minutes. Please state and spell your name for the record. Mr. Nguyen: Rob has a couple of other speakers as well but he is down on the list. The next person will be David Ye [phonetic]. David if you could please identify yourself and you have three minutes to speak. David Ye: Yes, this is David. I would also like to donate my time to Rob Levitsky. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, thank you. Chair Baltay: Vinh, please keep track of all this. Let’s find the next speaker. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Angie, who I believe might also be donating time to Rob as well. Can you please confirm? Angie: Yes, I would like to donate my time to Rob. Thank you. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, sure. After that will be Ruben [phonetic] who I believe will also be donating his time to Rob. Can you please confirm? Ruben, if you're there can you please unmute yourself and confirm. Ruben: Yes, sorry. The window to unmute just showed up. Yes, donating time to Rob Levitsky. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, thank you. Our next speaker will be Bruce McCloud. Bruce, can you please unmute yourself and identify yourself and you have three minutes to speak. Bruce, if you're there can you please unmute yourself on your computer? [Adjusting Audio.] Bruce McCloud: My name is Bruce McCould, B-R-U-C-E, M-C-L-O-U-D. I've lived and worked in Palo Alto [distortion]. The ARB’s charge includes promoting visual environments, which are of high aesthetic quality, and variety [distortion]. I’ve worked with WRNS Studio on other projects and the aesthetics for 3.a Packet Pg. 80 City of Palo Alto Page 21 the proposed buildings for Castilleja [distortion]. Kellogg Street façade is devoid of any variation along the 400-foot roofline and includes only [distortion]. At a public meeting the school’s representative stated that the neighbors would not notice once the landscaping is in place. [Distortion]. As for neighborhood considerations, I have admired many of the modern homes that have been built around the City. When [distortion] they have been welcome additions to the diverse fabrics of our neighborhoods. This design has been allotted by Castilleja [distortion] overbearing 1960’s era monstrosity. That is a low bar. Castilleja has an opportunity here [distortion] something that is compatible with the neighborhood and compliments the surrounding houses. The Palo [distortion] with no increase in floor area. Castilleja circumvents the spirit and [distortion] floor area below grade plus another 30,000 square feet of garage space. I ask that the ARB [distortion] Palo Alto neighborhoods from overreaching development; however, well-intentioned by rejecting plans that in any way increase the floor area of this [distortion]. Finally, in April of this year, eight months after the DEI public comment period of the proposal [distortion] triggered additional studies, especially traffic flow, and a public comment period. It did not. [Distortion] is legally defensible avoiding additional public comment for the revised plans is a betrayal of the public [distortion] responsible to the community at large. The ARB should correct this lack of oversight and refuse to consider any development [distortion] plans are subjected to public comments and review. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Mr. McCloud. Next one, Vinh, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next person will be Netta [phonetic], who I believe is also donating time to Rob Levitsky. Netta, can you please confirm if that’s true? Netta: Yes, that’s true. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, thank you. Chair Baltay: Okay, next person, Vinh, please. Mr. Nguyen: Our next speaker will be Hank Sousa, who we have a presentation for. We’ll pull up your presentation for you in one second. Okay, Hank. Please unmute yourself, identify yourself and you may speak. Hank Sousa: Yes, Hank Sousa, H-A-N-K, S-O-U-S-A. Hello, Board Chair Baltay and fellow Board Members. PNQL stands from the beginning with no garage, no demo of the schools two Emerson Street homes, and preservation of protected trees. The schools’ no garage alternative calls for the demo of the two homes, substantially altering the community character leaving one private residence on the corner of Emerson and Embarcadero. What we would like to see happen is the preservation of the 86 parking spaces on the current campus. That would require some redesign of the proposed new building but the no garage alternative already calls for a reduction in classroom space and lower student enrollment. This idea is in the revised DEIR Section 13.8, alternative five, pages 13-30 and 13-31. This reconfiguring of the buildings utilizing tucked under parking. To go a bit further with that logic, use the existing footprints of the current buildings. An enrollment of 450 would most likely to be more palatable to nearby residents. Let’s assume the 86 spaces on campus are assigned to workers and staff. The school would continue to use off-site parking for some of the staff. Next, let’s address the single-car drop-offs. If the school were to establish east and west side kiss-and-ride drop-off spots where busses picked up the students, there would be virtually no traffic issues associated with the school except when large events occur. The school could continue to park vehicles on a playing field for large events, which we would like to see reduced to 20 per year. The school has yet to show a willingness to embrace an authentic shuttling program. The newly planned buildings have state-of-the-art environmental features. Building an underground garage is incongruous. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Use the current parking on the campus, reconfigure the buildings, save the two Emerson Street residences, shuttle in the students, and continue to provide a high-quality education to a student population that fits comfortably within the site. We’d like to see you recommend new buildings that are less massive than the one planned for Kellogg, no underground garage, and the embrace of authentic shuttling from drop-off spots. Thank you. 3.a Packet Pg. 81 City of Palo Alto Page 22 Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Mr. Sousa. Vinh, if we could move on to the next applicant, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Carla Befera and I believe we also have a presentation for you as well. I believe you will be sharing the same presentation as Tom Shannon. Carla, if you can please unmute yourself, identify yourself and you may speak. [Adjusting Audio.] Carla Befera: My name is Carla Befrey, the name is spelled C-A-R-L-A, last name B-E-F-E-R-A. I’d like to address some specific issues related to this project. A 4,000-page FEIR was released on July 29th. In order for the stakeholders to review this information, they had to read 200 pages per day to be well informed for this meeting, a scant 20 days later. First question is why the rush? This project is listed as an action item on your calendar. I respectfully request that this project be referred back to the City staff for further review, and more importantly, to establish a comment period on the latest plan, which is most definitely revised since the one submitted for the DEIR last July. Some nine months after the initial comment period expired, Castilleja submitted a revised plan. Why was there no public comment period for the revised plan? Surely this is not acceptable. I submit that approving or even reviewing this revised plan without a public comment period is in violation of the spirit, if not the specific requirements of CEQA, and makes for a troubling view of the inner workings of our City staff. The revised plan has been trumpeted as mitigating some of the variances the project required but it also establishes new concerns A particular note the revised plan completely alters the suggested traffic pattern, yet no additional traffic studies were made. Instead of cars arriving and exiting adjacent to Embarcadero as you can see, the new plan has cars dropping off and picking up on all three sides of the school facing the neighborhood in addition to the garage entrance on the Bryant Street Bike Boulevard. According to table MR5-2 in the FEIR, the school anticipates 1,477 car trips per day driving through all adjacent intersections of this residential neighborhood. One of the most significantly impacted intersections, Bryant and Kellogg, was not studied at all during this process. You can see by the illustrations the differential under Castilleja’s revised plan, cars will travel not just around the school but will impact all the neighboring streets. The impact is significant on the Bike Street Bike Boulevard, as well as on Kellogg Street, which is currently being explored for new bike access. The plan traffic -- let me repeat, we’re talking about 1,477 car trips per day not including traffic related to the 95 events -- will impact bikes, cars, and pedestrians trying to commute to several neighboring public schools. Just another reminder that 75 percent of this school’s attendees come from outside of Palo Alto. These are untamable impacts incorporable for a quite residential neighborhood particularly when compared to alternatives, such as the alternative plan to be found in your packet which was suggested by neighbors with all ingress and egress via signal on Embarcadero. I believe one of your directives is to preserve quality of life, which this plan I'm afraid does not do. Because both of these significant lapses and the lack of review of viable alternatives we request that you dent approval of this plan at this time and rehear the project back to City staff to establish a comment period on the revised EIR. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Carla. Next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, our next speaker will be Rob Levitsky who we have a presentation for. And, Rob, you have a group of five people. You will be given 15 minutes to speak. I think you previously indicated you have more people to donate time but 15 minutes is the maximum, so even if you have more people available to donate time you will not be given any additional time. Rob, if you could please unmute yourself, identify yourself and you may speak. Rob Levitsky: My name is Rob Levitsky, that’s R-O-B, L-E-V-I-T-S-K-Y. Owner at 1215 Emerson, which is adjacent to the school. A sixty-three year resident of Palo Alto and 30 year neighbor of Castilleja. I am looking at the architectural review goals and purposes and trying to see how this project fits in with that. Castilleja completely took us, neighbors, by surprise on June 30th, 2016, with their slide in a presentation showing an underground garage, removal of two nice houses on Emerson replaced with an underground garage, an unwanted private park, and the parking garage. Just about everything in this picture was to be removed in this plan: the six Redwoods, a bunch of the Oaks, the houses. All would just vanish. Cars would be parked 16 feet below grade, in some cases right up to my property line. My house is in the 3.a Packet Pg. 82 City of Palo Alto Page 23 corner with the redline around it and you can see the first iteration of the parking garage had cars basically touching the property line 16 feet below grade. Nearly all 168 trees, including protected Oaks and 120-foot Redwoods, would be subject to being killed or maimed. This is quoting from the April 2016 inventory of trees report by Arborist Michael Bench. Among the 168 trees, there are 122 trees on the Castilleja campus. There are 42 street trees and 4 trees located on my neighboring property. All of the 168 trees are expected to be impacted by proposed construction. That’s architectural review goal number one, promote orderly and harmonious development in the City. This surprise on the neighborhood and just whacking all the trees and houses is not exactly fitting into my definition of harmonious development. Purpose number two of the ARB: enhance the desirability of residents or investment in the City. There’s no way that the extra traffic, loss of protected trees and canopy, underground parking garage, loss of two of the three houses on the block, three to five years -- who knows how much construction -- and 5,000 truckloads of excavated dirt was going to enhance the desirability. In fact, we had several people move away because of the conflict, and houses pulled off the market because of scared buyers. One Sunday afternoon after seeing Castilleja misrepresentation of neighbors about the garage, we collected signatures from 47 neighboring households against the garage. All of the lighted addresses are people who signed petition against the underground garage. Purpose number three in the ARB: encourage the attainment of the most desirable use of land and improvements. But at what costs to the neighbors who never were showed the plans? We never objected to a compliant project but they came at us with a list of demanded variances violating the setbacks on Embarcadero, on Emerson, on Bryant, merging two house lots on Emerson, and tearing down the perfectly good houses. Shifting the Melville public utility easement and building a pedestrian tunnel two feet under the Melville sewer line. This is a permanent encroachment of the public utility easement. This is not normal. None has been granted in the last ten years. This is showing the underground tunnel, and just above it, below the red line, is the Melville sewer line that services the whole neighborhood, two feet between the sewer line and the underground tunnel. Not to mention destroying two of the three houses on the east side of the 1200 block of Emerson. The school tried to buy my house. When I said no, it was in further discussions that they had -- I know they tried to discuss anyway -- trying to get my house by eminent domain. Real friendly, huh? Then there's the variance required for floor area ratio. They cry hardship in their variance requests blaming the lot shape as an excuse. But Castilleja didn’t complain about the shape of the lot when the City of Palo Alto gave them Melville Street in 1992. Now they want, out of havoc, to follow the FRA rules for lot coverage. They also want to get planning to allow an underground garage where, as Jeff Levinsky has explained, is not allowed and not count 35,000 to 50,000 square feet in the FAR calculation. Purpose number four ARB: enhance the desirability of living conditions upon the immediate site or in adjacent areas. There is no way that cutting down the standing 100 to 120-foot Redwoods and large Oak canopies enhances the desirability. Nor does slicing and dicing through the roots of other protected trees for various pipes, walls, equipment faults. Perhaps some of you noticed the extreme interest in preserving the 300-year-old Oak in the 2300 block of Webster at the City Council meeting on Monday night. Over 30 residents spoke in favor of not violating the Tree Protection Zone. No one spoke in favor of the supposed property rights of the builder. Palo Alto’s cared deeply about trees, especially Oaks and Redwoods, and believed that the rule protecting trees would be even tighter than what is in the tree manual. Here’s an example of interfering with the tree protection zone of a protected tree. The arrow points to a little dot you'll see in the center, which is the center of a tree. There’s a Tree Protection Zone around it but you would never know it. There’s a large electrical transformer, the sidewall of a swimming pool, a set of stairs, a fire access road which cuts into the canopy, bicycle parking, and, of course, the school’s trash dumpsters. That’s how they value tree number 89. This may be a 70 or 80 percent of the TPZ being violated versus the 17 percent which caused all the uproar at the City Council over the Oak on Webster Street. There are many other trees in this design subject to similar TPZ encroachment. The desirability is another question. The desirability of imposing an ugly and dangerous underground parking garage entrance along the Bryant Street bike route. Others have talked about this. The people would be diving into the underground parking lot and there would be a risk of a bicycle accident. Or a parking garage exit on Emerson aimed at Nelson’s house at 1260 Emerson? Talk about bad feng shui. Is that what neighbors should be doing to each other? Having hundreds of car lights shining in your doors and windows along with the attendant buzzers, lights, engine noise, and toxic auto exhausts? And then there are the same cars queuing up on Emerson blocking access to the driveways. Purpose number five on the ARB: promote vital environments which are high aesthetic quality and variety, and which, at the same time, are considerate of each other. 3.a Packet Pg. 83 City of Palo Alto Page 24 This is our block. Beautiful trees. You can see that there’s stands of Oaks, Liquidambar’s, the Redwoods are to the right, and a couple of houses. All of these would be demolished. Somebody thinks they're going to improve on this 100-year-old aesthetic of trees and houses with some bulldozed mess, private park… who knows what they actually want put there. The planning department has chosen to call a dozen or more protected trees “less than significant.” So these trees would not be listed in the biological resources section of the EIR. The trees could be removed and replaced by mitigation 4B: planting something else somewhere else. This is the game they play. We’re mitigating. We’re buying some trees; we’re buying some canopy; we’ll try to put it on the side if we have room otherwise we’ll just plant some trees somewhere else. Done. Nice slide of hand planning department. Not to mention the 120- foot Redwood that was cut down in 2016, based on an inaccurate arborous report. This tree just so happened to be in path of the garage exit. This 120-foot Double Struck Tree looks perfectly health and was perfectly healthy. But they ran in and said oh its danger, danger, danger. There’s the but cut of this tree. It’s almost solid wood, maybe 85 percent wood. You need about 30 percent to hold a tree up. The tree was really in no danger. It was a bogus report and just happen to be in the path of the exit of the proposed parking garage. Our neighborhood of 100-year-old houses and trees would be salvaged and cleared by their first proposal, replaced by an underground parking garage. No thanks. We like our neighborhood how it is with trees, houses, and no underground garage. We are more interested in houses and trees than in the number of curb cuts, the cadence of the windows, or the shape of the shingles. So far the school has grudgingly accepted the neighbors have made good points. Why else would they come back with a proposal that now saves more of the Redwoods, but not all, spares the two houses, and avoids the 24-foot setback on Embarcadero? I might add that none of these changes were suggested by the City planners who seemed to have shown no interest in comments made by the neighbors. The next step is to lose this unnecessary parking garage and give up on 540 students. The neighborhood has already lives with 448 students, and we are willing to accommodate a few more as well with a zoning compliant no-garage option. Castilleja should have the right to modernize but follow the zoning rules like everyone else, but the scattershot design shown here have been very abusive to the neighborhood and is nowhere near ready for a favorable recommendation. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Mr. Levitsky. Vinh, could we move on to the next speaker, please? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we have eight speakers left and the order will be Chase Lambert [phonetic], followed by Jim Poppey [phonetic], followed by Leila Moncharsh, followed by Gwen Whitlwer [phonetic], followed by Andie Reed, followed by Gary Paladin, followed by Lorraine Brown, and then last but not least, our last speaker will be Neva Yarkin. Up next will be Chase Lambert. Will you please unmute yourself, identify yourself, and you have three minutes to speak. Seeing there is no response, in the interest of time we’ll come back to Chase at the end. Up next would be Jim Poppey. Jim, can you unmute yourself, and you may speak. Jim Poppey: I am donating my time to the next speaker Leila Moncharsh. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, sure. Hi, Leila, can you please unmute yourself, identify yourself, and you will have six minutes to speak. Leila Moncharsh: Good morning, [distortion]. I am L-E-I-L-A, Last name [distortion]. I represent PNQL land use attorney and I have been since 1993, and I have a Master’s degree in [distortion]. I am also a former vice president and a continuing board member of the Berkeley Heritage Association for about ten years now. My office is in Oakland. I help neighborhoods with land use issues throughout the greater Bay Area. I want to make a couple of comments first of all, on the Gunn Administration Building just to preface what I have to say in substance for the rest of it. First of all, the speakers are correct. Legally this [distortion] the final will need to be recirculated. The law is very clear on that. I will be citing the code sections in my letter about the EIR. The changes to the wall on the Administration Building need to be part of that recirculation. Also, [distortion] that there’s more than the stairs that need to be looked at. I am glad this is going to the Architectural Review Board. My topic mainly is about repurposing. One of the problems with this project that I see is it has been left out of the discussion here in terms of what you’re going to be able to do with this property long-term. First of all, I want to thank Amy French for being responsive to requests but it is one thing that for some reason staff has really never addressed, so 3.a Packet Pg. 84 City of Palo Alto Page 25 let’s talk about it today. First of all, much of my practice deals with conflicts between [distortion] and neighborhoods. I have seen a lot over the years and I've learned a lot about private schools and how they operate. They have an enormous number of [distortion] to their business. They have very large endowments but those are very [distortion], and most of them run on shoestrings, to be frank about it. The best, kind of, sweet spot for them in California has been the 350 to 450 enrollment level or less. You can look at the Department of Education and you're going to see that. They have incredible competition challenges in the Bay Area, especially for parents who can pay full tuition. There’s a great demand among the private schools. Now they’ve got another challenge in this: the pandemic. Lately, around the Bay Area we’re finding that religious private schools are closing permanently. That wasn’t totally unexpected but because of changes in how people look at religion and how they proactive religion. We had another one that was consistent with Castilleja and that was Palmer School in Walnut Creek. Three hundred and eighty-five students, kindergarten to eight, came along; they closed permanently after 82 years. Politics, besides funding sources, are challenges. Sonali brought up some of that and we see it around us. What we’re looking at here is when the project would be completed you'd have 224,500 square feet of developed property. What are you going to do with it if in the future either Castilleja is extremely successfully but this square feet is used up, and they can’t continue to build on it indefinitely so they move? What you’ve got is 224,500 square feet. You might say, well, there’s always a housing need. We can demolish there and rebuild. No, because demolition costs are extremely high. So, what are you going to put there? If we say housing still, well, so, what are you going to do? Put a high-rise housing development there? Condos? No, because you’re restricted by the zoning. What happens to these things with private schools and other institutions, it’s not limited to them, is they end up just sitting there and there isn’t any good repurposing. When you look at this garage you look at the type of buildings [distortion]. What are they consistent with? In my looking at them you could put a lot of walls into the new building that you see that’s very long and the neighbors are criticizing. Using like SRO’s there, but there are no services around there. That’s not going to work. They appear to be office. They're very consistent with what we see in large office complexes but it’s not zoned for that. What are you going to do with it? Does Palo Alto need empty school campuses? [Distortion]. I would suggest that a lot of the mess that you see with trying to do things, like move parents around and figure out how you're going to get all of them into the property and such. A lot of this would dissipate if you reduce this overall project by a lot. Also recognizing, as much as we love Palmer in Walnut Creek and we love Castilleja in Palo Alto, these private schools move and they close in one day’s notice. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Next speaker. Mr. Nguyen: The next speaker will be Gwen. Gwen, if you could please unmute yourself, and identify yourself, and you may speak. [Adjusting Audio.] Mr. Nguyen: I am not sure if Gwen is having technical difficulties or not. We will come back to her at the end. Up next will be Andie Reed. Andie, if you could please unmute yourself and you may speak. Andie Reed: Thank you, Vinh. Andy Reid, A-N-D-I-E, R-E-E-D. Thank you and hello to the Architectural Review Board. We appreciate your hard work on this project. To provide context, Castilleja operates in an R1 zone under a conditional use permit. These conditions include a number of students to be enrolled and number of events that can be held on campus. The school has exceeded their conditions on both of these over the past many years, and yet this project that you are currently reviewing asks for more students and more events. You have the difficult job of deciding whether the City should bend new conditions around the school’s latest business model or instead acquire that the private tax-exempt school adjust its goals to fit the needs and interests of the residents of Palo Alto. There is a variance being requested for an increase of 33 percent in floor area ratio. Code allows 86,800 square feet above grade floor area and the school is asking for 116,000 square feet -- although if you include if you include the underground garage, which code appears to require, the increase is more like 70 percent. The proposed modern style building will loom large and is not compatible architecturally with the surrounding small older homes. What is also important to note is another square footage increase that’s not other apparent. Page G..001 of the current plans specifies that the total floor area above and below grade 3.a Packet Pg. 85 City of Palo Alto Page 26 combined currently existing is 160,000 square feet. Proposed is 192,000 square feet. The school is asking for an increase of 20 percent square feet of usable space on the same six acre lot where they have successfully educated girls for many decades. That increase doubles when you consider the underground garage as active usable space. No matter how you look at it, all of these increases in square footage are to accommodate 30 percent more students, parents, staff, faculty, supporters, and volunteers so Castilleja can achieve a new operational model. Unless it can be shown how this benefits Palo Alto, the boards and commissions reviewing this project should request that the school dramatically reduce its demands. I have a couple seconds here. I am going to ask where is the discussion around the underground garage? Where is the architect that’s building the underground garage? What is it its environmental impact? Does the gate clang closed? How does that tunnel work? We would like to see renderings and understand this better but we have not been able to get the school to let us speak with the underground garage architects. Thank you very much. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Andie. Vinh, if you could line up the next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Gary Paladin, followed by Lorraine Brown, followed by Neva Yarkin, followed by Mary and then we’ll go back to Gwen at the end and see if her computer’s working again. Gary, if you can please unmute yourself, identify yourself and you may speak. Gary Paladin: Hi, good morning. My name is Gary Paladin, G-A-R-Y, P-A-L-A-D-I-N. I believe Castilleja deserves some recognition for the effort its put into developing a master plan for its campus. This plan aims to reduce the school's environmental footprint in our community and establishes a benchmark of sustainability that other institutions, I believe, will want to model. Castilleja’s plan aims to meet or surpass both California’s and Palo Alto’s aggressive sustainability goals. Its innovative solutions for a clean and sustainable future. For starters, outdated campus structures will be disassembled, rather than raised to maximize recycling and utilization of existing building materials. In new construction, it will incorporate only non-hazardous responsibly sourced green building materials. The future campus is designed to be completely self-sustainable, reliant upon on-site generated energy from solar panels on building rooftops and heat recovery systems. With the exception of its science labs, the campus will be entirely fossil fuel free. Planned installation of high-efficiency recycled water infrastructure and drought- resistant landscaping, along with efforts to preserve existing trees on campus, will also contribute to the schools self-sustainability. Castilleja’s plan demonstrates commitment not only to the environment but also to the community. The plan to build environmental education into its curriculum demonstrates commitment to educating young women to become environmental stewards and leaders for our future. Thank you for considering my comments. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Mr. Paladin. Vinh, if you could line up the next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: The next speaker will be Lorraine Brown. Lorraine, if you could please unmute yourself on your computer, identify yourself and you may speak. Lorraine Brown: Good morning. I am Lorraine Brown. My name is spelled L-O-R-R-A-I-N-E, B-R-O-W-N. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. I grew up in Palo Alto and I raised my family here since the 1990’s. I also work at Castilleja. I know traffic has been a concern for our neighbors. I want to comment on how traffic demand management, or TDM, has become embedded in the culture at Castilleja. As a long time Palo Alton, I appreciate concerns about traffic in our city, so I’d like to share my perspective on the school’s commitment to managing traffic and parking and being the best neighbor that we can be. When Castilleja embarked on the master planning and CUP process years ago, we kept an eye toward reducing impacts in everything from noise to traffic. The project alternative number four, it’s in the final EIR, specifically features a smaller garage and distributed drop-off for this very reason. In the seven years since we developed our robust TDM plan, our traffic levels have been consistently 25 to 30 percent below where we started. Accomplished at a time when traffic has been relentlessly increasing in the Bay Area. Over this time, TDM has become part of our culture. It is not just what we do, but it’s who we are. Through parents, student, and employee education, frequent reminders, and strict rules for parking and traffic, everyone in our community has come to appreciate their role in making a difference, and they do. To support their efforts, we have added bus routes, shuttle service between Caltrain and 3.a Packet Pg. 86 City of Palo Alto Page 27 the school, and employee reimbursements for non-car commuting. All employees are required to come to campus at least three days a week by some means other than single-occupancy vehicles or participate in traffic duty to help manage flow during drop-off and pick-up. The results have been astonishing with fewer than 50 percent of our students arriving on campus in single-occupancy vehicles. With this successful track record and a depth of experience, we are poised to continue to reduce our car trips per student as we grow enrollment, resulting in no net new trips while making this unique education available to more girls from a diversity of backgrounds. We will be held accountable through carefully documented mitigations and conditions of approval with penalties to ensure our compliance. To ensure compliance within our community, we have at least seven monitors who help with daily and special event traffic and parking. They also patrol neighborhood streets to ensure that Castilleja community members are only parking in designated areas. We have shifted event-related parking to our athletic field, and our attendants promote compliance and efficiency. We intend to further reduce our parking impacts with the underground garage designed to relocate parking on the perimeter of campus below ground. I also want to note that a proposal from the community to enter and exit campus on Embarcadero was studied at the City’s request before we filed our CUP application. After study by traffic consultants, the City determined that it would cause an adverse impact. I'm telling you all of this… Chair Baltay: Excuse me, Lorraine. If I could interrupt you, please. It sounds to me like your speaking as the applicant not as a member of the public. That’s fine but I will then credit that against the time the applicant is granted to rebut comments from the neighbors. I would like to stop you at this point, however, and continue with public comments. To anyone else in the public who intends to speak as the applicant, please hold off on doing that now. Vinh, could we go on to the next public member, please? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, the next speaker will be Neva Yarkin. It looks like she just lowered her hand. Okay, it looks like our next speaker will be Mary Sylvester. Mary, you can unmute yourself, identify yourself, and you may speak. [Adjusting Audio.] Mary Sylvester: Thank you, Chair Baltay and Board Members, as well as City staff for the opportunity to speak today. I am Mary Sylvester, and that’s M-A-R-Y, S-Y-L-V-E-S-T-E-R. I am a 43 year resident of Palo Alto and I to have raised my two children at this home on Melville Avenue, one-half block from Castilleja School. For the last 20 years, I have professionally worked with children and teens, and frankly enjoyed the presence of Castilleja in the neighborhood. I've loved the sound of children and young people’s voices and it brings energy and vibrancy to the neighborhood. I have never made a complaint against the school; however, when the school submitted its expansion plan on June 30th of 2016 and had their underground garage exiting at the front door of one of my friends on the corner I decided it was time to make a statement and intervene. The thrust of my comments today will focus on how does this project serve the best interests of Palo Alto. Not just the neighborhood, but this could be a groundbreaking project for the community as a whole, opening flood gates that we may not want to see. First of all, let’s set the context. Castilleja operates in a residential neighborhood on a conditional use permit. That’s in the Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 18, Section 76. They’re on a CUP because given the nature of their operations, their size, their scope, and the impact on the surrounding neighborhood. They do not readily fit into the residential neighborhood context. This is a privilege to operate in this neighborhood. Not an entitlement. Whether they’ve been here 100 years or 110 years, that is not the issue. The City regulates zoning. Consequently, the holder of such a privilege may not do anything that will be injurious to property in the vicinity and will be not detrimental to public health, general welfare or convenience of the citizenry. To accomplish the goals of the ARB, there are findings that I believe you must make. Finding one, the design is consistent with the applicable provisions of the comprehensive plan, the zoning code, the coordinated area plan, and any relevant design codes. Something’s up with my timer her but is this plan consistent with -- hello? Is this project consistent with… Chair Baltay: Mary, I’ll give you 30 seconds more if you could, please. Mary Sylvester: Something happened to the timer here. Okay. I contend that this project is not consistent with a comprehensive plan, the zoning code or our sustainability plan. On balance, I contend 3.a Packet Pg. 87 City of Palo Alto Page 28 that the cost to Palo Alto with Castilleja’s current plans as a whole do not justify the benefits to a small portion of Palo Alto residents. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Mary. Vinh, if we could move to the next speaker, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, our next speaker will be Gwen. Gwen, if you could please unmute yourself, identify yourself, and you may speak. Gwen, if you're there could you please unmute yourself? Okay, seeing as how there is no response and Gwen is the last hand raised, Chair Baltay, would you like to give her some more time or would you like to close public comments. Chair Baltay: No, I think we will now close the meeting from public comments. Thank you everyone for speaking. Mr. Nguyen: Chair Baltay, sorry to interrupt, it looks like one person just raised their hand. I would like to call this person if that’s okay with you. Chair Baltay: Sure, Go ahead. Mr. Nguyen: Okay, Neva Yarkin. She had her hand raised earlier... Chair Baltay: Fair enough. Fair enough. Let’s let this person speak, please. Mr. Nguyen: Okay. Neva, can you please unmute yourself and you may speak. Neva Yarkin: My name is Neva Yarkin. Its spelled N-E-V-A, the last name is Yarkin, Y-A-R-K-I-N. I live on Churchill two blocks from Castilleja. My family has owned this property for over 60 years. Traffic in Palo Alto has continued to increase for years. Castilleja’s expansion adding another 125 more women will continue this increase on the congested roadways in Palo Alto. If this expansion is approved it is not just a neighborhood problem, but will affect the whole city with traffic flow. I am not a fan of parking garages for the following reason: if I had a daughter at the school I would not get stuck in a parking garage or the traffic surrounding the school. I would drop my daughter off one block north of Embarcadero or one block south of Churchill so I could rush off to work. I am sure others would do the same. Our lives have also changed with COVID added to the picture. Would any of you let your daughters take the train to school now with COVID in the air? Private cars might be the only option left, which means more traffic. Construction will take five years. Hundreds of big cement trucks will have to follow the construction route in Palo Alto, which is taking Alma, Kingsley and Embarcadero, or taking other side streets close to the construction site. One outcome for the big construction project would be lane closures. An example of lane closures due to construction is at Oregon Expressway. One lane of Oregon Expressway is closed during the day, which has lasted for months. Traffic is a nightmare. Could this happen on Embarcadero? Another disturbing aspect of this project is that Castilleja will continue to teach classes in modular buildings while construction is going on. This could be a safety problem with students, cars, trucks, bikes together. Future plans for this area, which was not addressed in the FEIR, train crossings at Churchill. It should be looked at. Thank you for your time. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Ms. Yarkin. With this, I’d like to close the meeting to public comment and give the applicant a chance to rebut comments that have been made. The applicant will have ten minutes. However, I'm going to credit back against that three from Lorraine Brown’s comments, which I interpreted as an applicant rebuttal in advance. Would the applicant care to rebut for the remaining seven minutes of their time? I know we say Mary Leaddecker’s name on our list at first and she removed it, I believe, because she is one of the applicants. But it’s up to the applicant to decide if they'd like to speak. And if so, they have seven minutes. Mr. Nguyen: Yeah, I see Mindy Romanowski has raised her hand. You can just unmute yourself and speak if you're speaking on behalf of the applicant. 3.a Packet Pg. 88 City of Palo Alto Page 29 Mindy Romanowski: Good morning members of the ARB and members of staff. My name is Mindy Romanowski. I am a land-use attorney and I represent Castilleja School in this very long-awaited project that we are very proud to have come before the ARB this morning. As we know, we are embarking on the first of many important public hearings. We really look forward to hearing the comments from the ARB. We know that you are tasked with making findings ultimately not today, but findings based upon the seven itemized municipal code requirements and we do look forward to hearing that feedback and getting to that feedback. Today we did here many constructive comments that we will take to heart as we have done over the last five to seven years of meeting with neighbors. As the head of school communicated, it has been 50 plus meetings with neighbors that have given us the ability to arrive at this moment with this application. I want to make it very clear, however, that today we heard a number of inaccuracies both in fact and in the law. Misquoted legal provisions and misquoted facts in the neighborhood that have been identified. I do plan to submit a letter both to correct the record on the facts and to provide the correct legal citations which support our project. I will include items like the legality of the underground parking garage in an R1 zone when you’re operating as a non-residential use. I will include items that address the legality of the final EIR, and whether it needed to be recirculated when a project alternative was identified as having fewer impacts, and ultimately arrived at a conclusion where there would be no significant or unavoidable impacts, amongst other things. I just want to clarify that while I cannot correct the record on all of the items I heard within the last hour or so, we will do that. I want to thank you for your time and get your very important and constructive feedback so that we know where to go from here. We hear the direction and we can iterate appropriately. Thank you so much for your time. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Ms. Romanowski. Do we have anything else from the applicant? If not, then I’d like to bring this back to the Board. What I’d like to propose is that we ask any questions we have now of staff or the applicant. Then we’ll take a short five-minute break and then we’ll get into some Board comments if we could. Do we have any questions for the applicant from any member of the Board? I would like to start, then, and ask the staff to please explain how the floor area is calculated for the new building. These would be the current requirements. Is there any merit to the question about whether garages are allowed underground not under a building? And isn’t there a 6,000 square foot maximum floor area in R1 zone regardless of lot area? Could you please address those comments? [Setting Up Presentation.] Ms. French: This is the table I showed earlier. We have analyzed the situation with what is floor area and what is not. The code is clear about whether it is a single-family residence. That’s different from a non-single family residence in an R1 zone. There’s precedent for this and we analyzed it. The garage is not considered gross floor area. It is square footage and usable. Parking is garages and carports, not a below grade facility for a non-residential use. I don’t have the code sections in front of me but this is showing on the screen what I prepared for this meeting to share what was going on with floor area. This is not subject to the maximum house size. It’s not a house. I think you asked that question, Peter. Was there another question you had? Chair Baltay: What is the allowed floor area for this lot? Ms. French: The allowed floor area is what has been allowed in the past through the conditional use permit. After floor area ratio was instituted for residential back in 1998 this property became a non- complying facility with regard to the floor area ratio that was instituted at that time. This has been out of compliance with the 1998 floor area ratio regulations since that time. I don’t have the… Chair Baltay: Amy, if the lot had never been built on what would be allowable square footage for a non- residential use on this lot? Ms. French: I don’t have the number that corresponds in this chart. It’s the floor area ratio for the lot size. I don’t have it on this screen. I don’t want to just rattle off a number. 3.a Packet Pg. 89 City of Palo Alto Page 30 Chair Baltay: I understand. It’s basically 30 percent of the lot area though in R1, isn’t it on a very large lot. Ms. French: It’s a formula that starts with a different ratio and then adds another ratio later. It’s not precisely 30 percent. There’s lot coverage and then there's floor area ration. Those are different. Chair Baltay: Okay, I was just trying to get a sense of how much bigger they are proposing than what would normally be allowed on a property of this size. Ms. French: They are proposing less gross floor area than what is on the property now in both the project and project alternative, as you can see at the top. Chair Baltay: Okay, very good. Thank you, Amy. Do we have any other questions for the Board for applicants or the staff? No, I see none. Okay. I’d like to take a five minute break. When we return we’ll ask Dave Hirsch to start us off on our discussions. I now see 11:11. Let’s say 11:16 we’ll start up again. Let’s to be precise on that. Thank you everybody. Five minute break. [Recess.] Chair Baltay: Okay, are we able to get started again, Vinh? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, of course. If all Board Members could confirm that you're all here. Vice Chair Thompson: Yes. Mr. Nguyen: it looks like we have a full house. Yes, we can. Chair Baltay: David, I've asked you to start a discussion if you don’t mind. You can go ahead whenever you’re ready. Unmute yourself, though. [Adjusting Audio.] Board Member Hirsch: Thank you all for the variety of presentations, pro and con. They are really very impressive and have brought to our attention, I think, a lot of the significant issues. Starting with some of the plus sides on this project, I am impressed with the fact that finally the 1950’s building will be moved away from the historic building. I can’t imagine how that was done in the first place but it was a different time, I guess. Now that’s split the Gunn Building and the Administration Building is separate. It’s a significant improvement and also it provides additional location for access to the campus center. I am happy about that and I think that it’s an improvement that the Art Building is going to be demolished and create a greater open space and a place where moving the maintenance down below in an appropriate location. The garage and the issue of the garage, which of course will be a PTC issue as well, is really probably more appropriately handled by that agency. However, it seems to be to be a sensible idea from the beginning except for the fact that it maintained a significant amount of drop-off for student body. I don’t think it’s an attractive was in which students can come to this building or to the site, and I hope that it can be minimized. I emphasize that above grade could be easily more attractive on… let’s see. It’s on Kellogg Street. Kellogg is, I guess for me, the biggest issue of the project. It’s an incredibly long building and it is unrelenting. Even with nice textures and the varying window spacing, it’s unrelenting. It really has no major… even though it has a drop-off at the building at that point that that decision was made the building itself does not lend itself the way it is right now to entering the campus or to become a major entry to the campus. I think that’s a very, very big mistake. If I go back for a minute, it seems to me that there are two absolutes on this campus. One of them is the easement and the utility easement which is a problem as was pointed out in section since you have to get under it in order to get through to the campus. The other one is the Circle. The Circle will not be broken. It seems that the Circle represents something to all Castilleja graduates. It has this incredible, kind of, nostalgic value and it was obviously off-limits for the designers to touch it. It doesn’t represent anything specifically architectural as far as I can see. It isn’t contemporary in its look and its usefulness to the 3.a Packet Pg. 90 City of Palo Alto Page 31 campus, but it is very limiting to the way the whole campus has been developed now. Combining the fact that the Circle is enviable and the campus building along Kellogg is so tremendously long are two irresolvable problems in this whole scheme. I just don’t see that that six railroad car scheme of a building, more than six, actually, is viable. I think the Kellogg building really has to be split and something more profound made out of the entry to the courtyard from the Kellogg Street side. It isn’t there now. The other aspect to this that bothers me a lot in the whole scheme of it is since the limitations are so strong here, the Circle and the perimeter -- which, by the way, is used as a drop-off point as well I'm told and car traffic can actually enter it, and I think the vans deliver students and faculty to the inside of that space -- that function isn’t really serving the school as it could. I really see there’s an opportunity to do something. I imagine the landscape designer was told you can’t do anything there and I think if we gave them another chance they could do something much, much better than that Circle by itself. In the very least, you could reduce the Circle. It doesn’t have to stay exactly enviably that size. That’s part of my concern; half of it. The other part is that the program now increasing 100 students causes you to go down to a cellar to make up for all of the additional space you'll need for this expanded educational usage. It cannot be that you're bringing in enough light and it’s not natural light in any case. Its borrowed light to make those spaces look as nice as what the drawing showed. By the way, it would have been nice for us to see those drawings really presented in a way where we could understand how it possible could work. But to me, at this point, the drawings that we saw today, which we didn’t really get in the packet, they certainly were not emphasized appropriately. It is clearly something that we would have to study further to see how it is possible to get enough light, enough borrowed light to make those spaces below feel comfortable. Furthermore, you're putting spaces which are in a building that has solved all the environmental problems but they have no natural ventilation. It certainly would be possible if you were to have a smaller Circle to have a stretched out building in a way that it could grab some natural light somehow from the outside. The cellar does not do sufficiently in my estimation. Another issue that I have is that you’re coming through a deep tunnel from the parking structure to go to what? You're coming up and you're actually bottlenecking the possible connection through to the athletic field. It’s much tighter now. There’s a staircase up at that location where the garage is. There’s an elevator up in the space between the administration building and the gym, which is a sufficient space for the kids to go to the ball field and watch a game. It is now being really terribly restricted. Should that tunnel have been carried all the way through to the center and the center you go down and then you connect through directly to the garage. It would’ve made a real connection to the center of the campus both for the kids who are coming and for the kids who are going back to be picked up, or for people simply going to get to their car and leave the campus. In terms of the TBM’s, I think that’s terrific that it is so active and that the school is so successful in arranging that. I find that’s pretty impressive if it satisfies the community. It’s clearly going to be better now that there is a garage. I am not convinced that the swimming pool will absolutely solve the sound problem. It’s placed down low next to the gym, next to a solid wall in the gym and I can’t imagine that the sound doesn’t project out in all directions from… but that’s a study which I think you'd have to prove to the community otherwise. If it doesn’t work it’s going to be an annoyance and add to the complexity of the relationship to the community. In sum, I personally can’t accept the building as a single building. I think it needs to be broken. The Kellogg face needs to be broken, with possibilities of actually stretching the building out. Even on the second floor keeping the entry at the Emerson Street corner underneath it and stretch the building closer to Emerson and pull the building apart and create something dynamic as sort of a symbol of the school. All of the other entries you're kind of sliding in from the outside, whereas this would be a very important entry direct into the middle of the courtyard. I request that the school reconsider what they consider such an important historic piece of the campus, the Circle in itself. Let the landscape designers provide something that is more appropriate for school use. I think about the Stanford entry with a church and the front of the Romanesque building. I think how wonderful that space is and it’s a great big space and there are no cars. It is full paved in a very simple, wonderful way. It works for potentially large gatherings as well. I think it’s possible to find a design for the center that is appropriate for today’s usage, and not specifically a memory from the past. I’ll end with that. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, David. Why don’t we hear from Vice Chair Thompson next? Osma, go ahead. 3.a Packet Pg. 91 City of Palo Alto Page 32 Vice Chair Thompson: Thanks. Thank you to the applicant and thank you to all the members of the public that gave us their feedback. I'm going to keep this quick because I know we’re probably going to continue this and see this again, and we have another item on the agenda after this. In general, as far as the architecture of the building I’ll respond to something Board Member Hirsch mentioned about the façade along Kellogg. This was from a few other comments from the public as well. On first glance when I visited the site, the existing façade along Kellogg is pretty unrelenting and pretty strong. When I was comparing it with what we had in the packet, from I could make out at least at the time, it seemed like an improvement. If you were going to have that massing, which already exists, the proposal here is an improvement over what’s existing. I will say the renderings that were provided to us on page 9 through page 12 were really hard to use as a way of understanding what the building is actually doing. It took a bit of gymnastics going between the elevation and the other little tidbits of axons that we had to really understand what the façade of this building is actually doing. I think the presentation that we received today from the applicant was a lot more helpful because I think in our packet we don’t have any renderings where the trees are off. I will say that even in the presentation today when the trees were off there was still this like ghost of trees, which is a little distracting. I think we really need to see what that façade is for what it is when there are no trees because that will be what comes out. I think, also, the other views that were chosen along the streets also didn’t really accurately depict how a person would experience it. Like on Bryant Street, the view that was chosen was a little skewed to the point where it was a little hard to understand. If the view had been a bit more straightforward we could actually see how the façade changes. When we see this again I think I would like a bit more clarity on the design in terms of the graphics. I can see a lot of work went into this on the site planning and things like that but I think we are all here to judge what the building looks like in terms of aesthetics. I think a bit more clarity on that would’ve been helpful. That said, from what I saw and what I can make out and even after this presentation, I really think that the design is an improvement to the area. I like that there are notes taken from the existing context. I like the parti diagram that you showed about looking at the rhythm of the neighborhood and using the patterning of the façade to, sort of, respond to that. In terms of the design, I’m actually all very much in favor of the aesthetic direction and the material choices, the façade. Again, I was actually okay with the façade on Kellogg being flat just because that is what exists right now. The proposal is an improvement over what exists right now. Could it break up a little bit? Sure. I could see that being an improvement to connect to that Circle in the back. There’s kind of a nice differentiation because this isn’t a residential building it shouldn’t look so much like a residential building. I think right now that massing helps a little bit with that. I could go either way on that. A little bit of improvement but in terms of what we have right now I think it is a really solid design. I’ll leave it there. Generally in favor of the architecture of the façade on Kellogg. I could be open to seeing that change a little bit. I dint really walk thought the middle of the campus so I am not quite sure about the Circle in the middle and if that wants to change or not. I will refrain from commenting on that. In general, it seems like more expanded space might be better but it depends. Okay, I will leave it there. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Osma, very intelligent words. Alex, how about you go next. Alex Lew. Board Member Lew: Thank you for everybody’s presentations. They were actually very well done today. I will get to the preferred alternative but I do want to say that I opposed to the original scheme building in the special setback along Embarcadero. I won’t go into all of the reasons but I think that I would not support that. Regarding zoning, I guess I would like for staff to follow up with Jeff Levinsky’s comments and letter. I did review the zoning codes last night. I would like clarity on that. I would also add that the comp plan policy T-56 does strongly encourage below grade garages for all new developments. I think we should all factor that in as well as to the actually language in the zoning code. On the site plans, I too was troubled with the traffic circulation with the original scheme. I would like more information on the preferred alternative. I just didn’t see enough information about how that would all work. It does seem like it does have some benefits with regard to like trash pick-up being below grade. I think the distributed drop-off has some sense too. I think that makes some logic. On landscape, I am a lit bit troubled with the tree mitigation. It seems like there is a huge number of newly proposed Coast Live Oaks that are required for mitigation. They are located really close together. They are located really close to the building. I don’t think that that’s a viable option. I do understand that those are required but I think we need to get actually get something that’s viable. They are really much too close together. 3.a Packet Pg. 92 City of Palo Alto Page 33 Also, I was concerned about tree protection for existing trees that would be saved. It would be like 84, 85, and 87 which are next to the proposed pool. As well as tree 89 which is an Oak Tree at the electrical transformer that was mentioned previously. Also, I would like more information on the proposed retention of Redwood trees 115 to 120, which are in back of the Emerson Street houses because they are so close to the garage. On the landscape design, I think the presentation today looked good but based on the packet I did not have enough information to understand what all of the perimeter planting would actually look like. I think that’s really critical to see if the modern architecture is compatible with the more traditional neighbors. I think that the native plant palette proposed would meet our findings but I really did not understand the actual design intents and how the plants would be placed all along the perimeter. I also did notice that there is no planting proposal on the curb in the City ride-way planting strips. I would like more information on that. Under architecture, I guess I would like some clarity from staff about ARB findings for the R1 contact space criteria. We usually use standards for other zones. We don’t usually use the R1 because we don’t typically review houses. I guess I will say I haven’t decided on that yet. I would say that the architect has a good track record of combining modern architecture with historic and traditional materials and proportions. They’ve done new buildings at the Hoover Pavilion as well as some medical buildings at Welch Road at Stanford. They also did work on the Baldwins Building with another architect on University Avenue. I think that they are very capable in coming up with innovative solutions that are both modern and contextual at the same time. Again, for me it seems like the building are a little more modern than I would like. For me, I guess my judgment on it would really hinge on the landscaping. Maybe it would work possibly, maybe, changing the metal siding. I do understand that’s its only an accent piece and I can’t really fault you if it’s just an accent piece there. But when I was walking the site yesterday it did strike me that the buildings were a little bit more modern than the neighborhood. But they are sustainable designs. I do have a question for the architects about using a lot of clear wood or clear stained wood. It seems to me high-maintenance and you do need to use a lot of chemicals to clean that. Also, I would like more details on the rain screen cedar shingles and how you handle all of the edges of those, like all of the jambs and sills. Also, under the (inaudible) design, I am interested in the foldable (inaudible) on the roof. I do want all of the support structures to be screened if possible, especially if they are tilted up. I do understand we have limits by the California Solar Act but I would like to get more information on the foldable (inaudible). On the construction phasing, I guess I would like some comments from staff maybe at the next meeting. If I read the report correctly, they want to increase enrollment midway through construction in trailers or in portables on top of the new garage. That seems highly unusual to me. It seems to me for ARB for projects, the finished product is the thing that is expanded and they are trying to get an enrollment increase before they actually finish the building. I would like more information on that. It seems to me that we run the risk of having permanent trailers on Embarcadero Road. It has happened on quite a few public and private schools in Palo Alto. I think that would be very undesirable. I think my last comment is on construction impacts. As a bicyclist in Palo Alto and in Mountain View, my personal experience is not good with those big earthmoving trucks. I’ve had quite a few close calls with that. Several bicyclists have been run over and killed in neighboring cities. I think what we have to do whatever measures are necessary and whatever detours are necessary to prevent collision. Collisions that I am aware of are trucks turning right in to the path of bicyclists who is trying to go straight. I think I really worry about kids not understanding how trucks are moving, and how much clearance they need, and the blind spots. I think that’s really critical. That is all that I have for today. Thank you, Peter. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Alex, wonderful. Grace, you’re next. Board Member Lee: Thank you, Peter. I’ll just begin by a few appreciations. I just wanted to thank all of the community members who are present at this meeting who’ve drafted communications to our Board and shared it with us, as well as to City Staff who has really taken the time to walk us through this very long historic project now since 2016. Also, I just want to shout out a thank you to out PTC and our HRB and our Council. It is so wonderful that the city has this process of really going through with several folks who will weigh in and hear from the community again and make their comments. I am going to now proceed to just also thank the applicant for all that the applicant has done over the years, and for providing the alternative. It is wonderful to have this opportunity to review the final EIR. City Staff has been terrific in terms of focusing their staff report on how we might as a Board really focus our comments on physical modifications to the site. To step back, I have been in the area since the 1990’s 3.a Packet Pg. 93 City of Palo Alto Page 34 and before that. It is wonderful. This site in particular and this neighborhood is quite dear. I really appreciate what we have seen just in terms of the materials and the comments and understanding the importance of so many things: mature landscape, applicant or users and additions to the community over time. In terms of really focusing -- and I saw this in the application today -- on sustainability as a guide. Master plans are long in years and in implementation, and I appreciate how there is careful thought in terms of planning for change but also not forgetting where we started. Thank you, Amy French, for bringing some of that history not the presentation at this site. Having said that, I just want to switch over now and talk about some of the edges. If we begin on the Embarcadero side, I had asked about the modular and I understand this is a first showing and there is going to be more meetings but staff had asked us to comment on the modulars. I did see the sheets from Modtech and the diagram in terms of that site plan. Knowing the phases that are ahead I look forward to discussing this further and understanding the findings in a more careful way in our next September meeting. With that schedule of 15 months, two months overlap, 15 months, and 20 months and then the ask in terms of how operationally this all proceeds, it would be wonderful to… and I saw the setbacks are going to be respected on Embarcadero but this question of just how do those modular classrooms during that period of time… what is the site during that time. I’d love to know a little bit more and perhaps that will help other bodies that the City has to evaluate the project. When we talk about that whole Embarcadero side I just want to make the comment that when I look at the site plan and the master planning and the thought that have gone into it, my first thought when I received the documents was exactly the third or fourth slide that the applicant provided. It was, you know, where are the buildings? Where are the setbacks? How do these buildings sit on the site? What are the edges? Where are the points of public and private meeting? I am very happy to say that the buildings that are removed and the buildings that are introduced really respect the setbacks. They are lower in scale. They actually provide entry points that make a lot of sense. I also see that building underground is a terrific direction to move for this site. I believe that that garage as well as the pool make a lot of sense in terms of design and reacting to the program here, and just planning for the future. Having said that, as you turn and let’s say you go to the Bryant Street entry I am very happy to see that there is an 80-foot setback, and there is landscape there. Then as you turn the corner towards Bryant, we just want to make sure… and maybe that’s something that shows itself in our future meetings in terms of where those points of entry occur. It would be great to have an enlarged site plan so we understand the landscape, the dimensions. There are very important points… they are nodes. They are vehicular, pedestrian and it would be wonderful to have those enlarged plans I think, where those entry points occur on Bryant and also on Emerson. As we move around the site a little bit further I just wanted to talk about where this keys into how the school operates and this wonderful TDM that has been in place over the years. How the applicant and how we understand that is going to be managed becomes important. Just what is the flow in terms of the dispersed pick-up and drop-off. We understand there’s multiple and how many people are entering and at which peaks times. For me, its how does that translate into the physical manifestation on this site? Is there a thought in terms of comfort of the users in terms of that waiting time? That might translate to a landscape solution. That might translate to some kind of a shade structure or seating even, so that we understand where are those disperse points and how are they treated with landscape and architecture. Coming around to the Kellogg, I really appreciate how my colleagues here on the Board have talked about that longer elevation. It is the most talked about right there perhaps architecturally. Again, it is so positive to see that the setbacks are maintained, the landscape is very mature. I thought it was very compelling when the applicant actually showed the elevations with the slight trees and with the really mature canopies that exist on the site. I appreciate and I wish it had been presented to us earlier. Typically we receive a week beforehand. Some of that study of the closed and open, light and void… just some of the concepts that you are working with from a very sustainable point of view how it is so important to understand how the sun is moving around the building so they can design the photovoltaic and where the shifts in the building occur. A few things: there are terrific opportunities on that Kellogg side. I see that there is a drop-off point and there is an effort at some kind of a shade or a break in the building there. There is also something with metal panels there. I would love to learn more in terms of the choice of that metal panel. I am squinting and I am trying to understand how that palette comes together and begins to be defined by the opens and voids, and be guided by the sustainability goals but also doesn’t feel like one long plane. I think that in between meetings we will understand that better. One of the queues that you might want to take a look at -- and I think that you probably have and it just didn’t come across the presentation more -- is that wonderful Gunn Administration Building. When we 3.a Packet Pg. 94 City of Palo Alto Page 35 look at that building, what I saw is there are some darker colors in the palette. There’s a dark green and darker in tone and whatever it may be it tends to recede. There’s a little bit more depth. Maybe when you come back there might be an effort to actually have enlarged elevations, they don’t have to be huge pullouts, but maybe in specific places along Kellogg. This way we understand when one material changes and another begins and just what is the view from the sidewalk. What is ir from across the street? What is the pedestrian view? I just think for right now the scale of the elevation is just too dichromatic for me to have a strong opinion in terms of how best to break it up. I do hope you give some careful attention to the Kellogg Street elevation. That’s the east elevation. On the west elevation, which is on the courtyard side, there is a little bit more. I think there is probably a lighter tone shingle, and then the vertical siding, and with the railings and the balcony it is just… somehow I wish the east elevation began to take some queues from the west elevation. I wanted to make some comments on the landscape and this importance of the Circle. I appreciate Board Member Hirsch’s comments. Just having been in this neighborhood and walked through the neighborhood and had the terrific opportunity to see what’s inside I think that history is so important. I hope that the Circle is retained and celebrated. I even saw that it might even show up in your phased plan. That there’s actually some place for the students where that Circle is remembered. I know that you’re working with very… the dimensions are… and the constraints; however, to think about the history of this place and also its future I actually really appreciate the application here and the design because it does retain the history and builds upon it in a way that thinks about the future with specific eyes on sustainability. I think that is a big gift to the City Palo Alto and commitment. I just want to applaud you in that way. Moving forward I would love to see more of that come through perhaps in graphics that are enlarged and more detailed so that we may be able to comment in a more effective way. I’ll pass it on now. Chair Baltay: Okay, thank you very much, Grace. Thank you, everybody. I am going to run through a couple of comments. I find myself in agreement with much of what many of us have said. At the start, I agree with Alex that the initial proposal is something I could not support. I could not support it because I think that having a drop-off for a school underground in the way they had presented was just not a tenable solution. I think it was just such an unpleasant way to enter into such a beautiful campus. It just wouldn’t be suitable. Additionally, the way it would concentrate the traffic would be really hard to work with. I am very pleased to see an alternate proposal put out there. I am not saying it’s perfect right now but it is certainly something that might be able to gather my support. On a large scale when I look at the circulation parking question, what I see as an architect, as somebody who knows the neighborhood and who lives around here and passed by all the time, there's a question to me of where is the front door? Where is the entrance? Where does this institution present itself to the public and what I see is a whole series of small little places you sneak into the campus? A couple of entries maybe along Bryant but it really seems to me to be lacking a way that you go in. It seems to me that this project is an opportunity to do that. It seems to me that along Kellogg Street you might try to improve the architecture by breaking up the massing of the buildings and maybe also put an entrance into the school there. Or you have the opportunity on the other side to reinstitute the Melville right of way and put a passage way through there where the kids then come in between the Chapel and the gym buildings into the Circle. I'm just disappointed to see nothing. To see a continuation of what I call ad hoc educational architecture. I think there’s an opportunity to do a lot more than that. I am hopeful that a little more thought might be given to just where is the symbolic front door of the school. Where is the face you want to march in and out of on the ceremony? I am disappointed that so far I don’t see that at all on the plan. Then my next comment is regarding the building design. I have real issues with the way façade along Kellogg Street is handled. I have been trying to put my finger on what it is because clearly the building is set back, as Grace said, from the street. There is some mature landscaping there. It is even less high than what’s there now. I don’t think the height of the mass of it is the problem but I think there is something to the 400-foot-long façade that does feel unrelenting, as several people have used that term. It might be that it has this continuous plate height in the middle and then a roof line that’s exactly the same along 400 feet. It might be that as much as we like this, what I call warm contemporary architecture… I think that is perfect appropriate I almost every neighborhood in town. That’s when you're putting in one house amongst many. This is so much of this strong contemporary architecture that it overwhelms the neighborhood. I think it’s actually inappropriate to let this building basically redefine the character of the neighborhood, which is what I think it will do. As Grace pointed out, very accurately, the existing Gunn Administration Building has a real character to it somehow that to 3.a Packet Pg. 95 City of Palo Alto Page 36 me defines what I think of as Castilleja. That and the Birge Clark Building. I don’t see that much of a queue in the new buildings. There is something about the texture and the sloped roof and the way the shingles are integrated on the old building and the other buildings in the neighborhood that just seems to be missing on the new structure. I think what David was saying about having the building broken into two or three buildings or pieces so you have either a passageway through or a sightline through is important. If you’re going to have a drop-off or an entrance on one façade I think you need a door or an entry at the drop-off. You have to carry these architectural thoughts through to completion. It seems to me like the drop-off was added after the long façade of the building was designed. Again, as Grace said, I don’t have proposals how to fix that problem but I cannot support a single long façade on Kellogg as is presented to us. I will acknowledge, as Osma said, that the new proposal is better than the old. I think it is. The old building is 1960’s concrete dormitory. It wasn’t even designed to be a school. It’s a tad too tall but I think, Osma, we can hold a higher standard in that. It’s not enough to just do better than before. Castilleja has been around a long time, and they are a valuable member of our community. We want them to do right by us. To really make this something that the next 100 years are going to look back on and really feel good about, the way we do on some buildings on this campus and the way we do with other institutions in town. It is reasonable to hold them to a higher standard than just make it a little bit better than it was. I think that’s what we need to hold for. I would really like to see the architects take a stab at rethinking the way that building is massed. Rethinking the way the roofline goes up and down some, and maybe rethinking the style of it a little bit. I share Alex’s concern about the landscaping. I just don’t think we have a complete enough package to really understand what’s being proposed. I am concerned that the Redwood trees behind the existing houses are very close to those garages and we all know that a 16-foot concrete is tough to build right next to a Redwood tree. It is important to save those trees. I believe that stuff can be mitigated and dealt with but we’d like to see more information about how that’s done. I just don’t see it in the package right now. I think we’d like to see a better landscape design -- or more complete, perhaps, is a better way to put it. I’ll pick up on Alex’s comments about the phased construction. I had been thinking about it from a point of view of the impact on the neighborhood and the faster the better, obviously. It’s a big impact on the community there but I think you he is spot-on when he says that these temporary structures have a way of becoming permanent. I think we need to be very vigilant about that. That is the last thing we want to see is a series of buildings stuck next to Embarcadero Road for ten years because the project has been delayed, changed, modified; all these things can happen. It seems to be sensible just to say that the increase in enrollment should be hinged on the project being completed. It is obviously not our call but certainly that’s an opinion we can offer. On the environmental impact report, I can accept most of the findings in there just fine. I think the traffic studies are very thorough and they did point out correctly the issue on Emerson with the earlier design. I believe that will be mitigated with the distributed drop- offs. I do think they are correct in pointing out that the swimming pool noise is significant and will need to be studied carefully and made sure that it is not an impact on the neighborhood. A swimming pool with girls playing water polo makes a lot of noise. Solid concrete walls echo and reverberate that sound. It is possible it could become quite an annoyance to the community. It seems to me, however, that’s something that can be studied and mitigated and managed. It’s not a big, big issue but it needs to be thought through. Lastly, I will commend the applicant on their historic preservation moves just by separating away from the Gunn Admin building and by preserving that Chapel you are doing wonderful things. It is really the best way that they can help that other building by removing the one next to it so it’s separated out. Those are my comments on seven comments that I felt were important. I think we’re fairly consistent as Board actually what we’ve been saying. Does anybody else want to add anything? Vice Chair Thompson: I just had a quick thing that I wanted to add. Chair Baltay: Sure, go ahead, Osma. Vice Chair Thompson: I think I didn’t mention it but I would also echo what you and Board Member Lew mentioned about being more in favor of the alternate option for the schemes. I also wanted to make a note to the applicant that I think one of the reasons that a lot of us are commenting on the Kellogg façade is because I think there is a lack of clarity on what’s happening in each part along the façade. I think because it is a little bit vague. I think the metal accent façade… Board Member Lew mentioned that maybe that is not appropriate. Even in my brain I’m not quite sure how long that is, how much of an 3.a Packet Pg. 96 City of Palo Alto Page 37 impact, is it really an accent or does it take up a considerable amount of space? I think those kinds of things will help better make judgment. Lack of understanding sort of makes us make assumptions for what that actually is and it doesn’t help us understand your design intent for that location. Chair Baltay: It is true, to the applicant and staff, the drawings in the presentation that was initially given to us was difficult to follow. I‘ve heard from every Board Member how challenging it was to figure it out. It is a challenging project, everybody. There’s a lot of information here. There are a lot of parts. The applicant can work on that. We’ve got to keep working on it. We’ll get there. Any other thoughts from anybody? Comments additionally? I would like to chime in that I forget to mention that I do support David’s comments about the underground building, the classrooms below grade. It is imperative that those have good day lighting and we all know that’s possible. It needs to be designed and thought through. I didn’t see anything in this package of drawings that convinced me that that had been accomplished. I’m positive it can be done and we would like to… I think David is correct. Those spaces need to be wonderfully light-filled spaces, even though they're down a level. We’d like to see evidence of how that’s done. I’d like to then shift us on to process. The staff would like us to continue this to a date certain of about a month from now. I will say that I am uncomfortable with that because I don’t see how an applicant could respond quickly enough to the comments we’ve made to do that. MOTION Chair Baltay: I would like to make a motion that we continue this subject to comments made to a date uncertain and leave it to the applicant and staff to decide when they think they're ready to come back to us. I am going to make that motion. I’ll put it out there for a second, unless we have any other comments. Board Member Hirsch: I second that. Chair Baltay: Okay. I have movement and a second. Does anybody want to address that? Amy French, do you want to tell us is that okay with you? Ms. French: That’s fine. I think the extent of the comments, which we’ve taken good notes are, would lead a person to believe, and I'm imaging the architects are thinking the same thing, that they would like additional time to prepare for the next meeting. Chair Baltay: Yes, I would really like to be sure that we have ample time for everybody to study, to understand, to digest. This is a very important project. While all want to be efficient with our reviews and approvals, and staff time, it’s important to get this one right. So far we’re doing the right things. With that, the motion’s been made and seconded. Vinh, can we have a roll call vote, please? Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) No: Absent: MOTION TO CONTINUE PASSES 5-0-0. Chair Baltay: Wonderful. Ms. French: Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you to everybody, the public as well, for their comments and for being with this long process. To the Board, do we have the energy to keep going on the next subject right away or does anybody need a break? Let’s just get started. Jodie, we’re going to move right along to the next topic. 3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 788 San Antonio Avenue [19PLN-00079]: 3.a Packet Pg. 97 City of Palo Alto Page 38 Recommendation on Applicant's Request for Approval of a Major Architectural Review to Allow the Demolition of Existing 12,000 Square Feet of Commercial Space and Construction of a Four-Story Mixed-use Building that Includes 102 Residential Units and 1,803 Square Feet of Commercial Space With a Two-level Basement Parking Garage. Sixteen of the Residential Units Would be Below Market Rate. The Project Also Requires a Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning Code Amendment to Apply the Housing Incentive Program at This Location and a Variance From the Special Setback Along San Antonio Road for a Pedestrian Ramp. The Applicant Also Proposes to Subdivide the Property for Condominiums. Environmental Assessment: An Environmental Impact Report was Circulated on July 31, 2020 Through September 14, 2020 and was Prepared in Accordance With the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Zoning District: CS (Service Commercial). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Sheldon S. Ah Sing at sahsing@m-group.us Ms. Gerhardt: All right. Thank you. Sheldon Ah Sign is our project planner for this project. If we just give him a minute to load up his presentation. Chair Baltay: We’re going to move to action item number three, public hearing for 788 San Antonio Avenue: recommendation on applicant's request for approval of a major architectural review to allow the demolition of existing 12,000 square feet of commercial space and construction of a four-story mixed-use building that includes 102 residential units and 1,803 square feet of commercial space with a two-level basement parking garage. Sixteen of the residential units would be below market rate. The project also requires a comprehensive plan amendment and zoning code amendment to apply the Housing Incentive Program (HIP) at this location and a variance from the special setback along San Antonio road for a pedestrian ramp. The applicant also proposes to subdivide the property for condominiums. Environmental impact assessment: an environmental impact report was circulated on July 31, 2020, through September 14, 2020, and was prepared in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Chair Baltay: Do we have any disclosures on this one, please? I will disclose that I visited the site, again, and looked at the material sample board. David, disclosures? Board Member Hirsch: I looked at the sample board but did not visit the site this time. Chair Baltay: Grace? Board Member Lee: Visited the site as well as looked at the samples. Chair Baltay: Osma? Vice Chair Thompson: I visited the site and looked at the samples. Chair Baltay: Thank you. And, Alex? Board Member Lew: Yes, I did not visit the site this time. I did download two aerial photos from 1939 and 1965. I did read about the Flowers Growers Association that used to be on the site. I did visit the material board at City Hall. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Alex. Okay, with that can we have a staff report, please? Jodie, I'm going to turn it over to you. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, thank you. Sheldon Ah Sing, our consulting planner, will give the presentation. Sheldon Ah Sing, Project Palnner: Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. You have an awesome agenda today. I am glad you guys are ready to go forward on this. I’m going to try to be as efficient as possible. There’s a lot to unpack from this project but a lot of it has already been explain in the packet for you. I’ll just give you a summary. The applicant’s also here with their presentation as well. We’ll talk 3.a Packet Pg. 98 City of Palo Alto Page 39 about background of the product, a little bit of site context, the proposed project and why it include some legislative amendments. Those are not subject to your review but it does provide a little bit of background and context to help you with the findings for this development project. We’ll go over some of the Architectural Review Board comments and responses that the applicant has made, present some of the materials and then an overview of the EIR, as well as the recommendation and next steps for the project. The project does include 18 parcels (inaudible) in size between Middlefield Road and East Charleston Road will all but one of the parcels being on the east side of San Antonio Road. The eastern boundary of these properties is the boundary between Mountain View and Palo Alto. The properties are located across from the Greenhouse neighborhood. These properties are otherwise under separate ownership. The two that are shaded orange are subject of the development proposal. That is at the intersection of Leghorn and San Antonio. Those parcels are proposed to be merged and developed with the mixed-use parcel. This proposal serves as a catalyst project for the overall program area. As mentioned, the project does include a four-story recessed building and a floor area of a ration up to 2.0. Based on the existing zoning and comprehensive plan, the project could not be built and, therefore, they have these requests for the Comprehensive Plan Amendment and the Zoning Text Amendment. The project is also a subdivision, variance, and architectural review. Of all of those, architectural review is the one that this Board… we’re asking for your recommendation to the City. We have the Environmental Impact Report, which does include mitigation measures. There is one impact that cannot be mitigated and that’s to a cultural resource. A little bit of background here. The project has had several meetings; two of those meetings were prescreening meetings with the Council to discuss potential increases in density and changes to the zoning ordinance. At those meetings, it was acknowledged that there are some trade-offs between commercial space and housing, but overall the project should proceed to be considered. The PTC conducted two previous meetings, one was a scoping meeting for the EIR back last fall, and the other was last week and made recommendations on other entitlements. They otherwise went forward on staff’s recommendation with some specific direction. Some of that was recommended physical intersection improvement at Leghorn and San Antonio Road, as well as recommend the project a robust TDM program, and recommend that the City Council undertake a corridor plan that connects the land use and transportation along San Antonio. Again to reiterate, the whole package of amendments did get a recommendation from the Planning Commission. It doesn’t change anything that were describing today in regards to the design of the build. Then the applicant also participated in two prior ARB meetings; one August of last year and as well as January of this year, which we’ve all summarized those comments. Then the applicant has sponsored a community meeting a couple of weeks ago. For a little bit of site context, the Middlefield Road and East Charleston are the major intersecting streets within this area that includes transit connections to the area. San Antonio Road is 80 feet wide from curb to curb and includes four lanes, and a landscape median with a left turn pocket. The attached sidewalks are five feet in width. Bicyclists do share lanes. That’s a class 3 route. Most notably, the developments along (inaudible) under construction now that is at 2.0 FAR. Then you have a (inaudible) mixed-use and that is probably also in scale with the (inaudible) building as well. To the west of the project, it does include the Greenhouse 228 condominium units that are within 3-stories on a 15 acre lot. These buildings are over 150 feet away from the project site. Also to note, there are special setbacks along San Antonio Road that are 24 feet, as well as special setbacks along Leghorn Street and that is a 15 foot special setback. A little bit of context about the Housing Inventive Program. It was adopted to implement the comprehensive size plan policies to promote additional housing production in the City with its holistic approach that allows from additional floor area ratio, as well as lot coverage and (inaudible), and streamline parking requirements. To note here, right now this program does include a maximum of 1.5:1 FAR for CS zoned properties along El Camino Real. The base CS allows up to 1.0. The maximum lot coverage in base CS is 50 percent, whereas that could be waived by the HIP. Then also the base CS allows up to 30 units per acre. The HIP program would waive that requirement also. As I mentioned before, to implement this development project -- and also the development projects in this program area to facilitate more housing -- there would be some amendments that are necessary and that are existing to the Housing Incentive Program, as well as amending the Citywide definition of gross floor area, and amending the City’s retail preservation ordinance. Graphically here you can see where these extensions would be made for the HIP, and it would allow up to 2.0 FAR for projects with no maximum lot coverage. Also, it would exclude the first 1,500 square feet of retail or retail-like floor area from the parking requirements. For the project, it does include two parcels that would be merged. There are two existing buildings on the site. One of the buildings at 788 San Antonio is determined to be eligible for listing on 3.a Packet Pg. 99 City of Palo Alto Page 40 the State Historic Register. The project does include the four-story mixed-use building with 1,800 square feet of ground floor commercial space at the corner. Likely, that would be a café style. There are 102 units, 32 studio units, 66 one-bedroom units, and I think four two-bedroom units. These arrange in size from 500 square feet to about 1,200 square feet in size. Sixteen of these units would be allocated for below market rate restriction. The project does include two levels of basement parking. Last time you saw the project it had one level basement parking with stackers. Given the comments that were received by the public they added another level and eliminated the stackers, and the (inaudible) is fully parked. It doesn’t include any reductions or exemptions as to not take advantage of the 1,500 square feet street line parking for retail. The primary access is from San Antonio Road for residents. This is the only accessible access to the building that uses that ramp. The secondary pedestrian access is also off of Leghorn Street. Vehicular access is from leghorn into the basement. Some of the comments at the last meeting were regarding the elevations: that the residential lobby was a little big; that some of the elements/frames around the building were too monumental; that the roof’s terrace soffits needed to be made out of stucco; the facades needed to be designed to the same level all around the building, not just San Antonio Road; consider using flush header windows as well explore breaking down the scale of the courtyard, thinking about some privacy here. Then to think about the appropriateness of the landscaping for the project considering that it is a 50-foot-tall building. Then also looking at those transportation network company loading areas, as well as street parking along Leghorn Street; consider more there. Then how the bicycle parking is proposed inside buildings that are secure enough and at a good location. In response to that, the materials board was updated. It includes some smooth stucco, updated physical board was also made as you’ve seen. I have some slides that will show you some of those markups. The lobby is 1/3 narrower. The height of the space appears lower since the shade structure of the roof. The terrace is pulled back. The residential balcony frames are also overhauled and simplified. They are now all clad and the same clear heart redwood siding material. The frames around the corner tower and the entry lobbies on retail areas are clad Corten steel. The layout of the frames is also redone. The redesign shade structure of the roof terrace will continue with the triangle style motif. I’ve seen the other elements of the building at the corner and vertical elements. Some of these wooden triangles have also been omitted (inaudible) through the roof terrace. There are two temporary parking spaces 44 feet in length shown on San Antonio Road for the TNC operators, as well as temporary loading and unloading along Leghorn. There is also three parking spaces adjacent to the temporary loading zone. That loading zone will also be available for trash and recycling pick up. The inner courtyard area is broken up into three mini functions. You have the seating areas with curb benches and tables, six exercise stations, and the proposed bike wash area. The courtyard’s functions are filtered through from the view from the unit patios by means of long planters and seat walls. Also, the applicant has taken into consideration shade- tolerant plantings. Most units now have floor to ceiling glass windows, and also glass guard rails at the balcony to further open up the unit to views and light. The long-term bicycle parking is visible from the outside through a glass wall. On the interior, there are areas broken up into six separate rooms and a bike repair area. The area is also secured from the lobby. The next slide I’ll show you will be on the evolution of the project from the prior two times as well as the current. This is the San Antonio Road elevation. Comments from the first time was that it was too symmetrical. In January you can see where it was emphasized on the corner there and then jacks down a little bit towards the northern part. The palm trees were removed from the terrace. Then you can see the current. I’ll have the applicant explain a little bit more about their program but the rooftop terrace has now taken more prominence on the northern part of the building. Then you can see where the lobby is narrower and some of those ribbons are also less prominent. From the corner perspective, you can see how that comes together. It takes into account the Leghorn elevation, as well, and how the building has evolved. This elevation is the rear of the building. This is fronting Mountain View. There's more particular detail here than there was in the past and that was at the direction of the Board. Then this is the northern elevation of the building here with the same level of detail, and you can see the roof terrace there. It has more prominence. In the courtyard, the first iteration of the project didn’t really have very good detail of the courtyard but from January you can see where they’ve included some of these programs into this area thinking it more through for those that would be looking into this area and using this area. Here are the materials just a little bit bigger in composition and how they're put into place. The applicant will go over those in more detail. Here is some of the siding. Then, this is in more detail on how these would be applied by specific examples. Then the materials put together. There were some comments in the past about how do these materials work together on the project. You can see here that they have materials put together and their 3.a Packet Pg. 100 City of Palo Alto Page 41 showing on the perspective drawings. Moving into the Environmental Impact Report, a notice or preparation, and scoping meeting was between September 4 and October. That meeting was conducted with the Planning Commission. The EIR is currently in draft in circulation form right now from July 31st to September 14th. We’re looking forward to written comments that we may have from the public. The big change in CEQA law is since July 1st, 2020, transportation impacts are now analyzed using Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and not by Level of Service (LOS). LOS is still being looked at on a City Operations level through the comprehensive plan analysis but not through CEQA. There were a number of impacted topics that included air quality, biology, cultural resources, geological soils, Greenhouse gas emissions, hazards, noise, and tribal cultural resources. Mitigations proposed to reduce its impact to less than significant except for cultural resources, as we’ll get into. The development of the project would result in the demolition and removal of the two six-story commercial buildings on the site. One of those structures may be eligible for individual listing through the California Register of Historic Resources. It constitutes a historic resource for the purposes of CEQA. There are four criteria and one of those criteria’s prevents the project. That building is deemed to be associated with the California Growers Association. It’s a long term representative of the importance of Japanese American floral culture and the industrial cooperative in the Bay Area. The building was constructed in 1953. The apparent significance for this building (inaudible) for this purpose is between 53 and 2002. That Growers Association merged with the California Flower Market at that time. For the property to be eligible for national or state designation, other criteria related to time period or method of construction, those character-defining features that enable the property to convey its identify must be evident. We’re identified some of those in the historic resource evaluation. The site does maintain integrity for location setting and design materials, workmanship feeling, and association. Therefore, the building at 788 San Antonio Road is eligible for listing, and, therefore, if proposed to be demolished constitutes a significant impact. There are some mitigations that would be considered. Those include taking photographs and interpretative website, but overall that doesn’t reduce the impact of the site. What the applicant is doing beyond those conditions is including some pavement patterns that resemble the historic use of the site. Those are those chrysanthemum paving patterns at the corner plaza, as well as within the courtyard area. As I mentioned, we talked about this a lot at the PTC meeting but just for the context here because you are evaluating the EIR to a certain extent, it wasn’t changed in the impacts CEQA documents after July 1st from LOS to VMT. The VMT refers to the amount of distance of the automobile travel that’s attributable to a project. One factor here that is weighed heavily is the imbalance of jobs to housing in the area. The City did adopt screening and thresholds significance back in June and those were applied here. The project could not be screened out based on those thresholds but further analysis was necessary. Using the VMT tools that are used throughout the jurisdictions we had to find out that the project was less than significant when it did not exceed 50 percent below the baseline. That VMT for the baseline is 11.3 miles per resident. The VMT was found to be 11.19 miles per resident, therefore, it less that that threshold and there is no significant impact. With respect to LOS and VMT, there are no impacts from CEQA along this corridor. There are no LOS impacts within the City. There is one LOS impact for an intersection in the City of Mountain View at Leghorn and Independence. Some of the next steps here is to complete the CEQA process. We have a public comment period from July 31st to September 14th. We have to respond to those comments that come in, make any revisions to the EIR if necessary; that will constitute the final EITR. We have to schedule a meeting with the City Council, likely we would be doing this in November. With that, we have recommendations to consider the draft EIR as well as recommend approval of the architectural review to the City Council based on the findings as subject to conditions of approval. That concludes my presentation. I’d be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Sheldon. Any questions of the staff? Vice Chair Thompson: Yeah, I do have one. Chair Baltay: Go ahead, Osma. Vice Chair Thompson: You said there was a community meeting that happened earlier this month. Do we know what the result of that community meeting was? 3.a Packet Pg. 101 City of Palo Alto Page 42 Sheldon Ah Sing: Yes, Jodie and I were in attendance at the meeting. It was not something that we facilitated. It was facilitated by the applicant and we were invited. The same people that received the notices for any of the public hearings the City would send out were notified. There were about 13 or so residents that did participate in the meeting. They did provide some comments. It was mostly about transportation. Vice Chair Thompson: I see. No comments on the façade for the building or anything related to the architecture? Sheldon Ah Sing: I don’t believe there was anything that was negative in any way or critical. I don’t recall that. It was more questions about transportation. Vice Chair Thompson: Thank you. Chair Baltay: Any other questions? Very well. Do we have the applicant here to make a presentation? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, I believe Eugene and Ted is here with us. Chair Baltay: Great. Guys, if you could state and spell your name for the record. You'll have ten minutes to make your presentation. Please go ahead whenever you’re ready. Ted O’Hanlon, Project Manager: Thank you. This is Ted O’Hanlon, O T-E-D, O’-H-A-N-L-O-N. Eugene Sakai, Architect: Eugene Sakai, E-U-G-E-N-E, S-A-K-A-I. Ted O’Hanlon: I just wanted to make a quick introduction just to address a little confusion. Our intent with this 102 unit proposal after construction is to lease it out and it be a rental building. Concurrently, we are working on a subdivision map of the 102 units such that there could be an alternative at a future date to sell the units as condominiums. That would like be ten-plus years out and it is very hard to predict how that would happen. It just makes business sense to do that while we’re in this initial stage of the planning for the property. I am going to turn it over to Eugene who’s going to really do the heavy lifting on the architectural review. Thanks. Eugene Sakai: Thanks, Ted. Vinh, would it be possible for me to share my screen as opposed to having Sheldon? [Setting up presentation.] Eugene Sakai: Eugene Sakai for the applicant, representing Ted O’Hanlon and the ownership group. This is the third time that we have the opportunity to present our project to you. We started this process with the ARB a little over a year ago. As Sheldon pointed out, the project has devolved quite a bit through your input, through the community’s input, through the City’s input and I think it has actually improved substantially. I just wanted to thank everyone who’s on this call and people who aren’t on this call for weighing in and giving us the opportunity to go back to the drawing board a couple of times and improve the project. I’m going to use the time that I have just to quickly recap the general organization of the building by running through the floor plans. Then I am going to spend the bulk of my time showing specific responses to concerns that we heard at the last ARB meeting and how we have responded architecturally, and in some cases with landscaping. On those points, I’ll start with the building exterior changes as seen by the public from the street and from the Mountain View side and then move on to the private courtyard. Then lastly touch on some plan views of site and floor plan changes that we’ve made. As was mentioned by Sheldon, I think one of the biggest changes really not visible from the street but functionally is the owner’s decision to respond to the community’s feedback in concerns about stacker parking and to go with a two-level parking garage. I just wanted to briefly explain how this is going to work. We are not taking the 1,500 square feet exemption for retail parking. We’re actually completely parking on our 1,800 square feet of retail. That yields a demand of 20 retail stalls. What we’re doing is we’re proposing those right at the first level below grade and ganging those 3.a Packet Pg. 102 City of Palo Alto Page 43 parking stalls, as you can see here in light purple, as close to the elevator as we can. The idea is that these retail stalls would be able to access this elevator and then by means of a double door system exit directly out to the street along San Antonio. These retail parkers would also be able to use the stairway to get up to grade and then right out to the retail level on San Antonio, adjacent to where the retail is. We’re pretty pleased with this solution. The remainder of the first level parking is all for residents. There’s a ramp down and then the lower level is basically all for residents as well. None of this parking is in a tandem configuration; basically these are all individually, independently accessible spaces. On our first level Sheldon touched on this briefly but I’ll mention it here graphically again. The San Antonio elevation as shown on the left side of this plan view here, we have our lobby in the center of the San Antonio elevation. We have our retail at the corner shown in lavender, and our bike storage. There are really the three main key components of our ground floor program along San Antonio. The lobby is designed to have transparency through it with glass on both sides so that you can actually see our private landscape courtyard from San Antonio both as you’re driving, walking by, and approaching the front door. Along Leghorn, we’ve actually maintained a ten-foot larger setback than is required. There is a 15-foot setback along Leghorn. We’re actually providing 25 feet as to provide more landscape buffer and just more relief from the size of our building along the street elevation. At the far corner of our site is the entrance to our two-level garage here. As we move up the building, the program becomes much more residential. Both the second and third floors are purely private units. Then on the fourth floor, we’ve subtracted a significant number of units to create a stepping effect from the corner down towards the north. So really our rooftop garden is sort of helping with the articulation along San Antonio and in breaking down the scale and the mass of it. We have a combination of outdoor space and then an indoor residence lounge, which can flow out on to this outdoor space by means of folding doors. From here, I’d like to move on to specific ARB comments that we’ve attempted to address, and show you the before and after effects of those comments. There was a comment by Commissioner Baltay, Board Member Baltay I should say, about the frames and the frames being to monumental in scale and inappropriate to a residential project. This is what Board Member Baltay was referring to previously. Our revised design significantly reduces the frames. The other thing we’ve tried to do is make the building less planer. I think conceptually the building was a series of simple planes with the frames more or less attached on to them. We’ve tried to really breakdown the planes of the building by articulating the bays using the balconies as negative space. Then once we’ve done that negative movement actually having the frames, sort of, accentuate those balconies in areas where the residents can step out onto the balcony and appreciate the warmth and the texture of the wood. You can see that the frames are still there but they are much more subordinate to the overall massing and the articulation of the volumes of the building itself. Board Members Lew and Thompson both touched on the fenestration approach of the building previously. As you can see previously, we had the concept as sort of a punched window approach with the frames being the dominant element. Those windows were really at a standard sill and header height, not floor to ceiling. What we’ve done in conjunction of with the redesign was really run the glazing from floor to ceiling where possible. In so doing, I believe that’s really helped articulate the rhythm of the elevation. Where we have spandrels where floors occur, we are actually going to propose spandrel glass so that the idea of a continuous window happens in conjunction with these white elements here, which represent bedroom bays. Board Members Hirsch and Thompson both had concerns about what we call the rear elevations. This would be the Mountain View elevation on the top and the north elevation at the bottom. What we did in response to that was we carried the A-B rhythm of the bedrooms and the balconies around to both of those subordinate elevations. We’ve also carried the similar material palette along those two elevations as well. Board Member Lee has some astute comments about the ribbon. Specifically, she suggested thinking about the ribbon as a space making element, not just as a graphic; think about what it can do in terms of signifying entrances and corners. We really looked at that very carefully in conduction with the overall redesign. We really feel that that comment was well taken and we have really taken in to heart. The ribbon now, I think, has been refined. It really runs from one street-facing elevation all the way around to the other. It really begins to enclose and demarcate some of the more programmatic elements of the building, such as the bicycle storage area, the lobby, the corner of the building, the parking garage, and even the fire exits along both rear elevations. Board Member Lew had some comments and concerns about the scale of the residential lobby and felt that it was an opportunity to make a separate design element. We took that to heart as well. What we basically did was we tried to articulate the lobby and the unit above that as sort of a glass hyphen. We also pulled back the rooftop terrace element, the canopy of that, which provides a little bit 3.a Packet Pg. 103 City of Palo Alto Page 44 of shelter for the roof garden. We made that a subordinate element as opposed to before where it was pulling forward. We have since pushed that back and it is handled a lot less massively now. Here you can see how the ribbon really articulates the entry and divides the residential from above to the public entrance below. There were comments about the overall material palette, specifically concerns about the hardie board being not high-quality material, and then the overall palette not feeling very warm. We eliminated the hardie panel altogether. We’ve retained cement fiber panel but we are using a high grade of cement fiver panel, a product called Equitone, which you have all seen. We are going to articulate that in sort of a triangular motif running the grooves of the Equitone in different directions. Then continue that motif up to triangular [distortion]. I think in general we’ve also really attempted to warm up the elevation. We sort of have a white neutral background and a grey neutral background highlighted by the frames, which we’re proposing to do in clear stained redwood, and the warmth of the Corten ribbon, both of which I think are much more articulated now. Chair Baltay: Excuse me, Architect Sakai, you have now been three minutes over. How much more time do you need? Eugene Sakai: About two minutes. Chair Baltay: Okay, let’s make it no more than that, please. Eugene Sakai: Thank you. You’ve seen this materials board. I think overall we feel that our project does tie in form-wise and scale-wise to recent projects. Here we have the Marriott, the Taube Koret, and then a mixed-use building further along up near the San Antonio Shopping Center. The redwood was actually inspired by the Baylands and its use of weathered boardwalks. We do anticipate that this redwood would weather and we don’t anticipate it being shiny brand new. We actually want this sort of weathered look to occur. The floral chrysanthemum pattern was already touched on but that is a significant part of our landscape design, as was mentioned. Moving on to the private courtyard, we’ve really attempted to activate that from the previous design, which is shown here. We know have a distinct quiet seating area. We’ve deepened the planters alongside the residential units to provide more privacy. Introduced organic forms as opposed to rectangular, and we’ve got some functionality with the bike wash area and then actually an exercise area with some stationary equipment that can be used. We’ve opened up the courtyard, we’ve pulled back these roofs on the fourth-floor balconies so that more sunlight can penetrate, and we've used a lighter and brighter color palette. We’ve also revised our bike layout. We brought more bikes to the glass and reorganized how those bike rooms work. Lastly, Board Member Baltay had concerns about the functionality of our drop-off area, so we’ve changed that from a duck out to basically these loading zones if you will. There is one each on Leghorn and San Antonio, both of which are over 40 feet long. That’s it. Thank you very much. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Nice presentation. Do we have any questions for the applicant from any member of the Board? David? Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I have a question for them. The use of the Corten, could you describe that a little bit? How are those pieces going to be put together? What are they? Eugene Sakai: Like most metal products, they come in panels which lock together. In our packet, we provided a few standard details of how these panels fold and lock in together. They will be mounted over framed and waterproofed substrate. For all intents and purposes, they are essentially acting as a rain screen. I'm not sure if that answers your question. Board Member Hirsch: They come as panels that will be complete in turning the cornering? They're not screwed through? They're hidden? Fastened? Eugene Sakai: The fasteners are hidden but the panels typically do not turn corners. There are trim pieces where the panels come together, 90 degree trim pieces that would also be made of Corten. They are pretty innocuous once the building is up, especially at the scale of the building that we’re talking about. No, the panels themselves do not turn the corner. There are trim pieces that do that. 3.a Packet Pg. 104 City of Palo Alto Page 45 Chair Baltay: If I could chime in. Do you have any preliminary details on how those panels are put on the building or how the corners are made in the drawing set we have now? Can you reference the detail for us? It’s just a little hard for us to find them in the drawing packages. Eugene Sakai: Sure, yeah. It was actually what we call a supplemental storybook that we put together and submitted, which I am not sure if you have. Does this look familiar to you? Ms. Gerhardt: No. Eugene Sakai: Okay, I apologize for that. This was something we submitted a while back. Male: (Inaudible). Eugene Sakai: Let me see if I can scroll down. Here is sort of a look of kind of a Corten steel. Let me see if I can find the detail. Another look here. You can sort of see at the borders how there's a little bit of a trim piece. This is actually our own office building here. Let me zoom in. We’re very familiar with the product. You can see at the corners there is a trim piece but it’s pretty innocuous. This is not our office. This is a different building but you can see there is sort of a framing effect that goes on with a 90-degree corner but it’s pretty subtle. Let me see. Yeah, so you can see that the larger fasteners are hidden, and then you have some very small rivets that fasten to the face. This really only occurs where panels are too long and they come together, like at this instance here on our own building. That’s what that vertical seam looks like. There would be some of these just because of the length of the rhythm. There would be some of these. I think the maximum panel length is somewhere around 35 to 40 feet. You won’t have too many of these but there would be some. Chair Baltay: Okay, let’s keep moving along. Any other questions from anybody? Vinh, do we have any members of the public that would like to address us on this issue? On this project? Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we do have two raised hands. Chair Baltay: Okay, then I’d like to open the meeting to public comment. Board Member Lee: Hi, Peter, I have just one quick question but I can do it after the public comment. Chair Baltay: Oh, go ahead, Grace. It’s important to get that out. Board Member Lee: Sorry, okay. I just wanted to ask the applicant… thank you for showing the storybook since we didn’t receive it. The Corten steel panels typically have this lovely green rust over age and over time and I just wanted to make sure in terms of your comments on the Corten what would happen over time to that material? Eugene Sakai: The Corten would rust -- I'm not sure if I'm still sharing my screen -- to a rich brown color much like what I showed on our own office building. What we’ve seen is it gets to that point within about a year and it kind of holds its color. It does darken as time goes by but really not that much. It reaches this sort of dark brown color pretty quickly. Board Member Lee: That’s helpful to know. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Grace. Okay, any other questions from the board? Let’s move on then and open the meeting to public comments. Vinh, if you could help queue up the first person, please. Mr. Nguyen: Yes, our first speaker will be a phone caller with the last four digits 5960. Then our next and last speaker will be Rebecca Eisenberg. Can the phone caller with the last four digits 5960 can you please identify yourself, and then you have three minutes to speak. Hi, phone caller with the last four digits of 5960, are you there? 3.a Packet Pg. 105 City of Palo Alto Page 46 Ms. Gerhardt: Vinh, is there anything special they need to do to unmute when they're on a phone call like that? Mr. Nguyen: It should be unmuted when I unmute them. I'm not sure if we’re having some difficulties here. Let me try that again. Yeah, usually for a phone call they wouldn’t have to press anything. They just have to start speaking when I unmute them. Chair Baltay: Let’s go on to the next speaker, Vinh, and you can come back to them once more. Mr. Nguyen: Sure, the next speaker will be Rebecca Eisenberg. Rebecca, if you could please unmute yourself on your computer, identify yourself and you may speak for three minutes. Rebecca Eisenberg: Hi, this is Rebecca Eisenberg again. It’s R-E-B-E-C-C-A, last name, E-I-S-E-N-B-E-R- G. I actually just have a couple of questions, not comments. It has to do with basically the size of the units that are being constructed. I first noticed that this project was under works at the Planning Commission meeting last week. Forgive me if I just couldn’t find this information in the files. Of course, like with most projects, there are a lot of them but I was very curious in particular about the size of these units that are going to be, I guess, rented to the public, including the 16 that are going to be offered at below-market rate. In particular, I think I saw if I remember correctly the earliest version of this proposal had something like 64 proposed units. Then the version that first included the 16 below market rate units increased the number of units up to 102 and within the same size of, you know, space. I think, to me, it would be useful to know… I assume that the Architectural Review Board does the inside of buildings as well as the outside. Given that these units are described as family units and that I think it is intended that the 16 of them below market go towards delineated minimums of home production. I wonder if there might be some sort of minimum size requirement with that too. For example, when I did the math I came to the average size of each of the 102 units would be 600 to 700 square feet, which doesn’t strike me as big enough for a family. Also given that especially the majority of the units I think are going to be the one-bedroom with 66 one-bedroom, only four two-bedrooms, and then 32 studios, which I assume are one room. Also, I had noticed references in the record as to the so-called micro- units, which I guess are below 450 square feet. I guess our code allows micro-units not to have parking requirements. I just think that it might be helpful to have a little bit more information about the inside and the size of the units, as well as the outside since these are places that are hopefully going to help house the many people who still desperately need housing in Palo Alto. And the final thing is I want to say thank you so much for building housing. I know we all agree how much we all really need housing and that the houses crisis is the worst it’s ever been in history, and that we have these State requirements -- which, by the way, is one reason I brought up the 65 residential lots for Castilleja but that was another thing. Anyways, I am very grateful when developers, like you all, actually do make sure to stay true to our requirements. Really that’s it; just questions about the units inside. Thank you for your attention and your time. Bye-bye. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Rebecca. Vinh, are you able to bring up the second caller, please? Mr. Nguyen: Yeah, let’s give it a second try. Phone caller with the last four digits 5960, if you're there can you please identify yourself and then speak. Ms. Gerhardt: Vinh, I am seeing like a muted symbol. I wonder if they're on a smartphone and need to unmute themselves? Mr. Nguyen: Yeah, that’s certainly possible as well. If you’re on a smartphone can you please unmute yourself? There should be a button that says unmute or mute at the bottom. You should also be getting a prompt from Zoom as well saying that the host has unmuted you. Ms. Gerhardt: I still see it as muted. I think there are some technical difficulties. Chair Baltay: Let’s close the meeting to public comment and bring it back to the Board. Before we get started, the applicant will have a chance to rebut the comments that were made. Maybe Mr. O’Hanlon 3.a Packet Pg. 106 City of Palo Alto Page 47 would like to address the comment the neighbor mentioned about the size of your units. Would you like to speak? Ted O’Hanlon: Yes, thank you very much. The unit sizes range from approximately 500 square feet for the studios. The one-bedrooms range in size from 600, or so, to 700 square feet. Then the two- bedroom units have a range of 900 to 1,200 square feet. Industry-wide, the term multi-family is kind of used interchangeably when we talk about either rental or for-sale condo units. Some considerations do provide more of a family-style but the idea here is that it is multiple dwellings within a similar development; not so much that we’re construing this to be a family-based development. We actually went in the opposite direction as we continued along the way of what might be a good residential opportunity here from larger configurations of units with one and two-bedroom units to really pushing this more towards a single and dual occupant scenario with, again, really heavily skewed towards the studio and one-bedrooms. I hope that is satisfying for Ms. Eisenberg and I’d be happy to talk with her more about offline. Eugene, let us know if you have anything to add. Eugene Sakai: Nope. You said it perfectly, Ted. Thank you. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you, Ted, for the definition of multi-family. It does not necessarily mean a family, it just means multiple units. That you for that. Also, just to clarify that we do have accessory dwelling units that can go down to, I believe, it’s 220 square feet. That’s truly the minimum size for a unit. As far as the purview of the ARB, they really do not get into the interior of the buildings unless it’s related to the organization of the building and circulation and things of that sort. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, Jodie and Ted. Let’s bring this back to the Board for discussion then. Perhaps, I could ask Grace to start us put today. Board Member Lee: Thank you. Thank you to the applicant for that wonderful presentation. I’m sorry that we didn’t receive the storybook. That is one piece that I didn’t receive. We can start there. But I do want to take a step back and say how terrific that we are reviewing this project for rentals in the Housing Incentive Program, and also the possibility of condos and the BMR’s in the future. My comments are brief; full support of this project. Happy to recommend it for approval. In terms of the avenue for that, I just wanted to make a couple of comments and I appreciate how you have actually walked us through the beginning, and then the middle, and now the third hearing. There has been quite an evolution in terms of -- very positive, in term so of how the edges are reading and how you responded to fellow board members. A couple comments; when we talked about the material palette, my initial thoughts when I went and saw the materials board and saw the move to the Equitone panel was just -- it’s just that I always hesitate at corrugated. In terms of that vertical element. I think it actually really helps with the scale and works well with the Corten steel but I do want to talk about maintenance and just how these panels and materials age. First off, the warmer palette, responding to comments, and then the more simplified approach in each elevation very much in line with the way that I hope others also approve. The one hesitation I had is when we go to the frames in terms of that Redwood. I understand that it is something that is reminiscent of the Baylands and that it provides a terrific accent and what’s even better is its space-making. You’ve actually created an edge and it comes inside and creates the balcony there for the users. I’m a little bit on the fence there just in terms of knowing that it will not age so well, and how it looks in relative to the other materials that might maintain their look with age. I’ve just seen some developments where you just have one material and it’s an accent material and it just doesn’t hold together well. I wanted to just bring it to my colleagues for discussions. And maybe this is something that could be to subcommittee or maybe actually that is the way it goes to have this warm aged wood with the other pieces of the palette but I just wanted to mention that. I am very happy to approve this project. I appreciate the changes that… the revised landscape design in the courtyard, and also including shade studies to know where shade will be and that you actually have active zones and private zones. The one piece I did react to… and I think the chrysanthemum paving is very appropriate here but I did notice the Japanese Maples, which provide such terrific seasonal color and will do well in the shade, sometimes its good to have something evergreen that’s a vertical element just in the time when the leaves drop. Again, I don’t have a strong feeling there. I think that it's much improved and the landscape will do very well in the way that you’ve redesigned it. I guess the last 3.a Packet Pg. 107 City of Palo Alto Page 48 comment that I wrote in my notes, and maybe this is not appropriate, but I thought that the bike ramp was very long and wide. Of course, it’s going to be long but I just question the width, and that’s properly because two bikes are going to passing each other. I'm not a bicyclist and so maybe that’s… I wonder if you'd want to give more to landscaping with the width of that ramp and its prominence as part of your entry landscaping. I believe my comments are very minor. I'm happy to move this project forward. Thank you for the application. Chair Baltay: Wonderful, Grace. Thank you very much. Mr. Nguyen: Peter, if you don’t mind can I just chime in real quick? I just want to address the missing storyboard book. I will take responsibility for that. We did have that originally included as part of the staff report. Somehow there was a glitch and it didn’t make it in and I didn’t catch it in time. I will upload that to the website right now and I will also email it to you guys as well. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Vinh. Ms. Gerhardt: Vinh, I've already emailed it to the Board Members, so if you could just upload it to the web that would be… thank you. Chair Baltay: Okay. Alex, do you want to go next, please? Board Member Lew: To the applicant, thank you for the revisions. I think this was a pretty dramatic improvement and I can support the project today. I do have some concerns similar to Grace. I think that they are minor and I think that they could be resolved. One is I think I have a very similar reaction with the Redwood. I'm concerned that it’s going to weather on a faster cycle than all the other materials. I was also concerned about the shellac finish. I was actually thinking that you would want something that would last a long time. I wasn’t thinking that you wanted a weathered look. I have some concerns with the Redwood is that Redwood today also has a lot of sapwood, which I think is not desirable with regard to aesthetics, and also drought resistance. I think the Redwood would need to be (inaudible) to prevent tannin stains. Then on the Corten, I did look up that particular manufacturer. I think that looks good. In the past, the ARB has been concerned about staining from the Corten onto adjacent areas. We do have some Corten on the Chipotle on El Camino near Page Mill Road. I did look at that and it does have some staining at the bottom. It stained the concrete planters down at the base. It hasn’t really stained the adjacent stucco areas. I think it’s potentially manageable. I guess I would say that other Board Members have been really concerned about that issue. I don’t really have that much experience with it but I will throw that out there. Second item is the signage for the retail space at the garage entry. I've seen a lot of mixed-use projects in the South Bay as well as Emeryville and they usually are pretty good about providing prominent signage so that people understand where to park. We have had problems on the College Terrace Centre on El Camino in Palo Alto where there were a lot of public complaints that they couldn’t figure out where to park and how to get down to the garage. The third item is the bike wash area in the courtyard. I guess I would just throw it out there that for me it would be okay for it to be in the garage. When you're cleaning bikes there’s lots of degreasers and latex tire sealants and stuff, and it seems to me you wouldn’t want that on pavers in the courtyard but that might be acceptable then in the garage. I would just throw that as an option for you. Then the last item that I have is on some of the trees along San Antonio. I think you're proposing the new Blue Oaks to be mixed in with some of the existing Southern Live Oaks that the City planted along there. I think I understand that that’s you picking a native plant but I was thinking out loud and wouldn’t it make more sense to make use a non-native species to match the rest of the street? From my point of view, the Southern Live Oaks are non-natives but they are wildlife-friendly because they make acorns, which is a food source. It’s a really important food source. Sometimes also when you use a non-native plant they're on a slightly different timeframe as the native plants so that actually can be a benefit in some cases. I do support the project. I think the massing revisions are good. I think the window revisions look good. The second level of parking makes sense. I do support the project. That’s it. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Alex. David, your turn. Dave Hirsch, you're still muted. 3.a Packet Pg. 108 City of Palo Alto Page 49 [Adjusting Audio.] Board Member Hirsch: Improved project. Much like my cohorts here have said, I think it’s coming along very, very well. The Leghorn setback: I think we should be happy that you’ve done that and that there’s planting in between and its better sighting of the building. I am very happy that there are parking spots for people dropped off places both on Leghorn and San Antonio Road. I do wonder how you're going to secure those if they're regular street parking spaces. Will there be signage saying ten minutes only or how is that going to be done? Maybe, later on, somebody could answer that question. Jodie says we really don’t talk about the inside but one thing that struck me that I thought might be an improvement -- I dare to say it and then you can choose to think about it anyhow -- is that the back of the lounge area on the ground floor might include the elevator that gets you up to the fourth floor there. It’s more of a midpoint in the building so you don’t have to get to The second elevator going to the far back of the building there. That corner is more democratic to where everybody wants to go at the back of the building. Maybe you would give some thought to that. That would animate that lobby area too. I don’t think it would necessarily take away from the decks and the open space for the units that face that courtyard. I think, by the way, it certainly is terrific that you are using the courtyard that way and that many units are able to partake in that aspect of the building having a big open court like that. The resident lounge on the top floor, I think that’s a tremendous improvement over what you had started with up there. I think that space will be used. It’s definitely going to a building for younger people. That open space will be constantly used. It’s planned in such a way that, as you say, step down the building it's very nice as it sets down. The roofline now of the upper roof over the lounge area really integrates all of that open space very well. I would like to ask somebody to put up the elevation of the front of the building. Could we do that, Jodie? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, Sheldon should have the presentation. Board Member Hirsch: At the same time, if it's possible to put up the side of the building as well. Probably the Leghorn side, which I think is quite nice. Okay, well that’s good. You can see around the corner. Whether its Corten or not at this point, Alex’s point is really well taken. Whenever I've seen Corten it discolors the ground concrete and it’s really not possible to get it clean. Now you may in your office at your own building there have it in the planter or something down below and not have that kind of a problem, but here there’s going to be a concrete pavement. Corten has its problems that way. I suggest that you really look into it and see if some sort of a more finished panel wouldn’t work better for something like that area. I'm concerned that you’re making… at one point I think I might have said why don’t you just make something out of the corner or more of it out of the corner, and here you certainly have. What you’ve lost in the process is the fact that those two-bedroom units, those really big unit -- although the bedroom has a deck to it -- doesn’t have any residential life to it at all up above. That might be a problem on the first floor up but it certainly isn’t a problem further up. I think the building would be improved by creating a more friendly feeling to that corner. It really almost looks too commercial to me. Since the rest of the building has a really nice friendly feel to it, I think the corner needs something more. Then secondly, if you could then show the face of the building all the way down. Let’s see. Can you slide it over so I can the… the final one is further over. It's interrupted by our faces here. Okay. That’s good. You are missing a great opportunity here to connect everything up I think. The ribbon really ought to be more continuous. I really have a problem with this all of a sudden vertical window and all of a sudden these interruptions, especially to the right side of the entryway to the building. I think you have a chance to really integrate all of that together in some way. I don’t think I should tell you how but if you connect up the right-hand ribbon with the entryway I think you will have done it. At that point, the building will have been a success but it really will take reorganizing some of the four-story elements as they break down to the three-story elements. I think you just need more thought in the way those two connect to each other. I think the commercial space is now working pretty well. The setback is going to work well. taking it around the corner is going to work well but not connecting the end to the middle and sort of directing everything towards the entry of the building is a mistake in my mind. The scale of everything up above… if it had more of the left side of the entry there with the projections, etc., I think it would be a much better connection and a much stronger building. It sort of does this asymmetrical thing all the way through. It kind of related asymmetrically to the right- hand corner where the upper balcony just pulls you off to the left. That’s a dynamic that I think is a 3.a Packet Pg. 109 City of Palo Alto Page 50 missing piece of this building here right now. What are we looking at when we’re looking at the white portion of the building? I would certainly hope you could tone that down a bit. Even in the previous project we just looked at, we had a problem with the contrast being altogether that strong. My feeling is that it shouldn’t be all that strong. The whiteness of it is way too white for me. I would rather see some earthy tones or some hint of an earth tone in the basic stucco look of the rest of the building there. The all of a sudden there’s this intrusion of the cement fiber, and really all of sudden there’s another diagram that’s this diagonal piece to it. I just don’t buy that. I think that the building… that’s an added element that really does nothing for you. The vertical window bothers me. The verticality of everything on that side doesn’t really work very well. Sorry, they're watering the next to me so there's an interruption with the sound. That’s my biggest concern. I'm very happy with what you did with the scale around the building all the front, back, side, you know, all of those sides. I think they work very well. Really, this is the only area of the exterior of the building that I'm having a problem with. Let me just check my notes here. The use of that lobby, I think you need an exercise room in the building this size. I would not put that kind of usage into a big open space there. Can’t you wash the bikes outside somewhere as well as maybe within that room… I mean it’s a big, big bike room. It’s a terrific facility for these people to get around. I'm really in love with the idea of that but I think that washing a bike in the public or exercising in the public… that should be a different kind of an area. And I repeat that I think it would be really terrific if it had an elevator in the back of it for convenience sake but others have to agree with that idea. I’ll leave it up to you to think about it. Patterning of some of the fiber cement is a problem. Connecting the ribbon, and the metal issue as to whether Corten is really the right material. I’d like to see you think about other forms of metal that won’t have a weathering problem but would also look good metal to wood. I think that’s about it for me. Chair Baltay: Thank you very much, David. Osma, it’s your turn, please. Vice Chair Thompson: Thank you. We can keep looking at that façade but maybe we can make them all three with the way they were because I do have comments on that as well. Thank you to the applicant. Thanks to my Board Members for their comments. Sheldon, I will ask you to maybe resize that picture so that we can see all of them next to each other because a lot of what David said is a lot of what I believe as well. I really appreciate the applicant taking our feedback on the three remaining sides, and developing those to a similar level of detail. The only issue I had with that was on the east rear elevation, which is actually probably not in your presentation, Sheldon. Oh, there it is. The far-right part of that elevation, which I believe is the part that people would see driving through San Antonio going the other way, that’s a very blank façade that looks like it just may have been forgotten in this development. Other than that part the other three elevations seem like they were developed well. Actually, I don’t think I noticed that initially because it was the same color as the paper. I just thought the elevation ended where the lid ended. That’s something important that’s worth picking up. In general, it’s really tricky because I really want to want to recommend approval of this but there are so many problems with this façade that I’ll get into here in a second. I think Board Member Hirsch mentioned a lot of that; give me a lot of pause. I mean, I want to approve this on principle; this is housing and we need housing but aesthetically this project is very messy. The façade on San Antonio is very messy to the point where I was looking back at these previous versions and thinking at least these previous versions had aggressiveness to this. I could find myself in this moment more willing to approve one of these other two versions more than what we have in front of us today. I think part of the reason is because the cohesion is lost in this new updated version. In the other two, there was a real clear partis where the ribbon, at least in January, has this connectivity. It has a similar thickness. There's this balance between what's above the ribbon and what’s below. In the updated version the ribbon changes thickness and so it has a different character and it doesn’t connect to the other parts of itself. It kind of loses steam and it loses its position as this parti diagram for this elevation. It’s problematic to say the least. Then the other issue is that there are way too many different materials. I think what that does is it sort of crowds the aesthetic. I mean, you have Corten, you’ve got wood, you’ve got stucco, you're got cement fiber, now you have spandrel, which I hadn’t noticed before but then you mentioned it in the presentation. It’s all over the place. Something that was nice about the January scheme was that it was really simple. There were three elements. There either was the perforated metal and the other things and that brought a human scale, which I think I remember mentioning last time. I was really sad to see that go because I don’t think that the cement fiber panel brings that level of scale that the perforated metal did, which I 3.a Packet Pg. 110 City of Palo Alto Page 51 think is really important. Like that human scale element is important to in a façade. And what David mentioned, the proportions are a bit whacky on this façade. There are some really tall skinny elements that are juxtaposed next to some mid-sized, mid-proportioned, elements. I will say that the other three facades that mentioned those proportions read really well especially in the context. I think those other three proportions make a lot of sense, except, of course, for that white blank space that’s facing San Antonio. But on the front here it’s a little hard to follow. I think a lot more work needs to be done here. At the risk of belaboring my point a little bit too much, I think a lot of what Board Member Hirsch’s comments sort of echo what I was saying. The proportions of the front of the façade of the building are extremely problematic. They need a lot of work and I am not quite sure what to do because I know that this is an evolution. I wonder if maybe some previous comments were not… I almost wish the applicant had listened to some of the praise that we had said last time around and kept some of those things because it sort of seemed like you threw the baby out of the bathwater and here’s something. I don’t know that it really works. I will leave my comments at that. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Osma. That leaves me wanting very much to get this approved today. I think that as much as I agree with Osma’s sense and David’s sense about the design, I think it meets the minimum standards, and there's a limit to which we can pushing for it. What I’d like to do is try to see if we could get a subcommittee review, and perhaps address some of your concerns, which are legitimate and maybe make it such a tad better. My only two real concerns going into this were that I think the redwood frames are just a terrible idea. That will look bad before you finish building. It just isn’t viable. There must be some other material that has a warm tone that will last a lot better. I’m trying to find my notes here. Then I would like to see more construction details -- that’s a pet-peeve of mine -- of how, for example, those Corten frames follow all those curves and angels and stuff. As I listened to David and Alex speak, I think the Corten may just not be the right material. It’s complicated and it’s expensive. It’s really tricky to use that material when you have so many corners inside and out and intersections and stuff. Then the fact that it does stain and it’s all over the place is also a problem. You can achieve the same design effect with any number of other materials. Even a painted metal would probably get you there. Overall, I think the design does meet our minimum standard. What I would like to do is see if someone’s up to making a motion to having this reviewed through a subcommittee. I’d like to see if Alex or Osma, either one of you are interested in doing that with a clear list for the applicant. Vice Chair Thompson: I have a question for the board. Chair Baltay: Sure. Vice Chair Thompson: How does the Board feel about this evolution as it relates to what was previously viewed? I understand that we want to review this but is.. I’d like to hear the rest of the Board’s feedback. Would it be viable to say something like closer to the January design might be more appropriate for San Antonio than what is currently proposed? Chair Baltay: I tackle that first, Osma. I didn’t hear the Board saying that, and I personally think this is the best design yet by far. I think it’s got so many things going for it that’s much better than the previous designs. I’d be reluctant to go back that way. Vice Chair Thompson: I guess I mean just for the San Antonio façade. Not for the others. Chair Baltay: Yeah, I’m referring to the San Antonio façade. The back facades are improved but they were terrible to begin with. Vice Chair Thompson: Yeah. Board Member Lee: I’m happy to chime in. Chair Baltay: Yes, go ahead, Grace. 3.a Packet Pg. 111 City of Palo Alto Page 52 Board Member Lee: I am sorry that in my comments I didn’t address a couple of points and I just want to make for the record, I believe the San Antonio elevation is much improved. It’s greatly improved and in my mind ready to go. I feel like we should approve this project but I want specifically say that the changes that they have made to the brow or this line that is a warm line right now in Corten, to me, is much more effective in the way it turns the corner. I also feel like the corner is improved at that important San Antonio/Leghorn with the retail below. I'm sorry I didn’t include in my comments but I did want to chime in now. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Grace. Does anybody else want to address Osma’s question about our opinion of January to current on the San Antonio elevation? Okay. With that, I’m going to come back to my thought, or hope, that we can get… Vice Chair Thompson: I think Board Member Lew wanted to say something. Chair Baltay: Alex, am I cutting you off? Board Member Lew: My computer’s overheating so I turned off the video and I just turned it back on. What I wanted to say is when I look at facades, especially long urban facades, I actually look for some chaos and more elements than I would want than just looking at it on a piece of paper. That’s just based on experience in working on big projects with long facades because I usually see that architects can [distortion] too much and make it too much alike. I actually do look for more. I do recognize that the San Antonio façade does look a little bit jumbled but I professionally prefer it that way. Chair Baltay: Thank you, Alex. That’s very clear. Alex, are you interested in trying to make a motion for us which incorporates… I thought you had a good list of corrections and maybe if you feel comfortable picking up a few from Osma in the hopes of gathering five votes to sending this to a subcommittee? Board Member Lew: I've been making a list. I guess my question is for the Board is really how strong do we want to word it? Do you want to say that some of these materials shall be substituted with other materials? Or are we saying consider using other materials? Chair Baltay: I think the idea is that the subcommittee level will make that decision. I would make a strong recommendation. Board Member Lew: Okay, so were saying it’s to strongly consider. Chair Baltay: Yeah, I think… Board Member Lew: [Distortion]. Chair Baltay: The subcommittee will reject the use of redwood. I’m fairly certain of that. I don’t think you need to even say that. The Corten could go either way. To me, it depends on the detailing and when they resolve the question of staining. That’s what I’ve heard from the Board. I think we can trust our subcommittee to check those items. Vice Chair Thompson: Plus the cement fiber I would contest. Chair Baltay: I think there's a number of items, so if we could just make a list of what were trying to get to the subcommittee. Osma, would that leave you feeling better about it if we could put that stuff out there? Vice Chair Thompson: Better, yeah. Chair Baltay: This is going to go to the City Council. It’s got a lot of people behind it. It’s a big deal kind of project. Having strong support from the ARB is important. I want your part of this. 3.a Packet Pg. 112 City of Palo Alto Page 53 Vice Chair Thompson: I really want to support this but I can’t also say that this is optimal for this location in terms of aesthetics because… Chair Baltay: Is there enough we can put on a subcommittee list that you might be able to put your vote there? Would you like to make try to make a motion, Osma? Vice Chair Thompson: This is too difficult I think. Chair Baltay: I don’t want to force you. Whatever you think is your prerogative. Vice Chair Thompson: It sounds like we’re asking for, sort of, a change out or at least considering changing out the Corten, the wood, maybe the cement fiber panel. Then David did mention that the white was too white. He was looking for more earth tones. I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels about that. Chair Baltay: I think if we put those four as recommendations that the applicant can reconsider those and the subcommittee looks at them… you could be part of that subcommittee even. I think that would give you a good sense on that. I think you could also say recommend that the ribbon is a uniform thickness. Over the front door it was thicker and that breaks the effect. You could ask them to study that large vertical window. I don’t any of those things are problems for the applicant. Vice Chair Thompson: That would help, I think, if the ribbon was a uniformed thickness. Chair Baltay: Those are all very good points you’ve made. Vice Chair Thompson: How did the Board feel about David’s comment about the corner and adding a bit more residential liveliness to that corner? I thought that was insightful. Chair Baltay: I'm just not sure how you get there quickly on that one. Vice Chair Thompson: Looking at the plans, it looks like that corner is a living room. Chair Baltay: It is a living room. That’s right. Vice Chair Thompson: There is no outdoor space. Maybe a balcony would help or something that might liven that corner. Chair Baltay: There’s a balcony just to the left off Leghorn, which is an appropriate place for a balcony, really. That’s a busy street there. Vice Chair Thompson: Can we see a corner view, Sheldon? Ms. Gerhardt: Chair Baltay, did you maybe want to do some straw pulls just to see how everyone’s on a particular subject, or is it easier to talk it through? Chair Baltay: I think I know how everybody’s feeling on it. I've heard Alex and Grace they are in favor of the project, more or less, the way it is. I've heard David and Osma say they really would like to see some changes. I’m the guy in the muddle. I want to get this approved today. I want to make whatever changes we need to get the votes. Does anybody disagree with that basic statement? Board Member Lee: I think that’s all good, Peter. I do want to mention that I don’t believe that we asked the applicant for balconies on the corner at our previous meeting. I just want to be fair to the applicant in terms of adding those asks when we didn’t ask that at a previous meeting. Chair Baltay: Osma, can you see the balconies on the right-hand side? Those are the bedroom balconies. It’s kind of a nice place for them. 3.a Packet Pg. 113 City of Palo Alto Page 54 Vice Chair Thompson: I see them. Maybe the comment is not to add balconies add the corner but maybe just to create more relief on that corner. It feels really flat in this view. Maybe the material choice would add to that. Chair Baltay: Okay. I'm looking for somebody to step up and make a list. I will do it if nobody else wants to. Is that the preferred way to go? Vice Chair Thompson: Alex, did you have a list? MOTION Board Member Lew: I will make a motion that the ARB recommends the project to Council with the following six items return to subcommittee for consideration. The first is to reconsider the Corten material, and/or provide details. Two is to consider a substitute for the Redwood material or provide more information on the maintenance and life cycle of the proposed material. The third is to reconsider the bright white paint and consider something more earth-toned or earth-toned. The fourth is to consider making the ribbon item a uniformed thickness. The fifth one, I'm not sure how to word it, but I would say consider making the corner more -- how do we want to say it? Vice Chair Thompson: I would say consider adding visual relief on that corner or architectural relief. Board Member Lew: All right. That could be maybe changing the cement board or something. Vice Chair Thompson: Yes. Board Member Lew: I will say this, there is a glad corner near my house just like this project and the owners have put in these very elaborate cat towers. The fanciest ones I’ve ever seen and then the cats it the in the corner all day long hanging out. I said six, but I think I only have five items there. Chair Baltay: Alex, you had talked about the bicycle repair thing and the trees. Do you want to try to put those in? I don’t know there's much dispute on those. Board Member Lew: The bicycle wash is just an alternate, so there's an alternative option they could use in the garage if they want to. Chair Baltay: It’s fair to make that part of your motion. Board Member Lew: That would be item number six in the motion. Then I think item number seven, which is the Blue Oaks, I would say review that with Urban Forestry. Chair Baltay: Okay. Board Member Lew: I don’t know either way which one would be better. I don’t know if they’ve reviewed it already. Board Member Hirsch: I know there's a motion. Can we comment on it? Board Member Lew: Somebody needs to second it first. Chair Baltay: You need to second it first. Board Member Hirsch: (Inaudible). Chair Baltay: I didn’t hear that. David, are you seconding that motion? You can still add an amendment to it after you second it. 3.a Packet Pg. 114 City of Palo Alto Page 55 Board Member Hirsch: Okay, I’ll second it. Chair Baltay: Okay. The motion is made and seconded. Does anybody have any amendments they would like to add to that motion? Board Member Hirsch: I’d like to make a comment that we talked about the ribbon being a specific width dimension but looking at this image here we don’t need the ribbon at the top of the building do we? That would be wrong. The top of this building has a thickness at the corner but a successful ending. It does at the main entry as well. When you say the ribbon dimension, it’s only when it turns into a ribbon vertically or horizontally but not at the top of the building or at the top of the entry. Chair Baltay: I think what Alex is referring to, and what I was certainly mentioned, is just the thickness of the ribbon over the entry lobby. It seems to be about twice the thickness of the same thing everywhere else. Osma had pointed out that it just looked more haphazard that way. That’s what I believe. Alex, is that what you’re referring to in your motion? Right here in the center of the current drawing. Vice Chair Thompson: They vary in thickness. Chair Baltay: Yes, it’s true. They all vary but they ought to look at making them the same if they could. That’s what the concept is. It seems like that could be done without too much trouble. David, does that address your comment? Board Member Hirsch: I just want to make sure that we’re not talking about the top over the doorway/entryway on the second level or the one that goes to the very top of the corner coming around. We don’t want that the same thickness. Vice Chair Thompson: We do. That’s a comment. Board Member Hirsch: No, I don’t agree with that. I wouldn’t second that motion. I don’t think the top of those pieces should be the same. Chair Baltay: David, it needs to be the same or be different? Board Member Hirsch: No, I think it has to be different. Chair Baltay: I see. Okay. The motion called for it to be the same. I think Alex is trying to address us collectively. Are we better off just removing that from this motion or do we lose support because of that? Board Member Hirsch: You lose my support because… Chair Baltay: Guys, we want to put this to the City Council in a way that pushes housing forward in the City. We want to give support and not quiver over things that are secondary. Whatever you think. Board Member Hirsch: Wait a minute. It’s a balcony over the second over the entry. Chair Baltay: That’s right. Board Member Hirsch: It’s a balcony. If there's going to be a ribbon then it's going to have another piece on top it if that makes it into a balcony. Is that what you're saying? Vice Chair Thompson: Yeah (crosstalk). Chair Baltay: There is going to be a safety railing on top of that, of course. Vice Chair Thompson: It could have like glass or something else that’s not the ribbon. 3.a Packet Pg. 115 City of Palo Alto Page 56 Board Member Hirsch: What about the corner? Chair Baltay: I would think that the thickness of the ribbon be 12 or 18 inches. It should be the same just so that it wraps the whole building all the way from one end to the other. Again, there might be a parapet or waterproofing detail behind it. We’re not saying it absolutely has to be that way. We’re putting a subcommittee out there to check these things. That’s all. Board Member Lee: If I may, I believe we all feel very comfortable with a portion of our Board in the subcommittee. Would it be possible just to use the word consider so that we are asking the design to consider without a prescriptive… Chair Baltay: That’s what’s in the motion I believe. Board Member Lee: I just wanted to see if that might feel comfortable for David so that we can come to a consensus here. Chair Baltay: David, does that work for you? Board Member Hirsch: That works for me. Chair Baltay: Okay, great. Any other amendments to this motion, David and Osma? How about the window? Board Member Hirsch: The window in terms of a balcony or something? Chair Baltay: There's a vertical window to the right of the lobby that is distinctly different than the rest of the windows on the building. Board Member Hirsch: I personally really hate that window. Vice Chair Thompson: Yeah, I don’t know what to do about it. Consider alternatives for that window. Board Member Hirsch: Any alternative that the architects could propose to the committee would be fine by me. Chair Baltay: Would one of you like to make a friendly amendment to add that to the motion? FRIENDLY AMENDMENT TO MOTION Board Member Hirsch: Amend the… I believe that’s a window into a staircase. Vice Chair Thompson: It’s into the elevator lobby. Chair Baltay: You could put a mullion pattern on it that lines up with the other ones. Board Member Hirsch: I think it is a star itself at that point. I would say I would amend the motion to consider eliminating the vertical window. Vice Chair Thompson: Could we say consider an alternative to the treatment? Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Vice Chair Thompson: Whether that is elimination or maybe… Chair Baltay: We have a friendly amendment to consider either eliminating or modifying the vertical window to the right of the entry. The maker of the motion, Alex, are you okay with that? 3.a Packet Pg. 116 City of Palo Alto Page 57 Board Member Lew: I will accept that. Chair Baltay: David, you're the second. Are you accepting that? Board Member Hirsch: Yeah. Chair Baltay: Okay. Are there any other amendments? Then we have a motion that’s made and seconded. Before we vote on it, I’d like to ask the applicant if they understand what we’re talking about here. Either the architect or the owner, do you folks have any questions or concerns about what we’re trying to do? Eugene Sakai: This is Eugene Sakai. No questions. I just wanted to point out that there was a reference to the east elevation being visible from San Antonio Road and it’s not. Chair Baltay: Yes, we get that. We’re focusing on the main elevation here. We want to be sure that what we’re doing is things you can put your heart into. Board Member Hirsch: There’s a window just like this in the San Antonio Road… or in the east elevation, sorry. Vice Chair Thompson: here does that blank space happen? Chair Baltay: I beg your pardon? Eugene Sakai: It’s on the east elevation. It’s opposite San Antonio Road. It’s not visible from San Antonio. Board Member Hirsch: It’s not visible. Vice Chair Thompson: Oh, I see. That’s on the other side. Okay. Chair Baltay: That’s facing Mountain View squarely. Eugene Sakai: The window on the front elevation on San Antonio, could we just be certain which one we are discussing adapting. Chair Baltay: Go back to the elevation, please. Eugene Sakai: Is it the one to the right of the Equitone? Chair Baltay: Yes, right where the cursor is now. That’s the window. Eugene Sakai: Okay. Ted O’Hanlon, Project Manager: That’s a stairwell window and we can certainly break that up. No problem. Chair Baltay: I would think that’s a straightforward enough adjustment. Okay. The motion is made and seconded. Vinh, can we have a roll call vote, please? Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) No: Absent: 3.a Packet Pg. 117 City of Palo Alto Page 58 MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 5-0-0. Approval of Minutes 4. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for July 2, 2020 5. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for July 16, 2020 Chair Baltay: Thank you, everybody. Wonderful. Thank you. Again, it’s going to be great to get that one through. Can we quickly shoot through these last few items before taking a break? Does everybody have the stamina to just get us there? We have a couple of minutes to approve. Vice Chair Thompson: I really need to go but if it’s really quick then we can do it. Chair Baltay: I’m trying to find my… Vice Chair Thompson: I didn’t realize we had minutes. Ms. Gerhardt: We have minutes for July 2, and July 16 that we’re asking approval for. Chair Baltay: Jodie, I can’t find the agenda in front of me. What is the wording of the agenda item there? Ms. Gerhardt: It just says that its approval of minutes. It would be the draft Architectural Review Board minutes for July 2, 2020, and draft architectural minutes for July 16, 2020. Chair Baltay: Got it here. I have it now. Okay. First one is the mintues from July 2. I’ll move that we approve those as submitted. Do we have any comments or any adjustments to that motion? Board Member Lew: I have some corrections. Chair Baltay: Go ahead, Alex. Board Member Lew: I think the project planner one of them is Emily Foley. It’s spelled Faley, F-A-L-E-Y. I think it should be F-O-L-E-Y. Chair Baltay: (Crosstalk). Isn’t it, Alex? Board Member Lew: It’s actually on both sets of minutes. On July 2 minutes, on page 12 I was speaking in reference to Belomo’s office. In the minutes its spelled Paloma’s office. It should be B-E-L-O-M-O. Then on page 13, I think in the minutes it says Mr. Nguyen and I think in that section it was actually me who was speaking to the best of my recollection. Ms. Gerhardt: I have those noted. Board Member Lew: Great. Thank you. Chair Baltay: Okay. The motion is amended to include those corrections. Do we have a second for the motion, please? Board Member Lew: Sure. I will second. Chair Baltay: Okay, moved and seconded. Can we have a roll call vote, please, Vinh? Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) 3.a Packet Pg. 118 City of Palo Alto Page 59 No: Absent: MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 5-0-0. Chair Baltay: thank you, Vinh. Next item is the minutes from July 16. Alex, we have your correction for Emily Foley spelling of her name. Is there anything else? Board Member Lew: No. Chair Baltay: I’ll move that we approve those minutes with that correction. Can I have a second, please? Vice Chair Thompson: I’ll second. Board Member Lew: Sure, I will second. Chair Baltay: Moved and seconded. Vinh, can we have a roll call cote, please. Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) No: Absent: MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 5-0-0. Board Members Questions, Comments or Announcements Chair Baltay: Thank you very much. Next item is Board Member questions, comments, and announcements. Alex, can we push this off to our newt meeting? Board Member Lew: Sure. There’s no news. Chair Baltay: No news. Great. With that, we’re adjourned, everybody. Thank you very, very much; wonderful to get through all of this. We’ll be in touch. Thanks, everybody. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you very much. Adjournment 3.a Packet Pg. 119