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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-03-18 Architectural Review Board Summary MinutesArchitectural Review Board Staff Report (ID # 12199) Report Type: Approval of Minutes Meeting Date: 4/15/2021 City of Palo Alto Planning & Development Services 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 329-2442 Summary Title: Minutes of March 18, 2021 Title: Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for March 18, 2021 From: Jonathan Lait Recommendation Staff recommends the Architectural Review Board (ARB) adopt the attached meeting minutes. Background Draft minutes from the March 18, 2021 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: March 18, 2021 Draft Minutes (DOCX) 5 Packet Pg. 30 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Osma Thompson, Vice Chair Grace Lee, Board Members Alexander Lew, Peter Baltay and David Hirsch. Absent: None. Oral Communications Chair Thompson: First item is oral communications. Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak on any item not on the agenda? Vinh Nguyen, Administrative Associate: We currently do not have any raised hands for oral communication. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Thompson: Okay, great. Thank you. Next item is agenda changes, additions and deletions, staff? 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 Thompson: Thank you. Next item is city official reports. Ms. Gerhardt: We are continuing our virtual meetings for the foreseeable future, and you see the dates there. If we go to the next page our next meeting is April 1st. It’s not an April Fool’s joke. I think showing on here we did have 486 Hamilton. That one is not going to be quite ready. We will have the 300 Pasteur which is a preliminary, and we’ll have the 2850 West Bayshore which is also a preliminary. A third we are adding an ad hoc committee item which would be 180 El Camino Real, which was the signs for the Macy’s building; slight movements there. I don’t have with who that would be so I will email the two people that would be on that ad hoc committee. Just as a reminder, we are now calling it ad hoc instead of subcommittee per the Council’s direction. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Quick question. When we do our motions, do we not say subcommittee anymore? If we had something we would do in subcommittee we would now call it the ad hoc committee? ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD DRAFT MINUTES: March 18, 2021 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue Virtual Meeting 8:30 AM 5.a Packet Pg. 31 City of Palo Alto Page 2 Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, that would be best. I am going to trip up on that one as well. We will all try to keep each other in check. Action Items 2. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 4260 El Camino Real [19PLN-00142]: Recommendation on Applicant's Request for Approval of a Minor Architectural Review to Allow for Façade Renovation to an Existing Structure. Scope of Work Includes Removing Existing Wood Siding and Replacing it With new Stucco and Metal Siding, new Paint and Metal Cable Railing Along all Stairways. Environmental Assessment: Exempt. Zoning District: CS (Service Commercial). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Emily Foley at emily.foley@cityofpaloalto.org. Chair Thompson: Okay, yeah, verbiage. Okay, great. We can move on to our action items. Our first action item is 4260 El Camino Real façade renovation. This is a quasi-judicial recommendation on applicant's request for approval for a minor architectural review to allow for façade renovation to an existing structure. Scope of work includes removing existing wood siding and replacing it with new stucco and metal siding, new paint, and metal cable railing along all stairways. Let’s do disclosures. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I disclose that I visited the site earlier this week. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I visited the site and also the materials board at City Hall yesterday. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I did not visit the site but I was at the materials board yesterday. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Lee? Vice Chair Lee: I visited both the site and City Hall for the materials board. Chair Thompson: Thank you. I also visited the site and the materials board. I’ll hand it over to staff. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you. [Setting up presentation.] Emily Foley: I apologize for the technical difficulties I was having this morning. [Setting up presentation.] Ms. Foley: This project previously had its first hearing with the ARB on July 2 of last year. Since this is the second hearing, our goal is for the ARB to be able to make a decision on this project. The main concerns from last time included the appropriateness of the proposed materials including the metal siding, the red roof, the railing, and the overall color scheme. There were some internal inconsistencies with the plan set that have been corrected for this round. There were also concerns about the rear elevations as it faces the Palo Alto Redwoods apartment buildings, and the on-site landscaping and planting. Changes include the metal siding panels have been reduced in size. The panels have a three- color scheme including a darker grey, a lighter grey, and a red. The railings have been more clearly specified to be black metal and cable. The roof is a red and black composite shingle material. New trellises will be added on the side and rear and those will be planted with bougainvillea and the existing trees and planters on site will remain as existing. The next few slides compare and contrast the previous elevations that you saw in July to the revised plans. The prior is on the left and the revised is on the 5.a Packet Pg. 32 City of Palo Alto Page 3 right. Again, the previous is on the top and the revised is on the bottom. This shows the revised materials, although as you noted you saw what is up at City Hall. This also shows a detail from the plan set showing that there will be a corner siding piece and then some detail for the railing. This slide shows a selection of some of the photos the applicant included in their project description showing the existing onsite landscaping. The top left corner is the front showing existing trees. Moving to the right that is the right side of the building also showing some of the mature trees in the rear. The bottom left shows the left side of the building. There are some existing trees on the property as well as existing cypress-type shrubs on the neighboring property. The bottom right corner shows one of their existing planter areas with mature plants. Our recommend motion is that you recommend approval of this project but we recognize that some items may need to go to the subcommittee. This concludes my presentation. I saw in the participants that the applicants Rucha and Rajiv are here. I believe the property owners if they're here also would like to speak. Chair Thompson: Thanks. I believe the applicant has ten minutes. Rucha Shah: Hi, everyone. My name is Rucha, and I am the designer for the project 4260 El Camino Real. Before I start, I would like to thank all of the Board Members, Jodie, and especially Emily for helping us out throughout the process. As you all know, this is the second ARB meeting but the scope of work remains the same. The proposed and the existing use of this building remains the same. It’s a commercial office building. It is a beautiful structure located at the intersection of El Camino Real and Dinah’s Court. The purpose of this project is the siding is deteriorating and it has major issues right now and more are enhancing. It needs maintenance. You can see the existing condition of the building. The roof also needs maintenance and that’s why we are upgrading it all around. We have updated the proposed color scheme. The shades of grey are a bit darker now and to break the massing, we are using the red strip on the front and the back. The size of the panels are reduced. It’s 24 by 48 inches and the red strip is 12 by 48. We are using the red fastener panels for the accents and composite shingle roof in the tone of red and black. To show the improvement, I would like to show the first design we submitted to the planning and it did not come to the first ARB. We changed and this was presented to you guys but then the concern the massing of the silver panel is too much and too reduced that we came up with this design. I would like to show that we have done some research and why did we come to this color scheme. This is the cabana hotel in the neighborhood which also uses the same color scheme as the first design we submitted to the planning. This is the Elks building which is right across the proposed project which also uses the same color. The Homewood Suites, the McLaren building on El Camino use the same panel sizes 24 by 48 inches and the Volvo building which has the same tone, off silver. The metal railing is upgraded and it was suggested by the planning to improve the railing and improve the visibility for the pedestrians and the passing cars. The siding is 24 gate single span the brand EP and it gives 40-year warranty and its pre-cut and pre-painted exactly as the samples we submitted to the City. For the connections, we will be using the same trim flashing for the parapet and corners. This is one of the views to show the visibility for the staircase and why did we use the metal table railing. For landscaping, because there is not enough scope to plant on ground, we will use as many potted plants as possible to enhance the rail and the side. New lighting is added to the front but because the front façade has more glass, even if the ideal lights are on it is going to reflect on the road. Minim lighting is added to the front just to enhance, which was also suggested by ARB in the previous meeting to add some lightning. This is the street view with the hotel next door. The night street view. Thank you. I hope you like our new improved design. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak? Mr. Nguyen: Chair Thompson, we currently do not have any raised hands for this item. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant from the Board? Board Member Baltay: I certainly have questions if I'm the only one. Board Member Hirsch: I do too. 5.a Packet Pg. 33 City of Palo Alto Page 4 Board Member Baltay: Do you want to go first, David? Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I think mine is relatively simple. I did see some images, I think, before of a darker base and a lighter top. The metallic top seems to have changed its feeling. I wonder was there a shift in the design idea here that the bottom should be light and the top should be dark versus the reverse? Ms. Shah: The concern in the previous was it will create glare. To reduce that and to break it, we have used the darker shade on the top and broke it with the red color in between. This gives a reduction in the silver lighter shade and even the panels are not textured or colored, which will create glare but still if there was a concern we thought the darker color reduces less glare so we put it at the top. Board Member Hirsch: Actually, that’s my concern because it seems like it’s a metallic building and it has a base that the metallic part would be lighter than the base. Let’s maybe discuss that later. Chair Thompson: Any other questions of the applicant? Board Member Baltay: Yes, if I could. To the applicant, these are fairly detailed and I am just struggling to understand your plan set. When I look at detail four on sheet 8.2.3 it seems to indicate some sort of composite panel, not a metal panel on the corners of the building; the corner detail. Can you clarify what metal is really is proposed, please? Ms. Shah: It’s the same as the metal panels and they are used for the connections and the same brand, EP, makes them. It comes with the panel for the inner and outer connections. Board Member Baltay: Where the detail says composite siding materials that really should reference metal panels. Is that correct? Ms. Shah: Yes. Board Member Baltay: Okay. The same detail seems to show the panel being face-screwed attached to the wall somehow. I believe you have some sort of hidden clip system. Is that correct again? Ms. Shah: Yes, they are clips. If there are any other material in the back, different kind of connections are used to connect it with different material. Board Member Baltay: I am looking at detail four on 2.3 or on sheet A2.4 has a whole series of details with two different outside corner treatments. One shows a cap piece, that makes a clean corner. Another shows a reveled extrusion. What is your intent? 4.3 shows it one way and then on detail 2.4 it shows a different set of details with no reference to the drawings. Ms. Shah: Here, we actually tried to cover all possible scenarios because there are a lot of angles and corners for the building. Just to propose, if there are any specific detail required we used it. Board Member Baltay: I am looking at the detail on sheet 8.2.4 on the lower left-hand side. It says connection to outside corner and it is just a completely different detail than your renderings show or your other details show. So, you're saying that may be used at certain locations but not specified? Ms. Shah: Yes. Board Member Baltay: Okay, thank you. You show a railing detail which seems to be mounted on the surface of something with two mull posts and your drawings all show the railings continuously to the grade below the level of the steps on the staircase. What is the actual condition? How do you intent to detail this? 5.a Packet Pg. 34 City of Palo Alto Page 5 Ms. Shah: The actual one is what we submitted the brochure of the product and the one we are showing in the rendering. Sometimes it’s difficult to draw exactly because the 3-D doesn’t exactly have to put it that way. Maybe there is a discrepancy in the 3-D but we will put what we have submitted in the brochure and shown in the design details. Board Member Baltay: I am looking at sheet 8.2.0; the second drawing up on the right says black metal railing. It’s a clear visual of the railing but it clearly has to be mounted on the surface. My question is if that is mounted on the surface at the grade level, say the sidewalk or something like that, you see through that through the structure of the stair, don’t you not? Ms. Shah: Yes, it will be on the stairs. Board Member Baltay: What is the side of the stair going to be treated with when finished? It will be quite visible with a cable rail. Does that also receive metal panels then or how is that detailed? Ms. Shah: There will be metal panels in the background if there is any covering required for the stair. Cover that and then on top of that we will put the railing. Board Member Baltay: I see. But is there a detail showing how that is done in this plan set? Ms. Shah: No, I don’t think so. Board Member Baltay: Okay, thank you very much. Lastly, the panel boards at City Hall have no labeling. Could you clarify which colors go where on the building, please? There seems to be a red color, which I assume is your accent band and there is a very dark grey and I would say a silver. That’s the name I would call it. Ms. Shah: That is parchment grey. That’s the darker grey and the lighter one is the old town grey. Board Member Baltay: The lighter color is at the base of the building? Ms. Shah: Yes. Board Member Baltay: And all around? Ms. Shah: Yeah. Board Member Baltay: On the drawing I am looking at sheet A3, the front elevations it says new 7/8 minimum stucco three-coat with wire cement plaster, et cetera. Is that… Ms. Shah: No, we are not using any stucco anywhere. That was in the first design which we submitted in ARB one. Board Member Baltay: I am looking at drawings A3 that were submitted of this presentation and it says pretty clearly here stucco on the drawing. Are you saying that that’s not consistent then somehow? Ms. Shah: Yeah, that was removed. The stucco is removed from the drawing. Board Member Baltay: I see. The lower material is the lighter color metal panel that you're… Ms. Shah: Right. Board Member Baltay: Do you anywhere identify the sides of these panels on the drawing set or the alignment of the panels? I heard you say two foot by four-foot dimensions. Is that detailed or specified anywhere? 5.a Packet Pg. 35 City of Palo Alto Page 6 Ms. Shah: No, but the elevations are pretty much to the scale. They are 24 by 48 inches. Board Member Baltay: Okay, but the question is, is that included in the documentation and I heard your answer saying no it is not. Ms. Shah: It was mentioned to Emily but no I don’t think it is appearing in the document. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Thank you for your answering my questions. That’s all I have, Chair Thompson. Ms. Shah: The owner wanted to speak. Board Member Baltay: That’s to the Chair, please. Chair Thompson: I’d like to ask the rest of the Board Members if there are any more questions. Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, I do have a question. It’s not really a question; it is just simply I found Emily’s slides four through seven to be very helpful. I am wondering if we could just look at those once again if Emily is included to show them. I believe that they show the previous meeting's proposal elevations and this meeting’s; just so that we all can take a quick look. Would that be okay? Chair Thompson: Sure. Vice Chair Lee: Sorry to add more time but I think Emily went through them quickly and I thought those were really helpful just to give us some history. [Setting up presentation.] Chair Thompson: Maybe we will circle back. Are there any other questions from Board Member Lew? I have questions. For the metal panel design, with the fasteners be visible? I saw some details where the fasteners were visible and others where they were not. Ms. Shah: For most of the corners it is not, but if there are any corners which are awkward, they will be visible. For that we are using the same color as the banners even though it is lighter or darker grey or red in shade, we will use the same color so it looks even. Chair Thompson: Okay. You're not able to identify where they would be visible on the elevation? Ms. Shah: No. Chair Thompson: I also have a question about the stucco. Just confirming that there is no stucco on the project? Ms. Shah: There is no stucco, yes. Chair Thompson: I had a question about the railing just to get further clarification. The detail for the railing that we see is a 36-inch tall railing but in the elevations, we see railings that look like its nine-foot tall. I’d like to get more clarification about what that design is. Is it only going to be 36 inches tall, and then I think what Board Member Baltay is asking is the rest metal panel but I didn’t get a proper answer. Ms. Shah: Thirty-six inches for wherever it requires from the viewing area on the top landing but for the staircase, it will go from top to bottom. Because the intent was to change this it is to provide the visibility for the passing cars and for the pedestrian. Under the stairs, there will be panels and then covering the rails on top of it but it will be 36 inches in eight. Rajiv Agarwal: To answer your question, yes, the rest will be covered with metal panels. 5.a Packet Pg. 36 City of Palo Alto Page 7 Chair Thompson: So we won’t see this bailing in front of the wall like we are seeing in the elevation? Mr. Agarwal: No. In the 3-D, no. You see that in the 3-D that’s not going to be reality. There will be metal panels. The railing that you see will be 36 inches. Chair Thompson: I see. And will it be the light color metal panel? Mr. Agarwal: Yeah, the same as the base color. We want to maintain elevations, so anything below the elevation of the red band will be the lighter color because after the ARB’s feedback in the last meeting we were told that any lighter color will generate too much glare so we just completely ditched all light colors and chose two colors; a dark and darker color with no glare and those are the ones that they are using in this current design. And just to circle back on the fasteners, I have verified with the manufacturer all the corners and none of the fasteners will be visible. Even in the difficult corners they have these trimming caps that are consistent with the metal panel, they manufacture them, and none of the fasteners will be visible. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch: Osma, I have one more question. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let me just finish. I have two more questions and then I will come back to you Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Ms. Gerhardt: Chair, if we could ask Rajiv to introduce himself and spell his name. Mr. Agarwal: I am part of the design team working for (inaudible). [Spells name]. Chair Thompson: Thank you for the reminder, Jodie. My other question was on sheet A3 we have two details for the siding corner. One is showing a grid formation. The other one is showing something more horizontal. Are they both being used or is just one of those details being used consistently? Mr. Agarwal: The horizontal is being used. Chair Thompson: The lower detail is not being used? Mr. Agarwal: That is correct, yeah. We are only using the horizontal which will match with the rest of the big walls basically; trying to keep it consistent. Chair Thompson: My last question is about the trellis. Is there a place where we could see what the trellis looks like without the planting on it so we can see what the structure is? Mr. Agarwal: Yeah. In Emily’s presentation, there is a picture of the trellis by itself. If you look at the sign that has been shown, existing landscaping, the bottom left corner you can see the trellis. It already exists, it’s on the balcony. The thing is that this building sits at the lot boundary, literally at the lot boundary on all four sides. There is no land to landscape on. So what we decided to do is that we would just put as many plants as possible in every location as possible including the two balconies that we have. The left side balcony you can see currently being shown on the bottom left corner. We are going to put a Bougainvillea on that and then the back side balcony which currently does not have a trellis, we are going to put a trellis and put Bougainvillea on top to just create as much landscaping as possible given our constraints on having any land. Chair Thompson: Just to clarify, for the existing trellis that we see there that will just be repainted and then there will be a new trellis in the back in the rear? 5.a Packet Pg. 37 City of Palo Alto Page 8 Mr. Agarwal: Yeah, this one will be repainted and we will have a Bougainvillea vine as shown in the 3-D presentation by Rucha. Chair Thompson: Okay, sorry. Repainted and then the back one, what is the design of that one? What does that look like without the plants? Mr. Agarwal: Same as this one as you see on the bottom left corner. Ms. Foley: The second to last page of the applicant’s project description also shows a view of the side trellis as it exists. Chair Thompson: Yeah, sorry, my question is mainly about the design of the new one. Okay, I think I have my answer. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I wanted to ask about the lighting in the front because that was one of my major concerns nonetheless, submission. Have you done a study of the lighting? You do have an image of it with a light on but is there a study of the actual throw of the fixtures on the wall? Mr. Agarwal: When you say study, you mean study by a lighting consultant? Board Member Baltay: A discussion of how the fixture was selected and why it is what it is and what kind of light it has. Mr. Agarwal: All of the fixtures that we are putting on the front are going to shine light down, not straight ahead. The idea is to just make sure that there is, once again, minimum glare from the building and the reason and our understanding for putting lights in front was to just give a more enhanced look to the building. All of the structures to the left and the right of the building have pretty minimal lighting in the front as well, so we wanted to keep it consistent with that as well. The fixtures we have selected are going to shown light down as shown in the renderings. Board Member Hirsch: You didn’t have a lighting consultant. Is that true? Mr. Agarwal: There is not lighting consultant that we have hired. That is correct. Chair Thompson: Is there a cut sheet of the light fixture available? Ms. Shah: No. Chair Thompson: Any other questions of the applicant from the Board. Board Member Hirsch: I have one more. On the metal, is it your intent to get shop drawings from the supplier that will show all of the detailing that you’ve talked about? Mr. Agarwal: These are metal panels with no visible fasteners. As shown in the renderings, the size is specified and you can see that none of the fasteners will be visible. In terms of the shop drawing, we have a cut sheet of these metal panels that we have submitted. At the time of installation, if we need any more details, yes, the manufacturer will provide those to us. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Chair Thompson: Any other questions. Vice Chair Lee: I was just hoping we could take a look at those slides four through seven briefly. Is that okay, Chair Osma, if we just breeze through those? 5.a Packet Pg. 38 City of Palo Alto Page 9 Chair Thompson: Yeah, that’s right. Thanks for reminding me. I forgot to circle back. [Setting up presentation.] Vice Chair Lee: I appreciate that. I don’t have that. I just have the large-scale black and white and I didn’t see it in the applicant’s packet. Ms. Gerhardt: Those are the four sides. Vice Chair Lee: Thank you. Chair Thompson: I guess we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the Board. Let’s start with comments. Who’d like to go first? Vice Chair Lee: Me to go first? Board Member Baltay: I'm happy to start, Osma, if you'd like. Chair Thompson: Go ahead, Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I find it really difficult to evaluate what this project is going to be like. The drawing set is still, in my opinion, quite incomplete and inconsistent. That’s distressing. Trying to get beyond that, I find that there are really two components to this that I am structuring my thoughts about. One is the resurfacing of the building itself. That’s changing from a rather muted wood siding to these metal panels. I can appreciate that we have changed that the upper portion of the building is a darker panel; however, I am really starting to think that that is just a flawed decision at a high level. The metal panels are going to be, in my opinion, too challenging to fit on a building like this. There are just too much in and out; too many changes. It’s not the right choice at a high level. Secondly, I think it is really inappropriate next to residential and next to the hotel on the right-hand side to have; certainly, the lower panel is extremely reflective judging by the sample that’s over at City Hall. I don’t think it’s appropriate whatsoever. That’s one piece of the project I am looking at and I just don’t think it is even close right now with the metal panels. The second piece, which is quite visible from the front, is the way the stairs are treated or modified. I think staff’s suggestion of trying to open it up and make it more transparent is a good one but we have seen this project twice, maybe even a third time in a preliminary, I can’t remember, and each time we have asked the same set of question about how the railing works and how they follow the stairs and what happens below them and above them and each time we get the same vague set of non-answers about how it is being done. The renderings really don’t show what's being done. Even the applicant team is inconsistent on what’s going on; whether the railings go to the ground or not, and I can tell you from practical experience it is a challenging design project that you can’t just take a manufacturer’s component and slap it on something. I think the vague idea of it being an open railing is perhaps okay but without more information of how it is going to work it will be a disaster in execution, I believe. I just feel that yes it needs to be revised and fixed but we are not even close to seeing what's appropriate. Then, what I would like to do is say to my colleagues that as it stands now I think we should recommend denial of this project. I would like to remind everybody we continue projects when we think our advice is being taken and buildings are improving; getting closer to something we can recommend approval on. I don’t see that here. What I see is the same basic lack of real effort to find what this will be and I hope my colleagues can persuade me otherwise but at this moment I will be moving to recommend denial of this project after everybody’s comments. That’s where I stand. Thank you very much. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Baltay. Let’s go to Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I was thinking about having the project come back to an ad hoc committee. That was as of last night but after this presentation and learning that the stucco has been deleted and replaced by metal siding, I really do have to reconsider that. Everything that I was going into this morning I think has changed. I am not ready to recommend approval of the project today. I think there 5.a Packet Pg. 39 City of Palo Alto Page 10 were a number of inconsistencies that Peter has mentioned. Also, I think the lighting is not very well designed. I think you haven’t factored in the emergency egress lighting that you need throughout the whole staircase. I think it is just unresolved. I am curious to see where the Board Members weigh in on this but I think I will generally support the majority’s decision. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Lew. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: In terms of a design, I think it is a success in so many ways here. The strip of red is an exciting addition and it is consistent throughout the building now as it wasn’t before. I am bothered by what I stated earlier that the base of the building being so light and the top of it dark. It seems to be a reverse of what I would expect, although the issue of brightness and reflectivity is a concern. I think it is still possible with a metal forming like this to reach two different colors be the lighter one would be o the top the way it was originally shown and the darker would be on the bottom. I agree with my cohorts here that there are detailing issues and that’s why I mentioned shop drawings on so many of these pieces because some of this could be (inaudible) later on. However, it is important to get the detailing done upfront as well and for us to be able to see it. In terms of the lighting, yes, I agree with Board Member Lew that the lighting has significantly improved but we don’t know what it is going to do and it really needs to light the staircases because that is the way you get in and out. I don’t see that that’s accomplished in this drawing. I am sorry to say that because I would really like to be able to say that this project is ready for approval but this sort of thing is holding it up in my mind. The other aspect that we’re not talking about too much is you see renderings of plantings and what not along the building but I don’t think that was all that well resolved (inaudible) electrical on the left. I understand that somebody else drew the planting but it will grow back. I was concerned that there doesn’t seem to be a professional hand in there on planting in general. In particular, I am concerned about the area where you just have pots up above in that planter area and it is kind of a ridiculous way to show planting. Whereas it seems to me that there is a way in which you could build the planting into an inserted piece and the planting would be parting the whole structure. Just putting pots around is not really a great solution for the planting ideas and how it’s done. Therefore, I would recommend that you look to somebody to give you some advice on that. The existing trees that are there, that’s fine; keep them. The ground covered and the planting edges and the relationship to the ground need to be expressed in appropriate planning terminology or terms. Again, I think it’s a significant improvement here to have these metal panels and I think that is an appropriate way to treat this building. I can’t imagine what else you would do. It seems like this is an industrial building and it is going to be different that its neighbor. The neighbor’s a great big hotel. This is going to stand out by itself. The next neighbor is another hotel that is set way back on the property. This is a little gem by itself and I like the way it has been detailed in terms of the metal siding; I just don’t agree with the top/bottom issue here. I suspect that maybe you were sort of forced into this because the issue of the shiny building was a question but I am sorry that decision was made because I think the bottom should be darker and the top should be lighter but not overly reflective. That would match the regular part of the building and the back nicely and the proportions of the tower are nice right now. In terms of the aesthetics, I think it’s a better decision. Ultimately, I would say the project would be approvable and go to committee. I would say that based on my comments, but my comments now are a little bit more questionable because of the lighting and this major discrepancy between the lower and top of the building. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Hirsch. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Thanks to the applicant for coming back and the presentation. There is improvement here and I am very happy to see that there have been revisions to the colors. It’s almost like one big step forward, however, we have taken a few steps back. I just wanted to thank my fellow Board Members for their comments. I look forward to hearing Chair Osma’s. We need a set of coordinated drawings. This is not a big project but there are enough pieces where we simply need a set of coordinated drawings and I think you're moving in the right direction. There is improvement. We need a set of coordinated drawings. Actually what we see in Emily’s is that it is very clear in terms of what was proposed originally, what we’re moving forward to; what would be missing are some architectural symbols in terms of your proposed materials. I think that my colleague Board Member Peter has really emphasized how the details, and Osma’s questions as well, in terms of how we just need a set that is 5.a Packet Pg. 40 City of Palo Alto Page 11 coordinated. I am sorry I said that so many times. I feel like that is where we have taken a few steps back. There hasn’t been improvement in how you communicate what you are proposing and that is something that could come forward again in a next meeting. I do appreciate the packet in terms of the 8.5 by 11 and I believe telling the story of the landscape and showing examples of the context was very compelling. Thank you for that. To go to specifically what you're proposing, I do have some comments and I am not a huge fan of the metal panels. I do think the existing is wonderfully falling apart; it is dilapidated and it is time for a change; however, if you are going to move to the metal panels, again we need to know that they're going to work. When we look at the revised color palette I think what you're doing makes a lot of sense. The larger material that you will see on a vehicular scale, certainly on El Camino, which is a large boulevard, even at the pedestrian, is the upper half or two-thirds. Thank you for moving that to a tone that is going to recede. I think moving that to the charcoal or to the darker grey makes a lot of sense. The base where it turns again to the lighter material, and I agree that the material that I saw at City Hall is still rather light and bright; however, if you are going to move to a lighter tone grey maybe it is separated by a band that is red that picks up the roof color. I think the band is -- I think you said 12 inches -- again, these just come into the drawing set a little bit more and, to me, that is too much. I was just going to advocate for something like eight or six inches. The band is clearly applied and I think the band needs to work with other things. When we look at lighting and a lighting fixture when you come back, hopefully, my feeling is with Board Member Lew’s comments regarding egress, but also the horizontals; the lights are at two different levels on that upper piece. Just really think about that lighting and explain why it is doing what it is doing, the size of the fixture, where it is placed I think would be great. The other piece that I wanted to mention is that large metal square grill on the side that is in front of us right now. It pops out and I think when I look at the existing front in your packet and the photo of the existing 4260 that’s painted the same color as the background color, the body color, so I encourage you to think about that square grill not popping out as an important element because I think it wants to recede. Then, when we do think about the plants and the installation of this material, which is a large surface area, it will be difficult to install and make the plants but some of them I've seen in your packet are not mature. They are actually hardy plants but just to think about when installation occurs and maybe go back to the plants and just make sure; I am worried that they will not be protected. This is a very straightforward proposal in terms of changing the material of the building but the landscape does matter in terms of how that works together. Encouraging Camellias to grow where they are already planted, that’s great, but here might be areas where you might want to take a closer look when you this next layer and I look forward to seeing it come back again. I’ll stop there. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. In terms of looking in our packet pages 10 and 11, we have notes from our previous meeting and how the applicant responded. I can’t help but notice that some of these things have not really been responded to. We have a note at the beginning that says please delete unused details or images and this morning we identified a couple of images that were not applicable, that were not deleted but the railing details appear standard and they don’t look like the rendering. I also want to remind the Board that if we recommend approval, we are recommending approval of the drawing set in front of us, which we have identified this morning as having many, many incorrections and I think that is problematic. It very clearly says stucco on the bottom half of this building and to learn that it’s not stucco is a problem. We shouldn’t be recommending approval of a drawing set that is incorrect, and we shouldn’t be selling wholesale facades to ad hoc committees. That’s not what ad hoc committees are for. I have a lot of reservations about recommending approval today. Similarly, we asked to provide a lighting plan to include the proposed fixtures and photometric information; none of that was provided. Not even a cut sheet was provided. We have a comment here that the surrounding neighborhood… we’ve pushed the hotel adjacent to have very natural warm a palette and even the other hotel has a warm palette. This does not have a warm palette. I don’t think there is any harmony with the adjacent structures, and finding number two that we need to meet is to find a harmonious transition in character to the adjacent land uses. I don’t think this design does that. There are no dimensions on these elevations to understand really how big these panels are even though we wanted to understand that better. I am less concerned about glare and more just concerned about how the character is not in tune with the adjacent areas. There was concern about the roof color not being appropriate. I understand that this project is not required to comply with CALGreen mandatory, but we do have to meet finding number six where the project incorporates design principles that achieve sustainability. The urban heat 5.a Packet Pg. 41 City of Palo Alto Page 12 island effect is a huge problem in cities and if the applicant is replacing the roof I think it (inaudible) the city that it is a cool roof to work towards sustainability goals. We noted the rear elevation needs more tension and to provide details of the trellis, and these details are not here. In general, I cannot make finding number two. There is not enough information for finding number three because of the lack of details on the railing and the trellis, and I cannot make finding number six because of the sustainability issue. I cannot recommend approval today and I’ll leave my comments there for now. Is there anything the Board would like to discuss? Maybe another round of comments necessary or someone wants to make a motion. MOTION Board Member Baltay: Osma, if I could please. I would like to move that we recommend denial today. I understand that this may not be a successful motion over the height of the Board after what everybody said but I am hopeful at least one other Board Member will agree with me that it gives a serious notification to the applicant that we mean what we say. I think that they have not responded significantly to our previous comments, as Osma just outlined. I think that we can say that finding two has not been met, nor has finding number three been demonstrated or met, and I agree with Osma on finding number six. That’s the basis behind my motion but I would like to encourage my colleagues that our effectiveness relies on applicants being willing to work with us. When we tolerate applicants not working with us and instead coming back and essentially arguing with us that no we don’t know what colors are appropriate on El Camino, that it’s okay to have a glaring metal siding on El Camino, that they don’t need to provide details even when we explicitly ask for them and when staff does not back us up it puts these things in front of us. Our recourse, then, is to recommend denial. That’s why I would like to get at least one colleague to second my motion and put it to a vote so everybody can see that we’re serious. I move that we recommend denial of this project based on not being able to meet findings two, three, and six. Chair Thompson: Motion by Baltay. Do we have a second? I’ll second. Board Member Baltay: Thank you, Osma. Chair Thompson: Motion by Baltay, seconded by Thompson. Does anybody else want to speak to the motion or have any comments? No? Board Member Baltay: I’ve already spoken to it; I think it’s clear. Chair Thompson: Okay. Should we go ahead and take a vote? Ms. Gerhardt: If we could get Veronica to do a roll call. Board Member Hirsch: Osma? Chair Thompson: One second. Board Member Hirsch, you have a note? Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I was on mute. I’m sorry. I don’t think there are a lot of choices in actually how this building should be treated in material. Board Member Baltay: Vote, this is a vote. Board Member Hirsch: Although I understand that this isn't a sufficient submission, I don’t think it should be sent back to the designers here to say that we are disapproving everything about this project and that is the way it sort of comes across this denial of the project. I would like to see us soften this a little bit because there are some decisions that have been made here that I think are quite successful. The use of this metal material… look, this is a very special building from the beginning and it doesn’t look like other buildings on El Camino, but it was designed as a building with inadequate materials in the beginning but they have come back now and provided us with a metal material, which is an appropriate use on a 5.a Packet Pg. 42 City of Palo Alto Page 13 building like this. It’s kind of a semi-industrial building and it is showing that in that terminology. We can question the way Grace did the dimension of that red strip, but it’s an effective red strip. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Let’s deny it on the basis of those elements that need to come back to us. Let’s just not deny it by saying this is an inappropriate building the way it’s designed. Let’s say it has to come back for improvements in the lighting, some improvements in the landscaping, the issue of the roof, as Osma, put it, I think is a good way to put it that it needs to be environmentally appropriate. I am a little less concerned with the color of it than I am with those issues. They should answer that issue of environmental, and they should come back to us with a full set of details but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That’s my comment. Chair Thompson: Any other comments from Members of the Board? Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, may I just clarify? I thought this was the second hearing for this project. Is that not true? There is an option for a third. Ms. Gerhardt: Emily, is this a minor board level? Ms. Foley: Let me just triple-check that because I think at one point we might have elevated it. Vice Chair Lee: I do think it is important for us to understand the context of where it is and I think it is important to have that in the staff report just that this is the second hearing and would be available to come back for a third. I think that was missing in the staff report and I am looking to staff for guidance so when we have a motion on the table we understand where it is sitting right now in the process. Ms. Foley: It is a second hearing of a minor project. Ms. Gerhardt: Minor board level projects do have two hearings as a normal course. Vice Chair Lee: This is the final hearing. So, the question is do we deny or go to an ad hoc. Those are the two options. Chair Thompson: It’s deny or approve. Ms. Gerhardt: The third option would be to ask for a third hearing but the Director would have to make a decision on that because that would not be the normal course. Vice Chair Lee: Thank you so much. To be clear, our options -- and that wasn’t in the staff report -- are those three options. Chair Thompson: Correct, yes. Vice Chair Lee: Thank you. Now I'm fully ready to vote. Chair Thompson: Okay. I will just remind the Board that if we recommend approval we would be recommending approval of the drawing set that is in front of us today with all the errors. We still have a motion on the table, motion by Baltay, seconded by Thompson. Let’s go to a vote. Board Member Baltay: Let’s see I recommended denial, so is that a yes vote? Chair Thompson: That’s a yes vote. Aye: Baltay, Lee, Lew, Thompson (4) No: (0) Abstain: Hirsch (1) 5.a Packet Pg. 43 City of Palo Alto Page 14 MOTION TO DENY PASSES 4-0-1. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay: Thank you. Ms. Gerhardt: Just so I understand from a staff perspective, the ARB’s recommendation is to deny the project on the second hearing. We will speak to the Director and see where the Director would like to take that recommendation. If the applicant would like to come back or if there is a way that they'd like to come back I want to make sure we have all of the details of the Board’s concerns. I am hearing that there is need for additional details on the metal paneling; if we could get a straw poll on the colors. I didn’t get a clear detail on that. We do need some more information about lighting, landscaping, there was conversation about a cool roof, and I think just more details in general. I think colors are maybe the only question I have as staff. Chair Thompson: I think there were differences of opinion on if the chosen materials are appropriate. We can take a quick straw poll if we feel like the proposed materials in this project, as it is before us today, is appropriate. Let’s do the straw poll. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: What's the question, please? Chair Thompson: We’re taking a straw poll to see how Board Members feel about the material palette that is presented to us in the project. Ms. Gerhardt: Do we want to break up the metal panels versus the colors? If we could have two. Board Member Baltay: Osma, I already feel like I’ve already put my two cents out there very clearly in what I said. To be honest, I resent the fact, Jodie, that we’re trying to keep pushing this along. I think the Board has made very clear comments about this. I am going to abstain from responding to that straw poll. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I think overall I’m opposed to the metal panels but I would say if somebody did an extremely well-designed design scheme there is a way for me to approve metal panels. I am not opposed to them completely. It seems to me to be the wrong decision based on the context, however. I think on projects like 56 University Avenue, the Council made it pretty clear that the (inaudible) adjacent building and not buildings a quarter-mile away. For example, in this case, the car dealerships; I think that the Council would back us up on that regarding context. That’s where I’m at on the materials. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I do not have any problem with the application of metal panels nor the colors in this situation. I want to make that very clear. If I may, Chair Osma and Jodie, can we ask moving forward for any applicant that the staff share an example set? Are you still doing at the preliminary and for a minor and for a major so that the applicant has an example sets and they understand what the requirements are? I am a little bit confused why we have had two hearings where there hasn’t been a coordinated set. I just want to make sure that the staff planner is sharing and sitting down and doing that with them. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I have, again, stated that I think that the metal panels could work but they need to be appropriately shown to us. I would stress that the stucco is on the set that we received; totally inadequate set. I understand a lot of the feelings of the Board Members that this is not an acceptable project when we are given documents that are so incomplete and don’t answer all of the details that 5.a Packet Pg. 44 City of Palo Alto Page 15 were requested here today. That given, I believe there is a direction here and that the metal panels can be made to work; that the lighting can be made to work somehow; that this is an improvement the way it’s been done because it was missing entirely earlier submission. It isn’t complete now and that the planting isn't complete now and I definitely would have disapproved the project except for the fact that I think there are some positive elements here that we should be accepting at this point that is part of what is appropriate for this particular building and that it will be a kind of standout building. The very first time we reviewed it, I was intrigued by the original designer’s idea here and I think that the work that the design has been enhanced by this presentation, as inadequate as it is. I sort of accepted the schematic level but it needs to be the final design. That’s my opinion. I would still like to see -- my personal standpoint -- the reverse color scheme of the darker bottom and the lighter top. Not to be too reflective at the top but maybe to take the two colors and flip them. I just think it is a more appropriate way to show this building. Chair Thompson: Okay. Then, my part in the straw poll I disagree pretty wholeheartedly with Board Member Hirsch’s notes. I think the metal panel is inappropriate for this area, similar to what Board Member Lew and Board Member Baltay had mentioned prior in this meeting. This area, as I said before, really needs a warm palette and the cool metal panels are extremely inappropriate in my opinion. Okay. I hope that’s helpful. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you very much for entertaining me. I do want to reiterate that this motion of denial, we do take that wholeheartedly. The Board does not do that very often, if ever. We should take note of that that there are a lot of missing details and things of that nature that we need to adhere to. Thank you for that direction. I will bring that to the Director and let you know where that goes. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Let’s move on from this item. Let’s take a five-minute break and then we will move on to objective standards. We will come back at 9:56. [The Board took a short break.] 3. Public Hearing: Recommendation on Objective Design Standards Chair Thompson: Let’s move on to our next action item. This is the objective design standards. I don’t have something census to read on it, so I will just hand it over to staff. Ms. Gerhardt: This is Jodie Gerhardt, Manger of Current Planning. I wanted to introduce the team. Amy French, Chief Planning Official is here with is as well. Both of us on staff have been working on this project and then we have Jean Eisberg and Chris Sensenig, our main consultants that have been working on this project. Chair Thompson: Really quickly, Board Member Baltay wanted to do a disclosure. Should we just do disclosures quickly before we get into it? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, go ahead. Chair Thompson: Okay. Go ahead, Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Yes, I’d like to disclosure that I had a Zoom meeting with two folks from SummerHill Homes back on March 2nd, Elaine Breeze and John Hickey. We went on for quite a while. They had some concerns about some aspects of these design standards and I thought I should share my notes from that meeting because it is not part of the public record. They were concerned about a subjective code being aimed at larger buildings. They felt that the requirement for primary building entrance didn’t work with their type of typology. They primarily build row homes where you have individual units with individual entrances. In a big sense, they felt that these design standards were designed for single, large buildings, not row home-type housing, and yet they build a lot of row home housing and they think that they are likely to work in Palo Alto. Another issue they brought up was a requirement for a façade break, or 600 square feet or 20 feet depth or something like that. We have the 5.a Packet Pg. 45 City of Palo Alto Page 16 details in here. They said that that large of a break becomes really onerous for a row home type thing. It’s basically removing a unit. It’s not just a design detail. They questioned the base, middle, and top delineation; wanted to know if a pitched roof would be allowed to count as a top. They suggested a minimal dimension for open space things to be five feet, not six. They asked that we consider lengths as percentages of the block a building is on rather than an absolute number, say 150 feet. That is the summation of my comments with SummerHill homes, Elaine Breeze and John Hickey. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Can you repeat that last item. Board Member Baltay: I wrote down my notes here. Consider length as a percentage, not an absolute number. That was in reference to the length of the building. We say anything over 150 feet; they were suggesting we consider it as whether it was a percentage of the whole block or something like that. Again, their issue is that the build a lot of row homes, which is, say, 25 foot/20 foot units each one having a stoop and a front door, two or three stories and our standards make that very difficult for them they said. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Are there any other disclosures of anybody else on the Board? Not hearing anything. Board Member Hirsch: Jodie, I wrote you a little note, yes. I am concerned that what we are going to be talking about today is this whole list of the project pieces and I just want an opportunity to speak to the whole idea of objective/subjective issues in a general way. Whether it comes before going over the details or at the end, I don’t care particularly but I don’t know if we can make it far through it if we go to the end. What will be left of us, you know? Because this is a very, very big subject and a very serious subject I think, too. I think that in general, you know, the comments Peter that you just made were very interesting. Board Member Baltay: David, I'm just disclosing a discussion I had with somebody. Board Member Hirsch: I understand. Board Member Baltay: Please don’t interpret that as my comments. (Crosstalk) Board Member Hirsch: (Inaudible) point of view here, having to do with how we review projects because it is a serious issue. Where we have this discussion is the question right now. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you, Board Member Hirsch. We had asked that Board Members arrange their comments by topic and I think we can ask the Chair if she would like to do a summary at the beginning or the end. Chair Thompson: Yeah, I’d be fine with that. I guess, in terms of format for today, we’ll have staff give us any updates since the last time we saw the objective standards and then we can have quick general comments and then go section by section if there are any section-specific comments. I’d like for everyone to keep their comments succinct and brief as possible mainly because we do tend to talk about this for a while and this is the third or fourth time that we have seen them. So, in terms of repeating former things that have been said if it can just be very brief I think that would be better to keep this project moving. I also do have a hard stop at noon. I believe we do have to do a recommendation of some kind today. I would want to try and start discussing motions around 11:30 or 11:45 to be sensitive to everyone’s time. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, staff would appreciate a recommendation if at all possible today. In your staff report packet page 30, we do have the listing out of the various topics. We were hoping to arrange the conversation in that fashion. I think we are mostly going to talk about the new chapter 18.24 which is taking our context space design criteria and converting those into more objective standards being titled 5.a Packet Pg. 46 City of Palo Alto Page 17 the objective design standards. Jean and Chris will walk us through those new standards. I believe Chris is reading to do some wordsmithing if we feel that that’s necessary. With that, I’ll just keep moving forward and let Jean take it from here. Jean Eisberg: Thank you. Good morning, Chair Thompsons and Members of the Board. We are back talking about objective standards. I will try to keep this presentation fairly brief since we have heard it a couple of times. Since this is an action item, I wanted to make sure we cover we are looking for action on. I am going to give a brief overview of the project, talk about the key action today which is the recommendation on objective design standards, this new Chapter 18.24, provide some information updates about other changes that are proposed to Title 18 that the Planning Commission and Council will consider. Again, we are here because the city’s existing subjective context space design criteria cannot be enforced for certain types of projects undergoing streamlined review, that includes Housing Accountability Act projects, SB35 projects, SB33 projects. Instead, the City would only be relying on objective standards for such projects at this time, including things like height, setbacks and development standards tabled in the zoning ordinance. This project, as Jodie said, proposes to transform those objective criteria into objective standards. The project is funded by SB2, which calls for ways to streamline housing approvals, facilitate housing affordability, and accelerate housing production, particularly for lower-income units. The force of objective standards is really about streamlining. Again, what are objective standards? They are uniformly verifiable; they involve no personal or subjective judgment. For example, a setback with a minimum of ten feet is an objective standard versus many of the subjective criteria which the City currently has on the books including a couple of examples here that parking should be broken up into smaller groups to avoid large expanses. Likewise, the context space criteria talks a lot about compatibility, for example scaling and massing should be compatible with existing buildings. That is a subjective criteria. Taking a step back on the Housing Accountability Act, this is going to come up a couple of times in the presentation but just a reminder of what that is. This protects housing projects that comply with objective standards. The Housing Development projects under state law are defined as -- the way the City interprets it -- two or more residential units, a mixed- use development with at least two-thirds residential floor area, and transitional or supportive housing. These projects are complying with objective standards. In those cases, the City cannot deny a project, reduce its density, or make it infeasible unless it makes findings under state law about adverse specific impacts. This is our sixth meeting with the Board. We’re going back to the Planning Commission next month looking for their recommendation on the design standards and then we would go to Council later this spring or summer. The first chunk of our presentation is the action item for the objective standards. We have been meeting for about a year now and there has been general support among the Board for this two-path option; the idea of having objective standards but then also this discretionary path for projects that are going through discretionary review in a very similar way that the Board currently reviews projects. Then, as you well know, there have been a lot of concerns about the prescriptive nature of these objective standards. Just wanted to mention we have had an ad hoc committee made up of Chair Thompson and Board Member Hirsch. We appreciate their help workshopping the standards over a series of four meetings last summer and this winter. We met with the Planning Commission, the PTC, last week about these design standards. They generally agreed with how the ARB and staff and consultants have transformed the criteria. They were very appreciative to the ARB’s contributions to this. Chair Thompson represented your Board very well and helped present to the PTC last week. They agreed with an idea that some Board Members at the last meeting talked about, including -- Board Member Baltay bought it up and staff has considered -- that these standards should only apply to Housing Accountability Act projects. Those are the projects that must meet objective standards and therefore make this application more narrow just to those types of projects. For all other types of projects, including commercial projects, housing projects that for whatever reason do not want to meet these standards or are looking for rezoning, other discretionary approvals, those projects would go through the typical discretionary review process with up to three meetings with the Board. Some commissioners did express the desire to have them apply more widely potentially in the future, in the interest of streamlining housing overall. We also heard from some commissioners that they shared the ARB’s concern about not wanting the standards to be too perspective. Staff has also reached out to architects and developers that frequently work in the City. We have received feedback from several different architects and developers and we have had one public commenter from Stanford during both recent PTC and ARB hearings. Focusing on changes since the last time you saw this in February, first, 5.a Packet Pg. 47 City of Palo Alto Page 18 the key change in terms of applicability is that we are recommending that the objective standards to those Housing Accountability Act projects, including SB35 and SB330 projects that are streamlined review. In that way, they would be more narrowly applied. Additionally, Chapter 18.20, which are the ROLM, GM, MOR district, some of those districts allow multi-family housing and we are suggesting that the standards that apply in that district to Housing Accountability Act projects. However, that district does not currently reference the context space design criteria. What we don’t want to do is wrap up any commercial projects in those districts to have to apply the context space design criteria the way they have been transformed. Those commercial projects in those districts would not be subject to objective standards, including the intent statements. In that way, we would kind of keep that parallel distinction. Hopefully, I am making this clear, since the context space design criteria does not apply to that chapter currently, we are proposing to maintain that. These new standards and intent statements would also not apply to that Chapter unless is a Housing Accountability Act project. The key changes since the February 18 meeting are that we incorporated the refinements recommended by the Board during the straw polls. That changed some measurements, ratios, dimensions, and materials. We made some minor modifications to address concerns about townhomes, modular construction, and different types of buildings. This is just encapsulating to clarify a few examples of different kinds of Housing Accountability Act projects, and again the applicability. Again, for Chapter 18.20, only Housing Accountability Act would be subject to these standards and intent statements. No changes to our topics, but these are the ten topics in the draft 18.24 and we will go through these one by one or we won’t go through any topics that you don’t have questions or comments on. Again, in terms of how the document is organized, there is a series of umbrella intent statements which are drawn sometimes verbatim from the context space design criteria but those are the subjective statements and intents and then underneath that we have standards and those are the objective standards. Sometimes they are measurements, sometimes a menu of options. Two paths, if you're a Housing Accountability Act project you are required to meet the objective standards. If you are a discretionary project very similar to today, you would meet the intent statement as determined by the ARB through a series of meetings, up to three. One notable change here in the blue box is that we are recommending that even though these projects only need to meet objective standards, that they go through one advisory meeting with the ARB and this is a non-binding hearing but allows an opportunity for both the Board to make advisory design comments and for public comments just as you have today. What this may look like in terms of the staff report you have this section 18.24, the applicant has checked off that they have met standard XYZ, shows you the page number that appears that’s attached to a shorter staff report that does not include the ARB findings. Again, that project is not subject to findings and that comes to the Board and there’s still this conversation that happens with the applicant and the opportunity to provide feedback. That would be codified in changes to chapters 18.75 and 18.76 of the City Zoning Ordinance. I mentioned the application to different types of buildings. I wanted to show some examples of different types of projects and how we think the standards could apply. Of course, if a project applicant, for whatever reason, didn’t want to meet the objective standards they could, again, chose to go through a discretionary review process but looking at some townhome examples and the way that those entrances can be permitted on the ground floor through these objective standards. For example, we brought up the issue of roof pitch, which we do see as a defined top in a pitched roof in different ways but building massing and facades can be expressed. One of the key elements of the design standards is the façade design which now states after changes in the last round that those changes in facade design are not required below four-stories. Most town homes would not apply in that context. The issue of modular construction was also raised. I just wanted to demonstrate that modular construction does not necessarily mean rectilinear building. There are still opportunities for recessed facades, projections, and different uses of materials, and a different look to a ground floor versus upper stories. One of the key elements of most modulars is that the mods fit on the back of a truck, and so we have this shape of a unit but it is not actually a dwelling unit, it’s just a unit of the piece of the puzzle. This is an image we showed at the last meeting, different ways that it may be applied to apartments. The recommendation from staff is to recommend the City Council adopt the draft objective design standards as a part of an amendment to Title 18. The last piece of the presentation is just informational items, other updates to Title 18. This was discussed with the Planning Commission last week. First is some minor changes to development standards in individual district regulations. One key issue we wanted to bring up and this is referenced in the At Places Memo that Jodie provided yesterday or this morning, which is about the height transition. The way to is now, each district kind of says in a little bit of a different way what’s required in terms of changes in height across properties when you're 5.a Packet Pg. 48 City of Palo Alto Page 19 adjacent to a lower density residential zone. Staff would like to retain the spirit of those regulations while streamlining the language to make it more clear for applicants, for staff, and for decision-makers. For example, this is an example of the CN, CS, CC district. The current code language says within 100 feet of a residential district abutting or located within 50 feet of the site and this language has always been confusing for staff, and, as I’ll demonstrate, has been interpreted in a couple of different ways with actual projects. The proposal is to clarify that any portion of a structure with 50 feet of residential zones would be subject to a lower height. What that means at the graphic at right is that you have a lower density district on the left of the screen, the higher density commercial district on the right of the screen, and within 50 feet of the property line the portion of the building would be subject to that lower height limit. Just a couple of examples, this is the Wilton Court project and you can see how that was interpreted. Within 50 feet, the project is at a lower height; beyond that 50 feet measurement, it is at a taller height above 35 feet. The key here is that this project was not subject to 150-foot depth which it looks like the whole project would have been subject to that lower height, but instead that 50-foot dimension. Another built example is the Hilton Hotel which is adjacent to an RM40 district and within 150 feet of an R1 district and it does not have any reduced height at the rear of the building. Other key sections are changes to performance standards in 18.23. Mostly it’s an issue of relocating those standards to other sections of the code, making them apply to all different types of projects regardless of the type of use. The way it is written in 18.23 is a little bit confusing but most of those performance standards only apply for commercial or non-residential adjacent to residential projects. In practice, these standards have been applied more broadly and so we are making that more clear moving them to more rational locations in the code and tightening up some standards working with the City’s Water Quality Division, Zero Waste Division, to bring them up to date. Another key item we talked about last month and talked to the PTC about all last week is the idea of transforming some of these legislative actions, such as the Workforce Housing and Affordable Housing overlay, into incentive programs kind of like the Housing Incentive Program and, in that way, if you meet the threshold of affordable criteria, then you could receive waivers for development standards flexibility rather than going through the legislative process with the PTC and the Council for the types of housing that the City wants to generate, affordable and moderate-income housing to make that process more simplified. These projects would still go through Architectural Review with the ARB up to three meetings. This is maybe part of a separate planning effort than the objective standards project but it has been slowed due to this part of our work here. That concludes my presentation. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Upon thinking about it further, I think what might make sense is if we go through section by section first, and then at the end, we can give our overall feedback because that will probably lead to the motion or that will probably speak to the motion or the recommendation that we end up doing. With the Board’s permission, let’s just dive right into it. Thank you, Jean. Let’s start with section 10. I am going to use the last few digits, which is the purpose and applicability section. I’ll just call on each Board Member; if you have comments on that section, if you don’t just say no comments and we’ll just keep moving. For section 10, the purpose and applicability section, Board Member Lew, any comments? Go ahead, Jodie. Ms. Gerhardt: Would you like us to bring up the document just so we can see it? Chair Thompson: Yeah. Ms. Gerhardt: If Chris or Jean can do that. [Setting up presentation.] Board Member Lew: I have nothing in my notes. I would say just generally, which I think I have mentioned before, that we do have low-density zones and the objective standards don’t really address those buildings under 40 feet. The City doesn’t have any (inaudible) design guidelines, like row house guidelines compared to say like Mountain View which does have them. That’s all that I have. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay. 5.a Packet Pg. 49 City of Palo Alto Page 20 Board Member Baltay: Thank you. Two comments quickly. First is under paragraph A.1, the purpose. I’d recommend striking the last sentence. I believe that was just added recently. The one that begins “rather the objective design standards,” et cetera. I don’t see that that adds anything to the code. It just seems to open you up to questions about what you're trying to do. More importantly, when I look back at the list of applicability based on SB35 project streamlining it says the development contains two or more residential units. I urge and recommend that staff speak to the City Attorney to clarify that that does not mean a house with an accessory dwelling unit. As it stands, if somebody wants to propose a house with a separate ADU I think that would be called two residential units, and that would mean all of the IR processes in Palo Alto would be invalidated. It seems to me that that should be clarified and ideally stated here that that doesn’t mean ADU’s. I strongly recommend you take a look at that. Those are my two comments. Chair Thompson: On that note, and even on Board Member Lew’s note about it applying to areas that are shorter than 40 feet, does staff have a comment about that? Ms. Gerhardt: I would ask for Jean and Chris’s help. I think there are definitely some of these standards that do not apply to buildings under 40 feet, but that’s not all of these standards. There are other ones that would still apply. Regarding Board Member Baltay’s comments, maybe we can take straw polls as we go along so that we can change this document, otherwise, it might get unwieldy if try and change it at the end. Board Member Baltay: What I am suggesting, Jodie, is not a straw poll but rather that you guys check whether ADU’s are considered a residential unit from a legal perspective. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, it was not the intention to include ADU’s. The Housing Development Projects are multi-family and ADU’s are not considered multi-family but we could make that extremely clear. Board Member Baltay: I can see my clients aggressively litigating this issue to avoid the IR process and I don’t think that’s the intent of this program. Ms. Gerhardt: ADU’s are not multi-family. That is very clear in the mind of staff, in the code, but we can add an extra sentence here to further clarify that. I guess I was speaking more to you wanting to strike out that one sentence. If we want to do a straw poll on striking out the sentence. Chair Thompson: We will discuss that afterward. Okay, Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: No, it’s been a short time here. I haven’t had a chance to look at it in detail but I don’t think I have a problem with the way that’s raised. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I’ll start with the process, I wasn’t sure if this new idea for the ARB advisory nonbinding one meeting with public comments is something… where is that? I know that you often refer to other chapters but in terms of process, if I was somebody who was an affordable housing developer interested in these objective design standards, where do I learn that information or process? Ms. Gerhardt: The new process, what we’re proposing, is that there would be one nonbinding hearing that would be written into the code. It is actually in Chapters 76 and 77. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. Sorry, if I’m coming in with a commercial project, for example. I just wanted to understand the process and how it applies. Ms. Gerhardt: If you're a commercial project, then the intent statements apply and that’s written into the applicability section here. Jean Eisberg: Commercial projects… 5.a Packet Pg. 50 City of Palo Alto Page 21 Vice Chair Lee: (Inaudible) under B? Chair Thompson: Under C… Ms. Gerhardt: Under C. Chair Thompson: …where it says non-housing developments. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. And then the other piece I wanted to mention is what Board Member Baltay mentioned. I think that is something that we should retain. That rather the objective design standards aim to accommodate, or if you want to revise, maybe it’s a little bit more brief, but I do think pointing to construction types and housing types is a plus as part of our purpose for these objective design standards. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee: I don’t know that we need to pullout construction types in terms of a variety of styles, though I do favor that as well since the graphics are so limited here. Actually, I would vote to retain the whole as written. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s take a straw poll in a second. I don’t have any other comments on this section. Let’s take a quick straw poll of the Board on if we would rather retain or keep that last sentence that’s highlighted in red on the screen. The straw poll is remove it, if we agree to remove it or not. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: Retain. Chair Thompson: Retain. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Remove. Chair Thompson: Remove. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Retain. Chair Thompson: Retain. Vice Chair Lee. [Adjusting Audio.] Vice Chair Lee: Retain. Chair Thompson: Retain. I will vote to retain as well. Okay, let’s move on to .020. Ms. Gerhardt: Chair, if I may, I don’t know that we did public comments. We may need to do that. Chair Thompson: That’s a good point. Thank you. Are there any members of the public that would like to speak on the objective standards? Mr. Nguyen: Chair Thompson, we currently do not have any raised hands for public comments. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. I will close the public hearing. I apologize. Let’s move on to .020 the public realm sidewalk character. Any comments, let’s start with Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I have no comments. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Baltay. 5.a Packet Pg. 51 City of Palo Alto Page 22 Board Member Baltay: Yes, I have a comment regarding the paving material. It’s on section three, accent paving, A1. I think I said this before, but I think we should just have a list of paving materials that are appropriate and kept by staff, updated every so often with the approval of the ARB. I’m just saying it’ll match the adjacent ones; I think it’s going to prove to be unworkable. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay: That’s my comment. Chair Thompson: Great. Maybe, Chris, if you could note that we might take a straw poll on that later. Board Member Hirsch, any comments? Board Member Hirsch: I agree with what Peter said so I vote yes on that when it comes around here, but no I don’t have any other comments to make. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I do not have comments. Chair Thompson: Okay, and I also do not have comments. Let’s take a quick straw poll on Board Member Baltay’s suggestion of a list of paving materials should be… yes, go ahead, Jodie. Ms. Gerhardt: Just on the accent paving, the reason that staff put this in there is because we have had a lot of problems with not getting this accent material. Various property owners either like the idea or don’t, but on University Avenue, on Cal Ave we would like to have a more consistent appearance to the sidewalk and what is what this is trying to drive at. I did make a small change that the University paving does not need to go all the way to Middlefield, it’s just to Webster, but we would like to retain this or at least the idea of this because otherwise we are going to have difficulty getting this material. Board Member Baltay: What I am arguing for, Jodie, is that you guys retain it but more than that, just take control of it. It really should be the planning staff and the public realm to decide what the sidewalk is, not the individual applicant. The way it is written here leaves a lot of latitude just to demonstrate that this is what is next to you so you can do it. As you walk down University Avenue, it’s a mish-mash and this isn't going to solve that problem. This will just let it continue. Somebody can prove that bricks are adjacent and it doesn’t even explicitly say directly adjacent. Why not make a list of what you think is right and stand by? We’re offering you that chance. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay, that is the intention so maybe we can wordsmith this a little bit better. Board Member Baltay: My intent is that you, the City, the staff, take control of this sidewalk paving material. Chair Thompson: My understanding, Board Member Baltay, is that you're looking for a table to be added in this location that has the streets, like University, and then the paving that is acceptable on University. Is that right? Board Member Baltay: I suppose something like that, acceptable paving and maybe an accent or something but just for the staff to do it and specify it. Chair Thompson: Okay. I think the proposal here is to add that table to these standards, I think that’s what I’d like to take a straw poll on. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay. 5.a Packet Pg. 52 City of Palo Alto Page 23 BOARD Member Baltay: Yes, I think we should do that. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I am not sure what to do on this one. I understand the complexity. I understand the rationale for the table and I think it makes sense. I think it may be very difficult to do though. Board Member Baltay: Isn't it better to try, Alex, than just leave it and let every applicant make their own case? Board Member Lew: Yeah, I don’t know. I've looked at University Avenue as well as Cal Avenue and it is just a minefield. I think at the end of the day it seems to me that there should be a public works standard or standards… Ms. Gerhardt: Just to be clear, that is exactly what staff is trying to do is to create that standard. Board Member Lew: I do support having the standards and (inaudible). That’s where I am. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I agree with Alex here and Peter. I think there should be standards. Just a bit of side experience, in New York we tried different kinds of paving material and in the end, it turned out it was uncontrollable and it’s better to have a city-wide standard. Therefore, highraise [phonetic] would develop that and it’s what it would be. I think it is impossible; it’s a minefield as Alex says, and there should be some absolute standards out there to be changed very rarely. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I agree with the two paths. I mean, I agree with what everybody is saying in terms of intent. Now I am looking at the language and I am wondering if this is appropriate though, shall match any existing accent paving design and materials such as bricks and decorative glass. There are some accent paving that is existing that I don’t know if we want to match. I think the intent is actually to establish a city standard and that to be consulted when there is an existing accent paving city standard for Cal Ave and for University Avenue, but what I understand is that it doesn’t exist right now, right, Jodie, or it’s in process. This is a problem. Ms. Gerhardt: There is a standard in my mind that maybe did not come out in the language and I think what I am rightfully hearing is that the way this is written is a little too soft and it needs to be more direct. Vice Chair Lee: I am just not sure what to do here because as somebody new to Palo Alto would go to Cal Ave and look for that decorative glass and match it exactly. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, on Cal Ave there is the glass in the sidewalk and so that should be matched. On University, we have on the corners we have solid brick corners but then in the midblock we have sort of a strip of brick trim. That’s what we are trying to say and obviously we said it a little too softly. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. It is just a little complex because there is no city standard, there is no list. I am just not sure. Ms. Gerhardt: I think that is what we are trying to make is the standard and I think we can be more straightforward in that. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. 5.a Packet Pg. 53 City of Palo Alto Page 24 Board Member Baltay: It would probably be okay just to refer back to a standard rather than try to put the standards in this document here. Just say shall match to the standard. Ms. Gerhardt: We just don’t have that standard written anywhere. That’s why I am trying to write it here but I can work with Public Works and see if there’s any other sort of documents too. Board Member Baltay: I think you're hearing the Board just saying that there should be a standard, so where you put it (inaudible) less important to us. Chair Thompson: Yes, there are definitely four people on this Board that feel that way. I have a minority view probably. I like the idiosyncrasies and the uniqueness of the street character even though it is a mine. I think it’s cool. I think when you walk down a street and you're like oh, I'm at the Cheesecake Factory when there was a Cheesecake Factory. I appreciate it but I can understand that I'm the minority in on there and that’s fine; this is a democracy. Okay, hopefully, that gives staff clear direction. Let’s move on to .30 site access. Any comments, Board Member Lew? Board Member Lew: I don’t have any comments on this section. Chair Thompson: No comments? Okay. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: No comments. Chair Thompson: No comments. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: No comments. Chair Thompson: No comments. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: No comment. Chair Thompson: No comments. I also have no comments. Let’s keep going, .040. Let’s start again with Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I want to throw out that on a townhouse or row house building type, which we don’t address here, under 40 feet there are things that can be done to make them better, especially on corners. Typically, like with a row houses, you’ve got a sidewall with very few windows and they are very unattractive and on better projects, they do bump out to hide the fire alarm closets, so they are adding maybe two or three feet of massing at the ends of the building to make them more appealing. I think we should consider that, maybe not today but in a future generation of this document that we do that. There are ways to make them better or to do wrap-around corner porches on the ends of the buildings. I will support the rest of this for the more urban buildings. That’s all that I have. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I have nothing to add to this. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Let me see. We are talking now about corners. Is this correct? That’s what we’re talking about? Chair Thompson: This is .040 building orientation and setbacks, and Board Member Lew had a comment about the treatment of corner buildings for buildings that are shorter than 40 feet in height. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. I have a lot of problems with this. I think my first problem is why are we putting in commercial on the corner as an item in comparison to the other two? What has happened 5.a Packet Pg. 54 City of Palo Alto Page 25 here is there are three items and you choose one. Is that correct, Jean or Chris? We choose one of those three in order to get an approval. Ms. Eisberg: Yes. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. I don’t understand how these three are related to each other, and I am very concerned that what we saw now up-to-date on this in the beginning there were some really wonderful buildings that don’t look anything like what we are looking at here. The commercial on the ground floor has an option. Is it an option or should it be a part of a requirement in those zones in which commercial has to be? Number one, I have a question about commercial as a choice to put it everywhere or anywhere, it ought to be specific as to being used in the zone where it is required. Then you stated it’s required; you have it on the corner… Ms. Gerhardt: Board Member Hirsch, with these standards we are not requiring a certain use, just a design. Board Member Hirsch: Oh, well what is the design then? The design is an absolute dimension on the corner. So that comes back to Peter’s client that said let’s not be fixed about dimensions but this is fixed 20 feet or 25 feet. I see it’s been changed. Why should this be a fixed dimension? I don’t understand that. Go to the next one, which is… Chair Thompson: It’s a maximum, by the way. Board Member Hirsch: It’s what? Chair Thompson: It’s a maximum. It says 25-foot maximum. It’s not fixed. Board Member Hirsch: What is the reason for a maximum? Mr. Sensenig: To define the corner where an entry would need to be with it to define what a corner of the building is. If we used a percentage here, say 10 percent, then for a building that’s only 100 feet long, that would mean the corner entry would need to be within the first ten feet of the corner. Board Member Hirsch: Choosing these three, you're saying it cannot be more than 25 feet, a corner element? I have a problem with it, you know. If it works out to be 30 feet, what do you do? Get an exception? I don’t like these types of dimensional requirements. Let’s go to the next one which is change in material. In the first place, the diagram is confusing because why would you do something like this? Why would you change a material on a corner like that? I agree it’s an interesting design possibility but it refers to an interior program function of some sort that changes in the building. I can’t imagine why you would be so specific as to do it for three floors or four floors. Then lest go to the third one. Here we have a raised corner. That’s an interesting thought as to doing it. I can agree physically it would be a corner element that would be emphasized but then what happens with the one that’s lower in that corner. Is that a reasonable idea? There is no function that can happen in that space then. It’s a lower space and it’s just a roofline. You're making a decision about it being raised or lowered and I don’t quite see it. Okay, suppose somebody doesn’t want to do any of those. They have a building that they don’t want the commercial on the ground floor. They don’t want an entry into the outside on the ground floor. They don’t want to change the material and they don’t want it higher or lower. Then you go to the next portion of this which is an open space. Here you are substituting an open space on the corner. This isn't a very impressive corner anymore but you're stating that it is specific to, in this case, use of community space on the corner. Does that make a lot of sense of an important corner of a site? Then, you're saying that there has to be a community room on the inside of that space. To me, that’s telling people that they have to have a specific program of a community-use space related to a community-use outdoor space on a corner as an emphasis of a corner. I don’t understand how this relates to anything above it. Then there are two others and both of them involve a public use of a corner space. That’s an assumption that a private company, private developers, ultimately private owners, say are going to want to have public use of a public space on a private piece of property. Two of the three are open to the 5.a Packet Pg. 55 City of Palo Alto Page 26 public like that if that is the way public is being interpreted here. I don’t see it as a good idea. You know, the landing building has an entry on the corner, right? That’s the one on Forest (inaudible) open space but that is not mentioned here. That’s a reasonable possibility that you would turn a corner into an entry. The other thought about it being an entry is suppose you have a big long building, then the entry doesn’t make sense because it is very far for the travel of everybody who goes into a building. I really have a problem with the way all of these are expressed on the corner. I just don’t see the relationship and the rationale for this. I think I can leave it like that. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Thanks. Under two, I just want to make sure for that open space on the corner, is there a reason why we are not wanting a square 20 by 20 as a minimum? Maybe, Chris, you could let us know. Is it because we also want a rectangle with a larger dimension? I am just not sure. I can see an applicant coming with 400 square feet rather than 500. Is a square not desired? I'm just asking a question. Ms. Gerhardt: This could be a square if you wanted it to be. Vice Chair Lee: I don’t understand the rationale there. My other question is if you all could weigh in on the primary building entry. It’s A, and underneath that, it is under 2B where front porches shall be a minimum of 100 square feet and a minimum of eight. Does have to be that large? I am just thinking of the future and how I think about this. Could it be six? Could the minimum be decreased as well? Does anybody feel it should be eight? Chair Thompson: What section is that in? Vice Chair Lee: It’s on packet page 46. I am sorry I didn’t bring this up earlier but I think we talked about it for primary building entry, section 2.ii and it’s under A.2.B. Ms. Gerhardt: Chris has it highlighted. Vice Chair Lee: I am just thinking scenarios, seven or more units but should that minimum width be eight or could it be six? Board Member Baltay: Grace or staff, are we referring to the depth of the porch or the width as you look across the façade? Mr. Sensenig: Width. Board Member Baltay: Is there a requirement on depth as well or is that left to the functional needs? Vice Chair Lee: It’s left, so there’s a minimum square foot but then a width. That seems a little bit… I am just trying to create more flexibility. Do you want to just talk about it briefly? Board Member Baltay: This front porch is intended to also serve as the entryway into the building? This is where the front door would be? Vice Chair Lee: Right. Chris Sensenig: This is the shared entry, yes. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Chair Thompson: Let’s discuss this really quick. (Crosstalk) 5.a Packet Pg. 56 City of Palo Alto Page 27 Board Member Baltay: It’s hardly useful. I think, Grace, making that number smaller still would not be appropriate if you think about it, right? (Crosstalk) Vice Chair Lee: Examples, not in my mind Palo Alto but I mean just think it’s possible. Chair Thompson: Let’s take a quick straw poll on the shared entry minimum for the primary entry building width if we want to change it from eight feet to six feet. Vice Chair Lee you're in support of that? Vice Chair Lee: Yes, yes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay: before we vote, quickly, Grace, why would you think it matters for a building with more units. Just convince me of that. Vice Chair Lee: I think it matters whether or not it has seven or more units. That is compelling that there are a lot of people coming at the same time but clearly there are buildings that have the minimum width of six feet for this situation. I am just wondering why we are going to eight feet there. Mr. Sensenig: The guidance of the context space design standards was to have building entries represent the size and scale of the building and the number of people served. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. Chair Thompson: It is the idea of having two people pass by each other, basically. Vice Chair Lee: I’m thinking that… (Crosstalk) Chair Thompson: That’s the eight feet and Vice Chair Lee, you're suggesting that two people can pass by each other just fine in six feet? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, exactly. Chair Thompson: Okay. Is everybody clear about the proposed change? I’ll just start over again. Vice Chair Lee? Vice Chair Lee: Yes. Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: No. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: No. Board Member Hirsch: No. Chair Thompson: I will also vote no. Board Member Baltay: Sorry, Grace. 5.a Packet Pg. 57 City of Palo Alto Page 28 Vice Chair Lee: Also, sorry, are we going to go back to the corner? Chair Thompson: Yeah, we can talk about the corner. I also wanted to circle back on Board Member Lew’s note about the less than 40 feet as well. Let’s do the corner. This is just discussing the corner diagrams. Vice Chair Lee: Yes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Do other Board Members have comments responding to what Board Member Hirsch is saying? Let’s start with you Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: You're talking about Board Member Hirsch’s comments? Chair Thompson: On the diagrams, or if you have other comments on the diagrams. Ms. Gerhardt: I think Board Member Lee had a comment about number two that Chris has highlighted here. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee: Sorry, I was just confused. I wasn’t sure what I am commenting on right now. Ms. Gerhardt: Maybe if we just focus on this one sentence first and then the overall. Chair Thompson: Oh, I see. Okay. Vice Chair Lee: That’s what I was commenting on, the square versus the rectangle; 20 by 20 would be 400 rather than 500 square feet. My proposal is to reduce to 400. Board Member Baltay: Grace, you're not saying it should be a square in proportion, rather you just think the area should be less. Vice Chair Lee: I think both. It could be a square, so that minimum dimension on both sides could be 20, right? Thus, it would be 400. I guess the way it is written, yes, I am saying 400 square feet rather than 500. Board Member Baltay: Okay, but you're not advocating for a square geometry. Vice Chair Lee: No, I am just saying someone could come in for the square and that’s okay, too. Board Member Baltay: I can support your argument on that one. Vice Chair Lee: I just feel like I have seen that before and it has been successful. Chair Thompson: Similarly, couldn’t they achieve that if they just did 25 by 25 feet? Board Member Baltay: Twenty-three feet, probably. Chair Thompson: Yeah, whatever 500 is. It sounds like the proposal is to make that area smaller. Board Member Baltay: That’s what she's saying, yes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s take a straw poll to change 500 to 400 as proposed by Vice Chair Lee. I will go around. Vice Chair Lee? Vice Chair Lee: Yes. 5.a Packet Pg. 58 City of Palo Alto Page 29 Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: No. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay? Board Member Baltay: Yes, I’ll support that. Chair Thompson: Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I’m a little bit confused as to what we are voting on here. Chair Thompson: Sorry; we’ll clarify. For the diagram with the open space and the corner, currently, the objective standard is to require that open space on the corner if the applicant chooses to do that to be a minimum of 500 square feet. Vice Chair Lee has proposed that the minimum is 400 square feet. Board Member Hirsch: I would go with a minimum of 400 square feet. Chair Thompson: Okay. I vote no. I think 500 is better in terms of space. I think passed three to two. Board Member Baltay: How about we split the difference and say 450. Do we have anybody who wants to do that instead? Grace, would that be enough to make it work? I guess you have the vote. Vice Chair Lee: I am open to 450, but also don’t want to prolong if people want to move on. Board Member Baltay: Yeah, Osma it is up to you. (Crosstalk) Board Member Baltay: It’s good to have consensus if you want it. Chair Thompson: Yeah, I think more open space is typically desirable. Four hundred and fifty is better to me than four hundred. Board Member Baltay: Maybe Grace will change her motion and we can vote on it. Vice Chair Lee: I move for 450. Board Member Baltay: I support that. Chair Thompson: Do a roll call? Board Member Baltay: You're in charge, Osma. Whatever you think. Chair Thompson: Yeah, I am fine with that. Is Board Member Lew okay with that? Board Member Lew: I think we should move on. I don’t have (inaudible). Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s go back to the less than 40 feet height. Board Member Lew, were you suggesting that we add a section for standards under 40 feet? Board Member Lew: I think that there is an issue with townhouses and corners. I think that we should do that and maybe it is the next generation of use or if there is a separate row house design guidelines somewhere else in the code. Chair Thompson: Okay. 5.a Packet Pg. 59 City of Palo Alto Page 30 Board Member Lew: We haven’t seen very many of those types of projects in Palo Alto for the last 15 years, but they are all over if you go to Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Santa Clara; that is what they’re building. It seems to me like we are sort of reminiscent not addressing this item. It seems like this is a weakness in our proposed code. Chair Thompson: Okay, but you are suggesting maybe we not include it here right now for today’s recommendation but that it be in a future next version? Board Member Lew: Yeah. It seems like the rest of the document doesn’t address the under 40-foot- high buildings with regards to massing and the facades. Maybe it is too much of a stretch to do it today. I think that we should keep that in mind. Chair Thompson: Okay. I actually forgot to go through my own comments. I’ll just do that quickly. In the intent statement, we have a note about buildings that create a continuous street wall that are compatible with nearby buildings and land uses. That’s the first line and I was wondering if we want to maybe reconsider the word contagious. There might be some opportunities where contiguous is not applicable but maybe having breaks in the street wall is appropriate in the context. I wanted to see what the Board thought about not having the word contiguous on there if it doesn’t make sense. Board Member Baltay: What would you substitute with it, Osma? Chair Thompson: I would just remove the word contiguous. (Crosstalk) Chair Thompson: That is compatible with nearby buildings. It’s a subjective standard. Board Member Baltay: Contiguous street wall is kind of an urban planning term, I think. Vice Chair Lee: I read contiguous street wall. It’s not a building wall; it’s not a solid building wall. It’s a wall that breaks and is solid at times along the street. Is that what we are trying to say about contiguous street wall? Chair Thompson: I am understanding contiguous to be a surface that maybe comes in and out, potentially, but it’s like a consistent wall across the whole way and I think there might be some instances where breaks might make sense. Board Member Hirsch: (Inaudible). Chair Thompson: I would propose we strike contiguous. Board Member Hirsch: I’d like to speak to that. Chair Thompson: Sure. Board Member Hirsch: We can change the language so that it reads that the frontage of the adjacent buildings aligns or the frontage is in some way… I am trying to find the best term for this now but it is just that the major piece of each building should align. Board Member Baltay: Yeah. Chair Thompson: Or be compatible with as it is written there. Maybe it is buildings that create a street frontage that is compatible with nearby buildings. Board Member Hirsch: No, I like the idea of them aligning but the frontage line doesn’t have to be contiguous. 5.a Packet Pg. 60 City of Palo Alto Page 31 Chair Thompson: Any other Board Members have any comments concurring or descanting on this proposal? Board Member Baltay: I think the intent is close enough, Osma, the way it is written, and all of this gets subjectively interpreted by the ARB anyway. Chair Thompson: I think contiguous is a little prescriptive. That’s my only note. Board Member Baltay: We can change it to continuous street frontage. Vice Chair Lee: I am fine with street frontage as well. I think the issue for me is wall because it might be misinterpreted as a full wall. Chair Thompson: Okay, great. It sounds like we are all in concurrence with this change. Okay, let’s keep going. I think we are done with this section. Board Member Baltay: I do support what Alex says about the townhomes. I don’t think we have the bandwidth to address the issue here so we are better off leaving out standards as it is and acknowledging that it’s just not complete on this standard. The townhouses are just a separate beast and to try to figure out how to do the corner on that would be hard right now. Chair Thompson: I agree, as well. Any other comments on this section? Ms. Gerhardt: I do want to be cautious. Maybe Chris can walk us through on a townhouse how the corners would be treated because we may have some such projects come through at this time, and I think he has some suggested language if we wanted to entertain that. I realize it is a little hard on the fly. Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. Chair Thompson: Was that just written? Mr. Sensenig: it was written previously for another project but it is example language that I think can address, or at least begin to address, the comments from Board Member Lew. For buildings less than 40 feet in height, the idea here is about end units. Dwelling units located at the end of a series of two or more attached dwellings without a main entrance facing the public street and units shall include the following: a building façade facing the street shall have a height to width ratio of 1.2:1; the building façade for each unit facing the street shall have at least one window greater than five feet. That could be alternatively done with building facades shall have fenestration for a minimum of 15 percent of frontage. The other one is the building facing the street shall have at least an architectural projection that projects a minimum of 18 inches from the street-facing façade. I think something like that would address having a completely blank façade on an end unit on a townhouse. Again, this is a quick draft of some certain ideas if we would want to include something like this. Chair Thompson: Would this be a menu? Would you choose one of these? It’s a lot to prescribe as four things to do. Mr. Sensenig: It is three things to do. There is an either/or direction here on the fenestration. Vice Chair Lee: I see. It just needs to be called out. Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. Sorry. Vice Chair Lee: I think still think it is a lot to require or prescribe. Would a menu option be possible here? 5.a Packet Pg. 61 City of Palo Alto Page 32 Mr. Sensenig: Yeah, of course, a menu option could be possible. This is just missing the hiding of equipment but I think that is covered in other performance standards if I am correct. I think the two key issues are not having a blank wall and not having a completely flat wall without articulation. I think you would want to require those. I think requiring a height-to-width ratio probably isn't necessary but I think those two key things… you could go that you could either have windows or have articulation. Board Member Baltay: I would want to see this in the ARB before you.. it is so hard to know if this is going to work or not, Chris. Mr. Sensenig: Yes. Chair Thompson: Yeah. Board Member Baltay: The idea of a blank townhome wall would be so bad. I think we are risking a lot by trying to make a quick change on the fly for something that needs a lot of study. Ms. Gerhardt: Maybe we need to leave this item open. To the Board, is it okay to move forward without this but maybe if staff can figure out a way to quickly come back and incorporate it that would be a secondary option? Board Member Baltay: I think it would be great if you could figure something out. Chair Thompson: Yeah. Let’s come back to this later when we talk about our recommendation. Let’s move on to .50. Board Member Hirsch: Could we take one item and go back a second here? On the corner materials there, the one at the bottom. Is there a reason why we have to have both change in materials and fenestration pattern? Chair Thompson: What are you proposing Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: Either/or or both are possible but it could be one material change or one fenestration pattern change rather than a continuity of all the way up the corner. Wilton Court, for example, uses the same base material changes in window patterns. Chair Thompson: Okay. You are suggesting to change and to or. Should we take a quick straw poll with the rest of the Board? Board Member Baltay: Just explain what it is, Osma. He is saying both of these are required now? Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Chair Thompson: Item B the way that it is written now is suggesting a material and fenestration change and Board Member Hirsch is suggesting a material or fenestration change. Board Member Hirsch: And/or. Chair Thompson: And/or. Board Member Baltay: I am not sure that’s what I read here. Staff, can you clarify what is the current proposal here? Mr. Sensenig: It currently states that in order for this to qualify as a special corner element, there needs to be a different material application and fenestration pattern from the rest of the façade. Ms. Gerhardt: Can we highlight that section? 5.a Packet Pg. 62 City of Palo Alto Page 33 Chair Thompson: Is that clear to the Board what the proposal is? Board Member Baltay: But it says in the previous page section on include one or more of the following. Is this a different thing? Mr. Sensenig: No, this is part of that. Chair Thompson: It's part of that. Ms. Gerhardt: If you chose this to be your one, do you have to do both of these things? Board Member Baltay: it says here one or more. Ms. Gerhardt: But if you chose B to be the item that you’re going to do, inside of B you have to do both material and fenestration changes currently. You have to do all of B if you're going to do it. Board Member Baltay: I understand, thank you. Sorry. Chair Thompson: Let’s take a quick straw poll to change the word and to and/or. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Recommended, yes. Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: Yes. Chair Thompson: Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Yes. Board Member Baltay: No, I think it should stay the way it is. Chair Thompson: I also like it the way it is, but it passes three to two. The proposal was and/or, by the way. Let’s keep going. Section 050. This is building massing. Are there any comments, Board Member Lew? Board Member Lew: I was thinking about this with regard to the Wilton Court project. It seems to me Wilton Court would not meet this particular standard because it is on a corner and it was next to an existing one-story building. Wilson Court would have to meet the upper setback requirement as well as the significant break requirement because it has a 163-foot long façade. I do have reservations that we are making something that is really too strict or too difficult for an affordable housing project to meet. I am really worried about this one. In addition to Wilton Court, I also did consider 801 Alma and 753 Alma, although those are in different zoning districts. I think that those would also not comply. I am a little bit worried about this particular standard. I don’t disagree with the concept of them, but I am just worried about it actually getting an affordable housing developer to use this standard. Chair Thompson: Do you have proposed changes that you would like to see? Board Member Lew: My thought was maybe to keep the standard for most projects but have some sort of alternative for 100 percent affordable housing projects. Maybe there is some kind of exception for that. Or we keep it as is and let the 100 affordable housing projects use a different process in the code because we do have many ways of getting a project approved. I don’t disagree with the intent of this. I think I would probably vote for it. I am just concerned that it may not work. That’s all that I’ve got. Chair Thompson: Do we have any other comments from the Board on Board Member Lew’s comments if there are any proposed changes? 5.a Packet Pg. 63 City of Palo Alto Page 34 Vice Chair Lee: I do agree with Board Member Lew’s comments. I am particularly concerned about the maximum façade length with the significant breaks, that section. I would support and would love to hear from staff or other Board Members on ideas of how 100 percent affordable projects might follow a different path. Chair Thompson: I would like to suggest Vice Chair Lee and Board Member Lew if there could be an opportunity where we could amend this standard so that we don’t have to make any extra caveats. If the issue is 150 in length, do you prefer it to be 160 in length? I think those are the kind of proposed changes I am looking for, or would you like to strike the standard altogether? Board Member Baltay: If I could, Chair Thompson, I am opposed to making a separate standard for affordable housing. I think all housing should be designed equally well and if it is good enough for one of us, it’s good enough for the rest of us. I think that’s a really bad precedent to start setting. I think that we should take this one Alex is talking about, section C.i.B., buildings greater than 150-foot in length, and just dramatically cut back what we are talking about. I wrote down to four-foot minimum depths, eight-foot minimum width, 64 square feet minimum area. To me, that’s enough of a break to give you a visual relief on the building mass but it is small enough that you can arrange (inaudible) around it. I think an affordable builder still could work with that. Again, four-foot minimum depth, eight-foot width, those are minimums, 64 square feet minimum area. Chair Thompson: Chris, do you need Board Member Baltay to repeat that, or were you able to catch that? Mr. Sensenig: One more time, please. Board Member Baltay: I suggest we make it a minimum depth of four feet, a minimum width of eight feet, those are dimensions 2:1 respectively, with a minimum area of 64 square feet. Chair Thompson: Okay. Ms. Gerhardt: I do have the Wilton Court plans if people need a reference. Board Member Hirsch: I don’t understand, Peter. How can four by eight be 64? Board Member Baltay: It’s not. You have to make it bigger in one dimension or the other but I am trying to give some design (inaudible). Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Chair Thompson: These are minimums. Board Member Baltay: These are minimums but the 64 square feet is effectively a bedroom and that is the price we are asking you to pay to break up the mass of your building. Four hundred square feet is a whole unit. That’s my logic thinking about this more and more. I think 400 square feet is just too much. It’s not going to work. Board Member Hirsch: Way too much. Board Member Baltay: I agree that on long buildings it is too much if you don’t have some break in the mass and if you don’t want to come back before the ARB with a better design, then I think that’s a better standard. Chair Thompson: I think your note about having a separate standard for affordable housing, I also disagree with that notion. I think we all need to keep the standard of housing high everywhere and similar. I am in support of this change. Can we take a straw poll and see if there are others in support of this change to address concerns? Board Member Hirsch. 5.a Packet Pg. 64 City of Palo Alto Page 35 Board Member Hirsch: I'm in favor. Vice Chair Lee: Board Member Osma, I think what Board Member Alex had mentioned it is not to take away any review for the 100 affordable housing, but there would be a separate path. Not that there wouldn’t be any design standard in this regard, but there might be another way to address the intent here. Board Member Alex, I am not sure that’s what you meant but that’s what I was thinking. It wouldn’t be that there is no objective, but there would be something that would address a 100 percent affordable project. Board Member Lew: I am thinking Peter’s recommendation is fine for the buildings in that 150-foot range. I do think, though, that we should keep this standard that we have with the 400 square feet for even bigger buildings. Say like 195 Page Mill Road which has like a 400-foot long façade. I actually think we need this larger dimension for those really big projects that are an entire city block-long length. I am thinking maybe we should have A, B, and C. Chair Thompson: It sounds like Board Member Lew, would you propose instead of it being 150 feet in length to have it only be applicable to facades that are 175 feet or greater in length, or 200? Board Member Lew: I think we should give it a range. Say like Wilton Court, if it something that is half a block long we do it one way, and if something is really an entire city block long then we really do need an additional standard. Board Member Baltay: I think you're right, Alex. (Crosstalk) Board Member Lew: If you’re 150 feet then you need to do this, and then if you're over 350 feet then you also need to do an additional break. Board Member Baltay: Is that the right number, Alex, 350? Board Member Lew: Well, it could be 300 maybe. Vice Chair Lee: Alex, are you proposing a percentage of what we know to be a Palo Alto block when we… Board Member Lew: I don’t know. (Inaudible). I am not sure but I do think that there are two separate issues, right. Board Member Baltay: Let’s add section C to this, which addresses the larger issues and it section C has the text of what is being currently presented with a different length number. Board Member Lew: Yes. Board Member Baltay: That’s what you're talking about, Alex. Tell us what you length you think, Alex. You have the most experience with this I think. Board Member Lew: There are typical Palo Alto blocks that are 225 by 400 feet, like downtown. On University Avenue they are typically short blocks of 225 feet, but between Hamilton and University Avenue that is 400 feet, or University and Lytton. That’s a pretty big dimension, 400 feet. (Crosstalk) Board Member Lew: 195 Page Mill is a 400-foot long façade. Board Member Baltay: (Inaudible) it more than 250 feet then? 5.a Packet Pg. 65 City of Palo Alto Page 36 Board Member Lew: That way we are excluding smaller blocks. Yeah, okay. Board Member Baltay: I think it is better to err on the side of conservancy. They can always come back to the ARB. Board Member Lew: Right; agreed. Board Member Baltay: We are doing this on the fly. Chair Thompson: Are we changing buildings greater than, from 150 we are changing it to 250? That’s the proposal? Board Member Lew: No, I think we should keep it. I think we should have two standards, right? Ms. Gerhardt: Yeah, the 250 length would have the 400 square feet, and the 150 length would have the 64 square feet? Board Member Baltay: Yes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay: Should it be less than 150 for the smaller recess? Board Member Lew: We don’t have anything for less than 150 other than the other rhythms that we are proposing, I think. Board Member Baltay: It’s fine. We should just move forward then. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s take a quick straw poll if we are all good with this change. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: Yes. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Yes. Chair Thompson: Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Chair Thompson: Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Yes, and thank you to Peter and Alex. Chair Thompson: Me, too. I will say yes, as well. It is 11:30. We are sort of halfway. I wanted to get the Board’s temperature on… I have a block from 12:00 to 1:00 that I have to leave for. There is sort of two ways we can go. We can keep going in this fashion section by section and then we might stop at noon and then re-adjourn at 1:00. That’s one option to finish. The other option is that we stop now and make recommendations right now. I would like to hear from each member of the Board what they'd like to do starting with Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I am flexible; I can go either way. I have fewer comments going forward if that helps. 5.a Packet Pg. 66 City of Palo Alto Page 37 Chair Thompson: Yeah, that would be great if people could mention that as well. I also have fewer comments going forward. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I have fewer comments but still a couple of significant things I think warrant discussion. I can meet again at 1:00 for another hour or so but I think we owe it to the public and staff to figure this out. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I have some comments going forward and I agree to meet again at 1:00. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I have fewer comments. I do think we need to do a good job with this. I do have a meeting at 1:30. I can come back at 1:00 but I will need to come off at 1:30. Chair Thompson: Okay. How does staff feel about it? Ms. Gerhardt: That’s what I wanted to ask and make sure our consultants are available, Jean and Chris. Ms. Eisberg: Unfortunately, I am not available at 1:00. Mr. Sensenig: I am not available. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. We may need to pick this up on a different day then because I do think we need to give it some good time and some good review. Vice Chair Lee: You had mentioned that one item was not on the agenda anymore for next meeting. Is that too much time if we were to simply pick up next meeting? Ms. Gerhardt: Let me see. Jean, when were we proposing to go to PTC? Ms. Eisberg: April 28th. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. April 1st is still ahead of that. Okay, that is definitely a possibility if we continue this to April 1st. Jean and Chris, would you be available on the 1st? Mr. Sensenig: I can be available on the 1st. Ms. Eisberg: Yes. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. That probably is a better route then. Chair Thompson: Okay, great. Thank you so much for everyone’s flexibility. We will just keep going in this fashion and then five minutes to noon we will make a motion to continue this if we haven’t already done so by then. Great, thank you, everybody. Let’s go to .060. Board Member Baltay: Osma, if I could, I had some other things on the massing I wanted to discuss quickly. Chair Thompson: Yeah, back to .50. Board Member Baltay: Alex jumped ahead of me on his maximum façade length but section two, transition to lower density building types. I think the trees should be 20 feet apart, not 30. Chair Thompson: What’s the number? 5.a Packet Pg. 67 City of Palo Alto Page 38 Board Member Baltay: Number one, a landscape screen includes a continuous row of trees. We had reduced the size of them from 36 to 24-inch box but I think they should be 20 feet apart, not 30 feet apart. Secondly, I wanted to prose on the minimum façade break, similarly a little more variety in the depth and the width to propose a minimum of four-foot width to a maximum of eight-foot. I am sorry, width and a minimum of two-foot depth with a 32 square foot maximum space just to give the designer a little more flexibility on how to work it out. This was based on discussions with the townhome builders about what floor plan requirements they have. Chair Thompson: I think you might need to repeat your suggestions for Chris. Ms. Gerhardt: Chris, you need to go up one on the landscaping. Board Member Baltay: Yes, where it says 30 feet; right there. I suggest that become 20. Then the second one where it says a minimum of six feet width. Instead of six feet in width it should say between four to eight feet in width and a two-foot minimum depth with a 32 square foot minimum area. Ms. Gerhardt: We are trying to be objective. It would just be a minimum of four feet in width. Board Member Baltay: You're right. It should say minimum four-foot width, minimum two-foot depth, and minimum 32 square foot area. The logic just being somebody laying out an apartment a chance to… if it is just four feet you just make a smaller bedroom. If it is six feet, you’ve really lost it on your floor plan. Chair Thompson: Okay. There is a proposal to change those items one and two. Let’s just keep them in the same straw poll. Are there any questions from any of the Board Members? Vice Chair Lee: I did have a question. My biggest challenge here with the 20 feet is the canopy of the tree. For these street trees, they sometimes do have quite a canopy. I am wondering about that 20-foot dimension in terms of health of street trees because typically it is 30. Mr. Sensenig: (Inaudible) not a street tree. Board Member Baltay: This is privacy screening, Grace, between properties. Vice Chair Lee: Sorry; this is between properties. But even so, the choice of the tree isn't always a seasonal color, smaller ornamental. We actually might want to plant a tree that will need space to grow. That’s my issue there with that dimension. I just wanted to pull it out for the straw poll. That was my issue, even on screening between properties that the tree needs a space to grow and with the 20 feet planting a tree that will mature might not be enough if you did want more than one. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Maybe 25 feet then? Vice Chair Lee: Actually, 30 is really the way to go for a mature tree. Board Member Baltay: Thirty leaves a big privacy opening though. Two 24-inch box trees. Vice Chair Lee: Well, it’s again timing for that tree to grow. I feel comfortable 30 just knowing tree selection and the health of the tree. Board Member Baltay: A lot of trees that are used for these things just don’t grow to a 30-foot canopy. Vice Chair Lee: It’s true, but Magnolias and a lot of people’s choices, they grow. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Vice Chair Lee: I think about 30 feet. I was just going to say I am very happy with that change. 5.a Packet Pg. 68 City of Palo Alto Page 39 Chair Thompson: Okay, great. Board Member Lew, can you speak to both items? Board Member Lew: I haven’t thought about this a lot. I think that I am okay with a 30-foot as a minimum. I think I understand Peter’s point that the 20 feet is more desirable. I don’t have a lot to say. It depends on the species of tree. Chair Thompson: Okay and the façade break suggestion. Board Member Lew: I didn’t understand the dimensions. Chair Thompson: Did you notice the type, Chris? It would need to be minimum four feet in width. Board Member Lew: I don’t know. I think I am okay with that as a minimum. I would hope we would get something larger, though. Board Member Baltay: The square foot area, Alex, forces you to make something larger. Board Member Lew: Understood. Chair Thompson: I am hearing that you're okay with that change. Okay, Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Again, in New York, we say 25 feet for street trees in dimension between them. I think that’s a good compromise, a minimum of 25 feet could be closer. Chair Thompson: Okay and the façade break. Board Member Hirsch: I think it works, whatever Peter was describing there. It really is an issue of just how deep is the building and how much of the property it is taking up and how many units you can get on the side. I find that the specifics of this are likely to cause a lot of problems for designers when they get into the reality. I am not concerned that much with breaks in a side of a building. I don’t see exactly a reason for it but, Peter, you think it is really important to have those breaks. Board Member Baltay: We’re trying to just collectively come together, David. I mean, everybody seems to think the breaks are important. I suppose when you have to objective standardize it, yeah, it is one way of making a building look better. I support it. Chair Thompson: I support it as well. It sounds like we have at least four Board Members supporting the change in the façade break and Board Member Hirsch tentatively supporting it as well. Board Member Hirsch: Tentative, yes. Chair Thompson: I think that’s good. For the trees… Board Member Baltay: How about 25 feet, Grace? Can we do that? Board Member Hirsch: I think 25 feet works for me. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, or 28. I just talk to a lot of folks about these trees. “I didn’t know that they were going to get so big.” I just hear that quite a bit on these lots. I feel for them because they didn’t plant them with enough space between them. Chair Thompson: I am okay with 25 feet. It’s a minimum. They can plant them. Board Member Baltay: Want to make it 25 feet then? Vice Chair Lee: Okay, 25 as a minimum. 5.a Packet Pg. 69 City of Palo Alto Page 40 Mr. Sensenig: Osma, it’s a minimum that creates a certain number of trees. It’s not like it is a minimum of 20. It is working in the opposite direction. Chair Thompson: Right, okay. That’s right. I still think 25 is fine. I know 30 is the standard, but in general, I think trees like to be close to each other. Twenty-five feet is the majority vote. Any other comments on .050? No, okay. Let’s keep going, .060. This is façade design. I always start with Board Member Lew because that’s where he is on my Zoom panels. Go ahead, Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I only have one comment, which is I think for the façade composition requirements that if we do have something like a 400-foot long façade I think that it is still going to be potentially monotonous even if it complies with these standards. I will support the standards as they are proposed. Chair Thompson: For .060, what section were you referring to? Board Member Lew: (ii) under the facade composition. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Lew: I think my thought was for, again, facades greater than 300 feet that I would recommend adding yet an additional requirement but I don’t know what that would be. I did send staff an example in Berkley where two different architectural styles were done on one building to try to break up the monotony. Chair Thompson: All right. It sounds like there might be a proposal to include a caveat for facades greater than 300 feet. Right now it is a minimum of two of the following. Maybe there is a suggestion to include three of the following. That might be a little bit too much. Let’s see what the other Board Members think about this item. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I share Alex’s concern but I just don’t see how you can write it out. I don’t think we can make a change that will cover that issue. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: We’re skipping over all of the drawings that have been shown. Chair Thompson: We are going through each person’s comments and discussing them one by one. We will come around to you. Board Member Hirsch: Façade composition also has to do with the drawings that describe these, correct? Go back up the page, please. As a prototype, in the first place, I am bothered by the diagrams. The diagrams show a relatively square building on what would be a square lot. Chair Thompson: Sorry, Board Member Hirsch. We are just taking a straw poll on if we want to add a caveat in the façade composition part for buildings that have a façade greater than 300 feet. We will come back around for the diagram. Board Member Hirsch: Okay, I'm good with that. Again, the question is 300 feet? Board Member Baltay: The proposal is to add a caveat for facades… Board Member Hirsch: Yes, a break in the façade. I agree with Alex. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I just want to clarify. The suggestion is to add the language that this would only apply for facades greater than 300 feet. 5.a Packet Pg. 70 City of Palo Alto Page 41 Chair Thompson: No, that’s not the suggestion. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. What is the suggestion? Chair Thompson: The suggestion is to add an exemption to this that for facades greater than 300 feet there would be a more stringent… Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, I am just not sure how to do that. I guess I am going the other way on this. I still think we should just do a minimum of one of the following façade articulation strategies under façade composition. Then four right above it. I still would advocate for one of the following rather than two of the following. I think I am going in the opposite direction on this one. Chair Thompson: Okay. We will let this one go then. I don’t think there is enough support for it. Are there any other items Board Member Lew? No, okay. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Yes, I would like to clarify section two, variation and façade articulation, minimum one and the third one. I’m sorry, item number three, variation and fenestration, size proportion pattern, and depth. What I want to be clear is the variation is required to be a variation in all of these things; the size has to be different, the depth, the projection, and the pattern. That’s how I read this but it is not super clear and it should be. Then, if that is the case, the drawing needs to represent that because right now the drawing is really showing the (inaudible) pattern. Chair Thompson: Can staff clarify? Mr. Sensenig: It is a variation in two of the following. Wait, you’re in three? Board Member Baltay: Yes, the one with blue, green, and then yellow windows. That one right there. I would read this to mean all of those criteria have to vary. Is that the intent? Mr. Sensenig: No, that is not the intent. The intent is more what is shown. That the difference between the base and the middle is going from a storefront window to a box window, in this case, and then the variation between the middle and the top is a change in the size of the window. Board Member Baltay: It looks the same size to me. Mr. Sensenig: It's two windows as opposed to one window. Board Member Baltay: Yeah, I’m not buying that, Chris. If you took the colors off I think it doesn’t hang. I think we should just be clear about what we are intending here. Our graphics need to be improved on this if you don’t mind. Osma, I’m not sure what I'm suggesting here. I guess any two of those are fine. The whole thing seems kind of hokey but I think we need to clarify what we are doing here. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay, are you suggesting that instead of all of the things -- fenestrations, size, proportions, pattern, and projects -- that it is not all of those things, it’s just one of those things as part of the standard? Board Member Baltay: I would love to see all of them but I don’t think there is that much support for that. I think the more variation the better. I would support leaving it the way it is written, and I am requesting that the graphics get improved. Board Member Hirsch: That’s the comment that I was making, as well. Chair Thompson: Okay. Go ahead, Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I would like another prototype. Osma, you and I helped Chris on this and I think it improved graphics in other areas of this but here we should be talking about facades and the facades 5.a Packet Pg. 71 City of Palo Alto Page 42 should look more like the kind of buildings that are likely to happen. For example, in this one where there is a change between the base, middle, and top -- which I, frankly, am bothered by as a concept anyhow -- the top might very well be a bunch of separate windows that are not exactly the same pattern as the middle of the building, smaller ones perhaps. It should be shown more in a format of what it might be in reality. This kind of a building looks to me like an industrial or commercial building in a dense urban downtown, not at all like where the building is likely to be in Palo Alto. The prototype is incorrect, in my mind. Part of it is in response to what Peter is saying here, as well. Chair Thompson: Maybe a suggestion could be that this example also shows projects because right now the example is not showing projections in the façade. It’s just showing a change in window style. Mr. Sensenig: It’s a depth of projection of the fenestration. Chair Thompson: Okay, not in the façade itself? Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. In each one there is a variation in size, proportion, and pattern. No, the depth and projection does not change between the fenestration, but the first three things do all change. Vice Chair Lee: If I may, I think it is just the drawing type because we are looking at this view and I think maybe an elevation would be better to really see what you're trying to illustrate and label these things if needed. This wasn’t one of my comments but I am just trying to see what might be helpful in a better graphic, an improved graphic. Ms. Gerhardt: Chris, it is showing the bellybands and that is where the… maybe we just need to call that out more that that’s where the change in depth might happen. Mr. Sensenig: I'm sorry. I don’t fully understand your comment. Do you mean these? Ms. Gerhardt: Yeah, there are the lines going across. Mr. Sensenig: Yes, the change. Yes, that is a projection that is added to the fenestration as a whole, the sunshade in a different sunshade. That is a difference in projection but, as Baltay pointed out, not clear in the language of the standard. Chair Thompson: I could see an elevation diagram helping. A simple elevation parti that breaks it up and shows pattern one, pattern two, pattern three very explicitly. Vice Chair Lee: Maybe you'd want to add shadows of the… Board Member Hirsch: Pardon this interruption here, but wouldn’t this illustration be incorrect based on other standards, like the recesses or bays? The dimension of this drawing there would be some breaks in a façade like this. If you could just enlarge one specific area and keep it as a… Ms. Gerhardt: Do you have any questions, Chris, or is something maybe we can work on? Mr. Sensenig: There are a lot of different comments floating around there. I don’t think there is direction. Chair Thompson: I think what I am hearing is that there is a request by some members of the Board to change the diagram for this particular standard. I think if we can be clearer about what kind of changes to this diagram we think would benefit the message, that’ll help Chris out. Ms. Gerhardt: Are we saying that the language itself is fine, it is just that the diagram isn't showing that same thing? Board Member Hirsch: Yes. 5.a Packet Pg. 72 City of Palo Alto Page 43 Chair Thompson: I think so, yes. If there are any Board Members that disagree please speak. I heard two suggestions. I heard one suggestion of focusing only on the façade versus the axon, maybe like a zoom-in of just that side façade. Similarly, focus on the elevation. That might make it clearer how we are suggesting breaking up the façade and maybe this would accomplish a similar thing. Does that seem right, fellow Board Members? I see a nod. Board Member Baltay: I think elevations are a better way to show this, and maybe not trying to show a whole façade. Just show a couple of windows that vary. Chair Thompson: Two bays, yeah. I think the way you had it, Chris, with the two bays makes sense, or an elevation. Board Member Hirsch: How about a change in size and windows? Chair Thompson: A more clear delineation between the green and the blue fenestration pattern? Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Board Member Baltay: You'd be looking for a different shape or smaller windows in a line, maybe, across the top. You wouldn’t have the same structural post coming up or you would do something different. Chair Thompson: If it is housing, one bay could be the bedroom and the other is the living room, and the living room might have bigger glass and the bedroom might have just half-height glass because of privacy. It’s not always done that way but that could be another way to break up the fenestration. Is that clearer? Mr. Sensenig: Is the direction to change to elevation or just crop these sets of drawings? Board Member Baltay: You need to do more than crop the drawings you have, Chris. Mr. Sensenig: Okay. I am hearing change to elevation diagrams. Board Member Baltay: At a minimum, yes. Chair Thompson: It could accompany the crop, if it’s helpful but we do think it will probably be clearer and more abstract. Mr. Sensenig: It’ll just lose any depth, right? Board Member Baltay: Put shadows on it. Shadows can show you depth very well. Ms. Gerhardt: We are at 11:57. Chair Thompson: thank you. Okay, it seems like we are done with .050. Does everybody feel okay about that? We will maybe revisit this one thing. Board Member Hirsch: Could we run through the drawings on the top? Chair Thompson: Okay, maybe we are not done with .050. Ms. Gerhardt: 060. MOTION Chair Thompson: Oh, .060. Sorry. We will come back and revisit this at the next. I move that we continue this item to our next meeting on April first. 5.a Packet Pg. 73 City of Palo Alto Page 44 Board Member Hirsch: Second. Chair Thompson: Can we get a roll call vote. Aye: Lee, Lew, Baltay, Hirsch, Thompson (5) No: (0) MOTION TO CONTINUE PASSES 5-0. Ms. Gerhardt: That’s a motion to continue the item to a date certain of April 1st. Thank you very much. Approval of Minutes 4. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for February 18, 2021 Chair Thompson: Thank you. I think we have two sets of meeting minutes that we need to approve. Can I get a motion for the meeting minutes of February 18th? Board Member Baltay: I move that we… (Crosstalk) Board Member Baltay: Go ahead, Alex. Board Member Lew: I just had three corrections. On page 90, there is a word interval and it should be integral. That’s regarding colored concrete. On packet page 93, there should be a word terrace in there. And packet page 100, there is a name which is Haussmann, H-A-U-S-S-M-A-N-N. If there aren’t any other corrections, I will move that we approve the minutes for February 18th. Chair Thompson: I’ll second. Can we get a vote? Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) No: (0) MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 5-0. 5. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for February 4, 2021 Chair Thompson: Okay. Next one, are there any comments on the minutes from February 4th? I move that we approve the minutes of February 4th. Board Member Baltay: Second. Chair Thompson: Vote, please. Aye: Baltay, Hirsch, Lee, Lew, Thompson (5) No: (0) MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 5-0. Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements 5.a Packet Pg. 74 City of Palo Alto Page 45 Chair Thompson: Thank you. For the next item, NVCAP update. Is there a very quick update on the NVCAP? Board Member Lew: It’s kind of a longer one. If you're in a hurry, why don’t we save it for next time? Chair Thompson: That would be great if that’s okay with the rest of the Board. We will push that on to our April 1st meeting. Okay. Thank you, everybody. This meeting is adjourned. Adjournment 5.a Packet Pg. 75