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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-04-01 Architectural Review Board Summary MinutesArchitectural Review Board Staff Report (ID # 12238) Report Type: Approval of Minutes Meeting Date: 5/6/2021 City of Palo Alto Planning & Development Services 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 329-2442 Summary Title: Minutes of April 1, 2021 Title: Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for April 1, 2021 From: Jonathan Lait Recommendation Staff recommends the Architectural Review Board (ARB) adopt the attached meeting minutes. Background Draft minutes from the April 1, 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: April 1, 2021 Draft Minutes (DOCX) 4 Packet Pg. 171 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Osma Thompson, Vice Chair Grace Lee, Board Members, Peter Baltay, David Hirsch, and Alexander Lew. Absent: None. [Roll Call] Chair Thompson: Welcome everyone to the April 1st meeting. Maybe we have been doing this for a year. I don’t know. It all seems to fly by. Pursuant to the provisions of California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, this meeting will be held by virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. Spoken comments via a computer will be accepted via through the Zoom teleconference meeting. To address the Board, go to ZOOM.us./join. Meeting ID is 99638692965. When you wish to speak on an agenda item click on raised hands. When called please limit your remarks to the time allotted. Spoken public comments using a smartphone will also be accepted through the Zoom mobile application. To offer comments using a regular phone, call 1-669-900-6833 and enter meeting ID 99638692965. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on your phone so we know that you wish to speak. It’s getting more musical every time. I’m working on that so you guys know. Oral Communications Chair Thompson: Our next item is Oral communications. The public may speak on an item not on the agenda. Vinh, do we have any members of the public that would like to speak? Vinh Nguyen, Administrative Associate: We currently do not have any raised hands for oral communications. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Thompson: Thank you. Next item is agenda changes, additions and deletions. Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: No changes at this time. City Official Reports 1. Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and 2) Tentative Future Agenda items and 3) Recent Project Decisions Chair Thompson: Thanks. City Official Reports. ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD DRAFT MINUTES: April 1, 2021 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue Virtual Meeting 8:30 AM 4.a Packet Pg. 172 City of Palo Alto Page 2 Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, thank you very much. Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning. You‘ll see we have the schedule up on the screen. We are going to remain virtual for at least the foreseeable future. We will let you know if that changes. At least we are moving to orange and hopefully moving to yellow tier fairly soon. In the yellow tier, we will not be coming back for Board meetings; it won’t be until green for sure. The next page we have the items for the future. April 14th we have the 4256 El Camino, which is some parking changes to a recently approved hotel. We have 300 Pasteur, which is a preliminary for the hospital, and then we also have a subcommittee for 180 El Camino Real and that is for the movement of the signs. That would be our hearing for next time. Also, the review of the commission handbook. This is a handbook that Council put out somewhat recently and we do want to have more informational but somewhat of a discussion with the ARB. Study Session/Preliminary Review 2. 2850 W Bayshore [21PLN-00041]: Request for Preliminary Architectural Review of a Proposed 48-Unit Residential Townhome Development. Environmental Assessment: Not a Project. The Formal Application Will be Subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Review. Zoning District: ROLM (Research Office and Limited Manufacturing). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Claire Raybould at Claire.Raybould@cityofpaloalto.org. Chair Thompson: Thank you. I think we will move on to our next item which is the study session and preliminary review. This is for 2850 West Bayshore, request for preliminary architectural review of a proposed 48-unit residential townhome development. Do we have any disclosures? Vice Chair Lee: I’ll simply disclosure that I visited the site. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Baltay: Osma, I visited the site but you don’t need disclosures I don’t think for a preliminary review. Chair Thompson: That’s true. Board Member Baltay: But it doesn’t matter. Chair Thompson: If anyone else still wants to disclose anything feel free. I also visited the site. I’ll let staff go ahead. Claire Raybould, Senior Planner: Thank you, Chair Thompson and Board Members. Claire Raybould, Senior Planner. The project before you today is 2850 West Bayshore, new multi-family residential development. This is located just off Bayshore Road near Greer Park. Just a brief overview of the project, this is just a preliminary review of the project. They will be coming back to the Architectural Review Board if a formal application is filed. This is a preliminary review of a proposal to demolish an existing approximately 32,500 square foot office building and redevelop the site with 48 for-sale residential townhomes. I wanted to note that the applicant has applied for a preliminary application for Senate Bill 330 project, which they are eligible for as a two-thirds housing development. The city is reviewing that preliminary application right now. Once that is deemed complete, that locks in their development standards so they can choose whether to use the development standards that are applicable at the time that that application is deemed complete, or they can choose to use the current development standards. I wanted to note that because we are going through the process of these objective standards and if that application is deemed complete before the objective standards get approved by Council, then they can choose whether to apply them or not to their project. This is a 2.3 acre site and as I noted the surrounding uses include office to the north, Greer park to the south and west, and West Bayshore Road and Highway 101 to the east. I also want to note that the project is planning to have seven units of the 48 as affordable housing. They are eligible for a density bonus and they plan to request a density bonus concession for an increased floor area ratio of 1.08:1. Right now 4.a Packet Pg. 173 City of Palo Alto Page 3 under the ROLM standards for exclusively residential, which follows RM30 requirements, they would be only eligible for .6:1 floor area ratio. I just wanted to note that. They will also be requesting parking allowances in accordance with state density bonus allowances under the new Assembly Bill 2345, which the city is currently going through the process of updating their density bonus code requirements under 18.15 of our code to align with that Assembly Bill. The formal application will also include requests for a design enhancement exception for the height of the towers, which exceeds the 35-foot height limit. They are also requesting that the Architectural Review Board weigh in on the use of some of the private open space toward common open space. This is allowed in accordance with our municipal code under 18.13.040(e). There is an allowance to use some of the private open space toward common open space if it increases the use of the open space in a way that is beneficial to the residents. They will also be requesting a sound wall between West Bayshore Road and Highway 101. Transportation and Public Works and Planning are still evaluating a number of different options for this proposal. We are still trying to determine whether this is going to be feasible or not and how it might be designed to ensure that we are maintaining what we feel is appropriate bike lanes and not degrading the existing bike lane on West Bayshore Road. The key input that we are looking for from the Architectural Review Board today is just any input you have on the overall design. In particular, we are also interested in your input on the design enhancement exception for the towers, and then the use of private open space as common open space and whether the Architectural Review Board would be supportive of that, and any other input that you have. Following this study session, the applicant may choose to file a formal application and as I noted we are currently processing a pre-application for the project but we anticipate providing a response to that within the next week. Then the applicant is required after that to file an application within 180 days of deeming that pre-application complete. With that, I will turn it back to you and recommend that you hear from the applicant next. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Claire. Let’s hear from the applicant. [Setting up presentation.] Elaine Breeze: Good morning, everyone. My name is Elaine Breeze. I am Senior Vice President of SummerHill Housing Group. Thank you for the thorough staff presentation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SummerHill Homes, we are a privately-owned development company specializing in communities of distinction and have been located in Palo Alto for the last 34 years. We haven’t worked in the city for a few years but are excited to have the opportunity back and working on this great site. Most recently we worked with the Elks Club to redevelop their lodge on El Camino Real and develop the Redwood Gate community behind it. Prior to that, we redeveloped the old Palo Alto Medical Foundation property south of Forrest Avenue, which included the University Park, Woodmark, and Weatherly comminutes. We also developed the Echelon condominiums off of East Meadow Circle. This morning we have our design team present to answer any questions the Board may have. Ralph Strauss with SDG Architects, Ryan Hansen from Carlson, Barbee and Gibson Civil Engineers, and Shari Van Dorn of Van Dorhan Abed Landscape Architects. You'll note our current plan set does not include landscape plans but Shari has recently joined the team and has a lot of experience with us here in Palo Alto. Lastly, John Hickey, who pulled up the slides, is our Director of Development for SummerHill Homes. John will provide an overview now of our site context, our planning approach, and our proposed design. John Hickey, Director of Development: Thank you. Good morning, Board Members. It is a pleasure to be here. We thank you very much for taking the time to review our preliminary application. Your feedback is very helpful to us as we move forward with the project. I want to start by echoing what Elaine said. We are very excited about this site because we think it is a great location for a new residential community. As you probably know, the site is less than a mile from the groceries and pharmacies and other neighborhood services that you had at midtown and over in Edgewood. There is a Montessori school right next door and Ohlone Elementary School is just a short walk away. Of course, we have Greer Park right next door. I also want to point out that the site, as Claire mentioned, is currently occupied by an office building and I think that is key because the project won’t be displacing any existing residents which we think is a major plus. Just to show you the actual location here. This slide shows you a view of the existing one-story office building that is on the site. It was built in the 1970s. I personally happen to live very close to the site so I am quite familiar with it. It is where the 4.a Packet Pg. 174 City of Palo Alto Page 4 dog and I walk on most days, but for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, I want to show you some photos to give you a sense of what the shared-edge conditions are between the park and the site. This photo here shows the view from the area of the park that is just southeast of the site. You’ll note that here the park is actually a few feet higher than the grade of the site itself. We will talk about that a bit more in a moment. This photo here shows you a view from the southwest. Again, as you can see, there are some dense bushes, some trees along the edge here on the park side of the fence, and those screen the site from the park. Similarly, the view here from the northwest has, again, dense vegetation along the fence line screening the view of the site from the park. Again, those trees and bushes are on the park side, not the project site; they will remain. This is a view from across the park over towards Simkins Court. Again, you can see all of the vegetation, the trees along the shared edge there between the park and the project site. As I mentioned, there is also a Montessori school next door. This is a view from the project site looking at the Montessori school. This area of the school is primarily used for storage. It is not a play area or anything like that for the kids in the back there. As the staff report explained, we are proposing to construct 48 new three-story town homes. These town homes will be all three-bedroom. They will range from about 1,500 square feet to 2,000 square feet in size and each will have a two-car garage. Claire pointed out that it would qualify for a parking reduction, which is true, but we are meeting the city’s parking standard as well. I just wanted to clarify that. Seven of the homes will be dedicated as affordable units for moderate-income households. The buildings are oriented, as you'll see, to provide an active presence along West Bayshore Road and over here towards Greer Park. Also towards the common open space, the community open space here in the middle. That open space is a bonus. Obviously, we are next to the park which is a great asset but we have this community space too which will have casual seating, outdoor dining areas, tables, and a large active play space there. We have walkways you will see throughout the site to provide connectivity from West Bayshore over to the park to the community area and to all of the homes. As Claire mentioned, we are proposing a 14-foot sound wall along the eastside of West Bayshore, which is very important to us for the benefit of our homeowners to reduce the amount of freeway noise. The staff report noted that the site is in a flood zone (A)(E)(11) which is important because it means that we need to withstand flood elevations that would reach approximately 10.5 feet during a 100-year storm event. To achieve this, we need to raise the building pads so that the finished floor is at least one foot above that flood elevation. In addition, consistent with city policy, we will be creating the site and designing the site so that the overland release of any excess water during that 100-year storm event will be directed towards West Bayshore Road rather than back towards the park. That means that the rear of the site needs to be raised enough so that it is actually draining towards West Bayshore. To achieve this, we will be constructing a retaining wall along the size and rear of the site. As we work through the design process, we will look for ways to minimize the height of that wall but based on our initial analysis, we anticipate that that wall is going to need to be about three to five feet tall at its highest point. It will be lower than that at other points along the sides. I just want to mention, though, as you saw from the photos I showed earlier, most of that wall is going to be screened from view by the trees and bushes along the edge of the park but we will work with our landscape architect to develop an attractive design for the wall so that it blends in. We are also going to be working with our arborist to make sure that we minimize the impact on the adjacent trees and potentially even relocate some of the trees that we have on-site to the extent that that is feasible. Also, we will be preserving the existing street trees along West Bayshore to the extent that is feasible as well. As I mentioned, seven of the units will be designated as BMR units. Based on that, we will be requesting a concession under the City’s Density Bonus Ordinance. That concession will be to allow an increase in the FAR to approximately 1.08. That will allow us to provide substantially more homes than we would otherwise be able to. We will be requesting the design enhancement exception and our architect will discuss that a little bit more in a moment. With the density bonus concession and the design enhancement exception, the project is fully consistent with the current zoning. That means height, density, setbacks; so we won’t be requesting any zoning amendments or variances. With that, I would like to pass the microphone to Ralph so that he can describe the architecture, please. Chair Thompson: Mr. Hickey, I just want to let you know there are three minutes left. Mr. Hickey: Three minutes. Thank you, I appreciate that. Ralph Strauss: Good morning, Board Members. I will be brief in my description. 4.a Packet Pg. 175 City of Palo Alto Page 5 [Setting up presentation.] Mr. Strauss: As John mentioned, three-unit types and six-unit buildings. The smaller size of the building is very complimentary to the site planning of the site and allows us to face all of the buildings outward or to the central green in the project. This is contemporary-style architecture and we are working to combine forms both identifying individual units while creating a unified building appearance. This is four- sided architecture. We are using hip roof and parapet roof forms to add eave line articulation. We’ve got a variety of materials, exterior plaster, horizontal siding, and wood railings that are highly articulated in their planes across the frontage; it creates shadow opportunities and depths in the elevations. We are combining window shapes and sizes in multiple patterns to further enhance the elevations. The window frames would be a dark material and this is four-sided architecture. The treatment that we are applying to the structure goes to all four sides of the buildings. Related to the design enhancement exception, this exception request is related to the tower elements that you see on the front elevations of the building. The average height of those components is 39.5 feet, relative to the 35-foot allowed in the zoning ordnance but we feel that these are important to add to the roof articulation of the buildings and these components will be visible both from the pedestrian level where people will see a nice break in the eave lines and also from the second-floor private outdoor living spaces in the units and from the surrounding community. We think they add a very nice component to the massing and scale of the (inaudible) in to the roof forms that we are creating. That is a very brief description. I am available for any other questions. I should add we are using the color allocation across the elevations to enhance the plane breaks and the other articulation that we have on these buildings. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Mr. Hickey: I assume we only have 20 seconds left or so. Chair Thompson: Twenty-four seconds. Mr. Hickey: I just wanted to close by saying we look forward to receiving your comments and we are here to answer questions as well. Thanks very much. Chair Thompson: Thank you. I forgot to ask the applicant for the record. [Spells Names] Chair Thompson: Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak? Mr. Nguyen: Chair, we currently do not have any raised hands. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s bring it back to the Board. Does the Board have any questions of the applicant? Board Member Baltay: I certainly do. I am not sure if I am the only one, Osma. Chair Thompson: I'm sorry. Board Member Baltay: I have a couple of questions, yes. Can I dive in? Chair Thompson: Yeah, go ahead. Board Member Baltay: Let me start with the architect, please. I am just trying to make sense of your elevation drawings relative to the floor plan. I understand that this is all conceptual but when I look at the elevation drawings, say the rear elevation, it shows three double garages at the very center of the building. When I look at the floor plans, I don’t see how that works. Is it possible that maybe the floor plans are on the upper level of the unit? What am I missing here? I am saying this just because Mr. 4.a Packet Pg. 176 City of Palo Alto Page 6 Hickey alluded to the fact that the building is fully parked. That would mean you would need size double garage doors on that elevation. I only see five. Mr. Hickey: If I could jump in I can answer that question. You are exactly right, Board Member B. The floor plans, the building plans shown on our site plan do not correspond exactly with the elevations. We are, as you said, in the preliminary stages here and as we are refining things some of this will need to be coordinated as we make a formal application. What you are seeing on the site plan is accurate. Those are all two-car garages but two of those garages are tandem garages. You will see it is a front and back there. In fact, what you're seeing, even though the sequence of garages that you're seeing on the elevations does not match with the site plan, there will still be -- what appear to be -- single-car garages from the front, and then four two-car-wide garages. Does that make sense? Board Member Baltay: Okay, thank you for that information. The second question, regarding the architecture again, is on the side elevation. On the lower level, I see what looks like a recessed set of glass sliding doors. Is that right? Can you explain what building functions inside are expressed on the outside on the side elevation? Mr. Strauss: Yes, on the lower level on the side elevation, those are the utility cabinets for the buildings. They are at the ends of the building buildings but we are recessing them into the mass of the building and creating articulation around them. Board Member Baltay: You're saying that’s like the electric meter and gas meter and such. Mr. Strauss: Correct, although this would be an all-electric project. Board Member Baltay: You have floodplain requirements though, don’t you? You may want to take a look at that and make sure that’s actually viable, but it is not living space of any kind? That’s what I am really driving towards? Mr. Strauss: That is correct. It is not living space. The building elevations will be above the floodplain level (inaudible). Board Member Baltay: Yes, I understand. This is conceptual, I don’t really care in detail if it lines up or not, I just want to understand what other functions within the building are expressed on the side. Are those exterior balconies, on the second and third floor? Mr. Strauss: Yes, on the third floor in this case. Board Member Baltay: Then the small square window and the other component, what is actually behind those windows? Mr. Strauss: A stairwell. Those windows are climbing along with the stairwell on the exterior of the building. Board Member Baltay: I see. Okay. There are no actual living rooms or anything facing the side elevations? Mr. Strauss: There sometimes may be a bedroom at the lowest level towards the front of the home adjacent to the porch and it may have a window to the side at the lower level. As John mentioned, these elevations are works in progress. Board Member Baltay: Second question, Osma, if you don’t mind my continuing is regarding the applicant mentioned a retaining wall at the back of the site. Can you explain in more detail what grading requirements you are facing are? Mr. Hickey: I would be happy to. I am going to shift to a preliminary site plan that you can see here. 4.a Packet Pg. 177 City of Palo Alto Page 7 Board Member Baltay: Is that in our packet as well? Mr. Hickey: No, this is part of the slide. There is a grading sheet in the packet that you received but this is, as I mentioned, due diligence. We are constantly refining as we go through prior to making the formal application. We have already come up with some additional ideas since we provided what we gave you initially. The essence here is that the portion -- I don’t know if you can see my cursor -- the portion along here needs to be high enough on the rear of the site to be able to drain forward to the front of the site. That is the City’s policy is to have… I want to back up for a second and point out that we will comply with all of the storm water treatment requirements. For ordinary storm events, we will be treating all of the storm water onsite through bioretention and then that will drain to the storm drain and that would go to the front of the site. Now, in major storms, that is 100-year storm events or bigger, that is more than the design capacity for the storm water treatment, which means you need to be able to account for the overland release of any excess storm water. The city does not want that to flow to the rear of the site. They don’t want it flowing to the park. They want it flowing forward to West Bayshore. In order to accommodate that, we need to be able to grade the site such that the rear of the site is high enough that it will drain toward the front. To achieve that, we need to be able to lift the site, which means we will have a retaining wall along the rear of the site. As I mentioned, you can see it is very small on my screen. I hope it is a little larger for people but right now I think it says six feet here. We have already identified a way that we think we can reduce that by a foot and we are exploring additional opportunities to be able to reduce the height as well. The highest point of the wall is really going to be along here. Once you get over to the southwest corner of the site, the adjacent grade on the park rises substantially and the matching grade will be much closer at this point and there may not even need to be a retaining wall. Over on this south side of the site, right now this portion of the park is actually about two feet higher than the edge of the park. Even if we raised this portion of the site… corresponds to what is the primary predominant grade along the park as well. We will explore all of those options as we refine the design and go through the planning review process. Board Member Baltay: Is it possible to have some other means of meeting that storm drain requirement? Say a series of storm pumps or something rather than grading the site? Mr. Hickey: The site needs to be raised up to be able to bring the building living areas out of the floodplain. That is an absolute requirement. You were pointing that out I think a moment ago when you were mentioning since this is the floodplain the utility cabinets would need to be raised. That is true. Not only do we have the utility cabinets in there but we have living space on the first floor on all of these units. The building pad itself needs to be lifted to that minimum elevation, absolutely. It is just a question of what we are doing and once we are doing that, we obviously need to raise the access drive as well so that we can reach the garage apron. The question really is just what is the elevation going to be of this common area here and the areas along the edge. That is what we are working though with staff. Essentially, we need to be at this grade at the building. That is a given. Board Member Baltay: Osma, if you don’t mind me getting detailed, what is the actual grade on the site that you need? What’s your finished base ground level, the level of the driveway? The floodplain you said is 10.5. Is that the (a)(e) number you have to work to? Mr. Hickey: Yes. (A)(e)(11) is technically the flood zone but according to the city, they have measured it out and 10.5 is the elevation. That means that we need to be at, at least, 11.5 with our finished floor. Board Member Baltay: Right. What is the level of the ground right now and what do you want to make it to make your buildings work? Mr. Hickey: It varies. Right now, if you're at the curb along the front here it is about seven. Board Member Baltay: Seven, and you need to be at 11.5 you said. 4.a Packet Pg. 178 City of Palo Alto Page 8 Mr. Hickey: Yes, exactly. If you go into the site, some of the parking areas are low but then as you get to the rear of the site it actually gets a little bit higher and the building itself that is there right now is elevated. We haven’t surveyed to find out exactly what the floor elevation is there for that existing building but it appears to somewhere between nine and eleven. Board Member Baltay: How about the ground level on this drawing here on the lower-left corner. I bet that is the lowest part of it where your cursor is now. In that area what is the current ground level and how much do you need to raise it approximately? Mr. Hickey: Actually, I don’t think that is the lowest level at the current point. I apologize, I don’t know if I am going to be able to blow it up to be able to see it on here. If my civil engineer hears this and he remembers what the existing grade he might be able to chime in. (Crosstalk) Ms. Raybould: 12.2, I am looking at it on the plans. Board Member Baltay: What was it, Claire? Ms. Raybould: 12.2. Mr. Hickey: No, that would be the finished grade. Ms. Raybould: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Chair Thompson: It shows the existing grade… Mr. Hickey: Oh, six. Chair Thompson: …six feet. Board Member Baltay: Six feet, and you're proposing to bring it to 12.2 because you want it to be above the floodplain? Mr. Hickey: That’s correct. Ms. Breeze: About eight. Is that what you just said, Ryan? Mr. Hickey: Yeah, I think the existing is at about eight. I think it is a little bit lower on the school side which is where that six-foot shot is. Board Member Baltay: Okay. I don’t want to drag this on during a series of questions, but I think it is important to point out to the Board is that what you're really doing is grading this site up not just for storm drainage but also just to meet the floodplain requirements, which is legitimate. I just want to be clear about what you're up to here. Mr. Hickey: That’s a fair characterization, Board Member. Thank you. Board Member Baltay: Okay. My last question, Osma, if you don’t mind my continuing, again, is, Claire, you mentioned private open space and want us to comment on that. Do you have any description of where this private open space is? How should we be evaluating that? Ms. Raybould: What they are requesting is that some of the private open space, which presumably would be provided as balconies, would be provided as common open space. It is increasing the common area. 4.a Packet Pg. 179 City of Palo Alto Page 9 Board Member Baltay: I am afraid… I'm sorry, I'm dense. I just don’t understand. You mean that there will be fewer balconies because there is a larger common space or the opposite? Ms. Raybould: Correct, less private open space, more common open space. More grass area or other… Board Member Baltay: But there are no unit floor plans showing us what that translates into is there? It’s just sort of a conceptual idea? Is that what you're asking us for? Ms. Raybould: Conceptual idea, yes. I know that currently, they are proposing some private balconies. There would be some private open space provided but some of the private open space… the applicant didn’t indicate to staff how much might be allowed. If you have input on how much might be acceptable that would be… Mr. Hickey: Through the Chair, may I respond? Chair Thompson: Sure. Mr. Hickey: Is that a yes? Chair Thompson: Yeah. Mr. Hickey: That’s a great question, Board Member. We are trying to gauge what our options are here because as I mentioned we do have 18 units that face towards West Bayshore. Even with the sound wall, the second and third floors are going to be at a height that they are going to be close to the elevations or potentially above the sound wall. Our concern is that the decks or balconies that we would ordinarily provide, some of those may not be viable as useful outdoor spaces because of the freeway noise. What we would like to do is be able to still make sure that we are meeting our requirements for the total amount of usable open space on the site and still providing enough amenity space for the residents but rather than providing it as balconies that may not actually really be a benefit to the residents, we want to instead meet that requirement through expanding the common area open space, which is this area that is much more shielded by the existing buildings. As Claire said, there is a provision that especially allows for that in the code. We have no idea how often that has been used, what the sensitivity level is to using it, so we were trying to get feedback on whether that was something that the ARB would be open to. Board Member Baltay: Thank you. I have no other questions, Osma. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Baltay. Are there any other questions from Board Members of the applicant? Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, I do have a couple of questions but since this is an informal preliminary, I am happy… if you are comfortable as a study session to speak back and forth with the applicant. It is as you will. Chair Thompson: Yeah, this is a study session. Go ahead and ask your questions. Vice Chair Lee: Okay, great. Stepping back and thank you for this. I am excited about this project. I just was wondering if maybe you could speak a little bit about sustainability and your goals there in a general sense. I just wanted to get a picture for that. Then I had a question regarding that pedestrian access on the south side, and as I understand it was two feet off there on grade. I just wanted to see what your thoughts are on that. Then, I noticed that there are some things that are common on some of these projects, like mailboxes and trash and where is that on the plans? It is something to think about on those private streets. [Adjusting Audio.] 4.a Packet Pg. 180 City of Palo Alto Page 10 Mr. Hickey: Thank you, Board Member. I will try to make sure I answer all three of those. I am going to start them in reverse though since that is the direction my brain tends to go. Yeah, your points are great about trash and collection and postal delivery. What you might have noticed is that we have a little drop-off spot here. This is not what we would call a true parking space. It is more meant to be a quick delivery type of spot. Again, this is very preliminary, this is something that we work through typically during the formal application process but we would anticipate that we would try to keep a central mail kiosk somewhere pretty close to the center of the site and we try to make sure that there is a place where the postal carrier can stop nearby and deliver the mail. I would anticipate that we would probably have the mail kiosk somewhere in here, maybe in the interior there but that is our anticipation. We always make sure that we plan for that during our entitlement process so that we are not stuck after we get through entitlements trying to figure out during the construction drawing stage where that was supposed to go. With regard to waste collection and recycling collection, it’s a great point. We have found from past experience that that can often be a real challenge if we don’t address it early. We have already reached out to waste collection to review our site plan. You may have noticed in our packet there is a site plan that shows the template for the turning for the waste collection. What we will do is each of these units will have space in the garage to be able to have three bins, a compost bin, a recycling bin, and a landfill bin. On collection day, that will be pulled out to the apron of the garage where there will be enough room in front without blocking the travel way but also without being under an overhang because the lift arm needs to have enough room to lift the bins. There will be enough room to accommodate that. Let’s see; you asked about sustainability. Obviously, we will be complying with the new Title 24, which is very stringent. We will be also complying with the City’s Reach Code, which means that the project will be all electric. There will be no gas appliances at the project. In addition, we anticipate, in order to meet our Title 24 requirements, which you know have sort of a scoring system, we will be providing solar on the units as well. Elaine, was there anything… I remember we were discussing that earlier. Let me just make sure there wasn’t anything important that I missed. Oh, and EV chargers. Obviously, we are setting up the site so that there will be adequate capacity in all of the units to be able to provide a level two EV charger. I think I missed one of your three questions. What was the third? Vice Chair Lee: I was just wondering about that pedestrian access… (Crosstalk) Mr. Hickey: Yes, we were discussing that actually just a couple of days ago. We realized with the grade change and the possibility that would need to be an ADA accessible connection, we may have challenges with the grade there. That is something that we will continue to work with staff on because we think it would be an asset for the community to be able to have a direct connection here but we would need to be able to do it in such a way that we make sure that is an accessible connection. Ms. Raybould: I just want to note that I did discuss that with community services division, whether they would be supportive of an access. They said that they would be supportive of an access point as long as it doesn’t preclude them from anything they might want to do in the park in the future. We would be evaluating to look at the location and makes sure it makes sense, if they are able to provide it. Vice Chair Lee: Thanks for those responses. Those were just some questions that came up. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Vice Chair Lee. Are there any other questions from Board Member Lew or Hirsch of the applicant? Board Member Hirsch: I have just one at this point. Chair Thompson: Go ahead. Board Member Hirsch: Visitor parking, where or how do you deal with it? 4.a Packet Pg. 181 City of Palo Alto Page 11 Mr. Hickey: That’s a great question. First of all, the city’s code for multi-family developments, such as this, does not actually require any onsite guest parking. We are providing one ADA space and one guest parking space here. In addition, I think this drop-off delivery space is going to be very important too because it is not going to be blocking any driveways. As many of us now are receiving dinner or whatever it is by delivery, so it is useful to have that. In addition, right now there are limited amount of existing on-street parking. As Claire eluded to, we’re working with the city to try and decide what makes sense as the new street section along West Bayshore because we would like to be able to and need to be able to have a sound wall on the east side of West Bayshore, but we also want to make sure that we are accommodating the city’s bike plans. What we are anticipating is the existing on-street parking would be eliminated; however, there is still a lot of on-street parking down here and for those of you who are familiar with the area, you'll know that Colorado is just beyond this park here. There is a lot of on-street parking along Colorado. The other thing that I mentioned is one of the nice things about this site is we don’t have any immediate residential neighbors right now. If there is any on-street parking, it is very unlikely that is it is going to be something that is going to be bothering any adjacent neighbors. The key, too, is that we are complying with the city’s requirements; in fact, exceeding them because we are providing those two guest spaces which aren’t required. Chair Thompson: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Are there any more questions, Board Member Hirsch? You just had the one? Board Member Hirsch: Just that one at the moment. Chair Thompson: Okay. Thank you, fellow Board Members, for asking questions. A lot of mine were asked already but I do have one or two more. Does the applicant have thoughts on the materials of the retaining wall and the sound wall? Mr. Hickey: For the retaining wall, we are anticipating MSE, mechanically stabilized earth wall. It is basically a stacked wall with an anchor behind and the finish on that are several options. We will work with our landscape architect as we go through design whether we want some sort of smooth finish. Whatever it will be, it will be something that is a natural tone so that it blends well with what is around. Our goal is really to have that wall blend in. We will probably also be looking ways to actually… as I have mentioned before, I don’t think anybody is going to be able to see the wall because the dense vegetation along the park there but to the extent that anybody is looking though we don’t want it to be something that’s glaring. We may even look for opportunities to use landscaping to cascade over the wall and things like that. I should mention because it will be elevated, we will have an open guardrail for the fence to keep anybody from falling over the edge but that would only need to be about 42 inches tall in order to comply with the requirements. For the sound wall, we have a couple of different ideas. You probably know that to the south when the Sterling Park community down by Loma Verde was built down by Loma Verde was built, they installed a sound wall along the east side of West Bayshore. That’s a 14- foot sound wall. It’s precast panels with columns and that actually is painted, I believe, on the West Bayshore side but it is more textured on the freeway side. It is actually two different colors on the different sides. That’s to the south. That’s one option that we would be interested in looking at. The other option is to do something similar to the sound wall that is just to the north of the site by the Prometheus project, which is a stacked concrete block wall. We are happy to work with the city on the design of that but the key for us is just really having that wall because it is critical to making sure that this is a pleasant place for the residents. Chair Thompson: Thank you. My other question is for the architect. I see maybe four materials on this façade but I wanted to get some clarity on the thoughts on the choices of material colors that you’re presenting. Mr. Strauss: Certainly. The materials are exterior plaster, horizontal pal siding, and then a space to dec railing which will be a wood material on a steel frame. That will be a stained material. The allocation of the materials are designed to draw attention to the fronts of the units and enhanced by the colors. The lighter colors and textures near the entry doors but then also to accentuate the plane breaks so that we 4.a Packet Pg. 182 City of Palo Alto Page 12 can return the horizontal siding, for example, back and terminated inside corner of the plane breaks and use it as a way to create this overall texture across the front of the elevation. Chair Thompson: Okay. Am I right that there are two beiges of that plaster? There is a light beige and a dark beige. Mr. Strauss: Correct, body one, body two on the plaster. The siding is all one color and then the lighter color that you see on the elevation is the railing material. Mr. Hickey: Chair, may I for just a moment? Chair Thompson: Sure. Mr. Hickey: Just a reminder that this is preliminary. We will continue to work with staff and the ARB as we go through the process. If you have particular thoughts on the colors now we would very much like to hear them but we are not suggesting that these are the absolute final colors. Chair Thompson: Okay. I just have one more question. Thank you for bearing with us on this. For the architect, conceptually in terms of the concept of the building, what would you say that you are trying to achieve in the design? Mr. Strauss: We are trying to achieve a nice articulated building both within the project and from the perimeter since we have accomplished a wonderfully outfacing site plane where every building is facing outward or to the common open space. We are looking to articulate and create visual interest. Chair Thompson: Okay. Thank you. If there is nothing else, we can bring it back to the Board for feedback. Thank you, applicants, for answering our questions. Who would like to go first? Board Member Lew, I’ll call on you. Board Member Lew: Thank you for your presentation. I will disclose that I did look at the Sterling Park project and I also looked at several old aerial photos to see what the park used to be. I was curious about what the drive-in theatre that used to be on the park site looked like. I downloaded some aerial photos of that as well. I also looked at the back of… it’s on 1530 Page Mill Road where Stanford built the new housing project and there is a six or seven-foot wood fence on top of a six-foot-high concrete retaining wall and there is an existing chain link fence as well. Board Member Baltay: What is the address, Alex? Board Member Lew: 1530 Page Mill Road. Board Member Baltay: 1630? Board Member Lew: 1530 Page Mill Road. I just want to say that in most places the fence and retaining wall are screened and look fine, but there is one area where there is no landscaping because of an ADA access path. There is one section where it is completely exposed and it is pretty hideous in my opinion. We might want to take a look at that when this project comes forward. I think my main site concerns are the sound wall. I did look at the sound wall with respect to the bike lane at the site as well as Sterling Park. I think that that is an issue but I am open to it. Two, on the site access, which I think Grace was mentioning before, the main entrance of Sterling Park has a zigzagging handicap ramp that dodges utility volts and pad-mounted equipment and it really doesn’t all come together. If you look at Sterling Park, you can see there was a nice aesthetic idea and then it just sort of all fell apart and I don’t want that to happen again on this project. If you can separate the utilities from the main entrance that might help; it seems like you have two or three areas where you might be able to do that but I think the grading is going to be a challenge. I want to make sure that you have enough space at the main entrance to make something nice. I think the third site issue is Greer Park. I think we need to see a street elevation of the two facades facing the park. There is existing landscaping in most of those 4.a Packet Pg. 183 City of Palo Alto Page 13 locations but it seems like some existing trees are going to be removed. There is potential for big change and also in a couple of locations, there is no landscaping. I think that that is an issue. On the park side, it seems constrained because I think there is a baseball or ball field chain link fence inside the park. It seems like there may be some constraints on the park side. I think also on the site planning when I was looking at Sterling Park, it seems to me like landscaping on the inward garage facing elevation really does help the buildings. I do want to see what you guys are planning for that. I think I did see some mention of it in the plans but I think that’s really important. On the architecture, on the towers, I am sort of inclined to that. I did want to point out a project. It is an older project; it might be 20 years old. It is Jacob’s Court on El Camino Way in Palo Alto. It is only a two-story townhouse project but they used the towers in the master bedrooms and they have clear-story windows on two or three sides of the tower. I have seen the units because I know an architect who used to live in one of them and it really made the unit so much nicer. I hope that your towers aren’t just things that are added on into the attic. I hope you can make it into something really desirable. I think that is all that I have on this. I think on the towers we want to see it facing the park. I can see an argument for making them on West Bayshore. I am not certain about it on the park side because of the grade change. It is also facing Eichler neighborhoods which generally have low-swung roofs. I think we do need to see that in the streetscape elevation. My last comment is on HVAC. If you were doing mini-splits, I hope that they are screened or they are somewhere hidden. If they're on a balcony then do a solid railing so they are not visible to the public. That’s all of my comments. Thank you, guys. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Who’d like to go next? Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Thank you for the presentation. I do like the elevations very much. I think the issues that Alex raised about the towers is worth considering. My concerns are pretty much what I had asked before -- that the guest parking really the answer really wasn’t sufficient for me -- that it should include onsite guest parking. It somehow has to be worked into the scheme here but how to work parking. This project, as a prototype, requires this private access for each unit for two cars, or tandem, or parallel, therefore, the road B street becomes a thorough fair of cars in and cars out and cars parking under buildings. I personally think that may work for some aspect of the project but it really isn't making a wonderful project out of this. I like the way the Oak Court on Ramona and Channing works very well with parking underneath. Then, of course, you explained all of the flood issues but in a way that could be solved if there was a platform and platform housing for a portion for the property you could accommodate a significant amount of parking under that platform and actually avoid the issue or find another way in which you can deal with the water through a parking structure. It would then put the units on a level up and maybe shared space community space. That’s not quite the same kind of housing anymore but this brings me to another issue that Palo Alto… I don’t know whether it is 40/60 or what the actual percentage of rental versus ownership but it seems to me that a really nice project like this ought to have a mix like Palo Alto and offer the possibility of rental housing within the format of rental and ownership housing. It happens all of the time and it wouldn’t be unreasonable and perhaps it would be a denser housing on top of a deck that’s a parking deck. Then, the private housing, although the car would be kept in what might be a central parking area, it would allow more use of the public space, rather than everything being car-oriented here. Kind of like the new urbanism idea of the way communities like this ought to be developed. This is a far from where you are right now and I don’t know if it at all possible but as a prototype, I think it would be a better one for a community to have a common parking area. That would include, of course, common guest spaces and to have a better use of the rest of the property for private use. One thought about this, again, in contradiction to the water table, everything is up higher but then you enter these units and what do you get on the ground floor? A staircase to get to a living room, I'm assuming, upstairs with bedrooms on a third level? That’s what, a guest room on the ground floor of some sort behind the garage. Access to the ground is not at all easy here. You have to go down a whole level and then the space below is really private, maybe, for that one-bedroom to access the outside. I didn’t ask the question but we really were not given a full set of plans here to know exactly how the ground floor is being used except the garage and there is something behind it but none of the units were developed to the level that we could really read how they relate to the ground. This is a quite a radical change from what you're showing but I think it is an important concept to think about here because, after all, the use of the outdoor space is important, not just as a landscape to look at but because it could be used privately. I do think that a raised deck does solve 4.a Packet Pg. 184 City of Palo Alto Page 14 certain problems; it definitely gets the cars in a single location and allows for the entry to houses off of a tighter relationship, maybe more of a muse-like thing that doesn’t have to be a street-wide width. I guess you get my picture but it is a very different scheme than what you're showing. I am going to be an outlander here; an outsider here for this project, no doubt. This is my feeling that it isn't really the right project for an areas as wonderful as this is adjacent to a park, all of those facilities nearby with a problem, of course, of the sound which I think you could solve the way you have described it. It is a conflict between really how you deal with the low land aspect of this property and making it into a space that is really useful for the families here, which I think it could be better done the way I have described. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Baltay Board Member Baltay: Thank you, everybody. I have a number of things to say. Out of the gate, I am really pleased with this application and with the fundamental ideas here. I think it is really going to be a fantastic place for these housing units and I am pleased to see that SummerHill Homes is tackling the project. You guys have done some other good work in Palo Alto and it is appreciated. I think this is a good project. I think you guys are good people to be doing it. I think the sound wall is going to be critical to making this site livable. I have looked at the sound wall opposite Sterling park that Alex was talking about and I compared that to a sound wall just further north along Bayshore, which’s is a similar masonry wall with a heavy landscaping screening. There's ivy growing over it or something. The landscaping makes all the difference in my opinion. I would encourage you to find a way to get greenery involved with the sound wall, and also I encourage staff to really find a way to make it happen; without the sound wall this site is really tough. It is very loud from the freeway. It is right there. It is a narrow strip to fit that in. On the site planning of your project, that comes to my basic criticism of it which is that at least right now the buildings are all too much the same. It’s the same design, six or seven times around and the site plan then suffers from it. When you make a basic parti of your site -- a real issue with the units facing the freeway with the noise and it is a fairly busy road, and a real opportunity with the sites facing south towards the park. It’s a wonderful park and I can’t imagine people living in this unit not wanting to go out to hat park frequently. With your site planning, you have one possible gate of sorts off to the side. It really closes you off and makes you do the long way around just to get to other aspects of Greer Park. It is a very popular place on the weekends and a lot of people hanging out there. There is a wonderful picnic area, there are all kinds of activities. A lot of youth soccer games are held at Greer Park. I think it is incumbent upon you to find multiple access points from your development out to the part and to make it as integrated as possible. I understand that you’re dealing with the bureaucracy of the city and then you have an elevation difference and you have ADA issues. All of that aside, I think it is really important to find ways to let your property connect to the park in a better way for the benefit of your residents. They will inherently want to get to that park and have just one small gate won’t cut it. On the site planning, I think it is important that the end units have a different design so that they can take advantage of views into the park and things like that. It is a shame to have such wonderful southern open space that you rarely have on other developments in town; certainly the one Alex was mentioning, Sterling Park, doesn’t have that opportunity. You have that here; a large park that is really attractive, you'll be slightly raised above it so that deals with a lot of privacy and security issues and you really ought to design these units to take advantage of that. What it means is more work on the design because you’re not going to have the same building six times over. I understand that is more difficult to design but that’s what it takes to really integrate into a site like this with all of these opportunities. I’ll come around to David’s comments regarding guest parking. I think that’s essential that you have not just a few places for visitors but also places for the Uber and the DoorDash drivers and all of that stuff which is happening so much these days. Every project we see it just seems to be underdone. The code doesn’t acknowledge or require sufficient space for that but I think for your property and building to function properly you'll need to have at least one drop-off space per building I would think. The same applies to visitor parking. I really encourage you to go the extra mile. This is one place where it is really for your own interest to go beyond the code here and figure out how to get that to work. I would strongly support even a reduction in required parking. Some units could have only one space, not two, in order to allow you to have more quick drop-off space. It is so critical. The way your site is designed, you have plenty of street parking but it really is difficult to park off the site and walk on. It’s a pretty long walk to come to see some of those units if you're parking on the street. People will instead just 4.a Packet Pg. 185 City of Palo Alto Page 15 block the traffic. They’ll just park on the side of one of those roads creating a safety hazard if you don’t design some other way to get to it. It is really in your interest as well as the city’s to find a way to get more transient parking on your property somehow. I think the building design overall is working towards a handsome design which will be very attractive and easily approvable. I would like to see greater variation in the units, again, to reflect what is going on. I appreciate Alex’s comments about the tower units being certainly positive elements on the facades, but if you can then integrate them into what is going on inside the building, that gives them a lot more meaning and sense and I think it will make the building even more attractive. It certainly makes the design enhancement exception easier to approve because it’s a genuine enhancement and an enhancement to the interior of the building as well as just the aesthetic appearance. I took a look at the project you did at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Fronting Heritage Park. I was thinking at first just how do you relate to the park but as I walked around there I was impressed by the much greater variety of architectural detail on all of the units. I’m sure the floor plans have some similarities but the units really felt more like individual homes. At least what is presented to us here really seems to be the same building just cut and pasted six or seven times over. I’d really appreciate if you could just roll up your sleeves and design each building differently to give more variety and texture to the whole project. That is so essential ultimately. Regarding the design enhancement exception, in principle I am in favor of that idea on this project if you can be a little more height to make something an enhancement, that’s great. I caution you that it has to be an enhancement; it has to be something that improves the design. Right now I may not be so convinced that some of these towers aren’t just computer images cut and pasted into place. I think you should take Alex’s comments to heart and integrate that taller element within the function and design of the building and I will be able to make the finding that it meets the design enhancement exception. Lastly, the question about open space hasn’t been addressed much yet, but I think our Board has felt fairly strongly that units need to have open balconies, private open space. I caution you that eliminating too much of that, I think, is not a good idea and not something I can support. I can appreciate that you don’t want to have balconies facing the freeway and to that extent, I suppose it would okay for those units to contribute to slightly larger common open space, but for any unit without a strong reason not to have a balcony I don’t think I can support not having private open space on the units. That’s a big answer but it is a big proposition that’s put in front of us at the moment on that. Those are my comments. Overall, I am excited about this and I really hope you bring it back to us with a final application. Thanks. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Board Member Baltay. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I appreciate this opportunity to discuss your project and recall previous projects you’ve come forward with in the past; thank you. Elks Club I am thinking of and others with this team. This is an opportunity for Palo Alto. I just have to say without making general comments, 48 units with seven affordable, hooray! I just wanted to take a few steps back, I had asked the question regarding sustainability and I know that this is a preliminary and I would just love to see how this project and every project that comes forward developed in Palo Alto, begins to think about the future in a way that a blueprint or maybe even going beyond the requirements and maybe there is some thinking in terms of our troubling climate change and how we build. I will just put that out there. The thought regarding the site, Greer Park is so wonderful. I was just there with my daughter this weekend. I think what is going to be really helpful in your project is just to have some site sections -- I am sure you do have them --and profiles of these proposals for the sound wall and just really thinking about that site from a larger scale in a drawing that is communicated. With that bike lane, I look forward to seeing how the city works with you and you work with the city in terms of not degrading and just the important pieces of infrastructure and what is there and coming to some compromise. Now, from the sidewalk curb on West Bayshore -- we did talk about it a little bit, and I know your landscape is going to be coming forth with the city -- the tree canopy and shade and since there are three-story building and you're right along the freeway, but there are existing trees there. I just want to put out there that mature tree canopies really help comfort, and shade the users and you said you might relocate trees; all good but I would love to see a landscape proposal that has the mature shrubs that might buffer. It is very encouraging that you see along the park edge that you have along the park some buffer there with the shrubs. As you propose and communicate this design, it would be wonderful to make sure about that landscape plan on all sides. When we talk about common open space and private open space, I’ll just say the diagram and site plan to me makes a lot of sense. I think we have all laid out these proposals with townhomes and multi- 4.a Packet Pg. 186 City of Palo Alto Page 16 family housing and it is tough, it really is. If we take a look at how the open space, I did want to point out that that common open space that sits along the western edge along the park, that long park side, that common open space… often a common open space wants to be the heart of a project that all things lead to that common open space. I understand the push and pull regarding private open space in terms of balcony use and we would love to have private open space and sometimes these projects the balconies actually just become storage or they are so small they are not so enjoyable for the users. I just want to keep an open mind about this request in terms of common open space that might become this really compelling part of the project with terrific access to all. I think that is something to remember that it is common open space and that all of the users might have terrific access because you won’t have that private open space. That’s my thought there. In terms of access to the park, that seems important if it is possible. Given a project of this size, I hesitate in terms of multiple access points. I think one might be sufficient. Again, how does that walk and how does that access actually become something that everybody knows in the community and is designed in a way that is compelling and comfortable, and maybe your landscape just works and sharpens the pencil there. I actually spend a lot of time in these kinds of developments over the years with my kids and my family, and I am thinking about a lot of these projects in other peninsula areas and San Mateo comes to mind in terms of these kinds of projects. My comments will overlap with my colleagues here in terms of the architecture and how we experience them. A large part of these projects are experienced not from the outward edge, not the West Bayshore edge, but actually along the private streets of B, D, and C, and every inch counts. You want everything to work. In terms of the post, it’s not an afterthought; you actually think about how people are walking and getting their mail and their trash and recycling, and often there isn’t a lot of space for landscape on these private streets. Because you’re focusing much on the street façade along Bayshore and these others… in your site plan you actually have a lot of front, rear, and side that is vehicular and essentially the front face for users. This isn't a large project by any means; there are three private streets but I am just encouraging you to think about some kind of system of organizing and thinking about the character of the architecture that might… I know in your proposal you just showed one sample elevation. By no means, I am sure you're not proposing that that one elevation that we see would be dropped everywhere. I mean this is a preliminary. I wanted just to propose -- maybe this is not the right way to go -- thinking about different easy to vary the architecture or even the color palette. Maybe there are some groupings thought about in terms of a front face along West Bayshore or the edges along that south-facing Greer Park. Some townhome projects have an outer edge and then when you come inside there is some kind of transition to it; a variation of the character in terms of those interior buildings. I just throw it out there and I also thought you had the opportunity, if you keep this site plan, for Avenue B, the long one, is maybe different and you have the groupings along D and groupings along C. I just really hope that you might consider those the backs… what you would call the long facades of the units of buildings five, six, and seven along that common open space as the compelling heart of common open space. I am just thinking out loud and trying to think of how you might propose and progress in your design in terms of character that has variation and delight. Perhaps when you go to those towers, which I do not see any problem with the height going up there… again, you have seven buildings and those towers, as they repeat, they might become very solid and heavy in terms of the elevation. How can we lighten those or create a depth in its character or vary them? I think my colleague Board Member Lew mentioned the clear story or if it’s a false tower, maybe just think about how it might not be blank and top-heavy. That was my thought when I was thinking about the towers. I think those are the bulk of my comments. I think in general, the focus on the edges, as well as understanding the building are not a front and back, and then just big on the landscape to come through. Sometimes at the end of these private streets, it is wonderful to see some seasonal color or some treatment of something that might break the monotony of plants. In the common open space I am curious to see how that results in terms of paving and actual program uses or flexible uses. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you, Vice Chair Lee. Thanks, everyone on the board. I think we have heard some really great things so far. I’ll just summarize and be brief. I appreciate the applicant’s presentation and the city’s presentation. We’ve heard a few comments about the site’s planning and the site design so I will start there. I think Vice Chair Lee’s note about the front of the building… I similarly wrote the front of the building may flip on you. You have a nice setup on one side of the building that is intended to be pedestrian and then the other side that is vehicular but the way that it is setup right now it seems like a lot of activity might happen on the vehicular side. I don’t see, at least in this site plan, any 4.a Packet Pg. 187 City of Palo Alto Page 17 pedestrian entrances on the vehicular side. I think similarly, I would caution that it may be worth noting that if you decide to stick with this layout, the front may flip on you and what you're noting as your rear elevation may end up being your front elevations because of the pedestrian activity that may end up happening. Similarly, I think it is worth noting that initially I thought that the pedestrian walkway connected across the whole thing but I see that it is broken up and I think it would be worthwhile to consider what that experience is. If we do like to keep the vehicular separate from the pedestrian, I feel like the pedestrian circulation needs to work more cohesively instead of being broken up by the vehicular parts. That is something to consider. I know this site has constraints and you want to try to maximize as much as possible but it’s just something to note, similarly with the common open space being the heart as Vice Chair Lee was saying. The way that this is setup right now, those buildings on the north side don’t really have a relationship to that heart and is there something that could be done to create that. Maybe that is a treatment of the pavement, maybe the pavement is porous and there is more greenery that connects those things. There are things that could be done that could accomplish that. When it comes to the peaks and the DEE, I would agree with Vice Chair Lee and Board Member Lew and Board Member Baltay -- I feel like a lot of the Board has said this -- it would be great if they could enhance the living space inside in some way. I do think there is something to be said about having some variation across the whole site that the peaks on the north side will have… if you decide to put windows they are going to capture light differently than the peaks on the south side. I think that is also partially why I was asking about the concept of the building and the concept of the design. What are you trying to achieve with this design? Right now the peaks don’t seem like they are achieving too much for the interior. I think the note that it does vary the roofline is taken, but I think more can be done on that note. I think it would be worth considering an alternative variation that does something for the unit. Similarly, with the façade four materials, initially when I looked at the façade it felt a little bit chaotic. It is a lot of layers and a lot of… with four materials I think there are more chaotic ones out there. I think we have seen ones that have six or seven which is way too much. Back to what you're trying to achieve, I am glad I asked that because I can understand why if you are going for an articulated façade with visual interest I think you are definitely getting there. I think the relationship that you're trying to create with the landscape is also important. I understand that the muted tones are because you really want to respect the landscape and you want to appreciate the variation landscape, but I think there is something to be said about competing with that. I would encourage another look at the façade that might create something a bit simpler that really… I appreciate Board Member Baltay’s comment about considering having some variation across the site that really responds to the concept and landscape because if you have so much foliage, the conditions on the north will be really different from those on the south. Similarly, with how your façade wants to blend in with that landscape will change as well. Those are my notes on the facade. I could be in support of a DEE if it were to enhance the interior of the building as well. For the private open space, I think there is great value in having private open space, especially for those building on the north side that don’t seem to have a very storing connection to the heart of the site. I would feel really bad for them if they lost their private open space and then didn’t have a good connection to the common open space. I think it would be worth evaluating that on a case-by-case basis if you decide to stick with this layout. I think that’s it for my comments. Any other last thoughts? Board Member Lew: Osma, I have a comment. Chair Thompson: Sure. Board Member Lew: A couple of Board Members mentioned the guest parking and I just want to note that the city used to require a certain percentage of visitor spaces but we changed our code to meet the State’s mandates, which were to take it out to make housing production more affordable. Our parking ordinance conforms with the State, so we can’t require it. I think Board Member Baltay’s is trying to get some flexibility and maybe that is possible but I think as we have it we can’t require it as David alluding to. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Any other further comments? All right. I will let the applicant have a quick chance to ask us any clarification questions. 4.a Packet Pg. 188 City of Palo Alto Page 18 Mr. Hickey: I guess, I am not sure whether Elaine will have anything additional to add but I just want to say thank you. We really appreciate your comments; some good insight there and that will help us as we think through the project. Elaine, is there anything you'd like to add? Ms. Breeze: No, thank you for your comments. Very much appreciated. Chair Thompson: Thank you so much. Board Member Baltay: Osma, can I ask one thing? This is maybe more to my colleagues than anything else but we have coming up next and we have been working hard on these objective design standards. Has anyone considered how they would apply to this project? Mr. Hickey: Elaine, would you like to answer that? Yes, she has. Board Member Baltay: Osma, would that be okay for her to speak to that question? Chair Thompson: Absolutely, yeah. Ms. Breeze: Is that okay. I will stay on to watch your next meeting. I apologize; I appreciated Peter’s time a few weeks ago to talk to us about the objective design standards. I took a crack at really looking at this project in relation to that. I think, at least this round, seeing how… for way of background, I do a lot of work with our multi-family group SummerHill Apartment Communities and a lot of them are vernacular around objective design standards as they relate to more apartment larger-scale buildings. I got a little bit hung up as I was reviewing it. There’s a lot of focus, rightfully so, on primary building entrances. Once I got away from realizing, or at least my assumption is, that if you don’t have a primary building entrance, all of those things that trickle around it do not apply. You do have a whole section on individual unit entrances. We would focus on how those are incorporated. I think some of the other comments that we had provided Peter previously addressed. Our plan evolved as our conversation with Peter evolved. Our buildings have become smaller. In this case, we only have six-unit buildings. In the event this project had an 8 or 10 unit buildings, we would’ve had a really hard time complying with some of the conditions. I think the other thing that jumped out is we are not adjacent to any existing residential and I think that would have been a little more challenging. Those were some of the high-level things. There is a note specific to this site; you have a relationship to existing sidewalk grade, which is a five-foot maximum. It is kind of tiered in how it works. In this case, we might not be able to meet that because of the FEMA floodplain. Just to be aware of that; we might be within six inches of that and maybe a foot, but that was one very site-specific item. I guess the only thing that did strike me because I didn’t realize you had the March meeting previously, is that the idea that if a townhome project… if the design standards are really not set up to address townhome projects, the fallback is that we just don’t use the objective design standards and we have to go the discretionary route. I would say on a global level, I only looked at this relative to our project, other townhome projects might not meet the design guidelines and it struck me as not acceptable that if you were to propose a row townhome project that didn’t meet the standards, like sorry we really didn’t design them for that kind of housing so you have to go our old route. That’s the one global thing that I am just letting you know kind of struck me as unusual because… Ms. Gerhardt: Chair, if I may, I think this conversation… Elaine, you were saying you would be able to stay on for the objective standards project. We would really appreciate that because I think it is a good conversation o have and I think we can explain about the floor levels and how we have tried to make this appropriate for all styles of projects. It would be good to have in the next item. Ms. Breeze: Okay. Sorry, I kept going. You got me started. I apologize. Chair Thompson: I think we will have a chance to do public comment in our next item. Mr. Hickey: I just want to say thank you, again, for your feedback this morning. It was very helpful. 4.a Packet Pg. 189 City of Palo Alto Page 19 Chair Thompson: Thank you. Ms. Breeze: Thank you very much. Chair Thompson: We will close this item and move on to the next one. Let’s take a five-minute break. Ms. Gerhardt: That would be great. Chair Thompson: All right. We will reconvene at 10:14/10:15. [The Board took a short break.] Action Items 3. Public Hearing: Public Hearing: Recommendation on Objective Design Standards (Continued from March 18th, no staff report changes, Attachments B-E added) Chair Thompson: Are we all back? Board Member Baltay: Yup. Chair Thompson: All right. Let’s go on to our next item which is the ARB recommendation on objective standards. We are continuing from our March 18th conversation. Does staff want to present anything before we go back into it? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, thank you, Chair. Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning. This is a continuation of our prior discussion about objective standards. While we are not required to take public testimony, it probably would be a good thing to do in this case given this is going to be a significant change in the way that we do our processing of housing projects in particular. Jean will have the bulk of the presentation. We did do the first half of chapter 18.24 and that is the objective standards chapter. That’s the ARB’s main purview over that objective standards chapter. We are going to be doing the second half of that today. There are some code changes in the rest of the municipal code and we would like to hear the ARB’s opinion, especially on the height transition changes that we are proposing. They are fairly minor in nature but we would love to hear what you have to say about that. You do have at At Places Memo that we did last time. It should be in your packet this time for that height transition. With that, I will let Jean take it away. Thank you. [Setting up presentation.] Jean Eisberg: Good morning Chair Thompson and members of the Board. We are back talking about objective standards, as Jodie indicated, a continued item from March 18. We are going to jump in and we are going to present the changes that we have made since that March 18th hearing in response to the board’s comments. We also have those redlined in a version of the word document that Chris will bring up. We are going to continue the discussion starting with the façade design section that we weren’t able to finish last time. Then, as Jodie indicated, I am going to represent another update from Title 18. This is about height transition related to the At Places Memo that staff provided on the 18th. Since our last meeting, we have made four key changes. First, to clarify in the applicability that the objective standards do not apply to single-family with ADU and JADU. The City does not calculate those units towards densities. Those are not considering multi-family for our purposes. We are just clarifying the design standards apply to multi-family meaning three or more units. Also clarified the section on accent paving. This is the new text that is proposed for the chapter. I included a table to clarify where this applies. On these street segments listed, we have clarified what that material needs to be. On University Avenue between Alma and Webster, it is replacing the break at the corner or providing it and creating this brick trim midblock at the edge of the sidewalk. On Cal Avenue, it says decorative glass replaced again on the sidewalk. We had a discussion last time about townhomes, particularly what happens at the ends of townhomes when they wrap around the corner, and we have clarified a number of items. First, this is a 4.a Packet Pg. 190 City of Palo Alto Page 20 summary of what appears in the new redline document. The treatment of the end unit that there is a height to width ratio greater than 1.2:1, a minimum fenestration of 15 percent for those end units, and at least one façade modulation defined as a minimum depth of 18 inches and a minimum width of one foot. This could be a bay window like you see here; it could be a wraparound porch. We’ve also revised the document to allow for townhomes on the interior of the lot, similar to what you have on the project that was reviewed earlier this morning. Previously it just stated that town homes need to face a public sidewalk and we have clarified that it is really any walkway that allows for that interior townhome condition. In terms of façade length, the Board’s straw poll made a change to façade length standards. It increased from 150 feet length to 250 feet. There was also an interest in creating a different standard with a smaller façade break for a smaller building with less length. We have added a second standard for buildings between 150 feet and 250 feet in length with a more limited façade break. Whereas the longer building requires a 400 square foot face break, the 150 to 250 foot in length building would only require a façade break of 64 square feet and a width greater than or equal to two times the depth. Just a reminder, this is an action item. We are looking for the Board to take action today and then the project will move on to the PTC at the end of the month, and then to the Council later this spring and summer. Staff’s recommendation is to ask the Board to recommend to the Council adoption of the objective standards attachment A that would modify Title 18 of the Municipal Code. Next section of the presentation, and we’re hoping to pick this up at the end of the meeting, this is a similar slide we showed last time. In the development standard, in the commercial districts, there are a number of places where the code talks about height transitions when a commercial district is adjacent to a lower-density residential district. This has been a source of confusion for applicants, for staff, for decision-makers for a long time. Each of the development standard’s tables has slightly varied definitions of how this is presented. This is an example: in 18.16, which is the CC, CS, CN district, the development standards table states that within 150 feet of a residential zone district (other than the RM40 or PC zone) abutting or located within 50 feet of the side. It is hard to interpret what that means especially when it is isolated here, but the idea is that generally you can say you have a 50-foot height limit when you're within 150 feet and you're abutted or located within 50 feet of the side, which we interpreted as the property line, you have to reduce the height typically to 35 feet. What that looks like in the graph here, we have got the graphic here. We’ve got a residential zoning district in yellow on this side, a commercial zoning district here, and within 50 feet of the property line, the height has to drop to that lower limit, say 35 feet versus 50 feet. That’s the way that staff has always interpreted this and that’s the way we showed a couple project examples last time, including a hotel on El Camino and the Wilton Court project. The proposal is to clarify this in the code just to state within 50 feet of a residential district that lower height limit applies. Now, even though that is how staff has been interpreting it, there was some concern from the PTC that we were actually proposing to change the interpretation and that is not our intention; l although, there may be reasons to change that interpretation if we want to talk about whether 50 feet from a lower density district or 100 feet from a lower density district is more relevant. It’s something that we are actually looking on your input on today and may be considered down the line, but for now no proposed changes to the CD districts downtown. This table is appearing very fuzzy, but this is the table that is in the AT Places Memo and identifies the proposed changes for each of the zoning districts where this applies. Just to put a finer point on it, this 150-foot threshold is used in various places throughout the code. Looking at the right on the zoning map, this is a part of the legend of the zoning map, and here’s a section of the zoning map here. This blue hatched area on the zoning map is showing commercial district designations that are within 150 feet of these lower-density residential districts. This has been used both for the height transition that I just explained, but also for performance standards. Originally, Chapter 18.23, which regulates refuse and lighting and visual screening and noise, has only applied to locations where you have commercial uses and commercial districts abutting lower-density residential districts. In practice, this particular section of the code has been modified over time and has been applied to all different types of sites and uses regardless of the designation within this hatched area. That’s just to explain a little bit about more that 150-foot threshold again as used as a variety of ways in the code. Again, we are hoping to come back to the height transition issue to get your feedback on this proposed change and your general thinking about the idea of height transitions and the appropriateness of within 50 feet versus 150 feet. I am going to pause there to end my presentation, take any questions before we move on to discussions. Thank you. Board Member Baltay: I have two things for you, Jean, if it’s okay, Osma. 4.a Packet Pg. 191 City of Palo Alto Page 21 Chair Thompson: Yes, go ahead. Board Member Baltay: If you could back up the slide regarding the indentations on larger buildings. I recall having us mentioned a minimum depths and widths. I don’t see that in there. On my notes here, we had buildings between 100 and 250 feet would have 64 square feet with a four-foot minimum depth and an eight-foot minimum width, and we did not include an aspect ratio. Am I recollecting that wrongly? Chris Sensenig: You may be correct. I may have missed that note. The aspect ratio was in there previously and I did not pick up on the elimination of the aspect ratio. That is fine… Board Member Baltay: I don’t know that we focused on it too deeply. It may be worth having the Board consider what our intention is. I was trying to give greater design flexibility and sometimes you want the ability to have something either deeper or narrower. Vice Chair Lee: I am in support of that. I believe we did touch upon it but maybe we just didn’t give clear direction there. Board Member Baltay: I think maybe it is worth going back to the record really carefully and see what we actually approved rather than having us redo it right now. I remember we took a vote on it and stuff, didn’t we? Chair Thompson: Yeah, I remember that part of the discussion. Is this in the .060 chapter? Board Member Baltay: .050, building massing is where I am seeing it. Ms. Gerhardt: The votes we took were straw polls and you should have excerpt minutes in your packet. Vice Chair Lee: I think it is in .050 under building massing. That last… Board Member Baltay: Rather than taking our time to do it now perhaps we can direct staff to verify that that is what we agreed to. Osma, that’s my comment on that. Chair Thompson: Okay. Mr. Sensenig: Thank you, I see it now. Board Member Baltay: The second comment was just that I want to understand the At Places Memo that Jodie and staff are putting forth, what you're saying is that in a CC district you have to go down to 35 feet when you're within 50 feet of residential where it is 150 feet in other districts? Is that the guts of it? Ms. Gerhardt: In the downtown area, the code does require 150 feet of measurement to go down. In the commercial zones is where it is unclear and where we have been implementing it as 50 feet. Board Member Baltay: I see. That’s a CC zone? Is that what your presentation said? Ms. Gerhardt: It is all of the commercial zones which include CC. Board Member Baltay: Okay. I suspect the City Council is going to want to weigh in heavily on that but I just want to understand what you're saying here. It’s either 50 feet or 150, depending on whether it is a downtown zone or a regular commercial zone. Is that right? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. We are trying to make very minimum changes to this particular project. We are trying to just make the language clear. 4.a Packet Pg. 192 City of Palo Alto Page 22 Board Member Baltay: I agree completely. I think Council thinks 150 feet is what's clear. That’s my gut feeling from them but let’s not take our time right now. I just wanted to understand what you're saying here. Ms. Gerhardt: If that’s the case, we would appreciate the ARB’s conversation about that because staff has been mainly interpreting this as 50 feet. Board Member Baltay: Okay. I just wanted to understand. I don’t want to get in the way of Jean’s presentation. Chair Thompson: Okay. Are there any more questions? Vice Chair Lee: I just had a couple, and maybe this is obvious but, jean and Jodie, are these diagrams to the right with the dimensions A, B, C, are those new and that is to be included with the language revisal? Ms. Eisberg: This diagram is not proposed for the new 18.24 section. Chris and his team prepared it to help us explain this. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. My other question was the previous slide there were some photos and I am wondering are we proposing to include photos of built examples in Palo Alto in our objective design standards or is that again just for us today? Vice Chair Lee: The photos were presented for the presentation today. I think what’s going to happen is that the 18.24 section of the code is going to be integrated into the existing ordinance and it'll look just like your existing ordinance. Then the version that you have been looking at that is formatted and has larger graphics and potentially some photographs will be a checklist that will be available on the website. It may be updated from time to time but it is going to say, hey make sure you always go look at the code and applicants will fill that out and say we have met this XYZ standard. I think it will be easier for us to add photographs into that version. I am actually not sure how to add photographs into the adopted version of the code. That checklist could look a little bit different and we could have more example photographs. Vice Chair Lee: I just want to bring it up because it is something that I remember in the notes that Planning Commission had some thoughts in terms of graphics or not and photos or not. I think I am a lone wolf here but I do think photos of existing examples in Palo Alto along the peninsula is helpful to applicants to illustrate this abstract language. I don’t know if we want to talk about this as a Board, but I think that to have diagrams and photos as part of what an applicant, or the public, or the board, or the Council reads is a positive. Chair Thompson: Maybe we can take a straw poll. Board Member Hirsch: I want to support that. Ms. Gerhardt: I think I want to reiterate what Jean was saying is that the code might just be the written language where as handouts and things that we give to the public could have more graphics in them. That is something that we can certainly run by the ARB before we finalize such a handout. Vice Chair Lee: It sounds like, Jodie -- I mean, Chair Osma it is up to you -- this is something we can discuss later. In a previous comment, I had noted City of Mountain View and other cities when I use these documents actually have photos and I find it to be helpful. Chair Thompson: Okay. Is the question when we do the straw poll do we want to ask the questions of photos and diagrams as separate items to include? I feel like we have been seeing the diagrams this whole time and maybe there has been an embedded assumption that these are going to be in the document but now I am hearing that they probably won’t be in the code, they will be in the handout. 4.a Packet Pg. 193 City of Palo Alto Page 23 Ms. Eisberg: They will be in the code. The zoning graphics will be in the code. Chair Thompson: Okay. Ms. Eisberg: We have not proposed photographs in the code at this point in time. I am not sure it’s feasible, although I support if there is a graphic there could be a photo. I’ve just never seen it. Chair Thompson: I see. Okay. Really, the query is if we add photographs in the handout version. I am willing to do a straw poll on that. Let’s see if there are any other questions and then maybe we can get into the discussion part. I will make a note here. Any more questions of staff before we wend the staff presentation? I don’t see any. Jodie, is this where we do public comments? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, we can certainly do public comments now. I think right now we are just sort of on the first half of 18.24, which is what we discussed in depth last time. Maybe now is actually not the time for public comment. Let’s move forward to our second half, which is the end of 18.24 because we already got public comments on the first half. We can get public comments on the second half. Chair Thompson: I see. Once we go through all of the sections… is the second half… sorry. I am confused. Ms. Gerhardt: I am sorry. The public comments comes first before the discussion but we are mainly discussing the second half. I guess that’s my caveat. Chair Thompson: Yeah. My note is that we should revisit starting at .60, right? Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. Chair Thompson: Before we start that, I did get a request from Board Member Hirsch to speak generally about the project. I know that once we go through all the chapters we will have a chance to speak generally again about the objective standards but I wanted grant Board Member Hirsch a chance to speak generally now and if there are any other Board Members that would also like to have general comment snow. Board Member Hirsch: Thank you, Osma. We discussed this this morning and I noted a few situations which actually have been addressed in just recent comments about that section B maximum façade length, and certainly more appropriately so. Just to get to that, Jean, I had asked you to show the elevations of the Wilton Court. I don’t know if you have that handy. Thank you. It is very clear on this building, which is about 160-something linear feet, that the recesses that are both on the left and the right hand side are smaller than what would have been required if our 400-foot recess was a part of this project. I am quite satisfied with the way this looks at this moment. This is going back in time again but it seems to me that there has been a correction and maybe Jean or Chris, if you could speak to it, that you have lessened the requirement for a building of this size so that this would actually be okay at this point. Is that correct? Ms. Eisberg: Do you happen to know what the facade length is? Ms. Gerhardt: I’m looking. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Mr. Sensenig: You said 160 feet, I believe. If the building is within 150 to 200 feet in length which face a public street right of way, or publicly accessible path, it shall have at least one vertical façade break with a minimum area greater than 64 square feet and a minimum width of eight feet and minimum depth of four feet. 4.a Packet Pg. 194 City of Palo Alto Page 24 Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Then it certainly works. That satisfies me quite a bit about that particular issue. I had some general comments and Osma and I discussed them earlier. I could hold them at this point until the end of the session here. Chair Thompson: Okay. Are you sure? Board Member Hirsch: I'm sure, but the other aspect of it was there were a few things which we discussed previously and I wonder when and if there as an opportunity to go back. It is a short list but nonetheless it might be useful. Chair Thompson: Okay. I think hopefully from now on moving forward, I want to do the public comments really quick because I do want to hear from the public. Then, I would like to go through the remaining chapters starting from .60 all the way to .100, and then at that point, we will have given the whole set a fine-tooth comb with our comments. At that point, if there are things that we want to revisit from previous chapters we can have a chance to discuss that as a Board. Let’s hear from public comments. Mr. Nguyen: Chair Thompson, there are currently no public attendees in this meeting right now. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay: Osma, I see Elaine Breeze on the video chat here. I think we really should hear from her if you can get her to work in somehow. Ms. Gerhardt: There she is. Board Member Baltay: Elaine, you need to formally speak up as a member of the public. Vinh, does she need to do something to get that recognition Ms. Breeze: Yes, my name is Elaine Breeze. I am with SummerHill Housing Group. Chair Thompson: Osma, are you recognize her as a speaker from the public? Chair Thompson: Yeah. Could you state and spell your name, and then you'll have three minutes. Ms. Breeze: [Spells name.] Thank you. It looks like this was one item that was reviewed at your last meeting. I would ask that the Board consider figure two section regarding finished floor range for ground-floor residential units being a maximum of five feet at certain distances. I would ask that the Board consider exception in sites that are located in a floodplain with careful consideration that if it exceeds five feet that there be architectural landscape and pedestrian treatments to still create and attractive pedestrian realm, but in the event that difference is up to maybe six feet provided that there is proper setback. I would ask that the Board consider that. I think with sea-level rise, there is a much bigger area in the city that is impacted by the floodplain now with the new map. That would be my one comment. Then, I think the second one is just clarification that in the vent it is a townhome project that there is not considered a primary building entry and the objective standards would only apply to unit entries on an individual basis. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? Mr. Nguyen: We do have someone who just joined. He or she did not raise their hand. It looks like it’s a phone caller. The phone caller of the last four digits 0403, if you want to speak, you have to press *9 to raise your hand. Let’s give them a couple seconds to see if they want to speak. Seeing how there are no raised hands, that concludes public comments for this item. 4.a Packet Pg. 195 City of Palo Alto Page 25 Chair Thompson: All right. Thank you. I’d like to quickly address these comments on primary entry. Can I ask Chris if he knows what section that’s at so we can look at that really quick as a Board? Ms. Gerhardt: I think there may be several sections that have primary entry. I think possibly Elaine’s main point is that there is not a primary entry on a townhouse project, there are several entries. We just need to make clear that those sorts of things are not required on a townhouse project. Chair Thompson: Okay. I think I found the location in question. This is in section… Mr. Sensenig: 040(B)(3)(iii). Chair Thompson: That’s correct. Vice Chair Lee: It is packet page 51 from today’s packet. Is that where we are looking? Chair Thompson: I'm actually looking at last week’s packet with all of my noted. I can confirm. Ms. Gerhardt: Do we need to add a definition of primary entry? Mr. Sensenig: I think there is two ways to do it. One is to just… the primary building entry not including unit entries, shall meet on of the following standards. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s think about the right verbiage. Mr. Sensenig: Or it could be considered that the entry to a townhome is a primary entry because that is a building. The individual unit is. Board Member Hirsch: Chris, could you use private entry versus public? Chair Thompson: Or common entry? Ms. Eisberg: I suggest we take a look at the definitions which is on page two of the document, or packet page 39. The way it is defined is that it is an entrance to a lobby suggesting that it is a multi-family building. Chair Thompson: Okay. Then we don’t need to make any edits to that. Then, I wanted to look at the unit entries really quick when we discuss that ground-floor unit entries. That’s later on. That’s .070. Mr. Sensenig: No, it is just following primary entries. I think we could add an exception to the finished floor here for… Ms. Eisberg: Isn't this a minimum? The four feet is a minimum. It could be higher. Mr. Sensenig: There’s a maximum of five feet. Ms. Eisberg: Okay. Ms. Gerhardt: We have in other parts of our code in flood zones we do allow them to go up. I’d have to find the language. Let me find that. Mr. Sensenig: State and counties are now thinking about changing building codes to provide a minimum level. It could be something that is more generally in the code that if FEMA requires a finished floor level that is the maximum. Ms. Gerhardt: In other parts of our code we talk about a maximum height could be increased by one- half. The increase in elevation required to reach the base flood elevation. 4.a Packet Pg. 196 City of Palo Alto Page 26 Chair Thompson: That’s already in the code? Ms. Gerhardt: For different reasons but we could use that same logic. Chair Thompson: Maybe we can reference that section here. Ms. Gerhardt: I think we would want to pick up the actual wording but the beauty of it is that it would be the same concept and so easy to implement in that way. This is coming out of the R1 flood zone for heights. It’s a footnote to the development standards. Chair Thompson: Okay. Shall we do a quick straw poll across the board if we are support of adding this language? Board Member Baltay: I definitely think we should add something to address the flood zone issue question. As the public speaker pointed out, it just makes it much harder when you're in a floodplain. I think half of the difference may be too much. She was talking about just a foot and what Jodie is talking about is the building heights on R1 which is a different kind of issue altogether. This is just where the front door is located, right? Chair Thompson: Correct. Board Member Baltay: I would be in favor of just giving some discretion, well it can’t have discretion but an extra certain amount, say one or two feet additional if the property is within a floodplain. Chair Thompson: I see Chris has a raised hand. Would you like to respond to that really quick? Mr. Sensenig: Yes, please. It is my understanding with new laws and potentially the California Building Code changes that there will be in flood zones just a minimum height of finished floor and you can’t provide a residential finished floor below that height. For instance, along the bay edge, it might be 13 feet above sea level and if the street is down at five feet, you cannot build a building that is below that 13 feet above sea level. Board Member Baltay: That’s exactly what they're facing right here that Palo Alto requires the floodplain plus one foot and that puts them at five-and-a-half feet above the street level on the project we just reviewed previously. Mr. Sensenig: Okay. Board Member Baltay: That will put them in conflict with this five-foot limitation here. Mr. Sensenig: I think I misunderstood what you said when you meant plus one foot but now I understand. Board Member Baltay: We haven’t really thought it through but what we might say is the five-foot or the minimum FEMA floodplain might raise as depending. Chair Thompson: I think that language makes a lot of sense. Can I hear from the other Board Member if they are in support of adding this? Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I am in support of language that refers to… just as you proposed is fine. I just want to point to the intent of the statement. The reason why we are doing this is a way to spate the private and public realm, right. Isn't that our intention? I propose not a prescriptive dimension but something that might go back to intent. Let’s just not forget why this is proposed. Chair Thompson: Sure. Thanks. Board Member Lew. 4.a Packet Pg. 197 City of Palo Alto Page 27 Board Member Lew: Sure, I will support this. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Yes, I would support that. Chair Thompson: Okay, great. I think those were the notes that I took. Let’s move on to .060 where we left off, which’s actually this chapter if I am not mistaken. No, that was .040. Mr. Sensenig: We went through base, middle, and top and we have changed some of the graphics. Chair Thompson: Yeah, this is good to see. Mr. Sensenig: They might not be in your packet as they were just changed; some this morning. Board Member Baltay: Perhaps you could show us what is in the current proposal. Mr. Sensenig: We just cut the graphic as suggested. We added some windows to the bay here to make it obvious that it’s a bay. Board Member Baltay: I’m trying to correlate this with what I am looking at in these handouts. Mr. Sensenig: Sorry; I have not seen your handout so I am… Board Member Baltay: I have not seen your presentation so we have to figure… Ms. Eisberg: For better or worse, we did not provide a new report or version of the standards so as not to add confusion when we are continuing an item but then... (Crosstalk) Ms. Eisberg: The packet is the same as what you saw on March 18th, and what is on the screen is new. The text changes are showing as redlines and the graphics may not be showing as changes. Chris will orient us where graphics have changed. Board Member Baltay: Just walk us through, Chris, the changed graphics and text, please. Mr. Sensenig: I might need to go to full. Chair Thompson: In our packet page we see two sides of the building. It’s axonometric of a building showing the corner and we had given some feedback that an elevations or a zoom-in of that axon that just shows a strip of the façade would better conceptually illustrate what we are trying to say here. It seems like that is what this diagram is showing is just a little strip of the façade, not the whole building. Mr. Sensenig: Correct. Board Member Baltay: Why don’t you put that strip of façade on the screen so we can see what it looks like? Chair Thompson: It is on the screen. Chair Thompson: I believe it is. This is the strip of the façade with three colors. Board Member Baltay: This is it right here? This is the elevation façade now? 4.a Packet Pg. 198 City of Palo Alto Page 28 Mr. Sensenig: I can maybe zoom out a bit, but we cropped all the drawings and repositioned the legends. Chair Thompson: Are there any thoughts on these diagrams as Chris is scrolling through them? Board Member Baltay: I am still trying to figure out, Osma, which one is which and it is a moving target here, quite literally. Mr. Sensenig: Sorry. Board Member Hirsch: I have some comments. Chair Thompson: Go ahead, Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: The prototype you're showing here is a base, middle, and top and it exclusively includes each of the floors; the base being the first floor, the middle being two floors, and then the top being an entire floor. If you look at the wording actually, one of the possibilities is that the middle goes all the way goes all the way to the top and the cornice is the only remaining element here. The question will be is this be something that an applicant will look and say, “oh, I’ve got to change the middle to do one thing and the base to do another? And then the top has to be a whole floor doing the third thing?” This is a general comment. Mr. Sensenig: I think that’s fair. I think we could potentially add an example where that happens. Chair Thompson: I am going to annotate really quickly over here, if you'll scroll down a little bit. Yeah, that one is fine. I think what David is suggesting is that -- David, correct me if I'm wrong -- say we have the façade style that you have on the middle and then in a different color maybe your top is something else. It’s different. Board Member Hirsch: Is there a reason why it has to be different? Chair Thompson: I think we are talking about variation in those three planes, but I understand that you're suggesting that instead of the top being the whole floor it is just this top part up here. Is that right? Board Member Hirsch: Uh-huh. Mr. Sensenig: I think that is fair. We could show a strong cornice line or a roof modulation. Board Member Hirsch: And keep the three floors exactly the same. Chair Thompson: What are the other Board Members’ thoughts on this suggestion? Board Member Baltay: I think I'm alone on this and I know we have been beating these guys up about their graphics but I think this is a change for the worse communicating with graphics. I think just taking a three-dimension axonometric drawing and only showing us one side of it is not that same as showing a building elevation. The reason I have been so confused is I am just trying to understand how these relate. Now that I have the pictures in front of me I just don’t think it is working. I think these drawings maybe understandable but not clear. If you scroll down a little bit to the one with just the cornice lines, this one with the lines on it like that I don’t see that as a façade of a building being looked at obliquely. That’s just the slanted lines now. I think I am alone on this but I am not so sure this is doing it. I think what you really want is building elevations and I think you can dial into more of what we’re talking about with how you change the window patterns or the cornice lines or demonstrate all of that. Don’t know why you guys are trying so hard to stick to these boxy-axonometric drawings. Base, middle, and top is not a three-dimensional thing that way. 4.a Packet Pg. 199 City of Palo Alto Page 29 Mr. Sensenig: We are happy to change to elevations. In the short time from our last meeting, we did not have time to produce elevations. Board Member Baltay: I understand. Mr. Sensenig: We wanted to show a version of the cropped oblique and then hear feedback. Board Member Baltay: I appreciate all of the work you are doing. I understand how it is really challenging and it is a tough concept. That’s my feedback. Board Member Hirsch: Chris, my comment on Peter’s comment is I agree that elevations are probably going to be a better way, and if you really were to try to show a client what you're doing you would do a traditional/classical designing. You would do both. You would show a section with the elements that project and you would show an elevation and the two of them would suffice to describe what's going one. Even more detail, they would be perhaps a shadowed elevation so that the elements that are protruding really stick out. Chair Thompson: Doesn’t this go to Grace’s question about having photographs? Grace, is that what you were driving towards? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah. To circle back, I agree with what Peter and David just said. I think there has been very little change and the datum is highly not effective in the way that it is showing since the datum is lines are long lines. I don’t know what the best answer is. Chris, thank you so much for your work on this. My feeling is an enlarged elevation with, just as David said, very strict shadows that are 45 degrees that are cast along the surface might be a better way to illustrate. The other option would be if there are examples or photos of built examples that might work with the diagrams all the better. I know we’re on a strict timeline but I think it is important to have the graphics that relate to each point here. Board Member Hirsch: I would just like to add to this that you're text actually says it. The text which we discussed in the past, that the cornice is really… in some cases, the cornice is really the definition of the top and the three floors again. If you had an elevation in which the three floors above the first floor were all the same and shadowed and then a cornice was expressed above it as an option it then describes an alternative that is a possibility here. It’s not strictly speaking base, middle, and top with a whole floor, rather it is an element. Jean, you showed us the Berkley project in the past which had a whole façade pulled forward and all of these elements were recesses within that piece. There are a variety of alternatives here that are possible and I think if you diagram them and if you can get them to the point where they could be diagramed so that they are representing a plane that is further out that is penetrated and that plane is ended at a certain height or it goes all the way to the top and there is a piece above it. The question is really is it required for us to show a parapet or a top floor that is separately defined as a piece of the façade design? Is that really a requirement here? I have to say that just stepping back a little bit just for a second to bring this issue up. As we discuss base, middle, and top and we use in the text piece here and call it human-scaled architecture base, middle, and top I am very bothered by it because I think those pieces belong in the intent and they are in the intent, human-scale detail and they don’t belong in the specific elements of the façade that you're describing with diagrams because they become too restrictive at that point. Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, I do agree with Board Member David; however, I do want to acknowledge that we have had this discussion before and I just want to make sure we move forward. I absolutely agree with Board Member Hirsch in terms of what you just proposed but I believe there was a discussion and then we were outnumbered. Chair Thompson: Yeah, there was a straw poll. (Crosstalk) Board Member Baltay: (Inaudible). 4.a Packet Pg. 200 City of Palo Alto Page 30 Board Member Hirsch: I mean, I'm raising the issue again, I know. I'm sorry but it something that I feel so strongly about. I thought maybe, Peter, we could get somebody on board. Chair Thompson: I do see a note here that you did propose to change the title but we voted not to do that. Thank you for pointing that out, Vice Chair Lee. Board Member Baltay: We owe staff a complete response today, guys. Chair Thompson: We do. We need to keep moving forward. Were there any other comments on the graphics? I wanted to hear from Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I don’t support the crop. I prefer the asymmetric drawings in the packet. I am not sure I support going to elevations because I think you’re trying to show it three-dimensionally and I think it is better. I think architects can read elevations but I am not sure other people can read them as well. I am not sure it is as clear. I am okay with the packet drawings. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. I think I will give my two cents here and then it sounds like we might need to do a straw poll. I think the problem with the crop is that we lose the context and especially for the ones with the three datum lines there is no context. I think therein lies the confusion if that is really a façade or not. I think the proposal of having an elevations and a section do make an axon describe sit in the same way. I would be open to keeping the axons as they are. The crop is not successful in many ways. If there was a way of showing the diagram and then pulling it out or something maybe that context could come in but I think in general there seems to be a split between if we should do elevations. I think the proposal should be an elevation and section because I don’t think an elevation alone would work of the façade versus keeping the axon diagrams as is. Really quick, to staff, is that a viable elevation and section versus axon? Does that seem to be a reasonable thing to do a straw poll on? Okay, let’s do that. Are there any questions from the board before we do the straw poll? Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, I just want to be clear, are we looking at number three to do the elevation and the section or the ISO or are you proposing for all of them? I just wasn’t clear. Chair Thompson: I guess up until the ones we have seen so far that fall under item C human-scaled architecture that go the length of… there is four bullets; the menu of four items. I think that is what we should vote on right now. I know that there are more graphics below that but I think we should follow up with those later. In the straw poll please state if you prefer the axon or the section elevation. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I don’t have an opinion right now. I am sorry. It is hard to judge those two. I want to see what everybody else thinks. I yield to the wisdom of the Board collectively. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I am voting for the axons. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: It’s hard to be specific and just give you a yes or no because I am still puzzled by the possibility of it having a corner but not being a defined shape entirely, which is yet another possibility so that the line could continue forever but not be cut off as a method of dealing with an axon. Yes, this one was very successful and, Osma, I think we had a lot to do with that so I am happy about it. I am still am puzzled because an elevation -- I agree with Alex -- is hard to read it even it is well shadowed. I think we should see it so that we make a judgment without not seeing it. In other words, if we see the option… I think we need to be given options and to look at them and see what is possible here. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee. 4.a Packet Pg. 201 City of Palo Alto Page 31 Vice Chair Lee: I agree with Board Member Hirsch. It is suddenly not ISO or the other you proposed. I think we need to just see an alternative option. I do believe in photos with a diagram. Board Member Baltay: Osma, if I could throw an idea out to you. Chair Thompson: Yeah. Board Member Baltay: The Board established a subcommittee, an ad hoc committee on this issue and I wonder if you couldn’t have the Board collectively just steer the issue of the graphics back to our subcommittee to work with these folks as we are putting this final thing together rot look at these graphics. I think all of us understand what the issue is and it really is just a matter of rolling up our sleeves and getting it right. I’d be in favor of having the subcommittee just take that on if the subcommittee is willing to rather than have us do straw poll votes on each one of these because the graphics throughout have been an issue for us and I think it is just a matter of communicating with the people doing the drawing. Is that feasible or possible? Chair Thompson: I’d be open to that if the rest of the Board felt comfortable. I wanted to give the Board a chance to voice their opinion here so that we wouldn’t have to do that but we could. Board Member Baltay: You and David are the subcommittee, right? Chair Thompson: That’s correct. I think we understand the concern with the crop, that the full axon had more context and I guess if the team thinks that it might make sense to do an elevation… I just want to give staff some direction if we think it is worthwhile to explore that or if there is something in the axon itself that was fine enough that we can stick with the current scheme. Board Member Baltay: What strikes me as I have flipped through all of this is that there is a consistency in the graphics with these axon metrics and that is also important. Introducing a new style of graphic just for one thing in the middle because a Board collectively voted on it doesn’t make it good overall communication. Yet, it is just so hard to do by committee. Chair Thompson: I think maybe what I am hearing is that the majority of us feel like the crop, at least when it comes to these more conceptual facades that don’t have more detail on them, are a little hard to follow. At least for those, I would recommend that staff explore something else. I think I heard a lot of our other Board Members say similar things. We didn’t really finish the straw poll. We have three maybes, one for the axon, and I think the axon is successful except for these particular conceptual ones that could use an elevation section. Maybe we will revisit this later as part of a subcommittee item. Board Member Baltay: Maybe we should finish our discussion of these topics but if you'd like a can make a formal motion that we just empower an ad hoc committee to review and approve the final graphics throughout the entire document. That is what I am really saying, in a nutshell. Ms. Gerhardt: Do we want to take a straw poll on that and then that can be part of the motion at the end? Chair Thompson: Sure. Let’s do that. Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: I agree. Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: No. Board Member Baltay: Yes. 4.a Packet Pg. 202 City of Palo Alto Page 32 Vice Chair Lee: Yes, and I am so sorry I am going to turn off my video as I get my power cord right now. Chair Thompson: Was that a yes? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, that was a yes. Chair Thompson: That was a yes. Board Member Baltay: Alex, what’s your… I am sorry, Osma, go ahead. Chair Thompson: Do you want to ask Alex why he says no? Board Member Baltay: You have to vote first. Chair Thompson: I am open to that. I am also a no. Board Member Baltay: Why no? Why are you opposed to that, Alex and Osma? Chair Thompson: I’ll let Alex go first. Board Member Lew: Because it is going to Council, we have the axis, the axis work. They're not perfect. We’ve had ample opportunities to change the drawings and you haven’t proposed anything to staff and I think it is just time to move on. Board Member Baltay: Do you think we should just stick to what we have, Alex? Board Member Lew: Yes, I have said that several times. Chair Thompson: I'm of a similar opinion. We’ve been looking at these graphics for almost a year now and we have had a lot of weigh-in on them. I think they have evolved in many ways for the better. I also have the opinion that we should move on. Board Member Baltay: Okay. I am sorry, you two. I don’t think I am powering the subcommittee is not letting us move on. It is just giving us one final check on the thing. I stand with what I proposed before. Chair Thompson: The straw poll stood that we may add it to the future motion. Board Member Baltay: We can work it out again. I am just trying to move it along too and I thought that is the best way to just get a quick eye to review the whole thing. Chair Thompson: Understood. Board Member Baltay: It’s a fair comment that these have been out there a long time and now is not the time to be making big changes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s keep going. Were there any other comments on .060? I’ll start with Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: On the last section E, on parking, it says above grade structural parking levels facing a public right of way shall be lined with commercial or capital uses. I think we need to clarify public alley and to exclude public alleys from that section because we do have projects, like 725 Alma and also Wilton Court, that are on public alleys and they have blank garage walls facing the alley. That’s all I have on this. 4.a Packet Pg. 203 City of Palo Alto Page 33 Chair Thompson: Just to clarify, basically this part would be okay to be white if this was an alley? Board Member Lew: Right, or have some sort of landscaping or green screen or something but that we don’t require commercial facing commercial uses or retail uses facing an alley. Chair Thompson: Okay. Can I get some feedback from the rest of the Board on what they feel about this proposal by Board Member Lew? Board Member Hirsch: What page is that on? Chair Thompson: The old packet is page 61 but I don’t know about the new packet. Vice Chair Lee: The new packet is 66. Sixty-five to sixty-six. Can you just summarize again right now? Am I looking at (E)(2)? Is that where we are? I assume we are talking about (E)(2), right? Board Member Baltay: (E)(2). Vice Chair Lee: Okay. The proposed language change is? Do we have that to talk about? Board Member Lew: I think we should differentiate a street from an alley. Chair Thompson: it could be that we make an exception for alleys. That’s the proposal, we make an exception for alleys. Board Member Hirsch: I'm still not finding it. Vice Chair Lee: Is there any challenge on how we define alleys or a definition of an alley? I am just pitting it out there? Chair Thompson: Staff? Ms. Gerhardt: This is packet page 65 of the latest packet that you have. That’s where this is expressed. I can let Chris talk to the actual language. Mr. Sensenig: I think it is fine to exclude alleys from this. Board Member Baltay: What’s the best way to do that? Mr. Sensenig: Above grade structured parking facing a public right of way or publicly accessible open space path, with the exception of alleys, shall be lined with commercial or habitable uses with a minimum depth of 20 feet. Board Member Baltay: Are there definitions of these spaces and alleys in other parts of this code? Of public spaces and pedestrian accessible? Ms. Gerhardt: I can find it for you but I believe that alley is defined elsewhere in the code where we wouldn’t need to define it here. (Crosstalk) Vice Chair Lee: …not so much here but in other countries, a pedestrian alley, for example, versus a vehicular alley. I assume if it is defined elsewhere it is probably fine. Chair Thompson: I heard that Vice Chair Lee is in support, Board Member Lew proposed. Can I hear from Board Member Hirsch? 4.a Packet Pg. 204 City of Palo Alto Page 34 Board Member Hirsch: I would eliminate alleys from it. I don’t have an opinion on it. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I am in favor of it. Chair Thompson: Okay, and I think it is fine. Board Member Hirsch: We are focused on this but we have leaped over many pages here. Chair Thompson: We are going through each of the Board Member’s comments on section .060, and I started with Board Member Lew. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Chair Thompson: Any comments on .060 are still fine, we will just go through all of the Board Members’ comments one by one. Board Member Lew: Osma, that is the only comment I have on this section. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Thank you. I am wondering about section (E)(3), just after what Alex was talking about. Subgrade parking shall not have an exposed façade of more than five feet high. Is that allowed to face any public right of way or public accessible open space? It probably is. If that’s the case I think five feet is too much. It should be more like three feet, just a minimum necessary to get ventilation. Mr. Sensenig: The purpose for the five feet is that is the maximum height of the finished floor with a five-foot setback that is allowed. To line those up because typically that building type would allow for subgrade parking. Ms. Gerhardt: Also, when you have the five feet -- Chris, if you could show that diagram -- if they had a five-foot floor height then it would be further setback. There would automatically be room for landscaping. Is that correct based on the other note on this? Mr. Sensenig: Continuous landscape with a minimum height of three feet is required. Ms. Gerhardt: Go back to the section that talks about floor heights. Mr. Sensenig: You can use the minimum setback. The idea is to get privacy in the unit; you're allowed a higher finished floor the closer you are to the back of walk. Wirth a five-foot setback and then the continuous shrubbery would need to be at least three feet high and that allows for a half subgrade parking level. Board Member Baltay: Let me withdraw my comment, Osma. I think this has been thought through pretty carefully and it is obviously interrelated to a bunch of stuff. I think it is okay the way it is written. Chair Thompson: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other comments you have on .060? Board Member Baltay: No, that sit. Chair Thompson: Okay, thanks. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. I dare not mention it again but I have a problem with the actual use of the words when it gets to (C) and human-scaled architecture base, middle, and top, which I have already described. I have a problem with the diagram under number (2)(A). We will be changing the diagram 4.a Packet Pg. 205 City of Palo Alto Page 35 here in some way but this just doesn’t look like any kind of building that is likely to be, other than a bank building. The scale of this thing seems wrong as a drawing. Why would there be stoops to entries to a ground floor on a building like this? What happens when there are no entries to the bottom of the building there? How is that treated? I don’t know how you want to address this but there is only one in which the ground floor is shown with stoops and entries directly from the street. Chair Thompson: Comments on diagrams. I think that is noted but I think we decided we would move on from the diagrams. Do you have any other comments on .060? Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, I do. Under façade composition, item number six, the use of fine-grain materials such as brick, wood, shingles not to exceed eight inches in length or height or width. There are many materials which are of a larger scale, so eight inches is way too restrictive. There are even bricks that are beautiful that are longer than eight inches, or twelve-inch bricks, or even sixteen-inch bricks that are quite beautiful. I wouldn’t limit it to the size at all. I find it to be certainly much too restrictive that way. Otherwise, the façade elements that are described are good. On compatible rhythm and pattern, I do not believe in using recesses or divisions of a façade, specifically on a dimension level because, for one, it makes a false look to the building. It looks to me as if it is a double building or two buildings all of a sudden tied into one. I am opposed to requiring recesses anywhere in particular unless they come from a larger planning concept, from the inside out. I am not opposed to bays or actually it isn't really even specifically a bay, is it? No they vertical recesses or projection. That’s the proper term for it then. I think those are appropriate elements but the recess on the basis of some abstract notion that there should be a recess every 50 feet or however this is described assumes something that isn't necessarily an important aspect to this building design. Chair Thompson: Board Member Hirsch, what are you proposing to change? Board Member Hirsch: I would propose we eliminate these recesses unless they can be tied into a different form of description, such as modulation of the façade having ins and outs every 50-foot dimension. Talk about them as modulations but they don’t need to follow a vertical pattern like this at all. Again, we were looking at projects in Berkley where there is a projecting element and it varies per floor and is organized rather differently than a vertical piece like this. We should have that opportunity to be able to be flexible with the face of it, but a certain dimension modulation seems to me to make some kind of sense and that it shouldn’t exceed 50 feet, let’s say before there is some form of modulation. Mr. Sensenig: Are you proposing a minimum size to the modulation, David? Board Member Hirsch: You mean a minimum depth, let’s say, or projection? Mr. Sensenig: For façade area? Chair Thompson: Like instead of 20 to 50 feet, it might be like ten to 50 feet? Mr. Sensenig: I was thinking more about the size of the modulation. Chair Thompson: Oh, so a minimum of four feet. Do you want to change that? Board Member Hirsch: No, not four feet. I have a problem with the depth of four feet. It doesn’t need to be but it is stated that way. Chair Thompson: It says two feet. Board Member Hirsch: No, really two-and-a-half feet is plenty for a book case. In fact, if there were a bay, a bay has to be off the floor and a bay can only project in small-scale residential a certain dimension. I would go with a two-and-a-half foot dimension or whatever is in the code for bays. That’s the minimum. 4.a Packet Pg. 206 City of Palo Alto Page 36 Chair Thompson: I see that it says two feet. I am still unsure of your proposal. Vice Chair Lee: I'm confused. Are we talking about (2)(B) OR (2)(A)? Which one are we talking about? Board Member Hirsch: (2)(B), as well, doesn’t need to be more than two-and-a-half feet. Board Member Baltay: David, does it help you to think that this is the standard if you want to meet the objective criteria? Most good architects may choose to meet the subjective intent which we outlined at the beginning. Because what you’re pointing out really is just the continuous problem of writing objective criteria for good architecture and it is the same consistent issue that it is really hard to do. This is obviously not a perfect set of standards, but it is a compromise. If you think back that maybe some people will just choose to do something better it is better to be a little bit more restrictive than it is to just try to get it right on everything. Does that help? Board Member Hirsch: Not 100 percent. I look at this building and say what it does is create a look as if it is four different separate buildings by putting a recess in there. Board Member Baltay: Absolutely, but lacking any other means of achieving that reasonable objective what do you do? Board Member Hirsch: Hope that they use a bay or something else like… Chair Thompson: I think they have an option to choose either, right? They can choose either the recess or the bay. Ms. Gerhardt: That is correct. Chair Thompson: See that Chris has highlighted either on the screen. Board Member Hirsch: It is all in order to create a vertical impression that this building has. If it is a horizontal building, I don’t see the need for it. Chair Thompson: I am still unclear what the proposed change is. I know that there is a horizontal grain in figure three. Staff, can you clarify what this particular item (iii) continuous rhythm and pattern menu is? Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. There is (A) and (B) For (A), you use either vertical patterns of modulation or windows or articulation or if you use horizontal patterns and modulation you are required to do a two- foot deep and four-foot-wide vertical shift and modulation once every 50 feet in order to get a vertical rhythm and pattern to your building facades. Board Member Hirsch: I have an example for you, then. If we could put up on the board once again Wilton Court. [Setting up presentation.] Board Member Hirsch: That whole center section without any recess would then be required to have recesses. Mr. Sensenig: No, they have a vertically oriented pattern of windows. Board Member Hirsch: Where does it say that it is either a recessed or vertical oriented pattern or? Mr. Sensenig: In (3)(A) it says you can use vertical patterns and modulation facades and then not have to do the break. Now, if that façade section… a continuous façade is greater than 100 feet, which I do not believe in Wilton Court that continuous façade is greater than 100 feet. 4.a Packet Pg. 207 City of Palo Alto Page 37 Ms. Gerhardt: No, it’s about 80 feet. Mr. Sensenig: Correct. So the middle section would not meet that requirement, but if it was 25 feet longer then it would potentially need a break or a set of bays. (Crosstalk) Board Member Baltay: … that got 25 percent bigger than you might want to do something with it. Chair Thompson: You might want to break it up. Vice Chair Lee: I am wondering, Board Member Hirsch, would you feel more comfortable if it read for continuous façades greater than 120 feet in length? I am just thinking of ways we can compromise. Are you thinking 100 feet is too… Board Member Hirsch: Okay, Grace, yeah. Absolutely. Vice Chair Lee: I wonder about that. I wonder if 120 feet is more appropriate there, or I wasn’t sure if you were proposing, David, that you wanted the… it is either/or, so the depth of two feet and then did you want the width to be two feet? I wasn’t sure what you were proposing. I just want to clarify how we might find some compromise. Chair Thompson: Let me see the document again. Vice Chair Lee, where are you suggesting? Is that under (B)? Vice Chair Lee: I am just so relieved to see Wilton Court actually would apply under (iii)(1) vertical pattern. Bu tin the case that you go to (iii)(2) it breaks down to A and B, that’s for façade that are greater than 100 feet in length. I am just wondering if that is too restrictive and maybe we want to go to a longer length or I wasn’t sure if Board Member Hirsch would prefer something like that vertical shift is two feet deep and two feet wide, for example. I wasn’t sure when we were talking about dimensions if that was something that would help or is it about the length being a little longer before (inaudible). Board Member Hirsch: If you could put up the Wilton Court. The thing about it I like is that the only depth modulation in the whole façade are the real modulation where the whole building steps back. Vice Chair Lee: To this point, we have written 100 feet in length. (Crosstalk) Board Member Hirsch: There will be a modulation but it doesn’t need to be two feet by two feet. It can be whatever it is. Chair Thompson: Yeah, it’s a minimum. Ms. Gerhardt: For reference, Wilton Court is 165 feet long in total. Board Member Hirsch: In total, yes I know. I'm aware. Mr. Sensenig: What is the depth of the change in façade plane on Wilton Court? Ms. Gerhardt: Three-and-a-half feet. Board Member Hirsch: There are really two breaks in it; one of them is the stairs break and the other one is the entry break. 4.a Packet Pg. 208 City of Palo Alto Page 38 Chair Thompson: They would meet it because the minimum is two and they have done three-and-half. Mr. Sensenig: Actually, the minimum as discussed at the last meeting is now four feet for at least one of them. Vice Chair Lee: Maybe that needs to be adjusted. Chair Thompson: To three-and-a-half? Vice Chair Lee: Or two. Two or three feet. Board Member Baltay: Maybe that should be smaller, yeah. Chair Thompson: Should we do a quick straw poll? What do you propose, Vice Chair Lee? Vice Chair Lee: I would be fine with two feet so that it is clearly modulating. It is going to be cut out and you still would read that line a as depth line. Chair Thompson: Would you be open to three feet? Board Member Hirsch: I agree with Grace on that dimension. A minimum of two feet. Chair Thompson: What do the other Board Members think? Board Member Lew Board Member Baltay: Three feet. Three feet for me, please. Chair Thompson: Three feet for Board Member Baltay. Board Member Lew? Board Member Lew: I'm here. I am not sure what is being proposed. Is it two feet wide? Mr. Sensenig: Its buildings between 150 and 200 feet in length need a break that is a minimum of 64 square feet with a minimum width of eight feet and a minimum depth of either two, three, or four feet. Chair Thompson: We are trying to decide on that number. It has been reopened. Board Member Baltay: This is coming out of Wilton Court where the depth of the break is 3.5 feet. Vice Chair Lee: Sorry, Chris; I am looking at packet page 63. I thought we were talking about compatible rhythm and pattern. Mr. Sensenig: Yes, there's an overlap. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. It would be in both, you're saying? Mr. Sensenig: The only one we are proposing to change right now is that you would need one break that is a minimum depth of two, three, or four feet, and one that is eight feet wide. The other one we do not need to change. You can propose changing it but if we change this one to two or three feet, then Wilton Court would have made it. Alternatively, you could say it is only six inches off and Wilton Court would be a better building if the difference in façade plane was four feet instead of 3.5 feet. Vice Chair Lee: Looking at packet page 63, those diagrams, right? Those were the (inaudible) that I was referring to that are currently listed as four feet wide rather than what we are talking about. Mr. Sensenig: We are just talking about the depth right now. Chair Thompson: We’re talking about depth. It says two feet deep on those other pages. 4.a Packet Pg. 209 City of Palo Alto Page 39 Vice Chair Lee: Okay, got it. We are just talking about depth. Board Member Lew, I saw you were going to say something. Ms. Gerhardt: We did move back to packet page 56. Board Member Hirsch: We did? Oh my. Ms. Gerhardt: It’s all interrelated, unfortunately. We are on packet page 56 right now. Chair Thompson: The one that we’re looking at on the screen right now? Ms. Gerhardt: Correct. Chair Thompson: I want to give Board Member Lew a chance to speak. Board Member Lew: I think we are getting stuck here. The intent of the code is to prevent long, boring, monotonous façades at a pedestrian scale. If you factor in a pedestrian is walking at three miles per hour, you want breaks in the façade and you also want vertical proportions to make it more in keeping with the three-mile per hour pedestrian speed. Those long horizontal façade and long horizontal windows are really just much too monotonous. The more that you break the façade and make seemingly artificial breaks in the building is actually better. The more breaks, the better; deeper the better. We can argue (inaudible). Chair Thompson: Sorry, you cut out in that last thing that you said. [Adjusting Audio.] Board Member Hirsch: I don’t have a lot to add. I think I am actually fine with the way it is in the current proposal. Board Member Baltay: I’ll change and support what Alex is saying; I think we should leave it alone. Chair Thompson: I also think we should leave it alone and keep going. Okay, any more comments on .060? I think we went through Board Member Lew, Baltay, and Hirsch. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I do just have this comment. I wasn’t sure because I don’t have the current revised. Chris, I am looking at what the packet is which is not revised. I just wanted to go to that non-residential ground floor. It’s (D). Chair Thompson: Ground floor character? Vice Chair Lee: It’s the recessed entries at non-res ground floors and primary entries for weather protection. When I see it, it is (C) human-scaled architecture and then (4)(B) primary entries that include weather protection is a minimum of four feet by four feet wide. Yes, exactly where you are there with the ground-floor character. Ms. Gerhardt: Packet page 65. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to check on that eight feet wide by six feet wide which’s (ii)(C). Recess in the entry for non-residential ground floor and we are providing an awning or some kind of recessed entry. Does it always remain six by eight and is that appropriate given that earlier we said four by four for recessed entries for weather protection for primary entries. The fact that it is non- residential and a ground floor can we allow for more flexibility or do we all feel strongly that eight by six… I am just trying to find consistency and also allowing for flexibility. 4.a Packet Pg. 210 City of Palo Alto Page 40 Chair Thompson: I want to give staff a quick chance to comment on if we changed it here would that trickle and change something else elsewhere. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, let’s find out. Mr. Sensenig: Sorry, I need to check where the other section was. Here it is. Vice Chair Lee: Chris, I am thinking of a double door and single door situation. Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. Vice Chair Lee: If we are proposing this, we are assuming the thinking behind four by six, but what if it is a single door? Mr. Sensenig: It kind of assumes a double door. Board Member Lew: I am not sure if all non-residential ground floor entries are single door versus double door. Generally, double door but I… Mr. Sensenig: The intent of this is serving an office or other thing might be an upper floor. Vice Chair Lee: There are definitely units on Cal Ave where it is not a double door and it’s (inaudible). If it is only four by four art a primary entry for weather protection; same intent. Mr. Sensenig: Yeah, same intent so it could change. The intent was it is going to something that is serving potentially more people than a residential building and would have potentially more ins and outs that is not a storefront. It could be say ground-floor office or… Vice Chair Lee: I am just thinking of all the different nail salons, or… Mr. Sensenig: That would fit under the storefront and retail ground floors where it is six-foot by four-foot requirement. Vice Chair Lee: Okay, is that appropriate? Should we think about those dimensions? I am just thinking about walking down some of our corridors and if we were to have a business if it is divided into a storefront or a… I just wanted to bring it up. Chair Thompson: Are you suggesting something smaller, Vice Chair Lee? Not six by four but four by four? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, I am. Chair Thompson: Okay, these are minimums, I think. They could get bigger if they wanted to. Vice Chair Lee: absolutely. Chair Thompson: I think I am clear with the proposal; we are talking about the weather protection awning and reducing the minimum from six feet to four feet in this section (D)(i)(B). Is that clear to staff what the proposal is? Mr. Sensenig: Yes. Ms. Gerhardt: That’s just a possible change to the depth? Mr. Sensenig: And width, right? Chair Thompson: It’s just the width. 4.a Packet Pg. 211 City of Palo Alto Page 41 Vice Chair Lee: The depth would remain. Ms. Gerhardt: I think we just want to be clear that there are two sections here. Mr. Sensenig: Yeah. Ms. Gerhardt: Under (D), ground floor character, there are requirements for storefronts, individual stores, versus under (ii) is the requirement for more of a lobby situation I would assume, Chris. Mr. Sensenig: Yes, or say an office entry or something that is not a storefront entry serving… Ms. Gerhardt: Chris has it highlighted in yellow now. For the storefront, it would be six by four, and for the office entry or lobby-type situation it would be the eight by six. What specific requirements are we looking to change? We don’t want to make the bottom one smaller than the top one. Vice Chair Lee: I think the there is an issue of a double door versus a single door is my simple point in terms of an exterior entry door. Ms. Gerhardt: Maybe if we say in the non-residential we say a single door would be six by four and a double door would be eight by six. Just throwing ideas. Board Member Hirsch: Six is very deep. Chair Thompson: Is the thinking the wider one would sort of creates a more prominent entrance assuming these are side by side? Mr. Sensenig: the previous context space design criteria stated that the size of the entry -- I’m paraphrasing here -- should relate to the number of people served. Chair Thompson: Jodie, are you suggesting instead of having it stipulated here that we note… maybe that is the suggestion that we note the size of entry correspond to the awning depth and width? Ms. Gerhardt: I think Chris was trying to… the size of the entry… we are assuming that non-residential ground floors and those sorts of entries are accommodating more people and therefore it should be more prominent. How do you make it more prominent? You put a bigger awning on it or something like that. Mr. Sensenig: Or you make it wider and maybe four feet is the right depth for all of them and you just deal with width. But even if it is a single door in a retail situation, like in this drawing here, if this width of this recessed door was only four feet wide is that the right dimension, or even if it is a single door should it have two transom windows on the side and be centered or on one side so there is more space for people to maneuver around each other. Vice Chair Lee: My hesitation is that not knowing I think six by eight is too generous, too prescribed. I guess my thought was weather protection so that this is an awning for weather protection or a place to wait. It is a recessed situation, as well, right? Mr. Sensenig: It’s optional on recessing. Vice Chair Lee: Okay, optional on recessed? Chair Thompson: So it could project out? Mr. Sensenig: Yes. 4.a Packet Pg. 212 City of Palo Alto Page 42 Chair Thompson: Vice Chair Lee, are you proposing to amend both of these situations that are highlighted in front of us? Vice Chair Lee: I think we should just have a minimum on the one below. Yes, amend the minimum on (ii)(C) is where I was. Chair Thompson: Okay, so we don’t want to deal with the one above? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, I understand that one. Chair Thompson: Okay. We are not going to prose changing that one at this time. The proposal here is to… can you remind me, Vice Chair Lee? What's the proposal? Vice Chair Lee: I think it is width. Sorry, the depth. No, no, both the width and depth, right, because it is a single door. Board Member Baltay: I can support making them the same; six feet wide, four feet deep on both. I think it will be hard to differentiate the two in practice. I think, Grace, it is entirely conceivable that a tenant could change from a single to a double door in the future. It is tough to meet ADA on a four-foot recess. I think we should stick to six feet wide and four feet deep for both. Chair Thompson: Is that your proposal, Vice Chair Lee, six feet wide, four feet deep? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah. Isn’t it hard? We just don’t know the situation, right? It is better than what it is now. I‘ll accept that. Chair Thompson: Okay. What do Board Members Lew and Hirsch think? Board Member Hirsch: Agree. Board Member Lew: I will support the reduction. Chair Thompson: Okay. I am fine with it as well. Any other comments Vice Chair Lee on this chapter? Vice Chair Lee: I am ready for the next section. I think that was the hardest one. I say that; I just jinxed it, didn’t I? .070, do we have any comments? Let’s start with Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: No, I have no comments. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I have two quick comments, one is that the porch shall be within one step of the finished floor height, and that is in several of the sections. There are a whole bunch of other building and accessibility codes that come into play on there in this one. I think it is not necessary. My second comment is under section (B)(c) for patio entries. It mentions fences not six feet, 30 inches in height. I want to mention when you have a gate in the fence, there are ADA requirements that would be higher than 30 inches. The latch would have to be higher, like 34 to 48 inches; the reach range of a wheelchair user. I think we should try to make that allowance. Chair Thompson: To be taller? Chair Thompson: Let’s discuss these really quick. I also had a note about this issue as well and that we should allow that fence to get taller. What do the other Board Members think? Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I could support making it 36 inches high, which would then allow ADA compliance. 4.a Packet Pg. 213 City of Palo Alto Page 43 Chair Thompson: Not 42? Board Member Baltay: Not 42, no. I think it is a serious issue. You don’t want to get too separated. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: Actually, I think 42, a guardrail height, is okay and appropriate but a 36 minimum. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, I am okay with 36. Chair Thompson: What are your thoughts on 42? Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, 42 is okay too. Vice Chair Lee: I am trying to think of places I have been like this and I am okay with 42. Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew, did you have any comments on the lowering to 36? Board Member Lew: Lower is better. I think the issue is just the gate. Chair Thompson: Okay. I am in support of making this code complaint. I do think 42 is the requirement for a guard rail. I think we need to think of the right verbiage here. Ms. Gerhardt: Chair, if I may, Chris, I think this is a patio entry. Is this above grade? Mr. Sensenig: No, it would be at grade. Ms. Gerhardt: if you can show that picture there. Chair Thompson: Oh, it’s at grade. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. Board Member Hirsch: Thirty-six is sufficient then. Chair Thompson: I see. Ms. Gerhardt: The picture is on packet page 67 and 68. A patio would be at grade. Chair Thompson: For whatever reason, I thought it was above grade. In that case, I think 36 is fine. Do other Board Members agree? Board Member Hirsch: Agree. Chair Thompson: All right, 36 it is. Any more comments, Board Member Lew? You had one about the one step. Are you suggesting that we remove (B)(2)? Board Member Lew: It seems unnecessary because it is going to be addressed in the building code and all of our accessibility codes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Do you propose removing it? 4.a Packet Pg. 214 City of Palo Alto Page 44 Board Member Lew: When I have worked on affordable housing projects, I have gone through incredible brain damage doing California accessibility code and building code, and then also dealing with ADA as well as federal accessibility requirements which don’t always perfectly align with ADA. I am not sure that this is actually doing anything. It is not helping any. Mr. Sensenig: I believe the intent of adding this was from a comment from Board Member Baltay to clarify that the height of the porch or stoop should be at the same level at the unit. Board Member Baltay: I can see if it were a situation where your unit doesn’t have to comply with ADA and then it might be an issue. Board Member Lew: Okay. Let’s just leave it in then. Chair Thompson: Okay. We had no comments from Board Member Baltay. We went through Board Member Lew’s comments. Board Member Hirsch, do you have any comments on .070? Board Member Hirsch: No, none. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Vice Chair Lee, any comments on .070? Vice Chair Lee: I believe we discussed last time, right? Since we are here on the screen I think I got voted down. I said five by five so the porch can fit inside for (B)(b) porch rather than a six-foot square. Board Member Baltay: I think she’s right; we talked about that. Vice Chair Lee: Okay, sorry. We don’t need to… Board Member Baltay: If you want to do it again, it is fine, Grace. It’s a fluid thing. Chair Thompson: Typically, if we have already talked about it I don’t want to reopen it. Chair Thompson: I don’t have the updated one in my packet. Would you just mind scrolling down, Chris? I just want to make sure of the things we talked about. Mr. Sensenig: I did change five foot by five foot square for patio entry. Vice Chair Lee: That’s right, but not on the porch? Mr. Sensenig: Not on the porch. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. We did that last time. I think I am done with this section. Chair Thompson: Okay, great. I also don’t have any comments on .070 that were not already discussed. Okay, .080? Any comments? Let’s start with Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: No comments. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: No. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Come back to me. I am still thumbing through. Chair Thompson: Okay. Vice Chair Lee. 4.a Packet Pg. 215 City of Palo Alto Page 45 Vice Chair Lee: I am good to go here. Chair Thompson: Okay. I didn’t have any comments. Was that enough time, Board Member Hirsch? Ms. Gerhardt: Just to clarify on the open space, you're not going to see the actual square footage requirement in 18.24 because that will be in other parts of the code. This section is just meant to add further details about the depth and things like that. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Any other comments, Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: Nope. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Moving on to .090 on the materials. We’ll start with Board Member Baltay. Any comments? Board Member Baltay: Yes, I had made some notes here about façade materials. Does that include window glazing as part of an area when you're measuring a façade area? Two comments, one was on the measuring of the area. How do we determine that? Mr. Sensenig: I believe at our last discussion, what we discussed was that it was the full area of the façade and we took away any requirement of the primary material and only have requirements on the secondary and accent materials. Board Member Baltay: Do you have that in front of you how that is now structured? Mr. Sensenig: I do have the words in front, yes. Board Member Baltay: The chart I am looking at, even in the most recent packet, seems to be different than what you just described. Ms. Gerhardt: The packet is the original and doesn’t show the changes. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Explain to me, Chris, if you could, what we are going to do here. Mr. Sensenig: All right. Under .090(B)(i) my copy reads primary, secondary, and accent materials are allowed or prohibited as in the residential and residential mixed-use material list, which may be updated from time to time. (ii), secondary materials are prohibited are primary cladding on building façades and shall not be allowed on more than 35 percent of each building façade. Accent materials are permitted on no greater than five percent of each façade as trims or accents. Ms. Gerhardt: That is already shown on packet page 71, basically saying that there is no percentage for the primary materials, correct? Mr. Sensenig: Correct. Ms. Eisberg: Right. This section shouldn’t have changed because we did not talk about it at the last meeting. Board Member Baltay: That makes sense. I think I remember now going through that. You originally had percentages on primary materials. Is that right? Mr. Sensenig: Correct. We said that was too hard to predict and also with windows it makes it difficult to quantify and suggest what is a good amount. 4.a Packet Pg. 216 City of Palo Alto Page 46 Board Member Baltay: I apologize for bringing that back up. You're right; you reacted to that well. My second comment was regarding Section(B)(i) where it says the residential mixed-use material list which may be updated from time to time, who updates it on what authority? I’d like to see the ARB involved in that updating. Ms. Eisberg: That was our intention. We were thinking to actually pull this materials list out of this document so that it would get adopted by resolution, exist on the website, therefore, the ARB could weigh in and update it from time to time without going through an ordinance. Board Member Baltay: I suggest that it goes through the ARB process, that we ultimately make a recommendation to the director, et cetera, and be maintained by staff. I think we should be a little bit clearer that that is how it is going to happen. Just saying updated from time to time is a little bit vague. Chair Thompson: Board Member Baltay, you're suggesting adding some text here that stipulates as directed by the ARB. Board Member Baltay: I would say… Ms. Gerhardt: Updated from time to time by the director of planning with a recommendation by the ARB. Board Member Baltay: Exactly; that would be good. Chair Thompson: I don’t foresee any other Board Members taking issue with this. Please speak now if you do. Vice Chair Lee: I just have a question. What if an applicant actually is proposing a material that is not on this list? Ms. Eisberg: If they are not looking to meet objective standards, they would just need to meet the intent statement. If they are looking to meet objective standards then they would need to select something from the material list, but if they are going through the typical ARB process, they could meet the intent statement and that material could be reinforced and approved by the board. Ms. Gerhardt: As new materials come along, the director will update the list. Board Member Baltay: I suppose an applicant could petition the Board to just update the list, too, Grace. Vice Chair Lee: That’s what I was going to say. That is what I assumed. Board Member Baltay: That’s a given; we don’t need to state how that process gets initiated. Vice Chair Lee: An applicant would know just to do that. You could be advised that by the staff. Okay. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. Vice Chair Lee: Chair Osma, I can stop there. I had another comment but if you want to talk. Chair Thompson: If Board Member Baltay was done with his comments. Board Member Baltay: That’s it. I'm done. Chair Thompson: Okay. Thanks. Let’s move to you, Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Great. The other question I had was -- I know we talked about percentages -- do we all agree that five percent is the right… to me we are calculating percentages versus by surface area probably in elevations that the planning staff does. I just want to make sure that we revisit that five 4.a Packet Pg. 217 City of Palo Alto Page 47 percent if it is more of a range when we talk about accent material on a project. The reason why I bring it up is I am picturing a project that is maybe not the traditional project that we have seen over the years but sometimes there is a project that is more contemporary. Is five percent still the right percentage for accent material? I just don’t know that I would know as an applicant that my accent material is five percent right off. Mr. Sensenig: Just to remember, the only materials this currently applies to is glass block, corrugated metal, and vegetated wall panels or trellises. Vice Chair Lee: Okay. That’s a good point. Maybe also what I am reacting to is texture and color in terms of an accent. I still don’t know if five percent is the right number. Chair Thompson: Would you want to propose a bigger number? Vice Chair Lee: Or a range, maybe, or I don’t know. I don’t know what the best… Chair Thompson: I think it is a no greater than number. It would be anything under a certain number. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, maybe it should be greater. Chair Thompson: What do you propose? Vice Chair Lee: Is ten too much, or eight? Because I don’t know what five percent is I just… when we talk about a project, do you all have a thought on that in terms of accent material? What is the right greater than? Mr. Sensenig: A typical residential façade, the fenestration is in that 15 to 30 percent range, typically. Vice Chair Lee: So subtract that. Mr. Sensenig: Not subtracting that from the façade. What I am getting at, I guess, is particularly with the glass block, would you want the glass block to get to a typical window range? I am just trying to give some reference. Vice Chair Lee: The glass block might not be used as a window per se on a façade. I don’t know. It is just something to think about. I mean, I just react to prescriptive… Board Member Baltay: Grace, what if we put on our materials table percentages as well? With glass block, you might allow up to ten percent but with gold-plated metal pieces, it might be only three percent. We can then adjust that from time to time as the situation arises. Right now we are deciding in the vacuum here. Vice Chair Lee: Yeah, it’s a slippery slope. Board Member Hirsch: Could I chime in? Vice Chair Lee: I just don’t know what is the right one. I feel like five percent might be too low. Sorry, go ahead. Chair Thompson: Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Just on glass block itself, because, to me, glass block is fairly out of date but channel glass I very commonly used these days, and sometimes it is used in large sections of façade s very effectively. I think the generic term glass block is not the appropriate term to use but it should be three-dimensional glass surfaces or something like that. Chris, I’ll let you look it up and find out what is the best way to describe it. In many buildings, we note that glazing systems are the primary element. 4.a Packet Pg. 218 City of Palo Alto Page 48 Putting limitations on them could cause architects real headaches. I have a number of other materials to talk about but I thought I would chime in on the glass block. Vice Chair Lee: If I may, Chair Osma, I just want to follow up. Thank you, Board Member Hirsch, because I similarly feel that way in the way you are expressing yourself The vegetated wall panels or trellises, for example, can’t be more than five percent. I am thinking of examples in Europe again where the vegetated wall panel is definitely more than five percent. Maybe even in San Francisco, there is one that’s more than five percent. Glass block is very outdated and it is not used so much and we have three things as accent. I am just not sure of this one. Chair Thompson: Yeah. I think it is worth discussing. That was one of my comments as well, the vegetated wall panels. If there was a way to suggest that they could also use that as a primary material. How cool of a building would that be? Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Chair Thompson: Who cares what it looks like, right? It has vegetated wall panels everywhere. I am kidding but I wonder if there is a way to note that somehow in this list. Is it possible to note that it could be… is there somewhere where it says it is an accent it could be a primary or something like that?] Mr. Sensenig: No, it’s hierarchical. You can use a primary material in any way you want but you can only use a secondary material up to 35 percent. If I am hearing people correctly, the siding on things as accent materials does not seem necessary. Glass block and corrugated metal could move to secondary materials and vegetative wall panels and trellises could move to a primary material. Board Member Baltay: What if we do away with the notion of primary, secondary, and accent and instead just put a maximum percentage for each material as a total percentage of the façade? We can take a stab at that now, but over time we can adjust that. We might have a future debate over whether vegetated wall panels are appropriate at 1000 percent on a façade but right now I think we’d all agree that glass or transparent glass is appropriate at 100 percent. Mr. Sensenig: Just so you know, the date on which an applicant would submit their application would be the time that this list is cemented for that project. Board Member Baltay: That’s right. That’s fair enough. That’s the way it is with all the code. Right now you could just translate everywhere that says P you could say 100 percent. Everywhere it days S would say 35 percent and everywhere it says A would just say five percent. It is having the same effect except this is much more flexible for us in the future. Chair Thompson: What do the other Board Members think of this proposal? Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I am actually okay with what is proposed in the packet and I don’t quite understand what Peter is proposing. I did test out the areas -- I think two meetings ago -- and I am comfortable with the percentages that we had previously. I support this iteration of it as well. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: I think this is the time I have to talk about some of the general thoughts I’ve had here that have to do with all of this. I don’t think I am in favor of the percentages or Peter’s concept there. I would like to liberalize the lettering ends I would agree with. Let me go down my list here. Material section might disallow 3585 El Camino Real, a recent project, because the concrete frame is used as a primary construction material. In fact, if you added it up it may not be 35 percent of the whole façade. I could see somebody challenging it as a primary material since it is, after all, construction. How do you deal with something like an important place frame as in that building? I think wood veneer should be secondary material in larger buildings where it is a multi-story building. I could see it where it is manageable in a smaller building but I think there is a question in taller buildings. I haven’t heard you 4.a Packet Pg. 219 City of Palo Alto Page 49 changing the designation for glass block to glazing and some other definition of it; three-dimensional glazing or something like that which is more appropriate than using the term glass block. Concrete blocks, which are noted as secondary materials, sometimes can be beautifully finished and polished, and economically so that you could get a very nice façade or major portion of a façade with a concrete bock. To have it as secondary material I don’t think is appropriate. Standing seam metal of course if going to be used on roofs all over the place now. By having it a secondary material is it okay for it to be used on a roof? Poured-in-place concrete panels or poured-in-place concrete is a beautiful modern material that is used in some high-end houses, and suppose someone does want to come along and use poured-in- place concrete. You describe fine-grain materials -- I pointed this out before -- such as brick, wood, and shingles not to exceed eight inches in either height or width. Have we agreed to change that dimension so that it can accept a larger proportioned dimension? GFRC will always come in larger dimensions, certainly much, much longer ones. I personally have used EIFS, and that is noted as N. Tell me why an outside insulation with stucco no? Why is that a no? Then, there is no mention of stucco and we were looking at it in today’s houses. It is very successfully used in this climate. Why does it get such a bad rap here? There's a bunch of them, Chris, maybe you could focus. Mr. Sensenig: I’ll try to attempt to answer some of them. The one on the size of the human-scaled elements, it is only one out of eight ways and you have to pick two. It says one of its dimensions needs to be eight-inch. An eight-inch by 100-inch panel would fit that definition. Board Member Hirsch: But it is not one foot by whatever it is. Mr. Sensenig: No, correct. Again, it is only one out of eight options and you have to choose two. I do not have a comment on this material list. That is for the ARB to decide what goes and does not go on this material list. Board Member Hirsch: Okay, then I throw it open to our members. Chair Thompson: I was going to suggest something less restrictive than Peter’s suggestion of the usage. Maybe we just say acceptable and non-acceptable and we do away with the percentages of everything. Vice Chair Lee: I concur. I think that is the way to go. Board Member Hirsch: I concur too. Chair Thompson: What do the other Board Members think? Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: I could support that. I was ready to come back to David on some of his things but I do think that the actuality of measuring these percentages is going to be challenging and I can tell you from a practicing point of view nobody is going to be able to check whether it is 35 percent of 42 percent. You'd need your computer system up and running to do that. Staff is going to be at the mercy of the applicant preparing these numbers. Chair Thompson: What do you think, Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I think I previously stated that I support what is being proposed in the report. I think we do want to limit the amount of metal on there. If somebody wants to use a lot of metal, then they can come to the ARB and we can actually take a look at it. Again, this is objective standards; they can propose something very radical, completely out of context with the neighborhood and get it approved. I think we should have some guardrails on this one. Vice Chair Lee: I understand your perspective, Board Member Lew. My feeling is that there is a calling out a primary, secondary, and accent and that would remain. We would simply just remove the percentages. That is why I am comfortable keeping that primary, secondary. Ms. Gerhardt: If I may, if we remove the percentages how would we be evaluating these? 4.a Packet Pg. 220 City of Palo Alto Page 50 Chair Thompson: Is that a question for Vice Chair Lee? Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. Vice Chair Lee: I think other cities do this without percentages. Primary is defined; secondary and accent might have a definition. I don’t know if primary might be the main or the body. I mean, I think when you get to percentages -- just to go to Board Member Baltay’s point-- it is just going to be difficult. I feel like most people understand what primary. Secondary, and accent… most applicants would… it would go back to staff to have that conversation but it would also for the percentages. Mr. Sensenig: I think it would fall back to if the primary material was 35 percent of the overall façade, then any other material would have to be below 35 percent. Without providing percentages, that is about as… it is greater than, right? Board Member Baltay: This discussion is persuading me that Alex’s comment is probably the right response, Grace. You’re sliding into the subjective review. Yes, we all think we know what primary and secondary are but for staff to give an objective review of that is not possible. Vice Chair Lee: Without percentages, you mean. Board Member Baltay: Alex’s comment about having some guardrails on this is a good idea, I think. It comes back to me of David’s comment poured-in-place concrete can be a wonderful building material when used properly by a talented architect. I think that is the case where you have real design review on things. I shudder to think what happens if you don’t have to have that reviewed. I think it can also be really difficult to use properly. Again, having some guardrails is a good way to put it. I think this whole list is about guardrails. Right now I am persuaded by Alex’s point of view. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s take a straw poll to leave the list as is the way that it is written right now, as Board Member Lew has suggested. I know we have had a lot of suggestions on how to change but I want to get a temperature straw poll of what we think if we just don’t change it; if we just keep it as is. Board Member Baltay: Is it possible… okay, go ahead. Ms. Gerhardt: We have included the change though that the list would come back to the ARB from time to time. Chair Thompson: Right. I also wanted to point out that I heard Board Member Hirsch and Vice Chair Lee mention the question about glass. Glass is the fourth item from the top as a primary material. Board Member Baltay: Stucco is also on that list. I think David might have missed it because it is shaded. Board Member Hirsch: It’s on the primary? Board Member Baltay: Yeah. Chair Thompson: Yeah. Board Member Baltay: And it should properly be called cement plaster, not stucco but… Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, okay, fine. Board Member Baltay: We can get into that. David, I think other things about the details of what you call these glass block and whatnot is better left to (inaudible) ARB. Maybe it comes back sooner than a later where we can really dive into it. 4.a Packet Pg. 221 City of Palo Alto Page 51 Board Member Hirsch: That’s a simple change in definition. Board Member Baltay: Yeah, you're right. Three-dimensional glass units (inaudible). T1-11 plywood is also a trade standard. It’s not really a kind of plywood and it is widely used. Only Chrysler makes Jeeps; there's not such a thing as a Jeep. Osma, can I make one more pitch? Alex, if you could listen to me that instead of primary, secondary, and accent, just put the percentage in the column that way when we realize that our percentage is wrong we don’t have to go back to Council to change the code. We just change the percentage as part of the review process. That’s the only change. It doesn’t change the substance behind this. Board Member Lew: Okay, I am open to that. Board Member Baltay: That’s the whole idea. It’s not to change any of the guts of what we are saying but give us flexibility in the future. Chair Thompson: I am hearing instead of a P we would say 100 percent. What do the other Board Members think of this proposal? I’ll rescind my original straw poll so that we can discuss this. Board Member Baltay: I support that, obviously. Vice Chair Lee: I am comfortable with the P, S, A without percentages but I think I am in the minority. Chair Thompson: You prefer the P, S, A? Okay. Board Member Hirsch: I prefer the PSA. Grace, is that what you said just now? I couldn’t hear her. Chair Thompson: Yeah, that’s what she said. Board Member Hirsch, are you with changing the P, S, A to percentages? Board Member Hirsch: I prefer the PSA but nobody has really responded to my question about poured- in-place concrete if it is used for a structural element is it going to be considered a primary? Board Member Baltay: No. David, I think we did address that and if that is the case the building should go to architecture review. Board Member Hirsch: That’s for panels. We didn’t talk about structure. Board Member Baltay: We are just talking about the measured area of what is expressed. You can have a structural concrete building that doesn’t express any concrete. Board Member Hirsch: True. You can have structural concrete which does express concrete, like the one we looked at. Board Member Baltay: Those are decisions architects make. Chair Thompson: To complete the straw poll, I think I would be in support of the percentage change if only just to allow vegetated wall panels to go up to 100. Board Member Baltay: That gives you that flexibility to change that percentage otherwise it is locked in the code. What is accent or percentage or secondary? Chair Thompson: Yeah. I think I heard three Board Members be in support of the percentage change as part of the straw poll. We will have to see what that looks like but it sounds like maybe that may give us some flexibility to respond to some of Board Member Hirsch’s comments that maybe we are not 4.a Packet Pg. 222 City of Palo Alto Page 52 constricted to 35 percent for concrete. Maybe we could suggest more if the Board feels like that is appropriate. Board Member Baltay: It gives us tremendous flexibility. Grace, to your point in the future, we may well decide that we could raise a lot of these up and that, again, we have that flexibility. That is what we are writing into this really. Vice Chair Lee: Thank you for all this discussion. I am sorry I brought it up and went on and on but I guess you’re at a better place. I just don’t know when they are going to be coming back to us and that is my concern. I appreciate this; I know we need to get completed. Ms. Gerhardt: When would you like us to come back? Vice Chair Lee: That is a good question. I was wondering if we were going to talk about that at the end in terms of how these changes are going to come back. We might receive a complete revised in our packet rather than in a PowerPoint. Ms. Gerhardt: I think staff was hoping to get a recommendation today on the objective standards. The project will be going to Planning Commission at the end of April on April 28th, I believe. We also have an ARB meeting on 04/15. We have a lot of other items to handle that day. Vice Chair Lee: Jodie, can I ask how the Planning Commission’s comments on our draft will be communicated back to ARB? Is this our last chance and it keeps going on the highway to Council? I wasn’t sure about that. Ms. Gerhardt: We really are trying as best as possible for today to be the last day and to keep this moving. We are trying to get to Council by summertime. That doesn’t mean that is set in stone; that is just a desire. Vice Chair Lee: I was just wondering because of the graphics discussion and if that was something that the Planning Commission comments on and before it goes to Council if there was an ad hoc. I am just not sure where we left that, for example. Ms. Gerhardt: If we are going to have the subcommittee talk about graphics, that was a potential option that was raised, we could… we don’t have to have necessarily settled before we go to Planning Commission. We want to be close for sure but we could still have a little bit of time before we get to Council. We’re not going to Council until the end of May or early June for sure. We would have some time to look at this. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s keep going. We can discuss revisions. The only thing I wanted to add here before we leave, to have the Board’s support to change the vegetated wall panels to 100 percent? I see a nod for Vice Chair Lee. I see a shake from Board Member Lew. Board Member Baltay: Osma, I would feel better if we could leave the percentages the way they are now, and as soon as this whole thing is put into a statute by Council, then we should go back and look at this material list once more. I don’t think it is fair to jump on one item now and push it. David has strong feelings about a couple of other ones and we could spend all day on this list alone. Chair Thompson: That’s true. That sounds good. Board Member Baltay: I support what you're saying, maybe not 100 percent but close to that. Vice Chair Lee: We can keep going. We are really over time also. With the knowledge that we will have a chance to revisit this materials list again in the future, we will keep moving. Any comments on .100, which is our last section. 4.a Packet Pg. 223 City of Palo Alto Page 53 Board Member Baltay: No, I am fine with it. Chair Thompson: Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: My only comment is that the native plant requirements in our findings has disappeared and that we should try to put it back in some way. I realize that is going to be difficult. The reason why you would use native plants is for sustainable design. It is less water, less maintenance, and more food for insects, birds, and other wildlife. Those aren’t really mentioned in the intent statements. Chair Thompson: Maybe we could add it to bullet point number two? Would you be open to that suggestion, Board Member Lew? Board Member Lew: Yeah. I think we can add it to the intent statement. I think the tricky thing is going to be actually having it implemented and enforced. I think that’s the difficult thing to do in this one. I am not sure what to do. Chair Thompson: I think if it helps in the intent statement, it might be worthwhile to put it in there just for our own finding. Board Member Lew: The issue is then what happens with it? My guess is that nothing will happen or not much will happen. Chair Thompson: What do the other Board Members think? Board Member Baltay: I support putting it in the intent statements. That’s the code we have now. Let’s keep it that way. Vice Chair Lee: I don’t see any challenges adding it. I think that would be a plus. I think that the bottom bullet point is interesting and that is the only comment I had on this section. That bottom bullet point in terms of… I was thinking the second and the bottom are merged in terms of sustainability but I am fine with it as is also. Chair Thompson: Thanks. Board Member Hirsch: Yes, agree with those opinions. Chair Thompson: I also agree we should add it back in at least for when we have discretionary review we can have it as part of our findings. Okay. I think we made it through. We can go around and do some general feedback and then we will try to make a motion unless there was anything else from staff before we go there. Nope, okay. Let’s start with Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: I think my only general comment is that it seems like we have a very complicated menu of options for applicants. It seems so complicated with the different ways of getting a project approved and I am thinking we need some kind of flow chart or something to help people navigate the different ways of getting a project approved. We tried to do that in the past when we had a lot of PT projects. That is where I am on this one. I will support the objective standards. I suspect that we won’t get that many projects that use them. I think there are better options, like the Housing Incentive Program and the affordable housing overlay, and also the planned home community zone that offer more to developers than this particular process. That’s all of the general comments I have on this one. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Hirsch: If you wouldn’t mind I would like to do a little bit of review here. Some of it is just for clarification and maybe it would be helpful to consider these as questions that need to be answered but are not required today, some of them. For example, under 18.24.030, under packet page 4.a Packet Pg. 224 City of Palo Alto Page 54 46, the item number (B)(i) is through lot connection more than 300 feet from an intersection street or pedestrian walkway shall provide a public accessible sidewalk or pedestrian walkway connecting the two streets. I just see some legal issues. It is like taking of a property, if it is, for example, not a very big property the person who is the owner of that through lot might find some objective that it will limit the use of that area. I think it is a question that should be discussed with legal to determine whether or not it is a taking when you do something like that. That’s number one. Packet page 49, orientation and setback, I think you need to discuss this. I remember at one point we had a building that actually had two corners and now we have one corner. But what about buildings that have two corners. Is there a treatment of a two-sided corner building? How about a three-sided corner building if such a thing would exist. How are you going to treat the other corners if you're really only describing a single corner. Why did you choose the corner that you chose? This is illogical in my mind that we pick on corner out of two three to define what it should look like and say nothing about the rest of the building. Maybe there is an answer to that, Chris. You guys can come up with an answer. Under (1)(b), a different material application… I don’t know, did you make any changes in the text on that because last time I recommended and/or fenestration pattern. Once again, Wilton Court uses the same building material throughout and it is very successful. Did you change the wording? Could you answer that one? Mr. Sensenig: I am confused about what we are doing here. Board Member Hirsch: Okay, sorry. Mr. Sensenig: I thought this was just comment. Board Member Hirsch: Under (B), a different material application on what I am reading in my book page 49. Different material application and fenestration pattern from the rest of the façade. Ms. Gerhardt: This is an option. They don’t have to take this option. Board Member Hirsch: But it would be fine if we put in and/or? Ms. Gerhardt: I think we have gone over this section. I’ll let the Chair speak. Chair Thompson: I see that Chris has his hand raised. Mr. Sensenig: Yes, Chair Thompson, I would just like clarification on this part of the meeting. Chair Thompson: This is supposed to be general comments on everything. I see that Board Member Hirsch had a question about a certain item. I think since we haven’t seen the edited thing of everything, I think clarification on if a certain section has changed already. Not proposing to change anything, but just clarification on the document that we are going to be voting on. If you could provide that clarification so we are able to make a better-informed decision about our vote that would be great. Mr. Sensenig: Great. Can you please repeat the clarification you would like? Board Member Hirsch: I would like an and/or written into that differentiated material on a corner. Chair Thompson: It’s on .040. Ms. Eisberg: It is on page ten, Chris, of our electronic document. It looks like you already made that change. Board Member Hirsch: If you did that’s great. Mr. Sensenig: Thanks, Jean. Ms. Gerhardt: Chris, do you just want to show it on the screen, page 10. 4.a Packet Pg. 225 City of Palo Alto Page 55 Mr. Sensenig: Yes. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Hirsch: Okay, great. Great. Now I know we are going back over these. I don’t have very many items here but just bear with me and let me get through this and I look not to take up any more of our lunchtime. We have A, B, and C. Under C, Osma and I discussed this and I can’t see a reason for why -- I didn’t think too much about it back when it was presented -- you would have a corner less than four feet than the abutting height. The thinking for that seems to be a weakening of a corner to have the corner lower than. Osma pointed out you could have a balcony. Well, that’s a good point. Mr. Sensenig: I will point out the mural project by BRIDGE Housing at the Oakland MacArthur Park Station has this situation. I remember other places where you may have a roof deck or a special roof at that point that is lower. It might have a trellis or something nice on top. The important thing is that it is distinct from the rest of the building, whether it is higher or lower. Board Member Hirsch: Okay. I will buy that one. I was thinking that, once again, Wilton Court -- it seems to be the go-to project for me -- has a recess all around the corner at the base and we have seen some other projects that do the same. A wonderful alternative -- you had that in your original drawings but it disappeared -- as an option. Why not keep it there. Something such as a ground-floor recess not to exceed -- I threw out a percentage -- 25 percent of the exterior facing corner area or something to that effect and that as a diagram. Mr. Sensenig: I believe that is allowed; ground-floor step backs and horizontal shifts of the ground-floor façade with a minimum depth of two feet for a minimum of 80 percent of the façade length. Board Member Hirsch: But could that apply to a corner? It certainly is a more dramatic use of a corner and an enhancement of the corner, just like rooftop or the other changes. Consider it, Chris. I think it is worth consideration. I have just a few more here. Packet page 50. I have a problem with the designated uses. There was packet page 50(C), a residential common open space adjacent to a common interior space and less than two feet above fences and railings shall be provided. Okay. You have here a publicly accessible open space plaza. I am not sure what you mean by that. Is that something that you provide to the community? Mr. Sensenig: Are we still on the corner? Board Member Hirsch: Yes, we are still on the corner. Corner two… Mr. Sensenig: Yes. I believe 800 High Street has two of these. I think that is the correct project. Jean, am I right on that 800 High Street residential project? They actually have publicly accessible open spaces on each corner and they are about 20 by 40 feet. We have greatly reduced the requirement of that to only e 450 square feet, but one of them, I believe, is used as an outdoor patio for a restaurant and the other one is just a little parklet. Board Member Hirsch: I would ask, Jodie, does that require a CUP? Ms. Gerhardt: Outdoor dining requires an architectural review, usually at the staff level unless it is involved with something else. Board Member Hirsch: In my code under personal services, retail services, I thought a conditional use permit was required. Ms. Gerhardt: The use itself may need a CUP. I am just speaking to the outdoor dining aspect. 4.a Packet Pg. 226 City of Palo Alto Page 56 Board Member Hirsch: Okay. All right. As an entry to a building, I have no question about that. A public accessible open space plaza should be a landscaped plaza to the building located less than… that seems appropriate to me but I question the other uses. I’ll go to those sites and see if that changes my mind. Contextual massing under packet page 55, this one Elaine commented on it and I felt the same way. It was on translation to lower density. We previously agreed on a depth of six feet, but that will be a burden to any shallow site. Here is an agreement that we made that we would have it six feet wide and six feet deep. I believe that’s what it is. Is that where we ended up with that? Mr. Sensenig: It is a minimum of 70 percent of the façade length and a depth of six feet. It shall start within two vertical feet of the height of the adjacent building. Board Member Hirsch: I would propose and ask the Board to reconsider and make it less in order that it doesn’t become a burned to some future designer. How do we get to take a vote on that? I’ll leave it up to Osma. The significant breaks in packet page 56; I think we have talked that one to death. I think we’re okay about that one. It works, as you pointed out, on Wilton Court; it really will work okay since they’ve certainly met the minimums on that. I am finished with that piece. Now, general comments I have other than that. Osma, maybe that one final one in packet 55 item number two… Chair Thompson: The one that we just looked at? Board Member Hirsch: I think since we went through bit by bit, I want to get a quick straw poll from the Board if they're willing to reopen this item to address Board Member Hirsch’s comment. Vice Chair Lee tried to reopen some comments and typically I haven’t been thinking that we should. It looks like we did talk about this item if I were to see the comments. I just want to let the Board know that if we reopen this item for Board Member Hirsch, we would set a precedent for reopening past items as well. If the Board feels strongly about reopening past items, as well, it would keep us from finishing this meeting very soon. Let’s do a quick straw poll if the board would like to reopen past items. Board Member Lew. Board Member Lew: You're saying today? Chair Thompson: Yeah. Board Member Lew: Yes, I will. Chair Thompson: You're okay to reopen past items? Board Member Lew: Yes. Chair Thompson: Okay. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: No. Chair Thompson: Board Member Hirsch. Board Member Hirsch: Yes. Chair Thompson: Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: I would say no since we have already revisited, even though I am penalized as well. However, we didn’t receive a revised document to review before this meeting. To give Board Members a chance to review the revised before the meeting and not in the PowerPoint during the meeting seems important. I am on the fence, here. I can go either way. I just want to be fair. We did not have a revised document and we are voting on this today. I think that is a miss, and probably because we are demanding a lot but it is a big deal. That’s where I stand. I’ll go either way. 4.a Packet Pg. 227 City of Palo Alto Page 57 Chair Thompson: Okay. Chris, could you point out where it says six feet on this diagram? Thanks. I was looking for the number instead of the word. I’ll allow just this one item to consider, which pushes the straw poll in favor of just this one item. There is a proposal to reduce that minimum depth of six feet to something less. Board Member Hirsch, what do you propose? Board Member Hirsch: Actually, I think we aren’t looking at the right one because this is the transition to lower-density buildings (ii). Where is the (ii)? Chair Thompson: It’s right there; we’re looking at it. Mr. Sensenig: Sorry, I misunderstood you. This is now the (ii). Board Member Hirsch: The two, what is under two? Four feet deep. Chair Thompson: We changed this one to four by two. Board Member Hirsch: It’s changed already. It’s changed. We can forget my comment. Chair Thompson: Great. Okay, we are not reopening all that. All right. Are there any more comments from you, Board Member Hirsch? Board Member Hirsch: I am looking to see. Chair Thompson: Just general comments. Board Member Hirsch: Yes. I think I am forever concerned on this one issue concerned about us putting our stamp of approval on base, middle, and top. I am sorry to bring it up again, but to me, it is such an essential decision that we make if we are going to buy into this and not diagram alternatives that are possible. For me, it means a no on voting for this whole amazing piece of work that you guys have done. I mean, I have to say that I am very impressed with it all, and Jodie’s coordination as well. That’s a major issue and I really don’t see how we can say to the architectural community this is what you need to do. I think it began mostly with Peter and I think it should end with Peter here. I think this is kind of a disaster for us as architects to tell other architects how to build a building. I think it just too constricting to say this. There are so many other good ways to do it and I think even if you look back and Wilton Court or if you look at the Page Mill project, Windy Hill those projects violate the idea of it being a base, middle, and top. Definitely, they aren’t of that ilk. For that reason, I don’t think we should pass on this unless we alter that aspect of it. We shouldn’t let this one go through to the Council. That’s my opinion. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Board Member Baltay. Board Member Baltay: Okay, thanks. I will be able to recommend approval of this project. I won’t be making a motion for it but I can support it. I have to say I am pleased and surprised at how well I think this has turned out. At the beginning of this project, I really thought it would be a disaster trying to write objective standards to ensure good design. I have been more than impressed with the work of staff has done to pull this off. I think a lot of credit and kudos go to them for the incredibly hard work of trying to put all of this together. We have been very critical but I think it really has come a long way. I think also our own subcommittee worked very hard on this, and that shows. A lot of work has been done compared to where we started. It is an impressive document we have put forward and I think we should be aware of that. All that said, the only way I can recommend approval to this is because we limited it to this strict case where it is the only alternative to the State’s statute which would be a worse alternative. That being a strictly residential housing that is otherwise allowed by state law to have no review whatsoever. I would not be able to recommend approval of this under any other circumstances. I do want to be crystal clear with the staff and with the community as a whole, with the Council, and with the architects around us that I cannot support objective design standards in a sense that this code puts forth as any proper way to design and build our built environment. I think it is a terrible way to go and I feel 4.a Packet Pg. 228 City of Palo Alto Page 58 very forced into this by state law. I do support it, but reluctantly and because it is the best of a bad alternative. That’s my opinion on this whole thing. Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Vice Chair Lee. Vice Chair Lee: Sorry, I am running low blood sugar now and moving slowly. I want to echo what Board Member Baltay just mentioned. I completely agree with your comments, Peter. I very much appreciate the efforts of staff and consultants. I very much also appreciate the efforts of fellow Board Members and their work here. Thank you. I am not in any way comfortable with these objective design standards and the drive to have to do this. I think that we have come a long way. There is a need for the state mandate and impetuous for this. I worry that where this goes and how it progresses may not serve the intent that we are hoping for given the choice, but I guess people might come through ARB as that other option. The other piece I want to mention is I would really appreciate some kind of a document or staff report on Planning Commission’s comments and this process of where it goes next and how the Council might act upon it. Often when we hand off it is just gone and that to me is counterproductive to the efforts of Boards to work together. It is a layering process and over time it does linearly go in one direction but we need to learn from this and we need to learn from what other cities are doing on the peninsula or in the Bay area, for example, that are of a city of a similar size. My feeling is we do need to learn from precedence and, unfortunately, we are all doing this at the same time. I wonder if there is an opportunity for us to work with staff or an ad hoc to learn what other efforts are occurring given this need, and also how we might revisit or update in a way that is productive and fair to applicants and the need for housing. I’ll pass it on. Chair Thompson: Thanks. I think we heard from all four Board Members until now under general comments. I wanted to thank everybody for their efforts. I know everybody put a lot of time into it. I also appreciate all of the work staff has done to incorporate our comments. It is a tricky thing that we always knew we were going to take; it is a really difficult thing to take on and I think what we have put together now with all of the changes that we have made, the document that we have been looking at for this whole meeting is really getting to a place where I think it is approvable. Naturally, it is difficult to do something objective when everything about architecture is subjective and context space, but this is where we are, and, unfortunately, it is what it is. I think we have developed a document that can really stand on its own. Also, we have put in provisions where we can make edits to it as well on the diagrams and on the materials in the future, which will help shape this thing in the future. Will someone make a motion? Board Member Baltay: You may have to do that, Osma. You're the chair, you have the heavy lifting. MOTION Chair Thompson: All right. I will move that we recommend approval of the objective design standards while putting the diagrams back to review with the ad hoc committee that is currently working on the objective design standards. The diagrams and also -- this was noted in the document that was edited today -- that the materials will come back to us from time to time. That is my motion. Board Member Lew: I will second. Chair Thompson: Is there any discussion before we go to vote? Board Member Baltay: Can I raise a question? I’ll do this delicately with the best of intentions. David, do you want to remain on the ad hoc committee? We have the ad hoc committee charged with reviewing these final diagrams. Is that something you want to do? You were so opposed to this earlier. Board Member Hirsch: It sounds like you’re pushing me out a little bit here. Board Member Baltay: No, I am just trying to see if it is going to… the intent was to give it a final review and really get this done and I don’t think raising some of the issues you’ve brought up is the right thing. 4.a Packet Pg. 229 City of Palo Alto Page 59 I am just asking is what you're feeling is about it. It’s not for me to call anyway. I don’t have any authority to make that decision. I am just asking what you think. Board Member Hirsch: I’ll remain on the committee. Board Member Baltay: Okay. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I appreciate that. Chair Thompson: Anybody else want to speak to the motion? Hearing nothing… Vice Chair Lee: I just have a question. Would it be going back to the ad hoc committee after it goes to Planning Commission or no? Per our comments today, it would go back to the ad hoc committee? I don’t know what our process is. Ms. Gerhardt: The text changes I believe the consultants can do fairly quickly. The diagram changes might take a little bit longer. Chris, how long for diagram changes? Mr. Sensenig: If the intent is to have an option where we are drawing elevations and sections, then I think it will be like the first week of May at the earliest. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. The first week of May would be after the Planning Commission hearing but it would be before Council. Vice Chair Lee: I see. I just wondered what the steps would be. Chair Thompson: Okay. Let’s do a vote. Aye: Baltay, Lee, Lew, Thompson (4) No: Hirsch (1) MOTION TO APPROVE PASSES 4-1. Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements 4. 656 Lytton Avenue [19PLN-00040]: Staff Level Ad Hoc Approval Memo from March 4, 2021 Chair Thompson: Okay. I think we can keep moving on. We’ve got Board Member’s questions, comments, announcements. I know that we skipped the NVCAP. We have something before that. It’s the 656 Lytton. That’s just to notify everybody that we have the memo of what was discussed at the ad hoc committee in our packet. I don’t know if there is anything else to discuss with that one. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes. For 656 Lytton, normally we would put these final memos in with the minutes. We don’t have minutes, therefore it is in this announcement location. Because it is an ad hoc committee it does not need to be voted on. It’s just for information. 5. North of Ventura Coordinated Area Plan (NVCAP) Working Group Updates – Boardmember Lew Chair Thompson: Great. Thanks. The NVCAP update. Board Member Lew: For staff, we didn’t discuss the height transitions issue. Ms. Gerhardt: Oh yeah. Chair Thompson: We didn’t. 4.a Packet Pg. 230 City of Palo Alto Page 60 Ms. Gerhardt: We did not. Thank you for that. Board Member Lew: I actually think that is more important that the objective standards after thinking about it. Chair Thompson: Is that a separate change to vote on? Ms. Gerhardt: It is part of the objective standards overall project. It is separate from 18.24 but it is part of the whole project. I think we are running on stamina and that is what I am wondering about. We do have a meeting on 04/15. I don’t know if Jean would be available on 04/15. If we kept it to a very limited discussion on just the height transition maybe we could fit it in. Would you be available, Jean? Ms. Eisberg: Yes. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. Maybe if we just did that first and we try to keep it very focused. Chair Thompson: Okay. That sounds good. Ms. Gerhardt: Okay. We just made a motion on objective standards. Maybe we need to reopen that and make a slight change to that motion saying that the height transition would continue. Chair Thompson: Yes. Ms. Eisberg: Just to clarify, the height transition is not part of the new chapter 18.24 that the motion was made on. Ms. Gerhardt: True. Actually, we don’t need a motion on it because it is a little out of the purview of the ARB. It is more that we wanted the ARB to discuss and we would like to hear the perspective of architects. We can leave the motion as is and it would be a discussion on 04/15 because there wouldn’t even need to be a motion on 04/15. It is just a discussion. We can do it like that, then. Chair Thompson: That works. Ms. Gerhardt: Thank you. Chair Thompson: Thanks for bringing that up, Alex. NVCAP update. Board Member Lew: I am looking at my old notes. (Inaudible) and it ultimately passed on a 4-2 vote with some modifications. It is going to the Council sometime soon. I think around April or May. That is all that I have got on that item. Chair Thompson: Okay. Thank you. There was a request to ask about the status of 4260 El Camino. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, I believe Board Member Baltay asked for a readout on this, which is very acceptable. We do normally do decision letters within five days of the ARB’s recommendation. We absolutely took the ARB’s recommendation of denial seriously. We had a conversation with the property owner soon after the public hearing just so that they understood what had happened at the hearing. There was a request from the property owner to give them an additional chance to make some significant changes. The Director at this moment is honoring that limited request, giving them two weeks to see what they can come up with. There have been no promises of any sort, other than we will give them two weeks to see if they can make some significant changes. Once we receive those revisions, then there will be more discussion and a decision made of where to go from there. Chair Thompson: Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? 4.a Packet Pg. 231 City of Palo Alto Page 61 Board Member Baltay: If I may, what I am hearing, Jodie, is that the Director did not follow up on our recommendation regarding 4260. Ms. Gerhardt: The Director… Board Member Baltay: It’s not a policy; it’s a city law that the Director has to answer within five days following our recommendation or not. The fact that he did not is exactly that. I just want to be clear for the records that what I am hearing is that the Director is not taking the recommendation of the ARB on this issue. Ms. Gerhardt: I wouldn’t characterize it in that way. The property owner asked for some additional time and the Director agreed to give additional time and not adhere to that five days. The Director has not made a decision on this project one way or the other. Board Member Baltay: It is in black and white in the city law that the Director has to make a decision within five days. It’s not optional. What am I missing? Vice Chair Lee: May I ask, on a minor application if it is denied it always goes to the Director then for direction? Is that standard? I just wasn’t sure? (Crosstalk) Ms. Gerhardt: Once a decision is made on a project like this, the property owner would have the ability to appeal it to Council. Board Member Baltay: That’s right. That’s their recourse or the Director can overrule us. That’s his prerogative. I just want to understand if that is really what is happening. Ms. Gerhardt: The Director has made no decision at this time. Board Member Baltay: Okay, thanks, Jodie. That’s all I wanted to hear. Thank you, Osma. Chair Thompson: Thank you. Anything else, Board Members? Questions? Comments? No, all right. We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody, for all of your hard work. I appreciate you staying late. Ms. Gerhardt: Yes, thank you, everyone. Adjournment 4.a Packet Pg. 232