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Home My WebLink About2024-06-26 Planning and Transportation Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Planning & Transportation Commission 2 Verbatim Minutes: June 26, 2024 3 Council Chambers & Virtual 4 6:00 PM 5 6 Call to Order / Roll Call 7 6:02 PM 8 9 ROLL CALL 10 Chair Chang: Good evening everyone. I’d like to call to call to order this regular meeting of the 11 Planning and Transportation Commission for Wednesday, June 26, 2024. Ms. Dao, could you 12 please call the roll? 13 14 Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 15 16 Chair Chang: Present. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 19 20 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Present. 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Can you confirm if you have anyone over 18 in the room? 1 2 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: No one else is in the room with me. So I’m – I have no constraints. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Great. Thank you. Commissioner Akin? 5 6 Commissioner Akin: Here. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman said he’s running a little late. Commissioner Lu? 9 10 Commissioner Lu: Present. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 13 14 Commissioner Summa: Here. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Here. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 1 2 Oral Communications 3 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 4 5 Chair Chang: Okay. Our first order of business is public comment. Are there any members of the 6 public who submitted speaker cards? 7 8 Veronica Dao: I have none for oral communications. 9 10 Chair Chang: Okay, great. Then our next order of business is Agenda Changes, Additions and 11 Deletions. 12 13 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 14 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 15 16 Chief Planning Official Amy French: There are no changes tonight. 17 18 Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. And now we go on to City Official Reports. Ms. French? 19 City Official Reports 20 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Amy French: [Inaudible 12:52]. Good evening, Amy French, Chief Planning Official. Showing 2 some upcoming dates for Planning and Transportation Commission this summer. We have a 3 few things moving around but our next meeting is July 10th. We are expecting to have a map… 4 5 Female: I think we’re [inaudible 13:20]. Turn that off maybe. 6 7 Chair Chang: Excuse me, just a second. 8 9 Female: There’s an echo. 10 11 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton and I are having some bizarre issue where there’s a little 12 voice and sound coming through our iPods and we can’t turn the volume off. It’s not me. 13 Testing, testing, testing. Okay, so how do we turn that off? 14 15 Male: [Inaudible 13:57]. 16 17 Chair Chang: Where? 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Did you see how it was [inaudible 14:02]? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: No. 2 3 Female: I’ll speak again and see what happens. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 14:07] somehow. 6 7 Chair Chang: Is it me? Oh, okay. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 10 11 Chair Chang: Perfect. I think we’ve solved the problem. 12 13 Female: Okay. 14 15 Chair Chang: Oh, yours is too? Testing, testing, testing. It’s connecting audio here, so we’re 16 getting [inaudible 14:25]. 17 18 Female: [Thank you 14:30]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Amy French: Okay. Proceeding. Summer Planning and Transportation Commission agenda is on 1 your screen. Things move around sometimes but we’re looking to July 10, August 14 with PDS 2 items here, and then at the end of August, we’ll have a few more and one from the Office of 3 Transportation. Okay. And then just to give an update on behalf of the Office of Transportation, 4 the – I guess this was – this is the updates from recent Council meetings. The June 17 meeting 5 was when Council voted to support the Caltrans repaving project; it includes removing parking 6 lanes to allow for the installation of protected bike lanes on El Camino Real and then there was 7 the Caltrain Grade Separation Update where Council approved and authorized staff to proceed 8 with Preliminary Engineering and Environmental Documentation Phase for the following 9 alternatives: partial underpass alternative at Churchill; that was on June 10. And then bicycle 10 and pedestrian crossing location at Seale Avenue on June 10 and the underpass and hybrid 11 alternatives for Meadow Drive and Charleston Road on June 18. I think there’s a summary if 12 Planning Commission would like to ask questions. I have data regarding this if there’s questions. 13 Just to give a quick overview of the August/September timeframe with Council where there will 14 be some items that the Planning and Transportation Commission will have reviewed. As you 15 know, the NVCAP was going to go on June 18 but was postponed till August 5, and there’s a 16 couple of other ones here that may be of interest to the Planning and Transportation 17 Commission. So I know some of you have asked when items are coming forward and I wanted 18 to give you a heads up on future items. Okay. So that concludes my presentation. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Action Items 1 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 2 3 2. PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI-JUDICAL: 830 Los Trancos Road [23PLN-00346]: 4 Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Site and Design Review 5 Application to Allow Construction of a new Two-Story 4,119 sf Multi-use Accessory 6 Structure Containing an Attached 1,831 sf Two-Car Garage with a Shop, and an 7 Attached 891 sf Art Studio. An Attached 891 sf Second Floor Accessory Dwelling Unit 8 is Not Subject to Planning and Transportation Commission Review. Zoning District: 9 OS (Open Space). Environmental Assessment: Exempt from the California 10 Environmental Quality Act per Section 15303 (Accessory Structures). For More 11 Information Contact the Project Planner Kristina Dobkevicius at 12 Kristina.Dobkevicius@Cityofpaloalto.org. 13 14 Chair Chang: All right. Are – the one and only action item tonight is a Public Hearing/Quasi-15 Judicial for 830 Los Trancos Road, and this is a Recommendation on the Applicant’s Request for 16 Approval of a Site Design Review Application to Allow Construction of a new Two-story 4,119 17 square foot Multi-use Accessory Structure Containing an Attached 1,831 square foot Two-Car 18 Garage with a Shop and an Attached 891 square foot Art Studio. An Attached 891 square foot 19 Second Floor Accessory Dwelling Unit is not subject to PTC review. All right, could we have the 20 staff presentation? 21 22 Amy French: So, yes. Kristina will be uploading her presentation and introducing Kristina from 23 the current planning section. And another thing is we did receive a couple of questions from 24 Planning and Transportation Commissioners and we endeavored to send those out this 25 afternoon with some staff responses. Thank you. 26 27 Chair Chang: Oh, should I ask for disclosures now before the presentation? 28 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Amy French: Oh, yes. I think that would be helpful. 2 3 Chair Chang: Right. So why don’t we just go down the line starting at Commissioner Lu and see 4 if there’s any disclosures. 5 6 Commissioner Lu: I have no disclosures. 7 8 Commissioner Summa: I made a site visit and didn’t see anyone there. 9 10 Commissioner Akin: No disclosures for me. 11 12 Chair Chang: So I made a site visit and noticed that in addition to the location where the new 13 structure is proposed, which is very close to 820 – the residents on 820. There is also higher up 14 the hill potentially another spot for – that might be well suited for a structure. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 18:38]. 17 18 Chair Chang: I was told to disclose it by… 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 18:42] you found another site? 1 2 Chair Chang: No, just that I saw another opening – open areas as information. Yeah. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Very interesting. Well thank you for sharing. I have no disclosures. 5 6 Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 7 8 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. And so I did visit it also and I had quite a few observations. The 9 building is on the backside of the house and the Staff Report does say that it doesn’t really 10 affect the neighbor’s view and I seem to agree with that. We went to the front door of the 11 neighbor’s house and you can see up and you can see the top of the story poles but not enough 12 that any of the windows would be visible. So it really isn’t that much of a privacy issue but still 13 the Staff Report says 90 feet and 150 feet. Really out there felt a lot closer than that. So it isn’t 14 so much of a privacy issue but it is – I could see that the neighbors kind of feeling this intrusion 15 there. And then the other thing was this proposed driveway. I thought when I looked at the 16 plans that it was [serpentine 19:39] to change elevation but it’s purely because of this 17 easement issue. And it kind of – from an environmental standpoint, it seems kind of silly. You 18 put in a whole bunch of gravel out on this open space purely just to get around a legal issue, 19 not an engineering issue. And that said, this is really a challenging lot. It’s long and skinny, so 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. anything you build up there is going to be relatively close to another parcel. And also part of 1 this long, skinny portion is up towards the top of the ridgeline, so that’s also going to make it 2 harder − further [inaudible 20:15] making it harder to build there. So it’s just a very difficult 3 process. That’s all. 4 5 Chair Chang: Thank you. All right. Let’s hear the Staff Report now. 6 7 Associate Planner Kristina Dobkevicius: Good evening, Commissioners. Public. My name is 8 Kristina Dobkevicius. I am an associate planner with the City of Palo Alto. You hear me well? 9 10 Chair Chang: Yeah. 11 12 Kristina Dobkevicius: Thank you. And I am today presenting this new multi-story – multi-use 13 accessory structure at 830 Los Trancos Road. The project includes a request for a site and 14 design approval for a proposed accessory structure within the open space district. The project is 15 located on a 10.64 acre site at 830 Los Trancos Road. The property’s currently developed with a 16 single-family residential home, pool, and a detached pool house. New accessory structure will 17 be approximately 4,119 square feet large, 24 feet and 9 inches tall. The project is located in the 18 Open Space Controlled Development area that is adjacent to Portola Valley. Open Space 19 Controlled Development area allows for some development on the private properties but 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. requires that open space amenities must be retained in these areas. The project includes a new 1 accessory structure that is associated with the existing single-family residential uses on the site 2 and does not impact open space amenities and is consistent with this land use designation. 3 Proposed accessory structure is located in a relatively flat southern portion of the site below 4 the surrounding ridgelines and out of the view from Arastradero Preserve. A new, 12-foot wide 5 gravel driveway extension is proposed along the backside of the property and – thank you. 6 Some of the construction includes building retaining walls for the primary structure and also on 7 [slope 22:47] cuts and for some of the retaining walls will be needed for the stair. Site contains 8 20 trees adjacent to the – in the vicinity where the project is proposed. None of the trees are 9 protected trees and none of the protected trees are proposed to be removed. The accessory 10 structure includes two-car garage and a workshop on the ground floor, stair and landing on 11 both the first and the second level, an art studio on the second level, and also an ADU on the 12 second level that’s highlighted in red. And the ADU must be processed ministerially. It only 13 requires a building permit; however, since it’s proposed on the second floor of the structure, 14 that requires a discretionary review. It can be processed as a building permit until the 15 foundations for the primary accessory structure and garage are built. Open space review 16 criteria requires site and structure design to take into consideration impacts on privacy. There 17 are elevations in 3D renderings provided by the applicant and they show frosted glass for the 18 windows. Almost all the windows have frosted glass with some [high-sill 24:26] windows on the 19 sides and there’s also privacy screen for the decks. The project complies with the Open Space 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Development Standards as well as Open Space Review Criteria per Palo Alto Municipal Code 1 Section 18.28.070P and a complete list of this criteria is provided in the record of land use 2 action Attachment B. Under the state law, when an application for an ADU is submitted 3 concurrently with an application for the accessory structure, that is subject to discretionary 4 review. Action to the ADU may be delayed until the City acts on the accessory structure. The 5 Open Space Controlled Development requires that the proposed project includes a new – said 6 that the proposed project does not impact open space amenities and is consistent with the land 7 use designation. And also per the CEQA, California Environmental Quality Act, the City of Palo 8 Alto, as an acting lead agency, has evaluated that the proposed project is in accordance with 9 CEQA guidelines and is not – are exempt from the CEQA in accordance with Section 15303 New 10 Construction of Accessory Structures. The proposed construction is minor and is limited to a 11 new accessory structure and associated landscaping improvements. Some of the existing trees 12 − 8 trees, non-protected small trees will be removed on a southern portion of the site close to 13 the existing private driveway easement. An accessory structure with an attached ADU on the 14 second floor and associated site improvements are permitted uses in the Open Space Zoning 15 District when associated with existing residential uses on the site. As condition, the proposed 16 design meets regulations, including landscaping, location, privacy, and architectural materials. 17 And the intention of controlled development district is to protect, preserve, and permit the 18 reasonable use of open space land. The project proposes no changes in use that would affect its 19 conformance with the comprehensive plan. And some of the key considerations are on your 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. screen. The project does not require removal of any of the protected trees with a 1 circumference of 37.5 inches or larger. Only eight non-protected trees will need to be removed 2 to accommodate the project. The project also proposes obscured window glazing for the 3 second-floor windows and a solid, 6-foot tall screen. The project also includes new native, low-4 water landscaping to screen views over time. The project was initially designed to be accessed 5 directly from the shared-access easement immediately adjacent to the accessory structure and 6 that way that reduced the required grading for the access. However, this was modified in the 7 current design to be accessed from the main residence in response to the neighbor’s 8 comments. The Open Space criteria also encourages development to reduce fragmentation of 9 natural habitats be clustered or closely grouped in relation to the area. And from the ecological 10 perspective, the accessory structure is located in an area surrounded by existing development. 11 It’s relatively close to the neighboring parcel at 820 Los Trancos but does not contribute to 12 additional habitat fragmentation. The proposed use is an allowed use within the Open Space 13 Controlled Development land use designation and is permitted within the Open Space Zoning 14 District. Staff recommends that Council approves the proposed site and design review 15 application to the City Council and based on the objectives and Open Space design criteria 16 subject to conditions of approval. Thank you. 17 18 Chair Chang: Okay. Great. Thank you. And then do we have presentations from the applicant? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Joel Baumgardner: Yes. Hello, my name is Joel Baumgardner. I’m the architect for Jerome and 1 Bert [who own 29:46] 830 Los Trancos. I have a presentation to share. If I can share my screen 2 with you. I’ll try to do that here. 3 4 Albert Bower: [Inaudible 29:58]. 5 6 Female: [Inaudible 29:58]. 7 8 Albert Bower: I’m Bert Bower. My husband is Jerome Shaw. But we talked about [inaudible 9 30:05] and Jerome. [Inaudible 30:07]. That’s who we are. 10 11 Joel Baumgardner: Did I hear Bert and Jerome there? 12 13 Albert Bower: We’re here. 14 15 Joel Baumgardner: [Inaudible 30:16] Hey, Bert. How you doing? 16 17 Albert Bower: [Inaudible 30:17]. 18 19 Joel Baumgardner: Shall I begin? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Albert Bower: [Inaudible 30:19]. 2 3 Joel Baumgardner: I think I heard [inaudible 30:23]. 4 5 Chair Chang: Yes, please go ahead and… 6 7 Joel Baumgardner: Okay, I’m having trouble hearing their microphone. Yeah, so I’m the 8 architect for them and I’m just going to walk you through. Kristina did a nice job, so I’ll probably 9 skip over a couple slides. I want to talk about the project description, which again she kind of 10 covered. The project location – why we chose this location and how we think it complies with 11 the criteria and then also address some comments from the neighbors previously raised. You’ve 12 seen the description. Two-story building, ADU, art studio upstairs over a garage and shop with a 13 stairway. This is how it breaks down on the first floor, a shop at the back. Second floor is split 14 pretty evenly. These elevations you’ve seen. I do want to point out that we have the narrow 15 gable end facing the neighbor and we’ve tried to put the longer ends facing north and south 16 away as well as the stair circulation path. And then on the uphill side, we’ve done our best to 17 try and make this seem as low as possible by cutting into the outside, so it sort of reads like a 18 one-story from up above. Here’s another section. A section view showing you that there’s no 19 proposed additional [fill 13:40], just cuts to some of the building down into the landscape. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Okay, so why did we choose this location given the site and what about the Open Space 1 criteria? So as discussed, the site is across from the neighbor of 820, but it’s really part of now 2 what could be a cluster of three buildings away from the Arastradero Preserve and other 3 undeveloped wildlands on both properties and surrounding properties. So again, it’s this cluster 4 idea. And really the main thing we’ve tried to do is balance the different criteria, so privacy, 5 location, and hillside development concerns. So that’s where we’re looking at. How did we 6 choose this location? Well I’ll walk you through the different criteria. So you guys know these 7 OS criteria. I’m going to address 1, 2, 4, and 5 here next with a few slides, and then I’ll touch on 8 privacy. And so we’re sort of balancing again 1, 2, 4, and 5 versus the privacy. So there’s a major 9 ridge on top of which sits the main house at 830, which was allowed because there was a 10 previous house going way, way back and this was rebuilt about 10 years ago. Recently, 820 was 11 constructed down in sort of what is a hollow below coming up the shared-access driveway. And 12 again, we’ve decided to cluster next to – really make a cluster of three buildings and – but also 13 use the hollow as a way to be lower on the hillside and really not much further away than we 14 could be if we put it up here and at a lower elevation relative to the neighbor, so not looking 15 down on top of them. Here’s some 3D views from Google Earth emphasizing the ridge and then 16 the hollow and the proposed location. Again, the Arastradero Preserve Open Space. Public 17 space over here. And meaning at the top of 830 where the main house is now, any additional 18 development on that knoll would be pretty visible from that preserve, possibly from other 19 neighbors around as well. Here’s a view looking from another direction. You can see that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. depression where we’re proposing to put the building and also the height of 830 relative to the 1 [inaudible 34:00] to 820 and the Arastradero Preserve. Now we’re going to take a look from the 2 preserve, so this is that ridge looking back down and then I’m – what I did was I grabbed this 3 view off Google, which you can see this is from the preserve and you can see how the 4 structures on that knoll are visible up there. So again, we wanted to get away from that. They’ll 5 be down the hill to not be prominent and add new hillside – hilltop development. Privacy. Okay, 6 so we have to balance where we’re putting it with privacy and we looked at this and we said, 7 “Well those four criteria are pretty stern about not being on top of a hill and being that visible, 8 so let’s put it down there, but let’s try and be considerate of the neighbor. What can we do for 9 privacy?” And we worked with Kristina too to add measures along the way, which we’ll – I’ll talk 10 about. So currently, the neighbor’s house at 820 is more or less a u-shaped structure that faces 11 away from the proposed location. The private – apparently, the private courtyard seems to be 12 on the other side and this does then seem to be that the entry and street side are facing where 13 we’re proposing to put it. So in other words, the less public − even though this is a private road 14 location, we felt like it was good to sort of – we’re not developing up on the hill here looking 15 down on the neighbor’s courtyard. We’re trying to be mindful and be away from it. And again, 16 beyond that more public side, realizing that we’re about 90 feet from what appears to be an 17 accessory structure and then about 175 feet to the back edge of the main house, which isn’t 18 too dissimilar from the current distance as the crow flies from the pool house up the hill at the 19 main house down. So it didn’t feel like, the main house at least, an inappropriate distance. And 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. again, given the fact that it’s the more public side. Also I should point out there’s several 1 immature trees. Granted, we’re taking out some trees over here on the property that are very 2 small but we’re proposing to replant, screening, and more trees but that we’re not doing – no 3 one’s – the neighbor will keep all the mature trees that add to privacy. And then here’s the 4 entry that I think the Commissioner mentioned you could see some of the story poles up there 5 but that’s it. It's just a – I would imagine it’s a fairly sliver of a view. And again, that’s the front 6 door, so it’s not like we’re looking into that courtyard or swimming pool. So it felt like the right 7 location for those reasons. Below the hill, trying to be mindful of privacy, trying to be a 8 respectful distance away. This is the view from what would be about the garage door of this 9 proposed building. These are the small trees that admittedly would go away. We are proposing 10 working with Kristina to add more screening back. Something about that height. And again, 11 beyond you can see the trees of the neighbor’s property, the mature trees that are helping to 12 provide privacy. So again, here’s the view − a floorplan with – to the left is 820. And so working 13 with Kristina, we have added screen planting along that property line to help privatize. Upstairs, 14 we’re adding opaque glazing practically all the way around the building as well as solid screens 15 on the decks. So no one can really look out over or see from the neighbors back up inside to the 16 building. Again, here’s an elevation look at the different opaque glazing locations and potential 17 screening that we proposed to put in to help mitigate the removal of the trees. Quickly, to run 18 through the rest of the criteria. Existing trees were mentioned. We’re not taking out anything 19 protected. We are putting back two trees for every one that we’re taking out. I – the amount of 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. impervious area is limited to back up space for cars and a small patio for projects outside the 1 garage. In terms of cut and fill I mentioned before, we’re really only cutting, we’re not filling. 2 Natural materials, native species, and lighting. The next board I’ll show you we’re using very 3 muted material, colors generated in part from the neighbor’s house. We like the look of it and 4 so these colors are sympathetic to the neighbor’s house. In terms of lighting, we’re using Dark 5 Sky certified cut-off fixtures everywhere. And again, with those new plantings, they would be all 6 native plants; species Coast Live Oak and possibly Pacific Wax Myrtle for screening. The access 7 road is something that if we were able to do the original design, we’d love to keep it that way. 8 We’d love to have a simple access off the easement. It seems reasonable. Unfortunately, the 9 neighbor objected, so we’ve got this long road that comes down from above. In the case of the 10 long road, it would be gravel, which is a rural character. In the case of something here, it could 11 be asphalt but certainly no curves or anything like that are proposed. Very rural character. 12 Again, this is the difference in the two driveway approaches that we unfortunately were left 13 with. Finally, just to talk about a few comment responses responding to the neighbor’s letter. I 14 – that I didn’t cover before. The easement – so I’m an architect. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t 15 know all the legalities of the easement. It just seems like common sense would say there’s an 16 easement there and we’ve done a really good job siting the building, keeping it low, keeping it 17 private, why not let us use the shortest access route we can and avoid this thing? Noise. There 18 was a comment about noise in the AC/heating units. It surprised me a little bit. We’re on the 19 complete backside of the building and we’re – the units proposed to be put at the backside of 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the building and they are limited to 62 dBa at 26 feet away. So we feel like that’s controlled by 1 regular planning rules. There was a comment about garbage and refuse. Many rural properties, 2 garbage is taken by vehicle to a bin, and so it seems like that would be the case here. If we can’t 3 use the easement to take trash down the hill, we would go up to the main house and then back 4 down again. Geologic study. This is an important one. I didn’t want to let this go without being 5 noticed, so I emailed our geotechnical engineer this morning and I said, “Chris, is there anything 6 in this project that could cause potential hazard to life or property on the subject or 7 surrounding properties?” And he wrote back and said, ‘No.’ Lastly, drainage. Granted, at this 8 point, it’s a planning application, so we aren’t providing details and plans showing all of the 9 drainage, but I can assure that we’ll be in compliance with Palo Alto and State Regulations, 10 which are very strict about how we deal with water on the property. And in almost all cases, 11 the water gets put back into the ground to – ground water table and is recharging ground water 12 and filtering it all on site. So that’s − I think Kristina did such a good job, I’m not going to labor 13 too much more with all this project descriptions and I’m available for questions and thank you. 14 15 Chair Chang: Thank you. So now… 16 17 Amy French: Yes, thank you. Just wanted to make sure that it’s clear that we did send out a 18 letter and it does have a different take than the Staff Report regarding that easement. And so if 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. you wanted to ask for the questions of staff, we have Albert Yang, our attorney, able to answer 1 any questions, maybe if there’s a need before the public testimony. 2 3 Chair Chang: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So it’s time for clarifying questions from the 4 Commissioners right now and maybe I’ll kick it off with the one that Ms. French seated, which is 5 Mr. Yang, could you please describe to us what the difference in opinion from the Staff Report 6 is because I’m not sure everybody got the chance to read it? 7 8 Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: I’d also just like to state for the record that Commissioner 9 Hechtman joined us during the staff presentation, and we should give him a chance to make 10 disclosures and also let us know if he’s alone in the room. 11 12 Chair Chang: Great. Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, thank you. I am appearing remotely with just cause. I am alone 15 here at the location in Napa. Address has been provided. And I do have a disclosure on this 16 item. I did have a conversation earlier in the week with Mr. Klingsporn, one of the attorneys for 17 the neighbor. And during that conversation, we discussed the content of the two letters 18 authored by his law partner, Mindie Romanowsky, generally dealing with issues of privacy and 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. easement access, the same issues that I see to be present in their most recent letter, the June 1 24th letter. Those are my disclosures. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Chang: Thank you. 4 5 Albert Yang: So getting to your question, Chair. The Staff Report, I think, just said in a very sort 6 of plain and short manner that staff disagreed with the neighbor comment letters on the issue 7 of the easement and I think that is – on further review, we determined that was sort of 8 overstating the staff position. And so in short, staff used this question of the easement as a 9 legal issue that we are not able to resolve, and so we think that there is a substantial question 10 on whether or not this unit and this structure can be accessed over the easement, but we’re 11 not able to resolve it one way or the other. So there are a few options that we would 12 recommend or suggest that the PTC could take. One of them, if the Commission is inclined to 13 approve the project and is to have a condition stating that if any – the PTC is not taking a 14 position on the issue of the easement and any risks arising from that open question are borne 15 solely by the applicant. 16 17 Chair Chang: And then were there another option that you wanted to talk about? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Albert Yang: Yes, if the PTC were inclined not to recommend the project, it could take this issue, 1 the uncertainty around the easement and the access, into account as in making its findings for 2 that. 3 4 Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. Does any other Commissioner have clarifying questions? 5 Commissioner Akin. 6 7 Commissioner Akin: Thank you, Chair. So I spent a very long time poring over topo maps to get 8 a sense for visibility and how that could affect the − meeting the Open Space review criteria. It 9 looks like there might be a few other sites on the property where that’s possible. So for Mr. 10 Baumgardner, I believe, which other sites on the property did you consider? 11 12 Chair Chang: Go ahead, Mr. Baumgardner. 13 14 Joel Baumgardner: Again, we looked at that top knoll up there where there is a flat, clear spot 15 but it just seemed so visible from almost 360 degrees as to be a non-starter. And then if we 16 were to say go south between the current main house at 830 and the house at 820, first of all, 17 it’s extremely steep but then we’d also be looking out over the neighbor. And then the other 18 possible space would be on the far side of the main house, which is just sort of impractical to 19 get a driveway around the main house and down the hill and then cut into what is kind of 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. untouched natural space. So again, we’ve looked at sort of north, west and south locations 1 around the main house but they just didn’t seem like they fit the design criteria guidelines for 2 Open Space. 3 4 Chair Chang: Is that clear, Commissioner Akin? 5 6 Commissioner Akin: Yeah, I – there are more detailed questions that I could ask but I think 7 they’re better put off until later then. 8 9 Chair Chang: Okay. Then we’ll have Commissioner Reckdahl and then go to Commissioner 10 Templeton. Go ahead. 11 12 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, to follow up on that. If you scooted the house up the driveway a bit 13 – I mean that − it has some problems [that introduce 47:14] because now you’re looking more 14 over the neighbors, and so it would have some downside, but it would be a little farther away 15 from the neighbors too. Did you look at that? Could you slide it up further? 16 17 Joel Baumgardner: We did. That was actually one of our first spots we looked at but it increases 18 in steepness as we go up that hill, so where we are now, there’s relatively flat spot. It’s not flat 19 but it’s compared to going up the hill. It’s very steep just a little ways up the hill. And so… 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, I walked that end. It is – it’s not shallow. It’s fairly steep. 2 3 Joel Baumgardner: Yeah. 4 5 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: But… 6 7 Joel Baumgardner: So I mean I – Bert and I talked [inaudible 47:51] and he said, “What if we put 8 it here?” And I said, “Well let’s get this survey, so we can really see what the slopes are.” So we 9 got the survey and I said, “Gosh, this is way steeper than – it just doesn’t make sense. You’re 10 going have not just a one-story underground, you might have your two stories underground or 11 at least 1½.” So it just didn’t seem plausible as a spot. Also it was like kind of spreading out the 12 development and the roadway access and cuts and fills that would be required to get a road up 13 there. Granted, we’ll coming down from above now but we’d rather not. 14 15 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Did you discuss any of these potential other sites with the neighbors 16 at all? 17 18 Joel Baumgardner: I have not. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Reckdahl: So do you know if the neighbors have a preference of − if you were to 1 build somewhere, do they have a preferred site? 2 3 Joel Baumgardner: Not to my knowledge. [inaudible 48:40] Bert or Jerome. 4 5 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 6 7 Chair Chang: Commissioner Templeton. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Yang, can you clarify – I think I understood you 10 to say that the access issue being unresolved is a reason to deny the project based on – which 11 criteria? I didn’t hear which one you suggested. 12 13 Albert Yang: No, I wasn’t suggesting that the PTC needs to do anything with it. Just that it could 14 consider the uncertainty as one of its – in its deliberation. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Which criteria does that apply to? I just want to make sure we’re 17 clear. We could spend hours on this, so we need to be – we need that guidance from you… 18 19 Albert Yang: Yeah. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: …to have that context. 2 3 Albert Yang: Okay. So it would be – I think it could fit into 1830G060A, ensuring that 4 construction and operation of the use is going to be orderly. 5 6 Chair Chang: So that’s on Packet Page 17 if anybody wants to follow along. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And then, totally unrelated, but a question to Mr. 9 Baumgardner. You have all your glazing – I apologize if this is a standard industry thing but just 10 my knowledge of what opaque means may not match but you’re having glazing that is not 11 letting any light through or… 12 13 Joel Baumgardner: Yeah, perhaps… 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: …obscured? 16 17 Joel Baumgardner: …opaque is a strong word. What we mean by that is translucent, so that 18 would be… 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 50:35]. 1 2 Joel Baumgardner: …like frosted glass or shower glass that’s not visible but does let light in. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: That makes a lot more sense. I just wanted to make sure we’re all on 5 the same page there. Thank you. That’s my questions for now. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay. I don’t see any other questions from Commissioners. So at this time, we’re 8 going to move to public comment. Ms. Dao. 9 10 PUBLIC COMMENT 11 12 Veronica Dao: Yes, one speaker card from Greg Klingsporn. 13 14 Greg Klingsporn: Thank you, Chair Chang and the Commissioners. Can you hear me all right? 15 16 Chair Chang: If you could speak a little closer to the mic that’d be very helpful. Thank you. 17 18 Greg Klingsporn: I will do that. Is that better? Great. My name is Greg Klingsporn. I’m a Attorney 19 at Jorgenson, Siegel, McClure and Flegel in Menlo Park. We represent the owner of the 820 Los 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Trancos property, which is an LLC named Walnut Holdings. I want to start with kind of a 1 response to some of the presentation by both the staff, and in particular, the applicant’s 2 architect. You might be thinking about what’s – why the objection from the neighbor given all 3 of the consideration that was given as far as the location and the privacy that Mr. Baumgardner 4 described. But I think as you just heard, there’s really been no communication by the applicant. 5 We – my client received no notice that this project was in the works. Didn’t get a courtesy call 6 from the neighbor saying, “Hey, I’m thinking of putting a building in. Let’s talk about where I’d 7 like to put it or where you’d like to see it.” Or anything like that. Never had any communication 8 from Mr. Baumgardner, saying, “Hey, here is a plan. Here’s a sketch. Let’s walk the property.” 9 Anything like that. When we – when my client did get notice that there was a project, it had 10 already been applied for. He did reach out to his neighbor and said, “Hey, I’d like to talk to you 11 about this. I’m not so sure about it.” And the response was, “You should talk to the City 12 because they got the application. You can present your comments to them.” So I just would like 13 you to know those facts in evaluating the applicant’s presentation as to the reasons why it is 14 where it is. There were no considerations given to the preferences of my client because they 15 weren’t asked for that. I’ve submitted a letter. I don’t have enough time nor do I think you want 16 to hear me go through everything that was in that letter, but there are basically two separate 17 and independent reasons to not recommend this project for approval. The first, it goes to the 18 criteria for Open Space, and you heard Mr. Yang mention that one of the criteria is that it’s got 19 to be orderly, harmonious, and compatible with the existing uses. This is not a 900 square foot 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. ADU. This is a two-story, more than 4,000 square foot structure, and it is a relatively massive 1 structure that is 90 feet from my client’s home. It’s not correct to say that there aren’t views 2 from that structure to my client’s living areas. There are views to the kitchen windows, to the 3 dining room windows. There are views to the front door and those are all privacy issues and 4 compatibility issues with the existing use. I think if you look at the maps − there was a map I put 5 into my letter and some other ones that I attached and there’s some in the staff report. This 6 structure is located as close to my client’s residence as it could possibly be and not be on his 7 property, and it is about as far away from the applicant’s home as it could possibly be and still 8 be on his property, and that just doesn’t seem right. And it certainly isn’t a reflection of 9 consideration for my client’s privacy or his views or his preferences. And I don’t believe that you 10 can truly make a finding that it’s compatible. As to the easement and the access, it’s correct. 11 That’s a legal issue. I’ve been practicing real estate law for about a quarter century and it’s 12 usually, particularly in real estate law, there’s always an argument for both sides. There’s very 13 rarely just a clear answer, and I think this case gets about as close to a question that’s already 14 been answered as you can get. That for decades, California law says, “If you got an easement 15 for a parcel, it benefits that parcel.” If the owner then goes and buys more land, the easement 16 doesn’t extend to that additional land. Now they can negotiate for something. They could say, 17 “Hey, I’d like to get access to this new land.” But it doesn’t follow that because the applicant 18 owned parcel 3 and then enlarged parcel 3 that the easement allows him to access the new 19 land. In fact, it’s the opposite. And it doesn’t matter what the use is. It doesn’t matter whether 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. it’s a lot of use or a little use. It just – there’s no legal access. And just as you wouldn’t 1 recommend approval of the 830 property, were it vacant, to build a house on top of the ridge 2 with no driveway, you shouldn’t recommend approval of a 4,000 square foot structure on a 3 piece of property that has no legal access to it. I see my time is down to a few seconds, so I will 4 be here for questions. If there are any that come up during the discussions, I am happy to come 5 back up to the podium. And thank you for your attention. 6 7 Chair Chang: Thank you. Ms. Dao, are there additional public comments? 8 9 Veronica Dao: No, just the one. 10 11 Chair Chang: Okay, great. Thank you. So now we bring it back to the Commission for discussion. 12 Does anybody… 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Chair. Rebuttal, Chair. 15 16 Chair Chang: Thank you. Rebuttal. So there’s – the applicant has time for a 3-minute rebuttal. 17 Would the applicant like to speak? Yes, you’re the applicant. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Joel Baumgardner: As I mentioned, I don’t know the legal easement law issues involved here 1 [inaudible 57:10]. 2 3 Chair Chang: Mr. Baumgardner, I think your client is also interested in speaking. 4 5 Joel Baumgardner: Okay. I will… 6 7 Albert Bower: Thank you for that. Much true about what he said. Basically, my husband and I 8 were here 12 years ago in this very chamber and we worked really closely with you two to build 9 our home. It was on 9.5 acres. We needed 10 acres or more in open space to add another 10 structure with a bathroom. That’s why we bought from [Betty Lee 57:42], who the Lee’s owned 11 the whole area, and she graciously gave us another 1.5 acres. And so we always intended to 12 build another structure. Then my husband had one bad hip replacement of which I was the 13 nursemaid. Then another bad hip replacement that I was the nursemaid, and now he’s going to 14 have both knees done. And I need some help. I need an ADU with someone living in there to 15 help me. I’ve taken a lot of meals up and down our stairs, so I did talk to Dean. Dean’s a great 16 neighbor. He’s a wonderful friend. In my discussions with him, he said, “Let’s talk this through. 17 What could you think? Could you move it?” And I said, “Let’s see if we can legally put it where 18 we think is best suited.” And he just said, “Okay, I’ll take it to my attorneys.” So that’s where we 19 are and what I’m concerned about is following the rules of the Open Space in Palo Alto. That’s 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. how we built our home. If − I’m seeing what you have said legally and that’s true about the 1 easement and going over that part of the easement. That’s why we came all the way from the 2 big [part 59:08] because it’s from our property onto our property. We don’t need to cross the 3 easement that’s already there. But I 100 percent want to do this legally. I want my neighbor to 4 be happy. We’re open to compromise. I don’t think it should be a big legal thing but we want to 5 work with the City. We want to know what the City thinks we’re able to do. We’ve worked four 6 or five revisions with Kristina. She’s been wonderful. We’ve heard from the neighbor. We’ve 7 constantly changed our plans because of that, so I’m – so yeah. So my question back to you is 8 what is the process? What are you proposing? Maybe the lawyers can say. What are you 9 proposing? Just we can’t build anything on our land? It is our property. The – Dean is very into 10 private property. We put a couple things on his property, he said, “Don’t do that.” We pulled 11 them back immediately. We’ve been a good neighbor and I want to have good relations with 12 him and I want to do it through the proper process through the City. Thank you. 13 14 Chair Chang: Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Templeton. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much. And thank you everybody who gave a 17 presentation today and helped clarify the different positions, the city, the applicant, and the 18 neighbor representative. I find myself struggling here about advice. I don’t think we can give 19 you advice about how to negotiate this, but I can echo some things that resonated with me that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. may help you figure out what the good next steps are. It feels a little bit like the cart is being 1 put before the horse. If you don’t have access to the site and the site is controversial enough to 2 instill law suit-level conversations, it may be something that you have to get done first. I think 3 the City is not going to weigh in. They’re not going to resolve this for you and I know that’s 4 frustrating, right? That would be nice to have a final answer but that’s – the City can’t override 5 the court’s process, right? So – at least that’s what I’m hearing. So I like the idea of how you’ve 6 approached the design, so Mr. Baumgardner did a good job of explaining your values that you 7 provided to him in terms of design but unless you can access the structure, it’s going to be 8 controversial here as well. So I’m hoping that today we can give you enough feedback about 9 the design and from our perspective from the things that we can control, but I would caution 10 you about setting expectations because we’re not going to be able to resolve your legal issues 11 here today. So thank you. Thanks. 12 13 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So in this round, I’ve got a comment and then some 16 questions. So let me start with the comment. So in my work, I am regularly dealing with 17 neighbor disputes over things that happened at and near the boundaries of their properties. 18 And one of the things that occurred pretty – became clear to me pretty early in my career is 19 that I’m hired to come in and try to resolve this dispute and then when I’m done, I leave. And I 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. leave behind the two neighbors who have to live with each other. And so it became clear pretty 1 early that in doing that work, it was important to try to keep a neighborly tone, so that when 2 we – and I think that that really applies to the Commission in this instance that we have to – we 3 should be – it’s not strictly on our plate but we should be endeavoring to try to pass forward a 4 recommendation that does not put these neighbors at war. Because if they litigate and there is 5 a definitely litigable issue here, somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to lose, somebody, 6 if not both sides, are going to have a sour taste in their mouth. And so I’m hoping that we can 7 find a path forward that helps these folks not go through that process, so that when it’s done, 8 whatever it looks like up there, they can be friends and be neighborly to each other. So 9 sometimes it’s too much to ask for but that should be our aspiration. So let me now get to 10 some questions. So the first one I think is to Mr. Yang. Just to understand through the modified 11 staff suggestion, it seems to me that this is similar to the way cities treat CC&Rs that may affect 12 what can be built on property and what cities usually say there is the CC&Rs are a private 13 contract. It’s between private parties and the City has to focus on the requirements in the City 14 Codes, and if there is a dispute over private contracts, that’s not really the City’s role to decide 15 it. That may need to be decided by the court. And it seems that in the sort of revised modified 16 recommendation of one alternative is we just want to make that clear in the conditions that 17 we’re not taking a position and that if there’s to be a legal remedy, it could affect an approval 18 we grant. Do I – am I understanding that right? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Albert Yang: Yes, that’s right. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, thank you. Then my remaining questions are for Mr. 3 Baumgardner. Really to follow up on Commissioner Akin’s questioning and I’m wondering to do 4 that − really about other sites that were looked at. And I’m wondering if from your slide deck − 5 to start with, you had a very helpful aerial that showed the ridge, and the hollow, and the – we 6 could start to understand the topography here. 7 8 Joel Baumgardner: Would you like me to show that? 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: Are you able to pull that up or can staff help you with that? 11 12 Joel Baumgardner: I can do that. One moment here. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, please. 15 16 Chair Chang: It would helpful if once that’s up, you can sort of point out again the other sites 17 that you considered. 18 19 Joel Baumgardner: Sure. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 2 3 Chair Chang: Yeah. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. This is the exercise I’d like to go through when we can all be 6 looking at the – yeah. 7 8 Joel Baumgardner: Okay. You can see my screen now? 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 11 12 Chair Chang: Yes, we can. 13 14 Joel Baumgardner: Okay. So the red outline is the sort of flagship property at 830. This blue 15 heavy line represents more or less the ridge, which is highly visible from – especially the Open 16 Space. Then we have this sort of hollow wrapping around, which again is 820 and our proposed 17 location. At the top of the hill − this is kind of a 3D view. So 830 looks down on 820, looks down 18 on the proposed site, and looks down on the preserve but also looks down into the sort of 19 northwest. And so it really cascades down that hillside towards [inaudible 67:20], the area 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. down there. So part of the property places that we could look to do it would be on these spaces 1 of hillside that face out and I think would be more visible from other locations. And so we just – 2 first of all, next to the main house, this clearing here with the tree seems like a nice spot 3 because it’s close to the house and flat but it is – would be extremely visible from the preserve 4 and so it just seems like we’re going to be shot down in the Commission hearings for trying to 5 put a house or building up there; likewise, on almost three sides of this ridge, which sort of 6 makes this peninsula, it ends here and so it forms a sort of 3-dimensional peninsula. And then – 7 so preserve to one side, viewed to main traffic corridor for the area on the other side, and then 8 again over here, we’d be looking down on the neighbor. I mean I would think the neighbor 9 would object even more strenuously to something over there because we’d be really looking 10 down at the courtyard. So again, sort of looked at the top knoll, to sort of facing the preserve, 11 back to the main traffic corridor, and then down to the neighbor. So it’s like if you’re on this 12 prow of a ship sticking out, where can you put something that isn’t visible? It’s like well the 13 prow of a ship is inherently visible from all those directions. And so it was just a difficult – and 14 we just felt like it might be better down here hidden on, again a more public side of the 15 neighbor’s house. And so we’re just – that’s how we ended up here. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So let me start – let me ask a couple questions about that 18 uppermost potential site, which is in the clearing to the – I guess to the east of the house. Yeah, 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that [inaudible 69:20] area. So as you say that is almost sitting on the ridge and depending on 1 the vegetation on the preserve side, possibly even more visible. 2 3 Joel Baumgardner: Correct. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: It’s a two-story, 4,000 square foot structure. Was consideration 6 given to that upper location but with a more spread out, one-story structure that might reduce 7 those visibility issues from public vantage points? Was that considered? 8 9 Joel Baumgardner: I know we considered it but the first criteria is don’t build on the hillside and 10 the ridgetops, so it seemed like how could we even bring that to you. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 13 14 Joel Baumgardner: Whether it be one story or two. And again, the house that’s there now is we 15 built basically from an existing development, so that impact was already there. We’re just 16 saying we don’t want to put more of an impact there, especially to public open space, which 17 again is some of the first criteria. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Understood. So from that location right next to the house, as you 1 slide down toward the location you’ve been – that you selected, right? Which is at the bottom 2 of this peninsula that was acquired. You can see there’s some areas that are – have less 3 vegetation as you slide down the hill from adjacent to the main house to the proposed location 4 you have indicated on this map. Did you – and as you slide down the hill, at some point, you 5 would – with a one-story building at least not be visible and, of course, farther down even with 6 a two-story, you wouldn’t be visible. So yeah, this is actually very helpful because I was 7 wondering what kind of topo you had. 8 9 Joel Baumgardner: So – yeah. This is just to – this is that knoll that’s very prominent up top 10 here. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 13 14 Joel Baumgardner: I’ll try to colorize this for you guys here real quick. This is where we’re 15 proposing and you can see the separation of the contours is markedly further apart, meaning 16 flat, than immediately up the hill where we just start increasing in slope the further up we go. 17 So again, when Bert and Jerome and I − and we all first met, we thought this would be 18 potentially a good spot. But it just − once we got this contour map, I said, “Well, let’s wait till 19 we get the contour map because I – it’s notoriously difficult to gauge slope on site.” But this 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. doesn’t lie, right? So they’re just so much closer together, it just didn’t – and I actually had 1 some old 3D models that – it just showed we’re having to do crazy stepping and crazy long 2 buildings and we thought, “Oh gosh, this is just going to be this long, cascading hill – [inaudible 3 72:13] looking thing on the hill. Why don’t we group it and bundle it and put it down here on 4 the flat spot.” 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And I do understand sort of that mid-hill but I mean – the 7 topography there speaks for itself – really that terrain. I am seeing right where your cursor is 8 and just a little bit higher – yeah. There’s a flatter area there. It’s – and again, I can’t read the 9 elevations here but you’re starting to slide down the hill. Let’s see. You’re at the 230. Yeah, 10 that’s pretty tough. Okay. 11 12 Joel Baumgardner: Yeah, and that ridge does continue off page here. This is the Google Earth. 13 So here’s that clearing right there. 14 15 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 16 17 Joel Baumgardner: And then you can see the ridge just keeps going out. So again, it’s this sort of 18 prow and so… 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. And I’m really looking at more as you start to drop down. 1 Again, what I’m really focused on is trying to understand the exercises you went through to 2 minimize visibility from public spaces combined with keeping it – trying to observe privacy 3 interests of the owner of the adjacent property. So all right. So this has been very helpful to me. 4 I’ve taken enough time. Let me finish up for now and I’ll come back with some comments later. 5 Thank you. 6 7 Chair Chang: Okay, we’ll go to Commissioner Lu, then Akin, Summa, and Reckdahl. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: Thank you. Some of my questions were already asked, so I just have a 10 clarification on a previous answer for Mr. Yang. So just to understand what the precedent or 11 standard practice would be, let’s hypothetically say that the only proposal where − for a 12 ministerially-approvable ADU. In that case, would the City go through the list of criteria? 13 14 Albert Yang: No. 15 16 Commissioner Lu: [Inaudible 74:22] criteria. 17 18 Albert Yang: [Inaudible 74:23]. Sorry. The Open Space criteria and the site and design findings 19 do not apply to a ministerial project. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Lu: Okay. 2 3 Albert Yang: And I guess one distinction I’d like to note – because I don’t think it’s been totally 4 clear so far. The site and design findings are mandatory. Those are the ones in 1830G060. The 5 Open Space criteria just need to be considered and so that’s something where the Commission 6 is more able to sort of weigh certain criteria against others and use their judgement in 7 determining how important each one is relative to the specific situation. 8 9 Commissioner Lu: Okay. Yeah, that’s actually helpful and something that I’ll need a second to 10 digest. But ultimately, we would generally say that this project is ministerially good to go, and 11 like Commissioner Hechtman mentioned about CC&Rs, we would – the staff process would be 12 to move forward with the ministerial approval with a caveat that staff is not taking any legal 13 position. Like would that be effectively what the standard process would have looked like in this 14 hypo? 15 16 Albert Yang: I – yes. I think that is right. It’s actually – it’s more likely that this issue would not 17 even have been flagged in a ministerial – in an ADU-only ministerial review because the 18 neighbor would not have received notice. And so we would not have received any comments. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lu: Right. But even… 1 2 Albert Yang: So… 3 4 Commissioner Lu: Yeah, right. But even if we did receive comments, a ministerial approval 5 would still generally say that the ADU portion at least would be acceptable under the City’s kind 6 of standard practice and any other legal disputes would happen downstream? 7 8 Albert Yang: Most likely, yes. 9 10 Commissioner Lu: Okay, thank you. 11 12 Chair Chang: Commissioner Akin. 13 14 Commissioner Akin: Thank you. First I wanted to say how much I appreciate the attention that’s 15 been given to privacy and to – excuse me. And to other issues like noise generation from the 16 HVAC equipment. It’s so often that we don’t see enough consideration of those. So thank you 17 very much for the design of the structure. So the only issue really for me is the location. I think 18 that breaks down to two cases. If the easement dispute can be resolved and if it can’t. So if the 19 easement dispute can be resolved and you have access to the more newly-acquired land – I 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. spent a lot of time checking altitudes on the maps and looking at the size of the structure 1 you’re proposing. If you look in your plan set and see view number 5 − if you look just a little bit 2 uphill from view number 5, you have a steeper side but you have room to put a structure that’s 3 the same height as the one you’re proposing below the ridgeline. If you do consider a different 4 kind of structure like a split level versus a two-story, you might find that there are other 5 configurations that are possible in that area. In both of those cases, there are false summits 6 that protect that new structure from being viewed from either Los Trancos below or 7 Arastradero on the other side, so you would have no concerns about visibility. If the easement 8 dispute can’t be resolved, then it looks to me like your only choice is to find a site on the 9 original lot and of those that I considered that had proper visibility characteristics, that’s going 10 to be close to your existing house, perhaps northwest of the pool in areas that are forested or 11 perhaps even part of the lawn, but preferably a little bit south and east of there. But even so, it 12 would still be possible to construct something that would meet your functional requirements. 13 Now as to whether that meets your aesthetic requirements and other concerns that you may 14 have, I can’t make that call. But you do have options if you want to consider them. And perhaps 15 what I’m getting to in the end is it might be worth taking a look at those more seriously just to 16 see whether any of those could work for you. That’s it for now. Thank you. 17 18 Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa: Thank you. And thank you for everyone who came out tonight and 1 spoke and − for this project. I agree also that a lot of care was given to this [inaudible 79:53] for 2 this and utmost importance to me is there not be views from the public open space because 3 that’s for everyone to enjoy, including people that don’t have the option of living on 10 acres. 4 And so that’s very important to me. So the ridgeline, I very much appreciate and I do not think 5 we should allow projects that jet up over the ridgeline. And I will say when I was looking at this, 6 I had a couple of questions about it also and I’m wondering if you couldn’t achieve what you 7 need, which is an ADU and then an accessory building but not have that – a two-story building. 8 And I think it dovetails with what Commissioner Akin said because that’s what you’ve – and we 9 found out a little more about your personal needs this evening when you spoke. And I’m 10 speaking to the applicants. But I think you could achieve it without having the visual rooftop 11 look [form 81:00] your building. I think the glazing and the screening will keep people from 12 inside your building looking out but they can see looking up and it’s really – I was out there 13 today – oh my, it's very steep. So it is going to be tricky but I think there are other options. And I 14 was thinking have the ADU be really close to the house, which I think is even more appropriate 15 after listening to comments this evening, and having the accessory structures maybe down 16 below where they would be really not visible to the owners or the people that live in 820 and 17 achieve everything you need. I am a little troubled by the second parallel driveway as it is – I 18 understand and I’m not an attorney, so I can’t speak to the easement specifically and that’s not 19 our job here tonight but it is certainly inconsistent. It’s adding another man-made feature in the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. open space right next to something that serves the same purpose, so I don’t think that’s very 1 desirable. And I agree with Commissioner Akin that this really rests on the easement. I wish the 2 easement had been figured out between the parties before it came to us because we don’t play 3 a role there at all, and I think if there are solutions that are available that will serve everyone’s 4 needs − you both have beautiful properties and a lot of space. So I do have one question for 5 staff about the accessory portions of the building. It was my understanding that accessory 6 structures cannot – have only two water hookups as they were not intended mainly for 7 dwelling and sleeping. Is that – I know it’s still in the code but is there a reason that doesn’t 8 apply here? I’m not talking about the ADU, which has to have a full kitchen and bathroom but 9 I’m curious about that and I’d just like to hear an explanation. 10 11 Kristina Dobkevicius: Thank you for your question. So the two-fixture requirement only applies 12 for the Municipal Code Chapter 10, 18.10 and 18.12 of the code, and it does not apply to Open 13 Space. 14 15 Commissioner Summa: Oh, gotcha. Okay. 16 17 Kristina Dobkevicius: Thank you. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa: Because I was curious about that because you can have – they have a 1 big enough lot to have a whole second house if they want because – so that’s something to 2 consider also. So I think – I don’t even know – honestly, other than giving feedback to both 3 parties on how to resolve this. And mostly, I think your project is consistent mostly with the 4 open space − with site and design review standards and the Open Space criteria, which I take 5 very seriously. Mostly I’d like to see a few other things but it’s really hard to make the site and 6 design findings if it’s not legal to move forward and that depends on something that we don’t 7 do here, which is the easement. So that is kind of hard – a hard one to solve. I would like to 8 know – this is a specific question. We’re very much hoping to pass sometime very soon Bird 9 Safe Design Ordinance in our city, and I was just going to ask Mr. Baumgardner if the glazing 10 you speak of is actually bird safe glazing? 11 12 Joel Baumgardner: We could very much make it bird safe with − oftentimes [inaudible 84:46] 13 glass is used, which is sort of like a frosting and that would certainly be well on its way towards 14 being bird safe. 15 16 Commissioner Summa: Okay. Because that would be important in this location and there’s that 17 one pretty big window kind of under the eaves. And then if there’s a way to resolve this and 18 have a much smaller structure where it’s close to 1820’s property line and they can see it from 19 parts of their house and a way to put your ADU up closer to the main structure, I think it’s – 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. should be looked at and come back to us once that is – and you’ve done so much good work 1 here already that I think you should be able to – it doesn’t sound like the two parties are – have 2 a disagreeable history and you certainly don’t want to have a disagreement like this in the 3 future, especially when you might depend on one another in a extreme weather event or fire or 4 something. So I’m going to leave it at that and let my colleagues speak but I think there is a 5 solution that will solve everyone’s needs here. 6 7 Chair Chang: Commissioner Reckdahl. 8 9 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, so if I put myself in the neighbor’s position, I think my first choice 10 would be to have no building at all, right? That would have the least impact on the neighbors. 11 But if I was the neighbor and given the fact that they were going to build a building there, I 12 think probably this location has the smallest impact on the neighbors because if you scoot it up 13 the driveway, it gets a little further away but you also gain quite a bit of elevation and now 14 you’re looking down into the neighbor’s courtyard more. If you’re up by the main house, that’s 15 even worse. And so I think that probably that this is – it’s not perfect but this is probably the 16 least of all the evils. Can I ask a question to the neighbor’s lawyer? 17 18 Chair Chang: Yes. Please go ahead. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I don’t know if the lawyer can speak to this since he’s a legal and not an 1 architect but do the neighbors have a preference of where they would want – given the fact 2 that a development is going to happen on this property, what do they want? 3 4 Greg Klingsporn: Well it’s hard for me to speak directly to that because we haven’t had a 5 substantive conversation with the applicant or the architect about what those options would 6 look like. There have certainly been some ideas floated or described during this hearing that are 7 things that I would imagine any reasonable neighbor would consider. As far as this structure as 8 currently designed, I think that it is of such a size and mass – to use a term I’m not qualified to 9 use because I’m not an architect − Is a problem no matter where it is in terms of it’s a big, two-10 story structure. It’s got big, tall walls, decks with 6-foot screens. It’s going to loom wherever it 11 is. I mean there’s already − as already been described, a structure − the main residence is up 12 above up but it’s far enough away and it’s up on the ridge that it’s not looming over the 820 13 property, which was deliberately built far away from that structure when it was built. So I 14 clearly – I certainly don’t have any authority to discuss today what would be or wouldn’t be 15 acceptable to my client as far as an alternative location. I do – so I hope that answers the 16 question. I can go on because I… 17 18 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Greg Klingsporn: …appreciate… 1 2 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I understand. 3 4 Greg Klingsporn: …the opportunity to… 5 6 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: I was hoping that you might have some insight into what they were 7 thinking. 8 9 Greg Klingsporn: Yeah, I mean the – again, because of the way that this conversation hasn’t 10 happened prior to this hearing, there really hasn’t been a fulsome discussion that would give 11 me a sense of what my clients – what would be in the range of acceptability or not. It’s really 12 just been presented to us as, “This is the project. It’s going here. It’s looking like this,” which is 13 what we’re objected to. 14 15 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. 16 17 Greg Klingsporn: Thank you. 18 19 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: That’s all. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: Are these all ghost lights here that I’m seeing? 2 3 Female: [Inaudible 89:24]. 4 5 Chair Chang: Yeah. Okay. All right. I will quickly take my turn. I would like to align most of my 6 comments with that of Commissioner Akin where it seems to me like there might be ways to 7 build up closer to the main house. When you pull up the contour map – or when Mr. 8 Baumgardner pulled up the contour map, just right below the knoll, it’s – there are some areas 9 that seemed a little bit similar in terms of the contour line spacing to the sites – the currently 10 proposed site. And so I would really like to see that. I was really pleased to hear that the 11 applicant is willing to do bird-safe glazing for the portions that are not opaque, translucent. And 12 then as I looked at the design and the Open Space criteria where we’re trying to minimize 13 access roads, unfortunately, because of the easement issue, the access roads are most 14 definitely not being minimized. And I understand that it’s permeable but it still results in many, 15 many more square feet of disruption of the environment, so I’d really love it if the structure is 16 going to go in the currently proposed location, if there were some way that the neighbors could 17 cooperate and find a way to go back to the originally-designed driveway. That said, I think the 18 larger issue as I look at – I’d have a hard time making a finding about privacy and views of 19 neighboring properties not being impacted and also potentially a hard time making a finding 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. about ensuring that it’ll be compatible with nearby sites simply because as you’re – in my site 1 visit, as I was driving up there, it’s really clear that the houses and properties are generally 2 spaced decently far apart. And as the public comment mentioned, unfortunately, due to the 3 topography, this is about – due to the topography and the shape of the parcel, this is about as 4 close as you could get to the neighbors and as far away as you could get from your own – from 5 the main residence. So it’s difficult to make that first finding because of the easement and also 6 because it’s clearly not harmonious right now. And then just one final way I was thinking about 7 this is I recently served on the public access working group for MidPen. They have a good 8 neighbor policy that suggests that they don’t want to build anything, including a trail, much less 9 a structure, within 300 feet of another resident. Now obviously, that is a different 10 organization’s rules and not ours but it does highlight what somebody else thinks is neighborly, 11 and I think it’s paramount that we find a neighborly solution here because it doesn’t feel that 12 way right now. Thanks. And Commissioner Templeton. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thanks, Chair. It’s been a lot of really good comments and I 15 appreciate sharing that one about the MidPen; that’s really interesting. As I’m listening to the 16 lawyer for the neighbor and we’re speculating about what kinds of things would please them 17 and support your project, I’m going to add my voice to the speculation. I don’t speak for any 18 party here but what I hear is that there’s a missing requirement in the requirements that you 19 provided the architect and that is support of your neighbor for access to the new parcel. And if 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. you think about your project with those requirements, and as Commissioner Akin mentioned, 1 that there are significant changes you might want to consider. And if you don’t want to include 2 that, then your project is in danger or needing to be restarted in a different location that 3 doesn’t require that cooperation. And I appreciate you sharing the insight about what’s going 4 on in your personal life and what would motivate you to want to take up this project. And I’m 5 going to say something you might not hear a lot in the hills, so forgive me. These are just ideas 6 for you to consider as you solicited some feedback here. If that were happening – if that 7 situation were happening in my house, I would have to give up a portion of my house to the 8 caregiver and if I wanted to have a separate structure, it might not be combined with some of 9 the other uses you had in mind and I think Commissioner Akin mentioned that as an option as 10 well. So in other words, I think we’re all very compassionate about your interest here and what 11 you’d like to achieve and want to encourage you to get creative here because, as Commissioner 12 Hechtman mentioned, the easier path forward is the cooperative one. And it’s important for a 13 variety of reasons and I will echo everyone’s concern here that we don’t want to disrupt the 14 ridge view like that − you approach this project as that is an absolute must. So maybe there’s an 15 opportunity here to consider what else is an absolute must. Does it have to be that all these 16 different uses, the shop, the studio, and the apartment are all combined into one large 17 structure that’s likely to get more pushback or are there ways you can be creative. Can you 18 have a man cave or whatever? I’m not sure what they call it but like if you have your studio as 19 a separate building, maybe that doesn’t require as much access space or square footage, right? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And you could have that in a different location. So there are ways for you to make this a more 1 attractive project to all parties concerned and still achieve your goals because we want you to 2 enjoy your property too, right? But everybody’s coming with ideas and rights and having to 3 balance that and the smoothest path forward would be to think about how you can adjust to 4 get what you want as fast as possible while still making sure everybody else’s needs are being 5 met. So I really appreciate it and just wanted to say that I think we’re all here saying the same 6 things and we appreciate your concern about the nature preserve and making sure that that 7 view is open and also thinking about ways to adjust so that you could move forward. Thanks. 8 9 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So I think that the mandatory findings could be made 12 here. The issue I think – that these findings – first of all, I don’t think we can equate privacy or 13 compatibility with invisibility, it doesn’t require that people whether they’re in the flats or the 14 hills not be able to see neighboring structures. It just doesn’t and I think here for what we have 15 is a proposed structure, a 180 feet from the home, not the accessory structure or garage but 16 from the home with lots of privacy, lots of features included to ensure privacy and that is 9 17 times the distance between my home and the homes of both of my neighbors, albeit in a more 18 dense area, but nonetheless it’s a long distance. And incidentally, the 300-foot concept, I think 19 that’s really an apples to oranges situation because those paths are public paths and so 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. [inaudible 98:24] to find some sensitivity to have dozens or more people moving past 1 somebody’s private residence with no screen on a regular basis. So I think we should be 2 cautious about that. And I do tend to agree with staff’s view that the proposed location meets 3 the criteria, where to pick this building up and put it next to the main house on top of that 4 ridge would run afoul of a number of the requirements. But I’m not fully satisfied that those are 5 the only two possibilities. And we’ve heard sort of related comments from a number of the 6 other Commissioners. And, of course, one of the things that’s really troubled me tonight is that 7 these neighbors have not talked directly to each other about this issue of common interest to 8 them. We heard from one that they were told go talk to our lawyer. And we heard from the 9 other that they were told go talk to the City. But these folks are – it seems to me that there’s a 10 good chance that these folks will end up in litigation unless they figure out – unless they talk to 11 each other and through those discussions find something that is a compromise for both of 12 them. They can both live with. Because Mr. Klingsporn is very confident in his case and he may 13 be right. But he could spend 1½ years on behalf of his client litigating that through a trial court 14 and then another couple of years on appeal. And I will tell you that judges make decisions that 15 surprise you every day and there may be a decision that comes out of this from the trial court 16 and/or the appellant level that surprises the neighbor. And again, it's a foul business litigating 17 against the neighbor. And so while it may surprise some of my fellow Commissioners to hear 18 me say this because I almost never do. I’m wondering if this is a situation where because the 19 neighbors have never talked and because all of us seem to have ideas about things that they 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. could talk about, that maybe we should put this over and give them the opportunity to talk kind 1 of having heard all of our comments tonight. Of course, we can’t force the applicant to propose 2 a different design and they could come back in a month with the exact same design and maybe 3 not even having talked to the neighbors. But I think we’ve given them a lot of information 4 tonight and that – I am not certain based on what I’ve seen that there isn’t a location up the hill 5 closer to the main house but below the ridgeline or with some berming invisible from the public 6 lands that even though I think it would be on this added strip, it might be far enough away from 7 the neighbor’s house that the neighbor would agree to extend the easement rights that they 8 assert are lacking. And so there may be a solution that could be worked out but they have 9 never talked directly about it. So that would be – that’s the direction I’m throwing open for 10 consideration by my fellow Commissioners. 11 12 Chair Chang: Commissioner Summa. 13 14 Commissioner Summa: Well − and this might surprise some of you, but that’s exactly what I was 15 going to say. I think we should continue this and give all of the interested parties a chance to 16 think and they can come back to us right away with no changes. Having said that, of course, 17 they have the right right now to build the ADU in any way that they want to basically. So it 18 won’t hold up the ADU if that’s what they so desire. And I am hearing through the various 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. parties that there is sort of an openness to that, so I am – that’s what I was going to suggest 1 anyhow. 2 3 Chair Chang: Are you making a motion? 4 5 Commissioner Summa: I can make a motion if you’d like. I’ll take a stab at it. 6 7 Chair Chang: Please go ahead. 8 9 Commissioner Summa: And that is to in the interest of finding a solution that suits all the 10 interested parties, make a motion that we continue this to give the interested parties time to 11 find some other solutions with the understanding that that does not affect the ADU production. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Second. 14 15 Chair Chang: Does anybody want to speak to the motion? 16 17 Commissoner Summa: And I’ll add to that that we appreciate that the applicant’s architect has 18 agreed to add bird-safe design into whatever new structures they’re placing there. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Do we have a timeframe about what we’re continuing? It’s certainly 1 not to the next meeting or… 2 3 Commissioner Summa: I would think to a day uncertain because really the ball’s in their court 4 to do this in a way that works for everyone, and I think – I believe it can happen too. 5 6 Chair Chang: Are those additions amenable to the seconder? 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Accepted. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Chang: Great. Do you need to speak, Commissioner Hechtman? 11 12 Female: [I think so 104:43]. 13 14 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman? 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: No. 17 18 Male: [Inaudible 104:48]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Female: It’s a ghost. 1 2 Chair Chang: Oh, okay. 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: No, it is – I would like to speak. 5 6 Chair Chang: Okay. Please go ahead. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Just on the date uncertain, the applicant is before us with an 9 application that is entitled to be heard and move forward and so I would be more comfortable 10 with – and I hope the Commission might be amenable to continuing this to our August 14 11 hearing; that’s 6 weeks from now. If the parties are deep in dialogue and working on a redesign 12 and feel they need more time, they can let us know and we can put it off further. But I’m 13 concerned that if they spend a couple weeks and their discussions aren’t fruitful, and then 14 we’re going to try to put it on our agenda past the 10th, we don’t have one on July 31, the 15 applicant have a right to have this move forward, so I’m wondering if my fellow Commissioners 16 would agree to a date certain of the 14th of August. 17 18 Chair Chang: I’d like to hear from Ms. French about it because I do know that we have… 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Amy French: Yeah. 1 2 Chair Chang: …a very packed… 3 4 Amy French: We do. 5 6 Chair Chang: …agenda. 7 8 Amy French: Well I thought I might add when this happens at the Architectural Review Board, 9 there are times where the applicant is asked if they have an idea about what date because we 10 don’t know are they available on the 14th, we don’t know if we’ll have room on the 14th, but 11 there might be a date that they would have in mind. 12 13 Chair Chang: Okay. I’d… 14 15 Amy French: And the architect. 16 17 Chair Chang: …like to ask the applicant if the – given that the Commission may be moving in this 18 direction, is there a date that the applicant has in mind? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Albert Bower: No. I want to do what works best for you and I want to do what works best for 1 you and for Dean. I’m a former civics teacher and so tonight was a delight because to see the 2 amount of time and energy that you have spent on this is commendable. I mean it’s democracy 3 in action and you’ve gone beyond just a – we have the right to build it we know all along. You’re 4 going deeper. You’re talking about what the other Commissioner talked about, the good 5 neighbor policy. I’m fully embracing that. I love your idea of us getting together with Dean. I 6 have talked to Dean about this. I’m happy to continue to talk to him and I want to meet you too 7 also and I’m – we – you’re right. Your concept of really what is needed – no, I don’t need a man 8 cave but I do need like an ADU to help my husband. And I think there’s a lot of room for 9 compromise and you have given us 25 different suggestions, so I’m excited about it. I think it is 10 – I think you’re right, Commissioner, that it’s up to us to kind of [go away 108:04]. I know that 11 Kristina is so responsive that once we work it out, I tell her, she’ll get us on your schedule. I 12 know you’ll be open, so I have no concerns about that. Thank you. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I would add that July and August are big vacation times 15 and I want to make sure that the applicant has a chance to meet and have that important 16 conversation with the neighbor, which might require some consultation with your schedules. So 17 I am hesitant for that reason to go ahead and pick a date, although that is your right if you’re 18 comfortable with us trying to give time to meet and work it through. I think that would result in 19 a better outcome for you and your neighbor, so that’s why I agree with… 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Chang: Okay. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: …Chair’s – Commissioner Summa’s direction. 4 5 Chair Chang: So I was – for the record, the applicant has indicated non-verbally that he is okay 6 with leaving it to a date uncertain. 7 8 Albert Bower: Yes. 9 10 Chair Chang: Okay. 11 12 Commissioner Summa: Okay. I’m fine with a date uncertain because I think the parties, 13 especially the applicant, have an interest in getting it done quickly as well and they’ve already 14 spent a lot of time and they kind of know what they want. It’s just a matter of moving the 15 pieces and finding the right places to put it for everyone I think. Are you − is everyone okay? 16 Were there any other suggestions? 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Chang: I’m not seeing any lights. And so, because of that, I’m assuming that we are all 1 okay. If anybody wants to discuss anything further, light it up real quick. Okay. No. So with that, 2 I think we’re ready to take a vote on that motion, Ms. Dao. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 5 6 Commissioner Akin: Yes. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 9 10 Chair Chang: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 17 18 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 1 2 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 3 4 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 5 6 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 7 8 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 11 12 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 13 14 Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. And thank you too, everybody for speaking tonight. With that, 15 we move onto our next agenda item, which is the approval of minutes, the draft verbatim 16 minutes of January 31, 2024. 17 18 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 19 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 20 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 3. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Verbatim Minutes of 1 January 31, 2024 2 3 Chair Chang: Would anybody like to make a motion? 4 5 Female: I believe there are some amendments. 6 7 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: I move approval as revised. 10 11 Commissioner Akin: Second. 12 13 Chair Chang: Any discussion? Ms. Dao, could you take the vote, please? 14 15 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 18 19 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Summa? 20 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa: Yes. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Reckdahl? 3 4 Vice-Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 5 6 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Lu? 7 8 Commissioner Lu: Yes. 9 10 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 13 14 Veronica Dao: Chair Chang? 15 16 Chair Chang: Yes. 17 18 Veronica Dao: Commissioner Akin? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Akin: Yes. 1 2 Veronica Dao: Motion carries 7-0. 3 4 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 5 Chair Chang: And then our final agenda item is Commissioner Questions, Comments, 6 Announcements or future meetings and agendas. Anybody? Something from Commissioner 7 Akin. Oh, hold over, ghost light. Well I would just like to thank Commissioner Templeton’s 8 husband for her fabulous [inaudible 111:29] tonight. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 111:32] pleasure. 11 12 Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman has… 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Which he missed out on. I’m so sorry… 15 16 Chair Chang: All right. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: …Commissioner Hechtman. Next time. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, I’m not too happy about that. And I’m sorry I joined a little late 1 after our Staff and Transportation Report and perhaps this was discussed, maybe not. But since 2 our last meeting, staff presented us with the accident report, I think, for the month of April, and 3 I had a chance to look through that and there is a category there for injuries. I’m sure some of 4 my fellow Commissioners looked at this. But that category doesn’t indicate severity. And last 5 year, we spent some time talking about what – I think it’s called the Safe Streets Program, 6 maybe I got the name wrong but where we’re trying to reduce and ultimately eliminate KSIs, 7 right? Fatalities and serious injuries. And so the question I had for Transportation − and I’m sure 8 they’re not here and so I’ll ask Ms. French maybe to carry this back to Transportation to talk to 9 the police department about, because ultimately, we’re going to want to use these reports to 10 measure how we’re doing in this goal of reducing KSIs, is there a way to have these reports as 11 they come to us include a breakdown between all injuries and KSIs? I don’t expect an answer to 12 that tonight but perhaps at our next meeting, Transportation Department would be able to give 13 us some feedback on that. 14 15 Amy French: Will do. We’ll take it to Office of Transportation. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Chang: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Anybody else? Okay. Our meeting is 1 adjourned. 2 3 Adjournment 4 7:45 PM 5 6 7 /ls 8