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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1987-07-20 City Council Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL MINUTES PALOALTOCITYCOUNCIL M E ETINGSA.RE BROADCAST LIVE VIA KZSU - FREOUENCY90.1 ON FM DIAL Regular Meeting July 20, 1987 PAGE ITEM Oral Communications 53-44 Minutes of June 15, 1987 58-45 Consent Calendar 58-45 1. Agreement with Stanford University for 58-45 Emergency Communications 2. Contract with Safety Specialists, Inc., for Disposal of Household Hazardous Wastes 58-45 3. Policy and Procedures Committee Recommen- 59_45 dation re Revised Waiver,, Perms 4. Planning . Commission Recommendation re Application of Stoecker and Northway, Architects, Inc., for Site and Design Approval for a Single Family Residence, with Pool and Accessory Structures, on Property Located at 706 Log Trancos.Woods Road 58-45 5. Planning Commission Recommendation re 58-45 Application of Darryl and Sherry Wright - Smith for Site and Design Approval for a Single Family Residence on Property Located at 3855 Page Mill Road 6. Council Member Fletcher re Amendments to 58-46 Smoking Ordinance 58-42 7/20/87 ITEM PAGE 7. PUBLIC HEARING: Planning Commission, 58-52 Historic Resources Board, and Architectural Review Board Recommendation re Application of Spectrum Foods for. Modification of Planned Community District Ordinance 3266 to Allow Addition of a Take-out Window to an Existing_. Restaurant and Parking Lot Modifications for Property Located at 27 University Avenue (MacArthur Park Restau- rant) 8. PUBLIC HEARING: Planning Commission 58-55 Returns to City Council, Without Recommen- dation, Proposed Amendments to the Zoning Ordinance Regarding Floor Area and Height Limitations for Single -Family Dwellings in the R-1 District Recess 58-64 Adjournment at 12:15 a.m. 58-86 i1 Regular Meeting Monday, July 20, 1987 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, at 7:35 p.m. PRESENT: Bechtel, Cobb, Fletcher, Klein, Levy, Patitucci, Renzel, Sutorius, Woolley Mayor Woolley announced that a Special Meeting to Interview Candidates for the Planning Commission was held at 5:45 p.m. in the Council Conference Room. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 1. Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, 301 Vine Street, Menlo Park, represented Clean Air Transport Systems. She referred to rail access from Palo Alto to San Francisco and said San Francisco traded its federal money to finish the freeway across the Embarcadero in favor of access by CalTrain. San Francisco intended to extend the Muni Metro Rail down to CalTrain at a cost of $11.5 million which would be paid for by its refund from the federal government. The trolley was fully approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) , and the California Transportation Commission, and was in the process of construction. Completion was anticipated for 1991 or 1992. She applauded San Francisco. She r=eferred to the proposed widening of Highway 101 from six to eight lanes from Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale up to the San Mateo County line. Clean Air Transport Systems appeared at the hearing and provided written comments. It was concerned that no serious studies were done on the impacts and there were no alternatives listed. The reasons given foc not -studying alternatives or were that moneys came out of Measure A funds, and studies did not have to -..be done. She wanted the impacts studied. 2. Irving Sesser, Treasurer .of Western Wheeler Bike Club, 1831 Hamilton Avenue, said the organization consisted of about 782 members for the benefit of f those who enjoyed outdoor acti'ities. He referred to the "Century" outing for those who could master the 25 -mile, 63 -mile, 100 mile and 130 -mile endeavor. It was not a race. Inas- much as the Club was successful, sufficient moneys were earned to donate funds to worthy organizations. He made the presentation to Council Members Fletcher and Levy. 58-44 7/20/87 Council Member Levy had participated in the "Sequoia Century" for the past 10 years. The event was well organized and a lot of fun. He thanked the Western Wheelers. MINUTES OF JUNE 15, 1987 Council Member Fletcher had the following correction: Page 57-354, fourth paragraph, fourth line, word "appropriate" should be "inappropriate." MOTION: Vice Mayor Sutorius moved, seconded by Patitucci, approval of the Minutes of June 15, 1987 as corrected. MOTION PASSED unanimously. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION: Council Member Fletcher moved, seconded by Levy, approval of the Consent Calendar. 1. AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT NO. 3780 WITH STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS (CMR:370:7) (1140) 2. CONTRACT WITH SAFETY SPECIALISTS, INC. FOR DISPOSAL OF HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTES (CMR:372:7) (1440-01) 3. POLICY AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS TO THE CITY COUNCIL THAT THE REVISED WAIVER FORMS BE ADOPTED. FURTHEP. THAT "ANYONE CLAIMING ON MY BEHALF BE CHANGED TO "ANYONE MAKING A CLAIM" ON THE SECOND TO THE LAST LINE OF EXHIBIT 1; THAT STAFF WORK WITH HOC CITIZENS' COMMITTEE TO PROVIDE AN EDUCATION PROGRAM; AND THAT THE POLICY AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE MAKE ONE ANNUAL REVIEW OF THE WAIVER FORM ISSUE (130) 4. PLANNING COMMISSION UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS TO THE CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL, WITH CONDITIONS OF THE APPLICATION'OF STOECKER AND NORTHWAYL ARCHITECT SE INC FOR SITE AND DESIGN APPROVAL FOR A SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE, WITH POOH, AND ACCESSORY -STRUCTURES ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 706 LOS TRANCOS WOODS ROAD (300) 5. PLANNING COMMISSION UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS TO THE CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL WITH CONDITIONS, OF THE APPLICATION OF DARRYL AND SHERRY WRIGHT-SMITH FOR SITE AND DESIGN: APPROVAL FOR A SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE ON PROPERTY' LOCATED AT 3855 PAGE MILL ROAD (300) MOTION PASSED unanimously. THE AD 58-45 7/20/87 6, COUNCIL MEMBER FLETCHER RE AMENDMENTS TO SMOKING ORDINANCE (1401-02) MOTION: Council Member Fletcher moved, seconded by. Sutorius, to direct the City Attorney to prepare an ordi- nance that amends PAMC Section 9.14, the smoking ordinance, to add the following list of places where smoking is to be prohibited: 1. Retail stores, excluding areas in said establishments not open to the public, except stores selling exclu- sively tobacco related products, excluding restaurants in retail stores which are covered by PAMC Section 9.14.080; 2. Personal service businesses, defined in Section 18.04.030 (114) of the PAMC as providing services of a personal convenience nature, cleaning, repair or sales incidental thereto, including art, dance or music studios, beauty shops and barbershops, shoe., repair, self-service laundry and cleaning services, laundry and cleaning pick-up stations, repair and fitting of clothes and personal accessories, copying, and similar services. As in No. 1 above, areas not open to the public are to be excluded; 3.. Common areas in general business offices which are defined in Section 18.040.030(61), except those areas inaccessible to the general public, principally pro- viding services to individuals, firms or other entities, including, but not limited to real estate, insurance, property management, title companies, investment, per- sonnel, travel and similar services. This provision should also apply to nonprofit entities; 4. Common areas in professional offices as defined in PAMC Section 18.040.030(116), providing professional or con- sulting services in the field of law, architecture, design, engineering, accounting, and similar profes- sions; 5. Bus waiting lines, bus and train shelters and transpor- tation terminals, the latter defined in PAMC Section 18.04.030(137)`as "a depot, terminal, or transfer facil- ity for passenger for transportation services.. 6. Card rooms are excluded from the requirements of the ordinance; and 7. Saokines on buses within the City limits of Palo Alto is prohibited as may be determined by staff to be permis- sible. 58-46 7/20/87 Council Member Fletcher said the uses proposed in her memo- randum were taken directly from the Palo Alto Zoning Code so it was very precise on what types of establishments would be covered. She said 78 cities in California prohibited smoking in retail stores and 34 prohibited smoking in all enclosed areas used by the general public. Council Member Cobb was concerned about item 2. . It started out with a general statement of personal service businesses, but went into all kinds of specifies._ He queried whether the ordinance would include all the specifics or i6clude the generic definition as specified by the municipal code. City Attorney Diane Northway said the ordinance would cross-reference the general definition of personal services in the code but would net contain a specific listing. She believed Council Member Fletcher's list was illustrative in order for Council to know what the sections covered. Council Member Levy asked about the philosophy surrounding the exclusions of card rooms and parts of restaurants. Council Member Fletcher categorized card rooms in the same manner as bars, which were also exempt. She received a cell from the compliance officer in the Police Department Who monitored card rooms in the City and wanted to know whether the ordinance would apply. She knew of no problems With card rooms so she exempted them. In terms of restaurants, the existing ordinance already contained regulations. Since the proposed amendments would include retail stores, if there was a restaurant within the retail store, she believed it should be Categorized as a restaurant rather than as part of the retail store. Mayor Woolley referred to the term "common area" and real estate offices where typically there .were many desks in a large room. Clients wept to the desk of the individual realtor, and she queried whether the ordinance included the area where the desks of the realtors were located or whether "common area" meant any type of a reception area. Council Member Fletcher originally intended to include a reception area only, but if it was an open area and the smoke was not confined to a closed room, she would consider it to be a "common area." Mayor Woolley clarified areas which were exclusively for the public like a reception area as well as areas shared by a worker and the public, were included in the ordinance. 58-47 7/20/87 Mayor Woolley referred to the current smoking ordinance and it was a little difficult to determine whether a real estate office qualiUed as a workplace and therefore fell under the smoking ordinance governing a workplace or whether it would fall under the new provision. Council Member Fletcher said the workplace ordinance speci- fied protection for the employee. The thrust of the new amendments was to protect the general public. Mayor Woolley clarified the workplace ordinance had to do with allowing employees to smoke under certain circum- stances. She clarified the motion would take precedence, over the workplace ordinance and ban smoking at all times for all employees. Council Member Fletcher clarified only in certain circum- stances. She deterred to the City Attorney. Ms. Northway believed the precedent was Council's decision. There would obviously be situations where the office work- place was exclusively that and members of the public would not mingle, and those places would clearly be covered by the existing provisions. In terms of which provision Council wanted td take precedence, Council could instruct her when direction was given how to draft -the amendments. The usual rule of statutory construction was the latter provision in time and the more specific governed the general. Vice Mayor Sutorius believed if Council considered `the pub- lic areas in general business offices as opposed to the work spaces where a client or user of the service might indi- vidually be invited to sit,` a good purpose was served by having the general area --the obviously accessible area to the public --restricted from smoking. Any good business- person who invited a client back to his or her desk would be sensitive to the interests of the client. He believed the public concept would be clearest and easiest to construct, administer and communicate. Regarding card rooms, he was committed to increasing the number of locations where smoking was prohibited, but saw no reason to ban smoking in card rooms. He suggested the word "common" in Items 3 and 4 of the motion be changed to "public." Council Member Fletcher had no problem with using the word "public" rather than "common," but was concerned about drifting smoke. She was also concerned about the statement that a person would not light up without the client's con- sent and referred to the scenario where the client lit up and ttie employee was not in a position to tell his client not to smoke. The broader question was the person at the next desk.. She expected the "public area" to be any place where the public was; invited. 'i%20/B7 Mayor Woolley clarified there was no point in making a change. Council Member Cobb referred to those businesses in a posi- tion to divide their public areas because they had a smoking clientele and wanted the flexibility. He queried whether it was feasible to allow someone to provide for both if they had facilities to do so and if they had the desire to do so. Council Member Fletcher had no problem with the concept as long as it was a closed room for smokers. Council Member Renzel understood in the office workplace ordinance that where there was an open area and there were nonsmokers, it became a nonsmoking area. Ms. Northway clarified the workplace ordinance provided a policy statement where each employer had to address how to handle the situation and how they would protect a nonsmoker. The area did not entirely become a no smoking area. It three employees could be redistributed to have one who smoked, one whodid not smoke and one who did not care with the one who did not care in the middle, nothing -further had to be done if it worked tor a particular office workplace employer. Nelson Blachman, 443 Ferne Avenue, supported the motion. He hoped the ordinance would be strengthened gradually to allow people who did not smoke to play cards, and to separate eating and smoking completely and perhaps some day require motels, hotels and car rental agencies to maintain non- smoking facilities for those people who did not want to smell bad after using those facilities. Jim. )inkey, 3380 Cork Oak Way, was allergic to smoke, and believed he had the eight to not have to deal with smoke. His company had 1,400'people.* few offices and lots of cubi- cles. One could smell the smoke of a pipe smoker four or five cubicles away and the same was true with cigarette smokers. The smokers were restricted to their -smoking area and all accommodations and conference rooms were off limits. He urged more stringent restrictions. Florence Stromberg, American Lung Association, 1469 Park Avenue, San Jose, represented those people who were phys- ically unable to speak; those ,who sufferedfrom lung-re];ated diseases as well as the children too young to voice -heir opinion at such a meeting. She urged that "Council accept a Complete ban on smoking as set forth in the statement on 58-49 7/20/87 personal services, business, common areas, etc._ She believed it was essential for the health of future genera- tions to eliminate -the noxious material. In the San Jose Mercury News of May 18, 1987, a California poll revealed that 70 percent of the workplaces wanted more restrictions, 69 percent of the restaurants wanted more restrictions, and 67 percent of the hotels wanted more restrictions. The cigarette burning in an ashtray without being puffed con- tained 4,000 chemicals, 30 of which were identified as definitely carcinogenic. In a cubicle situation, the smoke drifted from area to.area and there was no way- to filter it out. Many of the particulates were too big to be trapped in a filter system. The same was true of pipes.., Pipes were relit over and over and those immediately near were contami- nated and those distantly in the area received the same particulates. She uged that smoking be restricted. Charlie Savage, American Lung Association, 1104 Hollenbeck Avenue, Sunnyvale, believed the Palo Alto City Council did an excellent job in the past and he encouraged support of the motion. The American Lung Association supported any movement towards improving the health of all people. Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, 301 Vine Street, was an environ- mental health specialist, and said while it was true the County Transit District buses prohibited smoking, drivers commonly went on breaks and if it was a cold day, whey smoked on the bus. The people who got on the bus had the smokey air. Drivers should be prohibited from smoking in the vicinity of the buses regardless of whether they were on break._ Certain cities banned smoking on Greyhound buses and it was announced in the buses that while going through those cities, smoking was prohibited. She urged prohibition of smoking on public carriers going through Palo Alto regard- less of whether they were County buses. She referred to the North County Courthouse where people sat outside courtrooms and smoked. She wanted to have smoking prohibited in the lobbies of public buildings as well as in the private estab- lishments. Mayor Woolley clarified that "common area" meant the recep- tion area and any other where the public might be invited and the proposed amendments would take precedence over the earlier workplace ordinance it there was a question. Council Member Bechtel believed Council Member Fletcher did a good job with her investigation. Although Palo Alto was initially a leader, it was somewhat behind other cities and Council Member Fletcher did a good job helping to fill in those gaps. She urged Council support of the motion. 58-50 7/20/87 Council Member Fletcher said if the drivers smoked inside the buses or where the smoke could drift inside the bus even on their break, it was prohibited. She urged a rider to take the number of the bus and notify the transit agency. She was also aware of the regulations in some cities which prohibited smoking on any kind of buses within their city limits. AMENDL'IENT: Council Member Fletcher moved to add Item 7: to prohibit smoking on buses in the limits of Palo Alto. Vice Mayor Sutorius agreed to incorporate the amendment into the main motion. ITEM NO. 7 "SMOKING SHALL BE PROHIBITED ON BUSES -WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS OF PALO ALTO;* INCORPORATED INTO MAIN MOTION BY MAKER AND SECOND Ms. Northway assumed the verbage would be subject to a City Attorney determination if it was permissible and that the City was not pre-empted. Council Member -Fletcher said yes. Council Member Levy did not believe Council should pass laws where individuals by their own actions could take the same action. For example, it was unnecessary for retail stores to be nonsmoking places except for their workers. In terms of public areas, he could shop where there was a smoke free environment. He did not believe it was necessary for the City Council to pass an ordinance which said that shoe repair stores, cleaning stores, and retail stores needed to protect their consumers because the consumers could protect themselves. Similarly in terms of protecting a client from an individual, he believed a client could protect themself and the individual salesperson could make their own deci- sion. There were some areas where it was necessary to pro- tect the public and he referred to buses and airplanes. He agreed that bus waiting lines, and bus and train shelters should be smoke free because they tended to be monopolistic situations and the consumer did not have an alternative. In terms of card rooms, to do the opposite was ill-advised. Card rooms should be treated the sate as restaurants in that card rooms over a certain size should have at least a por- tion of the area smoke free. It was particularly wrong for small stores to be mandatory under the ordinance. He had problems with Items 1-4 in the motion because he preferred to- leave it up to individuals to vote -.with their feet and pocketbook. The concept of a card room and a restaurant in terms of the public being there for long periods of time and being exposed to stoke was the same-. 58-51 7/20/87 Council. Member Klein commended Council Member Fletcher for what he believed was a well -drafted effort. He supported the motion and did not believe the arguments pertained. Council was dealing with a public health issue and it was appropriate to act in a variety of ways. He did not believe that just because one could choose to shop at Macy's rather than the Emporium would produce shopping in a smoke -free environment. He did not believe such stores could enforce no smoking regulations necessary for the public health with- out help from the government. Shopping was part of one's existence and he believed when it happened, people should feel they were going to an environment where smoke was not inflicted upon them. Second-hand smoke was clearly shown to be hazardous to one's health and he believed the action was appropriate in order to move toward what might some day be a smoke -free society. Council Member Patitucci supported the general. thrust of the motion. In the case of an open area where one,did business with many different clients, it was extremely difficult for someone trying to satisfy a client to also tell the client not to smoke. When Mountain View passed such an ordinance, it made it very easy to ask clients not to smoke because it was the law. It solved a big problem and did not eliminate the outdoors for smoking. Council Member Renzel agreed with Council Member Patitucci. With respect to the small personal service businesses, it put them all on equal footing so they did not feel they were at a competitive disadvantage in establishing a no smoking area for their business. MOTION DIVIDED FOR PURPOSES OF VOTING FIRST PART OF MOTION CONCERNING ITEMS 1-7, EXCLUDING ITEM 5, PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Levy voting "no." SECOND PART OF MOTION REGARDING ITEM 5 PASSED unani- mously. 7. PUBLIC HEARING: PLANNING COMMISSION.) HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD AND ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD RECOMMENDATION RE APPLICATION OF SPECTRUM FOODS FOR MODIFICATION OF A PLANNED COMMUNITY DISTRICT ORDINANCE 3266 FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 27 UNIVERSITY AVENUE (MacARTHUR PARK RESTAURANT (300) Council Member Renzel asked 'about the likelihood of any problems occurring because of the take-out window being an interference with getting to the SP lot. 58-52 7/20/87 Zoning Administrator Bob Brown said two short-term parking spaces were included in the proposal for use by take-out patrons. It would be up to'the applicant to enforce the use of those spacer. The take-.out i.ndow had good visibility to the driveway front so he envisioned if anyone was parked there, they would be instructed to use the short-term spaces in the future. Mayor Woolley declared the public hearing open. Mark Stevens, 617 Front Street, San Francisco, CA 94111, referred to a proposal to rent some parking spaces in the City parking lot as soon as a release was obtained from Southern Pacific. The first recommendation was for Spectrum Foods to lease seven stalls LOC a maximum fee of $200 per month if the City was able -to obtain the property. He advised that they would like to rent as many parking spaces as possible for $200 per month. There were 22 spaces avail- able and the rent went from a maximum of $200 per month to $600 per month and he clarified it was not Spectrum's intent to have an open check for the monthly parking. They intended to spend the $200 maximum fee per month. _Mr. Brown said initially the fee discussed between staff and the applicant was $200 per month maximum. The $600 fee came from .Commissioner Hirsh's motion at the last Planning Commission meeting. To nis knowledge, the $600 did not actually relate to the maximum of 22 spaces. Initially staff believed $200 per month could buy a fair number of spaces given the fact that the lot was somewhat .out of the way, and it would be less expensive to rent such spaces than in a typical City lot. He was willing to support a .$200 limit. Planning Commissioner Jean McCown said Commissioner Hirsh was not at the first meeting and received his information regarding the- first meeting from reading the minutes. His comments were that he recalled the figure being $600 a month but was in error. She did not believe he intended to raise the fee. !Mayor Woolley declared the public hearing closed. NOTION: Council Meatier Levy moved, seconded by Cobb, approval of the application of Spectrum Foods for a modifi- cation of Planned Community District Ordinance 3266 to allow addition of take-out window to an existing restaurant and parking lot modifications for property located at 27 University Avenue (MacArthur Park Restaurant). 58-53 7/20/87 MOTION CONTINUED ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING ORDINANCE 3266 REGARDING 27 UNIVERSITY AVENUE" Council Member Levy, said he understood when the original development went in, they went in with lower than the stan- dard number of parking. places because of the historic nature of the building. The purpose of the refinements in terms of parking would be to bring them up to what ought to be the standard parking need because there was a significant parking problem in connection with the restaurant. He queried how many parking spaces were needed to bring the restaurant up to an appropriate number and how much it would cost per month. Mr. Brown said the restaurant was 22 spaces short. At that point, he could not quote a dollar figure. None of the lease negotiations were completed with SP so they did not have a monthly figure in terms of the monthly' lease of the parking lot. Council Member Levy assumed 'the rent for the parking lot would be similar to other lots in town and perhaps less, and he queried what -the rent was for City lots. City Manager Bill Zaner did not have a figure in hand because it varied from lot to lot. If the City leased the property from SP, it would not be leased to anyone else at anything less than the City's costs. He believed it cost about $150 to $200 annually or $15 per month. Council Member Renzel referred to the parking deficiency and believed it was appropriate to require correction at a time when additional services were being required. She believed it would be less than $600 to lease the spaces. She sup- ported the motion. Mayor Woolley queried whether the $600 represented a ceiling or whether it was a' fixed price. Ms. Northway did not believe it sounded like a ceiling but rather a fixed amount. She believed the wording should be changed to reflect the intent. Mr. Zaner said the City rented spaces to people all over Palo Alto and he saw no difference between the subject instance and permits issued elsewhere. If Council desired - 58 -54 7/20/87 to require the establishment to have additional parking spaces, it should be the requirement. Staff would set the rates for the parking lot just as for all other parking lots which would be reviewed annually .n the budget process. He recommended the applicantbe required to have "x" number of parking spaces and staff would set the rates. AMENDMENT: Mayor Woolley moved. seconded by Patitucci, to revise the ordinance Section 4(c) to delete the wording "for $600 a month, whichever is less expensive." Council Member Fletcher said if the process of leasing space from SP took a year or more, she queried whether the appli- cant would have to wait for it to happen or whether construction could occur. Mr. Brown said construction could move forward. When the parking lot became available, the requirement would com- mence. Council Member Renzel queried whether Palo Alto was com- peting for the same space as Mr. Chen and the Holiday Inn. Mr. Brown said in the past Mr. Chen said he would consider entering into negotiations with SP to lease those spaces to the rear of his site --not for his project but tor the general public benefit. As of the last modification to the PC, it was no longer a proposal. AMENDMENT PASSED unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED unanimously. 8. PUBLIC HEARING: PLANNING COMMISSION RETURNS TO CITY COUNCIL, WITHOUT RECOMMENDATION, PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ZONING ORDINANCE REGARDING FLOOR AREA AND HEIGHT LIMITATIONS FOR SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLINGS IN THE R -I DISTRICT (237-01) Planning Commissioner Jean McCown said the Commission dis- cussed whether the sense of the commutity was that the prob- lem focused on development which occurred on .school sites; how wide --spread the problem was beyond the kind of develop- ment which occurred on school sites, i.e., was it occurring and at what level was it occurring elsewhere in the commu- nity; were there -differences in the impact and in the way in which the problems have occurred in different neighborhoods around town --neighborhoods that might be more predominantly single -story versus neighborhoods which `had a number of single family residences with two-story construction; and 58-55 7/20/87 the role in the perception of the problem of good versus bad design, as distinguished from the abstract regarding the size of houses. Some .Commissioners agreed there were perceived problems in the community; others were not so clear about the nature of the problem or how wide- spread it was; and others were not satisfied the definition of the problem was adequately set forth at the stage at which the Commission reviewed the matter. The second focus was on the specific proposed solution in front of them from the subcommittee recommendation, and the opinion of the Commission was unani- mous that it was not the right solution, that it was too broad, too restrictive, that it would tend to create far more problems and inconveniences across the board in the community than was warranted by the nature of the problem as it had been defined. In fact, ultimately there was concern the solution might not even solve the problems identified. Commissioner Wheeler particularly expressed concern about that. Ultimately, the Commission had returned the issue to Council with, in effect, a no -action recommendation. She believed there was a frustration with the lack of public participation experienced at their rneetina An trying to define the problem and analyze the solution. They only had eight speakers at the hearing; all but one opposed to the proposal they -were considering. Some individual property owners and more architects and developers spoke. The Commission did not have a significant input and description of the perceived nature of the problems from members of the public. The Commission's feeling was they could have kept the issue at the Commission level and tried to figure out a method to generate more discussion and debate, but at that point it was better to return it to Council and hopefully generate more of a focus on the -issue and create some forum for a better discussion on the nature of the problem and, once that was defined, on what were reasonable solutions. Council Member Cobb asked if it was fair to interpret that the Planning Commission would welcome an opportunity to take the issue back with appropriateguidance from the Council in. terms of how they perceived the problem, and with appropri- ate guidance on how the public might feel after more expanded public discussion. Commissioner McCown said she was in an awkward position because she would not be a member of the Planning Commission if the issue returned. At least three members of the Commission expressed concern that there was an issue and frustration that perhaps it was not defined well enough to adopt the solution. The other four members were perhaps further away from that position in understanding exactly what the problem was. She certainly believed the Commission viewed the issue as one of its areas of responsibility to 58-56 7/20/87 send a recommendation back to the Council. If better defi- nition of the problem came out of the meeting that evening, she believed the Commission would want an- opportunity to comment. Council Member Cobb commented that Council could either spend time that evening discussing the numbers and specifics of how a change in the City ordinances might or might not be made, or could return the issue to the Planning Commission with input provided by both public and Council comments. He believed the appropriate course of action would be to make such a referral and intended to make a motion in that regard after the pudic input. Mayor Woolley said it would be helpful tor the public to address the question of whether there was a problem period, whether there was no problem,: or whether the way the issue had been addressed was not satisfactory or ready for adop- tion at that time. Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber emphasized the importance from the staff perspective of havisry Council define the problem as precisely as possible. The staff, the- Planning Commission, and the public could probably spend a career'_s worth of time playing with alter- natives because there were so many different variables in terms of the design process, height, mass, bulk, setbacks, etc. If the issue returned to the Planning Commission, the clarity of Council's guidance would be critical in avoiding pinking into the issue, and looking at alternative atter alternative. He was concerned that protracted debate and consideration of alternatives would divert staff resources from higher -priority projects, although be believed the issue was important. - Mayor Woolley asked for an idea of the parameters of "define," i.e., first story, second story, total building mass. Mr. Schreiber said, for example, the concerns night be with total. bulk; however, he sensed from public comments that more of the concerns related to mass and appearance of structures from the Street. If the concern seemed -'to be that people were simply uncomfortable with change, that was probably almost impossible to deal with without resulting in such re.str. ictiv regulations that the backlash would be overwhelming. If the concerns were not primarily in the areas of mass, bulk, and appearance from the Street; sLaLf then needed -the other concerns defined. Staff's sense of the_ problem - as pr marily one of appearance from the street 5$-57 7/20/87 and visual intrusion into adjacent yards, and the response to that problem definition had focused on second stories which seemed to address most directly the nature of the problem statement. Council Member Patitucci -made the point that the Planning Commission did the Council a great service by covering the subject extensively. He hoped the public speakers that eve- ning would focus on elements not already covered by the Planning Commission so that Council could be efficient and targeted_in`their deliberations. Council Member Klein believed Council had already defined the probleme The issue that people just did not like change could not be the model because that was something that the Council, or any, other Council, could not handle. He believed there must be something more behind Mr. Schreiber's question of defining the problem` =that he had not grasped. It was almost "the chicken or the egg" situation. Constituents told him they did not like the way new buildings looked, that they_ were too big and intruding on the older buildings next to them. It might be unfair to ask the citizens, and -through them their representatives, how to define that with more -precision. Commissioner McCown said that the subcommittee looked at a number of examples, and communicated to the Planning Commission that about half of those constructed under their existing regulations were considered wonderful and half were considered awful. When members of the community said they did not like a certain house, under the same criteria there would be another house which was equally big to which people did not object. She believed the issue of defining .the problem was what was that distinction and trying to under- stand those differences more precisely. If the differences ultimately came down to good or bad design, obviously that was difficult for ordinances to address. If the problem was something more concretely identifiable, e. g, , related .to mass, height, or daylight plane, then maybe some definition ordinance could be created to channel second -story construc- tion to a certain direction. She did not feel that distinction was clearly articulated to the Planning Commission. Council Member Klein clarified that a consensus could not be found on what the "problem* really was and, even to the extent a significant number of people said one house was a problem whereas another was not, they could not find the common denominators to distinguish between the two. To the extent the Planning Commission could not either identify the problem or, to the extent there was a problem, define the common denominators, they believed Council should do so. 58-58 7/20/87 Commissioner McCown said no, she believed the Planning Commission's action was to tell the Council, in effect, not to take any action. The Planning Commission did not recom- mend to Council that they should continue to study and define the problem. Council Member Klein said that was what he heard. Commissioner McCown reiterated that some members of the Planning Commission would sav that, based on the information they had, there was not a problem that should be addressed. Some members of the Planning Commission heard the same as members of the Council: that people did perceive a problem. They did not have a proposal for an alternative solution, and obviously there was not enough sense of the right direc- tion to modify the solution to do a variation. Staff said a variation to the proposal was to have it be a 1,000 square - foot base minimum as an alternative. Council lember Klein esked whatpurpose it would serve for the Council to refer the issue back to the Planning Commission. cnmmissioner McCown believed the purpose depended on the gist of the hearing that evening. Council Member Klein believed it was optimistic to expect Council to find the missing common denominator that evening and, excepting that, asked what would be gained by referring the issue back to the Planning Commission. Commissioner McCown believed Council Member Klein's state- ment was correct in that the Planning Commission had the same reaction and action two years ago, that itdid not want to take the action. Council Member Klein wondered whether the area was one where Council might ask for the help of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) on a volunteer basis. Chief Planning Official Carol Jansen said they believed very strongly that more information would not solve the problem. Toe arena of design aspects of single-family homes was dif- ferent from regulating the normal setbacks of the heights, daylight planes, etc. Council Member Klein clarified his question was whether the Council would benefit from organized, professional input to look at questionable homes and possibly see a common denomi- nator and solution. 58-59 7/20/87 Ms Jansen said two architects on the subcommittee provided input along those lines, and the solution was what the Council had before it that evening. She failed to see how much more information might be generated from that exer- cise. Council Member Bechtel queried the description of replace- ment in the proposed ordinance, essentially that structures built prior to that date could be remodeled, improved, or replaced as long as the floor area ratio (EAR) for habitable first floor, etc., did not exceed .133, etc. In all previ- ous ordinances, the Council had usually had exceptions for earthquake, fire, natural disasters, and there did not seem to be one. She asked if that me -ant a good many structures in Palo Alto would not be allowed to be replaced if they were burned down or damaged by earthquake. She referenced those reviewed by the Planning Commission, Christmas Tree Lane --about half of which might have been larger than the .133 or exceeded the daylight plane --her home for example, and those two other examples that came before the Planning Commission. Zoning Administrator Bob Brown said that was the City's typical ordinance requirement. Structures which were not complying, whether it be to lot coverage, height, setbacks, etc., could not be replaced except in a complying ,Manner. Council Member Bechtel said Vice Mayor Sutorius-brought out the sections of the Municipal Code under Site Development Regulations for Substandard Lots, and under Habitable Floor Limitations, etc.,► those with substandard lots might be replaced to its previous size without regard to height and habitable floor limitations imposed. Mr. Brown said there were some exceptions in the' ordinance. Council Member Bechtel asked if that was the only excep- tion. Mr. Brown said it was the only exception he was familiar with pertaining to R--1 and was added fairly recently. It was possible to create a grandfather clause that would allow reconstruction of existing second -story space. Council Member Bechtel asked if staff had any idea how many homes would be affected in Palo Alto, most likely in the older parts of Palo Alto where homes were built complying with the ordinances on the books at the time they were built, but no longer co►nplied due to changes in the ordi- nances. Mr. Brown said it was hard to say how many, but he believed Council Member Bechtel was right in regard to the older parts of Palo Alto. Staff's survey,,.o€ Fulton Street, for example, indicated about half the homes would be affected to some degree. Council Member Levy said a number of people were concerned because their lots were substandard, and he asked staff to refresh Council and the public as to what the specific regu- lations were for substandard lots. Mr. Brown clarified lots which had either a width or depth dimension which was. less than 83 percent of the otherwise established requirement, and an area . of less than 83 percent of the otherwise established requirement, were restricted to single --story construction. In numbers that meant a typical R-1 lot had to have an area of less than 4,980 square feet, and a width of less than 50 or a depth of less than 83 feet in order to be considered substandard. Council Member Levy asked if a second story would require a variance. Mr. Brown said yes. Council Member Cobb said staff seemed to suggest Council should do something and gave two different options. He asked -f staff perceived there was a problem and something should be done about it. Mr. Schreiber said staff would define the problem as focusino on the scale of building allowed under the `existing zoning, To the extent that more and more properties were building out to the maximum, or close to the maximum allowed under the zoning, staff felt there were more and more build- ings being developed which were out of scale with the area and which had visual impacts not foreseen in developing the ordinance. To that extent; staff believed there was a problem and did not see land value or other changes which would slow down the type of remodeling and redevelopment pace that had been occurring in the last two years. Council Member Cobb said one of the applicants for the Planning Commission, a member of the Architectural Review Board (ARB), commented that another. way to tackle the prob- lem might be to measure daylight plane to what he called a "plate line" instead of the eaves, etc. He queried whether the options before Council were good -ones, was there some- thing Council; could do, were there better approachs, and should that kind of suggestion or other suggestions be 58.61. 7/20/87 considered. He queried whether the options before Council were good. Mr. Brown said staff did not guide the Committee's work but was comfortable the result was administratively acceptable and could be passed onto the public with some ease. There wls a possibility of modifying the numbers. The Committee's approach in terms of limiting the second -story size and day- light plane, given their definition of the problem, was correct. He.referred to the daylight plane discussions and eaves and said it was a small exception to allow some dif- ferent eave designs but it had little true effect. Mayor Woolley said the Committee believed the problem was at the second -story level. Everyone was fairly used to one- story housing and there were not many problems with the full 35, percent lot-, coverage. After reviewing several houses, the common denominator was when the walls went straight up so that the second story was a repeat of the first and that was what the recommendations tried to mitigate. It was strictly a recommendation and the matter was referred to the Planning Commission in the hopes of generating public input although there were not that many speakers. The specifics were not massaged because the majority of Planning Commisioners did not believe a problem existed and there was no point in making adjustments. Council needed to determine whether there was a problem and if so, it needed to go back to the Commission. Council Member Patitucci did not see much discussion about the floor area eatia (FAR) approach to solving the problem which was used with the development on the school sites where the size and bulk were excessive. To apply a .38 FAR plus a garage, seemed to be relatively simple and could accomplish some of the solution to the problem. For frame of reference, on a 6,000 square foot lot with 35 percent coverage, assuming 400 square feet of coverage was in a' gar- age and a second floor was put on top of its, there ended up being 4,200 square feet; of development, 3,800 square feet of which was in a house.' That type of thing occurred in Crescent Park and some of the other school sites. The proposals said for a 1,000 square foot second floor, if one had maximum coverage on the first floor of 2,100 square feet, it would give 3,100 square feet of building, 400 of which was in a garage, and 2,700 square feet of house. That went from a .63 FAR to a .45 FAR. It seemed to him that a lot of the objections from homeowners and the design commun- ity Were the restrictions ,that 800 or 1,000 square feet on the second floor placed on using the flexibility of the site 58.62 7/20/87 and meeting some of the incredible differences in neighbor- hoods. What was appropriate in one neighborhood might not be appropriate in another. Single story housing was not particularly dominant where he lived. At one point he pro- posed a .4 FAR plus a 400 square foot garage. If one had _a complete 35 percent lot coverage, there would already be 1,700 square feet of house which would limit the second floor to 700. Conversely, if less of the lot was covered, there could be 1,400 square feet on the first floor and 1,400 on the second but there would only be 23 percent lot coverage, and more backyard, landscaping and flexibility of design. There could still be a 2,400 square foot house plus a 400 square foot garage on a 6,000 square foot lot with a .4 FAR. Mr. Brown believed the FAR was discussed early on as the solution and was abandoned because the discussions centered on the second story as being the problem and the fact that someone maximizing their ground floor coverage did not really create a problem to adjoining property owners or the .general public. It might only be a problem to the indi- vidual homeowner as to how much available landscape area would be remaining. The other reason the FAR was not pur- sued was because of a perceived difference in the case of a regulation which would apply to exiyti.ng homes being remodeled and the new homes on school sites. The new homes an school sites had much more flexibility in how the space was located. Adding on to an existing home had some built in inefficiencies and it was believed that an overall FAR might be an overly re_.trictive approach. Vice Mayor Sutorius requested the public to provide input and opinions on concepts other than those proposed to the Planning Commission and which were before the Council on a no recommendation" basis. He believed Palo Altans enjoyed open space, blue sky, trees and other vegetation, and new home construction and remodeling could have impacts. He wanted input on a concept that would be FAR related but slightly different from what was identified by Cpuncil Member Patitucci. In order to be fair and provide proper flexibility, he believed an FAR related either as a ratio to site coverage or as -a ratio to the buildable area would be a better approach than an FAR related to lot size. Such an approach offered the kind of flexibility mentioned by Council Member Patitucci. He believed it was an important flexibility that could offer retention of open space 'and design. It might be reasonable to reduce the daylight_plane such that it offered some offset flexibility. If one needed to intrude on the daylight plane_for a portion, one could make up for it by being under the daylight plane in a greater_portion« 58-63 7/20/87 COUNCIL RECESSED FROM 9:22 p.m. TO 9:35 p.m. Mayor Woolley declared the public hearing open. Peter Taskovich, 751 Gallen Avenue, said the problem was the height of second stories. People did not care about the square footage but rather the large additions which seemed to loom over the neighborhood. There was also some concern on the part of the Council about being overly restrictive, but he believed it was better to be slightly overly restic- tive than to be generous because once a building was built too big, it was too big. He basically supported the concept of the staff recommendation especially the 1,000 square foot second stories for lots under 7,500 square feet. He believed a referral back to the Planning Commission might result in a redefinition of numbers. Larick Hill, 780 Palo Alto Avenue, believed if the ideal home in Palo Alto was defined as the one story ranch house, the solution before the Council would be the problem not the solution. Reduction of the daylight plane penalized owners of older homes with higher floor levels because one ended up with a three-foot high plate line on the second floor. The reduction of the daylight plane did not allow for alternate design solutions and putt unrealistic on second floor uses. If one appreciated the kind of pressure there was on prop- erty prices, one would end up with 17,500 square feet exactly site coverage on thebottom floore and whatever was decided on the second floor. He referred to Fulton Avenue with its old houses. Those would not comply with the ordi- nance which told him there was something wrong with the ordinance. Part of the problem was the daylight plane and he believed it put a great deal of pressure on the sides of houses and squirted all of the space out to the large gable -type fronts. Daylight planes did not allow detached houses because of a seven -foot high plate line plus a 3 to 1 slope which were nearly impossible. He referred to a Cape Cod type house where the ridge line was parallel to the street but all of a sudden the daylight plane cut off at the upper line and could cut even deeper. The problem with the daylight plane was that with a 100 -Loot long lot, 20 feet was knocked off of each end for the setbacks, there was a 60 foot long blank wall 16 to 18 feet high.(16 feet under the new -ordinance) which sloped up at a 45 degree angle because it maximized the daylight plane and how much space could be stuffd inside. He suggested the possibility of an aver- aging system, and space which exceeded the daylight plane could be offset by space which had to be reduced below it ,on a ratio of perhaps 2 to 1. He .believed the current inter- pretation of the daylight- plane as opposed to eaves was a 58-6� 7/20/87 real problem. If one tried to put an eave line or an over- hang and a gutter to provide shadow to soften the side Wall of a house, there was a penalty of 18 inches in terms of height one could have on a second floor bedroom. He agreed the FAR should be based upon buildable area rather than site area because buildable area flexed. A 50 -foot by 200 -foot lot as opposed to a 100 -foot by 100 -foot lot, even though they had the same lot area, had different buildable areas. The skinnier lot should have a smaller potential build out than the one closer to a square. Mike Moyer, an architect in Palo Alto, was opposed to the change in the zoning ordi- nance and suggested it return to the Planning Commission for review. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, represented the Barron Park Association. Zoning and Land Use Committee, who believed there was a problem. A survey of the Barron Park neighborhood indicated that about three-quarters of the people strongly supported some typo of neighborhood design review of .new and exten- sively remodeled single-family homes. Since the problem was primarily with second floors, the review would focus on homes where either a second -story addition or a two-story house was being built, particularly if it was over a certain size He believed it might be useful to have a combination of architectural professionals and community residents review and make recommendations. Another possibility was the. FAR as was used in the case of school sites. A simple solution would be to pick an FAR as a reasonable and. flex- ible way to control excessive development on single family homes. A third possibility was a specific FAR limitation including adjustments to daylight planes and setbacks for second floors. Ifonly the second floor FAR was addressed, it was hard to determine the right number. He did not believe a single number would necessarily be:appropriate for all possible sites in the City. He believed there needed to be flexibility and a range of numbers. There might be a number above which or.e had to go through the ARB. Larger additions would have to go through some additional ,steps and procedures. He believed Council needed to recognize there was a problem but should not just refer the matter back to the Planning Commission without some direction. Mike Kinoshita, 430 Foxborough Drive, Mountain View, .1as an architect, and was . willing to work with the Council and Planning Commission to come up with a solution to the prob- lem. He agreed a problem existed and that the proposed ordinance was not the answer.. There was no one answer to the problem, and if he had the power to vote on such an item, he would have to start with himself. . 58-65 7/20/87 Millie Bader, 219 Seale Avenue, moved,to Palo Alto in 1953 and bought one -quarter of an acre of land with a two - bedroom, one bath home on it tor $10,000. If a negative decision was reached, the most affected would-be the young couples with children who, as those children grew, would want to add family rooms and bedrooms so they could each have their own room, etc-. They were living in a society where the children could not play out in the front yard any- more. She heard some intelligent comments from architects that evening on ways to achieve the means to the end where there could ,be • a two-story house and something attractive to the eye. Richard Elmore, 819 Guinda Street, was a design profes- sional, and said most of his days were spent working with families on new and remodeled home sites in the Palo Alto and immediate community areas. It was hard for him to understand how the individuals who decided the size of homes should be restricted could do so knowing that so many of them lived in such spacious homes. To limit the second floor addition of a house to no more than 1,000 square feet would not give the new community residents what he called "spacious" living. He worked with people two years in advance to plan their additions because they needed advice in terms of budgeting, and it was hard to have to tell them there was a good chance they would not be able to build what they planned on building for the past two years and what they paid to have designed under the current zoning ordi- nances. The current zoning ordinances were good in his opinion. They were generous to both the design professional by allowing the building of a good, attractive and func- tional home.and at the same time he did not believe they were that aggressive on the. areas. The situation became subjective when aesthetics were the problem. The aesthetic could not be nailed down every time through ordinances and regulations, Change always created a lot of controversy and complaints and Council needed to learn how to deal with them. Somehow the Council and the people who represented the government had to be able to have dialogue and a method and rapport with the community to say that some of the things were just the way life was, and to change them -or .make more restrictions would not be fair to the people moving to Palo Alto to have families. He recommended Council refer the matter back to the .planning Commission and offered to work night and day as a member of -the design community to help in any way possible to bring about a more suitable way of dealing with the problem rather than an FAR or new daylight planes. Much more study was needed from many different areas, not more restriction. • 58-66 7/20/87 Denis L. Cogswell, 2501 Cowper. Street, associated himself with the two previous. speakers. Fifteen years ago he bought a small house in the Midtown area and since then had two children who were now teenagers. For some time they hoped to build some sort of an addition which would probably be a second story. He urged Council to accept the offers of the architectural professionals for assistance and to not arbi- trarily limit the flexibility in the hopes and plans of the younger families in the area. Michael. Shafran, 1926 Emerson Street, said\the first house he owned in Palo Alto was a 900 square -foot house, twice the size of a standard two -car garage. To add to the restric- tions on building in Palo Alto would create a worse situa- tion. He believed the problem arose because the people in Palo Alto had a school site with wide lawns, and a single story building they were used to seeing. One year after the school disappeared there were houses there. The people who built 900 -square foot houses were gone. People now wanted to live in 2,000 square foot houses. He preferred to see the existing rules remain without being complicated and cluttered. The most recent committee saw that second stories were encroaching on people's backyards. City Hall encroached on many backyards. He suggested there ,be a com- mittee for commercial construction in Palo Alto which he believed to be horrendous. Every neighborhood had one building that was considered to be an eyesore. Lome people did not respect other people and just did what they wanted to do. Doug .Akins, 1359 Byron Street? moved to Palo Alto in 1981, paid 1r-1/4 percent interest on his mortgage and got a two bedroom, one bath doll house on 5,600 square feet of land. Since then he had two children and recently hired a local architect and spent ,$7,500 on the preliminary designs for an addition. Their neighbors were enthusiastic about the design. He was encouraged by the Planning Commission's evaluation of the problem but disturbed by what he saw as an unfounded urge to legislate. A strength of the Palo Alto community was that people cared about how the neighborhoods looked. In one-story neighborhoods there were objections to people suddenly having taller houses. They were many two- story neighborhoods where a second story #gas simply a matter of maintaining the size and scale of the other houses. His neighborhood was typically much larger houses but he took a standard "yuppie" approach and bought a small house in a _nice neighborhood hoping to be able to build eventually, which was what they were trying to do. Any legislative solution should be sensitive to the complexity of Palo Alto's housing stock and neighborhoods. A single FAR or mechanical -arithmetical approach could not address the 58-67 7/20/87 complexity of what Council was attempting to regulate. He understood staff's reluctance to adopt a design review approach and did not believe the problem was sufficient to .justify the input, increase in staff, funding, time and bureacracy necessary to put such an approach in place. The only solution should be to maintain existing regulations knowing there would be occasional abuses like the school sites, which were simply the product of bad design on the City's part, without penalizing smaller scale single-family house developers, They were trying to provide a decent home for individual families with the responsible approach involving the neighbors and making sure abuses were limited and did not occur more often than necesary. He was a land use attorney for about ten years and it was the first time he represented his own interests. Nothing struck indi- viduals as close to home as when the City attempted to kick around such a legislative impulse. He understood trying to go for a planning solution --a generalized formula that could be spread over the City that would work and define proper architectural standards. He held no .hope for such an approach working and certainly not one with as little time and analysis as was spent on the current issue. There was not a problem of sufficient magnitude in his view to justify blanket legislation. Much more study was required. In terms of fairness, many would be caught mid -stream in what he believed were responsible and aesthetically pleasing remodel.ings of existing houses. Council Member Renzel asked about the size of -the proposed addition. Mr.. Aikins said his plans showed approximately 1,400 addl- tional square feet. He had a corner lot and he believed his architect had been creative in working with the existing daylight plane regulations to reproduce a Cape Cod design and making it look as though the house was originally built "that way in 1927 when the house was built. He believed an extraordinary job was done on the plans as did the neigh- bors. Council Member Levy asked how the additional 1,400 square feet would be laid out. Mr. Aikinssaid the ground floor would go out approximately 500 square feet in the back. He had a large detached garage in the back and the additional space would be primarily in the back and center thirds. The front would be essentially untouched from the eave line close to the ridge line. Architectural gabling would extend into the front area and there would be approximately 900 square feet on the second story. 58-63 7/20/87 Council Member Levy clarified that if Council adopted the staff recommendation which allowed for 1,000 square feet on the second story, the addition could be built. Mr. Aikins referred to option 2 which appeared to allow the flexibility he needed in his development. Bill Sayer, 2295 Cornell Street, bought .a 5,000 square foot lot eight years ago with the intention of building a second story on his 1,600 square foot house to accommodate the family he intended to have. If Council overdid the legisla- tive process, he was concerned it would impair the already diminishing number of small homes with children in Palo Alto. As a physician, one of the first things he learnedin medical school was to first do no hare. Council needed to find out to whom and where the process could be harmful. His small lot had appreciated somewhat in eight years and if the current procedure was adopted, his property value would go down. He believed anyone who tried to legislate beauty failed. Beauty was too variable in definition and he begged that Council not hurt people trying to improve appearances. Geoff Bertelson, 700 High Street, was an architect, and lived in Palo Alto since 1947. He objected to the entire process and did not believe it would be profitable to have staff or a few people make judgments in terms of aesthetics. A big question had to do with the neighborhood and the Mayor and the people from Barron Park who were used to single story homes did not want two story houses built next door. Contrary to a negative declaration by staff or the perceived problems, he saw no data on exactly how many people were worried about the idea because the Planning Commission only had eight people testify. The problem was basically a single family ordinance which existed for about 25 years with little change. Council was now talking about making a sweeping change through the City. He believed such a change would affect the Comprehensive Plan and a "Chicken Little" approach' to planning for the whole City was inappropriate and nothing would be resolved by having either a few staff members or a few design professionals or one neighborhood or another get their own way. He lived in a neighborhood which was mostly two story houses and probably only 10 percent of the houses were in any kind of compliance. He believed the issue greatly affected the Comprehensive ,Plan and the proper way to change it was through a proper planning process. Evelyn Doone, 252 Santa Rita Avenue, was relatively new to the City of Palo Alto but was attracted to the area by the lack of uniformity and the fact that it had relatively old houses many of which surely did no.t comply with the present daylight plane regulations. Her house was 60 years old and 58-69 7/20/87 only had two bedrooms and one bathroom. The first thing they needed to do was add 500 square feet to bring their house to a total'of 1,500 square feet. Palo Alto already had strict design restrictions and it was not easy to come up with a nice design on relatively narrow lots. She shared many of the viewpoints expressed by Messrs. Hill and Shafran. Her impression was that a couple of tracts were recently developed and the homes built all at the same time and even though each tried to achieve some sort of indi- vidual style, since they were all two stories and were all built at the same time, there was a certain tract feeling that might have upset certain people. She was not sure it was a typical situation throughout the City of Palo Alto. She appreciated the Planning Commission's not having made any drastic recommendation and shared the viewpoint of the physician who urged that Council first not do any harm. If the case was not studied carefully and if someone rushed into a drastic recommendation because there seemed to be a demand for a quick solution to the peace of mind of a few people, it would do a lot of harm to other people who might not be well aware of the situation. Present day lifestyles were not the same as the old days and people had to be allowed to grow into their house or to have room to expand. It Council mandated a 750 square -foot addition to a 5,600 square -foot home, it was almost too limiting. Dan Epstein, 358 Tennyson Avenue, was in the.,,process of com- .pleting the remodeling of his house, and he `,and his neigh- borhos believed the addition was a good one for the neigh- borhood. He was certain he could not have built his addi- tion under the -proposed ordinance. The proposed ordinance would change the future of Palo Alto by limiting the number• of large families with children, creating a hardship for families already living in Palo Alto which planned to have children and enlarge their present home or move to a larger one, and affecting the tax structure and revenues by limiting the number of square feet per house. The process was disturbing because when the ordinance on downtown con- struction restrictions was under consideration, there were numerous public meetings, etc., and the present ordinance would affect Palo Alto more profoundly for a longer period of time and yet there was little advertisement and little public awareness. The staff report (CMR:375:7) mentioned a lot of social rand economic reasons for the rebuilding of Palo Alto but no professional reasons about why the ordi- nance should not pass. He referred to the comments of architects, why the Planning Commission unanimously voted to take no action and the fact that the architectural community unanimously opposed the proposed ordinance. .The staff report (CMR:375:7) referred to a small study done on the 1700 and 1800 block of Fulton Street and concluded that the a vgrage,FAR was close to .13 but failed to mention that more than half the beautiful houses on Christmas Tree Lane could not be built under the new ordinance because of the FAR con- dition and more because of the daylight plane. The staff report included a list of houses with FAR and daylight plane statistics and many of the houses were beautiful and only enhanced the beauty of Palo Alto and could not be rebuilt under the proposed ordinance. He was concerned staff was trying to respond to Council Members' private agendas. Martin Bernstein, 3315 Waverley Street, was concerned about some of the implications of the restrictions on single family homes. He agreed with the. dormer exception which spoke to a sloping roof and an exception for other designs should also be allowed. Some of the first floors of older homes might. be 36 inches above grade and if a 10 -foot day- light plane was imposed, it would exempt the second story from even being added on. He was concerned that anything which started restricting houses more than , presently restricted started to legislate_ a mold in which a house could exist. As molds were placed upon people and the shell in which people could -exist got tighter and tighter, it started to kill the spirit. Palo Alto was a place where people could express themselves. People were diverse and their expressions should be diverse and those diverse expressions were sacred in peoples' homes. He recommended - any proposed ordinance beyond what was existing be defeated. It was difficult for a city to legislate something which imposed expression which could be translated into design because a city was not trained. in architecture or design and it did not have experience in designing houses. A blanket rule of how big houses could be was too confining. Council Member Renzel asked whether Mr. Bernstein was plan- ning an addition that would run afoul of the proposed ordinance. Mr. Bernstein said no. Sarah O'Oowd Saari, 611 Tennyson Avenue, said when she received the staff report (CMR:375:7) on Saturday, she was shocked to read and see that none of the arguments raised by the citizens who appeared before the Commission and other remarks of the Planning Commission were reflected. The report recommended -adopting an ordinance on which the Planning Commission specifically took no action and sug- gested a second alternative that the Planning Commission also specifically rejected. According to the information gathered by staff on the Christmas Tree Lane area, 10 out of 58-71 7/20/87 21 houses would violate the proposed FAR regulations, She did not know why but when City staff gathered the informa- tion, they did not take the time to also measure the day- light plane restrictions so that while 10 of 21 houses violated the FAR, if those which actual,?y violated the pro- posed ordinance were counted, the percentage would be much higher. The most shocking thing to her was not that people who lived in those nice houses on Christmas Tree Lane could not rebuild them, but the people who lived on Christmas Tree Lane who happened to live in one story houses and might like to remodel them would not be able to build a house exactly like the houses next door, which houses were lovely. She saw no sense to such an ordinance. It was clear the ordi- nance would significantly reduce the property value of many Palo Alto homes. Some real estate professionals estimated it could mean $50,000 or more to individual homeowners pre- sumably those with property "ripe for redevelopment." Regarding the recent Supreme Court case limiting.,zoning and the taking of property, she was informed that the City Attorney looked into the matter and determined that as long as the City did not take 100 percent of a property owner's value, there was nothing illegal.- She was appalled to think City government would be run on a principle that it could take everything right up to 100 percent of a property owner's value. She hoped that was not where the legislation was headed. When she and her husband learned of the pro- posed ordinance, they spent a lot of time trying to gather information to present to the Planning Commission because they thought it was ill-advised. She hardly considered her efforts in the area sufficient to constitute a thorough understanding of what the effects on the City would be; however, they spent more time on the matter than the members of the subcommittee who in their published material said they spent two hours driving around town looking at those remodels which came to people's minds. The facts resulting from the study as stated in the published materials were simply a list of addresses, sizes of 'AR's and whether houses violated the proposed ordinance. There was no analy- sis as to which of the houses were good or bad; in fact, there was no analysis presented in any of the materials pub- lished to date. When they suggested in their letter to the Planning Commission that the Christmas Tree Vane area could not be rebuilt, the staff chose to do a study which spe- cifically did not address how Christmas Tree Lane would fare under the proposed ordinance. She did not regard that as very thorough fact finding by City officials. In the Staff report to the ::Planning Commission, there were no new facts or analysis. There were simply unsupported "observations/ /conclusions." Based on the staff report, statements made at the Planning Commission meeting, statements given to the 58-72 7/20/87 press, and statements made that evening, she believed the real issue was,not perceived mass and that there was a hid- den agenda. The concern seemed to be that homeowners were maximizing the value of their property and that developers were making money remodeling. Although the subcommittee report stated that the typical remodel was a master bedroom addition. staff characterized pit as remodels for the sake of lifestyles and to create special spaces. If the City wanted to place limits on the value of Palo Alto property, regulate lifestyles and special spaces that were acceptable to City residents, it should be done openly without hiding between a smoke Screen of perceived mass and oversized houses. Tad Cody, 630 Coleridge Avenue, urged that Council drop the ordinance. The design issues at the Planning Commission meeting were probably not addressed to any greater degree because the only ones who were aware of the early implica- tions were the design community. Typically, the homeowner, when unable to understand what was going on in the ordi- nances, consulted a professional. There were not many home- owners at the Planning Commission meeting because there was not that level of awareness and it would take a little while to develop it. The visual quality of the community was determined by design sensitivity. The basic success of any visual quality was always the relationship between the owner and the architect. A wonderful architect and an insensitive builder would result in a poor building. A mediocre architect and a wonderful owner often resulted in superior designs. It was a joint operation and not some- thing to be mathematically regulated. Mathematic regulation would not improve design or prevent ugliness! but it would limit hope and opportunity for design to such a degree that people's aspirations would be eliminated. He suggested Council drop the proposal and consider the elimination of speculative built houses. "Spec" builders had no long term interest in the effects of their actions other than finan- cial. The daylight plane issue was more often. offended by tree sizes than by buildings when looking at people's argu- ments over light and shadow exchanges on property lines. It might be useful to increase side yard opportunities wherein neighborhors could join side yards in such way that one would have a wider and usable space to be exchanged for the like on the other side. Another possibility might be to eliminate side yards entirely by joint agreements among neighbors and build a fire wall because most side yards were" fairly useless places to grow odds . and ends and c;vilect various sorts of greeds, and they did not prevent much in the way of sound transfer between properties so theywere kind of an unexamined appendage to the ordinances. He suggested removing the monotony of uniformity of front yards. 58-73 7/20/87 Pat Cala, 765 San Antonio Road, 474, was opposed to any amendments to further limit new construction regarding floor areas and height limitations for single family homes. She agreed with Michael Fleming's conclusion at the June 24, 1987, Planning Commission meeting about the severe over- reaction to a very small problem. in 1985, she attended two Planning Commission meetings when restrictions of size and proposed limits On new single family dwellings were the issue. -They had purchased a lot on the Crescent Park school site but had not yet started plans for construction. They were unaware of the hostility of the residents due to the loss of their school. She had urged the Commission not to proceed with the restrictions because had she known that Council would change the rules after they bought the lot, they would not have -purchased it in the first place. Unkind references were still made by residents towards the new homes on school sites. FAR and daylight plane were issues that members of the Planning Commission gave a lot of time to. From 1985 to 1987, construction proceeded on the many new homes, all of them two story. Complaints were made by neighbors to the Police Department and various inspection agencies quite frequently. It seemed that established families needing larger spaces were the new target. She queried whether.construction workers on new additions would be halted in mid -project while complaints were investigated. If the second story was four inches off and one was issued a stop work order:, she queried whether the budget could handle the delays and interest charges to say;nothing of the men who performed construction labor to support their families. She referred to neighbors walking through the construction site looking for mistakes while the owner was away. She cited the July 4 weekend at 8:30 p.m.:, when the police called and told them that trespassers were reported at their new house construction. When they arrived, the police said two women started into the house and said they wanted to see how big the backyard was. There were other such stories; however, it seemed the longer the proposals for limitations continued, the more likely that damage to personal feelings and private property was at great risk. She recommended Council adopt Item 44 and deny the proposed ordinance and take no future action to study or modify the R-1 regula- tions. Susan Levenberg, 825 Garland Drive, agreed with many of the speakers that the proposal should be dropped and nothing further should be done.. There was a distinct difference hetween adding on to an existing structure and all the limitations placed thereon were compounded by the existing footprint plan, where to place the stairwell and the dif- ferent issues which confronted an addition to a total 58-74 7/20/87 reconstruction of a home. Any floor area ratio or other flexibility one might have with overall percentages were diminished because of the existing structure. Garland Drive ran for two streets from Louis to Middlefield Road and it was built as a single family, one story neighborhood. There were 15 additions on the two blocks and some were More attractive than others but they all added to the diversity of the tract neighborhood and they made the neighborhood more attractive. She wanted to be afforded the opportunity to be able to do what 15 of her neighbors did. Michael Fleming, 576 Maybell, was a developer, and said what he built was determined by people's tastes and what they wanted. People wanted houses 2,500 .to 3,000 square feet. If Council tallied the sentiment received that evening, there were a few key bad designs in the City which stirred large reactions. Those were minimal in number and no reason to pass an ordinance which blanketed the entire City. He believed the process was the problem. Ordinances kept being passed to solve problems but he believed the solution was to go back to the beginning. What created the design problems were all the restrictions on daylight planes, FARs, set- backs and height limitations because they did not Allow architectural freedom of design. Council received input from the design community --from the professionals who knew how to design. Council needed to sit back aid give the pro- fessionals an opportunity to meet together to come up with suggestions. The most beautiful neighborhoods in Palo Alto were the ones which clearly violated almost all of the restrictions currently in ..place. Linda Ludden, 1048 Ramona, was an architect and a member of the University Park Neighborhood Association. She recom- mended the ordinance not be adopted because the existing ordinances took care of the situations in the City. If Council decided to pursue an additional ordinance, she sug- gested it be determined whether a problem existed, and if so, whether it was a Citywide problem or whether it was individual neighborhood problems. There were neighborhoods in Palo Alto which were mainly one-story houses and .large houses in those neighborhoods might be a problem. There were neighborhoods, such as hers, which were historic and which were. two - and three story houses. Restricting the height and daylight plane and second floors for houses in those neighborhoods was not consistent so it needed to be looked. at in terms of the individual neighborhood being affected. Regarding grandfathering the reconstruction of a house if it was destroyed by fire or by some kind of natural disaster, if there were a series of_fires or an earthquake, 'Professorville would be lost because the ordinance would not 58-75 7/20/87 allow those houses to be rebuilt in their present form. Council received a lot of good input and it seemed like some of the issues were good versus bad design and she totally, agreed with the other speakers who said good design could not be legislated. It was the quality of design that would make a good structure whether it was a house or a commercial building. If Council pursued the ordinance. she believed the FA.R approach for the total property or buildable site as opposed to FAR just for the second floor would allow more design flexibility. She recommended no ordinance changes be made. Chuck Pays, 1275 Elder Avenue, was a general contractor, who tried to build homes that were not overly massive but yet :large. As a builder, he found that what Council referred to as the big problem was usually one or two indi- viduals . in an entire neighborhood. There were no restrictions in Menlo Park and homes did not look any dif- ferent than they did in Palo Alto where there were so many restrictions. He did not believe restrictions would solve the problems. Roberta London, 3019 Price Court, realized the matter was subjective but she was upset at the large houses. Her neighborhood was basically single story houses .and she had behind her a massive ugly house she had to look at every day. Because she was on the curve of a cul-de-sac, she had five other possibilities of big houses being built around her and she did not want it to happen. She wanted something to be done. She supported the concept of neighborhood input before massive changes occurred and the prohibition against speculative building. Robert Jenks, 355. Kingsley Avenue, was an architect, and was sensitive to what staff and the Planning Commission were trying to do. He cautioned against more restrictions because the more restrictive the second floor and lowering the daylight plane would affect some of the old styles which were strict and went straight up. He would hate` to see the old houses legislated out of possibilities. Stan Parry, 1154 Hamilton Avenue, referred to a statement by the Director of Planning and Community Environment that a lifetime could be spent dealing with variables in the Municipal Code, There were so many subjective statements that the impaets of the proposed ordinance needed to be studied generally. He heard there .would be design problems and they might end up with houses with little hats on top and it would create problems in design for Some of .the traditional Palo Alto styles such as Monterey Revival and it 58.76 _7/20/87 could accelerate what was already going on in terms of the combination of small substandard lots particularly in the College Terrace area. If the proposal increased the number of variance applications, the variance procedure itself should be given serious consideration because it was not flexible and would not help the City deal with the variety of problems that would occur as time went on. There seemed to be little room for judgment. There was strict interpre- tation of the variance criteria and the Zoning Adminiotator was not permitted to weight the criteria so each three of the criteria were to be weighted equally. In effect, the variance procedure did not offer the kind of flexibility that one might expect if the zoning ordinance was too strictly interpreted or presented problems. He supported some of the ideas suggested by Larick Hill particularly in terms of averaging various daylight plane restrictions and taking from one end and giving to the another, which was also true of the various setback requirements. Then Council could begin to use the ordinance more creatively and it would be a less draconian measure. Bob Moss had spoken to the idea of using the Architectural Review Boar' as a review body or some other type of body. He realized it struck fear into the hearts of many people because of the magnitude of such problems. Even if a parallel body was ,created for residential zoning, he believed it would be soon overwhelmed but other cities would replace the current level of review by the Zoning Administrator with some kind of a mechanism which allowed for judgment to be used in reaching conclu- sions. He did not believe any generalized formula would solve the problem. A mechanism needed to be developed which continued to evolve and grow and allowed the people in the community to apply, through the representative method, their judgment as to what would work so accommodations could oe made. The current system did not allow for a balancing of interest within a neighborhood so that even, if a design violated the ordinance, did not meet the technicalitie_s of the variance criteria, and yet might be favorable to the overall neighborhood, -_there was no mechanism for a com- promise to be made. It tended to be an all or nothing situation. Mayor Woolley declared the public hearing closed. Council Member Cobb was convinced that when dealing with regulations that affected people's single family residences --the last bastion Of freedom -they needed to be treated carefully. It was suggested there might be a poten- tial for problems and a lot of the debate had to do with whether there was a problem and to what extent. He. was not. prepared to move ahead with the recommendations in the staff report (CMR:375:7'); however, .enough was made of the issue that it should be looked at by the design professionals 58-77 7/"20/87 MOTION: Council Member Cobb moved, seconded by Klein, that the Mayor be instructed to appoint an Ad Hoc Committee on singlefamily residence zoning and design with the charge to study the followings 1. Whether existing R-1 zoning created sufficient potential for intrusive development whereby changes is the appli- cable ordinances should be considered; and if changes were .necessary, to make appropriate recommendations; 2. That the Committee consist of seven members, consisting of at least four design professionals, at least three of whom are principally engaged in the design of single family residences and that the Committee report back to the Council through the Planning Commission within six months of the date of their appointment. Council Member Cobb wanted to hear from the design profes- sionals. There was no doubt in his mind that there had been a few instances where some really objectionable homes were built whose impact on the next door neighbors was unpleas- antm He lived in a single family Eichler and he would be appalled if someone built a two story house next to him. At the same time, the area should be treated delicately. He would hate to see the City create some bureaucratic morass that swallowed everything up to and including the people who were trying to improve their doll houses. He did not believe they wanted to get that complicated. The Committee was being asked to study the problem and if they believed there was sufficient reason for changes to be made, it should be reported to the Planning Commission to give them an opportunity to work on it and then it would return to Council for final determination. Council Member Klein believed the situation was difficult and he agreed with Council Member Cobb's comments. He hoped everyone could approach the problem in the spirit of trying to solve what many people perceived a.e a problem. He refer- red to comments that if Council adopted any changes in the ordinance, the City would be getting into the .business of trying to dictate what constituted good or bad taste. Council was trying to provide a framework under whichpeople could design homes but in such a .way that did not unduly impact neighbors. Palo Alto, like many other communities, had a series of zoning rules which affected what and how a person -. cou.:td build a single family residence. He agreed there was no match with any particular number but there needed to be a line somewhere. There was no magic in 35 58-78 7/20/87 percent lot coverage but Palo Altans were accustomed. to using it in the community. If there was a problem and some numbers were changed, it would be in the spirit of trying to come up with a series of rules in a crowded urban society that allowed people to do what they wanted to do with their single-family residence but always subject to the considera- tion of what neighbors were also entitled to. In that spirit, Council might find something, with the help of the design professionals, that would be useful to the entire community. He was encouraged by some of the remarks made by the design professionals that there might be some more crea- tive solutions out there. He joined with Council Member Cobb in creating a committee designed to consist of a major- ity of professionals in the field. The committee was deliberately not made up of 100 percent design professionals because it was always useful to have a mixture of different viewpoints. He hoped through the cross-fertilization process they would come up with something everyone could be proud of. AMENDMENT: Mayor Woolley moved, seconded by Levy, to sub- stitute the wording for Mo. 1 to The City Council affirms that the present requirement for R-1 lots needs to be changed;" Mayor ecolley believed the work of the Planning Commission was hindered by the question of whether a problem existed, and Council needed to decide. When she was first on the Council and it was determined there was a problem with the zoning downtown, Council decided to require on -site parking to take care of the problem. It did not work and the City ended up with the moratorium and a year later there was a change in zoning from an FAR of 311 to 1:1 which was sig- nificant. With the Citywide Traffic Study, they were looking at changing the CN and CS zones from an FAR of 1t1 to .4:1. Currently, the R-1 zoning had a maximum FAR of .7r1, not considering other variables and restrictions on lots besides the FAR. The City allowed greater density in the single family residential, zones than it did in the neighborhood and ,service commercial zones. Economic factors brought about the change and it was appropriate to look at the R-1 density just as was done in the commercial zones. When all of the zoning was originally decided, no one expected anyone to build out to the maximum and it worked for a long time, but ,economics changed and. Council needed to respond. If Council did not want maximum build out throughout the City, something needed to be done.. In the case of the Ross Road school site, Council reduced the R-1 zone to a .4 FAR which was a big change from nearly a .7. Because of economic conditions, the trend was there to stay., The problem was probably a matter of degree and how many houses would be built to the maximum or nearly the maximum before something had to be done. Some people said developers were causing the problems and staff advised about half the houses or additions were built by developers and half were built by homeowners. She believed economics probably drove them both when they built out to the extreme. The staff report (CMR:375:7) provided a thorough analysis of the various problems and pointed out that the market value of. good qual- ity square footage was substantially higher than the cost of constructing the square footage. For a developer to realize a good return on a project, the more square footage, the better the return. She spoke to the homeowner with the project that made her decide something had to be done, and was advised they did not really want to build so much but the architect said it was so much cheaper to go straight up and max it out that they did. Now the house had a FAR of .52. There were only two people and she did not believe they had any intention of having a family. Several people believed Council was being hard on families. The houses being allowed on the school site were only a .4 FAR which was considerably less and she had not heard great criticism that Council was being hard on those who would build the houses on the Ross Road school site. In fact, a change in zoning might help families because price determined what_ was possible to build and if it was not possible to build so much, the prices might go down accordingly which would be beneficial to those people trying to come into the commun- ity. She believed Council should decide a problem existed. Council Member Levy said the first issue was whether a prob- lem existed. Such a determination was a matter of public policy which Council needed to address. He believed a prob- lem existed and it should be stated that evening. In terms of what to do, he concurred with Council Member Cobb's sug- gestion of an Ad Hoc committee whose direction would be to deal with the problem as defined. He saw the problem as one of visual intrusion on the street and sideyards. He -was originally prepared to endorse the staff recommendation of a .133 FAR on the second floor with a minimum allowable of 1,000 square feet which would allow houses on 6,000 square foot lots of up to 3,100 square feet. Michael Fleming had said he built houses people wanted and people wanted 2,500 to 3,000 square feet, ;rhich was fine. The houses which went up to 4,000 or 4,500 square feet on 6,000 square foot lots were overly intrusive. He. concurred Council should state that a problem existed and to appoint an Ad Hoc committee to look into the problem. 58-80 7/20/87 Council Member Fletcher was pleased with Mayor Woolley's suggestion. There was a problem. Oversized houses were being ;,put up in neighborhoods where there were generally much smaller houses and were very intrusive. When she first looked at the Crescent Park homes, there was restricted yard space for children to play in especially in those homes with swimming pools. She agreed with Council Member Patitucci's earlier comment that the FAR was a good solution because it also restricted the second story. She was not opposed to having a design committee come up with possible solutions but she believed it wouild end up being An FAR restriction because it was simple and left the designer lots of latitude. Council Member Klein agreed it was within the Council's pur- view to make the decision as to whether a problem existed and what should be done but the question raised in the amendment was 'when Council made the decisions. It was untoward for Council to make a significant decision on the matter before adequate advice was received. He also believed the amendment was a useless gesture_ because it seemed to him that any self-respecting committee would tell Council precisely what they had ir, mind. Even if Council told the committee a problem existed, if the group advisors did not agree, they would say so. Saying a problem existed did not necessarily, make it so and Council could not estab- lish by fiat that the rest of the community believed there was. It was a controversial question. Council Member Levy believed the problem was obvious. The testimony that eve- ning and in the Planning Commission minutes reflected a let of other people to whom the problem was not obvious and that there might not even;be one. He saw houses he did not like; on the other hand, he heard people for whom he had great respect say there was an occasional problem of someone not doing a good job on design. He was anxious to hear the input from a group of citizens who would devote time and energy to the situation. He did not believe Council had sufficient data and it should not tell the committee how to advise them. Vice Mayor Sutorius believed there were a lot of problems. The Planning Commission wanted some affirmation and defini- tion ot the problem and he saw a lot of different things contributing to perceptions of a problem. He believed there was the potential for some severe overbuilding in time. Further, he believed that one of the problems was lack ot patience which was clearly reflected when the Palo Alto Weekly ran an article on Palo, Alto in the 19220's with a marvelous picture of Crescent Park --some road developments, flat fields, one or two very large homes. It was like 58-81 7/20/87 deja vu in terms of unfair reactions to raw development and not allowing landscaping to mature. Yet Council now looked at those areas and said how beautiful they were and must, be preserved. At the same time many would not pass the regula- tions being proposed. The importance of patience and the subjective impact of design were made clear to him when he went to the open house for the duplex that the Palo Alto Housing Corporation (PAHC) constructed, at the former DeAnza School site. There were not many homes constructed on that school site yet. The duplex was completed and there were some homes in various stages of construction so one could see what the homes would look like. His subjective point of view was that the PAHC duplex was the most pleasing of the buildings out there. It happened tobe a duplex so there were two garage doors, two entries, .and -it used the site well. The skin was more appealing and softer and land- scaping benefited from one of the lots and some mature trees added to% its value. He believed a few situations could cause Council to overreact and he opined the proposed ordi- nance would lead to maximizing the ground floor construction, to much increased use of underground construc- tion, and would have wedding cake pimples of second floor design. It was not sufficient to merely say a problem existed unless it could be more clearly identified. He was comfortable proceeding with the main motion. Council iden- tified a variety of issues, had not quantified the severity and the rate of the problem but acknowledged the potential for a problem. Unless the problem could be better defined, he saw no reason to affirm. Mayor Woolley clarified the motion affirmed that the present zoning requirements for R -1 lots needed to be changed. Council Member Bechtel would not support the amendment. For some people problems did exist. She was concerned that Council look at the issue carefully and fairly. Many sur- rounding ,'.cities had the same problem of what to do with second story additions. Some cities prohibited second stories except on corner lots where they would not impact anyone. She did not believe Palo Alto could do that because it was a diverse community. Some neighborhoods already had a lot of second stories and others did not. She was con- cerned that Council not make additions so restrictive that it inspired the "tear down" syndrome. In her neighborhood, there were three "tear downs" in the last six months where developers bought a home and lot for $300,000, tore it down and replaced it with a much larger building, There was some value in an Ad Hoc committee but she was cohcerned about how much time it would take and whether it should be allowed sufficient time so it would not be instituted instantly and staff could let some of the current studies get started. 58-82 7/20/87 Council Member Renzel believed there was a problem. She agreed with many that Council could not legislate good design. As pointed out by Council Member Levy, they were talking about visual intrusion on the street and into the sideyards of adjoining neighbors. There had been a major shift in the consideration that builders, whether they be homeowners or commercial, had for adjoining neighbors. To that extent the zoning ordinance needed to be tightened to encourage more consideration. Most of the speakers that evening were architects and they agreed no change was needed which suggested to her that Council would be sending many people on a wild goose chase if it did not affirm some need for change. One of the things the subcommittee identified that sort of caused the focus on second stories was that the R-1 zone was basically developed and there was a general assumption that most of the development was near or at the 35 percent lot coverage. They were not changing how much people would choose to build on the ground level by focusing on the upper level. On "tear downs" and rebuilding there was a clean slate and a different approach might be used. Typically, what was seen was not only the full ground cover- age but also a maximum second story within the daylight planes so that the current situation was not encouraging conservation of open space around homes. She perceived the problem and a number of people agreed the school sites were a problem because they all happened at once. The fact it was happening one by one in a variety of different neighbor- hoods said to her that Council could reasonably expect within some foreseeable period of time that those neighbor- hoods would look just like the school sites. The current situation of buildings going 18 feet or more straight up at the 6 foot sideyard suggested to her Council would not see the kind of landscaping which buffered the Crescent Park area .where there was more or less 18 feet between buildings because of the driveways going to the back. She did not believe Council would see the kind of ability to grow major landscaping because of the lack of sunlight. It was not to say that some things would not grow but on a cumulative basis Council could expect to see more problems. It was true many people were concerned about change, but Council needed to acknowledge that most of the change represented a significant increase in density and mass of buildings. The problem needed to sae addressed in some fashion so there was .some degree of expectation that when one bought a home in a neighborhood, it was not going to be drastically changed by one or two people coating in and superimposing massive Structures. The people who bought in a neighborhood with some expectations that the neighborhood ..character would not change drastically had. as much right as the people who came in and expected to . be able to alter; the character of their 58-83 7/20/8 7. 60 by 100 feet lot without regard to those neighbors. Everyone had an investment in their home and in their neighborhood and she believed it was up to Council, as policy makers, totry and establish some means of protecting neighborhoods from drastic changes that adversely affected the neighborhoods. She supported the amendment and believed it would make better use of the Ad Hoc committee's, staff's and the Planning Commission's time if Council said there was some reason why they should all be meeting. Council Member.Patitucci said if Council did not know what the problem was, it should survey the community --not ask the architects to tell Council a problem existed. If Council could affirm a problem existed, he saw the necessity for. the committee. If Council did not affirm the problem, he saw the necessity for a different kind of committee or no com- mittee. He supported the amendment stating a problem existed. He disagreed with Council Member Renzel about the expectations that one had when they moved into a community and did not believe one could just expect things to remain the same. His home was across the street from the_ old Crescent Park School and even though it would have been nice for it to remain the same, it did not and the present development was becoming a neighborhood and a nice one. There was one problem and that was that the houses were too big. Council legitimately legislated the size of the window for development with some expectations and history, and Council now had different expectations and reducing the size of the envelope was within its purview and something that should be done. There was such a diversity of neighborhoods in the community. Even if Council admitted there was a problem and set up a committee, he was not sure. it would get any different a solution.. He was willing to live with the status quo because of the incredible amount of diversity. Palo Alto went from older areas built on the models of eastern urban areas to very modern Eichler type developments and to set up one set of regulations to apply to all of those would be extremely difficult. He did not have a lot of optimism. that the committee would come up with anything great which was why he tended to lean towards. an FAR approach. AMMID!!ENT PAS$CD by a vote of 5-4, Bechtel, Setoriue, Klein, Cobb voting "'no." Mr. Zaner clarified that if the committee was approved, staff was essentially logistical, i.e., it would supply the committee with clerical support, duplication, meeting rooms, data and material, but was not moving into major studies or long research projects. He asked Council to consider. some 58-84 7/20/87 kind of interim status report. The subject area was impor- tant enough that it might be helpful to the committee to either report back to the Planning Commission or Council in 90 days to see if they were at least on target. While Council indic=ated there was a problem, he was sure when the committee met, one of its first objectives would be to draft` a problem statement to define the problem being considered. He asked that Council consider asking the committee to report back on the. problem statement. He was concerned they would get down to the end of six months on a very important project and its direction would not be helpful. Council Member_ Cobb agreed. It seemed to him the "problem" definition was overly intrusive development viewed differ- ently by different people in different places. Mr. Zaner said he had heard the problem defined in various terms by members of the design community including the problem was they needed to start.. all over with the R-1 zoning district, which was a much different problem that what Council Member Cobb indicated. Mayor Woolley said there would be a problem statement and preliminary report returning through the Planning Commission to the Council in about 90 days. Council Member Levy agreed with Council Member Patitucci that the composition of the committee should be changed in the direction of having more general public input and leas architectural professional input. 111D $T: Connell *ember Levy moved, sseceded by*easel, to change the composition of the seven -person committee to three persons principally engaged in single family design rather than four. Council Member Levy said it was understandable that the architectural community would like to have the broadest leeway possible. He did not want the architects to be the majority on the committee and to direct the committee in that regard. The architectural input was important and having three architects on the committee was the proper com- positions Council Member Patitucci clarified that if . Council affirmed a problem existed, he believed the committee structure was appropriate. He did not support the amendment. WIDOXINT 'AIM by a vote of 2-72 L. p &e asel voting °aye# a 58-85 7/20/87. AMENDMENT: Council Member Levy moved, seconded_ by Fletcher, to add, the language "to reduce overly intrusive developments after the wording "for zoning of M-i. lots needs to be changed.1 AMENDMENT PASSED unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED unanimously. ADJOURNMENT Council adjourned at 12:05 a.m. ATTEST: APPROVED: Mayor 58-86 7/20/87