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Home My WebLink AboutStaff Report 6891 City of Palo Alto (ID # 6891) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Action Items Meeting Date: 5/2/2016 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Summary Title: Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Title: PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance Establishing a Single Story Overlay District for 202 Homes Within the Royal Manor Tract Number 1556 by Amending the Zoning Map to Re-Zone the Area From R-1 Single Family Residential and R-1 (7,000) to R-1(S) and R-1(7000)(S) Single Family Residential with Single Story Overlay. The Proposed Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Rezoning Boundary Includes 202 Properties Addressed as Follows: Even Numbered Addresses on Loma Verde Avenue, Addresses 984- 1058; Even and Odd-Numbered Greer Road Addresses, 3341-3499; Even and Odd-Numbered Kenneth Drive Addresses, 3301-3493; Even and Odd- Numbered Janice Way Addresses, 3407 to 3498; Even and Odd-Numbered Thomas Drive addresses, 3303-3491; Odd-Numbered Addresses on Stockton Place, 3315-3395; and Odd-Numbered Louis Road Addresses, 3385 to 3465. Environmental Assessment: Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act Per Section 15305. (Continued from April 18th Meeting) From: City Manager Lead Department: Planning and Community Environment Recommendation Continue the subject public hearing and take one of the following actions: (1) Adopt the proposed Single Story Overlay Ordinance, or (2) Reject the proposed Single Story Overlay Ordinance, or (3) Adopt a revised ordinance for a reduced Single Story Overlay boundary, or (4) Provide other direction to staff including direction to assess level of property owner support for the proposed or a modified boundary. Background On April 18, 2016, the City Council initiated a public hearing to consider an applicant initiated amendment to the zoning code and map that would establish a single story overlay zone to certain properties in the Royal Manor Tract. The meeting was continued to May 2. Attached is City of Palo Alto Page 2 the prior staff report, which includes an ordinance that may be considered for adoption. The attached report has background information and analysis. Attachments:  Attachment A: April 18 SSO Council Report (ID 6467) (PDF) City of Palo Alto (ID # 6467) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Action Items Meeting Date: 4/18/2016 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Summary Title: Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Title: PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance Establishing a Single Story Overlay District for 202 Homes Within the Royal Manor Tract Number 1556 by Amending the Zoning Map to Re-Zone the Area From R-1 Single Family Residential and R-1 (7,000) to R-1(S) and R-1(7000)(S) Single Family Residential with Single Story Overlay. The Proposed Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Rezoning Boundary Includes 202 Properties Addressed as Follows: Even Numbered Addresses on Loma Verde Avenue, Addresses 984- 1058; Even and Odd-Numbered Greer Road Addresses, 3341-3499; Even and Odd-Numbered Kenneth Drive Addresses, 3301-3493; Even and Odd- Numbered Janice Way Addresses, 3407 to 3498; Even and Odd-Numbered Thomas Drive addresses, 3303-3491; Odd-Numbered Addresses on Stockton Place, 3315-3395; and Odd-Numbered Louis Road Addresses, 3385 to 3465. Environmental Assessment: Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act Per Section 15305. Planning and Transportation Commis sion Recommends Approval of a Single Story Overlay for Royal Manor From: City Manager Lead Department: Planning and Community Environment Recommendation Receive the Planning and Transportation Commission recommendation to adopt the Single Story Overlay (SSO) and consider the appropriateness of excluding some properties from the SSO boundary. Moreover, if the Council decides to exclude some properties from the SSO boundary, direct staff to assess level of property owner support for a smaller proposed SSO boundary. Executive Summary Several property owners within the Royal Manor Tract filed an application to establish a Single Story Overlay encompassing 202 of 203 properties within the tract. At the time of application submittal, the applicants submitted information indicating support from 144 property owners ATTACHMENT A City of Palo Alto Page 2 of 202 properties within the proposed SSO boundary (or 71%). Property owner names were verified to the owners of record with the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office information. The Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) held a meeting, which included public comment from supporters and those in opposition to the project. The PTC, while supportive of an overlay, was concerned about including Stockton Place and Loma Verde Avenue properties, and requested that City Council consider the appropriateness of including these properties in the boundary. Prior to and after the PTC meeting, some property owners began requesting their names be removed from the list of property owners supporting the overlay. Those in opposition to the SSO have expressed concerns about the fairness of the process and lack of clarity regarding what property owners were signing when they added their signatures to the applicant’s list of supporters, among other concerns. For property owner-initiated changes, the requisite level of support must be present at the time the application is filed. Declining level of support may be relevant, however, to the Council’s ultimate decision to rezone. Property owner support at the time this report was prepared has declined to 63.8%% or 129 owners of 202 properties within the proposed boundary (as of March 29, 2016). Support for an SSO that excludes Stockton Place properties is currently 66.1% (127 supportive owners from 192 properties). The Attachment D map indicates supporters as of March 29, 2016. Background The attached ordinance (Attachment A) and map (Attachment B) reflects the proposed SSO boundary encompassing 202 of the 203 properties with Royal Manor Tract #1556, as described in the public notice. Six residents submitted an application on October 27, 2015 to rezone the subject properties within the original Royal Manor tract from R-1 and R-1(7000) to the R-1-S and R-1(7000)-S, Single-Family Residential Single-Story Overlay zone. The one property of the original tract excluded from the proposed SSO boundary is a two-story, non-Eichler home at 1068 Loma Verde, located at the tract’s northeastern-most edge. The application materials are provided as Attachment G to this report. Neighborhood Setting / Character The following information relates to the subject neighborhood and proposed SSO:  The Royal Manor Tract (#1556) is located south of Loma Verde Avenue, east of Louis Road, and adjacent to an employment center located to the south and east (the ROLM- zoned East Meadow Circle/West Bayshore area);  The Royal Manor neighborhood is comprised primarily of single-story, single-family Eichler homes of a similar age (late 1950s), design and character, and many of the properties exceed the minimum lot size for the zone district; City of Palo Alto Page 3  The properties within the proposed SSO boundary are within the flood zone; the finished first floor of any new home must be at least 10.5 feet above sea level;  There are no known ‘Restrictions, Conditions, Charges and Agreements’ for this tract limiting development to single-story homes;  90% (183) of the 202 homes are single-story homes (original Eichler homes) meeting the 80% threshold for a SSO rezoning;  The two-story homes within the proposed SSO boundary are the original one-story Eichlers with additions in the Eichler style and building materials;  The two-story, stucco home at 1068 Loma Verde Avenue located at the northeasterly corner of the original tract is excluded from the proposed SSO boundary because it was constructed in the 1960’s after the rest of the homes in the tract and does not appear to be an Eichler-built home;  There are no two-story home applications currently on file with the City within the proposed SSO boundary;  The properties fronting Stockton Place and Loma Verde Avenue are zoned R-1, as are the properties in the tract’s interior on the north side of Kenneth Drive. The minimum allowable lot size in the R-1 district is 6,000 sf and the 23 properties fronting Loma Verde Avenue and Stockton Place and the 13 properties fronting the northerly edge of Kenneth Drive generally conform with this size (i.e. the majority of these lots are 6,000 square feet or slightly larger, though several R-1 properties are nearer to 9,000 square feet in area). The remainder of the lots within the proposed SSO boundary are zoned R- 1(7000), which requires a minimum lot size of 7,000 sf and the majority of these lots appear to be larger than 7,000 square feet.  A five foot wide easement runs along the rear properties fronting Loma Verde Avenue prohibits placement of detached garages or other non-habitable structures fully within the entire rear yard setback.  The properties fronting Loma Verde are subject to a special setback of 24 feet from the front property line, within which buildings may not be placed;  Loma Verde corner lots have street side setbacks (at 16’) that are greater than interior side setbacks (6’);  Eichler homes on Loma Verde Avenue and Stockton Place are part of the Eichler tract but face homes that are not Eichler homes and are outside of this Eichler tract boundary, on the other side of these streets. Application Requirements/Procedures/Compliance with Regulations The Single Story Overlay (SSO) combining district was established in 1992. Each application for an SSO is considered on its own merits. Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Section 18.80.035 states that SSO applications are considered in accordance with PAMC Chapter 18.80 and can be made by a property owner within the district in accordance with PAMC 18.12.100 (Attachment H). The eligibility requirements include: (1) 60% of homeowner support in cases where existing CC&R’s restrict development to one story and 70% support otherwise; (2) 80% of homes must City of Palo Alto Page 4 be single story and (3) the boundary reflects an identifiable neighborhood.1 At the time the application was submitted, the Royal Manor SSO proposal met eligibility criteria for the creation of an SSO for the proposed boundary, since (1) the applicants submitted a list of signatures reflecting that at least 70% of 202 homeowners within the proposed SSO boundary supported the SSO, (2) 90% of the 202 homes are single story homes, and (3) the boundary reflects an identifiable neighborhood (Eichler properties within the tract). At the time of application, the petition conveyed signatures of support from 71% (144) of the 202 homeowners within the proposed SSO boundary. The support level calculation for 203 homes in the entire tract was 70.9% (144 owners of 203 properties) at application. The PTC report, available at https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/50938, provides additional background information that is more briefly presented in this report to Council. The PTC report describes the SSO zone history, purposes, requirements and development regulations for SSO properties, information about the applicants and neighborhood, referencing maps and information prepared by staff to illustrate the proposal and neighborhood conditions, such as two story home properties and absentee owners, and a brief summary of constraints to development of properties with frontage along Loma Verde. The City’s SSOs are primarily Eichler neighborhoods. Imposition of SSO zoning does not reduce the allowable square footage and does not ensure compatible replacement one-story homes, nor does it address existing privacy conditions, since no discretionary review is required for a one-story home. Only zoning compliance review is required for one-story home building permits, and no notices are distributed. The most recently adopted SSO was the Greer Park tract, which the Council approved with its boundary intact, noting its inclination to support the request as an entire neighborhood rather than consider removing the properties along one edge of the tract. The SSO process regulations do not require the City to further verify homeowner support via postcard mailing. The code does require notification of the public hearings, which were sent to all property owners and residents of the homes within the proposed overlay boundary, as well as to property owners within 600 feet of the proposed overlay boundary. The regulations for SSOs do not require each street to have a 70% support level; rather, level of support is a percentage of the total number of properties within the boundary. Planning and Transportation Commission Review Pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Section 18.80.070 (e), the PTC was asked to determine that the rezone application is in accord with the purposes of Title 18 (Zoning Code) and the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan. The PTC had reservations about their role in the process to recommend Council adopt a reduced SSO boundary, and concern about the SSO regulations and process. 1 PAMC 18.12.100(c)(2)(B) requires SSO applications to show that boundaries correspond to with natural or man- made features “to define an identifiable neighborhood or development.” City of Palo Alto Page 5 PAMC Chapter 18.80 requires staff to present to Council the PTC’s recommendation, despite the apparent erosion of support from property owners affected by the Single Story Overlay. The PTC recommended, on a 4-0 vote, that Council re-classify the zoning within the proposed SSO boundary from R-1 and R-1(7000) to R-1-S and R-1(7000)-S by adopting the attached draft ordinance. The Commission, which had reservations about including Stockton Place and Loma Verde Avenue, requested the Council evaluate the appropriateness of including properties fronting on these streets. The PTC also recommended the Council consider methods to improve the SSO application process better in the future. The PTC’s recommendation reflected the reduced level of support on Stockton Street and Loma Verde Avenue due to emails sent prior to the hearing (Attachment E). Verbatim PTC meeting minutes are provided as Attachment F. Owner Support Level Following PTC Review The owner support map as of March 29, 2016 is provided as Attachment D; the map also reflects the two story homes. The map that was provided to the PTC is Attachment C. The SSO code does not state that the support level must remain at 70% both during the process and at the point of Council action. Attachment I contains the emails received just prior to and after the PTC hearing. The current overall 63.8% support level reflects 17 owner signature withdrawals (or “reverse” to “non-support”) as follows:  Three Stockton Place owners withdrew their support prior to the finalization of the PTC packet map,  Nine Kenneth Drive homeowners withdrew their support; three of these owners withdrew their support prior to the PTC hearing, and six of these owners withdrew their support after the PTC hearing,  Two Janice Way homeowners withdrew their support after the PTC hearing,  One Loma Verde homeowner withdrew support after the PTC hearing, and  Two Thomas Way homeowners withdrew support after the PTC hearing. The current 63.8% support level also reflects four original supportive owner signatures that were omitted from the map presented to the PTC (3371 and 3381 Thomas, 3437 and 3490 Kenneth), and the two Kenneth Way homeowners (signatures #90 and #200) who signed in support on February 9th (the day before the PTC hearing). The below charts illustrate the declining support from application submittal through March 29, 2016. Number of properties %/# support at application %/# support at PTC packet %/# support as of 2-10-16 %/# support as of 3-29-16 202 71% 144 owners 69.8% 141 owners 69.3% 140 owners 63.8% 129 owners City of Palo Alto Page 6 The below table reflects a timeline and current owner support level for properties fronting Stockton Place, Loma Verde Avenue, and remaining streets (through March 29, 2016): Street Frontage Number of properties %/# support at PTC packet (of 202 parcels) %/# support as of 2-10-16 %/# support as of 3-29-16 Stockton Place Frontage (includes corner) 10 20% 2 owners 20% 2 owners 20% 2 owners Loma Verde Fronting (excludes corner) 13 69.2% 9 owners 69.2% 9 owners 61% 8 owners Remainder of properties within boundary (not fronting above two streets) 179 72.6% 130 owners of 179 owners 72% 129 owners of 179 owners 66.4% 119 owners of 179 owners Discussion The applicants and proponents (those property owners who have not since withdrawn their support of the proposed SSO) cite many reasons for proposing and supporting this SSO application, such as:  community feeling and backyard privacy,  low-key, private, single-story character,  private extension of indoor living space to the outdoors,  shared desire to preserve the privacy and livability as well as unique design and character of a mid-century modern neighborhood,  deep appreciation of Eichler homes and their place in the City’s heritage, as having the ‘largest concentration of Eichlers in the world,’ and  Concern for the detrimental effect of two story homes on privacy and historic character. The application (Attachment G) contains the above language. Several emails sent prior to the PTC hearing (Attachment E) and some sent after the PTC hearing (Attachment I) described similar reasons. The applicant presentation at the PTC hearing also reflected the applicants’ opinions as to the values that come from living in a neighborhood of Eichler homes. Opponents of SSO have expressed concern that the support level was not met at application, because the boundary excluded one property located within the Royal Manor tract; this is not accurate, since the support with inclusion of the 203rd property was 70.9% at the time of the submittal and at the time the application was deemed complete. City of Palo Alto Page 7 The applicant-proposed boundary for rezoning is easily identifiable: it is the entire Royal Manor Eichler neighborhood minus one non-Eichler, two-story home at the northeasterly corner of the tract. Removal of a non-Eichler two story home is an approach approved by Council for the Los Arboles SSO, the boundary of which excluded two homes within the original tract boundary. The Royal Manor SSO application (Attachment G) provides details about the non-Eichler home as detailed in the PTC report. If the Council decides to move in a direction to support the overlay and seeks to include this 203rd property, additional public noticing and hearings would be required at the PTC before the City Council could take an action expanding the boundary. While there is great latitude for reducing the size of the boundary during the public hearing, increasing the boundary requires advanced notice be sent to those new property owners and tenants. Correspondence from opponents of the rezoning reflects concern of those who signed the petition in support of the SSO without fully understanding what it meant to sign the petition, which is that the application would be complete with their signatures, and would allow staff to forward the rezoning request to the PTC for consideration. Some opponents feel that the manner in which they were approached was not fair, and some reported feeling pressured to sign the petition. These opponents believe the “value” of the signatures originally obtained should therefore be discounted. Opponents to this rezoning have also noted that they did not see one or both of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) documents that the applicants submitted with the application. There were two sets of FAQs in the application. The first FAQ document was distributed in March 2015 to gauge the level of interest, and Answer #5 in the first FAQ was factually incorrect; it said: “the City will send postcards to all affected homeowners, asking if they support or oppose the single story overlay. If someone doesn’t return their card it counts as a NO vote. IF the proposal meets the requirements and has sufficient support from the neighborhood, the Planning Department will recommend that the City Council approve the overlay, else they may recommend against approval. The City Council has the final say, and is not bound to follow the Planning Department’s recommendation.” The second FAQ document was reportedly distributed with the April 26, 2016 “Dear Eichler Neighbors” letter. The Answer #5 in the second FAQ was corrected to be factually correct, since the above italicized, incorrect sentences and phrases were deleted; it stated: “The City will send postcards to all affected homeowners to notify them of the PTC hearing to initiate the rezoning; the Commission would forward its recommendation to City Council. The City Council has the final say, and is not bound to follow the PTC’s recommendation.” City of Palo Alto Page 8 The application letter stated that the applicant learned from staff of the need to make some technical corrections to the original FAQs (e.g. Answer #5) and that they updated and redistributed it as they sought neighbor’s signatures to show support for the SSO. Staff is unable to verify whether or not neighbors were provided both sets of FAQs. Staff’s Analysis Staff supports the interest expressed by a majority of the affected property owners to preserve the low scale character of the Royal Manor Tract. This tract is largely intact and undisturbed by larger two story homes that, if allowed to be constructed, many may argue would be out of context with the existing scale and character of the neighborhood. The planning department has observed that within the residential community there is increasingly varying degrees of conflict between the expectations of long term homeowners in established neighborhoods with new owners purchasing at today’s real estate values and their expectation of being able to remodel and build their desired home. Development is further constrained in the Royal Manor neighborhood due to its location in the flood zone. This tension is being reflected in more challenging Individual Review applications processed by the department, but also the significant increase in the number of SSO applications received. If the city is to continue processing SSO applications, it is clear that the existing procedures established by the Code need to be examined and recommendations made for improving this process. An application such as this should be community building and reflect a significant percentage of like-minded owners interested in preserving their neighborhood in a defined manner. This is a recommendation that reflects both staff and the PTC perspective. For the subject application, it is apparent that support for the proposed SSO is eroding. By staff’s estimate approximately 63.8% of the property owners support this application. The City Council may want to explore making adjustments to the SSO boundary, but under the Code the boundary must correspond with certain natural or man-made features to define an identifiable neighborhood or development. Also, it should be noted that some property owners that now support the SSO may change their position if an adjacent property is no longer subject to the same one-story height standard. For instance, removing Stockton Place may cause those owners to the rear of those properties to reconsider their support since their expectation for privacy would be adjusted with a two story home visible from their backyard. If Council recommends a reduced SSO boundary, it is recommended that the Council direct staff to take the responsibility for assessing property owner support. With Council’s support, the process would be as follows: 1. Staff would obtain property owner names and address information from the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office; 2. Staff would send, by certified mail, a letter or postcard requesting the owner of record City of Palo Alto Page 9 indicate his/her support for the SSO rezoning application. Only cards with an affirmative response received within a specified timeframe (i.e. 45 days) will be counted as a ‘vote’ for support. 3. If the response rate is 70 percent or higher, staff will schedule a public hearing before the City Council. If under 70 percent, staff will prepare a report to the City Council indicating the results; this report would be placed on the City Council consent calendar with a recommendation that the zone change not move forward at that time. Alternatively, the City Council may determine at the public hearing (a) that there is sufficient support for the proposed SSO, that it is consistent with the purposes of the Zoning Code and Comprehensive Plan, and adopt the draft ordinance; or (b) that there is insufficient support for the proposed SSO and simply deny the application. Public Notice Notice cards for the Planning and Transportation Commission hearing were sent to property owners and residents within the proposed SSO boundary and to property owners and residents within a 600 foot radius of the boundary. A newspaper notice was placed to meet the code requirements for publication for the PTC public hearing and CC public hearing. Correspondence from recipients of the PTC notice cards are attached to this report (Attachment E and Attachment I). Any correspondence from recipients of the Council meeting notice card2 received prior to packet publication is also attached to this report (Attachment J). Notice in the local newspaper and in the notice cards for the Council meeting was provided. Recipients included the affected addresses within the SSO boundaries. Policy Implications Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.12.100 requires 70% support from affected property owners for an SSO application to be accepted for initiation and processing. The current SSO proposal met this standard at the time of application and may be approved as proposed, despite the loss of support, as long as Council finds the SSO would be in accord with the purposes of Title 18 and in accord with the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, as set forth in PAMC Chapter 18.80 Section 18.80.070. Alternatively, the Council may deny the application or reduce the boundary prior to adoption, as long as the reduced SSO boundary can still be defined as an “identifiable neighborhood” and at least 80% of the homes within that boundary are single story homes. The City Council has already expressed its desire to identify neighborhood conservation alternatives to SSO designation as an implementation action in the Comprehensive Plan Update, and this could provide an opportunity to review and adjust the SSO process as well. 2 Notice cards for Council hearing are not required per the PAMC for this rezoning; nevertheless, courtesy notice cards were sent more than 12 days in advance of the public hearing, on March 30, 2016, to all properties within the proposed SSO boundary, in addition to the newspaper notice. City of Palo Alto Page 10 Resource Impact The Single Story Overlay rezoning process is free for applicants and thus staff time is supported by general fund (tax payer) revenues. Three SSO proposals were submitted within a month’s time in 2015. In February, an additional SSO application was submitted for Faircourt #3 and #4. Staff has also had discussions about the SSO process with two other potential applicants. Timeline Following adoption of an SSO rezoning ordinance, any two story home applications received for properties within the adopted SSO boundary would not be processed. Environmental Review The proposed rezoning is exempt from CEQA per Section 15305, Minor Alterations in Land Use Limitations. Attachments:  Attachment A: Royal Manor SSO Ordinance (DOCX)  Attachment B: Proposed Single Story Overlay Map (PDF)  Attachment C: February 1 Royal Manor Support Map forwarded to P&TC (PDF)  Attachment D: Map of support as of March 29 2016 (PDF)  Attachment E: Email correspondence put at PTC places 2 10 16 (PDF)  Attachment F: Draft Excerpt Verbatim Minutes of the Planning and Transportation Commission Meeting of February 10 2016 (DOC)  Attachment G: Application Packet Submittal (PDF)  Attachment H: PAMC 18.12.100 SSO Regulations (DOCX)  Attachment I: Correspondence (PDF)  Attachment J: Public Comments received in response to Courtesy Notice Card Mail-out (PDF)  Attachment K: Public Comments to Council (PDF) ATTACHMENT A *NOT YET APPROVED* 1 Ordinance No. XXXX Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Section 18.08.040 (Zoning Map and District Boundaries) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to change the classification of certain properties within the Royal Manor tract (Tract #1556) fronting both sides of Greer Road, Kenneth Drive, Janice Way, and Thomas Drive, fronting the south side of Loma Verde Avenue (984 to 1058), the east side of Stockton Place (3315 to 3395), and the east side of Louis Road (3385 to 3465), from R-1 and R-1(7000) to R-1(S) and R-1 (7000)(S) The Council of the City of Palo Alto does ORDAIN as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. The Planning and Transportation Commission, after duly noticed hearing held February 10, 2016, has recommended that section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code be amended as hereinafter set forth. The City Council, after due consideration of this recommendation, finds that the proposed amendment is in the public interest and will promote the public health, safety and welfare in that this rezoning is in accord with the purposes of Title 18 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code, and with the particular, stated purpose “to facilitate the creation of a convenient, attractive and harmonious community,” and will further promote and accomplish the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan objectives, policies and programs; particularly: o Policy L-4: “Maintain Palo Alto’s varied residential neighborhoods; use the zoning ordinance as a tool to enhance Palo Alto’s desirable qualities.” o Policy L-5: “Maintain the scale and character of the City.” o Goal L-3: “Safe, attractive residential neighborhoods each with its own distinct character…” which includes verbiage about how Eichler neighborhoods were designed so homes may serve as private enclaves. o Policy L-12: “Preserve the character of residential neighborhoods by encouraging new or remodeled structures to be compatible with the neighborhood and adjacent structures.” SECTION 2. Section 18.08.040 (Zoning Map and District Boundaries) is hereby amended by changing the zoning of the properties within the tract known as Royal Manor, Tract #1556 (the “subject property”), from “R-1” (Single-Family Residence) and “R-1 (7000)” to “R-1(S)” and “R-1(7000)(S)” (Single-Family Residential, Single-Story Height Combining), except 1068 Loma Verde Avenue, which would retain its “R-1” zoning designation. The subject property is shown on the map labeled ‘Exhibit A’ attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference. The properties within the Single Story Overlay boundary include all homes within the tract with frontage on Greer Road, Kenneth Drive, Janice Way, and Thomas Drive, the properties with frontage on the south side of Loma Verde Avenue addressed 984 to 1058, the east side of ATTACHMENT A *NOT YET APPROVED* 2 Stockton Place addressed 3315 to 3395, and the east side of Louis Road addressed 3385 to 3465. SECTION 3. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 4. The Council finds that the adoption of this ordinance is exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15305, Minor Alterations in Land Use Limitations. SECTION 5. This ordinance shall be effective on the thirty-first date after the date of its adoption. INTRODUCED: PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: NOT PARTICIPATING: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Deputy City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ ATTACHMENT A *NOT YET APPROVED* 3 Director of Planning & Community Environment R -1(7 000) P F P C-3 693 R -1(8 000) R O L M PC-3726 R -1 R O L M T Chris tin e Driv e alisman Loma Verde Avenue Ro s s C o u r t ma Verde Pl Ames Avenue Ri ch a r d s o n C o ur t ve Ames Ct Ames Avenue Ross Road Rorke Way Ro r k e Wa y Stone Lane Lupine Avenue Thornwood Drive Dr i f twood Dr i ve Tali s man Driv e Arbutus Avenue Ross Road Louis Road Aspen Way Evergreen Drive Janice Way East Meadow Circle East Meadow Circle Greer Road Bayshore Freeway Mu r r a y Wayve nchester Court K e n n e t h Dr iv e Thomas D r i v e Greer R o a d Stockton Place Vernon Terrace Louis Road Janice Way Th oma s Driv e Kenneth Drive Loma Verde Ave nue C liftonCour t ux Drive Cou r t Bayshore Freeway Bayshore Freeway yshore Freeway West Bayshore Road East Bayshore Road West Bayshore Road We Kenneth Drive Barron Creek Barron Creek Dr y Cr ee k 767 765 869 865 31 8 7 3193 3165 3177 3185 831 8373186 3180 3174 3150 3164 326 4 838 850 844 32 5 0 3248 85 1 3191 3170 193 3187 181 169 3188 3194 32 0 0 3182 3176 883 887 873 3152 3158 3175 87 9 319 8 3164 32 2 4 884 895 3333 32 4 7 86932 6 3 32 7 1 881 875882 886 888 32 4 6 32 9 0 883 88933 1 0 3330 874 880 886887 3302 3307978 3313 3261 3263 3275 3299 3325 3324 3318 3312 3306 940 920 910 892 89 589 1 32 1 8 32 1 2 32 0 6 3256 3264 3272 925 917 903 909 32 5 1 32 3 1 32 0 1 32 9 8 327 5 325 9 3291 32 4 3 32 2 7 32 1 1 32 1 2 32 0 0 32 2 4 31 8 8 31 9 6 31 8 5 31 7 9 914 91 0 3175 31 9 7 3189 3181 933 941 949 3280 3208 32 4 8 3240 3232 329232 0 0 318 8 926 924922 918 930 3178 3224 3214 3197 3288 31 6 7 31 8 0 31 7 2 31 7 3 32 0 4 32 2 9 32 0 9 31 8 9 31 8 131 7 3 31 6 5 31 8 5 31 5 8 317 4 31 6 6 31 8 2 775 385 39333 7 3 33 6 7 771 78578 8 78 6 758 78 4 782770 33 55 351 2 35 1 0 756 51 750 767 761 7 55 795 787 781 775 762 768 774 780 771 775 779 43 1342 7 23191511 764 794 33 7 6 842 839 3475 838 3455 834830 3441 3427 826822 3413 3401 818814 772 780 3366 788 3370 3374 789 784 780 750 746 3340 3294 3292 3290 787 785 783 779 781 775 742 759 763 767 771 3242 3240 3254 3264 3274 3280 3236 815 3178 3190 3196 3211 3195 801 3180 3184 785 3188 3194 3195 788 32303228792 754 828 820 812 80432313261808 814 820 827 821 813 832 826 835 843 3221 758 778 821 809 3232 803 3187- 3191 3179- 3183 834 840 828 807 811 815 819 810 816 804 3377 806 810 3387 875 879 827 831823 887 883 891 895 817 823 829 811 3345 795 826 820 814 808 3337 888 882 870 864 872 874 890 894 858 852 877 871 865 859 853 847 841 835 3270 3284 3292 836 844 852 845 839 833 827 868 862 856 850 844 838 832 772 752 773 765 757 751 751 59 55 750 758 766 774 759 751 777 781 765 3510 3487 3479 3495 3507 3511 3530 3520 801 3519 3532 804 820 845 835 3521 3515 3527 829 3502 35203516 787 783 784 780 788 3580 3584 774 777 791 756 764 760 3582 3583 821 3508 770 780 3715 3719 3690 786 792 3640 3646 3646A 3660 3650790 782 3649 3642 3662 3652 3659 3669 3711 3670 789 795 773 809 3679 821 3592 3616 3608 3600 3598 3575 840 830 3611 3603 3591 3587 3583 3584 3590 3594 3606 3593 3589 3585 3616 3624 3630 3613 3631 3605 3640 3632 3639 3612 3615 3604 3607 3592 3599 3588 3587 8233641 828 844 3648 3640 3624 836 3631 3634 3607 3615 3623 3626 827 833 839 3663 3643 3635 3627 3632 3619 3649 3657 3665 3671 3642 3650 3647 3639 3666 3674 3658 3655 3663 3671 36 860 852 868 367 855 894 880 3360 3370 878 868 866 859 871 35513550 3540 3330 3336 3342 3348 3354 3363 3357 3349 3341 3369 3375 3349 3355 336 0 3366 3458 3385 3450 846 850 854 858 862 864 829 841 835 32 36 3248 967 959 3260 983 3249 3244 3269 3224 3167 3198 3202 317 3 3192 3179 3191 3197 3201 975 3340 3331 3330 3325 3320 3319 3310 3300 984 3264 3284 3272 991 999 3241 3184 3176 3209 3217 3225 3210 3218 3226 3273 3233 330 9 3301 3343 3360 3370 3350 3337 3387 3345 3335 3325 3315 986 988 990 992 3517 3525 3531 3520 3530 3543 3509 3580 3579 3568 3563 3558 3547 3524 3535 3500 3505 881 877 865 863 879 868 856 851 844 838 3580 3539 885 877 3499 3493 3487 3481 3538 3460 3510 853 1066 3469 3436 3444 3440 3465 3395 3405 3415 3425 3435 3445 3455 3492 3498 3488 3482 3470 3476 3464 3452 3446 3440 3428 3434 3422 3475 3481 3487 3439 3433 3427 3384 3390 3378 3372 3480 3427 3448 34 58 3468 34763491 3432 3428 3422 3407 34543450 3421 3415 3439 3451 3445 3490 3475 3469 3421 3591 3599 3603 3611 3625 3617 3633 3641 3596 3602 3610 3618 880 1096 1086 1076A 1076B1068 1070 1072 1052 3481 3469 3473 3477 3493 3489 3485 34 58 3469 3477 3 463 345 5 3 45 2 3 44 8 3491 3483 3466 3470 3474 3478 3482 3583 1060 1020 10 40 1036 1050 1015 1085 1069 1051 1041 1057 1059 1053 1035 1025 3 44 9 34 53 3 44 5 34 57 3461 3465 3512 3520 3600 3530 3304 3310 3375 3365 3355 3315 3334 3328 3322 3316 3331 3343 3321 3340 3330 3320 3311 3310 3303 33953385 33963390 3410 3416 3360 3350 3391 3406 3340 33473341 340 3 3209 3219 3229 3239 3249 3259 3269 3279 3289 3274 1077 1099 1055 1033 10113281 3265 3250 3258 3242 3234 3266 3249 3 257 996 994 998 3333 3327 3321 1008 1018 1028 1038 3339 3345 3351 3357 33611048 3358 3352 3346 3370 33763364 3371 3361 1058 1068 3363 3429 3 44 1 34 37 3 43 3 3425 34 49 34443435 3422 3441 34 40 34 363418 3414 3427 3413 3421 3410 3406 3 466 3418 3 452 3460 380 340 93407 3415 3424 344 0 3500 3510 34213417 3413 3409 3405 3401 3393 3387 3381 3373 337133673365 3400 3390 3382 3381 3391 3405 343034003350 3160 31683160 3152 3189 31813173 3165 3157 763765 773 877 3262 788 776 3412 1001 1181 1183 1185 1189 1199 1180 11821186 1188 1190 1192 1198 3298 3292 3290 3288 3282 3280 32783272 3198 3192 3190 3188 3182 3180 3178 1111 1113 1115 1119 1100 1102 1106 1110 3180 3182 3186 3188 3190 3192 3198 1112 111611181120 1122 1126 1128 1130 11511153 1155 1159 1150 1152 1156 1158 11601161 1163 1165 3280 3282 3286 3288 3290 3181 3189 3281 3289 3291 3270 11211123112511271129 1130 1128 1126 11 3633 1055 912 899 31 1105 111 39 795 1129 1179 1178 329 2 31 7 8 1167 1132 3285 3299 3300 This map is a product of the City of Palo Alto GIS This document is a graphic representation only of best available sources. Legend Proposed Single Story Combining District (Royal Manor Tract # 1556) Zone Districts abc Zone District Labels 0'450' Proposed Single Story Combining District Royal Manor Tract # 1556 CITY O F PALO A L TO I N C O R P O R ATE D C ALIFOR N IA P a l o A l t oT h e C i t y o f A P RIL 16 1894 The City of Palo Alto assumes no responsibility for any errors ©1989 to 2015 City of Palo Alto RRivera, 2015-11-03 17:07:36SingleStoryOverlay RoyalManorTract1556 (\\cc-maps\gis$\gis\admin\Personal\RRivera.mdb) ATTACHMENT B ma Verde Avenue Ames Ct ve v e ve Louis Road As pen Way Evergreen Drive Janice Way East Meadow Circle East Meadow Circle Gr eer Road Bayshore Freeway a y Wa yive K e n n e t h D ri v e Th omas D r i v e Gre e r R o a d Stockton Place Vernon Terrace Louis Road Ja n i c e W a y Th oma s Drive Ken n e t h D rive Loma Verde Avenue C l ifton Cou r t B a u t i s t a Court Morris Drive Louis Road Mo ra ga Ct Greer Road Maddux Drive vieve Ct Da vid Ct Bayshore Freeway yst Bayshore Road East Bayshore Road West Bayshore Road Ke nneth Drive Barron Creek ek W est B a ys h ore A rea E ast Me a dow C ircle 31 70 3160 3193 3187 3141 3143 315 3 31593145 3181 3169 3188 3194 32 0 0 3182 3176 883 88 7 873 87 9 31 9 8 316 32 2 4 884 895 33 3 3 32 4 7 86932 6 3 32 7 1 881 875 882 886 888 32 4 6 32 9 0 883 88933 1 0 33 3 0 874 880 886887 33 0 2 33 0 7 978 33 1 3 32 6 1 32 6 3 32 7 5 32 9 9 33 2 5 33 2 4 33 1 8 33 1 2 33 0 6 940 920 910 892 89 589 1 32 1 8 32 1 2 32 0 6 3256 3264 3272 925 917 903 909 32 5 1 32 3 1 32 0 1 31 2 5 31 3 3 3141 31 3 8 31 4 4 3150 135 133 3139 3137 32 9 8 32 7 5 32 5 9 3291 32 4 3 32 2 7 32 1 1 32 1 2 32 0 0 32 2 4 31 8 8 31 9 6 31 8 5 31 7 9 928 92 2 931 923 927 919 914 915 9 1 0 3175 3165 3157 3149 31 9 7 3189 3181 933 941 949 3280 3208 32 4 8 3240 3232 329232 0 0 31 8 8 926 924922 918 930 3178 3224 3214 3197 3288 31 3 7 31 4 3 31 4 0 31 3 2 932 92 1 935 31 4 9 31 5 6 31 4 8 31 6 4 31 6 1 31 6 7 31 8 0 31 7 2 31 7 3 32 0 4 32 2 9 32 0 9 31 8 9 31 8 131 7 3 31 6 5 31 5 7 31 4 2 31 3 4 31 4 1 31 4 9 31 3 3 31 2 5 31 2 6 31 1 8 314 9 31 2 5 31 3 1 31 3 7 31 4 3 31 8 5 31 5 8 31 5 0 31 7 4 31 6 6 31 5 5 31 8 2 888 882 870 864 87 2 87 4 877 871 865 868 862 3592 3616 3608 3600 3598 3648 3640 3624 3631 3634 3607 3615 3623 3626 3632 3649 3657 3665 3671 3642 3650 3647 3639 3666 3658 3655 3663 868 894 880 33 6 0 33 7 0 878 35513550 3540 33 3 0 33 3 6 33 4 2 33 4 8 33 5 4 33 6 3 33 5 7 33 4 9 33 4 1 33 6 9 33 7 5 33 4 9 3355 3 3 6 0 3366 3458 33 8 5 3450 3 2 3 6 3248 967 959 3260 983 3249 3244 3269 3224 3167 319 8 3202 317 3 3192 3179 3191 3197 3201 975 3340 33 3 1 3330 33 2 5 3320 33 1 9 3310 3300 984 3264 3284 3272 991 999 3241 3184 3176 3209 3217 3225 3210 3218 3226 3273 3233 330 9 33 01 33 4 3 3360 3370 3350 33 3 7 3387 3345 3335 3325 3315 986 988 990 992 3517 3525 3531 3520 3530 3543 3509 3580 3579 3568 3563 3558 3547 3524 3535 3500 3505 881 877 879 3580 3539 885 877 3499 3493 3487 3481 3538 3460 3510 1 0 6 6 34 6 9 3436 34 4 4 3440 3465 33 9 5 34 0 5 34 1 5 34 2 5 34 3 5 34 4 5 3455 3492 3498 34 8 8 34 8 2 34 7 0 34 7 6 34 6 4 3452 3446 3440 3428 3434 3422 34 7 5 34 8 1 34 8 7 3439 3433 3427 3384 3390 3378 3372 3480 3427 3448 3 4 58 3468 34763491 343234283422 3407 3 4543450 3421 3415 34 39 3 451 3 445 3490 3475 3469 3421 3591 3599 3603 3611 3625 3617 3633 3641 3596 3602 3610 3618 880 1 0 8 6 1076A 1076B 1068 1070 1072 1052 3481 3469 3473 3477 3493 3489 3485 3 4 5 8 3469 3477 346 3 345 5 3 4 5 2 3 4 4 8 3491 3483 3466 3470 3474 3478 3482 3583 1060 102 0 1 0 4 0 103 6 1 0 5 0 1 0 1 5 10 8 5 10 69 1051 1041 1057 1059 1053 103 5 102 5 3 4 4 9 3 4 5 3 3 4 4 5 3 4 5 7 3 4 6 1 3465 3512 3520 3600 3530 3304 3310 3375 3365 3355 3315 3334 3328 3322 3316 3331 3343 3321 3340 3330 3320 331 1 3310 3303 33953385 33963390 3410 3416 3360 3350 3391 3406 3340 33473341 3 4 0 3 3209 3219 3229 3239 3249 3259 3269 3279 3289 3274 1077 1099 1055 1033 10113281 3265 3250 3258 3242 3234 3266 3249 325 7 996 994 998 3333 3327 3321 1008 1018 1028 1038 3339 3345 3351 3357 33611048 3358 3352 3346 3370 33763364 3371 3361 1058 1068 3363 3429 3 4 4 1 3 4 3 7 3 4 3 3 3425 344 9 3 4 4 43435 3422 3441 3 4 4 0 3 4 3 6 3418 3414 3427 3413 3421 3410 3406 346 6 3418 345 2 3460 340 93 4 0 7 3415 3424 3440 3500 3510 3421 3417 3413 3409 3405 3401 3393 3387 3381 3373 3371 33673365 3400 3390 3382 3381 3391 3405 3430 34003350 31 3136 3124 3113 13 3125 3137 314 9 3161 3168 3160 3152 3144 3136 3128 3112 3120 3148 3155 3119 3189 3181 3173 3165 3157 3149 3141 3133 3125 311709 877 3262 1181 1183 1185 1189 1199 1180 1182 1186 1188 1190 1192 1198 3298 3292 3290 3288 3282 3280 3278 3272 3198 3192 3190 3188 3182 3180 3178 1111 1113 1115 1119 1100 1102 1106 1110 318 3182 3186 3188 3190 3192 3198 1112 1116 1118 1120 1122 1126 1128 1130 1151 1153 1155 1159 1150 1152 1156 1158 1160 1161 1163 1165 3280 3282 3286 3288 3290 32 3289 3291 1129 1055 912 899 1105 1129 1179 1178 32 92 31 7 1167 1132 3285 3 29 9 33 0 0 This map is a product of the City of Palo Alto GIS This document is a graphic representation only of best available sources. Legend Proposed Single Story Combining District (Royal Manor Tract # 1556) Signed Petition in support of Single Story Overlay (SSO) SSO Applicants Absentee owner signed petition Absentee owner did not sign petition Owner signed petition then reversed support Owner did not sign petition Existing two story structure 0'250' Pr o p o s e d S i n g l e S t o r y C o m b i n i n g D i s t r i c t Ro y a l M a n o r T r a c t # 1 5 5 6 CITY O F PALO A L TO I N C O R P O R ATE D C ALIFOR N IA P a l o A l t oT h e C i t y o f A P RIL 16 1894 The City of Palo Alto assumes no responsibility for any errors. ©1989 to 2016 City of Palo Alto RRivera, 2016-02-01 14:56:10SingleStoryOverlay RoyalManorTract1556 Yes No (\\cc-maps\gis$\gis\admin\Personal\RRivera.mdb) ATTACHMENT C a Verde Avenue Ames Ct e v e Louis Road As pen Way Evergreen Drive Janice Way East Meadow Circle East Meadow Circle Greer Road Bayshore Freeway e K e n n e t h D ri v e Thomas D r i v e Gre er R o a d Stockton Place Vernon Terrace Louis Road Ja n i c e W a y Th oma s Drive Ken n e t h D rive Loma Verde Avenue C lifton Cour t Ba u t i s ta Court Morris Drive Louis Road Mo ra ga Ct reer Road Maddux Drive eve Ct David Ct Bayshore Freeway FreewayWest Bayshore Road East Bayshore Road West Bayshore Road W Ke nneth Drive Barron Creek k W est B a ys h ore A rea E ast Me a dow C ircle 3 170 3160 3193 3187 3141 3143 3 31 593145 3181 3169 3188 3194 32 0 0 3182 3176 883 887 87 9 31 9 8 32 2 4 884 895 33 3 3 324 7 86932 6 3 32 7 1 881 875 882 886 888 32 4 6 32 9 0 883 88933 1 0 33 3 0 874 880 886887 33 0 2 33 0 7 978 33 1 3 32 6 1 32 6 3 32 7 5 32 9 9 33 2 5 33 2 4 33 1 8 33 1 2 33 0 6 940 920 910 892 89 5 89 1 32 1 8 32 1 2 32 0 6 3256 3264 3272 925 917 903 909 32 5 1 32 3 1 32 0 1 31 3 3 3141 31 4 4 3150 5 3 3139 3137 32 9 8 32 7 5 32 5 9 3291 32 4 3 32 2 7 32 1 1 32 1 2 32 0 0 32 2 4 31 8 8 31 9 6 31 8 5 31 7 9 928 92 2 931 923 927 919 914 915 9 1 0 3175 3165 3157 3149 31 9 7 3189 3181 933 941 949 3280 3208 32 4 8 3240 3232 329232 0 0 31 8 8 926 924922 918 930 3178 3224 3214 3197 3288 31 3 7 31 4 3 31 4 0 31 3 2 932 935 31 4 9 31 5 6 31 4 8 31 6 4 31 6 1 31 6 7 31 8 0 31 7 2 31 7 3 32 0 4 32 2 9 32 0 9 31 8 9 31 8 1 31 7 3 31 6 5 31 5 7 31 4 2 31 3 4 31 4 1 31 4 9 31 3 3 31 2 5 31 2 6 314 9 31 2 5 31 3 1 31 3 7 31 4 3 31 8 5 31 5 8 31 5 0 31 7 4 31 6 6 31 5 5 31 8 2 888 882 870 87 2 87 4 877 871 865 868 3592 3616 3608 3600 3598 3648 3640 3624 3631 3634 3607 3615 3623 3626 3632 3649 3657 3665 3671 3642 3650 3647 3639 3666 3658 3655 3663 36 868 894 880 33 6 0 33 7 0 878 35513550 3540 33 3 0 33 3 6 33 4 2 33 4 8 33 5 4 33 6 3 33 5 7 33 4 9 33 4 1 33 6 9 33 7 5 33 4 9 3355 3 3 6 0 3366 3458 33 8 5 3450 3 2 3 6 3248 967 959 3260 983 3249 3244 3269 3224 3167 319 8 3202 317 3 3192 3179 3191 3197 3201 975 3340 33 3 1 3330 33 2 5 3320 33 1 9 3310 3300 984 3264 3284 3272 991 999 3241 3184 3176 3209 3217 3225 3210 3218 3226 3273 3233 330 9 3 3 0 1 33 4 3 3360 3370 3350 33 3 7 3387 3345 3335 3325 3315 986 988 990 992 3517 3525 3531 3520 3530 3543 3509 3580 3579 3568 3563 3558 3547 3524 3535 3500 3505 881 877 879 3580 3539 885 877 3499 3493 3487 3481 3538 3460 3510 1 0 6 6 34 6 9 3436 34 4 4 3440 3465 33 9 5 34 0 5 34 1 5 34 2 5 34 3 5 34 4 5 3455 3492 3498 34 8 8 34 8 2 34 7 0 34 7 6 34 6 4 3452 3446 3440 3428 3434 3422 34 7 5 34 8 1 34 8 7 3439 3433 3427 3384 3390 3378 3372 3480 3427 3448 3 4 58 3468 34763491 343234283422 3407 345 43450 3421 3415 3 43 9 3451 344 5 3490 3475 3469 3421 3591 3599 3603 3611 3625 3617 3633 3641 3596 3602 3610 3618 880 10 9 6 10 8 6 1076A 1076B1068 1070 1072 1052 3481 3469 3473 3477 3493 3489 3485 3 4 5 8 3469 3477 346 3 345 5 3 4 5 2 3 4 4 8 3491 3483 3466 3470 3474 3478 3482 3583 1060 102 0 1 0 4 0 103 6 1 0 5 0 1 0 1 5 10 8 5 10 69 1051 1041 1057 1059 1053 103 5 102 5 3 4 4 9 3 4 5 3 3 4 4 5 3 4 5 7 3 4 6 1 3465 3512 3520 3600 3530 33 04 3310 3375 3365 3355 3315 3334 3328 3322 3316 3331 3343 3321 3340 3330 3320 331 1 3310 3303 33953385 33963390 3410 3416 3360 3350 3391 3406 3340 33473341 3 4 0 3 3209 3219 3229 3239 3249 3259 3269 3279 3289 3274 1077 1099 1055 1033 10113281 3265 3250 3258 3242 3234 3266 3249 325 7 996 994 998 3333 3327 3321 1008 1018 1028 1038 3339 3345 3351 3357 33611048 3358 3352 3346 3370 33763364 3371 3361 1058 1068 3363 3429 3 4 4 1 3 4 3 7 3 4 3 3 3425 344 9 3 4 4 43435 3422 3441 3 4 4 0 3 4 3 6 3418 3414 3427 3413 3421 3410 3406 346 6 3418 345 2 3460 340 93 4 0 7 3415 3424 3440 3500 3510 3421 3417 3413 3409 3405 3401 3393 3387 3381 3373 3371 33673365 3400 3390 3382 3381 3391 3405 3430 3400 3350 31 60 3136 3124 3125 3137 314 9 3161 3168 3160 3152 3144 3136 3128 3112 3120 3148 3155 3119 3189 3181 3173 3165 3157 3149 3141 3133 3125 3117 877 3262 1181 1183 1185 1189 1199 1180 1182 1186 1188 1190 1192 1198 3298 3292 3290 3288 3282 3280 32783272 3198 3192 3190 3188 3182 3180 3178 1111 1113 1115 1119 1100 1102 1106 1110 3180 3182 3186 3188 3190 3192 3198 1112 1116 1118 1120 1122 1126 1128 1130 1151 1153 1155 1159 1150 1152 1156 1158 11601161 1163 1165 3280 3282 3286 3288 3290 3 3281 3289 3291 3 11211271129 1 3 1055 91 2 899 1105 1129 1179 1178 32 92 31 78 1167 1132 3285 32 9 9 33 0 0 This map is a product of the City of Palo Alto GIS This document is a graphic representation only of best available sources. Legend Proposed Single Story Combining District (202 lots/parcels) Signed Petition in support of Single Story Overlay (SSO) SSO Applicants Owner signed petition then reversed support Owner did not sign petition Existing two story structure 0'250' Su p p o r t L e v e l R e f l e c t i n g M o d i f i c i a t i o n s Fe b r u a r y 9 - A p r i l 1 , 2 0 1 6 Pr o p o s e d S i n g l e S t o r y C o m b i n i n g D i s t r i c t Ro y a l M a n o r T r a c t # 1 5 5 6 re v . 0 3 / 2 9 / 1 6 CITY O F PALO A L TO I N C O R P O R ATE D C ALIFOR N IA P a l o A l t oT h e C i t y o f A P RIL 16 1894 The City of Palo Alto assumes no responsibility for any errors. ©1989 to 2016 City of Palo Alto RRivera, 2016-03-29 15:04:06 (\\cc-maps\gis$\gis\admin\Personal\RRivera.mdb) ATTACHMENT D ATTACHMENT E City of Palo Alto Page 1 Planning and Transportation Commission 1 Draft Verbatim Minutes 2 February 10, 2016 3 4 EXCERPT 5 6 Public Hearing 7 8 Item 4. LEGISLATIVE APPLICATION Royal Manor Single Story Overlay: 9 10 Chair Fine: And we have a legislative application for Royal Manor Single Story Overlay (SSO), a request 11 by Ben Lerner et al on behalf of the property owners of the Royal Manor for a zone change from R‐1 12 Single Family Residential to a SSO residential zone. So I believe let’s start with a staff presentation then 13 we’ll have the applicant’s presentation and then we’ll go to public comment. 14 15 Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Good evening, Amy French, Chief Planning Official. I’m processing 16 the SSOs for the City of Palo Alto. This application for Royal Manor is consistent with the purpose and 17 eligibility requirements for SSO. Those are to preserve single family living areas of predominantly single 18 story character. We have a prevailing one-story character in this neighborhood, Royal Manor, it’s Eichler 19 neighborhood from the late Fifties/early Sixties and we have 80 percent are one-story homes that - 20 sorry, 90.6 percent are one-story homes, which meets the eligibility for 80 percent-one story homes. 21 And when the application came in there was 71 percent support that met the application requirements 22 and we have property owners, there’s six of them I believe, in the applicant team. We’ll hear from them 23 tonight. 24 25 We have 202 homes at these addresses. We did send out notice cards to all of the affected property 26 owners as well as 600 foot radius homeowners beyond that. There are two zones in this SSO, R-1 and R-27 1(7000). 7,000 is the minimum lot size in that district. We do have a map here showing the support as 28 of the, as of the staff report packet last week reflecting where the two-story homes are, reflecting 29 absentee owners. You had this in your staff reports. And there are 19 two-story homes in the boundary 30 area and some of those did sign in support. I believe there were 11 that signed in support and 8 that did 31 not. That was of interest the last time we brought a SSO to the Planning Commission so I thought it was 32 worth noting. There are no two-story homes under construction, none filed at this time. 33 34 One of the homes in the original tract for Royal Manor is not within the boundary proposed. The reason 35 being it’s not an Eichler home. It’s a two-story stucco home that was not built at the same time as the 36 others in the tract and really has nothing in common with them for that reason as far as an identifiable 37 character. 38 39 I have some stats up here. They are also in the report. I want to move through this because I know 40 there’s people who want to speak. Again, in the report and in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 41 that were presented to folks in the neighborhood when the applicants were going through talked about 42 what the limitations would be with a SSO rezoning. And that is in a flood zone the maximum height is 20 43 feet and that has a certain formula to get there. And you can’t put basements in a flood zone and with a 44 SSO you can’t have lofts and mezzanines because that counts as a second floor. The homes that are 45 two-story homes become noncomplying facilities and they are subject to those regulations. 46 47 What this rezoning doesn’t do is mandate design review for one-story homes that would replace the 48 homes. So it was just a building permit in that case and it’s no discretionary review. It’s just a building 49 permit. 50 City of Palo Alto Page 2 1 There’s been neighborhood outreach. The applicants will go over that in more detail, but they did quite 2 a bit of effort that started in March of last year with a survey and then a second time with a petition. 3 And I’ll turn it over to the applicants. 4 5 Chair Fine: Thank you very much. 6 7 Rich Willits: Good evening, Chairman Fine and Commissioners; my name is Rich Willits. I live in Royal 8 Manor. I’m a member of the Royal Manor SSO committee. Some of my fellow members are here. 9 Perhaps they can stand up, the people on the SSO committee? We also have some supporters here who 10 can also stand up if you would, supporters? Thank you very much. We are also as you may know there 11 are some of us who are part of the Palo Alto Eichler Association and in that context we have brought 12 several different SSOs to you and appreciate the time and effort that you’ve put into studying those and 13 understanding the overall process as that has evolved and to passing the two that have gone through, 14 Greer Park and Los Arboles. We are also pleased of course that those were unanimously approved by 15 the Council. We want to thank staff as well for their support in this application and for helping us with 16 the overall process so we could understand the code, particularly Amy’s hard effort. She’s been both 17 thoughtful and judicious in leading us through the requirements for submitting an SSO application. 18 19 Now because you’ve looked at SSO applications before and because of Amy’s excellent report which you 20 have and which she summarized in her slides I’m not going to necessarily go through that same material. 21 I’d like to take this opportunity to go through in greater depth some of the history and the applicability 22 of the design of Eichlers to the design of Eichler communities such as ours so that you can have a better 23 idea of where Eichler communities fit into the overall plan of Palo Alto. Before getting into that I’m 24 going to try this… oops, sorry. 25 26 I’m just going to review quickly Royal Manor is the, one of the larger Eichler tracts. You can see us there 27 in the, at the arrow on the southeast corner basically of the Palo Verde neighborhood. There are 202 28 Eichlers as Amy mentioned that were built in the late Fifties all at once. Our community anchors are the 29 Palo Verde Elementary School and the Eichler Swim and Tennis Club. I’m going to jump to the next one 30 which is an aerial shot. You can see the Elementary School and the Swim and Tennis Club off to the right 31 hand side. This is not looking north. This is 101 you see way over in the upper left corner and it’s going 32 south upward that way. So this is kind of a south looking shot. 33 34 We are a cohesive Eichler tract. We are all Eichlers with the exception of the one house, kind of a 35 mystery house that Amy mentioned. None of these houses has been torn down. We’ve had no what we 36 call two-story teardowns. Several of them have had second stories added on top. 37 38 The reason that we and our neighbors signed the SSO application is that none of us wants to have a two-39 story teardown next to our house or over the back fence from us or even two or three houses away. We 40 call this radius one, two, and three and four. Houses, a two-story house at that, even at that distance 41 impacts our houses and our appreciation of our houses. And I’m going to explain a little more about 42 why that is and that’s why, partly why we chose the SSO process. Again, when we started this we 43 looked at what are the various different ways we can get protection from what we saw as being a 44 potential start of rampant replacement of Eichlers with two-story houses and the SSO made the most 45 sense because it treats our whole tract as one and as a community, which is the way we feel about it. 46 47 The two-story teardown when it occurs is a cataclysmic event in an Eichler neighborhood. Usually the 48 resulting houses are not at all of even midcentury modern style. This is an example of 808 Richardson 49 which we see a lot in the press. 808 on the left is the old Eichler that was there. The house that you see 50 City of Palo Alto Page 3 there on the right hand side is that same lot viewed from Frank Ingle’s house next door. You can see 1 that there’s a decided difference in the way that these houses are constructed and massed. Building 2 two-story houses of any kind is blocked by an SSO which is what we desire for our community. We 3 consider these houses especially the two-story teardowns to be out of character of the neighborhood. 4 5 We found as we talked to our neighbors that even the existing two-story additions create a great deal of 6 feeling. I think you’ll understand this more fully if we look at what Eichlers provide, how they relate to 7 each other and community. The first why is this important to Silicon Valley? If you read Walter 8 Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs in the first 10 pages he mentions the importance to Steve of the 9 simplify, the design of the Eichler houses, the type houses that he lived in. These houses think different. 10 Many of the ideas that Steve put into the Macintosh originated with Doug Engelbart who was one of our 11 neighbors. Doug created the ideas of the Personal Computer (PC) in 1962 to 68 while living, raising a 12 family down the street from me on Janice Way in our tract. Doug threw all these great ideas like the 13 mouse, hypertext, word processing, dynamically linked libraries, Windows, etcetera out into the world 14 in an event in 1968 called the Master of All Demos or the Mother of All Demos. That started the PC 15 revolution so we think there is some history of revolutionary thought in our tract. 16 17 This is what our the area basically looked like in about 1952. The buildings that you see right in the 18 middle there you’ll recognize as the Greer Park tract that you approved before. In Greer Park at this 19 time was existing and the important thing about this slide is that these houses were when they started 20 they were built in community to interact with each other and really not with respect to the other houses 21 around them. They were built to interact with each other. 22 23 So what are these basic concepts of these houses in their community? They have the following features 24 as a house provided for the occupant. They are slab on the ground. They feature a flat roof typically or 25 near flat and glass walls which of course we’ve talked about before. I’m kind of going to focus here on 26 the importance of slab on the ground because that’s something that’s often overlooked. Secondarily in 27 order to work in community they have no second story when they were built. They are closed to the 28 street, In other words you don’t see big glass windows on the street, and they have a six foot fence 29 beside them and around them. A six foot fence. That was a very important characteristic I remember 30 when I was growing up in Eichlers as a child. 31 32 Where do some of these design ideas come from? In 1949 Phillip Johnson built this building called the 33 Glass House. This sort of idealized those ideas that Steve Jobs and Walter Isaacson talked about and 34 that Doug Engelbart and his children have mentioned to me about the importance of Eichlers. The idea 35 that you see here is the same ones we’ve been talking about: slab on the ground, flat roof, glass walls. 36 The glass of course brings the outside inside. This is the thing that people talk about Eichlers. This is an 37 example from 1951. Again a very, this is a new way of thinking about these, when Joe Eichler started 38 thinking about these houses. 39 40 So where did Joe get his ideas from? Well, he didn’t get them from these folks. He actually had gotten 41 them a little earlier because he lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. He got, he pulled them from Frank 42 Lloyd Wright’s Usonian house concept which had these characteristics. And Usonian houses were also 43 designed to be built in community. This is the first Usonian house, a Jacobs house, 1939. You’ll see also 44 essentially a glass wall. It doesn’t look quite as modern as the ones we’ve been looking at. It’s built 10 45 years earlier, but you had the concept of the glass wall and how it allows nature to come into the house. 46 Look at how small that room really is. Square footage is less important in a house when nature comes 47 into the house. This house is also a model for Joe Eichler because it cost $5,000 to build. 48 49 City of Palo Alto Page 4 Going back we see some more of those characteristics that I mentioned: slab on the ground, flat roof, a 1 glass wall allowing visual access to nature. For privacy since this house is in a housing development 2 unlike the two that I showed before which are in private estates there’s a six foot fence. It goes from 3 around the front and extends around the backyard. Because this house is in a community there is no 4 second story. 5 6 What’s key about the slab and why do I keep mentioning that? Living in a house like this is registered to 7 the grade level. In other words, that’s where you walk. This includes the view over the six foot fence so 8 every inch above grade is important in terms of where the house starts. They start on the ground. 9 Wright taught architects to be very conscious of how we live in his houses. He was very involved with 10 what you see as a person in the house taking into account the size of the human body, the scale. 11 Building houses to this modulus requires a kind of pact with the neighbors. You’ll notice up in the upper 12 left hand side you can just see a little bit of another house that’s also in the same neighborhood. This 13 one, the Jacobs house we’re looking at, was the first Usonian house so this is not a Usonian house, but 14 it’s in community with it. 15 16 What kind of front does the Jacobs house or Usonian house show to the neighbor? It’s a closed front. 17 This is again a typical Eichler touch, typical Frank Lloyd Wright touch. This inheritance is the reason that 18 you don’t tend to get Eichlers, you don’t get an Eichler neighborhood by driving down the street. In fact 19 in Palo Alto in the Eighties many of them were kind of wrecks from the outside. Even today there’s 20 typically one of those in every tract. Then you might presume that they’re pretty awful inside, but that’s 21 not necessarily the case because this is the block of the private life that allows the other life, the open 22 life, to exist in the back. 23 24 So the elements that I’ve been speaking about have made their way into Eichlers. I’m just going to add a 25 few more. There’s no attic, there’s no basement, there’s no second story. There’s a slab on the ground, 26 there’s a flat roof, there’s a glass wall, and a six foot fence closed off to the street. All of our houses 27 share these elements. They jointly allow for the maximum freedom of light, of extension of private life 28 to the garden, to the fence, and to the sky. Eichlers are placed in community in such a way that they 29 preserve this for others. So because they are placed in community it’s crucial that Eichlers all in one 30 tract be under one SSO all limiting any two-story intrusions. Our neighbors over the back fence have the 31 greatest impact on the function of our houses in community. 32 33 On the next slide we’re going to take another look at our community. This is looking at it the other way 34 from the south. This is using the Apple Maps with the three-dimensional (3-D) effects turned on. You 35 can kind of see especially if you squint at it how our houses are distinct from the houses around it. This 36 defines the tract and defines the SSO. They’re flat. Other houses stick out. Our houses are uniform. 37 Others are many styles and do not seem to care about each other. 38 39 As you saw from the picture of Greer Park North our tract as well was built before the others. So the 40 other houses don’t really interact with each other, but our houses are all designed together to work 41 together. They were picked from a group of designs designed for Joe Eichler by Anshen and Allen and 42 other architects and they were placed in the tract by professionals in Joe’s company so that they tended 43 to interact minimally with each other making use of sunlight and other forms of openness. 44 Consequently in our neighborhoods going along with the idea of a zone change is the idea that intrusion 45 of other types of houses really is not tolerated because of the various natures that we’ve just talked 46 about. Excluding houses also from our tract would harm, from the SSO, would harm the whole tract. 47 Eichler houses placed in community make community for the people who live in them. 48 49 City of Palo Alto Page 5 Royal Manor is such a welcoming committee, community. Anyone moving here will tell you that after a 1 few months that the neighborhood is very special. We have one 90 year old resident who bought the 2 house in the Fifties when the tract was built who doesn’t want to move away because of her neighbors. 3 Everyone keeps an eye on each other. You see this community spirit and network pride and 4 neighborhood pride during the many events organized in during the year which, some of which are 5 pictured here. There are block parties on Janice way which include the surrounding streets. There’s a 6 Fourth of July parade on Kenneth Way open to everyone in the Palo Verde neighborhood. We have a 7 Turkey Trot on Lewis. There’s barbeques at the Eichler Club. And because of our devotion to minimal 8 design one of the most popular events is the City garage sale. We all need to get rid of stuff in order to 9 make room for family or open space. 10 11 There’s a sense of togetherness, a sense of identity created by the fact that we all live in Eichler houses 12 and we value our community. We have young families. We have a completely diverse ethnic 13 background, which is an inheritance that we have from Joe. We have seniors and we have 14 multigenerational households. We even have one household which has four generations. By contrast 15 from other Eichler neighborhoods which have suffered even one two-story teardown we hear of people 16 in those neighborhoods giving up and going away. We don’t want this for our neighborhood. 17 18 These are some other images to give you an idea of the inside of the house, which I have put in here 19 because I didn’t think that we had really gotten a sense for that in our presentations. I would encourage 20 you all to go to YouTube and check out the four minute trailer for a movie called People in Glass Houses. 21 This really tells you what’s going on in Eichlers today that are very modern, vibrant communities 22 especially with houses that are renewed. Many of our houses have been, owners have taken on 23 architects sometimes stripping them down to the studs and rebuilding them back again. It’s something 24 that we call Eichlers 2.0. 25 26 It’s often asked if Eichler homes can meet the needs of 21st Century families. The answer is absolutely. 27 Through modeling, remodeling and upgrading Eichlers can be enhanced through modern high-end 28 fixtures and appointments and can be seen in numerous, this can be seen in numerous remodels in 29 Royal Manor. The open floor plan in the common areas makes it easy to change around how these 30 things work, where we put various aspects of our lives in relation to the sun out the window, the new 31 garden that we’re planting. It’s also less expensive and ecofriendly to remodel a house rather than to 32 tear it down. 33 34 Eichlers were designed for families. Royal Manor was built during the World War II baby boom and 35 houses had three and four kids in the Sixties and Seventies. Today families have fewer kids, but often 36 more generations. They can live together easily in an Eichler. Due to the open floor plan and inside 37 outside design more people can comfortably live in an Eichler than in a similar house of a different 38 design, similar size house different design. As parents change into empty nesters and then senior 39 citizens it’s easy for them to age in place. This is a tremendous advantage for the people in our 40 neighborhood and many of us look forward to aging in place with community and family members 41 growing, moving in with us. We know this is pretty frustrating for people in the real estate business 42 because we ain’t moving. 43 44 Finally I wanted to leave you with some of the expressions of support that we’ve gotten from the 45 neighborhood. There’s certainly a lot more and they, some of those are represented in the packets that 46 Amy has of voices of people who have written letters supporting our SSO and we hope that you do too. 47 Thank you. 48 49 City of Palo Alto Page 6 Chair Fine: Thank you, Mr. Willits. With that I think let’s open it up to public comment. We have a lot of 1 speakers so we’re going to have three minutes per speaker and if you wouldn’t mind lining up behind 2 the person as you’re called so we can go through these. 3 4 Vice-Chair Fine: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we have 14 speaker cards and I think that I just got a 5 comment from Amy that Mr. Feghhi would like to speak first although he wasn’t on the at the 6 beginning. Is this right? 7 8 Sia Masuni: Sorry, Jalil had to leave unfortunately. He lives in a Stockton Place, 3385 and he was 9 strongly opposed SOO application based on the fact that Stockton Place doesn’t belong to that 10 neighborhood and he believed that this should be the owner’s decision. 11 12 Vice-Chair Fine: Thank you. And you were I’m sorry, you were… 13 14 Mr. Masuni: I’m Sia Masuni I’m one of the neighbors, his neighbors on Stockton. 15 16 Vice-Chair Fine: Ok, thank you. So with this we’re going to continue along this sequence you received 17 the cards with so Mr. Sia Masuni if I’m reading this right so and followed by Misha Potter. You have 18 three minutes. 19 20 Mr. Masuni: So first of all thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss this matter. I live in [94] 21 Loma Verde on the corner of Stockton and Loma Verde and I strongly oppose this SSO application based 22 on a number of reasons. First of all, I think there are a number of people who already removed their 23 signature and I believe their level of support is right now below the 70 percent. The 70 percent is the 24 guideline that the City of Palo Alto has approved for this kind of application and with the number of 25 people who have removed and changed their mind I think definitely the level of support is not there so 26 I’d want you guys to definitely pay attention to that fact. 27 28 Second, I believe that Stockton Place and Loma Verde they are not in this neighborhood. If we get out 29 of our house everything around us is almost non-Eichlers. We, the neighborhood that we share is 30 basically Vernon Terrace and the Stockton Place. And only 10 houses in those two streets are Eichlers. 31 The rest are non-Eichlers. They are not part of this application either, which means they can be [a lot of] 32 whatever they want after this is passed. Whatever community gathering they have or whatever 33 happens, again we are not part of this. 34 35 In addition the zoning is different for us. We generally have smaller lots and they [cannot be as much 36 as] the kind of middle part of the Royal Manor can build. In addition Loma Verde has special setback. 37 They have a special setback of 24 feet which limits how much we can build also. We have an easement 38 in the back as well. So not only something front, but something in the back. Plus as you know this 39 whole area is in flood zone, which means we cannot build basements either. For houses like us which is 40 in a corner lot we have double constraints because now we have setbacks from Stockton [unintelligible] 41 by from Loma Verde. We have easements in the back. Because of the location of some of the trees in 42 the neighborhood I have, I’m more limited of trying to move the place of the parking or garage or 43 anything like that. Our situation the damage we have from SSO application is just very, very great. 44 45 I want to mention something kind of close with that. We are not builders, we are not in the business of 46 flipping houses and some of these was mentioned in the application that people are afraid that some 47 people will come here and build to the maximum [unintelligible] this. We came here to raise our family, 48 sorry just a few more seconds? Raise our family and we bought this place not only based on the land, 49 the house that’s there, but the land that it has and the potential for building. With the current 50 City of Palo Alto Page 7 guidelines I can build up to 3,000 sf on this land. If SSO passes with everything we tried to calculate with 1 the help of Amy French and some of the other staff here for me it cannot go beyond 1,800 sf. It is a 2 great damage to my property. I bought it with the hope that I can raise my family here. I have 3 multigenerational family and if you need a place I’m hoping that I can build a second story and use my 4 land. If this passes basically this is taking away the house that I bought because I cannot use it for the 5 purpose that I bought it. Thank you very much. 6 7 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. We have Misha Potter followed by Zoe Danielson. 8 9 Misha Potter: I am actually in very much in support of this (interrupted) 10 11 Zoe Danielson: He asked for Zoe Danielson. That’s me. 12 13 Vice-Chair Gardias: No, no, followed. So Misha Potter followed by Zoe Danielson so thank you. 14 15 Ms. Potter: I’m very much in support of this measure. When I moved to Palo Alto I discovered an Eichler 16 neighborhood and I knew immediately that’s where I wanted to live. This is a fabulous neighborhood. 17 We are very much of a community and part of it was because we could live in these beautiful glass 18 houses and also be part of this larger community. 19 20 I have lived in two Eichlers actually in this Royal Manor tract. Both of them have been extensively 21 renovated including my current one which has two master bedroom suites. They had their mother-in-22 law living with them. So it is possible to expand them. I had somebody else here actually has six 23 member, family members who live in that house including a dog and they’ve managed to build, rebuild 24 their Eichler so they have five bedrooms, an office, and three bathrooms. So remodeling an Eichler is 25 very possible to expand it to, for a growing family. 26 27 I wanted to talk about also the privacy that three-fourths of our houses are glass. As soon as you go into 28 a two-story unless I can build a 16 foot fence you’re going to be looking into my house from [every]. I 29 understand that you have the right to build up, but I also have the right of privacy in my own home 30 without having to put curtains on every single window and having them shut at all times. 31 32 And finally I know that some people may be concerned about individuality. If you walk through the 33 neighborhood people have individuality on their homes. No two, the Eichlers look generally alike, but 34 you can tell personal stamps that going through that way. So I’d like to support it for that measure. 35 36 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. Zoe Danielson followed by Patty Schafer. 37 38 Ms. Danielson: Hello, my name is Zoe Danielson. I have lived on Thomas Drive since 1979. I would like 39 to tell you that we put a second story on our house already so there’s nothing you can do to us now. 40 We don’t have a hot dog in this barbeque. I have made the effort to come to this Council [Note-41 Commission] to say that stealing other people’s property rights is stealing. Stealing is not ethical. It is 42 not ok for a group of people to come together and all agree that somebody else is going to lose their 43 property rights. 44 45 Our second story home was created by my husband and our friends. We hired an architect to supervise 46 our friends and family members to create this home for our four children. Our bathrooms in the original 47 home were so small that our four children couldn’t even stand in them. It cost $400 a month to heat an 48 Eichler in the winter because it has so many glass walls that you will no longer approve my family or any 49 other to replace an Eichler with an Eichler. We cannot build, so now we cannot build second stories, we 50 City of Palo Alto Page 8 cannot add on because of the fact that we are in a flood zone, and we would have to raise the level of 1 the house to 10 feet above the flood plain. If people don’t listen and they go ahead and ask for this they 2 are going to be back here whining at you again because people are tearing down the Eichlers and 3 putting more suitable houses that are energy efficient in their place. And my point is that what they’re 4 trying to do is they’re just trying to make me and the other people who have been there who have put 5 two-story houses on with great care and tried in every way possible; for example, we planted Eugenia 6 bushes so that we wouldn’t look in on our neighbors. 7 8 I don’t think these people will achieve their goal of having everything stay the same as it is today forever 9 by this application. I urge you to turn it down in fairness to those people who would like to have a larger 10 family or have relatives move in and their needs. The first purpose of a house is to serve the needs of 11 the people living inside it, not the people living across the street. 12 13 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. 14 15 Patty Schafer: Hi, my name is Patty Schafer (interrupted) 16 17 Vice-Chair Gardias: Just a moment. We have to be followed by Majan Yaha-Natenajat if I’m reading this 18 correctly. Thank you, sorry. 19 20 Ms. Schafer: Ok. We have lived on Stockton Place for over 20 years and I propose that our block be 21 allowed to secede from Royal Manor. We have never really been part of it. We’re not even in the same 22 zone. I just heard there were parades and block parties there. We don’t know about them. Our block 23 parties are with Vernon Terrace which joins our street and curves back around to Loma Verde. My 24 neighborhood preparedness leader is across the street in Sterling Gardens. There the houses are of a 25 variety of styles including three with two stories. I’ve always been glad that I look out at them instead of 26 seeing the same houses over and over. Maybe one day we can return the favor. 27 28 The fact is 78 percent of homeowners on Stockton Place do not want the SSO. The Planning and 29 Transportation Commission (PTC) staff report as I read it discusses this briefly on Pages 6 to 9. The 30 report says that you could recommend to exclude us from the SSO boundary without any additional 31 public notice. The report also indicates that there may be concerns that excluding Stockton Place from 32 the SSO would erode support for it from our backyard abutting neighbors. Well that may very well be a 33 possibility it is not a valid reason to force our inclusion. Our block is overwhelmingly against the SSO and 34 it’s only right that we be excluded. Thank you. 35 36 I have an email from somebody. Could I read that to you? She couldn’t make it. This is from Kay 37 Smolin, Palo Verde neighborhood. I do not want a two-story limit on my house at 24, no 3428 Greer 38 Road. I still have hopes of making the house comfortable for our aging [need] bigger bathrooms and 39 wider doorways need more room to turn a wheelchair in. Again house materials: pipes, heating, 40 electrical, all indicate a great expense to correct. Who would want to buy an aging house at a large price 41 unless they could expand? Kay Smolin. Thank you. 42 43 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. Just a second. Do we have the record of this email in our 44 documents? 45 46 Ms. Schafer: I could send it to you. 47 48 City of Palo Alto Page 9 Ms. French: Through the chair? Yes, we received that at 7:03 this evening. I was up making copies of 1 the ones that I received prior to the start of this public hearing and you have those at places, but this is 2 the only one that came after the public hearing. 3 4 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. 5 6 Majan Yaha-Natenajat: Ok, my name is Marjan (interrupted) 7 8 Vice-Chair Gardias: Just a moment. You will be followed by Howard Shay. 9 10 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: Ok. My name is Marjan and I’m here two recommendations. One for the Planning 11 Committee [Note-Commission] and one for Amy French which is part of the staff. So the first 12 recommendation which is for Planning Committee [Note-Commission] is that take Loma Verde and 13 Stockton Place out of SSO application. Take a look at them on the map and you will know why this is 14 true. The second recommendation is for Amy French as part of the staff committee. And that 15 recommendation is please, please send postcards to verify level of support instead of collecting 16 signatures. And I will walk through why. 17 18 Many signatures in the application are invalid. Staff must verify the level of support by postcards. Here 19 are a list of neighbors that took back their signatures in the past few days and they told us that, some of 20 them told us that they signed the application when they were in a block party and they were distracted 21 by their children. Someone approached them and asked for signatures and they just signed. And here 22 are some other reasons for voiding the signatures. The first one is misinformed about proposal. The 23 next one is pushy signature collectors. Someone we have their email [unintelligible] for the record and 24 it’s sent to Amy French as well. So someone said they came to their door three times and she was in a 25 meeting and finally she gave up, she was like ok, here is my signature. Here you go. And the next one is 26 avoiding confrontation. Our neighbor who was here and he left he told us that he just signed it because 27 he didn’t want to become enemies with his neighbors. So they came to him and he was like ok I will sign 28 because he thought that there will be voting later. He didn’t know that his signature is going to be 29 counted as evidence of support for SSO application. 30 31 So here are some more examples of misinformation. Saying SSO won’t impact house value by showing 32 charts beyond controlled input factors. They were comparing Green Meadow to Palo Verde or they 33 were comparing Green Meadow to Ventura. How does that compare, right? Everyone knows a little bit 34 of data science and everyone knows what multiple variables in a test means. So you can’t tell those 35 things attached to the applications are meaningless and they were just there to kind of push their idea 36 to other people. The signatures collected did not fully explain the implication of application, which was 37 banning two-story in the neighborhood. I’m going to read part of the email that someone sent as part 38 of this. So a resident of 3466 Kenneth Drive they took back their signature and they said as background 39 we were misinformed about the details of the drive particularly the two stories restriction. We do 40 believe in the aesthetics of the neighborhood, but we don’t believe in two-story ban. 41 42 I’m going to ask for more minutes because I don’t believe that they should be allowed to have a 43 presentation and us not be allowed to do any presentations here. So people who signed thought there 44 will be a voting later. Signature collectors never responded back to people’s email asking for further 45 information. Again I have evidence of that on another email sent from one of the properties on Kenneth 46 Drive. We only talked to a few, but we bet that there are many more signatures that are invalid. We are 47 busy individuals. We cannot go door to door like the applicants did so we don’t know about the rest, 48 but we are sure there are much more. These were just part of the people we knew and that’s what they 49 told us. Staff must verify the level of support by postcards, not by signatures. 50 City of Palo Alto Page 10 1 The next thing is to Planning Commission, Palo Verde is not Los Arboles. Palo Verde is different. First of 2 all the signatures currently on the application based on our calculation after those houses were out it’s 3 around 67 percent, which is much less than 70 percent. There is no rounding here, right? So it is less so 4 it should be considered less. The next thing is there are 202 houses in that boundary. How can you put 5 the same blanket on all the houses? And there is a 24 feet setback on Loma Verde and the next 6 difference is the zoning is not R-1(7000) which is the larger zoning. The next thing is that Palo Alto, Palo 7 Verde is in the most severe flood zone. We are paying a lot of money for the flood insurance already. 8 And here is again Loma Verde is not Janice [really]. So Loma Verde and Stockton are different from rest 9 of proposed boundary and I’m going to show you why. (interrupted) 10 11 Vice-Chair Gardias: So excuse me ma’am. 12 13 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: Yes. 14 15 Vice-Chair Gardias: Just how much time would you like to more? 16 17 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: I just have like five more slides. 18 19 Vice-Chair Gardias: So (interrupted) 20 21 Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Though Chair. I’d recommend that I mean in the order of… for fairness 22 I mean the applicant submitted an application. Your rules provide that the applicant gets 15 minutes to 23 speak along with a 3 minute rebuttal and then subsequent speakers get 5 minutes which you have the 24 authority to reduce to 3 minutes which is what you have done. I would be concerned that if we allowed 25 additional speakers time that’s an opportunity that you got to extend to the rest of the speakers. 26 27 Chair Fine: I agree and we really appreciate your comments. We did give you an extra minute. This item 28 will still go to City Council at which point I encourage you to write them, provide the same figures and 29 information and show up at that meeting as well whatever happens here tonight, but thank you very 30 much. 31 32 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: Ok, thank you. 33 34 Vice-Chair Gardias: But just if I may, right, just for our record, right, since you presented, right, I think 35 that it would be in your interest, right, and also in our interest to pretty much verify the documentation 36 that you shared with us which we couldn’t see unfortunately. Sorry, it’s just too far for my eyes. 37 38 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: Sure, so that’s why I think it’s unfair that the people who are pro can present, but 39 we cannot present and I’m just going to show you the last. 40 41 [Unintelligible-Multiple speakers arguing about whether she should show slides or not] 42 43 Chair Fine: I’m sorry. You can pass those to us up here as can anyone else in the audience. We’ll take a 44 look at them. 45 46 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: Ok, ok, thank you. 47 48 Chair Fine: Thank you for your time. 49 50 City of Palo Alto Page 11 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. Thank you. And also the email that you wanted to share if it’s 1 possible just to have it forwarded it to (interrupted) 2 3 Ms. Yaha-Natenajat: It is already sent to Amy French. 4 5 Vice-Chair Gardias: Ok, thank you very much. So we have Mr. Howard Shay followed by Bill Fouseman. 6 You have three minutes. 7 8 Howard Shay: Hello, thanks for your time. I live on 1038 Loma Verde and my wife and I moved in in 9 2012. And when we moved in we picked an Eichler house because my wife and I both liked it very 10 much. And one of the things that we noticed is that our neighbors on both sides have a two, second 11 story add on. And our plan is basically to live in the neighborhood, have kids, and as the kids get older 12 and need more space we would build a very similar add on. Not a tear down, but just an add on that’s 13 similar to our neighbors for similar reasons. We have a setback and we actually have an easement on 14 the back and our lot is basically a 6,000 sf lot which is very dissimilar from the other lots in the center of 15 this Royal Manor boundary. Plus across the street on Loma Verde none of the houses that we see day to 16 day are actually Eichlers. 17 18 So now we recently actually had two, a twins and we have in-laws living with us who really adore, adore 19 them and like spending time with them. So we actually do need the space and we do plan to build an 20 add on and we are actually very disappointed that we could not plan for this, it kind of caught us by 21 surprise, and to make things worth both our neighbors actually signed and actually I feel that is very 22 unfair because they had only something to gain and nothing to lose. And I think that is pretty much it. 23 Thank you. 24 25 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. William Fouseman followed by David Hammond. You have 26 three minutes. 27 28 Bill Fouseman: Hi, my name is Bill Fouseman. I live on Greer Road near Kenneth in this Royal Manor 29 section of town. I’ve lived in the house we currently own for about 30 years. I actually purchased it in 30 about 1989. I’m in a unique position because I am one of the people, one of the 10 people who did sign 31 for the SSO and I do live in a two-story house. 32 33 I have a rather unfortunate second story addition that was built in about 1967 by the prior owner of the 34 house and frankly I’m embarrassed by it. It looms over my neighbor’s house. It is completely not in 35 keeping of the aesthetic of midcentury modern architecture of this neighborhood and frankly it looks 36 pretty bad. In fact it looks so bad that an article published in the Palo Alto Weekly about two years ago 37 about this neighborhood in which they unfortunately said there have been some other houses built in 38 this neighborhood and here is an example of not an Eichler and it was actually a picture of my house. 39 Fortunately they corrected it, but and we’re not too defensive about it. So I really want to strongly urge 40 with the growing interest in aesthetics about midcentury modern houses the issues about privacy, 41 people know what they’re getting when they buy an Eichler. It’s a quite special thing. They are quite 42 precious houses that must be preserved and as an owner as one of the unfortunate revised Eichlers I 43 strongly support the SSO. Thank you. 44 45 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. We have David Hammond followed by Pat Hanley. You have 46 three minutes sir. 47 48 David Hammond: Yes, thank you, Chairman Fine and the rest of the Council or Commission members. 49 My name is David Hammond. I actually lived in Greer Park North which you approved or which was 50 City of Palo Alto Page 12 approved actually has gone into effect just this last week after the second hearing and the time. Just 1 wanted to comment knowing how difficult it is, was for us with 72 houses to get near 70 percent just 2 wanted to comment on how the folks that organized this petition and so forth how hard they have 3 worked and really a Herculean effort to come up with 70 percent and I support them. Thank you very 4 much. 5 6 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. So we have Pat Hanley followed by Soo Lin Chan. 7 8 Pat Hanley: Hello, my name is Pat Hanley. I live at 3493 Kenneth Drive. I purchased my house in 1973. 9 Of course I love the neighborhood. I won’t go over all of the features that drew me to purchasing an 10 Eichler. I absolutely love the glass wall concept and the privacy in my backyard. I do not have two 11 stories on either side of me. I also had the great privilege of teaching at Palo Verde Elementary School 12 for 28 years so I know the families very well and the sense of community is amazing. One of my 13 concerns, I know Sunnyvale and we are not Sunnyvale, but they in all their Eichler communities do not 14 allow second stories and I imagine there are other communities, I haven’t checked with Cupertino, but 15 of the 12 and I think there are 12 SSO communities now in Palo Alto I would just suggest none of them 16 to my knowledge have petitioned to have that SSO overlay removed. So obviously those communities 17 are very, very happy and there are quite a few of them. 18 19 My concern is the type of house that is now being built on the corner of Louis and Clara. The two-story 20 there is very large and I don’t know what the setbacks are, but there’s very little space going down Clara 21 between the back of the house and the fence next door. I would suggest it might only be six feet. But 22 that type of house with the new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regulations if that 23 were to be built next to me would have a significant negative impact on my light and my privacy. So I 24 just strongly recommend and support the SSO petition for Royal Manor. 25 26 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. So we have Soo Lin Chan followed by Shrupa Beeswatz. 27 28 Soo Lin Chan: I’m vehemently opposed to a SSO. I live at 3469 Greer and I have lived there for 40 years. 29 And so I understand what a sense of community is and I just if they were, I’m in the flood zone so if they 30 should raise the house five feet I would have no sunshine and they would be looking into all my 31 bedrooms and bathrooms. And so I think if you want a bigger house buy, don’t buy an Eichler. And so 32 being here for this many years and then I want to give my sons my house because they have two 33 children and having this sense of community is important and my family has been here since 1888 and 34 so we want to have a sense of community and belonging for where we are. And if you’re new here then 35 you may not have that. So thank you. 36 37 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. So we have Shrupa Beeswatz followed by Bencut Dokeyparty. 38 39 Shrupa Beeswatz: Hello everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. My name is 40 Shrupa. I live on Stockton Place like a couple of other people who spoke earlier. And we are very new 41 to this place. We just moved in like literally some days ago. So I don’t think I have the context that most 42 other people are talking about, but I would say we have, we bought the Eichler home so we have an 43 Eichler on Stockton. We absolutely love the home. We have no desire to rebuild or expand or build any 44 kind of like two-story home, but in spite of all of that we are very opposed to the ban just because when 45 I walk out of my home today I already do see non-Eichler two-story homes. It hasn’t been bothering me 46 and I generally strongly believe that people should be able to do with their houses what makes sense to 47 them and a lot of people talked about being able to expand their homes to live more comfortably and I 48 definitely wouldn’t wish my neighbors not being able to do that. Thank you. 49 50 City of Palo Alto Page 13 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. So Bencut Dokeyparty please and followed by Padma Kotha. 1 2 Bencut Dokeyparty: Good evening, my name is Bencut. We bought our house in 2000. We are in the 3 Royal Manor. When we purchased our house we looked around Palo Alto and decided to buy in this 4 area because it is not having a SSO. At that time Green Meadow and a few areas had this overlay. What 5 we felt is we were paying so much money and we need to have the right to build if our needs grow in 6 future. That was the reason we purchased in this area even though it’s more expensive than other areas 7 at that time. 8 9 This overlay is going to take away our right to build what we want. We already have rules, regulations in 10 place to do anything to our house even just to add a room let alone second story. I think we should just 11 use that regulations and [unintelligible] to provide the needed privacy for the neighbors rather than 12 taking away the right of the people who purchased over the last however many years. 13 14 The second point I want to make is it’s going to reduce our value because people who are trying to buy 15 will not like these restrictions because they’re paying astronomical prices here and I know they will not 16 like to have the restrictions when there are other houses within Palo Alto have no restrictions. They 17 would go into those areas and they will not come to SSO areas and it’s going to reduce our value of the 18 house. So for those reasons I strongly oppose this SSO. Thank you. 19 20 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. So we have next Padma Kotha followed by Jason Trendale. 21 22 Padma Kotha: Hi, I’m a resident of 3391 Greer Road. We’ve been living there for more than a decade. 23 Our immediate neighbors the ones, our neighbors who live behind us and who live beside us got an 24 exception from the City and they have extended their homes. This is after we bought our home. So I 25 believe that allowing only single story will make it into a horizontal concrete jungle. We’ll not have any 26 green space and privacy as such. You can keep the Eichler spirit, the harmony, in place, but then when 27 you start restricting the second floor you are going to have less green space and then less space for your 28 family. 29 30 And also I thought that this would come up for voting again. We so we didn’t know that was the final 31 vote when we signed. So keeping these issues in mind I’m not for an SSO. I would suggest people 32 having [unintelligible] and not all Eichler homes have flat roofs. Our own home has a sloping roof. So 33 probably you can change the angle. You can make the angle of the roof a little bit more angular so it can 34 still maintain your privacy though you have a second story home. And definitely if you have a bigger 35 family you want your kids to play so you need more open space. So I’m for more open space and 36 privacy can be handled with design issue, keeping design in mind. So still, by still maintaining the Eichler 37 spirit I believe a second family, a second story home will not affect the lifestyle of our neighbors so we 38 should not restrict it to a single story tract. Thank you. 39 40 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. And we have final card unless there will be another one, Mr. Jason 41 Trendale. 42 43 Jason Trendale: Hi, thank you. I’m representing 3225 Stockton Place. Like others I don’t believe that 44 this street, this block, and these Eichlers should be included in this tract. It should be downsized. I hear 45 a lot of un-neighborly attitude in this room and I can see why this is a polarizing topic of discussion. I 46 would like to easily, I could easily spend your time just saying why these houses don’t fit that 47 neighborhood. I mean the house across the street was built by the owner. There’s, there’s lots of two-48 story houses. It’s not something which fits in this overlay, but in my experience in Palo Alto over more 49 than 40 years is living in this house. Living in a SSO zone and having kids where that’s two blocks away 50 City of Palo Alto Page 14 from every single school level there is except for say, High School. It’s also living Professorville next to a 1 house which the Planning Department had knocked down, historic house, and having a two-story home 2 built next to my house where suddenly there’s something looking into my backyard and [unintelligible] 3 my swimming pool. So I can see both sides of this and I think one of the things which the City should 4 focus on and which Councilwoman Downing [Note-Commissioner] spoke to when talking about the 5 alleyways is how can we design buildings so that they look out and have a purpose which fits our 6 community? And it’s not that difficult. It doesn’t take a genius although you had a room full of people 7 who fit that bill in architecture to set a casement for a window placement and end lighting which fits 8 code and allows a second story to be added without a view of the neighbor. And as some people have 9 mentioned, one, two, three, four houses away is a house which affects your backyard, the notification 10 requirements which we have don’t even cover that. 11 12 So while it may sound like I’m saying hey, this overlay is a great idea I think it’s a terrible idea. I think 13 you’re right in front of the Flag and sometimes we forget the Constitution exists, but this is one thing 14 where we have some rights and I think that the people who bought their houses who’ve signed this they 15 talk about pressure and or people who may not be here don’t know this is even happening are just miss 16 and uninformed or they need to work together and I’d really like to see that happen, but I think that 17 Stockton needs to be excluded from this and I think this needs to be rethought, at least continued until 18 people can maybe think hey, there’s a way to do this which doesn’t involve stopping other people from 19 building something on. And I know this process takes a long time as Ms. French can attest regarding the 20 405 Lincoln property so as far as this goes thank you for your time and I hope that you take that all the 21 people who spoken and the owners which retracted their names from Stockton into consideration and 22 remove that area because Stockton and Vernon are really that one community. They do not fit in this 23 overlay. Thanks a lot. 24 25 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you Mr. Trendale. So this concludes public hearing. We have no more 26 speaker cards. 27 28 Chair Fine: So thank you for everyone who showed up tonight. It’s great to get all this feedback. I think 29 these are the most comments I’ve ever seen on a single item probably because this is the largest SSO yet 30 that the City has dealt with. 31 32 Just to frame the conversation as we bring it back to the Commission. Our purview here is to 33 recommend approval or deny the request or change the boundary. If we make the boundary smaller 34 there is no new noticing requirement. If we enlarge the boundary there is a noticing requirement. With 35 that let’s open it up for a round of questions. Commissioner Downing. 36 37 Commissioner Downing: Sure. So a question for staff. So can you walk us through the process for what 38 happens when someone submits an SSO request for us? When they submit signatures what happens 39 with that? How do we verify them? 40 41 Ms. French: Those signatures as you have in your packet are checked against the data that the City has 42 on record. Obviously I don’t have, I can’t compare a signature with a signature on file with the 43 Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) let’s say. I don’t have that capability, but I do verify that the 44 owner is the listed owner on our data system for that address. 45 46 Commissioner Downing: Ok. So I realize that this is not really within staff control, it’s a matter of how 47 that particular ordinance is written, but I do think that there seems to be a fair point raised in that when 48 people come knocking on my door and ask me to sign petitions I don’t generally assume that I’m signing 49 away rights by doing that. I generally assume that I’m only going to be signing away rights when I get a 50 City of Palo Alto Page 15 formal government notice with government stationary on top. So I don’t know how we handle that or 1 kind of how we can fix that because that does sound disconcerting to me. 2 3 Mr. Lait: So I’ll just so… Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director. I’ll say that nobody has signed away any right. 4 I mean what the signature did was generate a conversation and filing of an application for consideration 5 by this Commission and ultimately by the City Council at a public hearing, but your comment is well 6 taken. Perhaps there are things that we need to look at in the way that the ordinance is drafted about 7 how we might go about collecting those signatures or getting that threshold point vetted out a little bit 8 further. 9 10 Commissioner Downing: I think that would be useful because I think that the last time we heard an SSO 11 and the last time that there was a neighborhood in that SSO who did not want to be part of that SSO we 12 did try to exclude them and the Council’s response to that they disagreed with the view that you just 13 espoused and they disagreed with our view as well which was that when people get this level of 14 signatures they have a right to be heard, not that they have an automatic right to receive the SSO. The 15 Council did not appreciate that view. And so in light of that I am extraordinarily concerned that when 16 Council receives these signatures they really do believe that people are signing away their rights. They 17 don’t believe that people are asking for the issue to be heard. So I think that is an important issue. 18 19 Chair Fine: Vice-Chair. 20 21 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So in the same, in the same spirit I think that in this 22 presentation there is a number of the addresses and I believe that we need to verify this against the 23 applications and double check if the it seems to me that some of them they are already on the list of 24 those that non-signees, but there may be some others that maybe signed and so we would need to 25 verify this to make sure that this is addressed. 26 27 Ms. French: May I? Through the Chair? All of the correspondence that I’ve received including the recent 28 7:03 email I have gone back and looked against the original application with the signatures and so I do, I 29 do have a current count if you will of support based on my checking against these. So we did get two 30 new supporters through and it is in the packet that you have at places and on the back table. Within the 31 last two days we did get three people that had formerly been a signature of support now saying they do 32 not support it. So again they met the requirements of the zoning code to submit an application for 33 consideration. What it is today is something different than what came in. It’s the process, and it is not 34 over tonight. It keeps going. That’s what you’re asked to do is forward something to the Council and 35 we’ll see what the support is at the Council, but again they met the requirement for submission and 36 consideration. 37 38 Vice-Chair Gardias: Right, but all I’m asking is pretty much just to verify if that is [does] reconciles with 39 the (interrupted) 40 41 Ms. French: It does. 42 43 Vice-Chair Gardias: This does? 44 45 Ms. French: What I heard tonight is yeah, there’s nobody that I’d heard this evening at the podium that 46 is different. I’ve been checking them against the map that I have on the support and non-support. 47 48 Vice-Chair Gardias: Very good. Ok, thank you very much. That was, that was very quick, right? So we 49 can just go to the substance then and just I have some other questions. 50 City of Palo Alto Page 16 1 Man [off mike]: If you can actually announce the percentage in support because right now 2 [unintelligible]. 3 4 Mr. Lait: So through the Chair. So Vice-Chair has the floor right now and I believe the Vice-Chair is 5 asking questions of staff. 6 7 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you very much. So like to follow up on the original development because 8 there is when you look at the map that you presented there is a R-1 and R-1(7000) lots. So R-1 those are 9 the smaller lots. So my question is what was rationale? Was this, was this truly developed at the same 10 time? Was it one tract at the time it was developed or there were just two separate developments and 11 then those two areas differ which of course would impact somehow treatment of Stockton and Loma 12 Verde? 13 14 Ms. French: So to answer that this is all one original tract. They were built as the applicants mentioned 15 at the same time, the late Fifties. I don’t have the exact years, but he did and I looked at that in our 16 system to verify that. I don’t know at what point the zoning to different zone districts were put forward. 17 I didn’t do that research to know when that took place, but the tract, the building of the tract was done 18 at the same time. 19 20 Vice-Chair Gardias: Ok. Thank you. So I maybe somebody else. I will prepare next questions. Thank 21 you. 22 23 Chair Fine: Commissioner Waldfogel. 24 25 Commissioner Waldfogel: I just had my questions answered from, yes. So nothing, nothing right now. 26 27 Chair Fine: Ok, I’ll go for a little bit here. So as we discussed in the pre-Commission meeting yesterday 28 the level needed to get a hearing is at the time of application submittal. Is that correct? 29 30 Ms. French: Yes, to be considered a complete application and eligible for the process of getting to the 31 Planning Commission. Yes. And they met that at the time of application and at the time of the notice to 32 the paper of this hearing and even up until last week. 33 34 Chair Fine: And since then where did the level of support drop to and where is it currently? 35 36 Ms. French: It’s gone down and up and down within the last two days or I should say five days. So it’s 37 currently at 69 percent and it was yesterday at 71 percent. So we had three, three changes of votes just 38 on Kenneth Drive just today. 39 40 Chair Fine: Ok. A few other unrelated questions. What’s the fence limit in these neighborhoods 41 actually? I know someone mentioned about a six foot fence that’s part of the style, but is there a limit 42 in the code at the moment? 43 44 Ms. French: One can place an extra foot of lattice along the rear property line, but as one comes forward 45 on the lot there can be no fence taller than six feet forward of the front of the house. 46 47 Chair Fine: Ok. Then just to get to it I’m pretty concerned about some of the process actually to, to get 48 to this. I think it is clear that you need 70 percent, but the City is really made it unclear about how you 49 get there. And from the number of speakers tonight I counted 12 opposed and four in support. I know 50 City of Palo Alto Page 17 there are more people in the audience who didn’t speak and those folks who were opposed were very 1 passionate about this and they tended to be concentrated along Loma Verde, Stockton, and in the R-1 2 district. That says something and I think we cannot ignore it. 3 4 I’m also particularly concerned that a number of people changed their vote one way or the other and 5 although we are supposed to consider this at the time of application I think it’s incumbent upon this 6 Commission to consider that this is a democratic process and we do need to consider how that works 7 out. I just don’t think we’ve done a very good job of process here. I want to echo Commissioner 8 Downing that maybe the City should provide explicit instructions on collecting signatures. Somebody 9 mentioned postcards that that the City sends out. That’s not a bad idea. I know that’s an additional 10 administrative cost and it would have to be written up in the code, but that seems like a good idea from 11 my perspective. 12 13 And then just to talk about some things we brought up before, it’s 70 percent to pass this, it’s 70 14 percent to overturn it. Our former colleague on this Commission, Commissioner Michael, mentioned 15 many times that he thought that was backwards. That if it’s 70 percent to pass this it should be 30 16 percent to overturn it. In a way we’re essentially privileging current owners at the expense of any future 17 owners who may have different preferences. I want to pass it back to the Commission for more 18 comments. Commissioner Waldfogel. 19 20 Commissioner Waldfogel: Thank you. So I’m just looking at the packet and in particular the signature 21 pages in the packet. It starts on Page 30 something. And this looks, this looks fairly unambiguous to me. 22 I mean if somebody rang my doorbell and showed me this piece of paper I think I would take it seriously 23 and consider whether it meant what it said before I signed it. So I think that we have to respect that 24 people had some intent when they saw this piece of paper and signed it. I mean I agree with the 25 comment that the process needs to be clear and transparent that we need to decide when the vote is 26 closed because I’m sure that we’ve all cast votes that we have remorse over, but we do need to clarify 27 that. But at the same time I think we have to respect the process so it looks like the process to the best 28 of our knowledge is people signed a piece of paper and we count the signatures on the piece of paper 29 that they sign. I’m not quite sure what other way that we could, that we could do this at least given the 30 current situation. 31 32 Looking at the map I understand, I mean I understand the difference between the situations on Loma 33 Verde and Stockton. At the same time those conditions bear on the conditions on the streets behind 34 them so it’s hard to separate out the impacts. So it’s a difficult case, but at the same time we do have 35 the only thing that we know for certain is that at the time when a piece of paper was presented to 36 people that we got a certain number of signatures. 37 38 Chair Fine: Commissioner Downing. 39 40 Commissioner Downing: Yeah, I mean I have to disagree with that. I mean I think that given that this 41 particular area is in a flood zone, given that a portion of the people here have easements in the back, 42 have large setbacks in the front, I think that the SSO for some of these folks depending on how the 43 market goes could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in home value one way or the other. And so I 44 would not expect to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars by signing a petition that a random 45 neighbor brings over to my house while I’m trying to cook dinner and feed my child. So I don’t agree 46 with that. I think that if you’re going to be making such serious decisions about the number one asset 47 that any person, most people in America have, I think it needs to be on government paper. It needs to 48 be an actual letter and a form that the City government sends out. I can’t, I don’t think it should be 49 City of Palo Alto Page 18 based on a petition. I would not closely read that as if it were a contract although that’s exactly how 1 people should be reading this. 2 3 So I do see a really big process issue here and it’s highlighted here because I think in the other SSO’s that 4 we’ve faced we really did have a community that was united and had the same idea about where they 5 wanted to go. And that’s really not the case here. This is a very divided community and I feel very 6 uncomfortable with making this kind of decision knowing that a lot of people did not necessarily know 7 what they were signing. And further [to that] I’m going to be honest here, a lot of the people who came 8 who spoke against and a lot of people who revoked their signatures English is not their first language. 9 Expecting them to read and understand a petition from someone who’s knocking on a door without 10 English being your first language and without any legal counsel I think is a really big problem. 11 12 Chair Fine: Vice-Chair. 13 14 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. So I just would like to direct your attention to Page 9 and that is the 15 paragraph under in the middle of the page that starts with “Staff had discussed with the property.” 16 When I’m reading this it just pretty much it implies in some way that pretty much we’re lobbying for SSO 17 and then I think that our position should be neutral here. It just pretty much reads at the end that 18 owner appreciate this information, but has not changed his vote to support the SSO and then when I’m 19 reading this sentence it just pretty much implies that we were, we were trying to convince the owner 20 which should not be our job to pretty much change the position. So that’s, that’s concerning to me and I 21 think that pretty much we could, should have rules that would put us in the neutral position giving that 22 variety of comments. [Please help me] would you like to respond to this? 23 24 Mr. Lait: Yeah, well I’ll just thank you for your comments. I, we certainly strive to be impartial in our 25 reports and give you a fair analysis. I don’t concur with the statements that you’ve made, but I’m happy 26 to have a further dialogue about that because we do want to make sure that we have a fair document. 27 28 Chair Fine: I actually had a question for the applicant. Did you consider excluding Stockton and Loma 29 Verde? 30 31 Mr. Lait: So Chair you’re going to be opening up the public hearing then to? 32 33 Chair Fine: Well, to the applicant. 34 35 Mr. Lait: To open up the… to receive additional public comment? 36 37 Chair Fine: Yes. 38 39 Mr. Lait: Ok, thank you. 40 41 Mr. Willits: And I don’t know. I might note we were told we would have some time for rebuttal. I don’t 42 know if that time has passed or not, but let me just say about Stockton. We did look at Stockton when 43 we started our process we got well into the signature collecting and Stockton and Loma Verde did not 44 look particularly different from any others. Stockton looks quite a bit different now. A number of 45 people have inexplicably all of a sudden changed their perspective on it. The problem that we have is 46 what I tried to emphasize in my presentation is that the house over the back fence is the one that most 47 bothers us. And again the thing that we’re concerned about is the two-story teardown. And the two-48 story teardown over any back fence of an Eichler has a huge effect. And so any, if any of those houses 49 City of Palo Alto Page 19 were to do that it would really impact all the other people on particularly on Thomas cul-de-sac and 1 Kenneth as well as the people on Loma Verde. 2 3 So we did, we have discussed whether or not it made sense to do it, but our feeling is that it’s really 4 important that the whole tract both know what the issues are and I appreciate that during somehow 5 during this process we, we go and talk with the people we feel are the most open to what we’re staying. 6 And frankly the lack of support tonight from the people that you’ve heard from are people that we really 7 had no clue were even there. All we knew was that recently there’s been this diminution of support. So 8 the situation I would say is quite dynamic and from our standpoint we were not aware that there was so 9 much concern there. 10 11 Chair Fine: No, I hear you. I think dynamic is a good way of describing it. Given that would your 12 committee or the neighborhood be willing to explore this with a different boundary perhaps now that 13 you can see some of the different levels of support on Stockton and Loma Verde? I guess another way 14 of putting it is would you still pursue this SSO if those two streets were excluded? 15 16 Mr. Willits: I think Stockton is where the real issue is. We haven’t gotten a sense that there’s a lower 17 than normal shall we say support. Again our focus has been to keep the group whole because again if 18 we give one particular part of an Eichler neighborhood essentially the green light to go out then the and 19 I’ll say during our process I’m going to back up a little bit. During our process and during the discussions 20 that we had with our neighbors from my standpoint and my group we were all quite aware that the 21 people we talked to were very aware that this was essentially a kind of contract. That when an SSO is 22 put in place by the City that essentially neighbors are giving up a right in exchange for all the people in 23 both radius one, radius two, radius three, radius four within the Eichler community giving up that right 24 at the same time. So for some and I think you’ve heard from a couple this evening their perception is 25 that that would be a great financial hardship. For most of us this is a financial win. We give up a right 26 we have all of our neighbors tear up their rights. From looking at it from an option standpoint. 27 28 Chair Fine: So I hear you and I think you’re right about this being a contract among neighbors. I mean do 29 you feel ok now knowing that on Stockton two, only two of nine households support this? 30 31 Mr. Willits: I agree with the fact that this is a bit disconcerting. The voices that aren’t being heard are 32 the voices over the back fence. And perhaps we would be open to something, some way of having a 33 forum or way of somehow having the people on all the sides come together and understand what their 34 issues are. Again as I said this is somewhat new to us and we hadn’t fully looked at that possibility. 35 36 Chair Fine: Ok. 37 38 Mr. Willits: But I would agree with you I think given the nature of strong opposition from some of the 39 people who have spoken and the fact that they seem to be operating from a different fact base than the 40 rest of us are means that there may be a way of having more discussion and making it and getting it 41 resolved. We would feel much more comfortable if the whole tract can go for the reasons that I gave. 42 The interconnectedness of the houses. 43 44 Chair Fine: Thank you very much. Guess we’re going to close the public hearing again. I think do any 45 other Commissioners have other questions or comments? Vice-Chair. 46 47 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. So in the same regards, right, I think we have a gap in SSO regulation 48 because when we follow up on the applicant’s request to apply SSO to certain boundaries the we don’t 49 have a resolution for the boundaries of the district and those boundaries may be already affected with 50 City of Palo Alto Page 20 this what’s going on the other side of the street and I think this may be the case for Stockton Place and 1 probably for Loma Verde because they are facing totally different neighborhood on the other side and 2 then there may, they may just look at this from the perspective of the neighbor with the other people 3 from the other side of the street as opposed to being neighbors with the tract development. So I think 4 this is the first we have a gap in the SSO overlay that we may need to address somehow. Then this gap 5 would have to also relate to the other party because of course this is the applicant and then they would 6 feel they would be affected with the taller houses that would be built on the other side of their fence. 7 So we may need to develop some process that would and some zoning requirements that would allow 8 some of those that feel that boundaries are affected would allow to expand to somehow have larger 9 houses, but then not affect their neighbors that are applicant for the SSO overlay. And we have similar 10 thinking in our zoning regulations because when we have changes between different zones then we 11 have requirements how the development [unintelligible] step up from one zoning to another one so it 12 would be a similar situation. 13 14 Chair Fine: Other comments, questions? So I think at this point we should try to make a Motion and 15 move forward with it. Just to remind my fellow Commissioners our purview here is to recommend 16 approval that the City Council approve this SSO as is. We can deny the request and a question for staff 17 there, if we deny the request this whole process ends, is that correct? Or can it be appealed or what 18 options do the neighbors have and? 19 20 Ms. Silver: Right. It would still be forwarded to Council with your recommendation for denial. 21 22 Chair Fine: Ok, thank you. Or we can change the boundary. So please correct me if I’m wrong; I think 23 the sense on the Commission here is that we either change the boundary a little bit with Loma Verde 24 and Stockton Place and to be clear last time we did that Council wasn’t too happy about it, but it is 25 within our purview here and our job is to consider and make recommendations to City Council on zoning 26 map and zoning ordinance changes. That’s exactly what this is. The other option might be to deny it. 27 So I’m willing to entertain Motions in any of those three areas. 28 29 MOTION #1 30 31 Commissioner Waldfogel: Just to make it easy I’d like to move to approve the staff recommendation. 32 33 MOTION #1 FAILED 34 Chair Fine: So Commissioner Waldfogel has moved that we recommend approval of the staff 35 recommendation to Council. Do we have a second? We don’t have a second. That Motion is off the 36 floor. Do we have another Motion? 37 38 Vice-Chair Gardias: I would like to make a Motion, but before, before I do this do we have an option 39 because we were given option of modifying the boundaries, but we don’t have any option just going 40 between. So is it within our purview, is it within our current mandate to recommend some mitigating 41 factors along certain boundaries? 42 43 Mr. Lait: So the code as I understand it is this is the application for a SSO and we’ve not, let me back up a 44 step. I think where you’re going is with the possibility of some additional development standards that 45 might apply to properties on Stockton or Loma Verde? Ok. So if what we’ve not done before with any 46 of the SSOs that have been adopted is apply additional development standards and I think that is 47 something we can have a conversation about, but I think it begins to get a little bit tricky because we 48 have a section of our code that deals with SSOs and establishes some prescribed standards that would 49 apply to every SSO. And so I think we’d want to think on that a little bit further. I think that you could 50 City of Palo Alto Page 21 also frame in a recommendation that some standards be considered by the Council and then that would 1 also give us some time to think about that as we prepare that report for Council. 2 3 Vice-Chair Gardias: Right, so that was pretty much this is where I was going to so my Motion would be 4 right, if we may do that pretty much we would recommend approval of the staff recommended and 5 applicant submitted SSO, but with providing with developing mitigating factors along the boundaries of 6 the, of this overlay and then returning to the Commission to review those for final approval. 7 8 Mr. Lait: So I mean I think that would I mean that’s going to take some time to come up with some 9 standards about what that might be. I mean there’s a number of options just off the top of my head 10 that one could explore whether they’re precise development standards or there’s an additional I mean 11 we already have the Individual Review (IR) process that would apply to any second story home. And so 12 one might question whether that might be a sufficient safeguard which is one that contemplates privacy 13 as one of the issues. So my concern is that if the Commission put us, sent us down that path that that 14 would extend the processing time of this application and I think I mean it sort of begins to take on its 15 own policy project at that point and I guess I would encourage the Commission to if that’s your interest 16 have a conversation about that and maybe forward that on to the Council as part of your 17 recommendation, but I’m open to a continued dialogue about that as I continue to think about it. 18 19 MOTION #2 20 21 Vice-Chair Gardias: And then I totally agree, right? I mean from time to time like we have with your 22 omnibus review that we just did at the end of the last year, right, we just stamp across on some 23 regulations that we may improve and maybe this is one of those that we may somehow look into again 24 from this specific perspective. It just pretty much gives us a lesson so we should just take a look at this 25 see if there is existing regulations are provide mitigating factors. They may not, right? So in this respect 26 we would have to just develop new zoning restriction or recommendation just to provide some 27 mitigation factor for those that live along Stockton. 28 29 So with this I would like to just move a Motion to approve this staff submitted SSO overlay for this 30 district with the requirement that staff will provide, will propose the mitigating factors for the 31 boundaries for the overlay and return to the Commission to review. 32 33 Chair Fine: So there’s a Motion on the floor to approve the staff recommendation with staff directed to 34 look into development standards that may mitigate some of the, can you repeat that second part? 35 36 Vice-Chair Gardias: That would provide mitigating factors for the properties along the boundaries of the 37 SSO overlay. 38 39 Chair Fine: Do we have a second? 40 41 Commissioner Waldfogel: I’m not… can you just clarify what that means precisely? Are we talking about 42 Stockton/Loma Verde in or out? I mean the other place where there are boundaries is on Vernon 43 Terrace. So what are we actually talking about right now? 44 45 Vice-Chair Gardias: Yeah, so we pretty much we’re talking about just providing some sort of regulation 46 that would allow owners to expand their properties to somehow relate to the properties outside the 47 boundaries and then pretty much it would be any boundary, but of course we would just apply it to a 48 specific boundary where we would just be voting for approval. So the recommendation would be for all 49 City of Palo Alto Page 22 the boundaries because the situation may occur anywhere, but we would apply it for some selected 1 boundaries where this applies. 2 3 SECOND 4 5 Commissioner Waldfogel: I’ll second that Motion. 6 7 Chair Fine: Alright, so we do have a Motion on the floor (interrupted) 8 9 Mr. Lait: So I’m sorry, Chair. If I may? Before a vote? 10 11 Chair Fine: Sure. 12 13 Mr. Lait: So you have an opportunity to have a deliberation of course between I mean there’s a Motion 14 and a second on the floor and I guess there’s a couple of things. One is I think there are some 15 implications here that I’d like to think through a little bit more. And if I can see that map again? I don’t 16 like to sort of do this on the fly, but there’s a lot of boundaries there and I think that there’s a lot of 17 that’s going to be difficult for us to put together and come back to you in light of the different work 18 program that we have here. I mean if I’m understanding the Vice-Chair’s Motion at boundary issues 19 we’re to come up with a proposed mitigating factors that would presumably address the height, scale, 20 bulk of a possible two-story building and privacy related issues upon the one-story, the SSO properties 21 that are abutting it. And as I look at the map that’s if we’re not coming up with a uniform standard 22 we’re looking at every property individually to think about what that standard would be and that’s just 23 not feasible. And so that gets me back to the existing processes that we have in place and the existing 24 process that we have in place is the IR. So if the Commission is asking us to come back and think about 25 mitigating factors I think that the existing process that we have the IR process would be the mitigating 26 factor an existing program that works and it doesn’t require us to go through an elaborate analysis of 27 the boundary properties particularly when how many of these do we have now? SSOs? Yeah. 28 29 Ms. French: 12, 14 now with the two recently adopted. 30 31 Mr. Lait: So we have 14 SSOs in the City and then this would be the first one that would have its own 32 unique set of standards. I have some concerns about that. 33 34 Chair Fine: Thank you. I appreciate that. I think staff does have a valid concern. Just for my colleague’s 35 sake if we do approve this as is, but we require mitigation standards I’m not just knowing how the City 36 operates the long and short of it is that the SSO will be approved by Council, right? The development 37 standards may not be developed and we actually haven’t solved that issue if we see one there of these 38 [unintelligible] properties creating second stories. That said there is a Motion and a second. Would you 39 care to speak to it? 40 41 Commissioner Waldfogel: I’d just like to comment that I think that if the IR process worked to 42 everyone’s satisfaction that I don’t’ think we would see a petition with 70 percent approval give or take 43 [unintelligible] what day we decide the vote is actually countable. So I mean it’s possible that we could 44 have a better IR process than we have today that takes privacy more into account than it does, but I 45 suspect that that, that the weakness of that process today is one of the reasons why we see this petition 46 in front of us. So that’s why I’m supporting this Motion in some form. 47 48 Mr. Lait: So Chair I don’t know if there’s an opportunity for me to respond to that? 49 50 City of Palo Alto Page 23 Chair Fine: Please. 1 2 Mr. Lait: Thank you. So thank you for the comments about the IR program. As you may or may not 3 know of course we are undergoing a study of that program. We do have a consultant on board who is 4 interviewing people and we are anticipating making some reforms based on those reports from that 5 program. So I hope that where there are failings of the IR program perhaps on both sides of the aisle on 6 that that we can make some changes to improve that and get a better product for everybody. 7 8 And so it just a last other sort of pitch I guess to the Commission as you consider the Motion I want to I 9 go back in my mind to the last… first of all I want to say I think there’s a lot of great comments that are 10 being made and I am not advocating one way or the other for how this goes, but I do think that we have 11 an application that was filed. It did meet the submittal requirements. I think applicants are probably 12 looking for an opportunity to have a conversation before the Council. This suggestion on the Motion I 13 think is one that’s noteworthy. My concern is that it keeps us here at… staff doing additional work and 14 research and coming back to the Planning Commission as opposed to advancing it on to the City Council. 15 16 FRIENDLY AMENDMENT 17 18 Chair Fine: Thank you. So I’d like to propose a Friendly Amendment. I agree with the general Motion 19 that we can move this forward to Council. I’m just trying to provide some context here. Thank you for 20 that comment about what you just made. I think the problem here is that our options are kind of 21 limited. We can deny this application, say no. We can say yes it’s good as is or we can change the 22 boundaries which I think inherently changes this whole process particularly for the people right next to 23 the areas that we remove. I think Council had a lot of issues when we did that last time and rightfully so. 24 I think they also had issue with the fact that we were redistricting in a way and we were removing 25 properties to reach another threshold of votes. I think that’s problematic too even though I think for 26 this application they’re, it’s much more contentious. There are a lot of people who showed up tonight 27 against this and I think it’s very clear that they’re coming from a certain subset of properties along the 28 border. 29 30 So my Friendly Motion to the, my Friendly Amendment to the Motion to move this forward would be 31 that Council strongly look, strongly explore the possibility of removing Loma Verde and Stockton Place 32 properties given their diminished level of support and furthermore that Council look into ways that staff 33 and the City can do this process better in the future whether that is mailing out cards, providing a 34 boilerplate form for folks to explain to their neighbors what this is about. I think the committee here 35 had some great intentions and they did a true faith effort to actually get this passed in their 36 neighborhood and get the level of support. Nonetheless there were some neighbors who were not 37 satisfied by it. So my Friendly Amendment is 1) for Council to strongly consider removing Loma Verde 38 and Stockton Place, those properties, and 2) to explore ways in which this SSO process can be more 39 efficiently and effectively done by neighborhoods that come down the pipe. 40 41 FRIENDLY AMENDMENT ACCEPTED 42 43 Vice-Chair Gardias: I accept the Friendly Amendment. 44 45 Commissioner Waldfogel: I will too. 46 47 Chair Fine: Ok. 48 49 City of Palo Alto Page 24 Vice-Chair Gardias: So the Motion, proposed Motion would pretty much read that the Commission 1 approves submitted SSO overly for Royal Manor tract and strongly… 2 3 Chair Fine: Strongly encourages Council to consider removing Stockton Place and Loma Verde Avenue 4 properties. 5 6 Vice-Chair Gardias: Thank you. 7 8 VOTE 9 10 Chair Fine: And Council consider methods to do this process better in the future. So we do have the 11 Motion as amended. I’m going to put it to a vote in a minute, but I just want to say one thing to 12 everybody out in the audience, thank you all for showing up. All of your feedback is very important to 13 us. The presentation was extremely helpful. And whatever happens with this I encourage you all to 14 show up in these numbers at the Council meeting. Council will listen to you as well. They will consider 15 both sides of this issue or all three sides; however you want to look at it. 16 17 With that if there are no other comments let’s put this to a vote. All in favor? All against? None. So 18 this passes four to nothing. Thank you all very much for showing up. 19 20 MOTION PASSED (4-0-__________, recused/absent?) 21 ATTACHMENT G 18.12.100 Regulations for the Single Story Overlay (S) Combining District (a) Applicability of District: The single-story height combining district may be combined with the R-1 single family residence district or with any R-1 subdistrict. Where so combined, the regulations established by this section shall apply in lieu of the comparable provisions established by Section 18.12.040. All applicable provisions of that section shall otherwise govern development in the combining district. (b) Site Development Regulations: For sites within the single-story height combining district, the following site development regulations shall apply in lieu of the otherwise applicable site development regulations of Section 18.12.040: (1) The maximum height shall be 17 feet, as measured to the peak of the roof; provided, in a special flood hazard area as defined in Chapter 16.52, the maximum height is increased by one-half of the increase in elevation required to reach base flood elevation, up to a maximum building height of 20 feet. (2) There shall be a limit of one habitable floor. Habitable floors include lofts, mezzanines and similar areas but exclude basements and exclude attics that have no stairway or built-in access. Lofts and mezzanines include any space above the first floor in excess of five feet (5') from the floor to the roof above. (c) Application for a Single Story (S) Combining District (1) Application to create or remove a single-story overlay district may be made by an owner of record of property located in the single-story overlay district to be created or removed. (2) Application shall be made to the director on a form prescribed by the director, and shall contain all of the following: (A) A written statement setting forth the reasons for the application and all facts relied upon by the applicant in support thereof. (B) A map of the district to be created or removed that includes the address location of those owners whose properties are subject to the zoning request. Boundaries shall correspond with certain natural or man-made features (including, but not limited to, roadways, waterways, tract boundaries and similar features) to define an identifiable neighborhood or development. For creation of a single-story overlay district, the area shall be of a prevailing single story character, such that a minimum of 80% of existing homes within the boundaries are single story. (C) For creating a single-story overlay district, a list of signatures evidencing support by: (i) 70% of included properties; or (ii) 60% of included properties where all included properties are subject to recorded deed restrictions intended to limit building height to a single story, whether or not such restrictions have been enforced. For the removal of a single-story overlay district, a list of signatures evidencing support by 70% of included properties, whether or not deed restrictions intended to limit the building height to single story apply. "Included properties" means all those properties inside the boundaries of the district proposed to be created or ATTACHMENT H removed. The written statement or statements accompanying the signatures must state that the signer is indicating support for a zone map amendment that affects his or her property. One signature is permitted for each included property, and a signature evidencing support of an included property must be by an owner of record of that property. (D) Such additional information as the director may deem pertinent and essential to the application. (3) An application for creation or removal of a single-story (S) overlay district made in accordance with this subsection (c) shall be processed in accordance with Chapter 18.98. (Ord. 5373 § 9 (part), 2016; Ord. 4869 § 14 (Exh. A [part]), 2005) OPPONENTS OF ROYAL MANOR SSO ATTACHMENT I ATTACHMENT J Public Comments received in response to Courtesy Notice Card Mail-out PIERCE & SHEARER -------··-·-·-·-··-·-·-·-·--· LLP VIA U.S. MAIL Amy French Chief Planning Official City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton A venue Palo Alto, CA 94301 Email: amy.french@cityofpaloalto.org ANDREW F. PIERCE Email: apierce@pierceshearer.com March 30, 2016 Cara Silver Senior Assistant City Attorney City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton A venue Palo Alto, CA 94301 Email: cara.silver@cityofpaloalto.org Re: Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay Rezoning Application Dear Amy and Cara: Thank you for meeting with a group of the homeowners opposed to the single-story overlay for the Royal Manor neighborhood on Tuesday, March 22, 2016. As we discussed, we have some thoughts about the legality and merits of the application that my clients would like to have included in the City Council packet. We have serious questions to whether the single story overlay application was ever compliant with the requirements for a valid application. Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.12.l 00, entitled Regulations for the Single Story Overlay Combining District states that an application for creating a single-story overlay district "shall contain ... a list of signatures evidencing support by: (1) 70% of included properties ... the written statement or statements accompanying the signatures must state that the signer is indicating support for zone map amendment that affects his or her property." In addition, the regulations state that "boundaries shall correspond with certain natural or man-made features (including, but not limited to, roadways, waterways, tract boundaries, and similar features) to define an identifiable neighborhood or development." Section 18.12.100(c)(2)(B). The map produced by the proponents does not comply with the latter requirement because one existing two-story home was excluded from the proposed zone. It is clearly within all relevant boundaries including, as Ms. French acknowledged at our meeting, the tract boundary. Therefore, the 70% calculation should be based on 203 homes not 202. This means the total level of support required by the ordinance to commence an application would be 143. It appears that at the time of the Planning Commission hearing the application only had support of at most 141 households. The level has since declined to 129. The ordinance does not state that support from 69% is required -it states 70%. Woodside Corporate Center• 2055 Woodside Road, Suite 110 •Redwood City, CA 94061 Tel: 650.843.1900 •Fax: 650.843.1999 www.pierceshearer.com Page2 We are also concerned that the signers were not correctly informed of what they were signing. The initial information sent to neighbors, which was included in the Planning and Transportation Commission packet on pages 25-31 stated, in answer to question 5 in the FAQ's that, "The city will send postcards to all affected homeowners, asking if they support or oppose a single-story overlay. If someone does not return their card it counts as a a NO vote." The residents were led to believe that they were agreeing to put the issue to a neighborhood vote. It is quite different to sign a petition that is preparatory to a neighborhood-wide vote, and simply gets the matter on the ballot, than it is to sign something that will not be subject to such a plebiscite. If a neighbor asks you to sign something it is much easier to agree to do so if you think there will be a later vote, especially if you do not support, or have no position about the proposal. Although a later, corrected, version of the FAQ was prepared, the city has received emails (see Attachment A) indicating that some individuals did not receive the subsequent FAQ. Thus not only was the threshold of 70% not met but it appears that some people signed under a misapprehension as to what they were signing, which further indicates there was never sufficient support, as required by the code. Staff is now aware that many people have withdrawn their support and we understand current support level is down to 129, far below the required 143. Under these circumstances we do not believe the city can go forward with the application without risking subsequent challenge if it is adopted. On a less technical note, we also believe the city should carefully consider the long term effect of the single-story overlay. The proposed zone is in an area where lots are small, and in a flood plain where homeowners may not expand downward. The city could end up freezing the properties with square footages that are far below those that families have been seeking in Palo Alto. The fact that a well-organized minority can obtain support from the existing owners does not mean it is good public policy to dictate to people 10 or 20 years from now that they cannot build a conventional moderate sized home on their lots. Sincerely, PIERCE & SHEARER, LLP tL--J r; p Ad: Andrew F. Pierce AFP/jb Enclosure Subject: Fwd: Royal Manor SSO - From: To: Date: Nana Murugesan (narayanan.murugesan.wg09@wharton.upenn.edu) venkatd@yahoo.com; Sunday, February 28, 2016 5:05 PM ----------Forwarded message ---------- From: Nana Murugesan <narayanan.murugesan.wg09@wharton.upenn.edu> Date: Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 5:03 PM Subject: Royal Manor SSO - To: amy.french@cityofpaloalto.org Cc: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org Dear Ms. Amy French, We are writing to you to express concern about the process being followed for Royal Manor community's SSO application. We bought our home (3492 Janice Way) just about nine months back -though we knew that there was a potential SSO application in the works, we were promised that there will be a proper process which would include a ballot. However, we recently learned that signatures collected publicly in a block party are being taken into account instead of a ballot! If that is the case, we would like to reguest that our signature be withdrawn. We signed at the block party to show our support for community sentiment to go to ballot for SSO (and certainly didn't think our signature would be wrongfully used in lieu of a legal ballot). As recent residents with two young children and aging parents who moved here with a long-term mindset, we want to make sure that we have the flexibility to expand our home sufficiently in the coming years. Therefore, we would like to fully lmderstand the ramifications of SSO for our particular lot and house before we make a decision. Thank you very much, and we look forward to your guidance and leadership as we address this very important issue for our neighborhood. Narayanan Murugesan & Sridevi Narayanan 3492 Janice Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303 1 Ellner, Robin From:William O. Faustman Ph.D. <faust2@stanford.edu> Sent:Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:06 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Richard Willits Subject:Support for Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay Though I had an opportunity to formally address the Planning Commission last month to explain my support for the Royal Manor Single‐Story Overlay (SSO), I will unfortunately be out of town on 4/18/16 and unable to attend the City Council meeting on the issue. I appreciate this opportunity to express my views. I have lived at 3458 Greer Road since 1989 and strongly support the proposed SSO. My home is one of the few Eichler homes with a second story addition, a feature added by the former owner in the 1960's. I must admit that I am embarrassed by this rather ugly addition which looms over adjacent yards. Privacy and the ongoing architectural integrity/consistency of this neighborhood are values dear to me. The architecture of these houses is unique (open glass walls, yards with relatively low fences) and their esthetics is especially destroyed by two‐story houses (thus, a bit of my own personal embarrassment). When I attended the planning committee meeting there were several comments made by opponents to the SSO that were drastically different than my experience with this process and I wanted to briefly address these issues. 1) Unlike claims of some opponents, there was absolutely no pressure to sign the petition supporting the SSO. 2) The entire process was absolutely transparent, with a full explanation of the purpose and ramifications of the petition. I greatly appreciate you providing this opportunity for me to express my support and I hope the Council passes this SSO as they have other SSO applications in the recent past. William Faustman, Ph.D., C.Psychol., AFBPsS Clinical Professor (Affiliated) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Stanford University School of Medicine 1 Ellner, Robin From:Sue Thiemann <thiemann@sonic.net> Sent:Thursday, March 31, 2016 12:27 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Richard Willits Subject:yes to Royal Manor SSO I am unfortunately out of town on April 18th and therefore unable to voice my support for the Royal Manor SSO at the City Council meeting but as a resident of the tract I appreciate this opportunity to communicate it now. Long before Nature Deficit Disorder was recognized, Joseph Eichler understood that exposure to nature improves both physical and emotional well‐being. He used walls of glass to provide a constant connection with the outdoors. A two‐ story house among Eichlers, by depriving neighbors of privacy, destroys that casual contact with nature. Curtains must be kept closed, meals moved inside, clothes donned to visit the garden before breakfast. Once added, a second story won't be removed, and the automatic exposure to nature originally provided by an Eichler is gone forever. Property value ‐‐ in the true sense of the word "value" ‐‐ is sadly diminished. Even in the purely monetary sense of the phrase, property value is more a function of neighborhood desirability (realtors' "location, location, location") than it is of house size, and an architecturally coherent neighborhood is more desirable than one marred by looming McMansions. Palo Alto has many neighborhoods with large houses, but few with the architectural consistency of this tract, and ‐‐ as the council has recognized in other cases ‐‐ such neighborhoods are treasures worth preserving. Eichlers were built for families with kids. Some insist they are now inadequate because times have changed. Yes, times have changed ‐‐ and they will change again. The belief that a bathroom should be the size of a bedroom and a bedroom the size of a living room is giving way to the realization that compact houses are easier to care for and nicer to live in. An Eichler can be remodeled without adding a second story. I certainly want children in my neighborhood, and I also want them to have what I had as a child growing up in an Eichler: a yard where no one but my own family could see me, and a house open to that yard. A single two‐story house will deprive many, both children and adults, of that experience. Architects are now focused on making better use of space rather than just increasing it, reflecting an awareness of the growing need to conserve resources of all kinds. Architectural fashions are always changing, but there is good reason for the recent enthusiasm for Mid‐ century Modern design. It is a style that recognizes something eternal in our species: the need for contact with the natural world, a need now recognized as essential to well‐being. A neighborhood of single‐story Eichlers satisfies this need. One with even a few two‐ story houses will deprive many people of that essential pleasure. I hope the council will protect the neighborhood as a whole over the objections of a few by passing this SSO. Thank you for your time. Sue Thiemann 3458 Greer Road Palo Alto 1 Ellner, Robin From:French, Amy Sent:Thursday, March 31, 2016 6:23 AM To:Ellner, Robin Subject:Fwd: Support for Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay From: "William O. Faustman Ph.D." <faust2@stanford.edu> Date: March 30, 2016 at 8:05:51 PM PDT To: "city.council@cityofpaloalto.org" <city.council@cityofpaloalto.org> Cc: "Amy.French@CityofPaloAlto.org" <Amy.French@CityofPaloAlto.org>, "Richard Willits" <rwillits@gmail.com> Subject: Support for Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay Though I had an opportunity to formally address the Planning Commission last month to explain my support for the Royal Manor Single‐Story Overlay (SSO), I will unfortunately be out of town on 4/18/16 and unable to attend the City Council meeting on the issue. I appreciate this opportunity to express my views. I have lived at 3458 Greer Road since 1989 and strongly support the proposed SSO. My home is one of the few Eichler homes with a second story addition, a feature added by the former owner in the 1960's. I must admit that I am embarrassed by this rather ugly addition which looms over adjacent yards. Privacy and the ongoing architectural integrity/consistency of this neighborhood are values dear to me. The architecture of these houses is unique (open glass walls, yards with relatively low fences) and their esthetics is especially destroyed by two‐story houses (thus, a bit of my own personal embarrassment). When I attended the planning committee meeting there were several comments made by opponents to the SSO that were drastically different than my experience with this process and I wanted to briefly address these issues. 1)Unlike claims of some opponents, there was absolutely no pressure to sign the petition supporting the SSO. 2 2) The entire process was absolutely transparent, with a full explanation of the purpose and ramifications of the petition. I greatly appreciate you providing this opportunity for me to express my support and I hope the Council passes this SSO as they have other SSO applications in the recent past. William Faustman, Ph.D., C.Psychol., AFBPsS Clinical Professor (Affiliated) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Stanford University School of Medicine 1 Ellner, Robin From:French, Amy Sent:Saturday, April 02, 2016 7:40 AM To:Ellner, Robin Subject:FW: Royal Manor Single-Story overlay proposal Here is another email. From: Beth Marer-Garcia [mailto:bethmarergarcia@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2016 8:59 PM To: French, Amy Subject: RE: Royal Manor Single-Story overlay proposal 4/1/16 Dear Ms. French and council members, I have serious concerns Regarding the Royal Manor Second-Story overlay issue. I live in Royal Manor and have read the informational letter and seen the signature petition both in person and reviewed the documents and summaries online at cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pin/default.asp. As I understood the informational letter; any signature on that document would serve simply as a basic show of support, and if at least 70% of the neighbors signed the petition only then could the second-story application process begin. Whereas I appreciate the “door-to-door” process of collecting signatures as a primary step, objectively speaking such an informal collection is subject to misrepresentation and misinformation by each party, and the signature document allowed for, and accepted only one signature, which is unfair and incomplete because it does not allow each and every property owner to offer his or her opinion/vote. For the council to actually rule on this critical matter without formal consideration, seems irresponsible and could very well put the city of palo alto and our tax dollars at risk of litigation. Therefore in the matter of single-story overlay, I strongly suggest that city provide for and require a proper and formal vote, in which every single property owner (as listed per deed) be given full voting rights as a matter of democracy. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Beth Marer-Garcia 2 3452 Kenneth Drive Palo Alto, CA 94303 1 Ellner, Robin From:David Hanzel <davidkhanzel@gmail.com> Sent:Sunday, April 03, 2016 6:58 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy Subject:Support for Royal Manor SSO City Council Members, As a child I grew up in an Eichler in San Rafael (Marin County), my childhood home on Wakerobin Lane is now protected by a EICHLER AND ALLIANCE HOMES OVERLAY DISTRICT (-E/A) which limits all development to a single habitable floor with a maximum height of 17 ft; nearly identical to Palo Alto's SSO. Our family moved to Palo Alto 25 years ago and purchased our Eichler home, 988 Loma Verde Ave, in 1994 because we value the MidCentury Modern design, indoor/outdoor living and the unique Eichler community. I strongly support Royal Manor's SSO application to extend the same protection my childhood home has to our Palo Alto home. I also wish to protect my light, my privacy and my property values. Thank you very much for your consideration, David -- David Hanzel davidkhanzel@gmail.com 650.388.0452 Zoning info https://www.municode.com/library/ca/san_rafael/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT14ZO_DIVIIIOV DIRE_CH14.14EIALHOOVDIA 1 Ellner, Robin From:Jeffrey Peters <jeffreypeters@sbcglobal.net> Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 10:40 PM To:Planning Commission Cc:French, Amy; David Hanzel Subject:Royal Manor SSO To whom it may concern: My wife and I would like to voice our support, once again, for Single‐Story Overlay status for the Royal Manor Eichler tract. We understand and accept that Palo Alto is quickly changing in character. But we do still value our privacy. The neighbor behind us recently made a single‐story expansion which probably approaches the limits of what would be approved, and it feels quite invasive. I don’t even want to THINK about the total loss of privacy we would have experienced if they had instead constructed the largest two story home that would “fit” in their large cup‐de‐sac lot. Please help us out to conserve some modicum of the “good life” we hoped for when we invested in a home in Palo Alto! Thank you for your consideration, Jeffrey Peters Viviana Mur 990 Loma Verde Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94303 1 Ellner, Robin From:French, Amy Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 6:31 PM To:Ellner, Robin Subject:Fwd: SSO Supporter Another one... Sent from my iPad Begin forwarded message: From: Liz Sain <lizsain13@gmail.com> Date: April 4, 2016 at 3:14:53 PM PDT To: <Amy.French@CityofPaloAlto.org> Subject: SSO Supporter People, We want no second story for our Eichler homes! They were designed to insure privacy and that's what we cherish. Add your second stories in towns that don't care, and allow anything to be built. Pahrump, Nevada, anyone? Please don' destroy our Eichler roof lines! Sincerely, Grace Sain, 998 Loma Verde St. Palo Alto, CA 94303 1 Ellner, Robin From:French, Amy Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 6:30 PM To:Peter Gioumousis Cc:Ellner, Robin Subject:Re: Royal Manor Thank you ‐ but the meeting at Council is on April 18th, not this evening's Council meeting. Robin may be able to attach this email to the report to council that goes out in a packet this week. Sent from my iPad > On Apr 4, 2016, at 5:12 PM, Peter Gioumousis <pgiou@znet.com> wrote: > > I am just writing to say that I will not be able to make it tonight, > but that I support the single story overlay. If anyone built a a two > story house near us, it would impact our sunlight, and our privacy. > Our houses have a lot of windows, so it would be like living in a > fishbowl if our neighbors had second stories. Our lots are fairly > small, so we would get even less sun if we were to have two story > buildings nextdoor. Some people have said that the value of their > property would be dimished by taking away their right to put up a > second story. I would have thought that having your rights to sun, and > privacy protected would enhance the value of your property. However, > people who have studied it, say that both ideas are wrong, and that it does not make any difference. > > Thanks > > Peter Gioumousis > > > 1 Ellner, Robin From:John Potter <johnfpotter@gmail.com> Sent:Wednesday, April 06, 2016 8:50 AM To:Council, City; French, Amy; Ellner, Robin Subject:In Support of the Royal Manor SSO Hello, I own 3421 Greer Road and I previously rented 3407 Janice Way. These are both houses in the Royal Manor Tract. I am in favor of the Royal Manor SSO for the following reasons: 1) While I appreciate that everyone has rights on their own property, I feel I have rights too. My house is 2/3 glass windows and I see no way that a two story house would not look directly into my side yards, backyard, and house giving me no privacy at all. I don't think there are ways to architect around that. Already with my fence at regulation height, in the winter, I can look out of any window and see the roof line of every house adjacent to me. These houses are very close together to begin with; making them two stories would only make that lack of privacy worse. 2) It has been mentioned that these houses cannot accommodate large families. Both of the houses that I have lived in have been renovated successfully while remaining a one story Eichler. My current house had a 2nd master suite added for in-laws. I also have been in other renovated Eichlers including one that has 2 adults and 4 teenagers (and pets) living in it comfortably. When many of these houses add second floors, they lose valuable floor space and have to create strange floor plans to squeeze in extra rooms. 3) There has been talk that when the petition was first circulated, people signed it without understanding what it was. I feel that the people circulating the petition made it very clear what it was for. I do not understand how anyone could have misunderstood what they were signing. In fact, I read all the material given to me before signing it. That was available to everyone. 4) The homeowners on Stockton and Loma Verde have asked to be excluded based on the fact that the houses across the street are not Eichlers. While I understand their position, I cannot agree with it. It is one thing to look across the street at a house and see a different house, it is entirely a different matter to have two-stories next door and behind you which is what would happen if they were excluded from this SSO. Houses across the street do not look into my property, my next door neighbors and the houses behind me do. 5) Finally, I know that this provision would not stop people from tearing down the Eichlers and building new one story structures. However, I want to add that would really be a shame. These houses are unique, well-known, and worth preserving. Many people buy these houses *because* they are Eichlers. When I moved to California, I knew that I wanted to live in one because they were unlike anything anywhere else. I hope this measure will help keep most of the Eichlers intact. Thank you for your consideration, John Potter -- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ John Potter 3421 Greer Road, Palo Alto (415) 846-8021 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 Ellner, Robin From:Stepheny McGraw <stepheny@earthlink.net> Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 10:15 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Keene, James; Ben Lerner Subject:Yes on Royal Manor Overlay! Dear City Council and Staff, For 35 years, I’ve been enjoying my Eichler backyard with the goldfinches, titmice, towhees and the camellias, maple and orange tree which were here before me. My living room, dining room and master bedroom look out on trees and sky. The sun lights and warms different parts of the house as it moves across the sky in its daily pattern. This interaction, this blending of indoors and outdoors, is what I treasure about our neighborhood and my house on its meandering lot at the end of a cul de sac on Thomas, which shares a backyard fence with three separate homes on Stockton. This neighborhood of single story homes on small lots — Eichlers —allows privacy and views of the sky and trees in the distance, not the neighbors. Our backyards are small, cozy and private. Two story structures would overwhelm these small lots. My small lot of 6400 square feet, my house of 1800 square feet would be put in a canyon, a constant shadow. Instead of sun lighting my rooms as the day goes on, I would have to use electric lights all day and put up curtains for privacy. Here are photos showing the two homes at 3375 and 3385 Stockton from my backyard as well as from my kitchen — the center of my home. Imagine what that view from the kitchen would be if these homes doubled in size and height? Please include these Stockton houses in the Royal Manor Single Story Overlay and please, pass our overlay request. Respectfully, Stepheny McGraw 3303 Thomas Drive Palo Alto,Ca 94303 650-856-0296 2 3 1 Ellner, Robin From:Nisha Thatte-Potter <nthattepotter@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 10:09 PM To:Ellner, Robin Subject:Fwd: Support of the Royal Manor SSO ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nisha Thatte-Potter <nthattepotter@gmail.com> Date: Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 10:07 PM Subject: Support of the Royal Manor SSO To: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org, amy.french@cityofpaloalto.org Hello, I own 3421 Greer Road and I previously rented 3407 Janice Way. These are both houses in the Royal Manor Tract. I am in favor of the Royal Manor SSO for the following reasons: 1) While I appreciate that everyone has rights on their own property, I feel I have rights too. My house is 2/3 glass windows and I see no way that a two story house would not look directly into my side yards, backyard, and house giving me no privacy at all. I don't think there are ways to architect around that. Already with my fence at regulation height, in the winter, I can look out of any window and see the roof line of every house adjacent to me. These houses are very close together to begin with; making them two stories would only make that lack of privacy worse. I am not a lawyer, but in property law there is a concept of Riparian right. This pertains to water rights and allows those living on a waterway the right to the surface water but not the right to block it so that others cannot use it. I feel that this can be compared with my right to live without having the sky and sun being blocked by a two story building. 2) It has been mentioned that these houses cannot accommodate large families. Both of the houses that I have lived in have been renovated successfully while remaining a one story Eichler. My current house had a 2nd master suite added for in-laws. I also have been in other renovated Eichlers including one that has 2 adults and 4 teenagers (and pets) living in it comfortably. When many of these houses add second floors, they lose valuable floor space and have to create strange floor plans to squeeze in extra rooms. 3) There has been talk that when the petition was first circulated, people signed it without understanding what it was. I feel that the people circulating the petition made it very clear what it was for. I do not understand how anyone could have misunderstood what they were signing. In fact, I read all the material given to me before signing it. That was available to everyone. 4) The homeowners on Stockton and Loma Verde have asked to be excluded based on the fact that the houses across the street are not Eichlers. While I understand their position, I cannot agree with it. It is one thing to look across the street at a house and see a different house, it is entirely a different matter to have two-stories next door and behind you which is what would happen if they were excluded from this SSO. Houses across the street do not look into my property, my next door neighbors and the houses behind me do. 2 5) Finally, I know that this provision would not stop people from tearing down the Eichlers and building new one story structures. However, I want to add that would really be a shame. These houses are unique, well- known, and worth preserving. Many people buy these houses *because* they are Eichlers. When I moved to California, I knew that I wanted to live in one because they were unlike anything anywhere else. I hope this measure will help keep most of the Eichlers intact. Thank you for your consideration, Nisha Thatte-Potter 3421 Greer Road 1 Ellner, Robin From:Geri M Wilson <gerimw@comcast.net> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 11:04 PM To:Ellner, Robin Subject:Fwd: Support for Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: Geri Martin Wilson <gerimw@comcast.net> Date: April 5, 2016 at 10:58:34 PM PDT To: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org Cc: Amy.French@CityofPaloAlto.org, balerner@yahoo.com Subject: Support for Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Dear members of the Palo Alto City Council, We are writing to express our strong support for the Single Story Overlay of the Royal Manor neighborhood. Though we attended the Planning Commission meeting last month to show our support, we will unfortunately be out of town and unable to attend the City Council meeting on this issue on April 18th, so we would like to express our support via this letter. We moved into our house at 3444 Greer Rd over 18 years ago. We loved the open Eichler design with the floor to ceiling windows that make the outdoors a part of your living space. We loved that even with these large open and airy windows, Eichlers in our development were carefully placed to allow maximum privacy from ones neighbors. We did find find however, that as our children grew, our house was a bit cramped for our large family of 6. When we decided to update and expand our Eichler to a 5 bedroom, 3 bath arrangement, to accommodate our 4 growing children, we found we had several single story design options to choose from- each in keeping with the original Eichler feel, without invading our, or our neighbor’s, privacy. Our family of 6 has lived very comfortably in our remodeled single story Eichler, enjoying the open feel, without having visibility into our neighbor’s houses or yards. If however, one of our neighbors were to build a second story next to, or behind us, it would destroy the aesthetics and privacy that we worked so carefully to preserve in our Eichler remodel. We would also like to note in this letter, that when we attended the Planning Committee meeting, there were accusations by the opposition to the SSO that signatures may have been accrued in a less than transparent manner. We would like to clarify that this was not at all our experience, nor that of our neighbors that we spoke to. Information was disseminated in a clear, well presented manner. Questions were addressed and answered completely. We felt no pressure in making our decision to support the SSO. We hope that though we are unable to attend the upcoming City Council meeting, that the council considers our input and support for the SSO in the Royal Manor 2 neighborhood. Our hope is that the Council passes the SSO in Royal Manor as they have for other recent Eichler SSO neighborhood applications. Thank you, Geri Martin Wilson & Bryan Wilson ATTACHMENT K Public Comments to Council City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 3/31/2016 9:02 AM 1 Carnahan, David From:William O. Faustman Ph.D. <faust2@stanford.edu> Sent:Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:06 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Richard Willits Subject:Support for Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay Though I had an opportunity to formally address the Planning Commission last month to explain my support for the Royal Manor Single‐Story Overlay (SSO), I will unfortunately be out of town on 4/18/16 and unable to attend the City Council meeting on the issue. I appreciate this opportunity to express my views. I have lived at 3458 Greer Road since 1989 and strongly support the proposed SSO. My home is one of the few Eichler homes with a second story addition, a feature added by the former owner in the 1960's. I must admit that I am embarrassed by this rather ugly addition which looms over adjacent yards. Privacy and the ongoing architectural integrity/consistency of this neighborhood are values dear to me. The architecture of these houses is unique (open glass walls, yards with relatively low fences) and their esthetics is especially destroyed by two‐story houses (thus, a bit of my own personal embarrassment). When I attended the planning committee meeting there were several comments made by opponents to the SSO that were drastically different than my experience with this process and I wanted to briefly address these issues. 1) Unlike claims of some opponents, there was absolutely no pressure to sign the petition supporting the SSO. 2) The entire process was absolutely transparent, with a full explanation of the purpose and ramifications of the petition. I greatly appreciate you providing this opportunity for me to express my support and I hope the Council passes this SSO as they have other SSO applications in the recent past. William Faustman, Ph.D., C.Psychol., AFBPsS Clinical Professor (Affiliated) Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Stanford University School of Medicine City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/5/2016 3:22 PM 1 Carnahan, David From:Chuck Thomas <cethomas3493@comcast.net> Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 11:20 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy Subject:Support for Royal Manor Single-Story Overlay City Council Members: As a resident on Kenneth Drive, I support the application of the residents of this subdivision to establish height restrictions on new building in the area. The construction of Eichler homes was designed to give maximum visibility to the out of doors, but construction of two-story homes adjacent to original Eichlers makes the feature a privacy problem. Please approve the desire of a majority of the community who wish to maintain the profile and integrity of our Eichler neighborhood. Sincerely, Charles E. Thomas 3493 Kenneth Drive City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/4/2016 12:53 PM 1 Carnahan, David From:David Hanzel <davidkhanzel@gmail.com> Sent:Sunday, April 03, 2016 6:58 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy Subject:Support for Royal Manor SSO City Council Members, As a child I grew up in an Eichler in San Rafael (Marin County), my childhood home on Wakerobin Lane is now protected by a EICHLER AND ALLIANCE HOMES OVERLAY DISTRICT (-E/A) which limits all development to a single habitable floor with a maximum height of 17 ft; nearly identical to Palo Alto's SSO. Our family moved to Palo Alto 25 years ago and purchased our Eichler home, 988 Loma Verde Ave, in 1994 because we value the MidCentury Modern design, indoor/outdoor living and the unique Eichler community. I strongly support Royal Manor's SSO application to extend the same protection my childhood home has to our Palo Alto home. I also wish to protect my light, my privacy and my property values. Thank you very much for your consideration, David -- David Hanzel davidkhanzel@gmail.com 650.388.0452 Zoning info https://www.municode.com/library/ca/san_rafael/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT14ZO_DIVIIIOV DIRE_CH14.14EIALHOOVDIA City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/5/2016 3:22 PM 1 Carnahan, David From:Stepheny McGraw <stepheny@earthlink.net> Sent:Monday, April 04, 2016 10:15 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Keene, James; Ben Lerner Subject:Yes on Royal Manor Overlay! Dear City Council and Staff, For 35 years, I’ve been enjoying my Eichler backyard with the goldfinches, titmice, towhees and the camellias, maple and orange tree which were here before me. My living room, dining room and master bedroom look out on trees and sky. The sun lights and warms different parts of the house as it moves across the sky in its daily pattern. This interaction, this blending of indoors and outdoors, is what I treasure about our neighborhood and my house on its meandering lot at the end of a cul de sac on Thomas, which shares a backyard fence with three separate homes on Stockton. This neighborhood of single story homes on small lots — Eichlers —allows privacy and views of the sky and trees in the distance, not the neighbors. Our backyards are small, cozy and private. Two story structures would overwhelm these small lots. My small lot of 6400 square feet, my house of 1800 square feet would be put in a canyon, a constant shadow. Instead of sun lighting my rooms as the day goes on, I would have to use electric lights all day and put up curtains for privacy. Here are photos showing the two homes at 3375 and 3385 Stockton from my backyard as well as from my kitchen — the center of my home. Imagine what that view from the kitchen would be if these homes doubled in size and height? Please include these Stockton houses in the Royal Manor Single Story Overlay and please, pass our overlay request. Respectfully, Stepheny McGraw 3303 Thomas Drive Palo Alto,Ca 94303 650-856-0296 City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/5/2016 3:22 PM 2 City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/5/2016 3:22 PM 3 City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 3/31/2016 4:44 PM 1 Carnahan, David From:Sue Thiemann <thiemann@sonic.net> Sent:Thursday, March 31, 2016 12:27 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Richard Willits Subject:yes to Royal Manor SSO I am unfortunately out of town on April 18th and therefore unable to voice my support for the Royal Manor SSO at the City Council meeting but as a resident of the tract I appreciate this opportunity to communicate it now. Long before Nature Deficit Disorder was recognized, Joseph Eichler understood that exposure to nature improves both physical and emotional well‐being. He used walls of glass to provide a constant connection with the outdoors. A two‐ story house among Eichlers, by depriving neighbors of privacy, destroys that casual contact with nature. Curtains must be kept closed, meals moved inside, clothes donned to visit the garden before breakfast. Once added, a second story won't be removed, and the automatic exposure to nature originally provided by an Eichler is gone forever. Property value ‐‐ in the true sense of the word "value" ‐‐ is sadly diminished. Even in the purely monetary sense of the phrase, property value is more a function of neighborhood desirability (realtors' "location, location, location") than it is of house size, and an architecturally coherent neighborhood is more desirable than one marred by looming McMansions. Palo Alto has many neighborhoods with large houses, but few with the architectural consistency of this tract, and ‐‐ as the council has recognized in other cases ‐‐ such neighborhoods are treasures worth preserving. Eichlers were built for families with kids. Some insist they are now inadequate because times have changed. Yes, times have changed ‐‐ and they will change again. The belief that a bathroom should be the size of a bedroom and a bedroom the size of a living room is giving way to the realization that compact houses are easier to care for and nicer to live in. An Eichler can be remodeled without adding a second story. I certainly want children in my neighborhood, and I also want them to have what I had as a child growing up in an Eichler: a yard where no one but my own family could see me, and a house open to that yard. A single two‐story house will deprive many, both children and adults, of that experience. Architects are now focused on making better use of space rather than just increasing it, reflecting an awareness of the growing need to conserve resources of all kinds. Architectural fashions are always changing, but there is good reason for the recent enthusiasm for Mid‐ century Modern design. It is a style that recognizes something eternal in our species: the need for contact with the natural world, a need now recognized as essential to well‐being. A neighborhood of single‐story Eichlers satisfies this need. One with even a few two‐ story houses will deprive many people of that essential pleasure. I hope the council will protect the neighborhood as a whole over the objections of a few by passing this SSO. Thank you for your time. Sue Thiemann 3458 Greer Road Palo Alto City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 1 Carnahan, David From:Daphne Dembo <dembodaphne@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 8:41 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Ben Lerner Subject:in support of the Royal Manor SSO Dear City Council,, We are long time Palo Alto residents: our 3 kids attended public schools here K-12, we have been donating to the school district and to the Mitchell Park library renewal project. We are proud to call this city our home. Over the years we have remodeled our house to accentuate its Eichler features. The last change was designed by a local architect (KC Marcinik) who preserved its original design. Needless to say - we kept all changes to one story. We strongly support the SSO Initiative for our neighborhood (Royal Manor) as it will preserve its intimacy, and maintain its attractiveness to families who care about good education coupled with privacy and the Californian outdoors lifestyle. We are rarely involved with local politics. Please see this letter as a strong endorsement from the silent majority. We see our future in this city and we will do everything we can to ensure our kids will find Palo Alto appealing as well. Thank you for your consideration - Amir and Daphne Dembo Thomas Dr., Palo Alto City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 2 Carnahan, David From:Anne Hanzel <anne_hanzel@pacbell.net> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 9:47 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy Subject:Royal Manor SSO Dear City Council, When we looked for a home in Palo Alto 22 years ago one of our criteria for our home was easy access to the outdoors for our family to enjoy excellent weather and the environment around our house. Our Eichler with large windows and sliding doors has been a perfect design and although a neighbor has recently placed an addition very near our fence we still have sky and trees around us. We have a long rectangular lot and a second story addition would diminish our daylight and privacy and enormously decrease our quality of life as well as our property values so I support the SSO for Royal Manor. Thank you for your consideration, Anne Hanzel City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 3 Carnahan, David From:Nisha Thatte-Potter <nthattepotter@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 10:08 PM To:Council, City; French, Amy Subject:Support of the Royal Manor SSO Hello, I own 3421 Greer Road and I previously rented 3407 Janice Way. These are both houses in the Royal Manor Tract. I am in favor of the Royal Manor SSO for the following reasons: 1) While I appreciate that everyone has rights on their own property, I feel I have rights too. My house is 2/3 glass windows and I see no way that a two story house would not look directly into my side yards, backyard, and house giving me no privacy at all. I don't think there are ways to architect around that. Already with my fence at regulation height, in the winter, I can look out of any window and see the roof line of every house adjacent to me. These houses are very close together to begin with; making them two stories would only make that lack of privacy worse. I am not a lawyer, but in property law there is a concept of Riparian right. This pertains to water rights and allows those living on a waterway the right to the surface water but not the right to block it so that others cannot use it. I feel that this can be compared with my right to live without having the sky and sun being blocked by a two story building. 2) It has been mentioned that these houses cannot accommodate large families. Both of the houses that I have lived in have been renovated successfully while remaining a one story Eichler. My current house had a 2nd master suite added for in-laws. I also have been in other renovated Eichlers including one that has 2 adults and 4 teenagers (and pets) living in it comfortably. When many of these houses add second floors, they lose valuable floor space and have to create strange floor plans to squeeze in extra rooms. 3) There has been talk that when the petition was first circulated, people signed it without understanding what it was. I feel that the people circulating the petition made it very clear what it was for. I do not understand how anyone could have misunderstood what they were signing. In fact, I read all the material given to me before signing it. That was available to everyone. 4) The homeowners on Stockton and Loma Verde have asked to be excluded based on the fact that the houses across the street are not Eichlers. While I understand their position, I cannot agree with it. It is one thing to look across the street at a house and see a different house, it is entirely a different matter to have two-stories next door and behind you which is what would happen if they were excluded from this SSO. Houses across the street do not look into my property, my next door neighbors and the houses behind me do. 5) Finally, I know that this provision would not stop people from tearing down the Eichlers and building new one story structures. However, I want to add that would really be a shame. These houses are unique, well- known, and worth preserving. Many people buy these houses *because* they are Eichlers. When I moved to California, I knew that I wanted to live in one because they were unlike anything anywhere else. I hope this measure will help keep most of the Eichlers intact. Thank you for your consideration, City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 4 Nisha Thatte-Potter 3421 Greer Road City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 5 Carnahan, David From:Geri Martin Wilson <gerimw@comcast.net> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 10:59 PM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; balerner@yahoo.com Subject:Support for Royal Manor Single Story Overlay Dear members of the Palo Alto City Council, We are writing to express our strong support for the Single Story Overlay of the Royal Manor neighborhood. Though we attended the Planning Commission meeting last month to show our support, we will unfortunately be out of town and unable to attend the City Council meeting on this issue on April 18th, so we would like to express our support via this letter. We moved into our house at 3444 Greer Rd over 18 years ago. We loved the open Eichler design with the floor to ceiling windows that make the outdoors a part of your living space. We loved that even with these large open and airy windows, Eichlers in our development were carefully placed to allow maximum privacy from ones neighbors. We did find find however, that as our children grew, our house was a bit cramped for our large family of 6. When we decided to update and expand our Eichler to a 5 bedroom, 3 bath arrangement, to accommodate our 4 growing children, we found we had several single story design options to choose from- each in keeping with the original Eichler feel, without invading our, or our neighbor’s, privacy. Our family of 6 has lived very comfortably in our remodeled single story Eichler, enjoying the open feel, without having visibility into our neighbor’s houses or yards. If however, one of our neighbors were to build a second story next to, or behind us, it would destroy the aesthetics and privacy that we worked so carefully to preserve in our Eichler remodel. We would also like to note in this letter, that when we attended the Planning Committee meeting, there were accusations by the opposition to the SSO that signatures may have been accrued in a less than transparent manner. We would like to clarify that this was not at all our experience, nor that of our neighbors that we spoke to. Information was disseminated in a clear, well presented manner. Questions were addressed and answered completely. We felt no pressure in making our decision to support the SSO. We hope that though we are unable to attend the upcoming City Council meeting, that the council considers our input and support for the SSO in the Royal Manor neighborhood. Our hope is that the Council passes the SSO in Royal Manor as they have for other recent Eichler SSO neighborhood applications. Thank you, Geri Martin Wilson & Bryan Wilson City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 6 Carnahan, David From:Regina Smith <reginaabsmith@gmail.com> on behalf of Regina Smith <reginasmith@talktalk.net> Sent:Wednesday, April 06, 2016 4:13 AM To:Council, City Cc:French, Amy; Richard Willits Subject:Fwd: Royal Manor Eichler SSO zone change Dear City Council Members, Following is a letter I wrote to the planning commission in February as an Eichler homeowner in Palo Alto’s Royal Manor area. I would like this letter, which states my very strong support for the SSO zone change, to be considered at the City Council meeting on April 18th. Thank you, Regina Smith (3407 Janice Way) Begin forwarded message: From: Regina Smith <reginasmith@talktalk.net> Subject: Royal Manor Eichler SSO zone change Date: 10 February 2016 16:44:33 GMT To: Amy.French@cityofpaloalto.org, Planning.Commission@CityofPaloAlto.org Cc: Richard Willits <rwillits@gmail.com>, Katie Renati <windkatie@gmail.com> Dear Ms. French, I am writing in support of the SSO initiative which would prevent the replacement of Eichler homes with two story houses. I know this is a very late response, since the hearing is tonight. I’m late partly because I presently am living in Oxford, England, and I have not been as up-to-date with this movement as I would have liked. I have now owned my Eichler home in the Royal Manor neighbourhood for nearly 44 years. It is a corner house on a very big lot, and it would be a prime location for a BIG expensive rebuild. I am therefore not writing this out of self-interest, but with an admiration for a very supportive community and with a very strong aesthetic appreciation for Eichler designs. That these homes have withstood the challenges of time is demonstrated by the great interest in "mid-century modern” architecture in both the U.S. and in England. What makes the Eichler developments even more interesting is that the architects thought not only about individual houses, but about the neighbourhood and its families as a whole. That worked! And that is why the SSO initiative is so important. The unique character of Eichler neighbourhoods is very well known (even here in England!) and needs to be protected. As one who see this issue from a distance, I feel that the sense of community and also of architectural integrity are particularly endangered in Silicon Valley. The spirit of Eichler owners and importantly the inspiration of Eichler designs (i.e. Steve Jobs/Apple) are legendary and certainly embody an aspect of Palo Alto that should be preserved. Big replacement houses City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 7 scattered in this Eichler neighbourhood would be disruptive to privacy, to the architectural aesthetics, and possibly to the feeling of community. Please give your support to this initiative. With appreciation, Regina A. Smith (3407 Janice Way) City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:24 AM 8 Carnahan, David From:John Potter <johnfpotter@gmail.com> Sent:Wednesday, April 06, 2016 8:50 AM To:Council, City; French, Amy; Ellner, Robin Subject:In Support of the Royal Manor SSO Hello, I own 3421 Greer Road and I previously rented 3407 Janice Way. These are both houses in the Royal Manor Tract. I am in favor of the Royal Manor SSO for the following reasons: 1) While I appreciate that everyone has rights on their own property, I feel I have rights too. My house is 2/3 glass windows and I see no way that a two story house would not look directly into my side yards, backyard, and house giving me no privacy at all. I don't think there are ways to architect around that. Already with my fence at regulation height, in the winter, I can look out of any window and see the roof line of every house adjacent to me. These houses are very close together to begin with; making them two stories would only make that lack of privacy worse. 2) It has been mentioned that these houses cannot accommodate large families. Both of the houses that I have lived in have been renovated successfully while remaining a one story Eichler. My current house had a 2nd master suite added for in-laws. I also have been in other renovated Eichlers including one that has 2 adults and 4 teenagers (and pets) living in it comfortably. When many of these houses add second floors, they lose valuable floor space and have to create strange floor plans to squeeze in extra rooms. 3) There has been talk that when the petition was first circulated, people signed it without understanding what it was. I feel that the people circulating the petition made it very clear what it was for. I do not understand how anyone could have misunderstood what they were signing. In fact, I read all the material given to me before signing it. That was available to everyone. 4) The homeowners on Stockton and Loma Verde have asked to be excluded based on the fact that the houses across the street are not Eichlers. While I understand their position, I cannot agree with it. It is one thing to look across the street at a house and see a different house, it is entirely a different matter to have two-stories next door and behind you which is what would happen if they were excluded from this SSO. Houses across the street do not look into my property, my next door neighbors and the houses behind me do. 5) Finally, I know that this provision would not stop people from tearing down the Eichlers and building new one story structures. However, I want to add that would really be a shame. These houses are unique, well-known, and worth preserving. Many people buy these houses *because* they are Eichlers. When I moved to California, I knew that I wanted to live in one because they were unlike anything anywhere else. I hope this measure will help keep most of the Eichlers intact. Thank you for your consideration, John Potter -- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ John Potter 3421 Greer Road, Palo Alto (415) 846-8021 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ City of Palo Alto | City Clerk's Office | 4/6/2016 9:25 AM 1 Carnahan, David From:Richard Willits <rwillits@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, April 05, 2016 8:24 PM To:Council, City; Clerk, City Cc:Ben Lerner Subject:Royal Manor PTC presentation, Introduction and Architecture Section Attachments:Royal Manor PTC SSO - Background.pdf; ATT00001.htm Attached please find a subset of the presentation given by the applicant group at the PTC meeting 2/10/16 regarding the Royal Manor SSO application. This section gives some architectural and planning background that will not be included in the presentation to Council April 18th. The slides have been printed with the speaker’s text, so that one can quickly get the gist of the presentation. ROYAL MANOR EICHLER NEIGHBORHOOD Single Story Overlay Good Evening, Commissioners. My name is Rich Willits. I live in Royal Manor and I am a member the Palo Alto Eichler Association. The Applicant committee has asked me to speak for them, so I will take the 15 minutes, and spearhead the rebuttals. Thank you for taking the time to consider this issue which entertains, and invigorates your fellow Palo Altans who live in those Mid-Century Modern houses called Eichlers. I also want to thank you for approving the two SSOs which we have brought previously before you. Both were, of course, unanimously approved by the Council. I also want to thank staff for their support of these applications, and particularly Amy French, who has thoughtfully and judiciously helped the community come to where we are now. Because you have looked at SSOs before, and because of the thorough report that Amy has created, and as ours is little different from the others, I hope I can take the analysis to a deeper level than we have presented before, so that you can further consider the issue of SSOs, and have a better idea of where we see Eichler Communities going in relation to the rest of Palo Alto. Before getting into that, I want to briefly highlight information covered in Amy’s report about the Royal Manor SSO. ●Large Eichler tract in Palo Alto, 202 original houses built by Joe Eichler ●Built in 1957-1958 ●Community Anchors are Palo Verde Elementary School & Eichler Swim Club ●Greer between Louis, Loma Verde, and Stockton Place. Our branching streets are Kenneth, Thomas, & Janice Way. ●No house ever torn down ●10% with 2-story additions done in the 1970s-80s ROYAL MANOR EICHLER TRACT Royal Manor Here you see Royal Manor at the orange arrow, in the SE corner of the Palo Verde Neighborhood. We are a large tract, all Eichlers, build in the late 50’s. Our local anchor institutions are Palo Verde School, and the Eichler Swim and Tennis Club. This is what our neighborhood looks like from the air. Eichler Swim & Tennis Club Palo Verde Elementary School Here we are looking SE. 101 South is in the upper left corner. You see Palo Verde School is across the street, and the Eichler Club is over the creek. ●Large Eichler tract in Palo Alto, 202 original houses built by Joe Eichler ●Built in 1957-1958 ●South Palo Alto near Palo Verde Elementary & Eichler Swim Club ●No house ever torn down ●10% with 2-story additions done in the 1970s-80s ●We have come together to protect our neighborhood ROYAL MANOR EICHLERS Royal Manor Royal Manor is a cohesive Eichler Tract. None of the houses has been torn down. A few have had second stories added on top. Royal Manor Meets SSO Requirements ●Contiguous Neighborhood of Existing Homes designed as Single-Story ●Houses of the same age and architectural style, on moderate-sized lots ●Overwhelming Majority (70%) of residents signed application for SSO The reason we and our neighbors signed the SSO application is that none of us wants a two-story tear-down to happen over the fence from us, right next to our house, or even 3 or 4 houses away from us. We are all affected by any two story. This is why we choose the protection of the SSO, as opposed to the IR process, which has proven ineffective at protecting our neighborhoods. Now I want to explain why Eichler neighborhoods are particularly sensitive to this point. 2-Story Tear-Down 808 Richardson The 2-Story Tear-Down refers to an Eichler which the owner plans to tear down in order to build a 2-story house. Usually, the resulting houses are not even in mid-Century Modern Style. Everything about them is in violation of the character of Eichler neighborhoods. An example: The house on the left is the original 808 Richardson, a lovely Eichler in good shape. The building at right, seen from Frank Ingle’s house next door, is what became of 808. Building new 2-story houses is blocked by SSO’s, which is what we want. We consider them to be out of character with the neighborhoods. We found as we talked to our neighbors, that even currently existing second story additions continue to roil our neighborhoods. There is a hate it, want it, tension, even though it’s impractical to build them with current codes. I think you will understand this more fully if we look at what Eichlers provide, and how they relate to each other in community. But first, why is this important to the way people live in Silicon Valley? Eichlers Inspire Steve Doug In first few pages of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, he notes that growing up around Eichlers in the 60’s influenced Steve’s ideas about design and simplicity. These houses think different. Most of the ideas that Steve would put into Macs originated with Doug Englebart, who created those ideas from 1962-1968, while living, and raising a family, on Janice Way, in our tract. Doug threw all those great ideas, like the mouse, hypertext, word processing, dynamically linked libraries, windows, etc. out to the world at an event in 1968 now called The Mother of All Demos, which started the personal computer industry. Doug asked the question what happens when we build computers that wait on us, rather than the other way around? Where did these ideas of living in a revolutionary way come from? In The Beginning Here is South Palo Alto in the early 50’s. The Greer Park Tract, which you have already protected, is the development in the middle. Royal Manor will be built in the open area to the left. What we notice is that the Eichlers formed a community planned to relate well to each other. They could be, and are, different from other houses. What were the basic concepts of these houses, and their communities? EICHLER HOUSE DESIGN ELEMENTS ●Slab on Ground ●Flat Roof ●Glass Walls ●No 2nd Story ●Closed to Street ●6 Foot Fence Here are the elements (read) Where did these things come from? how did they get wrapped into Joe Eichler’s houses? THREE ELEMENTS OF OPENNESS This experience of indoor-outdoor living so crucial to Jobs and Englebart is idealized in Philip Johnson’s Glass House of 1949. In this revolutionary house, you see the three elements: a slab on the ground, high flat roof, glass wall. Outside is Brought Inside The Glass brings the outside inside, as in this 1951 house by Mies Van der Rohe. These two houses on private estates set an ideal for the glass. To get slab floor, flat roof and glass walls to work in a tract house, Joe Eichler pulled from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House concept, which had these same characteristics, and was designed for low cost, and to be built in community. In Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Usonian House, in 1939, you can see the glass wall, and how it allows nature to come into the house. Look at how small that room really is. Square footage is less important, when nature comes into the house. This first Jacobs house cost $5k to build. Wright has the Magic Combination Pulling back, here you see all the elements: Slab on the ground, Flat roof, and Glass Wall allowing visual access to nature. For privacy, there is a 6’ fence, which goes from the front, and extends all around the back yard. Because this house is in community, there can be no second story. What is key about the slab? Living is registered to the grade level, including the view over the 6’ fence. Wright taught architects to be very conscious of how we live, in his houses. He was very involved with what you would see, taking into the account the size of the human body. Building houses to this modulus requires a kind of pact with the neighbors. Notice the house across the street. Since this is the first Usonian House, Jacobs house has to live in community with others. So what kind of front is presented to that house across the street? CLOSED FRONT The Usonian House presents a closed front. This inheritance is the reason you won’t fully understand Eichlers by driving down the street. In the 80’s many of our Eichlers were wrecks. Even today, there is one such in every tract. One might presume they are awful inside. But looks can be deceiving. Even those with fixed-up fronts convey little of the indoor living they provide. The life, the living, is toward the back. EICHLER ELEMENTS No Attic No Basement No Second Story Slab on Ground Flat Roof Glass Wall 6’ Fence Closed to the Street [Read Slide] All our houses share these elements. They jointly allow for the maximum of freedom, of light, of extension of private life to the garden, to the fence, and to the sky. Eichlers are placed in community in such a way that they preserve this for each other. So it is crucial that … Our Tract, One Eichler Community Our whole Eichler tract must be under one SSO. In the next slide, our community stands out as a whole. [Read point One] Our neighbors over the back fence have the greatest impact on the functioning of our homes in community. [Read point two] In this view of our tract, we are looking NW. This image is from Apple Maps with the 3D effect turned on. Notice how our houses are distinct from regular houses. They are flat, others stick up. Ours are uniform. Others are of many styles and do not need to care about each other. Our designs were picked from a set of designs which were designed, at the same time, to work together, and they were placed in the tract by professionals, again to work together. Our houses only work in community. Intrusion of other types of houses is not tolerated. Excluding houses in our Tract from an SSO harms the whole. Eichler Homes, placed in community, make community for the people who live in them.