Los Gatos City Council
November 15, 2022

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looked at, so I think we’re heading in the right direction, but my question for Staff is would there be any downside to including actual images like the three examples that you gave at the end of the Staff Report? They were really a great opportunity to say this is how the evaluation would work, this is how the points would add up, and those are real examples in Town, they look different, and they really provide kind of a range of architectural styles.

So my question is like the Residential Design
Guidelines, for instance, when we have actual images of properties within Town, can we do something similar so that we assuage the concern of the architects that this stuff really does look like brutalist architecture if you go that direction? I appreciate that concern, and if we can put more actual graphics in I think that would make a huge
difference in speaking to the range of architecture styles that would be welcome in the Town.

SEAN MULLIN: We certainly could include images,
and that was a point that was discussed in great detail with our consultant. The caution that we received from our consultant, and that I personally agree with, is that
putting an image out there to demonstrate our façade
articulation could have the unintended consequence of
including something else that violates an objective

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standard further down the document, and that’s just
inherent with putting a real world picture in. Because of that complication we chose to move the diagrams from what you saw at the last meeting in June to what you see now, which is closer to the Palo Alto document, which is sort of being the case study that’s being held up here, and try to have a more controlled environment to articulate the point.

But if it is the will of the Planning Commission,
we could certainly start to work on sourcing images and taking photos to demonstrate these points.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Let’s see what others think.

Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. First I’ll touch
on the photos. I agree that I had thought it would be good to see some photos in there. I think that Mr. Mullin makes a very good point. I have a couple of thoughts on it.

One is that I would hope there are projects out
there that don’t break any of the rules, since
theoretically we’re trying to bring these into existence, so I think it would be worth looking, and if you are able to find some and confirm that they fully conform, I do
think that those would be great to see in there. If that’s not possible, I think creating some more nuanced versions just showing something and seeing which of the ones it

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incorporates, how many points it gets, and showing that it can be asymmetrical and look a little different and things like that, at least having something of that sort in there would be worth it.

I also am torn about what to do with the
situation with the architects. I think that their input is really important and it sounds like they’re going to be putting something together, and I don’t see a world in
which we receive that and just dismiss it, and I do think that it sounded like there would be some significant
changes. It’s really, really unfortunate that the timing happened this way and that this wasn’t brought to our
attention sooner, but I don’t feel like it is worth having a really deep conversation and making a lot of changes if they might end up not feeling realistic to the people who are going to be tasked with implementing them.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Fair enough. Thank you for that.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I have multiple comments,
and first I would like to comment on the visuals.

I know that the visuals seem sterile, and I know
that I am not an architect, but I see that as more of an opportunity. I really do feel like the visuals are a great improvement and I do feel like in a lot of ways less is

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more. I think that our Residential Design Guidelines have photos of real houses, because residents read those. Not that residents aren’t going to be looking at these Draft Objective Standards, but the reality is that these are for Multi-Family units, these are going to be professionals that are looking at these standards and interpreting them.

So for me, I would hope that, as an architect, if you
looked at this you would see this more as a blank slate that you could work with rather than being restricted.

I totally appreciate that the architects have
concerns, and I do think that it’s unfortunate that we’re hearing about them tonight at this meeting when we’re so far beyond the deadline, however, I would hope that we
could just get some very specific points about what exactly is very restrictive and perhaps might result in too much of a cookie cutter like development.

I see Ms. Armer has her hand up. Do you want to
say something before I keep going?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, why don’t you go ahead, Ms.

Armer, and then we’ll let Commissioner Thomas finish.

JENNIFER ARMER: Sorry, Commissioner, I did not
intend to interrupt you. I just wanted to make sure that as we do continue with this discussion and consideration as to whether to try to make a recommendation tonight or continue

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for further discussion in another time to remember that, as with any recommendation from the Planning Commission, we will continue to receive public comments through the
process as it goes to Town Council for their consideration, so while we want the recommendation of the Planning
Commission to be as complete as possible, there still will be that additional time after this discussion tonight.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Perfect. Thank you for that
reminder, because that was one of my other comments that I wanted to bring up, that I personally am interested to hear what other Commissioners think about making minor
recommended changes, but overall hopefully getting to a place tonight where we can forward this to the Town Council for recommendation and really, really hope and encourage that those architects get their public comments in over the next week, and it will be if make the recommendation Town Council will know that we feel very strongly that we should be receiving feedback from the architects and taking that into consideration.

I just want to know, do any of us feel
comfortable forwarding for approval but then telling Town Council that we strongly encourage them to consider any further comments from professionals that they receive?

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My last comment and concern, and this is again
unfortunate that we’re just hearing some of these concerns tonight, but I did also hear that a concern is that these Objective Standards might trickle down into Single-Family standards and I wanted to confirm with Staff that that is not the case, and that is not my interpretation of this situation whatsoever.

RYAN SAFTY: I can take the first stab at this.

Thank you for the question. You are correct, these
Objective Standards, per direction from the state, are
applicable only to these qualifying projects defined as Multi-Family and Mixed-Use. If, at a certain time in the future, there is direction to do this for Single-Family I’m assuming there will be an (inaudible) with Subcommittee and community meetings to get input. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and I would
also say that if you look at the direction of State law that it’s not at all focused on Single-Family, because what they’re trying to encourage is Multi-Family, because that’s the best way to get more housing. Go ahead, Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m sorry, I just want to
add one more thing related to all that. I really think that as a town, and I know with a lot of the work we’re doing,

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the more towns that get behind on putting up Objective
Standards for things and fall behind on all of this, it just is encouraging Sacramento to come in and put more and more restrictions on local control, and I know that having local control and being able to hold local power and
decision making of what our Town character looks like is something that’s really important to our residents here in town. I really don’t want to be responsible for furthering any hard restrictions coming from Sacramento that would take away a lot of our local power, and that is a concern of mine if we continue to continue this.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. There are
several people with their hands up. Let’s go to Vice Chair Barnett, then Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Janoff.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, Chair. I share
the dismay of my fellow commissioners about the delay from the professionals in the community to provide input during our process, however, we’ve received a number of specific topics from the speaker about specific comments about
design characteristics and Objective Standards that they don’t think are practical in real life, and so I would be in favor of some delay. I wish we had a better sense of how long it would realistically take the architects and

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engineers to provide us that feedback, but I would
certainly be comfortable with one week.

As to the photos, I may be wrong, but my
recollection is that in the process of developing the
Objective Standards we did see some photographs that were prepared by the consultant and I thought they were very helpful, and were certainly helpful in the Residential
Design Guidelines, so I would encourage that change in the Objective Standards. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you, Vice Chair.

Commissioner Clark, and then Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I want to address
two things.

First is on the images. As we’ve said, definitely
an upgrade from what we saw before, and I think from what we’ve heard from the public tonight it sounds like when members of the public do go look at the document it doesn’t really make them feel like the standards are going to allow for variety, and it sounds like it’s still kind of hard for them to picture what they look like in real life.

Personally, when I’ve been talking to people about the
ministerial process and addressing their concerns I talk about the Objective Standards, and so I do think that
people are going to go look at them to see what actually

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happens when a development is going through this process and I think it’s important to consider what a lay person might think when they see the document, so I think having something a little more real world in there would be worth it in my opinion.

Second, I agree with Vice Chair Barnett that my
preference would be to defer this to some degree. I think it sounded like the architects have some serious concerns and I think that the Planning Commission’s role is to
really look closely at these standards before we’re sending them over the Town Council and that we’re a trusted source, and so I’d want to make sure that we’ve looked at them in a similar form to how they’ll be seen at the Council.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. If we had any
assurance that what we were looking at in draft form was 90% close according to the architects, then maybe I’d be comfortable forwarding it the Town Council and then letting them do the remaining work, but I’m not generally in favor of having Council do the Planning Commission’s work, and so I really think it’s important, given Bess’ urgency that we heard, I think we should give them the opportunity to

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provide input. We need to give them a very short deadline so that they understand that we can’t keep delaying this.

Staff can confirm whether we do or don’t have SB
35 projects in the pipeline, and if we don’t today we
probably won’t in two weeks, and if we can get this draft in better shape I think we owe it to Town Council to have at least done the invite to the architects, give them a hard deadline, get that input, and be prepared to discuss it next week, so I’m in favor of continuing for that.

A couple other comments. When we talk about
images, I think it’s important to keep the line drawings in there. As Commissioner Thomas indicated, it doesn’t tell you much, it just says this is the basic, and that’s a good thing for creativity. But if we have a bunch of examples with good architectural design that incorporate these kinds of standards, even if the captions say this is showing good articulation or whatever you want the person to be looking at, it doesn’t have to be in town. If it is, it’s great, but it could be within the wider community, or even further afield if we want to have really quality architectural
images in the standards, so I think that’s a really god idea.

Last point, I think that the comments from Lee
Quinta on the introductory area are important. While I

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thought her recommended changes for specifically talking about government code and what it intended to cover were good, I think if we frame the introduction specifically siting SB 35 and what it covers or what its expectations are, then we have a much stronger introduction about why this is happening and why it’s important, and if that
includes the government code, great, include that too. I don’t think there’s any harm in making the introduction nicely comprehensive.

But I would be in favor of a short continuance,
and again for Staff, if we’ve got SB 35 projects in the pipeline, you’ll let us know if we’re really flirting with any real possibility that we’re going to have some problems if we delay.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to ask Commissioner
Thomas to hold on and let Director Paulson speak, and then I have something I wanted to say as well.

JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of
comments.

I think what I also heard from Ms. Wiersema was
getting something quickly is probably not going to be
realistic, just so the Commission is prepared. I think at a minimum we would have to continue it to the second meeting in September, and so I think that hopefully will give Staff

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time, because I think what would be important in that
exercise is for Staff to meet with the architect’s group as well so we can walk through stuff together rather than the back and forth of email or attachment communication, so I think that would be important.

We’ve talked about the illustrations and photos
throughout a number of different processes, and they’re always challenging, but I think we can definitely look into that piece as well.

This is a little broader than just SB 35. There’s
also SB 330 and the Housing Accountability Act; those all have specific references to Objective Standards. We don’t have any projects currently for any of those. The couple of Housing Accountability Act projects you did see were the North Forty utilized that for the first phase, and then the Mixed-Use projects on Union across from Safeway where they had the Single-Family detached and they had a Mixed-Use with three condos above, so they utilized that. They were willing to make some changes. I think specifically from the Union project there were some things that they were willing to do, but they weren’t willing to do all the things that were more of a subjective nature.

I think it’s important to keep that big picture
of what we’re really talking about. We’re definitely not

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going down to Single-Family or duplexes. We’ve had that conversation as well. If that were something that
ultimately the Town is interested in, that would be a
completely separate standalone document for those two
product types.

I just want to make sure that we have realistic
expectations both for the architects as well as the
Commission to really have a conversation with them, have them pull their stuff together so the Commission can have it as well. I think is going to be a little more than a week; I’m not sure that’s realistic. I don’t want to speak for the architects group, but I’m fairly confident they would potentially agree.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Question for Staff. Ms. Wiersema
has had her hand up for a while, but I did close the public hearing. Is it possible that I could reopen the public
comments and just get that input?
JENNIFER ARMER: But it should be for a very
specific question, kind of a yes or no type question. If you were to open it, it should be very specific.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m just going to make a comment,
and then I’d like to hear back from Staff as well. I’m not comfortable with sending this off to Town Council, but on the other hand, I’m extremely concerned to hear that we are

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this many months behind, so if we’re going to continue it, it needs to be a fairly short time frame.

Some of the comments I heard from Ms. Wiersema
were around creativity and design and all that stuff, and these are supposed to be Objective Standards. I don’t think that there’s anything that’s unclear at all about
articulation and things like that, concepts that are
presented in this document, so any changes that get to be made, it can’t be we want to have freedom to do whatever we want, it has to be Objective Standards and we need to give enough detail so that anyone, including people that don’t have a lot of experience working with the Town, can look at those things and say yes, I know how to incorporate those.

I guess I’m trying to figure out how we can
determine what is an appropriate amount of time, because the other side of this is that if we are this far past
January, a few more weeks might not matter. So Staff, give me some guidance here.

SEAN MULLIN: Thank you. I think looking at the
prospective comments from the architect community, as
stated before, I think there could be some significant
changes. We would be looking for the most specific comments we could get on concerns on existing standards and any
recommendations to additional standards.

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From a turnaround standpoint, from Staff’s
perspective, we wouldn’t be making any changes before we came back to the Planning Commission; I don’t believe we would. I think we would collect their input and bring it to the Planning Commission for discussion and could possibly provide responses as we’ve done before. I can defer to Joel and Jennifer on that as well.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Go ahead, Director Paulson.

JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Mr. Mullin. I think,
again, another option is we continue it to the first
meeting in September, but if we don’t have the input from the architects because they haven’t been able to pull that together, then we could continue it again. I think that would be a discussion for the Commission, whether or not the Chair is interested in opening up the public hearing for a very specific question such as do you think the
architect’s group is going to be able to come up with their recommendations by next Thursday so that we can get it into the packet for the meeting on the 14th, or two weeks,
because I think the packet goes out, Ms. Armer, on the 9th? JENNIFER ARMER: That’s correct. We do have three
weeks until the next meeting.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I also heard an offer from Staff
to meet with these architects versus them having to send

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comments back and forth to each other, which to me sounds much more expedient, because you could take notes on what sounds reasonable in a meeting versus sending things and then having to review them and sending them back.

Before I do that, because Commissioner Thomas and
Commissioner Janoff have their hands up, I’m going to ask them for their input, and then we’ll go from there.

Commissioner Thomas, and then Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Chair. I want to
say that I also support Ms. Quintana’s comments regarding the introduction. I do think that it’s important to be very specific. It’s called Purpose, and I think that being very explicit and assuming that people don’t know what the
purpose of this document is before they look at it is
important.

My comment regarding the photos would be I do
appreciate how straightforward and simple this is compared to our Residential Design Guidelines. I think it’s quick and easy to look at and easy to interpret, and so I
appreciate Commissioner Clark’s comments about how lay
people are going to look at this, so we should include some examples, so I’m interested in hearing if people are
thinking those photos should be integrated throughout or

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more like used as an index to reference examples at the end? So that’s one thing.

I have a couple of comments and questions
regarding just Objective Standards and SB 35.

I kind of got the impression from the architects’
comments tonight that Objective Standards in general are restrictive with regard to design and architecture, and like Director Paulson just said, not having Objective
Standards isn’t an option at this point, we have to have them, so I am curious if this group of architects, do we know what kind of projects they’re doing? Because I think the projects that are going to come through SB 35 and
through this ministerial process, even though it’s
classified and Town Code is two or more, I would assume that it’s going to be larger developments and
redevelopments.

So my question for Staff and/or the Town Attorney
is just because this SB 35 Objective Standards pathway
exists, can smaller projects still go through the typical Town process in a different way and not have to deal with this point system with regard to Objective Standards and just meet our other Residential Design Guidelines that
exist, or is this now going to be the only pathway for
development of two or more?

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ATTORNEY WHELAN: I can start. For SB 35 the
project has to invoke it in order to rely on it, however, as the Director mentioned, there is also though the State Housing Accountability Act, and that provides that cities and towns can only deny multi-unit housing if they can
demonstrate that the project doesn’t comply with an
objective standard, and so it’s also a benefit to cities and towns to have objective standards in place to consider any Multi-Family housing project.

SEAN MULLIN: I would add that smaller projects,
to the Commissioner’s question, the existing process would remain and they could choose to not go through the
Objective Standards process, which is a streamlined
process, and choose for whatever reason to go through the typical existing Architecture and Site process.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So basically if you want to
develop a lot right now and you want to build a smaller like four-plex on that lot, and it fits with the design, we’ve looked at all the neighborhood, it doesn’t even look like a four-plex, it looks like a normal Single-Family
home, there is a pathway to still do that through the
typical Architecture and Site application that exists right now? I just want to confirm that.

SEAN MULLIN: That is correct.

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JENNIFER ARMER: Correct, those existing
processes will still be in place for all size projects.

It’s really just when they’re invoking this special
streamlined process that we would then require that they comply with these Objective Standards.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you. Then my
understanding, and please tell me if this is not a good interpretation, is that SB 35 is mainly going to be used for larger projects that are invested with large companies, large developers, contractors, big architecture firms, all of that most of the time in our situation.

With that, if that is the case, then I am more
comfortable just proceeding on, because we still have this other pathway that exists if our local architects feel like these Objective Standards are restrictive, but I am really curious to hear what other Commissioners think about that.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I wouldn’t mind responding
to Commissioner Thomas, but I think we’ve got a question at hand that really needs to be answered, and that is yes, I agree, we should open the public meeting back up to ask the architect, Bess Wiersema, since she’s the named
representative for the architects, whether they can compile the comments of the architects within the next two weeks?

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CHAIR HANSSEN: That was my thinking as well. I
think a week is too fast, and if it meant that we couldn’t meet at the next meeting, then so be it. But do others feel differently about that before I ask Ms. Wiersema?
Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I’ll have
something after that, but I also think that question needs to be answered first.

I think it’s important that the architects are
able to meet with Staff, so I also want to make sure that that’s incorporated into the timeline.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to reopen the public
comments section and I’m to ask Ms. Wiersema a question.

JENNIFER ARMER: She should be able to speak once
you’ve asked the question.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So my question is this: Can you
either send comments or meet with Staff within the next two weeks to help advance this Objective Standards project
forward, because we are in such a tight time frame?
BESS WIERSEMA: I will make sure that we meet
with Staff and we provide you with comments in two weeks, 100%. We care, we want to help, and we want to make sure that this is a successful process for what Los Gatos wants to see in terms of this built environment.

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I would say that I want to make sure that my twoweek time definition has to do with we have two weeks as community members, business owners, etc., to get our
information to Staff, and that does not mean that based on their backup of when they have to submit to you for
documents for the hearing, it doesn’t become a Desk Item, which is always cumbersome for all of us. So I’m not sure what that calendar timing is, and maybe you can help define that.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I thought a week was not long
enough, so I’m saying two weeks, and I understand that that doesn’t include Staff turning this thing around necessarily for our next meeting unless they could do that after
getting your input in two weeks, so I’m good with that. So I’m going to close the comments, and I’ll go back.

We have Ms. Armer, and then we have two
Commissioners.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to
clarify that tonight’s meeting, we are August 24th, and two weeks from today would be September 7th. The full Staff Report packet for the next Planning Commission meeting goes out two days later on the 9th, so if written comments were received from the architects by the 7th, they would be in your full packet and you would have the normal period of

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time to take a look at them, though depending on when they are received, Staff will have more or less time to provide responses in writing in advance of the meeting.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. It sounds like we can work
with that, and then if something doesn’t occur as we
expected, there certainly is always the possibility to
continue it to the second meeting in September, correct? JENNIFER ARMER: Correct.

CHAIR HANSSEN: All right. So then our date
certain, if it’s the will of the Commission to do this, would be the first meeting in September.

JENNIFER ARMER: September 14th.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you. Okay, Commissioner
Clark, and then Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you, just a couple of
things about the photos. I know that Commissioner Thomas asked if we would want them throughout the document or as an index at the end, and my personal thought would be to have an image in the sections that are done through
scoring, and it can say that these are the parts that are in it and this is the score it would receive, because I feel like that’s where they started to look the most
monotonous to some people and where it gets kind of
confusing to picture multiple being integrated.

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Second, I see what you mean, Commissioner Thomas,
about them still having that other option of not going
through the ministerial process and still just using the normal one, but I think that it’s really important that these Objective Standards are practical, and we really want them to be utilized, so I think talking to the architects is a really good way to make sure that they are as
practical as they can be, and I think we need to focus on not relying on somebody possibly using the other process and hoping that people will be able to take advantage of the Objective Standards.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just quickly, I think that
given where we are with the promise of the architects to come back with us, then we should suspend our conversation tonight. We can have longer to look over the comments from the Desk Item so we can incorporate those. I feel like I have no idea where the architects’ changes might be, and so going through the document I think doesn’t make much sense at this point.

I would agree that we’re just really beating a
dead horse about the images, but images always speak more strongly when they’re related to what the comments are

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talking about, so putting them at the end, where you’ve got to leaf back and forth, whether you do it online or in a hard copy, it doesn’t make too much sense to me, so I’d keep those images interwoven with the discussion so that the examples are clear, or put them, as Commissioner Clark suggested, with examples of how projects would be scored.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I agree. I was not considering
going through the document, because I feel like there’s enough support from the Commission to continue the item, although we haven’t gone through that process yet.

I did want to weigh in about the pictures. While
understanding some of the complexities of doing pictures, I think we need to have some pictures, especially—I think Commissioner Clark was spot on—in that section where we’re scoring a project. If we can get permission from a project to apply the score to them, it should be in the document, not at the end, and make it easy for people to understand how to implement the standards that we have, because the whole idea is streamlining, so we need to make it easier for people and not complicated.

I also wanted to comment on Commissioner Janoff’s
thought that we did get some good comments from Ms.

Quintana in the Desk Item. I don't know that everyone had a chance to totally digest them, but one of the comments that

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was raised, and it was raised before, was about having all of the Objective Standards from every other document
included in this document, and Staff did address that
comment in the packet and said that instead there would be references to the other documents that it wasn’t going to be in scope to do that thorough of a document to pull in everything from every other document and put it in this document.

I will go to Vice Chair Barnett, and then back
Commissioner Janoff.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I’m prepared to make a
motion to continue this hearing to September 14th with the understanding that if we don’t receive the architects’
input within two weeks that it will be denied or not
considered for a further hearing.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. Do I have a second for
that? Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I second.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Then
Commissioner Janoff, you had your hand up. Was it to make a motion?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: No, it was to make a
comment, but we can go ahead.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: So we have a motion and a second
to continue. I did want to ask if any Commissioners would like to make comments before I call the question? Obviously we’ll have another chance to see this when it comes back to us. Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: All right, just quickly. In
the interest of transparency, I also wanted to underscore the importance of actual images to residents. We’re
entering into some uncharted territory with the number and scale of the housing that we’re looking for under the
Housing Element, and obviously this document is going to relate to that type of development. Having residents
understand and see what this could look like, and be really beautiful additions to our community, I think would be
really important.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Thomas, and then Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I do just have a question
for Staff. Are we going to get another draft based on the few comments that we gave to you tonight, or can we assume the draft we got tonight is what we’ll also see in three weeks?
RYAN SAFTY: Based on the anticipation of all the
future comments we’re going to get from the architects, it

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would be my preference and Staff’s preference to probably not go through an amended document and try to collect all the feedback at one time.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, I was going to say
that I would hope that you would do whatever is going to be the most productive use of your time since you’re going to probably have to go back and edit it again after that next meeting. Okay, thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I have a question for the
maker of the motion. If we do not receive comments by two weeks time, will it still be on the agenda for the meeting of September 14th?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: If I may respond, that was
certainly my intention, that we would go forward with any remaining comments on the draft that we received with the Staff Report.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Are there any other questions or
comments before I call the question? Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just to clarify what the
maker of the motion stated in response to Commissioner
Tavana, are you saying that if the architects come back and say we need another week that we wouldn’t give that

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continuance? I’m not clear what you’re going forward
without the input means.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: If I may respond, we had
assurance that it absolutely could be provided within two weeks. I should think that after all the delays and failure to respond to the outreach that that’s reasonable.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I also will weigh in. I heard
from Ms. Wiersema that 100% that two weeks was going to work, so I think we should just proceed forward with that assumption. Any other questions? Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I know they said 100%, but
there is always a chance we do not receive comments, so I just want to make sure in case we do not receive comments it still is on the agenda for the next meeting regardless of whether we do or do not receive comments.

JENNIFER ARMER: I just wanted to step in and
clarify. This would be a continuance to the meeting on the 14th regardless of whether any additional input was received between now and then, and then the Commission would be
considering the item and making a recommendation, or
continuing it again if they so chose at that meeting. Since we don’t yet have a recommendation on this item to Town Council, it wouldn’t move forward without further
discussion.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that works, and so it’s
going to be on the agenda one way or the other, because we are recommending a continuance, and you all have seen in the past where if something strange happens, then there’s always the possibility of continuing it again, but we
really do need to finish this.

I’m going to call the question, and I will start
with Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well, so it
passes unanimously, and so there is no recommendation,
we’re just continuing this to the meeting on the 14th.
(END)

PREPARED BY: RYAN SAFTY
Associate Planner
Reviewed by: Planning Manager and Community Development Director 110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● (408) 354-6872 www.losgatosca.gov

TOWN OF LOS GATOS

PLANNING COMMISSION
REPORT
MEETING DATE: 09/14/2022
ITEM NO: 3
DATE: September 9, 2022
TO: Planning Commission
FROM: Joel Paulson, Community Development Director
SUBJECT: Review and Recommendation of the Draft Objective Standards to the Town Council.

RECOMMENDATION:

Review and recommendation of the Draft Objective Standards to the Town Council.

BACKGROUND:

On June 22, 2022, the Planning Commission received and considered public comments on the Draft Objective Standards, completed the review of the document, and provided input to staff on recommended modifications. The item was continued to a future meeting to allow staff time to prepare responses to the input received and to prepare a revised Draft Objective Standards document.

On August 24, 2022, the Planning Commission received and considered public comments on the revised Draft Objective Standards (previously provided as Exhibit 9). A representative from the local architect community was present and provided verbal comments on the Draft Objective Standards. The item was continued to a future meeting to allow the architect community time to prepare written comments on the Draft Objective Standards document for Planning Commission consideration.

DISCUSSION:

At the August 24, 2022 Planning Commission hearing, the Commissioners discussed four topics:
architect community input, public comment, privacy, and pictures. Staff’s understanding of the discussion items is summarized below.

ATTACHMENT 13

PAGE 2 OF 5
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 9, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):

1. Architect Community Input: The community of local architects met prior to the August 24, 2022 Planning Commission hearing to discuss the Draft Objective Standards document. A representative from the architect community was present at the August 24, 2022 Planning Commission hearing and raised concerns regarding the draft design standards and the ability of the document to be used to facilitate “good architecture.” The Planning Commission continued the item to the September 14, 2022 hearing to give the architects time to provide written comments on the document. Town staff met with the group of architects on September 1, 2022, to answer questions and facilitate input.

On September 7, 2022, the architects submitted written comments, which are provided in Exhibit 16.

2. Public Comment: Written public comment was received on August 24, 2022, and was forwarded to the Commissioners via a Desk Item. Based on the general support expressed by Planning Commissioners at the meeting of the changes included in the public comment, staff has reviewed the 27 individual suggestions. The majority of the suggestions are simple changes that could be implemented if supported by the Planning Commission. The following suggestions have either already been discussed or are not consistent with past direction. Staff requests direction from the Planning Commission on the following:
a. Comprehensive stand-alone document. The public comment requests that all existing Town-wide objective standards be listed in this document. Staff and the Planning Commission have discussed this topic in the past, with the conclusion that the Town include a list of other applicable documents that must be followed within the Purpose and Applicability section.
b. Removal of the term “Design” throughout the document. The public comment requests that text throughout the document be changed from “Objective Design Standards” to “Objective Standards.” No explanation was given. c. Decrease tree spacing. The public comment requests that the spacing between trees within parking lots be reduced. Draft Objective Standard A.4.3 requires that a landscape area with at least one tree be located between every 10 consecutive parking stalls when the parking row exceeds 15 consecutive spaces.

The public comment requests that the number of spaces be reduced below 10.

Staff does not recommend this change as it was included for consistency with Town Code Section 29.10.155(g)(7).
d. Format change for B.4.3. The public comment requests that the format for B.4.3 be changed so that it is consistent with the rest of the document. Draft Objective Standard B.4.3 contains the menu options of architectural solutions to achieve 16 points. This was discussed by the Planning Commission Subcommittee and Planning Commission and was received with support.

PAGE 3 OF 5
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 9, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):

3. Privacy: A Commissioner submitted excerpts from the City of Palo Alto Objective Standards that were included as Exhibit 13 with the August 24, 2022 Addendum Report, which led to the discussion on whether to increase privacy standards. The general consensus expressed at the hearing was to not increase privacy standards. Additional Commissioner comment was received on September 6, 2022 (Exhibit 17), to further discuss the privacy standards and to express concerns regarding the subjective nature of drafted standard B.4.11. Draft Objective Standard B.4.11 states, “[…] Balconies facing existing residential uses on abutting parcels are allowed when the design is proven to prevent views to the residential use.” Staff agrees that this standard may not be objective with the “proven to prevent views” statement and looks forward to further discussion and recommendation from the Planning Commission.

4. Pictures: The current Draft Objective Standards contains design illustrations to demonstrate the intent of some of the drafted standards; however, the general consensus at the August 24, 2022 Planning Commission hearing was to include pictures of existing development within the document for real-world examples of some of the complicated design techniques to make the document more user-friendly. Staff looks forward to further discussion and recommendation from the Planning Commission.

PUBLIC COMMENTS:

Throughout the process, and prior to the Planning Commission meeting of September 14, 2022, staff contacted several professional organizations, design professionals, developers, and residents to inform them about the meeting and encourage participation and written comments on the Draft Objective Standards. Staff also met with a group of local architects on September 1, 2022, to answer questions and facilitate input. The comments from the architect community are provided in Exhibit 16. In addition to the direct contact summarized above, staff requested public input through the following media and social media resources:
• On the Town’s website home page, What’s New;
• On the Town’s webpage dedicated to objective standards; and • On the Town’s social media accounts.

Additional public comment has been received and is included as Exhibit 18.

PAGE 4 OF 5
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 9, 2022
CONCLUSION:

A. Summary
The Town of Los Gatos has prepared Draft Objective Standards for the review of multifamily and mixed-use development applications as required by State legislation. The Draft Objective Standards were developed following research by staff and the Town’s consultant, five meetings with the Planning Commission subcommittee, and two community engagement meetings. Following input received from the Planning Commission on June 22, 2022, staff prepared revised Draft Objective Standards and other supporting materials for consideration by the Planning Commission on August 24, 2022, and the matter was continued to September 14, 2022.

B. Recommendation
The revised Draft Objective Standards have been forwarded to the Planning Commission for review. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission:
• Receive and consider public comments;
• Complete the review of the revised Draft Objective Standards; and • Forward a recommendation to the Town Council to approve the revised Draft Objective Standards.

C. Alternatives
Alternatively, the Commission can:

1. Forward a recommendation of approval to the Town Council with additional and/or modified objective standards; or

2. Continue the matter to a date certain with specific direction to staff.

NEXT STEPS:

Following review and recommendation by the Planning Commission, the Town Council will consider the revised Draft Objective Standards, the Planning Commission recommendation, and any additional public comments. Once the Town Council adopts objective standards, staff will develop streamlined review procedures for applications proposing qualifying housing projects.

PAGE 5 OF 5
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 9, 2022
EXHIBITS:

Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Staff Report:

1. Town Council Resolution 2019-053

2. Summary of feedback received during community engagement meetings

3. Draft Objective Standards

4. Public Comments received prior to 11:00 a.m., Friday, June 17, 2022 Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Addendum Report:

5. Staff response to Commissioner’s questions

6. Issues considered by the Objective Standards Subcommittee

7. Commissioner email regarding City of Palo Alto Objective Standards Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Desk Item Report:

8. Suggested additions and modifications provided by a Planning Commissioner Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Staff Report:

9. Revised Draft Objective Standards

10. Revised Draft Objective Standards with Redlines

11. Summary of Revisions Made and Responses to Comments Received at the Planning Commission Hearing of June 22, 2022

12. Evaluation of Existing Developments
Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Addendum Report:

13. Planning Commissioner Comments
Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Desk Item Report:

14. Planning Commissioner Comments

15. Public Comment received between 11:01 a.m., August 23, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., August 24, 2022
Received with this Staff Report:

16. Architect Comments, received September 7, 2022

17. Planning Commissioner Comments

18. Public Comments received prior to 11:00 a.m., Friday, September 9, 2022

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Intentionally
Left Blank

Honorary Planning Commissioners of the Town of Los Gatos, Sep 7, 2022 We, a cooperative of Architects and Designers of Los Gatos, have reviewed the Draft Objective Standards for multi-family and mixed-use residential projects. We respectfully request that our concerns be heard and addressed where ever possible.

Our review is based on our experience with not only designing quality architecture, but also how codes, guidelines and standards can be misinterpreted by different designers but also staff. We also take great pride in carefully crafted design and how less experienced designers might use these standards as a crutch, instead of finding more appropriate and elegant and site/project specific design solutions. In many cases, we are playing devils advocate, in order to highlight where we see holes or weaknesses in specific standards. We have made specific suggestions where we see an opportunity to do so.

We also understand that this is an onerous task that has been put upon you but the state and that there can be no perfect set of standards. Design is inherently complicated and subjective. We are here to help with any further discussions if requested.

GENERAL
• The Planning Dept needs to make sure the Planning Commissioners understand that these design guidelines/standards are not to be referred to or used at all when evaluating Discretionary Review projects that go through the normal DRC/ PC approval process. The two processes are mutually exclusive, and Discretionary projects should be reviewed on their own merits. It must be understood and clearly stated that these “Standards” are not to be considered a standard that is compared to projects that do not apply for this stream lined process. These standards are not standards of excellence and should never be considered as such.
• Could there be a tiered system for some of these requirements? Projects that are 3 units or 50 units or 500 units shouldn’t necessarily have the same standards.

KEY TERMS
• Are community recreation space and landscaped areas mutually exclusive? • In community areas, is there a minimum size of such a space? How big must it be to have it considered community space? Example: could a widened, paved node at a pathway intersection be considered community space? Like with a bench?
• Does landscape area include pathways?
EXHIBIT 16

A.10 LANDSCAPE, PRIVATE, AND COMMUNITY RECREATION SPACES • Does landscape area mean any and all planted areas, including planters and pots on every floor?
• Private recreation space should be proportionally based on the size of the unit.

The Palo Alto standards require just 50 SF for each unit regardless of which floor or unit size. We propose a requirement of 10% of the living area. A 500 SF studio should not be required to have a 10’x15’ balcony. There could be a minimum as well, 50 SF, so that it must still be able to hold a couple of people comfortably.
• Can the required recreation space be broken down into many smaller community spaces? If so, what are the minimum dimensions? (Refer back to key terms comment.)
A.11 BUILDING PLACEMENT
• Requirement 11.1 states that 75% of the ground floor of a building shall be placed within 5 feet of the front & street side setbacks. Does this mean all the buildings on site? Does this mean 75% of the entire street frontage must have a building on its frontage? Or only the buildings that abut the street when multiple buildings are on site? Will buildings be calculated individually? What about corner lots and corner open plazas?
• Requirement 11.2 states that there must be between 15-30% of the street frontage area shall have site amenities. If a restaurant is at this ground floor, and they would like the whole frontage to be tables & chairs and landscaping, how can they meet the 30% max. Why is a maximum necessary?
B.1 BUILDING DESIGN - Massing & Scale
• Do these options apply to each individual building that abuts the street separately? Does this apply to buildings on site that do not abut the street? • Some of these options seem mutually exclusive. How would a continuous arcade, continuously vertical recessed entries and recessed courtyards all exist on the same building facade? How would any of these options work with the arcade?
• Longer buildings and corner buildings will look monotonous with a continuous arcade. And architecturally speaking not attractive unless in a very particular setting. Shouldn’t this option be contingent on the length of the building? When over 80 or 100 ft long, a 2/3 arcade approach could apply? And special treatment for corner lots. What about open corner plazas? • There should be an entire section that deals with corner lots, with points awarded for an open plaza/public amenity at the corner, or a tower at a corner (with a height increase exception for the tower), or another creative way to highlight/ celebrate a corner, etc. although maybe too complex for this cookie cutter approach document.

• B.1.1c suggests entries should be recessed all the way up the entire building height, but it is not good practice to have uncovered entries. How will this option be beneficial? Would a roof/covered porch at these entries be allowed for this option? Especially when this conflicts directly with the recommendation for a 3’ recessed entry per diagram B.4.6a. If any fenestration element needs an awning it’s the entrance.
• Option B.1.1f offers pilasters as an option, but pilasters are much less about massing as they are about facade articulation. Shouldn't this be in section B.4? B.3 ROOF DESIGN
• B.3 illustration has all pitched roofs This is not exemplary of most modern architecture and seems to show favor for sloped pitches. Offer more examples of flat roofs with eaves or parapets.

B.4 FACADE DESIGN & ARTICULATION
• B.4.1d & f shows a continuous belly band and cornice. Do these bands have to be continuous and unbroken? The pop outs, recesses, and continuous pilasters suggested in the other options would not be very harmonious with these options.

These also seem to conflict with the recessed courtyards and entries and recessed upper floors if the bands must be continuous. What about different roof heights? This option is not very compatible with many other design elements suggested.
• B.4.1d - A 10” tall belly band is quite thick for a modern line. This suggests only a traditional style building will be allowed. Palo Alto objectives require 4” min, not 10” min.
• B.4.1f - Requiring a “floor to ceiling height” is a structural dimension that is measured in a cross section and cannot be perceived from the outside. The height between the top of the top windows and the top of the parapet is what is perceived. Is this what is supposed to be 24” + lower floor framing/ceiling assembly height? Interior finishes, such as dropped ceilings should not be part of this calculation as they are not perceived from the outside. How does a sloped interior ceiling height get calculated? Tt’s really the facade height, parapet height, etc that should be controlled.
• B4.2 - When a building side facade is on the property line or within 5' of it, how can this requirement be fulfilled? Windows are not allowed. Further, expensive accent materials, that can enhance a street side facade will be wasted money on a side no one can see. This will prohibit small amounts of high end exterior materials from being used at all.
• B.4.3 - Almost all of the first listed architectural features are found in the previous section under B.4.1. These are redundant.
• B.4.3 - Who will determine if a particular architectural “solution”, aka decorative feature, will constitute points? Will one juliet balcony, or planter box mean the points are achieved? One chimney, one bay window? This points system lacks specificity and at the same time is entirely too specific about traditional style

architectural features. Most of these features are entirely inappropriate on modern architecture. When we say "Bay Window", can we add in “or Box Window”, and “angled Box Window”? The term Bay Window is too specific/ limiting. And what about the unfortunate designer that decides "hey maybe I’ll take one of each thing on the menu?" One bay window, one planter, one awning, one pilaster, one arcade - oh wait maybe two, one balcony, one trellis, one braced overhang, one corbel, one scoop with sprinkles, and why don’t you just throw in a 10” thick caramel flavored belly band just for fun”. Are we making an ice cream sundae here? In my absurd example, the Town would have no choice but to approve it as long they scored the minimum 16 points” To quote their own language: “ . . . by incorporating any combination of the following architectural solution to achieve a minimum of 16 points” with no mention of any cohesive design theme, scale, proportion, repetition, cadence, architectural nuance, color, materials, etc.
• B.4.5 - This illustration should be stricken of the “Architectural Features” pilasters.

Not Good
• B.4.6a - This requirement seems to conflict with the vertically continuously recessed entry option from section B.1.1c
• B.4.6b - How about adding in another drawing that shows glass extending to the floor? Why say between 2 and 10 feet above the sidewalk? Why can’t the glass extend to the sidewalk?
• B.4.10 - Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have a setback to roof top decks and balconies, rather than prohibiting them entirely from a building? The building could be very large and deep. What about a daylight plane? • B.4.11 - Why can’t the balconies extend beyond the footprint if you can prove that views to residential uses are prevented?
• B.4.12 - Why is this even a section? Isn’t this all covered in great detail in the previous sections?
Respectfully,
Gary Kohlsaat
Jaclyn Greenmyer
Bess Weirsema
Jay Plett
Noel Cross
Jennifer Kretschmer
Louie Leu
Tom Sloan
Terry Martin
Bob Flury
Tony Jeans

From: Jeffrey Barnett
Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2022 1:14 PM
To: Jennifer Armer <[email protected]>; Joel Paulson <[email protected]>; Attorney <[email protected]>
Subject: PC Hearing on 9.14.22 - Objective Standards

EXTERNAL SENDER
Dear Ms. Armer and Mr. Paulson,
Please include the following comments in the Staff Report for our next meeting. Thanks in advance.

I wish to amplify upon the comments made in my Desk Item dated August 23rd as well as during the Planning Commission meeting of August 24th concerning Agenda Item 3, wherein I objected to draft Standard B11.4 related to privacy for neighbors from balcony views. Five of my fellow Commissioners voted to not make the proposed standard concerning such balcony views more specific. This draft standard provides that balconies facing existing residential uses on abutting parcels are allowed “when the design is proven to prevent views to the residential use.” SB 35, creating the streamlined approval process, and SB 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, require “objective, quantifiable, written development standards, conditions and policies” to retain local control of multifamily housing and, in the case of SB 330, certain mixed-use developments as well.

The Government Code changes effected by these Bills specify that the term “objective standards” means standards that involve “no personal or subjective judgment by a public official,” and are “uniformly verifiable by reference to an external and uniform benchmark or criterion available and knowable by both the development applicant and the public official before submittal of an application.” See Government Code Sections § 65913.4(a)(5) (part of SB 35) and 66300(a)(7) (part of SB 330).

I submit that keeping the standards “general”, as was proposed by certain Commissioners at our last hearing, is not consistent with these requirements of the Government Code. Standard B.4.11 should be made more specific, along the lines of Palo Alto Municipal Code

18.24.050(c)(2) which is cited in my prior Desk Item.

The draft standard providing that balconies facing existing residential uses on abutting parcels are allowed “when the design is proven to prevent views to the residential use.” is clearly subjective. There is no way that an applicant can determine the meaning of the language without conferring with the Community Development Department. Indeed, the proposed standard imposes a burden of proof on the applicant, which is completely antithetical to the objective standard requirements in the Government Code.

Some Commissioners expressed concern that making the balcony privacy requirement more specific would call into question the adequacy of the window standards. If window views onto adjacent residential lots and homes is concerning to the Commission, objective standards should be adopted for them too.

For the above reasons, I submit that Standard B 4-11 is not enforceable, and that the Commission’s prior approval of it as an objective standard should be reconsidered. I further EXHIBIT 17

request that our Town Attorney provide a legal opinion concerning compliance of B 4-11 with SB 35 and 330.

Finally, I withdraw my other Desk Item, also dated August 23rd, which contained five points. My questions and comments were resolved satisfactorily through a discussion with Ms. Armer and Mr. Paulson.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Barnett

From: Adam Mayer
Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2022 11:53 PM
To: Joel Paulson <[email protected]>; Sean Mullin <[email protected]>; Ryan Safty <[email protected]>
Subject: Comments on Objective Standards

EXTERNAL SENDER
Hello Los Gatos Planning Staff,
This is Adam Mayer, local architect and current member of the Housing Element Advisory Board.

I just wanted to make a few comments piggybacking on the issues brought up by the group of architects represented by Ms. Bess Wiersema at the last Planning Commission meeting. Although I am not part of that group, I too have some overlapping concerns about the Objective Standards as they are currently drafted.

Generally I agree with the intent of the Objective Standards and think that the State is doing the right thing by trying to streamline housing development. The potential downside, as was noted by the group of architects in the previous meeting, is that these standards could end up stifling the architect's creativity by being overly prescriptive, resulting in mediocre cookie-cutter design.

To be sure, this is a delicate balance to walk and I think Town Staff has done a fairly good job of walking this tight-rope so far.

For instance, one point of discussion in the last Planning Commission meeting was about including pictures of real-life examples, but my personal opinion here is that I prefer the more abstract line drawings that are currently used in the Draft document. For Design Guidelines, real world photo examples might make sense but I think the abstract line drawings are better (and potentially less restricting from a design point-of-view) for the Objective Standards.

Now onto the specific parts of the Draft Objective Standards where I have some comments (primarily on the Site Standards, the Building Design Standards look fine for the most part):

Section A5.1
Any automobile entry gate to a parking structure shall be located to allow a minimum of 25 feet between the gate and the back of the sidewalk to minimize conflicts between sidewalks and vehicle queuing.

Comment: Imagine a scenario where there is a new multi-story, multi-family residential building on a tight lot with an underground parking garage. There is no way you are going to fit a ramp on the site that starts 25' away from the sidewalk that has enough run to get a full story below grade. Furthermore, on a project where you have only residential (no commercial) you are very unlikely to ever have a scenario where vehicles are going to be backed up in a queue. I'd remove this section or amend it to be much less than 25'
Section A8.3
Vehicular entry gates and pedestrian entry gates shall have a maximum height of six feet.

Comment: Does this include entry gates that enter into a below-grade parking garage? Typically these are full height (because the retract up into the ceiling) with a minimum height clearance of 6'-8" EXHIBIT 18

Section A10.1a
Landscaped space: A minimum of 20 percent of the site area shall be landscaped.

Comment: 20% seem unnecessarily high for an infill building. Can a landscaped roof count toward the 20%?
Section A10.1b
Private recreation space: The minimum horizontal dimensions are 10 feet by six feet. The minimum vertical clearance required is eight feet. Private recreation space shall be directly accessible from the residential unit.

Comment: 6 ft. x 10 ft. is a gigantic balcony for a multi-family unit, even for luxury condos. 120 square feet is absurd.

Section A10.1c
Community recreation space shall be provided in multi-family residential development projects at a minimum of 200 square feet per residential unit.

Comment: Like the private recreation space, this is way too much. For smaller multi-family residential buildings under a certain size (say 10-12 units) I would say that "community recreation space" is unnecessary and would be a huge obstacle in getting these sort of mid-tier boutique multi-family projects built. "Community Recreation Space" makes more sense in larger multi-family developments (like 20 - 100 units)
Thanks for considering my comments and happy to answer any questions.

Best,
Adam
Adam N. Mayer AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP

PREPARED BY: RYAN SAFTY
Associate Planner
Reviewed by: Planning Manager and Community Development Director 110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● (408) 354-6872 www.losgatosca.gov

TOWN OF LOS GATOS

PLANNING COMMISSION
REPORT
MEETING DATE: 9/14/2022
ITEM NO: 3

ADDENDUM
DATE: September 13, 2022
TO: Planning Commission
FROM: Joel Paulson, Community Development Director
SUBJECT: Review and Recommendation of the Draft Objective Standards to the Town Council.

REMARKS:

Per the request of the Planning Commission at the August 24, 2022 Planning Commission hearing, the community of local architects submitted written comments related to their concerns with the drafted Objective Standards document (Exhibit 16). Staff has prepared a numbered list of the 29 bulleted items presented in the architect community input (Exhibit 19) including staff responses to suggestions and questions. There were several recommendations in the comment letter that staff supports if Planning Commission choses to incorporate them in their recommendation to Town Council. There were also 10 items which staff recommends that the Planning Commission discuss further; these are summarized below:
• Comment 9 relates to the continuous streetscape requirement in A.11.1, which requires development in a Community Growth District to place at least 75 percent of the ground floor within five feet of the street-facing property lines. The comment suggests that it is not clear whether it applies to the proposed buildings, or the entire length of the property line. This draft standard is currently worded to apply only to proposed buildings.
• Comment 10 questions why section A.11.2 has a maximum percentage for site amenities in front of the front façade. The maximum percentage was originally included to ensure visibility to ground floor commercial uses; however, in the case of restaurant uses, it may be overly restrictive, and therefore the standard could be modified to include a minimum, but no maximum.
• Comment 12 questions how the arcade (B.1.1.d) and the recessed building entry (B.1.1.c) standards could be incorporated in the same building. The Planning Commission could consider removing the “full height of the façade” requirement from B.1.1.c or removing the arcade option (B.1.1.d) in its entirety to remedy this concern.

ATTACHMENT 14

PAGE 2 OF 3
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 13, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):
• Comment 13 also related to the arcade option in B.1.1.d, stating that longer buildings would look monotonous with a continuous arcade. The arcade option could either be removed, or a limit to the required arcade length could be added. • Comment 14 requests that an additional section be added to deal with corner lots.

Although this does not currently exist, these could be developed in the future. • Comment 18 and 19 are related to the belly band option in B.4.1.d. Based on the reasoning provided, Planning Commission can consider removing this option. • Comment 23 questions how B.4.3 would be applied, for example if a single bay window would be sufficient to qualify for the points listed. Staff can either add greater specificity for certain items or remove this requirement. Staff looks for direction from the Planning Commission.
• Comment 24 suggests that the illustration of pilasters should be removed. This illustration was a specific request from a previous hearing, but it could be removed. • Comment 27 suggests that rather than prohibiting rooftop and upper floor terraces and decks that they could be allowed given certain controls.

In addition to the comments received from the community of local architects in Exhibit 16, additional public comment was received from a local architect and are included in Exhibit 18.

The public comment expresses concern with using “real world photo examples” within the document and makes recommendations for specific sections of the draft document. First, the public comment requests that parking structure entry gate setback be reduced to under 25 feet in standard A.5.1. Second, the public comment requests that the six-foot height limit for vehicular entry gates be increased in standard A.8.3. Third, the public comment questions whether landscaped roofs can count towards the landscaping requirement in standard A.10.1.a, and whether 20 percent is too high. Last, the public comment requests that the private and community recreation spaces be reduced in size in standard A.10.1.

Exhibit 20 includes public comment received between 11:01 a.m., September 9, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., September 13, 2022. These comments are meant to update the comments provided in Exhibit 15 with the August 24, 2022 Desk Item report. The public comment in Exhibit 20 also expresses support with the information provided in Exhibits 16, 17, and 18, and provided additional suggestions throughout the Purpose and Applicability section of the document. Staff is supportive of these recommendations and can incorporate the recommendations when forwarding the revised document to the Town Council.

PAGE 3 OF 3
SUBJECT: Draft Objective Standards
DATE: September 13, 2022
EXHIBITS:

Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Staff Report:

1. Town Council Resolution 2019-053

2. Summary of feedback received during community engagement meetings

3. Draft Objective Standards

4. Public Comments received prior to 11:00 a.m., Friday, June 17, 2022 Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Addendum Report:

5. Staff response to Commissioner’s questions

6. Issues considered by the Objective Standards Subcommittee

7. Commissioner email regarding City of Palo Alto Objective Standards Previously received with the June 22, 2022, Desk Item Report:

8. Suggested additions and modifications provided by a Planning Commissioner Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Staff Report:

9. Revised Draft Objective Standards

10. Revised Draft Objective Standards with Redlines

11. Summary of Revisions Made and Responses to Comments Received at the Planning Commission Hearing of June 22, 2022

12. Evaluation of Existing Developments
Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Addendum Report:

13. Planning Commissioner Comments
Previously received with the August 24, 2022 Desk Item Report:

14. Planning Commissioner Comments

15. Public Comment received between 11:01 a.m., August 23, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., August 24, 2022
Previously received with the September 14, 2022 Staff Report:

16. Architect Comments, received September 7, 2022

17. Planning Commissioner Comments

18. Public Comments received prior to 11:00 a.m., Friday, September 9, 2022 Received with this Addendum Report:

19. Staff’s responses to architect comments in Exhibit 16.

20. Public Comments received between 11:01 a.m., September 9, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., September 13, 2022.

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To:Chair and Planning Commissioners
From: Lee Quintanta
Re :September 14, 2022, Agenda Item 3
Planning Commission:

1. Attached as Attachment 1 are my comments submitted for the August 24th Planning Commission on the Draft Objective Standards. I have added additional comments in red.

2. I concur with Exhibit 17 attached to the Staff Report.

3. I agree with most of the comments contained in Exhibit 16 and Exhibit 17. The following are my Comments on Draft Objective Standards and to the included Exhibits 16, 17, and

18. Both Exibits 16 and 18 raise indicate that further work is needed for clarity in the areas of landscaping, private and community recreation space and the question of line drawings/photos.

4. Below are a few additional suggestions to increase the understanding of these Objectives. Many of the suggestions are based on Section 18.24 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code Project Contextual Design Criteria and Objective Standards. While I understand that it is not the intent of the Town’s Objective Standards to include Contextual Design Criteria, I none the less suggest considering the following ideas taken from of the Palo Alto Code be incorporated into the Town’s Objective Standards Document.
● Purpose: Purpose of the Objectives:
○ The purpose of these Objective Design Standards is to establish the intent of and objective design criteria and their intent for project that qualify for the streamlined approval review of Housing Development Projects eligible as defined ty the Housing Development Act., ie eligible for ministerial approval (as defined by Cal. Gov. Code 65589.5) ○ Include an statement of intent prior to each section of the Objectives b (before A.1, A.2 etc) to provide guidance as to what the objectives are intended to achieve. (18.24.010 Purpose and Applicability) ○ Include a statement that diagrams are illustrative only, that They are not intended to convey a required architectural style. Rather the objective standards aim to accommodate a variety of styles, construction types. ● Applicability: Suggestions:
○ Include a list of the zoning districts in which Housing Development Projects (as identified in California Gov. Code) and add a statement that the Objective Standards applies to both new construction and renervations.
○
EXHIBIT 19

○ Include a statement to the effect that the streamlined approval process applies only if all objective standards are met, both those in these Objective Design Standards, and those in all other Town Regulation etc. (i.e. as listed on page one of the Objective Standards.

5. In order to submit this by 11:00 my additional comments on landscaping, private and common space and illustration/photos will follow tomorrow.

Thank you for your consideration.

Lee Quintana

To Planning Commission
Item 2 August 24th Planning Commission Meeting
From: Lee Quintana

COMMENTS ON TOWN OF LOS GATOS

DRAFT OBJECTIVE STANDARDS,
AUGUST 24, 2022
GENERAL COMMENTS:

Comprehensive stand alone document: It is my understanding, from previous public discussions of the Objective Guidelines, that the Objective Standards would be a comprehensive “stand alone” document containing the objective standards from all relevant documents and regulations. It is difficult to assess the Draft Objective Standards without knowing what other objective standards also apply to “qualified projects”. At a minimum, please consider adding a list of all objective standards contained . Consider adding a Table of all other objective standards that would apply to multi-family and mixed-use residential projects and include hyper-links to the individual standards.

PURPOSE AND APPLICABILITY
This section defines “qualifying project” and where the definition can be found in the California Government Code. However it does not define “Objective Standards” as defined by the Government Code. Most importantly, it does not explain how these apply to the approval process for “qualifying projects”.

Please delete and revise the first paragraph to better define the purpose of Objective Standards, (streamlining approval process? .

Delete and receive revise the second paragraph and to include the following as part of that paragraph:

Gov. Code 65559.5 identifies Qualifying Housing Development Projects:
● Multi-family housing developments,
● Residential Mixed Use Housing developments with a minimum of two-thirds of the square footage is designated for residential use,
● Supportive and transitional housing development
Delete and revise the last paragraph as follows:

A Qualifying project shall be approved through a ministerial review process when the project complies with these Objective Site Standards as well as complying with all existing objective development regulations in the Town,:, including but not limited to the following:
● General Plan

● Town Code
● Guideline and Standards Near Streams
● Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan
● Parks and Public Works Standards
● Santa Clara County Fire Department Regulations.

ORGANIZATION
The Following Objective Design Standards are organized into two primary sections:.....

KEY TERMS
Community recreation space Delete and replace with: Note: Separate the definitions for Community Recreation space in mixed use developments and multi-family developments as individual definitions.

Community recreation space in a mixed use residential development means public gathering spaces such as: plazas, outdoor dining, squares, pocket parks, or other community areas for the use of the general public.
- Please clarify whether this applies to non-residential and residential parts of a mixed use residential project or just to the non-residential part. - Note: Residential uses in a mixed use development should have some opportunity for gathering space as do residents in a MF only development. - please modify here and in objective standards to include this.
- Should the Community space require a public access easement.? -
Community recreation space in multi-family developments means gathering spaces such as: play areas, pool areas, patios, rooftop decks, and other community areas available for the use of all residents.
- Please clarify whether this applies to projects just with MF zoning designation or applies to the multi-family part of a Mixed Use Residential Project See Note above.

Mixed Use means a development project where a variety of uses such as office, commercial, or institutional, and residential are combined with residential use(s) in a single building or on a single site in an integrated project.

Private recreation space above ground level means an outdoor balcony, or rooftop deck, or similar, accessible from a single dwelling unit.
similar” = subjective. Delete or replace with more specific language Note: Add a space to separate above and at ground private recreation space Private recreation space at ground level means a single an outdoor enclosed patio or deck accessible from a single dwelling unit.

Objective Standard means………………………………(add language)
A .SITE STANDARDS
A.1 Pedestrian Access

1.2 & Figure A.1.1: Is there a minimum width for the sidewalk? Or for the planting strip A.2 Bicycle Access

2.4. 1.2 was “modified from walkway” to “pathway”. Should 2.4 also be changed to “pathway as well?
A.3 Vehicular Access and A.4 Parking Location and Design Figure A.3.1, A.3.1 and A4.3 need clarification
What is the difference between aisle to aisle circulation (A3.1) and parking areas (Figure A3.1)? Does Figure A.3.1 represent multiple parking areas (see A.4.2) or aisle-to-aisle circulation of A.3.1.

4.3 Comment: Consider decreasing spacing between trees. Aside from aesthetic value, the shading trees decrease radiation from the parking lot surfaces Note: Shading from trees also lowers the temperature in cars. Consider adding a standard to ensure X% of parking spaces are shaded, or that addresses of trees to optimize shading (relates to Climate Change, eneray, resiliency etc)n

4.4 Move 4.4 up under 4.1
Note:

I still suggest moving 4.4 up under 4.1 or combining the two as follows:

Except for driveways to access surface parking lots or carports, surface parking lots and carports shall not be located between the a primary building frontage and the street.

A.5 Parking Structure Access
Add a standard for pedestrian access to a parking garage A.6 Utilities

6.3 Delete and separate ground and rooftop:

6.3 Views from the street of ground level utility cabinets, mechanical equipment, trash enclosures shall be screened from view.
a. Screening shall be provided by landscaping, fencing or a wall. b. The screening shall be at least the same height as the utility being screened, Comment: Should they also be screened from within a site? Or at a minimum from common areas?

6.4 Rooftop mechanical equipment shall be screened from view from the street

a. Solar equipment is exempt from this requirement
Consider a height exemption of the area required for an elevator shaft.

Note: I still think my comments under A.6, including screening utilities from within the site, are valid and should be incorporated.

A.7 Landscaping and Landscape Screening
A.7.2.c Comment: Is there a requirement for planting between the trees? Note: Suggest requiring shrubs between the trees X high at planting A.10. Landscaping, Private, and Community Recreation Spaces A10.1. The following landscaped, private, and community recreation spaces shall be are required for all qualifying projects and are shall be calculated independent of each other:

A.11 Building Placement

11.1. 10.c. How shade is calculated needs to be more specific.

Note: Break this paragraph up into:
- Minimum dimensions…….
- % of to sky
- % shading
B.4 Facade Design and Articulation

4.3 Change format consistent with the rest of the document B. BUILDING DESIGN
B.1.3.e and Figure B.1.3..e
Comment: I don’t understand this one. The illustration does not fit my understanding of a courtyard. Is this intended to be private the private use of the dwelling units? Is this an illustration of B.1.3 (Townhouse) B.2.2 If the intent is to prevent full transparency into the structure, should there be a minimum as well as a maximum?
B.3 Roof Design
Figure B.3.3 Comment: This figure looks more like the gable ilustrated in Figure.3.1 than it looks like a dormer
B.4 Facade Design and Articulation
B.4.3 Why change in format?

1 Architect Comments with Staff Responses (in italic font)

GENERAL

1. The Planning Dept needs to make sure the Planning Commissioners understand that these design guidelines/standards are not to be referred to or used at all when evaluating Discretionary Review projects that go through the normal DRC/PC approval process. The two processes are mutually exclusive, and Discretionary projects should be reviewed on their own merits. It must be understood and clearly stated that these “Standards” are not to be considered a standard that is compared to projects that do not apply for this streamlined process. These standards are not standards of excellence and should never be considered as such.
• Staff supports this recommendation and can include an additional statement when forwarding do Town Council.

2. Could there be a tiered system for some of these requirements? Projects that are 3 units or 50 units or 500 units shouldn’t necessarily have the same standards. • Although Objective Standards could be developed to differ depending on project size, the metric for most Standards has generally been applied to the street-facing façade. They have also been developed under the assumption that most projects will be 3-stories or less based on current height limits, and therefore significant differentiation may not be warranted.

KEY TERMS

3. Are community recreation space and landscaped areas mutually exclusive? • Yes, per A.10.1, “the following landscaped, private, and community recreation spaces are required for all qualifying projects and are calculated independent of each other.”

4. In community areas, is there a minimum size of such ap space? How big must it be to have it considered community space? Example: could a widened, paved node at a pathway intersection be considered community space? Like with a bench?
• Yes, minimum horizontal dimensions are 10’ by 6’ for each area.

5. Does landscape area include pathways? A pathway is not included in the list of elements that are considered to not be a part of “Landscaping.” (additional site open space and/or maximum lot coverage standards exist in the Municipal Code.)
• If landscaping is proposed along the walkway, it would count towards the landscaped space requirement. A pathway/walkway without landscaping would not count.

A.10 LANDSCAPE, PRIVATE, AND COMMUNITY RECREATION SPACES

6. Does landscape area mean any and all planted areas, including planters and pots on every floor? • Area used for landscaped, private, and community recreation spaces are calculated independent of each other with no area counted twice, additional clarity could be added.

EXHIBIT 20

2 7. Private recreation space should be proportionally based on the size of the unit. The Palo Alto standards require just 50 SF for each unit regardless of which floor or unit size. We propose a requirement of 10% of the living area. A 500 SF studio should not be required to have a 10’x15’ balcony. There could be a minimum as well, 50 SF, so that it must still be able to hold a couple of people comfortably.
• The private recreation space standard was included for consistency with Town Code Section

29.10.065. Section A.10.1 requires each new dwelling unit to have private recreation space:
200 square feet on the ground floor, and 120 square feet above the ground floor. If the Planning Commission recommends an adjustment to this requirement, staff recommends ensuring there are still minimum dimension requirements.

8. Can the required recreation space be broken down into many smaller community spaces? If so, what are the minimum dimensions? (Refer back to key terms comment.) • Yes, if each area is a minimum of 6’ by 10’ for both community and private recreation spaces (A.10.1).

A.11 BUILDING PLACEMENT

9. Requirement 11.1 states that 75% of the ground floor of a building shall be placed within 5 feet of the front & street side setbacks. Does this mean all the buildings on site? Does this mean 75% of the entire street frontage must have a building on its frontage? Or only the buildings that abut the street when multiple buildings are on site? Will buildings be calculated individually? What about corner lots and corner open plazas?
• This draft standard is currently worded to apply only to proposed buildings. The requirement applies to the buildings, not the street frontage. This does not mean that 75 percent of the street frontage needs buildings along the front; instead, it means that 75 percent of the area of the primary building(s) proposed must be on the street frontage (see Figure A.11.1).

10. Requirement 11.2 states that there must be between 15-30% of the street frontage area shall have site amenities. If a restaurant is at this ground floor, and they would like the whole frontage to be tables & chairs and landscaping, how can they meet the 30% max. Why is a maximum necessary?
• Staff agrees that the maximum percentage could be deleted. The maximum percentage was initially included to ensure visibility to ground floor commercial uses.

B.1 BUILDING DESIGN - Massing & Scale

11. Do these options apply to each individual building that abuts the street separately? Does this apply to buildings on site that do not abut the street? • Staff can clarify that this requirement applies to the combined area of all primary buildings that face and abut the street.

12. Some of these options seem mutually exclusive. How would a continuous arcade, continuously vertical recessed entries and recessed courtyards all exist on the same building facade? How would any of these options work with the arcade?
• Staff agrees that the arcade (B.1.1.d) and recessed building entry (B.1.1.c) options could not be used together unless the “full height of the façade” requirement is removed from B.1.1.c.

An additional option would be to remove the arcade option. Staff looks for direction from the Planning Commission.

3 13. Longer buildings and corner buildings will look monotonous with a continuous arcade. And architecturally speaking not attractive unless in a very particular setting. Shouldn’t this option be contingent on the length of the building? When over 80 or 100 ft long, a 2/3 arcade approach could apply? And special treatment for corner lots. What about open corner plazas? • If the Planning Commission agrees, staff can remove the arcade option (B.1.1.d) or include a limit when the building façade is over a certain length.

14. There should be an entire section that deals with corner lots, with points awarded for an open plaza/public amenity at the corner, or a tower at a corner (with a height increase exception for the tower), or another creative way to highlight/celebrate a corner, etc. although maybe too complex for this cookie cutter approach document.
• Though not currently included, these could be developed in the future.

15. B.1.1c suggests entries should be recessed all the way up the entire building height, but it is not good practice to have uncovered entries. How will this option be beneficial? Would a roof/covered porch at these entries be allowed for this option? Especially when this conflicts directly with the recommendation for a 3’ recessed entry per diagram B.4.6a. If any fenestration element needs an awning it’s the entrance.
• A covered awning or eave would be allowed as long as the wall plane for the entry is recessed. Staff can clarify that this requirement applies to the wall plane, and projections such as awnings beyond the wall plane would be allowed.

16. Option B.1.1f offers pilasters as an option, but pilasters are much less about massing as they are about facade articulation. Shouldn't this be in section B.4? • The pilaster option was added here as it would break up massing, but could be relocated.

B.3 ROOF DESIGN

17. B.3 illustration has all pitched roofs This is not exemplary of most modern architecture and seems to show favor for sloped pitches. Offer more examples of flat roofs with eaves or parapets.
• Staff recommends keeping the text of this standard, but deleting the graphic.

B.4 FACADE DESIGN & ARTICULATION

18. B.4.1d & f shows a continuous belly band and cornice. Do these bands have to be continuous and unbroken? The pop outs, recesses, and continuous pilasters suggested in the other options would not be very harmonious with these options. These also seem to conflict with the recessed courtyards and entries and recessed upper floors if the bands must be continuous.

What about different roof heights? This option is not very compatible with many other design elements suggested.
• Staff can remove the belly band option (B.4.1.d).

19. B.4.1d - A 10” tall belly band is quite thick for a modern line. This suggests only a traditional style building will be allowed. Palo Alto objectives require 4” min, not 10” min. • Staff can remove the belly band option (B.4.1.d), or the standard can be revised to reflect Palo Alto’s four-inch requirement.

4 20. B.4.1f - Requiring a “floor to ceiling height” is a structural dimension that is measured in a cross section and cannot be perceived from the outside. The height between the top of the top windows and the top of the parapet is what is perceived. Is this what is supposed to be 24” + lower floor framing/ceiling assembly height? Interior finishes, such as dropped ceilings should not be part of this calculation as they are not perceived from the outside. How does a sloped interior ceiling height get calculated? It’s really the facade height, parapet height, etc that should be controlled.
• Staff agrees and can work with the Consultant to update the standard to apply to the exterior façade height.

21. B4.2 - When a building side facade is on the property line or within 5' of it, how can this requirement be fulfilled? Windows are not allowed. Further, expensive accent materials, that can enhance a street side facade will be wasted money on a side no one can see. This will prohibit small amounts of high end exterior materials from being used at all. • This section refers to window types, not windows in general. The Commission directed staff to include a 360-degree architecture requirement.

22. B.4.3 - Almost all of the first listed architectural features are found in the previous section under B.4.1. These are redundant.
• Section B.4.1 includes four items that are listed under B.4.3 (awnings, belly bands, balconies, and material changes); however, B.4.1 only applies to buildings greater than two stories, while B.4.1 applies to buildings greater than one-story. Due to the requirements in Section B.4.1, buildings greater than two-stories will already have implemented some of the requirements in B.4.3. Section B.4.3 is to ensure that buildings greater than one-story also include façade variations.

23. B.4.3 - Who will determine if a particular architectural “solution”, aka decorative feature, will constitute points? Will one juliet balcony, or planter box mean the points are achieved? One chimney, one bay window? This points system lacks specificity and at the same time is entirely too specific about traditional style architectural features. Most of these features are entirely inappropriate on modern architecture. When we say "Bay Window", can we add in “or Box Window”, and “angled Box Window”? The term Bay Window is too specific/limiting. And what about the unfortunate designer that decides "hey maybe I’ll take one of each thing on the menu?" One bay window, one planter, one awning, one pilaster, one arcade - oh wait maybe two, one balcony, one trellis, one braced overhang, one corbel, one scoop with sprinkles, and why don’t you just throw in a 10” thick caramel flavored belly band just for fun”. Are we making an ice cream sundae here? In my absurd example, the Town would have no choice but to approve it as long they scored the minimum 16 points” To quote their own language: “ . . . by incorporating any combination of the following architectural solution to achieve a minimum of 16 points” with no mention of any cohesive design theme, scale, proportion, repetition, cadence, architectural nuance, color, materials, etc.
• Staff can either add greater specificity for certain items or remove this requirement. Staff looks for direction from the Planning Commission.

24. B.4.5 - This illustration should be stricken of the “Architectural Features” pilasters. Not Good • The illustration showing the column or “architectural feature” was a specific request from a previous Planning Commission hearing, but it could be removed.

5 25. B.4.6a - This requirement seems to conflict with the vertically continuously recessed entry option from section B.1.1c.
• This section requires recessed entries or covered entries. Additionally, Section B.1.1.C refers to the wall plane, not an awning projection. Staff can clarify that B.1.1.c applies to the wall plane.

26. B.4.6b - How about adding in another drawing that shows glass extending to the floor? Why say between 2 and 10 feet above the sidewalk? Why can’t the glass extend to the sidewalk? • Glass can extend down to the grade, but it wouldn’t count towards the 60 percent requirement between two and 10 feet.

27. B.4.10 - Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have a setback to roof top decks and balconies, rather than prohibiting them entirely from a building? The building could be very large and deep. What about a daylight plane?
• This change could be made if recommended by Planning Commission.

28. B.4.11 - Why can’t the balconies extend beyond the footprint if you can prove that views to residential uses are prevented?
• As previously discussed, this is included as one method for objectively reducing privacy impacts.

29. B.4.12 - Why is this even a section? Isn’t this all covered in great detail in the previous sections? • This standard was developed from Planning Commission Subcommittee direction to restrict long, unarticulated buildings fronting the street.

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A P P E A R A N C E S:

Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:

Melanie Hanssen, Chair
Jeffrey Barnett, Vice Chair
Kylie Clark
Kathryn Janoff
Steve Raspe
Reza Tavana
Emily Thomas
Town Manager: Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:

Joel Paulson
Town Attorney: Gabrielle Whelan
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 15

LOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 9/14/2022
Item #3, Draft Objective Standards
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P R O C E E D I N G S:

CHAIR HANSSEN: We can move on to the main item on
our agenda for this evening, which is Item 3, which is the continuance of our review of the Draft Objective Standards, I will ask Ms. Armer if you would like to make a Staff
Report or if one of the other Staff members would as well? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I will pass
that off to Mr. Safty to make the Staff Report.

RYAN SAFTY: Thank you. Before you tonight is the
continued review of the Draft Objective Standards
recommendation to the Town Council.

On June 22nd the Planning Commission reviewed the
first document and provided input to Staff on recommended modifications.

Following that meeting, Staff and our consultant,
M-Group, considered the direction from the Planning
Commission and prepared a revised draft document.

On August 24th the Planning Commission received
public comment on the revised draft, including input from the local architect community. The discussion was continued to tonight’s hearing to allow the architect community
additional time to provide written comments to be reviewed.

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The written comments from the architects are provided as Exhibit 16 with the Staff Report. Additional public
comments and Commissioner comments were also included with that report.

Staff prepared written responses to the
architects’ comments, which were included as Exhibit 19 of yesterday’s Addendum Report. The Addendum Report also
includes additional public comment provided as Exhibit 20.

Staff, along with our consultant, look forward to
the discussion this evening and are happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Do any Commissioners have
questions for Staff? I don’t see anyone with any questions.

We have a number of comments that we received
from one of our Board members from the Housing Element
Advisory Board, also from the Vice Chair, from Ms.

Quintana, and then also the response to the architects’ comments. Staff, you had some particular items that you wanted us to go over first?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I would
recommend that we do open the public hearing and hear
comments from the public, since there have been additional materials provided, and then we can go through.

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We have provided some Staff guidance and feedback
on the items that were provided by the architect community, and so if there are items there that the Commission wishes to include in their recommendation to Town Council we could go through those. We did number them in the attachment that includes Staff’s responses, plus we did call out a few
particular items in the Addendum Report in addition to what had been provided in your previous Staff Reports.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s a good suggestion.

This would be the verbal communications section for this particular item, and I’d like to find out if any members of the public would like to speak on this item, which is the Draft Objective Standards?
JENNIFER ARMER: If anyone would like to speak on
this item, we’d invite you to raise your hand now. We’ll give them just a moment just in case anyone does wish to speak. I am seeing a hand raised. All right, Ms. Quintana, you may speak. You have up to three minutes.

LEE QUINTANA: Thank you. I think there are some
items that I may not have read already, but in any case I’d like to speak on three different items that I did not cover in my initial submission for the Addendum, and that covers illustrations, private and common open space and
landscaping, and whether the one size fits all approach is

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appropriate. I’m just going to be very brief, and if you have any questions you can ask me, or I will submit
additional comments when I see the final draft that goes to the Council.

As far as illustration goes, I know that the
architects say they’re line drawings, however, the line drawings provided in the draft standards are at some points hard to understand by most people who aren’t architects or planners and they tend to appear to be favoring very boxy construction.

I understand the difficulty with photos, however,
this is my compromise suggestion: The City of Palo Alto has used line drawing, but the line drawings are limited to illustrating only the standard that’s being stated, not an entire building, so that it’s more neutral towards
architecture and mass and scale.

As far as photos go, I think they are really
helpful for the general public to understand, but I
understand the problem with them, so my suggestion is that maybe there be a page that just has a collage of various different buildings, not one for every standard, but a
group of buildings that Staff feels meets the intent of the standards. So that’s my comments on that.

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On the private and public open space, I’m a
little confused there. If landscaping doesn’t count for the common space and there is landscaping in that space, how does that work? I’m just confused.

Also, there seems to be a dichotomy of opinion
from the group of architects and the other architect who commented on the size of private open space as well as
common open space, and it seems to me that maybe they’re talking about two different things. I think the architects want more leeway to appeal to the high end of the housing market, and I think the other architect may be actually addressing his remarks to smaller units, which is the
intent of this whole process.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Ms. Quintana, Ms. Armer has her
hand up and I suspect it’s because your three minutes are up, but let me see if any Commissioners have questions for you. I do want to thank you on behalf of the Commission for submitting all the comments that you have already and
helping to participate in this process to move this
important item along. Do any Commissioners have questions for Ms. Quintana? I think some of the things you’re
bringing up are going to be discussed in any event, so we appreciate anything you’ve told us so far, and please
continue to send in your comments to us as well.

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Is there anyone else that would like to speak on
this item?
JENNIFER ARMER: If anyone else would like to
speak on this item, please raise your hand now. I don’t see any hands raised.

CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, so then I’m going to
close public comments, and this would be the time where the Commission will discuss the items that have been brought up so far as comments and try to get some resolution so that we can make our recommendation to Town Council.

I thought that it might be helpful to start with
the Staff packet. They did provide some items that they wanted us to discuss, and we did discuss some of these
before, but maybe we can close on them and hopefully use them as a recommendation to forward this document along.

I’m going by the Staff Report where they list
Staff direction from the Planning Commission on the
following, and the first one is a comprehensive standalone document. Staff’s recommendation was in the past, and
continues to be, instead of going through the massive
effort that it would take to take all of the Objective
Standards in every document that we have in town and put them in one, that instead to include a list of applicable documents, and so that’s what they would like to do. I

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wanted to see if any Commissioners had any thoughts or
comments on this. Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. To me the
Town Staff’s position seems eminently logical and I can’t think of a reason that we would want to attack it any
differently, so unless somebody feels differently I would recommend to Town Council to follow Staff’s recommendation on this issue.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for the input. Anyone
else have any thoughts on that? That was my feeling as
well, that we had talked about this before, and also in our preparatory meeting for this meeting we discussed it again, and it would be a very long and complex process to do that, especially with documents getting updated, so it’s probably best to have references to the other documents.

If no one has any objection to going in that
direction I’m going to say that we follow Staff’s
recommendation on that, and I don’t see anyone saying let’s not do that.

Item B is removal of the term “design” throughout
the document. The public comment requests that text
throughout be changed from “objective design standards” to “objective standards,” and no explanation was given. So

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Staff, I’m going to ask, does that mean that since there is no explanation you don’t have a recommendation?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. We would
recommend continuing with the document being named and
labeled as it currently is since we don’t have a reason to change and remove the word “design.”
CHAIR HANSSEN: I personally looked at this, and
without an explanation of why it would make a big
difference in the document, and knowing that it would be a lot of trouble to change it, my suggestion would be not to do that. Are there any Commissioners that have any
comments? So then I will assume that that one is okay with everyone.

Item C was decrease tree spacing. The public
comment requests that the spacing between trees within
parking lots be reduced. Right now the standard reads one tree between every ten consecutive parking stalls when
there are more than 15 parking stalls, and the public
comment requests to reduce the number of spaces below to ten, and Staff does not recommend this change. It was
included with consistency for the Town Code, which I assume to mean that we would need to amend the Town Code as well.

Are there any comments on this item?
Commissioner Raspe.

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COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I would
agree again with Staff on this one for a couple of reasons.

First being consistency throughout the Town documents, but also for the supplemental reason that I think we’re all aware that water is becoming a bigger issue in California as every day goes by, and so to the extent that we call for less planting of trees perhaps, and maybe that’s an issue that we should keep in our minds as we plan our town
forward, so keeping the spacing at ten feet rather than closer together I think makes sense for a variety of
reasons.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that comment. Any
other comments from Commissioners on this item? If there are no objections, I will just assume that we’re going to go with Staff’s recommendations.

Let me just stop and ask Staff, do you need us to
vote on these, or is it okay to go with consensus?
JENNIFER ARMER: No, consensus is fine in my
opinion, but I will defer to the Town Attorney if she
thinks otherwise.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: I agree, and then the
Commission’s decision will be reflected when you vote on making your recommendation to the Town Council.

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JENNIFER ARMER: And in particular, when the
recommendation is for a change that the Commission is not making, then that’s just fine; you’re just not going to make that additional change.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for the clarification.

We can move on to Item D, which is a format change for
B.4.3, and the comment requests that the format be changed so it is consistent with the rest of the document.

The Draft Objective Standards contain a menu of
options of architectural solutions to achieve 16 points. We discussed this at the Subcommittee level. Vice Chair
Barnett and I were on that Subcommittee and the Planning Commission previous discussion and it was received with support, but I believe the architects and maybe others
commented that it might be too confusing.

In the first submission from Staff they did take
some buildings in town and gave an example of how you can meet the 16-point standard. We should at least decide
whether or not to go to a different approach or leave it the way it is, and Staff let me just check that I am
characterizing this correctly in terms of the way you want input.

RYAN SAFTY: That is correct. Thank you for the
question. One thing to clarify: the architect community

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didn’t have concerns with the format of it; they had more concerns about the valuation and the different
architectural details listed within that list.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Then was it the public comment
that we got from someone else that said that the 16 point… JENNIFER ARMER: That is correct, yes. Then there
is further discussion of the 4.3 in what we numbered Item 22 where we respond to the architects’ comments.

CHAIR HANSSEN: We can come back to the
specificity of it when we discuss the architects’ comments then. The question on the table is whether or not we
abandon the 16-point system and try to go for something else, so I’d like to get comments on that, and keeping in mind that this was recommended previously by the
Subcommittee. Our previous discussion was that this was fine to move forward with, but if there is some new
information or something that people would like to bring up right now, let’s do that.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I’m comfortable
with the format and look forward to discussing the
architects’ concerns when we get to that portion of the agenda, but I think it’s a very helpful list, and the
illustrations that Staff provided were also very helpful,

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and if those are intended to be continued in the draft that goes forward, I think that’s a good approach.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. So if there are no
objections the proposal on the table is to leave the 16- point system as is, and then there might be the potential of modifying for clarity some of the actual things that are scored for points, and we’ll discuss that later.

Then we’re going to return to the discussion
about privacy that we had at the last meeting, and Vice Chair Barnett submitted some information from the Palo Alto Objective Standards that were included with our August 24th Addendum Report. The general consensus at the hearing was not to increase privacy standards, however, Vice Chair
Barnett did submit additional comments to express concerns that the standard remains subjective, and what it says is, “Balconies facing Residential uses and abutting parcels are allowed when the design is proven to prevent views to
Residential use,” and the issue is whether or not this
could really be an Objective Standard, because somebody would have to determine how it affected views to
Residential use and it’s not a use that everyone would
agree on.

I think this would be a good time to discuss this
and see if we can come up with a direction that’s

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comfortable for the Commission for a recommendation, and Vice Chair Barnett did submit some additional comments. He has his hand up, so why don’t you go ahead?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I think my
submission is clear, but I did think of one other
possibility for us to handle it, which is to have no
standard at all with respect to privacy from balconies as to adjacent residences and their lots, but submit that as a possibility for consideration. Otherwise, I think we have to not necessarily mirror what Palo Alto did, but follow something that is an impact objective. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. Vice Chair
Barnett recommended that the Town Attorney weigh in as to an opinion whether this particular standard is objective, and so I’d like to hear from the Town Attorney.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: I do agree with Vice Chair
Barnett’s comment. The State is interpreting the term
“Objective Standard” very, very narrowly. In my former
jurisdiction there was a requirement for step-backs, and the court held that it was not sufficiently objective
because the city didn’t specify how long the step-back was supposed to be, so yes, to the extent that we can put
numbers on it or talk about the angle of the balcony, or

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anything that will make it so that there’s no argument that it’s not an Objective Standard, I think that will make it more defensible.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I have a follow up, if I
may?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was looking at Vice Chair
Barnett’s recommendations and I thought if in fact what we have in the current draft is not considered to be
objective, as you state, then it seemed reasonable to me to include the first couple of his points that within 30 feet of residential windows, that’s a specific number, and then Item (i), so I thought those looked like reasonable things to include.

Then I thought the balance of the parenthetical
items below the first point were a matter of how Staff
would review the data to determine whether the standard had been met, so I didn’t think that was necessary to include in this document, but if the other Commissioners would like to keep this item in the Draft Objectives, I think it’s an important one to include. We have a lot of discussion
around balconies and visibility, so I personally would like to see it included, and I think Vice Chair Barnett’s
sentence that talks about the 30 feet, and then the first

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bullet underneath that, are reasonable to include as
specific objectives that are measurable.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. Thank you for that,
Commissioner Janoff. Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. In
reviewing this again, I agree with Vice Chair Barnett’s point—and I think Staff supports it—that as currently
drafted it interjects a level of subjectiveness into it, and so I think Commissioner Janoff suggested a reasonable solution.

As I was looking at it, I had a simpler one, and
again, maybe the Town Attorney can weigh in if it helps, but I think the problematic phrase seems to be, “The design is proven to prevent use.” If we maybe simplify that to say, “When the design prevents use,” doesn’t that suddenly become objective rather than subjective and solve the
problem, and maybe a simpler way to address the problem? I just throw it out for consideration by the Commission.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think it would be good for the
Town Attorney to weigh in on whether or not that would make it more objective.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: Given how the State and the
courts are interpreting the term “objective,” I would
recommend that the Town adopt something more specific than

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“prevents use,” because I do think an argument could be made that that’s in the eye of the beholder. Something
like, “is not visible from the balcony,” can’t be argued about, it is not visible; that is objective. A standard that there’s only one way to apply is what will work in the end. I hope that helps.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes, that helps. Commissioner
Tavana has a comment as well.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you, Chair. As I
mentioned at the previous meeting discussing this topic, I do think privacy is a very tricky subject, because I
believe it is inherently subjective in nature. I don’t
think you could put it on paper and say this is privacy, because to one person that’s not private and to another person that could be private.

I didn’t think of this possibility, but I do like
Vice Chair Barnett’s comment to maybe just remove the
section altogether. I think that would clarify it and it could be on a case-by-case basis moving forward just to keep it simple, because I do think when these projects do come up it will crop up and be a point of contention in the process.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, Commissioner
Tavana. Commissioner Thomas has a comment as well.

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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Chair. I agree
that it is really difficult to make an Objective Standard around privacy, because privacy is not inherently
objective. I agree with some of Commissioner Tavana’s
sentiment that it is not something that we can maybe make an Objective Standard to guarantee privacy, so therefore should we put one in?
I also recognize that people in the Town value
privacy, and I know that that is something that is
important, and I think that we have been making our best effort and I am willing to attempt to adopt something, but I think that even if we adopt something that is specific, like 30 feet, I guess that gives some sort of standard, but I do think that there are still going to be people that argue that that’s not private enough for them, and for me personally that is a major concern.

I know that in my short time here on the Planning
Commission we have had a lot of people come to us with a lot of things that are related to privacy and privacy
concerns, and that’s connected back to how safe people
feel, and I don't know if we can make an Objective Standard that the outcome will be that people feel that they have privacy and safety and feel safe because of that.

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I am interested to hear what other Commissioners
think, but at this point in time I’m not sure that we can come up with a standard that will be upheld in the courts and that can guarantee some level of what people will
accept as being privacy.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, Commissioner
Thomas. Our consultant, Mr. Ford, has his camera on, so I’m assuming that you are able to comment on this.

TOM FORD: Yes, thank you, Chair. I read Vice
Chair Barnett’s comments three weeks ago and I also read them this past weekend at the new submittal, and so I found it very interesting both times I went and looked at that specific Palo Alto ordinance. What I would recommend, and I did this and I think it showed up in the Staff Addendum, is to keep the standard B.4.1 but delete the sentence that has the potentially subjective clause in it, so you would
delete “balcony spacing existing” all the way through
“prevent views to residential use.” That’s what I would recommend.

Then if you wanted to still approach and look
into that Palo Alto ordinance, I found the little number 1 really confusing, trying to draw these different view
angles. One of them was at 45-degrees and one of them was parallel to the floor of the balcony, I thought that was

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really confusing. I even tried to draw it, and I went to architecture school, and I couldn’t figure out how to draw it in section.

However, little number 3 in that lists a very
specific set of materials that you could demand be put on the railing of a balcony, which because of the nature of the material, whether it’s opaque glass or perforated
metal, it would obstruct, or certainly defuse, views from the balcony outward, so that might be a potential solution you could consider and I just wanted to throw that in
there.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Let me just ask a clarifying
question before I go back to Commissioner Janoff. It sounds like you’re recommending that it could be more objective simply by two stages of your recommendation. One was to delete the sentence that was too subjective and keep the standard, and then there’s also the possibility of adopting part of Palo Alto’s that was objective enough.

TOM FORD: Correct, that’s part of what Vice
Chair Barnett recommended three weeks ago and again for this meeting tonight.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Got it. I’m going to go back to
Commissioner Janoff.

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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I like the compromise that
Mr. Ford is recommending, because I do think we want
something in here. If an architect says they can’t figure it out, then I suspect that that’s problematic, although if it’s in Palo Alto’s Objective Standards, then you would think that if it weren’t workable that they would have had feedback and made a change.

So if the Town Attorney recommends that the
suggestion that Mr. Ford made is sufficiently objective, then I would say fine, let’s leave it in. If we still need some numbers to support it, then the 30 feet is another number that’s pretty easily measured, at least from a
diagram of a proposed project, so looking forward to
hearing from the Town Attorney.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: What I would like to do is go
to B.4.11 in the draft, and if the Commission likes, they could go on to the next topic while I look at how that
standard would read without the last sentence.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I think the sentence
recommended for deletion is the middle sentence. I think we still want, “Balconies shall be without projections beyond the building footprint.”
ATTORNEY WHELAN: Okay, that is sufficiently
objective then.

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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, I think it’s the
middle sentence.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: Yes, that works.

JENNIFER ARMER: If I could jump in a moment, I
believe the reference to, “Balconies shall be without
projections beyond the building footprint” is meant to only apply to balconies facing existing Residential uses on
abutting parcels, and so it may be if you want to keep that meaning and have it not apply to the street-facing
balconies, then we would actually keep the first half of the second sentence and then keep the last sentence.

CHAIR HANSSEN: It sounds like we have a proposal
on the table, and so the fundamental question, we have some Commissioners on the side of wanting to delete this
entirely, because we could never reach the level of
objectiveness; but I’m hearing that we have kind of a
proposal that would take it to a better place, and so there are many other Commissioners that also want to keep this and try to improve it.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I just wanted to
comment on a portion of Commissioner Tavana’s comment. If we take this standard out, there won’t be a case-by-case to be able to be evaluated. This is going to be outside the

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realm of the Town being able to make a decision. This whole thing is intended for developers to just be able to boom, this is what we’ve got, so if we take balconies out, we don’t have any say on balconies going forward if the
developer meets the criteria that puts them into this set of Objective Standards, so I personally would recommend keeping this in so we have some Objective Standard to be able to have designers plan for, but I just wanted to make that comment.

If we think that any topic, whether it’s
balconies, windows, or anything, can be decided on a caseby-case basis when a developer is coming through this process, I think that’s not what’s going to happen, and Staff could correct me if I’m wrong, but I just wanted to make that point.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that.

I’m going to weigh in and say that I feel like we
should try to keep it. What I’m hearing is our consultant has some ideas about how to make this more objective. Our Town Attorney agrees that we can make it more objective with a few ideas, and so it may not be perfect, but I also agree with Commissioner Janoff that if we take it off the table completely, then we won’t have it, and so I think we should at least try to move forward and see if we can be

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successful with this, especially since we know how
important views are to so many of our residents with new construction.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I completely agree and I
think that removing the part that is subjective is good, and I do think that people care about this and balconies, so I’m happy with keeping it in.

I do, however, want to make sure that if we take
out the middle sentence we’re still clarifying that
balconies can’t project beyond building footprints, only the ones that are facing the existing Residential uses on abutting parcels, right? We don’t want it to say that we can’t have any projections beyond the building footprint? ATTORNEY WHELAN: I’ll jump in. If we take out
the middle sentence and it will say, “Balconies are allowed on facades facing the street and those facades facing
existing non-Residential uses on abutting parcels. Such balconies shall be without any projections beyond the
building footprint.”
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So we want to change that
“such balconies.” We want to specify that it’s the
abutting…the second…
ATTORNEY WHELAN: (Nods head yes.)

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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay. That’s what I just
wanted to clarify and make sure that that would be changed.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: Yes, that’s a good
clarification. So then it would say, “Balconies on facades facing existing non-Residential uses on abutting parcels shall be without any projections beyond the building
footprint.”
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, so the words we’re
actually taking out are “are allowed when,” blah, blah, blah, “such balconies.” So it’s just going to read
“abutting parcels shall be without.” Okay, cool. I’m happy with that.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I very much like Mr. Ford’s
suggestion that we look into the materials that might be opaque or somehow screening but not closed as the solution, and I think the next critical issue would be the height of the balcony railing together with them.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I am wondering if Staff or
maybe Mr. Ford knows, are there standards for how high or low the balcony railing has to be? I’m assuming that
there’s like a safety…

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JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. Building Code does have
requirements for how tall a balcony railing needs to be, but I don’t remember.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: And does it have a maximum
too for being able to get out, or no?
JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Commissioner Thomas. I
think what Ms. Armer was mentioning was there is a minimum.

Depending on what floor it’s on it could be a fire issue if that is an egress or if they have to get a ladder to it. I don't know that we have that specificity now, but there is definitely a minimum, and we can look into whether or not there’s a maximum if this is something the Commission is interested in moving forward as part of their
recommendation, and we’ll get together with the building official and look into that prior to going to Town Council.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Just as a quick checkpoint, I’m
not sure where Commissioner Tavana is at the moment;
because he said basically take it out. Are there others that would object to keeping this in if we can improve it and make it more objective? Okay, so I think we should
start with that. Then we have the suggestion from Mr. Ford, and Vice Chair Barnett concurred with that, and the Town Attorney had weighed in as well, so it sounds to me like we should take the range of suggestions that have been

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submitted and see what is going to be the most objective that we can stay with in this document.

I don't know if what I said makes sense, but as
far as moving forward I think we have a number of
suggestions that we can use to make it more objective, so I would ask Staff, do you need specific direction on what to look into from here, or can you take the collective input that we have so far?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Safty,
would you like to take this first?
RYAN SAFTY: We’ll see if we were about to say
the same thing. I was going to say I do think we have
enough information to move forward. We can work with the Town’s consultant and come up with some sort of additional screening requirement on those balconies.

CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, I think that sounds
like a good resolution, and I think that the majority of the Commission feels that this is worth pursuing but I
think most everyone agrees it needs to be more objective, so I think that’s a good way to move forward.

Then I will go on to Item 4, which is pictures.

Ms. Quintana did refer to the pictures, and also Housing Element Board Member Mayer submitted a comment as well on the subject. The current Draft Objective Standards contain

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design illustrations to demonstrate the intent of the draft standards. The general consensus at our last meeting on August 24th was to include pictures of existing development within the document for real world examples for some of the complicated design techniques to make it more userfriendly, and Staff is looking forward to additional discussion or recommendation from the Planning Commission.

We did hear from Ms. Quintana tonight a
suggestion to do something similar to what Staff did in our first Staff Report, which is to give examples of buildings and whether or not they would meet our standards.

I’d like to see what Commissioners think about
the picture issue and where to go with it. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Thank you, Chair Hanssen. I
would like to say that I know that we said that this
document is for the public and the public is going to be looking at it, so everyone needs to be able to understand it, but I think that ultimately the people that are going to be using this document the most are going to be
architects, and so I was glad that we got the public
comment from Mr. Mayer, because I do think that the line drawings are more helpful and offer more of a blank slate with regard to creativity and aren’t as prescriptive, but I

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am curious to see if Staff thinks that they are able to find examples where enough of the standards are met.

My other compromise would be when we had
examples. Maybe there could be examples at the end saying like here is an existing building, here are the points that they meant, and actually have a visual picture, and that might be like of a real building and include actual photos there instead of throughout the entire document, and have it be labeled a little bit in that way. I’m curious to see what other people think about that.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, Commissioner
Thomas. Commissioner Janoff has her hand up.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I was an
advocate of including illustrations, not necessarily
throughout but just in general, but having heard from the architects, the group of architects didn’t say much except what they did in the initial set of comments last meeting where they didn’t like the line drawings, but given the remarks from Mr. Mayer, I think it’s a good point.

I do agree with Commissioner Thomas. This really
is a document that’s for the design team and the architects more than it is a homeowner; it’s not the Residential
Design Guidelines, for instance.

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Having said that, a question for Staff. I’m in
favor of keeping the line drawings as is, and maybe not including illustrations throughout. But in our last draft Section B, that includes the evaluation of existing
developments, and my question is, is that intended to be included as part of the design standards for illustration, or is that just for the Planning Commission?
RYAN SAFTY: Thank you for the question. That was
initially intended just for the Planning Commission. There were Commissioners that had specific questions on if these could actually be implemented in the real world, so those were examples on how they could. That being said, we’re happy to do whatever the Planning Commission recommends.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I ask because it was a nice
small compilation of some reasonably well designed
buildings in town, and so I think it’s a reasonable thing to include. It sort of satisfies both itches. It gives you some illustrations of how structures are meeting the
requirements, but it doesn’t muddy up the document Section A, so I would be in favor of including B for illustrative purposes, and keeping line drawings in the balance of the section.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. My thinking
on this after reading all the comments and hearing the

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additional feedback, although I think that the target
market for this is architects that are going to be
designing these buildings, I also think that our public is a very close watchdog on a lot of these projects, and since they’re going to be some of the bigger ones, I think just for the benefit of public transparency it wouldn’t be a bad idea to include some generalized pictures as discussed, versus one on every standard, for the benefit of the people in the public that might happen to go look at this document and are like what is the Town doing to make sure that we’re taken care of? And it would probably be more illustrative to them to have photos, and I would just keep it fairly general, as we were discussing.

So that’s what my thoughts are on it, but I’d
like to hear what others think as well. Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I think
I’m of the view largely in accord with Commissioner Janoff in that it’s my sense, and the architects who opined, that the line drawings should be the primary reference tool in the document, but I see that there is some added benefit to the public and maybe for some clarifying in having pictures as you indicate, Chair.

So the notion of having the line drawings the
predominant feature throughout the document, and perhaps an

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appendix or closing section that has some prominent
approved features that the Town has signed off on in the past, and then perhaps some language somewhere in the
document—because we wouldn’t want to muddy the waters—that essentially says the line drawings are the rule and that the photos are there for illustrative purpose only, and it wouldn’t overrule or somehow overwrite our other written rules. Something along those lines I think maybe satisfies both camps.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that makes a lot of
sense. Other comments? Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I support Commissioner
Raspe’s idea, but I wanted to bounce off the Town Attorney whether she thinks that inserting photos in the Objective Standards would create a problem, because the photos are not in and of themselves objective?
ATTORNEY WHELAN: No, I don’t think that would
pose a problem, because the photos are intended to depict what is described in the wording, so I think that would be fine.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I like the comments by
Commissioner Janoff and Commissioner Raspe, and I think we should proceed in that way and only use photos as a

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generalized thing and be very clear that the line drawings are the Objective Standard.

Any other thoughts or comments, or any objections
to going in that direction? Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I would just like some
clarification from Commissioners Janoff and Raspe about—I know Commissioner Raspe said this—do you feel like this is an appendix at the end, because that’s how I feel it should be, like given as different examples. If you need further details on what this looks like in real life, go to this appendix at the end. Is that what you’re thinking,
Commissioner Janoff?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, essentially we’ve got
that section which reads as an appendix now as
illustrations of how the standards have been met, and I think the clarifying language that Commissioner Raspe is suggesting is a good idea to include just to note that
these are examples and they may or may not meet other
criteria, so we don’t confuse anyone in saying these must be followed this way, but I agree that this could serve as a type of appendix that Commissioner Raspe is recommending.

CHAIR HANSSEN: If that answers your question,
Commissioner Thomas, are you good with the proposal? All right, so I think we’re good to move off of this. That was

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the generalized questions that were in the Staff Report, so I was going to go to the Addendum, because the Staff did comment on Housing Element Advisory Board Member Mayer’s comments as well as the architects’ comments.

I’m pulling up the Addendum right now, and there
were ten items that Staff wanted the Planning Commission to discuss further, and I just want to ask a clarifying
question of Staff that you responded to, and I know you worked very hard on your response.

You responded to everything, and a lot of the
things that were in the architects’ document were in fact questions that needed clarification as opposed to
recommended changes, so I’m assuming that as long as we answer the question that you had, like Comment 9, 10, 11, 12 and so on, those are the things that you wanted us to have further discussion, and then we could ask the
Commission if they felt like the rest of your answers or suggestions about whether to do or not do were good, and maybe do that as a group, or do you want us to discuss all of them?
RYAN SAFTY: Thank you for the question. Yes,
that’s exactly how we intended this to be. If we could go through, give recommendations on the individual comments in the Addendum Report, and then if there was something in the

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items that weren’t covered in the Addendum where Staff felt pretty confident about that any of the Planning
Commissioners disagree with, please let us know.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds good. I’m going to go
by Comment 9, and just to refresh everyone’s memory, it relates to the continuous streetscape requirement in
A.11.1, which requires development in a Community Growth District to place at least 75% of the ground floor within 5’ of street-facing property lines. The comment was about whether or not it applies to only the building or the
entire length of the property line, and the draft standard is currently were it to apply only to the proposed
buildings. I’m assuming that the discussion that Staff
wants us to have is whether that is what we intended?
RYAN SAFTY: Exactly
JENNIFER ARMER: Or if additional clarification
is needed.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, since people were asking
the question. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m sorry, can you repeat
which section of the draft it is so I can scroll up to it? CHAIR HANSSEN: A.11.1.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: I know Commissioner Janoff and I
were on the General Plan Committee, and you were as well, Commissioner Thomas. I think this got started during the discussion of the Community Growth Districts that we had and wanting to not have the parking lot in front and the building behind, which is kind of the old version of how we do these kind of developments, and we wanted to basically bring the street forward to the buildings in place and
stuff, so I guess the question would be whether there’s a reason to do something else besides the building, or if there is something else to consider?
Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: My thought on this is that
the last sentence of the draft standard is currently worded only applies to the proposed buildings. I think that’s how it should be written. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I don't know how you would do it
any other way, because what they’re asking to do is build a building, so I think that’s probably the clearest, most objective thing that we can do. Any other thoughts? I think as long as it’s clear that it applies to the proposed
building we can leave it to Staff whether or not you think

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that we should make the language clearer in the standard, but that is clearly the intent.

Comment 10 questions why Section A.11.2 has a
maximum percentage for site amenities in front of the front façade. The maximum percentage was originally included to ensure visibility to the ground floor uses, however, in the case of restaurant uses it might be overly restrictive, and so the standard could be modified to include a minimum but no maximum. So it sounds like that might be the proposal, which is to take away the maximum.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Agreed. I thought that was
an excellent point.

CHAIR HANSSEN: It made sense to me as well.

Other comments on Comment 10? I’m going to assume that
since there are no other comments that we all agree.

Comment 12 questions how the arcade in B.1.1d and
the recessed building entry B.1.1c standards could be
incorporated into the same building. The Planning
Commission could consider removing the full height of the façade requirement from B.1.1c or removing the arcade
option from B.1.1d in its entirety to remedy his concern.

Any thoughts?
Vice Chair Barnett.

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VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I’m interested in whether
the Staff had a position on this, but to me it seems like the full length of the façade is a standard that we don’t want to lose.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Staff, do you have a comment?
RYAN SAFTY: Yes, certainly. Thank you. Staff’s
initial recommendation was that it does seem like that
would be the cleanest resolution, and that way we’re still holding onto the arcade standard.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, so that sounds like the
easiest way to go, and Vice Chair Barnett has made that recommendation. Other Commissioners have any other thoughts on that? The proposal is to remove the language “full
height of the façade” from B.1.1c to solve the problem.

Sounds like we’re good to go.

Comment 13, also related to the arcade action in
B.1.1d, states that longer buildings would look monotonous with the continuous arcade. The arcade option could either be removed or a limit to the required arcade length could be added. That’s on Comment 13.

Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you, Chair. In
general I think a limit would make the most sense to me. I

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don't know what that limit would be necessarily, but I
don’t think we should remove it altogether.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that, and I’m
pretty darned sure when we were on the Subcommittee we
spent lots and lots of time on how to make sure that we didn’t have big blank walls of buildings that were without architectural detail, so that is why there are so many of these things in the document right now.

Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I agree
with Commissioner Tavana. I think we should retain the
arcade design feature, and I don’t have a specific figure in mind either. It seems to me though that the notion
should be that the arcade should predominate the front, it should be the predominant design feature, and so I’ll just throw out as a point for discussion, perhaps it should
cover 75% of the frontage, or some percentage greater than 50%, so it becomes the predominant design feature of the building.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that input. We have
a comment from Mr. Safty.

RYAN SAFTY: Thank you. Sorry for interjecting. I
just wanted to point out that the architects did provide specific numbers for that if the Commission is struggling

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to come up with exactly how to define that; there was a recommendation made by the architects.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Could you tell it to us, just
because there are so many documents in play?
RYAN SAFTY: Of course. The suggestion was when
over 80’ or 100’ long a two-third arcade approach could apply, so if we want to go with clean numbers, over 100’, then two-thirds of that façade needs to have arcades.

CHAIR HANSSEN: And if it were less than 80’ to
100’, what would it be then?
RYAN SAFTY: If it were less, then it would be a
continuous arcade.

CHAIR HANSSEN: It would be continuous across the
entire versus not the whole thing, but two-thirds. Okay.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was going to point to the
same recommendation from the architects, but I wonder, Mr.

Safty, why we would go with the upper number of 100’ when an 80’ long building might read pretty long and the
architects put that range in there. I’m just thinking over 80’ might be better than over 100’, but I would defer to Staff and the architects. This is really a design
aesthetic, so I would choose one number, but whatever you think is the better design number.

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RYAN SAFTY: Thank you. I actually would defer to
Mr. Ford, our consultant, since he is more familiar with these. I just happen to choose the cleaner number as an example.

CHAIR HANSSEN: And Mr. Ford has his camera on,
so please go ahead.

TOM FORD: Thank you, Chair. I’m also thinking of
specifically the Los Gatos context and maybe the typical frontage link that you’ll be seeing, so I would go with the smaller number of 80’, or maybe even less, and put that for the parameter where you make a jump.

Therefore, if a frontage is longer than 80’, then
two-thirds of that frontage needs to have an arcade in
order to qualify for this point system, and if it’s less than 80’ you might consider something less than 100’ but more than two-thirds, because I think if you look at the architects’ full submittal they discuss the arcade quite a bit and how imposing it upon the whole frontage could tend to be kind of cumbersome, so I think we could come up with one standard for less than 80’ and a different percentage for over 80’.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Neither of which would be 100’?
TOM FORD: That’s what I’m suggesting, but you
may disagree with me.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: No, I just wanted to make sure I
understood your suggestion. Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you. In general I do
think that any continuous arcade would be monotonous
inherently. Maybe we could adopt a two-thirds approach
across the board, because if it’s 50’, 60’, whatever, I still think it would be monotonous, so I think two-thirds in general, no matter how long it may be, would be a good approach to consider.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Other
thoughts on this? Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Do we have any buildings
with arcades in town? I can’t think of one. Staff, do we have any examples? I’m thinking, to Commissioner Tavana’s point, that that’s an interesting concept, but if it’s a very small building, if it’s only 40’-50’ wide, then having an arcade not across the entirety of it might look odd.

I think this is really something that I
personally would defer to the architects on a team and go with that. But if there’s an example in town that shows like a truncated arcade across the front of the building, I’d like to know if we have one.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to go back to Mr. Ford,
and then to Commissioner Thomas.

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TOM FORD: Thank you, and following on what
Commissioner Janoff is talking about, it could be that you don’t actually see this try to be implemented that often, because if you think of an infill situation, putting an arcade on front of a building arcade on front of a
building, it’s really going to be impacted by what is on either side, because it’s basically an interior sidewalk, so what’s the point of having an interior sidewalk if you run into the wall at the adjacent building?
Arcades tend to happen in a situation where it’s
more of a comprehensive development, the way the town
developed, let’s say, Old Sacramento, New Orleans, things like that, so I don’t think you’re going to be seeing it that often, but I think by keeping the amount of the façade that’s covered by the arcade it will help with the infill situation if it is implemented.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: The two examples that I can
think of are one, the King’s Court Shopping Center. Isn’t there an arcade across in front of the bank and all of
that, and part of that area? It’s not architecturally
beautiful, but that’s an arcade. And then two, the post office downtown.

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But I do agree that it would be helpful to put a
maximum in just because these are Objective Standards, but I also agree that we’re not the experts to decide that, so I’m very happy to defer to Staff to talk to our consultants and go with whatever maximum visually makes sense,
especially because this is probably not going to be
utilized very often, like Mr. Ford just said.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to say that it sounds
reasonable to have a standard, as recommended by the
consultants, to have less of the façade if it’s of a
certain distance, and then more of the façade in terms of percentage if it’s less than a certain distance.

I completely agree with the other Commissioners
that we’re not in a position as Planning Commissioners to really be able to judge that the best way, so I would like to maybe give direction to Staff that let’s go down the path of having different standards for different lengths, but keep it simple and have the number assigned to it and take the input of the architect community to come up with the right number. Does that sound reasonable? All right, so let’s do that.

Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: My understanding is that
we’re trying to finalize this Objective Standards tonight,

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so my idea would be to refer this issue to the Council with any input that might be provided by Staff after the
meeting.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Right. Maybe my suggestion was
not clear enough, but it was that we would go ahead with that approach and that the number would be filled in
somewhere in the near future by Staff with input from
people that have more expertise, so I think we’re going to keep it with that.

Then we can go on to Comment 14, which is
requesting an additional section be added to deal with
corner lots, and although is does not currently exist, this could be developed in the future, and I think what Staff was saying in a nice way is it would be a lot of trouble to add that in, and since we’re so far behind schedule that that might be a nice add-on at a later point, but it could hold up the document. Am I characterizing that correctly, Staff?
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, that’s correct.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So Commissioners, are there
thoughts about whether or not it’s important to have that in this version of the document? Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thanks, Chair. I agree with
Staff. At some point I would like to see this incorporated

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into the document, but given where we are in the process, let’s proceed without it for now.

As an additional note, I think corner lot
developments are probably going to be the minority of
developments we see. It will be largely more infill type projects, and so it probably is going to be the least
impactful section, so let’s proceed without it for now, but with a notation that we’d like to see it developed on the next round if possible.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good, thank you for that.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I agree. There is a
specific bullet point from the architects that say we
should have a section on corners, but it struck me that it was a follow-on to the previous bullet where they were
going on about what happens if this and that and the other and then now that we’re talking about corners, let’s go there, so I didn’t get the sense that that was the same level of importance, and so I would agree, let’s stay the course on what we have, and if it looks like we need more specificity on corners, if things are going crazy on all of these great developments that are going to come our way, then take another look at making something more specific then.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good, thank you for that. So
I think we’re going to go with that recommendation that we should try to add that in a future version of the document, but not hold up the progress of this document.

The next one is Comments 18 and 19 that are
related to the belly band option in B.4.1d. Based on the reasoning provided, Commissioners can consider removing this option, because there are multiple documents out
there, and maybe not everyone has them all up at the same time, that wanted us to remove the belly bank option
entirely, or I thought I saw something there about reducing the size of it. Can you maybe give us some clarification about what specifically the architects were looking for? RYAN SAFTY: Certainly. The first one, Comment
18, basically is belly bands don’t always work, especially not a continuous belly band, especially if you have popouts, recesses, pilasters, and what not.

The second, Comment 19, was specifically about
the width or the height of the belly band, pointing out that we require ten and Palo Alto requires four.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So that’s about that from the
Commission. Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I would remove it.

CHAIR HANSSEN: The B.4.1d?

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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes, I agree. I don’t find
the belly band a particularly effective device for breaking up a façade, and going to a smaller belly band seems to me to even exacerbate the problem, so I would agree, I would (inaudible).

CHAIR HANSSEN: Any other thoughts, or a
different direction? Otherwise, we are going to recommend removing it. Sounds like we are agreed.

So then we can move on to Comment 23, which
questions how B.4.3 would be applied. For example, if a single bay window would be sufficient to qualify for the points listed. Staff can either add greater specificity for certain items, or remove this requirement, and they are looking for direction from the Planning Commission.

Commissioner Janoff, and then Vice Chair Barnett.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: This was an interesting
comment. I can’t imagine an architect coming forward with a mish-mash of balconies and no balconies. That just seemed to me to be taking the point a little bit too far, but if Staff has a way to insert language that talks about the—I can’t remember the exact term—integrity of design or
something, which is completely not objective, so that won’t

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work, but if there is some language that could be inserted that would clarify what they’re talking about in terms of a whole bunch of different elements just to rack up points, I’m not sure how that could be done, but what they propose could happen sort of like gaming the point system. I guess it could happen, but how do we make sure it doesn’t?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Ford, could you comment on
that? You helped us develop this thing, and I think you’ve had experience with other jurisdictions. What are your
thoughts on this particular issue?
TOM FORD: Thank you, Chair. If the Commission
prefers to keep this B.4.3 I think it’s possible to go in and add greater specificity. I read the architects’
comments and I thought that’s interesting, somebody put one Juliet balcony, so therefore they get the points. I don't know if anyone has packet page 225, you see page B.4.3, each of those lines would probably get longer, because we would add some specificity, and I wouldn’t say Juliets on 100% of the windows. Let the designer have a little bit of flexibility and maybe pull out a massing piece, so you
might say Juliets applied to 40% of the fenestration, or 60% or something, and you might say one chimney is enough, and you might say a certain number of balconies. So I think

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we can provide greater specificity if you want to keep
B.4.3.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think we already discussed that
we wanted to keep B.4.3, but we have several Commissioners with their hands up. Vice Chair Barnett, and then
Commissioner Tavana, and then Commissioner Clark.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, Chair. I share
exactly Mr. Ford’s thinking. I think that the architects may have overstated the possibility and made it a
ridiculous hypothesis, but nevertheless there’s a lot of room for clarification that I think should be made before this is sent to the Council, or in the process of
submitting it to the Council that we have further
specification. Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you. I agree with
Vice Chair Barnett in the sense that any specificity could help, but in the examples given there was a single bay
window, but in the Objective Standards—I don't know if this matters or not—it clearly states bay windows, not just one, so it is plural and a lot of these are plural, and that would alleviate some of the issues, but adding specificity definitely would help.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Sorry I haven’t
been participating more. I’m very under the weather, but I’ve been appreciating all of the comments and I promised I would say something if I disagreed with any decisions that were being made.

For this one I definitely agree that I want to
see it kept in, and I think having the minimum of 16 points needed would hopefully keep people from going too crazy, like gaming it and trying to add as many features as
possible and stuff, but I do think that it would be a
problem if someone decided to get their points using like the three point ones or something, because it would become pretty clunky, so I agree first that we need more
specificity.

Then I was thinking, I don't know if there’s a
way to say get at least this many points from these ones or something, like making sure that they use at least one of the eight point ones or something, but we might want to do something like that just to make sure that nobody just uses all of the three pointers and gets some really clunky
looking design.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Great. I think that’s a good
suggestion. Staff, I think what I’m hearing is that more

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specificity would be good, that we like the system, and just to maybe try to put a little bit more specificity in to help avoid gaming the system. I think Commissioner Clark had an idea about maybe you have to use some of this versus a bunch of the lower point things, or something like that.

Is that enough for you guys to go on?
RYAN SAFTY: I believe so. I’ll defer to Mr.

Ford, since you’re going to be the one helping us with
this.

TOM FORD: Yes, that’s great input.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay, great. Comment 24 suggests
that the illustration of pilasters should be removed. The illustration was a specific request from a previous
hearing, but it could be removed.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: There are two different
figures that include pilasters, and I think the
illustration that is being objected to is 4.5, which is on page 26 of 29, and I agree that pilasters in this
particular example would be highly unlikely, so it seems to be a highly unlikely design element to have in there, and it doesn’t particularly illustrate the change in materials concept that this item is speaking to, so I think in this

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case I would be in favor of removing the pilasters in this particular illustration.

But on page 16 of 29, whichever section that is,
there’s an illustration that includes them on that line drawing, and those should be kept, so just to clarify which drawing we’re talking about.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for bringing that up.

So there are two illustrations and you’re saying keep the one and not the other. That sounds like a very good
recommendation. Other comments from Commissioners? Mr.

Ford.

TOM FORD: Thank you. Also, just so you’re not
surprised later by taking out the pilasters from Figure B.4.5, I think we will also help you by making an edit to the text of Standard 4.5, “Changes in building materials shall occur at inside corners.” I think what we’ll do is we’ll delete the reference in the text standard about
architectural features. I think that’s what led us astray on this issue.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So it sounds like this problem is
solved. The last one that we were asked for input on was Comment 27 suggesting that rather than prohibiting rooftop and upper floor terraces and decks that they could be
allowed, given certain controls.

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Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I strongly agree with this
recommendation. It seems like we might want to be using rooftops of these buildings for gathering spaces. It’s done all over, including having green rooftops or green gardens or green space, or that could be the common space. It could be used really creatively and beautifully, so I would
recommend looking at this one to change it and include that as a potential feature perhaps.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s great. Commissioner
Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree Commissioner with
Janoff’s comments, and I also thought that rooftops are an opportunity to create additional green space, especially since green space can sometimes be lost when going to
higher density housing, and I know that’s something we
don’t want to do for the Town.

I think that the intent of this is to ensure
privacy, and I think there are ways that we can still make sure that there is privacy on rooftops, even if they are accessible to people and used as part of the built space, and I think that it’s a good opportunity, so I’m supportive of it too.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Great. Vice Chair Barnett.

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VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I’ve seen rooftop spaces be
used for social gatherings and barbeques and whatnot, and I think it’s an excellent amenity for people in high-rise developments that don’t have a lot of space to meet; they can have parties out there and whatnot.

I’ve also seen it used as private deck space for
the owners who are adjacent. This is a little unusual, but there was a parapet wall and there were units that faced the roof, and they were able to divide it into exclusive use areas, so I think in short the idea of setbacks for privacy makes sense, but also the utility of using the
space is important to retain in the Objective Standards.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Great. I think that’s a good
suggestion. Any other comments on this? It sounds like we should definitely keep this, and there were some
suggestions of how to make it clearer and have more
control. Anything else you need from us on this particular one, Staff? Ms. Armer.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I would
suggest if the Planning Commission has any direction on particular things, for example, setback from the edge of the building, that you would support as those additional privacy controls that that discussion would be helpful in

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guiding Staff in drafting something to take to Town
Council.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Got it. Looks like we have a
couple hands up. Commissioner Janoff.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. The architects
did recommend a setback, and they also talk about a
daylight plane. I don't know what the daylight plane might be. I haven’t heard that term, so I don’t know what that is, but presumably it’s some sort of a sight line, but they do offer the concept of setback and I think there should be a setback, unless somehow it’s a completely green space right at the edge where you could plant the setback, but I would make sure that the gathering space for individuals would be inside a setback.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Sounds good. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree. I feel like
hopefully we can find a standard setback that exists
somewhere else that we know is appropriate. I also am happy to say—I think this is still objective—but it either needs to be a setback or there needs to be some sort of
screening. Like one setback if you can see out, and another setback if you can’t see out, because I feel like the
setback is only necessary for the privacy or for safety purposes, but if there is some sort of screening, I don't

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know what is considered a rooftop, if there’s a specific wall, but I’m assuming it’s the top of the building that’s open to the sky, so I’m curious to know what Commissioners think of that.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Other comments? Commissioner
Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: I also thought about
screening, and my concern with that is depending on the design and style. Unless the screening is also set back it can add to the massing of the building, especially if it’s going to be a 6’ barrier, for instance. We’re adding 6’ of height to our building, so unless it’s set back
significantly from the existing frontage of the building or it’s somehow distinguished in material, my concern would be that adding a lot of shielding would overly complicate
things.

That being said, I fully support a rooftop
situation and I think setback is probably the preferred method of doing it, with maybe a secondary lower shielding if that’s the only solution possible.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that’s a good suggestion
as well. Staff, what more can we do to help on this?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I think based
on the direction that we’ve heard from the Commission this

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evening we will develop a recommendation for a setback from the edge of the roof for buildings that abut Single-Family zoning districts on the side of the building that abuts them, and provide that as a recommendation on your behalf to Town Council.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds good. Vice Chair
Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, thank you. In Item 27
in the architects’ comments when the Staff responds to the architects they say, “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have a setback to rooftop decks and balconies?” and I
wasn’t sure what rooftop balconies would be. Maybe that could be clarified or removed.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Is that in the document now? No,
that’s in the comments for the architects, right?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: You’re correct; it’s in the
comments from the architects.

JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, when we’re
looking at 4.10 it references rooftop and upper floor
terraces and decks, so not balconies.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So then we have the information
we need in terms of controls, because we don’t have a
conflict basically because a rooftop balcony would be kind of strange. Are we good on Comment 27? Okay.

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I’ll just continue to go through the Addendum,
which was very helpful, by the way, Staff, that you went through all the comments and gave us some feedback on that, and it helps make our discussion more efficient.

You also brought out your comments on the
submission from Mr. Mayer from the Housing Element Board, and who is also an architect, and I don’t think we need to discuss the first one he brought up about real world photo examples, because we already discussed that earlier.

But he did have some other specific suggestions,
one of which was that the parking structure entry gate
setback be reduced to under 25’, and he did go into detail about with a dense kind of building trying to create a 25’ setback would be an awfully big ask for them to do that.

Staff, you want us to comment about whether we should
include that or not? You didn’t recommend one way or the other.

JENNIFER ARMER: I’ll start, and then Mr. Safty
may have something to add. With any of these where a change is being recommended we called out if we had a significant concern, but would be looking to see if the Commission
supports making the change. In this case we do want to have some setback so that we avoid queuing in the street, and often the gate for a parking garage is actually set back

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farther within the building façade, so it doesn’t mean that the front wall of the building needs to be set back. Mr.

Safty, did you have anything else add on that one?
RYAN SAFTY: You basically said what I was about
to. The one thing I would add is the only thing we do have in the Town Code right now is it requires 18’ from any sort of vehicle gate to the edge of the street, so if the
Planning Commission does want to reduce below 25’ I would recommend ensuring that we still do have the 18’.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So that we don’t just remove the
requirement entirely. Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I would
argue against removing this section. I think it is
important for pedestrian safety to avoid a situation where we have queuing. It seems to me that ideally maybe what you want is whatever the length of two cars is, because
essentially that’s going to be a most common scenario, I think, where you would run into problems, so if that’s 18’, that’s 18’, if it’s 20’, it’s 20’. I don't know what that number is, but it seems to me whatever the length of two average cars would be is probably be adequate for our
purposes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Janoff, and Commissioner Thomas.

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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. I agree we
shouldn’t remove this section amended to be much less than 25’. I would go back to the architects and ask what much less looks like. It may be that the 18’ is also untenable.

I don't know, so I would say keep it, but see if you can get some input from the architects specifically regarding these kinds of structures.

CHAIR HANSSEN: You mean in addition to Mr.

Mayer?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes. Well, go back to Mr.

Mayer. He’s making the comment and he’s asking for a
significant reduction, and he seems to be speaking from experience. We could guess at this number, we could go with the 18’, but that might still not be workable, so my
suggestion is to go back to the architects and see if we can find something, keeping in mind that what we’re trying to do is keep these things objective, but also we want
these buildings to be built, so if we put too many
constraints that makes just breaking ground not workable, then we’ve sort of killed something from the outset, so I’d look to get some input from the experts on this one.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds reasonable, and what
I’m hearing loud and clear though is that we don’t want to

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remove this, but let’s see what Commissioner Thomas has to say.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that we do not want
to remove this for the safety concerns, but however I do want to ensure that we are highly, highly encouraging below ground parking, because we know that that is a huge
priority for us to achieve some of our higher density
projects that we want. I know that it also makes it more expensive for developers, but I think that we need to make sure that we’re not putting a number on here that is not possible.

When we say a minimum of 25’ between the gate and
the back of the sidewalk, we are saying the length? It’s not like a bird’s eye view, right? It’s the length of the actual driveway has to be 25’ so that could curve or turn, correct, Staff?
JENNIFER ARMER: (Nods head yes.)
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay. I do know there are
gates that exist like this out here; most parking garages with below ground parking have the gate below… I don't
know, I guess my question is 25’ doesn’t seem that
unreasonable to me, but obviously I’m not an architect, but if I’m thinking about like how far is the distance if we were to put a gate at the bottom of some of the park… I

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guess all of our below ground parking in town doesn’t have a top, I don't know. I was trying to think of in downtown.

We want to encourage below ground parking, so we need to make sure that the number that is chosen is specific, so its objective, but it also ensures that we can still get a lot of below ground parking.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So what I’m hearing is we want to
keep this requirement in here, but we don’t feel like we have enough expertise to specify. I did hear from Staff that we have already a requirement for 18’, so can Staff check with some of the architects to see if this really is a big problem and that that would necessitate it being less than even 18’, because I don’t think that any of us have enough (inaudible) of experience with this particular
requirement. Is that enough direction?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. Yes, I think
we can proceed with that. In order to give the Planning Commission a little more context, our current standard for parking, if you have a two-car garage you’re going to be required to do 20’x20’ clear on the inside, so that’s 20’ deep for each of the two cars. If you’re looking at the distance from the face of a garage, even if the required building setback is less, then we require the 18’, but in many cases the front setback that governs the distance to a

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garage is actually 25’, so this isn’t inconsistent with a lot of the other circumstances where you have enough space for a car to park in the front of a garage and not be
overlapping with the sidewalk.

CHAIR HANSSEN: And also it was my understanding
when we were going through this whole process as the
Subcommittee before the document was drafted that our
consultant’s had substantial experience working with many jurisdictions on this stuff, so we were relying pretty
heavily on them to work with our Staff to come up with the right numbers for this step, so I guess what I’m hearing is it’s probably worth checking with some people, but we don’t want to wholesale remove things that were recommended.

Mr. Ford.

TOM FORD: Thank you. Yes, you’re correct. We can
look into this further.

CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, great. So let’s go on.

The next one was similar. It was about vehicular entry
gates, and there’s a 6’ height limit for those, and he
wanted those to be increased, because he was talking about parking situations and that it wasn’t going to be high
enough.

Commissioner Janoff.

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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you. He makes a good
point, but I think we can correct the concept by inserting, “Vehicular entry gates and pedestrian entry gates located in perimeter fencing shall have a maximum of 6’.” I think that’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about entrances that are in a building face, right?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Right.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: It’s in the fencing or in
some sort of perimeter barrier.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds reasonable.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I certainly wouldn’t want
to increase it to 8’ across the board, because then you wind up with 8’ fences at the perimeter, right? So I think that would solve the problem.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I like that suggestion. Any other
thoughts on this one? All right, let’s see, we don’t have too much more to go through.

Their public comment question whether landscapers
can count toward landscaping requirements in Standard
A.10.1a and whether 20% is too high, 20% being that 20% of the total square footage has to be landscaped and whether or not landscapers could count for that, because it might be too much.

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Commissioner Janoff, and then Commissioner
Thomas.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I think based on our
previous conversation we should allow landscaped rooftops to be counted, but not everybody is going to do a
landscaped roof, so if that 20% still seems high then there should be an if/then term included so it will be such-andsuch a percent unless there’s a rooftop and the rooftop can count toward that percent, but yes, I think that that
number…
And maybe it should be arranged that the
following point has to do with how large balconies or
common space or community recreation space are, and there’s a recommendation that it would be a certain size for a
certain size building, and a certain size for certain other size buildings, so I think maybe this is another one where there could be a range if the landscaped space at 20% seems onerous, but definitely count rooftop.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I know his concern was that the
landscaping requirement being that high could defer HighDensity housing.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that we should
definitely count landscaped roofs toward the 20%, so I

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think that should be added. I also know that people value green space in town and are afraid of really High-Density housing, so I can see maybe why this 20% was initially
chosen as the number, but I’m happy to hear what other
cities have decided to do, because I’m open to reducing.

CHAIR HANSSEN: You started going in the
direction that I wanted to make sure we reminded ourselves of, that this document is intended to comply with certain laws that have been handed down by the State of California and that it’s separate and aside from the discretionary approval process that we already have, and so there’s
always the possibility where they bring in a project and they want to take advantage of the streamlined processing procedure and they decide that it doesn’t work for them they can still go through the discretionary process that we have. This is just to take advantage of the streamlined process.

I know that when we heard the North Forty and the
North Forty Specific Plan had a 30% open space requirement and 20% had to be green—I think the numbers might be wrong, off by that—but that was a big deal for everyone, and they did find a way to meet it, and so I think we’d have to
think long and hard about taking that off the table,
because we’re basically taking away the discretionary

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approval process with this document and we want to make sure that it turns out the way that we’re hoping for.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I just wanted to make a
clarification that the landscaped rooftop could count
toward the 20% as long as it’s accessible by all residents.

It can’t be like a private rooftop garden for the
penthouses, right?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Yes.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: So make sure that that’s
also included.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Maybe I didn’t read this thing
right, but I thought that the landscaper thing was kind of like the lesser of the two issues, that 20% was the issue and that it might be too high and prevent High-Density
housing, but I think we’ve already heard from a couple of Commissioners that we know that our residents are really concerned about that, so I think it would be a hard ask to take it down below 20%.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I guess I do have a
clarification, but I do agree that this should be
accessible to everyone, but the current way it’s written,

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is landscaped area considered like all 20% of that has to be accessible to all residents?
CHAIR HANSSEN: Question for Staff.

RYAN SAFTY: Give me one second just to triple
check.

JOEL PAULSON: I can go ahead and jump in.

Commissioner Janoff’s comments, I think, were specific to the rooftop deck and that the residents of that community had access to that, not just the penthouses, for instance, so it’s an amenity for those folks, not an amenity for the entire public, so it’s just for that specific site, and it’s not specified in there, so that’s something that we’ll look at adding specificity.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Because it just says right
now, “A minimum of 20% of the site area shall be
landscaped,” but that doesn’t have to be that whole 20%.

The way it’s written right now it does not have to be
accessible to everyone, because this is like a completely separate thing from the 60% of the community space shall be open to the sky, etc.? I’m just trying to interpret the rule.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Safty, you had your hand up.

I’m going to ask you before I go back to the other
Commissioners.

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RYAN SAFTY: Thank you, I’ll try to take a stab
at answering that. Just a reminder, all of those three
areas, the landscaped area, community open space, and
recreation open space, they’re all calculated separately.

Previously there was mentioned about using, let’s say, a rooftop deck towards the landscaping requirement, and,
let’s say, a community open space requirement. As the
document is written right now, you would not be able to use them both. Landscaping is really just intended to add
greenery to the site; that’s how it was drafted.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Ms. Armer.

JENNIFER ARMER: I wanted to add the suggestion
that under Key Terms at the beginning of the document we have a definition of landscaping, and so considering if there are details that should be added to that definition of landscaping is probably where this would be, whether landscaping could potentially include a rooftop deck if accessible to all residents, or similar language.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That makes a lot of sense, and
I’m glad Commissioner Janoff brought that up, because not that super High-Density housing could have penthouses, but you wouldn’t want it to be private, because that kind of defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to accomplish.

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Let’s see, several Commissioners have their hands
up. Commissioner Janoff, and then Vice Chair Barnett, and then Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Just a quick clarification.

The 20% doesn’t need to be contiguous land, right? They can count pockets and so on, right? My comment about
residential access to a rooftop would be like let’s make sure if that’s the only 20% set aside that everybody has access to it, but if it’s in fact in addition to a bunch of other little pockets, then it counts as an aggregate, if that’s clear?
RYAN SAFTY: Yes, the landscaped areas can be in
multiple different locations, for example, shrubbery along a walkway. The point I want to clarify one more time, the idea of a rooftop deck with landscaping, let’s say Camino Garden, the would count towards the community recreation space, which then would not count towards landscaping
unless we removed the term saying that they are calculated mutually exclusive from each other.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Through the Chair, if we
could just think about that a little bit more critically as you go through in your mind how those might be in conflict, when we could create some really beautiful community space that is partially land… Just think about whether that is

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asking too much, and I’d say depending upon the design, and of course that’s subjective, it should count as the same.

It shouldn’t be counted separately.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Do other Commissioners have
thoughts? Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, thank you, Chair. Ms.

Armer brought up the landscaping definition under Key
Terms, and I’m happy with the 20%, but I am concerned about landscaping as it’s described in the Key Terms because of the drought situation and the need to conserve water, and it seems to primarily, if not exclusively, require
greenery, so I think that’s something that we ought to look at as part of the whole picture.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Thomas, and then
Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that we do need to
be conscious about the water use, and I also think that we need some clarification and need to rethink the differences between the landscaped private recreation space and
community recreation space. I do think that if something qualifies separately as landscaped and it also could serve as a community recreation space, for example, a communal garden, I would be happy with that being able to be counted in both spaces.

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I think that being able to double dip in that
area is going to provide for more creativity from an
architecture standpoint and more creativity with the use of space, so I’m happy with that being able to be double
dipped, and then I think that also allows for more
flexibility with respect to the 20% doesn’t just have to be like green for looking at, it could be usable space also, which I think is the more important part, and also like drought… It can just be more usable space that we benefit more from then just like existing, so I do think that that is a change that we should definitely consider.

I also don’t think that the way that we have it
written right now, landscaped space all needs to be
publicly accessible, but again, if it’s counting as both community recreation space and landscaped space, then it should be, if that makes sense.

My last thing is that if a rooftop is going to be
used either for community recreation space, or I guess as landscape space, if we’re counting at 20% minimum, I guess my question is right now it says 20% of the site area. The rooftop basically should be like free bonus area? It
shouldn’t be considered in the total area, it’s not
additional area, if that makes sense? I don't know how we consider that though then in the 20%, because we’re not

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mandating that anyone put anything on the rooftop. Do other people understand how we could create conflict? No, okay.

So if we are requiring a minimum 20% of the site
that should be landscaped, and then we say you can use the rooftop for that, we need to decide if we are counting then does the rooftop count to the total area that we are
considering? Like is it our denominator, or not? I think it should be not ever included in the denominator; it’s just like an optional bonus area that you could use and utilize.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Ms. Armer, and then Commissioner
Janoff.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. Just to help with the
clarification of what Commissioner Thomas was trying to describe, I think one question is when we talk about 20% of the site area, whether that is being understood as the open parts of the site versus the site area as a whole before it’s been developed. So if you’re saying 20% of the site area, then that is of the entire property before it is
developed, and so some of that 20% could be on the roof.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My assumption is that the
20% is of the whole site before anything is built, right? Then build your building as large or as small you can, and you’ve got 20% remaining on the ground, and then take that

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amount and apply that to the roof instead. So you
(inaudible) can make a bigger building and use your
rooftop, but it is the whole site and then the developer gets to decide whether they’re going to keep ground-level green space community or whatever, or rooftop, or a
combination.

CHAIR HANSSEN: There are a lot of people that
aren’t happy with the North Forty, but I particularly did like the open space requirement in the North Forty Specific Plan, and so my thoughts were that I wouldn’t want all that stuff to be counted separately. I kind of like the North Forty Specific Plan, because it had the idea that you had a number of different ways to get at open space and then it was up to the creativity of those, and then there was a minimum for green open space, so you knew there would be some of that, it wouldn’t just all be hardscape pathways or things like that.

Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you, Chair. My
concern would be just seeing hardscape, as a person walking by the property, being developed if we were to count the 20% save for the landscaped roof, so I would like to see it as written, 20% of the area shall be landscaped with the

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roof not counting toward total percentage, my personal
opinion.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m trying to decide where we are
on this one. There is a lot of really good input.

Mr. Ford, and then I’ll go to Commissioner
Janoff.

TOM FORD: Thank you. You could do something
where you still have the 20% of the site needs to be
landscaping, and then allow a certain percentage of the community recreation space to contribute to that, because if someone has a really nice roof deck they’ve probably built a larger footprint to do that, so you wouldn’t want to penalize them by saying you still have to have your 20% site coverage of landscaping. You might want to allow them to use some of that community recreation space up on the roof towards their landscaping requirement.

Back to an earlier—I think Vice Chair Barnett
might have mentioned this—we can put lawn farther down the list, but also whether someone comes in a discretionary process or a ministerial process, they’re still going to have to meet C-3 requirements for water use and how their irrigation plan is using water, so there are certain
requirements that they’re going to… They can’t just put in a lawn over 20% of the site and water it, so that’s already

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going to be restricted and that’s going to lead them
towards native plantings, drought tolerant plantings and such for that 20% landscaping.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you, and I think Mr.

Ford’s suggestion in an excellent one. It speaks to being able to count the rooftop as quality space for residents without completely losing some form of landscaping or
greenery to Commissioner Tavana’s point, so whatever
percentage that might be, I would say Staff can figure that out, but at least retain a portion of green space at
pedestrian level.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you. Yes, I do really
appreciate Mr. Ford’s comment, so if I were to throw a
percentage out there, I would say no more than 5% to be counted towards the 20% if they do have a living or a
rooftop landscaped.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that is a good idea to
put out there, and so I’m going to ask Staff if you have enough to go on with this.

Commissioner Thomas.

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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I would like to add,
because I know that I made multiple comments and we went really in on one of them, but I just wanted to also see if we agreed that we should be able to double count, like
overlap landscape space with community recreation space, because I think that those can be counted in the same way, and Staff, you can clarify if that would create too much confusion.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I had the same question, but that
made a lot of sense to me and that’s where I was going with my comments.

RYAN SAFTY: Thank you, that was actually
something I was just thinking about as well. It would make perfect sense, for example, if they put in a grassed
volleyball court, why not be able to count that both
towards landscaping and community recreation space? Mr.

Ford, I don’t see an issue with that in terms of drafting the standards, but I’ll defer to you if you see any red flags.

TOM FORD: Yes, thank you. As Commissioner Thomas
was saying that I was putting on my devil’s advocate hat, and I think you just want to be careful. Most architects and landscape architects have a really hard job making that number meet when they’re trying to do their site plan, so a

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lot of the landscaping tends to look really beautiful, but it’s 10 square feet there and 20 square feet here and 100 square feet there, so you have to make sure that if you’re going to double count it that it’s actually usable as a community recreation space. So again, it might be a maximum percentage or something that could be double counted, but I’d be care to allow all of landscaping to be counted,
because it may not be usable in the sense of a recreation space.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So, Commissioner Thomas, given
what he just said, does that change how you feel about it? COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, I think that I do
agree that we want to be careful. We don’t want this
community recreation space to be like a little tiny couple of square feet here and there. I don't know if this is too specific as far as Objective Standards go, or if we can be specific enough, but maybe the space has to be designated for a specific use, like a volleyball court, or a play
area, or a barbequing picnic site, or community garden, something that I would assume that a Planned Development would have a specific use for. I don't know if that’s legal or allowed or we can write that into Objective Standards, but that would be a way that I would see a way around the issue of just divving into that everywhere.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Safty, and then Mr. Ford.

RYAN SAFTY: Thank you. I’d like just to chime
in. We actually are covered on that already. In Section

8.10.1c there is a requirement, the minimum dimensions of community recreation space, and that’s each individual
community recreation space used to come up with a total has to be 10’x6’, so there’s not going to be little pockets that people are using towards that.

Additionally, there are allowances for
landscaping within the community recreation space, so based on the suggestions I’m hearing I do think that it would be a fairly simple fix for Staff.

CHAIR HANSSEN: To combine those? Yes. You are
dovetailing into the last comment that you called out from him, which was the size of the community recreation space to be reduced or based on the overall size of the property.

But I’ll go to Mr. Ford.

TOM FORD: Thank you. I was just going to follow
on Mr. Safty in responding to Commissioner Thomas. In order to stay objective I would try to stay away from a laundry list of what qualifies as community recreation space and instead try to stick with a metric of a minimum percentage, maximum percentage, something like that that is just easy for the developer to put on their drawing and it’s easy for

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the Staff member to verify when they see it and just stay with the metric, if possible.

CHAIR HANSSEN: To that point, I’m going to ask
the question, because that’s the other comment that we have to discuss from this. The 60 square feet was “huge,” I
think was the word that was used in the comment, if you’re talking about certain size properties, so is it better to do a percent or, say something like 10’x6’?
Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that the comment
was about the private space, and we were just discussing the community recreation space.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Fair enough. But I think even
with that he was just saying what we had in there was too high.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, for that next part, it
was, yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: But we should close on the
landscaping. What I heard though is that because we already have protections in there about it being large enough that we could go down the path of combining the community
recreation space and landscaping in terms of meeting the overall requirement. Yes? Okay, all right, good.

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I think I heard that most of the Commissioners
think that’s okay and we just don’t want too high of a
percentage of a landscaped roof per Commissioner Tavana’s comment to be considered meeting that requirement.

But Commissioner Janoff still has another
comment.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Is this horse dead yet? Mr.

Mayer raises a couple of other good points and they’re
related to the private balcony as well as the con space having to do with it being a percentage. He doesn’t say this, but it may make sense to do a percentage or a minimum for certain sizes or certain size of a community.

As I say often, they’re the experts in this area
and we want living space, we want recreational space, we want landscaping space that makes sense, but if a 6’x10’ is a gigantic balcony for a Multi-Family unit, then let’s
listen to the architects and bring it down, but maybe we’re bringing it down only for the smaller units he says, on the community space just flipping back and forth. Maybe we want a different standard for a small building unit, say 10-12 units versus one that has 20 or more units, so I think sort of a sliding scale makes sense, and whether that’s
different sizes or different percentages, I would leave it up to Staff and Mr. Ford to come up with those numbers, but

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I think there’s some reasonability in having something
that’s differently sized depending upon the size of the overall project.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Sounds good. Commissioner Thomas,
and then Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’ll let Commissioner Raspe
go first, because I agree with Commissioner Janoff’s
comments and my question is to do with something else.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Okay. Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Thank you, Chair. I just
wanted to follow up on Commissioner Janoff’s point, and specifically on the size of projects and the notion of
community recreation space.

I know during our discussions during the General
Plan we put a lot of emphasis on missing middle housing, and it seems to me that those are precisely the type of project where if we force a large either percentage or
square footage requirement of community space we’re going to lose the opportunity to put adequate housing in those spaces, so I would encourage Staff to come up with a
minimum number of units before a threshold community space requirement is implemented. I don't know if it’s 24 units, I don't know what that number is. Again, as Commissioner Janoff has indicated several times now, you guys are the

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experts and we’ll look to you, but I think that notion
makes sense to me.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I would like some
clarification, because I thought Commissioner Janoff was just talking about… Are you talking fully about community recreation space, or were you specifically talking about the private recreation space?
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I was speaking to both.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: To both, okay.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: When the architect says
6’x10’ is a gigantic balcony for a Multi-Family unit, you kind of want to listen to that.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, but then I just heard
Commissioner Raspe mentioning more about community
recreation space, not necessarily the private recreation space. I understand that you’re raising issues with both, but I just wanted clarification on that.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: My thinking was, through
the Chair, that if we had a notion of smaller for smaller and larger for larger in both private and community
recreation space, that makes sense to me. But what those percentages or square footages might be, I’m not even going

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to go there, but I think it may make sense to have two
different numbers.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I like your suggestion of a
sliding scale, because I think that when you have higher density properties you’re not going to have the luxury of this much space, but you want to make sure there’s a
minimum, but that minimum might not be the same one that you have for a single-family home of course.

I don't know if Staff is comfortable going with
that kind of feedback, because I don’t think we have the ability to put numbers out there for this right now. And how much trouble would it be to have a sliding scale?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I’ll start by
saying just a reminder that this really is going to be
applying to larger developments, not so much the missing middle developments. In most cases it really is going to be people who are coming in under one of those special state laws, and so we do, as Mr. Ford has mentioned, want to try to keep these straightforward and not too complicated.

We can look at reducing or modifying some of
these numbers if that is the will of the Planning
Commission. We’ve started with these particular
requirements, for example, the private recreation space.

That is based on what we currently have in Town Code, but,

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for example, for some of these larger developments, or if it was different sized units or more units, if the
Commission felt that having a different threshold based on one of those criteria, I think we could look into it.

I might check in with Mr. Ford to see if he had
additional questions or clarification that might help us in that endeavor.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Ford.

TOM FORD: Thank you, Chair. No, I don’t. I would
take my lead from you folks partly because I’m willing to come up with new numbers, but you guys are the folks that are going to have to be willing to update your Zoning Code, because as I understand it, I think your Zoning Ordinance is already pretty clear about the minimum size of a
balcony, so I don’t have a problem with changing that.

But also, if you have a two-bedroom unit in an
eight-unit building, or two-bedroom unit in a 30-unit
building, what’s the difference? Shouldn’t it be the same balcony? It’s a two-bedroom unit. So I don't know if the controlling metric would be the development size, the unit count, or as the architects pointed out in their letter, a studio might have a certain size of balcony, a one-bedroom might have a certain size. I don’t want to create Zoning

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Code work for the Town Staff have to go back and have to back pedal, but I’m perfectly willing to look at it.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Gosh, there are a lot of ways you
can look at this. It could be that our Zoning Code is not thinking about Multi-Family, but on the other hand going in and modifying the Zoning Code is going to be a whole other process, and we do have that situation where this is for specific kinds of projects, so with that in mind hopefully we can come up with a resolution.

Several Commissioners have comments. Commissioner
Thomas, Commissioner Janoff, and Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree with Mr. Ford that
it should be based on the square footage of the unit versus the number of overall units with regard to a sliding scale.

If we do that I completely defer to Staff about updating our Zoning Code.

My last comment is really a question, through the
Chair if it’s allowed, to Commissioner Tavana. I’m just wondering about your feeling about recreation space. Is it the same with regard to the landscape space or do you feel like recreation space, all of it, could be on the rooftop if it’s allowed, if it’s community space for everyone?
CHAIR HANSSEN: You know what? Even though
Commissioner Janoff had her hand up, I’ll go to

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Commissioner Tavana just so he can answer your question, and if he has an additional comment, and then I’ll go back to Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Thank you, Chair. To answer
your question, Commissioner Thomas, no, I personally think it should be separated for a variety of reasons, but just on this space I don’t see them being the same. I see
landscaping as landscaping, and I do see recreation space being separated, so that’s my personal point of view.

I want to just chime in here. With all due
respect, I disagree with Mr. Mayer and his approach to his comments and the section for the private recreation space and the community recreation space. I have no issue with the way it’s currently proposed in the Draft Objective
Standards, and I’d be willing to support it tonight if
that’s the direction we want to go.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Sounds good. Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I think someone made a
comment earlier that most of the Town Code is really
written around residential or low-slung buildings of one or maybe two stories, so we’re talking about a whole different category of structure than we’re used to planning around, so I wanted to make a couple of comments.

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When we talk about private recreation space, in
my mind there’s a difference between ground level
recreation space and balcony recreation space, and there could be a different size standard for those.

Number two, regarding a different size balcony
for different sized units, if you think about what that would look like on the outside looking at the building, I think you’d be disappointed when you had a whole bunch of tiny little balconies for your small units and then bigger balconies. It could look visually confusing if you do it that way, so I don't know that that’s the best approach.

When you look at buildings that are multi-story, the
balconies are all pretty much the same size. That’s just the way it looks when you’re looking at the building, and I would let the architects define that, but give a minimum, and maybe 6’x10’ is too large, maybe it’s smaller; I don't know what that number is.

Then the same thing for community recreation.

We’ve been thinking pretty conventionally about ground
level gathering spaces, and so these concepts of using the rooftop and other areas, it could be big, it could be much larger than 200 square feet if we’re going to the rooftops.

I think the architects have given us a lot to
think about, but given all our comments I think we have to

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think about making two different kinds of standards. We don’t say in here that this is limited to structures that are proposed to be 20 units or more, we don’t say that this doesn’t apply to a missing middle situation, so if we do intend to have different standards for different types, then we should probably define those.

I know that that’s more work than Staff might
want, but the recreational space, the landscape space, the community gathering space, those are really important
features, but they’re hard to get in if you don’t have the space and you’re trying to create as many units as
possible. It’s really kind of a tough problem, but again, thinking about what we can do to encourage architects and developers to make those possible without too many
encumbrances, and keeping the green space for landscaping, and counting the private space differently.

There might also be something in here. I hate to
complicate things further, but if a development is within X number of feet or miles, a half mile, of a community park, an established park, maybe you can count or deduct some of your community recreation space if you are next to a park.

There could be some creative ways to make this work for developers as well as the community that they’re building for.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: I’m going to be the devil’s
advocate though and say that I don’t want to load up Staff or our consultants with too many things. This is important, but on the other hand, my understanding, and we had this discussion with Staff in our pre-meeting, is because the architects came right out with this only applies to these kinds of projects and not the kind that we do, and that was verified to be the case in talking with Staff that this is for specific projects that come under specific laws from the State of California, I would be a little bit reluctant to start to make it more complicated. Maybe the one thing that might be worth pursuing is deciding if the balcony size of 10’x6’ is too much, but I think it would be a
slippery slope towards finishing this thing to add in a lot of complexity.

I’ll go back to you, Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I agree, and I do agree
with Commissioner Tavana. If it were to remain as written I would personally be comfortable with it, but I’d also
suggest just an easy check might be the Palo Alto code Vice Chair Barnett has referred many times. Just do a quick
check of communities that are building multi-story or
multi-residential units, look and see what their standards are and choose that number, and if it’s 6’x10’, yay, we got

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it right, and if it’s smaller or a minimum or a percentage, maybe that’s a better way to go. But I’m sure that there are specific numbers, and I’m not suggesting we make a
research project out of this, but get a reasonable number that other municipalities are using. Santa Clara is
building a ton of high-rise buildings. I’m not saying
they’re all beautiful, but they probably have a minimum balcony standard, for instance, or a minimum private space.

Just see what they have, and if it’s the same as what we have, leave ours as is.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that sounds like a good
thing, so maybe just a sanity check to make sure that we’re not overstepping this thing based on having our standards built around single-family homes.

Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I need some
clarification. This is on page 209 of the package where it talks about the size of the private open space. So we know that the deck dimension is 10’x6’, but then it goes down to subparagraph (ii) and it says that, “The above dwelling units above the ground floor shall have 120 square feet,” so I’m not sure how to compare the 120 and the 160, and I know I’m missing something here.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Can you take that one, Staff?

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JENNIFER ARMER: Sure, thank you. There are
minimum dimensions trying to make sure that the size of the balcony is a usable space rather than, say, something that is only 2’ deep and really long. Then you have the overall size, so if you’re on the ground floor, as Commissioner Janoff was suggesting, it is a 200 square foot size
requirement, whereas if it’s above it’s a different
requirement, it’s only 120 square feet, but that 120 square feet needs to be laid out in a way that you have at least a 10’x6’ dimension. It will be bigger than that because
that’s only 60 of the 120 square feet. Did that help to clarify? You’ve got a certain amount of area that’s
required, and then also the dimensions need to be at least 10’x6’ so that it is a usable space.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Does that answer your question,
Vice Chair Barnett?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, thank you for the
clarification.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thanks for bringing us to
this particular page, Vice Chair Barnett. Maybe this is where the problem lies, because an above ground unit with a, let’s say, 10’x12’ square foot balcony is huge, and
maybe that should be the 6’x10’ rather than 120 square

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feet. I’m thinking about what a 6’x10’ balcony, or a 120 square foot balcony, might look like. That’s huge. That’s really, really big for a balcony, even though you’re only required to have 10’x6’.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That’s as big as a lot of
people’s bedrooms in their homes.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes, so maybe what we
should do is reduce that 120 square feet and just restate the 6’x10’, or just say 60 square feet. I like the
dimensions because, you’re right, Ms. Armer, you wouldn’t want it 2’x20’ long. Well, then you’re looking like a
really fat belly band, so that wouldn’t work. But yes, I think that could be part of the problem.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Mr. Ford has his hand up.

TOM FORD: Another way to look at that and how
(ii) is, basically what you’re seeing there is there are two balconies, so a unit has two balconies. Maybe it has one that’s off the living room and one that’s off one of the bedrooms; that’s a potential way to do it too. You
don’t have to have one big, huge balcony; you could have two, so long as each of them is a minimum size.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Director Paulson.

JOEL PAULSON: Thank you, Chair. Obviously we’re
hearing a lot of good conversation around a number of

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topics. I think ultimately what you heard from the
architects was the 200 square feet for a ground floor might be too big, and so you have this dimension versus square foot conversation that could be addressed, as Mr. Ford
mentioned, in a number of different ways. We can look at other opportunities for how that is expressed in the
Objective Standards and come up with two or three different options for the Council to consider should this move
forward today.

In addition to that, there’s been a lot of
conversation around community space and landscape space.

Can one count for both? Are they exclusive? Should we
exclude rooftop decks? I think we can kind of get our arms around all those varied topics and see if we can come up with some other options for consideration, whether that’s, again, additional consideration from the Commission or
additional consideration from the Town Council, in addition to reaching out to both architects groups that we heard from, as well the HEAB member who is also an architect, to get their further input on what they’ve heard tonight,
because I know at least two of them are in the audience, so they’ve been hearing a lot of this conversation as well, and so they will probably have additional thoughts once this moves forward to Council.

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CHAIR HANSSEN: I think what I’m hearing, and I’m
going to give this direction to the Planning Commission, is that we don’t want to continue this again. From our last meeting, we have been working on this for well over a year.

We needed to have this thing done months and months ago and we don’t, and so I’m reluctant to do anything where the Staff would have to come back to us.

On the devil’s advocate side of that, we don’t
want to dump a pile of stuff on our Town Council either, because they expect us to ferret the stuff out and make a good recommendation to them.

But I do think that it would make sense to at
least have a sanity check on the size of the balconies
relative to other jurisdiction’s standards to make sure that we’re on target, or check with the architects, because I think the Commission doesn’t have the right number for you. That’s got to come from architects and others.

Does that sound like a way we can go forward?
Because what I heard is there are a couple of things we may need to look into, or think we gave some feedback on the comments.

Ms. Armer.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you, Chair. I just was
going to take what you were saying and clarify how it would

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likely be presented to Town Council to show that it isn’t just leaving it up to them, but that it would be providing the language that is there as well as the different issues that were considered and discussed by the Planning
Commission as important topics for consideration by the Town Council. I think it could be presented to them in a way that this was identified as an issue that the Planning Commission recommended they consider closely with several options based on other examples or additional feedback from the architect community.

CHAIR HANSSEN: That sounds okay with me. How
does the rest of the Commission feel? Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: I would put an addition to
Ms. Armer’s comments, and that is before it’s presented to Council that the Staff and consultants be involved in this process of producing other alternatives for recommendations so that the same discussion doesn’t occur at the Council level.

CHAIR HANSSEN: So that we’re not like spinning
our wheels. Let’s go ahead and move on.

Staff had a comment on Exhibit 20, which was
relative to the other public comments, and it says the
public comment in Exhibit 20 also expresses support with the information provided in Exhibits 16, 17, and 18, and

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additional suggestions through the Purpose and
Applicability section. The bottom line is Staff is
supportive of these recommendations and can incorporate them when forwarding the revised document to Town Council.

I did look at the additional comments and I
thought that they were reasonable, and since I’m hearing Staff thinks it’s okay I feel like we don’t need to go
through those comments specifically, but let me throw it out if any Commissioners want to discuss any of the other public comments, and I’m going to come back to the
architects’ comments after this question.

Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I’m very comfortable with
following Staff’s recommendations for this set of concerns.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Good. I feel the same way. All
right.

On the architects’ comments, they had quite a
number of comments, and later on in the Addendum Staff did go through every single one of those comments and gave
feedback. As mentioned earlier, a lot of the architects’ comments were in fact questions asking for clarification from the document. Staff answered all of those questions.

There were also some recommendations they made that they didn’t feel like they needed specific feedback from the

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Planning Commission, so my suggestion would be that unless any Commissioners have any objection to that approach that we just adopt Staff’s recommendation and say that yes,
you’ve answered the questions and any of those minor
changes that they didn’t need our feedback on, we don’t need to discuss them.

But I want to put it out for Commissioners if
there’s anything else in the Addendum that Staff commented on relative to the architects’ comments since we did
continue this meeting primarily because of their input. Is there anything else that the Commissioners feel that we need to discuss? Good, I’m not hearing that. And like I said, I read through everything that Staff wrote and I
thought it was fine, but I want to make sure that we had a chance to comment.

But it is almost 10:00 o'clock, so I wanted to
see if we couldn’t wrap this up soon.

The only other comments were the additional ones
that came from Ms. Quintana tonight in public comments, but I think most of the stuff she covered were things that
we’ve been talking about tonight, so if that’s the case, then can I get a motion from a Commissioner to recommend the Draft Objective Standards to Town Council with all of the changes and recommendations we’ve made tonight?

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25 Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: I move to forward the Draft
Objective Standards to Town Council given the additions and changes that the Planning Commission has recommended to Staff this evening.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Sounds good. Is there a second?
Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I second the motion.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Very good. I think we had a very
good discussion and I wanted to make a special point of saying that I appreciate all the great comments and
feedback that have come from every member of this
Commission.

I will go ahead and call the question, and I’ll
start with Commissioner Tavana.

COMMISSIONER TAVANA: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Raspe.

COMMISSIONER RASPE: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Janoff.

COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes.

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25 CHAIR HANSSEN: Vice Chair Barnett.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes, but I thought Ms.

Quintana had a good point about the organization section where it said, “The following objective design standards are organized,” and I think we’re dealing with more than design standards. I think she has a good point on that.

It’s just a suggestion from me, otherwise I do agree with the proposed motion.

CHAIR HANSSEN: I think that Staff said that they
concurred with her comments on that front and that’s part of our recommendation. Did I miss something? That was what was in Exhibit 20, and Staff said we’re supportive of these recommendations and can incorporate them when forwarding the revised document to Town Council. So to me I thought that was included.

VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you.

CHAIR HANSSEN: All right, so you’re a Yes then?
VICE CHAIR BARNETT: Yes.

CHAIR HANSSEN: And I vote yes as well, so it
passes unanimously, and I will ask Staff for clarification.

There are no appeal rights for this issue, because it’s a recommendation?
JENNIFER ARMER: That is correct.

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25 CHAIR HANSSEN: So thank you everyone for the
great discussion on this item.
(END)

Hi Planning Staff,
Thanks for the thoughtful discussion this evening with the Planning Commission. I caught most of the discussion about my comments and just wanted to make a few subsequent comments on the Commission discussion
First of all, my intent was not to hold up the process or create more work for you guys. I think underlying most of my comments below is a concern that the Site Standards of the Draft Objective Standards seem to be written as geared toward larger multi-family and mixed-use developments (like the North 40 or some of the sites on Los Gatos Boulevard that are in the Housing Element Site Inventory) and could potentially hinder smaller infill and "missing middle" type of multi-family housing.

This runs the risk of Los Gatos having a "barbell" distribution of housing types in the future - either detached single-family houses or apartment/condo units in large (20+ units) multi-family developments and nothing in-between.

With that said, see my comments based on the Planning Commission discussion below in red On Wed, Sep 7, 2022 at 11:53 PM Adam Mayer < > wrote:

Hello Los Gatos Planning Staff,
This is Adam Mayer, local architect and current member of the Housing Element Advisory Board.

I just wanted to make a few comments piggybacking on the issues brought up by the group of architects represented by Ms. Bess Wiersema at the last Planning Commission meeting. Although I am not part of that group, I too have some overlapping concerns about the Objective Standards as they are currently drafted.

Generally I agree with the intent of the Objective Standards and think that the State is doing the right thing by trying to streamline housing development. The potential downside, as was noted by the group of architects in the previous meeting, is that these standards could end up stifling the architect's creativity by being overly prescriptive, resulting in mediocre cookie-cutter design.

To be sure, this is a delicate balance to walk and I think Town Staff has done a fairly good job of walking this tight-rope so far.

For instance, one point of discussion in the last Planning Commission meeting was about including pictures of real-life examples, but my personal opinion here is that I prefer the more abstract line drawings that are currently used in the Draft document. For Design Guidelines, real world photo examples might make sense but I think the abstract line drawings are better (and potentially less restricting from a design point-of-view) for the Objective Standards.

Now onto the specific parts of the Draft Objective Standards where I have some comments (primarily on the Site Standards, the Building Design Standards look fine for the most part):

Section A5.1
Any automobile entry gate to a parking structure shall be located to allow a minimum of 25 feet between the gate and the back of the sidewalk to minimize conflicts between sidewalks and vehicle queuing.

ATTACHMENT 16

Comment: Imagine a scenario where there is a new multi-story, multi-family residential building on a tight lot with an underground parking garage. There is no way you are going to fit a ramp on the site that starts 25' away from the sidewalk that has enough run to get a full story below grade. Furthermore, on a project where you have only residential (no commercial) you are very unlikely to ever have a scenario where vehicles are going to be backed up in a queue. I'd remove this section or amend it to be much less than 25' I would be ok with changing this to the current zoning requirement of 18'-0" rather than 25'-0"
Section A8.3
Vehicular entry gates and pedestrian entry gates shall have a maximum height of six feet.

Comment: Does this include entry gates that enter into a below-grade parking garage? Typically these are full height (because the retract up into the ceiling) with a minimum height clearance of 6'-8" Section A10.1a
Landscaped space: A minimum of 20 percent of the site area shall be landscaped.

Comment: 20% seem unnecessarily high for an infill building. Can a landscaped roof count toward the 20%? I think if landscaped roof space and landscape within the setbacks can count toward the 20% then it is reasonable.

Section A10.1b
Private recreation space: The minimum horizontal dimensions are 10 feet by six feet. The minimum vertical clearance required is eight feet. Private recreation space shall be directly accessible from the residential unit.

Comment: 6 ft. x 10 ft. is a gigantic balcony for a multi-family unit, even for luxury condos. 120 square feet is absurd. Perhpas there is a sliding scale here. Maybe a smaller requriement for units under 500 sq. ft., another slighty larger for units that are 500 sq. ft. - 800 sq. ft., another slightly larger for 800 sq. ft. - 1,200 sq. ft and then one for units above 1,200 sq. ft.

Section A10.1c
Community recreation space shall be provided in multi-family residential development projects at a minimum of 200 square feet per residential unit.

Comment: Like the private recreation space, this is way too much. For smaller multi-family residential buildings under a certain size (say 10-12 units) I would say that "community recreation space" is unnecessary and would be a huge obstacle in getting these sort of mid-tier boutique multi-family projects built. "Community Recreation Space" makes more sense in larger multi-family developments (like 20 - 100 units) I do think there should be a minimum unit count for a project to be required to provide Community Recreation space. It really doesn't make sense for a development that is 10-12 units or under and especially doesn't make sense for missing middle.

Thanks for considering my comments and happy to answer any questions.

Best,
Adam

Joel,
I wanted to follow up with you regarding a particular item that was discussed at the Planning Commission meeting. It was late and towards the end of the meeting when commissioners were discussing community, private and landscape areas. I appreciated the discussion as I think it yielded some necessary clarification. We would like to see where we are with the standards and if there is an updated version.

Just to clarify, our letter from our architects group objects to the 120SF & 200SF of required private space. We do not object to the 6’ or 10’ dimensions. If more units and density is what the Town is looking for, than the 120/200SF is far, far too much. Palo Alto code required only 50SF (5’ x 10’), that’s it.

We realize that this is something that is written into town code right now, but this should be changed and is completely out of step from other jurisdictions and just about every example of currently built apartment buildings. Has anyone ever lived in an apartment with a private balcony that big? We are happy to participate in any further conversations, and help Mr. Barnett with flushing out the last items left to be refined per planning commission’s recommendation.

Jaclyn Greenmyer

KOHLSAAT & ASSOCIATES

A R C H I T E C T U R E

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Intentionally
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PREPARED BY: Sean Mullin, AICP
Senior Planner
Reviewed by: Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, Town Attorney, Community Development Director, and Finance Director
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● (408) 354-6832 www.losgatosca.gov

TOWN OF LOS GATOS

COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
MEETING DATE: 11/15/2022
ITEM NO: 11

DESK ITEM
DATE: November 15, 2022
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Laurel Prevetti, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Consider Adoption of a Resolution Establishing Objective Standards for Qualifying Multi-Family and Residential Mixed-Use Developments.

Location: Town-wide. Applicant: Town of Los Gatos.

REMARKS:

One Councilmember asked a couple of questions. Responses to each question are provided below in italics:
 Page 4 of 33 - Bicycle Access: Was there much discussion about how bike parking will be accommodated and is there any flexibility on how it looks or how it can be “broken up”?
The Planning Commission did not discuss specifics of how bicycle parking would be provided, except to include the requirement that it be located within 50 feet of one of the primary building entrances. Given that the number of parking spaces is only other aspect that was addressed, there would be flexibility on how it looks or where it would be provided.
 Page 9 of 33 - Private recreation space versus community recreation space: I noticed in the redlined version that the private recreation space was decreased from 200 to 120 and the community recreation space from 200 to 100. Is 120 what is required for the N40? I need a visual example of how much space that is for a unit.

The Planning Commission provided direction that the requirements for both of these should be reduced, in response to public comments received from the local Architects. The requirements in the N40 Specific Plan include 100 square feet of common open space per condominium, and 200 square feet per unit for other types of multi-family residential. Town Code Sections 29.10.065 includes the following for

PAGE 2 OF 4
SUBJECT: Town Code Amendment Application A-22-002 – Senate Bill 9 DATE: November 10, 2022
REMARKS (continued):
residential condominiums: 200 square feet of private open space for ground floor units and 120 square feet for above the ground floor, plus at least 100 square feet of community recreation space per dwelling unit.
 Page 16 of 27 - Townhomes or rowhouses shall have no more than six contiguous units in any single building: Was the intent of this standard to limit the actual number of units or to minimize mass? There may be instances where you have 2 separate units - one upstairs and one downstairs In what may be the mass of 1 single townhome and I would have to prevent that from being built if massing is the primary concern.

This standard was developed from an existing standard in the Affordable Housing Design Guidelines for Townhouses. During the subcommittee review of existing standards and guidelines, this guideline was identified as one that should be made objective and included in the draft Objective Standards. The intent is to address massing and articulation.

An excerpt from the Affordable Housing Design Guidelines is on the next page.

PAGE 3 OF 4
SUBJECT: Town Code Amendment Application A-22-002 – Senate Bill 9 DATE: November 10, 2022
REMARKS (continued):

Attachment 17 includes additional Councilmember comments. Attachment 18 includes additional public comments received between 11:01 a.m., Thursday, November 10, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

PAGE 4 OF 4
SUBJECT: Town Code Amendment Application A-22-002 – Senate Bill 9 DATE: November 10, 2022
ATTACHMENTS:

Attachments previously with November 15, 2022 Staff Report:

1. Draft Objective Standards

2. Draft Objective Standards with Changes Red-Lined

3. Appendix for Draft Objective Standards – Evaluation of Existing Developments

4. Draft Resolution with Exhibit 1

5. June 22, 2022 Planning Commission Staff Report with Exhibits 1-4

6. June 22, 2022 Planning Commission Addendum Report with Exhibits 5-7

7. June 22, 2022 Planning Commission Desk Item Report with Exhibit 8

8. June 22, 2022 Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes

9. August 24, 2022 Planning Commission Staff Report with Exhibits 9-12

10. August 24, 2022 Planning Commission Addendum Report with Exhibit 13

11. August 24, 2022 Planning Commission Desk Item Report with Exhibits 14-15

12. August 24, 2022 Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes

13. September 14, 2022 Planning Commission Staff Report with Exhibits 16-18

14. September 14, 2022 Planning Commission Addendum Report with Exhibits 19-20

15. September 14, 2022 Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes

16. Public Comment received between 11:01 a.m., Wednesday, September 14, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., Thursday, November 10, 2022
Attachments with this Desk Item:

17. Councilmember Comments

18. Public comments received between 11:01 a.m., Thursday, November 10, 2022, and 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, November 15, 2022

From: Maria Ristow <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2022 4:36 PM
To: Laurel Prevetti <[email protected]>; Joel Paulson <[email protected]>; Nicolle Burnham <[email protected]>
Subject: Objective standards and bike parking
Good afternoon,
First of all, I am hugely appreciative of the strong collaboration between the consultants, staff, planning commission, residents and architects to produce the objective standards we are preparing to review tomorrow night. So many different areas have been discussed, refined and improved. I think the extra time taken by the planning commission to get more input has been worth it.

That said, there is one area I think was left open and could lead to unintended consequences.

Bike parking is too vague and could possibly lead to large areas of empty bike racks.

Without specifying high-quality bike racks and protected bike parking, we could end up with a tract of 50 mostly empty bike racks for a 50-unit building.

Looking at the bike parking for new multifamily construction, both Santa Cruz and Palo Alto have similar requirements, and spell out the type of bike parking that will lead to safe, secure, usable bike parking. Allowing a builder to just put in front-wheel bike racks will force residents to keep their bikes in their condos or apartments, defeating the point of the mandated bike parking.

I really like the Santa Cruz requirements below.
https://www.cityofsantacruz.com/home/showpublisheddocument/82030/637383695642570000 From Santa Cruz:

24.12.250 BIKE PARKING REQUIREMENTS.

1. Bicycle parking facilities shall be provided for any new building, addition or enlargement of an existing building, or for any change in the occupancy, except when the project property is located within the Parking District Number 1.

2. Bike Spaces and Type Required.

Bicycle parking facilities’ quantity and type shall be provided in accordance with the following schedule, with fractional quantity requirements for bike parking over one-half to be rounded up.

Each bicycle parking space shall be no less than six feet long by two feet wide and shall have a bicycle rack system in compliance with the bike rack classifications listed in subsection (3). Fractional amounts of the type of parking facilities may be shifted as desired: Number of Bicycle Parking Spaces Required Classification
Multifamily residential (3 or more units)
• 1 space per unit 100% Class 1 garages or secure accessible indoor areas count • One space per four units Class 2
ORDINANCE NO. 2020-21 9
ATTACHMENT 17 Page 751
• a. “Class 1 bicycle facility” means a locker, individually locked enclosure or supervised area within a building providing protection for each bicycle therein from theft, vandalism and weather.
• b. “Class 2 bicycle facility” means a stand or other device constructed so as to enable the user to secure by locking the frame and one wheel of each bicycle parked therein. • Racks must be easily usable with both U-locks and cable locks. Racks should support the bikes in a stable upright position so that a bike, if bumped, will not fall or roll down. Racks that support a bike primarily by a wheel, such as standard “wire racks,” are damaging to wheels and thus are not acceptable. (See Bikes are Good Business design guidelines.)

4. Location and Design of Facilities.
• a. Bicycle parking should be located in close proximity to the building’s entrance and clustered in lots not to exceed sixteen spaces each.
• b. Bicycle parking facilities shall support bicycles in a stable position without damage to wheels, frame or other components.
• c. Bicycle parking facilities should be located in highly visible, well-lighted areas to minimize theft and vandalism.
• d. Bicycle parking facilities shall be securely anchored to the lot surface so they cannot be easily removed and shall be of sufficient strength to resist vandalism and theft. • e. Bicycle parking facilities shall not impede pedestrian or vehicular circulation, and should be harmonious with their environment both in color and design. Parking facilities should be incorporated whenever possible into building design or street furniture. • f. Racks must not be placed close enough to a wall or other obstruction so as to make use difficult. There must be sufficient space (at least twenty-four inches) beside each parked bike that allows access. This access may be shared by adjacent bicycles. An aisle or other space shall be provided to bicycles to enter and leave the facility. This aisle shall have a width of at least six feet to the front or rear of a bike parked in the facility. • g. Paving is not required, but the outside ground surface shall be finished or planted in a way that avoids mud and dust.
• h. Bike parking facilities within auto parking areas shall be separated by a physical barrier to protect bicycles from damage by cars, such as curbs, wheel stops, poles or other similar features.

Thank you,
Maria
Maria Ristow
Vice Mayor, Los Gatos Town Council

November 14, 2022
From: Lee Quintana
To: Mayor Rennie and Town Councilmembers
Re: Desk Item for Agenda Item #11: Draft Objective Standards Mayor and Town Council.

The following are my comments on the much improved version of the Draft Objective Standards Comments:

Why is SB 9 Ordinance codified into the Town Code, but the Objective Standards are not? Both the Town’s Draft Objective Standards and theTown’s SB 9 Ordinance are on the Council Agenda tonight. Agenda Item #5, the SB 9 Ordinance will be codified into the Town Code; however, Agenda Item #11, the Draft Objective Standards which implement SB 167, SB 35, and SB 330, will be adopted by Resolution.

Modify the Title to read:: Objective Design Standards for Qualifying Multi-Family and Residential Mixed Use Projects.

contained the listed documents that apply to the Draft Objective Standards Last paragraph: Replace with a statement similar to the language used in the SB 9 Ordinance such as: Applications for a multifamily housing development or a mixed use residential development may be processed either using:
○ These objective standards through a ministerial review and approval process, or ○ The Town’s discretionary approval process, in which case the objective standards contained within would not apply.

recreation space and replacing them with Community Outdoor Space and Private Outdoor Space in Key Terms and through the Objective Standards
A.5.1: Add language to allow for additional and greater setbacks that might be required to accommodate a sloped entry into an underground parking garage.

A.7.2b: Add a requirement for landscaping between the trees A.10.1: Is there a minimum square footage required for a space to be counted towards landscaping?

ATTACHMENT 18 Page 753
A.1.b: Last sentence cannot shall not
A.10.b.ii: Why doesn't this also apply to ground floor space? A.1.ci: Should a minimum area of common open space in a mixed use residential development be reserved solely for the use of the residents?

Figure B.1.c and Figure 3.1e Delete the duplicate figure and the figure of courtyard Figure B.3.1: Add legend for Figure B.3.1 or is the intent to delete this figure? Figure B 3.2: Is this figure missing?

B.4.3: Should items that are easily removed such as window boxes, lattice, sconce lighting and change in paint color should be included in this list. Is including awnings encouraging architecture by awnings?

B4.9.b: What is a storefront bay?
B4.12.c: What is the a minimum square footage requirement for the common open space Thank you for your consideration.

PREPARED BY: WooJae Kim
Town Engineer
Reviewed by: Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, Town Attorney, Finance Director, and Parks and Public Works Director
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● (408) 354-6832 www.losgatosca.gov

TOWN OF LOS GATOS

COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
MEETING DATE: 11/15/22
ITEM NO: 12
DATE: November 9, 2022
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Laurel Prevetti, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design RECOMMENDATION:

Receive an update on community outreach activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and approve the concrete box girder as the preferred bridge type for final design.

BACKGROUND:

The Town of Los Gatos Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan (BPMP), which was originally adopted in 2017 and updated in 2020, provides the Town with a roadmap for enhancing bicycle and pedestrian mobility throughout the Town by identifying and prioritizing projects, policies, and programs that will help make Los Gatos a more comfortable place to bike and walk.

Projects prioritized in the BPMP are also included in the Connect Los Gatos Program which provides a holistic framework for moving these prioritized projects forward. The Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing (BPOC) Project was identified in the BPMP and Connect Los Gatos Program as a priority project for the Town.

The current overcrossing of Highway 17 at Blossom Hill Road is heavily travelled by bicyclists and pedestrians, especially by students commuting to schools. However, the overcrossing is constrained by sub-standard bike lane and sidewalk widths that do not meet current and future bicycle and pedestrian demands. More novice and younger bicyclists may feel vulnerable or discouraged to bike on an overcrossing with narrow bike lanes directly next to travel lanes.

PAGE 2 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
BACKGROUND (continued):

The Town commissioned a feasibility study of the Highway 17 BPOC in September 2019. On March 3, 2020, the Town Council approved the following Project Purpose and Need from the findings of the feasibility study reflecting the Council’s and community’s vision and priorities:

Purpose: The project would improve bicycle and pedestrian mobility across Highway 17 in the vicinity of the Blossom Hill Road overcrossing. The project includes a focus on improving safety for all modes of travel, creating a safe route to schools while promoting active transportation. Additionally, the project would result in reduced traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions by providing comfortable mobility alternatives.

Need: With two travel lanes in each direction, carrying upwards of 63,000 vehicles per day, Highway 17 creates both a physical and psychological barrier for both pedestrians and bicyclists as it divides the Town in two. Blossom Hill Road is one of only a few roadways that provide east-west connectivity across the highway.

Also at the March 3, 2020 meeting, Council authorized staff to proceed with development of design alternatives for a separate bicycle and pedestrian overcrossing. Various design alternatives were considered as part of the feasibly study. On September 1, 2020, Council approved the feasibility study with a recommendation of the separate bridge structure to be located immediately south of the existing overcrossing at Blossom Hill Road and authorized staff to analyze three bridge type options (concrete, steel truss, and steel arch) for the new structure for the final design with community input. Copies of the past reports and a project history can be found here: https://www.losgatosca.gov/2556/Hwy-17-Bicycle-PedestrianOvercrossing On December 1, 2020, the Town Council approved the execution of a 2016 Measure B Funding Agreement with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) accepting grant funds in the amount of $2,754,990 for the design phase of the BPOC project. In May 2021, BKF Engineers was hired to prepare necessary design documents for the BPOC. Since then, BKF and staff (the project team) have prepared and presented the required Project Initiation Document to Caltrans, developed preliminary layouts for the three bridge type options, and conducted extensive community outreach to raise awareness of the project and to gain insight into the community’s bridge type preference.

Throughout the project, the Complete Streets and Transportation Commission has provided valuable input and has played an integral role in guiding the project development and community engagement process.

PAGE 3 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
DISCUSSION:

A selection of the preferred bridge type is an important next step at this stage to further develop the bridge design to the next level of detail. To raise project awareness and solicit public input on preferences between the three bridge types, the project team conducted outreach to adjacent neighborhoods, hosted two community workshop meetings (December 2, 2021 and June 29, 2022), participated in various pop-up events (Los Gatos Farmer’s Market, Los Gatos Creek Trail, and Spring into Green), met with Los Gatos Unified School District personnel, posted notices in school newsletters, installed project information signs on Blossom Hill Road, and conducted an online survey.

Polls at the community meetings and responses from the online survey revealed that the majority of the participants/respondents live and/or work in Los Gatos and use the existing Blossom Hill Road Overcrossing daily or weekly. Although the largest percentage of respondents indicated that they typically drive on the overcrossing segment of Blossom Hill Road, 53% of the respondents do walk/run, and 43% bike on the overcrossing.

The project team analyzed the feedback and input received from outreach/survey participants in-depth. For the analysis, community participants were categorized into the following eight stakeholder groups for each particular outreach event:

 Online Survey Participants – 266 responses
 Spring into the Green Pop-Up Participants – 100 participants  Adjacent Neighborhood – Ohlone Court, Serra Court, Los Gatos Oaks residents  Los Gatos Unified School District
 Complete Streets and Transportation Commission
 Community Meeting participants – approximately 38 participants  Farmer’s Market Pop Up participants – approximately 62 participants  Los Gatos Creek Trail Pop Up participants – approximately 54 participants The feedback related to the bridge type preference from the eight stakeholder groups were evaluated and quantified relative to the number of participants for each stakeholder group. For example, the bridge type preference input from the Spring into the Green event and online survey were evaluated with higher weight based on the larger number of participants. The results from all stakeholder groups were then combined to determine the bridge type option with the highest level of support. As a result, the concrete box girder was found to be significantly more supported than the other steel bridge types.

PAGE 4 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):

The project team also evaluated the three bridge type options with seven technical rating elements determined to be critical factors to the Town. The rating elements are listed below in the order of relative importance to the Town:
 Construction Costs
 Maintenance/Inspection
 Architectural Distinction
 Construction Schedule
 Impacts to Highway 17
 Visual Impacts
 Stage Construction/Traffic Impacts
Higher priority elements such as construction costs and maintenance/inspection were given higher weight values for the bridge type preference evaluation. The bridge type evaluation based on the seven technical categories also resulted with the concrete box girder as the highest ranked preferred option.

Based on the evaluation of both the community input and technical categories, the concrete box girder was the clear preference for the BPOC project, and this is the option being recommended by staff to be moved forward into final design. The full evaluation and summary of the community input and technical review are included as Attachment 1.

The preferred alternative is the lowest cost option with a current projected construction cost of $25.2 million. Staff will seek grant funding for the construction with the Town providing matching funds. The current assumption is that matching funds would be on the order of 25% of the total cost, or $6,300,000.

Community Comments
From various project outreach efforts, community members who expressed a high level of support for the concrete box girder option provided the following reasoning/comments:
 Lowest estimated cost
 Design is low-profile, simple, clean, sleek, minimalistic, least obtrusive.  Matches existing car bridge, blends in, and does not detract from the surrounding landscape

PAGE 5 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):

Comments from those community members who cited a high level of support for the steel flat truss option included:
 Design is visually appealing and a compromise between the concrete box girder and steel arch truss type.
 Design is simple, clean, and does not stand out.
 Not the most expensive option
 No median island column is required.

Comments from those who cited the steel arch truss option as highly supported included:
 Design most appealing
 Highly visible design, strikingly beautiful, gorgeous, elegant, distinguished, and unique  Time to say yes to aspirational projects for bicycles and pedestrians Additional comments from the online survey both in support of and objecting to the project received during this process included:
 Support for the project, excitement for pedestrian and bicyclist safety improvements, and the Importance of moving this project forward in a timely manner (mentioned in 28 of 95 responses)
 Opposition to the project and concerns that this investment is not responsible (mentioned in 13 of 95 responses)
Additional questions and comments were emailed to Council members by community members regarding the project, which are included in Attachment 2. The project team has compiled answers to these and other frequently asked questions (FAQ’s), which will be added to the existing FAQ document currently posted on the project webpage. The updated FAQ’s are included as Attachment 3.

Project Schedule
The schedule has four phases. The project design phases are proceeding in compliance with the Caltrans Project Development Procedures Manual. The first phase is the preparation and approval of a Project Initiation Document (PID) with Caltrans. This phase is near completion.

The second phase is the Preliminary Engineering and Environmental Assessment (PA/ED) based on the selected bridge type. The third and last design phase is the development of final design and construction documents. All three design phases are fully funded.

PAGE 6 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
DISCUSSION (continued):

Continued public engagement throughout the design process will occur to inform the community about the details of the engineering and aesthetic elements based on the selected bridge type and any major changes. The final phase is construction and funding for this phase has not been secured.

The current project schedule reflects these four phases as shown below:

CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS:

Staff is requesting the Town Council to approve the selection of the concrete box girder as the selected bridge type for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project that will be implemented for all of the remaining design phases.

Next steps include continued efforts to secure construction funding as described in the Fiscal Impact section of this report. Council action will be needed to accept such funding and to identify a match. Once funding is secured, the Council will also be asked to authorize the Town Manager to put the project out to bid.

PAGE 7 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
COORDINATION:

This report has been coordinated with the Town Attorney and Town Manager’s Offices, and the Finance Department. The project design is coordinated with the Complete Streets and Traffic Commission, VTA, and CalTrans.

FISCAL IMPACT:

There is no fiscal impact with the recommended action at this time since the design phase is fully funded. Below is a summary of current project budget and anticipated costs:

Construction funding for the project has not yet been identified Town staff will continue to monitor available grant programs and look for funding opportunities for the BPOC construction.

Most transportation grant programs require local match funding, which can range from ten to thirty percent of the project cost depending on the grant program. If allowed by the grant program, there are opportunities to fund or supplement local matching portions with other regional or state grants.

In July 2022, Town staff received council authorization to submit a grant application for the One Bay Area Grant program, Cycle 3 (OBAG 3) for the construction phase of the BPOC.

Budget Costs
TDA Article 3 (Feasibility Study) $87,451
Traffic Impact Mitigation Fund (Feasibility Study) $147,249 GFAR (Design Phase) $946,210
2016 Measure B (Design Phase) $2,754,534
GFAR/Development In-Lieu Fee $522,314
Total Budget $4,457,758
BKF Engineers - Feasibility Study $234,700
BKF Engineers - Final Design $3,000,000
Design Contingency $300,000
Independent Structural Review $50,000
Caltrans Cooperative Agreement $135,000
Part-Time Staff Cost (Design Phase) $220,000
Total Expenditures $3,939,700
Remaining Budget for Construction Phase $518,058
Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project
CIP No. 818-0803

PAGE 8 OF 8
SUBJECT: Receive an Update on Community Outreach Activities for the Highway 17 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project (CIP Number 818-0803) and Approve the Concrete Box Girder as the Preferred Bridge Type for Final Design DATE: November 9, 2022
FISCAL IMPACT (continued):

Unfortunately, staff has been informed that the BPOC project application did not rank high on the grant project list.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT:

In accordance with California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines, the project is categorically exempt from the provisions of CEQA based on Section 15301 - Existing Facilities as the project involves improving the existing overcrossing; Section 15303 - New Construction or Conversion of Small Structures as the project proposes to construct a new small structure; and Section 15304 - Minor Alterations to Land as the project proposes minor alterations to land and vegetation and does not involve removal of healthy mature scenic trees.

Also, per Section 21080.25 of the California Public Resources Code, the project is statutorily exempt from the provisions of CEQA because the project is considered a new pedestrian and bicycle facility as defined under Public Resources Code 21080.25(b)(1).

Attachments:

1. Highway 17 BPOC Bridge Type Selection Evaluation

2. Public Comments (including Council Referral TC 22-84)

3. Updated FAQ’s

Highway 17 BPOC – Bridge Type Selection Evaluation
ATTACHMENT 1

BKF ENGINEERS
1730 N. First Street, Suite 600, San Jose, CA 95112 | 408.467.9100 To reach a recommended bridge alternative, the BKF Team used the attached Alternative Analysis Matrix as a tool to evaluate the three structure alternatives against both technical design criteria and overall community acceptance.

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
BKF analyzed the various alternatives within the attached matrix based on the following technical considerations identified below. Each alternative was then evaluated using a 1- to 3-point rating scale to determine the worst and best option under each category. The reasoning to establish each rating assignment is summarized below:
 Architectural Distinction – Each structure’s general aesthetic appeal, uniqueness of design, final finishes, etc. was evaluated against one another. The steel arch provides the highest level of visual interest and architectural distinction from the various view points analyzed by Highway 17, WB or EB Blossom Hill Road, and walking or biking on each structure as well. For this reason, the steel arch was assigned a 3-point rating, and the other two options received 2-point and 1- point ratings, respectively.
 Visual Impacts – Each option was evaluated based on their visual change to the existing environment in this category. The concrete alternative matches existing conditions most given the existing Blossom Hill Road Overcrossing so a 3-point rating was established. The two steel alternatives were given a 2-point rating since the visual character appears to change moderately from existing conditions.
 Impacts to Highway 17 – This criterion rates each option based on the anticipated impacts to Highway 17. The steel truss options have the ability to span Highway 17 without the need for a center column within the highway median in comparison with the concrete option. A 3-point rating is therefore assigned to the steel options and a 1-point rating for the concrete option.  Maintenance & Inspection – Regular inspection and maintenance requirements differ for each bridge type and require consideration over each structure’s life given there are associated longterm costs. Steel bridges require routine painting, corrosion protection, and detailed inspections in comparison to concrete structures. A higher 3-point rating was therefore given to the concrete structure and a 1-point rating for each steel structure alternative.  Stage Construction Traffic Impacts – Each bridge structure requires different approaches to construction staging and therefore different traffic management strategies. The highest rating was given to the bridge alternative with the least amount of anticipated impacts to traffic operations during bridge construction. Both alternatives will require freeway closures, but the concrete option will generally require fewer duration closures that can be phased in comparison to the steel options. A higher 3-point rating was therefore established for the concrete option over the two steel options that require a full freeway closure.  Construction Cost – The estimated $25.2M construction cost for the concrete option is considerably less than the two steel options estimated to be $36.2M and $38.8M, respectively.

Although costs will fluctuate between now and when the Town takes the Project to bid, the considerable difference between each now is reflected in the 3-point and 1-point ratings assigned for concrete and steel, respectively.
 Construction Schedule – Each alternative was evaluated in consideration to the general length of construction and flexibility of construction methods to meet potential Project constraints. The concrete option has the shortest construction timeframe and design flexibility with the center

November 3, 2022

column support, so we assigned a 3-point rating for this option. The steel options have somewhat longer construction schedules and flexibility to accommodate potential project constraints given the need to order the steel materials and field splicing during construction.

Moreover, steel requires source inspection by Caltrans, which will take longer to complete in comparison to the concrete structure construction. For these reasons, the steel options were given slightly less ratings at 2-points.

Although not shown in the matrix, the BKF Team also evaluated the various alternatives amongst several additional criteria that included:
 User Friendliness
 Safety/Security
 Environmental Impacts (Cultural, Biological, Tree Removal)  Compliance with Caltrans Standards
 Utility Constraints
 Right of Way Constraints
The different alternatives measured comparably with no notable differences in each of these categories.

Each was therefore removed and the criteria used in the matrix was limited to the technical considerations that serve as points of comparison for each option.

Weight factors were given to each technical consideration category above based on their overall impact to the Project’s scope, budget, and schedule. The noted ratings were then multiplied by the weight factors to determine the net scores for each alternative summarized below:
 Option 1: Concrete Box-Girder – 240 Points
 Option 2A: Steel Flat Truss – 155 Points
 Option 2B: Steel Arch Truss – 175 Points
The above results determined that from a technical point of view, the Concrete Box-Girder is the preferred structure option to carry forward.

STAKEHOLDERS AND COMMUNITY ACCEPTANCE
The BKF Team and the Town held a number of community activities and events over the course of the last year to raise project awareness and solicit community feedback from various stakeholders that use the existing roadway. These activities and events, including the number of documented participants at each, are summarized below:
 Community Workshop #1 (Virtual) – December 2, 2021 – 33 participants  Community Workshop #2 (Virtual) – June 29, 2022 – 5 participants  Pop-Up Events
o Los Gatos Farmer’s Market – March 28, 2022 – 62 participants o Los Gatos Creek Trail – April 20, 2022 – 54 participants o Spring Into the Green – April 24, 2022 – 100 participants  Online Survey – September 16, 2022 to October 7, 2022 (3 weeks) – 266 participants In addition to these community activities, the Town and BKF Team met with several project stakeholder groups since the Project formally began in early 2020:
 Adjacent Communities (Ohlone Ct, Serra Ct, and Los Gatos Oaks)