Los Gatos City Council
August 1, 2023

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CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions for Mr. Cross? I
have a question. Jessie who spoke first talked about a
video presentation. Is that something that the
architectural community is beginning to look at?
NOEL CROSS: Yes. In the last couple of years our
software that we use is Archicad, and there’s a new app with the last maybe three iterations of the software and it’s called Twinmotion, and you basically input the thing and then you can create a movie. You can drive down the sidewalk, you can go around the back yard, you can fly and you can create a movie, and then show context obviously too. We often will show the neighboring buildings in a very simple way, basically just relatively boxy, so that you can see the relationship of the sizes of the buildings.

CHAIR BARNETT: It would show the size and height
of the neighborhood residences?
NOEL CROSS: Yes. We have to do that already with
streetscape elevations, especially if it’s in a
neighborhood where the buildings are close together. Not so relevant with a hillside project.

CHAIR BARNETT: Those are my questions. Thank you
for your responses. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I just have a follow up to
that question. Thank you for coming tonight and speaking

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and answering our questions. My question is related to once that video is made how easy is it to change things? For example, if those videos of like in the renderings were made available to the public and public notice went out earlier than typically what we’ve seen with the story
poles, story pole go up and then it’s kind of toward the end of the process. How easy is it to tweak things if
something came out about people having an issue with the color or something and that was a compromise that needed to be made during the planning process?
NOEL CROSS: I’m not sure the video changes
anything, because we’re going to do renderings anyway, and it’s to our advantage and it’s a requirement. You just take stills from different angles and if changes are going to be made with the color, height, roof, and things like that, we’re going to make them in the model. When you create a video you don’t need to recreate it in a sense, you just change the building and hit play again and it’s the same video.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So it would be similar to
like if you were changing the renderings: you just click a few things and save the changes and it’s updated?
NOEL CROSS: You make it sound so simple.

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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: But yes, it’s a similar
process.

NOEL CROSS: No, the video doesn’t change
anything.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, perfect. Thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: Further questions? I came up with
another one. Can you speak to the issue of the cost of
doing actual modeling?
NOEL CROSS: Well, we’re doing 3-D stuff anyway.

CHAIR BARNETT: I’m talking about physical
modeling.

NOEL CROSS: Part of the construction documents
process is part of the entire process of designing the
building. We’re doing the virtual 3-D model, and so there’s no added cost.

CHAIR BARNETT: I’m speaking to a physical model.

NOEL CROSS: Oh, physical model. That’s a whole
different thing. We used to do those, but they are very costly; they are quite costly. They are cool though. I
would have to say that even in video, renderings, things like that, and even if you were just to do a walk-around on screen, it’s still harder for the human eye and brain to figure that stuff out. When you see a physical model, it takes one second and you get it.

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I did a presentation to the San Jose City Council
and we were doing a very large 105 unit thing and it was relatively modern, and so we had floor plans and elevations and it was relatively featureless, and we got a lot of
nonverbal communication from the members of the City
Council who were like this is not going well. Then the
people who were bringing the model in, which we were late, it’s big model, and they brought it in and set it down and it was a couple of city blocks. All of a sudden everybody is smiling and so many people said, “I was going to vote no, but it’s an absolute solid yes,” just because of that physical model, so they are really effective.

CHAIR BARNETT: Can you give us any idea of a
cost factor that’s involved in it?
NOEL CROSS: I don't know, it’s kind of hard to
say; we haven’t done it in a while. But they are time
consuming, and if you really want to do it professionally you get somebody to do it. We’ve done 3-D models. I’ve done them with the 3-D printer; we’ve done that. Kind of
expensive, but I would wager to say on a typical
residential project probably not as much as story poles.

Story poles are in the $15,000-$20,000 range.

CHAIR BARNETT: No other questions? Okay, thank
you again. Next we have Ms. Wiersema.

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BESS WIERSEMA: Good evening, Commissioners. Bess
Wiersema, Studio3. Also a local architect. I’ve been
working in the Town of Los Gatos for not as long as Noel, probably don’t make as pretty models as Noel, but I just wanted to reiterate please take a look at the points that we made in the letter that we gave you last time that were some specific suggestions that we felt could be built into modifying the Story Pole Policy in terms of creating
certain buckets.

Maybe there are projects that don’t need story
poles. Maybe if something is highly contested, or a larger project, or is asking for an exception or a Variance, maybe those are the projects that are story poled, but if
neighbors are fine with looking at 3-D computer models and renderings… And I think when we all refer to 3-D models today we’re really talking computer renderings over actual physical models, and I think those are more helpful anyway.

I would like to say that we know staff has put a
lot of work into this issue, but unfortunately the owners, developers, and design professionals have not had a chance to timely produce our recommendations. We’re trying to get better following Staff communication and deadlines, but they have been challenging to keep up with, and direct
notices and requests for comments come too late, as in last

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Friday, for us to remember to give you additional feedback; we apologize for that. We know this is a very important issue and we feel very strongly that it’s actually directly related to the permit streamlining process, which is
something that Town Council has directed staff to work with local design professionals on.

We would like to suggest having a study session
for a group of design professionals, owners, developers, story pole contractors, and Town staff and to use tonight’s Staff Report as a basis for a more thorough and meaningful discussion, and to be able to come back to the Planning Commission with a collaborative recommendation that
probably has more specifics in it that actually address things like buckets of when something, or at what level something, and how something should be story poled.

I think there are two issues here. One is story
poles—as you’ve heard every design professional say—do not accurately represent a project, period, end of report.

There is no workaround for that. Second, it’s the process in which the Town deals with the story poles, and that’s where the permit process gets hung up and where we would like to see additional streamlining, because that’s far different than even other local jurisdictions that have story poles.

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I think it would be nice if Staff and ordinances
that were made would rely on the professionals like civil engineers who have to certify that ridge heights are there, story pole setters that have to put the poles up and know how to put them up better than what we might draw, better than might get edited for what wants to see them being
drawn. We’re not building a house out of pickup sticks.

CHAIR BARNETT: We’re at three minutes. Why don’t
we let Commissioners ask you questions, and you can get into some of the other areas you wanted to. Other
questions? Commissioner Burnett.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you, Chair. I’m
a little confused. Are you requesting no story poles for any and all new buildings, or buildings, or additions? I’m sure the Town could streamline your permit process and do other things to help with what you’ve requested in the
past, but what do you really want from us?
BESS WIERSEMA: I want to be clear. The letter,
even though it came from my email and I’m the one who
somehow got to wear the crown, the “we” in this is not me.

I am part of it, but it is actually a collaborative group of six or eight architects and a developer who got together and talked about how we can help things be better in the process or how we’re each managing different things.

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In the original letter that we submitted after we
knew that this was on the docket we did have some
suggestions that we didn’t believe certain things needed to be story poled. We suggest that no single-story new home needs to be story poled regardless of location unless it is asking for an exception or a Variance. No single-story
addition should need to be story poled. No story poles
should be required if there are added roof elements to a single- or two-story home that sits within the overall
massing and below the highest existing ridgeline, such as dormers or an additional shed roof portion or things of this nature.

I think we also had a conversation as a group
about neighbors and owners really want renderings. They want to see what this is actually going to look like. They are more responsive to that, they have more educated
questions about it. It’s not a fear-based conversation, so if there is no contest from the immediate neighbors, which I think is who we are deemed to really making sure that the overall massing is fitting in on, and we do a lot of
drawings, not just story poles. Plans to show how that
works, and that’s reviewed by Larry Cannon, by the
planners, we get feedback on it. I think if it’s an
uncontested project and we don’t have an issue, then why

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are we going through this extra step? If the immediate
neighbors, who are supposed to be the most impacted, are okay with it, do we really need to story pole the project? Did I answer your question?
COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Mostly. I have a follow up
question.

CHAIR BARNETT: Sure, please proceed.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: The follow up question
would be so people in town that are driving by and there’s going to be a project, and they’re working and not aware of what’s going on, but the policy now has changed and there’s going to be no story poles but you have to access it by video or what your suggestions are to see what the new
project will be like, and then all of a sudden now this large building goes up. So are there other ways to sort of let the public know rather than video? I don’t see people that are busy with work accessing a video. If you have
flyers, if you put it in the newspaper, if you document it if it’s going to be a large project, and I’m just saying this might be an option, to help alert the neighbor or the community of what’s going on. I think there should be some communication.

BESS WIERSEMA: I agree with that. Let me back up
and say that the majority of the comments that we gave and

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what I can speak to as a professional has really to do with single-family homes from an architectural perspective. My feedback really is not about a big 100-unit development or something like that, so when I’m answering this, that’s on our behalf and we speak as a group of residential
architects. I know some of us in the group do bigger
projects, but in general our comments are based on
individual single-family homes.

Notification happens in a couple different ways.

We are asked, if not required, to be sure that immediate neighbors are notified; those are the ones that are most impacted. There is a sign that goes up when we story pole a project, so why not continue the sign? Why not have more than one rendering and have a couple views of that? On
those signs it’s required that we put the application
number, the request, what’s going on, some critical
information, so there’s a lot of information and people can then go on to Town’s site and look at plans. They can also come down and now meet at the counter and have a planner walk them through questions, and this does happen. We do sometimes get feedback from some completely random person that isn’t even in the neighborhood that has decided to take an interest in the project.

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On most of these projects they will also have a
tech review or another form of a hearing where neighbors can come and speak and ask questions and talk about it, so there are multiple steps along the way besides story poles where people do get noticed.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Further questions?
Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. Just a quick
question. How do you generally notify the immediate
neighbors?
BESS WIERSEMA: What I recommend to my clients,
and I think you could ask everyone here, we ask our client, who obviously has these people as their neighbors, to
please reach out at the appropriate time. We ask our
clients to host a little social, whether that’s a happy hour, a coffee hour, or whatever, and I normally come so that I can answer any questions. We have a set of plans there, and normally we’ll have the 3-D rendering views that aren’t required with story poles per se except for the one for the sign, and we share those, we talk about them, we keep a list of which neighbors and what address came.

If it’s a project that’s noticed to a larger
group because it’s a larger project, then that notification

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goes out from the Town and we make sure that we also say this is when we’re doing this and we let people know.

Some of my clients will prefer not to do
something in person, so they do kind of an email blast and we just collect information and we let the planners know what we did for changes or no changes. It’s kind of a mix.

The thing I think is interesting is that people
do respond to renderings much better, in person, etc., and I think we’d love the opportunity to share with you. We could all bring project examples where we show you what some story poles look like, we show you what an actual
rendering that’s keyed to that looks like, and we can even show you final products, and I’m going to bet that all of you are going to hate the story poles, the rendering is going to be exciting on some level, and the final product is actually going to be the best.

I think you should understand the documents that
go into the process. I think you should know and see what those all are. We do get edits from Staff that add to the time of the permit process, etc., so I think there are a couple of issues going on here, not just the story poles themselves and how neighbors are noticed, but also the
process.

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CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions? It looks like
you’re free finally to go. Thank you so much for coming and providing your opinions. Do we have anyone back on Zoom? JOEL PAULSON: We do. I’m not certain that we
actually have the problem solved, but we’re going to give it a shot.

JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, I have
actually communicated with the two people who are on Zoom.

They are both interested in speaking and they’ve been
listening to it through YouTube, so they have been able to listen to the discussion, but they may be delayed in
answering questions. What I’d like to recommend is that if you want to restate the question that you had for the first online speaker, Jessie, that we might go to Mr. Capobres for him to give his comments, and that gives the first
speaker time to hear your question so that then we can come to him at the end, if that works for the Chair. It’s a
little confusing and tangled, I know.

CHAIR BARNETT: That’s fine. Why don’t we proceed
in order beginning with Jessie, if he’s back, and we can certainly interrupt our larger discussion to receive other comments from the public?
JENNIFER ARMER: So for Jessie, who we already
heard from, he has already used the three minutes but he is

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available to answer your question, so if you still have a question to ask of him, you could ask that now.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you for that. My
question to Jessie was how do you perceive a way to ensure the…
JESSE BRISTOW: Jessie Bristow again. I
apologize. There’s probably about a 30-second lag in what I hear on YouTube. I apologize. So I would just like to
answer as far as the original question from the Chair on how precise is the model? The previous speaker, Noel, spoke greatly about that. It’s exact, so it is a CAD model and it is to those exact measurements, so the video you are seeing is to true scale.

I know there is discussion about the cost and I
think that was more related to single-family homes, so I just wanted to express that the cost is kind of reflective of the size and we do have a relatively large building, so that’s why our cost is more.

Another note that I took was how do people
passing by have access to these potential renderings or 3-D video? We were directed by Town Council to put in a QR code on our signage with renderings. We have four parcels, so we were directed to have a sign on each parcel with the
rendering with a disclaimer saying, “These flags do not

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represent the true model Please look at this QR code,” and the QR code will take someone to our 3-D video, which the previous architect spoke of, that you can look at these with plantings, with shadows, at different times of day.

I would say we’re about 90% done with the video
that we are working on after we were allowed by Town
Council to have a 3-D walk-through model, and we’re really excited about it, and so we’re hopeful that you guys will be able to see that soon and maybe that’s something that can help with your decision making in the future.

I do apologize if I’m not able to answer anything
further, but I will listen to the feedback. Thanks.

CHAIR BARNETT: Well, if I can just ask for one
clarification, and that is in the video is there a key to existing landmarks, corners of adjacent homes, for example, or other visual points of reference that could be used to assure the accuracy in terms of the viewpoints, for
example?
JOEL PAULSON: As Ms. Armer mentioned, it’s
probably going to be about 30 seconds before he hears this, so we’ll just have to sit and wait.

JESSE BRISTOW: Hello. I don’t mean to interrupt;
I’m trying to keep up. To answer the question, the whole intent of the 3-D model is to show the true relationship of

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the neighbors. More specifically I believe it’s University Townhomes or University Oaks, which are the townhomes right next door, and so really wanted to show the relationship of the concerned neighbors and the adjacent building that’s at two stories with their related frontage, and then we
actually use drone footage to do a flyover to show the
relationship of the finished product to the rest of the Town and the neighbors. So yes, it’s to further highlight that relationship more so than what you would see in a 2-D rendering. I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn.

CHAIR BARNETT: No, that’s a very good response
to my question. I appreciate that, and I don’t think there are other questions from the Commissioners, so thank you for your participation.

JOEL PAULSON: Chair, there is one more speaker
on Zoom, Don Capobres.

DON CAPOBRES: My name is Don Capobres. Good
evening, Chair Barnett, Commissioners, and Staff.

I’m going to just kind of jump to the chase. I
know we’ve submitted some letters on our viewpoint on the story poles, but in the spirit of trying to be
collaborative and give you some of our experience on the North Forty and maybe some suggestions on other methods,

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I’m going to skip all that negativity in my prepared
comments.

At the last hearing there was general consensus
that story poles are largely effective in alerting the
general public about potential land uses, and I believe that, but there has got to be a better way to do this. I want to highlight some of the biggest concerns that we had during the North Forty story pole program.

First of all, they should have been done when
there was a chance for the public to make an impact on the land use policy decisions, and I’m not really sure how to implement this, but for example, it should have been done at the beginning of the Specific Plan process, not with an application that complied with the Specific Plan. In the case of phase two of the North Forty, we’re in the Housing Element; we now have an SB 330 pre-application in. It’s too late for the general public to really make significant
changes to that, given State law protections.

Second, the interior story poles at the North
Forty, we put up over 600 story poles at a cost of nearly $1 million, and the general public could not see the
interior poles and the only way to see them was to access the private property through an invitation. We’re not
required to have Council Members and Planning Commissioners

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walk the interior of the site, and so the general public really didn’t have a chance to see the interior story
poles.

Then the third biggest issue was that we were
required to keep the 600-plus story poles up standing for over half a year as the various Planning Commission and Town Council hearings got extended, and that put a lot of cost into it, and danger, I think, from impacts on weather.

We had to provide free rent to businesses out there,
Enterprise Rent-A-Car, some office tenants, impacted
residents. I think the length of time that the story poles were up was not really helpful to anybody. Again, if the main intent is to alert the public, I think people knew within the first couple of weeks that there was something happening on the North Forty.

I think there are other things. Technology has
made great advances; other speakers have commented on that.

I would say we have an 80-foot tall building proposed on phase two. Renting cranes to do story poles for that is just… We had to rent the boom lifts in phase one, and to rent four of those cost us $20,000 times six months of
$20,000 just on that, so we would advocate looking at
tethered balloons, the photo-simulations, and computer
renderings. QR code-based technology, as the other speaker

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has talked about, has advanced very well and we would be excited to try something like that out. We did build a
physical model of the entire phase one of the North Forty that was housed at the library for some time, and 3-D
printing has really helped the cost efficiency of that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Are there questions for Mr.

Capobres from members of the Commission? I do not see any, so we’ll move on to another speaker from Zoom.

JOEL PAULSON: There are no more speakers on
Zoom, Chair.

CHAIR BARNETT: Very well, so now we’ll close the
public portion of the public hearing on Item 2, and I would proposed we proceed to the Staff Report on the suggested outline from Staff considering issues related to the story poles. They are designated items A-F on pages 14-17 of the Staff Report, and Item G sets forth opinions from our Town Attorney and we can consider that after covering the
previous sections.

On each item we’ll see if we have a consensus
that would support a motion. If not, I understand that
Staff will bring to the Council the ideas that we’ve
discussed on that item.

We talked about the fact that there are no appeal
rights on this. Did we talk about appeal rights? There will

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be no appeal rights since this is only a recommendation to Council, and we discussed the fact that no findings will be required.

So why don’t we move on to the Staff Report, Item
A on page 14? This raises the basic question of whether story poles should be required by the Town or not, and
we’ve been informed that the majority of the jurisdictions in the County do not have that requirement, and the issue is open for discussion by the Commission as to whether we want to follow the majority, or for reason particular to Los Gatos we would like to keep them. So we’ll start with Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I sit on the Housing
Element Advisory Board and it was brought up by the HCD letter that potentially story poles can be an impediment to production of affordable housing, and I heard all the
testimony from the architects and whatnot.

That being said, I don’t think the people in our
town would be ready to not have story poles at all. I think instead what might make sense is to look at the totality of the Story Pole Policy and see if there can be some things that could be taken out of having to have story poles, and we could talk about that. Those were some of the items that you have that are in the Staff Report.

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For me personally, we’ve had story poles for
quite some time, and with all due respect on the North
Forty, even after having a committee that met for several years on the North Forty Specific Plan it wasn’t until
those story poles went up that people really started to understand what it meant to the Town, and it’s been a hot topic of discussion on all the threads like Next Door and stuff since then, and so I think it would be a big, big step for the Town to think about going from what we have now to nothing, and I would prefer something, from my point of view, in between with a reduction and some streamlining.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that comment.

Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have a quick question
for Staff. For the majority of cities in our county that don’t require story poles, does that mean that story poles never go up in their cities?
JENNIFER ARMER: That is my understanding, that
they generally have signage that goes up with certain types of projects, but that story poles are not part of the
process.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments? Vice Chair Raspe.

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VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks, Chair. First of all, I
want to thank the public comments tonight via writing and on Zoom, as difficult as that was, to help us inform our decision. I think this really is a technical discussion in a lot of respects and I think it’s really helpful to the Commission to have an informed and educated discussion.

I think it’s evident from what we’re hearing that
story poles are at best a blunt instrument. There are
certainly more effective ways, I think, that are coming into fashion now that we can use for our projects. That being said, I don’t think they’re without some purpose. I think they have a purpose of educating and alerting our public that projects are coming online, and I think they’re useful in certain projects, although I think we probably in this town overuse them for every project.

My sense is, much like my fellow commissioner,
there is a time and a place for them and I’d like to have a discussion about maybe winnowing that down to the more
essential time and place and letting more projects go
through a more streamlined and economic basis. Those are my thoughts.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other comments are
most welcome. Commissioner Thomas.

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COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree with what my fellow
commissioners have said tonight. Are we going to make a motion?
CHAIR BARNETT: We’re ultimately looking for a
motion. We can discuss that in the course of that.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So then I move to recommend
that we retain a requirement for installation of story
poles for development projects with further details coming in the other sections with all of the things.

JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, I believe that should work.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: We think we should still
have requirements, but not as many as we have right now, so we will discuss those.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thanks for the motion. A second?
Commissioner Burnett.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: I second that motion.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Discussion?
I just had a comment, which is I think there’s
some uniqueness to our town that may not be shared by some of the other jurisdictions in the County. We’ve got the hillsides, we’ve got historic areas, we’ve got established neighborhoods that have their own distinct characters, and while I believe in certainly paring down the requirements

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to when they’re most essential, I do think that we should keep them also.

Can we have a show of hands in support of the
motion? It’s unanimous. Thank you very much.

Now lets move on to Item B concerning what types
of projects should be required to install story poles, and what type should be excluded or exempt. You’ve got the
agenda and Staff Report before you, so I don’t know that I need to read the whole thing. I’ll ask you to give some thought to that, I’m sure you already have, and to begin a discussion. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I’m happy to go first since
I submitted some public comments to be shared with the
Commission.

Just based on all of the comments that we’ve
gotten from all of the public, architects, developers,
etc., I agree that we are a unique jurisdiction compared to some of these other towns and cities near us, and so I
thought that a good compromise would be we have different requirements for hillsides. I kind of looked at what the Town of Los Altos is doing versus the Town of Los Altos Hills and thought if we did a mix of that it would really meet our requirements here in town. I thought that we
should have, similar to the different categories that the

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architects that spoke tonight and submitted public comment a month ago had, for in hillsides any new buildings, second story additions, additions exceeding 900 square feet,
accessory structures exceeding 900 square feet, and then trees proposed to be removed.

I do have a couple of questions for Staff. I did
notice in our policy and in other policies that were
provided that this tree tagging is lumped into these story pole policies, but it’s kind of a separate issue. I see why it was lumped in, but at the same time I don't know if we already have some sort of policy like our Tree Ordinance.

Does our Tree Ordinance cover this anyway?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I
can provide clarification. At this time we require that when there are trees being removed as part of a project that there be an arborist report, and that would number and tag the trees with a little number on them, and the
arborist report then shows which of those numbered trees would be removed.

I think what is being suggested in some of the
comments is that some sort of colored tape would be put around the trees. I would say that in many cases those are going to be interior to the project site, and so putting that kind of tape on them would not actually be visible

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from the public right-of-way to the public, but I would say that generally that is a separate category from story
poles, but clearly has been part of the discussion in the comments received.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you. I feel
like the trees should be removed, because it just
complicates things, so I would no longer recommend that we include that here.

The main changes for this part was that it looked
like the City of Los Altos Hills had a marker of 900 square feet or larger and that is what triggered this. Ours is smaller now; I think it was 100 square feet, which I feel is a little bit excessive. I just kind of put down the 900 square feet. I’d be happy to hear what other Commissioners think about that number, but I do think that something
different for hillsides would be important.

Then also I do think that projects in historic
districts asking for exceptions or Variances is something that from all of the public comments that I’ve ever heard in all of the hearings that we’ve ever done, I know our historic districts are really important to us in town, and so I think that if anyone is asking for exceptions or
Variances, unless the lot is nonconforming, because we do have some odd size or nonconforming lots in those areas

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too, so I don't know if that triggers to the Community
Development Director with regard to the exceptions process.

Those were kind of my thoughts, and then also
requiring them maybe for Specific Plans similar to the
North Forty, even though I understand that that didn’t end up being productive, but some sort of requirement for that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. That gets us well on
our way in the discussion. I recognize that Section B is the longest in the Staff Report and that there are
subsections here, so I want to encourage comments in
general, but maybe we should move on. In the first
paragraph there’s a general suggestion of discussion of the types of projects, and that’s sort of continued in the use types, but I was wondering if other Commissioners had
comments that are specifically related to the type of
projects that should be included or excluded, and then we can move on. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a few thoughts. One
is I don’t see why we would need story poles for anything that’s not going to Planning Commission. Sometimes I’ll be on a walk and I’ll see story poles and get excited, because we’ll get to vote on this, and then I see that it’s a minor development, so I think that we shouldn’t have story poles for those.

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I don’t think that they should be a requirement
if it’s a 100% affordable development, and I think we
should even consider lessening that percentage. We have very few incentives available to us to incentivize
affordable housing development, and I actually think that this could be something we could leverage to try to get developers to include more affordable units in their
developments. For example, if they want to build something that is like 60’-70’ I would hope that a lot of those would be affordable, and maybe if there was a percentage that if they reached they wouldn’t need to have story poles, then they wouldn’t have to do those cranes and stuff, and I
think that that could end up being a good incentive.

I don’t think there should be story poles for
additions to buildings, at least for the most part; I don't know how many nuances there would be in that.

Then also, we might start seeing more nondiscretionary developments, like things that the Town doesn’t even get a say over using the different bills and stuff, so I don't know if there already wouldn’t be story poles for that because of the nature of it, but if we’re not going to have a say in it I don’t see why we would need to put those story poles up and make people afraid of

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something that probably won’t look nearly as ugly as the story poles anyway.

Last, I agree that there should be a different
set of requirements for the hillsides. I think that’s a really good idea and that we should have more story poles around there, because those developments are a little more serious, I think.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. That’s a
good contribution to the discussion. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I wanted to thank
Commissioner Thomas for those suggested proposals.

I was looking at all the different kinds of
things and where my thinking is in general on this is that there are certain parts of town where we do want to
consider having story poles, for example, the hillsides, because when all is said and done we have the Hillside
Standards and Guidelines and Hillside Specific Plan and the whole idea is to make sure we do our best to preserve the hillside while allowing some amount of residential
development, so I think to take away story pole
requirements for that would be a tough thing, not to
mention the fact that even without the current land use for the 2040 General Plan, it’s been referended, whatever gets approved is likely to go in that same direction because of

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fire safety to be very careful about development that is in the hillsides.

I would add to that list of projects, since we
have a Historic Presentation Committee and it’s so
important to preserve our historic features of town, that I would want to have story poles for those kinds of projects, whether or not it is asking for a Variance.

Speaking to Commissioner Clark’s general
suggestion about Planning Commission or not, I would think that any other residential, especially single-family
developments, if it’s not asking for a Variance in height or setback or whatever that would cause it to come the
Planning Commission, but I would call it a Variance, that I would think it wouldn’t be an issue, except for one thing, and that’s because of all the time I’ve sat on the Planning Commission where we have a lot of single-story
neighborhoods, if someone comes in and both of the
neighbors on either side are a single-family home with a single story and they’re going to be 10’ or 20’ above them, I think that’s something we have to consider as needing a story pole for that case, even if they’re not asking for an exception, just because it’s going to change the character of the neighborhood.

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Then as far as the affordable housing, I too
thought that if we were lucky enough to get a 100%
affordable housing project we should let it happen, and it has to comply with our standards anyway, and so I think that we should give an exception for that, and that
requires story poles.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Other
comments? Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. Commissioner
Hanssen, I think you’ve taken all my great ideas, which we both took from Commissioner Thomas.

My thinking is, and I think I’m repeating
ourselves, I think we’re coming hopefully to somewhat of a consensus, but maybe just to simplify, my sense is I would like to see the story poles continue in historic districts and in the hillside areas for all projects. I think
especially in the hillsides it’s very valuable to see
what’s happening up there. We’ve had a couple projects that came before us you really don’t get a sense of it until you look from the ground and you look up into a hillside and you see either netting or flags or whatever that may be. I think there is a value there.

With respect to every other portion of town my
sense is with respect to new construction for single-family

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homes and commercial, if you are not seeking a Variance with respect to height or FAR or any other matter, and this goes with respect to additions, new construction, new
rooflines, I don’t see the value necessarily of story
poles. I think those matters could be handled probably
better by renderings, and as long as we have those
renderings and can somehow make them available to the
public via QR code or something else, I think that works, so I would use story poles in the hillside, in the historic districts for all construction, I would use them in other areas for where there are Variances sought, and I’d also use them for projects where there are Specific Plans or they’re unusually large—North Forty is the obvious example— just to give a better sense of scale, but I think for the lion’s share of single-family construction going on in our town that would obviate the need for story poles and handle it in a much less intrusive, more efficient manner with 3-D renderings.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments.

Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have one very brief
comment. I agree with Commissioner Hanssen that a
development in a neighborhood that’s majority single-story and they come to Planning Commission because they’re the

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first two-story development in the immediate neighborhood or something like that, I think that’s exactly the kind of thing where it still might make sense to have story poles to get an idea of the massing, because the whole reason it’s coming to Planning Commission in that case is the
massing, and that’s why I was now using the language of Variances, why I would try to say if it’s coming to
Planning Commission because, yes, I do think that’s an
instance where we should have them.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I do have one question
for the Town Attorney. I think this is addressed in Section G already, but can you comment on the issue of story poles under the new emerging housing laws in terms of cost burden or procedural delay?
ATTORNEY WHELAN: There is no case exactly on
point, but there are cases talking about what constitutes a constraint on housing in other contexts, and the cases talk about height limits, they talk about parking standards, and processing and permit procedures.

I do think conceivably an applicant could make an
argument that imposing a story pole requirement did
constitute a constraint on housing, but in the case that has been decided under the other fact patterns where it had to do with building height and parking standards the court

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weighed that public interest against the burden on the
applicant, and in those cases they came out in favor of the public interest that was at stake, and so that’s a policy decision for the comment, like to what extent do the story poles serve a public policy interest, but the court would put a lot of weight on the public policy interest.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Before we
ask for a motion, let be see if we have any further
discussion. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: My only question is that
right now it does say this is nonresidential additions
exceeding 100 square feet. I don’t think that we are going to have non-residential in hillsides, so I don’t think that we really need to discuss that here.

I suggested the 900 square feet because that’s
what Los Altos Hills has, and I assumed that their staff had been informed by some reason, but I am interested in hearing what other Commissioners think about that number or if that is something that we can just say of a specific number and say in our motion that Town Council decides.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I’ll just say that I would
be in favor of the 900 square feet. I like that number; I

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think it makes sense that if Los Altos Hills is doing it that we would do on our hills.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I like the 900 square feet
as well, I think it made a lot of sense, and plus we have an example from another jurisdictions that it seems to be working for them.

But I do also want to comment on the
nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet. A lot of times we see in the hillside they don’t just build a house, they build a compound, and the compound would have multiple buildings that they may not be living in. They use them and it’s part of their residential compound, but
they’re not going to be sleeping there, and so I think, and Staff can correct, that a nonresidential addition exceeding 100 square feet if in their current policy needs to be
story poled.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. No,
my understanding of that third bullet is that that is for commercial properties where there are additions.

One clarification that I wanted to add to the
discussion is the first bullet point in terms of what it applies to now excludes single-story accessory structures, so regardless of the size of a detached structure it is not currently required to be story poled even if it were 900

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square feet or more, so that is one component to consider since I know that is included in the comments from
Commissioner Thomas.

JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, one other idea
to think about is even if we just go to hillsides, you
potentially can do a 900 square foot addition or more
through just a Building Permit, so if they’re not tearing it down and they’re not creating a demolition, then that would just be a Building Permit where we also would not be able to require story poles.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thanks for that clarification.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Then I do need some
additional clarification. What is considered an accessory structure versus just a regular residential structure then? JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. An accessory
structure, you have the primary house and then you have detached structures; those are accessory to the main house.

In some cases it may be an Accessory Dwelling Unit, in
which case regardless of whether it’s over 900 square feet it would just be a Building Permit. We do have a trigger in the hillsides that detached structures, accessory
structures, over a certain size do need to have a higher level of review. I can look up what that threshold is right

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now; I believe it’s 450 square feet but I’ll check on that for you.

JOEL PAULSON: While she’s checking that I think
just a little more information. It’s a detached garage, it’s an ADU, it’s a pool house, so those are typical
detached structures that we would see that are actually floor area, so it’s not like a gazebo or something that’s not enclosed, which are accessory structures but we still wouldn’t have them story poled, because they’re not
technically square footage.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that clarification.

Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So I think then that I’m
open to any suggestions. I do feel like we need to keep some story poles for the hillsides, but I don’t want to create additional burdens that what we currently have,
because I feel like the standards that we currently have are working for the hillsides, so whatever other
Commissioners think, however that looks I am happy with.

Then also we didn’t discuss commercial yet, so I
don't know if people have different opinions about
commercial and/or mixed-use.

CHAIR BARNETT: Right, so B is very comprehensive
and we’ve been appropriately discussing it in different

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contexts, but I think that that’s a good point,
Commissioner Thomas, and we can move on to that. I see on page 14 that the current Story Pole Policy requires
nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet, and we just talked about it in terms of residential accessory
structures. Maybe I could ask Staff to address where we might see the description of a nonresidential addition
exceeding 100 square feet?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you. A nonresidential
addition exceeding 100 square feet often will trigger an Architecture and Site review application. In some cases that may just be going to the Development Review Committee if they are not asking for exceptions and they are
complying with the Commercial Design Guidelines, and so that could just be an existing grocery store wants to add a little additional space for a café out front or something of that nature, so the 100 square foot is the trigger for those.

There are some minor changes to commercial
buildings that can be done through a Building Permit, but generally if it’s adding square footage, 100 square feet is generally threshold that we use for that moving to a
Discretionary Permit.

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CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you, that’s very helpful. I
guess we have the larger question of whether we want to exclude story poles from new commercial or mixed-use, and maybe we could talk about that. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Our current Story Pole
Policy, under what conditions do we require story poles for commercial and mixed-use?
JENNIFER ARMER: For commercial buildings we
would require it for new structures or for additions of 100 square feet or more, as stated there.

In addition, to answer the earlier question about
detached structures in the hillsides, the threshold for coming to Planning Commission for a detached structure is 1,000 square feet. It would require a Discretionary Review for the Development Review Committee if it was between 600 and 1,000 square feet, but over 1,000 is automatically
reviewed by Planning Commission at this time, but would not generally be story poled if it’s a single-story detached structure based on the current policy.

CHAIR BARNETT: Any other comments in terms of
mixed-use or commercial? Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. My thoughts
on commercial and mixed-use are much like my thoughts on residential, that is, I’m not sure they are a great tool

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where our applicant is bringing a project that’s not
seeking an exception to, again, either height, FAR, or
other limiting requirements, so as long as the project is within our guidelines I think for all new and redeveloped commercial mixed-use projects story poles probably are not the best tool.

I’ll put one caveat on there; we may want to
consider really large projects, something bigger than the Whole Foods project that we just considered last month.

That was a larger size project. I thought the story poles expressed pretty well what that project looked like, so perhaps there’s a square footage we might want to consider over which we would use story poles. I think the day-today, to the extent there are any day-to-day mixed-use commercial projects in town, to the extent that they are not seeking exceptions, I wouldn’t impose upon them a story pole requirement and, again, would just require 3-D
renderings.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you very much. Other
thoughts? Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I agree with the Vice
Chair on that general approach, and I thought of another property which we have seen before and I don’t know where it currently stands because I think it’s going through

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things, but at the corner of Shannon Road there’s the
Artisan Wine Depot. We had seen that previously at Planning Commission and it caused a big up-stir with the neighbors, and ultimately I think they are going in a different
direction anyway, but that’s the kind of thing where I
would not want story poles for that kind of project, but if it’s just some remodeling or a new commercial building
that’s in compliance and it’s not a very large structure that would seem like overkill to do the story poles for that kind of project.

CHAIR BARNETT: I’m giving some thought to that.

To the best of my knowledge the Shannon Road/Los Gatos
Boulevard property originally was talking about a mixed-use commercial and residential, is that correct?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: The last thing was an
office, I believe. Staff could correct me.

CHAIR BARNETT: Office only?
JENNIFER ARMER: Office above commercial of this
different sort.

CHAIR BARNETT: Residential above commercial?
JENNIFER ARMER: It was office. At this time the
proposal is office over commercial. I don’t believe there is any residential as part of the current proposal.

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CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, that was my understanding
too. Commissioner Burnett.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you. I have a
question for Staff. If a project comes through and there are no Variances and it gets the green light from our
Staff, however, the neighbors find out about the project and they’re not happy about it, can they still appeal the project?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. If
there is a project that is going through a Discretionary Review process, whether it is a Minor Residential
Development or a new second story on a single-story house, that does not require a public hearing. It still involves public notice and the ability to appeal the Director’s
decision. Projects that go to the Development Review
Committee where they are complying with all of the
regulations and complying with the Design Guidelines also can be appealed to the Planning Commission as long as the appellant is someone who qualifies to appeal the project as stated in Town Code.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts? We’ve covered a
lot of ground. Commissioner Hanssen.

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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to bring up
something that we didn’t talk about, which was the building height. It did cross my mind that when we’ve talked about 70’, as Mr. Capobres mentioned, the complexities of doing story poles for that seem to be quite onerous because of the danger factor, so I don't know if we can recommend like a certain height limit that we can consider X alternative; I don't know if that would be better.

Some things were suggested, like putting a crane
or whatever, or maybe we don’t do story poles at all. I don't know what the best solution is, but I think it’s
important to make sure that the people in the Town are able to see those, but maybe the traditional way of doing story poles might not work, so I’m just curious to what other people think.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other thoughts?
Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and I think that
what we’ve heard from public comment is that one of the most important parts of the story poles is that it gives notice to people, and so I think that the concern with
especially tall buildings or something, and some of these even commercial projects that we’re talking about right now, it’s really just about letting the public know, and I

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think that we want to move away from the story poles
letting the public know for reasons like what happened at the North Forty. By the time those story poles went up and everyone was like what’s going on here, it was really too late for the community to be as heavily involved with the decision making, so I do think that when we talk in Section D, Signage And Alternatives For Signage I think that we can cover a lot of the major concerns and hopefully start to help people in town to transition from story poles trigger like this is a project that’s happening and now I see the sign that triggers this is a project that’s happening.

That being said, for commercial and mixed-use
projects I don’t think that most of the time, even if
they’re new builds, we need story poles. I agree that if they’re asking for an exception or a Variance, but I think we should kind of specify that, because I do think that there are a lot of exceptions and Variances that story
poles aren’t going to add or change anything. Maybe if it has to do with height or setbacks or something else I guess related to those things, but if it’s any exception for, let’s say, parking minimums, which I know we’re going to get a lot more of because we’re going to be in the process of changing our parking, I’m sure, and that’s just the
trend overall, so as the Boulevard redevelops we’re going

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to be getting a lot of requests for those things, I don’t think something like a parking minimum should trigger story poles having to go up, if that makes sense. I don't know if there’s a list of specific items that we could include or just make a general recommendation to Town Council that it should be specific for commercial buildings, but it looks like Ms. Armer has a suggestion.

JENNIFER ARMER: If that is the direction that
the Commission is going it could be stated in the form of a Variance or exception related to physical characteristics of the structures, and so that it is something that is
being shown by those story poles, and we could work to get something specific and more detailed for Town Council to consider.

CHAIR BARNETT: Good suggestion. We also haven’t
talked about the issue of flag ropes or pendants, and also the visibility exception. I wonder if anyone has comments on either of those topics? Oh, that’s under alternatives.

I’m sorry, I had that in my notes at this point. So let me just review our topics, we’re under B, and make sure we’ve covered those.

I do think that we could focus more on the
discretion issue, although that also comes up later. But on page 15 there’s a discussion about the reviewing body: the

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Director, Development Review Committee, Planning
Commission, and Town Council. I guess this would be a
suggestion that we consider this in terms of exceptions? JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. I would say that a
discussion of whom the deciding body is for any
discretionary parts of this, that that’s something that could be part of the discussion under Section E of the
Staff Report, Modifying the Exception Process.

And some of the other topics that you have
mentioned recently about the flags could fall under the modifying physical requirements under Section C. Providing alternatives also could be discussed under Section D. The type of projects this applies to, I think, is what’s been discussed so far, but we haven’t received a motion on that yet.

CHAIR BARNETT: Right. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I was just going to say
relative to what you said, I think this started with
Commissioner Clark making a suggestion that if the Planning Commission was the deciding body that there probably needed to be story poles, and that would include things like we talked about where it’s the first two-story house in a
single-family neighborhood, or it could be if there’s a

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Variance; those types of things tend to trigger Planning Commission.

I thought we had already discussed that and had
sort of a consensus, but I just put that out there. I know we did discuss it.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. I guess the subject
could also be addressed in Section E on page 16 when we get to that, or it could be made part of the motion; I have no problem with that. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I did have a question about
Specific Plans, because I did put that into my
recommendation about like special story pole requirements for Specific Plans. I have not been on the Planning
Commission while any of these Specific Plans have been
developed, but I know that the example is the North Forty Specific Plan, so I don’t know if Staff could answer a
couple of questions about how that’s developed, if story poles can be included in that process or not, etc.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I
would say that just like with the development of the
General Plan it’s difficult when you don’t have a specific development project in front of you to do a story pole
installation. Generally a Specific Plan is going to be a smaller area than the General Plan, but it is generally for

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a large area, and so it’s going to be looking at multiple buildings and you don’t know what the configuration of
those buildings are, whether the floor area would be done in a multi-story building or flat across. That is one of the difficulties about planning documents is we don’t know how they will actually be implemented, and so it’s
difficult to do physical story poles in that case at that stage in the process.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: But is it legally possible
when that plan is being developed as part of those
agreements and the plan being processed that story poles will be part of the process later?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’ll open it to our Town
Attorney to see if she wants to add on that.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: I wouldn’t refer to a Specific
Plan as an agreement per se. I would consider it as like a mega zoning ordinance, like it’s setting forth what the rules are, what the maximum can be, and so I think any
requirement to impose story poles would probably live
outside of the Specific Plan.

You might also be thinking of like Development
Agreements where an Applicant comes in and they want a
Development Agreement, and maybe they want to give an
entity something extra in exchange for like vesting to

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existing standards, and so as part of that Development
Agreement maybe something extra they would give would be providing story poles or something like that, but for the Commission I would think of imposing the story pole
requirement outside of the Specific Plan.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I was just thinking if we
have like a large area. We don’t have a lot of larger open spaces, but if we have a large area that there is going to be a development for, would we want in that specific space, but it’s probably very niche, so not important.

I did want to go back to the reviewing body
before making a motion, because I do not feel that every single thing that comes in front of the Planning Commission needs to be story poled, and I think that that might
significantly delay processes that we’re trying to help people streamline, so I’m happy to come to an agreement and just state that and know that Town Council knows that, but I don’t think that every single thing that comes before us needs to be story poled, but I am curious to see what other people have to say about that, just to clarify that point.

Then also with regard to the historic districts,
I just wanted some clarification about do you think all projects in historic districts, or just projects that are

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listed in the historic inventory within the historic
districts, should require story poles? Thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: A lot of good thinking going on
here. Commissioner Burnett.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Yes, thank you. To respond
to that question, I think all homes in a historic district should have story poles, because it affects the whole
district. Like if we ever get the Glenridge a district it will be 12 blocks, so I think homes impact the whole
district.

But back to another question for Staff, I’m a
little confused here. You were saying that a large project would not require story poles if it doesn’t have Variances, and of course there probably would be Variances, but if it didn’t have Variances and it’s a large project, let’s say one of the ones that are going up on Los Gatos Boulevard, and it doesn’t have Variances so it wouldn’t require story poles, but on the other hand then how would citizens be able to appeal the size of it and the mass and density of it? Are they already permitted? When does that happen? I’m trying to educate myself and the probably the public on this subject; it’s important to me. What I’m trying to
address is that citizens have an ability to respond to a project, and if it’s not required with story poles because

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there are no Variances, how will the public know? I don’t think looking at videos and renderings will do it, because people are busy and I don’t think they’ll be aware so much.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for those questions.

If you’d like, I can try to address some of that.

We were talking about where I was saying that
story poles would not be required is when a Specific Plan or General Plan is being considered and adopted, because at that point we don’t have a specific building design being proposed, it’s more about setting the zoning rules for an area, and so when a development project does come through, then the question is at what points do story poles get
installed?
As I’m looking at my notes from the discussion
the Planning Commission has been having this evening, the consensus items that I have heard was interest in having story poles for certain projects in the hillsides, projects in the historic district, projects where it is the first second story in what we define as the “immediate
neighborhood,” and for larger commercial projects the
example of Whole Foods was given as trying to give a sense of what the threshold might be for what might be considered a larger project, but for anything smaller than that on any other single-family homes or smaller projects that it would

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not require story poles unless they were requesting a
Variance or an exception to a physical Zoning Code
requirement.

So that’s what I’ve heard so far. I expect there
will be further discussion, but hopefully that helps you understand, what I’ve heard at least in, terms of the size of the projects that would still require some sort of story poles. We of course haven’t gotten to the section of the discussion where what that story pole requirement might be for some of the larger, more complex projects. In any case, I think there’s an understanding that signage would still be required, and so there is still the opportunity to then ask questions and understand and be part of the development project.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Okay, thank you. Just a
quick follow up. When do story poles go up? When the
project comes before you? It doesn’t have a permit yet, right?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. Generally an
application comes in and it goes through review by Staff, and Staff is looking to make sure there is sufficient
understanding of what the project is. Sometimes we don’t have the details that are needed in the project scope in the plans, and so we’re working to make sure we’ve got

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those details and to understand what type of permit is
required, whether it triggers architectural review, for example. Once we have gotten to a point working with the Applicant that the project is whole and is ready to move forward to public hearing or public noticing, that’s when story poles go up, because otherwise as part of the Staff review there might be changes to the form of the building that would require them to modify the story poles.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. That was very
helpful.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen and then
Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to comment
back on what Commissioner Thomas brought up, which is about the Planning Commission, and I think you summarized it
correctly, Ms. Armer, in terms of what I think there was sort of consensus on.

It’s not everything that comes to Planning
Commission, but if it’s a Variance that involves bulk and mass, such the setbacks, the height, the FAR, if it’s a fence issue, they don’t have enough parking spaces, or
something like that, those are not things that I would
think of, so I just wanted to be clear that that’s what I was thinking of when Commissioner Clark mentioned Planning

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Commission or not, but it wouldn’t include Variances that didn’t pertain to the bulk and mass of the structure.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Clark was
next.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I appreciate you
bringing that back up, because I meant we should never
require them, at least for the most part or at all, for things that are not coming to Planning Commission, but I don’t think we should require them for everything coming to Planning Commission. I really do think we should make an effort to not require them whenever possible. I think like what Vice Chair Raspe was saying, just when we need them we require them sort of thing, so I appreciate the
clarifications on that. Then, for me, I would say that we should only require them in terms of the Historic District for homes that are in the Historic Resources Inventory, but I am open to going the other way on that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: My comment was similar. I’ve
served on the Historic Preservation Committee now for three years, so the best way to think of our historic homes, we have districts but we have many historic homes that are not in our districts. Presumptively, all are pre-1941 homes or historically designated, so I would say in our category of

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homes that should require story poles for work as performed would include all homes on our historic inventory, whether or not in a district.

I think one other point we had at least working
toward consensus was not requiring story poles where there was a large percentage of affordable housing in the
project, perhaps 100%, maybe not requiring 100% but I think a favorable view towards that, making it more efficient and creating incentives for those projects where possible.

CHAIR BARNETT: Very good. Other thoughts before
we try a motion? Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Since I have not served on
the Historic Preservation Committee, I am curious how the story poles have been helpful for you all in your decision making, because in my opinion there are alternatives, and I don’t think that these houses are on the Historic Resources Inventory. The adjustments that we’re approving, I just don’t know how story poles are actually valuable for houses outside historic districts but that are still historic.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: I’ll give you an example. The
Historic Preservation Committee actually met today and we had a small Mediterranean home very close to the street, and much to the developer’s credit they are saving the
façade of the home, but to make it a more livable home in

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2023 they are adding an entire section to the back of the home; they’re creating a second story and they’re pushing about another 35’, setting the structure back 21’ from the façade of the home. It could potentially—and we’ve seen it on other projects—change the entire character of the house, the sizing and massing of it.

Maybe 3-D renderings solves that problem, but I
don't know, because in HPC we’ve been using oftentimes
story poles, which sends that message, so I in HPC found that a useful tool in that kind of situation. Granted, if we’re adding 100 square feet in the back, that’s probably not what we need to see, but where it really changes the character of the home story poles are a valuable tool for me.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts? I assume that in
the context of a Planned Development there are going to be modifications from the standard rules, and could be, say, that in Planned Developments there would be story poles, or what is Staff’s recommendation on that?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question.

It’s hard to know exactly the modifications from the
standard rules that would be requested as part of a Planned Development, and I can think of a couple of examples that wouldn’t meet the criteria that we’re currently talking

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about in terms of physical Variances from the rules. For example, having a smaller width to the roadway, not wanting to do a private roadway and so having a smaller width
there; or having a smaller lot size so that the homes on a hillside property could be clustered in a flatter area and leave more room open for open space; that that type of
project would be potentially going through a Planned
Development process but the structures themselves may be actually complying with the physical floor area and height setback requirements.

CHAIR BARNETT: So that could be a possible
format for a Planned Development if there were in fact
changes that related to the building structures or
setbacks. What would your recommendation be in term of
story poles?
JENNIFER ARMER: I would say that it’s an item
worth discussing, but it is hard to know since each Planned Development, as is the intent of that tool, is going to be custom to the particular project and setting, and the
detail that the Planned Development goes into in the terms of the form of the structures really does vary
significantly from one Planned Development to another. Most of the ones we’ve seen recently do get pretty specific
about the form of the buildings, and so then at that point

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the Architecture and Site Application really is just making sure that it complies with what was already prepared, the drawings in the Planned Development, so it’s hard in that case. I would say to recommend one blanket rule for all Planned Developments, but I think they could potentially be guided in the same way as the other rules that the Planning Commission is currently discussing.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that answer. The
Chair will now entertain a motion from a brave
Commissioner. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think I got it. For
Section B, Types of Development Projects, I move to include the following types of projects that should be required to install story poles, and that would be for residential
projects if they’re the first second story in a
neighborhood, or if the project is requesting a Variance of exception to physical characteristics of the structures only. Then for historic districts all now residential and nonresidential buildings in historic districts, and all residential second story additions in historic districts, and nonresidential additions exceeding 100 square feet; what we have right now, but just for historic districts.

Then for the hillsides, just new buildings or second story additions in the hillsides. Then generic commercial

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everywhere else besides the historic districts. Only
additions over 100 square feet for new builds asking for Variances or exceptions to physical characteristics of the structure. I think that includes everything.

CHAIR BARNETT: Did you comment on affordable
housing?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Oh, affordable housing.

Yes, some number of affordable housing, to be discussed by Town Council, should be allowed an exception, or one of the categories of exceptions, or be exempt, I guess I should say.

CHAIR BARNETT: Then Vice Chair Raspe, you
brought up the concept of a large project.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Yes, commercial, and I think
we used by way of example Whole Foods, so anything of the Whole Foods or larger size would require commercial project mixed-use of X number of feet to be determined by Town
Council, but by form of reference to Whole Foods.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Do we think in general or
only if they’re asking for exceptions? I think that if
they’re only asking for exceptions to the physical…like to mass and height and all of that, that’s really valuable, but once again, I think that the signage is what we need to… I think we need to get off the crutch of story poles

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telling people this is going to happen and lean into the signage as this is telling people it’s going to happen.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: My thought, and again I’m
flexible, is two requirements in the commercial mixed-use area: a) where this is a Variance with respect to massing location, the physical structure; or b) all structures over X square footage, because some are of such scale that I think the netting or flagging, whatever we call it, serves a purpose of conveying the sense of scale for it.

I use by way of example Whole Foods. I got a
sense as I was driving down Los Gatos Boulevard because of the story poles. I thought that was helpful. On your run of the mill day-to-day commercial I don’t think it’s that
helpful. For something big like that, and I don't know what the cutoff is, but I use Whole Foods by way of example. I would like to try to retain a story pole requirement for the super size buildings.

JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, since we do
have a motion on the table, she could accept modifications to her motion, or it could be a follow up motion if
additions were…whether we had the majority of the
Commission to add in this additional commercial.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Do you know offhand the
size of what Whole Foods was?

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JOEL PAULSON: It was 40,000-50,000, somewhere in
that range.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Anything 50,000 or above?
VICE CHAIR RASPE: (Inaudible).

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Yes, just around 50,000 or
above perhaps. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll accept it.

No, I’m just kidding. Yes, the motion is amended to include those. Thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: And for consideration by the
maker of the motion we talked about possible height limits.

Is that something you want to include, or not?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I didn’t have anything
specific written down. I think that that maybe can also be in the Modified Physical Requirements section, just because that has to do, I think, with how high we can do story
poles.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, very well. I’ll just raise
the question. Did the motion include our thoughts about not requiring story poles if it’s not going to the Planning Commission level? It did include that. Okay, thank you. So now we’ll look for a second. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I can make a second, but I
did have a requested modification. So I will second the motion, but I would ask the maker of the motion, the part

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that you brought up about the very first two-story house in a single-family… I also considered the scenario where it might not be the first house in the way we define it in the Residential Design Guidelines, but if there is a singlestory house on either side of it and it’s going up to two stories, these are the ones that cause the most
consternation with the neighbors, so I would put that case in there as well. If on both sides it’s got single stories and it’s going up to two stories, that would be one where I would think it would be important.

JENNIFER ARMER: Just for clarification, it
sounds like right now as the motion stands as I hear it, that requirement for story poles would only apply to a new two-story home or a new second story addition when it is the first in the immediate neighborhood, and the immediate neighborhood includes two houses on either side of the
proposed project plus the properties across the street, generally five properties across the street, and so what Commissioner Hanssen is suggesting is that even if you have a two-story home that’s in one of those, say, two houses away, if the two houses, one on either side of the proposed house, if those are both single-story and this is kind of a taller building in between. I believe that suggesting is

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that that would also trigger, even if there were other two stories in the immediate neighborhood?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yes, that is what I meant.

If there was a two-story across the street and on either side there are single-stories, yes, that’s when I would want the story poles.

JENNIFER ARMER: So, to the maker of the motion?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: If that’s the will of the
Commission, then yes. Again, not what I originally planned, but happy to change the motion to include that.

CHAIR BARNETT: So we have a motion and a second.

Discussion? Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have two questions. One is
I feel like sometimes we have a home come to Planning
Commission and it’s not the first two-story home in the immediate neighborhood, but maybe it’s like the second in the immediate neighborhood and one of the few in a
predominantly single-story neighborhood, is that the case and if so should we consider that in our motion?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: (Inaudible).

COMMISSIONER CLARK: For the one where it’s the
first two-story in the immediate neighborhood, but
sometimes it would be the second two-story in the immediate

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neighborhood but would come to Planning Commission because of its bulk.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question.

Yes, there have been some examples. For example, if it’s the largest house in the immediate neighborhood by floor area or floor area ratio, then that is sometimes something that will trigger review by the Planning Commission. Not necessarily a recommendation for denial from Staff, but a higher level of review.

At this time with the motion as it stands those
wouldn’t necessarily be triggering story poles, but they might still be coming to Planning Commission, depending on the adjacency, whether there are two-story homes adjacent.

CHAIR BARNETT: So I’ll come back to Commissioner
Thomas on that.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I think that if they were
requesting a Variance of an exception to something related to height or setbacks or whatnot, then it would require story poles. From my understanding I think that that’s a good compromise, just because of the situation to become too specific, but do you want me to amend the motion?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I wanted to at least flag
it, because it is changing what generally triggers us to consider those things for review by the Planning

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Commission, and so it felt like if that’s our concern is it being like the bulkiest in the neighborhood, but then we define it differently than we would normally if we might be voting on it, so I’m open. I just wanted to bring that up.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Burnett, and then
we’ll get back to the maker of the motion.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: Thank you. Considering the
motion, it’s gotten a little involved now, so I want to be sure, would your motion cover what Vice Chair Raspe talked about, a pre-1941 home would require the story poles, even if it was not in a historic district?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I don't know if that was
explicitly mentioned, but yes, that was my intent.

JENNIFER ARMER: It could be stated as homes that
are part of the historic inventory. That does include all homes within the historic districts as well.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, so homes within the
historic inventory that are the new builds, new residential and nonresidential buildings, or residential second-story additions.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Clark, if you would.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a question for Staff.

Do you know roughly how much of our town is historic
districts?

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JENNIFER ARMER: Unfortunately, I don’t have that
number off the top of my head.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I think my concern is I
think for me I would probably be opposed to requiring story poles in all historic districts, and for me it would also depend on how much of town it is, but that could end up being like a lot of town, I might think.

JENNIFER ARMER: The clarification that I can
provide is that the historic districts really are downtown at this time. There is the potential that others could be added in the future. The part that would extend beyond the downtown area are these houses that were built before 1941 that when it is listed as a pre-1941 build date, then we presume it to be historic until it has gone to the Historic Preservation Committee and requested and received
permission to remove it from that, in which case it would no longer have these requirements, but at this time
anything that is triggering that review by the HPC would be falling under this requirement as well, as currently
stated.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Burnett.

COMMISSIONER BURNETT: I would hope we would
retain that and not the change the motion on that subject.

I think it’s very important to keep our pre-1941 homes

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intact as much as possible and I think story poles help actually the designer, the builder, and the homeowner to help design to keep the home as it started out, like the home we had today. It was a very good project and it was very helpful, so I think it’s very important and I would encourage the maker of the motion to retain that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that comment. I
have one question. Did we talk about a project where
there’s no visibility from the public right-of-way, to
exclude the requirement of story poles under those
circumstances?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I did not, but I assumed
that most of those projects were a lot of times in the
hillsides, but then we can see them from view corridors. I do think that if they can’t be viewed from a view corridor, and they cannot be viewed from a public right-of-way in any way, shape, or form, then I think that should be included in the excluded or exempt category, so I would amend my motion to include that, because it seems unnecessary.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that. Is there a
second?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I guess I have an issue to
bring up then. We saw at the Conceptual Development
Advisory Committee, the first meeting this year, the

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concept for a very large development in Surrey Farms, and that would be 22-23 homes including ADUs, and you can’t see that from the viewing platforms, but everyone in that
neighborhood would be able to it, so I wouldn’t want them not to have to do story poles. I was hesitating about
taking out if you can’t see it from public viewing
platforms, because there are quite a few developments where you wouldn’t want that to happen without the neighbors
being able to see it.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I totally agree and I know
exactly where that lot is, and it is viewable not from our specific view corridors, but it is viewable from all of Longmeadow Drive, and so I understand. My intent was that this was truly a project that couldn’t be viewed from any street, but I don't even know if that is legally too
complicated to write in. Yes, probably.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: It sounds like you answered
your own question, but it’s not too complicated to write it in if the Commission wants to exclude properties that
aren’t viewable from view corridors or public right-of-way, but it sounds like there’s a debate happening.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So any public right-of-way
would include Longmeadow, so this wouldn’t not be included as exempt?

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JENNIFER ARMER: One question of clarification.

What about private roadways? We have a number of private roadways which are done by easement rather than public
right-of-way, especially in the hillsides, so just to fully understand and discuss the implications of that. It can be written in there, but you may have cases where something is visible from a private street to the people who drive up and down that private street, but it would not qualify for this requirement of story poles because of the way you’re currently phrasing it.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So the way that I’m
currently phrasing it, I think that for me that would be okay, because that seems like a huge burden to put
financially on a builder/developer for one or possibly a couple of private property owners to be able see the story poles versus like we do know that there are alternatives of the renderings, etc., so I am comfortable with that, but thank you for bringing that up.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments on the motion?
Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Just on this last issue, my
whole concern is it seems to me that the types of homes we’re talking about here are the ones most likely to be in hillsides, and those I think are among the categories when

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we first started discussion that would be most benefited by story poles, and viewing corridors change over time. My sense is that by introducing an element of not visible from viewing corridors we’re introducing maybe an element that’s creating too much ambiguity. A thought.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, but I also
included public right-of-ways, so I feel like there would be very few lots of properties that would qualify with all of that, but I don't know, because I don't know that much about the extent of the mountainsides and everything, so I’m happy to get rid of it if we feel like it’s too
complicated, or now the Town Council knows we mentioned this if they want to deal with it, that’s fine with me, so yes.

I also do just want to state that I am on the
same page with Commissioner Clark. I don’t feel we need story poles for everything in all of the historic
districts. I’m happy to keep it for the historic inventory list, and I understand that would cover all of the historic districts anyway, so then I guess it doesn’t really matter if you guys feel strongly about it.

CHAIR BARNETT: So we have a motion and we have a
second. Any further discussion? If not, I’ll ask the

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Commissioners to raise their hand in approval, and we have a unanimous vote on that. Thank you.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: So did the motion delete the
requirement for the proposal that properties be exempt if they’re not visible from right-of-way or viewing corridors? CHAIR BARNETT: That was removed, yes.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: No, I included it.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: It’s included.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Because the seconder didn’t
ask, but yes, but the Town Council knows that we weren’t sure, so there you go.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: It was included, yes.

ATTORNEY WHELAN: And everybody who voted knew
that? Okay, thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: Let’s see, our time is 9:30. We
could take a break now if Commissioners are desirous of doing that; otherwise we can plow ahead.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: I think the remaining topics
are quick, hopefully.

CHAIR BARNETT: So we’ve got Sections C and D
left. We’ll move on to C at the bottom of page 15, and this addresses the concept of what kind of netting or
alternatives we should consider. Current policy requires all building corners and heights to be demonstrated by the

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flagging system, and that would include towers, spires, elevators and mechanical (inaudible), cupolas, mechanical equipment, screening and similar elements not used for
human activity or storage which are visible from the
streetscape. See I’ll open discussion on that item and see if there are any comments. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have two changes I’d like
to see. I don’t think we should require internal story
poles. I think that adds a huge cost burden.

Something I want to note looking at the North
Forty. Those units are expensive and we know that it took almost $1 million to put in all those story poles, and that cost gets passed down to the homeowner or tenant, it’s not absorbed by the developer, so I think it’s important to look at where we can lower the costs; I think that’s a good way.

Then I also think we should make modifications
for things like only front façade and tallest ridge rather than every architectural detail.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments.

Other comments? Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I support Commissioner
Clark’s comments; I am in agreement with that.

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I also must say that I understand comments about
the orange netting, but I also don’t know if there’s a
real… I’m happy with flags or something else that could be used that’s easy to get access to, that’s inexpensive, but when I was thinking and looking at the other jurisdictions it’s not like there’s another alternative besides the
orange netting that does a much better job of representing what the final product is going to look like, which I feel like was a big comment that we got from the architects, so I don't know if there’s a way that we can really adjust that, because I don’t think there’s really a product out there that’s less expensive, less wasteful, and that’s more available, according to my very little research.

But I do agree that the outside of the building
and the height is the most important part, and I do think that if we’re talking about from the perspective of this also is a signal to the community that this project is
happening, it doesn’t matter if there are four poles or ten poles, the four poles are going to do it for people, so that’s my opinion.

CHAIR BARNETT: Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks. I’m generally in
accordance with both Commissioners’ prior comments. I think a representation of the general outline of the structure

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without going into its internal spaces, representing its high points specifically.

I think there was a comment about it only
representing the front façade. I think we need more than the front façade; I think we need a general footprint of the space.

With respect to the orange netting, I find it
generally non-problematic. I understand orange is a
shocking color, but I think at some point we want the
public to see it, and I think it’s better than the
alternatives. My only caveat would be if we are in high wind areas or extraordinarily high areas, then I think the netting becomes more of a problem, and so maybe in those situations we would go to flags instead of netting. Aside from that, a system that just gives us the outline with peaks using orange netting I think is a reasonable
solution.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for that. Commissioner
Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: When I was looking at this
I thought of a couple of things. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture, but the Story Pole Policy is all outside building corners and along the rooflines, and presuming that the rooflines are going to be higher than the outside

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corners unless it has a flat roof, so I’m not sure why
that’s so onerous.

Then as far as the architectural elements, when I
first went through Leadership Los Gatos I remember we had a section on land use, and one of the things that came up from the assistant town manager or town manager at the time was something along the lines of the dome building—you guys know what I’m talking about and where it is—and I don't know if that had story poles representing the dome part that is not used for anything but it basically is covering up a big part of the hillsides as you’re driving down Los Gatos Boulevard. I wouldn’t want that not to be story
poled, so when I was reading this I thought of that.

I don’t want it to be too onerous, but if we’re
taking it away from enough different properties I don’t see that it’s too much to ask to show us the things that are really going to stick out, so maybe there’s a better way to say it than to take away all these things. I don’t have a better way to say it than that, but I wouldn’t want to take that away from the story pole requirement so that people wouldn’t really see what’s going to be built.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. We might
consider that as part of a discretionary decision by the

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Town. Just throwing that out as an idea, maybe something we can look at later. Other comments? Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just have a quick
question. Is the netting significantly more expensive than flags?
JENNIFER ARMER: I’m not sure. I think there was
a comment to that effect, but I’m not sure what the
difference in the cost is between the two materials.

JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, I’d just add I
think some of the other comments were that you can span a greater distance with the flags than you can with the
orange netting without any issues, so that’s less poles you technically have to put up, which probably makes it cheaper overall.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I personally would be in
favor of looking into flags instead of netting.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other thoughts on Section C?
Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree that I think that
the poles and something strung across signals that a
project is happening, and so I agree that with having an option besides the netting, flags I guess was the other suggestion. I guess rope was also included as an example; I think that that would need to be a pretty bright color. I

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don't know how rope would be better than flags, but I do think that maybe that could be included in the modify
exception process and we could maybe try to streamline that area, so I am happy to leave this here and then discuss it more in the Modify Exception Process section in E, but I did want to ask the Town Attorney if that is where we
should… In this section I guess we’re not actually
requiring any policy, but would it be necessary to mention that alternatives can up to the discretion of the Community Development Director, etc.? Would that be necessary to be included right after the comments about what is allowed, or is it just in a completely different section of the policy? ATTORNEY WHELAN: I don't know what section it
would be best in, but I do think it would be a good idea to specify the criteria under which an exception would be
allowed so that it gets applied evenhandedly and so you could recommend to the Town Council that the ultimate
policy allow exceptions to the netting under the following circumstances.

JENNIFER ARMER: And that could be part of your
discussion of Section C of your Staff Report or Section D, either of those. We will take the recommendations from
Planning Commission and work them into a revised Story Pole Policy as appropriate.

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CHAIR BARNETT: All right, Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I just wanted to ask the
question, pursuant to what was brought up earlier in
Section B, Building Height, the 70’ high building. I’m
looking at the exception process and it says the current exception process for alternatives, including the orange snow fencing and replacement of poles, and I would think the height thing would require an exception from Town
Council. I’m trying to think of ways to get around that and to put it more with the Community Development Director. I don't know where this height thing would fall, but I think as long as there’s a way to represent the building
physically that’s similar to the story poles that it would be fine to leave that to the discretion of the Community Development Director.

JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question. I
would say that you could place that as an exception or you could just build it in to say this is the material that is…the netting is required for all buildings unless they exceed a height of 35’, in which case an alternative
material of this flag rope—I don’t think it is just rope, I think it is flag rope; it’s the rope that has the flags on it—that that is the alternative material that could be
allowed when a building exceeds 35’, for example.

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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: That sounds reasonable to
me.

JENNIFER ARMER: So then it’s not an exception
process, it’s just built in.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Right, because I do want
to honor what the Town Council asked us to do. They have other things to focus on, not that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other questions or comments? I
believe one of the examples we saw talked about netting that designated the plate heights in different colors, and that seemed interesting to me. We talked about possible markers on the poles themselves to designate distances, perhaps at 10’ intervals or something like that, but I
think actually somehow demonstrating where the plate lines is would be helpful to envision the future building. Just a thought to throw out. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I would also note that Mr.

Fagot also mentioned about the flags at the top where you have the netting, but then at the very highest point there are flags at the top, if I got that correctly, that would be worth considering.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for remembering that.

Commissioner Clark.

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COMMISSIONER CLARK: I wanted to ask, one of the
architects during public comment talked about only 30 being required but we use 44 for the level of orange or
something. Do you know what that means?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for that question.

They were talking about the brightness of colors on the building that are allowed in the hillsides, and so when we’re talking about a new hillside home, it’s limited, it can’t be a bright color, and then they were saying that the flags or the netting is very bright and therefore does not comply with the Hillside Development Standards and
Guidelines for new homes.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Okay, got it. Thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: Other comments or a possible
motion?
COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I can do both again.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: My comment is actually
related to the flag at the top. I guess that’s not as
difficult, but adding more requirements to the story poles feels like it is only going to increase this reliance on story poles, and I feel like at the end of the day the goal needs to be to get information to people to authentically engage in a better, more meaningful, and constructive way

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25 and I don't know if adding more information to story poles is going to do that.

I think that we need to encourage and require
outreach and information sharing in a different platform, so I agree that it would be really helpful for me as a
planning commissioner to be able to see the plate heights and everything in real life, I would really appreciate that and have the poles be marked, but I feel like it would
create further reliance on this process that is clearly a burden to part of our community, and so that is just my only fear and hesitation for adding specific requirements.

That being said, I am happy to make a motion if
you want me to anyway.

CHAIR BARNETT: Please do.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So for Section C, Modify
Physical Requirements, should the current requirements be modified? We say yes, the modification should be that above 35’ alternatives to netting can be approved, such as flag rope, and I think that that’s pretty much it.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: And then also we had
discussed something more toward just displaying the general footprint of the building versus every architectural

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25 detail, so like something in that direction, and also no internal story poles.

JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, may I ask for
clarification on that?
CHAIR BARNETT: Please.

JENNIFER ARMER: We don’t currently require story
poles in the middle of a building unless it’s supporting a tall ridge, so was that intended to address situations
where there are multiple buildings?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: Yes, so for like the North
Forty, all the ones that weren’t even visible unless you got a private invitation.

JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, that’s actually
in Section D, so if we get to D then we can handle that there. I think the Commission has been having a lot of good discussion, but once we get a motion on the table we really should get a second, and then we can start talking about potential amendments; it might be a little cleaner that way for us to unravel when we watch the video.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, so we have a motion. We
don’t have a second.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I’ll second the motion.

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25 CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen, thank you.

Any discussion on the motion? If not, I’ll ask for a raise of hands of those in support, and it’s unanimous.

JENNIFER ARMER: Through the Chair, I just want
to clarify, the motion was the flags would be allowed over 35’? Okay, thank you.

CHAIR BARNETT: We’ve made our way to Section D
on page 16. This addresses alternatives to the Story Pole Policy, including more clarity and predictability and
potentially reducing the exception request, which as I
understand has been a burden to both the Applicant and
perhaps to the Town, and to consider these options for
perhaps eliminating or limiting the story pole
requirements, and that is to use flag ropes, renderings and digital simulations, signage, and reduced number of poles for multi-building projects. I think the rest of it has been reviewed and understood, so I’ll open the discussion on Section D. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I have a couple of things.

One thing I think that we should discuss is some people had a problem with having to rent story poles for a really long time, so maybe we should consider—and I don't know if this is where we would do it or if we’d want to do it in another spot—adding a time limit or something so that they’re not

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25 having to rent story poles for months on end and the cost keeps accumulating.

Also I wanted to bring up the option of in order
to officially notify the neighbors if we’re not doing story poles something the Town could do is send a mailer to the ten immediate neighbors or something, and I just wanted to throw that idea out there, but those were my first couple of thoughts.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thank you, Chair. On
Commissioner Clark’s point with respect to notifying
neighbors, I’d like to see perhaps a system whereby the proposed development has a sign in the front and could have a rendering on that sign, and maybe even I think
Commissioner Thomas indicated in her notes before, a QR code which immediately could provide the viewer access to 3-D renderings to the extent those were created.

And then, again, with respect to items in here in
Section D, it also has reducing number of poles for multibuilding projects. I think this is where we would include our opinion that in multi-building projects such as the North Forty there wouldn’t be a requirement to include
internal poles, but rather we would look for story poles, around the perimeter of the project. Those are my thoughts.

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25 CHAIR BARNETT: One question I had on the net
concept is what if there are higher buildings on the
interior than at the four corners? Maybe something worth considering. Other thoughts? Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I have a question for
Staff. We require signage and renderings under what
circumstance? Because we did hear from the architects that they are always doing at least the renderings anyway. What do we require now, story poles or not?
JENNIFER ARMER: Correct. In the Story Pole
Policy it does actually include specifics about what needs to be on the signage, and it does require the front
elevation on the proposed building. When we get into
something that’s more complex than just a single-family home, then a rendering is required.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: My thought was since
they’re already doing that it’s easy to do that, and since we’re taking away story poles from a lot of developments that we should continue to, even if they don’t have to put up story poles, that they should do renderings and digital simulations and signage, and if they are doing story poles they should do it as well, but the people that aren’t
having to do story poles should also do it. I don't know

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25 how you’d do that when it’s not in the Story Pole Policy, but you see where I’m going with this?
JENNIFER ARMER: The Story Pole Policy does
include signage requirements, and so it could require for those projects that don’t trigger story poles that signage would still be required. I think it’s possible for us to work that in in terms of this larger story poles, netting, and signage policy if that is the desire of the Planning Commission.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: It was just my suggestion,
because I think that would be an easy way to create
visibility and it would help take us on the path of weaning people off of the need for story poles, and if that was the only thing they had to look, at and we could get some
experience with it as well.

CHAIR BARNETT: Any thoughts? Commissioner
Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and if we’re
discussing our Height Pole and Netting Policy—but really I feel like it needs to be renamed to Story pole and Netting and Signage or whatever—I think that signage is a really important part of this moving forward and hopefully can just be more useful with the access to technology that we have.

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25 I did have a question. I know that this wasn’t
necessarily in the topics of discussion, but it came up multiple times in all the policies that we looked at and it’s with regard to timing, and I think that that’s where we’ve been coming with a lot of the story pole stuff. I think that because we can post signage and link
information, but the linked digital information can be
updated, is it possible for us to require signage to be posted earlier in the process than right now, which is they go up with story poles? That’s my first question.

My second question is related to our timing with
the public notices. It says in our current policy that it should be the height poles and netting have been installed… It was something about it has to be before the public
comment period or something. Either way, other
jurisdictions have specifics like a 7-day or a 10-day or a 14-day, so is there a recommendation that we should put something more specific than just like sometime before? JENNIFER ARMER: At this time the signage meets
the same rules as our 10-day noticing for these projects, and so we require that the story poles be up, certified, and photographed, and the signage be installed prior to the beginning of the 10-day notice when we send notice cards.

In general, notice cards are sent to any property within

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25 300 feet, unless we’re talking about a Minor Residential Development Application where it’s a smaller radius, or the hillsides, in which case it’s actually a 500-foot radius.

And those notice cards do include the web link to find more information about the project online so that they can see any drawings, renderings, or project descriptions
available.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, thank you. With that
being said, I think that we should mention the ten days in here, unless that causes confusions because the notice
period could change and then we’d also have to amend this policy.

Right now the requirements on the sign are the
address and the phone number of the Planning Department.

Not that people shouldn’t physically come down; that’s
great if people want to physically come down and look at things in person, but I also think information about who to email is probably also helpful, and then also making sure that there are requirements about website links and QR
codes and things like that, because I do think that that is the most helpful way to gain access to digital information right away.

I still do think that putting the signs up
earlier would be helpful for everyone involved, even if the

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25 renderings end up changing, and I would be in favor of also making these signs more of a template format in some way, shape, or form that really does give visual notice to the community. A lot of the signage is developed by architects or people that work with architects, and they’re really beautiful and nice to look at, not that that’s problematic, but if we’re trying to get signage to replace the indicator of a story pole, maybe it does need to be outlined in
orange, or the title needs to be in all the same exact font and same exact size, and then there’s the area where they add the additional information. I’m not exactly sure what that would look like, but I do think something that’s more visually striking would be really helpful during this
transition period away from the story poles.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for those comments.

Other thoughts? Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks. First of all, I join
in all the comments by Commissioner Thomas.

I have one question for Staff. How long do the
story poles have to remain up? We’ve heard horror stories about how they were up for six months and it cost $1
million. Is there a requirement of X days?
JENNIFER ARMER: Thank you for the question. The
requirement is based on completion of the public hearing

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25 process. They must be installed prior to the public notice going out, so that’s ten days in advance of the first
public hearing, and then it must remain up until the end of any appeal period. The examples that were given were ones where there were multiple Planning Commission meetings, continuances, and then an appeal to Town Council,
continuances there, and so that is how it ended up becoming that length of a period.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: So maybe one of the things we
might want to consider is putting a cap on so that that burden doesn’t become too onerous for our developers. I don't know if it’s 30 days, 60 days, but it seems to me six months of carrying costs can be extraordinary, so if we want to consider that as well.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Other thoughts?
Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: Thank you. I like the idea
of adding a cap. I think that in a perfect world it would be up until it’s gone all the way through, but if the goal is to get the public’s attention, after 30 days they should know that it’s there, and maybe we do a really good job updating the signage to make it clear the story poles are down but this project is still being considered or

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25 something, but I would say 30-day cap, because I don't know what 60 days would get you compared to that.

CHAIR BARNETT: Is it correct that the Staff
materials online include photographs of the story poles? JENNIFER ARMER: We do require that photographs
of the story poles be provided, and if we were considering a shorter period of time for the story poles I think that would become standard practice that we would provide the photos online.

One element to consider is if a project then gets
appealed to another deciding body and the story poles are no longer up, then they would be relying on the photos and any renderings that were provided.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I had a question. In
general I am okay with the idea of exempting parts of the buildings that are not visible from the public right-ofway, but just taking the example of the North Forty, if you go by the outside of it most everything is at a 35’ height limit, however, the Market Hall with the two layers of
affordable housing is at least 10’, if not 15’, more. Is it more than 45’?
JOEL PAULSON: Yes.

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25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think one of the things
they got for the density bonus is more height there. I just would want to make sure, because we will see other projects like this with the new Housing Element, that they would still have to story pole at least the highest thing in
there, even if they don’t have to story pole every
building. Does that make sense? I put that out there that way, and hopefully it’s good. Other than that, I don’t
think they have to story pole every building.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. I’ll interject a
comment. The current policy, which is on page 75, includes as alternatives digital imagery, simulation, and computer modeling, and I was struck by the detail in the Santa
Barbara requirements that went into this in considerable detail, particularly on pages 41 and 42 relating to photosimulations, perspective drawings, 3-dimensional modeling, and aerial views, and my thought would be to commend those to the Town Council for possible consideration as specific requirements if we go away from story poles.

If we don’t have other comments, I guess we’re
looking for a motion at this time. Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I can try. I move under
Section D, Providing Alternatives, to have a reduced number of poles for multi-building projects, so that only the

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25 outer buildings need to be story poled, as well as the tallest building if not one of the outside ones. That there be a QR code and email address included on the signage, and that there be a time limit with cap of 30 days for story poles to be up. For projects that don’t trigger story poles for signage to be required. To consider having signage up earlier than the story poles. And to maybe standardize
signage to ensure it is visually striking or catches
attention.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. That’s your motion,
and I’ll look for a second. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I second that, and then I
did just want to clarify for the 30 days. Should it be 30 days after the notice, or 30 days total?
COMMISSIONER CLARK: I like 30 days after the
initial public hearing I think is a good idea.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: So that typically would be
like 40 days, the minimum, right? Okay.

CHAIR BARNETT: Any thoughts about other
inclusions into the possible motion or discussion about it? Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I meant to ask this
earlier. It was in the comments of the Staff Report. Do we need to consider adding or mentioning anything? Towards the

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25 end it says, “Relocation of poles when located close to property lines to reduce guide wire conflicts and
attachment of guide wires to existing trees, fencing, and equipment.” We didn’t discuss that in the motion. What does the policy say right now on that point?
JENNIFER ARMER: Our policy does not currently
have any exception for those situations, except going
through the standard exception process to Town Council.

JOEL PAULSON: Through the Chair, one option
might be to have Section D have two separate motions,
because these really are pretty separate topics. Like
moving forward with what you have, and then see what kind of comments we have on the second portion.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Fair enough, but since it
was under Section D I wanted to make sure that we didn’t skip it.

CHAIR BARNETT: So we have the motion, we have
the second, and we’ve had discussion. Anything further? If not, I’ll call for a raise of hands for those who are in favor of the motion, and again it’s unanimous. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Hanssen, do you want to formulate a
motion on your thoughts?

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25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Let me ask a question
first. Is it reasonable if we gave a more automatic
exception for people that need to relocate poles that are close to property lines? What would be the consequence of letting them relocate the poles, and how much does that happen? I just want to understand how that works.

JENNIFER ARMER: Since this isn’t an exception
that we’ve seen frequently, it’s a case where I think
they’ve just found a way to make it work, but it could be phrased as an exception. It could be considered either
automatically that within a certain distance of a property line that the poles could be set in. We could include some language that there needs to be some note about that on the signage to specify that it’s not representing the full
width of the building. This is me just kind of
brainstorming some ideas as to how you would address that.

Alternatively, you could consider this as another
exception process, so as the Town Attorney had suggested we would want to have some specific guidelines to guide Staff through that type of exception process and when to grant it.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Given what you just said,
I would just say that it’s not a big issue, so I would
leave it to the discretion of the Community Development

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25 Director whether that was okay or not. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a big problem, and I wouldn’t want them to have to go to Town Council for that.

Also, the attachment of guide wires to existing
trees, fences, and equipment, I do maybe have an issue
about trees, because we have so many protected trees, but the fences and equipment, as long as it’s not going to
damage them, I again wouldn’t want to send people with an unnecessary exception, because we want them to get the
story poles up, so if they can’t do it another way then they should have that kind of alternative.

So that would be a motion I would make to say
that we can allow the relocation of poles located close to property lines to reduce guide wire conflicts without
getting an exception, and the same with attaching to other devices other than the poles they’re putting up, but not trees. So that’s my motion.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you for the motion. Do we
have a second? Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I second.

CHAIR BARNETT: And discussion? Seeing none, I
call for the raise of hands in favor. Also unanimous. Thank you.

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25 Now we’re going to move on to Section E, Modify
Exception Process. This relates to who is going to be the decision maker on certain exception requests, and I believe you’ve had a good opportunity to look at that and consider it, so why don’t we open up for discussion? Vice Chair
Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: Thanks, Chair. My sense is the
Community Development Director already handles quite a few issues with respect to the poles, and it’s only certain issues that are not handled by the CDD that go up to Town Council. I don’t see a good reason to break it down that way. To me, I think the CDD should handle all issues with respect to those story poles, take it all out of the hands of the Town Council who have many more important things to do, so my recommendation would be to make the CDD the
decision maker for all matters with respect to the story poles and signage as we’ve talked about tonight.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, that’s a clear motion. Is
there a second? Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I second.

CHAIR BARNETT: And discussion? Commissioner
Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I just wanted to say I think
that’s a good motion and that we can support that if the

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25 Town Council would like to make that decision to offload it, we would support them doing that, but ultimately I
think this one, mostly it’s going to be what the Town
Council wants to do, because it falls under them a lot of the time now.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I agree, and do we need to
be discussing what is part of the exemption process or just the process itself for Staff right now? Just the process? JOEL PAULSON: Yes, just the process, and this is
really just specifically the deciding body for exceptions, because the reality is with the motions that have been made thus far we’re going to have far fewer exception requests probably even for larger buildings, because you provided some options. Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see what Council says, but I think that’s where we’ll find out
whether or not we need to build in additional comments
related to the exceptions request, but this is specific to the decision maker for any exception requests.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: Okay, perfect. Then that’s
it.

CHAIR BARNETT: I noticed in the Staff Report it
refers to only two jurisdictions in the County that have an

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25 exception process where the authority is placed within the Community Development Director, but I support the motion.

Any further discussion? If not, raise your hands,
and it’s unanimous.

We move next to Section F, Story Pole Policy
requirements, and we’ve heard about that issue from some of the commentators, and I guess we can move right on to
discussion of that. Vice Chair Raspe.

VICE CHAIR RASPE: My sense is the Story Pole
Policy requirement is the Applicant has to provide a plan to the Town for it’s prior approval before raising the
poles and putting up the netting. To me that makes eminent sense. The alternative is no plan, the poles go up, and God forbid they’re incorrect and they have to be redone to a greater expense. So, yes, there is a great upfront expense in preparing a plan, but it seems to me it’s the most
efficient probably cost effective measure, and so I would recommend keeping that system in place.

CHAIR BARNETT: Commissioner Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I totally understand what
the Vice Chair just said, however, the story poles have to be certified by an independent certification, and if I
understand the role of those certifying bodies it’s that they’re supposed to take the plans and say yes, I agree,

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25 and because I’m qualified to say so that those story poles represent the development plans as submitted. So while I understand having a plan would help, is that onerous on top of them having to get them certified anyways? That’s just a question I have and I had written down before I came to the meeting.

CHAIR BARNETT: Is that a question to Staff?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: It’s a question to the
other Commissioners.

CHAIR BARNETT: I see. Thank you. Commissioner
Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I think what I heard from
the architects and developers is that it’s very onerous to put together that Story Pole Policy; it sounded like it is legitimately a problem for them, and if Los Gatos is the only agency in the County that requires the Story Pole
Policy, it must work not to have one though would be my opinion, because everyone else seems to be getting by okay.

I think one thing we could do is provide the
option to get a Story Pole Policy approved before putting them up so that if somebody is concerned that their story poles would end up needing to be changed once they were up, they could come forward, but if they don’t they understand

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25 that they might be assuming an additional cost if they do need to be changed.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you. Commissioner
Hanssen.

COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I think that’s a fantastic
suggestion. It’s the story pole version of the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee. It’s an option if they want the confidence that they’re doing the right thing and then they can choose to do it, and it could also be a warning that if you don’t do it, it might be an additional expense for you. I like that approach.

CHAIR BARNETT: It sounds like there’s a growing
consensus. Is there further discussion? Commissioner Clark.

COMMISSIONER CLARK: I move to make a Story Pole
Policy plan optional rather than required.

CHAIR BARNETT: Thank you. Now do we have a
second? Commissioner Thomas.

COMMISSIONER THOMAS: I second the motion.

CHAIR BARNETT: Any further discussion? If not,
raise your hands in support. Another unanimous vote.

Now we are down to Section G, the one that is
remaining, and we’ve heard from the Town Attorney on this issue tonight, but does anyone have any further questions or comments about it? Commissioner Hanssen.

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25 COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I will just mention that
this was discussed at the last Housing Element Advisory Board meeting, and although we didn’t come to any
recommendation on that particular point it was discussed at least briefly because it was brought up by HCD, but I think we all took comfort in the fact that our Town Attorney’s opinion is that a court wouldn’t consider that being an issue, and especially since we are loosening a lot of the requirements for Story Pole Policy it seems to me that that shouldn’t be an impediment, especially with what we’ve done with mainly affordable housing.

CHAIR BARNETT: And I assume in our iterative
process with HCD that this hasn’t been mentioned as a
requirement or concern?
JOEL PAULSON: I don’t believe it has
specifically been mentioned, but we did provide a lot of additional information in this second round, which may lead to some comments.

CHAIR BARNETT: Okay, thank you.
(END)

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PREPARED BY: Jennifer Armer, AICP
Planning Manager
Reviewed by: Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, Town Attorney, and Community Development Department Director
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● (408) 354-6832 www.losgatosca.gov

TOWN OF LOS GATOS

COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
MEETING DATE: 08/01/2023
ITEM NO: 15

DESK ITEM
DATE: August 1, 2023
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Laurel Prevetti, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Consider Adoption of a Resolution Modifying the Height Pole and Netting Policy for Additions and New Construction. The Proposed Modifications to Town Policy are Not Considered a Project Under the California Environmental Quality Act. Project Location: Town Wide. Applicant: Town of Los Gatos.

REMARKS:

Attachment 10 includes public comment received between 11:01 a.m., Monday, July 31, 2023, and 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

ATTACHMENTS:

Previously received with the August 1, 2023, Staff Report:

1. Draft Revised Story Pole Policy with Changes Red-Lined

2. Draft Resolution with Exhibit 1

3. April 26, 2023 Planning Commission Staff Report with Exhibits 1-2

4. April 26, 2023 Planning Commission Addendum Report with Exhibit 3

5. April 26, 2023 Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes

6. May 24, 2023 Planning Commission Staff Report with Exhibit 4

7. May 24, 2023 Planning Commission Addendum Report with Exhibit 5

8. May 24, 2023 Planning Commission Desk Item Report with Exhibits 6

9. May 24, 2023 Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes
Received with this Desk Item:

10. Public Comment received between 11:01 a.m., Monday, July 31, 2023, and 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 1, 2023

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Direct No.: 415.655.8114
[email protected]
Los Angeles – Inland Empire – Marin County – Oakland – Orange County – Palm Desert – San Diego – San Francisco – Silicon Valley – Ventura County 1 California Street - Suite 3050
San Francisco, California 94111-5432
voice 415.655.8100 - fax 415.655.8099
www.bwslaw.com
July 31, 2023
Mayor Maria Ristow and
Los Gatos Town Council
Town of Los Gatos
110 E. Main Street
Los Gatos, CA 95030
Re: Agenda Item 15: Story Pole Policy Modifications
Dear Honorable Mayor and Council Members:

Our firm represents Grosvenor USA Limited (“Grosvenor”) in connection with housing and land use matters for development of the North Forty Specific Plan Area in the Town of Los Gatos (the “Town”). Grosvenor has submitted a preliminary application to the Town to develop the North Forty Phase II site in manner consistent with the policies and assumptions applicable to the site as an opportunity site for housing development for lower income households included in the Town’s 2023-2031 Housing Element. Because Grosvenor’s housing development project will be affected by the Town’s policy regarding height pole and netting requirements (collectively, the “Story Pole Policy”), we have been following the Town’s process to update its Story Pole Policy with interest.

The current proposed Story Pole Policy modifications presented in your agenda packet for the August 1, 2023 Town Council Meeting represent an improvement over the Town’s current requirements. However, without further revisions, the Story Pole Policy will continue to be an impediment on projects that seek to deliver much needed housing at all income levels, including projects with a significant percentage of affordable housing. In its May 30, 2023 letter to Community Development Director Joel Paulson regarding legal deficiencies with the Town’s 2023-2031 Housing Element, the State Department of Housing and Community Development (“HCD”) directed the Town to “commit to an actual outcome” regarding Story Pole Policy modifications that will reduce housing costs and “establish alternatives or modifications [to the Story Pole Policy] that promote approval certainty.” HCD suggested removing the Story Pole Policy or allowing for its requirements to be satisfied though an alternative such as visual renderings.

ATTACHMENT 10 Page 817
Los Gatos Town Council
July 31, 2023

The proposed Story Pole Policy revisions fall short of HCD’s direction and do not fully mitigate the Story Pole Policy’s constraint on housing production in the Town.

Requiring installation of height poles and netting on a site before any development can begin imposes a significant financial and political obstacle to housing development.

First, installing story poles is extremely expensive. Installing story poles for Phase 1 of the North 40 development cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and took weeks to install, only to be later uninstalled before development could begin. Modern tools such as 3D renderings could just as effectively illustrate the proposed building locations and heights for a fraction of the cost and time. Moreover, while members of the public must physically travel to the development site during a finite period to “see” the proposed development, 3D renderings could be made available online for members of the public to view from anywhere at any time. Renderings have the added advantage of giving the public information about building design and views from within the interior of a site that may otherwise be unavailable to the public when a project is proposed and would provide specific detail regarding the aesthetics of the proposed buildings rather than requiring viewer speculation.

Second, requiring story poles also creates unnecessary tension within the community and can create false expectations about the Town’s ability to deny or modify design elements such as height or massing that are consistent with the Town’s development standards. For example, during Phase 1 of the North 40 development, acres and acres of unsightly story poles stirred enough angst among community members to temporarily derail the approval process for a project that satisfied all of the Town’s development criteria specified in its adopted Specific Plan. However, given that the Phase 1 development (and many other housing developments) are protected by state laws that prevent the Town from denying or reducing the density of housing development projects, including the Housing Accountability Act and the State Density Bonus Law, the story poles do nothing more than create unnecessary opposition to projects that are legally entitled to move forward, which in turn can create an impediment for projects to achieve the full density ostensibly allowed by the Town’s development standards.

The Planning Commission recommended that the Story Pole Policy continue to require height poles and netting for proposed residential and non-residential buildings “[i]f proposed project includes a variance or exception to the physical characteristics of the primary structure.” The language referencing an “exception to the physical characteristics of the primary structure” could be interpreted to apply to projects that are legally entitled to incentives, concessions, or waivers under the State Density Bonus Law. This would impose a requirement specifically on projects that include affordable

Los Gatos Town Council
July 31, 2023

housing, and it creates an economic and political barrier discouraging use of the State Density Bonus Law. The Story Pole Policy should be amended so that receipt of incentives, concessions, or waivers under the State Density Bonus Law does not trigger height pole and netting requirements.

The Planning Commission recommended that the Story Pole Policy include an exemption for projects that include a “high level of affordable housing” without specifying how much affordable housing would trigger the exemption. Staff has recommended that projects must double the Town’s below market price program (“BMP”) requirements in order to qualify for an exemption, which would mean that projects could be required to provide as much as 40 percent of their units as BMP units.

This means that the Story Pole Policy would continue to apply to many projects that would be eligible for “by-right” approval under Government Code Section 65583.2(i) by virtue of providing 20 percent of their units as affordable to lower income households on opportunity sites included in the Housing Element. The Story Pole Policy should be amended to include an exception for all projects that include at least 20 percent of their units as affordable to lower income households.

The Planning Commission also recommended that flag rope be allowed in place of netting when buildings are over 35 feet tall and to reduce the number of poles required for multi-building developments to only include the tallest structure and those along the perimeters of the site. These are clear improvements over the current Story Pole Policy, but they remain more burdensome that other available alternatives.

Projects with more than one building should be allowed to comply using 3-D renderings and project identification signs that comply with Sections II.G and III of the Story Pole Policy.

Amending the Story Pole Policy is an important step towards helping the Town achieve its housing production goals and comply with HCD’s direction to adopt a legally adequate Housing Element that includes programs to eliminate development constraints. We encourage the Town Council to make further amendments to the Story Pole Policy as suggested above to fully comply with HCD’s direction while still achieving the Town’s goal of informing Town residents, staff, and decision-makers about a project’s proposed massing.

Los Gatos Town Council
July 31, 2023

Thank you for considering our suggested revisions. The Grosvenor team looks forward to working with the Town to deliver much needed housing during the planning period.

Sincerely,
Eric S. Phillips
cc: Steve Buster, Senior Vice President, Grosvenor
Whitney Christopoulos, Senior Development Manager, Grosvenor Don Capobres, Principal, Harmonie Park Development
Louis Liss, Associate Director of Real Estate Development, Eden Housing Jennifer Renk, Esq., Partner, Sheppard Mullin
Paul McDougall, HCD Senior Program Manager
Jose Armando Juaregui, HCD Housing Policy Analyst

PREPARED BY: Holly Young
Senior Management Analyst
Reviewed by: Town Manager, Assistant Town Manager, Town Attorney, 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: 08/01/2023
ITEM NO: 16
DATE: July 25, 2023
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Laurel Prevetti, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Provide Direction on Legislative Priorities with Regard to State, Federal, and Regional Legislation and Town Council Policy #2-18: Legislative Policy RECOMMENDATION:

Provide direction on legislative priorities with regard to State, Federal, and regional legislation and Town Council Policy #2-18: Legislative Policy.

BACKGROUND:

In 2016, the Town Council adopted Council Policy #2-18: Legislative Policy (Attachment 1). This Policy sets forth the procedures for engagement in the legislative process and the types of issues that are appropriate for the Town to state a position.

On March 28, 2023, the Policy Committee discussed a list of potential legislative priorities.

These priorities are intended to be helpful to Town Council members as they engage in discussions with State legislators and as the Town considers which bills it chooses to endorse, oppose, or recommend amendments.

DISCUSSION:

Prior to the March 28, 2023 Policy Committee meeting, Committee Chair/Council Member Rob Moore compiled legislative priorities for Los Gatos’s State and Federal Representatives (Attachment 2).

At the March 28, 2023 Policy Committee meeting, the Committee unanimously voted to bring these legislative priorities to the full Council.

PAGE 2 OF 3
SUBJECT: Legislative Priorities
DATE: July 25, 2023
DISCUSSION (continued):

Consistent with the Legislative Policy, the following draft legislative priorities were brought to the Policy Committee for consideration because they align with proposals that impact Los Gatos and funding resources:
 Concealed Weapons: In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, the Town should advocate for legislation that clarifies the concealed carry weapons process and protects sensitive places from the presence of concealed weapons. Senate Bill (SB) 2 is an example of a such a bill. On June 20, 2023, the Council voted to introduce an ordinance to update the Town’s Concealed Carry Firearm Licensing Ordinance and prohibit the carry of firearms in sensitive places.
 Clarifications regarding SB 9: The Town may want to advocate for legislation that clarifies SB 9 lot splits and developments in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, affordability requirements, and the attestation of intent to occupy.  Reform of Proposition 47 and 57: Several bills are expected to address the unintended consequences of these ballot measures. For example, AB 1708 would increase accountability for repeat theft offenders and offer pathways for pre-plea diversion programming.
 Protect Vehicle License Fee (VLF) and Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF):

As the State may consider how it will address future budget shortfalls, it is critical that the State not take funding from local government. In the past, these two funding sources have been redirected to the State for its own budgeting purposes.  Internet Sales Tax: With the exception of our Measure G district sales tax, internet sales tax goes into a pool and is distributed based on a jurisdiction’s share of the overall sales tax collected in the respective County. In contrast, the Town’s Measure G district sales tax is distributed based on the buyer’s location, yielding higher revenue for the Town. Changes to the general distribution of sales tax would benefit Los Gatos.

Based on the discussion at the Policy Committee meeting, the proposed legislative priorities are being brought to the full Council for discussion and direction. Council may also wish to provide direction on the Legislative Policy. For example, the Legislative Policy does not outline a process for Council to set legislative priorities and it could be amended to include such a process. Specifically, the Council may direct a draft update to the Legislative Policy to:

PAGE 3 OF 3
SUBJECT: Legislative Priorities
DATE: July 25, 2023
DISCUSSION (continued):
 Add language to recognize that the Council may wish to consider its potential legislative priorities on an annual or periodic basis. The priorities themselves would likely change over time and would not be added to the Legislative Policy. With this option, Council may also direct specific legislative priorities for 2023 and 2024; or  Refine the list of categories for legislative engagement (Legislative Strategies, page two of Attachment 1). With this option, specific priorities would not be required; however, the Council may wish to provide specific guidance on an annual or periodic basis; or  Address other options.

In addition, the Town Attorney has identified that the “Legislative Position Process” section of the Policy (Attachment 1) may need to be updated to meet the Brown Act and/or other State laws. If so directed, these proposed modifications could return with the draft update of the Policy to address legislative priorities.

CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS:

Staff looks forward to the Council’s direction and will return with revised documents based on this direction.

COORDINATION:

This report was coordinated with the Town Manager’s Office and Town Attorney.

FISCAL IMPACT:

There is no associated fiscal impact.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT:

This is not a project defined under CEQA, and no further action is required.

Attachments:

1. Council Policy #2-18: Legislative Policy

2. Council Member Moore’s Memorandum regarding Los Gatos State and Federal Legislative Priorities

Title: Legislative Policy
Date: 10/ 5/ 16
Enabling Actions: 11evi ate:

Policy Number: 2 -18
Pages: 3

PURPOSE
The purposes of the Legislative Policy are to: identify opportunities for the Town to participate in state, federal, and regional legislation and other policy matters, and describe a process for Town positions, actions, and related activities.

BACKGROUND
Council Members have the opportunity to learn of legislative issues from their work on the Council, general awareness of current topics, and their service on other Board and Committees as representatives ofthe Town. The Town Manager encourages all Town Departments to monitor and be knowledgeable of any legislative issues related to their disciplines. The Town Manager and Town Attorney similarly stay engaged with their professions as well as monitor the activities of the League of California Cities and other organizations. The Town benefits from a Legislative Policy to articulate overarching legislative principles to guide the Town' s engagement in the legislative process as outlined in this Policy.

LEGISLATIVE PRINCIPLES
The Town should take a position and advocate for the position when proposed federal, state, County, or other agency legislative or measure has a potential direct impact on the Town.

Direct impact includes and is not limited to issues of local control, revenue reductions, grant eligibility, unfunded mandates and regulatory burdens.

POLICY GOALS

1. Advocate the Town' s legislative interests at the federal, state, regional, and County levels.

2. Inform and provide information to our legislators, Town Council, and staff on the key issues and legislation that could have potential impact on the Town.

3. Serve as an active participant with other local governments, the League of California Cities, local profession organizations, and /or other entities on legislative /regulatory issues that are important to the Town and our region.

4. Seek grant and funding assistance for Town projects, services, and programs to enhance services for our community.

Page: Policy Number:

Title: Legislative Policy 2 of 3 2 -18

LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIES

1. Communicate legislative positions on proposed federal, state, and County legislation, measures, initiatives, and governmental regulations.

2. Work with Town Departments to develop positions on proposed federal and state legislative measures based on analysis done by the League of California Cities, communication with legislators' offices, and other local government / professional associations in formulating our positions.

3. Take positions only on proposals that clearly impact our Town or are a threat to local control.

4. Actively track key bills through the legislative process, utilizing various legislative websites, government / professional associations, and other means.

5. Communicate the Town' s position to our federal, state, regional, and County members, bill author( s), Committees, and /or other governmental bodies through correspondence, testimony, and in- person meetings.

6. Work cooperatively with other cities, associations and the League of California Cities on advocating our legislative positions.

7. As necessary, participate in the drafting and amending of proposed federal, state, regional, and /or County measures that have the potential to significantly impact the Town.

8. Meet with legislators and their representatives, as well as other federal, state, regional, and /or County government officials on a regular basis to discuss local government issues, proposed legislation, requests for funding assistance, and Town programs and services.

9. Seek federal, state, and County funding through earmarks, grants, and other discretionary funding for Town projects, services, and programs.

10. Annually identify Town projects for potential submittal for federal earmark consideration and develop a submittal packet for legislators that provides information and need for the projects.

11. Provide information to Town Departments on potential grant funding opportunities and recognition programs.

12. Advocate and request letters of support for Town projects and grant applications or other resources that are being considered for federal, state, regional, and/ or County funding.

LEGISLATIVE POSITION PROCESS
The process for responding to legislative proposals is as follows:

1. Once the Town Manager and /or Town Attorney determines that a legislative proposal may impact the Town, a letter outlining the Town' s position ( support, neutral or oppose) will be drafted for the Mayor' s signature.

2. The Town Manager will circulate the draft position letter to the Town Council for review.

3. Ifthere is Council objection, the position letter will be placed on the next Town Council agenda for consideration.

Page: Policy Number:

Title: Legislative Policy 3 of 3 1 2 -18

4. Ifthere is no objection, staff will finalize the position letter for the Mayor' s signature and forward the signed letter to the bill' s author, the League of California Cities, and other stakeholders as deemed appropriate.

5. A copy of the final letter will be distributed to the Town Council.

APPROVED AS TO FORM:

Robert Schultz, T w Attorney

Attachment 2
Los Gatos State and Federal Representative’s 2023 Legislative Priorities In anticipation for the 3/28 Policy Committee Legislative Priorities discussion, I took the liberty to contact all of our state and federal legislators. I included our pre-redistricting and post-redistricting representatives, as some of our representatives have changed. In order to be effective at the state and federal level, we in Los Gatos need recognize the hard work and support the legislative priorities of our elected representatives. These representatives are able to secure significant funding and legislative victories for communities like Los Gatos if we are able to assist each other and act in partnership.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin:

AB 1206 - Electronic Registration Information Center
 If passed, California would join the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC is a nonpartisan nonprofit governed by its 30+ member states.  These member states mutually agree to share data, such as voter registration and vehicle licensee data, in order to keep their voter rolls accurate and to reach out to eligible unregistered citizens to encourage their participation.

AB 492 - Behavioral Health Integration in Reproductive Health Care Pilot Program  This bill would empower reproductive health care providers through a pilot program requiring the State Department of Health Care Services to provide funding to develop and implement reproductive and behavioral health integration pilot programs.  This would expand the availability and government integration of behavioral health services for beneficiaries with mild-to-moderate behavioral health conditions.

Senator Cortese:

SB 333 - Homeless pupils: California Success, Opportunity, and Academic Resilience (SOAR) Guaranteed Income Program
 Approximately 15,000 high school seniors experiencing homelessness would receive direct cash assistance to help them advance to higher education or employment.  SB 333 would establish the Success, Opportunity, & Academic Resilience (SOAR), a guaranteed income pilot program. The funding would be eligible to all 12th grade unhoused students who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.

SB 406 - California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: financial assistance: housing  This bill would promote affordable housing development without circumventing environmental review by extending to local governments an existing law that makes State financial assistance for affordable housing projects—but not the projects themselves—exempt from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review.

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo:

Largely due to a divided federal government, federal lawmakers do not have as much latitude as they would like to push legislation. Accordingly, our federal representatives are advocating for Los Gatos and other Bay Area cities in the budgeting process. A few key areas Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is focused on this legislative cycle are:
 Housing
o In response to feedback from cities in her district, Congresswoman Eshoo has been focused on helping cities build more affordable housing and support the needs of lowincome community members.

Attachment 2
o Accordingly, Congresswoman Eshoo is pushing for the expansion of the Housing Choice Voucher (formerly called Section 8) program and with Council feedback, would advocate for more Housing Choice Vouchers to be allocated to Los Gatos.  Transportation
o Transportation is one of the Congresswoman’s top priority areas. o She shared that “build.gov” is home to many transportation grants for municipalities like Los Gatos to apply for. Many of these grants focus on topics like Vision Zero, Safe Streets, Safe Routes to Schools, Road Diets, and more.
o Further, the Congresswoman’s office has asked Los Gatos Town Staff to reach out to her office ([email protected]) if we do apply for any federal grants.

Congresswoman Eshoo has offered to author a letter of support for grants on our behalf.
 Protecting Choice
o In response to the United States Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade, Congresswoman Eshoo is doing everything in her power to protect choice in all areas of life, from a woman’s right to choose to gay marriage.
(Incoming Representative) Senator Josh Becker:

SB 49 - Renewable energy: solar canopy tax incentives: Department of Transportation strategic plan  This bill would provide tax incentives for the construction of solar canopies over large parking lots to boost the local generation of clean electricity in urban and suburban areas.

SB 308 - Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act
 SB 308 would create a long-term predictable market for carbon removal, signaling to California’s innovators to jumpstart carbon removal & sequestration investment for the trillions of tons California will need to remove.
(Past Representative) Assemblymember Evan Low
ACA 5 – Marriage equality
 ACA 5 would bring a 2024 ballot initiative to voters to remove anti-same sex marriage language from the California constitution.