Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

All right. I would like to call the regular meeting of the Carmel Planning Commission to order. It's a beautiful spring day out there and we have a really interesting agenda today. We're going to say goodbye and hello. We've got, we're going to talk about the finances of the city, the housing element. We've got design studies and use permits. I don't think I've ever seen quite such a varied agenda. So with that, can we have roll call please?

Commissioner Alvord? Here. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Here.

Commissioner Locke? Here. Commissioner Ruse?

Here.

And Chair LePage?

Here. Okay. First item on the public agenda are public appearances. So anyone from the public can speak to the Planning Commission at this time on any matters of municipal concern which are not on our agenda today. I remind you that we are ruled by the Brown Acts and you're expected to abide by that. So is there anyone in the chamber? I see Nancy Toomey come forward. Come on up and speak to us about any items which are not on our agenda tonight.

I hope this counts. Just wanted to thank Erin for all of her efforts on behalf of our planning commission. It's very appreciated. And we hope to see her in another role in the city doing whatever magic she can continue to contribute in the years to come. So my appreciation to Erin.

So is there anybody else in the chamber that would like to speak to the Planning Commission on any items which are not on our agenda today? Any hands up online?

No, sir.

Okay. So that brings us to the announcements. And first announcement I would like to make is all the Planning Commissioners would like to thank Erin. She could come up here. Commissioner Erin Allen, she was an invaluable member of this commission and we are going to sorely miss her and we want to sincerely thank her and wish her good luck in any endeavors and hopefully maybe in the future she will get involved in some other things in the city because we always need intelligent, you know, input from active citizens. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It was actually a privilege and an honor and Chair LePage, you are a fantastic leader and I learned a lot working here on the planning commission. And so I feel like I've gained some new friends and it was a great experience. So thank you.

You are quite welcome. You'll be missed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Erin, would you mind just coming right back up? I wanted to wait until you sat down.

We're not done with you yet.

Aw, thank you so much.

Aw, thank you. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. You're quite welcome. We'll just reel you in again. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, Erin.

Thank you, Erin. And with that, I would like to welcome the newest member of the Planning Commission, Kevin Rouse. Roos, I'm sorry, I'll get that right. Roos. We're really looking forward to working with you, Kevin. I know all the commissioners feel that way and we want to welcome you to the commission and this team. All right, thank you. Any other announcements from staff or director? Okay. That moves us on to the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are considered to be routine in nature and do not require discussion, but any members of the public or the commission can ask for items to be pulled for further discussion if need be. We have three items on the consent agenda tonight. We have the monthly activity report from planning and building. We have the May 13th regular meetings for planning commission and the May 19th special meeting planning commission minutes. So is there anyone, any planning commissioner want anything pulled questions? Sure. Yeah, you can comment.

Just a quick comment. Thank you, chair. The monthly activity report has some new columns and a little more information. And I think it's absolutely awesome. Oh, are you not able to hear me? Is this a little better? Okay, thank you. The monthly activity report has additional columns, especially in the planning section. Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for that additional information. I hope it serves staff and property owners as much as it helps us. And with that, I would move that we accept the consent agenda as listed here. Second.

Okay, before we do that, I just want to see, is there anybody in the audience that has any questions about the consent agenda? Want to make any comments? Any hands up on line?

No, sir.

Okay. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Alvord?

Yes.

Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke?

Yes.

Commissioner Bruce?

I'm going to abstain since I wasn't here for those meetings.

And Chair LePage.

Yes, motion is carried.

All right, that brings us to the orders of business. First order of business tonight is an update on the design guidelines report. And Tom Ford, the project manager, is going to present that.

If we could get the screen such that we can pull the PowerPoint presentation up, please. You might still need to drag.

Oh, there you go.

Thank you. Well, good afternoon, Chair, Commissioners, and welcome, Commissioner Roos. My name is Tom Ford, and as Chair LePage said, I'll be giving another update on the process of finishing the Residential Design Guidelines 1.5. This will be a five minute long presentation with an opportunity for questions and feedback at the end. So the production team, which is the group that's tasked with completing the residential guidelines, continues to use a hybrid working model consisting of, so we have individual tasks and small group work. The individual tasks are still very well defined tasks and the small group work is primarily going word by word for each core principle as we edit it. We've concluded two out of the four intended cycles or months. Each cycle is one month. Here's a little snapshot of our schedule. The four monthly cycles I am referring to are April, May, June, and July. And this is what I would consider to be a dynamic schedule. So the schedule continues to actually evolve a little bit as we learn what's working and what's not. And the remaining months in our cycles are still projected to be June in the upper right hand corner and July in kind of the bottom left or middle left. We're still projecting that the draft of the residential guidelines will be completed by the August 12th regular Planning Commission meeting. And overall kind of reminder here is that this is the best case scenario. A SHORT TIMELINE, OR RELATIVELY SHORT, FIVE OR SIX MONTHS HERE, A SHORT TIMELINE TO COMPLETE THE RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES 1.5 IS PURPOSEFUL. IF THE SITUATION HAD CALLED FOR ADDITIONAL TIME, THAT CAN BE ACCOMMODATED, BUT WE'RE MOVING FORWARD WITH OUR TARGET ADOPTION DATE OF SEPTEMBER 1ST FOR CITY COUNCIL. So where are we at with regard to our major milestones? On the screen here appears eight major milestones, three of which are substantially complete Our future small group meetings will address each remaining core principle one by one. And regarding the very bottom line that says red line example. So there was an attachment in the agenda packet and that was of a red line that we had done. And that was more to show that we are tracking our edits as opposed to providing the exact red line of the exact red line that we will end up giving to the Coastal Commission. Because the final product, the final red line product, will likely be more of a matrix style. So one column, the previous or the current 2001 design guidelines, and the other column being where that information appears in the 1.5 guidelines. And it will show if the language has changed. So the production team has added in the past month a lot of language related to fire resiliency. On the screen is one of those examples. I thought this was just Just a great example of something, I think Chair LePage may have put this, he did extensive work on researching this, and I believe this is his sole work, and we all thought it was fantastic. It's a fire resilient design matrix. So essentially this will be, this matrix provides applicants with pre-approved materials that meet current safety mandates. in various design, relative to various design elements. I know that's very small for the folks in the crowd, but this it is in the agenda packet and I think it's just a great example. We do have one more here of fire resiliency related language that was added to a previously existing guideline of the draft. And essentially, I wanted to note that we point to the FHIR standards as opposed to quoting every one of them, because as we've learned in the past two or three years, the standards tend to change. So we can get around that by linking to the standards, such as we see on the screen with the, in this case, there will be a link to the WUE standards. So brief process updates. Our small group meeting, so four to five of us, that is, again, the word by word, core element by core element, or core principle by core principle group will be meeting weekly. That's our aim, to meet weekly on Tuesdays. The full production team will continue to meet monthly. Each future small group editing meeting will focus on one core principle per meeting. And a couple of us are currently searching for an editor and graphic designer. We did have one very specific question for the commission. Jake, would you mind just providing a little bit of background, kind of how we got to this question, please? And Jake, before you go, this is actually the end of the presentation. So following this, people can, you know, provide feedback or any questions or anything.

So at our... Last month's sprint, the first small groups meeting, we did the fire resiliency. Second one, we did Chapter 3, and we discussed also the new design guidelines that were created, including stuff about entertainment spaces outside with hot tubs, decks, and stuff. And then decks specifically and rooftop decks. And we were going back and forth on how best to... address some frequent concerns we see as the Planning Commission, you guys are aware that we get a lot of privacy concerns related to decks and there's an existing guidelines about not looking into neighboring outdoor spaces or into their homes. There was the idea floated of limiting the total size of individual decks to no greater than 100 square feet. And so we thought that was a good way to kind of limit how much they are on a property to hopefully prevent large outdoor party spaces and areas that could be potential privacy concerns or have view impacts. So the thought was, You can have multiple decks, but no deck should be greater than 100 square feet, and that would kind of nip a lot of these problems in the bud before they arose. So we wanted to present that to the whole commission, because I know Commissioner Locke and Chair LePage were there when we were discussing these, and we had thoroughly talked about these ideas. But we wanted to present it to the rest of you guys and see if you had thoughts, maybe more insights. There's discussion on limiting the total amount of decking to 100 square feet, individual decks to 100 square feet. maybe having that number be 150, 100, having it just be limited to rooftop decks or having it be applied to all decks, balconies, rooftop decks, whatever. So we just wanted your input to see if you had any thoughts on it or any tweaks to the language or just anything.

Just to expand a little bit, I think we also discussed about type of activities on the rooftop decks. So we discussed about limiting, not allowing hot tubs, not allowing outdoor TVs. Those were a couple of the items that we did discuss.

one comment that I could make to that you know the Coastal Act speaks to conditions for deck approvals I don't know if you folks got into that part when you were in your subcommittee and the deck approvals definitely this is in the Coastal Act chapter 3 section 30 253 and it talks about use intensity so it's quite in line with what what you're thinking about For me, this is a very important question, and I wouldn't mind having this as a bit of homework to take back with me for the coming month to think about and consider some past design studies that we've seen. Would that be possible?

Yeah, we have time. We're not... You know, you don't have to make a decision right now. We wanted more was, as Tom said, we want to get some feedback from the other commissioners who weren't there in the discussion. So that's exactly what your comments, what we're looking for. Commissioner Karapetkov, you have some comments on the decks, roof decks? This is specifically to rooftop decks.

No, we have quite a bit. We had several projects recently that Okay, now? Okay. We had several projects recently where relatively large decks were proposed, right? The last one was on scenic or... Yeah, it was close to scenic. And I think the idea of limiting it to 100 square feet is something we can think about. Definitely we need to figure out a way to control what's happening on top of these houses because they do have impact. It's not just the light pollution, but it's also noise, privacy. You know, I don't know from a safety perspective if there's any angle around that as well. So I would like to think about it similar to what Commissioner Alban said and go for my notes from previous meetings and see what would make sense here. But it's great that this discussion is starting and it's happening. Thank you for doing that.

Thank you. Mr. Rouse, you have some comments?

Can you hear me? Yeah, okay.

just noting this is regarding permissible roof decks roof decks remain generally discouraged i'm not sure that's the right word but um throughout the city that's correct uh we haven't had any specific regulations on roof decks yet uh as part of some recent rooftop decks they were creating more controversy with neighbors we had I had first put in an idea in the design guidelines of prohibiting any second story rooftop decks. And then there's talks of we don't get a lot of second story rooftop decks. So it's more the first story rooftop decks, but that's pretty comparable to a balcony. So we're trying to figure out how best to kind of encapsulate the concerns and address them appropriately. So no current regulations on rooftop decks. Okay.

And does the 100 square feet include... the square footage required for access, like a stairway or whatever?

I think that would be a good thing to receive feedback from you guys. If it would be 100 square foot excluding the staircase, 100 square feet. If it would be just rooftop decks or if we want it to be for all decks and balconies included, if it would be a cumulative total or individually. So it's all, as we've said, we don't need a decision right now, but we were looking for feedback. And if the feedback is give you guys a month to muse on it in your own time and then come back next month, that's a perfectly acceptable answer.

But access has been part of the discussion?

Yeah. Okay.

So that has been part of the discussion?

Yeah. One more thing. Is 100 square feet, is that number derived from some particular analysis that was just considered a starting point?

I think it just seemed like a good starting point. I don't think there's a... We didn't go through previous projects and say, oh, well, it seems all the ones over 100 feet are having problems, and it just seemed like a good round number to start from.

And it was kind of thought that that allows a usable space to go out and sit, have a couple chairs, a table... you know, enjoy the outdoors. That's kind of what we were thinking was a usable space. But we don't want to expand, obviously, the activity into a lot of other types of activity.

And I would be interested in adding to the discussion, we know that rooftop decks are livable space. I mean, they're finished and they're some form of living area and they're not included in our FAR. They are sometimes included in our volume, yes? And so some, just add that into our discussion because they really indeed do extend the living area of a property. So I would love to hear more about what my fellow commissioners think about that as well.

One more quick question. Does the... Are you seeing a trend line where more and more people are requesting roof decks? Because I'm wondering if that's related to now that we're putting a lot of ADUs on properties, there's more lot coverage and not as much room for patios. I'm just curious if there's been a trend that seems associated with that.

I haven't done the research into that, but anecdotally, it does seem with the ADUs specifically, ADUs do kind of eat up some patio space. And then because the ADUs there, your deck wouldn't count as a floor area, as Commissioner Albarn pointed out. And then because the ADU would be underneath it, it wouldn't count as the typical site coverage you'd have for a deck. So it is this kind of... keyhole that people are going through to maximize their property.

It provides an opportunity to put the deck without being penalized with site coverage. I haven't done the analysis, but it seems like we've had rooftop decks proposed on top of ADUs. In fact, I think we have one tonight. So it does seem like there is a potential opportunity there and it eliminates being penalized in terms of site coverage. Okay, do you have any more comments? And I need to take some, let the public come up. Thank you, Tom.

Thank you very much.

For that report. So I want to invite the public to come up at this time and make any comments about any of the progress on the design guideline revisions or rooftop decks or...

Good evening. Nancy Toomey here again. I would love to see as a part of your homework assignment that you guys look to be signing up for to have some, you know, a list of some of the recent projects that requested rooftop decks and their square feet to provide it to you in advance. So you kind of have a roster to reflect back on as, you know, were they asking for 200 feet? Were they asking for 90 feet? What were they asking for? So I just think that would be a good tool, not only for the public to just get a sense of what you're seeing come through, but again, to aid in your homework and thought process for a future meeting. Thanks.

Thank you, Nancy. Anyone else in the chamber like to make any comments about the design guidelines? Any hands going up on line? No, sir. Okay. Thanks again for that report. We'll move on to the other order. Oh, go ahead. Do you have some final comment?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Final comment? Is that possible from Commissioner Alborn? I don't know, sir. One comment to the production team related to the design guidelines. is a question of, well, first to comment on the new fire regulations look excellent throughout. Thank you for all that intensive work that was done. I do, I am curious about how, especially the, well, not just materials, but also production will happen when renovations happen in a historic property. because so much of what's in our historic fabrics, you know, our eaves, our vents, our roofing, our siding, all of it is in many ways not so much in compliance with the new WUE and the new fire regs. And I'm not necessarily asking that the design guidelines address how a historic property should be remodeled or viewed in light of the new fire regulations. But I do think some form of guidance should be in there for owners of historic properties, whether it's simply to point them in a direction or just in some way I would like your production team to consider what the right balance is of addressing design guidelines for historic renovations related to the new fire rigs. Thank you.

Did staff have any comment on that?

I think that's a good idea. I think there is some sections that speak on both natural and manufactured or synthetic materials and how to make sure that they're WEE compliant. But we could, I'm thinking, honestly, it might be Chapter 3, which we already went over, but that wouldn't stop us from adding another guideline in there that specifically speaks for historic properties when compliant with the Secretary of Interior standards, make sure that it's WUI compliant or something of that nature. We could add in a specific guideline that spoke to that that I think would fit with that retained chapter.

Yeah, with the link to the Secretary of Interior's guidelines.

Right, and is there a section in Title 24? Do historic properties have their own chapter in Title 24? Chapter 8, maybe?

I think there's historic building code.

Well, anyhow, we don't have to discuss it here, but just if some thought could be to the right way to make sure that if a property owner of historic property picks up these guidelines and has a look that somehow in there they're going to realize that they have special conditions that they will undergo when they do that.

Commissioner Rouse, you had an additional comment? Yeah, sort of a quick question, maybe as much to the rest of the commissioners. I'm seeing here that this was the first update in a very long time to this document. And just as Carmel sort of emerged organically from a combination of the setting and the kind of people who moved here and all that, and the different very diverse styles of architecture reflect that diverse origin. What I'm thinking is that the context has now fundamentally changed because we're very constrained by the WUI requirements now, by fire resistant materials, the hardening. And I'm wondering how different is Carmel going to look because of fire hardening? And do we want to constrain the range of alternatives available to homeowners and to architects? Or do we want to make it broad and let this develop I'll use the word again, organically, as we adapt to this new context and the new set of materials that will look differently. Any thoughts on that?

Well, I think the key word there is constrained. We are going to be constrained. And we are. It is going to affect what was a historical character of Carmel, because so much of the residential building here was done with wood. And also typically we used to encourage wood roofs and those really are not gonna be able to be encouraged anymore. And they're not encouraged by the revision design guidelines. But the good news is there are wood products, wood sidings, which because of the way they're treated through compression and different things, they do have higher fire ratings. I don't know if they go the full class A on all wood, but they do have additional resistance to combustibility. But the short answer is yes. It's going to change the character. I mean, just the defensible space is going to change it. so in those those are those are going to be laws that we have to abide by so that is going to be you know it's kind of one of the things we're grappling with okay any further comments all right i think we'll move on okay the next order of business is the um going to be the oh that's uh so the the next item was the gelato by the sea but i see staff is recommending that uh that be continued was there it was a particular yes the requester and owner of the property asked that it be continued okay all right okay um any members of the public want to make any comments on the continuation All right, that's the case. I will make a motion that we continue this item to a date uncertain.

Yes. I'll second that motion.

Okay, roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn? Yes. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke? Yes. Commissioner Bruce?

Yes.

And Chair Lupita?

Yes. Okay, the motion is carried. Okay, that brings us to the public hearings. First item on the public hearing tonight, is the review of the draft for the general plan, excuse me, this is for the consideration of the fiscal year capital improvement for consistency with the general plan. Can we have the staff report, please?

Just really quick report out. I do not have a presentation, but both state law and local law requires that the planning commission review the CIP project list and find them consistent with the general plan. That is what was presented to the Planning Commission in the staff report and the attached consistency matrix. There are 21 projects on that list and all have been found to be consistent with the general plan.

Okay. Comments from the Planning Commissioners? Any comments?

Just one question. Is there anything about the beach? Is any of these projects related to the beach?

Yes. I believe the beach stairs are part. There's eroded bluff emergency repair, shoreline infrastructure repairs, the sand ramp. Some of these are not the actual physical construction of the project, but more of the design and doing the analysis. North Dune Habitat Restoration Area.

Yeah, the reason I'm asking is because we had this wonderful presentation in December about beach erosion, and we had a very robust discussion about the measures that we can take to potentially solve that problem long term. And if I remember correctly, the expert made a comment in that meeting that it may take up to 10 years to get California state to approve any adding additional sand to the beach, for example, things like that. So I was wondering if we don't have anything in the plan this year, does that mean that we are gonna think about it next year? Because at some point we have to make a decision and do the pre-work and kick off this process. If it takes 10 years, we're talking 2046. If we want to have any improvement of our, that will take a while. So not sure if it's a good idea to think about it now.

Well, so the hazards analysis, that report has just been finalized. I was going to go over that during director's report. It's available for public review. So that report informs policies that will be created and part of the implementation of those policies would be situations where are we bringing in sand? Like, what are those type of projects? Adaptive, retreat, or protect?

Yeah, that's coming.

This can be part of a future workshop

There will be, you know, projects will be designated and then the council will make determination as to how to allocate the funds for those particular projects. That's going to be ongoing into the future. So what's before us tonight is a resolution to find that the The general plan determination is determined to be consistent with the general plan. So I make a motion that we accept the resolution to determine that the capital improvements program is consistent with the general plan. I'd second. Any further discussion? No. All right. Roll call, please.

Would you like to take public comment?

Oh, I'm sorry. Are there anybody in the chamber that would like to comment on the capital improvements program? Any hands up online?

No, sir.

Okay. All right. In that case, no further discussion. We have roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn? Yes. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke? Yes. Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Chair LePage?

Yes. Okay. The motion is carried. Okay. The next item on the public hearings is the six cycle housing element amendment. will be presented by a Marnie Waffle who's been working on this diligently for quite some time.

Take a minute so we can upload the presentation.

Sure.

What a great photo of that moose, though. Right?

Are they native to Carmel?

No. Alaska.

All right, well, good afternoon. So I am going to present to the commission the proposed housing element amendment. We are seeking the planning commission's recommendation to the city council on whether to adopt the amendment as well as the environmental document that's associated with it. So just as a little refresher on our housing element amendment, the five strategies that the amendment focuses on are the hotel to residential conversion program, the downtown mixed income program, a live work program, accessory dwelling units, and housing on church properties. REGARDING OUR TIMELINE, WE SUBMITTED THE AMENDMENT TO THE STATE IN NOVEMBER OF 2025 AND RECEIVED COMMENTS BACK IN JANUARY OF THIS YEAR. WE RESUBMITTED IN MARCH AND THEN RECEIVED SOME MID REVIEW COMMENTS IN APRIL. WE NEEDED TO MAKE JUST A FEW MINOR CHANGES. before the state could complete their review. So we resubmitted in May, and then later on in the month, we got a letter from the state stating that the amendment does substantially comply with housing element law, and we could proceed with adoption hearings. And so that's why we are here this afternoon. A comparison of our housing sites inventory between the adopted housing element and the proposed amendment. This slide may look familiar. We presented it before. On the left, you see the map of the site's inventory for what is currently adopted. It accounts for 410 units, which is a little bit more than our required 349 under the regional housing needs allocation. Below the 410, you see the breakdown of affordability. So that's 114 very low, 87 low, 58 moderate, and then 151 above moderate, or sometimes referred to as market rate units. On the right is the map for the proposed sites inventory. The main difference is that the units that were previously or that are currently proposed for the Sunset Center and Vista Lobos have been dispersed to other sites throughout the city. The amendment includes a total of 434 potential housing units. So a little bit more than what's adopted. And then you can see the income breakdown underneath that. So as part of this six cycle housing element, the state recommended that each jurisdiction include a buffer between 15 and 30% of their regional housing needs allocation. And what this does is it provides some flexibility if certain sites listed in the site's inventory DON'T REDEVELOP ACCORDING TO WHAT WAS ANTICIPATED. WE HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF A BUFFER TO WORK WITH. AND THIS TIES BACK INTO THE NO NET LOSS PROVISION OF STATE LAW WHICH BASICALLY SAYS AT ALL TIMES DURING THE SIXTH CYCLE WE NEED TO MAINTAIN ENOUGH SITES TO ACCOMMODATE OUR REGIONAL HOUSING NEEDS ALLOCATION. So what you see circled in red at the top of this table is our regional housing needs allocation. And then the total capacity under the amendment is the potential for each income category. And you can see what the buffer is. Just as a refresher too, from our annual progress report between 2023 and 2025, we permitted 48 above moderate or market rate income units that count towards these numbers. So in the above moderate category, our allocation is 118 and we've already met 48 of those. So I'm just gonna go through each program at a really high level because there was not a whole lot that changed from the presentation in the fall of last year regarding the programs. A lot of the comments from the state were refinements to the programs and didn't require any substantive changes. So the hotel to residential program out of the universe of 948 hotel rooms, which is our cap in town, the housing element projects 161 units during the planning period could be produced under this program where a hotel is converted into housing and then those hotel rooms are EITHER SOLD OR TRANSFERRED TO ANOTHER SITE IN TOWN. THE PROGRAM DOES REQUIRE THAT SOME OF THOSE UNITS BE AFFORDABLE. SO YOU SEE KIND OF THE BREAKDOWN THERE. THE GOAL BEING THAT THESE ARE MIXED INCOME PROJECTS, NOT 100% NECESSARILY AFFORDABLE. SO THESE ARE THE ESTIMATED PROJECTIONS FOR THAT PROGRAM. A TOTAL OF 161 UNITS. The downtown mixed income program, two sites were identified for inclusion in the housing element. However, this program is open to all sites in the downtown. So it's not just limited to these two sites. These two sites represent what the possibilities are for this program. And again, the idea is that they're mixed income. So there's a variety of lower income, moderate, and then above market rate units. AS PART OF THIS PROGRAM. AND SO WE'VE IDENTIFIED 12 FOR THE SITES INVENTORY, 12 UNITS. THE LIVE WORK PROGRAM, So this is a program which would take some either vacant, underutilized commercial spaces and convert them into housing. Again, it's not limited to these eight sites, but these eight sites show the vast potential of this program throughout the downtown. And so that program is projected that it could produce up to 78 live work units. And then I just guess wanna mention too, while we're talking about downtown, right now residential is allowed, is an allowed use throughout our downtown area. So that is not something new that's happening under the housing element. It's already an allowed use. And under the current regulations right now as well, any new development downtown that includes a second story, that second story has to be occupied by residential units. So the city has some strong policies when it comes to housing that are already in place. And these programs would just build upon those. Regarding accessory dwelling units, this projection is the same as what you saw last time. So we had looked at our trends between 2019 and 2024, and we were averaging about 10 ADUs per year. So we projected that out through the six cycle housing element, and that's how we came up with the 70 units. The state does allow for projection purposes for you to divide those units up into different income categories. And that's what you see there on the affordable breakdown. The last program are the religious facility sites. So there are three out of the five that we have listed in the housing element. All three have indicated a strong desire to develop housing on their properties. We've done some extensive outreach with them, met with them multiple times and are working with them on some pre-applications to really kind of tease out what's possible on their properties. And between these three, there's a potential for 65 units. So here's the housing sites inventory table again, that summarizes all of the potential housing sites under the amendment. You can see them broken down by program as well as affordability. So the amendment does maintain our ability to meet ARENA as well as maintain a buffer. So the housing element amendment is a general plan amendment and the adopted housing element was required to go through environmental review. The city council did adopt a mitigated negative declaration for the housing element. So as part of the amendment, That document was reviewed and it was determined that an addendum was appropriate. So an addendum has been prepared to the adopted mitigated negative declaration. The analysis and conclusions remain unchanged and the mitigation measures are adequate. And so one of the actions we'll be asking the planning commission to take is to make a recommendation on the environmental document. So staff's recommendation is the planning commission adopt a resolution recommending that the city council approve the addendum to the adopted environmental document and then also adopt a second resolution recommending that the city council adopt a resolution amending the general plan and adopting the housing element amendment. And that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions for staff? We have a question, Commissioner. Only one question.

Can you go back to the couple of slides? I don't remember which slide was that. Not that one, the one before that. Oh, here we go. So the Stonehouse Terrace, is that the same terrace that is now being discussed for historic significance?

Correct.

Would that impact in any way being part of this list or not?

It would not, no.

Okay, okay.

Thank you. Go ahead. I have a question. So the inclusion of these hotel residential suites, as they're called, these were sold to private individuals for part-year use. That seems to me like a timeshare or a fractional interest use. And that's reflected in the municipal code. Some of you will probably remember the issue with the Picasso case in 2022, where the council reacted very rapidly due to tremendous public opposition to fractional ownership. So I'm wondering if you can address that and how that fits in with the code and what the plan would be for that going forward.

So one of the incentives for the hotel to residential program that is proposed is the inclusion of hotel residential suites. It's one of a number of incentives that we list in the housing element to encourage participation. Once we transition into implementation, we actually have to craft an ordinance to implement the program and that ordinance will need to lay out what all of the incentives are for that program. In working with the AHA group, the hotel residential suites was seen as opportunity to encourage participation by the hotels. It allows them to generate some income to offset the cost of purchasing hotel keys and then doing renovations. It is a fractional ownership because the suite would be owned by an individual. The details of how that would work will be teased out when we come forward with the ordinance. The idea is that the hotel residential suite would operate as a hotel room, but would have this separate ownership, which would guarantee an owner a right to stay there for a certain number of days throughout the year. It's not something we're obligated to include, but it's something that we believe might be needed to encourage participation. But that's definitely a conversation that we'll continue to have once we roll into implementation.

I'm wondering if there are concerns about, and obviously the ordinance would need to be very carefully written, but are there concerns that this could open the door to other kinds of fractional ownership?

So we will definitely work with the city attorney in that regard. The intent is not for this program to override that. Sometimes we make some, like we write some exceptions into the code to achieve certain outcomes. And so what we'll be coming back to the planning commission and city council with is whether this is an appropriate exception to consider in exchange for affordable housing.

Thank you. Question, Commissioner Auburn.

Thank you, Chair. Actually, more of a, I don't know if it's a question. It's a recommendation to change some of the language actually related to the hotel residential suites. The mitigated negative declaration document on page six, section I-4, I believe. says, and I quote, purchasers of keys would have the ability to designate a subset of, end quote, which reads a little differently from the amendment. The amendment, chapter 2, page 216, and it's a bullet point under the program description, it reads, hotel residential suites, The city will explore the possibility of purchasers of keys. So there's subtle language change, but I believe significant difference in the language that I would recommend the mitigated negative declaration document, which is our exhibit A this evening. I would recommend that you strike the language that says purchasers of keys would have the ability to designate a subset of and then substitute in the language which is newer language from the housing element six amendment in chapter two on page 216 that reads, the city will explore the possibility of purchasers of keys to designate a subset of. And in this way, both of those documents which are traveling together will actually quote one another, thank you.

Does that change the resolution as presented by staff?

It does not. Your resolution would be a recommendation to the City Council and what staff could do or would do based on the direction of the Commission is to make those changes before the document goes to the City Council for final adoption.

And that is That would be in the first resolution, the CEQA?

Correct. Yes. So this is in attachment one, exhibit A, and you can see it on page six, section I-4.

OK. All right.

Comment? Yeah, I have one more question about the workspace, the work-live spaces, which I think is a great idea. So in the example of the hotel residential suites, there's a specific incentive identified in the document. And that constitutes, in my mind, a specific incentive. And yet for the work-live spaces, we're talking about deed restrictions. But I don't remember seeing those quantified. is there, what is the trade-off of the incentive for this? I mean, deed restriction is a pretty big deal. What is the thinking that would be the appropriate incentives to have an owner do that?

So when the analysis was conducted of these potential spaces, what we found was that THE AMOUNT OF RENT THAT A PROPERTY OWNER COULD COLLECT UNDER A LIVE WORK SPACE WOULD BE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN WHAT THEY WOULD COLLECT UNDER JUST A SOLE COMMERCIAL SPACE. SO THESE ARE NOT PRIME RETAIL SPACES FRONTING OCEAN AVENUE. THE COMBINED RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL LAND USE WOULD COMMAND HIGHER RENTS FOR THE PROPERTY OWNER AND WOULD OFFSET ANY KIND OF REDUCTION IN THE RESIDENTIAL RENT FOR BEING DEED RESTRICTED. So right now, the only option a property owner has is a commercial use downstairs on the first floor or a residential use on the second floor. And so this introduces a hybrid that we believe is economically viable

Okay, and does that, is there, part of the live workspace, it seems part of it would be deemed the live space and part would be the workspace? Correct. Is the rent then identified? Because if these are going to rent at a premium compared to commercial space, and I understand that as commercial space, many of these are backroom kind of, you know, dark alley kinds of things, but if it's renting for more, does it then get pushed out of the lower ranks of affordable units? Or do you deem that only living space is considered So it's divided into two parts.

Correct.

And they're scored differently in terms of affordability.

So the commercial space will not have any kind of rent restriction on it. It's just the living space that is deed restricted as an affordable housing unit.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to open it up to the public. Any comments or questions from the public, please come forward at this time. Any hands up online?

No, sir.

Okay. Bring it back to the commission for final comments. Commissioner Locke.

Yeah, I think staff has done a fantastic job. And I'm very pleased to see that we are finally at the point where we can make a recommendation to the city council on this. I don't really have any comments on it. I think that Commissioner Allborn's suggestion to get consistency in the language between the NGDAC and the document totally makes sense. And other than that, I'm supportive of moving forward.

Commissioner Allborn, do you have any further comments? Mr. Rouse? Commissioner Karapetkov?

I have one or two comments I cannot remember. I think I have at least one. So the first comment is, I like the idea of this combined commercial housing units where you have commercial on the first floor and housing in the second floor. It is different from living in the residential area. So I hope people who use or who live in these upstairs units do not have the same expectations in terms of privacy, being quiet, being, you know. So it's not a R1 district. And we already have at least one case where that expectation was demonstrated here. So I would like to make sure, I'm not sure exactly what can we do about it, but people need to know that when they move to these units and live in the commercial district, there will be noise, there will be deliveries, there will be tourists, and it's not gonna be like living in R1. The other comment I have is related to this idea to sell keys and convert hotel rooms into housing. I do not know if we have an example where this worked. So in engineering, when we don't know if something is going to work or not, we do a pilot. And so I would be curious if there is a hotel owner who would be willing to be our guinea pig for the pilot so that we can try and see how it works. Usually in a pilot, you find all sorts of problems that you have never expected. So I would suggest, you know, looking for an opportunity to pilot this and if it works, that is great. Everybody else can copy it, but we need to make sure that it works. It looks good on paper, but I have seen a lot of projects that look good on paper. So and they don't work in practice. So that was my second comment.

So I had a couple of quick questions. So you've been in conversations back and forth with ACD about this and it looks like it's it's gonna, they're gonna accept it?

Yes, they have provided a letter stating that they have completed their review of the amendment and they found it to be in substantial compliance. So once we adopt and resubmit, they will certify it.

Okay, and how does this affect our current document, which is in compliance? I mean, there's been some accusations about we're not meeting the goals of the adopted housing element. So do you have any comments on that?

Yeah, so there's no impact to the current document. We've continued to implement sections that do not overlap with the amendment. HCD was in agreement that that made sense as we were, you know, drafting up the amendment. So there's no issues there. Once the amendment is certified, it will become the adopted housing element, and then we'll proceed with implementation under the amendment.

Okay. We have a couple of resolutions. We're making recommendations on the resolutions or recommendations? Or we're just making a recommendation to approve the resolution?

The resolution...

is you're adopting a resolution, making a recommendation to the city council. Yeah.

Okay.

And how do we get in the adjustment on the language? What happened? Do we need an emotion? Well, then why don't I move? Go ahead. I would like to make a motion and a delighted motion at that, at this juncture. Congratulations, everyone. So I would like to make a motion that we... adopt the resolution for attachment one exhibit A that for the adopted mitigated negative declaration and associated mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the sixth cycle to include a modification of language as mentioned earlier striking the language on page six, purchasers of keys would have the ability to designate a subset of, replacing it with language from the chapter two, 216 from the amendment saying the city will explore the possibility of purchasers of keys to designate a subset of. That would be the first part of my motion. The second part of my motion would be to adopt resolution in attachment to recommending that city council adopt their resolution to amend the general plan by adopting the sixth cycle 2023 to 2031 housing element amendment, which exists as exhibit A to attachment two in compliance with state housing element law. Second.

Okay. Any further discussion? No hearing none. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Alvord?

Yes.

Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke?

Yes.

Commissioner Ripps? Yes. And Chair LePage?

Yes, motion is carried. Okay, that was a lot of, that's been a lot of work for and really yeah for Marnie and the AHA group.

Okay, that brings us to item number eight on the public hearings.

This is a design study, design study 25139. This is the Shire Property Investments LLC. It's consideration of combined concept and final design study. coastal development for the demolition of a 1,245 square foot one-story single-family residence and 192 square foot shed and construction of a 3,292 square foot one-story single-family residence inclusive of a 449 square foot attached garage and it's on Monteverde Street. We have staff report please.

Hello. Hello.

All right, so staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution finding the project categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15302, replacement reconstruction, as well as section 15303, new construction, as well as approving the combined concept and final design study and coastal development permit for the project as described by the chair. The subject site is located at Monteverde Street for southwest of 3rd Avenue. It's a 10,000 square foot lot. All proposed improvements are proposed to be demolished and replaced with a 3,293 square foot single-family residence inclusive of a 449 square foot attached garage. The Planning Commission previously considered the project at their December 10th meeting last year and continued the project with direction to the applicant, and then reconsider the concept at the February 11th meeting this year. The Planning Commission adopted a resolution or a motion of intent to accept the concept at this hearing which is why it's being considered as a combined concept and final. The project is also considered by the Forest and Beach Commission at their May 14th hearing and recommended a tree density of one upper canopy tree and eight lower canopy trees which maintains the existing tree density on site. There's no recommended additional planting for the site. At the February hearing, the project was conditionally accepted with requirements to address a number of items before scheduling for a final details hearing that included successful completion of the volume study direction to coordinate some technical reports to go to Forest and Beach Commission to determine that tree density, make changes to the driveway regarding the materials and site coverage compliance, and a minor tweak to the roof materials. We do have a number of conditions of approval to further address those items. Condition of approval number 33 and number 34 speak to further coordination of those technical reports. And then condition of approval number 36 speaks to consistency of the roof material throughout. So looking forward to our final details review. There are four findings that need to be made for final details approval. They speak to styling details are simple, restrained in character. They're consistent, well integrated throughout the building, complementary to the neighborhood. MATERIALS IN THEIR APPLICATION RELY ON NATURAL MATERIALS AND THE OVERALL DESIGN WIDE VARIETY AND DIVERSITY TO THE STREETSCAPE. FINDING NUMBER THREE, ELEMENTS SUCH AS STONEWORKS, SKYLIGHTS, WINDOW DOORS, CHIMNEYS, AND GARAGES ARE CONSISTENT WITH THEIR ADOPTED DESIGN GUIDELINES AND COMPLEMENTARY TO THE CHARACTER OF THE STRUCTURE AND NEIGHBORHOOD. FINDING NUMBER FOUR, LANDSCAPING, PAVING TREATMENTS, FENCES, WALLS ARE CAREFULLY DESIGNED TO COMPLEMENT THE URBANIZED FOREST AND THE DESIGN WILL REINFORCE A SENSE OF VISUAL CONTINUITY ALONG THE STREET. So in order to meet these findings, staff has recommended a few conditions of approval. Number 37, the use of consistent stone throughout the entire project. Right now, there are two different types of stone being proposed. However, the residential design guidelines state that only one type of stone should be used throughout. Condition of approval number 38, the elimination of the skylights. The design guidelines state that skylights should only be used when the areas do not have access to light. They've also further described that skylights should be appropriately sized. These skylights are... well oversized, what we see typically, as well as being located in rooms where effectively the entire wall or the rooms in which they're located, the entire wall is glass. So staff has found these to be inconsistent with the residential design guidelines. And then conditions of approval number 39 through 41, which requires changes to the lighting plan. The proposed light fixture The lumen output exceeds what's allowed as well as the residential design guidelines requiring effectively the least amount of light in open spaces. So with those conditions of approval, oh, I'm sorry. And then staff has also made findings for deviations from the design guidelines based on previous discussions. So Residential Design Guideline 8.3 states that flat roofs may be used on a limited extent on smaller one-story structures and that flat roofs should not be used on large buildings or two-story elements. And Residential Design Guideline 9.12 states to locate and size windows doors to achieve a human scale and that the use of a grand entry, oversized entry doors or large picture windows facing a street is discouraged. So based on our conversations at the previous two hearings, staff has prepared the findings for deviations from the design guidelines. And with that, staff recommends approval as described on the screen. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Questions for staff and commission? No questions. OK. Before I invite the applicant up to make their presentation, I'd just like to go over the rules of the road. So I'm going to allow five minutes for applicants to make their presentation. Their initial presentation, I'll grant additional time to answer questions that come up during the public comments. And for the public, I'll allow three minutes. If you need additional time for some reason, just let me know when you come up, and we'll grant that. With that, I'd like to invite the applicant's architect to come up and make their presentation.

Good afternoon. My name's Eric Miller.

I'm the architect on the project. Do you have my PowerPoint? OK. So I can begin without the PowerPoint. The first page in the PowerPoint basically talks about, you know, how we addressed all the concerns that the Commission had. And I believe that we had resolved and resulted in a concept approval at the last meeting. We had a blockier garage element. And we were really looking for sort of a mid-century regional modern feeling. So we felt it really had to be more horizontal. So we did create a more horizontal feeling of the view of the house from the street. We also reduced the amount of stone that was on the front of the building and increased the wood products in the front just to soften it and bring it more into a regional modern kind of feeling. One of the things I would like to comment on I guess we can start. It should work, right? OK. Yeah, so one of the things staff did comment on is the stone. It's exactly the same stone, same color, same chroma. We just want to have some split face and some smooth face. There's some parts of the building and parts of the front fence that we want to delineate the difference just in terms of texture. We don't want to change the stone. So we'd like to keep the stone the way we've shown it. Then the other thing is the glass. You know, the skylight itself is something we'd still like to keep. And, you know, I'd be happy to reduce the size of the skylight. Right now they're three, nine by four, but we'd be happy to go to three, six by three. And the reason we want them is because it does balance the light. And I heard staff, one of staff's concerns was that you could see the skylight from the street, but it has a curve on it. You won't really see it at all. It's a flat skylight. You can't use dome skylights and we don't anyway. And then at night, of course, there's going to be a shade that automatically closes when you, you know, when it gets dark. So we'd like to keep them and hopefully planning commission agrees with us. We also reduced all the heights of the doors from eight feet and they're all in the courtyard. You don't see them from the front but eight feet are from ten feet to eight feet and we did that by creating transoms and then we also broke the glass up with mullions and muttons but it's all only visible from the courtyard. As you can see the house is set significantly back from the street and you can see the horizontal aspect of the garage. And we don't need to see that. And so this is the forest and beach. When we went to forest and beach, we explained to them that we wanted this to feel like more like a forest than a house. That's why it's low. That's why it's horizontal. That's why we didn't do a two-story. I think they did appreciate that. The only trees we took out were non-native trees. So we spent a lot of time working with staff and City Forester to make sure that everything was protected and and that our vision could follow through with healthy trees. So the other thing that we did do is we have the minimal amount of lighting required by code, and the only one that is additional lighting that Evan asked to remove, does this have a laser on it? I don't know, number eight. So there's seven and eight. That's on the backside of the wall, so you can't see it from the street. That's in the courtyard. And the reason we'd like to keep light number eight is you see that's a fire pit there. And we want it to be symmetrical when you look at it from inside the house. And you can see the lighting system that we're recommending. It really only throws light down neither one of those light fixtures would throw light up or to the side. So we'd like to keep that light. And with that, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Questions for Eric?

I have a question. Can you tell us a little bit more about the technology around this glass walls, the curtain walls? How is the glass being attached to the structure?

It's all aluminum frames. So we went from, so the previous glass wall we were going to have stainless steel channels, like 10-gauge stainless steel channels embedded in the floor of the roof and the sides. Then that kind, you would lift the glass up and drop it in, and the weight of the glass keeps it in place. But because we talked about breaking it up with a transom, lowering the doors, and having mullions and muttons, we decided to go to an aluminum frame, because if we're doing that, we need to actually make separate pieces of glass, and the door would actually be a separate door. below the transom. So it's pretty much an aluminum system, very elegant. It's only about an inch when you look at it straight on, but it's three inches when you look at it from the side. So it has a really beautiful look to it, but only visible from the courtyard.

And the glass itself is a double pane glass with good insulation or how?

So the glass is insulated. And we like low iron glass. We don't like that green Coke bottle look. And a lot of the new performance surfaces are green. And I think it looks awful. So we use low iron glass with a performance on surface two and three, because it's two layers of glass, Michael, and surface one is inside. Surface two is in between the glass. Surface three is in between, and the surface four is outside. So the performance coating on the glass is on surface two, and it's not green, and the glass itself has low iron, so it's very clear. Some people just, you know, when you look through several layers of glass, it starts looking very green. That's the system that we're using.

Okay, thank you. So Eric, the stone you're proposing, you said it's the same species and one of it has a split face and then the other is smooth. Is it the same module? Is the side the same?

Yeah, so it's exactly the same stone. It comes from Portugal. It's called Fonjone. It looks a lot like caramel stone. It has those wonderful kind of jewel tones to it, which looks great on a gray day or a clear day. So we spent a lot of time selecting the material. But we also think that just changing the finish, not the color or the finish, but the surface by having a split face surface on some planters in certain select parts of the building. make it more interesting. So the square, the module blocks are the same size. The stone is exactly the same material. It's just that we would like to have some of the stone fractured. It's just a more sophisticated layer of information that doesn't get, you know, busy. And I don't think it violates the, you know, the ordinance because it's not a different stone. It's not a different color. It's the same material.

Okay, any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Michael. All right, this time I'd like to invite members of the public to come up and make their comments regarding this application. Don't see anybody getting up. Do we have any hands up online, Shelby?

No, sir.

Okay, and I'm going to, and there's no questions answered, so I don't think that the architect needs to come back up at this time. All right, I'm going to close the public comments, open it up to the commissioners. Commissioner Karapetkov, you want to kick it off?

Yeah, I mean, there are some changes to the project from the last time we saw that. I think it was a couple of months ago. I think I remember... chair page meaning a comment that it's the first version of the project is an example of brutalism?

They changed it. There was some large masses that extended up through the horizontal roof line and the architect made changes to it. So now it's a different kind of iteration of a modern design.

So my only comment is about fenestration. So how much glass does a house need? We may need to start calculating fenestration ratios. I think traditional houses usually have like a 1 to 6 ratio windows compared to the overall wall. And more modern houses are going to 1 to 5. I would be curious to know what's the ratio for that particular house, and if that's even a good methodology to kind of give everybody some understanding of what's acceptable in town. From a technology perspective, I am all excited about new technology and glass and aluminum. I think we're moving very much in this direction where everything becomes glass. And I'm reading lately in the press that people are kind of stepping back from this because of privacy concerns that, you know, it looks good on paper, you buy the house, you move into the house, and then you're disappointed because all of the sudden you figure out that you have to put curtains everywhere if you want to have decent privacy. So I just, I don't know what the right percentage is or what the right ratio is. But I have the feeling that with some projects, most recently, we're going beyond this one to six or one to five ratio. And I think that is concerning. Yeah, that's the close of the half. I think we should.

How do you, what are your thoughts on the stone and the skylights? These are specific recommendations that conditions the staff is putting on this to change. And the last one, staff, was just a number of lights. Is that the case, Evan? So there's two lights inside the courtyard wall, on the courtyard wall.

Sorry, I'm just scrolling to the actual conditions. So number 39 is that an alternative light fixture needs to be proposed. The wall sconce, it actually has a built-in light source, it's not a replacement bulb and it exceeds the allowable lumen output. So that would need to be changed. The lights on the garden wall or the firewall, the lighting code actually doesn't permit those types of light fixtures. The ball sconces are actually only permitted on buildings. So this would be considered landscape lighting. So those would need to adhere to the landscape lighting requirements. And then 41 is that no more than one light fixture shall be adjacent to any building entry and that there should be no more than one light fixture adjacent to the front entry patio.

So as landscape lighting it can only be 18 inches?

It's the 18 inches space no more than 10 feet or no less than 10 feet apart because it's not affixed to the building. And these are all routed in design guideline 11.8, which say, you know, it's the minimum amount of lighting required.

Okay. So your thoughts on the stone skylight in lighting?

The stone, I mean, we're having problems getting materials for construction in general. So stone coming from Portugal, I know it's difficult for me. I wish we would find something that is more local. But I know that it's very difficult to find materials in general and I find myself on my projects finding, you know, delivering materials from, you know, God know where, from the other side of the world. So that is not unusual. I wish there would be a more local alternative that will reduce the footprint and CO emissions and all that because transporting stone across the ocean is not good for the environment in general. On the lighting, I don't have a comment on the lighting. On the skylight, Again, it's the same. It's the same with the same issue with fenestration. What is the right ratio? Technology is advancing. Skylights are getting bigger. Today, you can get these giant skylights. In a couple of years, you'll be able to do the entire roof as one piece of glass. And we already have technology to make all the walls solid glass, right? Glass curtains. Does that mean that in the future, our houses will look like fish tanks? I don't want to go there. But yeah, I think it's a general problem because it looks very good on prospects and real estate pages, etc. But from a quality of life perspective, we're just not designed to live in glass houses, unfortunately. So I don't think that that's a good idea. And people generally get disappointed when they move into a house like that because there's no privacy really. So I don't know what we can do as a planning commission to put some guidelines around how much fenestration and how much skylighting can we, you know, support within the community. I think we should be careful with the size of the skylights. Commissioner Locke made this comment last time when we discussed it. The skylight is now split in three pieces, I think, right, instead of one skylight. But it doesn't solve the problem. The problem is really the trend towards more glass everywhere. And I think we need to put some guidelines around limiting the amount of glass that we put, especially on new construction. The existing homes, they already have certain openings and certain windows. Even if you adjust them a little bit, you're not talking about dramatic changes of the design. But new construction is always an opportunity to go above and beyond and then you end up with this giant glass walls and giant skylights. So...

My comments are that I support staff's special conditions. I think the stone question from what the architect said is it is a single type of stone. It's just two different textures. And I think I'm okay with that. But I also support the remainder of those special conditions, including skylight removal, THE ALTERNATIVE FIXTURES, GARDEN WELL LIGHTING, ET CETERA.

OKAY. COMMISSIONER ALBORN.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I appreciate all of the changes that have been made on this project and hope we can button it up tonight. It's been a long road for this one. I agree, I think I agree with Commissioner Locke. I was digging through the design guidelines when you were speaking, and my apologies. But condition of approval 37, using a single type of stone. Well, that is a single type of stone, but two treatments. I happen to think that it improves the overall design. I would like to see that remain as is with both split and polished or honed, whatever the actual term is. So for me, I would remove condition of approval number 37. On 38, for removing all the skylights, I would be inclined to try to find a middle way. It is a large single story property. I think having some kind of skylight in the center of that property, that building, would be nice. And I don't see that, I don't necessarily completely agree with staff's concern that it's going to be visible from the street. So for a condition of approval 38, I would like to see a reduction in size as Mr. Miller suggested he would be able to do and would be amenable to. for the three conditions of approval related to exterior lighting, right? They all follow our policies, P147 and P154, all relating to that exterior lighting. I agree with staff's recommendation on that. My one question about the fixture 41, the fixture that needs to be removed, that's on the... interior of a courtyard, is it not, it's not on the exterior of the property visible from the right of way, it's on an interior courtyard facing towards the residence. So long as it met building code, I would have no problem with keeping that in the design guidelines because that is an exterior space. But if indeed that's hard and fast, I would go along with it. But surely indeed the project is in, as we like to say here, substantial compliance. And I would like to see, I recommend it move forward.

Commissioner Rouse? Any comments?

Yeah, Bruce. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay. So I think in terms of the skylight, I think smaller would be better. I'm wondering if in the discussions, Evan, with the applicant, was there a discussion about eliminating it entirely and how was that received? How much flexibility was indicated in those conversations? Regarding the stone, I find the two different textures actually visually interesting. I think it's a nice feature. There was another comment about the fenestration or the glazing, and yes, it is a lot of glass. I note this for this example. It doesn't really face the right of way. There isn't a lot of glass visible from the right of way. There's a little bit over the top of that wall, I guess, from looking at the illustrations, the renderings. So I would say go ahead with the stone is fine the way it is. The skylight, I think it would be better if it were smaller. And I think the rest is good.

OK, it sounds like most of the commissioners are acknowledging that the stone is the same species, just has a different texture, and that adds interest. I just wanted to, I don't think there is any native Carmel stone available, is there? I mean, is that something that we should be putting in there?

No.

I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm just saying as a general policy.

Yeah, the design guidelines don't call for native stone. It says the use of native stone details that are or appear to be true structural elements are appropriate. And then the design guidelines continue. Keep stonework design simple and traditional in character. The use of a single type of stone is encouraged to maintain simplicity and authenticity. Using multiple types of stone or a combination of stone and other masonry within a single project is discouraged. Then it continues. The application of stone should appear structural and authentic. A gratuitous or purely decorative appearance should be avoided.

Okay.

That's where staff's recommendation was coming from.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. I think we have discretion to make decisions which I think allow a particular designer or architect to use their creativity as long as it doesn't completely go against the intent of that policy, which as I understand is you don't want to be using different modules of stone and different specific species. And of course you have to use them so that they reflect the structural integrity. We don't want them just, you know, ending halfway in the wall. Typically we have those applied in a way that they would

suggested it's a complete structural element.

So I recommend eliminating condition number 37. With the skylight, the architect is offering to make it smaller. I think it was 3 by 6. Is that correct? So that's a substantial reduction. With the nightshades, I think that addresses that issue. The lighting, the lighting should meet the conditions. Fixture number, the condition number 41 exterior, that exterior fixture, I'm not, that's outside of a doorway? There's two instead of one? If it's, you know, it's, if it's not, if it's not, you know, seen from the street, I think it's fine where it is. So I would recommend eliminating special condition number 41. So I would go ahead and make a motion that we...

Chair, do you mind if I clarify that condition? Pardon? Do you mind if I clarify number 41? There's two light fixtures right here. However, there's only one doorway. So all the other lights are adjacent to a doorway. which is the minimum that's required for building code. However, there's two light fixtures.

So these are the fixtures that are in the soffit?

Correct.

So staff is saying that those are unnecessary?

Well, you need one at a doorway for the building code. However, there's two here. So the intent of conditions number 38 or I'm sorry, 39, 40, 41 are to reduce the amount of visible light to the greatest extent feasible, consistent with the design guidelines and general plan policies.

So we have two situations here. You want to reduce the number of fixtures and you want to change the type of fixture. Is that correct? You're recommending? Correct. So the fixture that doesn't meet the guidelines, what's the condition of it that doesn't meet the guidelines?

That's 39. That's for the wall scones. The what? The wall scones, number 39.

And those are the ones that are on the garden wall?

No. So this fixture right here next to the garage, for example, an alternative fixture will need to be selected that has a lower lumen output. Number 40, these fixtures need to comply with the landscape lighting requirements because they are not affixed to the building consistent with this code section, Title 15-36070. and then condition 41 states that any light fixture not adjacent to a doorway, there can only be one fixture adjacent to each doorway.

Okay.

Well, Chair, in that case, I think I would back up off of my recommendation to remove condition of approval 41 and go with staff's recommendation.

Okay. All right. So we have a resolution recommendation to accept the resolution as per staff with removal of condition 37. And 38, the applicant will reduce the size of the skylights to three by six. Three of those three by six. Is that right?

Yes. Three by six skylights.

Three by six skylights. Right now they're three by nine. So that's a significant reduction.

Are we talking about the whole skylight area or the size of individual ones? That's what I'm looking for clarification on, so I have the appropriate direction. Right now, I think I can do this. It's 992 by 4. by two or nine foot, two inches by four foot, two inches.

So those would become six foot, six foot by three foot. Each of those.

Okay. To the chair, may I also suggest in, as part of the motion that finding two evidence D be modified and finding three evidence E be modified. D, that speaks to the two different treatments of the stone. So we'd eliminate the last paragraph and replace it stating that the Planning Commission finds that because it's one type of stone with two different face treatments, that's consistent with the design guidelines. And then we modify finding three evidence E that would speak to a reduction in the size of the skylight.

Okay. All right.

Well, if we have a motion, I'll second it. Do we have a motion?

All right. Do we have the findings corrected then? FOR STAFF?

WITH THOSE CHANGES.

WITH THOSE CHANGES? YEAH. OKAY, ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? OKAY, ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

COMMISSIONER ALLBORNE? YES. COMMISSIONER KARAPETKOV?

YES.

COMMISSIONER LOCK? YES. COMMISSIONER ROOS?

YES.

AND CHAIR LEPAGE?

YES, MOTION IS CARRIED. THANK YOU. OKAY, THAT BRINGS US TO ITEM NUMBER NINE. On the public hearings, this is another design study DS25376. This is the seven post trust consideration of a combined concept and final coastal development for substantial alterations to a single family residence. It's located on Scenic Road. Can we have staff report, please?

Thank you, Chair. So staff is recommending the planning commission adopt a resolution finding the project categorically exempt pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15301, existing facilities and approving the combined concept final design study and coastal development permit. So the subject site is a 5,762 square foot lot. It's located in the R1 zone district, beach riparian overlay, as well as the park overlay. The project does not include any increases in floor area, except for a accessory dwelling unit, which is not being considered by the Planning Commission. but is before you as a substantial alteration, which in part includes any changes in architectural style. As you can see on the screen, it is a substantial change visually between what's there now and what's being proposed. Additional project components include site coverage and landscaping. So our concept findings are that the project conforms to all zoning standards. It's consistent with design objectives for protection of the urbanized forest, avoids complexity using simple building forms, simple roof plan, and is adapted to human scale. And then it's consistent with the city's objectives for protecting views, for retaining solar access and respecting privacy. Then it's consistent with the goals, objectives and policies related to residential design and general plan. And it's not require removal of any significant trees and all buildings are set back six feet from significant trees. And then these are also our final details findings, which I just, read exhaustively in the last presentation, so I'll skip those for now. And in order to meet those findings, staff has recommended a number of conditions of approval. 22 through 26 are our standard conditions regarding tree density, landscaping, and protection of existing trees. Number 33 speaks to protection of a, or reconstruction of a retaining wall located at the front of the property. that is right here and locating that retaining wall on site. However, if necessary to obtain an encroachment permit due to protection of this significant cypress tree. 34 speaks to A LIMITATION ON THE SIDES OF THE PROPOSED WESTERN DECK THAT IS RIGHT HERE THAT WOULD REQUIRE ANY ADDITIONAL CHANGE TO THAT DECK SEEK PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVAL. AND THEN ALSO PROPOSED ADJACENT TO THE DECK ON THE SOUTH SIDE AS WELL AS THE WEST SIDE THERE IS A LANDSCAPE PLANTER PROPOSED AND CONDITION OF APPROVAL NUMBER 35 MANDATES THAT ANY LANDSCAPING GROW NO TALLER THAN THE the proposed railing, and that's to protect views to the neighbor from the south. 36, a demolition plan acknowledgement. So the site is non, or the existing residence is non-conforming in respect to floor area, setbacks, height, as well as site coverage, which is proposed to be brought into compliance. However, if a building or structure is demolished, then it's required to come into compliance with all the requirements for new construction. So number 36 requires an acknowledgement from the structural engineer as well as architect to ensure that the plans submitted to the building division are consistent with the representations made on the planning application. So the applicant did submit a comprehensive demolition plan that indicates the building will not be demolished. So it does fall underneath a certain threshold. So the plan submitted to the building division will just confirm that all trades involved in demolition in that plan submittal are aware that this is the demolition plan and the plans submitted are adhering to what is being proposed now. 37 is an administrative requirement. There's an inconsistency right now between the site plan and the landscaping plan due to changes made for site coverage. So this just states that the site plan will govern the proposed areas of site coverage. And then 38, lighting locations. We just discussed this in the last presentation. Only one light fixture permitted at any building entrance. And with that, staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt a resolution as described on the screen. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Just one point of clarification that just popped into my head. The staff report did state that the building was going to be finished with stucco, which led to some confusion on the tour. It is proposed to all be shingled. That was a typo in the staff report, so my apologies.

Okay, questions for staff? Commissioner Auburn?

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Court, the plans indicate a proposed spa in the front part of the property near the driveway. Could you just speak to any guidelines that we have either in our general plan or in our design guidelines that speak to that kind of feature?

So we don't have any design guidelines specifically. Spas are counted as impermeable site coverage. We also have standards in our zoning code that speak to noise regulations. Basically says all mechanical equipment associated with spas needs to adhere to a certain decibel limit. So we do have some prescriptive standards, but we don't have any design guidelines per se that speak to CITING THESE FEATURES. THAT SAID, I WOULD SAY THAT THEY WOULD FALL WITHIN THE PURVIEW OF, GET THIS ZOOMED OUT. Finding number four, landscaping, paving treatments, fences, walls are carefully designed to complement the urbanized forest. This is a built-in feature. It's effectively a landscaper or paving treatment. So in terms of siting or screening, I would say that that falls under finding number four. But in terms of what does it actually look like, we don't have anything.

OK. Any other questions for staff? All right, at this time I'd like to invite the architect to come forward and make their presentation.

Good evening, Commission. My name is Prithvi. I'm one of the architects on this project. And the project lead, Stephen Sutro, is going to be presenting virtually. Stephen, you can go ahead and start.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Hello, Commissioners. My name is Stephen Sutro. I'm the architect for Scenic Road 3, southeast of 12th. Thank you to the staff for their presentation. Alex Stroh, the homeowner, is there with you in person and Prithee is there to help and answer any questions. I'm sorry that I can't be there today. I have a daughter who's graduating from high school today. The property is an existing two-story single-family residence and the first view that we're going to look at is the existing looking southeast towards the property when standing on scenic road. The existing home as noted has several non-conforming conditions including height, floor area, site coverage, and rear setback encroachments. The site also has a very significant beautiful cypress tree in the front yard. So we superimposed the proposed improvements into the same view and much of the improvements are screened behind the existing fence line on this north side of the property. The proposal is a renovation of the existing residence in kind with a new attached ADU extending the ground floor volume forward. The renovated volume of the main house does not change. A new terrace is proposed above the ADU and it's accessed from the upper level of the home. Another view from scenic road looking directly into the property. And in the proposed, this is the view from the same angle, the project includes landscape improvements, as noted, located behind the existing fence line, along with the replacement of the existing 72-inch driveway gate with a new four-foot bifold gate and pedestrian door. The proposal here is that it will consist of a metal tube steel structure that will be painted in a bronze color and then wood slats, Ipe slats, on the pedestrian side. Site improvements also substantially reduced site coverage from approximately 50% of the lot area to 13%. This next view is taken from the elevated grade adjacent to the cypress tree. And then the proposed view from the same location. At the ground floor, the ADO doors are eight feet in height. And the upper doors that lead onto the deck are 7 foot 2 inches. And to maintain a consistent scale and proportion, the lower doors include a 10 inch solid kick plate at the bottom, aligning the visible glazing areas between the floors or making them similar. The extents of the proposed deck were designed to remain consistent with the previously approved conditions of approval for the project in its previous incarnation with another designer. And that included limiting the southern portion of the deck, as staff mentioned, to a depth of about 11 feet. We have a low planter along the west edge to help define that limit. And then another planter on the other side was something that we worked on with the neighbor to provide privacy between the two properties and to stop people from occupying the deck close to their property line. Here's another proposed view from the driveway. Visible here are several of the site improvements including the permeable pavers and gravel strip driveway, new steps leading to the side entrance of the main residence, stone retaining walls, and the spa that you can see here that we think will be mostly screened from public view. The topography of the hillside where the tree is kind of shields the spa mostly from view. And then we have the existing site plan. The proposal includes partial demolition of the existing step retaining walls and preserves the retaining walls located within six feet of the Cypress. The existing asphalt driveway will be removed. All paving and stairs along the south yard will be replaced. The existing entrance has kind of a turret feature and that will be removed, allowing the roof in this area to be rebuilt and simplified to kind of be more in keeping with the other roofs. The existing paving along the north side yard will be removed. And then we can kind of click through the material palette and the elevations here. And I think that's the end of what we had to talk about. And we're both here to answer any questions that you have.

Okay. Questions for the architect at this time. I have one question for you.

You mentioned the stone retaining walls, but on the plans it said something about metal retaining walls.

Yes, there's a little bit of both. The metal is a proposal from the landscape architect to clad the wall that is alongside the property line at the entrance steps. And the reason for their proposal of that material is that it's thin and doesn't encroach with the thickness of stone and mortar into the navigation space of the stairs. So the stone retaining walls are primarily around the area of topography that holds up the cypress tree and then the metal is that along the stairs.

Okay, any other questions for the architect? All right, thank you. Okay, at this time I'd like to invite any member of the public that would like to come forward and make comments on this application to the Commission. I don't see anybody here in the chamber getting up. We have any hands up on line?

No, sir.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close the public comments, open it up to the commissioners for their comments. Commissioner Albarn, do you want to start or do you want to pass?

I'll be happy to start. Thank you, Chair. I have a little bit of a different take on this project, I think, than staff took. And because I spent a lot of time looking at the nonconformity that already exists on the site. As the property exists today, they're already 154% of floor area ratio. That's pretty significant. And we're in the beach overlay. and they're also over the height limit. The height limit is 18 feet, and they're non-conforming there. They're 24 and a half feet, and that's as existing. The proposal would add about over 800 square feet of living space. I mean, that includes, and I can't talk to the ADU. I'm not speaking to the additional space that the ADU will be adding, but that is indeed 400 square feet of living space in addition to 400 square feet of deck that they're requesting to add. That puts the property, that would put the property at about 190% of our acceptable floor area ratio. That's kind of a stunning number to me. I feel that the deck absolutely and flatly fails 1736030B. which prohibits alterations that in large extend or increase nonconformity. I happen to think that the DEC is increasing the nonconformity. The windows, now I know the state will give will give the property owner the ADU. I can't speak to that, but I don't have to, I'm pretty sure the state isn't gonna require me to let them have eight or 10 foot windows on that ADU facing my right of way in Carmel. I'm pretty sure that I can put a request that I'm not prohibiting the building of the ADU, I'M NOT CHANGING THE SIZE OF THE ADU, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE I CAN SAY THAT THOSE WINDOWS CANNOT BE THAT HEIGHT, THAT THEY NEED TO BE MUCH CLOSER TO HUMAN SCALE AS IN KEEPING WITH OUR LAND USE PLAN AND OUR LOCAL COASTAL PLAN. THE COASTAL ACT, AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, COASTAL ACT IN CHAPTER 3, SECTION 3253. It absolutely conditions deck approvals around use intensity. And I take that very, very seriously. This property is in the beach overlay zone. It definitely is part of our scenic corridor. This property has already exceeded its use intensity based on the non-conforming floor area ratio and height. And so to me, that deck simply is increasing, at any size, is increasing that use intensity. And I feel the same way about the spa. That is adding additional use on a property that's already massively non-conforming. So my recommendation, that said, it's a beautiful looking design. My recommendation would be to approve a concept study that indicates a requirement to bring the windows to human scale as we do in our design guidelines and to come back with a final design that eliminates the deck and eliminates the spa. Thank you.

So just to clarify the deck, the deck as a roof deck doesn't count as site coverage, correct? So if you eliminate the ADU, then it's adding to the site coverage. That's correct. It's kind of a conundrum there.

It also adds to volume, sir.

I mean, if we can't consider, well, I understand that, but I'm just trying to address this site coverage issue because if we can't consider the ADU,

So this was something that came up during the review of the project. So this project was previously approved a variance for site coverage when there was no ADU below the deck. In that time, the variance in previous design study expired. So instead of re-pursuing the variance, the applicant elected to not pursue the variance because the ADU had been proposed and they were able to bring the site into compliance, working within those same constraints.

I thought it was, I thought the ADU was part of the previous project.

There was no ADU in the previous project.

But there was a variance for the deck.

There was a variance for site coverage in which the deck was proposed. So the deck is actually, so when you considered, you being the Planning Commission, considered the project, the deck actually went out, extended all the way to the limits of the ADU. When the project was appealed to the City Council, they required the deck to be reduced and that is the limit of the deck presently. That expired, correct.

I'm sorry, all that expired. So we're seeing this in a sense as a new project?

Correct. However, that was the parameters in which the applicant was working on it.

And I'd like to say if the existing property was much closer to conformity, I would be seeing it very, very differently. But it's in the riparian zone. It's in the appeal zone. And it is so far outside of our conformity that that is what is directing my point of view right now.

What percentage of site coverage is being proposed?

Do we have a site matrix? I would have to look at the site plan, but it does conform with the site coverage limitations.

It does conform as proposed?

As proposed, it does conform with site coverage.

And what is your point, that it's outside the site coverage?

No, not site coverage, floor area ratio and height and volume. We know that it would never pass a volume study because of the nonconformity in the floor area.

But it's an existing nonconformity.

But we're increasing it with the deck and the spa, in my opinion.

The nonconforming section that Commissioner Alborn was referring to says that a nonconforming building may be repaired, altered, There's one other, there's maybe, there's three things, but one of them is altered so long as the alteration does not increase the nonconformity. Historically, what that's meant is if the building has nonconforming floor area, you cannot increase floor area. If it's nonconforming in height, you cannot increase the height of the building. In this case, the only floor area increase is the ADU, which As you know, historically, we have allowed pursuant to the state law. In this case, the single family residence is actually slightly getting reduced in floor area because of that turret feature. So this effectively, if you take the ADU out of the picture, there's no change to any of the non-conforming elements.

OK, thank you for that clarification. All right, did you make your comments? Let's go ahead.

She makes some sense here. No, overall, I think this is a really pretty project. remember seeing it before. In fact, I went back and watched the video today. My problems are more with what's going on in the front yard area, the spa, and the deck that are proposed under the Cypress To me, those areas should remain open space and not have that element. But I'm also concerned about the size of the deck, and this goes to our previous conversation on design guidelines, because this is an example of where we've got an ADU and you're putting a deck on top of an ADU. And the fact that you can do so On an ADU, you can do something on an ADU that you couldn't do if it wasn't there. And I think that as part of our design guidelines, that definitely maybe needs more thought on that. I agree that the size of the windows on the ADU should be reduced. And the other thing that was not brought up as part of our design guideline discussion today had to do with driveway gates. And in this particular case, if I recall, they don't have closing gates. They are actually permanently open gates. So that was my recollection from our previous site visits. And I think we need to consider that there may be areas where, and this goes to a further discussion on driveway gates, but that we do have this area where there's a lot of public access. And we've never really specified where it might be appropriate and where it's not appropriate or where we'd prefer to have them versus not have them. And it occurs to me that the scenic drive, San Antonio, are two areas where In my mind, it would probably be more appropriate than further up the hill. So I don't really have a problem with that. And I think that was pretty much what I had.

Before I call on the other commissioners, I want to get some clarification on the ADU and the size of these windows. Do we have discretion to review the size of the windows on the ADU?

The ADU is not under the purview of the Planning Commission.

So I don't think, we don't have the authority to do that. Without our, without our specific ADU ordinance, which allows us to do that, we don't have that authority to do that at this time. So, and I kind of also think that's the same situation with the deck.

You know. So you do have discretion over The deck. We commonly bring decks to you when they are located over 80 years, and when I project... not unlike this one, but when the project is just for an ADU and they propose a DEC on top of it, we will bring forward to the DEC to look at privacy impacts, view impacts, things of that nature to see is the DEC appropriate being located over the ADU. Just because it's over an ADU doesn't exempt it from all requirements.

I understand what you're saying, but this DEC has already been litigated as to privacy. And it's my opinion that if we didn't approve the deck it's just going to be appealed and council is going to uphold the appeal because they already went through this you know with it and they and they they came up with the decision to mitigate the impacts to the neighbor and the neighbor is satisfied with it as far as the you know this this issue with whether we're a second story deck because it's over a structure now doesn't count as floor area and it doesn't count as site coverage. That's a further discussion. That's something, you know, which we, but right now there's no prescriptive, you know, prohibiting of the deck. So anyway, with that said, Commissioner Bruce.

Thank you. I agree with many of the things that Commissioner Alborn said. I do find the windows unusually large for this type of requirement. I understand that this is not at all. Because it's an ADU, we really can't say anything about it. Is that correct?

It's not part of the discretionary hearing.

Got it. Okay.

You can discuss the size of the windows on the structure.

But not on the ADU. Not on the ADU. Okay, so note to self, make sure we do the ADU ordinance as quickly as possible. The deck, I'm inclined to agree with Commissioner Olborn that it is floor area that's being used. And it seems to me if it's on top of the ADU, it's not part of the ADU. So we do have discretion there, as I understand from the conversation. Is that correct? And I think you said, Mr. Court, that the SPA is also considered site coverage?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. So that's something we could treat completely separate from any of the conversation about the DEC or the ADU?

Yes, that's correct.

Thank you.

Commissioner Karabatov?

So this fall, Construct that the ADU can be put in the front of the house and we can't control what happens with it makes zero sense. In no universe it makes any sense. So if anyone can convert their garage into an ADU and put pink glass wall and we cannot say anything about it, that makes no sense to me.

Well, we could. It's just we don't have an ADU ordinance at this time. We're working on that. And we do in the state, as I understand, and staff can correct me on this, but the state does allow for design discretion as long as it meets the requirements. Right now, we're exploring the objective design standards, right?

Yes, we are exploring that. The state also allows for us to apply our LCP in that ordinance. And Mr. Court is showing me subsection G of our existing ADU ordinance. That states that the accessory dwelling shall be constructed with facade materials similar in texture and appearance to the primary dwelling, including but not limited to roofing, siding, and windows and doors. So the question the Planning Commission could then ask is, Are the windows or the sizes of the windows on the main structure consistent with the sizes of the windows on the ADU? From this elevation, I can't tell, but... Are they the same?

No. Okay. So we do have some discretion because what it says is that the ADU basically must be consistent with the design of the existing structure. In other words, you want to clarify that?

Yeah, I'll read it one more time. The accessory dwelling unit shall be constructed with façade material similar in texture and appearance to the primary dwelling, including but not limited to roofing, siding, and windows and doors.

OK, so that does give us some review discretion. But it has to relate to the existing structure.

Okay, go ahead. Yeah, and the other concern I have is parking, right? So the existing house has two car garage. So potentially you can put two cars in it. And in the front yard, I think you can park three or four cars right now. So we're talking about six vehicles total. Now with this new design, my question is how many cars can you park in the new design?

So the required parking for the site is only one parking space, which they're replacing with a garage. They have demonstrated on the site plan that they can accommodate two parking spaces in the driveway, one for the ADU and one for the primary dwelling.

They're not within half a mile of a public transit?

They are.

So my concern is that whoever lives in this house, and this is a massive house that you can have like five people or six people living there with their vehicles, that the remaining vehicles will need to be parked somewhere. So going from six park spaces down to two, or actually I see only one, but let's say two, that means four additional vehicles potentially will be somewhere around Scenic. And that is concerning. So I think that is probably sufficient. All the other comments were already made. So I agree with all of that.

Do you have any comments on the deck? Did you make any comments on the deck?

Deck? I still don't understand the whole interplay between ADU and decks. You know, I think I agree with Commissioner Rosse that the deck should be free for discussion. It's not part of the ADU, it's the top of the ADU. So I don't see any issues with that. Hopefully that's the case. The size of the deck, I think it was already discussed in city council. I understand I didn't see that recording. Was it discussed in city council? Well, it was appealed.

In the previous design, the Planning Commission approved a larger deck. Extend it out further. The neighbor to the south, as I understand it, appealed it. The City Council upheld the appeal and it was pulled back. So what's being proposed right now is a size deck which is consistent with what the appeal approved. And I think there's language that the deck size, condition number 34, the Western DECA by the proposed accessory dwelling unit shall not be expanded into the planner area adjacent to a planner area without the approval of planning commission.

Okay. I guess that's the, if this is being appealed to the city council, that is fine. I don't have any opinion on that. It's a pretty big deck, obviously. We tried to limit the size as much as possible. We had this discussion earlier today about rooftops, very similar. But I'm not that concerned about the deck. I'm concerned about the parking, and I'm concerned about the whole concept of EDUs being kind of a lawless part of the... of the building where you can do pretty much whatever you want. Especially when it's in the front. I mean, if it's in the back, I don't care that much what you do with your ADU. But if it's the front and it's like really in your face, that does matter. So I think we should look into ways to regulate that. Thank you.

May I ask a question of staff?

Yeah, go ahead. So we've talked about the appeal a little bit, and just procedurally, when you get a new application, because this is not a modification of an application that's previously reviewed or appealed. Am I correct in thinking that there is absolutely zero connection in our thought process here.

You're correct. It's a do-noble hero.

It's a do-noble hero. OK.

They're not connected. I'm just speculating.

OK. No, understood. And I believe that the objection in that appeal was the distance of the deck from that, out from the wall towards the street, to be screened by the hedge where it steps like that. You can see it on the right in the picture. But it does seem we still have, if we're talking about, we can talk about the location of the deck, the size of the deck, but we still have, I think, the ability to say there should be no deck at all. I'm not proposing that. I'm just wondering, is that on the table? Yes. It is? Yes. Thank you.

but we need to make a finding as to why we're not, we eliminate that. And that, and Commissioner Auburn has made the argument that it's, I think your argument was that it's intensifying the non-conforming use. Is that correct?

Yes. So my finding would, my proposed finding would be that due to the Coastal Act in chapter three, section 3253, that conditions deck approvals around use intensity. And in addition, the fact that we have established that this property is already non-conforming in terms of floor area ratio and several other, and height, right? Because the proposed brings the site coverage into conformity. So it would be that the non-conformities that would continue are floor area ratio and height. That because that... I contend that the property has already exceeded its intensity because of those nonconformities, especially given that's in the beach zone, the beach riparian district. And for that reason, I would make the finding that the deck is inappropriate and should be removed from the plans. And in addition, the spa as well.

I have another question I wanted to ask. Maybe other commissioners are... Okay, help me with that. So if the concept is that if you have a nonconformity and you add an ADU that's not considered increasing the nonconformity, well, you can drive that to extremes, right? Let's say we find a house that was built in the right of way, like goes like five feet in the right of way, and somebody comes in and builds an ADU that goes all the way to the street basically right to the curb and now we're saying well the house was non-conformant now we have the ADU but it doesn't we don't consider that increase ADU has to conform to setbacks

So it's not... your example isn't really... I'm just thinking... That's one of the... that's a state condition. It has to conform to the setback. It can have minimum four feet, but our setbacks are less than that. So, you know, on the side and the rear. So, I mean, there's a lot... I understand where you're going, but I think we have kind of a... we have a couple of narrow pathways here. It's my feeling that we have the ability to say that the size of the windows on the ADU have to be reduced because they are not consistent with the design of the existing structure. Now, with regards to the deck, I think the question or the finding that Commissioner Alborn is raising is that it is increasing a nonconformity. But I'm not sure how that's happened because it isn't floor area. And that would be, you know, and the specific nonconformity of the house. It seems to me the two specific nonconformities of the house are floor area and height.

It's increasing in use intensity. So the language in the Coastal Act has to do with use intensity and intensification. And we talk about that for instance.

Yeah, but is the... That's a pretty subjective term. That's because of the beach overlay.

Well, no, this is just the Coastal Act in general. And in addition, this particular property is in the beach overlay.

This is a question for staff. I mean, the whole community, all of Carmel, as I understand it, is in the Coastal Commission. We have a local coastal plan. We have determined what the consistent uses are for the city. So to go to a broad statement about the increase of intensity of use, I don't find that relevant. We've already settled that matter with our LCP. If this violates our LCP in some way, then yes. So my question to staff is, in the context of our LCP, is this an intensification of use or an intensification of a nonconformity?

The use is, the existing use is a single family residence. The proposed use is a single family residence. ADU is an accessory use to a single family residence. So there is no intensification.

So there's no intensification of use. Correct. Of the deck or of the structure. Correct. I'm just trying to follow this through.

I get it and I appreciate that. I'm not trying to. And earlier I had asked Mr. Court about volume and the increase in volume that the deck is bringing. You know, that has got to be an increase in nonconformity if the volume is already nonconforming.

Well, it's my understanding that the volume calculated deck is the amount of area under the deck. Is that correct? How is that calculated?

It's the area between average grade and the top of the railing, typically. We didn't do a volume study on this project. We didn't do a volume study on the previous project that previously expired. We generally don't do volume studies on standalone decks. There's a provision in the code that says residences constructed before 2003 haven't, you know, don't have the benefit of being subject to a volume study. And therefore, you can look at just the addition only. Again, in this project, there's no addition. It's effectively removed the ADU. It's just a deck.

So there's no volume issue here?

Yeah, historic, I mean, treating and consistent with every other project we've ever done where it's just a deck. We don't do volume studies on this.

So volume studies not required. Okay, so volume isn't on the table. Okay, so there again, I'll restate, I think the discretion, it's under our authority to state that they put the condition that the glazing on the front of the ADU has to be consistent with the existing residents. And with regard to the deck, I don't see any any way that we can limit that. We've already talked about intensification of use or intensification of an existing nonconformity. And I don't think that it meets either one of those findings that would deny the deck. Any more discussion? Okay, we have a motion from staff

We can go over the special conditions.

31 is conditions of approval of acknowledgement. 32 is construction management plan. 33 is retaining wall encroachment permit. 34 is deck size. 35 is e-deck planning landscape. 36 is construction drawing consistency. 37 is landscaping plan revision. And 38 is lighting locations. Do we have any amendments or changes in language to any of those? I don't think, I didn't see any, but.

Chair?

Yes.

I would suggest that if you are going to require that the glazing at the ADU matches the single-family dwelling, that that be added as a special condition?

Yeah, I would add that as condition number 39. Is that a motion? That's a motion. I'll second. Okay, any further discussion? Can we have roll call, please?

Commissioner Alvord?

No.

Commissioner Karapetkov?

No.

Commissioner Locke?

Yes.

Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Chair LePage?

Yes. Motion is carried. Thank you. Okay. Shall we continue or? Keep going. Keep going. All right. All right. That brings us to item number 10 of the public hearings. This is another design study. This is DS25299. The White Project's Consideration of Concept Design Study for Demolition of an 1,837-square-foot one-story single-family residence and the construction of a 2,460-square-foot two-story single-family residence inclusive of a 254-square-foot attached garage. It's on Biscayno. May I have a staff report, please?

Staff is recommending that the planning commission adopt a resolution finding the project categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15303, new construction and approving a design study and coastal development permit to allow for the demolition of a single family residence and construction of a new 2,454 square foot single family residence. Project also includes a 793 square foot attached accessory dwelling unit. So the project's at Viscano, 9 southeast of Mountain View. It's a 6,000-square-foot lot. Previous project was considered at the March 9, 2026 hearing with direction from the Planning Commission. In summary, there are a number of conditions related to tree protection as well as landscaping. I apologize for the... placeholder related to that condition of approval, but I will get to that later. Also to complete the volume study, clarification regarding floor area, revising the dimensions of the garage space to provide all the information required for final details review and to additionally work with the neighbor regarding their view concerns. We've gone through the final details findings quite a bit, so I will skip this unless we need to go back to it. And then to meet those findings, staff has included a condition of approval number 33. Just that standard lighting condition that we've discussed for the last two projects. One light fixture at each exterior doorway. That's to implement design guideline 11.8, which effectively requires the minimal amount of exterior lighting. Number 34, to reduce the skylights. Right now there's this grouping of... Four skylights, which lights a stairwell in an interior hallway. But staff's recommendation is to reduce that down to two, as they just all illuminate the same area. Garage door modification. Residential design guidelines 9.16 states that a contrasting, a standard overhead garage door with contrasting colors is discouraged. So staff, or the excuse me, condition of approval number 35 states to match the color of the adjacent building. And then 36, 37 speaks to adding additional landscaping within the right-of-way. Right now there's just a small row of planting immediately adjacent to the property line. So this condition would require an additional layer effectively of landscaping in the right-of-way and then to provide a selection from the recommended species list that the city maintains and finally number 38 is to provide for an alternative Paving material, the residential design guidelines discourages concrete. So this condition states that the paving material for the driveway, such as these stand set pavers, shall match the paving material for this walkway, consistent with the residential design guidelines. There are two deviations from the design guidelines that staff has made findings for. One is the flat roof element and then also metal roofs. These have been discussed at previous hearings. Those findings are made in the resolution. And with that, staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt the resolution as described on the screen. And that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Questions for staff? Okay, I'm gonna invite the applicants to come forward, make their presentation.

Evening commissioners and staff. My name is Alan Lehman and I'm the designer on the project. Thanks for your attention and efforts today. I know this is a thankless job at times. Some of the items from the previous meeting that were discussed that were requests by the Planning Commission to make adjustments on. One major one was we shifted the entire building a little bit up to the front yard setback. It was back from there. So it was approximately a two-foot shift and this this was all in service of the neighbor to the east, Mr. Love, who had requested a better site corridor from his living room window and so we did our best to accommodate that. We had looked at larger shifts of the massing of the house to completely clear from the entirety of that zone of his house, but we were concerned that that was pushing too much of the volume of the house towards the street and that stepping back of the house from the street was very important to I know both the guidelines and the overall concept that we brought forth last time that was seemed to be accepted well. We didn't walk into the backyard, but I was looking at that with the story polls today, and the shift forward, even just that two, almost two and a half feet that shifted forward, really frees up much of his view corridor. We're barely overlapping that very large window he has in his living room. The rear decks were adjusted. That was a request before we were proposing to cantilever and overlap some tree protection zones. We have pulled everything back from that to accommodate that request. The other items such as the civil engineering that was adjusted for some of the rain garden zones, that was done. The garage and floor area calcs were clarified to make those corrections that were requested by staff. We do, I want to bring up, because I suspect it will be a topic of your discussion, we do have that second floor balcony area, which is primarily above the garage. This, in some of these earlier discussions and the proposed guidelines, that upper balcony is just maybe about 107 square feet, so we're almost at that 100 square foot number. It has screening on almost completely on three sides with some of that decorative screening. really keep it very private and it's in service of a very small area of the house which the likelihood of that space being occupied by more than two people is going to be you know difficult to achieve for one because it's such a small space and you know very unlikely at all. Some of the things that came in the conditions, the lights that we do have at the front door, two small lights proposed, which are in the soffits. They're about 245 lumens each. I've used those before on projects and they project a very narrow beam of light down. Where we have them placed is not very close to the house, so they'll not be washing the house with light necessarily, but simply illuminating the zone where people enter the house and create a much safer approach to the house. So we made great effort in the design to minimize the light spill in any way, but try and create a very safe approach to the house so that the owners of the house currently have some young children, for one. And then the house is co-owned by a daughter and her mother who... mother plans to occupy the ADU mother and husband and you know her husband so it's a multi-generational house and the the safety of being able to walk up to the house without any issues I think is is paramount when when we are our max lumens is 375 for a surface mounted fixture and we are very close to that number combined with these two small, I mean these are the lens opening for those lights is only about two inches and so it's really directing that beam down to reduce the light spillage. The skylights that staff mentioned, we do have four small two foot by two foot skylights, which when we look at those in the actual glazing area on a Velux two foot by two foot skylight, the glazing area is even less. So those are spread out in that quadrant in order to give a little bit of natural light to this interior stairwell and this completely interior hallway. The goal being, first of all, we could reduce it to two skylights, but maybe larger skylights. And does that make sense? But our goal was to try and, with these small skylights, spread the light out in order to gently wash the light into the stairwell to make that as safe as possible during the day. If there were no skylights there, we'd be turning on lights during the day. And that doesn't make sense to me from an ecological standpoint and just a psychological health standpoint. Natural light is a healthy source of light. So I'm hopeful that you can see that those are not excessive. They're barely at all visible from the street because of the way they're placed. They're farther back in the lot. They're at the second story. It's not a very steep pitch roof, so we're not really like, you know, sending out that light. They'll of course have the automatic shades that will come on at dusk in order to avoid the light pollution. The garage door, we were proposing that in a kind of muted gray color and when we look at the street elevation, what we're seeing with that garage door and the glazing areas on the opposite side is a balance. And so if we were to clad that garage door in the wood siding or match that color, our visual balance starts to weigh heavily to one side. So that was the goal of that. If it is the request to change that to a lighter color, we'd be, you know, most inclined to clad it with the wood siding to match the house. The right-of-way and parking or right-of-way area for planting, one of the reasons or the main reason we have minimized the plantings there is that the Forest Theater is a block away. And I tried to visit this house to distribute flyers on a day when the Forest Theater had a show. And I had to just keep going. I couldn't turn down Viscano. I couldn't turn down Crespi. I could barely drive my way out of this whole zone because this area is flooded. And that area in front of the house will have two cars parked on it. every time the Forest Theater has a show, because this is the Forest Theater's parking lot, these streets. And so we don't want to plant so much that we are forcing people to then plant, you know, either park on those plantings or force them somewhere else. And they're walking down the street from the high school. Who knows? I mean, I'd love it if the city just said, hey, we're going to give away, my proposal is give away free bags of popcorn to everyone who takes a bus from the middle school. But that's not going to happen. And people are going to be parking there. So we didn't want to create a situation where we've got tire tracks across these plantings. Lastly, the paver materials leading into the house, we are proposing a concrete, but we'd be happy to look at a coloration of that concrete to blend well with the driveway paver color. We would like, you know, we don't want to continue driveway pavers across a path. It's kind of, I don't know if I've ever seen that done on a project in Carmel. Generally, we have an alternate material that makes that path. Because of the Scandinavian simplicity of this design, we feel like the simple concrete pavers with maybe some color added in would be very appropriate. We can do those as large format pavers with drainage between them. So there could be small pebbles or sand between these pavers. But we would like to not have the driveway pavers continue across that path. And that's all I have for presentation right now. Are there any questions?

I have one quick question. In the stairwell, is there a wall? It's a U-shape. You come up to a landing and you double back. Is there a wall between it that goes up or is it just an open railing?

Open railing. So, yeah, we're trying to spill light down so it would get to that. It's a very internally locked space where that is. Yeah. Yeah, there's no windows to it. Okay.

Any other questions for Alan? Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. At this time, I'd like to invite members of the public to make any comments regarding this application. I don't see anybody in the chamber. We have a hand up. Okay.

Mr. Love?

Go ahead and make your comments.

Yes. Are you able to hear me? We can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. Well, thanks. Thanks again for your time. So we did, we've had several family members at our property subsequent to the meeting on March 8th. And by the way, my name again is Christopher Love, and I'm one of the co-owners of this K07, the adjoining property, the uphill property. So the window that was concerning us most from a view perspective was our living room, and that is in the front of the very front of the house on the corner closest to the street. Shifting the orientation as described by the designer, from what we can tell did make a marginal difference, particularly in the master bedroom where there's also downhill facing windows and a center bedroom. But from the window that we're most concerned about, that living room window, If that home is built as proposed, it's still going to largely obstruct our view. Again, it's somewhat difficult to tell from the flagging operation exactly how significant the impact is going to be. We took videos of both before and after and studied them as closely as we could. And so that's our analysis that we're our view from the most from the window that we're most concerned about is still going to be substantially obstructed by this by the second story. concern is that you've got a 6,000 square foot lot here. You've got a house that, you know, by today's standards at 24, 2,500 square feet is not huge, but it certainly is big for that lot. And it really maximizes every square inch of that particular lot space, which to us is a negative and sort of gives the overall home the appearance of a monolith that has that monolithic appeal or appearance. And I think as part of the one of the issues that one of the commissioners raised as part of the the meeting in March was some suggestion to modify the windows to the front as well as changing maybe some of the textures and materials on the exterior of the front facing portion of the home to give it a less monolithic feel. And I didn't hear anything from the designer that any of those modifications were made also with as many people as he describes are going to live in the home. I don't know what the driveway and what the parking situation are going to be like. So those are some additional concerns and comments that we have that I have.

Okay, thank you. Looks like we have another hand up. Elaine White, did you want to speak to the commission? Elaine, go ahead. You can hear me.

You hear me?

Yes, we can. Go ahead.

Okay. I am calling from in the middle of the night from Europe. So I am one of the owners of the property. And I know that my contractor, Brendan Connolly, is in your audience today. And I would ask that He addressed the commission about the conversations that he had with Mr. Love. We have made extensive modifications to the project to meet all of the concerns that were expressed at the March meeting. Additionally, what my understanding is that First of all, this is a side window that Mr. Love has in his living room. I know that the Commission has viewed it in person. It currently overlooks our roof. Additionally, It's the sense that we have that this is not, and he expressed this to Mr. Connolly, it's not a style that he likes, but it's not his house. And so, you know, quite frankly, their roof towers over our yard. But it isn't our business to comment on that. It's his house. And we've done everything that we've been able to do, including spending hours trying to manipulate the plan to meet the concerns expressed by the commission. So I would urge that the commission recognize those efforts that we've made and approve the plan.

Thank you for your comments. Okay. I think everybody's had a chance to speak that wanted to. So I'm going to close the public comments, open it up to the commissioners for their comments. Commissioner Locke, you want to begin?

I don't have a lot of comments on this, actually. I do understand the minimal right-of-way landscaping, and I think I would agree with the applicant on that, just because of the location of this property, and it is definitely prime street parking, so I think leaving it available for parking would be appropriate. The paver materials to the front door question... I think that the concept of doing some other material that has permeability between the pavers in a similar color, I would find that acceptable as well. And I don't really have any other comments. I think it's a nice project.

Commissioner Albert?

Thank you, Chair. I agree with Commissioner Locke's comments. I'm unclear. You didn't talk about the skylights.

I don't have a problem with the skylights.

The four?

They're small. I thought so, too. Yeah, I think they're very small skylights, and they are on an inner kind of courtyard area, so they're not visible. I would say from the street.

And I agree with Commissioner Locke. I was looking at the proportion of the size of the skylights to the size of the roof. And I would be okay with striking condition of approval 34 to eliminate the two skylights. I support the architect, Mr. Lehman's suggestion that if we keep condition of approval 35, that as we specify, well, we may not need to specify, but he's inclined to clad that garage door with matching wood siding. I would accept that suggestion. Condition of approval 33, Mr. Court, is that for the two lights above the front door? the extra lighting.

Those might have been the ones that caught my eye, but it is applied throughout.

Oh, it's applied throughout. Okay. Then I would, lighting and getting that right in Carmel is important. So I would support staff's recommendation for that. I do agree with Commissioner Locke to strike condition of approval 37 and the landscaping in the right of way, seeing as the forest theater zone is particular when it comes to residential parking and so we might as well accept the fact that that that area is going to be used for for parking rather than for successful landscaping and for condition of approval 38 with the walkway materials yes let's get a permeable as far as how that's done I'm good with leaving that to staff and the architect thank you and beautiful project thank you

Commissioner Ruse?

Yeah, I wasn't sitting here during the first time this went through. My first reaction was, wow, nice house, but that upper, that big upper story window seems like a fishbowl. It goes all the way down. I don't have a problem with it, but that was what jumped out at me when I saw that. regarding the um the skylights i think you know compared to other conversations up here this is an appropriate use of the skylight because it's uh it's a small interior space it's used for transit i i don't have a problem with the skylights at all so um the garage door cladding is fine and i think the i agree with commissioner's lock and all born that the um not having so much landscaping in the right of way is actually a good thing in this part of town, so. Very difficult to park there. That's it.

Okay, thank you for your comments. Commissioner Kiripatov?

I do not have any problems with the garage door. On the skylighting, First of all, I want to say that this is a good example of a properly executed ADU built into the house. We have seen so many other ADUs as part of the house where you look at that and immediately realize this is not an ADU. This is just additional square footage too. your primary residency. This one is executed in a way that it basically shows that it's two separate entities. It has a separate stairways. It has a clear separation between the two living spaces. So I think this is a very good example how to do an ADU built into the house in the same structure. On the skylights, I don't really have problems with the skylights. It's probably possible to do it with one single skylight. I see here that there is a loft or playroom that has a relatively big window. I assume some light is going to come from that window into the hallway and also into the staircase. But if the architect is of the opinion that this is not enough for safe operation of the stairs, I'm all for using natural lighting. It's much better than putting additional lamps on the ceiling and trying to illuminate the space. Beautiful design, very logical. Initially, I was just startled by the number of bathrooms. I counted five and I said, wow, where did the five bathrooms came from? But then I realized that this old house, the 1,800 square feet house, Whoever lived in that house was truly in love with bathrooms because he had five. So to find an old house with five bathrooms and 1,800 square feet is just fascinating. Every single room in that house has a bathroom. including the bathrooms have bathrooms. It's just amazing. It's forward thinking. Yeah. It's fascinating. So anyway, I think that is great. I'm not a big fan of the roof. because it has this sloped elements and flat elements. It would probably be possible to do the entire roof with sloped elements and eliminate the flat areas. I'm not sure how practical it is to have two different kind of roofs. I guess you need to call two different roofing companies to fix it. But We don't have a guideline. We have a guideline to keep the siding kind of the same, right? But we don't have a similar guideline about roofs to keep kind of the roof consistent. So that's why, you know, we end up with these combinations of flat roofs and slopped roofs and all other kinds of roofs. Yeah. I think it's a good design. I'm a little bit concerned about having two bathrooms, two bedrooms, the main bedrooms facing the street where there's a lot of traffic and noise, as I understand. But that's a decision of the homeowners if they want to live that way. Exterior lighting, I still don't understand. Where is the exterior lighting on this project, and is it a problem or not? Do we have in the front exterior lighting, or is it in the back? So I don't see anything on the kind of rendering here. There's no exterior lighting in the front, so I assume it's all in the back.

It's not on the rendering. It's on one of the plan sheets. It's on sheet A111, or sorry, A11. And then I'll also mention that a lot of the times during construction, additional light fixtures get added that aren't shown on the plan. So it's also just precautionary. You'll notice that I threw it into every project I presented today. It's precautionary as well as enforcing the plans that are before us.

Well, it also depends, right? Because if you... If you have a simple door, like a swing door, it does make sense to put a light on the side where the door opens, right? That's where you get out, you have one light. But if you have a sliding door with two panels that opens, that can open on the left side and can open on the right side, you need two lights. You need one on the left side and one on the right side. So I don't know how the rule exactly applies in these situations, but In general, lighting in the back, I'm not concerned about it. Lighting in the front, yes. It's a quiet street. It's a dark street at night. It would be good to limit the lighting in the front of the house so that we keep this causiness. And yeah, I think it's a great project. Thank you.

OK. I just want to get some clarification on that landscaping in the front. Can you speak to that, Evan?

Sure, let me just get back to... Is your finding from an ordinance? Partially, in part. So the specific finding is final details finding number four, visual continuity. Proposed landscaping, paving treatments, fences and walls are carefully designed to complement the urbanized forest, the approved site design adjacent sites and public right-of-way. The design will reinforce a sense of visual continuity along the street. So the evidence for the finding for consistency was evidence C in the resolution. It's section three, finding four, evidence C. So if you are going to amend the condition, I recommend also amending this piece of evidence. But effectively the summary was, The design guidelines 10.2 through 10.4 state to use plants that are similar in character to those established along the block. Plants in the public right of way should be predominantly green foliage plants in keeping with the design traditions of Carmel. Plant in areas Planting in areas visible from the street or other public places may be added to the right-of-way and designed to blend into landscaping on site to enhance the sense of open space. If the right-of-way is planted, use native trees, ground cover, low shrubs are preferred. Then it goes on to say landscaping plan includes minimal landscaping within the right of way. Only a single row of small plants are located just outside the property lines within the bounds of the property. The proposed landscaping is only a few rows of planting deep, creating an isolated planter area as opposed to landscaping consistent with the character of the street, which consistent with the character of the street, which includes areas of planting between the street edge to the front of the structure. So effectively the point or the finding was this is just a small strip of landscaping, whereas the remaining character is landscaping from the street edge all the way up to the property. So the conditions that put more landscaping into the street consistent with the remaining block, if you look all up and down the block, there's landscaping throughout the right-of-way. Basically, we have a plan.

Do we typically require the applicant to put landscaping in the right of way? And the only time I ever required is if there's a detached garage that's in the setback. And that's that's isn't that usually typically it's discretionary.

My recommendation would be if you aren't going to require it in the right of way, require more on site. That's that's that would be staff's recommendation.

OK. All right. How would we require more onsite? You can. How do we quantify that?

I mean, you could you could quantify it up to a percentage. You could say, you know, at least 50 percent of the area between the the front property line and the residents shall be landscaped with what, you know, plan material. Right now it's affecting here. I'll pull up the site plan or the landscape plan.

We don't have a landscape plan for this project, do we?

We do.

Oh, okay.

Shelby, would you mind coming over?

Yeah. We don't know how you increase the amount of landscaping.

I'm sorry. Can you please flip over to the laptop?

What page is the landscape on? Let me see. I've got the plans.

So right now it's just the minimal area in the front of the property and then the landscaping is relegated to the corners of the property in the rear. And then the rest of the site is just mulch effectively. So staff's recommendation was to continue that continuity of landscaping along the street to increase the amount of landscaping in the right-of-way. Do you want to speak to this?

So the landscape plan is on A11. Chair, can I speak briefly to this? Sure, come on up.

Thanks for taking a deep look into that. I think the or we feel like the amount of landscaping we're proposing in the front of the house is quite adequate. We are not we're concentrating it towards the property line. So it mostly serves as a layered effect of plants from the right-of-way side, where we have quite a bit of planting, to just on the other side of that. And we are limiting planting adjacent to the house, as is important for our fire safe guidelines. And so it was very intentional the way we are proposing this landscaping and we're hoping to keep that. And then when we were on site and I was standing there at the street looking at the small non-planted strip that's there now is basically, where are you Bach Festival folks going to park?

I parked there.

You're welcome. Thank you.

OK. All right. Let's see what we've got going here on this thing. So staff's recommendation is if we're going to change that condition, is that 30? So you probably should advise that it's going to be consistent with the plans, compatible.

Oh, right away. No, it's 37. There's 37. There's 36 and 37. One is...

Okay, so SAS recommendation is that if we're going to not require landscape planning in the right away, that we increase the percentage of landscaping on the property.

That would be my recommendation.

Okay, and that could be done... That could be done in the rear and the front. But you want it specifically in the front?

I would recommend the finding is the design will reinforce a sense of visual continuity along the street. Wrong street, right.

That was the intent. Okay. All right. So I would add that to condition 37. to increase the landscaping between the front of the house and the property line. And condition 38, let's see, the paving materials prior to the applicant's supervisor plans clearly indicate the concrete walkway and paving materials be the same. I would just modify that, that there is a consistency in color and design so that they, the walkways, the materials are subordinate to each other. Is staff okay with that?

Yeah, the intent, I'm rereading this now. Really, the issue was on one plan sheet, it said the materials matched. On another plan sheet, the materials said they were different.

So that's...

So you were just saying consistency with, you were referring to... Yeah, if they're both pavers, but they're a different paver to identify this is the driveway, this is a walkway, that's fine. Really, the issue is it shouldn't be...

There's more consistency in the plan.

That was more your intent. Correct.

It shouldn't be concrete. So that's fine. And my opinion on the skylights is two skylights in that stairwell is plenty. So I would support staff's recommendation there, finding it's open. That's why I asked if there was a wall in there.

Chair, with the two skylights, I believe the architect had asked, could they be larger? Could there be two, but could they be larger? So why don't we go in that direction?

For my experience, two 2x2 skylights are plenty. I mean, I have one in my house like that. You wouldn't believe how much light one 2x2 skylight brings in.

It brings a lot of light in. So I think it's adequate.

And we are trying to limit the amount of skylights. So I'd make the motion that we accept the resolution as per staff. with the modification to the special condition number 37 that additional landscaping be provided from the front of the property to the property line and that the Condition number 38, that as long as the pavers are subordinate to each other, that they be allowed that, and that the paving, the plan should be corrected so that it just says that they're the same in both locations.

I'll second that motion.

Okay, is there any further discussion? Okay, roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn? Yes. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke? Yes. Commissioner Ruse? Yes. And Chair LePage?

Yes. Okay, the motion is carried. Thank you.

You ready for a break now?

Okay, I'm going to, we're going to have a break. We will reconvene at 7.30. What's going on over there?

Oh, I know what's going on. Now I see.

Now I know what's going on.

Yeah, no problem at all.

Look, I was total of it. We delivered it.

Thank you.

Commissioner Alvord.

Here.

Commissioner Karapetkov.

Here.

Commissioner Locke. Here. Commissioner Ruse.

Here.

And Chair LePage.

Here. I apologize for starting late. We had to go find the pizza. Had to hunt it down.

Okay.

All right. That brings us to on the public hearings, I believe it's item 11, am I correct? Am I in the right place? Yep, okay. This is another design study, DS25291. This is the Ridgewoods LLC concept design study for the construction of a single story additions totaling 644 square feet, replacement of roofing, siding, windows, doors, and rearrangement and replacement of site coverage. Staff report, please.

Good evening, Commissioners. As stated, this is for the concept design study for DS25291-25988 Ridgewood, LLC. So for a brief background on the project, it's a 7,667 square foot lot. There's existing slightly over 2,000 square feet of floor area and 1,500 square feet of site coverage. L-shaped single story home. And the applicant is proposing to demolish a covered porch and the hardscape on site. You can also see there's a few trees slated to be removed that we will cover later in the presentation. THE APPLICANT IS PROPOSING TO EXPAND THE FLOOR AREA WITH THE TWO ADDITIONS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COVERED PORCH AS A well, just an extension of the house, making the property into a U-shape. That will bring the floor area up to roughly 2,800 square feet, and they are reducing their site coverage, bringing it into compliance. The site coverage on site, once the project is constructed, will be 823 square feet. And as stated in the project description, the additions to the house will total 644 square feet. FOR FOREST CHARACTER, I'VE HIGHLIGHTED IN RED FIVE TREES THAT ARE SLATED FOR REMOVAL, FOUR OF WHICH WERE DETERMINED TO BE NOT SIGNIFICANT DURING THE TREE EVALUATION AS PART OF THE PRELIMINARY SITE ASSESSMENT. ONE OF THE TREES WAS NOTED AS SIGNIFICANT But since the preliminary site assessment, there was authorization from the city forester to have the tree removed under an emergency authorization because the tree posed a threat to the property. The rest of the trees on site are slated to remain, one of which is just over the property line at the rear of the property. You can see the green circle. And the city forester's determined that this meets the tree density requirements so they're good to proceed with their trees without planting any additional. And here are the trees that are to remain. The structural root zones are shown around said trees here. I know there was a little bit of concern about the proximity of the tree to the rear addition, but you can see here that it is slated to be The addition is laid to be outside of that structural root zone. The only place that has any kind of work being done in the structural root zone is the large tree at the front of the property in the right of way next to the driveway. And so any excavation in that area will be needed to be done by a pneumatic excavator or hand dug. As for the topography on the site, as you saw today, it's a fairly flat site. There is a little bit of grading that's going to be done in order to channel drainage towards five catch basins that I've highlighted in yellow on this slide. So drainage, at least from a preliminary standpoint, looks good. And the final grading and drainage plan will be reviewed by environmental compliance as part of the building permit to make sure that it complies with all standards. But no concerns have been raised so far. FOR PRIVACY VIEWS MASS AND BULK, WE HAVEN'T RECEIVED ANY CONCERNS FROM ANY RESIDENTS IN TOWN ABOUT PRIVACY OR VIEW CONCERNS. THE PROPOSED ADDITIONS MAINTAIN THE SINGLE STORY, AND AS AN EXTRA CONCERN, THE ARCHITECT AND THE HOMEOWNER DECIDED TO PROCEED WITH A VOLUME STUDY AHEAD OF THE CONCEPT DESIGN, AND IT HAS PASSED VOLUME. They did this through just maintaining low plates. And as you can see at the very top of the slide, you'll see the existing elevation on the left and the proposed on the right. They've converted some of the gabled roofing into hip roofing to kind of bring that volume down and make sure it's minimizing the apparent volume from the street. I wanted to include the other elevations, but it's pretty much a continuation of the last slide. Passes volume by a thousand cubic feet, a little over a thousand. MAINTAINS A PRETTY SIMILAR PROFILE BUT EXTENDS OUT AT THE REAR TO MAKE THAT U SHAPE FROM AN L SHAPE. THE BUILDING AND ROOF FORM, AS STATED, IS GOING FROM KIND OF AN L SHAPE TO A U SHAPE, BOTH OF WHICH ARE DEEMED AS APPROPRIATE BUILDING FORMS IN THE DESIGN GUIDELINES. THERE'S A FEW OTHER PROJECTIONS FROM THE BUILDING, BUT NOTHING THAT OVERLY COMPLICATES IT. AND THEY'RE ACTUALLY INCREASING THE SIMPLICITY OF THE ROOF. The previous roof had 4 and 12, 3 and 12, 1 and 12, and 2 and 12 slopes. So it varied based off of there was some shed roofs, there was the gables. It was just the overall roof structure was just more varied. So they've simplified that a lot, adding in the hipped roofs and the additions and just making the roof more uniform throughout. So it's a 4 and 12 everywhere except for at the entry where the little entry will have a slightly steeper pitch of 6 and 12. With that, staff's recommending that the Planning Commission adopt the resolution as presented by staff. I'm here for any questions.

Questions for staff? I had one question. I know this is concept, but on that one elevation, it looks like the stone only wraps part of the way down the garage. Is that the case? Like here on the proposed south elevation?

You can see there, yes, it does.

Is there a term there?

I can't remember if there's a corner there.

I mean, I know this is concept, but.

I would need to double check, but that is a good point. If we did approve this at final, I would recommend having any stone veneer terminated in interior corner as is standard with our, we have a standard stonework condition about that. So I'll talk to the applicant and have them update the design so the stone wraps all the way around the garage.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

Yeah, good catch.

OK, any other questions for staff? All right, would the applicant like to come up and make their presentation at this time? Good evening.

Thank you for considering my project and staying late. That pizza smells good. I'm going to go get one after this. My architect, unfortunately, had a family obligation and wasn't able to be here tonight. He apologizes. His name is John Moore. He's been here before. My name is Joe Biagini, and I'm actually the owner of the property. I'm very much not an architect, as you guys will quickly find. But I'll do my best to give you some good information about this project. So I purchased this home about a year ago. It's a 1939 build and a few small interesting additions over the years that we have discovered and want to correct. And basically it's a fairly simple project with the idea of keeping kind of the character of the street and the surrounding area and overall city of Carmel intact with this project to kind of honor the the city and so it's time for an upgrade especially on the roof a lot of quirky things going on that we want to smooth out but we're not raising the roof at all just keeping it essentially the same pitch and height and the main footprint of the house is remaining aside from the small addition in the living room and then an addition in the back for a bedroom as you guys saw I believe today And the roof framing will be cleaned up. The lines will remain fairly similar. And this project complies with the zoning ordinances, the floor area, site coverage, height, volume study, as Mr. Olander mentioned. And then the the site coverage we're bringing it back into compliance because it was kind of crazy relative to the ordinances of the city so Want to keep it fairly short because that benefits me and hopefully benefits you guys as well But I'm happy to answer any questions that Any questions for the honor?

All right. Thank you. Thank you Okay, anybody from the public that would like to make any comments come forward at this time on this project? Any hands up online, Shelby?

No, sir.

Okay, I'm going to close the public comments, open it up to the commissioners. Commissioner Karapetkov, you want to tee it up?

Yeah, maybe just a couple of words. So that house is very similar to my house. And so the proposal is exactly what I'm doing with my house. I had a wood shake roof. I replaced it with composite shingles. I had old windows, single pane, replaced them with double pane. And the siding also needs to be replaced. So yeah, very logical, very straightforward. I have no no objections to the project. Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Locke?

I really have nothing more to say other than that this is a nice little project.

Commissioner Alborn?

Thank you, Chair. Agreed. I love that the non-compliant site coverage is going to be reduced. I think that's excellent. I like seeing the Plainton Ridge Heights being where they ought to be. There's an archaeological report that surprises me that that part of town, I didn't realize that part of town was inside the archaeological zone. So they know what to do there. I know they have all the direction they need. I think of note is Mr. Olander's conditions of approval with one mention, one, the landscape plan. So, but I support the project as described. Thank you.

Commissioner Ruiz. Yeah, so my first thought when I read through this was, and I don't mean the appearance of the house, which I think is fine, but other than that, I thought the application was unremarkable. That was what came to mind. It seems like it checked the boxes. did what they were supposed to do. So I have no problem with this at all.

Yeah, I agree. We have a resolution to accept the concept design. Is there any further discussion? Do we have a second? Second. OK. Any further discussion? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Alvord? Yes. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Locke? Yes. Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Chair LePage?

Yes. Motion is carried.

Thank you.

Okay, that brings us to another design study, DS25356, the Dale project. This is a consideration of the final design for the demolition of 1168 square foot, one story, single family residence and the construction of a 1600 square foot, one story, single family residence and 227 square foot detached carport on San Carlos. Can we have the staff report, please?

Thank you, Chair. I'll be presenting the Dale project this evening. As you said, proposed this evening is a 1,600-square-foot, one-story home with a 227-square-foot detached carport. 200 square feet of that carport is categorized as floor area for required parking, and then the remaining square footage is in the site coverage category. Here you can see the existing and the proposed site plans, and I'll be going through several more slides showing the setbacks and other code requirements. The commission did review this project back in March, and you did have several conditions for concept acceptance listed here. The conditions were accepted as drafted by staff, except for condition number five, that the red text was the direction of the commission to edit the facade window. The applicant did reduce the dimensions of the window as directed. AND ALL OTHER CONDITIONS FOR CONCEPT ACCEPTANCE WERE INCORPORATED INTO THIS FINAL DESIGN, OR SATISFIED. THE PROJECT DOES REQUIRE A DEVIATION FROM THE DESIGN GUIDELINES, WHICH SPEAK TO ROOF FORM GENERALLY BEING LOW OR MODERATELY PITCHED. MORE STEEPLY PITCHED ROOFS, SUCH AS A 12-ROOF PITCH ARE PERMITTED ON TWO-STORY BUILDINGS, AND THIS PROJECT proposes the steeply pitched roof on a one-story building while staff cannot deviate from the design guidelines the planning commission can as long as the proposed design meets all of the design objectives as well as or better than adhere strict adherence to the guidelines and these are the six objectives here THE COMMISSION EXPRESSED SUPPORT FOR THE ROOF PITCHES AT THE CONCEPT HEARING. THE PROPOSED ONE STORY DESIGN DOES FEATURE VERY LOW PLATE HEIGHTS AT EIGHT FOOT ONE, WHICH IS LESS THAN THE ALLOWABLE 12 FOOT PLATE HEIGHTS, REINFORCING THE HUMAN SCALE OF THE PROPOSED DESIGN. FURTHER, THE STEEPLY PITCHED ROOF DESIGN IS ESSENTIAL TO EXECUTING THE PROPOSED TUTOR INSPIRED ARCHITECTURAL STYLE. The commission did not identify significant privacy, solar, or view impacts to neighboring properties at the concept hearing and did support the roof pitch as integral to the architectural style. Here you can see the setbacks are coming into conformance. Presently, the home is non-conforming. So the proposed project is getting further away from both the north and south neighbors. The commission is required to make findings to allow either a detached garage or carport in the front setback. The proposed carport does meet the length and width and height and square footage requirements. The carport also meets the requirement to have the right-of-way landscaped at least 50%. No significant trees are impacted. There's also a finding about free and safe movement of pedestrians and vehicles. And we discussed the speed limit on San Carlos and driver visibility and the fact that pedestrians primarily utilize the sidewalk on the east side of the street. There is no sidewalk on the west side of the street, the subject property. And then there is a finding about all development on site will be in scale with adjacent properties and the neighborhood context consistent with the design guidelines. There are several detached garages on the subject block. The current property does not have any parking, no garage or carport, so it's nonconforming. And the applicant is proposing to provide the parking at the south side of their property, maintaining open space to the north, so protecting access to light for the north neighbor. And it does preserve views into the site to a greater degree than an enclosed garage would. And it is smaller than the maximum permitted size and shorter than the maximum permitted height. The carport would add diversity to the streetscape. Here it says we have four properties on the subject block face with detached garages in the front setback. This would be the only home with a detached carport. And then five properties have neither a garage or a carport in the front setback. The finished materials are largely unchanged from what the commission viewed in March, and there are no conditions regarding the finished materials. We have received public correspondence from the south neighbor, and there are remaining concerns from the north neighbor, who we heard from in March. Here is the streetscape. You can see the current home is some 30 feet setback from the property line, and it is I think some 10 feet high. So the proposed project does encroach further into the front yard and does increase the height of the building. As you can see, the neighbor to the south is located on a corner lot, a south-facing corner lot, and the neighbor to the north is largely shielded from view due to the vegetation that they've maintained along their front property line. The commission is charged with assessing view and light impacts. The guidelines recommend buildings be located so that they will not substantially block views enjoyed by others. IT IS INEVITABLE THAT SOME BUILDING MASSES WILL BE IN THE VIEW SHED OF NEIGHBORS AND THE COMMISSION IS TASKED WITH DETERMINING AN EQUITABLE BALANCE AMONG PROPERTIES AND WHAT CONSTITUTES A SUBSTANTIAL VIEW BLOCKAGE Currently, as I described, the neighboring properties enjoy unobstructed views across the front of the subject property due to the fact the existing home is 31 feet set back from the property line. So the applicant's proposal to locate the carport on the south side of the property was strategic in protecting the north neighbor's access to light and the south neighbor has access via their east and south elevations. Here are just, if we need them, the setbacks showing how the proposed project is, will be further away from the property lines. And that concludes my presentation. The staff recommendation is to approve the project as conditioned. We have the applicant here, as well as a representative for the south neighbor.

Catherine, you put that setback slide back up, thanks.

The top two images are the North property line existing and then proposed. And then the bottom half of the screen shows the South property line again, existing versus proposed. So you'll see presently the home encroaches on both sides into that three foot minimum setback. And then the proposed setbacks vary anywhere from three feet, two inches to six feet. And they're kind of staggered to avoid the major living areas of the neighboring properties. The setbacks increase in areas adjacent to living spaces.

And the project's required to have a 12 foot, is it a 12 foot composite or a 10 foot?

10.

10 foot composite. Yeah. So it meets that. It does. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Nope. Okay, I'd like to...

I have a question. Go ahead. I note in the materials page here, there is what looks to me like, yeah, the chimney cap is copper. I'm wondering how this plays with the city's objection to copper gutters and downspouts, because the purpose of that ordinance was to... avoid rainwater running off of copper into the groundwater?

Great question. The policy is currently to select alternative materials for water conveying elements like gutters and downspouts. However, the cap has been deemed not water conveying. So for the pollution concerns, caps are still permitted.

Okay. No further questions? All right. I invite the architect to come up and make her presentation.

Thanks, commissioners. My name is Merritt Hawley. It's nice to see you all again. We appreciate your time and the thoughtful review of our project through both the concept and final details phases. We have a little slideshow, too. Clicker. I'll click through for you. OK. Thanks. From the beginning, we with our client, Melissa Dale, made a strong effort to engage neighboring property owners. You'll see the letter we hand delivered back in November of last year in the packet that you received and remained available throughout the process to discuss the project and any concerns. The home is shorter and less massive than what is allowed under the zoning code and has been intentionally designed to minimize its scale, respect the existing context, and to gently reference Carmel's heritage. It is a 1600 square foot cottage on a very small lot in a dense village setting. It has come to our attention that the neighbors have recently identified a few areas of concern about the house, areas that are purposely left open for judgment rather than specifically prescribed. And these areas are the carport design and location, the roof pitch, and the house's compatibility with the neighborhood. In the spirit of goodwill, we studied the suggested changes to the design and we found that they would fundamentally alter it without meaningfully improving the concerns that had been identified. I want to repeat that. If we were to change the project as requested, it would still not address the concerns that have been brought forward by the neighbors. So first, the carport and the front setback. The code says to encourage variety and diversity in the neighborhood design, detached garages and carports may be authorized by the Planning Commission within rear yard setbacks or front or side yard setbacks facing a street. At the earliest iteration of our concept, we determined that a carport in the front step back would do the following. It would allow us to maintain a single story house so that our client could safely age in place. It would preserve enough open space in the back of the property for a very small garden. It would significantly reduce the amount of impermeable site coverage. There are several cascading consequences to moving the carport out of the front setback in a lot this size, one of which is the likely need for a second story. On a side of the size, it results in a larger looming building. Ultimately, we determined that a second story would make it difficult for our client to access as she ages and would cast shadows over the neighbor to the north living space, which we obviously wanted to avoid. The carport structure itself is very small and short. In fact, the southern neighbor's fence, which you can see from this rendering, is as tall as the plate height of the carport. We'd be willing to plant a hedge along the property line to further soften the view of the proposed structure, if that's something that you would like us to entertain. Can you do the next slide? We performed a solar study to show that documents the path of the shadows throughout the year. Because the sun is located to the south of our property, our solar study demonstrates the proposed structures do not create a measurable reduction in solar access for the property to the south. nor to the habitable space of the property to the north. Per Catherine's findings at the design concept hearing, the project is consistent with the city's objectives for public and private views and will retain a reasonable amount of solar access for neighboring sites. Among a number of suggestions, the neighbors to the south asked that we make the carport roof a flat roof rather than a pitched roof. Here's a drawing of what a flat-roofed carport would look like. Not only is it incongruous with the rest of the house and more massive than the proposed carport, you can click, the neighbor to the south would see more wall closer to their property line rather than a roof that stretches away from it. The next kind of concern is the roof pitch and the neighborhood compatibility. The proposed roof is a 12 by 12 pitch with an intentionally very low plate height, as Catherine mentioned. It's at a comfortable human scale. The result is a building whose ridge heights are comparable to neighboring structures with a reduced amount of visible wall mass. So you can see that Carmel's got these beautiful traditional cottages that we all love. And these are all similarly designed with a steep roof pitch and a very low plate height. So it feels more approachable, more human. Let's see. At the last meeting, commissioners, you all commented favorably about the roof and composition. Quote, I think in this case the pitched roof is appropriate for this design, said Commissioner Locke. Quote, I do think that the architect is suggesting something really beautiful and unique, Commissioner Karapetkov. Architecturally, I think this is one of the most exciting projects we've seen in a long time, Commissioner Alborn. The architect has presented a very sensitive design and makes a lot of connections to the historical character of our architecture. Chair LePage. I want to emphasize that we did study whether a lower pitch would be suitable for the property. And we can click to the next one. Here's an image of the proposed house. And then the next. Here's an image of the same house with a 612 pitch. We concluded, and you can go to the next, that a shallower pitch would produce a heavy, miss-scaled building with more wall area and significantly reduced architectural character. A shallower roof pitch would not solve any, well, this is the most important bit, a shallower roof pitch would not solve any of the concerns that the neighbors have about views or access to light. It just would be a flatter roof pitch. You'll see from these photos, last thank you, of the proposed building's story poles, even with their steeper pitch, they settle pleasantly into the streetscape. Given that the proposed ridge heights are comparable to neighboring roofs and that the commission previously expressed support for the roof forms, we continue to believe the proposed pitch is appropriate for the site and consistent with Carmel's architectural traditions. And then I want to return to the intent of the final details meeting, which is to review landscape selections and building materials. So I have some things that I could share with you in our little collection. So we have been deliberate in selecting materials and forms that reflect Carmel's established character. So we have flagstones for the pathway. We have blue compatible synthetic shake roofing shingles. Paint colors for the walls, the plaster walls, and the windows, and then some brochures if you want to look at the traditionally designed windows. So additionally, we retained a licensed landscape architect who's on Zoom and available to answer any questions to ensure that the garden contributes positively not only to the property, but to the broader neighborhood character and forest setting. We proactively reached out to reputable general contractors to develop a comprehensive list of ways to mitigate impacts on the neighbors throughout construction. We do understand construction has impacts and we would like to make sure that we're taking that into account even at this early stage. It's important to note that the project before you today is substantially the same project that received very positive feedback during concept review. The site planning, building massing, access, and overall design approach remain unchanged. We believe the project satisfies the intent of both the design concept review and final details review criteria as consistent with the design guidelines. and represents a thoughtful and considered response to both the site and the surrounding neighborhood. We have listened carefully to the concerns that have been raised and we have revisited the corporate location, access to light and the roof form. After further study though, we continue to believe that the proposed design represents the best balance of neighborhood compatibility, site constraints, aging in place functionality, preservation of open space and Carmel character. And for these reasons, We respectfully request your continued approval. Thanks.

Oh, Mary, we have a couple questions. At least I do. Okay. So the, can you speak to the plate heights on the main residence? Sure. Can you kind of, I don't know if they're all the same. You said they're varied. They're different. But I'd like to just get an idea of what the plate heights are. Yeah.

So in some cases they're eight feet. In some cases...

So well, specifically, what about the plate heights along the southern side?

On the southern side, they are... They're eight feet, or sorry, that's the northern side. The southern side, they're actually lower at 7'6". Okay.

And then does the northern side mimic that or is it?

The northern side is eight feet for some of the vaults and then it has a very low, actually does have a low roof pitch over the sleeping spaces where it's the closest to the neighborhood to the north's house. We wanted to be sure, you know, we wanted to stay low in that area. And then in the back, there's just one small volume in the back that goes, well, that's also 7'6". So it's 7'6 or eight feet. They're low height.

Okay. And then the carport in the front, it looks like the plate height is pretty low there. It is low.

Yes. It's six...

I mean, with the human figure you have there, it looks...

It is, yeah, it's very low. It's six feet at the very lowest bit. And then it rises.

And then the height of the opening? Is that an eight foot height or seven? It's. Seven foot or?

It's, yeah, it's eight feet. It's eight feet high. So you can fit a car comfortably.

Do you have a, can you bring up that, okay. That's eight foot.

Mm-hmm.

So on that, the opposite side, well, the north side, so that's eight foot, I assume, the plate height to the carport?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Do you have any other questions for, what, another question?

Thank you, Chair. Ms. Hall, not so much a question as just a comment or an observation, and I maintain absolutely exciting, beautiful design. For the carport, my eye keeps going to the difference in weight between the northern supports and the southern supports. You don't need to respond to me, and I won't be asking as a condition of approval that that change, but I think there might be an opportunity to bring the difference in weight for those four posts a little bit closer together.

I agree. And I think, yeah, some sort of embellishment to the post would be really interesting. And yeah, thanks.

OK. I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'd like to invite any members of the public to come up at this time and make their comments.

I would like to comment, however, our lawyer is going to come in by Zoom, and I prefer that she comment first. So I don't know where she is or how she's going to connect.

Oh, you don't? She's in transit?

No. Excuse me.

Is she on Zoom? Yes. Oh, she's on Zoom. Okay, so I will speak after. You want to speak after? All right. So her name is Jennifer? Jennifer? Jennifer, you want to speak to us now?

Oh, hi. Yes. Hello. Hi. Good.

I can hear you.

Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, thank you. My name is Jennifer Rosenthal and I represent the Cathieros who are the direct property owners to the south of the applicant. I'd like to thank Catherine for all the time and effort she has put into this and also I would like to thank the commissioners for coming to my client's home today to see and understand their concerns. I have submitted a comment letter detailing my client's opposition and legal authority to support their opposition, so tonight I'd just like to highlight their concerns and reiterate their requests. And as you saw today, the proposed house, and most particularly the steep roofline, blocks the majority of light and view from two key areas in my client's home, the kitchen and the dining room. And as designed, the roof line also blocks the entire north view from the front patio. The roof and house itself will block the entire window in the dining room. And yes, the proposed project will be farther away from the property line. As proposed, it will completely block any sort of natural light that will come in. Additionally, as the house is designed, it does not blend in with other houses on San Carlos. This is the only house on San Carlos Street that will have a roof with such a high pitch. And I did prepare a slideshow of various houses on the street that Katherine can show you.

Sorry to interrupt you, Jennifer. IT, if you could show the PowerPoint, please. Thank you. Thank you.

These photographs were also included in my comment letter, but just as you'll notice, I walked up and down the street and photographed both sides, and there are no other houses with these types of roofs. So as you can see, the design as proposed does not have neighborhood compatibility. And when considering a carport, CMC Section 17-010-030, as relied on, There are several findings that need to be made to allow a carport in the setback, and here finding number five has not been met because the roof line is not in scale with adjacent properties along the entire street. And we asked the commission to use their authority under the general plan policy P1-51 that requires the commission to consider privacy, power access, private views of the neighboring buildings and is required to attempt to achieve an equitable balance. And here we are requesting the equitable balance would be one, moving the house back towards the back property line. Two, requiring the carport to be built with a flat roof and move back out of the front setback. And three, soften the pitch of the entire project. These requests are governed under the earlier reference code sections and we ask the Commission to balance the equities and grant our requests while still allowing the project to move forward with the requested modifications. And I have nothing further unless you have questions for me and I know my client would like to speak as well.

Questions for the client's attorney? Thank you. Okay, do you want to come up and speak to us?

So hello, commissioners. I'm Mary Caffiero. My husband, Luca Caffiero, and I own the property in question to the south of the Dale residence. I met all of you earlier today, I believe, and I thank you for coming to the house. So because you've been there, you're now able to appreciate the impact that this project will have on our house. Most egregiously, the entire blockage of our dining room window. I hope that all of you, excuse me, I hope that all of you noticed that while you were there. The present view is sky and treetops. The proposed view would be shingles, 100% shingles, okay? Moving into our kitchen, that window is also affected as well by the carport. Oh, let me back up a minute. The dining room is affected by the body of the house itself, that steeply pitched shingle roof in the house. Moving into the kitchen, however, that is affected by the steeply pitched roof of the carport. Okay, so we look out the window of the kitchen to the north and the northeast, and we no longer see trees, and the sky is diminished. Stepping outside into the patio, as you can see in that picture, we're just on the wrong side of that carport. We see the shingle roof of the carport instead of the open side. There are other places in the house that I think I showed you as well. The transom windows, the back bedroom, all of this is affected. But our main problem is with the dining room window. We know, having replaced windows in that house here in Carmel, that conformity in Carmel is a big issue, as well it should be. And we know that there's a lot of room in Carmel for whimsy, quirkiness, individuality, originality, and all of that, but that those elements are restrained by strict parameters. And we feel... My husband and I feel that the Dale project lies outside those aesthetic boundaries. The notion of transposing architectural elements from a large public building, i.e. the Sunset Center, to a very small private home, to me is frankly puzzling. We are deeply upset about all the shingles that are going to be blocking our views, especially our dining room window. And as our attorney said, we'd like to ask for the house to be moved back, which would liberate some of the view at least, give us a little more sky and trees back to flatten the roof of the carport. and to soften the lines of these spikes, which don't really have any functional use. They're just empty volumes. So I thank you all for listening to me and I hope that you will keep these considerations under, take them into consideration. Thank you again.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, I'll let you come up at the end there. So anyone else from the public that wants to make any comments regarding this application? No other hands going up? OK, so I'll invite the architect. Are you the architect? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

So good evening, everyone. I'm Melissa Dale. I'm the owner of the house on San Carlos. And I just wanted to say a few words about the project. First, my family has strong ties to the community. We've had ties to Carmel since the mid-1980s. over 40 years now. It has been my dream since I was younger to own a house, my own house in Carmel, and to move here and live and retire here in the future. So this is a project I've been thinking about and working with my architect for quite some time. We've put a lot of time and energy into making sure we come up with something that's good for the space, good for the neighborhood, and we did take into account trying to position the home better on the lot so that we weren't right up next to each other. So we have been taking those concerns into consideration. I'm really excited to move to Carmel to become an active and engaged member in the community. I am really happy with the beautiful design that my architect has come up with and really hope that you will continue to support this project. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to allow the architect if they want to come back up and finish up any comments or respond to anything.

Just one item in particular, a suggestion that we move the house back means that the property owner will have no backyard at all and no privacy whatsoever at that point. So we did also consider that, but we would like to preserve a small amount of outdoor garden space.

What's the current setback, proposed setback in the back?

I don't know.

I'll have to check.

The north volume of the home is at the 15-foot setback line?