Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I am your new community development director. I think I'm in week four, if I'm not mistaken. I guess I could give you a quick background. So I was previously the community development director for the city of Millbrae. I was there for three years. I've been in California in planning for over 20 years now. I also worked in Arizona before that. I've worked in government my whole life. I'm a former park ranger as well with the National Park Service. Took a career change early on and did planning instead. And I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to help guide this planning commission. I've lost track of how many planning commissions I've advised over the years. I've certainly had a pretty broad variety of projects and circumstances and situations, so I'm happy to... happy to be here this is a unique city with its own unique set of challenges and circumstances and in the item on tonight's agenda is reflective of that um so i'm happy to be here i guess i'll leave it at that uh i'll say hi outside of the meeting to all of you individually of course welcome to larkspur

all right it's a report so very good you said you were in a national park or yes that's right which one that was our national scenic riverways okay yeah so in arkansas uh southern missouri southern missouri that was a long time ago yeah cool very good um well then is the next item on the agenda actually i don't have the actual agenda on here it is got it All right, so then we go on to Section 5, Business Items. And the first item on the agenda is the Floor Area Ratio Regulations Discussion.

All right, I've got a PowerPoint here. Okay, so good evening, Commissioners. I will keep my presentation brief. brief, it's just going to echo a lot of what is in the report here. And so this is a discussion of the city's current regulations and potential alterations to the floor area ratio and the way that the city administers it.

Sorry, Alex, do you have an extra copy of that report? I realized I didn't have it in my package. Do you need it to give your? Oh, okay. Thanks.

Okay, so I'm sure the commission is familiar with the background here, so I'll just go over it very briefly. early spring of 2025 there was initial discussions about the floor area ratio uh requirements that the city has and and what maybe could be done to uh alter them due to a pretty significant amount of projects coming forward that required an exception to the requirements uh you made a subcommittee consisting of members wag staff and campbell And they met once with city staff and the city attorney to kind of go over the existing regulations and look at what what may be possible in the future as far as changes. So that subcommittee met and then it was became a joint subcommittee with council member Margulies, who met, I think, in December, November of twenty twenty five and discuss things in a little bit more detail. And. Now we are here before you with the findings of those meetings. So again, I'm sure you're likely aware the current regulations allow, I think what you see most often are the R1 zoning, you know, 40% of the lot sizes you're allowed floor area ratio. And then depending on the slope of a lot, it can be reduced all the way down to 0.5% of your lot size. And as it shows in the report and in this table on the slide here, the rules for this second residential and third residential are different. Fairly similar when you get into the R3 zoning, the math of the slope reduction is a little different. And the definition of floor area is basically you can think of it as all the enclosed spaces, including carports and garages with a ceiling height greater than seven feet. And there are a few carve outs in the code about internal ceiling heights and areas where it might not count. And. As we've discussed many times, there is a provision for ADUs. If a property owner builds a state-exempt ADU, which is one of four categories, currently the maximum floor area ratio for that property could be increased up to 800 square feet, accounting for the square footage of whatever size ADU they are proposing. So the subcommittee reviewed a number of regulations throughout Marin County and kind of settled on the town of Corte Madera and their floor area ratio model as a potential path forward. That does not account for any, there's no slope interaction in their floor area ratio formula. It's just simply based off of the lot size. And then similar to the city's code, there are some exemptions for small accessory structures or places or areas with a low internal ceiling height, things like that. Commissioner Campbell did a lot of compiling of data. He made a very impressive Excel spreadsheet, which I'm sure he will love to take us all through here. But I think the kind of pertinent information here is that we looked at the floor area ratios throughout all residential lots in the city using county data and confirmed that only about 35% of residential lots here actually comply. with the city's floor area ratio regulations. And then we also looked at that same set against the court of Madera regulations and about 86% of properties in Larkspur would comply using a formula that they use. And then I went back and looked at all of your project approvals that included a floor area ratio exception from 2025. And as this table shows, and it is in your report, all but two of those projects would have gone through, would not have required an exception to the floor area ratio under this kind of potential model that we've been discussing. The outliers there were three Heather and 201 Hawthorne, but projects like 64 Francis and 30 Owlswood would comply. And those were the smaller kind of steeply sloped lots, which I should say, as it notes in the report, those are the lots that are kind of the more frequent problem children, I guess that's the way to put it, in town. So the staff report outlines a few discussion topics for you tonight. Of course, it's not an exhaustive list. Some kind of thoughts to consider here. Do slope-based floor area ratio reductions continue to align with the existing development patterns and neighborhood character in Larkspur? Should there be additional exemptions or adjustments to the calculation? Are there elements of alternative approaches in the county or elsewhere that should be studied or refined further? And kind of the last one is a discussion on is regulating floor area actually a necessity? A number of jurisdictions have kind of used things like setback, height, and lot coverage to regulate the development and size of structure and kind of the left floor area ratio behind them. And so with that, I'll close my remarks here and just say staff recommends that you hold a public hearing, discuss and provide feedback to staff so that we can move forward. And that is it for me. And if Commissioner Campbell, if you want to join the Zoom meeting, I can make you a panelist to share your data. I'm not sure if you if we'll get into that, but it is an option.

I mean, I think you covered it and you've got you've got the highlights in the in the in the document here. So I think that's fine. I guess just sort of some background on, on those charts. Cause we had some questions about that at our joint meeting. Um, we, I think it was either you, Alex, or Elise came up with a list of all the lots in Larkspur. Right. And then, um, with their floor area and their, um, floor area ratio and their lot area, you know, the pertinent information.

Yeah. And I guess just to speak to that, that's all information that's provided from the county. So there is a margin of error in the square footages that they provide, but they're fairly accurate.

And then we went through, or after our last meeting, I went through and tried to filter out, there were some condominiums, like some units on Rose Lane that were included in this data, and that was sort of skewing the results for the high floor area ratio, low lot size, since those have pretty, you know, they cover most of the lot. So we filtered some of those out. I think I got them all. There might be a couple outliers, so... Forgive me if the numbers are one or two off, but I do believe that the trends are accurate and that most properties currently don't comply with our floor area ratio.

Did you prepare these tables? And all of these? Could one of you walk me through these?

Sure, yeah.

I just see a lot of concentration here, but I'm not really sure exactly what it can be.

So I don't know, Alex, if you want to pull up the table or... Yeah, just a second.

It's so much like... Yeah.

I just wasn't 100% sure what it conveys. Mm-hmm.

So the table that's in the staff report shows sort of the lot size. So we put them into like a bin. So under 3,000, 3,000 to 3,500. And then we looked at what the Corta Madera floor area ratio would be and what the Larkspur averages are for lots that fall into that range of floor area. And then we counted the number of lots and picked out which ones were compliant and which ones were not. So that's where that comes from. Then sort of the first scatter plot that we have is lot size versus floor area.

What does that show exactly?

A small lot size has a small floor area? Is that the idea?

Yeah, basically. This is just like all the blue dots are lots in Larkspur. So each dot represents a lot in Larkspur and a house size. So I was just curious to see where our... where we are right now and how would the Corta Madera rules look on that. So the red line is like the upper limit of the Corta Madera rules, which is what's proposed. So you can see it's hard to compare them exactly because we currently use slope in our formula and they do not. So you can't compare apples to apples, I guess, or it's difficult. I was finding it difficult. I'm sure someone can, but... So you can see that with the red line, you know, there are most of the blue dots, the lots in Larkspur are below that red line, which means that they would be compliant. And then on the other election, actually, there's a few more of these like scattered types of lots. There's FAR versus property slope. So that's, this is where Larkspur's data is. I probably could have labeled these a little bit better.

Sorry about that.

So you could read them too, but what the red line represents. So this is like slope, right? We use it in our formula. And so you can see that there are quite a few lots, especially as we get into sloping lots, which is sort of over towards the right on the X axis. that are above that line. And so those are lots that are non-compliant.

Right. So the steeper the lot,

The lower the floor area ratio.

The lower the floor area ratio, and the red line here is what happens in Cuadra Madera.

In Larkspur. This is Larkspur. Oh, this is now Larkspur. We use slope in our formula.

So anything that falls below the red line is compliant. Anything that's above the red line is not compliant.

Pretty much everything.

Yeah, there are quite a few properties, especially as we move out on the x-axis.

Got it.

And then there's lot size versus FAR. There's no lines on that, but it was curious.

That's the same as the first one, right? No.

I guess this last one, the one on the far right, is the same as the first one, so. And the one in the middle is there was a question raised at our joint meeting about like, what is the distribution of lot sizes in Larkspur? So this is the same data that's on the first table, but it's just graphed in a different way. Bar chart. Yeah.

Got it. No, I meant this one here, lot size versus FAR.

So it's the ratio.

So it's a ratio one.

Okay. That's why it looks like that compared to the right. I see. Because you're comparing a lot size to a ratio.

So, yeah, I apologize. I probably could have labeled that better.

I knew you'd be able to explain it.

The thing to me that's really telling is that the first plot, the Florio versus property slope, is clearly Larkspur's got a lot of slope in properties relative to other towns in Larkspur. Marin, because a lot of Larkspur is sitting on, as is Corte Madera, but Corte Madera is evened out by all the flats, whereas Larkspur is not so much.

Well, that and they don't use, I mean, this doesn't really apply to Corte Madera.

No, Corte Madera, but I'm just saying why there's so many non-compliant lots is because it would be pretty much impossible to have houses here if they were compliant.

Yeah, and we've experienced that on the planning commission. The house size that's allowed by that red line on that chart is pretty small. It's smaller than what people want to build here, I guess. Right.

So, I mean, so what is the, I mean, what are, what are our goals? Our goals to basically make more existing houses compliant by maybe changing our, I mean, what would you think the goal should be after having studied all this?

Well, I think, so sort of my, my goal in it was, um, you know, when we're sitting here on the, on the planning commission and we're hearing houses, um, or hearing projects come, come across our desk, um, Most of the time they don't comply, I'll say. On a sloping lot, they won't comply. And it feels like we're making a subjective decision about whether it's not complying by too much or whether it's not complying by an amount that we have granted in the past. And so we feel like we should be granting an exception to that. certain projects, but it feels very subjective as to where that line is. Obviously, it's too big for our regulations because it's over 840 square feet, but is it too big? That felt like a subjective decision. I thought that it would be I thought that it would be easier for us. It would be clearer to the community and clearer to developers or people that were building a house for themselves as to what's expected by us instead of sort of this vague, you know, you'll have to get an exception and it's up to whoever's sitting up here if we'll approve it or tell you to make it smaller. And sort of having a, you know, being able to point to a floor area ratio and say, well, look, you know, 80% or 90% of your neighbors follow this rule, and this is the rule that we'll be enforcing so we can make it very clear to people that want to come in. That seemed... That seemed like an advantage to me. And the other thing is I feel like we've been getting projects that come across our desk and they are asking for a floor area ratio exception and they're way too big. And the expectation is that we'll say it's too big, but then we'll reduce it to some amount that we may not, if they had come in at that lower amount, we may have still told them to reduce it. But because they've come back a couple of times and they've reduced, reduced it, it makes it seem a little bit more like a good faith effort. And it may be a good faith effort, but the end result is a house that is non-compliant and is potentially too big for the neighborhood. And so I think we could potentially avoid some of those problems if we had a limit that we felt comfortable following.

And I think it's really important in terms of smaller lots. Living in Heather Gardens, almost everyone you're going to deal with is going to be over. So then it gets down to, do the neighbors like it? Do we like it? And it would be nice to avoid that. And it's what a quarter Madera has done, including not having the slope ordinance, which, you know, when you get down to 5% floor area ratio, it makes unbuildable 850 square foot house. Pretty much. So I think the whole gist of this, and I've been on the receiving end as an architect for years and years and years going through this business. And Larkspur was always, it was even more difficult, if you can believe it, back in the day, as they say. But because I think we're a little more open-minded than they were at the time. And part of it is this idea of retaining the small town character. And that's really not how people are living so much now. So it would be nice to find an easier way.

How much, as an architect and as a soils engineer, how much were the regulations put into place because of building technology back in the day compared to what they do now?

Well, from my point of view, it's kind of hard to know, really. Their construction techniques are way more than even when I was doing it. You know, I don't know if any, again, I keep bringing this up, but if you looked at this house in Corte Madera that's right near the school, it's actually turned out to be a really nice house. But they dug the biggest hole you've ever seen.

I've got that on my list. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I, I mean, I look back on my personal experience of remodeling our house and we're on a big lot, but we're not that much of a slope, but the degree of peers that we had to put in to satisfy the, uh, but I think, I mean, I think that that wouldn't change for a major project.

Um, you know, when these rules were put in, when, when was it in the 1970s, I think eighties.

Yeah.

Um,

I had a question on that.

Yeah, I'm not sure that there was as much of a degree of engineering and construction control and that type of thing that went into those projects.

And so even if the technology hasn't changed, there's... Yeah, because the thing is, for me, I always justified giving people more FAR than what our statutes allow was because maybe it was an incorrect belief that... technologies, building, engineering, et cetera, has changed to allow safer houses. I mean, look at the, we've had several projects on that one in very steep lot where the neighbors are concerned that the house is going to fall on them, you know, if in an earthquake. And I can understand that as a, you know, somebody who lives downstream of somebody who's building on a steep slope. But I mean, are those warranted? And is that why we need to keep these, you know, slope use permit regulations? Or are they just an anachronism that we just need to just... That was the original intention, right?

Was the safety issue.

I don't know.

And also the small town character you recommended. So I, again, I have the same question as Jeff is... And maybe this is something we need to know, like the safety issue that we think about in two areas. One is fire and one is slides, mudslides. So have there been occurrences where properties are too close together or properties are too big or taking up too much land? And as a result, we've had issues with slides because they're on two steeper slopes or fires. What?

I'll let Alex answer, but it may be a moot point because we're allowing these buildings to be built at this size currently through an exception process.

Right. Maybe.

And I'm not saying... No, it's a valid question, I think, but you know what I mean.

I'm not saying this as a justification for not changing anything. If anything, I just want to just remind everyone. For sure. And also I was like curious, it's like... have we been being too lenient? Should we have been stricter in the first place?

But, um, first, honestly, I think the other way, I think we've been too strict.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think we've been too strict because we were holding onto these, you know, theoretically anachronistic rules that, you know, aren't allowing people to build what is feasible to build now with better technology, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Um, Alex. What is the city's thought on this and planning our new planner?

Yeah, I'm curious. Oh, yeah. You had a reaction. This was a reaction.

Which actually we're very interested in. Yeah. So...

Well, I think the discussions that Andy and I have had are that maybe it is time to look at just removing the floor area ratio from the municipal code and regulating it through the other ways that you regulate a building envelope. your height, lot coverage, setbacks. And then you leave the actual size to the box that that leaves an architect to work with.

And are there any, talking as a lawyer, are there any risks in doing that? Is there a downside if we took that approach?

No, I don't think so. You'd still have designer view to kind of regulate the bulk and mass of a structure. And that is, you know, the floor area ratio findings that we have right now, that's what that all centers around is, is this extra square footage adequately disguised more or less?

Yeah. I mean, you can have Franken houses if you're not careful with that kind of approach. You know, as we've seen, let's say on, I don't want to point out specific houses, but you know, the ones we're talking about, On Monta Vista, yeah. But I think for the most part, our decisions have been pretty good because we are relying on envelope and, you know, making common sense recommendations. But, I mean, as a commission, we don't want to constantly be violating our rules. Right. We're not the Trump administration, you know.

Okay.

So, sorry.

I think that was the genesis of this whole discussion was what are the point of regulations if they can be exceeded every time?

Every single time, or almost every single time.

Is that, does the safety issue that was here, that existed in the 80s when these rules were put into place, do they still exist today?

No.

And the reason for that is because

Building codes.

Building codes are much better.

Building codes and engineering in general has come an amazing distance. I mean, there's so much more. And to be honest, when I started architecture, I did my own engineering. And it was on paper. You just wrote out formulas. You put beam loads on. And that was pretty much it. So it's a lot better now. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't build probably a third of the houses that are up on the hills now on those stilts. I mean, it would never pass code, right? Never. And but so, I mean, I would be very much in favor of doing... Let me ask another question.

Just because I like to ask questions. Oh, you do. So having discussed or raised the safety portion of it, the other aspect that you raised was the small town character. So if we... make changes to the FAR, is that going to do anything with respect to sort of small town character that I feel a lot of people raise in our meetings, especially with all the state requirements that we have to comply with now. And I can't see, personally, I can't see how us changing this would affect the fact that we have to put so much more density in. But I want to ask that question in case I'm missing it or I'm missing an answer here.

Well, I mean, I guess I don't want to speak for the experts, but to me, it seems like... it seems like less of changing a rule and more, uh, like we're not changing what we, what the end product is. We're changing how we get there is, is how I was, was sort of approaching it. And so instead of getting there through an exception process, we get there through, you know, here's, here's a defined limit for your lot size and, and that's all we're going to give you unless you have a really good reason otherwise. So, um, To me, I don't think it would change the character of Larkspur because I think this is what we've been doing for as long as I've been on the Planning Commission. So I think it would be consistent. I think it might help us be more consistent with our decisions, I guess, giving an objective answer.

And if I'm understanding what we're proposing, we would still be...

having these appear before the planning commission whether they were conformed in terms of their floor area ratio or not yeah so there are still you know there are certain things that can be i don't know if you've read the design or any chapter but you know it's very specific as to what can be exempted what requires planning commission review what can be done on the staff level um so it's basically any new two-story house would still have to yeah the only The only fully exempt new home is a new home that's under 20 feet and requires no other special entitlements.

And what about the applicants who come in who say they're remodeling a house, but then when you look to see what they do, they actually take it all the way down to the studs and then they rebuild it. And yet they didn't come in as a new home because... I don't put whatever reason it didn't come across, but when you look at it in practice, that's what, what it looks like.

Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, when people apply for building permits and they're claiming a substantial remodel, staff examines their demo plan and the valuation of what they're proposing. And there are thresholds that are set out in the code that would require somebody then to, it's substantial. It's then defined as a substantial remodel or it's, Very clear that people are, to be frank, playing a game. And so those would be flagged during the building permit process. And now, of course, there are people who will show a demo plan where most of the house stays. And then in the field, that's not the case. But that is a little harder for staff to regulate at that point.

That's what building inspectors are for.

Well, we're probably missing those now anyway, right? Yeah. kind of case happens, we would miss it. In this case, we would miss it.

That's where you get the neighbors.

Neighbors, yeah. It seems to me that we would still see the variances for things like setback and all the other things like that. It doesn't change that. The only one that's really going to change is people applying for FAR variance, right?

Yeah, well, one of the discussions that we had as a subcommittee, I think, early on was the point of looking at this and saying, well, I think specifically the Court of Madera regulations is that that is it, and there is no avenue. We completely removed the exception process.

There's no exception, right? That is your allowed floor area, and that is it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I noticed that. So Corte Madera, because it said no exceptions, and Ross is the same. It says no exceptions. So that really means, like, you can't come in and change anything.

And there is, like, an asterisk in the Corte Madera rules. I haven't talked to their staff about it specifically, but they do have a carve-out that says if you go to design review, the commission can reduce your floor area beneath what is allowed in that form. It's a punishment.

You're bothering us. Yeah. So when quarter unit says there's no exceptions, so how do they set their, I missed this part, where do they set their maximum floor area?

Yeah.

So I can pull up the table again. It's all based on.

Like a window from anything under 4,600 is 0.6. Anything between 4,377, it's 2,300 plus 10%. It's in this table. It's 10%. Oh, it's quite like this actually. And then everything over 77 is flat floor.

One of the issues that Brock brought up during one of our subcommittee meetings was the issue of very small lots. So we have under 3,000 square feet is 0.7 per quarter Madera. We have some lots in Larkdale that are That are pretty tiny. And so we discussed that those might be a candidate for an exception, right? If you come in with a downtown lot that has a very high floor area ratio because it's taking up the whole lot. I guess that wouldn't be an R1 zoning district, but there could be some exceptions, I guess, on that front.

You could certainly discuss that. I mean, yeah, pretty much every, I shouldn't say every, but a majority of lots in Heather Gardens are substandard today.

They're all 4,000 or less when 7,500 is the requirement.

I think under the Court of Adair regulations, you still end up with a fairly sizable residence even under that, you know, that small of a lot size.

I think it's 2,400 square feet for a 4,000 square foot lot or something like that.

Yeah. Actually, a good comparison also is Tibbola.

And again, you still have to adhere to presumably setbacks. I wonder what coverage comes into play.

Yeah, can you describe maybe a little bit how one might use lot coverage, right, instead of or as a proxy for story area ratio?

Yeah, I mean, lot coverage, the way it's defined in our code is Essentially, the footprint of your structure. There are certain things that you could look at. If you wanted to remove floor area, it would be worth looking more closely at the definition of lock coverage and tightening that up because there are things like it's the footprint of your home counts, but walkways and driveways don't necessarily count. I can pull up the definition of sitting.

Yeah.

And so you'd use that in combination, you know, a maximum dimension in combination with a maximum height to sort of give a building envelope.

And the city does have, in addition to the objective design guidelines that the city has, there is also a single family design guidelines document that could be referred to um especially when a project comes before you for a design review that you know talks about things like the wedding cake look to a multi-story home or you know making sure your your roof pitches are similar and uh you're not the wedding cake was a big deal in the 70s so um just to close the loop here lock coverage is um The percentage of lot covered by the footprint of structures, including exterior stairs, landings, porches, carports, dock ramps, and any covered or roofed areas. Decks are included in lot coverage, except when they're less than 18 inches above grade. Roof eaves that are less than two feet or two feet or less are exempt. Trellises, arbors, swimming pools, fences, walls, retaining walls, walkways, driveways, and on-grade flatware.

What about garages?

Say that again? Garages.

That would be moving. Wait, so I know I've asked this question before. I'm being a little slow here. So the difference between lot coverage and FAR?

You could look at it as lot coverage is almost like a 2D measurement and FAR is kind of a 3D measurement.

Like if it has two stories, the FAR would be lot coverage times two because it's going vertical.

Right. Oh, I see. Okay. Got it.

And then you cap that by the height, the maximum height.

Yeah. So maybe it's a good time for me to jump in. FAR is a tool. It's been used for a very long time. Even back in the 50s when they were using it, planners couldn't figure out where it came from or how long it had been in effect. And I know that because I pulled out a memo from the Planning Association from 1952. So I have no idea how long it's been in effect, but planning's only been around for like 100 and some years now. So it's probably the oldest tool in the toolbox for regulating development, but it's not necessarily the only one. There are, like I said, you can use lot coverage, setbacks. There are other ways to regulate bulk and height. Obviously, whatever we do has to be objective in the state of California. So it has to be very clear. There are some agencies that have form-based codes. I don't recommend that. They're very difficult codes. That's one alternative that's been out there, especially in a city like this. Form-based codes, they just don't work. It's just too complicated for a city like Clarksburg. The other problem is that the state of California doesn't consider FAR in their regulations. That's why we're having this problem. People put ADUs, they put SB9 rules are in place, and none of those take into account floor area ratio at the state level. They just don't consider it. So some years ago, for density bonus, I worked at a city that had a hybrid zoning code for bulk and massing and FAR. it was really hard because you've got to like extrapolate how many units in a three-dimensional shell, you know, to allow somebody for density bonus. And FAR just threw a wrench into the whole system because, you know, a lot of the state, the state just doesn't consider that when they throw these bills at us. You know, ADUs ignore it. And so you end up with, you know, a very difficult situation. So, you know, like I said, I think you have to ask yourself, Why do we use FIR? Well, it's one of the tools. It's probably one of the oldest tools in the toolbox. But it's not the only one. There's other ways to do it. You have your goal as a planning commission. You know what you want. And you know that the tool that you're using right now isn't working very well. So really, the question is, where do you go from here? What tool do you want to use? There are lots of tools in the toolbox. There are lots of ways. Obviously, if we chose one of them, we'd have to give you examples. We'd have to run it real-world examples. Obviously, nobody likes seeing exceptions. I don't call them a variance. A variance is a very specific methodology under state law. If you're a land use attorney, a variance is limited. It's supposed to restore a right, not give you more rights. So that's why we use the term exception, not variance. I actually have only done two variances in my entire planning career in 23 years. one got approved and one didn't, and they were because of physical abnormalities. You know, there was a hillside in the way and they couldn't meet the code. It was impossible. So they had to get a variance to bring them up to the same level of property rights as everyone else. So I prefer to call them exceptions, but of course our code obviously uses states variances, but it's a thing. State law is really simple about that. So for FAR exceptions, yeah, it's clear that we've got to figure this out because it's not working. But the question, we know what our goal is. We know what we want. We just have to decide what direction do we want to go? Do we want to run some... you know, changes to FAR. Do you want to try something else? You know, the, the kind of the simple or lot coverage height setback kind of methodology that a lot of cities use.

Of the cities, of the towns in Marin, of the ones that we have in this report here, which one do you like the most?

This is the first time I've worked in Marin County. I actually know nothing about any of the other cities.

So I couldn't say, but you know, I've worked for at least a half dozen cities in a County and not all of them use FAR. Some of them do, some of them don't. I think FIR is just really, it's becoming more and more difficult given the framework of state planning law these days. So yeah, I personally prefer just the old fashioned lot coverage height setback methodology, but you know, every city is a little different just because the court of Madeira or another city doesn't, doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

So things like ADUs, et cetera, in that scheme of things, it, is it easier or harder when you have like, like, ADU rules, et cetera, that this makes exceptions to, I mean, like the goals of a lot of government now are tried to maximize affordable housing, et cetera, et cetera. How does that figure into changing our rules? I mean, is it going to be easier or harder with the way you propose?

For a single family home, it's probably not that big of a deal. It's really more important when you have like SB nine or a Duplexes, townhomes, those kinds of situations.

Got it. Yeah. I think that one of the problems is the ADU. And, you know, you can cover 4.4%, 40%, and then you add an ADU and you basically have no yard left. And I'm seeing that all the time. I mean, that giant house in Heather Gardens is evidently putting in an 800 square foot ADU in the back, which never came before us. And my neighbors are just incensed and they're going, how did you let that happen?

It's the same in the one in Monta Vista. You know, they got all the additional square footage under the house. Right. And then they put a thousand square foot ADU in the back. So you're absolutely right. Yeah.

It's aggravating. If it's an attached ADU, it's extremely difficult because they're exempt. And I have had situations with second story addition ADUs. Well, it's exempt. I can't do anything about it, but it increases the bulk and massing. So it's in other cities. I don't know about Larkspur. I've seen an example here, but it's very frustrating.

I think it's just important that we retain the ability to look at something on the design review basis so you don't end up with a box with not being able to say anything about it. Right. You've got to have some character to the buildings people are doing. Seems to me.

So does that mean it's safer then to keep FAR rules in place, but just loosen them? Or are you two suggesting that we just remove FAR completely?

No, I'm not suggesting removing FAR. I think removing FAR on slopes makes sense to me. When you whittle something down to 0.05% it's just crazy.

But if we're keeping it for flats, we would keep something for the slopes, right? Yeah. Okay, right.

Yeah, that's what I mean, as opposed to... I mean, that's how I would approach this. I would ask myself, is 0.4 enough?

Yeah.

Right? And for most houses in Larkspur, it seems like it's now more like 0.5, 0.5 to 0. something like that. Because who has 0.4? No, I don't. Do you think that's the case?

No, I don't. You think it's 0.4 still? I think it's pretty close, except in places like Heather Gardens, where you've got 4,000 square foot lots. And I think that's why Corto Medeiros works, because as the lots get small, you have increased the FAR. I think it's what, 0.6 is the maximum.

0.7 under 3,000 square feet, but 0.6 for most of them.

So that's, I mean, that seems like a reasonable way to go. It's just to do it with like a lot. And get rid of entirely of the slope, you know, the slope. Right. I'd be in favor of that.

You had questions. Well, yeah, I said my questions were more about the research that you guys did in all the other towns. it looks like very few of them have any slope consideration at all.

I think it's just, we were just looking up. I think it's just Novato.

Novato. Yeah. I was like, okay. I was like, did I, did I read that? Did I miss it? So only Novato. So Mill Valley doesn't have it. I mean, at Fairfax, all these places that have a lot of slopes. I mean, when I, I grew up in Novato, so I know Novato really well. And it's like, I don't, Think of there being a ton of houses with slope issues like you see here. So it's interesting to me that they have it. So the fact that none of the other towns other than Novato have slope adjustments makes me think that, you know, it's time for us to get on that bandwagon.

I think that's what maybe they're suggesting. And it seems like the towns that we're similar to, like Corta Madeira, Mill Valley is quite hilly, and Tiburon was the other one, I think is very hilly, all have the tiered sizes. Right. Yes. So it's like anything in this size is this FAR, anything in this one is... in three different sizes, and the section in the middle has a percentage that's associated with a number as opposed to just a percentage.

I think Corto Madero does that for some, those ones in the middle.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting, having read this.

Yeah.

Give a number for between 4700 and... Well, 4600 to 7700, it's 0.6. And then between 4600 and...

So anything under 4600 is 0.6. Anything between 46 and 77 is 2300 square feet plus 10%. Right. And then everything over 7700 is 0.4. And that's not dissimilar from Tiburon.

and um more valley and it works pretty well does it yeah it does okay yeah going back to the like taking away floor area ratio altogether um i don't know it's it seems like it seems like you could probably achieve your goal one way or the other um but since most of this i don't know there's maybe there's some value in like you know it's not like we have to do what everyone else does and uh given to peer pressure. Right. But, um, if something's working in another municipality, then I think like one, that was one of the reasons why we picked a quarter Madera is it's, you know, it's, it's right next door. There are similar conditions and, uh, it seemed like it would sort of simplify things to have, uh,

The twins, the twin city.

Consistent rules.

And they don't have a slope. No. And they have very, like I said, very similar topography, maybe a little more flat lots, but, uh, than Larkspur does. But I mean, they have some pretty hilly ones too. They do have some hilly ones. Exactly. Right. So, so what is our. Goal in terms of, I mean, it has to go to the city council for changes, right? Is that correct?

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we've discussed here and then if there's, we're just kind of making a recommendation essentially to the city.

Well, you would be providing feedback and then staff could take a swing at writing language to that effect to put into the municipal code, which you would then recommend to the city council.

So, go ahead.

This also may tie into the council's goal session coming up on the 7th, because they'll be discussing the zoning code as well in that meeting. So, in a way, you might even be ahead of the council discussion on the item tonight. So, that's something to think about in your discussion and feedback to us tonight.

Well, I mean, not to... ice the cake already, but I think I would propose that we have something very similar to Puerto Madero's. I mean, I think it's a it looks like, from my reading, a very reasonable one, and that it would make sense, given that we are, quote-unquote, as the rocks as the Twin Cities.

Well, do we know for sure that Corto Madero are happy with their... I mean, do we have any... Have we ever spoken to anyone on the Corto Madero Planning Commission?

Yeah, that was one of our questions, too. Like, are they having these same issues? And why would we adopt this money that they're not happy with?

I'll just jump in real quick. I had an email with Corto Madero planning staff, and they... I asked them if there were any glaring issues with the way they had done it and they didn't have any qualms with it.

So nobody ever comes in because it says no exceptions.

So does anyone ever, do any applicants ever come in and try and change their FAR?

I don't know that I can speak to the conversations they had. You don't go to all their meetings?

Well, it's the same night as ours. I would.

I'm just pointing something out, too, is that every city is unique. Yeah. So you're talking about a neighborhood that has, you know, small lot sizes. What was it called again? Heather Gardens. Heather Gardens. I'm sorry I'm new. I wish I knew. That's okay.

It was a big chicken farm and then they subdivided it.

That's good. I mean, you guys are great. This is why we have planning commissions. They help, you know, you guys are, you know, you give us the guidance we need. But I would say that, you know, every city is different. And I don't know the history of Corte Madera's subdivisions. I don't know. You know, the data that we have might have been because we have lots of very small subdivisions approved over the years and they just didn't. That doesn't necessarily mean that what they're doing is better or worse. I just want to point that out because, like I said, every city's subdivision history is a little bit different. And if you're in a city that has lots of planned developments, for example, where they allow small lot sizes in exchange for more density per acre, That could be a reason why you might see data get skewed. So, you know, I just want to caution, you know, I always caution commissions about looking what the other cities do. Just do what's right for you. You know, and the best way to achieve your goals is just, you know what your goal is. test out something, see if it works. If that means keeping the FAR great, if it means not using or you're doing something else, that's fine. Or you can do a hybrid. I mean, there are, you can, you don't have to, it's not all or nothing at all. There's lots of different ways. And that's probably why it's so hard to come up with a solution to this is because there are different ways of doing it. You know, dwelling units per acre is what the state looks at for when they pass down the rules. And you can certainly regulate bulk massing and design in multiple ways. You've gone through the objective design standards. There are all kinds of architectural tricks of the trade to make sure you get what you want at the end product. So I think the problem here is just there's too many options.

You keep saying we know what our goal is. So can we reiterate what our goal exactly is?

Yeah, I think, well, I don't want to speak for Brock, but... Speak for me. Okay. Well, Brock told me, and I'm just kidding. I mean, my goal in this was to, so I put together this table, right? I'm looking at the table with the red and green numbers. And I was seeing that many of our lots are non-compliant. And so I would have a hard time, my thought was, I would have a very hard time enforcing or sticking to our current rules and saying, You know, you're exception or variance denied because you're over the limit because, you know, 80% of their neighbors have a house that's bigger. So my goal was to come up with something that, you know, where say 80, 85% of the lots were. compliant under those rules. And then I personally would feel very comfortable saying, look, most of your neighbors comply with this. This is the character. We feel like this is the character of the neighborhood. This is, you know, the, this is what fits and we're going to stick to that rule. And then we would, my goal was to come out of it with a rule that we could stick to basically, whether that's, I mean, maybe it's not floor area. It seems to me like that's, you know, it seems like a decent tool, but, You know, like you said, it's one of the tools. But, you know, we tried Corte Madera. It seemed to fit pretty well. I tried a couple other cities. They didn't fit as well. It seemed like Corte Madera made sense since it was right next door. And, you know, that was my goal, come out of it with a rule that we could feel comfortable enforcing.

And so the goal is really that we would try and bring a lot of the houses that are currently noncompliant into compliance.

Right.

And that would be the base level going forward. Not the base level. Not the base level, but the new normal, I guess, going forward.

Right. And we can feel comfortable saying, you know, no, basically, this is the rule.

Okay.

Did I speak?

No, I think that's basically it. Yeah. Just as an aside, on Heather Gardens, those houses were developed during World War II for the shipyard. yard workers that were working down in Sausalito mostly. And they were all small lots, two-bedroom, one-bath houses. And there was a period of time when the city of Larkspur went, we're not going to let anybody change those because it's small housing stock for startup families. But obviously that didn't work. So things do change.

Yeah, I bought my first house in Larkspur in Heather Gardens. We were exactly that, small family. And we applied for a remodel. This was back, I guess, in 1995 or so. And boy, was it tough because they didn't want to change the character. Most people converted the garages illegally into a garage. which is the prior owners of our house did, and they made it look like it was still a garage. It was kind of funny. And now, you know, kind of anything goes there.

My garage is in a garage, and I left the garage door and put windows in. It looks just like you can lift it up, except it's the mom.

Yeah, that's what a lot of people did.

So is there anywhere in your notes here a proposal about what it should be? Or is it more just information?

Like this chart and stuff? Yeah. No. This red line on the first chart, the sort of stepping up red line, that's a proposal right below the table.

This one here. Okay.

I guess that's the Court of Madera rules, and that's sort of what we were thinking fits.

The way you explain it makes a lot of sense.

Do you think from this discussion, do you have a sense of where – we're thinking of going.

If I'm interpreting what you're saying, it seems like we want to copy-paste. Do you tell this now too? Do you tell this now?

An FIR ordinance from the DAI, I would be very impressed.

That's hard.

No, yeah. We usually have to get some examples and bring them to you, but it's clear.

that that's an example that you're from what i'm hearing well we're not deciding right now we're just going to see if it works right yeah we don't have the authority no no we're not sorry i just want to make sure that these gentlemen uh understand we think the current system is not tenable and we don't want to throw the entire baby out with the bath water as they say um i've never understood that analogy anyway why would you ever do that um but um Our goal, I think, is to make it so that most people can comply when they come in with reasonable development things so people don't go crazy and build, like I said, Frankenhouses on these places. So anyway. Are there any public comments, by the way? Yeah. Anybody on Zoom? Well, I was going to give my next thing. Oh, sorry. So do we have any public comments?

There's nobody joining.

Nobody joining us. Sad. Mr. Holmes is not here. Are we satisfied with our discussion?

Is that enough direction to...

Why do you ask us to come back with some examples for you? I think on February 7th, the council is going to talk about the zoning code with some very higher level. This is one part of a bigger picture. My philosophy about code writing is, and I cite the example, I can't remember his name, the author that wrote The Little Prince, and I have a nine-year-old at home. Yes, he was an aviator. He was an aeronautical engineer in the old days. And he had a philosophy that in engineering, it's not what you add, it's what you take away. And that's my philosophy about writing codes is that you want to write as much as you can to make it fly, but not so much that it gets overwhelmed and heavy and won't take off. And so when we write codes, the best way to do it is to keep it as simple as you can and as effective as you can and say only as much as necessary. Our code is really, I've been trying to learn the municipal code here. I can't remember how many codes I've gone through now. And this is really one of the more, there's so many exceptions. It's really quite onerous compared to other agencies and other municipal codes I've worked with. And so that is something I've noted here. If you're coming in to build a home, your goal as a city is not to make it onerous for people or Byzantine or difficult or complicated. You want everything to be very clear, understandable, because people get frustrated whether you're an architect, a builder, a homeowner. So I think that's a goal that everybody shares is we want to reach our goal and have a beautiful city with the quality and the level of development that we see that we want as a planning commission and as a city. But At the same time, we also want people to, you know, we don't want to confuse everyone. We want everyone to have a nice clear path forward because at the end of the day, you know, this is a very difficult code for us to convey to builders, applicants, residents sometimes. You know, if you're an architect, you know, you know this better than us sometimes, you know, I think in many ways. So I think there's a lot of things we can do to make things better. This is one part of the overall goal, I think, is we really want a better code. Yep.

I think I totally agree with that. And I think sometimes part of the problem with the lawyers who are drafting the language, the country where I'm from, there's a plain English movement where you have to write in simple plain English, layman's language. I'm not sure many lawyers that I've worked with follow that.

I had a city attorney in my last jurisdiction who adopted that standard when writing codes. So no longer the word shall. for example.

Right, yeah. Here and after. Here with, here and after. No, I totally agree with that. I think you can make things really simple and take out a lot of superfluous language. So I love that you're thinking that way.

There actually is a bulletin that the federal government printed on that topic. I think it was put together by like a volunteer group of attorneys and code writers. So there are standards out there for plain English code writing.

Great.

I guess I just had one last question for you guys. So it sounds like we're sort of I mean, we're sounds like we're kind of in agreement that that this sounds like a an OK idea that we think it might help. Do you guys agree? I mean, you're the ones who deal with it. Okay. I see nods.

So it's the idea now that you see if it works in practice. That's the goal. You would then take it and apply it to some houses and bring it back. Okay. Well, very good.

I think we have exhausted.

Sorry, last question. You said that the city council were going to discuss zoning. What's the...

on the 7th. That may be one of the topics that they'll be discussing is just zoning code. I don't know what direction it'll go in, but whatever comes out of this meeting, I would report back to them.

Is there something that they're concerned about or is just a general like every few years?

Just general. I don't have specifics right now. Got it. But I think tonight's hearing item is very helpful for that discussion.

Can you add heritage trees to that?

Yeah.

That's a separate...

I don't know if that's something they'll bring up, but we'll see. Grapefruit trees.

No grapefruit trees. Define the trees. Not all trees are heritage trees.

All right. So let's, that's.

Do you need a motion for anything? That's all you need. Discussion.

So next item on the agenda is to approve the December 9th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes.

I move to approve.

Wait a second.

Oh, you want me to do roll call?

No, no, no. Yeah, because there were a couple people absent. I was saying, was there anything you wanted to say before we prove? Okay. I had no problem with them. I read them and they're fine. But you still have to call.

Yes. Commissioner Hall. Yes. Commissioner Chalmers.

I'm going to abstain because I wasn't here.

Sheriff Swisher. Yes. Commissioner Campbell. Yes. And Commissioner Wagstaff. Abstain.

Because I wasn't here either.

All right. Very good. Thank you.

um next item any planning commissioner reports we just had our far report is there any other reports no any other great work anywhere paul um just i don't know if any of you have actually walked through the library since it's um it's getting it's really moving yeah they're moving along very very well and

Can you walk through? I mean, are we allowed to?

No, you have to.

Okay. You can't just walk through. Stop on my way out.

Put on a safety vest. You can do whatever you want. But it's going to be quite a space. Yeah. And the grounds around it.

I'm going to put a plug in for my wife and Refugio Marin. Yes. It is amazing the work they're doing. Amazing. So my wife is the head of a nonprofit called Refugio Marin, which basically plants around public buildings in a sustainable manner to improve biodiversity, et cetera, et cetera. And they have the Hall Middle School, the project in front of Hall Middle School at Mount Tamalpai at the elementary school. Neil Cummins, and now the library. So it's going to be quite a beautiful landscape.

And the community has really stepped up. Yeah. And, you know, they're putting in trees that are pretty big trees.

Yes. Yeah.

Because they raised enough money to do it.

Yeah. They've done a great job. It's going to be a beautiful space, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. So I believe that the next item is to make a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn. I'll second. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

All right. We are adjourned. Thank you.