Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Well, welcome to the planning commission meeting of July 14th. Can we have a roll call?

members of the Planning Commission. Chair Swisher has an excused absence this evening. Unfortunately, his surgery went late tonight, so he won't be joining us. We have two new members this evening for their first meeting, so welcome. And so with that, Commissioner Chalmers?

Yeah, present.

Commissioner, is it Sapar? Is that how you say it?

Nailed it here.

Commissioner Kingsdale. And Chair Swisher is absent. We have a quorum. The next item on the agenda is the election of officers, which I will hold the election at this time. And I will take nominations for chair and vice chair. And I want to let you know that Chair Swisher has confirmed that he is willing and he would accept a nomination for chair again if it happened. All right, so with that, do I have any nominations?

Oh, what are we going to do? Wait, is this his second year of doing it? Or he's just completed one year?

I believe he's completed a year, but there's no rule about how long you could be the chair. Okay.

I don't know. Did you want to have a stab at it this time?

I'll be vice chair.

You want to be vice chair?

Okay. And then he can continue. So I would nominate Jeff for second term.

And then I'll nominate Brock, Commissioner Wagstaff for vice chair.

All right. Commissioner Swisher.

Commissioner Swisher. All right. Stop. I'll start with the Vice Chair. Do I have a second? I have a motion.

Second.

And a roll call vote. Commissioner Sapar. Yes. Commissioner Kingsdale?

Yes.

Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. And Commissioner Wagstaff? Yes. Commissioner Wagstaff is the vice chair by a vote of 4-0. And I have a motion for Chair Swisher to continue as chair from Commissioner Wagstaff. Do I have a second? Sure. Go ahead, Chair. Sorry, I'm writing all of a sudden. I didn't catch who made the second.

I think it was me.

I got it first. I would gladly have also welcomed.

Zipar, right?

Yeah.

Zipar.

Okay. All right. So a roll call vote. Commissioner Zipar?

Yes.

Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. And Commissioner Wagstaff? Yes. All right. And... Commissioner Chalmers continues as the chair by a vote of 4-0. And if Vice Chair Wagstaff.

Commissioner Swisher.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Swisher. Sorry. And Commissioner Wagstaff, too many names, could take the gavel and run the meeting for today.

Well, first of all, do we have any comments from the public on things that are not on the agenda?

Okay.

All right.

With no public comments on matters not on the agenda, the director's report. Our next meeting is set for the regular hearing date on August 11th. That'd be Tuesday, August 11th at 630. However, we are expecting an overflow crowd for that meeting. We expect the Mount Tam Racquet Club design review will be on the agenda. And so we'll be having it in the Kreps room at the high school. And we'll keep you posted. We'll be sending out notices and we'll advertise that as the date approaches. So just to keep everybody posted.

Okay, can I clarify? So what date is that?

That's the usual date. That'd be the second Tuesday of August. That's Tuesday, August 11th.

So we're not doing a meeting on the 21st. Can I take that off the calendar? No.

Yes, that's right. We will not be having a meeting on July 21st. Okay, and then as a reminder, I don't know if I... Actually, July 28th would be our... We only do one meeting a month now.

Yeah, but in our last meeting, we talked about Mount Tam Racket Club as being on the 21st.

We've set the date for the 11th with the applicant as well because that was the only date they were available.

Oh, and that's the date I'm not going to be here.

Okay. All right. Well, we'll have four. If you're not going to be here on August 11th, please let me know so we can make sure we have a quorum. All right. And that's my report. I'll leave it at that.

Okay.

Okay.

The first item on the agenda is 600 Magnolia Avenue. And can we have the director's report on that?

Good evening, Vice Chair Wagstaff, members of the Planning Commission. I'll wait just a second. I'll get the PowerPoint out. Okay, so this is 600 Magnolia Avenue. What we have is... I'll just go to the next slide. This remote is not working. This is the existing ANA gas station. You can see it in your screen overhead. It's at the corner of Magnolia and Doherty Drive. You might remember this item. We had a design review application before the Planning Commission that was considered just last fall. At that hearing, the Planning Commission approved The Planning Commission approved a design review application to modify the interior of the gas station and convert the existing service bays into a convenience store. The applicant has since decided that they would like to sell beer and wine within that convenience store space that was previously approved on October 14th. The beer and wine would be part of that convenience store. Beer and wine sales at a gas station under the municipal code requires approval of a conditional use permit. So that's what we're reviewing tonight. And it would be within the previously approved space. Next slide. Completely on the interior, this is in your packets this evening, the interior floor plan of the store. Sales will be in a walk-in cooler and a shelf, a pretty standard layout for a convenience store at a gas station. Should note that with the closure of Lucky's, there really is no beer and wine sales for retail in downtown or in this part of Larkspur. um at the moment so this is uh there really is aren't any others um i think the course i think the closest one might be uh safeway and quarter madera so uh next slide There are multiple layers to beer and wine sales. Beer and wine sales are regulated and approved by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. That state agency has mandatory employee training, age verification, and they work with local authorities for monitoring, testing. They do decoy testing, and they have a very elaborate program. So there are multiple layers. A conditional use permit is just an additional layer on top of that. We don't often review beer and wine sales or liquor stores for conditional use permits at this level because there's so many other layers of state regulation involved. So this is just something that's in our code. So in order for them to be able to be issued that beer and wine sales license from ABC, they'll have to get approval for this conditional use permit tonight. It is a very highly regulated business. There are very strict rules for sales to minors that ABC has in place. But on top of their regulations, the conditional use permit can also be revisited and revoked for reason. So if there are any problems in the future, it is something that we can agendize and bring back at any time.

That's how conditional use permits work. Next slide.

I think you got to do it in PowerPoint. No. There you go. So with that, we have some standard conditions of approval in front of you that we are recommending. And we're recommending approval. We haven't received any public comments on this item.

And I'll leave it at that. Does anybody have any questions for the director?

Yeah, I do. I just wanted to clarify, the work that they came in for previously, that hasn't been completed, because I don't see... Yeah, it's actually in progress right now. It's in progress, okay.

They've been working on the roof, but yeah, they're... Their building permits are in various stages of review or issuance.

Okay. But that is definitely happening. Yeah, it is underway. And did you say part of the shelving was going to be locked, or did I mishear that?

I did not say that in my presentation.

Okay, I missed. Okay. I'll probably come to that later because I know a lot of kids and maybe the applicant can address this. My kids and all my kids' friends go down to that gas station and buy stuff there. So I'm just, I'm just wary that there's alcohol in there. So I just, I'm curious to hear what they're going to say about how they deal with kids. I know they're not allowed to sell to minors. Okay. Whenever it's open, yeah.

Anybody else have any other questions?

Okay. The applicant's here if you'd like to hear from him. Welcome to go to the podium. Good evening, everyone.

As you guys have approved the plan last year, we're still going in the process of the detailing of planning and health department. So as far as the question of the beer and wine, we've been selling beer and wine in other locations of ours, which are, again, close to a proximity of schools. And we have always had schools and not all of them, but majority of them. What we do is... place the beer and wine very close shelves to the cashiers right next to it. To tell you that we're going to lock it all, it's kind of, we're not selling hard liquor. It's beer and wine. And normally what I do is in a lot of communities, I avoid selling singles. So basically it's all going to be packed of six or three, six or 12, 24, whatever else. So that way, if somebody tried to get one, they can't. Unless they are getting together. So it's six-pack. It's not easy to basically sneak it in. And it's going to be right in front of the cashier. So on the right side, the first two, three rows would be dedicated to cashier. Our beers that would be sitting right in front of the cashier. And of course, our cash registers are designed to whenever anybody wants to purchase a cigarette or anything, age verification would be required. and it would prompt in front of the cashiers, they would not be able to sell it directly without putting a date of birth. Or in this case, we usually take the license itself and scan it to the system. So that way prevents people from getting the underage sales from kids to get the beer and wine. And any other suggestion, we are open to it, but we are trying our best to basically, when the kids comes in, now we have, we've been having this rule and we will follow that as they cannot bring their backpack in for that reason. So, because they cannot hide things inside it, not just stealing thing, which they normally don't, I don't see any problem with it. We haven't had any issues, but just the fact that they know they're very good about it and they are coming, following the lines. Their lunch hour comes in, we open the cash register. And in this case, we might have to use, we'll have two cash registers, left and right. Right is the one that left is right here close to the shelves. So we will dedicate that line that close to them so we can monitor this lane. They cannot be all over the place, so they will not sneak in and grab it. So it will be right in front of the cashier. So usually we'll have one register open, and one guy would be basically filling up stuff. But normally when the kids come in, we have two. At this time, you still have one register. We still have two employees assigned to just make sure that they are staying in line and get them service and get out because we have small space right now. So for that, having said that, it's just we're going to do our best to avoid that at all costs. To tell you 100% it's going to be foolproof, I mean, we all know that. The kids would be going... to the liquor store, they can do that kind of stuff. Or they go to somewhere else, not far from here, the Safeway can do that. But if somebody wants dedicated themselves to, do I want to do that? I mean, we'll try our best to tell you. I mean, if I want to promise you 100% it's going to be, they've been secured, you got to look at them. We do, like I said, our structure line for them to come in. So we'll have them pick up your stuff and line up and pay for it. So they will not come close to that. They don't need to be close to these three doors unless they are purchasing beer and wine. They would be picking their stuff, whatever they are, would be on that side or on this side or far side, which is the existing store that we have will be there. A lot of snack and stuff will be right there. So that's best we can do to basically make sure that kids are not aware. I have kids, I have grandkids.

Well, it sounds like you're being thoughtful about it. So thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, that's great.

They didn't want to have it. If they didn't have it, make sure that we don't have single sales. Yeah, a lot of people want a single sale. I'm sorry. We don't want to sell it. I mean, yeah, it's about business money. No, not all about business money. We're doing it for the community because we're lacking beer and wine. If somebody wants to get a six-pack and go home, There's nowhere to go. They have to go all the way there and come back. This is for them. It's not a single guy. We don't have homeless issue here, but we have homeless issue other places. That deters them from coming to our place. I lose business, I say, I love to lose that kind of business. They don't want to buy a single. They can't buy a six-pack. They don't come. Beautiful.

Do you have anything else you wanted to tell us?

That's it. If you guys have any more questions, I'm more than glad to answer them.

No, I have no more questions.

Yeah, I have a question. So I guess, first of all, thank you for sharing that you weren't going to sell singles. I think that's a really good precautionary step. As you said, there's a lot of schools around this neighborhood. You've got Redwood, you've got Hall Mill School, St. Patrick's. There's a park nearby. And, you know, that's one of the factors that we're supposed to consider. As you probably know, there's a Larkspur municipal code about concurrent sales of motor vehicle fuel and alcohol beverages. And so one is, you know, the amount of the number of locations of other locations that are having off sale. And there are not many, not many. The other one being the, you know, proximity and possible detrimental effects on schools. And so I think not selling singles is a great one. Would you be willing to have that as like a condition of approval?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I put it on myself, the single sales.

You guys want it.

I would, yeah, definitely.

That would bring me some peace of mind for sure.

Absolutely.

The other question I had is, you know, I'm looking at the, with your application, you submitted a layout of the store and highlighted in yellow. I'm not sure if we can get it up on the screen, if it might be helpful, but I'm trying to understand because you mentioned in other stores, you'll have, I don't know if it's beer or alcohol or other spirits close to the cash register.

Not other stores. There are stores sitting everywhere. But in this case, we are dedicating the first three or four doors of the cooler, which is closest to the, for that reason of having these unique situation of a lot of kids coming. So we want to make sure that it's not somewhere everywhere that they can have access to like, oh, we're there in that corner. Because with other stores, we don't have no reason for that. I mean, yeah, theft happens. But as far as somebody come and grab one from over there, and if you want to steal it, you just want to steal it. But if you want to come to the cash reserve, it has to be checked. But it will not be somewhere that they can grab and go. And on top of it, the backpack condition for us and our school kids is another issue for that reason. So they could not, you know, hide it and sneak out.

That's a good idea.

Are you asking where is the cash register in relation to the – I was curious about that.

I think you might be asking that. That was part of my question. But I think he – I just want to make sure he's aware because part of the local municipal code requires compliance with this business and professions code, which is about concurrent sales of alcohol at a gas station. And there are certain minimum requirements that – one of which is no beer or wine shall be displayed within five feet of the cash register or the front door.

Well, usually what happens is the cashiers are usually designed to be right by the door. But ours not. We are always the furthest part from the door. Because there's a reason for us to, for a customer, have a chance to come through the store, see everything that they want to purchase. Versus the old style was that you stand by the door, if you notice, you basically reach out there, and here it is, and go out. So that code might be for that reason, close to the cash register by the door. We are not, we are usually far apart from the door, especially this register and this, the place that we're gonna put our beer and wine, really far from the other side of the store.

At least five feet. Yeah, I think that's good. I mean, and I just want to make sure you're aware, because I have also concerns, I have children and concerns about advertising. And I'm not really concerned because, you know, you're going to have security cameras, you're going to have... you know, visibility to get into the store. And these are conditions of approval that are already being proposed and as matters of law. One of the other rules in this business and professions code, it's 2379.5, is that there's no advertising allowed for beer or wine on the motor fuel islands.

No, that's what I think the ABC has the same issues with the fact that you cannot put it in front when you can see from outside. Normally, we are the kind of people, we don't, our stores, if you haven't been in various, then you will see it. We're different than normal mama-papa stores, like stamp them up with all walls-to-wall advertisements. We're just going to open space, let you choose what you got.

Great.

That's all it is. Our price is the low-priced gas and a good service. When you come get something, that's beautiful. I'm not going to shove it in people's face like, you know, one here, one there, one there. No, I disagree with it, and we've been doing it for 23 years and very... And the reason we are successful is that the fact that good service, good quality, cleanliness, safety, lightings, and of course, low price gas helps a lot as well. And then you choose to get it. We're not going to push it to you. Thank you. We try to bring the best stuff that... community one so every demographic we have a suggestion box and a lot of them customer uh relationship asking people like if you want something different let me know some area wants a lot of sugary stuff we can't help it but they want it but some people want to see a lot of diet stuff we bring in that because you said yeah you can see that the store to store is different like wait what one side you see is is all sugary stuff and then you go to my other store like What are these? No, we don't sell that here because customer doesn't want it. For if you are on my freeway, that's a different story. Freeway is like next to people. Right. You have to have 50-50.

This one's not next to freeway. Well, I'm super excited for it. Thank you for these upgrades. And one more question I had is, what are the hours of operation of your store?

5 to 12 usually. 5 to midnight.

5 to midnight.

Sunday would be 10 o'clock.

Okay, and I'll just raise this 1 issue, and this may be with you, Andrew, because I see in the proposed conditions of approval and says condition number 9, no person under 18 shall sell alcoholic beverages. Okay, because I'm reading it in the state law says employees between the hours of 12 and I'm sorry, 10pm and 2am. Yeah, shall sell beer and wine shall be at least 21 years old.

That's right. And state law supersedes local ordinance. So that would apply.

So maybe we want to update the condition just to clarify that if it's going to be after 10.

We certainly can. Yeah. Well, we can do as usually as stop serving beers and lotto at 10 o'clock anyways. Shut off the lotto sales and alcohol in a lot of places after 10 o'clock. We don't sell. So we don't sell it.

Is that what you plan to do in this store?

We're not. There's no reason for it to change.

No, I don't. That's better than me. I'm just wanting to make sure that it's in your motion.

All my employees are over 21. But still, if somebody is under 21, then definitely that rule would definitely apply. And we will make sure that that is from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock. With a lot of shutdown, we'll make it that, hey, we are one shutdown as well. So there's no reason, because we're residential. We're not freeway, because people will come in. Residentially, you know what's going on, like 9 o'clock after 9.30.

usually people are in a bit is that can that be um subject to like can that can we make exceptions to that is that in the code or someone sent that to you i'm sorry in the age of uh selling no i actually had the proximity to the cashier proximity to the cashier because i thought that was actually a really good idea yeah it's uh it's actually that's uh

if you're engaged in beer or cellar wine, you shall abide by these conditions. So that's part of the business and professions code. So it has to be. So it's a requirement to have that beer and wine must be displayed more than five feet from the cash register.

I just wondered if there was an option to, unless otherwise provided somewhere. I don't know if that was an option.

I don't know if it says unless it is in a permanently fixed cooler as of January 1st, 1988. So I think it's a grandfather.

There's a lot of state laws on this. And so they apply. So you don't have to worry about duplicating them.

Okay. All right.

Thank you. Are there any other comments from anybody in the audience or people here? Okay. In that case, I'll bring it back to the commission. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. And by the way, we were replacing the roof as a solar this time.

So it's just going to be the new first solar system roofing on gas station probably.

That's great.

That's awesome.

We're starting doing it in all our stations. So it will be bricks, it will be solar instead of regular bricks. That's all.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

So anybody else have any comments or?

No, I mean, I think, I mean, I'm sort of okay with it. I think I can make the findings for the design review and CUP. And if we want to put the single sales into the conditions of approval, I'm good with that since he's doing that anyway. employees over 21 was that the other one you wanted to after 10 p.m okay yeah um but that's that's going to apply anyway right i want to make sure like let's not try and add more stuff in that already is covered by state laws because that feels like you're talking about singles this is a beer and wine license people do buy single bottles of wine so yeah you know yeah

I just want to put that out there.

I think he was referring to beer.

To beer, probably only. So maybe with wine, we couldn't.

Well, also, I just want to make it real clear. There's a very complicated classification of what qualifies as beer and wine. So might not want to go there because sometimes it comes up like, is this beer? Is this wine? I don't know. Does that qualify as a single sale? No. And so, for example, you can buy very large bottles of beer. Belgian products often come in like a champagne bottle. So you may not want to get into that level of detail. OK, that's good. Just pointing that out, because there are one of the problems that I found in other CUPs with this is that when you want to get into that level of detail, sometimes you have a very large bottle of beer for sale that you, you know, you may want to sell in your business. And it makes it very difficult when these companies you know, vendors have to come back and be like, oh gosh, how am I going to accommodate that condition of approval? So I just want to put that out there.

I mean, I think what it sounds like is we're all excited about minimizing theft on the premise of alcohol. And I have to imagine he's also quite excited about minimizing theft of alcohol. So I think it's a great approach, great step. Sounds like he's got the right mindset on it, but I don't necessarily want to legislate in ways that make him try and stop theft. Yeah.

So would somebody like to make a motion?

I got it. I'd like to motion we approve the conditional use permit. Did I use the right word?

I can do it if you like. And I'll make a motion to approve project number BLN26-014 for the design review and CUP.

Do we have a second?

A second.

Can we have a roll call?

Commissioner Sapar?

Yes.

Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. Vice Chair Wagstaff? Yes. Motion passes 4-0.

Okay. The next item on the agenda is 600 Magnolia Avenue having to do with the removal of... What? Oh, 20 Oak Road having to do with the removal of an oak tree. Can we have the staff report?

So before I begin, I just want to point out we received some late comments literally right before the meeting. Those are printed up and before you with the memo. We also received some comments before the packet went out that were emailed to you as well. Those are also before you. And then a copy of those are for the public in the back of the room.

Maybe, can I also add, I just want to publicly disclose this, that I went to the property today and spent quite a while wandering around trying to find this oak tree. I ended up in a, I think in the wrong house at one point. And Commissioner Wagstaff also then showed up. So we were there at the same time, and we met the owner of the property who pointed out where the oak tree was. So we did have a conversation with the owner. I just want to be fully disclosed that, but we did not discuss the project.

Thank you for that expert disclosure. Vice Chair Wagstaff?

Yes, can we have the report? Okay.

Very good. All right, so this was a heritage tree application. It's located at 20 Oak Grove Road. It's down in the Madrone Canyon neighborhood. It's a more steep, windy road, a little bit more of a rugged part of town. and so it is very difficult to see the tree from the public right of way as you've noted in your disclosure. The applicant had applied for a heritage tree removal permit to remove a heritage size oak tree in the front yard. The heritage tree is defined as one with a circumference greater than 50 inches, measured a few feet above grade. This particular tree is 24 inches at two feet above grade with a circumference of 75 inches.

So the applicant had submitted an arborist report.

The tree was in good health, but the arborist recommended that the tree be removed because it is in the path of a PG&E gas lateral that would serve the residents, and the trenching required for the gas line would be within the critical root zone. And so staff received a protest for this tree permit within the time frame specified by code from a neighbor, and the neighbor had a dispute over the specific location of the tree in relation to the property line. And with that, we received a number of public comments. Next slide, please. On this item. The protest is really focused on the property line boundary, and the applicant did not provide us with a survey report. Surveys are very expensive. We don't require surveys to be submitted for applications. Every application, we do require surveys in situations where you might have a sensitive need to know a specific detail of where something is being built. So, for example, if you have a structure that's located on or within close proximity to a property line or another structure, we may require a survey as a part of the permit to specify exactly where a foundation is going to be so that we know exactly where you're You know, something is going to be built. We almost never request a record of survey for a tree. A tree is really, it's typically a civil matter, just like a fence, like a wooden fence or something like that. It's really a civil matter between neighbors where if there is a dispute over the location of something, it's really between them. Our goal is really not to resolve the dispute over where the property line is or the tree is in relation to the property line here. So staff's recommendation is that the applicant provide a survey showing the location of the tree so that if they do continue this dispute, that that would be used to help resolve that situation. Because a survey is really the only way you can tell where something is. It's the only official way. documentation that we rely upon but we don't see any reason to recommend otherwise and we do recommend that the planning commission approve the request tonight with that condition to help resolve any potential dispute between the neighbors as to the tree so I'll leave it at that I don't think that's all I've got for slides next slide if I have another one I don't think I do So yeah, with that, I'll open it up for questions. I believe the applicant and some neighbors are here to discuss the item. We may have some comments online too. Does anybody have any questions?

Well, I have a question. So on the draft conditions of approval, I see number five is record of survey. Applicants shall provide a record of survey confirming the location of the tree.

I guess I'm just trying to understand because I thought you just said that typically you would not require typically we would not require that for a tree permit but in this case there's a dispute and that's the only that's really the only way we can resolve that dispute we take the applicant's word for it if they say it's on their property so and again if the commission feels otherwise then maybe that's too much that's excessive because surveys are expensive that's within your discretion but That's only our recommendation, just to help with the resolution of this.

I had a couple questions, but I think they're mostly for the applicant. But one question maybe you can answer is, the neighbors that have disputed the location of the tree, what is their address?

I do not know off the top of my head their address. I'll let them speak to that if they're in the audience.

Okay, so you're on the, when you're standing looking at the tree from the road, the Oak Road, you're behind the house. You're sort of straight behind it. Because I went to 45. 45 is not your house. Okay. Okay, that was just, okay, thanks. Sorry, which property?

3 Oak Road, which is adjacent to 20 Oak Road.

Oh, okay. There's no house.

If you would like to hear them speak during public comment, they'd have to come to the mic. Because we don't have a recording of what you just said.

Sorry, I was hoping to get you to answer that question. Yeah, I don't have an answer for that.

Okay, would the applicant like to speak?

If you could approach the podium, please. We can't hear you in the recording, so do the microphone.

Andy, I sent you an email with the link if you wanted to follow along. I don't believe I have that. When did you send it? Just about probably 20 minutes before a game.

It should be in the top of the inbox. Okay. I don't know if I'll be able to. I can't broadcast that on the screen, unfortunately, so I'm sorry. You can certainly hand it to the news.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you could also leave a copy for the public in case they want to review. Thanks.

The point of this, I think what Andy just outlined is straightforward with what was already noted in the report. But I think what I failed to do after digging into this was provide some critical background on why are we even talking about removing this oak tree you know we've heard it's because of a gas line but that's really not accurate it's as you see here I noted there's two items I could really double click on the first being the gas line being an immediate threat And why PG&E is even escalating the removal of a 1949 copper gas line that had ruptured in 2023. And you'll see notes that I have with Larkspur building here. They're in this when we go through it. And ultimately, the risk that this poses is driving this whole project is running underneath my completely broken driveway that I've been stalled to do anything with for years because this project keeps getting pushed off. The second point I wanted to double click on. was when I went through the commission finding summary to Section B, removal of treaty necessary to prevent unreasonable interference with the property owner's investment-backed expectations. That really resonated with me because I failed to really communicate the scope of projects that this is backed up for my property's improvements. So I feel that's very relevant to point out here as a second point. So Um, probably just five minutes to get through this. I appreciate the, the, the bandwidth, uh, the gas line review. Uh, and again, we'll get these copies online so you can have them in distributed to the public and color. It looks a little better, but this was a screenshot from the PG and E field tech that came out, um, showing the, you know, kind of highlighted with an arrow here, the date of, uh, record. The last time this was installed was 1948. Um, Just to give you context of this gas line. The inset image there is it being completely exposed to the elements. And this is within about 10 feet of my house on an eroded slope soil. So every time I'm working out on the deck, drop a hammer, is it going to hit this gas line? I had to set up scaffolding to do a B removal for my deck replacement. Is that going to hit this gas line? Is it just going to fail like it did in 2023? I mean, you can imagine the anxiety having an exposed gas line from 1949 sitting out in the sun, especially on a day like today, heating up, you know, might give anxiety. property owner. So I wanted to provide that context. It's not just a simple, let's just move a gas line over to this side and remove a heritage tree. PG&E classifies it as such as a high risk and high threat, which is why they've escalated this beyond the normal already stalled Oak road gas line improvement project. I followed up pushing this with them and internally they have delegated resources, the engineering resources that have applied for permitting and back in June for this project and chose the location the engineers did to put it over on that side of the property. Of note, that location was not my first choice. I wanted to try to run it on the opposite side of my property to avoid doing this. The problem with that was it involved engineering issues that couldn't be overcome. And there's also encroachment and easement issues. When they looked at it immediately, he said, this isn't going to happen. You have to run it here. So it's completely on your property line. So that was discussed just to disclose that. It wasn't simply because I wanted to rip a tree out, which on the record, I like that tree. So- This inset text here is just some history of what I just mentioned, this project getting basically delayed, some of the threat levels, simply Googling what category of risk does PG&E assign to a legacy copper gas line, you'll get these same results that I did. This is on the left on page two is what I'm looking at here. is the communication I had, I believe it was with Jim, in planning back in 2023 when the gas line ruptured that was in front of my home. So that's on file with the city for that risk of ultimately the community and property and life. So page three that I'm on now that I'm looking at was just documentation also around the delay that this has been going on for years. And then on page four, just wrapping this up, and we'll pause for some Q&A on this, you know, mentioning that that route, the current route, was not my preferred. And that can be validated with both the PG&E gas engineer and also the emergency field contact is Ricky Luna, who's basically managing this project. It was set to start last week. Obviously, it's not. It's stalled pending this review. I certainly feel that having context of the importance of this exposed 1949 copper gas line and the risk and the threat and the danger it poses is something of significance to communicate to the commission. So let me pause there and open for questions.

Does anybody have any questions?

Yeah, I do. Is there in here, like, you've been talking to PG&E and they proposed this route for the gas line. Did they put it in writing? Do you have some sort of written proposal from them?

It's submitted on June 9th. June 8th or June 9th was submitted to permit, I assume, building planning. So they actually will not give it to me. I have asked them for it. Their records are basically sealed. They don't give them out. You guys can see it, though. So it should be approved status, and it was submitted on June 8th or 9th is what I understood.

And I guess, did you explore the possibility of routing this gas line around – the critical root zone of the tree.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, there's, there's the two issues as I understand them, not as a barbarist because the tree's already leaning, which commission member chambers chambers.

Chalmers.

Chalmers and WAG staff who did a site visit can attest to the leaning. I have it in here where I've estimated it between 23 and 30 degrees, which is also at a hazardous lean. Because of that, the roots are already stretched on my side and compressed on the downslope side. So boring, trenching, anything on that side in a very compacted, high-slope zone is already adding to a poor condition, which I do not want to assume that risk in liability, which is what it is.

It's sloping away from your house. Correct.

Yeah.

I'm upslope of the neighbor. It falls on the neighbor's house. It falls on the neighbor's property.

You want the tree.

Yeah.

Sorry if I missed this, but where is, and that was really helpful, that information about the existing copper line, which I didn't know in the PGE. So it sounds like PGE is choosing this location. That's what I heard. Yes. Where is the existing copper line?

We're going to get to it in part two. I'm going to show you. I'll wait for that. And you can't tell PG&E anything. I can't tell them where to put a gas line, certainly. And just out of curiosity, you don't have a survey.

In other words, what we've got is a plot map.

So there's no... No, it's a registered survey with the county. The survey is not what the treaty marked on it, right?

There's really nothing marked on it. The boundaries.

Well, it's certified by a surveyor.

I know. But you're right.

It's a plot map that's been certified by a surveyor, right?

No, it has the elevations. It's an extremely thorough survey done in 2020. It's the most recent of that property.

But it does not locate a building or trees.

It does on every landmark site.

that tree wasn't on there so did you share this information we just seen it for the first time have you shared this with the coxes no i don't know if they know honestly no this

I don't know if they care.

That's the survey.

You had conversations with the Cox's about. I have a no contact order from an attorney.

It doesn't. Sorry. The survey does not show.

Interact with the Cox's. It's a lot of civil issues there. I'm trying to not go into.

If we do have multiple. End of the day. We're not going to glean from the survey the actual location without a survey.

Well, I should have a question on that. So this topo boundary survey, sorry, that's not really in the wrong place. They can't just come back and for a smaller charge, I guess, put a tree, locate the tree?

Yeah, I've tried to have them come back for, I'd say, two years trying to get a hold of this gentleman. And I don't know. What happened? So no. Yeah. Okay. And I mean, just candidly, I think the route of the current property line is pretty well known. You've seen when you're out there, you know, the tree is leaning. I mean, so, you know, it complicates the base. In this part B, I'm going to go into one of the efforts I'm going to do is pay additional You know, if the tree comes to, you know, approval for removal to grind the stump down and, you know, so it's going to be completely inside my property, which it is. And, you know. ultimately install a wall down that property line to prevent the erosion, which you guys saw the slope of that out there. It's a, it's a disaster. And so you can't run a proper small wall fence, whatever to prevent, you know, stuff from just falling off without that ground down and removed ideally. Yeah.

Should we move on to that?

In addition to everything else.

Maybe.

Why don't we let people from the audience, unless you have something in addition. Yeah. So we're done with the gas line context. I think the, do you want me to ask, pause here for the gas line questions from anyone?

Well, the other question is, is the new gas line that would go in, does that run across the neighbor's property?

No, absolutely not. No.

Okay. But it doesn't, okay. The 33 doesn't run across that.

And there's an image of, And I can talk you through the driveway that you saw when we go through this next section.

Yeah, and I think you've already answered this. I was curious about the timeline of the PG&E construction. Is this something that sounds like it's imminent once you get approval?

I mean, absolutely. This is not something that I know of. So getting into the impact of property owners, the backlog of block projects that I have that I've been trying to get this done is years of... waiting. So I'm going to explain that impact here going into the next section if we're done with the gas line or if anyone online has questions about this.

Okay. No, those are my questions.

Go ahead. OK, so this was a quote right on the findings. I think it was a section B in the overview of tonight's agenda. They say removal of trees necessary to prevent a reasonable interference with property owners investment backed expectations. And so what I wanted to do was double click on this so that the commission understands. the the investments that are backed up because i haven't been able to move this gas line for years which now i can't number one and now i'm on this page right here okay is And I should be finalized with Alvin Tan and Allison, I believe, the permit tech on reviewing all these plans for my side. PG has their side. I have my side. And that's for the rebuilding of my completely cracked and demolished and hazardous facility. and eroding driveway. The commission members that were out today probably got a chance to walk up my skateboard ramp and can attest to it. But this has vetting contractors to do this, coming up with the slope, the grade. There's a significant amount of work that I haven't been able to even repair my driveway to a standard level. That I think is, you know, should be expected for anyone living in a city that I want to rebuild it. The next page when you flip are some images where you can see the erosion, the cracks that are in my current driveway. there's no rebar in it, it appears from what the contractors tell me, that's literally going to crack and just fall off of this hill. So part of my almost should be finalized with Alvin and Allison in the permit building and planning is a demolition rebuilding of this driveway. So that's my first backed project that I couldn't do anything with until the gas line is completed. removed from running underneath my crack and broken and eroding driveway it's about to collapse and they can't cap the gas line like where for close before it reaches your house so that was absolutely a great question um i've asked been asking them to do for years and they can't so part one of pg e's two-part plan is they have to cap the line that ruptured in 2023 It's right in front of my home. And they're going to run a temporary line routed along my property line to allow me to move forward with my years of backed up trying to get my driveway repaired and reconstructed and rebuilt up to a standard of living of care. So they have to do that as a step one. And then step two is while I'm doing the driveway, the trenching for the routing that they're going to do before it comes down the property line obviously can be done at that point. So we're working together to coordinate the route of that running underneath the newly constructed driveway's grade.

So they'll cap it and then you'll put in the new line?

And then I'll finish the completion of the driveway once they've trenched for the new lines. And then they'll run a permanent line connecting the rest of it. That makes sense.

And once it's capped, it's not really a hazard to you.

My understanding is they're going to cap it in a day and run the temporary meter and then temporary line all in just one day to allow me to move forward with my backlog driveway project. Do you have like a lot of... gas use in the house now so one of the one of the things we investigated was also you know go to all electric so you come to my home oh even though i'm saying like right now like you you're currently using the gas line today for general life and it's quite important so So it absolutely is. The investment of appliances that I've had to hire piano movers to get those into my residence has been astronomical in an effort to get them in. So I already have a significant investment in switching all of that out to electric, which would have been fine had I not done that. Certainly viable is not an option, unfortunately, but we certainly considered it. The next project that's impacted the first one being blocked is my driveway is a sewer lateral that is out of compliance and has been out of compliance and old legacy one obviously while I'm trenching on that area. time to do it so this is a snapshot from back in April I've had the company come out run the inspection and just to demonstrate that you know I'm not just talking about this this is something there's been time investment and money and planning so that I can also upgrade my out of compliance sewer lateral at the same time makes sense doing the trenching and everything else running the new gas line so that was the second project that's impacted And that was the one that has the pipes by Marin is what I'm looking at here. This one on the next page, uh, is the, uh, One impact of project, which I believe Andy knows about because I talked to him and Alex about the be removal that was underneath my deck. I got those guys out and it's completely eroded the bottom of this deck. It's right above the exposed gas line. So. impacted because, again, I mentioned dropping a hammer and what have you. Imagine you've got people working up there and they're right over. They've got scaffolding on top of this exposed gas line. That's been pushed back. The hillside erosion control, when you walked up my driveway to the right, which is where the gas line sticks out of the hill, is just completely eroding away. And I can't do anything about that because there's a gas line sticking in it. So step one to all of this is is getting that gas line removed temporarily so that I can hit these projects and basically get to a standard of care for my home that is not a risk and a threat to myself and my life and my property, but Larkspur's community's life and property as well. So I will pause on that area, too, for questions and wrap up on this topic. if there's any questions online.

Do you see any questions online?

No.

Yeah, yeah. Just out of curiosity, if you're doing the sewer line, can't you run the gas line up the same trench?

That's ideally what we're going to try to do, yes.

So the sewer line also affects the oak tree?

The sewer line location and the gas line location, the new route, yes. Okay.

So, I mean, this was all very helpful to understand, but I'm not sure it answered the question of is the tree – on your property or the neighboring property. I mean, I haven't heard that in your presentation, right? I mean, I saw what I saw when I went out there today, but I'm reading what the comments are. So I guess I didn't hear anything on that specifically, but...

Yeah, the reason I had to arborist out was as far as I understand the interpretation of the state law of the base of the tree being establishing ownership. The base of that tree, because it's leaning and has been covered up by rocks and boulders that you guys saw with your own eyes today, is another, you know, I think I estimated 10 inches plus area. inside my property line. So my position is stated is not changed. I'm clear and confident of where the base of the tree is located. Is it going to hit and cross a boundary line? 100% because it's leaning. So it is. It's not where it's... the the question here is the base of the tree who answers that the arborist in my opinion answers that a surveyor is not an arborist how's he know where the base of a tree is which is why i hired the arborist to come out look at the base of the tree in addition to the property boundary and wrote what you see in the notes and you were looking at today i believe the printout of that but the truth is the arborist can't establish the base of the tree only a surveyor can do that uh Yeah, I mean, now is where we get into the hair splitting discussion, right? So welcome. But I wanted to give context of, again, this isn't just removing a tree. There's a lot, a lot that is backed up impacting not only myself, but also the community. There's a history of a threat and a risk known about this gas line. rupturing to the community document in 2023 and then the impact um here as mentioned uh you know for for my projects the final note that i'll have and i appreciate the time thank you very much is you'll note the section. And again, it's hard to read the link. Hopefully it will get out to you on this page on closing comments of just a leaning tree in general. And this was estimated 23 to 30 degrees and liability and safety of that. I have at my own expense maintained that tree as it was encroaching on my structure. That is not my neighbor. I've solely burdened that. I'm additionally going to solely burden the cost of grinding the tree so that a proper wall can be put in place for erosion control down that property line, benefiting everyone. And the fact that it's a risk.

That tree is just a risk on top of everything.

thing else outside of a boundary or not. And everything else we talked about threatened the community. And I believe you guys were able to see that today, but that was what's documented here as well.

I have one last question, but this will probably have maybe be addressed to the neighbors if they talk, but Hypothetically, if they were right and the tree is on their property and you're going to replace the tree with a pipe or the PG&E is replacing the tree with a gas pipe, doesn't the gas pipe then also need to, that installation have to be in conjunction with the neighbors because it's going to go over their land?

Never, never touch their land. It'll be completely on my property. We're going to stay. We're not going to stay straight on the property line. My understanding, again, you guys have PG&E's design. I can't see it. but the understanding is it will absolutely, it's still going to run down that side. It will never touch their property.

What it will do, because it's going to- I don't know if we saw, I maybe missed it. I don't think I saw where the new gas line's going to go. I was just assuming it was going somewhere along where that tree was.

And that's what we know, yeah.

The critical root zone's pretty big though, right? A critical root zone for a tree that size is going to be- It's bigger than the...

But I just want to clarify because if... Yeah, go ahead.

It's all the size of the canopy. Yeah. Oh, it is. Yeah. It's already stretched as well because, again, it's leaning. It's compressed. It's leaning. So when this trenching does happen, it's going to happen, is, again, I'm going to not be further exposed to liability and risk of this known problem that I disclosed to counsel today in the commission. Okay.

That was helpful.

Answer the question. Say that where the gas line is far away from the property line. if that risk were taken away, we're saying like neighbor sign off liability saying, you know, the tree falls, the tree falls. Does that, that still interferes with your erosion control wall plans or like, is there any way to complete the work you have leaving the tree and abandoning any risk for the tree falling? Does that make sense?

Yeah. I see what you're saying.

You're saying it's a way to say like, yeah, I shouldn't see what happens if the neighbors agree and sign off on that, which would be a strong indemnification.

That's where we're going to wind up. So, um, we'll see him hoping to logically not do that. But I think now the disclosure and assumption of risk is out there. So it is what it is. And we can approach that in any other civil litigation.

It's a great question that we don't actually have to.

We could run that by staff, but let's hear the rest of the comments and then we can discuss that. Thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak to this item?

Good evening, Commission members and Planning Director. I'm Glenn Cox. I live at, well, my property, our property is at 33 Oak Road adjacent and the downslope of Mr. Grant's property. There's a lot there. to respond to, none of which I think I need to. The tree is, per a couple of surveys, clearly on our property. The gas line also doesn't need to be run, nor does the sewage line need to be run in the same location. In fact, he stated that some things that are two feet from his house, there's nothing I think probably within 10 feet of his house or maybe six feet of his, of his Redwood walk steps up. And the driveway he mentioned is it's not five feet away, but it's much further than that. And it's not a concrete driveway, so it can't have rebar. I believe it's an asphalt driveway, which is coldly coated with an asphalt primer and, Anyhow, so I just kind of would like to get to the point. The oak is on our property, and what I have here is his survey, and I've sent it to you, and I think it's in a file you have.

It's a member of the...

Finally, you should have, well, it's the map just before the pictures. I have two of one of the pages. So it's the map just before the pictures. And if you look at that, you can see this is from his surveyor. Okay. I also, I have a record of survey that I had done. before this fence was put in, it was put in before he, he moved in and the neighbor above, uh, we had a great relationship and we shared, you know, the cost of the fence and, and, and, and all of that, uh, based upon the survey, the record of survey that I had done. Um, let me, okay, let's look at his, uh, the map. I've hopefully you found, but, um, I've, I've drawn, um, some arrows there with the word fence and Oak. Well, So his surveyor showed, um, where it says fence, he shows this fence, um, that, that goes along there. And it's the same as the record of survey that I had done. Okay. So if you look at the pictures following this record, or rather the survey that his surveyor had done, if you, if you look at the pictures, um, And his surveyor clearly drawing a map that he completely agrees with is proper. The fence is on the property line directly. Look at the first picture there where you're looking down the fence and on his side. And I put a string line on that fence at the property corner that my record of survey shows. And I took that string line directly along the fence, tight to the fence until it came to the oak. On the first picture, you can barely even see the trunk of the oak, the base of the oak, because it's on our property. A little bit is on his property. You look at the second, okay. And that's, you look at the second picture and it is the picture that's coming in the reverse direction from the oak tree. to the fence, and right down, if you could enlarge this, you would see it is directly on the fence line, follows the fence perfectly, hits the oak tree where you see the string hitting it above, And if you follow that string down in a perpendicular line, a plumb line, you will see the oak is clearly on our property where it hits the dirt by 50%, let alone two feet up. The entire oak foliage trunk at two feet, everything is on our property. The lean, it's really not, you can see the lean. It's not that bad. Well, we have oak trees on our property and one that's way larger than this that has a larger lean. And his arborist says it's in great shape. It is in great shape. It's the most beautiful tree you've ever seen. So first of all, the property line hits the middle of the tree there. The rest of it's on our property. But if you look at the... And then if you look at the third picture and sit here... Oh, I'm not seeing it. I have some other pictures, but the third picture shows, I can show you. Thank you. So I have some pictures here I can bring up. You need to see these to show you how much room. We replaced a few years ago, we have a residence next door to 33 Oak Road at 27 Oak Road. It's the stucco house. Okay, no pictures of it, no mention of it. It doesn't matter. But we replaced our gas line and our sewer line at the same time. And it ran right next to a huge oak. And it was no problem. They trenched down. There were no major roots. And the ones they were, they went around and PG&E put this gas line in. They moved it five feet off the oak. He's got way more room than this. The sewer line had no problem coming up as well. So if you just look at the room that he has for PC&E, since he's redoing the whole line, it makes no sense to us because he's got all the room in the world. To do this, where are we? Here we go. Let me, can I bring these up?

Are you gonna bring in new photos that we don't have yet?

I don't think you have these.

Okay, can I just ask a question of procedure then? Is if, you know, this presentation that the applicant provided and these photos, do we need to enter them into the record?

We'll have to keep the photos for the record.

And then they get uploaded to the file?

If Mr. Cox provides us photographs at this time, we will have to keep them for the file.

Okay, great. And this whole PowerPoint presentation?

Correct.

We will keep copies in the file, yes.

Anyway, there's a large distance from the oak to even his steps. And if you look at his picture that he presented, he presented a little picture alongside of his survey where he trenched down right along the backside on his property of the oak. He's trenched down. It looks like one or two feet deep, and there's not a single root. And a gas line lateral from the meter to your house only has to be buried. It's either 12 or 18 inches. I'm not sure. He's dug a trench right at the oak tree that's that deep with no roots. So he could even put it in there. Just look at the hole he dug on his survey and his pictures. But if you look up on this, you see these pipes coming along here. It's level up there. There's a black drain pipe and a white drain pipe. He could easily trench it in there. Or, you know, he just put these rocks in in the last, I don't know, short period. But just bring, move. It's not that steep. You should see our property where we had the PG into the gas line. and uh the sewer line and um there's not a problem there's not a problem running that he's removed every tree on his property that's uh and he's uh you know which were which were property line treats he's already done this without asking me we wake up the trees are gone and and he says sorry they're on our property and and I it's just so frustrating and he's trimmed this tree back way beyond the property line he's he's trimmed it way back into our property trying to open his view up he just continues to to remove all this vegetation he's threatened me with lawsuits to to have we have these other large oaks that he wants to have them completely topped down to uh it it's kind of silly that we're fighting him on this but but just the the this

is the tree is on our property as you can see and it's clearly it goes right down the string goes down the property can i ask you a question yes of course yes so uh i really appreciate your your passion for this tree and i feel that's a really special tree to you and your partner and your family and i and thank you for coming in and explaining all this to us uh i do think it's a shame it seems like you and the applicant are sort of talking past each other.

Absolutely, it's a shame.

And now I kind of understand why, because there's some litigation threat. And I would just wonder if, you know, I also think that it's really important to preserve these heritage trees. It's a policy of the city, in fact, that these heritage trees, including oak trees, and it's not lost on me that this is talking about an oak tree on Oak Road. Yes, is important. But, you know, he has valid concerns as well. And you have valid concerns. I'm wondering, like, if through I don't know if your lawyers are talking, do you have legal counsel who can talk to his legal counsel who can then because he just shared a whole bunch of new information that we didn't have till tonight. And it sounds like you have some information that you want to share as well. Would you be willing through your lawyers to try to share some information and try to work with each other to come up with a solution?

He's extremely expensive. And he has worked for me in the past. And the only reason I hired this guy or got in touch with him again is because he got an attorney to get in touch with me. So I said, You got to write him a letter and just explain. And he did. And that was the end of it. And that's been quite some time. And we we you know, we just avoid each other and it's worked out well. And we would like to continue that. But it seems to me, per the recommendation number five by the planning department, that if there was just a real survey, he's drawn in, he's drawn his map, he's drawn in that oak tree on his property at the base, which is entirely false, as you can see by the pictures. All that's really needed is an official survey of record that shows the oak tree on it like everybody does.

I tend to agree with you on the survey aspect and, um, uh, you, you also could probably do a survey or maybe you have one. I don't know, but, um, I would also like to add that, um, I've seen a lot of oak trees and that oak tree is very healthy. Um, it, you know, almost all oak trees lean one direction or the other. Um, But I think the crux of the matter is where is the oak tree?

Has anyone pulled an estimate for...

If it's on his property and you guys want to approve this and you don't want to consider that he could quite easily just put it a couple feet over and run the stupid gas line, then fine. Then he can remove the oak tree. But let's at least... know where the oak tree is. I mean, I feel, I didn't just draw it in, but I ran lines. And if you look at my record of survey, which is just before I gave his survey, this page, Michael Ford's land surveyor, he put in all these little dots here, these corner hoofs, and markers, and I had him put one midline there because I knew I was putting a fence there. He put that midline, the neighbor who used to live above, and I got there at this point sometime, built the fence, stand on those property marks right there. And so his surveyor came out years later and says, yeah, the fence is right on the property line. Look at that. On his survey, it shows that fence on the property line. Well, just then run a line to see where it hits the oak, which is what I did. It's not on his property.

I'm just being ignorant here, but if the... Why am I... I'm not sure why I'm personally not understanding this, but if the fence is directly on the property line and the pictures you have sent to us show that the oak starts... It's growing from the applicant's side of the fence...

No, it's not. It's dead. If you look where the line hits the tree.

What am I missing here? What am I missing? And I'm going to ask you.

A little part of me is... Like, I don't really want to try and settle the property line dispute personally. As much as I would love to get out there with a tape measure and find the property markers, like, it would bring me great joy, but I'm not going to.

And it's out of our purview to do that. It's just what I'm hearing is both parties saying that the property, or at least the neighbor saying that the fence is on the property line.

And I'm like, well, the... Yeah, but I mean, like, most, like, when I've had my property surveyed, you wouldn't necessarily, like, cite it against the... pick points that are marked, which would be the corner markers. And you run strings. So less of a create a straight line and more of a use reference points on the map to try and triangulate where it actually is located. I've seen them do that for my house as well. But at the end of the day, has anyone gotten a quote for a survey of the property line? Has anyone talked to a surveyor and said, how much will it cost to get the survey done?

Not even the entire property, just that one boundary.

String, I mean, you're on the bench lines. It's the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I see the picture as well.

Yeah, we see that picture, which I'm not... But I suppose the question that staff has raised is... Or the recommendation staff is giving is they would like to see a survey to see before they approve.

If I go through the chair, I mean, we're really going around in a circle tonight and it's unnecessary. We did not want to get into this level of detail because the detail is not there. If you don't have the information... Our recommended condition of approval is to obtain that information. But beyond that, That's to resolve a neighborhood dispute. We see no reason why the tree should not be removed. There is a condition that says that record of survey should be provided before the tree permit removal is approved.

By who? The applicant.

You know, by the applicant. So I think our recommendation stands, and I think we can move forward. We have enough here to make a decision. So I don't think we're going to get anywhere beating around the bush with the applicant and the neighborhood.

So technically, if we say you need to confirm whether it is or isn't on the property line with a survey, then you make the determination.

We're recommending that the tree be removed because it needs to be removed. Period. It's just if they want to sort out Where the tree is, go right ahead. But I don't doubt the applicant's position from what we've seen in the record. That's what we're here is to resolve a neighbor dispute. We can't do that any other way than a survey.

And if they don't get this, if the applicant does not get the survey, they can't remove the tree. I thought it was an interesting thought was what would happen if they just don't remove the tree and PG&E come in and put the gas line in. It kills the tree. The tree then falls.

Someday we'll be back again.

But if the tree fell, it would fall downhill.

It's not going to hurt anyone unless you build something right behind the tree. So that's the other alternative.

I don't want to speculate on hypotheticals. It's a tree. It's in the way of a line that's being installed. That's it. I mean, there's a dispute over where the tree is at. We can resolve that with the survey. I don't want to get into the technical details as to why the line is here or the building code or the PG&E requirements. I mean, we're just talking about a tree removal permit. We do these all the time. We do these for health and safety. They don't even get this far. They don't even, you know, every day we're removing a tree for fire reasons because it's a hazard. And those don't come to the public. They don't get notified. They just get taken down. So it happens all the time. If this tree becomes a hazard, it's going to have to come down anyway. So that's it.

I mean, that sounds in line with what the neighbor's asking is for a survey. And I've not heard the applicant say they don't want to do a survey other than it might cost anything. But I'm sure the whole project is probably expensive. So it's just another cost.

At the end of the day, though, it sounds like we're having a lot of talk about let's approve a conditional survey. Yeah.

I mean, we're not here to get into the weeds and, you know, go into the dispute. This is just the only way we can resolve a dispute.

I mean, personally, I've got a lot more information tonight that I did not have in the staff report about, like, where the neighbor's property was and why they were asking for this. So I actually did think it was quite helpful to hear that.

Treat permits don't usually provide that level of detail. They just provide an arbor support plan, and that's it. Yeah.

i mean we don't require that level of information this is more than i've ever seen for a tree permit quite frankly in my entire career so okay so make sure we yeah you have a motion feel free well are we is is there any is there any other comments are we done are we should we close public comments for a survey record of survey that the felt was the fence was built upon as as as evidenced by his

his survey yeah i think we've heard your comments and i think your comments are very helpful and i wouldn't say anything further now in case it all changes yeah so um i guess the question is are there any other public comments is there anyone online or is anyone in the room and is there anyone online no okay okay and we can close the public thank you yeah um we're gonna close the the public hearing now so

bring it back to the commission.

So I think we've heard staff loud and clear as to what they recommend, which I hear you, which is Which makes sense, I guess.

I have to say that I'm not as keen about tree removal permits as other people may be. I think oak trees take a long time to grow and get that big, and that's a really nice oak tree. So I can understand the neighbor wanting to, one neighbor wanting to keep it. And I've worked with PG&E as an architect a lot of times, and they are usually quite capable of moving lines and accommodating trees. So that's my personal thought on it. So I think...

maybe we need a motion uh to could we discuss a little bit i mean i'd love to just yeah before we move i just give my opinion because i would i would deny the application as it's submitted for a couple reasons i mean i i think first of all there's a lot of new information that came tonight and it's not fair to others in the public such as the coxes who haven't had a chance to look at this extensive PowerPoint and address it in their own comments or other members of the public, I think that's not really fair. I also just have trouble making the findings that are necessary for it. I mean, I get... The findings that F1A and B, where it's not going to adversely affect the topography, I haven't heard anything about that, or cause significant erosion if you remove the tree. And I don't think it would adversely affect general health, safety, or welfare. But then we have to make one or two.

Is the health, safety, and welfare inconsistent with the gas line?

I could make that finding. I'm just trying to clarify. I could make that finding. I do think the other two, you have to make one of two findings, right? Which is the first one being the condition of the tree poses a hazard with respect to disease, danger of falling, proximity to existing or proposed structures, and or interference with utility services. Now, we got a lot of new information about the utility services, but I still have yet to see something from... We have something from a tree arborist saying, well, the proposed line has to go through these routes. We have something from the applicant saying that. The only way we can really know that is if PG&E has... They're the ones who are going to do the trenching. I would like to be able to see something from them that says, this is the only route that can be taken right here. And I have not seen that.

You will probably not get that. PG&E does not get into this level of detail, and I really don't think we have that record. I don't think we have any record of that. So you'll have to make that decision without it.

And then the other... Actually, I really have to run.

I've got a hard 8 o'clock to shut up.

Commissioner Sapar has to leave at 8 o'clock.

That's okay. I chatted before, but we didn't bring it back up after the roll.

Do we need him to make a... We still have quorum.

Unless you want to move along and make a decision.

I'd like to move along, and I think...

All right, well, I'll just finish up. I mean, I'll just think that, you know, the neighbors have... All right, see you. See you, Matt. I think the neighbors have a reasonable expectation about preserving this heritage tree, and that outweighs all the others to me.

Would you like to make a move?

Well, you're saying...

I would deny the application. Or I would condition, if there were one condition I can think of that might make it acceptable to the Cox's is if he was, say, required, and there's precedent for this in the code, actually, the municipal code, and I can find it, that... you're going to remove a heritage tree you should plant replace it maybe maybe even plant two i i think though we still haven't really established where the tree is

But it's not that we would have to make that. We would have to have that as a condition of approval. Yeah. The survey. And then the choice is either he does the survey, shows that it's his tree and he removes it, or he shows that it's not his tree and then he can't remove it, or he doesn't do the survey and he can't remove it. Those are like the three things that would happen. Right. So... And yeah, let's have him plant another tree.

I mean, you can certainly add that to your motions to have him place a replacement tree.

It was actually in my notes.

That is a very common motion.

Would you be okay with that? Or you'd still deny it?

I mean, I think my preference would be for them to get the survey first and to provide... And that's what would happen.

He would have to get the survey.

Then they don't come back for the commission.

They wouldn't need to.

The idea is to not come back before the commission. I mean, we shouldn't be having public hearings over trees to begin with.

I understand you think this was a minor issue, but it's a policy of the city to preserve heritage. It is, indeed. And it's open to a lot of people in our city. And so I don't want to think it should be taken lightly. So...

Or would somebody like to craft a motion?

Yeah, I can then. So hear me on this and tell me what you think. So let me just find the... Where is it? Okay. So I would make a motion to approve... Project number HTR26-006, subject to two conditions. One is the existing condition number five, which is the, well, maybe I don't need to mention that. I don't need to repeat it. So just so the Cox's know, there's a requirement to get a survey. And an additional condition of approval that the applicant plant a new tree, oak tree. Do we want an oak tree? Do we care?

You don't have to be species specific.

I think it should be a heritage tree.

A fire resistant tree. Hang on.

Since the public hearing is closed, I would recommend that you just leave it up to the arborist. The recommendation was that was in the arborist's report. He already had it. We had it? Okay. Put it in a more suitable location than leaning in 30 degrees. So, yeah, that was in there.

Right. And then we'll take a second. Go ahead.

There you are.

Oh, you can't second. You can, though, if you'd like to.

Is it to plant an oak tree? Yeah.

I don't know.

Is it a… The existing tree is a coast live oak. A coast live oak.

No, but Commissioner… He's asking what's the new tree to be planted. Commissioner Kingsdale is asking, is the replacement tree an oak tree?

We can put that in as a condition. It's up to you.

Fine. Put it in. And then you'll second, yeah?

Yeah, sure. I'll second that.

Okay. Okay.

Okay, can we have a call, please? Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. And Commissioner Weixstaff? Yes. All right, motion passes by a 3-0 vote.

And let us know if the survey's done what the result of the survey is, because now I'm fascinated.

We will report back at a future meeting. Thank you.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Yes, your chair.

Okay, where are we?

We're moving on to number six, business items.

Okay, we are now on to business items.

General plan.

General plan conformance for the city's capital improvement program, fiscal year 26-27. Do we have...

So usually we come forward every year with the city's capital improvement program. There is a state law that says the CIP has to have a finding of conformance with the general plan. So the capital improvement program is sort of a living document. We add to it every year. It's a 10-year horizon. There's a staff report in your packet before you. I didn't make a presentation, mainly because this item is usually a pretty straightforward item. there's only five projects added to this year's CIP programming. Whatever those projects are isn't, The details about each individual project isn't necessarily pertinent to making a finding. It's just is the project related to the goals and policies and programs of the general plan. And so of the five, we've got some park improvements, softball dugout improvements, tennis court improvements. Those are clearly related to providing recreational facilities to the city. That is a goal of the general plan. It's a very high-level goal. We're looking at very specific versus very high level goals and programs. None of the CIP programs are identified in the general plan. Obviously, the general plan is a very, very high level document. But there's some very general things like pavement maintenance. Obviously, we need to maintain our pavement for a circulation system. Storm drain improvements are necessary. Cleaning and inspecting pipes, obviously, so that we can have a safe environment for stormwater. And then finally, the second phase is an existing project that's been ongoing on Magnolia Avenue, an engineering corridor study. So there's just five things. They all line up with You know the the high very high level goals policies programs of the general plan. So our recommendations that the Commission make a finding that it is in conformance and I'll leave it at that Would somebody like to just have a question these some of these come through public works right a lot of these projects They all come through they all come through public works.

I And what's the average length of time that a project, when it gets proposed, to actually getting approval and incoming before us?

It varies. I mean, these are all, what you see is just what's in the annual updates to the CIP. And again, there's just the five projects this year.

They did have mention of some, they had a library in as, which has already has been done, but there was a budget for that. and some other things in that report.

I mean, those could have been in the prior years. I wasn't here, so I couldn't speak to it. But yeah, this year, it's just these five that we have listed here.

Yeah.

And again, it's a it's a living document. We're not going over existing programs that were previously found to be in conformance of the general plan. They're constantly taking programs off and adding them. So we're just looking at the five new additions for 26, 27.

And what's this 2.8 million in Luxor Plaza Drive?

I honestly can't tell you. I have no idea. Those are all.

300,000 and suddenly it boom, it goes up to 3 million.

Or it's, it's, it was something that was obviously reviewed in the past. So I can't speak to that.

All right.

Do you want to make a, you can't make a move. Would somebody like to move? Yeah.

I can try.

Yeah. yeah as i reviewed the capital improvement program i didn't see anything inconsistent with the general plan and so i would move to um i would move to find that the cities of larkspur's capital improvement plan program for fiscal years 2027 must be 2026 to 27 through 2030 31 are in conformance with the larkspur general plan

Do we have a second?

Oh, you need me? Second. We have been told by prior leads that the chair cannot second or oppose.

That is not required, but good practice. Okay.

All right.

Can we just say? You can just do a aye. Yeah, you don't have to do a roll call vote on this.

Do you want to say all in favor?

That would be the chair's job. All in favor?

Yes. Yes.

Any opposed? No. Motion passes. Thank you.

Okay. Minutes. Oh, training. Training.

Oh, okay. Next item is planning Commissioner training.

You know, given that Commissioner so far had to leave at eight o'clock, and I apologize, I've He mentioned that at the beginning of the meeting. You certainly have, if you want, we could do this some other time. I have some slides. I can certainly share them with you separately if you want, or I can go through them.

Why don't you do that next time? Because then Chair Swish is here.

I didn't want to do it at the next meeting, though, because as I said, it's going to be a very, very long meeting with a lot of people in the high school. And so that's probably not the best meeting to do these kinds of things. We try to keep it focused on that. where the crowd is wanting to participate in. So if you want, I could push this up to another date, given that he had to go at 8. We could just set it for a... a meeting date in September if you'd like, but alternatively, uh, I can just provide it.

Yeah.

And I say this every time in the, I did the, uh, training and I thought it was super helpful. A really, really, there was a, through this, there was this body that provided, it was a couple months ago, right? No, I did it originally when I first became a planning commissioner, but there was another one. There was another, I didn't do the recent one because I, so there, there will be a training, um,

again they were supposed to do it before uh early in june and they didn't have enough people sign up i don't know why they did in june because most commissioners start their term on july 1st so people are usually finishing their term so they you know i thought that was a bit odd well mine was online no it's in person they'll be rescheduling it i will know more tomorrow um It was supposed to be at Corte Madera City Hall in person, and that's going to be pushed up to October, I think, so I'll keep you posted. There are lots of training opportunities throughout the year. Nowadays, a lot of them are online. Sometimes Sonoma State has had an annual Planning Commissioner Conference. I haven't heard from them in a while, but that's been pretty routine. League of Cities sometimes does. That's the one, League of Cities. Yeah. And certainly we'll be happy to send the new commissioners to League of Cities if we can, budget and time accommodating. Yeah.

I really appreciate your offering this training. And I guess for me, if you could just email it or share it with us, and then maybe at some later date, we go through them together. I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah. All right.

Okay. We need to approve the minutes from June 9th.

Well, that's just you and me.

Yeah, I wasn't there, so I would probably recuse. Abstain.

Abstain.

You actually can vote on minutes if you weren't there, strangely. Really? And you're going to have to because we don't have a quorum. Right.

Oh. And I had to recuse myself from some of this, but there's nothing much in the minutes anymore.

You can certainly continue them to a later date, or you can vote on them.

Yeah, why don't we do that? I think we should continue it.

Do you have a motion and a second?

Motion to continue approval of the June 9th Planning Commission meeting.

And I'll second.

All in favor? Aye.

Yes, aye. Okay.

Okay.

Are there any planning commissioner reports?

Who's doing, are you doing the, for the Mountain Racket Club, are you doing the staff presentation?

Alex.

Alex will do that. I'm only asking because when we did the library, the The city manager, remember? Yeah. Julian Skinner and city manager were here, and they were both at the meeting.

It was their project. They helped design it. Got it.

Okay. So this is you.

Yeah. In that case, the city was the applicant. In this case, it's a private applicant. Okay. Yeah.

We handle like any other. And that is going to be a very interesting meeting.

It's going to be tough. That's going to be hard. I think. Yeah.

We were expecting a very large meeting. crowd so we don't know exactly how many but um we've received a number of public comments for the past four months at least and then the fact that like i used out the facility i should um

Like, I'm trying to figure out if I can get back here for that meeting. That's what I'm trying to do. But I'm not that far away.

So I don't know if you had a question about a potential conflict of interest as a member.

I had not yet. And, you know, I didn't join because of that. I felt because I think Alex had advised that if I was a member, it could potentially be a conflict of interest. So I'm not a member and none of my family are. But I do use the facility. So I feel I should disclose that at the beginning of the meeting.

So it comes down to whether or not you have a financial conflict. And using a facility is not financial. Half the people use it. So I'll give you an example. It's like if you had a conditional use permit today for the gas station, if you fill up at the gas station... That doesn't necessarily preclude you from being able to vote on the gas station today. So, I mean, I think it's pretty hard for anybody to not have used it because it is the only one. So, yeah. So you could hypothetically vote on that if you were a member even. It just depends if you have a financial conflict. And so, you know, if any of the commissioners have a question, we can forward it to the city attorney for like a formal memo if you want. But, yeah, we're happy to clarify that in between now and then.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Do you want a motion to adjourn? What? Do you want me to? Oh, planning commissioner's reports.

I think, didn't we do that?

Yeah.

Does anybody have any reports?

No, just welcome.

Okay.

Welcome to the new curriculum.

Thank you very much. As the new guy, I would like to report I'm very happy to be here. It's an honor to work with both of you and Commissioner Swisher and just try to do my best and

Thanks for having me. Very impressive.

Oh, thank you.

Okay. Would somebody like to move we adjourn?

Yeah. And, you know, I also want to say thank you to Commissioner Campbell. I'm sorry we lost him, and I thought he did a really, really good job as a vice chair, and I was really sad to see him go.

Big shoes to fill.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Okay.

Singing. All in favor. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.