Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love that guy. All right, everybody.

It's past 630. So we're gonna get started.

I am Jeff Swisher, the chairman of the large for Planning Commission and this is the regular meeting of the Planning Commission for Tuesday, August 11 2026. All right, can we have a roll call, please?

Yes, Commissioner Zubar. Here. Commissioner Wagstaff. Here. Commissioner Chalmers.

Here.

And Commissioner Kingsdale. Here. Chair Swisher. I am here. All five members are present. You have a quorum.

Excellent. And just to say, we have two new members of the Planning Commission. They were here last time. I was not so well-programmed. Thank you for the service. Thank you. Everybody, just keep in mind that this is not a paid position. We're volunteers. thank you for coming um all righty so the next uh uh is public comment on matters that are not on the agenda so it's a time for anybody uh here or on zoom to address a planning commission for regarding any issues that are not on the current agenda give it a minute or so if there's anything questions does that mean the four things about one

Are there things that are on the agenda?

That is what is on the agenda.

And if we wanted to talk about that piece of property outside of that, is that just in time?

No. Is it okay?

No, this is not the time to talk about it. This is anything that is not on the agenda. That is on the agenda.

Okay, so we're restricted to those five items.

We're restricted to the

Then I would like to add something to the agenda that's not on the agenda.

You can't add anything to the agenda. You can discuss something on the agenda. It's not on the agenda, but you can add to the agenda. What would you like to discuss?

I'd like to discuss something that is not on the agenda.

You have the floor.

Thank you.

And just tell us who you are and where you live.

My name is Maria O'Rourke. I live at 30 Palm Avenue. Is there a microphone?

There's a little back on the bottom. There's a light that goes on. It's pretty fancy.

Okay, there we go. Okay, my name is Maria O'Rourke. I live at 30 Palm Avenue, and I am a resident election fraud Many, many years. And I would like to address the general plan and its relationship to project one. I have documents that I would like to submit.

So we'll say project one. What do you, what do you talk about? That is on the agenda.

That is not restricted to only talking about those five items.

That is on the agenda. So you are wanting to talk about something that is on the agenda and you can do that in public comment. That is later.

Okay. Yes.

So that this, that is an agenda item. So you, anybody here, let me, we're going to, I'm going to do a little preamble here on this in a second, but before we do that, we have to go down the agenda. So community development director's report. We have no report this evening. All right. So the next item on the agenda is the item on the agenda is public hearings for one Larkspur Plaza drive, APN 022-240. Jay Hewlett, Jones applicant, 1 Larkford Plaza, LLC, owner of TD Transitional Downtown Zoning District, project member PLN 26003. This is a public hearing request for 1. Design review to permit demolition of all existing site improvements and the construction of 14 new structures totaling 10,750 square feet, 8 new tennis courts, and 77 parking spaces. 2. A height exception to allow a portion of the proposed clubhouse roof to exceed the allowed height limit. three, with the fence height exception, to allow vegetative barriers to exceed the permitted height limit for fencing, a heritage tree removal permit to remove a total of six heritage-sized trees, and a grading permit to allow more than 1,000 cubic yards of birth work in conjunction with the project. So those are the issues that's before the Planning Commission. And let me just give a preamble, and then we'll open it up to the Zafra board, which is next. The preamble is this. This is a project which is obviously very of interest to the community. We have a lot of people out here who would like to talk about this. And as I mentioned, we have the opportunity during public comments to talk. So first let's talk about that. Public comment is limited to two minutes, but you can have up to three, but I literally will cut you off at three. And I'm sorry to say I'll be rude about it because I don't mean to be rude. I'm a nice person. But we just have a lot of people that need to talk. And unless we want to go to the next morning. You mean what? Minutes. Minutes? Minutes, yes. But two, if you can leave your comments at two, that would be great. The other issue is a lot of people have a lot of comments. And I've read many of the letters, as we all have, that have come here. And there are many similar comments. So if people have said something that you are going to say, you don't necessarily have to repeat it. Because, again, then we just have it. Repetitiveness that's going on and not, you know, new things. But obviously, I'm not limiting what people say. That's, you know, we live in America and people have free speech. Hold on a minute. Okay. The other thing is, so this is the Planning Commission and the purview of the Planning Commission is to look at the items that are on the agenda. We are not here as a Planning Commission to litigate the use of public, of privately held space. There are laws and there are statutes and there's zoning, et cetera, for pieces of land in Larkspur. Just as if you were to build a home, it is your right to build on your property, which you want to build provided it is within the law and it is within zoning and it is within ordinances. We are not here and we do not have any statutory authority to dictate what a private owner does on their land. Is it this kind of special connotation because if recreational product for the community.

Therefore, it should be those considerations impact.

And the answer is no. There is no special statute in Larkspur for recreational. This is a private parcel of land. The other thing I was going to mention is it is also part of the housing element of Larkspur, which we passed. Everybody's aware that we had a housing element that we passed as a community several years ago. And part of the housing element allows certain plots of land to be designated as potential sites for development for low-income housing and for housing, low-income or moderate-income housing. This parcel is one of those plots of land, and it has implications. And those implications can be discussed later by the city attorney or by any of the people here. I just want to make it clear that this piece of property is part of the housing element. So with that, I will go to Alex.

Before we do that, just to get it on the record, I actually am a member of the Mount Tam record club. Although I am a member, I still feel unable to provide an objective decision about the project based on the law evidence on the record. I just wanted to make sure that was matching people.

Turn up your mic. Turn up your mic.

Any better? All right. I'll read it again. I am a member of the mountain racket club, although I am a member, I still feel I'm able to write an objective soon about the project based on a long evidence of the record. You want to put that on there for the record.

One more point about that very point. And I, we, my family used to be members years and years ago, the mountain record club, the mountain racket club has been sold that it is no longer technically the mountain. I mean, still the name is there and the membership is there, but the racket club, has been sold. It's a purchased piece of property. So that's another thing, obviously, we're not litigating is whether the property can be sold, because it has been sold. And it has a new owner, which is this development group. So just wanted to make that clear for those people, because some of the letters seem to indicate that they believe that the Mount Tamracket Club is still an entity which is in control of its future. But it is no longer an entity of which that is possible, because they have sold that property to the developer. And so that is something I just want to be very clear that everybody understands that the Mount Tamaracki Club as an entity is, while it's still operating as the Mount Tamaracki Club, will not be in the near future. So that being said, Alex. All right.

Good evening. Can everybody hear me? I want to share my screen. Okay, so good evening, members of the Commission. The item before you today is PLN 26-003, 3F1 Larkspur Plaza Drive, that we all commonly know as the Mount Cam racquet. I'm sure we're all intimately familiar with where it is, but in case you're not, it sits at the intersection of Magnolia and Dory, and Dory and Larkspur Plaza Drive, so the rest of this location. The project seeks to demolish all existing site improvements and construct a new tennis club, so it would retain the same use, just with a much smaller footprint. And so you can kind of see from these site plans here on the left is the existing site plan. This area is the current building, and the current square footage is just over 50,000. The proposal, which is on the right, includes several smaller buildings in addition to eight outdoor tennis courts, And that total footprint is 10,750 square feet. As designed, the project requires the Planning Commission to approve of five entitlements. The first is design review to, like I just said, permit the demolition of all existing site improvements and the construction of a new tennis club. The next entitlement is a height exception to allow a portion of the proposed clubhouse roof to exceed the allowed height limit The third is a fence height extension to allow vegetative barriers to exceed the recommended height limit for fencing. Fourth is a heritage tree removal permit to remove six heritage-sized trees. And last is a grading permit to allow more than 1,000 cubic carats of grid work in conjunction with the project. And before I jump into anything further, I'm going to echo the chair's comments earlier and speak to the purview of the Planning Commission in this matter. The Planning Commission's scope of review is limited to whether or not it can make the findings required for approval of each entitlement as they are prescribed in the Municipal Code. The Commission does not have the discretion to deny or condition the project based on factors outside those required findings. The operating principles and membership amenities of a private club generally fall outside the purview of the Planning Commission and, unless reasonably linked to a required finding, cannot serve as the basis for your decision tonight. which must be grounded in established criteria and findings for each entitlement.

Does the City Council make any decision on whether this continues or if you approve?

You have the opportunity to ask that question during public comment. So it's okay. It's just obviously if we keep answering questions. I'll answer your question. Anything that the Larkspur Planning Commission makes a decision tonight, automatically goes to the City Council and any member of the public can appeal a finding of the Planning Commission. They have so many days to appeal that and the City Council advise and makes that. I'm sorry, what was that? Ten days. Yeah, we'll talk about that.

I'm going to, yes, thank you. I'm going to retain the floor here. I do just want to as a friendly amendment to your statement. It doesn't automatically go to the city council. It's on appeal to go to the city council. On appeal, I'm sorry to say that. So with that, I'm gonna jump into just a quick run through of the buildings that are proposed on the site. And I've broken them out. So we're gonna go through each building individually with its floor plan and elevations. And first is the main clubhouse building. So each of the buildings that we're gonna talk about will be shown on the site plan with this green rectangle around it here. So first up is the clubhouse building is a two-story structure. The first story would be on the top here and that consists of a dining and lounge area, a bar, common area, kitchen and restrooms. Above that is a viewing terrace on the second story and storage rooms and more common area. Here are the proposed elevations. I will quickly note for everyone that this is the structure that is the subject of the height exception request. I'll get into it in more specifics later on, but just so you get a sense of what we're talking about here. This line is the 25-foot height limit, and so it is these portions of the roofs here that are seeking the height exemption.

Excuse me, what do you mean? I'm sorry, can you actually get ahead and move?

Through the chair, staff has the floor. If you could gavel down interruptions. Could we please not interrupt at the moment? Again, we'll have plenty of time for those questions. Basically, with Mr. O'Brien is saying is that there is a height exception. He'll go over that in detail later. So, but please limit your interruptions because otherwise we'll be here all night.

Thank you. Okay, so the next building is the fitness building. It's shown here in the green rectangle. So this is a one-story structure that contains a gym, fitness area, and locker rooms. Here are the elevations. I did just want to make a distinction here, but as you can see, the height limit again is shown on the elevation on the top. You will notice that there is a couple of it is exceeding that height limit. However, that is something that is specified in the large per code is being allowed to exceed the height limit. So it does not need a specific type exception to be approved by the Commission to see if it is automatically allowed in the municipal code. The next structure we will look at is the clock tower. This is going to be the closest structure to Doherty Drive. And that is going to have a reception area, restrooms, workshop, office and storage, etc. And similar to the last building, it does, the clock tower exceeds the 25 foot height limit, but it is allowed in the municipal code for a portion of a roof less than 20% to exceed the allowed height limit. So again, It does exceed the height limit, but it is not subject to their height exception request this evening. Next, our offices, which are located on the western property line, kind of between Magnolia Avenue and the tennis courts there. And these are just small office spaces with a restroom. I think there's about five of them. And then we have their snack bar and garden pavilion, which are along the Larson-Floss Drive frontage here. And then for the elevations, the first row of elevations is the snack bar. The second row, the lowest row, is the garden pavilion. So with that, I'm going to discuss the height exception. The project proposes one structure which exceeds the height one structure which requires an exception to exceed 25 feet and it would be the clubhouse roof which would be 30 feet and three inches above finished grade if you remember the elevations that we were looking at earlier these sort of red highlighted areas that's the portion of the roof that exceeds the allowed element further usable code you can approve an exception from the height standard should you find that the height of the proposed building is consistent with the pattern of development in the neighborhood that the exception will result in a building that is either functionally or aesthetically superior to what would have been allowed without the exception, that the exception will not result in a building with a floor area that is significantly larger than would otherwise be allowed, and that the exception will not be detrimental to the health, safety, or welfare of persons or property in the vicinity. The next entitlement is the fence height exception. As far as the Commission is likely aware, fences The defunctions of property line are limited to six feet in height. So there are certain portions where they will be exceeding that. And so the tallest of which is a 12-foot portion, which would be on the rear here along Larkspur Plaza Drive, if you can see the highlander here. And then the various portions down here, these two corners of this tennis field are about 10 feet. And then throughout the site along Mars repository, they vary from seven feet to about 11 feet. But the tallest portion, again, it's just this 12 foot three inch portion, very different. So that request has been reviewed by the public works department and the fire department who found that it complies with all of their state campus ability requirements. They propose to remove six heritage trees. They are highlighted in these red squares for you. There are a variety of reasons, but it is generally the trees are either in the area of the construction exhibit or health or have been deemed a fire hazard by the fire department. They will be replacing them with about 44 new trees, so there will be lots of new landscaping as a part of the project. And lastly, is the grading permit. So as the Commission may be aware, You don't deal with this too often, but projects which propose more than 1,000 cubic yards of grading do require the Planning Commission to sign off on a grading permit. In this case, they proposed 2,860 cubic yards of cut, 2,410 cubic yards of fill, and a total off-haul of about 450 cubic yards. How many truckloads is that? I don't even know. Please, I'm sorry. It's hard not to, but... This one is a little different from the design review and other entitlements that you are being asked to find on tonight. This requires no formal findings, rather the code states that the Commission shall approve a grading permit request when the project is found to comply with all requirements of the applicable code chapter. And these include regulations on hours of work, excavation, drainage, erosion control, etc. So based off of everything that the applicant has provided, staff believes that the permit can be granted. You received 23 public comments at the time that I prepared this presentation. And two of those did include petitions with a number of signatures on them. So in conclusion, just to kind of hit the pertinent points here, the project is smaller in scale than the existing facility. The total square footage has been reduced by almost 40,000 square feet. It is an identical use of the existing facility. The proposed buildings will be more energy efficient as they will be required to be built to current code. Water-efficient landscaping will be enhanced and brought to current code requirements. It complies with all the city's stormwater requirements. The projected trip counts are significantly reduced due to the reduction in size of the facility. It provides more parking than required. The buildings are more architecturally consistent with the downtown area than the existing structure. And overall, staff who has determined that the findings for approval can be made So with that, to conclude, staff recommends that the Commission hold a public hearing, consider public testimony, discuss the project, and adopt a binding Commission Resolution 01-2026, which approves the project subject to findings, conditions of approval, and a Class 2 and 32 secret exemption. That concludes my report, and the applicants team is here. They have a present date for you as well. Great. Thank you very much, Alex.

All right, this is an opportunity before we hear the staff questions for the, regarding the staff report.

I had some questions. Microphone is louder than I thought. Okay, so there are a lot of people here tonight and I've read a lot of comments and I've read all 23 comments that came in and I've spoken to a lot of people and I also appreciate Chairman Swisher's comments that the Fanning Commission is really only limited to what we can discuss, which is on the agenda. And there are really only five items that we can discuss, but I want to understand exactly what that means and what, so I fully understand it. So my first question is, is there any obligation on the applicant tonight to provide a community facility which would serve a wider group of the neighborhood than just, like for example, that right now it's being used by young families all the way to the elderly population. I see all kinds of people in there. Is there any obligation, legal obligation on the applicant that they have to provide a similar wide right, a community use versus sort of a narrow subsection of, I don't know, clay course tennis players. So that's my first question.

No, that's the answer to your question. Because it's a private facility and it's not about the discretion of the city when amenities or persons are members or the amount.

There's nothing. There's no obligation. Okay. Okay. Okay. My second question is, again, what I read from the comments and what I see is there's a lot of use and appreciation of the indoor tennis courts and the indoor swimming pool. And again, can we as a commission require or make any recommendations or do anything that says that there needs to be indoor tennis courts or there needs to be a certain design or shape or whatever we need to do around swimming pools that are going to be in the cloud.

Again, same answer. It's a private facility. The configuration number of ports covered or not, lane numbers in a pool is entirely under the property.

Okay, so we can't comment on that. All right. And then, so for the community members who do have comments on this,

where where can they go like what can they do if they wanted to make a comment uh well that's that's part of the meeting tonight there is a public comment portion of the item so they are more than welcome just to speak and give their comment during that that part of the meeting and can they do anything outside of tonight's meeting uh interested parties i can't appeal your decision if should they feel that there isn't so i Normally say this at the end, but there is a 10-day appeal period. So anyone who feels aggrieved by the decision can appeal your decision to the City Council after filing the required form and see you at the City Clerk by 5 p.m. on that 10th day.

Okay, okay.

Otherwise, the decision is final. Yes, otherwise, your decision is final.

Okay. And then the other question, which I'm hoping is a yes, is I did see in the materials that there was an acoustic review on noise levels. I think it's around swimming pool equipment. But I didn't see that incorporated in the final kind of plans. Was that incorporated?

Yes, and there's a condition of approval in the conditions of approval that says they have to comply with our noise emission limits. So it will all be, it will all be incorporated.

Okay, I do have more questions, but I'm going to leave them for the applicants. Okay, thank you.

I had a quick question relative to the housing element. So my understanding is that nobody's obligated to put in the 15. I think we proved 50 housing units as a potential in that area. And I was on the committee that was involved in having to find various places to come up with 979 theoretical housing units within a fairly short period of time. What happens if the city doesn't make that? And this obviously is a long-term project. So that's going to be whenever housing unit is gone.

So specific to this individual property, you are correct that it is a housing element site? Stonie Cooper- designated to provide 50 units part of the housing element site inventory process also includes creating a buffer. Stonie Cooper- So, to make sure that if or the events like we're here for tonight happen where these projects or these properties are developed and they don't provide housing. Stonie Cooper- That the city, make sure that it still has enough capacity and those remaining sites to provide the required number of units so. specific to this property and our buffer, we do have enough buffer to still meet the obligation that the state has given the city, even if no housing is developed on this property.

And do you have any idea what, sorry, if the city doesn't make the housing element at the end of this period? Because, so, you know,

The state has arena numbers and there's a no net loss provision, but with the buffer, we would not hit that with this project. Down the road, hypothetically, if we had other developments on other potential housing sites that did not build housing, we would have to come back and revisit those sites through a separate process.

So appreciate the information about what we're a private property owner is legally required to develop. When evaluating if that development complies with the general plan, is that the type of thing where you're only allowed to consider it is a recreational facility versus it's not? Or specifically if we're looking at goal LU6 for that adequate mix of neighborhood and serving businesses, is that something that we're legally allowed to discuss and debate, or is that something that one staff says it satisfies that, it satisfies that?

Yeah, that's within your purview if you believe it doesn't conform to the general. Yeah, but our, you know, the staff has noted the site does conform to the general plan, so.

Sure, okay. So like, I do want to make sure I understand on the way, like, staff has noted that

Does there was we have an existing facility it's not changing it's going to continue its use that does not create a conflict with the general farm.

Anybody else. was actually a comment that came in that had questions about. Use permit. and something out, but I don't have it in front of me. It just came in right before the meeting. Can you tell somebody to kind of address that comment?

Yeah, so the property received a use permit approval in the 70s, UP 11.77 as a commercial recreation facility. I supposed to back up and start at the beginning. Commercial recreation facilities are a conditional use in that zoning district. So this property received approval of a use permit in the 70s that use has continued to run throughout this time and will still continue to be the use past this project. There weren't any conditions of approval on the use permit that this project would be flying in the face up. So the use permit is still valid and still applicable. The use remains the same.

And I remember now the other one was CEQA. It was provided to CEQA.

Yes, the Class 2 and 32 CEQA exemptions are applicable here. The Class 2 is a reconstruction of largely the same use, and it even says largely the same footprint, but this is a much smaller footprint. And the Class 32 exemption, or exemption, excuse me, you know, requires a number of things that the site is, can be served by utilities, is not greater than five acres, etc. It's in the Staffer of this project.

Thank you.

As a follow-up to the question about the, I think it was the use permit provision that they recited was a criteria that if there's a change in the use, the use will not be detrimental to the general welfare. And I'm just wondering, in general, do you have an example of what would that mean, detrimental to the general welfare?

I would back up further than that and say that there's not even a change of use going on. The use is, was, has been commercial recreation. The use will continue to be commercial recreation. Thank you.

All right, excellent. Any other questions from staff? All right, wonderful. Could we have the applicant, please? Mark Warren, And identify yourself and Mark Warren, Yeah, I'm Mark Warren, Thank you.

Mark Warren, Okay.

Mark Warren, Everybody here. Yeah. Mark Warren, Good evening. Thanks for your time. Mark Warren, My name is Mark Harris. I'm one of the owners of this property. I'm the organizer of this project. It's important to clarify we own the property only. As the chair said, the prior owner sold the property. We do not own the MTRC. So I know that can get confusing. That entity does actually still exist, but we own the land and all the facilities that it requires to run the business. But we specifically don't own the MTRC. I'll come back to that later as I try to clarify some of the things I think people are upset about. I actually just want to say to the Commission and to the Chair, because I appreciate the clarification and the guidelines. I agree with them, obviously, and support them, but I've also read all the letters, the ones that have been sent in the ones that have responded to our broadcast communications. I've read the petitions. And frankly, a decent chunk of my upfront comments are addressing those concerns, even though I understand they're not within the boundaries and necessarily germane to the purview of this commission. I don't want to waste people's time. I don't want to waste your time. At the same time, I know that we're going to have a lot of people who are going to want to get up and get a comment. And they've come here tonight because of these concerns. And I think some portion of this comments I've prepared might be helpful to getting more understanding for all these people and maybe the folks on the commission. So I'll look for your guidance a little bit on that. Right now, I'm planning to go ahead and get through that. But I also appreciate that it's not exactly germane to what you're going to be deciding. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. Um, before I begin any of this, I just, um, I'd like to thank the planning department in particular, Andy and Alex for their professionalism, for their responsiveness, for their guidance. We started working and coordinating with Dan Schwartz, the city manager, and then not long after that, Alex, almost four years ago. Um, so I'm grateful for all the time and all the hard work, uh, really from everyone involved. Uh, for what it's worth, I'm not a developer. I'm not a club operator. I've taken this on as a passion project. Um, this passion, uh, this project combines things that I am, uh, I'm passionate about, uh, architecture and design tennis. Um, but most of all, I, I love this area that we're all lucky enough to live in and call our home. Um, and I'm motivated to be a part of creating something. positive here in our collective backyard, something uniquely special, something that's lasting. Personally, just so you know something about me, I live just over the hill in Mill Valley with my wife Blythe and our two kids. We're members of the Mountain Ham Rocket Club ourselves. My kids use the gym quite a bit. I play tennis there when I can. Between all that and this project, I've been spending a lot more time in Larkspur for the last few years. And Larkspur for me is Marin's most charming town. And this property, it's a rare, almost four-acre parcel right on its main street. There's really nothing else like it, to my knowledge, in Southern Marin. what happens here, what is made for this location, how it gets used and enjoyed, how it presents itself to those entering and exiting the downtown. This is important. You know, we're here on Redwoods campus and we're not in city halls because it's important to a lot of people. It's important to people like myself and people that are for the project. It's important to people who are against the project. all the people who made it in here tonight, but also people who couldn't make it here tonight. This parcel is a focal point for the passions and the interests of May, and that is a good thing. Some of us may see things differently, but we care about what happens here, and we care about this area. To that end, Over the past year plus, we've met with local stakeholders of all kinds, nearby HOAs, neighbors, local business owners, Chamber of Commerce, city representatives, community organizations, local business people, and others just generally invested in Larkspur's future and its overall well-being. As you can imagine, we've received a variety of responses, probably questions, opinions, advice. A fair bit of enthusiasm and support, but also real concern and complaints about changes to the program and changes to the approach of what's going to be there in the future. These photos are from an event last December that was hosted in the gym at the MTRC where we had about 300 people cycle through. to get a preview of our plans before we put them on public record. There were a lot of upset people there. Really upset people. And so we answered questions and we exchanged information for hours pretty late into the night. I understand. I understand. I know you're upset. A lot of us left early. Yeah. So I understand you're upset. I can understand how upsetting this kind of change is. If you rely on and love a large lap pool or indoor swimming or indoor tennis, really rely on them. And those things are missing from the future plan. It's upsetting. It's also annoying. I get it. It's frustrating. And I think it can be very dislocating. Um, if you, if you've given your patronage and your loyalty to a place for years, if not, if not for decades, um, it can just feel unfair and it can feel unconsidered. I appreciate that. I understand our, our plans for this site represent change. Uh, we get that change doesn't appeal to everyone. We also understand that when change fails to account for one's personal interests, it can be personally offensive. And that's led to a lot of the feelings that manifested about this project. They've taken the form of the letters, they've taken the form of the member petitions, and the feelings are legitimate. I'm not here to diminish them or the people who have them. We haven't taken them lightly. We've worked pretty hard to be in dialogue about them. As I mentioned at the outset, I've read and carefully considered all of the letters that have come my way, whether it's been a response to our communications sent into the file. I've read the member petitions. I've sat in and with conversations. I've been yelled at. I've been called an elitist. And I say this lightheartedly, but I've been spat on. It may have been inadvertent spitting. It may have been intentional. I'm really not sure. But when you've made someone so angry that you're left wiping the saliva off your face, it's an opportunity to reflect on what exactly is happening here. Why is what it is we're trying to do making some people this upset? Why are we doing what it is we're doing? And these are the things that I'm going to do my best to clarify for you. The NTRC going away is super upsetting and super upsetting to a meaningful portion of people. There is a perception that we are taking away the NTRC. Factually, objectively, this is not the case. We didn't decide to wind down the MTRC, nor did we create the circumstances that led others to make that decision. That was made by its owners. And by the way, they deserve to make that decision. They operated this business. They served this community for over 50 years. I'm not sure we all appreciate how hard it is to make a business last for 50 years. It's really hard. I built, ran a business for 20 years, and I couldn't imagine having to have to do it for one more day. Time, evolution, competition, these are brutal forces. And if those aren't enough, a pandemic comes along and obliterates indoor fitness in a way that it never really recovers. MTRC has 900 members today. At its pre-pandemic peak, it had 1,600. It's worked really hard to build back to 900. Berlin to decide to continue would have required repositioning their business, substantial investment, making long-term bets, and that ownership group was approaching their 80s. So that didn't make sense for them. Berlin to decide to retire and to move on is natural. It's a normal evolution. It happens all the time. It's just very jarring when it happens to something that has managed to exist for so long. and it means so much to so many people. No one has to like it, but we don't get to pretend like the passage of time and evolution don't exist. I, in reflecting, I've come to see clearly, and I get that it's easier for me to see this, but that this feeling of harm, this sense of loss and this proposal we put forward, while quite bound up together, in reality, have very little to do with one another. They're in the same breath and the same paragraph, not because of our differences, but ironically, because of what we have in common. There is a common overarching use case that binds the past of this parcel with our proposal for its future. But there's no causal link. There's no causal link between the loss of the MGRC. And it's really critical that we understand that. The state of play here, it doesn't involve the MGRC. They decided to wind their business down. whether, you know, the state of play here is there's a new ownership group, and it's whether we can make this plan that's before this commission a reality, if we can make it successful, if we can make it viable, on the one hand, or whether this parcel gets into a higher density use case on the other. What's a higher density use case?

I'm going to reply. Is that? Wait, can we let Mr. Harris talk? We can discuss what higher density use is shortly. It's basically building 60 housing units on it.

Housing, higher density uses. It could be mixed housing and retail. It could be shopping center and housing. It could be lots of different things. Let's let Mr. Harris cut out this. But this is the actual triangle possibility here. This is what is, these are the options. going forward on them. So look, I think it's important to understand the timeline. Almost five years ago, I heard from someone that the owners of the MTRC were interested in transitioning. I began talking with them and eventually those conversations led me to organize a group of local residents and investors to purchase the land and the facilities there. We closed on that purchase of the property in June of 2023. And so we've worked for three plus years to get to this point. And throughout that period, we partnered with the MTRC to provide ongoing access to the property such that they could keep the club available to their members. We wanted the patrons of the club to have access for as long as possible. And we created a favorable situation so that that could happen. So when I reflect on why we're doing what we're doing. We didn't take this project on to upset people. We didn't take it on to leave them with the feeling that we're taking something away. Quite the opposite. We didn't get involved with this project to maximize commercial value. Quite the opposite. The investors, as I mentioned, this is a passion project for me and the investors that I recruited in this effort have approaches with generosity and civic-mindedness and patience. But going forward, there's not a supply of funds to subsidize a loss-making operation. So if in the end, we favor the idea of preserving a lower density tennis, swim, and community gathering space for this parcel, then the real question is not whether it mimics what has been there for the past 50 years, but instead, how do we make this particular use case viable at this moment in time given current land costs, current construction costs, and labor costs. We've done a lot of work on that question. This is expensive land. It's valuable land. Everybody in this room knows, since we purchased this land, and particularly before we started communicating, there was a lot of speculation and a lot of rumors about the future plans for this parcel. It's logical and it's rational. believe this site would be repurposed for a higher density use and that's what the rumors were tennis and swim is not the pathway to maximizing the present value of this site that's not an opinion it's an objective statement and it's not a close call no it's not an opinion it's an objective statement and it's not close look This is a very different time than 50 years ago. But 50 plus years ago, the prior owners of this property creatively repurposed an abandoned 50,000 square foot big box supermarket into a tennis and swim facility. In 2026, it is not feasible. It is not sensible to try to salvage this building for a use case. that is already challenged and that the existing building was never intended to support. It's certainly not affordable nor advisable to try to rebuild it or recreate it. The reality is, and it's so important we understand this, is that if we fail to create a viable alternative here, a viable operation, It won't last and none of this will matter. If the new project ultimately cannot pay its bills and real estate terms, if it can't wash its own face, it will not survive. And it's just not worth doing. Significant investment is required. We have to be really smart about where we put the marginal investment dollar. And now I'm about to get into design, but we're putting forward an intentional design to try to create something beautiful, to protect something valuable at this location, and to do it in a way that is viable. That's what we're here to do. Let me get into it. The first four pages of this design, which I'll rip there pretty quickly, are kind of the brief for the design. So they're the inspiration behind the design, but it helps you understand where we're coming from, what we're trying to achieve. As you gathered up until now, we felt we had to start anew. But in starting anew, we wanted to create some common root structure with Larkspur's history. We consider it a huge feature and a privilege and a responsibility to create this kind of amenity on the main street of Larkspur adjacent to its historic downtown. Our plans are designed to honor that history. to match the scale and the style of its architecture and to lean into the beauty of the natural landscape. We want to do our part in revitalizing this bookend of the historic district, and we hope if we do it well, our project might inspire further investment in this end of Larkspur, similar to what's happened across the past decade, past decade plus at the other end of town. To that end, We've imagined a place that feels not just like it fits alongside the historic district, but like it's been there since the beginning. When you travel past it, it should feel seamless to the well-preserved history of the downtown district. When you step into it, you should feel transported to a different place and time.

Can you stop it, please, Mr.? Just stop it.

Okay.

You're very distracted.

All right, again, I'm a ADHD. Move to the back of the room, please.

Yeah, it's really, really good practice.

All right. Can you please? Thanks for the histrionics is really not appreciated in the back there. So can you please move forward? Thank you. Anyway.

Look, what I was saying is that when you step into this, step into this, you should feel transported to a different place at the time. We want it to be a reprieve from this kind of modern world where screens and phones are set aside in favor of outdoor wholesome activity. We're seeing visiting friends and neighbors. It's kind of just the priority. What we have in mind, despite a lot of the rhetoric, isn't fancy or flashy, but it's solid and simple. And I think in that way, we think it's elegant. um some of this stuff when you say it out loud sounds corny but when we get nostalgic we we tend to sound corny and from a design perspective we're leaning into nostalgia um we're also leaning into quirk um we're obviously not actually going back in time we have to bring forward some some funny funny elements from our past um things that are analog and tactile and quirky markers of kind of a forgotten era and they're there to invoke a sense of a reverence and a sense of coziness. Remind us we're not here to work or be serious, but to enjoy ourselves and our families, our friends, and our hobbies. And to address something that was raised before, it's not just a place for all ages, but we hope it'll become a place where all ages do things together. The most impactful communities I've been a part of in my life, integrated generations and shared activities where age becomes an afterthought, whether young or old, those kind of places appeal to the whole family. I think we need more of them, and we need more of them where we live. We'd like to see the kids in our community grow up. here and then come back with all kinds of complicated sentimental feelings, the way lots of us feel about places we spent big chunks of our childhood. So that's the logic and the thinking behind the design. The goal is to create a park-like amenity, to create a community gathering place, to preserve tennis and swim here. We hope to create a place that can become the highlight of people's day. We hope to create that in a spot where it is walkable, visible, and in the mix of downtown in our neighborhoods, not on the outskirts, not across the highway. What you're looking at here is a bird's eye view from the southeast corner looking northwest. You can see, I don't really have a pointer, but the Magnolia Doherty Corner There, there's a pollinator garden on that corner. The entrance to the parking lot stays on Larkspur Plaza Drive. The entrance to the grounds is this clock tower building, which I'll get to in a minute. There's, as Alex has already pointed out, biggest building. The main one is the tennis center. It's there as a gathering space. It has a cafe and a lounge, spaces to watch tennis. There's a pool house, which is really changing rooms, attached to an indoor studio fitness area. There is a family pool. It can double as a lap pool. It's not the lap pool a lot of people want. I understand that, but for more serious swimmers at certain times of the day, that's a possibility. There's a lunch counter at the end of it. There's a garden pavilion there that services the lawn, which frankly might end up in phase two, but could support special gatherings and family games on the lawn. As I mentioned, there's a pollinator gardens kind of both here and here where we also have some utility outbuildings with native plantings. uh and now i'm going to take us kind of right here to the entrance uh the entrance of the property um this is the uh this would be the facade and structure most visible to the street uh faces doherty drive uh it's this clock tower structure this is our solution for relocating and concealing the cellular equipment that's currently sprawled all across the roof of the existing building This is where you enter and sign in and register for activities, review schedules, and other shared information. There's a space here to have coffee and gather, also send texts and emails, but then hopefully leave your phones and your screens and other things behind here before going into the main grants. What's next? This is the west elevation of the tennis center. This is you would Probably not have a full view of this for Magnolia Drive, but you'd be looking in this direction for Magnolia. As I said, this is the main kind of gathering space. Dedicated places to watch tennis inside on the porches and patias. There's space inside for lounging and eating. And then I'll just say that this is the south elevation The architecture across all the structures is consistent. It's historic in scale. It's kind of unadorned and simple clobbered structures, historic windows and doors, true divided lights, it's hip roofs, cedar shake style, although they're really, they're fireproof, they're made of ceramic material. And then there's shutters and awnings to kind of accentuate the period feel. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Hewlett. I'll wrap up when he's done. But he'll take me through the more technical aspects of the design. He is the lead level architect on the job.

Hey everyone, as Mark mentioned, my name is Gilbert Jones, one of the lead architects on the architecture team. See if I can figure this out. As part of the planning exercise, we looked at before and after images from around the property. This is the corner of Magnolia and Doherty. Current day. This will obviously is the large roof, white roof. Some solar issues there. And then this is what we're proposing. Almost completely disappears as a whisper. The tennis courts are protected with green hedges. The structure just to the right of the main tree there that you can see is the clock tower. Clarksburg Plaza Drive at Doherty. This is the front face of what was the supermarket and what is now the Mountain Club. Designed quite to basically have signage adorned to catch your eye to get you into the shop. And as proposed, the parking remains a little bit taller edges at the periphery. And then again, primarily greenery is what you will see. This is at one of the driveways to the Larkspur Isles apartments. behind I learned for Plaza Drive. Currently, the building backs up almost to the actual street curve at certain points. That is the tennis clubhouse. And the goal hope there, as you can see, Mount Tam. We The shot to try to get an idea of what it would be like from the works for allows from one of the upper residences. This is a little taller, a little higher. This is what's there now. And as you can see, the building comes really close to the curve. And this is what that you would be after the fact. As for the most Further along the way. along Larkspur Plaza Drive. Thank you to whoever sent that. The existing structure and what we would be proposing. This is the walking path along Magnolia that takes you from the corner of Magnolia and Dougherty behind the Dennis facility and catches back up at the north end of Larkspur Plaza Drive. At current, this is what that view affords. And this is what we would be proposing there. These are the staff offices and physical therapy cottages. You can see the tennis club, one of the roofs in the background. I want to take a couple of minutes to walk through some of the more objective aspects of the site plan and the proposed buildings. As you saw in the aerial view, The existing property is dominated by a single large building. Our approach is fundamentally different. We've broken the program into a series of much smaller buildings and organized the site around the tennis courts, landscaping, and outdoor spaces. This is what we call a bigger ground diagram. Every building is shown in black. The site is pretty obvious there. It's rimmed by the red dashed line. The gray indicates impervious surfacing, whether it's parking, whether it's a tennis course. And then this is what we're proposing. So a removal and an organized around the course. To give you a sense, you're looking at 10,000 square feet of new buildings versus the original 50,000. This is an overlay, the existing facility in red. Rather than replacing the existing building with another large building, we're opening up the center of the property. And the impervious square footage goes from 143,000 square feet and change to 110,000 square feet and change. It's a 23% reduction. Um, that does include the clay course in that impervious, uh, count. We are in FEMA's 100 year floodplain, which is at 9.7 feet above sea level. Um, I was able to show in this diagram everything on our site and where we actually took spot elevations along Marksburg Placid Drive. So that everything that's blue basically indicates floodplain level. We are mandated to build above that, which is part of the reason why you hear about the amount of earthwork happening. We are also mandated, thankfully, to manage stormwater on the site. Stormwater management is calculated by the amount of impervious cover you have The water runoff diverts to what you see here, the green areas, the four green areas, and holds onto the water for a given period of time before dumping into the city system and the stormwater system. Right now, I do not believe there's any stormwater management on site. Briefly, talk a little bit about the building height. Shown in red here is the existing building. portions that are above what would be allowed today versus what we are proposing. And then briefly, as Mark mentioned, a huge driver of this was keeping things both historic in nature, but also at a scale that is affordable and to do so We're opting for a residential and scale project. The tennis club is about 3,500 square feet on the ground floor and about 1,800 square feet on the upper floor. That is a very large house, but it is still about residential and scale type five structure. So it's being built just like a house would be wood framed. We are not in a wooly zone. However, all the material will be wooly compliant, including the roof. And then the bulk event itself, again, one story in height. There's a cupola there to help manage with heat. And I believe, I'll hand it back to you, Mark.

Okay. I'll be really brief and we can move on. I was just gonna say that I came in here I I understood what I came in here and I understood what is germane and what isn't germane for the committee. But I also came in understanding that there's an enormous amount of discord about this project. And that's just That's troubling to me and for me because I took this on really because I thought it would be enjoyable and I took it on because I really wanted to do something good and positive. My very first call was to Dan Schwartz. I never met him before. Didn't know him, but I wanted to just understand before I did a single thing, before I spent a dollar. Is this something the area would want? Is this a positive thing? Because if it's not, I don't want to be a part of it. My hope for this hearing is that by the end of it, whether we're for or against or undecided, that we leave here, each of us, with a firm grasp of our floor and what it is precisely that we may think we are against. I think that's maybe the best we can do. To the extent of the conversation I know it's going to, it varies beyond the aesthetics and the town planning impacts. I just want us to keep in mind that the design's working really hard to offer downtown Larkspur an alternative destiny for this land. I think a reprieve from urban sprawl and concrete and densely packed buildings. I think it's an interesting juxtaposition because it is truly an alternate outlier future use case, and yet it relates back to a 50-year history. And I think that relationship should be a good thing. With that, I'll wrap up. Thanks for your consideration. All right.

All right. So this is an opportunity for the staff. So Natasha, do you want to start?

Yeah, I have some questions. I have a few questions, actually. So first of all, what was the impact of the flooding that happened in January on the existing site?

My understanding was there was no meaningful impact.

There was no meaningful impact. And then there's a lot of beautiful green. What is your intention if we have another drought and you can't water all those plants? Why is that?

I think we did do our best to manage as anyone would that owns a garden. You know, we have to comply, obviously, with restrictions. You know, we've obviously done the work and understanding what our water requirements are. And, you know, we've gone through that process and we've got our will serve letter.

Is that a question you decided to general manage on the same week? Question, the clay tennis courts do require quite a bit of water every day, right? I mean, granted, not as much a test expert as I assume you are, but it's likely hundreds to thousands of gallons a day, right? Is that also?

We have all that information, but all that work's been done. You can answer the question more accurately than I can.

Yeah, the system we're using is called CaliPlay. It is red in color. And it is natural. It is a system that, in speaking with all of the representatives and vendors, give us a format, give us a projection for water usage at this geographic location, given our weather and climate. We're at 500,000 gallons a year to maintain. I can answer other questions regarding the water. The existing facility used 2.4 million gallons of water a year, averaged over 23 and 24. We didn't go back further than that. Our projected usage is just under that, 2.37. We think a lot of that is due to the fact of a reduced building size, but we do have increased landscaping, obviously. And basically, everything here is going to be up to current environmental codes. So all of the plumbing facilities, everything.

Anyone else can jump in. I was curious what your plans were in winter. So outdoor tennis courts, outdoor swimming pool. What happens if it rains? Can people still play tennis on a play court? And what happens with the swimming pool? Are you going to keep it? Can people still swim in the winter?

Yeah, yeah. No, no. We will operate. I mean, I think we're really fortunate we live in California. Obviously, we have stretches where we can get a decent amount of rain. But Mount Tam is one of the reasons it's so appealing is it's very unique as an indoor course. There are lots and lots of clubs. You have tennis facilities around this area, and they're all outdoors. It's more the norm. They're all year-round. The nice thing about clay courts is that it drains and you can be back on the court very quickly after a rain. And that's not at all the case with a hard court. You've lost a day for the most part. So it's far better than a hard court experience, but it's not nearly as good as an indoor court experience when dealing with inclement weather. On the pool, we handle it just like any other outdoor facility with outdoor pool. Yes, I'm sure we'll heat it to some degree. And then we'll ask people to be hearty. Okay.

And on that, I'm just curious about your thought process on putting in a, it sounds like it's a three-lane pool. And I know there were a lot of questions from people about that.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, every single thing here went through the prism of how do we kind of make the right trade-offs around where we put the investment dollars so that we can keep the overall total cost in a realm that we think gives this place a chance to be viable, but also a chance to be accessible and affordable. And that's where we came out. We don't think we're going to appeal to serious lap pool swimmers who want that kind of facility, but we think we're gonna appeal to other people who want a family pool and maybe a smaller portion of lap pool swimmers. And that's kind of where we had to land given the trade-offs of where we're putting investments and how we're going to manage costs.

All right. Okay. Thank you. And you had a fitness building and a gym. And I'm just curious what the difference was between the fitness building, there was a PT building, And then I thought it was a family garden. So I'm curious what all those uses are.

Uh, no, there's just a, there's a, there's a fitness area in the studio. Um, not every specific thing about it has been worked out, but I would think about it more as like classes studio type fitness. It's not going to be a sprawling gym with a lot of different kinds of equipment. I think we might have a little bit of that. Um, yoga and Pilates and other kinds of classes for people. There is, we have a set of utility outbuildings in the one corner. A couple of those right now are earmarked for kind of like physical therapy, massage, that kind of thing. The reality is the approach that we've taken with a much smaller footprint and kind of a, A number of sort of small scale cottage like structures is we didn't really create a lot of space for infrastructure for for staff offices for. So those those buildings are primarily for that. And what's the family garden what's that exactly I don't know I don't remember saying that, but there's a validator there's a there's a lawn and where I think we. you know, it's just an open lawn right now. It is, um, it's kind of flexible use. It could be for, uh, events and gatherings. Um, and it could also be for like family games, lawn games and stuff like that.

And then, uh, I was curious what your kind of target like occupancy membership was. What are you, what are you trying to

target we don't we don't know for sure yet there's a lot of work to be done i won't go down that whole path but um you know it's i think we're my sense is we would end up kind of in the four or five hundred tennis memberships if we can appeal to that many people and get them there um and um And then beyond that, there can be different classes of memberships, different kinds of things, maybe social that gives you access to things other than tennis. So not all aspects of that sort of business plan have been ironed out because we have to work backwards a little bit from our investment levels to figure it out.

And then you intending to do events?

Nothing special, but I mean, this is what is that they will allow their spaces to be rented out for parties, for birthdays, for the barmesas, for weddings. So those things are possible. But I think one thing I want to underscore is that right now we're in the property phase of this development, this project and the planning. We're a very small, very small team. And when I say small, you're looking at 90% of the team right here. So I have a part-time helper and then I've got architects and other consultants that are helping, but you know, we have to get through this stage and then there's a whole bunch of other stuff as you can imagine that needs to happen. And then we can get to the point where we're, we're building out and growing the team that would run the business. And a lot of that work would go.

I don't know if you can answer this last question then, but I'll ask you anyways about food service. What are you thinking on food service? But I saw it as a snack bar.

Yeah, I think early on thinking is to be pretty modest in our ambitions to have a prep kitchen and to be able to do kind of very simple things there. It's not industrial strength. And then to possibly have a food truck. And then as we get our feet under us, we may get a little more ambitious around that. But we have to see. We've also thought about the busy corner there, Magnolia and Doherty, making that available to a restaurateur or some sort of other similar business that would be open to the public. And then they could end up sort of contracting with us and kind of white labeling food for the facility.

And I may come back with some questions about defense, high exception, but I don't want to hog the whole question here.

I understand it's still early in the process. Do you have an idea of figuring out the business liability membership level? I know this is not really the place to dig into it. I'm just kind of curious, like, Is that a before breaking ground or like an after construction is complete? When does it happen? Yeah.

Well, yeah, just to lay out the sequence. I mean, the first thing we have to know is when we get approved and what is it we're building. I think once we know that, all we have right now are schematics. We have to convert those schematic drawings into construction drawings. Those construction drawings then get priced and we have a better sense of what our cost of construction is. When we know that, we know how we're going to finance the project. And we have a better sense of what our cost capital is. When you put those things together, we've got a better sense of what our total cost is. And then we have to figure out how we're going to meet those costs and ultimately create a breakeven enterprise. And so what I can tell you is the intent. I can't really get into it because the last thing I want to do is say a number or say anything about that. And then I'll just, I know the only thing I know is I'd be wrong. But, you know, we want this, we don't want this to be a destination for the Uber rich and we're in not interested in that. I want to create a community institution. And, and we, you know, my sense is that we're going to need to be within the realm of what is market because we're going to have a lot of memberships. We got to sell to make this thing work. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah.

Yeah, just a really quick question, maybe it's for the architect.

How much higher are you making the land in there? Because that street floods in king tides for sure.

We are mandated by FEMA and by all because above the floodplain. So there's nothing anyone can do about that. Any building that goes there has to do that. We are bringing in 450 yards of soil as a surplus to what's there. If anyone doesn't know what a yard of soil looks like, it's a cubic yard is what it is. So take three feet and make a cube out of it. Only 450? 450 is the difference between what we're removing and what we're pushing in.

Does that answer? Yeah, no, I'm very aware of the water route on that strategy.

Yeah, the biggest net positive to any development, quite frankly, that happens here is that it has to comply with the new FEMA codes that also mandate the stormwater management. So anything that falls on the property has to be withheld on the property for a certain time. And it does not right now. Most places do not.

All right. All right. Now, the moment people have all been waiting for. Other comment? Thank you. All right. Thank you. So, again, let me set some ground rules. We're very specific. So could we please keep that in mind when we are making comments? Again, two minutes, ideally, because there's a lot of people here who might want to comment. Also remember with the review of our purpose for being here, it is not to litigate what this property is. We do not have that ability. And so I know that people have a lot of strong feelings about that, but keep in mind that Thank you. So would you like to speak first?

Sure.

All right. Come on up.

I've been itching. I want to apologize. No, no, no. Don't worry about it. Just identify yourself, where you live. Howard Ortman. I live in San Anselmo. I've been a tennis player in Marin County for 65 years. I just, you know, this is really a beautiful plan. It looks beautiful. And I really don't have a lot of problem with it, except for the fact that it's all clay courts. And I've talked to everybody at our club. Nobody's going to join. You need to have half hard courts, half clay courts. It's not a big change. Like those back three courts, there were three courts in a row. Those would be perfect to be covered. And I want to say covered. which is different than indoor courts. I've given you one of those and seen it, and you all have a copy of it. I think Ed, my last day of architect friend, told me that it's about $100,000 extra to do one court covered. And this would satisfy the needs of a lot of people who just can't play outdoors anymore. We're going to have super El Ninos. We're going to have a lot of rain, climate change, tides, you know, I've seen the current parking lot fill up during, you know, during hurricane times. So I don't know what you're planning there. But, you know, I've also talked to a lot of the tennis, I mean, excuse me, the swimming people and just adding one more lane, you know, it's not a big ask. We live in a world where we compromise. And I feel like this project has been kind of rammed down our throats. You know, it was just, it was a lot of, you know, it just came that one night in November or December and we were just kind of all like not knowing what to do, you know? And so here we are, you know, we're about to make this big decision and it's going to be this way. And, you know, and that, so those are my asks, you know, Wider pool. I don't have a problem with that. I don't get your imperviousness. Thank you. You got it.

Thank you for your comment, sir. All right. Next up.

Good evening. My name is Jill, and I'm a Larkspur resident who lives in Creekside, one of the neighborhoods closest to the club. In fact, it's literally in my backyard. I hear a pickleball quite often, and I like it. I want to be clear, I've never met the owners, nor am I a member of Mount Tam Rocket Club. I'm a member down at Harbor Point in Strawberry that has outdoor courts year-round, and we make it work, and we have outdoor swimming pools, which we also make work. But I also walk and drive and bike past this property multiple times a day, and it's obviously the facility needs significant investment. I'm in full support of this project, and here's why. The owners are committed to keeping this a club and community-oriented space, a place where people can gather, exercise, and build community. That matters. And while I understand that some of Mount Tam's members may be disappointed by a new vision, I don't think we should lose sight of what's actually being preserved here. Anyone who's walked or driven down Magnolia from the gas station to Perry's has noticed the vacancies that have accumulated over the past several years. In that context, someone willing to make a meaningful investment in our city deserves our support and not our obstacles. I've spoken with many of my Creekside neighbors and I can tell you support for this project exists throughout our neighborhood. This is a positive opportunity for Creekside and for Larkspur as a whole. I respectfully encourage the Planning Commission to support this project and move the process forward in a timely manner. Thank you.

Yes, sir. My name is Gary Brand, and my wife Joanne joined the club in 1997. Ms. Brand, where do you live? In Cordova, Derek. And we both remain current members. Mountian Bryant Club is a unique facility that offers indoor and outdoor tennis courts, as well as a wide range of programs that provide fitness and wellness activities to a wide range of age groups. There are five indoor tennis courts, eight outdoor tennis courts, swim lanes both in and outdoors, indoor workout rooms, basketball court, locker rooms and showers, yoga studio, kids playroom, and a large cafe. These allow members to be fully engaged and enjoy the sense of friendship and wellbeing. The proposed One Larkspur Plaza facility project would not come close to providing the size range of activities and benefits. Therefore, we wish that the Mount Ham Racquet Club facility be preserved to the fullest extent possible. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Brad O'Connell. My wife Leslie and I have been members of the institution formerly known as the Mount St. Black Rapid Club since pre-pandemic times. And you live, sir, where?

I live in Ross. I realize that this commission doesn't have the authority to redo the design to say change this, change that. But The reason this matter is before the commission now is the applicant is requesting multiple variances, a height variance, a variance to remove the heritage trees, et cetera.

I submit that in deciding whether to allow to exempt the applicant from the otherwise applicable rules, this commission And more specifically, each individual member of this commission needs to consider and reach their own judgment, is this project a net plus or a net minus to the community? And I submit that I'll go down to one sentence. As proposed, and even as acknowledged in the applicant's remarks, This, the contemplated project, will serve fewer people. It will have fewer or lesser facilities as to even the tennis courts, but especially as to swimming pools. And then there's the fact, only obliquely mentioned, it will be at much greater cost to those who remain.

In fact, we don't know exactly how much

That is, we are told, for example, that existing members will not be grandfathered in, or at least that's the belief, and there'll be an initiation fee, possibly in the five figures. All of those, I think, should inform the members of this commission, and if not, the members of the city council, in deciding that there is not good cause for the respective variances, because it will not be a benefit the community on that. I appreciate it.

Good evening. My name is Mark Matthews. I'm a resident of Larkspur. I haven't been around as long as the Wax Towns, but I know some of the Wax Towns. I've had the privilege of covering in my job commissions, city councils, all up and down California. And I have seen cities where property rights were paramount and there was nothing they could do to stop what the developer wanted to do. And I've seen in the town of Carmel recently when somebody bought up three lots on Scenic Drive and said, I plan to build this big house. And he was told, we're a village, why don't you take it up the road to Pebble Beach? That commission in in uh carmel very much like your commission you have more power than just to say ah they own the property let them do the thing and i would urge you to exercise that to find some compromise with all of the people in the community that also have a state in what this city is and you have a chance to preserve something or preserve part of it, or to work out a compromise. Dan, with the Piper Park thing, worked out a compromise between pickleballers and tennis players, and believe me, there is no more opposed to groups in a hatchet than, well, I just urge you to try and find some women.

Good evening, commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, neighbors. I'm John Cummings. I live on Bayview Avenue in Wilkes-Barre. I'd like to thank you, Mr. Harris, for a really thoughtful approach to what you're trying to do in our neighborhood. You're not directly a neighbor in Mill Valley, but you're a neighbor, and we appreciate it. I appreciate it. I think, commissioners, this project deserves the variances because they're trying to create something aesthetically pleasing, modern, and replacing something that is aesthetically obsolete and functionally obsolete. And more importantly, I think the, I'm not sure what exactly the compromises would actually look like, but my main concern is if this product is not approved. I'm concerned that the future of developers will not return to the city of Larkspur to propose any type of recreational facilities. They will not matter if the pool is two lanes, three lanes, or four lanes, there will be no leaves. They will not be concerned whether the courts are clay or hard court. There will be no courts. So I would encourage everyone here to really think about the alternatives that we're presented with. They're not perfect, but what's being presented is something beautiful. something that would revitalize a very important part of the neighborhood, particularly what it means for that north end of Magnolia Boulevard. So thank you very much. Thank you all for the spirit and conversation. We look forward to seeing many of you at environments like this to make our town better. Thank you, Terry.

Good evening. My name is Emily Howard. I live in Marksburg in Creekside, directly behind the property. I am appreciative that the owner has chosen this type of plan for the property. I appreciate the thought and care in architecture and design. I don't mind some of the exceptions that have been proposed as far as setbacks and such. I appreciate the greenery, and I appreciate that it will still be used for recreational use. I do ask that the committee move this forward for approval. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Tommy LaManna. I'm a Larkspur resident and also a commercial property owner in downtown Larkspur, including the Silver Peso. So I understand how passionate this community is about our local businesses. And I strongly support the One Larkspur Plaza application. I want to talk about what kind of town Larkspur is becoming. Marin Country Mart is, by any matter, a success, vibrant, well-designed, beautifully programmed, and beloved.

That's genuinely good for this city, but it's across the freeway cut off from our downtown.

The threat to downtown Larkspur isn't standing still. It's being passed over while investment goes elsewhere. Our historic core needs investment. It needs support. It needs attention. A high-quality design Sensitive redevelopment on this corner doesn't just replace one building. It sends a signal to the other property owners that Larkspur Plaza is open for serious investment by serious people. That's a catalyst this area has needed for a long time. It's also worth noting, as a few others have said, that what this proposal chose not to be, this parcel sat on the city's housing element list. The applicant could have pursued a large housing project on the slot, and it did not. They chose recreation instead. The alternative compliant with state housing law would be high-density residential development on a corridor whose infrastructure cannot absorb that kind of traffic. That restraint deserves more credit. This is a well-designed, code-compliant project that offers real benefits to our residents, our business owners, and our city as a whole. I urge your approval. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Good job, and please stand by the way.

Thank you. Hard to follow up the pace, I think. Yeah, I'm kidding. My name's Tom Beck. I've lived in Luxembourg for 15 years. I've been a member of the Mountain Racket Club for over 10 years. My family resides in the Creekside neighborhood, which is just behind the Mountain Racket Club. I've been on the Creekside HOA board for 13 years, and I'm the current president for the last four years. I don't care about tennis or swimming. To me, it's not about exactly... whether this new club will be for me or my family. We could possibly not continue as members as this club changes. And that is okay. We'll figure something out. The city of Larkspur is in bad shape. The Lucky Grocery Store property, the Nazari property, which is a train station. And this is just the private sector. Public sector is just as bad. I would like to thank Mark Harris and his group for all the work accomplished here. This proposed project is a positive for Larkspur and the Larkspur Planning Commission would be wise to accept it. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Carol Shrump. I live in the Meadowwood area. I've been a member of Mount Amarillo Racquet Club for over 20 years. I don't know exactly when we joined, but it's been a long time. It's been a wonderful facility for my family. I want to thank you all for your thoughtful attention to the various questions that this proposal offers. I think there's lots of different opinions about what should go into Larkspur Plaza. A club where the fees no longer cover the operating costs and is a money loser most likely can't continue. I understand the power of of economics, they are unfortunately not moving in the right direction here. Could the city perhaps acquire the club to continue roughly the current operation? Mill Valley owns a big recreation facility. Perhaps Largsburg could do something similar. The other thing is, I would like to ask whether Mr. Harris and his group is planning to continue the operation of Montana Racquet Club until construction begins, or are they going to just shut the place down, let it sit for a year or two, and then get started? I wonder whether that's a question they might be able to answer. Thank you.

We can answer that at the end. We'll just keep that as a question.

Okay, and I would be interested to hear whether the city might consider assuming the running of it.

I don't know if the city has that kind of money, but thank you for the thought.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

We bought Mount Pam. We were able to create open space and get funding to create the best open space here. And I know that to be true because I was the former chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee that spearheaded 100 families to make that happen. Just a comment. Now it's my time. I'm Maria O'Rourke. I live at 30 Palm Avenue. I'm a member of the tennis club. And we have been in this town since the 70s. I would argue three points. First of all, I reject the idea that, well, A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I think that's a fear tactic and I don't like it. Secondly, I think you do have the power to do things differently if you choose to do that. Thirdly, I would respectfully, as I work with Alex, he's a really good guy, the idea that the general plan is not operating here. And that's what I would like to speak to. My concern is not limited to the five issues that are being raised. I'm asking the commission to consider the project as a whole and the cumulative effect in terms of the community gain and losses as a result of this development. The general plan represents Larkspur's vision for the future of a community. It's not simply about how a building looks or how a property is developed. It also addresses the quality of life of its residents, community facilities, recreation, and the needs of the people who live here. The existing club provides important community service functions, including year-round recreational activity, exercise opportunities, health-related programs, a gym, an exercise room, and a rehabilitation . I'm 83, and I know there are people that are my age in here. These resources serve across generations. They provide opportunities for physical activity, health, social connection, and community engagement. My concern is that the proposed project will eliminate or substantially change these existing community serving functions without demonstrating comparable replacement facilities or program. So the question I raised to the commission is, does one Larkspur Plaza as proposed, advance the general plans vision for a healthy, connected, multi-use and intergenerational community, or does it eliminate and port to community services without adequately replacing them? The question is, if the applicant isn't going to do it, will the city? These services are not poo-poo. These are real services that have, whether they're in Mount Amaranta Club or they're through the city, these are essential services to keep this intergenerational community alive. It isn't for those people who are only the ones who not only can't afford very much on fixed incomes, but also the notion that I don't know about you, but I'm a property owner and I have never, ever done anything with my property that has not had some sort of a city comment or question or why are you doing this and why are you doing that? So the idea that the commission cannot ask these kinds of questions about the fullness of the scope of this project and how it fits with the general plan, I would ask that we find a forum, that we find somewhere that we can really understand why people think this is consistent with the general plan. And I would argue it's not. I have some documents that I would be happy to leave. with Maria so that you could look at them at a future time. And I would like everything that I've presented and what I'm saying now in the record.

That's great.

Thank you very much. Hi, I'm Allie Fleming and I live in Green Bay. And this meeting's been really interesting.

I really appreciate the perspective of helping Larkspur grow and

Um, the sadness of having this big empty lots, um, the luckies, et cetera. Um, I'm very biased cause I'm a swimmer and the uniqueness of an indoor lap pool in Marin or even in the county is. It's unique. You just don't get that. And I'm fascinated that there are a number of tennis clubs in the area and some have an outdoor pool, but the thinking that now we're going to net, you know, that it's so hard to run the mountain racket club or it was losing money, et cetera. it obviously needed an upgrade, but then we're going to put in a tennis only club in this, in this space and that it's going to be making it more inclusive. And it's, I just, that's what I don't understand. I think you could have the best of both worlds by continuing to cater to the swimming community because there is this, you know, it's not the rehabilitation, but just an indoor lap pool is so unique and so valuable. And so I just hope, I just, that's the part that I really want to That's really concerning to me. And also, but again, the whole perspective of having March for Grow, I really see, but I also don't see this vision of the new tennis club as lovely as it is with pollinators. Why it couldn't be the best of both worlds to also include, obviously, the swimming aspect of it. And if the clay courts make it unique, fantastic. But what really makes it unique, I think, is the indoor facility. So just wanted to say that.

Hello, my name is Phil Burke. I live in Marksburg. And I just want to say I thought that the buildings and the grounds look very beautiful and the architecture looks nice. And I do want this new business, it seems to be more or less a bit complete. I do want it to be successful. But my concern is that when I go to that gym, I see the weight room being heavily used. I see the pool being heavily used, the indoor tennis being heavily used. I don't see the outdoor tennis as much being used. And I'm concerned that maybe it doesn't seem like a good business proposition to ignore what the customers are actually using and to build something that apparently people don't really want. I personally use the weight room every day. It keeps me healthy and retired. I live within two blocks. I just walk there and it's a wonderful resource. And I understand there's no legal application to care what the community needs. But I would just request the owner to seriously consider what the community is currently using the facility for, what the community is expressing as what they want to use and pay for, and that the business would be successful if maybe there's a bigger weight room, more lanes in the pool, and some of the things that the community are requesting. And I think that that would help the business be more successful be more accepted by the community. We want to have more customers. All right. Hello.

My name is Debbie Horowitz, and I've been living right directly behind the map to American Club on Oxford Plaza Drive since the early 80s. And I'm so grateful that there's not going to be a low-income housing element there in that building. That's the main thing. So... The thing I'm worried about is these beautiful six heritage trees. Is that the ones on Mongolia, the redwoods that they're saying they want to take out? Because, no, they're beautiful, low-growth redwoods.

It's on the plan. I don't think... There's six trees, but I don't think they're all low-growth redwoods. Do you want to spend time? We can talk about it at the end. We'll talk about it at the end.

I want those six beautiful redwoods, old growth redwoods to be removed. They've already taken out seven trees in the back there that were very old, beautiful trees. And I'm surprised they provided shade for the Babcock Denskort. And I don't know if you guys thought about it, but when I moved there to those condos, there was this family winery. had all that land in the front. And they spent years landfilling it properly. Larkspur Isle was not properly landfilled by the city of Larkspur in the early 70s. So when they tear it down, the club, are they going to do any landfilling? And also on the street there, there's a lot of water problems. It's always flooding. So have you thought about that? Can you speak on that for a moment?

After the public summit, we can talk about it.

So has it brought up? Yes. Okay. And how long do you think, since I'm going to be directly affected, how long do you think it's going to take for the building? Because I'm going to get all the dust in here.

I can't answer the question right now. Okay.

Hello, I'm Edward Tishburn and I live in Marksburg and I'm a member of the Marin Tennis Club and athletic club there for a number of years. And I have a few comments that maybe the planning commission might want to ask the applicant. One, USTA is an organization that promotes tennis and health and fitness, and they have hard court requirements. And currently there's all a wide spectrum of tennis players at the club. that play USTA, both male and female. So I think the club, as it's proposed, is very beautiful, but it definitely is going to be a more targeted market compared to what's there now based on the facilities. So I'd like you to ask the applicant if he might have an interest in making a few of those courts hard courts so that the USTA can continue with age group people and that if it's financially feasible in his business plan or when he gets the thing up and running, if he might be able to cover two or three of the courts for sun protection, health, safety, the kids and the old people that are playing under that. It's a rare, special thing that we have a precedent where we already have covered the courts. It wouldn't have to be a structural building. It could just be something more moderate, a framework, and there's ways to cover it that should be less expensive than a full climate controlled building, but just to stop a fair amount of the rain and the sun. And also, this is just a comment to the project that you could ask applicant if it's successful, Um, it seems like he could get more memberships by having one more lane and partially covering that pool for sun protection. Um, and, uh, other than that, you know, it'd be nice to also have a week room at that. It would be economically feasible, but, you know, it's just as beautiful as a, uh, clay court facility. So that's, those are my comments. Thank you, sir.

Good evening, uh, chair members of the planning commission. and all present here. My name is Gabriel Patino. I'm a long-time member of Mountain Rocket Club. I'm here tonight to express my strong support for the petition you have received and to ask you not to approve the proposed redevelopment in its current form. I want to begin by saying that I understand and I sympathize with the new owner, Mr. Harris. He has a vision for the property and I respect his right to pursue a project that reflects that vision. In fact, I have spoken with him personally on several occasions. I've tried to persuade him to find a way to preserve the indoor fence courts because I believe they are irreplaceable community resource. I even offered to purchase the property myself specifically so that the existing indoor courts and the plot could be preserved. Unfortunately, He's not interested in selling and made it clear that he intends to proceed with his plans. I'm a cosmetic surgeon. I love beauty and I love what he's doing. It is really beautiful, but I have to even oppose my own sentiments because of this plan. So I am here tonight because I oppose, not because I oppose the owner personally, I'm here because I believe the community has something at stake that is much larger than one property transaction. Mountain Rocket Club serves roughly 1,000 people from throughout Southern Marine. It is not simply a tennis club. It is a place where children learn to swim and play tennis, where families exercise together, where seniors remain active, and where people of different ages and backgrounds have a place to meet and build community. Most importantly, the indoor tennis courts are unique. They are the only tennis courts in this region. They're particularly important to older players and to people who need to limit sun exposure. Once those courts are demolished, we cannot simply assume that they will be replaced somewhere else. Land is scarce, construction is extraordinarily expensive, and an opportunity like this may never come again. The proposed project would replace this broad year-round recreational resource with a much narrower facility centered on outdoor clay courts. Whatever its merits as a private club, it is not an equivalent recreational use for the community. And that is the issue I ask you to consider. This commission has a responsibility to look beyond whether a project is attractive or well designed. You must consider its impact on the general welfare of the community before something as consequential and irreversible as demolishing five indoor tennis courts is approved.

Thank you.

Hi. Well, that's a hard act to follow. I'm Wendy. I live in Corte Madera, and I play tennis. I'm at that club five to six times a week. My biggest thing here is, at the cost of being redundant, is really for Mr. Harris. From day one, we exchanged views last December. You have this vision, and it's a beautiful vision. There's absolutely no question about that. However, it's your vision. And I feel it's a very micro-focused vision of what you want, what you see, your friends, your family, and other elitists, even though you say it's not. I don't feel it serves the community at all. And as we all know, as a private investor, you can do with it what you want. That being said, you're still going to need membership. And I still don't like that you have refused to compromise, Mr. Harris. I understand all the negatives that you gave us last December. However, what is wrong with compromising? Tennis players want the inside court. You don't want to do it. Too expensive, etc. I'm going to respect that. What's wrong with doing half hard courts there, half play courts there, and get a tent-like structure to put over a few of the courts? That's a compromise. That would be good for the community. And perhaps you would gain some of the present members that Mount Tam now has. Because let's face it, if you only get 100 people from Mount Tam, you're going to need a lot more people who's going to join. And of the many people that I've spoken to, I haven't found one yet that is willing to partake in your vision. I say it again. I think a lot is being taken away and very little is given back to us.

Thank you. My name is Carol Duke. I've been a member of Mount Tam for more than 20 years. I've lived in Larkspur for many, many years. My name is Carol Duke. I've been a member of Mount Tam for more than 20 years. I've lived in Larkspur and the community for more than 40 years. And as a member, I don't want to say things that other people have said, but they've said it very, very well. This replacement project, beautiful as it is, I don't think it belongs in Larkspur replacing what is going to be replaced. I am an elderly person. I swim in the pool. I see many, many people here that I swim with at night. It's open until 10 at night. It's close to my house. There is nothing that replaces it. I know you have limited ways to say this will be acceptable or not. But I think that, as other people have said, you do have some responsibility, overall responsibility, to the community. And there is nothing like Mount Jam. Maybe it needs replacement in many, many ways, architecturally, whatever. I love architecture. Architecture does not replace the community of what we've built there. And we're upset that Mark has never listened to us and the requests that we've had. There's no indoor swimming pool. There's no indoor tennis. It's not in any way asking what we wanted. It's just his vision. I don't even know why he doesn't put this vision in another city. Why here? Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Galen Archibald. I live in Mill Valley. I've lived there for about 20 years up and over Camino Alto.

And I really appreciate the dialogue tonight and specifically the perspectives from different generations.

I'm speaking in support of the project and I'm speaking as a former member of the club from about 2011 to 2014.

As one of the previous speakers mentioned, my daughters learned to swim at the club in a small outdoor pool. The reason ultimately we left the club is because of a lack of opportunities for outdoor exercise. So for us, it was really important for our kids to be able to have a bigger pool and workspace around their pool.

And I think that this vision for this project affords those features consideration, and I'm here to support the project.

Thank you. All right. Hi, good evening. My name is Amory Sharp. I live in Puerto Madera, and I've been a member of the club, my family and I, for about five years. And I have spoken, because I do play tennis there regularly, I have spoken with a number of other members of the club, and what I'm hearing is basically a general suspicion about what the new club is going to look like, and perhaps more accurately, I could say that that the concern that I'm hearing from other members is that, frankly, that we're going to be priced out of the new club and that the cost is going to eventually, and maybe perhaps will have to be, based on these beautiful designs, that it's going to be exactly what Mr. Harris says, that it's not intended to be, and that's the club for the uber-rich here in Marin. And I do just want to address one thing he said. For all the talk about his financial planning on the club and the great investment he is making, he and his partners and how the club needs to be profitable. I can certainly understand that. It does seem disingenuous or at least evasive when he says he can't really speak to membership fees yet or initiation fees. That's almost an afterthought after everything is done. I do have the opinion that perhaps he could address that this evening, talk a little bit more about what the parameters of membership fees are going to be. Perhaps the opposition would go down. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Hi, good evening. I'm Mary Beth Sharp. I live in Cordova, and that was my husband. So I actually don't use the club for tennis. I submitted a public comment regarding the other community benefits, and I won't reiterate what those benefits are. But some that I wanted to highlight include the fitness classes for people with disabilities and limitations, for example, the Parkinson's class. There are self-defense classes. There is lifeguard instruction. So many of our young people, including our son, have been able to gain those lifeguarding skills and certifications. There are community events open to the public. I understand there may be some limitations as to whether you can expect a return of community benefits for some of the variances that are being requested. I really urge you to think about the broad benefit and there are ways for the owner to or the city to maintain some of the benefits that will be lost in this project. Thank you. Thank you.

The former speaker just took the words out of my mouth. I live in the valley. We've been members of this club for more than six years. And my husband and I left San Francisco area facilities. because he got tired of being frozen out of Golden Gate Park and the outdoor courts. And I got tired of commuting to the city to find an indoor pool. I want to talk about disabilities. Only one person has mentioned it. It must be somewhere in your planning that you look after people that have disabilities. I myself have recovered in this club from brain surgery. I highly recommended it. to people I've known who've had strokes. I've worked with them in the pool. I attend the Parkinson's class. It is by far the best exercise class I've ever been to for the Parkinson's or not. Somewhere in your plan, you have to look out for seniors and for people with disabilities. In my swimming classes, I swim four, three, four days a week, plus three on my own. And when I say swim, I can't swim anymore because of my joints, but I can run and I can use that indoor pool. And in my swimming class, I'll be 80 in a couple of weeks. I'm probably one of the youngest in there. So we have seniors, we have disabled people, all of us are going to be displaced. And I really need you to look twice at the goals of a community where the people say, not in my backyard, do I want a lot of traffic? Do I want these very weird people in my parking lot? But we need to go somewhere. We need to have the facilities where we can go. Thank you.

Can you identify yourself?

My name is Vivian Holley. I live in Mount Valley. Thank you very much.

Thanks, everybody, for the incredible comments and thanks Harry Clark and the team for all the work that they've been doing. My name is Pablo Woodacre. I grew up playing in the club and was offered a membership to the club because I became the best player in this area as a kid. And I also grew up playing with Brad Gilbert at the club. Brad Gilbert is a former top five professional tennis player and now is a commentator on ESPN for a lot of things. He also owns a store Brad Gilbert Tennis Nation. But anyway, Brad and I spoke about the project and we wanted to go on record in support of the project because we understand how hard it is to run a club these days. And most of the clubs in this area are nonprofits because of that. But I wanted to read this. My name is Brad Gilbert. I've lived in this area for many years. I still have skin in the game here. I own an operated business in Greenbridge. I've also spent my entire adult life as a professional tennis player and commentator and coach. So when a project lands at the intersection of this community and this sport, I pay attention. I wanted a way in, even from a distance. It's my view that the preserving of a site that has served tennis and swimming for over 50 years rather than Washington become another shopping center is worth celebrating on its own. More courts, more people playing, more kids outside moving their bodies. I'm all for that. But I wanted to make a specific point about the clay courts because this is something that I've been vocal about for many, many years. Clay is not just a better thing for the body and for tennis players just to move on. It's far better for developing young tennis players and having more fun as an older tennis player. California produces world-class tennis players, but we do it despite the services, and all of them are hard, pretty much. So clay teaches patience, strategy, point construction, endurance, and a lot of other skills. Young players who never learn, but they get to play on the clay, they just develop so much more. One clay court facility in Marin won't fix that and won't make a huge impact, but he supports it and I support it as well. So thank you for all of your time. Thanks everybody. Thank you, sir.

I'm Neal Connolly and I live in Markster. I do not like the 12-foot wall. And I hope you will consider that, doing something or restricting in that. The heritage trees, they are at the entrance to the walkway along the water. They make it absolutely beautiful. We do not want those trees cut. Also, there's one right here, the intersection, which is absolutely beautiful. It looks like the new... owners will not be offering community services that will affect the most of the people here. And if they can do that, if you can somehow get that incorporated, I think everyone can agree that that would be very important. The other question is, if this new club fails, which everyone seems, a lot of people have commented that it might, would there be restrictions then on what could go in at that point? Or would then these developers have complete control over what goes in, except maybe a brief redo by the committee. So thank you.

Well, we can discuss that afterwards.

Hello, my name is Tom Chauncey. My wife, Linda, and I live across the street on Magnolia Avenue from the club. Just having general questions about uh the my understanding is the zoning is a commercial recreational facility i'd like to get a little more clarity on what the parameters of that exactly is and what the limitations are with that uh specifically i'd also like to know what the maximum capacity It was mentioned that the lawn, for example, might work well for weddings and private parties. I'm wondering if that could also include concerts or public gatherings. I'd just like to get a better understanding of what those restrictions and parameters could be. And then lastly, because there's a restaurant facility with a deck above it, I'm wondering if that also will have hours that are Defined by the commercial recreational facility which I currently believe is 10pm I'm wondering what the hours of operation might look like. Not necessarily for the tenants, but for the. services bar etc that might take place on the roof thanks for your inspiration and time, thank you.

Good evening, my name is. And that's where. two weeks ago, mostly because I've spent so much time at Mount Ham that I have been one of the first Mount Ham members. As a matter of fact, I drove one of those tractors when they leveled out the drugstore to build the Mount Ham Rapid Club. And I have not played tennis all this long, but I've been part of Mount Ham. I've played tennis for maybe 35 years now. People call it Piper Park. But I swim, and I love the pool, and I love the classes, like the Pilates class, the HIIT class, and I hope that will continue. Not really that crazy about clay courts. I don't think it'll be that popular. They have a point, just one clay court, and it's hardly ever used. They might reconsider that, keep the swimming lanes and keep and from the hot foot. Thank you. All right.

My name is Bill Terry. I've been at Heather Gardens for 60 years. A couple of things I thought was one of the best presentations I've ever heard. The guy's super intelligent. He's balancing a lot of laws, economic failure, the loss of property. the business there is failing and they're moving away. So what do you think the future is going to bring? I don't fear the future, I embrace it. I'm happy to see somebody come in and have something different. It may not be what everybody wants, and I see that. Obviously, if you would consider putting in a wind pool and a couple of hard cores, whatever they are, but I have used that hot tub and I love it. I just think we shouldn't care. What we should do is get behind this and make it happen, make it work. I have seen towns die because they don't change. You have seen, for your own self, the lucky store go, and they refuse to let somebody else come in there. We have somebody who's given a lot of time and thought and money to make something happen in a larger way that he thinks is good. We don't all agree with that. We're not ever going to agree with everything. But let's work with them to make sure that we get something that we can be proud of. Good luck. Thank you, sir.

Hi, I'm Dan Glipsner. I've been in the large sport. I've been at Mount Tam over 30 years. I play in the indoor courts at least four times a week. You'd think I'd get better, but I haven't. But I still like the indoor courts. And I know it's changed as hard and, you know, everything people said so well, what the issues are and what we wish might be there for our own personal, you know, habits and things. But I just, I agree with the last speaker. It's just embrace someone who has vision to do something that, you know, there's a lot of compromise that it takes to do something like this. And it's his vision and great projects happen when someone has a vision and you kind of it's hard to please everyone. So I just am in support of it. And I think if everyone, if there's this much demand for what we lose, then maybe that's the start of going to the Lucky Supermarket area or some other place and build a community center that the town needs. But we haven't so far. And, you know, if that was possible, maybe that's what we need to do as a town to replace what the lost facility did.

All right, any other comments? All right, great. Then we're going to close the public comment section. I'll bring it back. We actually have online comments. I'm sorry. I forgot about Zoom. I can't forget about Zoom. It's all right. Go ahead. Let's hear some online comments. Again, remember, two minutes applies to online comments as well. And again, if it's been said by someone else, consider shortening your comments.

James Holmes, Larkspur. I recall when this building originally opened in the early 60s. It was called Value World, and one half was a full-dress supermarket, and the other half was a combination hardware store, pet store, toy store, and general variety store. Ironically, it was exactly what we need now, considering so many such stores have closed around here. Nevertheless, now we're very lucky not to be getting a four-story, 50-foot-high apartment block, and that's something to consider. The project is reasonably attractive and probably does meet the design review standards. However, it is debatable whether the proposal advances the general plan land use goals listed on page 10 of the report. LU4, protect the integrity and cohesiveness of existing commercial industrial areas. LU5 economically viable and vital commercial and industrial areas, and especially LU6 commercial area that provides an adequate mix of neighborhood servicing businesses. It is debatable whether such a much narrower and more restrictive scope of use as is proposed, presumably oriented toward a much narrower clientele, promotes the general plan land use goals the way the current use does. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Holmes.

All right, next.

That's it. Oh, great. Thank you very much. Well, there you go. All right. All right, then we will bring it back to the Planning Commission. Natasha, would you want to?

Well, do we close the public comment if we're going to, no, wait, I have a question. If we're going to address some of the questions that came up tonight, I think we're going to try and, because they were like, I wrote down three, four, five states.

Given the amount of people in the room, having a dialogue is not the most effective way to run a meeting. So if you're going to close the public comment period, that means we wouldn't allow anyone to come back to comment from this point forward. So that's at the discretion of the chair.

What about Mr. Harris, an applicant?

Mr. Harris, you certainly can have him come back. We also didn't allow him the time for the rebuttal, and this will be the time for the rebuttal.

So I think that's actually what we should do. Why don't we bring Mr. Harris back, and he can answer some of the questions that were raised. And a couple of things that I want to make sure that we do discuss, because there were several comments about was one fence site exception. To the heritage tree issue and three about a potential alternatives at this project doesn't happen.

As well, so maybe we start with the trees, you want to. I know you touched upon this, but you want to clarify what somebody asked about what trees are being a couple of people about what trees are being removed. There was six trees that we saw on the plans. And if you just don't mind clarifying it again.

I'm going to be perfectly honest and say I don't know which exact trees unless I see the plan.

Just for reference, the plans are in the back of the room for the public to review. So if they want to pull the sheet up, they can do so in any of the binders or the roll of plans in the back of the room. So if the public has questions, there's a copy of the staff report in the back. We can also download it from the QR code that's on the wall. So those are sources where you can get answers to your questions. Yes, just to point that out in addition. All right, we'll bring up the exhibit right now.

So go ahead and pull up the heritage tree removal plan.

Is that...

Yeah, the table is probably going to be helpful. So the ones at the northern end, which were three, four, and five, I believe? Yes. So you can see there that basically the reasons for removal. There are two that are being removed because of area construction. The Monterey Pine and the Eucalyptus are are known fire hazards that basically all fire departments if you're doing anything they ask you to remove um i would need to check on the coast redwood number eight which is at the corner there hey james

You know, do you have to know what the diameter of their clothes. It says 83 inches and that's still be measured it the base or two feet above the base. That's the base. Video. Okay. particularly fond of its redwood trees. And is there been any discussion or consideration of mitigation and being able to keep that particular tree? What building is going to be getting in the way of that tree?

I would need to actually check and see what the reasoning is for that one.

Yeah. We're putting back 44 trees, many of which will be mature at the time of planting. And are any of those going to be redwoods or oaks or madrones?

I don't believe any of them are redwoods.

I think there are definitely hardwood species in the mix. I saw some palm trees on the plant.

Was that some ideas for putting some palm trees? Yeah.

I wanted to answer the lady's question about, she said there were six redwood trees coming out. So it sounds like there are not six redwood trees coming out. Only one is coming out, which we're discussing now.

Three, four, and five are definitely going to affect me. Okay, but you know what?

We can't open public comment. I'm sorry. But I'm just trying to address your question.

So you do know three, four, and five have been looked at by an arborist and told us that At least two of them have poor form and are likely to fall. The other one is a fire hazard.

Are you going to put something else in there?

We are putting 44 trees throughout the entire property. Yeah, I mean.

I'm just it's just a topic that we should be going back to this stuff.

OK, yeah, that's fast. You know, somebody asked a question about events, but I felt that you'd already addressed that, unless you had anything to add to what?

I don't remember the question.

Oh, I had asked you actually, are you going to do an event? And I think somebody else also said, are you going to do any events? How many people are you going to have at these events? But do you want to add anything to what you said earlier?

I don't have anything to add.

Okay. And then somebody asked about the construction time. I saw in the plans, is it 18 months? But if you want to elaborate.

I don't think we know for sure yet, because again, we don't know what's approved. We don't know what's being built. We haven't had a formal, until then we can't get a formal pricing exercise done, but I think 18 months is a pretty safe estimate. Love it if it could be quicker. I think it's possible. Okay.

I have a question about how long do you anticipate Mount Tamarack, as an entity, of staying open?

Yeah, thank you for that. I meant to make that clear. We've made it available to be open for the past three and a bit years, and our plan is to make it available all the way up until the last minute, where it's no longer possible to do that.

anticipation of when that's going to be?

Well, it would be, it would basically be a function of when we're ready to break ground.

Okay, got it. So your plan is to maintain it in its form until that point where you're starting construction? Exactly.

Is it possible for you to point out where the, what is it, 20 foot high edges are? Well, I'm trying to get out of the door here. And also, I think there were six foot. I think in some parts.

I can answer a general assessment of artists have been more offensive properties to see there. The 12th. Sorry. The 12th is protecting the course. The part that pops out and is not 12 feet. I think that's the six foot five. This says 8 1⁄2.

8 1⁄2.

It might be easier for me to read this if you thank me. And how far are they from the property line? I mean, one I can see is right on the property line.

Yeah, the property line is the one you see that's the double dash, long dash.

And why do they need to be that tall? Dennis Wells. Okay. Yes, it's better than that. All right. All right.

Any other questions? Dr. Can we call it a swimming pool?

You know, actually, to address that comment, I don't know if you were here at the beginning of the meeting, but I did ask, can we as a commission make a requirement to, I guess, dictate what the applicant to do in terms of what kind of tennis court? what kind of swim club and I think staff will advise this. I can ask the question again. It's like, can we do that? Can we require the applicant to put in a certain, put in hard courts? We keep hearing this from the community, yeah, the membership.

So I'm going to repeat what I said earlier, which is that the operating characteristics and the amenities offered on private property are not in the purview of the Planning Commission.

Right. And then so I was actually confused on flooding. And I asked you earlier, was this the worst flooding I've seen since I've lived in Luxor is was this January, when my home was flooded? My neighborhood was running, but it sounds like you said there was no flooding at the club. However, I heard from other members and from the other commission that there was some flooding. So I was just wondering how...

I was out of town at the time, but I called the current owner and operator of the Mount Jam record club, and he said it was bone dry. And I talked to others, and they said it was totally dry. I don't know. I wasn't here. You're planning for that.

And that's the ranking ties. Yes, that is a lot of our do the cutter.

Yeah. Yep. Oh, somebody raised the question about is this project consistent with the general plan? Because if it's not, we should discuss it and reference it. But we need to rely on staff's opinion and then the other union on that.

Yes, so just to start at the beginning, it's land use designation is downtown commercial. If you read the description of that, it refers to the land uses that are allowed in a neighborhood commercial, which again would meet the operating characteristics of this use. As I've said earlier, it has been and is a commercial recreation facility that is not changing. So there's no reason for staff to believe that it would not comply with the general plan.

And then a few people brought up the existing classes that they offer and can we require or suggest or recommend that current ownership offer something similar to the elderly community or disabled community in fact. So an ADA requirement is not a thing.

You can certainly express your wishes as a commission, but you cannot base your decision in whether or not the club will offer these classes.

And do you want to, somebody else, what happens if this business fails?

I mean, I think I addressed that in the earlier part of it. Again, this land is part of the Larkspur housing element and should a disventure of Mr. Harris's and his investors fail, stopping a developer from coming in and building a multi-story high-density housing there. In fact, that is probably what is likely going to happen if this venture fails because of the need for the Marksville housing element and the fact that it is zoned and a group for that. As I said, it's lucky that we did in fact have a housing element because absent that, communities have had to face what's called builder's remedy where developers can come in and bypass all local zoning and development rules and do whatever they want. And so I just, you know, that is probably the most likely scenario should this venture fail.

All right. Very good. So, yes. I have two questions that weren't answered.

One was in respect to hours of operation. And then the second one was with respect to the definition of commercial recreational facility in relation to doing a stance. Does a commercial recreational facility have the ability and right to do public events or not?

That's my joke. I'll defer that to the city. If you would just repeat the question. The gentleman asks whether or not the recreational, I'm going to reword your question, is whether the designation as a recreational facility have limitations and rules regarding... Hold on a second. And whether or not it can repeat.

Yes, it's a large scale event take place on the property. And would that still fall within the commercial recreational usage?

Definitely. So I'll just get here. The city has a temporary use permit, which would be something that an owner would have to apply for the whole very large events on this property. So that would require Another one, you know, another discretionary approval. It's not a, it's not like boy kids do whatever you like until two in the morning type of land use designation. Is there a capacity restriction on site now? I couldn't speak to the capacity of the interior. That would be something for the fire department.

We only put a capacity on the fire capacity of a structure, just like the sign right behind where you're sitting for the outdoor area. You know, the event lawn is only so big, so you're not going to have, you know, that many people on it, but there is no firm cap, you know, per se in the code. It's really a matter of common sense for the app.

Can I just make one comment?

That's what the chair is.

Is it okay?

Yes, ma'am. Go ahead.

Sorry. Yeah. My regarding the pair of training eucalyptus. I've asked the tennis court in the past for many times to trim it. No one's trimmed it for decades. And they told me that that's not our property. There's a park back there in that triangle. That's a separate property owner. And there's young redwoods that have bought the last tennis court in the back. Is he going to take those out? Those younger ones? But can you address the property line? Because there's a separate property owner in that triangle in the back there.

I don't understand your question.

I can address this. There are trees that we are removing that are off property. We are doing so at the request of the fire department. So the eucalyptus is a fire hazard tree, and we are being asked to remove it, even though it is not on our property. This happens quite a bit.

You know it's not on your property. Yes. And the carrot is not on your property. Yes. So you know that. How about the, to how much building are you going to do that's not, where's your property? Because it's a property, owner owns that property. I completely understand. Have you asked the owner?

I can tell you right now, most owners do not like to be forced to do things that are not on their properties. which includes upgrading sidewalks, it includes upgrading parking skirts, it includes a lot of things that the city gets in return for projects like this. So the fire department sees this as a plus that we are removing the fire hazard from the tree stock over there. And the same could be said for the Monterey Park.

So you've been in contact with that owner that owns that area?

I'm just going to get you. I got to say this. You can have that side conversation as we go. Or what it is, what it is, or if there is an application that will fall on a project that would require them to get a project. We're done with public comment. Thanks. You can, again, you can have a side comment after, but we're done with public comment. All right. So let's, any other questions for the applicants?

I didn't. Do you want me to clarify any of the things that came up? Like, for instance? There was a few comments made about how this was going to be for a smaller, narrower population and a smaller group of members. I think there are a lot of things we don't know yet about where this will land, but the one number that I threw out was the number of possible tennis members. And it's the only reason I can know a little bit about where that caps out is there is a, there is a constraint of how many members you can have. I think it's on, but there's a, there is a constraint about how many members you can have based on how many courts you have. And that's why I was able to, than the number of current tennis members of the club today. And then there would be other classes of members. So I don't want people to walk away with the feeling that this is narrower for a smaller group of people. That's not it. And obviously, I made the point that it is meant to be multigenerational in its orientation. I won't comment on the other things.

Great. All right. Thank you very much. Sir, go ahead. If it's short, you're good. Make a quick comment.

Yes, Steve. They had two playing courts over at the Lagunitas Country Club. For five years, nobody played on them. They finally tore them up and put hard courts back in. Okay. I think his business model is... Again, that's a conversation you can have with them.

It's not really the purview of the community to determine what kind of courts that are going to go in there. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you much, Mr. Harris. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. So let's bring it back to the commission now. So let us start the right. And please feel free to comment.

There's me. I know. I'm in the spot. Yeah, I mean, again, I appreciate everyone coming out. It seems like we've lost a couple people after they said their piece, which I misunderstand. I'll say it a little bit later. and kind of still processing some of the concerns. I am a little bit concerned about the alignment of the city general plan, but I understand that we're saying that.

Yeah, the use remains the same. I think we're kind of almost missing the forest for the trees when we're talking about the amenities offered.

Let's say the amenities offered more. As I read the language, it's the of integrity and cohesiveness of the commercial areas. And if we do fundamentally change the number of people visiting those areas, that would be outside of the purview of the Planning Commission to even think about, or is that something that's valid to fold in?

I think our position is that we're blurring the lines between discussing amenities and operating principles as a reason to say that this does not conform to the general plan.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have an entire page of 10 in the staff report that explains why the project is consistent with the general plan. So I think it's, it's, we have not seen any statements to indicate otherwise. It is, we, staff finds it to be compliant with the general plan. There's no aspect of this project that deviates from it. It's an existing facility. It's, it's a land use that's allowed. So, I mean, there's no, nothing more to be said. Great. Yeah, I think that's my one question.

Okay. Rob? Yeah, so I hear what a lot of people are saying, and in the best of all worlds, I would hope there would be some hard courts and maybe a bigger pool. On the other hand, as a former architect, I really like what they've done with the architecture. I think it's a handsome setup that they've they've come up with. I think the people that use it are going to enjoy it. I'm not in a position to know what kind of clientele it's going to attract or whether people who were there before are going to be there again. And I particularly like the clock tower. So that's all I have for now. OK, that's the other side.

Yeah, sure. Well, I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out.

I really appreciate the comments and the feeling of the community, the importance that's been put on that word. I've heard many times tonight, certainly one of the reasons that I moved here to Larkspur, and I feel the community. And so I really understand where the frustration is, where people are coming from, because we have this community in place.

I think that unfortunately, as staff has explained several times, and the requirements of the Gloucester Municipal Code, we are constrained in our review, in the scope of what we can review.

And there are very specific criteria. I won't go through all the criteria one by one. I have read them very carefully. I've read all the documents very carefully. And I will just say that generally, you know, I've recommendations um you know i i think that uh the design is uh i like the nostalgia theme the fact that it's made an effort to fit with the history of this town i think that that's great um you know i don't have much uh aesthetic take uh you know abilities in the aesthetic realm but i do like the clock tower too um and i think that's a cool feature um i think that The height exceptions are very minimal and actually not inconsistent with what's there already, which I understand being non-conforming. I think that the fence height exception is worthwhile. It's not excessive. And I love that it opens up the visibility to Mount Tan. And in terms of the heritage tree removal, I think we went through that.

I would just, you know, encourage the applicant, because people love their trees in this town. I do too.

There are redwoods, oaks, and madrones are sort of designated as especially important to the community in their code.

So consider that. But otherwise,

I can't make you change the pool size. All I can do is encourage the applicant to consider it. You know, you've heard from many, many people, and you've been hearing it for over a year, and, you know, consider making a couple of quarts hardcore.

Consider expanding the pool a little bit. You know, consider community services, like oriented towards people with disabilities, for example.

So we encourage that, but otherwise, I can make good findings

Yeah, you know, I actually agree with a lot of what you just said. And I don't want to spend too much time reiterating that. You know, I was wearing two hats tonight, actually, my kids that learn to swim in the indoor swimming pool, and I have, and they're currently learning to play tennis in the indoor tennis courts right now. So although as a family, we're not members. But as a members of commission and members of community, we were very clear on what our guidelines were and we have the issue that we have to consider. And I think Ash was a beautiful design, really, really beautiful design. I think it'll be so much prettier to look at what the design will be from what we're looking at right now. I'm particularly concerned about flooding and I think the drainage plan going in, that's going to be an improvement. There's a lot of things that I think will benefit the community if we could support this plan. So I'm not going to go through in detail, but I can make the finding for each of these items here. The design review height exception, the fence height exception, which I did spend a lot of time with staff earlier today, if I understand that. The heritage tree removal permit and the grading permit. I guess having heard the community though, yeah, I will also just throw out that if you, not so much on the swimming, I heard a lot on the tennis courts and the coverage of the tennis courts. Somebody put, I don't know who put this on, doesn't seem such a bad idea. Listen to them. But if you want to cover it, I would encourage that. I think it seems to make a lot of people come, may come back to the park. But yeah, I can make findings. Thank you.

All right, I guess I get the last word, or the word of us of the Planning Commission. So I think this design is absolutely beautiful. It's gorgeous architecture. It's, you know, aesthetically very pleasing. It's a vast improvement of a 1960s Safeway or whatever it was before. You know, it's an eyesore that currently exists from an architectural standpoint. On the other hand, It is a community center, and I really appreciate the community coming out and loving it as a community center, as I did when our kids were small. However, Larkspur, as Mr. Klissner said, needs a community center. This isn't it. We need to build a community center in Larkspur, like maybe near the library or somebody, and I think that is a laudable goal for us to develop something like that, but not at this site. it will be the same use. It's a private tennis club and it will remain a private tennis club, much more beautiful private tennis club. And from the specific findings, design review, I have no problems with the height exception. I have no problems with the fen height exception. The only issue I have is the heritage tree removal. I would like you to look at that one redwood tree carefully and see if there's any possibility of mitigating that because I see that there's one small building there And if there was any, I understand the potential root issues with redwood trees. We have a lot of them on my property. And I think that there are ways of working with redwood trees. And all the trees in that heritage review, I don't go so far as to try to make that as a condition of approval. I think that it's just something I would encourage you as the architect and as the owner to look at that to see whether or not we could save that one. The other trees I have no problem with. And the grading permit. So to that end, can I have a motion?

I make a motion to approve project number PLN 26-003. No?

If you could make a motion to adopt the resolution which approves the project.

Okay, I will make a motion to adopt the resolution dated, no, 01-26. I'm going to read one of those.

You don't need to read it. Thank you.

To approve the project number PLN 26-003. Great.

Can I have a roll call vote for that?

Oh, thank you.

Oh, 70 seconds.

We have a roll call vote. Commissioners O'Connor? Yes. Commissioner Wagstaff? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. And Chair Swisher? Yes. Okay, your motion passes with five yeses and no no's. You're going to see is subject to the artists decision by filing a required form and fee with the city clerk prior to the 10th day.

All right, thank you again. Thanks, everybody for coming out.

I think that was a very want to thank the Independent Journal for coming. They will be reporting on this. That's right.

Wonderful. I'm glad they are here. As a All right. So next item on the agenda is, I want to give some time for blue. We still have a meeting left to go. So if people want to talk, they can talk outside. All right. So let's continue with the next business items, please.

Planning Commissioner Training, number one.

Good evening. Given the length of the meeting tonight, perhaps we should move the training to the next Planning Commission meeting. I also would like to use this agenda item as an opportunity to point out that we did send out an email to all of you recently about the upcoming training in Corte Madera, and I would like to thank, I believe one of you has already signed up for it. Yes, and you're welcome to sign up for it yourself. It is free and That's being held at Cordova Dura City Hall. If you'd like me to register you in your place, I'm happy to do it. If you have any questions, you can certainly reach out to me outside of the meeting.

Can you resend that email?

I will resend it, yes.

And what date was it? It... Oh, just resend it.

I'll resend it. Oh, yeah. Okay, great. Next item is to approve the July 14th, 2026 claim information meeting. I was absent from that.

I'll make the motion to approve it. I'm sorry. Roll call, please.

Just by acclamation is fine. Anybody object to agree? No, no objection. Okay. Any planning commissioner reports?

It's very germane.

Actually, we can poll you for your availability. Guys, can you put it down outside?

There's more? Yeah, there are more. We're still having a meeting. Thank you.

They are for Labor Day, just FYI. The 8th of September.

Oh, yes. My question to you was, are you available on August 25th for a potential official meeting?

Oh, instead of an additional? Are you provisional?

Kind of a yes and situation.

Yes. I'm available. What was the question? Are we available on August 25th? I might be a little late, but possible. Yes. Yeah, there we go. So yes, the answer is yes. And in addition to that, September 8th, that would be the plan right now but we will look at our project list and what's ready for you and we can go from there okay yeah no all right all right all right well very good that being the end of the meetings the next item on the agenda is a motion for adjournment make a motion to adjourn second uh all in favor aye aye all right We're adjourned.