Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All righty. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Larkspur Planning Commission of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 in beautiful downtown Larkspur, California.

All right. First, let's have a roll call. Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. Commissioner Zappar.

Here.

And Chair Swisher. Here. You have four members present and one absent. You do have a quorum.

Excellent. Good. So this is the opportunity for any public comment on matters that are not currently on tonight's agenda. Anything that the public wants to address that is not on the agenda, speak now or forever hold your peace. Do we have anything here? How about on Zoom?

Excuse me. Thank you.

Thank you.

If you're on Zoom and you'd like to provide a public comment, please raise your hand. No hands.

All right. Excellent. All right. So Community Development Director's Reports.

Yes, good evening. Just a reminder that Wednesday, September 30th is the Planning Commissioner Training Workshop in Corte Madera. If you have not RSVP'd, please do so now if you wish to attend. There should have been a flyer, I think, in all of your packets. There's no fee. It includes dinner. You're certainly welcome to sign up through the link in the flyer. I can email it to you again if you'd like.

I'd love to go, but sadly, medicine calls. All right. Anything else? Or is that it?

The Mount Tam Racquet Club application that you considered at your last Planning Commission meeting was appealed in a timely manner. We received one appeal, and that item is scheduled to be considered by City Council at the CREP Center next week on Wednesday at the usual meeting time. So just to let you know that that is moving forward, and the agenda packet will get posted by the end of this week on Friday.

Great. And it's going to be at the same place that we had it.

It will also be at the CREP Center because, of course, we have no room in here for the same size crowd.

Yeah. I'm curious, just as a point of interest, when something is appealed to the Planning Commission, do they have to have a specific... I know that goes to the City Council. Thank you, lawyer. When it's appealed, is there a specific point of appeal that they have to have or is it can just be like some general, I don't like the decision kind of thing?

It's really at the discretion of the appellant, but it's good practice to have a reason for the appeal whenever you file one so that it can be responded to in the hearing. In this instance, the appellant provided a one-page attachment to the appeal form explaining the reasons for their appeal.

Okay, great.

Is that all public record?

It is. I don't have a copy of it here. It'll be with the agenda packet that goes to council and it'll get posted at the end of this week. So you'll certainly see that.

And my understanding is that if any members of the planning commission want to attend that meeting, it's allowable, however, not advisable to comment.

Yes, you're certainly all welcome to attend that or watch it in Zoom. But because you've already decided on the item, yeah, it would be best just not to.

Even as an interested citizen, just keep a lid on it.

Yeah, you've already made your deliberations and comments on it.

Great. All right. Wonderful. All right. Next, public hearings. So item 4A on the agenda is 1130 Magnolia Avenue, APN 020-034-16, Catherine Guyon, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Guillaume, applicant, Magnolia Village Homes, LLC owner, public hearing request for a conditional use permit to allow a dog grooming business in the C2 zoning district. Do we have the committee or staff report?

Yes, let me share my screen here. I will keep my comments for you brief this evening. As you've just mentioned, this item before you is use permit 26-003 for the property at 1137 Avenue. Excuse me. It is in the northern Magnolia commercial corridor. The site I've highlighted for you in this orange outline here, it's a multi-tenant commercial space. It currently houses the vacant space under consideration this evening, Gravity Salon, and then Rustic Bakery. And if you're familiar with the Magnolia Village development, that is just right next door to it. So the project proposes requests approval of a conditional use permit to allow a dog rooming facility in the C2 zoning district that would allow Wolfgang bakery and grooming to occupy the space. And here's just a quick floor plan provided by the applicant to give you an idea of the build out here. You've got. all the grooming facilities kind of at the rear and then the front of the space would be reserved for a retail area for all kinds of pet goods to be sold. Per the application materials, the facility would operate all week Monday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. And it would start with an approximate employee count of four to five employees. And as time goes on and the clientele builds, it would rise to a total of 10 once the use has been established. The applicant is proposed to mitigate potential noise associated with the use, which would be barking dogs, obviously, with the construction of noise attenuation walls on the interior of the existing demising walls. So there would be no exterior changes proposed as a part of this conditional use permit approval. Should exterior changes be proposed, That would require designer view entitlement and would come back to this body. The proposed use has been found consistent with the applicable general plan land use designation, which is neighborhood commercial, which talks about providing retail services for the general populace to use. You have received no public comments on this item. So with that, I'm going to conclude my remarks here and say that our staff recommendation is that you hold a public hearing, consider public testimony, discuss the project, and adopt Planning Commission Resolution 02-2026, which approves the project subject to findings, conditions of approval, and a Class 1 CEQA exemption.

Great.

So I'm available to answer questions, and the applicant, architect, and landlord are also here for you.

Great. Is the applicant here?

Okay.

Would you like to make a comment about the project? Anything you want to say? Just say who you are.

My name is Matt Beecher. I'm the franchisee for Wolfgang. Love dogs, love animals, love community aspects of this location, retail location. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up in Los Angeles. We have a lot of ideas of integrating with other businesses nearby, including the rustic bakery to do like cross promotional things where say dog treats are designed for dog consumption, but human consumption treats could be designed by rustic bakery and sold back and forth. And people can really enjoy, you know, their pet. It's a, it's an elevated grooming experience. It's meant to be calm and conducive for the pets so that they enjoy it. And, um, having worked at, um, various companies for over 30 years through community marketing or to Disney for 10 years. I'm really just excited about this opportunity to kind of deliver a great customer experience.

That's great. Thank you.

Yep. Architect, any comments? Katie Kuyon should be able to unmute and speak.

Hi, yes. My name is Katie Kuyon, and I am the architect on the project. We work on multiple Wolfgang locations across the country. So it is a national brand. There's over 250 locations and growing. They're building many of these stores all over the country currently. And it's one-on-one dog grooming appointments. So it is not walk-ins. There won't be You know, spare dogs lining up outside or anything like that. It's one-on-one with appointment-based grooming. Typical grooming appointments are about 90 minutes for each dog. And if we can go back to the floor plan, you can see the front is the retail area, which sells mostly dog treats, dog accessory items. There's a freezer for some frozen food. A typical pet shop, but more specialized for dogs. The second room is the grooming room, which has tables where the dogs are placed and groomed. And the back is the wet wash area where they have the dog wash tub and the employee restroom. So it's a pretty standard build for Wolfgang. And I think it could be a great addition to the neighborhood and for all the pet owners to have this resource.

Awesome. Great.

That's fantastic.

All right. Any other comments? Do you have any, before we open to the public, any questions for the applicant?

Just a question. Do you have any parking spots that are designated for your store? How is the parking situation there?

There's the landlord who works for Edge Development, he's the COO. For our contract, we're going to have one dedicated non-enforceable parking spot in the front. And for our staff, there will be one spot in the back. That would enable people, they're going to have a scheduled appointment, come in, park, drop their dog off, take off, come back later.

Got it. With the number of employees that you have, I guess the rest we'll have to find off site parking.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that we haven't locked in yet is would parking spots available in the back? Cause there's a couple that are long enough that we think we can stack cars and get two out of one.

Great. Excellent.

Any comments? Questions? Tasha? No?

All right. Are there any public comments here or on Zoom?

If you're on Zoom and you'd like to comment, please raise your hand. No Zoom comments.

All right. Very good. Would anyone like to make a motion?

We don't need to discuss it then. Does anyone need to discuss it?

Any discussion?

Nope. Nope. Okay. Then I'll make a motion. Tell me if I get this right. I'll make a motion to approve a conditional use permit to allow for the operation of a dog grooming business at 1137 Magnolia Avenue.

I'm going to jump right in here and say your motion should be to adopt Planning Commission Resolution 02-2026. Do you want me just to stop there?

We've made it easy on you, so we've started preparing resolutions instead of a minute motion. So moving forward, for most projects, unless it's a minor thing, we'll approve it by resolution. Okay, then I'll just approve the resolution. It also memorializes the approval in a permanent record.

Okay, so all I need to do is approve the resolution 0226?

Unless you have a motion to change a condition or modify the project, but yes, effectively yes.

And then the other one is going to be... Oh, 3.26, okay.

Oh, there's just one.

Okay, then I'll start again. I'll make a motion to approve, adopt the Planning Commission Resolution 02-2026. Give me a second.

I'll second that. Roll call.

Okay, Commissioner Kingsdale? Yes. Commissioner Chalmers? Yes. Commissioner Zappar?

Yes. And Chair Swisher?

Yes. Your motion passes. Four yeses, one absence. Your decision can be appealed. Interested parties can appeal your decision by filing the required form and fee with the city clerk prior to the expiration of the appeal deadline, which is 10 days from this evening.

Excellent. Congratulations. That wasn't too rough. Get it? Rough? All right. See, our bark is not as bad as our bite, right? Or it's worth it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Enough. All right. What more jokes can we make tonight? All righty. Next. 4B, 2062 Redwood Highway, APN 021-261-22, Titan Davis, applicant, catalyst, real estate owner. zoning district project number PLN26-011. This is a public hearing request for a conditional use permit to allow a restaurant in the L1 zoning district. Can we have the report, please?

Yes. All right. Yes. Good evening again. This item is PLN 26011 or 2062 Redwood Highway, more commonly known as the Cost Plus Plaza Shopping Center. It exists just to the east of the 101 Highway. And the space in question is currently occupied by the Vitamin Shop. It's the first, well, I would refer to it as the first commercial space on the property, the closest one to the right of way. And that space would be demised to make room for the new proposed restaurant. And you can kind of see here on the site plan. It's just this shaded area here would become the new suite question. And so the item before you today is another conditional use permit, which would allow a restaurant in the L1 zoning district. L1 is the light industrial zoning district. Here is just, they provided a pretty basic floor plan of the space, just showing the demising walls that they would be putting up. And for the provided application materials, the facility would operate, again, all week, Monday through Sunday from 10.30 a.m. to 11 p.m. There would be approximately eight employees per shift, up to 12 when they have promotional events. Deliveries would be scheduled to occur during off hours, so it doesn't impact visitors to the shopping center or the rest of the tenants. There are no exterior alterations proposed, similar to your last item. Should they be proposed, that would trigger a design review requirement. And again, the proposed use has been found consistent with the applicable general plan land use designation, which in this case is industrial and service commercial. You have received no public comments on this item. And with that, staff recommends that the commission hold a public hearing, consider public testimony, discuss the project, and adopt Planning Commission Resolution 03-2026, which would approve the project subject to findings, conditions of approval, and a Class 1 CEQA exemption. And that concludes my remarks. And we have the applicant and landlord here for you.

All right. And can we hear from the applicant?

Good evening. Thanks for having us today. My name is Ari Blum. I'm a Larkspur resident and also the owner of Catalyst Real Estate, which manages and represents the entity that owns Cost Plus Plaza. My family constructed the shopping center in 1975, 77, somewhere around there. And we've owned and operated the shopping center since that time. As I'm sure you are aware, the nature of Retail has changed a lot over that period. And there are just less soft goods type retailers or shopping centers of this type. Food service is more what the community seems to want and where the demand is for tenants. And in this case, Vitamin Shop was looking to downsize to a smaller amount of square footage, leaving us with the end cap there vacant. And the restaurant use seemed to be the best opportunity for that space. And that's the impetus behind our application and happy to answer any questions.

So thanks for coming out. I love Chipotle. It's good food. So how many, if you had to estimate, like how many customers would you estimate having come in each on a daily basis?

I don't have the number at the top of my head. I do know that when we did a parking study to confirm that we had sufficient and ample parking for the use, and Parametrics did that study. And in that study, they did have some kind of assessment of the count, but I don't have the...

Yeah, no, I see the daily vehicle trips, what they estimated based on the square footage of the store. I was wondering if you had a different expectation or any other number that you are, I mean, you're running a business, so you must have some projections.

Yeah, well, but we have projections of what Chipotle will pay us in rent, but because they're a credit tenant, regardless of how many people come or don't come, They pay the same rent. So we didn't really dig into with them exactly like what their counts would be, but I could get that and follow up if it would be helpful.

Yeah, and I just want to – so you're assuming as well that there will be delivery to customers, not just deliveries. I understand the late-night deliveries of products coming into the store wholesale, but you're going to do Grubhub. Yeah, like pickup, you're saying. Yeah, pickup, Grubhub, and all that sort of thing as well.

Again, I'm not 100% sure of what the volume would be on that, but I definitely do know that they – have a number of parking spaces that they've asked to be made available for short-term parking for uh for customers to come pick up and and and leave who is they chipotle chipotle yeah but you're going to be owning chipotle and you also own the shopping center is that correct

Well, we own the shopping center, but we're leasing to Chipotle.

He's not the franchisee. I'm not the franchisee.

You're not the franchisee. You're just the landlord. The landlord. Yeah. I get you. Okay. Sorry. I thought you were also. Yeah, I know. Okay. Okay. So you've done a parking study then for this?

Yes, I believe so. It's in the packet.

This parametric study.

Yes, correct.

Yeah, no, I see it here. I see it here where you calculate the trips generation report. Have you done any other parking studies for this Cost Plus Plaza?

Yeah, they have. So the Cost Plus Plaza, they found that at their peak, that parking lot is 41.9% occupied.

At the peak?

At the peak.

Oh.

It's a total of 291 parking spaces.

Okay, that's fine. I'll leave my comments to the comments. This is just question period because I've been to this shopping center many times. I'm sure you have as well.

I guess I would just say about that is that there's a concentration of parking in the area around Trader Joe's, but generally there's quite a bit of parking on the south side of the parking lot. And so our expectation, and I think that of parametrics is that that parking will kind of like basically filter south into the lot over time.

Yeah, my only issue is that people have like there's some crazy thing that Trader Joe's releases into the air, which makes people go insane at parking. Oh, yeah. And it's true. Be careful of your car there. The only other thing is leaving that parking lot, making a left-hand turn onto that road I think is really dangerous. And people take their life into their hands sometimes taking a left out of there. So I kind of wish there was a – it's not your issue, of course, but it's more the city issue. I wish there was some better way of left turning out of that parking lot. because it's kind of dicey.

Yeah, we agree. It would be great to have a traffic light there or something.

Yeah, something, because poof.

Especially bike lane makes me nervous.

Yeah, biking.

That's one of the... Not a thing we do hear about that, I assume, right?

Stop may be able to further describe it, but I think there is a grant in process studying perhaps that area. Yeah, yeah.

Again, it's not your issue. It's the city's issue.

I'm just kind of like... Well, I mean, I guess I would argue they were a little bit, because if it was, if they met a certain threshold, they'd have to do, conduct this traffic study. That would probably account for the number of vehicles that are, the difficulty of turning in and out, getting in and out of that shopping plaza, which is, from my experience, quite difficult. I guess I just, I look at this study and it, and it, I understand I've had a conversation with staff who explained that this is typical, the way that this is calculated. I have trouble believing that because vitamin shop is going to be decreased 2,000 square feet, that the number of customers are going to decrease by like 50%. I just don't understand how that happens.

I don't know. Again, I don't know if that's necessarily our purview.

In staff's perspective. estimation this this this holds water this this traffic study analysis it's actually an interesting point especially like the assumption that we're chopping this up because traffic to that vitamin shop has not been that's the reason why it doesn't meet the threshold according to this analysis

But there is plenty of parking in that. I mean, if you go further away from...

There's lots. Also, I suspect that it's going to be used more, you know, because it's open late at night. You don't have too many places that are open late there, like Chipotle would be open. That'd be a great place for people to go get, you know... Late night dinner. Yeah, post... Kids. You know, post... Yeah, post-planetary mission. I was thinking something else, but... Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And there's no dedicated parking spaces. I thought you were going to ask that, but no.

I think not. I think that there's a couple of spaces that we expect to have signage that says like Chipotle parking, maybe two spaces. I can't remember exactly in the lease, but not like, you know, that's for the pickup, like the kind of quick, you know, pickup spaces, but broadly the customers will park throughout the lot. Okay.

You can have to do a lot of modification of the building for kitchen use. I mean, like putting in a kitchen, et cetera, in there.

Chipotle will do a lot of that. Our job will be to split the current 6,000 square foot space into two 3,000 square foot spaces. And that's a pretty big project for us. And then Chipotle, once we complete that, we'll take it over and then build out the internal kitchen facilities for ourselves.

Okay.

All right. Anything else?

Any more questions?

Do we have any public comments? Thank you. Thank you very much.

If you're on Zoom and you'd like to provide a public comment, please raise your hand.

Okie doke. All right. Bring it back to the commission. We've already mentioned parking. Is there any comments that we want to discuss?

No. I think it's a great addition to have a Chipotle in town.

I think it's great. I hope if it's true that there is a grant that the city is working on the traffic analysis, because as we've all observed, it's getting in and out of that Cost Plus Plaza can be a nightmare, especially with the 101 traffic. And I just mentioned one other thing is that there's an emergency veterinarian in that plaza. And if you need to get in there at peak time, which is...

I don't think getting in is the problem. I think getting out is the problem.

Even driving past is a problem.

So maybe we can say just from our forum as planning commissioners, since the owners of the shopping center are here, it would be great if there's an opportunity for you to talk and promote and support. any kind of traffic study or any kind of... I mean, that's not part of any decision we make tonight, but since we have a dialogue with you, it'd be great if you could look into that or support anything that the city does, because I do get stuck in that traffic as well, so...

Yeah, I just want to say that we've actually expressed, I think, directly to the staff that we're really supportive of the study of that area. And we very much would love to see what I think you guys are saying, really, which is to have some kind of a traffic light.

Yeah, or some, you know, turn corridor safety thing. Right. That'd be great. That sounds good. Well, thank you.

All right. I have no other comments.

Great. So a motion? Do you want to do that? Do you want me to?

I know what I'm doing now.

Now that Natasha knows what she's doing. Go ahead.

Okay, so we make a motion to adopt the Planning Commission Resolution 03-2026. That's all I have to say.

All right, second?

Second. I second.

Excellent. All right, roll call. Commissioners apart.

Yes.

Commissioner Kingsdale. Yes. Commissioner Chalmers. Yes. Chair Swisher.

Yes.

Your motion passes four yeses, zero noes, one absence. Interested parties can appeal your decision by filing the required form and appeal fee within 10 days.

All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. All right. Next. Next. 4C, 16 Elm Avenue, APN 021-223-49, Polsky Pearlstein Architects, Applicant Michael Folk, First Residential Zoning District, Plan 26008. Public hearing requests for a design review to permit demolition of an existing single-family residence and the construction of new, I didn't see how many square foot, two-story single-family residence with an attached garage. A floor area ratio exception to permit a property with an FAR of 0.21, which is 3,093 square feet, where 0.192793 is the maximum allowed by the code. Slope use permit to permit 283 cubic yards of cut and 79 cubic yards of fill in conjunction with the proposed construction. Staff report, please.

Yes, one second.

Hey. Good evening, Planning Commission.

The item before you is PLN 26-008 for the property located at 16 Elm Avenue. That is located just to our east. It is on the north side of Elm Avenue in a well-landscaped residential neighborhood. I've got an overhead shot for you on the left here, again, highlighted with the orange boundaries. And then a Google Maps view of it. And the property in question is this tiled roof residence right here. In the middle, so the project proposes to demolish the existing residents and construct a new 2970 square foot, 2 story, single family residents with an attached 1705 square foot garage slash gym space as designed. This would require planning commission to approve a design review entitlement, a floor area ratio exception, and a slope use permit. Here's the site plan, the structure in question. The new residence is shown in this dark gray, and it might be easier to see in the plans in front of you, but the existing residence is shown in a dashed line here. It occupies a somewhat similar footprint, though obviously the new residence will have a larger footprint. And then this area in question here, which is on the western portion of the lot, would be the proposed JADU. And then there is a two-story portion of the residence, two-story above grade, which is at the rear of the structure. And then the property is also developed with an existing ADU at the rear of the lot, and then a small accessory office. And I will point out in the staff report, I believe the word office is dropped at one point. It says 123 square feet. It should say office. That is what that portion is referring to. So my apologies there. And then I'll get into the floor plans here for you. This is the first level. This is the garage and gym area. So the garage is located at the bottom of this image with the gym, which would be on the western side of the floor plan here, or the top, as you can see it in the slide above. And if you can see this dashed line here, that delineates the areas of the residence on this level that are more than 50% below grade, which is why there's a large portion of this residence which does not count against the floor area ratio. So it is all this garage here that is exempt. It's 246 square feet here, and that is included in the floor area ratio. Moving to the first floor. It is, again, just living area. There's bedrooms at the front, living area, and then a kitchen at the rear. Again, this wing here on the western portion of the lot is the junior ADU that's proposed. And pretty much this entire level, I'll discuss the JADU section when we get to the floor area ratio exception. But this area will count against the allowed floor area ratio. And here is the second story portion. The second story is limited just to the rear of the residence here. And it is the primary suite. And then because of the slope of the lot, it's going to be able to basically access the backyard here where that two story portion would be great at the rear of the home. And here are the renderings and elevations here for you. This is the front on the top. It's what you would see from Elm Street. And then the two-story portion is shown in this gray behind it here. Western elevation is just beneath it. And the highest point of the residence would be actually the peak of the chimney. I believe it's just over 27 feet tall. The peak of the roof is beneath that. It's 25 and change. And then here at the north elevation, just the rear of the home on the top here. And that is the second story portion. This is just how it would appear from the rear of the lot where, again, it meets grade. And then beneath it is the eastern elevation. And I will just point out, the staff report does call out a large window. And this is the window that we are discussing in the staff report. And so one of the findings in front of you tonight is that there is not an unreasonable loss of privacy associated with the project. So it was raised in a public comment that this window will face a neighbor. So it's up to you if you find that it does result in an unreasonable loss of privacy. It is something you could make request modifications to. Okay, and then to speak about the floor area ratio exception, I think we're all familiar with the floor area rules and how they interplay with the slope of a lot. So the allowed floor area ratio here is 0.19 or 2,793 square feet. The project proposes an FAR of 0.214 or 3,148 square feet, which is 0.102 square below the neighborhood average when you conduct a survey of all the properties within 300 feet. I will just point out, and it does say so in the staff report, a number of those properties are much smaller lots, which kind of skews the data There are, I believe, 11 properties of a similar lot size, over 10,000 square feet. And this would be the fourth largest home of those 11 properties. And then just to kind of make it clear, this is how we've broken out the floor area. So there's 256 square feet of the garage that is included. 1,448 is excluded. The first floor includes 2,007 square feet of living space without the JADU. And I'll get into that last, actually. The second floor totals 705 square feet, and the rear office building is 123 square feet. Now, the JADU and ADU are both, they meet the provisions of the code to be granted the 800 square foot floor area bonus. The two units together total 857 square feet. So 57 square feet of the combined two units is being included in the floor area. So that's why it says the JADU has a 57 square foot packed on the floor area ratio. So other than that, the rest of the ADU and the rest of the JADU footprint are not included in that total. And the last entitlement requested is a slope use permit. This is triggered by the cut and or fill of 25 cubic yards or more on a property with a slope greater than 25%. This project proposes a total cut and fill volume of 362 cubic yards, which is required to dig the residence into the hillside and then create a landscaped area at the sides and rear of the lot. And this is the grading plan here for you. And it's also included in the plan set if you want to look at it a little closer. But again, most of it is to access the garage in there. And then the landscaped area I'm referring to is kind of all back here. There's some terracing that will be done at the rear of the lot. And you have received a total of three public comments on this project and say they generally all opposed to the scale of of the proposed development, there is one from the neighbor directly to the east, which is the one with the potential privacy impact based on that kind of large picture window. And with that, I'm going to close out my remarks here. So staff's recommendation is that you hold a public hearing, consider public testimony, discuss the project, and adopt Planning Commission Resolution 04-2026, which approves the project subject to findings, conditions of approval, and a Class 2 CEQA exemption. And that concludes my report, and the property owner and project architect are here for you as well.

First, we have to hear the... It's not time for your questions.

Staff question.

Oh, go ahead. Staff question. Sure.

Right. And I had called Alex about this earlier, just to understand the square footage, which I do understand now, but I want to make sure... What was the number that you had up on the screen for the permitted FAR? No, not the requested... Because here it says 4532. I think... And then the permitted FAR is 3093. And what was the number? 3148.

I think it may have been at the time that that was written, I think the 57 square feet had not been included in it. The 57 square feet. Oh, I see. Which is why the number is... Got it. Okay.

But it is 3148 square feet. Okay.

And then...

So the way I understood it, the entire property is 5,396 square feet, of which 1,448 is below grade, so you don't have to include that. And then 800 of that is JD, ADU, and ADU, so you don't include that either. So you take 5,396 and you take away 1,448 and you take away another 800, and that's how you get to the 1,3148.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Everyone with me on that? Because what?

Because they're not subject to FAR.

Right.

The JADU and the ADU.

Okay.

Yes.

And everyone's on the same page, right, on that?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, good.

I have a comment or question to staff. The comment, the late comment that was received from Ms. Lacey, Tricia Lacey, regarding the existing Eden you constructed before July 1st, 2023. Can you give me clarification on what the rules are on that?

Yeah, to touch on that. So that it was an existing accessory structure. It was converted to an ADU in 2024 under a building permit. So staff's interpretation is that that does meet the requirement of the code for the exception. The way it's phrased in the code is ADUs and JADUs constructed after I'd have to look at it for these. July 1st. Yeah, July 1st, 2023. Those are the only units that are eligible. So the structure did exist, but it was not used as an ADU at that time. So staff's position is that by converting it to an ADU in 2024, that's the date that we're using for the FAR.

Was there a remodel of the building after July 1st, 2023? Or did they just not call it that before that and now they're calling it that?

I can't speak to that. The documentation that I found in our files didn't provide any sort of clue as to whether or not it was an ADU at that, or used, I suppose, used as a guest house or an ADU prior to that. But it was legally converted into an ADU.

Okay. And then therefore does not go against the square footage.

That is staff's interpretation. The Planning Commission can choose to interpret it a different way if it wishes. Okay.

Right. Any other questions?

Nothing. I mean, I had, maybe this is more for the applicant, I had questions about access to the ADU because I went to go see it and, I mean, you can't really see much because it's a lot of foliage and vegetation and I saw locked gates. I wasn't sure what was going on behind at the back of the property, but it sounds like there is an existing ADU there.

Yeah, there's two accessory buildings in the rear of the lot. It's a 123 square foot office and you've for the ADU adjacent to it. They're connected by a deck.

Okay, but I'm assuming the ADU needs to be accessed by the street, from the street level, right?

I'm sure the owner and architect could tell you exactly how it would be accessed. I believe there's a path that runs up the western side of the property that you can wish to get back there.

Okay, all right.

All right, do we have the applicant?

Yes.

Wow. Alex is getting set up. I'll tell you. I've scripted this because I want to get a lot of information to you as efficiently as possible.

OK. Could you introduce yourself?

Sure. My name is Rich Pearlstein. I'm with Polsky Pearlstein Architects. And I want to wait until Alex gets a chance to throw that up. Okay, good, thanks. Okay. Our office has worked with Mike Folk for many years on other residential projects. Last year, he asked us to begin work with him on the design of his new home. This is a property that Mike has owned for 21 years. He and his former wife raised their daughter here. Mike has deep roots in Marin. He decided that he wanted to create a new home for himself and his family. The existing home was built in 1937 as a one-bedroom home. In the 70s, an existing covered patio was fully enclosed to make it a two-bedroom home. Today, it has an FAR, the house itself, just under .11, one of the lowest FARs in the neighborhood, even though this property is notably larger than most neighboring lots. Given the existing home's Spanish-inspired character, Mike wanted to work within the Mission Revival style. Where am I pointing? Where am I pointing to? Okay, good. There we go. With their light stucco walls, tile roofs, occasional arches, divided light windows, and simple architectural detailing. These would be combined in our design with what we're calling bio-modern elements. more contemporary forms with planted green roofs. In this way, we believe that the design would be sensitive to the neighborhood's fabric, maintaining continuity with other similar homes in the area, with planted roofs acting as a softening feature and a linkage between the gables. Our site concept was constrained in a few significant ways. Mike wanted to preserve the Chinese pistachio tree in the front yard. And the tree's size and placement dictated the location of the garage and driveway that would be tucked underneath the main floor. You're familiar with that. As well as the pedestrian approach up to the front door, which is the heavy blue line leading you up behind the tree. Along the western side, the building maintains a greater than minimum setback than the acquired six-foot setbacks, varying from seven to ten feet as the building jogs along. Towards the rear of the house, the Japanese maple on the western property line dictated that the building remain far enough away from the tree to not affect its root zone. On the uphill, we needed to respect the large oak tree's root zone. Went too far, sorry. There we go. The existing garage behind the house is sited in an excavated cut that was made into the hillside back when the garage was first built, as you can see here. So it seemed logical for us to make use of that cut in extending the main floor back into that area. The property size allowed Mike his desire to substantially have a one-story floor plan for the house's core functions with only the primary suite upstairs. During early schematic design, We developed two massing alternatives for an upstairs primary suite. Mike reviewed both of these with the neighbors at 20 Elm, realizing that they may have a preference as to where it would be located. With their preferred location to the northernmost portion of the building, The upper floor roof height varies from about 13 feet to about 21 feet at the ridge along the east elevation. Of course, the first six to nine feet above grade are masked by the eastern fence, which is this shading lock here. So at the north elevation of the upper floor, the building essentially is a single story stepping out to grade, as Alex mentioned. The homeowners at 20 Elm created a photo simulation using the story poles to show a view from their rear yard area. Although note that we've shifted, because the AI had the windows in the center, we shifted it so that the photo was a little more accurate. Based on the photo simulation, we think that it was taken from a vantage point on their site towards the back of their deck. So the red triangle, if you can see that on the screen, represents where the views of East Pekin Tan would be hidden behind the proposed upper floor. The east peak would otherwise be visible from the remaining center and southern areas when you're standing more to the middle of the deck. We also, however, looked at an alternative window configuration for this elevation based on the letter that the owners had sent in to staff. This would keep the higher windows in the stair hall for morning light, then eliminate the middle windows and keep the lower windows so that we could get natural light back into the corner of the dining area on the main floor. While we believe that the larger architectural assembly of the windows may look better, we think that the visual impacts on the neighbors may argue in favor of modification. In the final design, the three traditional gable forms are linked with the bio-modern sections of the building. Two gables linked, two gables linked, and two gables linked together. Conceptually as well as practically, the various elements create a well-articulated building that we believe is respectful to its location. The landscape design firm put together a series of illustrative images that we think conveys a good sense of how the finished project will feel when landscaped. And these are the landscape drawings that were in your package. In summary, we chose a substantially one-story design that echoes and respects the mission influence of the current house and other homes in the neighborhood. The street facade follows the streetscape as each successive home coming down Elm is sited comparably lower than the house immediately uphill from it. responding to the cross grade of each property. We believe that the home artfully integrates into the neighborhood with its historic references rather than alternatively just building a purely modern home. And that's all. I'll take questions.

Yeah, would you mind answering the question about the ADU at the back and access to the ADU?

Yes. So you'll notice if you go to your south elevation, it's a little fainter in this perspective. The set of stairs continues up the side of the house. And if I went back to the back. If you imagine those stairs are, they start up, now they're coming up the east side. So behind the six foot fence, the stairs come up, there's a walkway, and then they start to step up. And in the new landscape design, the stairs will get here. And at that point, they will start to cut the middle of the site and their existing stairs that they connect to. That probably shows up in the landscape site plan. Yeah. Shows on my site plan as well, I think. So the intent is that the resident of the ADA would go up the east side and then connect to those stairs.

Okay. Okay. So if somebody's in there and they have to just walk all the way up the stairs to get in?

Yes, one way or the other.

And then the other question I had is, what is the final parking count? Because I understand you have a big garage and some driveway space.

Yes. And one thing I wasn't sure if Alex was going to mention, but if you look at the floor plan at the back of the garage... There is an area that Mike is intending to put an elevator in at some point. So he's trying to connect so that as he ages in place, as many of us have discussed, aging in place sometimes precludes stairs. And so a driver of that garage was getting back to where we could actually step up into the elevator for a second floor. So that becomes the southeastern corner of the second floor. And we rise up into the closet. But so as to your question, if one parked tandem in the garage, you would have two plus two in the garage. And then, of course, there are at least two in the driveway. And Larkspur's requirement is two plus two.

Okay. But it sounds like you can fit six if you do tandem.

Yes. And in the driveway, given car sizes these days, possibly, but certainly six.

Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Do you comment on, again, I'm looking at the bus slide and letter about the modification of the second story to pull back from the property line a bit. Have you guys considered the massing of that second story on the property line and whether or not you have some alternative ideas about lowering that a bit?

So let me get to Who's this? And I'm not sure. This is the letter from the neighbors at 20? Yes. So I guess the question at hand is, in consideration that Mike had had those discussions early on, whether the masking would have been better there or here, which was the other alternative. And so if you think about the height We could say, well, maybe we'll lower the slope a little bit, and that point would come down about a foot. Can you see the pointer okay? Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. You know, you could consider that. Michael, as you may have noticed and you will notice when he stands up, is very tall, 6 foot 7, 8. So the height upstairs is somewhat sensitive, at least in terms of the plate height, the height of the walls.

Wow.

And so the real question, even if you say, well, let's push that back a few feet, I don't know that the perception of it changes that much. So I guess the way that Mike and I had been discussing it was that as we went through this, if we went about and pulled much of that glazing out so that we're just getting not essentially clear storm windows dropping light in, that ideally that would work. take care of the primary concerns. But if you imagine that wall pushed back five feet, let's say, or it'll pick a magic number, it doesn't really appreciably change that wall as seen from here. Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm.

What about the ceiling heights on the inside? Because there's a living room, right? And then a bedroom.

Yes. And both of the... How high are those? I'm going from memory. The ceiling height in the bedroom is nine feet. And this is why I was mentioning it, as Mike may describe in a few minutes. And I recall... Let me flash forward to... Looks like the living room's 10 feet.

Alex, you had that information, didn't you?

It's on the... A31's got the... Elevations.

Yeah.

So I believe we're 10 foot floor to floor, which, so as my point of view, puts the kitchen at just under nine feet, which is, I don't know that we've built a project of late that went lower than that. So it's not an unusual number.

Yeah. No, it's too small. It's too, I can't read it.

Yeah, but to be clear, the living, you know, so Alex, can you switch to the building sections? Because I have not included those in mine. Might be easier. So while we're waiting for that, so there is the height of the kitchen, which is, I'll call it a flat ceiling, which is the floor underneath the primary suite. And I'm going from memory, Mike recalls, I think we went 10 foot floor to floor. And so that puts the ceiling in just under nine feet. The living room is different because it's a higher ceiling space with the green roof over it. So it sits higher, but it's not really, they're not tied to each other, if you will. So it's the height of the dining and living area, I think, that may be germane, that you're wondering that. Thank you. So from the first floor level to the second floor level, I'm squinting, but I believe that's the time you're going to flip. yeah so the height here it ends up given the construction it's a little under nine feet eight foot nine eight foot ten from here to there in the kitchen okay thank you any other questions

I guess I just want to understand, you're showing this photo from the Bruce Leiden. It's a rendering, I guess, based on the storyboards.

Yes.

Are you saying it's not accurate?

Oh, it was just where whatever system may have built that. The size and location of the windows within the gable, that was centered.

The window location. But other than that, the scale is pretty accurate.

Yeah, they were breaking up the story poles, which is a great way to do photo rendering. So the massing of the roof is accurate to the story poles.

Just that the window is a little off, so I just corrected it. I see. Just like the picture of the deck view today versus the deck view of the house, that would go from... green plants all around to large house. Sorry, could you please? You said no concerns about this one in terms of its accuracy?

No, I think that the, I'll say the walls, they're tracking the story poles, which is as it should be.

And so what is behind – I'm trying to – I can't see actually with my eyes. I can't see the small writing. But on the whole proposed site plan, I see the entry of the house. I see the rear of the house where the living room and then the primary bedroom is at the top. And then there's a yard. In between there and the ADU, it's just yard. Yeah, it's a patio. Patio area.

In other words, within this area, two wings.

Yeah. Did you consider... I mean, I think the main issue here is privacy and bulk and massing. I think you understand that. And we have three neighbors who raised that issue. Is there... another design that you've considered that wouldn't require a second story right next to the yard, at least, that pushes it back or pushes it forward to the front of the house or it pushes it further back on the property?

Well, I think the appropriate thing, if you want to. Yeah. That's great. Thanks, Tom.

My name is Mike Folk. I've been a Larkspur resident for 21 years. I've served on multiple committees in the city, so I've been in the community for a long time. We raised our family there, so I have a great appreciation for the town and a lot of sensitivity to the neighborhood and how that house would integrate into the neighborhood. If you look at the, if you saw that first slide that Alex put up showing the neighborhood, the property was sort of this remainder piece. When they subdivided Elm, they went with 50-foot wide lots, 150 feet long. They were all 7,500 feet, sort of like coming right down the hill until they got to this last piece before it kind of turns onto Acacia. And 16 Elm was the remainder piece. So 16 Elm actually touches seven different properties. It's 14,500 feet. So it's almost double what the other lots are. So that's created an unusual situation, but we wanted to keep the rhythm of sort of stepping down the hill. And that's why we opted for substantially a one-story house with all the garage tucked underneath, and we're digging that out. But really, if you look at the existing house, the floor plate for the existing house is the same floor plate for the new house. So we're not changing elevation there. And we really wanted to keep that stair step down. Now, obviously, when you add a second story, that's going to have some impact. So my process was to talk to the neighbors early on. So every one of the neighbors that wrote in, I told them a year ago what we were starting to do. But I knew that 20L, Emily and Andrew, would be the most impacted. And so that's really where I started. And so last October, I went to them when we were just starting our design phase with only hand sketches and said, you know, there's basically two places that we could add a second story. We could either add it more to the middle or we could add it all the way to the north and push it to the back of the property. And they said at the time, like, you know, we prefer not to see this. But if all things being equal, we would take the version that pushes the bulk to the back. And I happen to agree. If you're going to take a slope property and there's an existing cut in it, Why don't you move one two-story element deepest into the cut? So that cut, as you saw from that second story, comes out on the grade. So that means that the first story there is substantially below grade. So that kitchen and dining room are like six feet under grade. So can we go to that one, the eastern view?

Great.

This one's fine. So this is the 30-foot. That's the max that you can go, the 30-foot pipeline. Now, clearly, our goal here was to keep something that was fairly modest. But really, from a street level, that's actually what it is. This is basically replacing a one-story house with a one-story house. And we put the two-story element into that cut. So like I said, there's really From grade here up to the eaves, it's like 9, 10 feet. And up to the peak, I think it's 12 or 13 total from the grade. So that was the thinking. How do we minimize that impact? And I understand that certainly from 20 Elm, there will be impact. I mean, there's just no, there's no getting around that. And that's why I started that process early with them. That's why we, you know, they registered their interests early on and we moved forward from that point. And I know that historically the commission has wanted to see neighbors work with each other before coming to this forum and then, you know, you having to decide something like that. Um, so that's, that's the process there. Um, you would add questions about the ADU.

Just out of curiosity. Um, have you talked to them since the story polls went up?

Yes. Okay. So I delivered plans to everyone back in April when we actually had the full plan set. And that includes not just the three that, uh, that wrote in, but also other neighbors. And then when the story pools went up that day, I texted everyone and said, I'm available to meet and talk. And so, yes, I did go over to Andrew and Emily's place and looked at it from the backyard. And there's no question there's an impact. Like, you know, if you put a property, if you put a building there at the setback, there's going to be impact. We're happy to, as Rich said, we're happy to work with the windows. But if you, you know, code allows for up to 30 feet of building height, and we're trying to minimize that as much as possible. And I think we've done a pretty successful job there. It doesn't mean that there won't be impact, but it does because you have these locks that are only 50 feet wide. If you look at the rhythm of the houses going up Elm and down Elm, Everyone's at their setbacks on both sides. So if everyone's got five or six foot setbacks, you know, as you go up to, I think, 36 element, like, I mean, these houses are right next to each other. They're two stories right next to each other. So that is not uncommon in that neighborhood. Anyway, I digress. I wanted to answer your question about ADUs. So the ADU was actually built in 2014 as an accessory structure. It was not an accessory dwelling structure. At the time, Clarksburg didn't really allow ADUs. They didn't want to have extra units. And as you know, with arena numbers, that has changed dramatically. And so we updated. We didn't make any changes to the structure itself. It always had sort of a kitchenette and that kind of thing. But before we rented it out, and it is rented out now, Before we rented it out, we made it legal. And so if you look at that application, it was strictly a name change. It was going from an accessory structure to an accessory dwelling structure so that we could legally lease it out. It wasn't without significant cost, as it turns out, to go through the process with Larkspur. But Larkspur got an extra RENA unit out of it. So I think that was generally good. And as far as the point of ADUs and the point of the state wanting ADUs is to create extra housing. And we've done that. We built it and we're renting it. And so we created that extra housing in the neighborhood. So that's kind of the history on the ADU and how it came to be. I'm going to reserve the rest of my time just so that if there's someone that comes up and I can address a neighbor's concern directly, I'm happy to do that. But I can tell you all sorts of things about why this is our you know, 30, 40 year home and how you make a house work like that. And why I think doing something that's mission inspired, but bio modern having this sort of these three gabled sections linked by a meadow is, I think, pretty progressive and takes into account the kind of thing that kind of thing that Larkspur would like to see, as opposed to a modern white box or another modern farmhouse or that kind of thing. So We worked hard on that.

Yeah, I mean, the design looks beautiful for sure. I do want to jump back to Andrew's question real quick, and I wasn't sure if I missed it, but basically I'm going to hold up C2.1, which kind of has this... the paper area there. And right now, there's no house there. Obviously, it's a patio. It's enjoyable. Is there any design that would remove the need for the second floor, preserve the same square footage you have, and then move part of the house from there? Is that not good?

Basically, you move that square footage into that corner. So if you're taking the mission style as kind of your vernacular, having a courtyard is standard. That's also the view of TAM. So we're organizing that courtyard around a view. If you take that second story and drop it right in the middle, what you've got is sort of a setback to setback, one big flat yard. It doesn't really, it's not a great design.

Wait, I don't think he means, you didn't mean this area here, did you? You meant this area, right?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's not a better address, but I'm sure, yeah, right behind.

You're talking back. Back, back. Which goes higher up the hill.

I think Pearlstein was thinking of coming in.

I was actually asking that. You were actually asking that. I thought you were talking about that area. About what's in between you and the house.

I think that's what.

Andrew can talk. The main, maybe the main question is like, is there a place where it's not a second floor? Because like you said, you've built this beautiful patio around a TAM view. And the only way you can achieve that is by taking away someone else's TAM view.

Well, that's not true. Okay. If you, we go back to the view from 20 Elm.

If I change it from taking away someone's TAM view to materially impacting someone's TAM view, would that, okay. So like if someone were to build next to you and materially impact your TAM view, would that, would you oppose that or would you support that?

I guess the question they're asking, maybe this is being asked right now, is there a way that you can spread the property out more along the property, along the land, as opposed to going up, you go along the property. That's what you're asking, right?

That's a fair question.

I think it was slide number two. Okay. go back so bad

I don't remember.

The one that basically shows the cut and how the building . Yes.

So if our interest was to build only in the cut,

and not cut further into the hill. And so at least historically, Larkspur has been very opposed to sort of regrading, especially slope properties. And so we've worked within the cut.

And that's essentially this one.

You can see the grave actually up there. But this is the existing cut again. And on the property.

That's where we put the house. But there are these trees that also constrain the property too. So it's not that you move the mast farther up the hill, then you've moved right into a heritage oak.

And so that's problematic. If we're pushing out to the west, then we're into a Japanese maple. If we're pushing out to the south, well, we've got a front yard setback and we got a tree there. So unless we're building something up here, which would be very obvious from a lot of properties. Really, you're trying to put the mass into the cut and keep it as low as possible. And that's why we built essentially a one-story house with this small two-story element. And that upstairs is... we put the gable end toward Andrew and Emily's side. So it goes longer. I think the width is there. But if you're putting a rectangle there, you're putting the short end toward your neighbor, and you're putting the long end on your property. And that's what we did. So this mass here, we actually cut this corner back here.

It's sort of an odd shape.

get to that story pole plan or something like that. But we really made an effort to minimize the effect of, yeah, so right there. We actually cut this corner right here so that it would impact them less. This is their backyard. And you can see from most of it, you can see tan. From this corner, you lose a bit of tan. So, and again, I'm not in any way suggesting there's not an impact. There is an impact. But it's also, you know, to say that they've lost all their TAM view is not true. Actually, from most of their backyard or for a good portion, certainly the majority. it still maintains a TAM view. And it's not a remote portion. It is the central portion. So, and I said before, like, I think the commission would choose to have neighbors that try to work their problems out before they get here. And that's absolutely what we did starting a year ago. Okay.

Great.

Great. Can we have any other? Okay.

You're welcome.

All right, excellent. I will address, so there are two other letters that you got from 10 Elm, the 80s. And their concern is, because they sit lower, and they're also on about a 3,500-foot lot, so it's a very small lot, that our project sort of looms over them. Definitely a concern. I get it. When we removed our driveway up the west side and pushed the building out, the building, still a single story there, got closer to the fence. So what I've offered up and what we sort of agreed upon was we would put a trellis on top of the fence that would cut down that sense of looming over. So more vegetation? More vegetation and higher. That's right. Okay.

And it would allow our windows to clear and not look down into their property.

Okay. And then for 110 Acacia, we did a render there. I can show it to you later. But I would say their view from the back of their house to that two-story element in our house is about 140 feet. So it's not right next door. It's a ways away. And the last thing I'll leave you with is FAR. As I mentioned, there are seven properties that touch 16L. We are by far the lowest current FAR and the lowest requested FAR. So ours is allowable 19. We're asking for 21.4. It's 112% of FAR. Our neighbors are 90%, 213%, 136, 136, 185, 213, and 454% of FAR. Our average neighbor that touches our property is 203% of FAR. So, you know, yes, we have a large lot, but that's the standard that is in our neighborhood. So, yeah. Great. Thank you for that.

Any questions? No, we're good. All right. So public comment. Yes, ma'am.

I am not nearly as tall as Michael. For the sake of efficiency, I just prepared something. So my name is Emily Lydon, and me and my husband, Andrew Bussey, live at 20 Elm, which is right next door to the project. It's our first home. We moved in about a year ago. And then we had submitted a letter with some of the photos and some of the fancy AI rendering that my husband did. And we really want to echo what Michael had said. We appreciate him engaging with us from like the very beginning of the project and really want him to build his dream home and his forever home here. Yeah. But we do have concerns, as you've seen by the photos, of the overall size of the structure and where it's placed on the property line, particularly just the second story. That really impacts our experience of the backyard. And as has been commented on before, our stretch of Elm, all the houses are in relatively small lots, but kind of thoughtfully set back from each other, which kind of preserves the views from everyone's houses and from the backyards. of Mount Tam and also the surrounding ridgeline and how amazingly green and beautiful it is there. But this design, especially mainly just the second story kind of breaks that pattern and puts like the tallest part of the house. No other way to describe it besides looming over our backyard and right next to our property line alongside the deck. And then one of the things we love about living in Larkspur is the How amazing the weather it is every year and throughout the entire year. And the deck truly is one of our living spaces, our main place that we spend time and entertain. And when the story polls went up, we just... walked out back and really just towered over our fence and um and did from parts of the backyard kind of block our view of mount tam though i agree with michael that from different areas of the yard we still do have a view but the whole structure definitely does loom and it's the first thing you see when you walk out into our backyard um which is included in some of the photos. So this house would be a lot bigger than ours. Ours is 1,100 square feet, and it is asking for an exemption to go above what is requested. And we know that exemptions are approved all the time for, like, very good reasons, but I think this one is being used and massing the largest part of the house kind of in a way that does impact us and our experience of our home. just makes us feel a little bit enclosed in our backyard and blocks our view. So I think we appreciate that Michael came to us with kind of two options when he was first starting this, but I think regardless of where a second story was placed, it was always going to be impacting our experience of our backyard where we spend so much time. So yeah, obviously want him to get, uh, uh, his plans approved, um, to build a home there. But I think maybe a thoughtful redesign of how big that second story structure is, or even ideally not having it entirely. Cause I don't think there's a world where there's a second story there that doesn't significantly impact our, um, our experience of our home. So thanks.

I've got a question.

Yeah.

How would you redesign it if you were to not, um, if you were not in your ideal world?

I mean, I think you guys have made some good suggestions of, I mean, in an ideal world, we wouldn't have that second story at all. The house is already quite sizable. If you take into account the basement area, not being counted in the far, the junior ADU, the additional ADU in the back. Um, I obviously have no idea how Michael's intending to use it or family come in or rent out the ADUs, but, um, But, yeah, there is a big patio area. Ideally keeping it to one story I think would be ideal from our standpoint, knowing that, of course, there needs to be a middle ground. But I think even if you – I think Michael made the good point. Even if you push it out a few feet, it's still going to look the same and feel the same from our view in the backyard. Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Thanks.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Tricia Lacey. My husband and I live at 110 Acacia Avenue, and we've lived in Larkspur for almost 11 years now. I did submit a letter, a number of the things have already been discussed. I want to begin with saying that I really like the modern interpretation of the California mission style. I love the planted green roofs and I appreciate that they will be preserving the three heritage trees and in particular the valley oak and the maple in the backyard are very important because it's something that we see from our backyard and it provides the maple in particular provides important screening between the two properties. I do have some concerns. One we've discussed, which is the ADU. And I really question that rezoning something is the same as it being constructed. It seems to me that the loss or the I don't know if law is the right word, but that the code specifically says that the ADU must be constructed after July 1st of 2023, and that is not what happened. So I question that that ADU should not be counted towards the total FAR. the application of the 800 square foot ADU, junior ADU allowance. So Alex, thank you for correcting that. And I want to make sure that that new number of the 3148 is reflected in the exemption application or whatever the exact terminology is so that he's applying for the right thing. In terms of floor area ratio exception and overall scale, I understand what Michael shared about neighboring properties. I do want to point out that I don't know that any of the neighboring properties have a ADU or a junior ADU on the property. And so when you consider that there's this, from what we see living below, I see the ADU and then the office unit of 123 square feet, and they're attached with a deck. The net impact in our visual is nearly 600 square feet of building. And then now you're talking about another junior ADU and this space that's underground. There is quite a lot of building space, and just not all of it is being reflected in the floor area ratio. In regards to the height of the second story bedroom wing, Yes, from our home, we are, from our actual residence, we are quite far away, and I recognize that. We do at the back of our property, it's the way that we're able to utilize the capture the TAM view, there's a deck. And so when you are on that upper deck and you turn around and you see the story poles, it was quite dramatic. And also because of the sloping, from our perspective, we do see that 27 foot high roof line. And so I guess it's 25 foot roof line with the three foot chimney. And so I wonder if the chimney height could be reduced, if the overall pitch of the roof could be reduced. I understand that he's trying to echo the pitch of all three, but this one has a different orientation. So if it was slightly different, I don't think that's something that would be picked up when you're viewing it. So I do think that there's an opportunity to at least bring down the height of that roof line. And then finally, I just want to make sure that there is... true protection of these heritage trees, especially the oak, which I think has a 42-foot diameter. That wouldn't be right, 42-inch. And also the maple tree, because there's going to be a significant amount of earthwork, and I just worry about the roots being disturbed. And then in particular, as it relates to the second story, bedroom it will require some significant pruning of that oak tree and i know you can only safely prune a certain amount at a time so if nothing else i think that work might need to be staged so thank you thanks very much all right are there any comments on zoom if you're on zoom and you'd like to comment please raise your hand

No hands. Okay. Great. All right. Let's bring it back to the commission. Sure. Do you have any objection? Anybody? No. Go ahead. I know he doesn't like that.

Too bad. I totally agree on the trees. That was a primary motive for us to keep those trees. So protection, pruning, 100% there. I do think there is with our ADU and office, we rent them together. So those are combined. I would say I would argue that they're really one ADU and not two different buildings. But from a bulk and massing standpoint, our property is 200 feet in length. The distance from the house up to the ADU and office is another 100 or more. A hundred and change. So when you're looking at any one of the structures, whether it's the ADU in its office or the house, that that bulk and massing is completely separated. Like it's not you know, you're not looking at X number of thousands of feet the way you do with most houses. Right. This is a big lot. And I've been asked many times, like, why did you make the ADU so far away? It was always intended to be like a different thing. And most of the time when we have people come over, they look up and they're like, oh, isn't that the neighbor? They don't even recognize them and they don't connect them.

I don't think that was the issue so much. It was just whether it was just a question of FAR. And I think they've already decided that your ADUs are illegal. And that's, again, not our area to discuss.

Sort of making the connection. Yeah, that's all.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right. Let's bring it back, sir.

I do have concerns a little bit about some of the privacy impact. If that's one of the findings we're supposed to find, I don't know if I could mainly come up with that finding.

If I can jump in. Oh, yeah. Excellent. Thanks. One you are referencing, I believe, is finding B for designer view. Yep. Bad ability with neighbors. And the sentence in question reads, further, the proposed structure or addition of significant and unreasonable loss or interference with privacy, light, solar access, and prominence. So it's up to the commission whether or not the impact is significant and unreasonable in order to meet that finding.

Okay, but like I was saying, I think it would...

be unreasonable, you'd say that that would be enough to say that doesn't meet the finding, or I don't understand if... Oh, I'm just pointing out that the language in the finding is that it is a significant and unreasonable loss of privacy. It's not that there is any...

Totally, totally, understood. I think it's where I'm trying to figure out what becomes unreasonable loss of privacy or view.

There's no set standard established in the code for that. It's up to your discretion.

It's not a state law. There's no constitutional right to a good view or good privacy.

Some cities do have a view obstruction ordinance. Larkspur does not. And this comes up very frequently in planning commission meetings when we have second story additions that look out onto neighbors, et cetera. We've litigated this issue on many, many, many occasions. And so I guess the main question is, is this a significant and is it unreasonable? And that's what is up to our discretion to discuss is whether it is. And you certainly can think in your opinion, whether it is or not, it's up to you to make that decision, whether it's significant and unreasonable. Again, our job isn't to redesign the house. Totally. Yeah. Understood. Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Cool.

I just want to make a comment to one of the public comment people about the existing ADU and can staff correct me if I'm wrong, but we redrafted the law here in Larkspur about the ADUs. this was required for it was required for us to do this by state law and this i'm not sure what the exact language says i don't have it to memory but the spirit of the law was to encourage adus and we are not allowed to to account for them so i don't think it really in the end of the day makes any difference when it was built right um i mean maybe there's something in the language i think staff is discussing

You know, ADUs have a special status under state law. And the state says that we have to accommodate the legalization of ADUs. That date is not common among every city. I mean, it's not necessarily every agency has adopted the same standard. It is our interpretation of the law that this, you know, how did you word it, meets our...

Yeah, it's our interpretation that the ADU was constructed after July 1. The ADU did not exist pre-July 1, 2023. It existed after July 1, 2023 and is therefore eligible for the FAR bonus.

What do you mean it didn't exist?

Well, it wasn't an ADU.

It wasn't.

Oh, oh. You know, and the thing is we don't have good documentation of what structures were used for historically. I mean... People don't come out and say, oh, yeah, I have all this documentation that says on this day it started existing as an ADU.

I don't even think it was relevant, right? Because my recollection was that if it's an ADU, it's an ADU. What we were trying to do was encourage more ADUs to be built in the city.

It's an issue of spirit versus letter of the law. And I think that the way that the state and the city wants to encourage, as you say, ADU use, that the spirit of the law is that it is an ADU now and it was after that. And you've litigated that. And certainly if someone objects to that from a legal standpoint, they certainly could take that up with the city.

But the burden of proof is on the city. The applicant or the appellant, if they're challenging that. Yeah.

And again, it's not a planning commission issue. It's more of a legal issue that the city attorney and the city would be dealing with if someone were to sue saying that it was not that.

Right. I just wanted to add that comment and just address it because. maybe if you read the language, that's exactly what it says. But my recollection of what we were trying to discuss at the time was to encourage the ADUs. So that's where that came from. Um, but back to this particular property, um, I'm a little kind of challenged as to what to do here because I think the one story portion of it is actually beautiful and I really enjoyed listening to your thought process and the fact, everything you've tried to do to make this a very beautiful property, including preserving the trees and how you've looked at the whole street as a design is really good to hear. I don't love the sort of, I call it kind of the tower. It just looks a little bit like a tower at the back. but I mean, strictly speaking, you're not really doing anything wrong there. I mean, you're within the height, you're within the step backs. So, um, I wasn't really sure which way to go on this. I mean, I'm kind of finding it a really hard decision. Um, I don't, I think it's a real shame that it impacts the property next door. I mean, both sides. And I wouldn't want to look at that either and have them looking down on you. And I think if this commission approves it, then you should definitely go with the altered window design, um, I mean, actually, the one thing that kind of struck with me was the FAR exception. I mean, we have, as a commission, agreed to a lot of FAR exceptions. But in those cases, it was a very, very clear reason where there just wasn't a lot of room and it was a very steep slope. And there were really good reasons to why we had to agree to that. This is a really large property. And the slope is not that steep. And so I was kind of looking at that and saying, gosh, should we force you to reduce the FAR and therefore reduce the size of the second story just to reduce the kind of bulk and mass on that? But I actually don't know. So I haven't made a decision yet. And I guess I'll just hear what my last two commissioners are going to say. Okay.

Yeah, I would echo a lot of that. You have to appreciate the style and the design and the bio roof I think is wonderful. The style is very compatible with the neighborhood I drove by earlier. But it really comes down to I think the standard, which merits reading aloud for the design review, which is the proposed structure or addition avoids significant and unreasonable loss or interference with privacy, light, solar access, and prominent scenic views, i.e. views of hillsides, Mount Tam, the San Francisco Bay. And the standard is significant and unreasonable, as Commissioner Swisher has said. So you have to define both of those. And I think there's no question that it's significant. I think that the, you know, even applicant has admitted that there is an impact here. And certainly the visuals show that it's fairly significant. The question is, is it unreasonable? And that's where I get stuck. You know, I would just note that for the FAR exception, there's a similar question, which is that, you know, the technique or culmination of techniques results in a design that blends with a neighborhood or is of a unique architectural design that is sensitive to the immediate neighbors and compatible with the overall neighborhood character. So in both... But for both... standards you know you really have to factor in the the neighbors and i guess what i've seen this commission do in my short i mean i'm not a lot of experience but i've seen a few um and and from what i've seen when you ask a uh an applicant to go back to the drawing board often they can come up with a with some sort of solutions with the feedback that that you know it Maybe there's got to be a way to get the house that you want that's going to also minimize, make this impact on the neighbors less significant. So I think that's where I would lean is to say, you know, please, please go back to the drawing board. I love that you talk to your neighbors. Unfortunately, your neighbors didn't really weren't on board, it sounds like. I mean, it's one thing that's great. You got to talk to your neighbors. But the whole point is you want to try to get some consensus here. And I think there isn't any consensus, it appears. So that's where I'm leaning. But I can be persuaded otherwise.

All right. So. I think that I like the fact that you worked with the neighbors. Well, first of all, let me say that the design... of your architectural firm is always elegant and beautiful, and it's a beautiful design. It's really, really nicely done. It does have a little bit of a tower element on that second story. The issue is whether or not you can build a second story without doing that. And I don't think you can. I think that you have a right to build a second story, that we've gone through this many, many times with people doing second stories. If there's going to be a second story, how do you mitigate it such that it does not impact the neighbors? Sorry, I've got to... Kansas Planning Commission. Sorry, I'll talk to you later. My wife is in Tucson with my daughter right now. I don't think that you could put a second story here and not impact the neighbors. And the question is, again, as we've talked about it, is it significant and is it unreasonable? It is somewhat significant, I think, because really from the back of the lot or from your deck, the neighbors, is where you're seeing the blockage. And from your house, you are not. You are still seeing Mount Tam. And I think that the issue is you're not going to make everybody happy all the time. And I think it would be unreasonable if the entire second story obstructed your view out of every window of your house. To come off of your deck and see that, yeah, it's a bit of a bummer, but this is something we've done many, many, many times. And I think that if you go down William Avenue, this issue has happened a lot. People lost their Mount Tam views entirely because the house did that. So in my opinion, this is somewhat significant, but not unreasonable. And I do think it is a beautiful design. I like your courtyard. I think it complies with the mission. I was in Tucson this last weekend, and there's a lot of mission houses like that that have that element. They're really beautiful. I think you have the right to build the house you want to build, again, without significant and unreasonable impact, and I don't believe that this does that. So I think I would favor approval of this as it is, with the one exception that you do modify the window design so it does not – Violating a loss of privacy, which it would be both on both sides, by the way, on yours as well as your neighbors that it would do that. I think this is a hard call and it's tough because no one's going to be happy. It's like a Solomonic decision that, you know, not everyone's going to be happy with it. But I think that you're well within the allowed height. You're well within the allowed setback. You're within allowed setback. And that it is a beautiful design. So I think that it does improve the neighborhood. And I think it does comply with Larkspur's design standards. And that's where I would stand on this. So any other comments? Well, then it's two and two. Or it's three and one. It's the way it is.

Part of me thinks, what if you had to choose between building a different design and keeping the tree? I mean, do you know what I mean? It's like I'm just kind of almost, you know, something has to give at some point. So either you lose your view. I'm talking more to the neighbors here. It's like you don't want to lose a tree, but on the other hand, where else is the second story going to go? This is hard. I do agree with Commissioner Swisher that this is actually a really hard one to come to a decision on.

Can I ask a real quick question, more point of order? How far away does one need to live from the house to make sure they're not in a conflict of interest? I live on Elm Avenue, so I want to make sure. Brought that up at the beginning, apologies. Kind of thought that would be one thing you guys monitored, but I'm just thinking through.

Feet is the standard. As the crow flies or as the...

Anyone know off the top of their head how far? I think it's far enough because it's a half a mile drive.

Where on Elm are you?

355.

I'm sorry, you want to check? 355, let me think about that for a second.

I was thinking more of the, it's pretty much from 106. Outside of 500 feet. Okay, golden. Awesome.

We didn't catch that when, you know. Golden.

Again, this is like my fourth meeting. I just want to make sure I'm not like, we get to the end of it and I'm like, oh no.

Nice of you to ask before you vote. Yeah, you're outside of five minutes. Golden. Cool. Okay. So, any further discussion? Did someone like... Well, you have to make a decision. That's why you're here.

You could. Can I ask maybe to Jeff, what would become unreasonable?

Well, I think, again, unreasonable would be, in my opinion, this is my opinion. I have the same vote as everybody else. My idea of unreasonable would be is if the house, the views from the windows of the house was obstructed by the thing where it's now looming over everything. you know, your living room window, which you had a view of TAM and now you don't. That's not the case here. This is a case where a portion of the deck, you don't have a view and it's a partial view of TAM. You still maintain a partial view, but it is, it is an impact. I mean, you know, again, I know several properties on William where people went up second story and completely blocked people's view of TAM and those have been approved. So I think, well, except we've done it.

Well, I mean, I,

That's what Andrew and I did, just to be clear. Yeah. Well, put it this way. There is no rule in Larkspur. There is no law that says you cannot obstruct another person's view. There are places in this county, like Tiburon or Belvedere, where that is, in fact, the case. This is not the case in Larkspur.

Has that become more true, though, when we're, like, if, say, we're just doing a second story but not exceeding FAR? Mm-hmm. I think you're right. It doesn't exceed FAR. Second story, it's kind of like, well, I mean...

There's still designer view when you do a second story.

In that case, the designer view is different, I think, than where I do it.

There are separate issues to be considered.

Can I ask a separate question? It's actually for the architect. I know we've closed the public court hearing part of this, but can... Is there a way, I promise you are very tall, so this is going to be challenging, that you can bring down the second story or the ground floor or even the garage just to bring the height of the building down by a foot or two?

um this one yeah the garage the height of the garage is set currently um so that where the new curb cut would be the driveway would be it's more or less level into the garage maybe your question is could we slope down into the garage and excavate out that much or the roof i mean i don't know if there's a standard i'm sorry i'm not an architect i'll talk to you yeah if we assumed okay we're going to go level in which is a rational way to build yeah and then from the garage the height in there it's a little over eight feet. So I think I've got because of the slope of the garage, it's a little over nine feet from the garage to the main floor, maybe nine and a half, because it was at the main floor where the existing house is. And then from there to the second floor, as we discussed earlier, where the kitchen is, the main floor to the primary floor is 10 foot, so that you get a little under nine feet in the kitchen. And again, talking about Mike's height. So that was how we set all the heights. Could we take the entirety of it and just push it into the ground further. We could at a cost of excavation, concrete and everything else. And then when you walk out to grade right now, The new town can walk more or less out to the courtyard, more or less where it is now, because we kind of match the grades within inches. There's always a way. So I don't know if that answers your question.

I mean, that's what I was thinking. Because when I look at it, I see sort of a tower, and I was just wondering if there's a way to, or even you bring the roof down.

Right, flatten the roof and then...

I don't know if that would be that.

Could you bring the plate height down one foot? Let's just say, would that be, would that be an insubstantial, would that be substantially alter your design to bring the plate height down one foot?

Cause I have like eight foot ceilings, like in my house and we live with it and it's fine. So I know you're six, seven, but.

The garage ceilings at eight feet, the ceiling above the kitchens at nine feet, but that's a big room. So if you brought it down to eight feet, it'd feel weird. a larger room to have less than an eight-foot ceiling. The whole design here is three gabled sections to give you this mission style. That is the standard mission vernacular, a gable roof. We have a nine-foot plate height on the second story. To answer, I think where you're going with this, if it all came down a foot or a foot and a half or two feet, would that make a difference? And my honest assessment is not really. I mean, what I think... The impact on Andrew and Emily is not necessarily the very top. It's the mass.

Yeah, the mass.

It's the mass. Personally, if that drops down another foot, it's still that mass.

It is still that mass, but it's less of a mass.

Yeah.

And so I think a reasonable compromise would be to bring it down one foot. on the upper floor. I wouldn't touch the lower floors because I think then you have that problem of it being cave-like in that first floor. But in the upper floor, I mean, a lot of mission houses, et cetera, have a shorter ceiling or lower ceiling on that second floor. And it wouldn't be that...

huge an impact but i do think would make a big psychological impact as well as an impact on the massing of that structure put it this way when i'm trying to find ways to make this work i mean the other solution that comes out is can you redesign something can you redesign something i guess if we had a clear commissioner swisher kind of put it well as far as like you know we have the right to build a second floor it does have um some impact um

But I don't think it's unreasonable. Could we bring it down a foot? Yeah, we could. I think maybe you're right. Maybe it's a psychological. I don't think it'll have an appreciable difference.

The only reason I'm saying is I think if we were to continue this and you were to come back with a one-foot redesign, I think that you would make a lot of parties happier. And I think that it would go much, I'm looking at this, I'm listening to what my other commissioners are saying here. And I think that's their main issue. And again, I'm trying to, you know, kind of like code, you know, some line where everybody, you know, no one's ever going to be totally happy, but could we make people happier and still.

Here's my solution. If that is, if the commission is generally agreed that that would be the thing that would kind of get this over the line.

Yeah.

Here's what I would propose. Okay. We have a nine foot plate height on that second floor. If we reduced it to eight foot six, there's six inches of it. We have a six and 12 roof right now. If we bring that down to a five and 12 roof, and we'd actually do five and 12 on all, I mean, you have to have a consistent, all the gables. That gives us another eight inches out of that peak. So combined, that's 14 inches. Yeah.

I think that would go a long way.

So I would say if you can approve it stipulating that it has the 8-6, 5-12 on all the roofs and we change that window design. Yeah. We certainly can make that kind of motion.

Don't speak to me. No, I'm not.

I'm just saying. We could agree to that and we could make that motion. We could make that motion. Right. I would kind of be curious, like what are the neighbors?

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, like, are we going to keep going into a, I don't know.

I wouldn't reopen it, but I'm saying, I personally think looking out that that would make a big issue. I mean, this is, I mean, this is a deliberative body. Obviously we're deliberating right now.

I have a question for staff actually. Don't go anywhere yet. So, If we were to come to, and I don't wish to speak for anyone else on the commission here, if we were to come to some kind of agreement where they would lower the roof or the site, I'm butchering all the words here. So I think they appreciate what I'm trying to say. Is there something they can do working with staff or do they have to come back to commission? How does that work?

You are very specific in your feedback. We can certainly process it as staff. If it's going to be general, please lower the height of the residence. Then we would want it to come back to. Got it. Okay.

So we could, in other words, we could say very specifically, we would like to see the rich roof pitch changed to five and 12 and the play date reduced by six inches and make that as part of the additions for approval.

We would impose that as a condition of approval, but it would be based on your motion.

You would oppose that? Impose that. And that would save us the issue of having to.

Correct. Because your motion is adding a condition of approval. There we go.

Good. Correct. What do you guys think?

I'm pumped to hear that that's the way it would go. And I don't know. I'm trying to think if that, like, would that meaningfully change it?

And it may not. I mean,

I do get a little, I don't know, trying to think of.

Your opinion, too.

Yeah, I think there it is. I think that's a reasonable compromise. From what I hear, it's various factors. It's not just the mass. There's privacy, which we can address through the windows. The loss of a scenic view, as you said, there's been many cases like this in the past, and it's not a complete loss. And I think if you buy a house on a slow till, this is sort of the risk that you take.

And I guess maybe to the privacy side, those windows are staircase windows, right? They're not even living area windows? Yep. All right. So let me make a motion then.

I moved to approve 16 Allen Avenue per the, I don't know how you guys want to word it, per the recommendations with the condition that the plate height of the second story is reduced by six, is it six inches? And that the pitch of the roofs are decreased from the current six and 12 to five and 12th. And the windows are redesigned as per the discussion to include that. So, okay.

As a motion, and then we will also modify the findings in the resolution about those impacts accordingly. Is that included in your motion? Yes. Okay, and that will include that in the motion as well.

Okay, and this, is there something in the plans about, they're keeping those three trees that was raised by one of the neighbors?

No, no, they're...

They're keeping it, and they'll preserve those three? Not affected, yeah.

Okay, not, okay. We have an arborist on that, it's all...

Okay. So, and to improve the FAR exception as, again, as written. Okay.

Would you like us to repeat that, those two conditions that you added?

No. Okay. I think we got it.

All right. Thank you. Do you have a second? Carry on.

A second.

All right. Let's have a roll call. Commissioners Apar.

Do you mind if I go last? Is that a thing I can say or no? It's okay to say no, but.

You can say no. I can go back to you. Stain is the other one.

It's up to the discretion of the chair to.

Sure, you can, whatever. You can come back to skip. Okay. So let's go to the other side. Okay.

I'm going to start with Commissioner Chalmers. Oh, yes. Commissioner Kingsdale. Yes. Chair Swisher. Yes. And Commissioner Zipak. Yes. Yes. So your motion passes with four yeses, zero noes, and one absence. Your decision is subject to a 10-day appeal period. Interested parties can appeal your decision by filing the required form and fee with the city clerk prior to 5 p.m. on the 10th day. Thank you.

And I would like to make a note to the individual. I forget. I'm sorry, your name. Emily, yeah, about the issue of the FAA. If you do have a question from a legal standpoint, please bring it up with me. Oh, yeah. Then the city council or the city attorney to be the person to bring that up with. If you do have a, you know, question on that. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you all.

That leaves my gavel.

All right. All right.

You may interrupt the meeting for one second. So

My phone has died. My kids are at home with another kid. So I've got to find a way to get my phone. There's this charger. Yeah, I'll go right behind you. Yeah, but this didn't work. I'm sorry. Do you want to use my phone to call your phone? No, I just want to have another cable somewhere. I'm sorry for interrupting.

Let's do the kid. Here, here.

I did not plug it into the wall, though. I only plugged it into this. Yeah, no, I tried it.

Okay.

All right. Well, I'll just continue here while we're figuring out the phone issue. All right. Next item on the agenda is... uh item d to palm avenue apn 021-102-06 uh city of larkspur applicant mark barton doris mitch owners r1 residential general plan conformity finding adopt a resolution finding the vacation of a three thousand four and seven foot portion of palm avenue right away is in conformance with the larkspur general plan we have a report on that

Okay, this is just a really brief item, so I'll try to make it quick. So as you know, from time to time, the Planning Commission votes on or makes findings of conformity with the general plan on various items. Most recently, you did this for the annual capital improvement programming. I think it was two meetings ago when you voted on that to make conformity findings. In this instance, we had a fire at Tupalm Avenue Since that time, the home was reconstructed, but while they were obtaining building permits to rebuild their home, a survey revealed that their freestanding garage and driveway, which survived the fire, were located within the public right of way. It was sort of a surprise to everyone. This portion of Palm Avenue is a one-way street. It is a very windy part of town, a very hilly, steep part of town. The applicant or the property owner has exhausted other potential avenues for resolution, and they are pursuing a quiet title action with the city to acquire the land under the existing garage and driveway. It is a 3,407 square foot crescent-shaped portion of property along the side of Palm Avenue. You can see the images up there on the screen of the existing garage and the driveway approach. It's obviously been there for a very, very long time. It's probably... constructed many years ago. The concrete looks quite old. There's an old retaining wall. So this part of town along Madrone Canyon has a lot of these situations where there's no standard right of way width. We have lots of streets of varying widths, lots of public rights of way that are varying widths and sizes. None of them are uniform. And we also, as you probably know, have properties where there are garages in the public right away right now that were built many, many years ago before we had regulations for this sort of thing. So these are very old. Many of these are very old legacy structures. And so in this instance after exhausting all avenues Public Works and the city agreed to initiate the vacation process This is sort of a first initial step of that process is to make findings That it is in conformance with the general plan There is a general plan policy and action item for these very circumstances in in the in the general plan So it does consider these types of situations. We already have that in there. We're just asking the Planning Commission to uphold that and make that finding as identified in the attached resolution of the staff report. After this step, the item would be scheduled at a future meeting for City Council consideration. That requires two separate meetings of the City Council to discuss the item where they would discuss the merits such as Do we want to do this? Do we want to attach a value to it? Those kinds of questions. In this instance, the Planning Commission's purview is limited to just does it conform with the general plan, the vacation of the right-of-way. We have found that it does. There are general plan policies to this effect. We're here because of state law. It does require this step in the process. Anytime you lease property or sell property that is publicly owned or have a capital improvement program, You have the planning commission has to come up with findings that it conforms to the general plan. And this is just one of those items that we see from time to time. So I will leave it at that. The staff report kind of describes all of the details. It is exempt from CEQA. There are two sections that apply in this instance, including surplus government property sales. And so we recommend the commission hold both. hold the hearing, consider any testimony, and adopt the resolution, finding that the vacation is in conformity with the general plan.

Okay. Any discussion with that? I didn't see anything that would indicate that it was not in conformity with the general plan, just in my reading of it.

There's no presentation by the owners or anything. It's just you guys. I do remember this one when it burnt down and we approved the building of that house.

There'll be two hearings, like I said, at City Council on the vacation, but... You know, I had more...

I always have trouble with these when they come in because I just feel like it's... The land is so valuable and expensive and people are just getting land and the city is just giving it out. I know I've agreed to it in the past because I can see that there's... The city can't really do very much with it. In this case... I know it says here that this serves no public benefit. This is a really, really narrow road and it's in that house burnt down. So God forbid it should happen again and you need to get a fire engine up there or something. I mean, it just seems at some point in the future, you may need to widen that road and Why are we just handing over like fee title? Why are we just gifting it over? Even if there's a value charge to it, I don't know what's going to happen with what the city council decides, as opposed to just having some kind of short term encroachment or something which at some point could be reversed. If this was in a different part of the city, I think it would be less of a concern. But given it's such a narrow road in a really fire-prone part of the city, given that's why we're here, because of the fire, that was my thought. So where it said it serves no public benefit, that's where I struggled with. And I know we don't comment on any value on this. That's a city council thing, right? But it seems like 3,000 square feet.

I'm not even sure about that, you know, because it's not really within the purview tonight. And that's something that the council would discuss when they go through that vacation process. And there's a very specific process under state law on what that involves. So I'm I'm sure they'll have that discussion when the time comes. But you are certainly within your purview to make a finding differently, or make a comment on this reality. This is not something that's...

But it's the difference between giving up the actual ownership to just doing an encroachment.

Is there any reason why there's not something different?

There is a reason why they're doing this process, and it's my understanding that they've exhausted all avenues and that it was not one of the available options to have a private property, and the public right-of-way has its own set of problems.

Do you know what were the other avenues? I mean, I won't go there, but let me just ask this.

We're not really throwing that in here because it's not really...

When we say make a finding that this is a private property on public land that is... Sorry, the exact language here. It has been maintained by these adjacent owners, the adjacent property.

I don't think that would change the abatement process or the findings or the council's decision-making path. We're just simply looking at the general plan as it applies to the vacation of a portion of the public right-of-way.

We have to make a finding that this piece of parcel has served no public benefit.

No, that would be the city council's job to do under the vacation process. This is the finding that it's in conformance with the Larkspur general plan.

Yeah, but says that such areas serve no public benefit. That's what the general plan says.

Yes, it does say that, yes. And you could, I mean, if you disagree with that, you could make that statement and say that you feel it provides a public benefit. But in its current situation, having... the path that you just described would, uh, present a liability to the city. And that is why they can't just create an easement for a private structure.

So if they, if we say like, no, I mean, you could certainly, the next step would be tear down the garage and rebuild it on their own property or, um,

Possibly, I mean, again, public works has agreed to go to bring this to council and go down that path, but it is within the purview of the planning commission to. Find otherwise, if they feel that if you feel that this does serve. This portion of right away does serve a public benefit as you said, you know, concerns about fire access and with, you know, that is certainly within your purview tonight.

I mean, you talked about an easement. I was talking about an encroachment. That's the way I've seen it. I'm sorry.

Well, encroachment would require an easement as well. I mean, if you wanted to allow someone to have private structures in public property as an encroachment, it does necessitate creation.

I feel like I see that a lot in Marin because bits of houses and bits of front yards and fences are always on lights away, and then you just get an encroachment. Right.

It's my understanding that because it's a garage and it's a private garage, it would present some degree of liability. There was a reasoning behind this process.

It's a three-part finding. There's the no public benefit. There's also presents liability to the city and is better maintained by the adjacent property owners. Do we know anything about how they... Are they maintaining this garage? How are they maintaining it? Is it a fire hazard?

They've assumed that this was their own garage for longer than we didn't know about.

It was probably built at the same time the house that burned down was built.

Yeah, I mean, the city really, this wasn't even on our radar. We just assumed that this was private property until we looked at the maps. It could be just fire hazard as the house was.

It could what?

Just as much of a fire hazard.

Yeah, absolutely. It did survive. It was not affected by the fire, obviously.

Yeah, no, the house is way up the hill. I saw that.

Yeah. But again, this wasn't on our radar. We did not know that this condition existed. And it only came to light when they came in for building permits and had a survey done that showed otherwise. And so that's how this process was kicked off.

At a certain point, will the fire department be consulted on this? Yes. At what stage does that happen?

If they have not already, they absolutely will very soon. I cannot say whether or not they have already, but yes. That is also required as a part of the formal vacation process.

Okay.

Which we have not begun yet, so...

You can make a motion. Sure, make a motion. No, I'm not going to make it.

Oh, you have to take public comments.

Oh, public comments. Are there any public comments on this issue? No, not on Zoom.

What about on Zoom?

No.

I'm kidding.

Would somebody like to make a motion?

Go ahead. Oh, I don't want to make a motion because I'm going to. Can I make a motion and then not agree to it?

I don't think you can. No, you cannot.

I'm not going to make the motion. I'm sorry.

I make a motion. I don't know.

I'm trying to be helpful.

All right.

Well, you can make a motion to not adopt the resolution. I make a motion that we not adopt the resolution.

Make a motion to not adopt the resolution or to deny a resolution.

Or that the findings cannot be made.

Or you can make a motion that differs from what the resolution states.

Here's the thing. I don't know what the alternative is. I don't know what the impact now. You're saying there's a liability on the city.

That's my understanding. I mean, obviously, because there's a private garage being used in city right-of-way, that is inherently liability.

But it's like, you know... In the last case this happened, it was like a water... a path of water, remember that one? And there actually was some lightability there and I could see things going wrong and I could see why we didn't want to maintain that and keep it clear. This one I'm, struggling with more.

I mean, if there's more information that you seek, I can certainly come back with that. Yes.

So here's then what I would say is, is it possible, please, to see if we could get an encroachment instead? And if there's a reason, let us know if the encroachment path is a feasibility.

We certainly can have, I mean, this is an item that we're doing on behalf of Public Works. We can certainly follow up with them and come back at a future meeting.

Okay.

And if you could let us know if the fire department has weighed in. Yes.

Absolutely, yeah. So if you wanted, that sounds like, from what I'm hearing, a potential motion for a continuation.

Yes, let's do that. I'm going to make, as a chairman, can I make a motion? Yes. I would like to make a motion to continue this item pending further reports from the fire department and and potentially the attorney public works public works regarding uh safety issues uh and uh right-of-way issues and altered yeah and whether we can do an incredible okay second roll call

Commissioner Zabar.

Yes.

Commissioner Kingsdale.

Yes.

Commissioner Chalmers. Yes. Chair Swisher.

Yes.

Four yeses, zero noes, and one yes. That's good.

Well, I understand why they want to, but yeah, you're right. It's a safety issue that needs to be said. Okay. Next item five, business items to approve the August 11th, 2026 planning commission meeting minutes. This was the meeting in which we did discuss the one Larkspur Plaza. Is that correct?

If it's helpful at all, there was an individual that spoke. I saw you didn't have a last name and I have the last name for you. If you want, it's Jill Martay, M-A-R-T-A-Y. The second one down. I know that one, but I didn't know the others.

Okay.

Otherwise, I can make a motion to approve the minutes from August 11, 2026. Okay. Second?

Yes. Oh, sorry. I jumped it.

Sure. Let's just do by acclamation.

aye aye aye aye okay all right uh are there any planning commissioner reports i i need to add one item that i received um in the middle of the hearing from our public works director i'm going to throw that up there um you're adding it to the agenda no i was gonna i was gonna provide this uh during the um Community Development Director's report, but I wasn't able to until, and I just received this from our Public Works Director in the middle of the hearing. So I just want to announce that one of the items, remember the last time we voted on a general plan conformity, for the capital improvement projects. One of those capital improvement projects was the Magnolia Avenue Corridor Study. And I would just want to announce that the Magnolia Avenue Corridor Study will be having a community input workshop on Tuesday, October 6th from 6pm to 7.30pm at the library. I just wanted to let you all know and add that to my list of announcements. You're certainly welcome to attend that if you wish. Great.

Where were the southern city limits?

That would be the stretch of Magnolia going down to the southern city limits, which would be Corte Madera's, the boundary of Corte Madera. Yes, because Magnolia does.

Okay, got it.

So I just wanted to add that. I'm sorry to interrupt your item.

Thank you for adding that. All right. The next item on the agenda is adjournment.

We had no commissioner reports.

No, there was no commissioner.

And when the next meeting is?

It would be October 13th.

October 13th.

Uh, yeah, so the, so this, this, uh, the agenda is incorrect. It says the next regular committee is on September.

No, this is.

Yeah. So it's, that's, that's wrong.

Right. It's a double header. And now the next one starts.

This is a groundhog day. The next commission. It's not going to be September. It's going to be October. What now? October 13th. 13th. Okay.

And there's no plan to interlude meeting, right? No. No.

Okay, great. And reminder of the city council meeting regarding One Luxor Plaza is the 16th?

It would be, yes, it'd be this coming Wednesday, the 16th.

Next Wednesday, the 16th.

Yes, not tomorrow.

Sorry, a week from tomorrow. A week from tomorrow is the 16th at the conference. At the conference. 395 is already dry. Very good. So motion for adjournment.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

All right. By acclamation. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Excellent. Thank you, everybody.