Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Good evening.

Everybody now call to order the town of Los Gatos planning commission meeting of June 11th, 2026. I will now call the role. Commissioner sortie here. Commissioner mayor here. Commissioner Burnett here. Mr. Thomas here. I am here and commissioner stump is absent and vice chair. Barnett has recused himself. Please stand if you're able and join commissioner mayor as he leads us in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

As the Planning Commission conducts the meeting this evening, we encourage active participation by the public, which is essential to democracy and to the important work of the Planning Commission. Public input is very much welcome and always considered. The public can participate in several ways. Prior to a meeting, written comments about agenda items may be submitted to staff, and during the meeting there are two opportunities for members of the public to participate. First, during the verbal communications period, an individual may speak on any topic that is not on tonight's agenda. Second, during the public hearing portion of the meeting, members of the public may speak about an agenda item. You will be advised the times when you come to speak. If you do wish to address the commission tonight during verbal communications portion or the public agenda item, please either raise your hand on Zoom or if you're here in person complete a speaker card. They should be in the seats in front of you and please hand that to staff so that I can get that. Print your name and if needed the phonetic spelling. When you are called to speak, please come up to the podium, speak directly into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded, and you will have three minutes to speak. We will now begin the verbal communications portion of the meeting, during which members of the public are invited to address the commission on any issue that is not on the agenda for tonight's meeting.

Chairperson Burch, excuse me, did you already mention that Commissioner Barnett is recused? I said he recused himself. Okay, thank you.

I would like to add that we take no action about items discussed during the verbal communication portion of the hearing. Verbal communications is limited to three minutes per speaker. Mr. Paulson, I don't have any speaker cards unless any were handed.

There are no hands raised.

Perfect. As far as the consent calendar, we have no items on the consent calendar tonight. So I will now move to the public hearing portion of the meeting for item number one. Item number one is continued from the December 17th, 2025 hearing. Consider a request for approval for the subdivision of one lot into 12 lots with a vesting tentative map, construction of a new single family residence on each lot, site work requiring a grading permit, and removal of large protected trees under Senate Bill 330 on a vacant property zoned RC. located at 178 Twin Oaks Drive, APN 532-16-006, architectural and site application S-24-023, vesting tentative map application M-24-013, and mitigated negative declaration ND-25-001. A recirculation initial study and mitigated negative declaration have been prepared. The property owner and applicant is Larry Dodge and the project planner is Erin Walters. I do believe all commissioners had previously had an opportunity to go to the site. Is there anything that needs to be disclosed? That's correct. Did you have an opportunity commissioner mayor?

Yes, I did go to the site. I just want to disclose that in a professional capacity, I've worked with the landscape architect and civil engineer on the project, but I haven't spoken to anyone there about this particular project.

Thank you for that. Ms. Walters, will you presenting the report this evening?

Yes, good evening Chair and Commissioners. Erin Walters, Senior Planner. The 17 and a half acre hillside site at 178 Twin Oaks Drive is currently vacant and proposed to be subdivided into 12 single family residential lots, which also include three below market price units that represents 25% of the proposed homes. The application is being processed under Senate Bill 330 and includes requests pursuant to state density bonus law and the builder's remedy provisions of the Housing Accountability Act. The Planning Commission previously did consider this project on December 17th and continued the item to allow the applicant and the town staff additional time to respond to questions that were raised by the commissioners. Since that hearing, the applicant has provided written responses addressing questions regarding pervious paving, drainage, privacy screening, open space easement, and trail easements. The applicant has submitted a revised vegetation buffer plan, which can be found in Exhibit 36. In addition, the applicant has also modified a proposal to provide private open space easements and public trail easements on multiple lots, and that can be found in Exhibit 35. However, the applicant is still requesting an incentive under state density bonus law to waive the requirement to construct and maintain the trails. In response to questions and comments regarding biological resources, the town's environmental consultant conducted an additional review of the on-site ephemeral drainage feature. Following a field investigation after a storm event, it was determined that a portion of the feature does extend to lot five. As a result, a recirculated initial study and mitigated NGDAC were prepared to address the impact, and this also includes two additional mitigation measures related to biological resources, measure 410 and measure 411. The recirculated mitigated NGDAC was recirculated for 30 days for public review. The environmental document concludes that all potential impacts can be mitigated. to a less than significant level through implementation of the mitigated measures identified in the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. The commission has received an addendum and desk item containing the applicant's public outreach, additional public comments, and clarifying language related to the mitigation measure Staff recommends that the Commission forward the recommendation to Town Council to adopt the recirculated mitigated NICDAC and approve the project's application subject to the revised findings and conditions of approval. In addition to planning staff this evening, public works staff is here to assist with questions. And then also Angela DeRosa and Nick Papani of Rainey, the town's environmental consultants, are here, as well as Rick Hopkins from Live Oak and Associates, who's the project biologist. They are here for questions. And at this time, I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Papani from Rainey to add any additional information regarding this recirculated M&D.

Thank you very much. Again, Nick Papani, Vice President with Rainey Planning and Management. Excuse me. Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission. Pleasure to be here. Upon receipt of public comments when the original initial study mitigating deck was routed, We carefully reviewed all comments and in response to comments and feedback, we worked with our consultant Live Oak Associates. Again, Rick Hopkins here, principal of Live Oak to conduct additional onsite investigation. And that was during a very heavy rain event. And there was identification of an additional segment of the femoral stream that extended in a lot five, as Aaron mentioned. As a result of that, when a new, but avoidable of impact is identified. The recirculation is required and so we worked with live out closely to identify mitigation measures to offset that impact and we can discuss that in more detail as as may be needed tonight. But approximately 122 lineal feet of that channel would be impacted by lot five development. So we've developed a mitigation measure to offset that basically creation restoration of the onsite channel elsewhere on the project site to fully mitigate that impact. So, at this point, the document includes substantial evidence that all potential impacts would be mitigated fully to a lesson siphon impact. And so that's an M and D is an appropriate document in that case. And I'll just kind of leave it there and we're happy to answer any further questions as we move forward.

All right, thank you. Are there questions of staff commissioner sortie?

Yeah, thank you. Just a quick follow up. I'm going to have more questions, I think, down the road that go into a little more detail about the ephemeral drainage. But we did get an erratum. And it addresses, I think, the compensation component to IV-10, which is the, or IV-10, which is a pretty important mitigation measure. And it looks like almost a substantial rewrite. of that, or at least a lot of text added. So could you provide a little more background on why this happened just in the last 24 hours or so, it sounds like?

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner. So we decided to in response to public comment to add some additional language to the performance standards that were included in that mitigation measure. You'll notice that it's it's mainly restricted to those bullet points where we decided to work again in concert with Live Oak to provide some additional performance language in terms of success criteria for the revegetation along the channel. Essentially, we're trying to leave some flexibility open in the measure, though, recognizing that it's ultimately up to a negotiation with the regional board in terms of the final mitigation package. So we don't want to box the project in too much to strict criteria because we want to allow some flexibility. But we did decide to provide some additional detail in response to public comment to show what an acceptable package should be from a biological perspective.

And just a quick follow up, I know this is a reference to Valley Water, which is another public agency we hadn't seen before associated, I think, with the project or with that condition anyway, that mitigation measure. Is there a little more background on how Valley Water plays into this?

I think the reference is to the storm event. It's just to provide the metric as to a 10-year storm event as defined by Valley Water. Rick, maybe you can provide some additional info if you'd like. But that's just kind of tying the storm event that after a size storm of that nature to make sure that a qualified individual goes out and inspects that channel to make sure that there's no erosion occurring. And if so, adaptive measures could be implemented.

Okay, thank you.

Are there any other questions of staff? Commissioner Burnett?

Yes, thank you. So my question is, these mitigation measures, are they deferred till after permitting or are they done along with the project?

So the permits cannot be obtained until the CEQA process is complete. So permits will not be obtained until after this process. So that's why we try to have some level of flexibility, not deferring, but having some flexibility in these measures to recognize that at the end of this, if the project does get approved, that the applicant will have to obtain permits from the agencies and at that point the fine details of the mitigation will be developed. In CEQA you have to make sure that you have performance standards in a mitigation measure uh... you can you don't have to have every detail worked out especially when you have to get a permit from an agency because the agency is going to have some level of input on that process right so it's acceptable to uh... allow uh... performance based mitigation making sure that we specify okay here's how the site needs to be that that channel area needs to be restored elsewhere on site to offset the impact. But the fine details, those can be worked out with the agency down the line. So it's kind of a fine balance. Yeah, you're not supposed to defer in CEQA, but you don't have to figure out every single detail when you're working with agencies to kind of determine the final package.

SO MY READINGS, ACTUALLY, THAT MITIGATION TO BE DETERMED AT A FUTURE DATE IS IMPERMISSIBLE, DEFERRAL OF MITIGATION IN TERMS OF CEQA. SO I WAS JUST WANTING TO KNOW WHAT YOUR VIEW ON THAT, BECAUSE THAT'S THE READING.

Yeah, I would offer that we haven't deferred mitigation when it comes to the biological mitigation. For example, with respect to the creek, we have a requirement that the amount of channel that's being impacted has to be compensated at a one-to-one ratio. So that's the performance standard basis. So that's something that will have to be met, that the equivalent amount of channel on site that's being impacted will have to be restored elsewhere on the site. So it's not deferred. We set it forth very clearly that the equivalent amount of impacted channel has to be created and restored on the project site.

Okay, thank you for that. Commissioner Mayer.

Following up on my fellow commissioner's question just now, what does that mean in practice? Let's say a project is constructed here, does that mean culverts? What does that look like physically?

Thank you, Commissioner. I'll start out, and if we want to get deeper into it, certainly Rick can assist. But what we've identified is there's a couple ways to approach it. In concert, again, with Live Oak, the first suggestion is to remove the existing culvert. We want to naturalize that channel as much as possible. So there's an existing culvert that's about 15 to 20 feet long, I think, a little bit upslope. in the ephemeral stream, remove that culvert, restore that portion of the channel. And then also, which Live Oak's been involved in in other projects, the on-site ephemeral feature, it has some incised portions where there's actually a little bit of a bed, and then it has just kind of swale areas that are more kind of just flat areas, right? And so creating additional incised portions of that channel. So it's kind of a more fluid natural channel feature. And there's ample room on site to do that and exceed the amount of area that's being impacted by the project, which, again, is at approximately 122 lineal feet. So it's removing existing culverts, naturalizing the channel, creating more in-size portions, and there's ample room on site to do that. Great. Thank you.

Are there any further questions of staff at this time? Okay, Commissioner Thomas.

I do have a couple of questions just about the area having to do with some of the plantings and everything near lots five and six. I'm not exactly sure who on staff or maybe this is something that the landscape architect should answer in a little bit. So if that's the case, that's totally fine. I can ask when we have the applicant team up. Yeah. So it just is about the appropriateness of some of the plants that are being planned to plant there. So I was hoping that the, um, environmental consultants would be able to confirm that or not. Is that an appropriate question to ask of them?

the proposed vegetation that's being planted on the individual lots. The question is, is that appropriate to plant on site or close to the ephemeral features?

Yeah, close to the ephemeral features, yes.

Okay.

I would defer to the applicant first. Okay, and then follow up. And the landscape architect, then you can follow up that.

Perfect, thank you.

All right, any further questions of staff at this time? All right, seeing none, I will now open the public portion of the hearing, and I will call the applicant to speak. Jim Foley.

Good evening Planning Commission and staff. Happy to be back here. This was continued as you heard from our hearing in December. There were a number of questions that came out of that hearing from the Planning Commission, and those are found in the report. I'm sure you'll have additional questions or want feedback about those, but the consultant team has answered that, I think, pretty clearly. We also heard from several of the neighbors. Many of them are here tonight. We were able to Meet with a few of them specifically the ones on twin oaks. They're immediately adjacent to that property line. And discuss a few of the things that we had heard in the last meeting. That didn't occur until just a couple of weeks ago and then we got some really. I guess more defined feedback from them yesterday and I think a lot of the requests that they have as follow ups are going to be achievable. So hopefully we can. Work with them to to satisfy that. I know some, some of the items that had come up prior. We sort of took a stab at along the property line as far as drainage are concerned and things like that. So, I think. You know, we're happy to provide that as shown in what we have, or if there are other. Ways to design what we do along that property line. We're open to working with them on that request for additional screening. We're happy to do all of these things subject to what we can do with defensible space and. To your question about appropriate species and things like that. So I think that there's a little bit of work in progress there. We have some time before hopefully this goes to town council next for. approval um other than that we're here with the team we have a couple people online we have our architect our consulting arborist our our landscape architect as well we can answer any follow-ups you have from the last hearing or what you found in the staff report thank you are there any questions of the applicant i do um

I did see the letter where you referenced speaking to three of the neighbors. I do realize you probably kind of hurried to get that in to verify that you had had those conversations. And I was wondering if you would expand a bit on those conversations of what screening means, what you talked about, about the drainage. So on our part, as this moves forward, we fully understand what those things mean and what tentative agreements you've made.

Sure, we don't have any agreement yet. I think that from the last hearing, 1 of the things that we heard was. A lot of concerns about drainage and site drainage. We did go into a little bit with with the engineer here about sort of the overall plan for the site and the drainage. And I think some of some of the stuff got lost through that conversation. So, we wanted to clarify that that has been found in some of the common responses that have come back to you about how that design works. Then on top of that. Just to give assurances to those neighbors who have lived there much longer and understand how that hillside can flow or not flow and have. Had complaints in the past about mud slides into the pool or whatnot. We worked with HMH to try to come up with a belt and suspenders approach of what can we do along the property line? Right? So that was something that we proposed and we put back in our exhibit along with some of the other questions from planning commission regarding the open space easements that we hadn't necessarily planned for before. Regarding some of the trail reservation that we hadn't planned for before as a suggestion to address those. I don't think we got specific. Feedback from the neighbors about we like this. We don't like this. There were some questions about it. Where does it go? How does it? How does it handle the drainage? Our original design we think is adequate to handle the drainage of the hillside. But again, this was something extra we wanted to provide just to be doubly sure. We're happy to continue that conversation. Is it appropriate to have it? Does it then compete with the screening that we'd like to offer them? I don't know, but we can work through that. As far as screening, the request was let's get some taller trees there along the property line to screen some of the views of what's going to be developed on the hillside. We're happy to pursue that, and we think it's a very reasonable request. We just don't know what we can accommodate. And I think that was primarily... There's a list of questions that we just got, and just generally speaking, I think that we haven't even had a chance to reengage with the neighbors on those specific items. But let's say there's 10 items, eight of them are a certainty, two of them we might have to look into a little bit more as far as making accommodations and working with them. So beyond that, I wish I had more specifics to share, but we just haven't had enough time to do that.

The 10 questions came from the neighbors direct to your team then I assume I don't they're not part of our packet. So I assume. Okay. All right. Are there any other questions of the applicant commissioner Burnett?

Yes, I have a question. So, did somewhere I read did the heartscape increase over since we last. It came before us in December.

Yeah, that seems like I read somewhere that it was quite a that's a specific question for our civil engineer. And I think they put details into there as to what the discrepancy was about how it was originally designed. What was represented in certain versions of our submittal. And then ultimately there was an edit. that showed a larger number of impervious surface. If you want to get technical about it, I'll have to bring up HMH to describe to you what exactly happened there and the cadence of in what submittals that occurred. But in any event, the entire design of the drainage and the treatment and the stormwater and all that has all been engineered and compliant with what we have designed. Thank you.

Any other questions of the applicant at this time? Yes, I had a question. Um, so. WITH REGARDS TO THE TRAILS, DID YOU, I KNOW THAT WE, YOU KNOW, THAT THE CURRENT PROPOSAL INCLUDES THAT EASEMENT ALONG, YOU KNOW, THAT AREA. AND, BUT OBVIOUSLY NOT INCLUDING THE CONSTRUCTION AND OR MAINTENANCE OF THE TRAIL. LIKE IN YOUR LETTER OF JUSTIFICATION, YOU JUST ARE CLAIMING THAT THE SORRY, LET ME FIND THE SPECIFIC. ESSENTIALLY, I DON'T WANT TO MISQUOTE IT, BUT BASICALLY THAT THE PROJECT IS ALREADY SO EXPENSIVE THAT ANY ADDITIONAL COST IS JUST TOO MUCH. DID YOU HAPPEN TO LOOK INTO AT ALL HOW MUCH IT WOULD COST TO ADD THE TRAIL?

I don't have a rough order of magnitude or dollar figure associated with it. We've been through an exhaustive process. I mean, the soft cost budget for this over the years and the time that it's taken is just well beyond what was original budgeted. So it's literally at a breaking point. And under the state laws, we're at that point where That's just is what it is. I mean, we did our best. We. We came here in the last hearing with the, you know. Take all the feedback we can, but in that hearing, it was, we are not going to do this. We just can't. And now we're here. Okay. We have been able to spend. A lot of dollars with HMH on designing easements. There's even more dollars that have to be spent. To finalize formalize the easements, record the easements. I mean, consulting fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if that helps you then also on top of that, the trail, which luckily aligns with some of that. So, you know, some of that can be helpful to, hey, we're going to prepare for this as far as grading exercises or whatever would be done in ongoing maintenance program. Um, each individual lot here is. There's no common area association created in the, the are specifically. For some of the ongoing, like, maintenance and drainage requirements, they apply to each specific property owner. So there's not an entity there that could have an ongoing maintenance assess each property owner for the trail. I mean, that's all. I don't know what I've just kind of set off the top of my head in the last 5 minutes, but where are we in the millions of dollars yet to do that? It's just literally impossible. to accommodate the installation and maintenance of the trail. But we thought, let's at least put our best foot forward to prepare for it in case Mid-Penn Open Space or a private donor was able to come in and put that in place later, or another project somehow that needed something that we could at least take one more step than we were able to do just on the project on its own.

Okay, thank you. It just is for. I understand and I know that it's been a long project process, but for us, we have to part of our job is to make sure that for all for any of the waivers that. It if we required it, it would render the project and feasible essentially. So I appreciate. That information, but and appreciate that in the step of including the easement part, because.

that does you know help yes it does a lot thank you are there any further questions of the applicant at this time all right seeing none we'll move on to um other speakers and i'm sure we will have plenty of questions for you at the end thank you thank you all right i'm now going to call forward um cindy clark

Thank you, Commissioners, for this opportunity. Could you pull that a little closer to you? Okay, can you hear me now? That's great. So, first off, thank you, Commissioners, for your time tonight. I know this has been a great deal of work, and you've put a lot of enthusiasm in it, and I really appreciate it, and I appreciate this time to speak as well. My name is Cindy Clark. I'm a Los Gatos resident, and I live about a mile and a half away from the proposed project. And tonight I'd like to make three points. You know, just going back to how this all started, you're quite aware of the California legislature, they've passed bills to alleviate the state's severe affordability crisis and provide homes for working and middle class families. And yet this 17 acre development is going to provide only three token below market homes, nine giant homes for the very wealthy, who will probably be purchasing these as second or third houses for investment opportunities. Number two, the loss of these 17 acres of open space and the removal of 225 established trees will cause destruction of food sources and homes for native animals, including songbirds, owls, hawks, and pollinators that the residents of Las Gadas enjoy. It will cause increased risk of runoff and flooding and risk of damage to the ephemeral stream and its inhabitants. Neighbors and town residents deserve an EIR to determine and address the full impact of these damages before . Number three, I really appreciate the council's request for clarification on whether open space easements and or trails can be implemented on the proposed project. However, I don't think this is a very good solution. You know, I've spent a lot of time, I'm an open space outdoor education docent with MIPEN, so I spend a lot of time in open space. So open space usually has native trees and a place for animals to roam, and this is like two edges on the property. And then for trails, I guess, and I couldn't tell that the edges actually continued off so there was a trail that would connect two areas or it just like, it went one way and it stopped. It looks like it stops. And then finally, there's no money for trails. So I just, I think that it was a rather weak solution for something that, for all the loss that the community is going to experience. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the speaker? No. Thank you. Next I have John Witkin.

Thank you, Commissioners. I think it should be the duty of this Planning Commission to protect its citizens from zealous overbuilding and subsequent safety concerns. there's a developer gold rush to build houses for multimillionaires and we are disregarding the safety components of building on a sensitive hillside with an earthquake landslide zone also we have a high fire zone a watershed stream running through the development at its highest building density we need the state mandated environmental impact report to ensure the issues are dealt with properly There was an EIR done previously. Why can't we just slow down and update and certify this plan? These issues should not be resolved during construction and be subject to mitigation by tractor. These red flag safety issues need to be fully understood and taken into account before the shovels hit the dirt. Please reconsider a short pause and require a certified EIR before approval of this entitlement. Think of the current neighbor's landslide and fire issues with the riparian corridor, the ephemeral stream potential catastrophes. Thank you for listening, and I've been real lucky to live on this property for 70 years. I was born and raised there and had a chance to move back in 10 years. We love our hillside. We love our neighbors. We love our neighborhood. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there any questions? Commissioner Burnett?

Yes, thank you. Have you spoken with... We had an hour last week with Mr. Foley. Have any of your issues been resolved or are you...

I think there's... I just think there's some issues with dealing with some of these things that just haven't been resolved. I mean, there was, I think... Eight years ago, they did an 850-page environmental report, but it didn't really, it just needs to be certified and gone through. Thank you. In my opinion, sorry.

Thank you. Can I ask, during the time that you did meet with the applicant, were there any specific concerns that perhaps you didn't mention tonight, such as, I know you mentioned the landslides, fire safety, that you potentially did discuss with the applicant that you would like us to be aware of?

No, we just, we had a nice conversation and Mr. Foley was.

All right, thank you.

You listened. Thank you.

All right, Craig Fordyce.

Hello, we have lived at 191 long window drive since 1999 and raised our 5 children there. Our home is at the end of the cul-de-sac. Immediately downhill from the project site lot 5, which appears to include a home constructed on top of the formal stream is located directly behind our home. Our home was 1 of the last 4 constructed on long meadow, a review of the submissions to the town council from the 1950s and 1970s offer evidence that both the rule hillside was to remain in exchange for density given at the time. And that the Surrey farms neighborhood would stop at the end of the cold cul-de-sac specifically to halt a development before it reached Ross Creek. Since 1975, this land has been held in the resource conservation space. This development will radically affect the landscape, the environment, the biological resources in the neighborhood. Because of the reliance on an M and D, instead of conducting a formal, we believe we're not even aware of the potential impacts this development will have. Because much of the mitigation is speculative future oriented. And to be determined, we have no security that our health and safety will be not be affected. The recirculated MND identifies a newly recognized significant impact associated with the project's intrusion into a jurisdictional ephemeral stream, particularly in the area of proposed lot five. The recirculated MND also includes an increase in the project's residential square footage from 62,000 feet to more than 97,000 feet. This is substantial change in the scale and intensity of the proposed development and raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the environmental review conducted under sequel. Technical analyses are only reliable if they're based upon an accurate and stable project description. It should be noted that the MND relies in part on an uncertified 2017 EIR, which was analyzed in a project that was much smaller than the current proposed project. This is not addressed in the staff report. A full EIR presents the opportunity for study and evaluation that MND admittedly did not provide, one of which would be alternatives to the project that could protect both the biological resources of the rural hillside in the neighborhood below. For example, an EIR might have evaluated a project without Lot 5, which seems to be at least one logical alternative. The applicant is relying on state housing laws to build this project. Housing law does not reduce or waive CEQA review. Compliance with sequence mandatory and independent of zoning or housing authorization. The standard for conducting an is intentionally low. If there is a fair argument supported by substantial evidence that the project may have a significant environmental impact, then the agency is prepared is required to prepare a full instead. We know that there will be significant environmental impacts. They have been identified by the neighbors, Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, CR club and the water quality board. Thank you.

Thank you. Please don't move. Are there any questions for the speaker? I have 1. Oh, did you go ahead? Commissioner Thomas? Then I'll go. So I'm going to go back to the letter that we got from Mr. Foley today that appears to reference a conversation concerning the, if this is not right, the proximity of the home to your property. Could you please share with us that conversation, what you took away from it, what your understanding was at the end of it, what next steps there may be?

Oh, well, all of our conversation was just a conversation and, um. Mr Foley was kind to come over to our house. We all met and we talked about, like, the project. What was changed maybe some mitigation. Uh, things and, um, so, for 1, the, the home on lot 5 is very close to our house. And we didn't know if it could be pushed off the ephemeral. I don't say it very well, but the ephemeral stream. Um, and he was going to look into that and I think it's going to be. I mean, I don't know if that's doable or not, or we just say, hey, lot 5 is off the table and we're going to do 8 homes. And, uh, but, uh, any who, uh, we just, we talked about that. We talked about. Doing a couple of rows of redwood trees, not against the property line, but a little bit further inland. And then if you look at the plan on on those, um. five and six you'll see that there's initially you had a lot of trees that were planted and then the new plan and i don't know if it's a defensible space or not but it had less trees and had some shrubs put in there and so one of our i think i can speak for our neighbors is you know we're going to be looking into this huge development that's raised above us that's going to be even raised higher when they build the homes And it's just going to have a pretty big screening issue for all of us. So we just didn't know how to mitigate it all. We did talk about water mitigation. And they are offering a culvert at the bottom as like a belt suspenders option. And if that works, that's great. We don't know if it works. We think maybe an EIR could help determine that. And we talked about, I know there's like 10 things on top of my head. we did talk about the size differential which was brought up today about the two different well about the mistake that was made that made the edit but we still don't really know the resolution of that and that was you know so it wasn't like we were argumentative or anything it was a friendly conversation just talking about like you know how do we do this if we do it

And based on that conversation, if this moves forward today, what is your understanding of next steps between you and the applicant?

Well, Jim was going to talk to his team and then they were going to digest it. And that was from our meeting. And then Jill, my wife subsequently. We said, okay, well, what are some of the things that he asked us to send it to him? And we did send it to him recently. We've been traveling. And so we forward that along and he says, we'll consider it, but there was no hard. Hard, um, answers acceptances. It was just more of a conversation.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Thomas. That was yours. Did you commissioner sorority?

I did want to follow up on one thing.

You just said there you mentioned a culvert Yeah, and I'm a little curious to know what the culvert would be for is that you address potential flood issues or yeah, I believe so what I understand is they they developed a plan that They think mitigates the water runoff I guess so We weren't so sure about that because we've had a lot of water runoff. Without a building up there or any streets and roads and houses that. Couldn't absorb water so he showed us a plan that shows a culvert like. On the, I think it's at the property line, this kind of feeds down towards the, um. The water thing that yeah, we don't have to get into the details too much.

I think I will have some follow up questions for the civil engineer about it because my understanding was that the. Storm drain would come down the hill, effectively be diffused by the storm drain improvements and not be intended to, we're dealing with a net decrease, which I'll get into a little bit more later, but thank you.

Are there any further questions, Commissioner Burnett?

Is that the question? So did it come up at all about the CC and ours or the homeowners responsibilities to maintain the ponds or the catch basins that they were talking? Did you discuss that?

Yeah, we, we discussed our concerns about that. Meaning, like, who's going to manage this if there's a problem who do who's responsible? How do you go after them? Is there like a board or a. What do you call those communities that.

HOA.

If there's an HOA, how is the HOA funded? Does it have enough money in the HOA to offset any potential risks? And so, you know, like we talked about all that, those concerns. And that if you had a pond on your... Oh, that's on lot six, the pond, but we've had water intrusion from the hill.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Any further questions? Thank you very much. Yes, sorry, Commissioner Thomas.

I would just like to, I know that there's a lot of concerns, but I just don't want to make any assumptions. So I would say that probably the water drainage and runoff issue and potential flooding is that pretty much your top concern. And then the second is the screening and privacy.

Well, I think it's a whole bucket that holds all of that, including the thermal stream and keeping that the way it is currently and. You know, noise mitigation, light mitigation, just all the effects that you would have from. Such a development also, we did talk about when they. how does the development occur? And I believe the way it's gonna occur is that they'll put the infrastructure in place and then they'll build houses over time. And so we are concerned about a ghost town and if it does get built or doesn't get built all the way and then they can't build the homes and then now we're looking at a ghost town which is even probably worse than a development.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

All right, any further questions? No, thank you very much. Thank you. Lee Quintana.

Good evening. First, I have to say that I'm speaking as an individual resident and not as a member of the Historic Preservation Committee. I'm going to try to talk real fast, which is not my mode, because I have a lot to say. The first thing I want to say is that I recommend that you do not adopt the mitigated negative declaration and that you forward the... A RECOMMENDATION THAT YOU FORWARD THE PROJECT TO THE TOWN COUNCIL WITHOUT A RECOMMENDATION SINCE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO APPROVE A PROJECT IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE ENVIRONMENTAL DONE. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE CC&R'S AND THE INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY RESPONSIBILITIES AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT HYDROLOGY, SPECIFICALLY ABOVE GROUND, UNDERGROUND, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LOOKING AT IT AS A COMPLETE SYSTEM AND NOT PUTTING THINGS OFF FOR FURTHER STUDY LATER. PARTICULARLY IN RESPONSE TO OTHER AGENCIES THAT ISSUE PERMITS, IF THEY ISSUE PERMITS And you've approved the project, you actually limit their ability to impose conditions. This project is all about water. Above ground water, below ground water, runoff. NPDES and it's all connected. You have an existing state, you have a proposed project, the proposed project creates impacts which are then mitigated. But if you're not looking at everything at the same time and there's an interconnectedness between above ground hydrology and below ground hydrology, then you can't possibly do a good job of assessing the impacts of the entire project. I think that's one of the downfalls of this negative declaration. The other thing I want to talk about is the CC&Rs and the responsibility of the individual homeowners to monitor and report on the various things that are required as mitigation. This project as a whole is the subdivision, and the subdivision creates the impacts and requires the mitigation. If you just put it on the individual property owners after the subdivision, you are not treating all equally and you're putting a greater burden on some and not on others. And in addition to that, you're creating what I would call not good governance because you're going to have to get all these individual reports on each property rather than one report that comes to the town that they can consider as a whole. Um, I don't have time to say anything else, so I guess I'll just see if you have any questions.

Any questions for the speaker? I have a question. You were talking about the CCRs and the responsibility being on the individuals versus an HOA or something. In your experience, do you feel if this becomes less an individual responsibility and more of a governing body, does that create a better situation?

I think in my experience in San Jose, there are several instances where it was put on individual properties rather than on the whole. And what happened was that it didn't get done because it was on each individual property owners. And some of this stuff is technical. They don't know how to do that. And it just... No, it didn't work. We had problems if it was on that. And we also had problems if we approved a project before we had the permits from Fish and Game or the Water Board because it could change the project. And sometimes, since you had approval already, we couldn't... We could, the water board and the Fish and Game couldn't get the requirements that they wanted. There was a compromise made because the project was already approved and it limited them because their permit issuing and once you've approved the project, they're almost OBLIGED TO ISSUE A PERMIT AND GET AS BEST MITIGATION AS THEY CAN.

IF IN AN INSTANCE LIKE THAT WHERE LET'S SAY THAT OTHER JURISDICTION WAS ABLE TO REVIEW PRIOR TO A PERMIT, WHAT'S AN EXAMPLE IN THIS SITUATION IF YOU THINK SOMETHING THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO DO TO BENEFIT THAT THEY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO DO IF WE HAD ALREADY APPROVED?

Well, for one thing, I've heard controversy over whether the culvert should be taken out or the culvert shouldn't be taken out. From what I read, the Water Control Board wants the culvert taken out, wants it out of the waters of the state. And so that's one thing, and that affects other things. You need to know... especially in the hillsides where the hydrology is more complicated, you need to know ahead of time as best you can what all the impacts on the hydrology, both above ground and below ground, by that I mean what mitigation is going to occur below ground and what are those, if those mitigations are going to create other impacts. which then need to be addressed. And to do that, you have to coordinate it all together, not piecemeal.

Understood. Thank you.

Are there any other questions for the speaker?

No? Thank you very much. Jill Fordyce.

Hi, thank you so much for being here tonight because there are so many issues of public interest, the environment and safety regarding this project. I personally have given very little time to addressing our own issues of us a budding the project. So I'm going to do that a little bit tonight. Um. This neighborhood is built on top of our home and the homes of our 2 adjacent neighbors literally on top on a hillside above us looking down into our homes and yards. All the water dust debris, noise, lights, pollution, both during construction and afterward will flow downhill into our homes. Lot 5 is the closest directly behind us and proposes the largest home of 40 foot structure top a retaining wall. There's currently no screening in place between lot 5 in our home. We will go from looking out at a rural hillside to looking at an enormous structure with all of its lights noise cars. In the staff report, applicant responds to the request to address our privacy concerns through tree placement and buffering with native species as follows. HMH can add shrubs and propose trees to create a stronger vegetative buffer in the area discussed. Staff's note is that there is minimal screening between the neighboring rear properties and Lot 5. Indeed, there does not appear to be any between our home and the development as a whole. Shrubs are not a buffer. There needs to be more. We have proposed to Mr. Foley rows of redwood trees, an additional area of open space or easements, reorientation or elimination of lot five. And we hope that at a minimum, these measures will be taken to ensure that both the existing neighborhood and the proposed new neighborhood are protected. We've talked a lot about the ephemeral stream, and I really appreciate his comments about looking at this project holistically. When we start modifying 1 part, what happens to the next part above ground and below ground? This is a newly discovered thing in February. Of this year, and I don't believe the study's been adequate. How 1 of the mitigation measures is to. Submit an application to the Water Quality Control Board and obtain written verification of certification before ground disturbance begins. How can the project be approved by the town if there's a peremptory issue that has not been resolved? The Water Quality Control Board itself commented that the recirculated MND does not quantify the project's impacts on waters of the state or demonstrate that it's feasible to mitigate the project's impacts to a less than significant level. In other words, The board acknowledged jurisdiction and questioned whether the CEQA document actually proves that the mitigation will work. So what happens if these permits are granted? They spoke earlier about replacing things and adding different parts to the channel if part of it is taken away, and I think this also ignores the fact that we are dealing with a natural, rural environment that has never been disturbed. It's the same thing with the trees. We've submitted evidence and reports before that say once you take away this historical oak forest, ancient oak forest, replacing the trees, the habitat will never be the same. Are there any questions?

Thank you. Are there any questions for the speaker? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have William Maleko.

My name is William Maleko. I've lived at 189 Longmeadow Drive for 42 years. The developer's drainage system flows directly into my backyard. I want to raise two connected problems that will require a full environmental impact report. Number one, the paved and roof surface of this project grew by 56% between the original filing and the updated version from 62,000 to 97,000 square feet. No one has explained why. Every technical study submitted, the drainage model, the soil stability report, the air quality analysis was calculated using the smaller original number. This commission is being asked to approve a project based on engineering studies of a much smaller project. The environmental baseline itself is still incomplete. The stream on the lot directly behind our homes was missed entirely by the original surveys. Discovered only when a biologist visited during an actual storm 14 months into the review. If a whole stream is missed, the Commission should ask, what else did a dry season survey fail to find? The developer says there's no stream, but their own environmental consultant wrote in June 2026, Exhibit 37, that the water feature being filled is, quote, presumed to be the water of the state. Presumed, not confirmed. Two state agencies have independent authority here. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which raised concerns about this property in 2015, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Under California law, the ephemeral stream are protected waters of the state. The draft conditions that put those agency reviews after tonight's vote is backwards. If either agency requires a redesign, this commission will approve something that can no longer be built. Those reviews must come before, not after your approval. Also, please note that the air quality study and the noise study both admit that the project exceeds legal limits, but was run as if nothing could be done to fix it. I'm asking for three things. Require a full environmental impact report. Require that these two agencies complete their reviews before, not after your approval. and require a full explanation of the increase in the surface area with updated studies to match. Thank you.

Thank you. Don't leave yet. Are there any questions of the speaker? I do. For clarification, you mentioned the stream that was more recently found. Can you clarify when there were people on site that?

No, I can't. It just came from the reports. Just came from, okay. Right.

It was bigger. Okay. And my next question is, I'm going to kind of go back. I know you have had some conversations with the applicant and some of them were about drainage and how they're going to be trying to redirect water away from your property.

There was very little conversation about drainage. They simply proposed this culvert along the property line between our properties and theirs, suggesting that, well, things will be taken care of in the future.

Okay.

During that meeting, there were no promises. Okay. We'll look into it. We'll do what we can.

Okay. Okay. Any other questions?

I'm sorry. Can you just repeat your second ask again?

My second ask.

Your list of three.

Number two, that the two agencies, the two state agencies do their reviews before you guys approve this.

Thank you. Any other questions? No, thank you very much. Next I have is Kathy Frazier.

Hi, thank you for having the meeting. My concern remains the same as it always was. This seems to be a very high density development on a substandard road in a high fire danger zone. And that's my biggest concern and continues to be. I've lived in Surrey Farms but not right next to the development for about 30 years. And then I also wanted to just make a comment on something that the developer had said at a prior meeting. They said these huge two-story homes fit right in with the neighborhood. Only Twin Oaks has two-story homes. All the rest of Surrey Farms is limited to one-story homes. So these really are kind of overwhelming. That's all I had to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the speaker? no thank you very much um at the last speaker card i have unless somebody's holding on to one is dave greenfield

Hi, thank you, Planning Commission. I'm Dave. I live on 140 Longmeadow Drive. And as the builder mentioned, this has been going on for a lot of years, and we've been presenting a lot of the same issues for a lot of years. I totally support the EIR comments. I don't need to go into them in more depth. I think they were very well articulated by my neighbors. As one of the original requesters of the trail, I do appreciate that efforts are being made here. I think they're a little bit inadequate, but thank you for a start here. The thing I want to talk about that wasn't really mentioned, and I also support the fire safety concerns in terms of a limited amount of traffic all funneling eventually down Kennedy and in a very constrained manner, which seems to be a concern. An issue that's been brought up for years and years is the impact on Longmeadow and a few houses on Twin Oaks and of this building of All the trucks going in, all the noise, all the traffic, all the safety concerns, all going down one road. Having 11 homes and one home off a different street doesn't really equate kind of an additional mitigation on other neighborhoods. It just seems like everything is on Longmeadow. And 95,000 feet of hardscape and trucks going up Longmeadow scares me. I mean, it just... months to years of construction traffic coming in and just amplifying points have been brought up in the past but they just don't seem to have made any uh difference and just wanted to bring this up again i know you've heard them before but the impact on a few blocks of long meadow and twin oaks just seems really really severe thank you thank you are there any questions for the speaker

All right, thank you very much. I do not have any more speaker cards unless somebody at the last minute is gonna wanna speak. If not, the applicant now can come back up to the podium and give any final statements, address anything that you just heard, or provide any additional information.

Sure, thanks for that. Appreciate a lot of these comments. There's there are not a lot of new comments We've reviewed a lot of this information in written form submitted over time I Think just the notion of the environmental document all says we stand behind our consultants. It's actually the town is a lead agency who is Ben has hired Rainey, who's done a very good job of analyzing what the correct documents, what the correct technical studies are, amended them, responded to everything thoroughly. I think there's a lot of opinion that we hear, and that's fair, because it's not everybody's everyday business to engage in these types of activities. So, our approach is to help respond as much as we can. I know it was a little short timeframe on at least the 3, 3 specific neighbors. We had a chance to. Discuss who are right there against the property line and our intention is to continue to work with them on the questions that you've asked them that we've said earlier. Just, you know, we haven't had a lot of time and I think if you. Uh, have faith in us. Um, hopefully they do too that, uh, we want to be, you know, good neighbors with this best management practices for construction. Um, a lot of those things over time, you know, I know it may seem scary, but. That's our intention as a thoughtful developer. The technical questions with regards to the impervious surface with regards to the drainage. We have here. I'm sure you have share some of those same concerns. So hopefully those questions get answered for the members of the public that are raising them as well. And yeah, I think that the Dodge family is a generational family. They're well intended with this project. They have for a long time. There may be some debate on what the issue was, but we have. Conflicting evidence that Bob Dodge originally did intend this to be the final phase of Surrey farms that's been stated in prior letters that we've submitted. So we just want to. Help see that through and finish it off in a responsible and elegant way. We're here for more questions. Like I said, before we have our. Our whole team here available to you.

Great are there questions of the applicant? Commissioner sortie.

You know, you might have covered this last time, but I wanted to give you a chance to, or at least to ask, what's the construction build-out plan? And starting, I guess, from square one, are you staying on as the owner, builder, contractor? Or is this property going to be sold to others, or can you share some of the details?

I mean, from an entitlement and development perspective, multiple exits are always on the table. Right now the intention is to entitle, plan, permit, build, deliver, and sell. That's a long process, as you know. There's a lot more that goes into this. There's all the agency permits that we've talked a lot about tonight. There's all the improvement drawings and permits that need to be attained, and that needs to get started. There's plenty of work to do that's going to take. probably the better part of two years before you'll see a shovel in the ground. Maybe the improvements start a little bit early, but then we have to plan for and permit each individual home. So it's a longer rollout, which hopefully is less impactful to the neighborhood and everything else. But a subdivision of this nature definitely takes some time and that's the plan for now, is to continue down that path and stay the course and deliver it.

So have you thought through any details, like is there going to be a model complex and where it would be located and any phasing? Yeah, a model complex. Would there be model homes?

No, I don't think so. The character of these homes are kind of full custom home design. We've got a cohesive planning and architecture plan for all of them, but it wouldn't be, I think, maybe what you're thinking of is more like if we had a 30 or 40 home subdivision with a model. I don't think in this setting the model works. I think we have three home types, and then we have the affordable home types either. So I think it would just be more conceptual from that.

So there wouldn't be any sales operation on-site?

That's not intended, no.

Okay. 12 lots, pretty simple to come up with a phasing plan, or at least a draft of a phasing plan. Do you know which ones you're going to build first, or start at the top and work down, or...

haven't quite got to that detail yet but i know um you know in the conditions we have to deliver the affordables so i mean i think that makes sense and if you just look at the way that it's laid out you know i think that you know coming coming from the bottom and continuing on is probably the likely direction i don't know if that's a little bit the construction delivery logistics and all that again haven't really been vetted yet until we get into into that phase but um I don't know if I have a good answer on exactly how that sequence is going to go.

Okay. And forgive me for this is a little hazy. Is this a publicly dedicated street? And if not, is it a private road? Okay. So there will be a private road maintenance agreement at the very least.

Sounds like it's on every lot. It goes over the lot. Okay.

So the guy at the end, is he the one that travels, let's say to do a lot of, I know one of the lots comes off Cerro Vista for this one, but the ones, is everyone equally on the hook to, I guess what I'm getting at is like, have you guys thought through the details, not only this private road maintenance agreement, but how it might fan out to cover other features, the storm facilities, which are going to be on individual lots.

So yeah, so all of that's in the CC&R's draft. So each, instead of an association managing that, each home is bound by the recorded CC&Rs on their lot, which is a code enforceable obligation. Right? Right. And then same with maintenance of the road and participation. I mean, it's going to be between neighbors. They all own one segment of the road.

Okay. Okay, thanks.

Yes, Commissioner Thomas.

And so how does that... impact the affordable units that's a good question is that maybe a question that for staff or that i mean i don't know if that if Does that impact the cost or the long term? I don't know.

I know that Los Gatos has house keys or whoever that manages the affordable program. I don't know if they manage that part of it.

Can I answer? Yes. So the way the lots are shown and presented is that each of the affordable units owned to the center of the street in front of their home, lot one, I think it's lot one, or the first one as you approach owns a longer stretch of land that goes all the way out to Twin Oaks. Those would all be part of the agreement for the affordable unit. They'd be responsible for that.

So is that how is that like financially factored into the affordability or the cost? Because I think that I mean, that's like more of a maintenance issue than just your typical land.

I'm happy to jump in. Thanks. So this is not typical from a BMP perspective. This is exactly one of the reasons why we don't do BMPs in the hillsides typically. So we will have to work through those issues. I'm not sure whether I know that there's not going to be HOA. So I don't know if there will be dues in other typical projects. The BMPs pay the HOAs just like every other unit. So they manage those common areas. So we'll have to work through logistics on this on the back end of what that means from a, whether it's road maintenance or onsite maintenance.

I'm gonna ask a follow-up question about that then. Would you be willing as part of this discussion in lieu of having lot one be responsible for hundreds of feet of that road to move some of that responsibility to like lot two and three? I think when you're talking about people who are already struggling, that level of maintenance one is gonna be really difficult and what will happen is the maintenance will be deferred to the point that the road will be unmanageable.

Yeah, I don't know. I can't answer or commit without understanding what it means. I think I was headed where Mr. Paulson was headed too, which is like, either a BMP or BMR is still subject to HOA dues, do they get subsidized through the program? I can't answer that. So in the same regard, would the program also subsidize a maintenance assessment five years down the road? If it's yes, then does that question, I know what you're getting at, but does it matter or is it like, well, since they're gonna have to do that whole segment anyway, no matter who is in there because they're all BMRs, Does it not impact any individual owner? I don't know the answer to that.

If you look at the others, the lot 11 and 12 have an equal street frontage and an equal footage of the road. It would make sense to me that lot one would have an equal footage of the road and then the balance be distributed. Right. Right. just don't know that if it's possible that none of them are going to end up paying for that anyway no i'm not saying they shouldn't i'm saying they should if 11 and 12 are paying for what looks like maybe 25 30 feet if i'm just scaling of street maintenance that's in front of their property in my opinion lot one should probably have the same not what appears to be hundreds and not just for that i we both know that maintaining roads is not cheap That will not be done so if we were to try to put some language in that Limited lot one to be equal and responsibility to the other BMR properties Yeah, I don't think that I don't think that if you're talking about creating a condition or something I mean, I don't think that bothers us.

I mean, I guess we'd have to see after the fact I just don't I don't know I can't I Does house keys just say that no matter what it is, they're just going to subsidize all of that 2020 and 60. So then it doesn't matter to the individual a lot. I just don't know. Or is it like you say, is it prorated to each one and it's actually coming out of the bankroll of each owner? I have no idea. So, I mean, we're happy to do whatever is fair.

Okay. Yeah, please come sure Thomas.

So I actually have a follow up about those the wrote that road area because the. Material being used is going to be. Permeable correct. for the whole, is it for the entire road all the way from Twin Oaks or just the part that is just this, more of this portion where, you know, closer to the ephemeral?

I direct this to HMH to get the specific details on if you want them to come now or if you.

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, thank you.

Hi, Rafael Hernandez, HMH.

The previous payment would go basically up to lot three.

So the would go from lot three to the cul de sac?

No, from lot three down to Twin Oaks.

That's the only part that's the permeable?

Along the private road, yes.

Wait, to clarify, that is where you're talking about the permeable concrete going from lot three all the way up to six, seven, it's a standard concrete material?

Correct.

Okay, sorry, that's not what I remember from last. I thought that, okay. Did that change from the previous?

No. Okay. We had permeable pavers on the private driveways. We did eliminate some of those from the last time.

Okay. And so what did you swap, which ones were swapped out and what material are they now?

I believe we had permeable pavers on lot nine. Uh, 8 and 7, and we swap that out for just standard concrete.

Okay, and is that can you explain the. Reason for that change.

Yeah, just efficiency of stormwater. There are some concerns about the grade of the driveway leading up to those homes. And after revisiting our stormwater approach and calculations, we saw opportunities to simplify the design by just proposing standard concrete where and just leaving previous pavement where it was required.

Okay. And then can you also just walk us through for the road material, like the reason and the choice of the permeable versus impervious? yeah yeah sure um so basically from twin oaks drive and from sorry i'm actually going to interrupt you could we get a map is it possible to have like the site plan up while we're talking about this just so that people could i think it's the overall site plan 2.0

I mean, if we can go to sheet 5.0, we have the hatching for the perviable pavement shown. And actually, I apologize, it's from lot two, not lot three.

I for sure will not pull up the plans because there's 45 different attachments, but I'm trying to find a different attachment that might get us what we're looking for.

Thank you. Mr. Paulson, I have that available and can share it. Thank you.

And if you want to point, I mean, if you want to. Sure. You can remove the microphone and like it's also easier probably over there to do it if you want to. No pressure. But if it's easier for you to talk about it that way.

I think the hatch is self-explanatory. If we can just go to sheet 5.0, it's pretty obvious. We can't.

Oh, he can't. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

Probably. Yeah, there you go. That one. So if we can zoom into the bottom left. corner there of the site, you can see the different hatching for the roadway. That would be the portion that's being proposed as pervious concrete or pavement.

Okay. And so then can you talk about the, like, the decision in the management of the water for those two different in those two different areas? Yes.

Okay. So along the private drive, there's a high point at 1 point, I think it's somewhere around lot 4. There's a high point there where north of lot 4, everything drains to the cul de sac. South of lot 4, it drains down the hill. So what we were trying to establish within that bottom portion of the roadway is how can we present a stormwater solution that is considered self-treating, where we didn't have to propose bioretention areas or some other stormwater treatment measure that could be a little bit difficult to build just because of the lack of the storm drain infrastructure that's located at the bottom of the hillside. So we felt that pervious pavement For that portion of the road can be considered a an acceptable way of mitigating stormwater treatment and everything beyond that point it would be collected through traditional just standard inlets directed to an underground storm drain system to about retention area and treated as such.

And then the part that runs down from lot four, where is that water going? Because I think last time we had some, there was some confusion about like which drain, there were some drains and some.

Yeah, yeah. So lot four, five. eight, six, seven, all that is essentially the other direction.

Oh, the other direction.

Yeah, there is a, there's another, there's a bar retention area in front of lot one. If we can zoom in and take the mic with me. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Just, yeah, just south of that or page south. Yeah, there you go. That, that bio retention area is capturing basically the runoff that's in front of lots for 11 and 12. And we have an inlet that is capturing the water before it goes into the pervious pavement section, directs it into a bioretention area that's placed on lot one.

Okay, and then what about lots two and three and what water, is any water going into Ross Creek?

So lots two and three, and the same can be said for four, five, and six, they're going to have their own treatment facility within their front yard. So all of the runoff from the proposed driveway, paving, and roof water, all that will be directed to their own facility on site, and then from there it will be directed to an underground storm rain system.

Okay, so what underground? And then for the underground storm drain system, where does that go to?

Yeah, there's two systems. So the site's broken up into two systems. About maybe a fourth of the overall site will be draining to Ross Creek, which is essentially an underground storm drain pipe. And the rest the three-fourths of the other the remaining portion of the site will drain towards the northwest corner where there is another existing inlet That is connected to essentially the same system Ross Creek just further downstream Okay Other commissioners commissioner sortie

I think this might be a good time maybe to address the question that's come up from a couple of the speakers, and that's the increase of impervious apparent increase that went from something along the lines of what, 63,000 square feet up to 90,000, if I have that right. Maybe you guys can take some time to clarify.

Yeah, I can clarify that. It was just misrepresented early on. I think the first two submittals we showed somewhere around that 60,000 square feet that was mentioned. We caught it around the third submittal, and then from the third submittal on, it's been represented around that 90,000 square feet. So it was just a miscalculation on our end. We did coordinate with the hydrology consultant, which is making sure that we're not having any impacts to the existing submittals. and downstream of the site. So the hydrology report that we provided does take into account the 90,000 number that allegedly was determined as increased.

Okay. So when was the third submittal? Was the third submittal way back when before we had a hearing in December?

I think it was sometime around maybe October of last year.

Okay. Yeah. So maybe can I pivot over and ask the environmental team a question? So did... We've had a few speakers imply not only that that change in impervious surface and that significant increase, which sounds like it's something along the lines of 50% could affect a whole bunch of other things. I remember review. Beyond just simply run off, you know, somebody even applied implied that that would have something to do with things that could affect air quality and balloon into other impacts. So maybe you guys could address that if you don't mind.

Sure, Angela DeRosa with Rating Planning and Management. Good to see you all, thank you. Yeah, sorry, excuse me. So there, as the consul, sorry, the applicant's team has noted, there was an error in their calculations and that was related to the C3 calculations and the hydro modification modeling that was conducted. The town public works and engineering has reviewed those documents and that modeling and has confirmed that it meets the appropriate requirements. As far as the other issue areas, The analysis already assumed the correct disturbance area. It wasn't necessarily tied to the impervious surface area provided as part of that modeling. We analyzed the five point, sorry, I can't remember exactly what it is, the five point something acres of the project site that would be disturbed. That includes the air quality and greenhouse gas analysis.

OK, so is it safe to assume in some of those other disciplines, air quality, traffic, we're not evaluating the project's environmental impact based on a square footage, for example, of impervious surface, which includes homes, paved areas, but, in fact, the unit count basis. And that unit count didn't change. I don't mean to lead you too much, but that would be my assumption.

That's exactly right, yes. Much of the modeling was result was based on the number of units as well as the overall disturbance area of the site based on the acreage.

Okay, thank you.

Any other Mr.

Yeah, I have a question. So just for learning purposes, so these ponds are in front of each home like a basin to catch the water, the runoff. And then they all connect underneath. I mean, how far down is the connection? How far down is the main line that they all connect to that would lead you out to the corner of this, the very edge of this development?

Yeah, the storm drain line is going to be about four to five feet deep below this basin treatment facility that we have. And it's just interconnected with the main trunk line that's serving the entire development.

And when you call it a treatment facility, what do you mean? There's probably gravel in there that...

Yeah, it functions two ways in this case. Because the site is subject to hydro modification, so we are developing the site. It's currently undeveloped, as we all know. When we develop sites, it increases runoff, right? That's the concern, is how are we mitigating the extra runoff that we're going to be introducing to the site? So because we are subject to hydro modification, The purpose of hydro modification is essentially just ensuring that the post condition mimics as close as possible to the existing right? So the treatment facilities function as. 2 things 1, stormwater quality from water treatment and. Holding the water and then. Metering it and releasing it at a much slower rate to mimic the existing conditions. So that way we're not impacting the existing storm drain system. That's that's downstream.

How do you monitor it? Is there a mechanism to. Some kind of, how do you?

The metering of it? Yeah, I mean, simplistically, we can, one common practice that we do is everything will drain into a box. And instead of having that box be a 12-inch storm drain pipe coming out, it might be a four-inch hole instead. And that just allows the water to dissipate at a slower rate. So that's one way that we can meter how much water leaves that facility is by restricting the size of the outlet structure.

That's very interesting. Thank you.

Any further questions?

Commissioner Thomas? So in the recent conversations that have happened with some of the neighbors, there's a mention of a culvert. What would be the purpose of the culvert? Where would it exist?

I believe we're talking about along the western edge, correct?

Yes.

Yeah, so there is concerns of existing flooding, you know, 14 acres of runoff coming down the hill into these adjacent property owners, right? I don't believe there's a well-defined edge along that property line. And what we're really just trying to help is... essentially creating a berm along that edge and then an earth swell. I wouldn't call it a culvert, I'd call it like an earth swell with a berm along the edge. And that's just an added protection against the property owner so that in the event that we do need to channel water along that boundary, it's at least contained and conveyed north where it's supposed to go as opposed to continuing to the west.

Okay. So the, it wouldn't be just like a con a concrete, but I mean the, ideally it would be something that has some vegetation and like gravel and things to help with.

Maybe not vegetation. It can be, it can be paved. It can be concrete. Um, it can be different things. Yeah. That's open to discussion in terms of what we think best fits those needs.

Okay. I'm going to ask a follow-up question about that because there actually was a little detail provided. And there's a material for the erosion control. Yeah. One of my experiences with the material like this is that it can kind of hold on to like leaves or larger pieces of matter. What I would like to understand is, you know, This may not necessarily be for you, so I'm going to ask about maintenance in a minute of that, is when you put together this detail, one, how deep would you propose this be to truly capture enough water to make sure the water's diverted and not overflowing? And do you think the, how do you pronounce that? Incomat? The E-N-K-A-M-A-T, that's in the detail.

Oh, yeah.

Incomat. In your opinion, is that the best material for helping capture matter and move it down?

There's different options. In terms of the size, we're not into that level of detail yet. I think this was really intended to be a placeholder, a picture of what the intent is. There's sizing calculations that we can figure out to determine how much runoff is actually going to make it to the western boundary and then determine the width and the depth of the swale. whether it's concrete or some other material. I mean, there's different options. There's going to be maintenance involved regardless of what material is chosen. But yeah, those type of details we really haven't gone into, but we will go into it further down the road.

Can I ask a follow-up just to that to Mr. Foley? I'm going to assume, but I would rather just ask, since this is running along the back of a number of the lots, is it the individual homeowner's responsibility then to keep dense matter out of that to maintain water flow or...

Right so something we were discussing, so I guess what we want to be clear with without putting together the because there's not common. Areas there is still a maintenance association of. Owners right and those are the ones that are going to. Have the annual meetings and make sure ensure that the maintenance comes in and file the reporting with. The state and all the requirements and things like that. So, as far as administering all of that. The discussion on whether it's pro rata per square footage of property, or it's on somebody's property and nobody else's I think there's different categories of what the maintenance is going to be. That's all going to have to be administered by the. By the maintenance association. This was a suggestion again to help the neighbors. Feel more comfortable, like. Have us put our best foot forward because. They may not necessarily understand or believe in what the civil engineer has designed as far as. The site drainage, this is not a required aspect. Correct? This was something additional. It could be anything and whether it's gravel or. It's concrete or we need it at all. We're open to working with them on what's best for them before the new owner comes in and sort of takes over. Right? There's been a lot of things comments and. It's ongoing conversation with working with them on screening. Does it, you know, is it that they, we can get to the point where they're educated enough that they believe the site's going to be better off post development and. Like, Raphael just explained handle the water more efficiently that they're not going to have that. And we'd rather do plantings and screening through there instead. I think that's open for. Conversation, but I think you rightly asked the priorities. What is the priority? Is it screening or drainage? Because they both seem to be, like, aligning in the same place. I think, you know, we can, we can evaluate all of that, but I just want to be clear on that portion of it that. We believe the initial design for the water treatment and everything that's been vetted by C3 consultants checked by the town and everything else. It works. So this is additional. And maybe it's causing more trouble than it was worth. I don't know.

I actually probably think it. Would be helpful. I just wanted to understand it better. It was just a little bit of a different material than what I've seen used and then so I just wanted to understand that. All right, do we have other questions? I'll go commissioner Thomas and commissioner Burnett.

I have a question for staff about that. If this is the plan that we are forwarding as a recommendation, but you know that applicants and the neighbors are open to alternatives, how does that affect the approval or forwarded recommendation?

If the commission is interested in adding a condition of approval, then that would need to be part of the recommendation.

Are we not, but isn't this included in our, aren't we forwarding this site plan?

I don't see that plan reflected in the current conditions of approval that are before the commission.

I'm going to clarify. I took all kinds of information and made my own plan. So they would have to be in conditions of approval to capture all of it.

Sorry, what was that?

I took information from various pieces of information they gave us and put it all on one plan for my simplicity. So we would either need to include specific documents from their packet or we just write a condition of approval that the Culver has discussed.

Okay, yeah, because this design is included in their something that we've, okay. But not on a drawing.

It's included.

It's included in just a packet. Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Burnett, then Commissioner sortie.

Yeah, just a question. So did you ever consider not building house number 5? Because that seems to be where all the issues are. I mean, all the run off of the homes behind it that impacts everything and you would look at. I mean, you have so many other. Acres there. We think someone could have come up with a little bit better configuration.

Yeah, I know it's after the fact, but well, it's just a. So, it's a, the project has a long history and there have been many plans. You've seen a lot of them and then each of the different iterations. Has different impacts, so there was 1 with a through road. And then there were neighbors that were upset about lights coming down the hill. And so then, you know, so it's been an iterative process over time. To sort of arrive at this plan, which we think is the best version. And I know that that has different impacts on different neighbors that we're trying to. Do the best that we can. So, it's, you know. If we take that away, then where else does it go? And then what does that cause? Right? The cause and effect of the change. So. I wish I wish I had the perfect 1 that satisfied everybody. That's what we're working to get to through the iterative process. And that's just where we are now.

Okay, I just have to ask the question. Thanks.

Commissioner sortie. You mentioned maintenance association and. I guess simple question is that a condition of approval somewhere? There's so many conditions. I haven't found it.

I did not see it in my review of the conditions of approval, but I'm all also deferred to parks and public work staff.

And I think it's possible as well that it would be something that would be included in the CC and ours, but we'd be looking for confirmation of that. If you want something more explicit, we can add that can be part of the direction to the council.

Yeah, and then just a question for the applicant. So. Because a few moments ago, a few steps back, we were talking about certainly the affordables and how some of these maintenance obligations might fall pretty heavy on them. And I'm still not quite sure I understand the logistics. I think what's happening here is the property lines are going to the center of the street. And so the. you know in a sort of a high-shaped wedge as you work your way up the street the different lots have their obligation to maintain their peace but i still i think it comes back to the the most traveled piece over the long term and we're talking many years from now would suffer more wear and tear and that might land more heavy on somebody who's at the entrance to the subdivision so it might be just smart to come up with a maintenance association and then define the scope of You know, the shared maintenance, it would seem to be that the road, um, would fall squarely into that. And, um, I suppose what could happen is it could be divided up. Unproportionate basis some way shape or form, so it doesn't fall particularly heavy on 1 lot owner. Um, and then it does beg the question of. some of the sort of anxiety that the community has about the drainage facilities that are on the private lots and the accountability and the ability to fall back on a budget or you know an account to have those taken care of if somebody's remiss or you know for some reason somebody doesn't pay it just seems like that would be a logical thing to do so i guess my question is would you be open to that as a condition

Yeah, I think that's kind of where I hear some of you headed, and that is whether it just accompanies the recommendation to say, hey, this condition needs to be clarified a little bit more, make sure it's in there. The draft of the CC&Rs and all these documents, which are boilerplate and templates across other developments and all that, we tailored those to the Surrey Farms Estates as gone into Parks and Public Works and been reviewed. Up to this point, where it's become a part of it, and then the conditions are that those documents are are in there and done how they're managed. So, without flipping through the pages and figuring that out, I think your direction is the right 1, which is to say, if there's a concern, just recommend that that goes in or that is, that's a change that gets made. Prior to the approval or prior to the issue, and so billing permit, or whatever the condition you're going to put on there is. Again, without page flipping on the exact logistics as to how it's laid out. I think it's more conceptual at this point as to what you want to see happen from a fairness standpoint, or to the extent it's a below market owner.

Yeah, I think before we conclude, we'll tighten up that as a recommended conditions.

Right any other questions to the applicant. Mr. Thomas?

Well, I had a question. I mean, my questions were kind of about the plantings. I guess that just I do just have some questions for about some of the, you know, soil saturation and everything and some of the choice of landscaping near the wetland, the like current wetland area. BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE INTENT OF THEM IS TO BE LIKE SCREENING TREES. SO I GUESS IS THERE THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AVAILABLE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS? THEY'RE ON ZOOM?

YEAH.

SO MY QUESTION IS THE I THINK THERE'S BLUE OAKS AND COAST LIVE OAKS THAT ARE IN THAT ARE PLANNED FOR THAT NORTH WEST CORNER OF THE PROPERTY TO BE PLANTED AS LANDSCAPE TREES AND IF WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL FOR THOSE SPECIES TO STRUGGLE IN THAT LOCATION IF THAT SOIL IS WET A LOT OF THE YEAR?

SURE. CAN YOU GUYS HEAR ME OKAY?

YES.

Alright, good evening everyone. Thanks for having me. It's Shawn Taylor from HMH Landscape, the landscape architect on the project. Anytime we have planting near any of the waterways and water areas on the site, so the riparian areas, we are hydro seeding with a native slope stabilizing hydro seed. I should say, first of all, we're staying off and away, you know, per the setback, which is which is looks plans look like over 12 feet away. Then we go into a native hydra seed to stabilize slopes. And then we go into a shrub planting of mostly native. So see, you know, this toy on coffee, berry and manzanita. before we get into tree planting and yes there are quite a few native species of trees on our plant on our plant palette and some that are non-native so adaptive species if i think there's there's i don't think we have wet soils where we're proposing oak trees but if That is the case when we're out there. We can adjust that to a different species on our plant palette. But an oak tree, of course, would not survive with wet feet.

Okay, so I think that it's, yes, I'm not sure, I mean, this is one of the questions I wanted to ask and talk about with the environmental consultants, but there are some oak trees in that north, sorry, I'm just trying to slide over and zoom out, I think to confirm, some oak trees in that corner. Okay. that potentially could have a substantial amount of wet soil, I think, in what is typically the dry season. So which option from the list that you have do you feel like would be best to switch out?

And you're talking strictly our proposed trees, nothing existing.

Yes.

Sure. Yeah. I think the first swap we would make if we're finding out we're too close to the water and we have that sort of condition, um, could be our Platinus acerfolia, uh, Columbia. It's typically its native habitat would be, um, near waterways and river edges. It's the first go-to I would pull from our plant palette for that swap.

Okay. Okay, perfect. Thank you for answering that. And then I guess that how cool, I mean, there's technically... and a wetland in that an existing wetland in that very corner, how close to a, even just an ephemeral wetland at the very bottom, you know, noting that this is where all the water goes basically on this hillside. Um, how close to that would you feel comfortable planting an oak? Um,

Yeah, I would say just scaling off our plans right now as our latest update for that corner. I'm trying to keep the majority of our trees out of Zone 3 related to CAL FIRE, Urban Wildfire Interface. So we're balancing, you know, a lot of different areas for the best locations. Right now it looks like we're well over 30 feet from where that water Typical water edge was demarcated. And then again, I do have other shrubs and hydro seed and all that leading up into that area as well. So short answer, roughly 30 some feet.

Okay. So I'm sorry, you're saying 30 feet from which water feature?

I thought we were talking about the one in the northwest corner of the site, so the back end of lots six and five.

Yes. Okay. Yes, the back corner of lots six and five. Okay. Thank you.

My pleasure.

All right. Do we have any further questions for the applicant, Commissioner Burnett?

Another question here. Do you have a plan to obtain written confirmation from the water board in the CDFW regarding the jurisdictional status of the ephemeral creek on the project site? A step that the water board's been been requesting.

Yeah, we've excuse me. We've had engagement with them and provided them information. I think that the engagement through their questions and establishing that has largely gone through rainy and live oak associates. So, if they want to speak to any of that, I mean, we have to get. Their permit along with the other agencies before. Serving anything out there so that they have a permit process that we have to adhere to. But as far as, you know, taking jurisdiction over this whale, or whatever it was, I know there's been a lot of conversation about that, but I'm not, I don't think I'm the right 1 to answer.

Yeah, I think that's 1 of the biggest biggest issues actually. Yes.

Is that better? Yeah, there's some misunderstanding about how the agencies interact in this process. Some of it may be historic time. Back in the 1990s, the courts ruled that to get a stream bed alteration agreement was an action under CEQA. and so at that time in the late nineteen nineties they require that all projects in order to get a stream of alteration agreement uh... and or the regional board is a project and it requires that CEQA be approved prior to them ever of engaging and preparing a permit. So there's a misunderstanding about the timing. You do not go to the regional board for a permit until you have an NOD. You have to provide in your application evidence of the environmental filing fee and the NOD. If you look at the application, it says, what form of CEQA have you done? Caddx, MND, EIR. So it's very explicit that they won't even talk to you for a permit until you have that in place. What they do as a responding agency, they can and do respond to MNDs and CEQA, you know, Core rarely does CDFW about 50% of the time, regional board a little more than the other two agencies. CDFW did not respond to this CIR. The regional board did. So what we've done is we've built mitigations based on of experience and what's typically done for an ephemeral stream. There's also some misunderstanding of this ephemeral stream. This ephemeral stream was identified back in like 2010, 2012 and in 2016 the Corps came out and verified the delineation for the whole site and at that time they disclaimed the ephemeral stream and they uh... they claimed the little section of ross creek and the wetland in the corner northeast northwest corner that was what was under the army corps of engineers jurisdiction at that time uh... they almost never take jurisdiction in fact they don't take jurisdiction of ephemeral streams because it's not connected to a navigable water so what is misunderstood is that In the 10 years since they verified the delineation, some incised sections creeped down the hill. some water flowed down the hill and created some incised sections. So there's a 57-foot gap from where the Corps ended their jurisdiction to a 24-foot incised section, and then there's 21 or seven feet to a 10-foot section. So over 10 years, what happens with ephemeral streams, if we rank streams from, water, if you will, ephemeral stream is the lowest. It doesn't support any wetland vegetation or riparian vegetation. In other words, riparian is water loving plants. hydrophytes are plants that evolved in wetland systems. You asked a great question, you know, are trees going to be too close to a wetland that are sort of upland trees? You know, that's a very good question because you don't want them too close. 30 feet's probably a good distance because even though the roots will get there, they do like water, but they don't like their feet wet all the time. So what you have is this stream, it's basically the whole thing that water follows the path of least resistance. So ephemeral streams have water in them during and shortly after rainfall events, and then they're dry. So they're dry much of the year. It's not the appropriate conditions to create seasonal wetlands, freshwater wetlands, or riparian habitat because there's not enough water to support that kind of vegetation. The vegetation that is in that ephemeral stream is the exact vegetation that's on the hillside. It's upland. And so, what happened over time, as water does, it will erode further sections, and it did. Some over 10 years period of time, it eroded some sections. Not much, very small when you consider that it's only grew about 16%. So I think those are the things. So I don't know if I've answered your questions.

I think you have. And actually, it's probably why the town at that time actually suggested to have a full EIR report on that whole area at that time.

Okay. Thank you.

I have, oh, is there another comment that, no. I have some follow up questions about the ephemeral stream, et cetera. I'm happy to, I mean, ask them now or wait until we close public comment and get to our discussion, whichever's.

Yeah, get through all the comments with the applicant.

I think that that, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if these are not to the applicant. I mean, like, they might, we can always reopen if it's a specific change or ask or question that needs to be clarified.

Are there further questions with the applicant? For the applicant or for, okay. okay i had one i was just like going back to my notes in december and there was one thing that i remember came up and it was about lot eight's proximity to the ephemeral stream and the um for some reason the way this this drawing is there's like like a protection distance around it but only in some areas and one of the notes that we had noted is that it appears that the corner of lot eight actually impedes on that we don't have updated drawings but in the conversation we had it was yeah we'll shift lot eight I think it's like 10 feet over, but to ensure that law eight does not impede in that. Was that done?

My understanding of that was that in that section where it, where it's there, the buffer disappears because there's a break in the femoral swale. That's what I thought the interpretation was. Then we went out and we staked it so everybody could go look at it. And that was kind of our result.

I guess I thought that that changed based on what has recently been discovered with the stream. And so I can ask the consultants later.

I think that's a different area. Okay, I'll ask. I'll check. Okay.

Are there any other questions for the applicant? Okay. No?

Well, I guess the only question is that the buffer changed in other in other spaces from 10 to 15 feet. So, is that impacting. Any of any of the lots or developments in a way I haven't seen that conflict on the plans. I think we'll have to ask. Cool. Okay. Thank you.

OK, if there are no further questions of the applicant at this time, I'm going to close the public portion of this item. I'm also going to say we're going to take a quick break because I think the next round is going to probably go on for a little bit. So we're going to take a 1510 15 minute break. All right, I will now reopen the planning commission meeting. Um, and invite my fellow commissioners to ask any questions of staff or our consultants. Commissioner sortie, thank you.

I did want to take some time to ask some questions about biology. I know we've touched on it a little bit. But, um, would it be possible to put the, uh. See, it's page 80 in the packet. It's called revised figure one of the onsite ephemeral stream. Can you guys find that? It's kind of.

Give you one second. I'll support it.

Yep, I think that's it. Now it's not. And then I guess maybe we can try to zoom into that northern 121 foot section. Perfect, thank you so much. So I guess this is probably maybe what we could characterize as a big change that happened last time. I think the initial study mitigated NAGDAC and then the associated bio report certainly didn't show this. I think what maybe you guys found when you did your field visit in February was a much wetter condition and maybe it kind of highlighted this a little bit better. But the thing that I wanted to just focus on is, and we talked about a little bit already, it appears to me what we're looking at is an intermittent stream that flows underneath lot five. Is that correct?

I'm sorry. Can you say that again, please?

So is I think that if I looked at the legend, right, I think that the darker blue was heavier flow and then the light blue was intermittent flow. And maybe I don't have that quite right. But I guess my question is, are we really just I don't think that we saw this last time. And what what we're seeing here, I think, is an intermittent stream that flows under lot five and also crosses the road.

Yeah, I think the terminology's incorrect. It's an ephemeral stream in that it carries water infrequently, and once it quits raining in a few days, there's no longer water. Intermittent streams carry water for much of the year and dry up in the drier portions of the year, such as Ross Creek. That's an intermittent stream. So ephemeral is something that carries water because water flows, it binds path of least resistance, which are these swales, and these kinds of incisions that occur are not atypical of ephemeral streams. In fact, we've worked on ephemeral streams that are much wider and deeper than this, but they still only carry water. They don't, in other words, intermittent infers, intermittent meaning several months a year it has water.

Okay. So an ephemeral stream still carries water during heavy flow.

Correct.

And I think that was certainly confirmed by my second field visit when I went out there. And I actually went out there right around December time frame after a particularly heavy storm. And I walked all over that area and I could barely get around that area without my foot sinking all the way down to the knee almost. And it wasn't just in a channel. It was like spread out all over. And so... One of my colleagues was using the term wetland, and I just wanted to zero in on this a little bit more. And I kind of wanted to focus on two things, and hopefully I don't have this wrong. So you have an ephemeral stream, and it appears as though that could be what we consider to be waters of the state that fall into the regional board jurisdiction, right? Correct. Okay. And that's how we know effectively that we've got something that is a potentially significant impact that if not mitigated to reduce it to a level of insignificance, we have obviously an issue on the site. I guess my question is, so And I've been through this before, so I'll, I'll just disclose that as a consultant to a builder developer, and it was about six years ago and I did go through the regional board and get a section for one. So I remember there being some sort of delineation delineation process associated with that. And, um, I guess my question is what I'm getting at here is given the fact that this area gets so inundated and, um, My understanding is it's not impossible for an area like this to still have wetland characteristics and support wetland vegetation. I think the area that we've acknowledged in the ISMND that needs to be mitigated is certainly the stream area, the very focused area, but is it possible after further study that we would be talking about isolated wetlands that would fan out and cover a bigger area?

First thing is this is not a wetland. Wetland is defined by hydrophytic soils, hydrophytes, and hydrology. This does not have hydrophytic soils or hydrology. I mean, it has hydrology, but it doesn't have hydrophytic soils or hydrophytes. So it's lacking two of the three criteria to classify it as a wetland. It is ephemeral stream, which is fairly common in California.

ask us a follow-up question so in my experience with the board so in the course of the project i worked on where we had to go out and well we certainly had to make an application to fill a very small area of a wetland and in the course of doing that application with the regional board they actually went out and assigned staff to take grab samples they actually went out with like a digger and they pulled grab samples in order to take them back to a lab and test them themselves and so i'm under the impression that even if you have sorry they pulled they pulled what grab samples of soil below the surface so I guess what I'm getting at is my understanding is that even if something dries out It can stay moist enough during enough time over the course of the year that it can support wetland vegetation. And I guess that's my question. Is it possible that this area could grow? And part of the reason I asked that is I'm kind of wondering whether it's possible we lose a lot on this project and it just changes the project.

It does. It can't. It's 10 years it's grown, as I said, 24 feet of incisions, which are a couple, you know, a few inches wide, in one case 14 feet long, 10 feet long, and that's 10 years of time it took to do that. Again, the soils, we dug a pit, you don't send soil samples in anywhere. You dig a pit, you have a color chart, and you look to see if there are redox there. In other words, Soils form conditions that have been wet and moist for long periods of time. And you can see that, as I said, you dig this pit, which we did, and you determine that these are not hydric soils. And in fact, The regional board lacks the capacity to do delineations. They rely on the Corps' delineations. The Corps comes out and verifies. So even when we know we don't have the Corps taking jurisdiction, we'll submit the jurisdictional delineation to the Corps because they officially designate, they'll look at it and they'll say, yeah, that's an ephemeral stream, it's not a water of the US. then the regional board now has a delineation which delineates that.

Okay, I just have a follow-up. So you said that you dug a pit and you evaluated the soils on this site on one occasion, more than one occasion? When did this happen?

Pardon me? I didn't hear, I'm sorry.

So just to clarify my question, And I wasn't aware of this because I don't think there's evidence of it in your report, but I could have missed it. You actually dug a pit on this site and evaluated the soils for these characteristics that support wetland.

Correct, as part of the delineation that Jeff Goulet and our staff did in February is, he always does, is he digs a pit, looks at the soils, looks at the, there wasn't a single hydrophite anywhere in the channel, he looked at that.

Can I ask you if, you're just politely asking, if this is the case, how come there's no survey or there's no evidence of this in the report? We have this broad brush overview, biological report from Live Oak that really seems to be flying at a pretty high level, and I don't see any lab results, I don't see testing, I don't see anything like that.

The map you're looking at is from our February survey where he, in fact we marked it, flagged it, HMH surveyed that in. So that's a surveyed in, every segment Jeff marked. We then went out, I don't know, a month later with the city staff and we re-looked at everything. The applicant was with us, the city was with us, and we re-looked at everything at that point.

But you're talking about the flow of the stream. You're talking about...

Yes, I'm talking everything you see here was flagged and surveyed by HMH.

Right. But where are the results of the soil test? And maybe it's unconventional, but I'm just used to, like, say, for example, the geotechnical engineer, you get a big log in the back that's an appendix that goes into detail about all their borings, right?

Right, there isn't a soil test. You look at the soils and you say, are they hydric or not? Do they have oxidizing characteristics or not? And then if they don't, you just mark that down on a form. You mark yes or no. So there's no test that you submit to a lab somewhere. The way you do soil test is you visually inspect it, compare it sometimes to a soil chart for complicated soils. And if you see hydric characteristics in the soil, you mark yes.

Yeah, I get that. And I understand. I guess it could be just a personal opinion, but I mean, if that kind of work to that level of detail is done and it proves. A positive or negative, you know, it would just you would just seem that we would have some kind of. Test test result or log or something attached to the report that. Determines that and confirms that. so yeah that's just a statement i had to make and i guess when i when i think about the level of evaluation in detail by the regional water board um i guess in the past i've been under the impression that they have the expertise and the ability to evaluate the hydrological characteristics of an area and make their own determination about whether or not it is in fact an isolated wetland or not. It sounds like you're saying they really don't. They have to rely on the delineation done by the- That is correct.

They rely on the core delineation. They themselves, while they have a definition of what is a wetland and definitions of streams and things, they themselves do not delineate. And in fact, in this case, it wouldn't be a 401 certification because the core will disclaim it. It will be a water discharge permit under Porter Cologne. Right. Okay. Which is the state, which is the state act because the federal, the federal act isn't involved. So they, they rely on the state act to issue the permit. Okay. Hmm.

we let commissioner thomas weigh in here very quickly and then you keep going um so i

So in February, when you went out and looked and saw that there were changes from 10 years ago, and we didn't receive any of the information about where any holes were dug or anything to look at the soil and to see what the soil saturation was in that area. So is that information available to us?

Yeah, it was one data sheet. Okay. We dug one pit. As I said, the channel is... Pretty consistent down. It's incised in places, and then water just runs over the surface in places. And it's what's a classic ephemeral stream.

Yes. So where was the, can you show us maybe on the map where the pit was dug and then?

I wasn't with Jeff the whole time, so I can't say exactly where, but I'll get the data sheet and submit it.

Okay, thank you. And then I think that just because my, the, in the environmental, in the response to OUR GENERAL COMMENTS FROM THE PLANNING COMMISSION, COMMENT TWO WAS ALL LUMPED TOGETHER. DID THE BIOLOGIST MAP VEGETATION? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? WHERE ARE THE AREAS OF SOIL SATURATION? WHAT IS THAT? WHERE DOES THAT EXTEND TO? Where is there standing or seasonal water present and where is the edge and boundary of these areas? And so I think that that in the response to comment to, I understand that, you know, there were these changes to the ephemeral stream portion and then in other parts of the responses and in the staff report, there were notes about. Also, an ephemeral. Wetland, et cetera. But I don't really feel like the response to comment to like, you know, answered any of the questions about the soil. So I just think that that's really what commissioner sortie is like, trying to get around is that was our and I know that you weren't here at our 1st meeting. I don't believe so. No, I was. Yeah. So I think that that was. The questions were, many of us have been out at this site in the wet months, and it is very, very wet in an area that is much larger than just the very small ephemeral stream that exists. So really, that was what the big question that we had is, And so I don't know if this was lost in translation between the groups or whatnot, but that was the information that we were hoping to get more details on. So I don't know if that was who on this team could respond to that, but that would be helpful.

Well, I think I could respond to soil saturation, because soil saturation is only relevant if there are hydrophytic vegetation that grows because of it. Soils get wet all the time. You go out on an open hillside where there's no ephemeral drainage, it can be wet and muddy. Depends a lot on the soil, if it's clay or whatever. So soil saturation by itself, it doesn't mean much. Now, if there are hydrophytes there, that indicates that that soil is holding water for very long periods of time because it's developing the characteristics where the vegetation which is associated with wetlands, like down below in the northwest corner, show up. And without hydrophytes, that's evidence that the soil saturation, it doesn't mean anything. You need all three criteria to have a wetland. For it to be considered a wetland. Sometimes we dig pits in upland areas just to dig pits in upland areas.

To just make sure and look at the soil and see what's happening.

But even if the soils were wet, it's still not a wetland.

Yes. So then as a follow-up to that... In the documents, what is considered then an ephemeral wetland? It just appears not wet part of the year.

It's not a wetland. I'm sorry. Okay, that was one of my questions. Technically, you can't use the term wetland because that's inferring that there's soils, hydrophytes, and hydrology.

Okay, so then I guess my follow-up question for Rainey and or staff is if that is indicated in the documents, what does that mean? Because it is referred to as an ephemeral wetland. IN THE DOCUMENTS.

ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE STREAM?

NO, I'M REFERRING TO THE WETLAND THAT WAS REFERRED TO AS AN EPHEMERAL WETLAND, WHICH IS AN OXYMORON. NORTHEAST CORNER? NO, THE NORTHWEST CORNER.

THAT'S A DIFFERENT STORY.

Okay, so can we just go into, I mean it's, the channel connects to, I mean the channel flows towards that wetland.

It, interestingly enough, it just kind of peters out and where the water goes from there, it's difficult to say for sure. The water may be percolating. I saw somebody emptying their pool water on one of the houses there along that section when I was out there in March. So, you know, it's who knows what's all the water getting there because that channel doesn't necessarily connect to it. It just sort of stops.

Yeah, because it's like the... I mean, there's some probably underground flow from way above that is also way up high that is also going. So when we say there's no... Hydro the wetland plants, what plant is do you, which plant is out there right now in that space?

Oh, I have to look at the report to see what plants are in that wetland. But that is has always been defined as a wetland.

Sorry, not the wetland. Now we're back at the ephemeral stream.

Okay. I'll have to look at the list of plants in our report, but the list of plants in that stream are the same ones on the hillside.

So, yes. So if you could look that up and get and answer that, because there's one specific species that's there. And I believe that it's a species that is it's not native, but it's from when, you know, it was planted probably from when the cat when this land was used for grazing cattle. So if that if you could look that up and what species are you interested in? The main grass species that exists in all of the ephemeral stream area.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you had a particular species that you knew.

I mean, I think that I don't know if it's Timothy grass or if it's like a... It's a grass that I think is used for what you plant when you graze cattle. Anyway, thank you.

we come back to brick and he'll look thank you yeah thank you yeah um thanks for clarifying that your confidence not a wetland because being a lay person and walking around and especially during a particularly wet period where the water's fanning out and you're sinking down quite a bit um so i appreciate you defining that and um indicating what the three PRECURSORS ARE. I JUST HAVE ONE OTHER FOLLOW-UP. SO THERE'S BEEN SOME COMMENTS MADE CERTAINLY BY THE PUBLIC AND SOME CONCERN ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE MITIGATION IS HAPPENING POST PROJECT. I THINK I UNDERSTAND WHY THAT NEEDS TO BE THE CASE NOW. I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR REACTION TO THE COMMENT FROM BRIAN WINES WHO WROTE I THINK FOUR LETTERS OVER THE YEARS BECAUSE IN VARIOUS STAGES GOING BACK TO 2015. He was consulted this time just a few weeks ago in his letter. He did express concern about whether this is mitigable. And so I'm just curious about your reaction to comment made by the very agency that's going to be charged with issuing a permit. I think it's a section one 401 water quality cert, if I'm not mistaken. He says removal of a culvert from the creek may provide mitigation for the fill of a portion of the creek. If the removed culvert is as least as long as the filled reach of the creek. Does highlight the fact that the discussion of mitigation for impacts to the ephemeral creek is insufficient because of the recirculated. ISMND does not provide the length of the ephemeral creek channel that will be impacted by the project. It seems like that could be clarified in the course of the permit. He does go on to say, however, that It's likely that the recirculated ISMND will not be adequate to support the issuance of state permits for impacts to the ephemeral creek channel. And that statement kind of. kind of rings a little bit loud to me. I don't know whether he's just saying based on what he has now it appears as though a permit's not issueable, but you know, I guess I would be interested in just your reaction to that. I still, having gone through this process before, I know that it was challenging and there were moments where we weren't sure we were going to be able to get the permit because the situation of our relatively minor amount of fill was going to be unmitigable. It was difficult to change the hydrology on the site, so we actually had to pay a mitigation fee to a bank, and we had to go find a mitigation bank, and they weren't easy to find. So in a situation like that, you have an unmitigable condition, and I guess I just want to get your response to his somewhat skeptical comment about whether or not this is a permittable condition.

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think I'll get to the response to comments that we did, which I think clarifies the questions that he had. But while you ask, I thought I'd give you the species that were found in the grassland area, which include the ephemeral stream. Canary grass, slender oat, filaree are the three key species that we saw in the grassland. Herbaceous cover. So that occurs in the ephemeral stream and occurs on the upland. Those are not wetland plants. So just to clarify that for you. And so even so, even if the question of, oh, could they be hydrophobic soils, which they're not, but if they were, it still would not be a wetland because it lacks hydrophobic vegetation.

Yeah.

So to your question about the. whether or not the mitigation is sufficient. We provide some clarifications to Brian, and I've worked with Brian for 25, 30 years. I've gotten maybe 20, 30 permits from him over the years, so it's like I know him, I know how he works, I know his system. We've mitigated ephemeral drainages. in much the same way that have been approved by the regional board, in much the same way we recommend here, which is creating these incised channels in between where there's currently no incision. So you create a little more, a longer connected stream. We do that on a number of projects we've done where we've had ephemeral drainages. Most of our impacts are to more significant what we call the more significant side of the equation. Ephemeral streams are often mitigated at one to one. When we talk about intermittent or perennial streams, impacts are two or three to one plus a lot of vegetation planting and there's a lot more hydrology that goes into designing those for obvious reasons. Less hydrology goes into designing, um, not less hydrology but it's less complicated to design ephemeral drainages or connecting these incisions because it's a fairly simple system uh... so we clarified the fact that we would do a minimum of one-to-one one of the things would probably pulling out the culvert that just exists upstream uh... pulling that out and creating an incision in there but there's significant sections where uh... there is no incision that one could create more than one-to-one So you could create greater, you have, so from a feasibility perspective, you can create on site more than the impact. So you can exceed one to one. And you could plant some vegetation, depending on where it is, woody vegetation, depending on where it is, but it's not gonna be wetland woody vegetation because it does not have the conditions to support willows and things of this sort. So you would plant the coyote brush and other things that are kind of there, blue oak, little coast live oak, things like that, could be planted along there if there were space to do that. And so that's why the feasibility is there, it wasn't clear enough in the original comment, in the original recirculated draft, so the comment letter clarified what would be done.

Okay, thank you for that. So, I mean, just to conclude, it sounds like what you're saying is it's not exactly a super heavy lift to accomplish this in a 1 to 1 replacement ratio. Even if the regional board got carried away and wanted 1 and a half to 1 or 2 to 1. It could even be feasible that you would be able to mitigate on site.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thomas. I'm sorry, could you just repeat the list? You said it was slender oat.

Canary grass. Canary grass. Yeah, slender oat and fillery.

Okay.

Are there further questions to staff or the consultants?

Okay, so, My question is about the change in the 10 foot to the 15 foot buffer for the, I didn't write down which part of the, Yeah, kind of, I mean, not specifically for a lot eight, but yes, the change from the 10 to the 15 put buffer. Can you just like walk us through the, um, the process of why that change was recommended for the mitigation strategy? I think it's, I can pull it up, which one it is.

Yes, commissioner. I have some, thank you. Some notes on that. Um, one of the things I wanted to, INDICATE IS THAT IN THE 2017 EIR, THE MITIGATION REQUIRED A MINIMUM SETBACK OF 10 FEET FROM THE TOP OF BANK, WHICH WE ACTUALLY HAVE 15 FEET NOW. SO FROM THAT STANDPOINT IN TERMS OF MEASUREMENT FROM TOP OF BANK, IT'S ACTUALLY AN INCREASED PROTECTION. BUT IT HAD LANGUAGE IN THERE ABOUT AND 10 FEET FROM THE OAK CANOPY. So a little unclear, but it seems like if you take that, in some places you have just the channel, and in some places you have oak canopy. So I guess it's 10 feet from the channel, but where there's oak canopy, then it's 10 feet out from that. Our exhibit in the document is based on the land use near streams guidance document that the town relies upon. Doesn't necessarily require a setback from oak canopy, but as you can see from our exhibit, which is, Exhibit 16 of the recirculated document, none of that oak canopy is going to be impacted. It's fully respected with the design. So through design, there's essentially a setback to protect the oak.

Yeah. Okay. So it was just after review of the old EIR and looking at town recommendations in general, you just felt like that was a better mitigation.

Correct. We wanted to make it comport with the town's guidance and based on the design with that 15 foot buffer from the incised channel area and then the design avoiding the oaks, you know, it's fully protected.

Okay. Thank you. I... Okay, I just have one question about the, and I think that I asked this last time, so I'm really sorry, staff, if we don't, if we have to look this up again, I was trying to look in the original staff report, but in what year was this land, when was it stopped used for grazing and for like use for livestock? Do you remember?

I'll have to search that. Okay, sorry. I know we talked about that the other day. I know, I forgot.

Okay, thank you.

While you're looking at that, could I perhaps ask a different question? I wanted to ask a bit about the maintenance. And this is actually for Ms. Whelan. Have we in the past written anything in conditions of approvals to ensure some type of My concerns are like when a road is maintenance is being placed on a homeowner, homeowners tend to defer expensive maintenance and ultimately that kind of becomes a public safety issue. How does the town address those type of maintenance issues?

I can start and then we do have representatives from Parks and Public Works and they can speak to it in more detail. But for the Los Gatos Lodge project, The project was proposing to form a homeowners association And so the condition of approval required that the town and the applicant enter into a maintenance agreement, and the agreement provided that it would run with the land and it would bind the future homeowners association. And I did find some language in the proposed conditions of approval that we could discuss later, but I wanted to see if Parks and Public Works had information to add.

Uh, James Watson parks and public works. This 1's a little bit different. This 1 doesn't really have an being proposed. So the maintenance solution is kind of in flux right now. I'm not exactly sure how. We'll end up doing it obviously maintenance cost, or especially road work is very expensive and having a homeowner. I understand your concerns. I don't know that we've had a chance to really work out the solution that we're going to go with here with the planning department with the developer on the maintenance approach.

Do we have an example of like, it's not an, it's a maintenance association anywhere else in town. I've never. Any other developers? I've never heard that before.

I just actually ran into Chris Constantine out in the lobby, and he had mentioned the potential of maybe a bond assessment district or some other tools that could be used to create some sort of assessment district over all of the parcels that would then run with the land and could provide a vehicle or a means to collect a fee that could be used for that maintenance.

If we do something like that, Does somebody from the town actually verify that certain maintenance is being done?

Typically, we would hear complaints from homeowners don't typically know what's private and what's public. And so we would definitely hear complaints about dilapidated facilities. And then we would contact whomever is the contact person on any agreements that are in place to let them know their obligation.

And through the chair, I mean, just, you know, I can't remember if it was mentioned before, but this is a little unique. Usually the HOA covers all of that stuff. This is going to be done a little bit differently, but you could recommend, you know, in your direction for whatever the recommendation is that the CC&Rs and Maintenance Association, you know, include provisions for roads, whatever other provisions you had in mind. And then, you know, we can move forward from there.

I think my question would be, we had this actually come up eons ago, Mr. Paulson, on a project or development off Union where there was water there and there was a sump pump or something and it was that maintenance group's Supposed to be their job to maintain it. They didn't. It died, there was some issues that came out of that. And so, like, I'm even also thinking of this culvert, which I actually think is a good idea. But we also know that if culverts not cleaned out maintained, it just causes more flooding. So, I don't want a good idea to become a bad thing. So, you know, so can we include language around something like that being.

I think you just do a for example list of what you're looking to include. I think I recall what you're talking about. That was on a private property. So whether it's C3 with these detention basins on individual lots, which come up quite often on individual lots, not projects. or sump pumps that fail, ultimately it's the property owner's responsibility, but we can definitely weave some language into the maintenance association to try to cover as much of that as possible.

Okay, okay. Then I have one other question probably for Parks and Public Works. I was listening to one of the neighbors was mentioning conversations they had about planting some trees, some vegetation to provide screening. And the trees specifically they referenced was redwoods. I thought we weren't recommending redwoods because of fire or like they weren't a native tree. Maybe that was it or because the water usage, is that what it was? I know there's a reason we were not recommending them. So, if I wanted to ensure there was some kind of language, I could probably then say. Vegetation for screening that they could work with staff to determine. Okay. Thank you.

So, through the chair staff has not been able to find that language and we look through. past years of documentation, so I don't know if the applicant's team has additional information.

Should I open up the public portion of the hearing to ask that? That'd be great. Okay. I'm gonna open up the public portion of the hearing to ask the applicant to come forward.

Okay, could you repeat that request?

It was just about when the, when the land, when grazing was stopped on the land.

Oh. I do not have that information.

Sorry is that like. Do you feel like more than 10 years or you have no idea? It's fine if you have no idea. I just.

Yeah, well, 47 years old, and I've never seen grazing, but I've never been. I have no idea.

I don't think there was cattle grazing in 2014. No.

Through the chair. Okay. The best and closest I can get is a memo to the CDAC from 2016 that noted that cattle grazing is no longer occurring. It doesn't say for decades, but it was in the context of cancellation of the Williamson Act contract.

Okay.

So by at least 2016, presumably earlier.

Yeah. Okay.

I will reclose, unless you have a follow-up question. No, no, that's it.

I think that the, I mean, I think the neighbors probably know best. Probably.

Just, I think, to follow up on your questions and your debate about the Maintenance Association, I think there's some pretty clear state guidelines that dictate what happens there. I don't know if staff has any of that on hand, but I think it would be very helpful.

I'll make sure I discuss with the attorney. Thank you. All right. I'm going to reclose the public portion of the hearing. Are there further questions?

Well, yeah. My last question, I guess, really about this is that if the Army Corps of Engineers came out and determined the courts and everything determined in 2016, that is when it was determined where the edge of the wetland was and the portion of Ross Creek that they are that is considered a water body of the state and they're responsible for. It's been 10 years since then, and if this land has just been sitting there, is there, I mean, Is that delineation, like did, as environmental consultants, did you confirm that the specific delineation where the fence is right now is still what they determined and what existed in 2016? Is that confirmed with what plants exist there today at the border of the wetland in that northwest corner?

Yes, it does. And just so you know, what's called an approved jurisdictional delineation, AJD, has a five-year life. So that wetland delineation expired in 2021. Ultimately, the Corps will disclaim that wetland now under the new rules, but the state will claim it. So it essentially doesn't mean much from the applicant's perspective. They're not going to impact it, so they don't need a permit from the regional board. But even if they did impact it, they wouldn't get a permit from the Corps. And the reason the Corps would disclaim it is that it's not continuously connected to a navigable water. But Ross Creek is, so Ross Creek would stay jurisdictional.

Okay, but that little area doesn't. But then that space that was determined in 2016, you confirmed that it's the same?

It's approximately the same. Approximately the same.

Okay, because obviously things have changed on the property. That's why I was asking about the grazing. It's like when we stop actively managing the land, that things are going to change over time. So five years is the typical-

It hasn't grown. It might have even shrunk a little bit, but I don't think it's significantly different. Okay. But that would be something you would just delineate anyway, because what you do for the core is you list any aquatic feature, even if it's a road ditch. Yeah. So that everything's on the table, they come out, they look, and they go, yeah, that's a road ditch, we don't claim that, you know, kind of thing. So all of those features are put on the delineation for the Corps to come out and look at and then make a decision.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Are there any further questions to the consultants, staff? Yeah, go ahead, Commissioner Sorge and then Commissioner Thomas.

Would staff mind putting up figure 31 again? This was just the easement and swale locations, which had the swale on it, but I just had a question about the open space future trail easement.

Mr. Mullin will be much quicker, so we'll just give him a second. Yeah.

Thank you. I think, so this is another, for me, one of the big changes. I appreciate the applicant making. I don't think that we had extensive easements. It looks to me like what's possible here is that if somebody wanted to ride a bike down Brookacres Drive, they could use the EVA to make their way through to the So the primary road serving the project to make their way out to Twin Oaks on a bike theoretically. Hopefully I'm correct in my assumption. The question I really wanted to zoom in on is if it's very steep to go to the right and then to the north, but a hiking trail is always a possibility. I don't think it would be a bike trail. The piece of dirt, real estate, whatever, immediately adjacent to Cerro Vista Court where the easement ends right at the north end, is that controlled by the town or is that someone's private panhandle for their lot? Do we have any way of knowing that?

This is Corval Sparks from Parks and Public Works, assistant engineer. Yeah, that portion actually belongs to the resident on the left side of the connection there.

Okay, thanks. So we're almost there. What I'm seeing is the possibility of somebody, if they wanted to go on a robust hike sometime in the future, if we're able to secure funding to build a little trail, that could be pretty simple. You could come down Brook Eggers Drive, you could take a hard left and make your way ultimately out to Shannon and other parts of town, if you could get across that little piece there. And I don't know if there's a way to extend that down to the driveway of the lot. It would be like a really brief, really small little connection that would enable people to get out to Cerro Vista. I'm just suggesting that.

I think because the driveway for the Cerro Vista driveway is an agreement. There's an easement there with that landowner. Would it be... Yeah, so if that's what you're talking about, if like connecting those two easements just in a way so that there could be an actual.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Move through. Just so we have a way.

Maybe we should ask.

To make the connection and then we really do have a kind of a potentially great ped bike pathway through the project and hikeable pathway.

We'll wait and see if Parks and Public Works has any additional comments, but I think that could be, again, direction as part of any recommendation that that connection be made, and then the applicant can respond to that when they move forward to council.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so I guess my question is, do you guys want me to open the public portion of the public to ask the applicant about this specifically? All right. I will open the public portion of the meeting to ask the applicant that specific request.

Thank you. So I don't think I have this wrong, but there is an easement there already that we had a big dispute over and we had to go purchase an additional easement for our roadway because the easement for the benefit of the town and the public was not able to be used. So you already have that easement across that land.

What do you mean across the land? Are you specifically talking like close to the driveway or where your easement is already?

Where your hand is there. I think it begins there and it goes all the way to the property line of the adjacent property owner that controls that. Then we went and purchased a different easement over the top of that for the driveway.

So it's contiguous with it just for a different purpose. So the existing one, it sounds like, it looks like you're making reference to a recorded document that exists there. Mm-hmm. and we would have the ability to place a condition essentially expanding the use of the easement to include...

I don't think so.

I believe that there's a recorded... Do you remember this? Yes. So through the chair, there's actually an easement that was offered for a thruway, but it was only offered to the town if we created a thruway. And so in my opinion, we don't actually have an easement there because we never... had a developer that wanted to create the Thruway which would allow us to actually execute that offer of dedication to us. It was dedicated for a specific reason that we weren't able to to use and that's why Jim was had to go ahead and actually get a separate easement for the purposes that he intended to use it for, which is this driveway to this lot. There is recorded on the maps in this area and a horse easement that actually comes off of Shannon road and then comes up and then parallels right on this service to section and then just dead ends a little bit at the. Um, the end of that parcel that owns that large wedge just stops right there. So there is a, an old square, a square, a question. Yeah, that one there's an easement for horses.

All right.

But when you look at it, it's completely overgrown and there's really, it's hard to tell that there's an easement there, but there isn't an actual. He's got to have a horse.

okay so if it's for that specific purpose and it's in a slightly different alignment it looks like we would have to make a specific recommendation for a new one it's better safe than sorry i think i can close thank you public portion again for the now all right um do we have any further questions of staff

Um, then I do, um, to miss Whelan. I'm going to go back. To the maintenance agreement, you said you had some thoughts on that.

Yeah. Um, so there's 2 conditions that speak to maintenance. Um, the 1st, 1 is condition of approval. 104. And it says that the applicant shall prepare and submit projects, covenants, conditions, and restrictions. And it says that the CC&R shall include language that restricts the homeowners association from making changes to CC&Rs. Without approval from the town, and it requires that reference to the stormwater treatment facilities, maintenance agreement obligations be incorporated. There's no homeowners association, so would we say the maintenance association or. so then there's a condition of approval 110 and it says the applicant shall execute and record a stormwater treatment facilities maintenance agreement to ensure perpetual maintenance the agreement shall outline operation and maintenance the agreement shall be executed prior to occupancy of the first building and include the following and then it says the property owner shall operate and maintain all on-site stormwater treatment facilities and so as proposed i read that to require that each individual property owner is responsible for the stormwater treatment facilities on their property and you would to you that you would include the like individual bioswells and the culvert in that language I think that's a better question for Public Works.

I don't normally see this in stormwater conditions, so this one's a little bit different as well. So that's, I think a little bit of our template language merged in there where we're talking about is with the assumption that there's going to be an. You know, the stormwater maintenance agreement is generally executed with the responsible for it. Obviously, the way this one's unfolding, it looks like the developer desires each individual property owner to maintain their own. Facilities, and so I would imagine that we would need to have some water. Maintenance agreements executed against every single parcel that for their maintenance activities. So. This is an area that I think we may need a motion to tweak that language, or we can perhaps come to council if this goes to council with some better language on that.

I'm not, I could make maybe like some recommendations to add a little bit to it and then it moves forward. And if it gets tweaked a bit, I just. But that's the storm water. Would I, yeah, if I were going back to 104, I assume that is where I would make a notation about road maintenance.

I would recommend, because 104 is really talking about what the CC&Rs have to include. And so my recommendation would be that roadway maintenance be included in both 104 and that a new condition be added to require roadway maintenance.

Can the CCRs, can we add on that, though, to confirm that there will be a maintenance association that cannot be written in there? Yes.

Okay. And if you're inclined to do that, I would write it to say there shall be a maintenance association.

And then if I wanted to add some form of language around that road maintenance. That ensured that a huge swath of this road isn't falling to 1 of the below market. Homes can I add something along the lines? I don't know if it would be there's obviously specific specific conditions to each lot. Would I write something in that, or would it be in the CCRs that makes a statement?

So CCNRs are enforced privately, so they can only be enforced by members of the association. And so if it's something that you would like town to be able to enforce, I recommend having it as a separate condition of approval. And then one of the commissioners asked about a state law that dictates how easements are maintained in the absence of any other agreement. and so the planning manager located the section in its civil code section 845 and so it provides that as a general rule um the owner of an easement that's a private right-of-way is responsible for its repair if the easement is owned by more than one person or is attached to parcels of land under different ownership, the cost of maintaining and repair shall be shared by each owner of the easement or the owners of the parcels of land pursuant to the terms of any agreement entered into the parties for that purpose. In the absence of an agreement, the cost shall be shared proportionately to the use made of the easement by each owner.

So does that mean in this instance, if this easement is crossing through very specific lots, so it's nine, eight, 10, oh, it goes all on the back. Seven and two and three. Then that falls to the responsibility of each individual homeowner too.

Yeah, the statute provides that in the absence of any agreement, it'll be shared by all the property owners based on how much use they each make of the easement.

Candid, I'm just seeing a maintenance nightmare here. Okay.

Okay.

So through the chair, I mean, the last piece that Ms. Whalen was speaking to is if there wasn't an agreement, we're going to require an agreement. So, you know, that can be written into it. I think it's also probably, you know, the use, if they're all single family homes, I would assume they're all using it in the same manner. So depending on how that was looked at, but that ultimately would be a civil issue. I'll also add that We don't want any new public roads, so all of our subdivisions are private roads, and so we have other instances where roadway agreements have been done through Parks and Public Works, and so they're very familiar with those.

Okay, I'm used to seeing this with an HOA, and it's a little cleaner. This is just where I see the issue, all right?

I have one question for staff just to clarify for us and the public because we often don't see a lot of our projects don't see like major portions depending on getting permits from like outside agencies that are NOT PRETTY MUCH GUARANTEED OR TYPICAL. SO WHAT TYPICALLY HAPPENS IF THIS WERE FORWARDED TO TOWN COUNCIL AND THE PROJECT MOVED FORWARD AND THEN AN OUTSIDE AGENCY HAS TO ISSUE PERMITS ALSO? WHAT IS THE TYPICAL PROCESS THAT ENDS UP HAPPENING WITH THAT?

I can start. So prior to any ground disturbance and prior to issuance of the permit is probably how we would trigger it. We would need to see evidence that the stream of alteration agreement or the 401 was obtained. The applicant would need to work. WITH THOSE OUTSIDE AGENCIES TO GET THOSE PERMITS. THE TOWN'S NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED THERE AND TO THE BIOLOGIST'S POINT, WE'VE WRITTEN THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL TO BE A LITTLE BIT BROAD TO ALLOW IF YOU PAINT THEM TOO CLOSE INTO A BOX THEY HAVE TO COME BACK IF THERE'S SOME SIGNIFICANT CHANGES FROM THE REGIONAL WATER QUALITY BOARD. THAT SAID, IF THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES THAT DON'T FIT WITHIN THE PROJECT THAT WAS APPROVED, THAT COULD BE PROBLEMATIC FOR THE DEVELOPER, BUT THAT'S SOMETHING THAT THEY'LL WORK OUT WITH REGIONAL WATER QUALITY AND CDFW.

SO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WOULD BE LIKE, YEAH, LOT 5, LIKE, IT'S JUST, THERE'S TOO MUCH, LIKE, TO MITIGATE ALL OF THAT, IT WOULD BE THESE BIGGER CHANGES THAN ANTICIPATED, AND SO THEN THE, YOU KNOW, PROJECT WOULD NEED TO BE ADJUSTED FOR THAT?

And I think the term that we would typically use is, are these changes in substantial conformance with what was approved by the town? So we see this all the time on smaller projects, but it's the same thing here on this type of project.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Are there any other questions of staff? I don't have a question of staff, but I do think that because we just talked a lot about the conditions of approval and some of the language change and everything, that I would appreciate just a couple of minutes to be able to look over and make sure that we're on the same page. I mean, make sure that we're kind of individually understand what we just discussed. OK. Then I'm going to call a 10 minute break.

Thank you. Thank you very, very much for your patience. All right. Coming back and everybody reviewing all the information in front of them, are there any final questions of staff or the consultants that anyone has? If not, does anyone... Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

I have a question for staff about just some language for condition of approval. So today we had in exhibit 36, it was the proposed vegetation situation. What was it called? Oh, no. Lots five and six vegetation buffer. In staff's opinion, what's the best way to include that into a condition of approval? And is it possible to include some language that extends similar species list, et cetera, to the other lots? This was the only vegetation thing that we got to do.

So are you thinking of adding a condition of approval to require this screening?

Sorry, not the screening. Just that, I mean, part of this would cover the screening. But yeah, making sure that adding, saying that what is currently presented in Exhibit 36, this list of plant species, the proposed list of plant species, in general is is i think good and what is what is supported and we would want to include in a condition of approval but also make sure that it can be adjusted to incorporate or to accommodate for changes due to screening, but also is it weird to only have it be for lots five and six, should the list be expanded to other lots?

Okay, so it sounds like maybe you're thinking of two conditions. So maybe one condition to say that any plantings will conform with the species identified in exhibit 36. Okay. And then maybe a second condition to discuss screening for lots five and six.

Okay and like if they so they just making sure if they they don't conflict with you how whatever language is appropriate so that they don't conflict with each other I guess when we come up with that.

And when you do I think it'd be safe to say that any plantings have to conform with the species identified in exhibit 36 because that would include any screening that you impose for lots five and six.

Okay maybe or potential

Substitutions are alternatives determined device approved by staff And through the chair, I think obviously we're in the hillside area So there's an approved list in the hillside development standards and guidelines.

Um, so maybe just refer to other species from that list Okay, that said does anybody want to enter a motion I

I am okay. Um, so I'll go ahead and try to make a motion here. It's kind of a long winded 1. um, and then if there are any adjustments to conditions, we'll. Talk through those. Okay. Um. Okay, I'll go ahead and make a motion to forward a recommendation to town council to approve the architecture and site applications. Subdivision application and mitigated negative declaration application by taking the following actions. Adopt the recirculated mitigation negative mitigated negative deck and the 25-001. and the recirculated mitigation monitoring program included therein, exhibits 38 and 39, make the finding that the project is consistent with the general plan, including the incentives and waivers requested pursuant to the state density bonus law and the granting of requested exceptions of the maximum allowed density pursuant to builder's remedy provision of the Housing Accountability Act. Also make the finding that the proposed project complies with Section 66474 of the State Subdivision Map Act with granting of the requested exceptions to town standards pursuant to the builder's remedy provision of the Housing Accountability Act. In addition, make the findings for the tentative MAP approved with respect to state responsibility area for very high fire hazard severity zones. Findings of such are made with respect to the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection Board. I also make the finding that the project meets the objective standards of chapter 29 of the zoning code with the incentives and waivers requested pursuant to the state density bonus law and granting of the requested exceptions to town standards pursuant to builder's remedy and housing accountability act. Make the finding that the project complies with the hillside development standards and guidelines with respect to granting of the requested exceptions to town standards. Make the finding of the project complies also with the Hillside specific plan with the incentives and waivers requested pursuant to state density bonus law. Make affirmative findings as required by state density bonus law for granting an incentive pursuant to California government code section 65915 and for granting waivers also consistent with government code 65915A2. and to make the finding as required under Government Code 65589.5 of the Housing Accountability Act. None of the findings for denial of a builder's remedy project can be made. Finally, make considerations as required by Section 2920.150 of the Town Code approving an architecture and site application and Finally, approving the architecture and site applications S-24023 through S-24033 and S-24059, including subdivision application M-24023 and the recirculated mitigated negative deck with the recommended revised conditions contained in Exhibit 42 and the development plans in Exhibits 15 through 27, Exhibit 35 and Exhibit 36. Did I cover it all?

Did a really good job. Didn't you, however, have a.

Yes, through the chair also, if we could just add to add exhibit 46 that describes the changes to the mitigation measure.

They were at a.

Okay, thank you. Yes. And also to approve subject to exhibit 46 that describes the changes to the mitigation measure as it relates to the agency permitting.

All right there a 2nd commissioner Thomas 2nd, the motion right to the maker of the motion in the 2nd, or could I make some conditions of approval modifications? All right. in order. Yeah. Yeah. So you go first.

Yeah. Okay, so for condition of approval number 12, can we make sure that the replacement trees language includes the Number of trees and size of replacement trees shall be determined using the canopy replacement table and the town code. The hillside specific landscaping, what is it? Sorry, vegetation landscaping.

It's the approved tree list from the hillside development standards and guidelines.

That and that, thank you. Yes, and then for an addition of a condition of approval, probably, you know, this has to do with landscaping and what I was just asking about. So to include a condition of approval that exhibit 36 of the list of, landscaping plants and designs from exhibit 36 from today's staff report be included with the landscaping and um Extended, I'm sorry, Ms. Whelan, you had some specific language that I liked that I did not write down. I apologize.

Any planting shall conform with the list of approved plant species from Exhibit 36, but I want to make sure that doesn't conflict with the hillside planting guidelines. So perhaps it could say... In compliance with the hillside. How about shall conform with both the hillside planting guidelines and Exhibit 36?

Yes.

Yes. All right. Do I need to, probably specifically to the maker of the motion, is that acceptable since it's a different person making that recommendation?

I accept the condition. I accept the amendment to my motion.

Okay, I know you do. All right, so then I'm on 104. So, on page, I don't even know what page this is. We need to strike the language that references the homeowners association making changes and instead I would like it to read the shall include relevant project conditions of approval and shall include a maintenance association responsible for maintaining. No, I don't think we wanted to say maintaining the roadways, but that they need to include a maintenance association. Agreement. Is there other language, I'm asking Parks and Public Works, that you feel I should add to that?

You think that's fine? And this, through the Chair, this is specific to a roadway maintenance agreement? Correct.

Yeah.

Sorry.

No, the other items are in stormwater. And then on 110.

Question for you on 104. Did you want the Maintenance Association to be responsible for both the stormwater treatment and the roadway? Or did you want to handle the roadway separately?

So when we had talked, I was going to put the comment about the Maintenance Association and like the culverts and bias wells under 110A. Or do you want me to have it in both sections? I mean, I couldn't care less.

I would be, since 104 is talking about what needs to be included as a responsibility of the Maintenance Association, I would be inclined to include everything that's their responsibility.

Okay. Well, I don't think the Maintenance Association, they're still saying the individual properties maintain some of these. But if I want the culverts and the bioswales and stuff to be part of that, I can.

I'll defer to Public Works. But the way this is set up right now is the individual property owners are responsible for the stormwater treatment facilities. And then the conditions are silent on roadway maintenance. And so that civil code section would apply.

Yeah, that's why I thought I was putting the roadway in the CCNR with the maintenance agreement, and I was going to put, if I'm 110A, I was going to add includes but not limited to, you know, for the maintenance and repair responsibility, culverts, bioswales, catch basins, and stormwater infrastructures on site.

Yeah, we agree with that.

Okay, okay. I said that really fast. Do you want me to slow that down? Okay. Okay. 110A. Okay. So it says the property owner shall operate, maintain, etc. I'm saying this includes but not limited to culverts, bioswells, catch basins, and stormwater infrastructure on sites. Are you ready for my next one? Okay, the next one is 120. And I promise you, moving forward, this is just gonna be included. This is actually project construction and activities, not excavation. And I would like to add that no trucks can sit and idle on Twin Oaks Drive or Cerro Vista Court That the developer is responsible to create space on site for all trucks equipment. Personnel trucks and material. And then I have. two new conditions to add when you're ready.

Before we leave condition of approval 104, so right now it says the CC&Rs, it says references to the stormwater treatment facilities maintenance agreement obligations shall be incorporated in the CC&Rs. Did the Commission want other obligations to be incorporated into the CC&Rs? Like the culverts, bioswales, catch basins?

In there. The road's already in there. I'm not sure what else that would be. If I've already covered the road, well, that's what I'm asking.

I think that it's the stormwater, all the culverts, et cetera. But I feel like all stormwater treatment facilities is covered. Doesn't that cover it?

Yes, it does. Okay. All right. And then, um, I might want your assistance with this. I did also want to add a condition that probably goes somewhere around the to file a formal private road maintenance agreement with the town. and then include that in the CCRs so all buyers are notified. Does that sound okay?

It does. If you give me a minute, I can read something into the record. Okay. So one possible way that could read is prior to the issuance of any building permits or the filing of a final map, The applicant shall record a legally enforceable private road maintenance agreement. The agreement must be reviewed and approved by the town engineer and town attorney. It must explicitly state that all property owners benefiting from the private road share equitably in the perpetual maintenance repair and liability of the roadway. The recorded document shall run with the land and bind all future successors.

I like everything about that except one thing. I would like that to say, with the exception that the below market rate properties are only responsible for their proportional frontage. Yeah, at maximum. Does that sound okay? You guys are all talking, so.

Just a question for clarification, when you look at the shape of lot one, which is one of the BMP units, it peninsulas all the way out to Twin Oaks. So if we look at proportional to- That's why I was trying to figure out how to say this.

So can I say it like equal to the adjacent EMRs? I guess I just do not think it is right to put that much road maintenance On a, or, I mean, I guess if I want, can I just say. With the exclusion of the and that the street responsibility is covered by the other lots. I mean, I could make that a lot easier and just say it's split between the other. Lots can I do that?

I think. There has to be like a reasonable relationship between the burden and the property. Maybe it could say the frontage bordering the residences.

And just to step back, I think what Ms. Whalen originally was the proportionate share of the use of the road. So I don't see that as related to frontage. So these are all single family homes. They all have the same use. So we can work through those details down the road, which is different than your latest statement, which was they don't pay anything. But those are two things to consider.

Yeah, I guess, yeah, did we say, yeah, Joe had a good suggestion, you know, based on the square footage of the house?

Perhaps it would be simplest to revert to the civil code where it says based on proportional use of the roadway.

Okay, that, okay, I'm getting three nods. I like that. Okay. No, I have one more. This goes back to landscape. I'm so sorry. Just that the applicant work with adjacent neighbors to develop a landscape plan to address screening between the properties and they will work with staff to select the appropriate trees or shrubs. I'm leaving it that way since it's hillside fire. Does that sound okay? Okay. I like it when they nod. Are those acceptable to the maker of the motion?

Those are acceptable amendments to my motion.

Okay, and the seconder. All right.

Yes, I have another. Oh, do you need a 2nd?

Oh, you don't want to add.

I do want to add a couple of conditions related to parks or sorry trails. Just staff actually had clarified that right now the, the that runs through lot 3 is really for that purpose and that purpose only. So I would like to suggest that the. Be shown on the map. And this is specifically the that starts where Brooke acres drive ends at the property line and runs. All the way over to the private road, which is the main road for the project. That the map, the final map, we show that as not just an, but also. A bike and pedestrian easement. So that would run over the and that bike and pedestrian easement would continue over the private road all the way out to twin Oaks.

Through the chair, would you like to add something about a gate? Perhaps I think it's going to have a full gate at the property line. So maybe you want to add some access to that.

Sure. I mean, if we could just have a. Right just a gate wide enough for bike and pad access. That would be ideal.

So the one that's like the. Right now, like, we have, like, that's along the trail downtown before you hit the road. So people don't get run over.

Recommend you just as, as approved by the town engineer. Okay. Perfect.

As approved by the town engineer. Sounds great.

And I would suggest and fire and the fire department, since that is an EVA, we want to make sure we're not constraining it by putting in the pedestrian access.

Okay. So as approved by town engineer and fire department. Secondly, we'd like to modify condition number nine relating to public trail easements, which already is over a portion of lot 10. I would just like to extend a 20, right now there's 125 foot wide TRAIL EASEMENT OVER LOT 10 RUNNING ALL THE WAY UP TO THE NORTHERN PROPERTY BOUNDARY. I'D LIKE TO HAVE THAT SHIFT TO A 20-FOOT WIDE PEDESTRIAN EASEMENT THAT RUNS ALONG THAT NORTHERN BOUNDARY AND CONNECTS WITH THE DRIVEWAY TO LOT 10. and that the applicant make good faith efforts to obtain the appropriate easement to cross that small section of land and connect with Cerro Vista, that would involve approaching the property owner, which I think is Lands of Lou, which is an adjacent property owner. Does that sound practical?

If need be, you could probably show Public Works your markup.

I think we understand what you're looking for. Okay, thanks. All right.

Okay, any other amendments?

No, but I approve.

Seconder is fine with that. Okay. Then I also, before we call, I need to ask if there's any other motions on the table.

All right. Did the commission want to add a condition of approval regarding the culvert or the screening?

I did yeah, we're done.

Okay. Yeah, I did. Okay All right. There's no other motions Is there it is there any discussion to have? Mr. Burnett

All right. Well, not unusual, but I cannot support my fellow commissioners on this. My comments from the December 19th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting have not changed in that a fair standard argument under CEQA can be made requiring an AIR. with the additional new facts that have conclusions as to the environmental impact on the ephemeral stream, as well as the Water Board's concerns, a letter dated on April 26, 2025. An EIR is required when there is subjective evidence, when there is one or more significant impact on the environment. And it can be fairly argued based on substantial evidence in the light of the whole record that a project may have a significant environmental effect. And that requires an EIR. And the complexity of this project and so many more questions today actually gives me more Emphasis or more. I feel strong, more strongly to require a full EIR. We should have been done in the 1st place. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Burnett. Is there any other discussion? Commissioner mayor.

I think I will be supporting the motion on the table and I agree with all the amendments made. I haven't spoken much this evening because I actually wasn't on the commission during the first time you guys heard this last year. So I've been just listening to all the really robust discussion. Thank you to staff and the public works and also the environmental consultants. It was really interesting learning about the whole process. for the mitigated negative deck. And I want to say just looking at the applicants Uh, package, and especially the civil engineering drawings. They're very thorough. I think a really good job, especially with. Stormwater control drainage. From my professional experience, what I'm seeing here is. State of the art approach to. Stormwater management, so I think if it's constructed as as is drawn, it's. uh going to be um well managed um the the storm water issue um so that's just my uh read of it so um that's all i have to say thanks thank you commissioner mayor any further discussion right if not i will call the question all in favor opposed motion passes four to one

This is a recommendation for the council. I assume there are no appeal rights.

That's correct. Thank you.

All right. I assume we just met yesterday. So there's no reports, no subcommittee reports, and no other commission matters. All right. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. I do want to say thank you to staff. You guys have been working on this forever, and this has been very thorough, and we really appreciate you. Thank you.