Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll now call the roll. It's a short group tonight. Commissioner Stump? Here. Commissioner Sorty?

Here.

Commissioner Burnett? Here. Commissioner Mayer?

Here.

I'm here as well, and Vice Chair Barnett and Commissioner Thomas are absent this evening. Please stand if you can and join as Commissioner Stump leads us in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of 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 the important work of the Planning Commission. Public input is very much welcomed and always considered. The public can participate in a couple 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 a topic that is not on tonight's agenda. Second, during the public hearing portion of tonight's meeting, any member of the public may speak about an agenda item. If you wish to address the Commission tonight during verbal communications or on a public hearing item, if you are on Zoom, please raise your hand. But if you are here, could you please fill out one of these cards and get them to staff? That way I can call your name out properly. When you're called to speak, please come up to the podium, speak directly into the microphone, and you will have three minutes. We now will begin with the verbal communications portion of the meeting during which members of the public are invited to address the commission on any issue not on tonight's agenda. I would like to add that we take no action on items discussed during the verbal communications portion. And I have one card, George of the Jungle.

Georgia the jungle. Birch tree. Okay. Two things that I want to kind of bring up. One is what's going on with Farley and WVMA. It's in the town and everybody's talking about the fire, you know, the difference between Over 1200 going in under 600 and it's, you know, it's really not good news for the town. And I just want you guys to plan for just in case planning on something like a lot of people showing up and stuff like that. We need to plan for that stuff. Other thing is, I gave you the soccer, I mean, the field. I don't know if you guys got this. It's a G-Max test, and it's, you know, I just received this. I'm trying to do a real thorough job of what's going on, and I just want to point this out, that 259 is incredibly high, and it's just, you know, I'm going to still look at it, but it's just something that I want to, Point that out and, you know, that's another thing that might come back to haunt us if certain things are going sideways on us. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the speaker? No, thank you. It looks like I do have a 2nd, 1 Linda Swinberg.

Hi, I'm Linda Swenberg. I guess this is somewhat related to the last speaker. I wanted to talk about trust between the town and the residents. I do trust this town and I trust your process, but I'll be honest, my trust is wearing quite thin. We've been through five Planning Commission hearings on a multi-hall assembly item. as public we get three minutes and then you deliberate and if we hear something that sounds kind of odd or that we have experience on obviously we don't have an opportunity to interject at that time and that's just how the process works but uh... it's really too bad When I heard the numbers come up at a previous meeting, it just didn't jibe because I had previous experience as a volunteer in the community as a house manager for school plays. And when we run those plays and set up the house, you have to... lock the chairs together, the folding chairs, into groups of three. I don't know if any of you have done that before, but that's in order to ensure that there's an orderly exit process should an emergency happen. You can't just have people out on the floor. You wouldn't be allowed to put as many people in the room if you did not lock those chairs together. Unfortunately, you got the wrong information. That's what it turns out. It's not that the numbers changed. You got numbers from earlier in the process. I do have a handout if you want, it might help you understand. But the thing is that basically you got information from the beginning of a process that was supposed to happen. And the beginning of numbers that the building department was supposed to really have and to be able to verify. I don't know where that disconnect happened, but it did. Anyway, My last concern, my concern is these probably people have been in an unsafe, over-packed situation for quite a while now. But my last concern is forward thinking, forward looking. Assuming this were a theater or any other assembly project, if seating is changed from fixed or strapped chairs or anything like that to standing, which is what happened, how will we know that in the future it will be handled properly? We shouldn't have to wait for complaints. If an inspector sees a situation that is not like it was before, they should be asking questions. They should be entitled to do that. So what I ask you is, I respectfully ask you that you direct staff to create a simple checklist for any assembly use change, fixed to floor or to standing or sitting on the floor, requiring seating plans and all of that, like a simple checklist. Thank you. Okay.

Would you like the handouts? Don't leave. There may be questions. Are there questions for the speaker? Okay, I do. You've said different numbers a couple of times, but I would like you to clarify for our notes exactly which numbers you're referencing.

Well, it's in the planning department's file for the particular project. I don't have the numbers right here, but there are actually letters on record now.

Are you referencing allowable occupancy of the space? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. So the different numbers, one of them is how many fish can you fit in a can? And the final number is how many can actually get out in time? Right. Okay. Yes.

And feel free if you want to give the handouts to staff, they will share them with us if you'd like.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Are there any hands raised on Zoom? I'm going to assume no.

There are no hands raised.

Okay. Thanks. I wasn't really sure which one of you I should be looking at for that question right now. So, all right, we will move on to the consent calendar tonight. We have five items on our consent calendar approving the draft minutes of the May 21st, 2026 planning commission meeting special meeting. approving the draft minutes of the June 11th Planning Commission Special Meeting, approve the draft minutes of the June 24th, 2026 Planning Commission Meeting, APPROVE THE DRAFT MINUTES OF THE AUGUST 12, 2026 PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING AND FORWARD A RECOMMENDATION TO THE TOWN COUNCIL ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 29, THE ZONING REGULATIONS OF THE TOWN CODE FOR SENATE BILL 9, SB 9, REGARDING URBAN LOT SPLITS AND TWO-UNIT HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS IN RESPONSE TO CHANGES IN STATE LAWS. The proposed amendment to the Town Code are not considered a project under section 15378 of the California Environmental Quality Act. And in accordance with the government code section 66411.7N and 66452.21G, Senate Bill 9 ordinance are not a project subject to California Environmental Quality Act. Town Code Amendment Application A-26-004. Are there any speaker cards from the members of the public that may wish to pull, or is there anyone on Zoom with their hand raised?

You do have a card for verbal. That's it, okay. Or sorry, for the minutes.

Oh, that's, sorry, yeah, you're right. Okay, so I do have a card. Is this just to speak, or to?

To speak on the consent calendar.

Just to speak, okay. Brown?

This is where the brown act started. I think you guys all know the minutes are, I think, very important to at least document just a little little phrases and stuff like that. And, you know, at 1 point. All but Rob stump, you know. redid it. So I'm just saying, hey, like the May 21st one is, you know, I basically put it in the email and I, you know, transcript it. You know, so it's part of what the last speaker is, you know, I'm just trying to put out the truth and it should, you know, I kind of filed the class action. I'd hope that maybe we get a, I'm going to suggest that we all sign a document. Hey, get one U.S. District Court judge that's a senior that I've talked before. She actually let me speak. I'm not a terrible speaker, and I had a lawyer, but I was having problems with the lawyer. So it's one of those things where, you know, if somebody that knows law, because this Brown Act was between, you know, town attorney and me, And it's just ballooned. Okay, thank you. Any questions? No.

Any questions? Thank you. Do any commissioners wish to pull any item from the consent calendar? Commissioner Stump?

It's not pulled, but I was not present at the June 11th special meeting, but I did watch every moment of it on YouTube.

All right. Commissioner Burnett.

Yes, I as well was not present for the August 12th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. I did watch it, however, so I feel good about item number five and item one through three.

All right, thank you. Any further discussion or does anyone want to make a motion?

Commissioner Stump? I move to approve the consent calendar.

SECOND?

SECOND.

COMMISSIONER SORTI, IS THERE ANY DISCUSSION? ALL RIGHT. I'LL CALL THE QUESTION. ALL IN FAVOR? PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. ALL RIGHT. WE WILL NOW MOVE ON TO OUR PUBLIC HEARINGS, STARTING WITH ITEM NUMBER 6. Hold on, I wanna make sure I just did this right on my notes, I did. Okay, consider a request for approval to construct a new second story addition to an existing single family residence on a non-conforming property zoned R18, located at 193 Howes Drive, APN 527-43-021, Architecture and Site Application S-26-007, categorically exempt pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, Section 15301, Existing Facilities. Property owner, Neeraj Goel. An applicant is Laura Kuda. The project planner is Suri Nathan. Before the staff report, may I have a show of hands of those that have seen the property? I think we did this previously, so all right. And Mr. Nathan, you'll be presenting the staff report this evening.

I will. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. Before we use an architectural inside application for a project located at 193 House Drive, Zone R18, on June 10th of this year, the Planning Commission continued the item to today's hearing with specific direction for applicant to scale down the overall building massing and increase the setback of the second floor great room wall to break up the rear two-story vertical plane. The applicant states in the letter of justification that they have met the Commission's directions by removing the second floor open space above the great room and thereby reducing the structure's overall massing by 22% and eliminating the need for the second story wall setback. additionally the applicant revised the plans to feature frosted glass garage door while the town consulting arcade has not evaluated the specific material change staff notes that the town's residential design guideline increases this increases the use of wood garage doors this concludes test presentation and staff will be happy to answer any questions you might have thank you mr nathan are there any questions for staff commissioner stump can i um

ask about this garage door, because it's a little bit unique. Our residential guidelines call for wood, or is it wood-like, wood-simulated, or is it truly, they call for wood garage doors.

The residential design guideline just states that it encourages the use of wood. It also says it encourages the use of windows in the garage. It doesn't go any further than that.

Do we have experience with this type of garage door in the neighborhood, or what's been the reaction or the response to these kinds of garage doors in other locations?

There have been doors of similar material that has been approved in the past, usually in the building permit stage. I'm not sure about this type of garage within the immediate neighborhood or in the neighborhood.

And through the Chair, I can add also that we see these types of garage doors come up fairly regularly. Often the consulting architect may express some concern with it. When we are outside of a discretionary application, we often work with applicants to ensure That one of the concerns that the architect typically brings up, which is light bleed through, is that they can put solid panels behind the glass. So from the exterior, it still looks like, you still get that look of that contemporary garage door, but it eliminates the light bleed. That's one of the characteristics of these doors that can be challenging. The other is that whether the contemporary look of that door is compatible with the neighborhood.

And other than it still doesn't comply with our residential guidelines, has that been an acceptable fix for light bleed that we're at least aware of?

Yes, we haven't. To my knowledge, we don't get a whole lot of complaints about these.

Thank you. All right. Any further questions to staff? All right. I will call up the applicant to speak, I believe, James Woodard. Oh, no, you? Okay, sorry. Just please state your name when you come up, and if you get a chance later, just fill out a card. There's two. Did I just grab the wrong one? I did. Just go ahead. Sorry.

Go ahead and state your name. Hello, everyone. My name is Talika Gur. And thank you for your time today. So today I'll talk a little bit about our project, why it's important to us, and the changes in the design we've made to meet the recommendations. And we are looking forward to getting approval today. So why this project is important to us, if you go to the next slide, one more, a little bit context, actually one less, a little bit first context about our family. We are a family of four, me, my husband, and two kids. One just started sixth grade and the other one is in kindergarten. Going to the next slide. The reason we live here is we love this neighborhood. We have been living here since 2018. Our kids attend public school here. They have their closest friends. We have built our strong relationships with neighbors. It's just simply home for us. The next one, that's a picture of my daughter with her friends in the neighborhood. And then the next one slide is the picture of our little one. If you go to the next slide, that's them in the play lot next to our house. And then the next slide has a picture of me with our community in our backyard. And then the next one is a picture of Neeraj with his friends and family in our backyard. Going to the next slide, we believe in peaceful neighborly living and community service. We both currently serve and have served on several nonprofit boards. This is, going to the next slide, this is the list of those non-profit boards, and today I'm not mentioning this to just gain any advantage, but just to share our principles that we believe in giving back to this community. Now going to the next slide, what has prompted this remodel? The context has changed a lot since we bought the house in 2018. When we bought, we were a family of three, and now we are four. And then, since Neeraj's dad passed away last year, his mom comes to stay with us more often. So we just simply need more space. Now, going to the next slide, I want to walk through the changes in the design we have made to address the recommendations. We believe we have addressed the massing and sizing concern raised by staff and planning commission. Going to the next slide, the recommendation was to scale down the overall massing to better match the neighborhood context. In the first iteration itself, we reduced the overall size from 2,600 square feet to 2,300 square feet to meet the objective guideline. And today, in our latest redesign, it was established in the last hearing that it's not a problem of two-story or floor area ratio, but the massing. And as staff mentioned in this new redesign, we have removed the open space on top of great room, reducing the massing by 22%. Going to the next slide, you can see this was the old design. And if you go to the next slide, you'll see the reduction in the mass is coming from the elimination of that space. Going to the next slide, you'll be able to see also this was the old design from the front. And then if you go to the next slide, you'll see the significant reduction in massing from the front as well. We believe we have also met all the consulting architects' recommendations. So the first recommendation, if you go to the next slide, one more please. The first recommendation was to extend the first floor eave and roof across the two-story wall and to set the second floor great room wall back. So in the first iteration itself, we had extended the eave, and now that since we have eliminated the space above great room, so that setback condition is met. And if you go to the slides, you can see the old design and the new design where the eave and the set spaces, that wall itself is gone. The second recommendation, if you go, was to get more uniformity in the windows. Now in the first iteration itself, we had done that actually for all the windows except for one, which was in the stairways, and that too we had left just for additional light in the stairways, but now in the second iteration, we have addressed that window itself. So if you go to the next slide, this was the old design, and going to the next slide, you see a new design with much uniformity across all the windows. Quick, quickly going to the next, there were two more recommendations from the consulting architect which were actually addressed in the first iteration itself. So we can skip over the next two slides in interest of time and get to the neighborhood context. Going to one more slide, actually. So we believe we are being a responsible neighbor. We have been constantly communicating with all our neighbors on the design. We have shared design printouts. And today we have letter of support from seven of our neighbors who support this design and remodel for us. Some other quick points to consider. The house, if you go a few more slides, we can skip over the letters, I think. um and one more slide the house behind us with which we share our fence is two-story so we can go to the next slide and there are many more such two-story houses just few houses down from us on our street so we have attached all of those pictures and uh quickly with i know two seconds but if you go to the last slide uh i can skip it because i know i'm out of time does anyone have a question for this

I have a question.

Well, Commissioner Burnett just raised faster than you, so now you've got to wait.

Thank you. So would you have any problems actually not keeping with the same kind of garage door that is prominent in the neighborhood?

Yes. So did you want to address the garage door question?

To the question for the immediate neighborhood, in the neighborhood, the glass door that we put in the garage, it's quite prominent. And I think in our submission, we have shared many houses having the same garage door. But if it becomes a pertinent question or the blocker, we would be open to considering it. But we have already submitted a few houses which have similar in the neighborhood.

So you're saying you would not be interested in keeping it in the same look that it is now?

So to rephrase what he just said, we would respectfully ask for permission to keep the glass door design we have offered. But if that's becoming a condition for approval, we'd be happy to reconsider it.

Thank you.

Commissioner, sorry.

I was just going to ask the applicant to go ahead and explain that last slide.

Thank you. I really appreciate it. I believe this was also a point brought up by Commissioner Saadi last time. Our house has a lot of natural shading. Are you referring to this slide or the slide after this? Sorry.

I think it was that slide. It's your last slide. The one you didn't get to present.

Oh, yes, the one we didn't get. So it's one more slide down, actually. Yes, so going one more down. Okay, yes, so the house has a lot of natural shade. And as you can see, this one, we have the story poles up, but you can hardly see them from the play lot. And actually, there's one more slide where you can see, even from the front view, going to one more slide, and there also the story poles are up, but they're hardly visible from the street, so the natural shade protects that view.

Any further questions for the speaker? All right, thank you. Okay, so I do then have a second card from James Woodard.

So James Woodard with Sego Designs. I'm the principal designer of the project, and I have a comment card there just for answering any questions that may come up.

Ah, okay.

Thank you very much.

I don't have any other cards. Normally you get time to come back and make a closing statement. If you would like to, please go right ahead.

I do appreciate that time. So yes, I just want to really summarize what I already walked through. We love this neighborhood. We have built our home here and our requirements and context have changed. We believe we have followed all the recommendations of the staff, the consulting architect and the planning commission. So we are respectfully asking for an approval today so we can continue to be a part of this community.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any final questions? No. And as I always do, I forgot to ask if there was anybody with their hand raised on Zoom. I'm so sorry.

No, there were no hands raised on Zoom.

Okay, I will put it bold and red. All right, we will close the public portion for this particular item, and I will then ask my fellow commissioners, do you have any questions of staff? Or would anyone like to make a motion before we can begin discussion? Commissioner Sordy?

I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve the project. I think the applicants made some considerable changes. Most significantly, I think they specifically requested what we asked them to, which was to, quote, scale down the massing to improve neighborhood compatibility and increase the setback of the second floor great room wall to break up the two-story vertical plane. I think they've done a significant amount of reduction in that massing. So I'll just recommend, make a motion to approve the project subject to findings that the project is categorically exempt, subject to the finding that the objective standards of chapter 29 of town code have been met. Number three, that the finding that the project is in compliance with the residential design guidelines. Number 4 considerations as required under 29.20.150 the town code relating to architecture and site application and finally to approve the architecture and site application S26007 with the conditions contained in exhibit 3 and revised development plans in exhibit 11.

Thank you. Is there a second? Commissioner Mayer?

I'll second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion? Commissioner Stumpf?

I don't know if this question is really appropriate. I guess it's to the fellow commissioners. Obviously, with our residential design guidelines, it talks about this frosted glass garage door and that it really is not a fit with our residential design guidelines. I realize they're just guidelines. BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THE OWNERS ACTUALLY INDICATED A WILLINGNESS TO CONSIDER SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE FROSTED GLASS DOOR IF THAT WOULD ALLOW FOR OBVIOUSLY APPROVAL. AND SO I'M JUST TRYING TO GET A SENSE FROM OTHER COMMISSIONERS, YOU KNOW, AND HOW THEY KIND OF FEEL ABOUT THE WHOLE GARAGE DOOR ISSUE. BECAUSE I'M NOT SET ON IT. IT'S JUST SOMETHING THAT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES AND TRY TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY,

I will actually speak up on this because I will say a few years ago, I remodeled my home. My home has lights in the garage and we worked with staff to make sure that they are frosted to a point with shades that there's no light bleed. So I would trust staff to work with them on a solution because they did with us. That would be my personal opinion. Does anyone else have any, Commissioner Burnett?

Yes, I tend to agree with Commissioner Stump. I think going through the neighborhood, I think it was predominantly more of a traditional garage door. And I think that I congratulate them for making the changes. And I think it'd be a small request to keep with the keeping of the neighborhood and the keeping of our residential design guidelines, which is clearly outlined that we encourage to use wood garage doors, and I think this would have a much better effect with the overall look of the home and the neighborhood. So I would support a friendly amendment to the maker of the motion, but that would be my suggestion.

To the maker of the motion, is that an amendment you wish to make?

Well, not quite ready to make it. I guess I want to understand what design guideline we're addressing because maybe I missed it in the staff report.

The residential design guideline is 3.4.3. It states that to integrate garage door into the design with appropriate details, wood doors are encouraged and windows in garage doors are encouraged. And it doesn't really go beyond that in terms of describing.

So the second part was specifically wood door design?

Would those called out the material? Yeah.

Okay. Well, I think the applicant expressed a willingness to do that. And since it's a residential design guideline, I guess I'm happy to make the friendly amendment.

Does the secondary agree? Yes.

Yes.

All right. Quite honestly, for discussion, I don't agree. I also think that that is one of our guidelines that needs to be updated. I think that there are a lot of situations where wood is not appropriate and more modern styles are coming out, but it's just one part of the motion. So I will be supporting the motion. Is there any further discussion? Sure. Commissioner Mayer?

Yeah. On that design guideline, did you say that it's encouraged to use wood garage doors with windows in the door itself or in the garage? What is it specifically?

Thank you. Yes, it says windows in garage doors are encouraged. It's another bullet point.

So can that be part of the motion to the maker of the motion that is wood door with windows in the door?

Yes, I would definitely want a wood door with windows. Okay. So I kind of think of that as coming standard these days, but let's clarify it for that. Sure.

Through the chair, I mean, I think, so the wood is encouraged. We, other than in historic districts, hardly ever see wood. There are typically metal roll-ups that have windows in them. But just for the commission's information, obviously wood's encouraged, so you can feel free to do that, but I just want to make sure that you understand that as well.

That's a good point. I mean, as we talk through this, I do acknowledge the fact that very often nowadays garage doors have a wood appearance, but they're metal, right? And so that just kind of leave it open-ended as to the material. And I do feel now a little bit like I'm being a little too onerous by requiring wood. So is it too late to... I'll go back to my original motion. I think that I do, now that we discussed it and we kind of worked through it, I think it's important to give the applicant the opportunity to have design freedom and be able to do what they want with the garage door. So I'll stick with my original motion.

Is this acceptable to the seconder?

No, you are not the seconder. I want to be the seconder. I know, but you're not.

Yeah, I'm okay with that. As long as there's language in the motion to implement a design to prevent the light bleed through the glass.

Yes.

Okay, and then that, I think they can work with staff on that. The light bleed, right? Yes.

Okay.

Is there okay. Okay. Thank you. Is there any further discussion?

Okay, so my, just my issue is that it's a frosted glass garage door. Now it can, it doesn't need to be wood. but it needs to be similar to the other garage doors in the neighborhood and with windows at the top my issue is that of a frosted glass garage door and with our design guidelines are is not appropriate and right now that's what we're following is our design guidelines they haven't been updated yet So that I would continue to want to, you know, further explain what my issue would be. And I don't know if the maker of the motion and the second maker would go along with that or not.

No, I don't agree. Sorry.

COMMISSIONER STUMP.

I CERTAINLY DON'T SEE THIS AS A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE UNFORTUNATELY BECAUSE EVEN AS I SAW OUR RECOMMENDATION IS FOR A WOOD GARAGE DOOR My reaction was, wow, that's so yesterday. Because wood garage doors are very heavy. You typically never see them in a roll-up door any longer. But there are garage doors that are made to look wood-like. I'll put it that way. They certainly can't replace. Well, some of them do. Some of them are really, really good and have windows, et cetera, in them. And so... I'm just going to go with the technicality, kind of nothing personal, but I'm going to stick with, you know, the idea that it should be wood-like, even though it's not wood, you know, and they certainly have the right to put windows in it, but I won't vote for the motion as it is. All right. But I understand.

Okay. Okay. Any further discussion?

All right. I will call the question.

All in favor? All right. Opposed? Motion passes two to three. Are there any appeal rights on this item?

Yes, the decision of the Planning Commission can be appealed to the Town Council by any interested person as defined by Town Code Section 29.10.020 within 10 days on forms available online with fees paid. The appeal is due by 1 p.m. on the final day if it is a Friday.

All right, thank you. We will move on to item number seven. Consider an appeal of the Community Development Director decision to approve a request to construct a second story addition exceeding 100 square feet to an existing single family resident on property zoned R-120 PD located at 695 Bicknell Road, APN 40703006 Minor residential application MR-26-001 categorically exempt pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines section 15301 existing facilities. Property owners Ronald C. Eddington Jr. and Marjorie Eddington. The applicant is James Heck. The appellant is Dale Drum and the project planner is Sean Wollin. Can I get a show of hands of who have? Sorry, just getting instructions. All who have visited the property, there we go. Are there any disclosures? All right, seeing none. You threw me for a curve by handing me cards and all that. Mr. Mullin, will you be giving us a staff report on this?

Yes, and thank you. Before you this evening is an appeal of the community development director's decision approving the second story addition on the Bicknell residence. The minor residential development application was reviewed by the town, including the town's consulting architect. The applicant responded to all the consulting architect's recommendations. In the course of the application review, the neighbor also expressed some privacy and massing concerns to which the applicant responded by revising the project, including eliminating the exterior staircase, incorporating a privacy wall on the balcony, and incorporating trellises to break up the two-story mass on the side elevation. The application was deemed complete and given the applicant's response to the recommendations and the neighbor feedback, the director approved the minor residential development application on June 26th. That decision was appealed to the planning commission by the neighbor on July 1st. In their documentation, the appellant contends that the proposed second story addition would adversely affect the privacy of their rear yard and pool area and result in visual impacts to their property. Following the filing of the appeal, the applicant submitted a written response addressing the issues, which is included with your staff report. And to that, an additional letter from the appellant responding to the applicant's letter is also included with your staff report. This was a brief discussion, but the complete discussion of the appeal is also included in your staff report. So based on the reasons provided in your report, it is recommended that the Planning Commission deny the appeal of the Community Development Director's decision approving the minor residential development application. This concludes staff's presentation, and we are available to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Mullin. Are there any questions of staff? None? Commissioner Sordy?

I just had a couple of questions about setbacks. I think this is an R120 zoning district, right? Which is larger lots. And I didn't see it in the staff report. What is the minimum side yard setback in R120?

But believe that's 15 feet. I'd have to double check. But if you give me one second, I'll check for you.

Okay. Does it apply to pools and decks?

That's a good question. No, it doesn't apply to pools. Pools have their own setbacks, and pool equipment have their own setbacks. They can definitely project into a 15-foot setback on the rear. And then decks, it really depends on the height. I won't... It gets a little bit complicated, but typically decks can project a certain distance into required side and rear setbacks depending on the height. So a deck that's close to the ground can go anywhere. Once you get above, I think, two feet, it starts to pull back from the side setbacks, and above six feet, it pulls back more from the setback.

And so there's no setback that pertains to the pool itself, the water line? It's the same.

Yeah, there is a setback for pools. I can look that up as well. I believe it's, well, I won't quote it. But it's measured from the coping line.

Okay. But it's not, the pool water line, the pool itself wouldn't be, need to be outside the 15 foot setback. It could be, it could extend into it.

It could extend into it. And it's not zone specific. It's just a static distance from a property line. Right.

Okay. Thank you.

Are there any further questions to staff? I'm going to ask a clarifying question because I feel like this goes back and forth. Appellant, then applicant, correct?

Okay. And then closing with applicant, then appellant.

Thank you. All right. So then I will call Dale Drumm.

Good evening. My address is six nine seven Bicknell Road I know you've seen all the documentation. Hopefully you've read it there My biggest concern is the second story Although it's 15 feet maybe a little bit more back with a setback. It's still towering over our backyard and And I've met with them, and I thought the best thing to be would have the second story set back a minimum of five feet. I was a real estate developer. I built homes in Los Gatos, Saratoga. uh... campbell uh... is very typical even here in los gatos and it's even your design guidelines when you're building next to a residential neighbor the best thing on the second story uh... addition to break up the mass would be to set it back five feet So that's what I'm requesting. I'm not having any hassles with how large their building is or anything that they are building there. But my biggest concern is that when we come out of our backyard, it's going to be towering over everything we have. It doesn't just affect me down from me because the road curves. My other neighbors are affected, and I believe you got a letter also from my adjacent neighbor at 100 Smith Creek that also was concerned about looking over and see the big flat stucco wall. So what I'd like to see the commission do is follow the guidelines and see if you can't have the second story set back five feet. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the speaker? Commissioner Stump?

So then it's no longer a privacy issue for you, it's more of a site issue?

It's both. It's privacy in that it would be towering over the top of us. When we're in our pool, we're going to be looking up, if you can imagine, 22 feet in the air to their structure. There's a photo that I brought you. If you look at that, where you see the red line right now, that's where the setback is. So that's where the current single story is. That whole entire second story portion is gonna move forward to that red line and go up, straight up. So it's gonna be towering over my property.

Commissioner's had a chance to take a look at what we were given. Okay. Mr. Stumpf, you had a follow-up question?

On the privacy aspect, as I recall in here, that they were proposing to put up a trellis.

They have a large deck across the back, and they were proposing to put a trellis on the front of it so that we couldn't see people walking on the deck. That was nothing I asked for, something that they decided to do. Originally, they had the deck all the way to the setback line and the stairs going down in the setback. So, after some discussions, they remove the stairs, they push the deck back a little bit and then now they've added the trellis. There is a trellis on the structure. We'll never see it because of the neighbor fence. That's between us. It's too low.

So then the trellis from your perspective provides no benefit to you. Privacy.

Nothing at all.

Any other questions Mr. sortie.

So in that handout that you gave us, I think there's a red line.

That red line shows where the current single story comes down. That's at the setback line. And then if you envision that back section of the two-story is all going to move forward to that red line.

Well, when you say move forward to the red line, it's not really in plan view. It's moved, yeah. I'm still confused about what it's showing us.

Well, if you envision that picture, just take that back portion and bring it all the way forward. I'm not an architect, so you can draw that up.

I guess I see what you're saying now.

But that's where it's going to be. And then it's going to look like the page is attached. So there's my version of what it would look like. I drew up a design, what I would love to see it look like, and then they have their design.

Another question in my notes. I thought I had written down that you had asked in prior correspondence with the applicant that it be moved back three feet, and then now you're asking for five foot? Is that right?

Well, that's what you're, if you go by the town's guideline, it's five. In my past, everything has been five. And then originally, I talked to them. I said it could be two to three. But the farther back it is, the better.

Okay, thanks.

Any further questions, so I would like to ask you a little bit about the engagement. Were you notified earlier on where you had any meeting or. Did somebody come and speak to you about the project or in reading your letters?

I was just trying to come up with that sort of the timeline when they put the sign up on their property. That was the 1st time I knew that they were going to build this edition. So, then I went online and was able to look at the drawings that the city had online.

And following that were you able to...

Following that we got together and talked to them and that's when we got the first email that I sent to them after looking at the plans asking them these are the things that I don't like. Were there any follow-ups after that or... Yeah we've talked several times about what changes we could make and that's how it came into the deck being pushed back and the stairs and a few things but nothing on the massing of the structure.

So have they seen this proposed?

I sent that to him as an email. So I attached the email in one of my letters. It's exactly what I sent him. It was a quick sketch I did in five minutes and said, this is what I'd like to see it look like.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That helps. Any further questions? All right. Thank you. So I will now call the applicant, Marjorie Eddington, or Mr. Eddington.

Oh, good evening. I'm the designer of the project. I've been working with the homeowners and with all of the decisions to make all of the support changes possible to supply anything we can do to supply suffice for the neighbors. Worked extensively with Sean. I'm in my 21st year of doing architectural designs. I've had several council meetings as well. In my 21 years of doing this in service, I have never had a client so apt to try to please their neighborhood. So I just really want you to understand that we have been trying. We had five different design changes. One of the things that they have, as you mentioned, being a 20 lot zone, it is a very large lot. The rear yard does have a tennis court. They do have a swimming pool on the opposite side of Dale. They do have a trampoline. It is a sloped hill. To be accurate, the addition is 17 and a half feet away from the property line. In addition, we did a light study. We showed that in two different seasons of time and two different times the shade from this addition will not encroach on the neighborhood and the neighbor for Dale. We have then immediately tried to accommodate by having trees put in. We hired an arborist to look into a possible tree to give more shade and more support for privacy. In doing so, we found that there's a tremendous amount of aqueduct and drainage that goes right down the middle of that side and the fence for the hillside and water drainage. So no trees are really applicable. However, we also then moved windows higher. That bedroom that's going to be moved is a bedroom. It is not a playroom or an access room that would be something that would be looking down during the day. It is a bedroom. So in In helping them, we also raised and minimized the windows so we could have light and ventilation in the bedroom, but we made them so that they were higher than height level so view from that room would not encroach on the neighbor as well. We then looked into moving the addition further back. What happens is, is due to the construction of making that addition, we need to extensively spend more money to reassure the house because there is already a second addition already. There's already a second story there, but making it all the way to the perimeter helps cost for the downtown to the foundation. So we're looking at trying to tell the neighborhood, as well as you, that we have done almost everything possible. We do meet the guidelines. One of the things that Dale talks about not meeting the guidelines is regarding to the front. And our front elevation meets all the guidelines. We meet all of your architectural reviews. We meet all of the FRA zonings and limitations and square footage maximums for this project. We kindly hope that you'll decide to let us do this project. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for speaker? Do you have a question? Sorry. Okay. Okay. I don't think they do. I do. So I want to clarify just some clear. I'm looking on sheet a 4 where it has the 2nd story before plan. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, if I was measuring off the edge of the addition off the bedroom to your property line, you, I think you said 17 and a half feet, but I want to make sure I got that right.

Yeah, you could look on sheet a 1 the site plan. It'll have the actual dimension.

I just have to make it really big.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. That actually answers what I needed. Any further questions? Okay. Commissioner Shorty.

17 foot 7 inches. I have a question. It may end up being for staff. So what was the impetus behind engaging Jeremy Cohn's who I think is listed as the town arborist, but then in the email it says fire department planner five, something like that. I was just curious to know who engaged that person and was that part of town review or is it the applicant?

So I can answer part of that question. The town arborist, the acting town arborist is a consultant firm that has a number of arborists and different professionals on staff. Jeremy is, I think I got his name right, That's his title, but he's a certified arborist is my understanding. And the applicant may be able to answer why they engaged them, why they initiated that.

Do you want to hear?

So wait, just to clarify from staff, so that is an employee of a consulting firm that serves as a town arborist?

Currently they serve as the town arborist, yes.

Okay, got it. Okay, thanks.

So we called the town arborist because of the privacy issue and to try to break up a flat wall. We wanted to put the trees there. And they wanted us to put it closer to our property, to the new addition, but we have a drainage system there. So we contacted Jeremy and he said, oh, well, you can't put it there. And he said, because of the other trees and there's no room. So then I said, well, we could go ahead and put vines. I'm happy to do whatever we can in that four foot planter. I suggested tall trees and they said, well, we don't want the trees to be too tall. So I don't know how then to break that up. So then there was a thing, there was trellises. We have a trellis that provides privacy on the balcony, and then we have trellises on the first story above the sliding glass door and the window to break up the flat wall, which was in the town guideline. So I asked if they would be able to see them, and he said, yes, we would be able to see them because they have a raised living room. Otherwise, we would not have put in the trellises on the lower story. I would have been happy to put in some of those ornamental like Juliet balconies or whatever they might be up there as well. So I'm happy to put in those, but we did ask Jeremy for advice because we wanted to do what was appropriate for the town and to try to help the neighbor, and we don't want anything that will fall into his pool.

Okay. Do you have any further questions? I do. Oh, sorry. Do you have one, Commissioner Mayer?

Yeah, I just, sorry, a clarifying question for the applicant and the designer. Can you repeat again, how far is the second story wall away from the property line?

17 foot seven inches.

17 foot seven inches, thank you.

So I just want to clarify some of the conversations then that you've had to sort of understand, you know, there's a concern about privacy. Sounds like you guys have been, you know, making concessions where you have. Sounds like you spoke to an arborist about potential trees or vines. Have you been able to land on a solution that you think will help provide that screening on his side while you are able to maintain your design?

I would have to take one more step with the arborist because he said there were no trees, he just thought vines could go in the forefoot. So no, because he said the flat, the drum said the trees were not a concern, it was the flat wall. So I'm not, I'm stuck as to, I'm happy to do trees, that we can plant in a four-foot raised bed next to the fence. I'm happy to do that. I don't know if there's trees that will run into the drainage system. I'm happy to put in vines that can climb as tall as possible.

Okay. All right. Great. Thank you very much. Any further questions? All right. Thank you. So at this time, do we have any speakers on Zoom?

There are no hands raised on Zoom.

Okay. I don't have any further cards, which usually means now the appellant can... You get an opportunity to say anything further if you would like. I tried, I'm sorry.

we have wanted to do this project since we first bought the house and life happens and now we have the funds and so asking us to pull it back another five feet would be difficult to do because of the structural concerns uh... i did just as far as talking with them as soon as the town said that we needed to talk to them we went out of our way to talk with them I did not know that in a backyard addition I would have to do that, so please forgive my naivety. But I have done everything, my husband and I have done everything that we can short of bringing that wall back. We also had another option that we tried, which was, well, what if we attach, you know, make it look? Dale suggested we could keep the first story open. roofline coming down and we talked to our architect and our contractor and they said that would be cost prohibitive as well. So we tried both designs to do that. I don't want to look over their yard, which is why we have their privacy trellis up there. I don't want to do that at all. And the neighbor next to them, we can't see them from our yard, so I'm not quite sure how they can see us, but that's okay. The one on 100 Smith Creek, who also has a flat wall, and a lot of people have flat walls. So we really would love to go forward with the project. We have our contractor been waiting for a long time we have been waiting for a long time and we feel we have gone out of our way to do almost everything while still maintaining the integrity of what we would like for our home and our family thank you any final questions all right thank you oh sorry commissioner sortie did sorry

So just in reading the correspondence, I think I ended up in my notes listing five things that I think that you've done, and I just want to make sure they're still part of the project. It says, number one, remove the entire set of exterior stairs from the balcony to the ground.

Yep.

Number 2 shortened the rear balcony by 4 feet on both sides of the house to decreasing the overall length and moving it away from their yard.

Yes.

Um, the 3rd, 1, it was put in a privacy lattice on the end side of the balcony facing their property. So we cannot look down on their yard.

Yes.

4th is we reduce the width of the rear facing window closest to them. Which does not look toward them by two feet. So it is now on our side of the privacy lattice and then finally The fifth one made the windows on the south side facing them smaller raising them to be above head and eye level So that they would not overlook their property but still have light and cross breeze. Those are all still in there.

And we put in the lower lower trellises. We don't need the lower trellises if they're not going to but we did put them in to help break up that look.

Okay, thank you.

Any further questions? No, thank you very much. And now the appellant can come back up.

I just want to say that one of the reasons we're pushing for the second story setback is also because you just heard from them, they cannot ever plant a tree next to this thing. So it's going to always be one big flat stucco wall that I look at. In planting anything, since we have a pool next to the fence, I really don't want someone planting a tree in that little four-foot area because all the roots are going to end up damaging our pool. So that's one of the things, the easiest way is to set the building back, resolves the massing, makes it look better. You see a little bit of roof line. It's always been done in the past by me and by a lot of the projects, even in this city that we did in the past. And I'm not sure why it doesn't happen here. This is my wife, she wants to add a few comments.

Hi, Monique Drum. I just wanted to, I don't know if anybody realizes that

You move a little bit closer to the microphone so we know they pick you up. Thank you. Sorry, I'm not used to public speaking.

The property in question is relatively flat. It does raise up a little bit. Our property, however, has a very large hill that begins... I don't know what is it like 20 feet 20 feet from our back door. And so we don't have as much usable property. I mean, that's why our pools on the side of the house. We didn't put it there, but we bought it that way. And that's where the only place could really be. So our gathering area is directly outside our back door and it's about 15 feet. to where the hill starts, and then not even the width of the property. I just want to point that out, because though the properties look really large, we don't have as much accessibility to entertain or use because of the giant hill in the backyard.

Our property is also 24,000 square feet.

We'd be closer.

Yeah, our property is also 24,000 square feet. It's just most of our property is not usable. Halfway up our property, we have a fence so our dog can be in there. The rest of it, just like all of our neighbors, they're all half-acre lots. They're all open so the deer and everything can roam through and not be hindered. Theirs is one of the few properties that's flat, and theirs is fully fenced. Thank you.

Are there any questions? No? Thank you very much. All right, I will now close the public portion of the hearing for this item and invite my fellow commissioners to ask questions of staff or make a motion so we can begin discussion. Okay, Commissioner- I'll make a motion.

I'll make a motion to deny the appeal of the Community Development Director's decision to approve a request for approval to construct a second story addition exceeding 100 square feet to an existing single family residence on property zoned R-120 PD APN 407. 03006 categorically exempt pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act section 15301 existing facilities. Property owners Ronald Eddington Jr. and Marjorie Eddington, applicant James Heck, appellant Dale Drum, project planner Sean Mullen. I can make the findings. Required finding for CEQA, the project is categorically exempt pursuant to the adopted guidelines for the implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act section 15301 existing facilities. Required compliance with the zoning regulations, the project meets the objective standards of chapter 29 of the town code. And I can make the finding required compliance with the residential design guidelines. The project is in compliance with the residential design guidelines for single family residences not located in hillside areas.

Thank you, Commissioner. Is there a second? Commissioner Burnett? Second that. All right. Thank you. Is there any discussion or does anyone want to make an alternative motion? I'll begin discussion. I'm going to support the motion. I do think that the applicants have done a lot of work to address issues that have come up, particularly around privacy. Sounds like there's been a number of changes made. I'm sure that they could work on something like ivy to break up a wall or something like that. But I feel ultimately it's a nice design, lines up well with the rest of the neighborhood. Any other comments or

I'll just make a quick comment. I do think that the, um, the applicant has made considerable effort. Um, 1 of the things that's compelling to me is that there's a difference in grade. And I think the subject property is above. And I understand that. But given the proximity of the addition and the addition of privacy lattice, I do see that as potentially screening the view. It certainly isn't going to remove visibility of the whole addition in the entire bulk and mass. But I think it definitely, given the lower grade to upper grade and the proximity of the pool area to the addition, I think it is going to go part of the way toward screening the view. So I think that helps a lot. And I'm going to support the motion.

Thank you. There are no further, Commissioner Mayer?

Yeah, I'll just make a couple comments. I agree. I think it's a tasteful addition, well executed. It's beyond the setback by a couple feet. You did everything right with regard to being considerate about privacy with the clear story windows and the lattice on the deck. So usually when there are privacy issues, those are the sort of strategies that we recommend and you've already implemented them. So thank you.

All right, there's no further discussion. I will call the question. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Are there any appeal rights for this item?

Yes, thank you. The decision of the Planning Commission can be appealed to the Town Council by any interested person as defined by section 29.10.020 within 10 days on forms available online with fees paid. The appeal is due by 1 p.m. on the final day if it is a Friday.

All right, thank you. If it's okay with you guys, can we take a three minute break? All right, we're gonna take a very quick break. Thank you.

First step down a bit. All right, thank you everybody.

Call the meeting back to order. So we are now going to move on to other business. Discuss the Town Council's direction on the work plan for the Historic Preservation Committee and the evaluation process used to determine the significance of pre-1941 residences. The Planning Commission's discussion is not considered a project under the adopted guidelines for the implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act. Mr. Mullin, will you be giving us the report on this?

Yes, thank you. On December 2nd, 2025, the Town Council provided direction to staff to evaluate the level of effort and feasibility of the following items related to historic preservation in the town. Preserving small homes, reviewing the boundaries of the historic districts, refreshing the Bloomfield survey, considering replacement structures historically relevant, adopting pre-41 to 70 year rolling dates and updating and clarifying definitions and required findings for determining historic status. The council asked staff to return after the objective design standards update for multifamily and mixed use residential projects was substantially completed. This process is still going on and going to the council on September 1st for consideration. As such, staff has not begun to evaluate Council's direction regarding historic preservation. On February 25th of this year, the Planning Commission Chair requested that an item be added to an agenda for a discussion of the Council's direction and evaluation process used to determine the historic significance of Pre-41 structures. For the benefit of the public, I'll remind folks that this is a discussion and item only and no action will be taken this evening nor direction provided to staff as we're waiting for council's direction. But your discussion this evening, the minutes of this and the video will be made available to the council when staff returns to council with our evaluation of the work needs for these items. Staff's available to support your discussion and we'll try and have some visual presentations to help guide that.

All right. Thank you. Are there any questions of staff at this time? All right. And I have two cards. David Zykovich. Did I say that right? I didn't think I would. I'm sorry. You know, by now you should know to put the phonetic for me every time.

By now you should know me.

That was a great comeback. Thank you.

I'm just here to hear what you guys have to say tonight and kind of curious why you guys don't sit down here with a whole bunch of architects and builders and review the feasibility of the things that you're trying to come up with. Any questions?

Anyone have any questions? No. Okay, sorry.

Well, I think you anticipated 1 of the things I was going to be talking about tonight, which is including that group of people. And, you know, we do include people in those conversations, but in my. From my standpoint, it is critically important that we include voices. Like, we got something from best. Where's my. Uh, back in June, and I thought what was written was incredibly important and things that we need to make sure we're taking into account. And so I believe that, you know, that is absolutely got to be a part of the process. A majority of there wasn't a question in there, but you can just say, hooray.

Yeah, well done the majority of the work architecture and construction is done. By maybe 10 builders and 10 architects that work in town all the time. Probably check in with Sean on that 1. so I just don't know why you wouldn't get their input on on what it is you guys are trying to achieve.

Any further questions to the speaker? No, thank you. Thank you. And the next card is best words.

Good evening commissioners. I know I know several of you from many years of doing houses in town and I appreciate the opportunity to kind of just speak on this subject again as a local residential architect that does a lot of projects in historical districts and immediately adjacent historical districts this is a really passionate topic for me and I know that some of you know how passionate I am about it part of it is personal passion. I love what I do and I love working in this town and part of it is my job as an architect to advocate for my clients and sometimes that means I have to get passionate about what I present and do. I wanted to just reiterate some of the things that I said in the letter and I'm not going to kind of go into it but I do really want there to be very specific guidelines for you guys to tell the town on how to incorporate local architects and builders i think we all talk about that we want to be included i think that often we hear hey we reached out or you should be included or we said we would include you but the way in which we're included or participate is not always creating anything that facilitates positive conversation nor results It's very hard for us when we are noticed at a last minute. We all run businesses, small businesses, and so we'd like a little more notice and we'd like a little more time and we'd like some opportunity to maybe talk about it in several different meeting times, maybe not just one. The recent thing that a lot of us participated in related to some of the new housing mandates where there was a company that was hired to facilitate these Zoom-based things was frankly very impersonal and a lot of the questions were not really appropriate necessarily for single-family residents compared to multifamily. However, there's been a lot of chatter about infiltrating of some design guidelines, kind of getting cherry-picked and put in maybe new or future design guidelines. I think you even heard tonight there are design guidelines that frankly, aren't great or updated design guidelines, not just aesthetically, but also neighborhood specific. And then most recently, we now have fire that is weighing in with new rules. Half of what you guys talked about tonight, I couldn't get through on a set of plans. And that's a code. That's not a guideline. So we can talk about things that are aesthetic and pretty and nice to have, but if they don't work with how we actually have to build things today, either with materials or distances, and I'm not just talking fire, I'm talking about best practices in building, then the guidelines are impossible, and we're mincing words. I would like to say there are some resources that I would like you guys to ask me about that I think the town could take advantage of, and I'm happy to help with any grants to make those resources available to the town. because I didn't get to say everything.

I have a question. I would like for you to talk about some of those resources that you referenced in your talk.

Okay. I think when we go about making new guidelines and new standards, especially for historical things, some of the things that I put in my letter referencing both national and state standards are important. are certainly guidelines and yes indeed some of that language that we have built into our own historic code or definitions. What we haven't built into them and what we haven't done is we have not educated our historic committee that makes decisions on how to interpret those. And we have a bunch of laymen doing it so things become subjective. There are training programs out there, seminars, workshops, etc. There is a company called the or an organization called the California Preservation Foundation, which specifically deals with educating towns, people, foundations, etc., with opportunities around how to write guidelines, how to set up best practices in their town. In fact, some of their workshops that they just have going on are things like historic review ordinance and districts, a three-part public practitioner and local government training. Historic districts explained, understanding designations, diversity in current challenging times. preservation boot camp, objective design standards in historic context, balancing housing and preservation, policies, case studies, and strategies. These are just some of the simple workshops that are out there, that are taught by people who are professionals that might help to create a platform for less subjective understanding and interpretation of our guidelines. So that's California Preservation Foundation. There's also the California State Office of Historic Preservation, or OHP, whose entire program is to offer assistance in grant-based education to integrate historic preservation into the broader context of overall community planning and development activities by adopting a comprehensive approach to preservation planning which combines identification, evaluation, and registration of true historical resources with strong local planning powers, economic incentives, and informed policy. These are things that are just available in our own state. available in our own town is an entire collection of architects and builders who know about all this who want to help these kinds of things and having guidelines and interpretations and definitions that are consistent and actually have integrity in how they are made actually makes my job better a large part of it makes better projects I think you can see the difference in projects that we saw tonight that might actually check the box on, they've met a design guideline. In my opinion, they're not good design. But they've checked the box on it because we've decided that we've interpreted literally a guideline. We haven't actually made an educated understanding of the intent of it.

Okay, I need to see if anyone else has any questions.

Commissioner Shorty?

I was just going to ask if you could submit that list of resources to staff and they could disseminate it to us. Sure. That would be great. Thank you.

And I mean, I would like to say I'm happy to help get this integrated into how we do it. I mean, and I know there are several other architects that would, too.

I have to let everybody ask their questions. Don't go anywhere. There's more.

Yes. So just to put your mind at ease, I've been on the Historic Preservation Committee for 13 years and I've attended many, many. seminars down in Pasadena and all over. I've been very involved with it. So just to put your mind at ease, there are probably some people on the Historic Preservation Committee that aren't just laymen. I think the biggest issue with our, what we're having now, the issues we're having is with our findings. And I think the reason, and we do follow Chapter 15 of the National uh you know the preservation it we just have gone about it in a different way our issue and i think either joel or sean can speak to it is that it's not in code and that is where we get into trouble because i think we actually do follow what you want us to follow but las cadas does it in a different way and what has hindered us is that it's not in a code form And I think that's what we're probably working on. I've discussed it with Sean and Joel. So that might put your mind at ease that we are addressing what your concerns are. And there's just, you know, I think that's what this whole thing is about. And as far as you've mentioned many times, the windshield drive-bys, well, that was actually done by historians, was an initial look. And then just tonight at the Historic Preservation Committee, there was a home on Magnuson Loop that had of drive-by initially, but it was given a double-plus rating by Bloomfield herself. And then you followed through then with a much more in-depth Uh, survey of the home ratings of the home. And how it eventually ended up that it would appear it was for the national register. So we just didn't do drive by. So that was in general. And then we went into more depth if it looked like that home did have qualities that should be looked into. So, my question is, I hope that that might give you some, uh. STRENGTH OR SOME FEELING THAT THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE HAS SOME HISTORY AND KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT. I THINK I FIND OFFENSE WHEN YOU ALWAYS SAY LAYMEN, BUT I DON'T THINK YOU DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE INTO LOOKING INTO WHO REALLY IS ON THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE AND THE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE THEY'VE HAD AND ASSUMING THAT. Needed to put that out there.

All right. Are there any other questions? I actually do have 1. I know other communities, particularly smaller ones also deal with some of this. Have you been involved in any other communities and maybe how they did maybe workshop this with architects or something? Is there a. brief description that you could give me of what perhaps you have seen, because council is gonna hear all of this. And it might be nice to hear, hey, this has been successful in another community.

I think what is successful in other communities, Campbell, Carmel, even San Jose and Santa Clara County and their historical or their heritage commission is what the county calls theirs, not historical, is there are people who are, and Commissioner Burnett, I use the term layman because I mean people who do not have a degree or certification as I do. or as the people who wrote the Pasadena first 30 pages of their 280-page guideline document. This isn't related to my question. Okay. But I think what it is is you have to have a roundtable with people who understand how the guidelines and regulations are written and can help people make the best interpretation of those for the specific project. And in those communities, did that opportunity get to happen?

That's kind of what I'm trying to understand, right? It seems like we're moving down a process.

So there's often a historian that is on the board or on the committee. I would say that that's just like the way we have Canon do design guideline looks. But there's someone who's actually on the committee. It's not just another send-out because typically we all will get our own historian if it's a project of significance or something like that anyway. I would say that there's also... There's also a conversation about if it is not meeting different... The same way the National Register looks at it, if things are not slotted in different categories, if they're not meeting all of these different pieces, it's no longer open for discussion, these other parts. And we as a community have everything wide open for discussion, whether it checks a box, has... Has two pluses or stars. It narrows it down. Correct. It narrows that discussion. So you start getting onto tracks. Then if you want to contest the track, for instance, Santa Clara County.

You have to talk into the microphone.

Sorry, if you want to contest the track, they have a two-part application that is separate that gets looked at then by historians. One is identification of properties for potential historical significance. So if it's an in-question or questionable thing, it goes through a different process. after it passes that it goes through a deeper part two application that's also looked at not just by planners but by someone like canon etc and requires a significant body of work to be presented for that and that's that's okay yeah so that's helpful that's very very helpful thank you commissioner mayor sorry i missed that what jurisdiction was that santa clara county that's santa clara county santa clara county okay yeah i think san francisco the city of san francisco has something similar to that that process yeah

I think that would be nice to understand, Commissioner Mayer, if we talk about that later.

I think if you want to look at a keynote one in California, it would be Pasadena.

Okay. Thank you. Hold on. Commissioner Burnett, then Commissioner Stump.

I just want to ask one question. Were you here when Bloomfield did the survey, were you familiar with all her, like the survey methodology and all the issues that were gone through at that time and how Las Gadas arrived at Bloomfield? what we have now. Are you aware, have you ever looked at her I mean if you go to our historic section in the library and even in our planning department there's a whole history of everything that she presented and followed through on and that's Have you looked at that? I mean, you're talking about your side now. Why? I think you should also. And again, my question is, have you done that? Have you looked at the Bloomfield study and what that really means and how we really do our survey and what it was based on our criteria, the four major criteria and the breakdown of that and how we arrive at our findings? Have you done that?

Yes.

Oh, good. Thank you.

Mr stop, this is just a follow up. You know, you were talking about communities that you were saying Carmel Campbell, maybe Santa Clara county Pasadena. Um, as you think about our town, the character of our town. Who would you say you'd really chase after from best practices to go take a look at what they are doing and learn from what they're doing.

I'd probably put us in actually an out-of-state town. And I think if we were to look out of state at how historical is handled, I would probably pick something like Park City, Utah. And I say that because they have a small... THEY HAVE AN EXPANDED URBAN ELEMENT THAT IS NOT DESIGNATED TRULY HISTORICAL BUT CLEARLY IS INTEGRATED INTO THE FABRIC OF WHAT WE ALL KNOW. THEN THEY HAVE RANDOM more planned developments like the way we have the manor, et cetera. And so the way that their designations are written and done, they really are reflective by neighborhood and typology. We don't have as big a core as Pasadena does. We don't have famous architects yet like Pasadena did. We don't have that type of core. We have a little bit more of a hodgepodge around a very tight core, in my opinion.

Thank you for that and share. I will volunteer to sacrifice to go to park city on behalf of the planning.

No, no, I'm the chair. I already took that spot. So sorry. All right. So we have any further questions. No, thank you very much. Um, and Lee, I did get another card.

Again, speaking as a 31-year resident of Los Gatos, I am very encouraged by the conversation that I hear, the dialogue back and forth, and a sense of trying to find ways to learn from each other and work together. Clearly, it's needed. My wife and I moved here with our family because of the sense of character in this town. My wife and I lived in seven other cities in four countries, And when we came here to look, we fell in love. And we want to preserve the character, preserve the character that's here so that the next generation can also see this sense of welcoming community, but still preserving the values and that sense of history. The priority I think that this community needs to be doing is to work to preserve that sense of history and relevance while still welcoming new residents into our town. And I also think it's interesting to think of not just pre-1941 housing to be preserved, maybe now we ought to look at pre-1961 because there's a lot of that type of character that defines certain neighborhoods. Where I live, the 25 houses on the street that I live on, they are being preserved. We had one neighbor who wanted to build a second story, and the neighbors came together and said absolutely not, so they moved a couple blocks away, and they're in the unincorporated area called Blossom Hill, And that's fine. And the other thing that I'm concerned with, before I get to that, I think the suggestion that was made by the previous guest up here, she made some very good points about looking at other areas that have found very good ways of putting that sense of preservation into the municipal code. And that's what I think is missing here is we need to put some of this into the code. So I think that should be the mission that is undertaken as quickly as possible. And I like the workshop that's going to be done the next couple of weeks to deal with a lot of this. And the last thing is we need to find ways to protect ourselves from the threats coming from Ringling Brothers up in Sacramento with the legislation that they're passing down about their new mandates ignoring local sense of community, but rather they want to standardize everything, make it less expensive, allegedly less expensive, so that developers can put in all kinds of things that have no bearing on the quality of life here. And I'll end with that.

IT'S A GOOD SPOT TO END. COMMISSIONER BURNETT.

THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING TONIGHT. DO YOU THINK WE'VE DONE A GOOD JOB AT PRESERVING AND MAINTAINING THE CHARACTER OF OUR TOWN?

I BELIEVE SO. I'M ENCOURAGED TO SEE THE COMMITMENT FROM A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT JUST IN THE AUDIENCE BUT UP AT THE DIAS AND THAT IS GOOD. The thing is now, keep it up and find ways to be even more engaging with the rest of the community and other legislators because that's where the changes have to occur.

Thank you. It sounds like we are doing something right.

Passing grade.

All right. Are there any other questions for the speaker? All right. No. Thank you. So Mr. Mullin, like we talked a little bit before we started this, there were some objectives from council for this discussion. Could you pull that up?

Let me get those on the screen for you.

So to my fellow commissioners, in anticipation of this, I thought to keep this organized, we will simply go through those. Yeah. Can I finish what I was going to say?

I just wanted to ask kind of a process question. One of my fellow commissioners handed out something to us at the dais that's an eight page. It's entitled survey methodology. And I think she was a little concerned that I didn't want to accept it in advance of the meeting. She did tell me that it was disseminated to Director Paulson and that it would be handed out to everybody equally. I just want to make sure everybody got it.

Yeah, not this evening. We're just having a discussion. There's no action. We still have to get direction from council on these items as to what we're actually going to work on. But, you know, that's something that we can definitely make sure that the other two commissioners that aren't here receive.

Yeah, just to clarify my question. It's actually a historical document. It's entitled Survey Methodology. I think it was done by... Somebody some Bloomfield and back in the 90s and it's eight pages long. I just didn't have a chance to read it. And it's really more of a procedural question. Should a planning commissioner be handing out information right before the hearing that the public doesn't have access to?

It should come to staff and then staff will disseminate it to the officials and to the public. And so if you give it to me, I can run some copies because we should have it available for the public as well.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify that.

No, that's fine, because I actually don't have a copy of it either, so that'd be fine. But that's okay. Commissioner Burnett.

Yes, actually, I gave it to Commissioner Sordy because there were questions in the past on the drive-by windshield thing, and I thought this would be a nice little summary for him. I wasn't meant to It was more like a reading something that wasn't coming up tonight, but it was just.

Was it only for Commissioner sortie? Okay, then I'll make copies because it should go to the public as well. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Okay, thank you. Mr Mullins. So there were a few key things that you can obviously fill in since I wasn't at that meeting that came up that were more specific and how they would like to maybe guide this conversation. So I would like as much as possible to stick to these bullet points. Obviously, there's some other supplemental information that was in our packet that has a little bit more of a deep dive on some things if we need to reference that. Um, so I, but I would try to like, to try to stick to this just for the sake of people that are going to listen to this video later. And take in that information, so the 1st, 1 is preserving smaller homes. Are there any thoughts that you guys would like to share around preserving obviously historic homes? I think is what we're trying to say, or in a historic neighborhood specifically commissioner stop.

I attended a housing boot camp in San Jose this past weekend, and I don't know that it's new. In fact, either Mr. Mullen or Mr. Paulson can correct me, but there's more discussion going about trying to preserve affordable housing Um, which means ideally finding funding that, for example, if a place is going to sell and it's going to get turned into market rate housing. That group steps up, buys it, it gets refurbished and the same people live there. this idea of having smaller homes in Los Gatos, again, what's affordable? Even a smaller historic home in Los Gatos is going to be beyond the reach of a family of four at $150,000 a year. But I do think it's a good thought because i don't know that a historic home because there may be more value to that home is considered a starter home but if you've got a 1200 square foot home versus a 4 000 square foot home it might give people an opportunity like i said historic homes is not my area of expertise and what the overall value is we just know that property values in los gatos are Really really difficult and how do we give young families when we came back to this area? We ended up in a 1200 square foot home with a family of four. That's what we could afford at that point in time. And yet we could afford it. 1200 square foot home. So I do think there is something to this idea of trying to preserve smaller homes. Potentially for the benefit of allowing somebody an entry point into the community. Potentially uninformed opinion.

Yeah, the potentially lies with the historic part. Are there any other comments? Anybody wants to make commissioner mayor?

Yeah, I think commissioner stump touches on something interesting about. You know, smaller homes, traditionally being starter homes, more affordable homes. That's sort of a housing affordability conversation. Preserving smaller homes. So when I see that bullet point, we're talking about affordability, but this is about historic preservation. So I don't necessarily think that just because something is small, it's historic. There's probably historic homes that are very large as well. So I'm just trying to understand what that bullet point, means exactly and maybe maybe shine that mister when you can Is it about housing affordability, an entry point? Is that the primary objective?

I think partially, I think it has a foot in both worlds. I think it has a foot in the affordability world in that a smaller home is, and I'll use the term naturally affordable with Commissioner Stump's point taken, that affordability, even a small home in Los Gatos is out of reach for most folks. So I think that's the affordability component. The other component is that Older homes tend to be smaller. And from a historic preservation perspective, there's some value in preserving that context in the town.

And I'll just add, I mean, I think that most of these come from a list that was prepared and I think reviewed by HPC. And so they see these smaller homes come and being requested to be removed from the inventory. I think the affordability component, I'm not sure how much weight there is in that, because people, whether it's a historic home or a non-historic home, you're paying for what you potentially could build there. So unless someone's going to Talk to all the realtors and say, you got to sell these homes for cheaper than you normally would, which I don't think is reality. I think it's kind of, as Mr. Mullen said, it's in both sides, but the affordability component, that's really market driven. So I'm not sure how we're going to effectively affect that component of it.

yeah because correct me if i'm wrong but you know i've seen homes in los gatos in historic districts that you know go through hpc and go through the the commission and go through the whole process and they add a lot of square footage but they still are considered historic homes so the smaller homes point and i mean i understand the point of wanting to preserve opportunity for affordable housing but in the conversation of historic preservation i just don't want that conversation to sort of sideline or make us lose focus on the historic preservation part.

Understood. My take on that, having sat on the historic preservation for a long time and then the commission for a long time is we have seen a number of historic homes, whether it's the historic neighborhood or designated where someone has bought it their family has grown or whatever and they they want to expand that house and i think we have been fortunate in seeing a number of really sensitive ones that are done that maintain the character of it you know but allow you know a larger family to live there and i think we've seen examples where it wasn't done quite so well um and to me i think that might be a little bit more of this you know what language is in guidelines or whatever right now around where do we draw the line on? No, you have to preserve the smaller house versus it is very acceptable to add onto this house, but with these very specific criteria. And that's what I would assume, because I've had a lot of meetings where we have argued about, is it acceptable and what's that criteria? I don't know that I think we're supposed to solve that tonight, but to me, that's the issue. If somebody else sees something more to that idea of either preserving or expanding homes, I would like to know.

Yeah. And by the way, I don't disagree with the discussion about affordable. In fact, I was not trying. Unfortunately, affordable is a loaded word. And I really wasn't using it in the sense that these homes are certified affordable. Right. So that they're going to have, you know, 55 years of restriction and sale. But just the fact, like I say, for us, when we moved back to Los Gatos. you know, 1200 square foot house was there and it afforded us an entry point. So there is value in smaller square footage homes, whether they're historic or not in Los Gatos.

Mr. Mullin, do you by any chance have in front of you, there is some language about the amount of the home that must be preserved when you're adding on to a historic home to maintain that designation?

So, well, there's a technical demolition definition that we look at that has to do with the exterior wall covering of the outside walls of historic houses. Street-facing facades, you're only allowed up to 25% of demolition. So you can only remove the siding, if it's original, of 25% of the street-facing facades, and then 50% of the building cumulative, and we don't look at the roof. projects that It gets a little murky, admittedly, but projects in districts can experience a technical demolition, and there's not any language that says you didn't tear the whole house down, and the HPC and the town approved it, and you did an addition to it. It's still historic, but it's still treated as such, but with recognition that it experienced a technical demolition. There's holes in our code for sure, and things that can be improved.

Because I do think that's probably one spot. I have actually always felt like the language around what the addition to a historic home, how that addition should be. Actually, I always thought that wasn't too bad. I'm not an architect. So perhaps that's also something that people want to advise council perhaps to get guidance on from professionals on how that language could be tightened to avoid

maybe more people misconstruing what the meaning is behind that.

Is there any other conversation around preserving smaller homes? All right. Reviewing the boundaries of the historic districts. Any thoughts on this? Okay, good. Commissioner Mayer.

I think our current historic districts work pretty well. Most of the issues I see with the historic review seem to be these pre-1941 properties that are not in one of the well-defined historic districts. So I wouldn't advise council to make any changes to the current boundaries, but if they wanted to consider Adding another neighborhood or two. I mean, I'd be curious to hear if any other commissioners have thoughts on if there are areas currently not that are designated historic districts that should be.

Okay, that's an interesting thought. Because I do think our current historic districts are pretty good, but I think some of this is going to also land on do we change the years to where a whole district then falls under like a 70-year rolling.

I'll make a comment when we get to that bullet point.

Okay, so to me those tie a little bit, but I could be looking at that wrong. Any other thoughts, Commissioner Shorty?

I WAS JUST GOING TO MENTION ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES MENTIONED MAGNAZON LOOP EARLIER. I DON'T THINK THAT'S A HISTORIC DISTRICT. I MEAN, I THINK IT'S JUST NOTE WORTHY.

I can add through the chair that Magnuson Loop, I can't remember the age of the homes. Most of them are provincial and architectural style. They were rated, most of them rated pretty high, especially as you get closer to Los Gatos Boulevard in the Bloomfield survey. And there was recognition that that could, it was kind of identified as a potential district. Through that survey process, and I'm sure Commissioner Burnett will add to this, through that survey process that was conducted in the late 80s and 90s, There were a number of areas of town, Loma Alta, Glen Ridge, Johnson, and the Cottage District that were identified as potential districts. They just were not adopted for one reason or another. I wasn't there. Quite old enough yet, but I'll leave it at that.

Okay, Commissioner Burnett.

Yeah, I just want to mention, yeah, Bloomfield had suggested, I think there were five areas in town, and one of them was, One of the most important one was the Glen Ridge district, which I wrote the ordinance on 1998. I did the whole 12 blocks with all the photos of every house. The Bloomfield study, and last during covert, I actually walked the whole neighborhood again and updated all the. Homes I mean, it is just. doors of wonderful wonderful homes and it's really should be a historic district any district should be sort of started to follow up on it because i have done all the the base work i mean it wouldn't it would take some work but with the ordinance written photos of all the homes in the 12 block area and the description, which I have now upgraded. I think it would be wise to do that because coming down from Sacramento now with the SB9 and the increase in density and intensity of our neighborhoods and actually going also into historic districts which would not be protected, I think if the town could at least maybe get Glen Ridge in, it would be helpful to get some protection for the density that is coming down from Sacramento. Like I say, most of the hard work is done. We need a historian to follow up on it. every street in the neighborhood, 12 blocks.

So it sounds like perhaps the response to council is we do think that's worth looking into, that there were other recommendations, there may be other areas, and probably somebody above my pay grade makes that decision, but...

Yeah, just a question general interest. How would we go about doing that? I mean, we certainly heard tonight, you know, about Johnson, potentially Glen Ridge. And how would we go about identifying potential historic districts in 2026?

I can start with a little bit of feedback, but I'm sure that it would involve, if council provided the direction and any funding allocation that would be necessary, it would involve likely someone with much more experience to look at the archive files and make a recommendation as to any potential updates and then go from there about recommendations on potential districts. And then ultimately a historic district needs to be approved by the council. It's a council designation for an overlay.

And I just had through the chair. I mean, I think you should the council provide that direction. Um, you know, there are potential implications for, you know, assigning new districts. So we probably would need to do a pretty significant outreach to the properties that would be affected by that so that their voices could be heard as well. Um, cause that may or may not have bearing, uh, should it move forward?

All right. That's good to know. Thank you. Um, What about the next one then? Let's talk about refreshing the Bloomfield survey. Yes, I think this should be done. I do not think it should be somebody in a car just driving by houses. I think if we are going to do this, it would be great if it was a more thorough review of the homes. But anybody else have thoughts?

A MORE THOROUGH REVIEW OF THE HOMES AGAINST AN UPDATED SET OF CRITERIA OR EVALUATION CRITERIA BECAUSE ONE OF THE THINGS WE RUN INTO HERE, I WANT TO HIDE UNDER THE DAIS WHEN WE HAVE AN APPEAL COME TO US BECAUSE I JUST SOMETIMES FEEL THINGS ARE SQUISHY. We don't necessarily have all of the facts and it doesn't feel solid. And so I really desire for us to be far more factual and criteria and evaluation driven. But I think that maybe comes through an update like we're talking about.

Do you mean so normally we follow like, what is it? The 4 or 5 criteria. That gets put in front of us. Are you actually meeting potentially more like, architecturally specific criteria?

I guess what I'm even thinking about is when you take a look at the old Bloomfield checklist that they used, it would be 1st of all, look at something like that or other things other tools that are out there. In fact, you were. Weren't you putting up a couple for us earlier or was yeah. And so. We need to update that, I guess is what I'm saying. Agreed, that's what I was asking. We need to update that.

Yeah, okay. Any other thoughts on this item?

Yeah, Commissioner Sorting. When we talk about refreshing the Bloomfield survey, is that, I know that it was done so long ago that I guess my question is what homes are we targeting and is it feasible? So is it to refresh the evaluation of everything that's 1941 and older or?

To me, this all ties together. So let's say council says, for example, we're going to add the Glen Ridge Historic District, right? So if we're going to do a refreshed Bloomville survey, it should include that. If we decide that there's actually like a rolling something, that's an evaluation. Probably it should include those two if we're designating all of these places as historic.

Gotcha.

That's my opinion. Council can ignore that completely. But I feel like they all tie together.

Sorry to be the dunce in the room, but what does that mean, adopting pre-1941 to 70-year rolling? Well, okay, you just made reference to us. Maybe when we get there we can define what that is, because I'm just picturing like a 1936 house being pushed down a hill.

Mr.. Burnett yeah, I just want to mention. I mean that's what Saratoga does I mean they add to their Inventory all the time and so rolling is 50 years And well, we're gonna get there.

That's two bullet points down So let me get to the next one and then I want to have a thorough discussion.

Oh, I thought we were talking No, not yet.

He's just jumping out.

Okay? Yeah, thank you for him

Okay, so, um, considering replacement structure historically relevant. Um, is was the conversation and counselor has the conversation been. I, for example, have a historic that was a historically. Nice house and it burned down. And I build the structure back exactly like it, but obviously it won't be exactly like it. Is that this discussion or what does this mean?

Starting off point of this goes back to a lot of the requests that the HPC reviews and makes recommendations on for removal from the inventory. And when something's removed from the inventory, it's no longer subject to review as a historic home because it could be demolished, it could be added onto, it could be technically demolished. I think the desire of the HPC in their letter to the council that council grabbed onto here was There's a desire to maintain some control over the design of the new structure to ensure that it's historically relevant to honor what was there previously. And I'm seeing a head nod from Commissioner Burnett, who serves on the HPC and was part of writing that letter.

Yes, just to clarify that it could still be considered a contributor, even though if it was redone in the same likeness and followed the guidelines, then it should not be just, it should all still reflect time and place, even though it would be a new build. If you look at all the documents, this is considered an okay thing to do. And so I think that that would be something where we addressed that it still would be historically relevant, even though it was a new build, it would still fit into the neighborhood like it had before, like it had burned down or something. That was the point we were trying to make.

Okay. So if there's a new home being built in a historic district, doesn't it already go

And I'll make a clarification there, because Commissioner Burnett touched on a loaded word of contributor. Contributors are only located, and not negatively, it actually is a really salient point. Contributors are only located in districts. So within the district, we have a group of homes. Within that group of homes, they are designated as... Contributors are non contributors that is listed in the back of the residential design guidelines is a thorough address by address list of the contributors. To vice chair, Birch's or chair, Birch's excuse me point. Within a district, if there is some. project where the approval is to demolish a home. The HPC maintains control from a design standpoint within the district because the district itself is overlaid with the landmark and historic preservation overlay zone. What I'm speaking about is outside of the district, these pre-41 homes where there are no such things as contributors, and this is also something that can be tightened up in the code. Those homes, once they are demolished, we just remove them from the inventory, they're no longer subject to review by the HPC.

And just to add on, so I think the ask is that, similar to the historic districts, that the HPC, there's some desire to retain similar control for homes that may be removed from the inventory and or demolished for future construction.

But if we took it off the registry, then that structure was already deemed. Not relevant for whatever reasons. I mean, we've seen some lately that fell under historic, but it was a box that was falling down, for example. would this, I guess this would wind up being blanket. So if it was decided here that, you know, it has been added on, it has been Frankenstein forever, you cannot see the original relevance of it other than the fact that it's pre-1941. Every one of those would then still go to HBC even, or is it, Yeah, I guess would have to be blanket statement. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's multiple options. Right so there's, there's varying degrees of how it could be implemented. Should that be the direction that it goes? Um, because I think I also hear a lot in and it comes up when these things rise to planning commission of a desire. I'll just, I'm going to make something up just for fun. House is totally Frankenstein, but we know what the original house looked like. So now we're getting back to this rehabilitation or preservation, so we may go back towards that angle, but Commissioner Burnett could probably add some additional flavor on that.

All I know is that during the so-called windshield drive-by, if it was given a plus and it was not in a historic district at the time, it could be considered a contributor if it were in a historic district. So it did give it some qualities that yes, this house, if it were in a district, it would be considered a contributor. So that was a further definition on that part.

I'm going to speak up and then you guys can say what you think. I think if it is not in a historic district and we have already gone through the steps to remove it from the registry, then it's just off the registry. I think that this could get excessively messy. If a house has been Frankenstein's, but we know that the house from 80 years ago was relevant, but it's not there anymore. I don't see how we impose that on a homeowner in both style, cost and size. But that is that is my thought that feels a little overstep.

I agree with that completely. I don't have a lot to elaborate on it, but I do see it becoming very messy.

And so the way I've been thinking about it is just that let's take a house that, you know, an appeal was successful. It's off the registry and you look in that neighborhood and you see the character of the neighborhood. Right. And you would say. maybe there is a desire to really say, we're going to maintain... You've got to maintain just the character of that neighborhood and what's surrounding it. And I hate to pick up this example, because let's go build an Eichler in the middle of what was maybe... a period representative neighborhood. And again, like I say, that's the way I'm not suggesting that, but it's sort of one way to look at it, that you would say, you know, you're taking down something that did have At one point, some value, some blah, blah, blah. And now we, you know, can you replace it with something that would be somewhat historically relevant? Not to the box, you know, not to the box. So anyway.

But we already do that. So if the idea is we then, you know, that house, maybe before it was Frankensteined, aligned with this neighborhood, we already do that. That doesn't have to be a historic thing. That's a... You know, neighborhood compatibility, and you look at that neighborhood and say, okay, what makes sense? We try, I think we do pretty good most of the time, but I mean, I'd like to come sure. Mayor, what do you think?

I mean, I think this conversation we're having now gets to the heart of sort of where the challenges are and where the breakdown is in this whole entire process. And again, I don't I don't think it's the historic districts. I think those are all defined and I think that works. Well, it's the pre 1941 outside the districts. Um. You know, I know there's a desire by the town and by the HPC and. You know, all of us, I think here in the room tonight, you know, care about the town and. Want to preserve its character and we have quite a nice architectural legacy here. Um, but. So there's a desire to want to preserve the character, right? So that lens is being used to evaluate pre-1941 properties that come before HPC to go off the registry, but oftentimes those properties that come are beyond repair. They're completely decrepit and structurally unsound. And I touched upon this in my letter that was distributed as a desk item, but I think part of the problem is that when someone comes to the HPC asking to remove it from the registry, we don't know what they want to do with it. But we know that they want to make it easier to do something with it, right? But there is no standard, really, aside from our residential design guidelines, to evaluate what will come next after it. So I think there is this desire to want to hold on to the character of the town and sometimes that manifests itself in perhaps you know unnecessarily preserving something that is unsafe and structurally unsound um so i i don't know what the answer is to this i'm just thinking out loud but there seems to be a breakdown at with this and i think part of it is the process rather than rather than the intent

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I can just say all the years I was on HPC. You know, it was you don't get to evaluate this home based on the next home. This home stands on its own merit, its own architectural value, its own significance. You don't get to decide. About this house based on the next and I guess I have always kind of held that in mind and. Well, that would be my thought.

Through the chair, if I can offer kind of piggyback off of Commissioner Mayer's statement. I mean, outside of state laws that get around our rules and guidelines, if a home's removed from the inventory and they go through the traditional process to redevelop the property outside of a district, We obviously use the residential design guidelines, and we have a professional architect peer review specifically for neighborhood compatibility as one of the components that they look at. So I know that the HPC loses their lens on it, and I do understand the concern there, but I just wanted to make sure it's on the record that it's not a free-for-all outside of, of course, state laws. And I do want to, secondly, I was handed a note from a member of the audience that didn't get a chance to speak during the public hearing and would request the public hearing be reopened for them to have an opportunity to speak on the matter. That's at the discretion of the chair.

Yeah, of course. I think we want to hear what people have to say. Lee. I appreciate the note on the front Lee.

I apologize, but I got caught in traffic from Jazz and the Plaza, and it took me over 20 minutes to get here. It wasn't the cars, it was all the people that I had to keep stopping for.

But

I had originally intended to come and during the Historic Preservation Committee meeting I wasn't feeling well so I decided not to come. I'm feeling a little bit better now and I think I really would like to discuss a couple of things. It's gonna be hard for me to know where to start, but what I've passed out to you is the table of contents of a report that was done by Anne Bloomfield. I have looked at some sections of that report. I have put a check on the sections that I have been able to read. And I have to say, it was a big education. I understand a hell of a lot more now about how the survey was developed, how it was implemented, and the people who did it. They were non-professionals. There were historians on the committee. forget her name, but she was the one who started the History Museum and she was very involved in history. And there was a member of the staff as well as members of the Historic Preservation Committee. What I want to start with is that once I got a hold of this and was able to read the degree of detail that went into developing the survey and educating those who were doing it, that I felt it was really important to talk about how the survey was rated and how it differed from the way National Park Service rates. Things that were rated or that were used to determine findings were basically the same in both. The difference is that in the National Park Service, they evaluated each of those four categories that we look at individually. and then related it to the fifth category, which was integrity. The way this was developed, it was developed specifically because of the fact that, and all of that relates, going back to that, All of the National Park Service criteria relate to structures that are eligible for listing on the National Historic Register or on the State Register. They're not at the level of a small town and small town feeling preserving that neighborhood. Can I go on? like two more minutes okay and what i found was that the process for the survey when they actually did it the drive-by was only the first phase then there was quite another number of phases but looking at the criteria that they used She developed a criteria that was based on another historian, and rather than evaluating things individually, it did it as a package. They were all integrated. They were the same five basic categories, and they had 14 different things below them. Each one was given a a rating based on excellent, good, very good, etc. And then that was totaled. And if it was above a certain number of points, it was considered as eligible for the inventory. The important thing is, though, is that that survey and the final rating system included ratings for integrity. And in fact, the integrity ratings were a negative rating, so they had a real impact on whether something qualified or not. It's not that integrity was not considered at all. It was a totally different way of looking at things, and frankly, looking at what I've been able to read, I've really become educated. I have so many more questions. I've always had questions, that's why You have this before you in the first place, although I'm not speaking as a member of the committee. Excuse me, I'm not representing the committee, but I was the chair who requested that this all be developed. And I would say, God, I have so much more to say.

Unfortunately, we've got to get to this now, so thank you. No questions? Yeah, any questions for the speaker? Oh, thank you very much, Lee. I assume I don't have to re-close this, do I? Because, oh, I do. Okay, we're re-closing the public portion of this item. Okay. Sure.

I'd like a question to staff. Joel or Sean, is there a way, I mean... I'm sorry, is there a way that we can put this into a code? I mean, I think that's where we're having issues here and where things get so, as you were saying, squishy. We don't, it's more just standards or Is there a way to, I mean we've talked about this, I've talked about it with you and with Joel, so and I think there was a suggestion about how we could maybe do that so it's a little easier to understand and clearer for everybody.

I think the ultimate goal should the council provide us that direction is to see where it should live, what's the appropriate place for it to live, whether that's in the town code or in some other document. Again, we don't have direction to do anything at this point. So we're waiting for our opportunity to go back to council, provide them some feedback, provide them the feedback that you are giving us tonight and receive direction from the council.

And through the chair, I think that, you know, whether it's the findings, definitions, whatever it is, that's really the last bullet of discussion up there. Yeah, exactly. And whether it belongs in the guidelines and the code, some of it might belong in both, some of it might belong in one rather than the other. Right. So should we get that direction, then we would look into going through that process.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Sordy?

I had kind of a follow-up on that because... Hopefully this isn't outside the bounds of what we're sort of talking about. But we have these pre-1941 houses come up. The findings that we use are, I think, in a couple different places. They mostly live in the residential design guidelines. But I don't think a single one of those findings is actually an ordinance. And almost every single time we make a decision as a commission, findings that make direct reference to ordinances. And so it's really a legal question. I guess I'm, first of all, I'm wondering if we've ever been challenged in court on a determination related to a pre-1941 house. And if not, maybe the town attorney could venture a guess about how difficult it would be to win such a case if somebody challenged the decision.

It's probably not appropriate to answer your second question in this setting but what we're doing right now is the code references the residential design guidelines and then the residential design guidelines in turn reference the other standards that the town uses. So it is more tenuous than is ideal and so ideally the town code would include it codified.

Okay. All right. So then the adopting pre-1941 to a seven-year rolling. Commissioner Sordy?

What does that mean?

I can jump in on that. So when the decisions were being made as to what the historic inventory was going to include, there was a conversation at that time about what the appropriate sort of benchmark was. For example, CEQA uses 50 years as something that needs to be looked at for potential impacts to a historic resource and its environmental implications. So obviously in 1980, that would have been a 1930 home, but now that's a 1976 home. So that conversation was had, I found some record of that in the minutes and what they decided was, that the pre 1941 was the date. It was a hard date rather than a rolling date, which changes every year. And that was based on the year that the town had the first comprehensive set of assessment, tax assessment records for the town.

Okay. So if we applied to it to today, it would be like 1956. I'm doing my math, right?

It would, I mean, at the time it's just sort of circumstantial that when they adopted pre 41, it was about 50 years ahead. Um, but the, they had a specific discussion about that in the minutes, um, and that it wasn't about the 50 years. It was about the tax assessment records.

Right. I'm just saying if we instituted it today, that's essentially what it means. We would take today's date minus 70 and that would be the threshold. 1956.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Commissioner Stump. So how did the council arrive at 70 years?

This was just a number that was thrown out. I'm sure it's open to significant discussion should they get there.

I agree it should be updated. I'm trying to wrap my head around, because a lot of the houses in this town are built in like, what, the 50s, 60s? That there's a point where damn near, sorry, every house in town would have to go to the Historic Preservation Committee, and that is overwhelming. It is. That's a lot of houses. Every single one of them should not go to the Historic Preservation Committee. So I don't know if the idea is while we may maybe change the date or something, then there'd have to be some tightening around what would those still be considered historically relevant because I live next to a lot of houses that were built in the 60s and I promise you they're not historically relevant. So I like to just, yeah, how would we do this?

Well, I think, like there's a group right off of Los Gatos Boulevard, it's the Eichler Homes. I mean, there's a whole little street full of Eichler Homes. And that could be captured. I doubt that we would look at every house in the town.

But if we go to a rolling program, somebody has to get paid to assess that.

Yeah, well, Saratoga does, I mean, you would have members that. We would have certain standards, certain guidelines, certain kinds of construction. Like I say, the Eichler homes, there's, I think.

8 or 9 of them there well, wouldn't it almost be easier to say if we're going to say we should do a better survey, like, we're going to update this and we're going to do something. We just roll some of those into it. Yeah. Instead of saying. Every track house that was built in the 60s is historic because that's what this means.

No, that wouldn't.

Yeah, I would rather we take and spend some good money on somebody just going through and re-evaluating houses and adding houses to the registry than this. This does not feel appropriate, but I will take arguments if you guys have any, but. No, it would be definitely commissioner mayor is going to volunteer to be the person that evaluates every 1 of them.

I just saw you do that. I agree with the chair on your assessment. I don't think changing the year implementing a rolling clock is going to solve. The problems that we're trying to solve here, it could potentially make it worse. So, I don't think changing the year is. Is the issue and I know there was probably is going to be some action by the council and it's going to have to be. Very well considered because the resources are limited. Right? So. I think we should keep that in mind as well that the town's resources are limited and where do we want to. Take that I, you know, there's been. Sorry to go back into the bullet point about the Bloomfield survey, but. That also feels like it could be cost prohibitive. I'd rather. the town's resources be spent more specifically on when something does come to HPC and there's, you know, questions about, you know, should this stay on the registry or should it be taken off? You know, I'd rather town's resources be utilized to consult an expert on that issue. Sort of thing, because they're not all the pre-1941s outside of historic districts. They're not coming all at the same time, right? They kind of come one by one. So I think that I personally would rather the town's resources be spent on that. But I do think the second bullet point, the historic district, I think perhaps looking at expanding that, looking back at what was previously assessed might be also a good use of resources.

Yeah, I agree with you completely. That makes a lot more sense. Any other comments? All right. So then updating and clarifying definitions and required findings for determining historic status. So I'm going to be candid. There's only one person that sits up here that I feel is qualified, you know, professionally to probably talk about some of the you know, the nuances at least architecturally of this. I do think all of us agree they need to be updated. And I know that you've got some comments I think you've thought about you should make. But I actually like the idea of maybe getting other people that are, I could talk to you about the structural components of it and everything all day, but I don't know, this just feels like only thing I'd be comfortable saying is yes, we should. Commissioner sorted, did you have anything you wanted to add because you were talking about this earlier?

They earlier or at a different here. Oh, just related to the 5 findings. They typically use the findings. Yeah, I mean, only that. Yeah, well, part of it is just process. I think that. All it says, our direction generally is all it says is that you shall consider these five things. And there's no specific direction that says you shall make a positive determination regarding all five. And so I just find it generally inconsistent or, I don't know, maybe just difficult to wrap my brain around. Like sometimes... The determination that a house should not be taken off the register revolves around the opinion of the HPC that one particular finding can't be met, but the other four clearly are. And so just the logic of it, I find challenging. And then more than that, I think other commissioners have shared this opinion that it does feel a little biased. It does feel a little bit like the opinions coming from an advocacy point of view and not necessarily an objective party. evaluating those findings and weighing in and having that objective party, of course, be qualified to make the determination. So that's been my feeling in almost every case when we're faced with removing a house from the pre-1941 list. So those are my comments.

Yeah. Anything to add, Commissioner Mayer?

Yeah, I mean, I do think the comment earlier about getting a round table of local architects to give their input is a really important part of this. But even beyond architects, there is a special discipline called historic preservation, and there are professionals trained specifically in historic preservation. So I definitely think there should be some resources allocated to consulting with those folks.

I agree. Any other comments? Anything else? I mean, we've touched on everything. Is there anything else that you guys want to fall back and talk about before we close this topic? No? Then I'm going to ask staff, did that, at least as far as this getting passed on, did that give you what you need? Or is there anything that you maybe still had in your mind that needed to perhaps our thoughts be clarified?

No, I think the aim was to have a discussion, so a discussion's been had. I will daylight that any guidance provided from the council is very likely, once we start getting work together, to make its way through the Historic Preservation Committee and the Planning Commission before it goes to the council. That's what I envision. Obviously, it depends on the direction of the council. So this is a discussion that, again, this information will be provided to the council as we move forward, and we look forward to receiving their direction.

Thank you, Mr. Mullin. All right. We will now, is there a report from the Director of Community Development?

No report this evening.

All right. Any subcommittee reports? I know you do.

Yes, we had a Historic Preservation Committee meeting this afternoon. There were three items and one other business. Two of the items we were not able to hear because we didn't have a quorum, so we ended up with one, which was to remove the property from the historic inventory, and it was unanimously voted to remove it. It did not meet the five criteria, so it was removed and then another business it was just a preliminary review to for exterior modifications this person had come back three times and so we arrived at a good solution for him so that that was all good great Yeah, please go ahead.

Can I ask the director to just give us a little update on some of the applications we saw recently that have made it to council? I think Oka Road went last week and Twin Oaks. just where they stand.

Yeah, I think we've discussed Twin Oaks and Oka at the last meeting. But so just for further information, because I can't, we've had so many meetings this month. Oka Road was approved by the council. Twin Oaks was continued and requested some additional information not to date certain. SO WE'LL BE WORKING WITH THE APPLICANT AND CONSULTANTS TO GET SOME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. AND THEN LAST WEEK ALSO THE WEST VALLEY MUSLIM ASSOCIATION WAS OPEN JUST FOR THE MATTER TO DISCUSS REQUESTED CONTINUANCES. SO ULTIMATELY THAT WAS CONTINUED TO A DATE UNCERTAIN I BELIEVE AS WELL. SO THOSE WILL STILL TWIN OAKS AND THE WEST VALLEY MUSLIM ASSOCIATION ARE TO BE CONTINUED.

All right, any other commission matters?

Commissioner Stump? This would just be a follow-up. Mr. Paulson, do you see any possibility of the West Valley Muslim Association being remanded back to the commission?

I'd never venture a guess, but that is one of the options on the table.

Okay. If there's no other commission matters, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.