Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Roll call.

Commissioner Kuznick. Here. Commissioner Conjula.

Here.

Vice Chair Avila. Here. And Chair Alpert.

I'm here. And just for those that are interested in notice on the agenda, we do have a fifth commissioner who's not here. He'll be here next meeting. So it's Abhijit Banerjee. So we will be back to full strength at our next meeting. So at this time, if you could please rise and join me to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

item three is announcements item 3.1 are there any changes or additions to the agenda.

None. Public comment. At this time, members of the public may address the Planning Commission on any item not already on tonight's agenda. If you would like to speak, please fill out a speaker card located in the back of the room and submit it to the recording secretary. And new for the Planning Commission, if you're attending via Zoom and wish to speak during public comment or an agenda item, please use the raise hand feature on your computer or dial star 9 on your telephone to request to speak when public comment is open for that agenda. When it is your turn you'll be unmuted and may provide comments for up to three minutes after a lot of time is expired, you will be muted again. Are there any late communication or speaker cards.

I don't have any late communication written communication or hand raise for this item.

Okay, then we will move on. Okay, item five is the consent calendar item 5.1 or minutes of the planning commission meeting of July 7th, 2026. And just confirm there are no public comments on this item either, correct?

Nope.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so if there's no changes to the minutes, if we could hit a motion to accept them as presented.

I can move to accept the meeting minutes of July 7th, 2026. Okay.

I can second that.

Okay.

There we go.

Okay.

Dave Kuntz, Okay, it did pass 400 Thank you okay item six unfinished business, there is none item seven is new business item 7.1 is a study session it's a concept development plan. Dave Kuntz, For the preserve parcel Q residential concept at 2000 Mateo Miller Miller circle. Dave Kuntz, As a reminder to the Commission into the public, this is a study session item for us to provide initial feedback on this project concept to staff and the applicant. As a reminder, formal applications have not been filed for this project, and as such, no detailed analysis has been completed for this proposed project concept. As a reminder, the purpose of the concept is to help the applicant decide how to proceed should they want to pursue a project on this site. The comments of the Commission are not binding on the applicant, and the project may look significantly different if and when a formal application is filed for review. We do have a staff report from Ryan Driscoll.

Good evening, Chair Alpert and Planning Commissioners. All right, as mentioned, this is an agenda item for a concept development plan. for the Preserve Parcel Coup Residential concept at 2000 Mateo Miller Circle. First, a little bit about the project site. It's 1.91 acres in size. The aerial image here shows the location. The general plan designation is medium high density residential and the zoning designation is northwest pacific plan high density residential. Further, the site project site is within neighborhood five of the free of preserve development as shown in the red area here, which also has a surrounding residential community. So a little bit of background on the project site. There's quite a bit. I'll try to go over it briefly. before getting into some other items. So in 2006, the Northwest specific plan was adopted by the city for a land use plan for a 354 acre area, including residential neighborhoods, park, open space. In that specific plan, they included an approximate 6.1 acre house of worship site as a community facility, zone Northwest specific plan, public semi-public community facilities. in that adoption of that plan. Then later in 2006, the city approved the Free Preserve Project, which is a portion of the specific plan for 786 residential units, and it included a 6.1 acre house of worship site. Then in 2014, the city approved an amended Free Preserve Project. The residential units were reduced a little bit in it also relocated and reduced down to two acres the House of worship site into neighborhood five. There was no development approvals for the House worship site, it was just the designation of that site with a specific acreage. In 2017 there was the free preserve initiative adoption, the Council adopted it became effective in July of 2017. amended provisions to the general plan in Northwest specific plan specific to neighborhood five of the free preserve project. It changed the House worship site zoning from. To a new designation Northwest specific plan high density residential. and also change applicable development standards to the site. There are also some other changes to allow the developer of Neighborhood 5 to reduce unit number in residential housing type and allow the alternative approach to provide affordable housing through some payment of fees. Then after the initiative was adopted in 2019, The neighborhood five project was approved by the city. With 162 units residential units in it also include a subdivision of approximately two acre house worship site so that's the current site that's there today it's about it's 1.91 acres in size. Within neighborhood five and again, there is no development approvals with the House worship site with that project approval. So the proposed concept would be to replace the house worship site identified in the specific plan with the nine proposed new single family detached residential units. There'd be some associated parking and landscape reconfigured by retention basin at the north end of the site that's number two on the concept plan on this slide. And then there would be integration with the existing underground stormwater treatment facility At the south end of the site, it's number 10 on this concept site plan. There will also be 18 garage parking spaces, six service parking spaces, and then subdivide the project site area. So in terms of land use and development standards, as was mentioned earlier, the specific plan zoning designation is high density residential, allowing up to 18 dwelling units per net acre. The proposed density is about 4.71 dwelling units per gross acre. The applicant hasn't provided the net acreage for it. So that would be a further determination from the applicant if a future application comes forward. In terms of development standards there's a table in the staff report that summarizes some of the current applicable development standards and also identify certain standards that would need a specific plan amendment for this concept to move forward. So speaking about the specific plan amendment, a formal project for this would require a specific plan amendment application to align provisions of the Northwest specific plan with the adopted residential land use for the site. so it would likely remove the house of worship references amend applicable development standards for the residential concept things like that in a specific plan amendment such as this requires a recommendation from the planning commission and also city council approval And then step two is a formal project moves forward would be approval from the planning Commission of the development plan and associate application applications, such as a subdivision application that they're proposing. In the concept. So there's a number of questions here for the Commission to consider for the discussion tonight related to comments feedback about replacement of the house worship site with the residential land use concept feedback on the development standard standards for changes to the specific plan. comments on the site layout and architectural designs. We do have the applicant here tonight to give a presentation. I can take questions first if the commission has any for staff, otherwise we can also have the applicant give their presentation.

I think we'll listen to the applicant first and then ask all the questions at once. Thank you.

Sure. Our applicant, he has to sit down. So we're going to give him a mic and I can switch this line. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, staff, thank you for your time this evening. We're here with our nine-lot subdivision before you for your comments. We have a brief slide deck, and you're welcome to ask questions as we go, of course, or we can wait. And we have our architect and the civil engineer, as well as our land use counselor and my partners. uh here this evening and we're all available for any questions um so the first thing we prepared some visual simulations can you give us your name oh i'm sorry michael conley c-o-n-l-e-y do you like my address as well okay thank you no problem i i know my name i knew that one Um, so we prepared some visual simulations and, um, the architect did a good job. I think these are representative with the color materials and heights. Um, the product is a two story product. The, um, surrounding neighborhood is three story. Um, and, um, we'll let the architect talk about the features a little later. Um, there this we have our brief history that was just recounted by staff maybe i should just skip over that one yeah and then we have a site plan showing um the allotted parking there's one um slight i think correction and that is we also have two cars two car parking in each of the driveways in front of the garages they're a legal length for that so that would give us another 18 parking spaces on the site and then i think the there are several constraints between the um existing bioretention basin, and then the water quality element that's located on the southern portion of the site. So we worked with what we had. The conceptual landscape plan for the area along Freer Preserve Parkway and Mateo Miller Circle, as well as the area inside that's private and public. This is an example of Neighborhood 2 that was approved some years ago and constructed. These lot sizes are representative of what we have proposed. This product goes back to these lots go back a number of years ago, but it seems to work fine in this application. So that's what we mirrored with our development. Brian, did you want to jump in?

Good evening.

Sorry, that's fine.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with the commissioners. So this slide just talks about, you know, the House of Worship concept versus our proposed nine detached homes. The House of Worship you know would likely be a single building up to 32 feet that's what's in the development standards right now you'd have a congregation-sized parking lot with the lighting that comes with that you know traffic arriving and leaving together concentrated into short peaks you know during services or events weekday and evening activity with events and noise possibly running into the evening with nine homes. You know, these are two story homes and the plan right now is 28 to 29 feet. So that's generally in line with the scale of the neighborhood currently. You know, we mentioned the parking. We have, you know, two garage spaces, two driveway spaces per house, and then there's the six guest parking spaces. You know, for a nine home community, traffic will be spread evenly throughout the day. The typical activity pattern that is currently in the neighborhood.

And that's just an example of the provided parking. and another visual simulation. Amanda, would you like to just take a quick look at the architecture to share with the Commission?

Good evening, Commissioner, staff. Thanks for being here this evening. I'm Amanda House with KTGY Architecture. The slides that Mike has presented to you this evening are representative of the two-story development that we have here in the neighborhood. The styles are in a farmhouse, kind of traditional cottage style elevations that are very popular now with buyers and really fit well and blend in well with neighborhoods. They're not too, you know, rambunctious or outstanding that creates any huge visual impact. So people tend to really like the presence of materials with stucco, board and batten, siding, even stone veneer incorporated in with our updated color and material palette as well. As you can see from this particular view, this is rear elevations of the homes where we have taken into consideration kind of that open space and the views and incorporated some single story elements and set back second floors so that there's a lot of articulation and play in those areas for visual impact to the street and to pedestrian views. We've done the same with front elevations, incorporating, again, additional materials with stone veneer. um and stucco and other items we have that continued detailing around the homes you can see here in the gable ends along with all the window trims so really focusing on details and the visual appearance of the homes so that they really look nice from the outside as well as function very well for buyers and draw that attention and desire to live in this community So this is a front elevation view of a couple of the homes. As you can see, I'd mentioned kind of the farmhouse style, more of a transitional that incorporates some awnings along with, again, the horizontal siding, plenty of windows, window trims, and that stone veneer. We have our two plans, two elevations for these nine lots. And incorporating as I mentioned the color schemes that offer a nice subtle palette with some hints of color that really bring in some life to the Community that usually just typically go on your front entry doors for just a little pop of fun and color.

Brian Winter, I'm a landings attorney on behalf of the applicant, and I just wanted to provide a brief um overview ryan did a great job with his presentation and with some of the specific history of the project and i i just wanted to briefly emphasize i i've been involved in this project since 2004. it's been a long running project some projects in california go for a very long time and this is one of those i wanted to emphasize also that it's very normal for projects to evolve over time Even projects that don't have this sort of time horizon change, and that's regular, that's normal. There's nothing unusual about it. When you do have a project, say a housing development, that goes for this length of time, it's even more expected for it to change. The house of worship that was originally... uh proposed and integrated into the project came from a former count what was the idea of a former council member um jerry cambra and and my client diligently tried to incorporate that a much bigger size 6.1 acres and tried to process that, move it forward, et cetera. That evolved over the history of the project from 2004 inception to 2006 approval, 2014 changes to the approvals, the creation of a new neighborhood that didn't exist. In 2006, when the project was originally when that when the development was originally approved in 2016 when the development evolved again through a ballot initiative 2019 through the map and and and now. Um, so I just want to emphasize this, this is a long running project. And even if it hadn't been or development, even if it hadn't been so long running, um, things changed, the conditions changed, the market changes, et cetera. We have determined through the passage of time and through efforts to market the house of worship site as something that could be developed for that. And I can tell you, um, very specifically um ryan lorenzini's father who was the face of this project for most of its life uh was very diligently and deeply focused on trying to make this a viable house of worship and had very specific ideas architecturally philosophically, let me say. And I have papers that were provided to me about what this could be. And I want to emphasize that it is for no lack of effort that we're here to propose this iteration to propose nine single family homes instead of a house of worship that unfortunately isn't something that the market will allow. I'm happy to answer any other questions, but I just wanted to bring some of the history of the project in a lay fashion.

I did have a question. In looking through the staff report and everything else and everything, I seem to remember some of the evolution of the project from the beginning. Can you remind us, how did it get from six acres to two acres or a house of worship site?

Good question. And I may have to rely on Lauren to help me with that or Ryan. When it was originally conceived as a house of worship site, I don't remember exactly how it was six acres. I do remember the suggestion that the development include a house of worship. And back in 2004, when it was proposed in 2006, when it was approved and then litigation, and then economy and so unable to construct the project for multiple years when another home builder eventually acquired the original four neighborhoods in the project in the development, the development through the efforts of that home builder, the development was revised. There were five neighborhoods instead of four revision of a number of houses. The House of Worship site moved from one area

to the present area and it shrunk in size i don't know why but it but it did through the efforts of a different home builder hello chair um and uh and committee here my name is lee rosenblatt with cbg i've also been on the project now for almost 20 years and lauren and cindy might be able to help if see if my memory is correct on this one but i believe that had to do with the central channel And after the original approvals were done through the city, the project had to get approved by the Department of Fish and Game and the other resource agencies. And there was a lot of back and forth between the city's approved plan and is that what should go first or what the agencies wanted with regard to the amount of channel that was going to be negatively impacted So when the plan got updated, it was updated essentially to create more space down the middle from the original plan to allow for the original resource essentially being that central channel to be as long as possible. And as part of that, it reduced the footprint of the project. And that's when everything kind of switched a little bit. At least that's how I remember it. Is that close?

I think that mostly covers it. It's essentially from 2006 until present, there was just a need to reduce the footprint of the project because of various obligations with the resource agencies. The House of Worship used to be its own standalone parcel, and then over time was combined with Other neighborhoods and components of the project so that that could reduce the footprint of the of the development area and then was ultimately combined with what was referred to as neighborhood five currently and and between the reduction of development area and. the obligation still that the specific plan required a house of worship site they were ended up getting combined into one neighborhood yeah I guess if I may then just to continue on a few of the engineering aspects um maybe we can I guess I could probably do it myself flip back

to hear. So there was discussion about the modification of the water quality basin at the top. It was mostly just taking the shape that went maybe more up and down through lots one and two and just shifting it up into that triangle. The sizing for that water quality basin, and the associated storm drain system that is number 10 down into Brown was sized both for all of neighborhood five and for this parcel. So when the house of worship and parking lot are removed and it becomes a single family, you'll have less impervious surface. And therefore those facilities would be technically oversized and being able to treat everything from the project, assuming that might be a next question you guys might have. also just regard there was discussion at the community meetings a lot about the parking and again most of the units that are on this site have a two-car garage but do not have parking within the driveway some of the single-family units do most of the multi-family don't so this project having the additional two parking spaces on the driveway in addition to the garage in addition to the six extra spaces should be easily able to cover what this project's needs would be.

So on the engineering aspect, can I ask one more question? So there is a 10 like there is a slant retaining wall to the north of the property yes and uh that is sometimes over 10 feet yes and uh how is the rain water storm water how are you guys thinking about it what is the retention and will there be any impact for this project because of that

Are you referring to the wall that's already existing out there?

Correct. Yeah.

So the wall that's out there already, any of the drainage that is on the top side, which is essentially what we call the neighborhood four at the time, is being picked up within that subdivision and then essentially brought off into the detention basin and taken care of that way. Any of the water that's falling on the downstream side of that wall, which would be neighborhood five, is currently either being collected in the curbing gutter along the north side, just to the left of the seven on the screen, or would be falling into the water quality basin that you see there kind of at number two and I guess number 11, which is hydro-seeded area.

Yeah, when I walk through, it's slanted towards south, so that makes sense, the basin number 10.

engineering wise so thank you you got it um if i may um prior to this meeting we um staff was good enough to um send out about 400 um uh letters to neighborhood five and neighborhood four of the two closest to us and in um with the notification that we were going to have a virtual meeting I believe on August 17th and then an in-person meeting on August 19th and we had um i think about 17 to 20 people um on the virtual and then around 10 on the in person and um we did receive some input um about their concerns um the vehicle speed on the um on the main road matteo miller circle um they were concerned about that and they were asking us what are what would we do or is our access road to our community of nine homes in the appropriate spot that was one question and then parking within our existing community um was it adequate um that was a valid concern given that they're concerned about their current situation with parking being at times i believe um underserved And then finally, the well, actually, there are two points. The height, they asked us if we could have single stories and then also for blocking their views of a few people that showed up there. So those were the the main concerns. And hopefully somebody's here from the neighborhood that would like to speak. But I think that pretty much covers us. So if you have any questions of me,

okay thank you so i think at this time we'll do clarifying questions to either staff or the applicant so let's let's take the clarifying questions then we'll open public comment and then we'll be able to give our feedback after public comment so again somebody willing to go first with some clarifying questions

I have lots of questions about the project. I'm hoping this is the time that you want us to deal with some of these.

I think questions, yes.

Just questions in general?

Yeah. Okay. Any questions. Any questions. Any questions you have at this point. Right.

There we go. Okay. Let me get going here. Okay. Well, I'm going to go ahead and pass. Sorry. There's a discussion point that I feel more comfortable raising the questions that I have. Okay. Thank you.

I can start off with a couple of questions and then the members can continue. My first question would be, I understand that the homes that are being built are nine within this neighborhood five. Have you guys looked at the comparison between some of the concerns that homeowners had from a traffic perspective. There was a comparison done, church or place of worship versus nine homes. The traffic that comes in from homes would be pretty static across the day. But whereas from a church, it could be from evening, weekends, or other times based on what kind of place of worship it would be. Have you guys done a study or was that approximate numbers that were provided?

Thank you again for the questions. Yeah, with regard to the impacts of the amount of traffic that would be anticipated from nine homes versus the House of Worship, I mean, the House of Worship had over 50 parking spaces, and you reasonably could expect drop-offs, pickups, all the other things that are associated with it. Based on the size of the community, again, I sized all the roads technically, adding nine more units would be the infinitesimal compared to you know the hundreds that are that already out there and um the impact of nine more homes is not a truly significant uh impact by any means in my opinion

I wanted to ensure that the neighborhood also understands what that is. So if you guys have done that, that would appease their point of concern as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And then the idea, if you were to put even smaller homes in, you would end up with more of them, which would then have more units. So I'm not sure in terms of these being slightly larger than the townhomes that are adjacent, we did take a look at what if we had two strings of townhomes, which would have been obviously more units, would not have driveways, and probably would have exasperated this question about parking and number of units and traffic. So I think where we landed probably pre-addressed those comments we could have otherwise had.

So as you're there, you led my next question right through it. So as per the general plan, it was approximately minimum or maximum of 18 units per acre. And for the specific plan, it was 13 to 18 units per acre. That was the standard that was set. Kindly correct me, Lauren. If I'm wrong. And that led to the question, why only nine units? Why did you guys stop at nine units for that data?

But just the general plan allows 15 to 30 dwelling units per acre. Right. And the specific plan zoning designation is up to 18.

Up to 18. So for approximately less than two acres, it would give you guys or you could have come up with a proposal that would also include inclusionary housing that would help.

the overall affordability homes why did you guys just decide on nine versus just trying to understand your thought process um there's a couple of things to consider one would be the gross acreage is 1.9 and then with the um detention Basin it takes us down essentially to 1.5 Pardon me here. It takes us down to essentially 1.5.

Is this one clear?

Yeah, that's probably a little better on the northern part of the site. And the other thing was, When you go into an existing neighborhood, we're really sharing the main drive. We weren't sure how the residents would react to us coming in with a large community of lower priced condos, as opposed, because they'd be three story, they'd be dense, as opposed to single family detached, which we viewed as a much less intense use. So we're trying to work with the neighborhood as well as the economics. I mean, that was our thought.

Because when I see that neighborhood, it's a densely packed, three-storied homes around that place. So this would be like an odd ball out. And the next one would be the step up, the Faria Parkway, which was a single family homes, which you are proposing very similar to that.

Yeah, with private rear yards. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And I have a follow-up question there. Is that okay? Okay. So... Probably for Ryan. So this wouldn't fall under SB 330, right? So this will go through the normal process of approvals because it doesn't have any inclusionary housing or anything like that.

The specific plan amendment application is a legislative act. So that doesn't fall under the five public hearing limit that SB 330 discusses. But there are other elements of SB 330 that may be applicable. But for the specific plan amendment, no, there's no five public hearing limit. So that's review from the planning commission, then approval from council. And then I had to go back to the planning commission for the planning division approval.

But the development DA, when they come back for DA, then they would come back with the questions regarding the development itself, right?

The development plan and subdivision, other applications. Did you mention DA development agreement?

That's fine.

There's no development agreement associated with this proposal at the moment.

Okay. Yes. But would that be a point where we would talk about the architectural and the affordable housing and the corresponding stuff? yes with the development plan and subdivision uh our architecture review would be another application you would review all that at the same time and one final question probably so would this um so around three homes that are the backyard faces to the Faria Parkway, would they have access directly to the, or do they have to just go around because of a wall? Would you guys have any wall or tree lining or something similar to the neighborhood that you guys are planning?

If I understand your question correctly, you're speaking about the three houses on the right that show there. They are actually higher than Faria Preserve Parkway in elevation, so they're slightly above it, and there would be no direct access, either pedestrian or vehicle. Is that your question?

Yes. Okay. So they won't be able to come straight onto the Faria Parkway.

Yeah, no pedestrian gate and no direct access for vehicles. There'd be a fencing element there that's shown in the...

I wanted to understand, would that be very similar to how the neighborhood has, or would that be a retaining wall or any kind of a blockage?

No, no retaining wall is contemplated there. We're working with the existing slope. The civil engineer was very mindful of that. Correct me if I'm wrong, Lee. Okay. So, yeah, he did a good job with that, for sure. Thank you. That's all, Chair. You're welcome.

Um I have a question for you Ryan and then the remaining questions are for the applicant. Um so from what I understand right now we don't know what the net acreage is for the site that's TBD but my question is um would the applicant need a general plan amendment if they're not falling within the 15 to 30 dwelling units per acre?

I think it's something we have to look into a little further once we have some numbers with a formal application.

Okay, thanks. That was my only question for you. um so for the applicant thanks for sharing overall kind of what the some of the neighbor feedback was um was there like any chance that there was a survey that was circulated or this is just like a feedback that we as planning commission have if i understood your question it was did did we circulate a survey to the residents those 400 mailers no we relied on the um virtual meeting and the on-site meeting Would you say that the general consensus of those people that attended either of those meetings was in support of the project or was it against the project?

Well, we've cited what were the detractors, in our opinion, the existing traffic, the existing parking problem, and several, I think, as I recall, three people, because we broke up into two groups, but I think three people mentioned their view. Did you have more than that in your group?

Um, no, yeah, I was speaking to three or four residents at the time and, um, that did come up the views and I think some of them, um, You know, we're under the impression that maybe a house of worship would be one story, but we said, no, no, this can be 32 feet. Um, so we brought that up, but, um, you know, as Mike said, that was, there was a few people, you know, two or three people who brought that up.

Okay. Um, In our packet that we received, we had like a letter from land advisors where they stated that they marketed the parcel, you know, that you're developing on for six months.

It's been longer than that, but then, yeah, it goes back prior to, um, uh, the formal listing being executed. They were attempting to sell it, um, um, for, for quite a while to try to find the right buyer.

Would you say that that was since 2014 when it was reduced to the two acres or was that even when it was at the six acres?

Is your question when they started to actively market it? Um, I don't have the exact number, but it's been for, uh, a couple, a couple of years in an effort, maybe several years in an effort to do something with it. But the formal listing was signed sometime later.

And then do we know what the net acreage is for the parcel?

That was something that was TBD in our... 1.9 gross and then 1.5 net.

And that's exclusive of the private streets or is that inclusive?

The private streets serving these nine homes would be included in the 1.5 acres.

And minus these streets, do you know what that acreage is?

There is a table. I believe it's on the landscape. exhibit um pardon me i don't know if i'll be able to read it from here one way can you pick that up brian and read it Pardon my licking here. So there is a table located above those two fence exhibits, but I can't read it from here. So Ryan has a comparable copy of that, and he can read those acreages. Oh, you can't get up here, can you? Oh, you got a microphone. That's right. Age 15.

They were good enough to bring me this clip. Chris Wanner, Or the spike yeah so i'm looking at the slide that's up right now there's a table that says take off summaries and so that breaks it down into the road being 10,825 square feet sidewalk and pathways 3545 driveways. Chris Wanner, front yard landscape 3105. Common area landscape, 34,040. And architectural footprints, 14,950.

OK, I'd have to do the calculation to convert the road to acreage. Yeah, I'm just kind of wondering what the overall net acreage is, since we just have the gross acreage for now. Um, and then the other thing that you mentioned was six guest parking spaces that are in addition to those spaces that are the garage and the driveway. Can we know where those six guest parking spaces would be relative to the site plan?

Would you repeat that about the six, just the far about the six?

Yeah. Where are they located on the site?

Um, on the two wings.

John Potter, So there's one in front a lot one. John Potter, One in front a lot to there's two additional adjacent to a lot for and there's two additional at the end of the alley in front of lot six. John Potter, Thankfully, you got Thank you.

hmm.

And then, you know, there is additional guest parking for what is currently built up built out there, those attached townhomes, as you curve around the material circle, there's, I don't know how many guests parking spaces 27.

Okay.

Will these residents be also able to use those guests parking spaces that are for the attached townhomes?

Um, well, we've discussed that and, um, uh, some people did ask us, would we join their association? And that obviously takes a vote of these distinct residents, but we can certainly see the benefit of joining their association. And then certainly those parking spaces would then be for the combined community. In other words, we wouldn't say, no, these are ours. You can't use them. We would, we would undoubtedly share in those parking spaces, those 27. um given like today would you say that the hoa would be leaning toward um incorporating this project within their hoa well we haven't had a discussion with the board we've only had the individuals and the as we've mentioned the um the parking is an issue out there and freeing up these spaces And I don't know that they want to keep them as guests. Uh, I don't know what their overall plan is, but we certainly would not say, Hey, these are ours. You know, you, you can't use them because what do we need 27 extra parking spaces for when you have nine houses and you already have 42 spaces. So, yeah.

And would you say that those guest parking spaces that are currently there are, you know, kind of like in full capacity, like on a normal evening weekday?

Well, You'd have to ask someone else because I've only driven through there in the daytime. I haven't driven through it, say eight o'clock at night or seven o'clock at night. So I can't give you a good answer.

Although I'll just chime in if you don't mind, Mike, please. I've driven, I live close by. So, um, I drive up there periodically and the last time I was up there, there might've been one in use. Um, and that was probably in the, uh, late afternoon around four o'clock or so. Um, like my, I haven't been up there.

later like six or seven pm but um last couple times on the late afternoon it's largely unused those 27 spaces if i may i i think it's an important distinction that they're labeled guest spaces now exclusively guest spaces so i don't know the exact community needs at this point but that's something that could be worked out because as as um brian and lee pointed out some of the existing homes they're a little tight on the um on parking in addition to their garage. And so I would think that's largely a decision of staff and then the existing association. But we're on board. If we can make it better, it's better for us. It's better for the community.

Was this parcel ever advertised to the HOA to go ahead and purchase?

No, but they're welcome to buy it.

And were there any other kind of feasible uses that you guys looked at before deciding on nine detached single family homes?

Yes, we looked at a similar product to what is in neighborhood five, three story, relatively small front or rear yards. And as I mentioned briefly um people are quite often opposed to change and when you go in there with something that's very dense three-story solid it's just not a battle we wanted to fight the economics work fine we believe for nine, and we thought that the neighborhood would be less apt to have a problem or have issues.

Yeah. And aside from that, you are capped at 180 units for neighborhood five, correct? And you currently have 162. So there's 18 units that you would be able to build if you wanted to. okay and then the other thing when i was reading the northwest pacific plan amendment that became effective in 2017 nuts packet page 56 out of the 83 pages it talked about changing the housing type from higher density rental units to lower density age targeted market rate for sale units Is that kind of how it was marketed for those other attached townhomes that are part of Neighborhood 5? Are they age-targeted? And if so, what makes them age-targeted? And are you also looking at having these nine homes be age-targeted as well?

To the last question, no, we're not looking age-targeted. But I'd like Brian to answer the first part of your question, if we could.

Sorry, do you mind rephrasing that for me?

So, within the Northwest specific plan amendment, which was effective in 2017, it talked about changing the housing type within neighborhood 5 from higher density rental units to lower density age targeted. market rate for sale units. So my question was, is neighborhood five age targeted? Would this neighborhood be age targeted? And if neighborhood five was age targeted, what features were within the homes that made that applicable.

Yeah. The ballot initiative that was approved by the City Council in 2016 did change Neighborhood 5 in various ways. It didn't regulate the House of Worship site. It only regulated the other parts. The House of Worship site was referenced for context in the initiative, but it wasn't regulated in the initiative. So the House of Worship site, which is the subject of tonight's hearing, is outside of the context of what the initiative regulated uh I cannot speak to how the age targeting happened I wasn't involved in the implementation of the the the the development beyond that point uh but as you also also know the the the development as it was Justin Delacruz, M.D. : re re-entitled by I believe it was Lafferty in 2014 to create Neighborhood 5, which allowed at that time up to 302 units in Neighborhood 5, Justin Delacruz, M.D. : 185 of which were required to be affordable. The ballot initiative eliminated all of the on-site affordable in exchange for in exchange for funding for the for the city's housing and loo fees, as well as open space in lieu fees and so there there was no other no other on-site affordable requirement in neighborhood five for any for any portion of neighborhood five

I do have one last question and it's within that you know kind of the overall development it references like the Community having a 1.6 acre site for educational uses and it references like an educational museum or an outreach facility does far your preserve currently have something like that.

No, I don't. I don't believe so, right?

Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't believe it does. Yeah, I don't believe it does. Something created as a possibility, but not something that was required. But the original entitlements, if I recall back in 2006, did allow for that. It didn't, as I recall, didn't did not require it.

OK, sounds good.

Thank you. OK, thank you. So a couple of questions. Sorry.

I think Cindy is going to answer the same thing that I was. I think you're talking about the educational parcel, which is located east on Freer Preserve Parkway adjacent to the detention basin. I know that was for sale at one point. I think it was purchased. Okay, Cindy's nodding. Just looking at Google Earth, though, I don't think anything's been built yet.

Thanks for the tag in. Yes. So there is a 1.7 acre parcel that is designated for educational facility. It's a public semi-public zone that's on the east side of the development area south of Freya Preserve Parkway. It's kind of adjacent to where the East Bay Mud water tanks are. If you are familiar with that site. It's on the on the eastern side of the development. It's currently owned by individual entity that had at one point provided architecture for a Montessori school that went to architecture review board a couple of years ago. Some of you may recall that but that has not been developed at this time.

would that be next to the preserve residents clubhouse?

It's a little further down the roadway, but, um, it's probably, uh, it's on the same side of the roadway on the Southern side of free preserve parkway. Um, but further East, as you're going uphill, um, as you're, as you're driving or downhill, as you're driving East, um, if you aren't looking, you might miss the driveway turn into it.

see that. Yeah.

Thank you. I do have a couple questions. So this is to staff. I'm perplexed and wondered if we could get one more run at these density numbers. Because everywhere else, and the question ought to be, if Ryan could help me out here on this one. As I recall that the general plan, okay, so there's a hierarchy of who gets precedence over the other. And so we have the city's general plan, and then we have specific plans. Is that my recollection? Okay. So if the specific plan just gives a generality, like up to 18 units, when does that have to conform to what our general plan specifies for what we now what it says in the chart as high density. Sorry, you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, it's something we need to look at further. Once we have the numbers, I know, like I was saying earlier, but generally, yes, the general plan does take precedence, but there may be some state law, too, that we would have to look at that could help to interplay.

Do you anticipate that that would be involved in the specific, if we go in this direction, would that be wrapped into this specific plan amendment? Yes. Or outside of it?

yeah we would look at it at that time.

Okay. All right, thank you that's that's the question I think for staff, I have some questions for the applicant. So on page 19 of our staff or the packet we have. It talks about site improvements. The development of the project includes constructions of new private streets, concrete sidewalks, pedestrian improvements. So I have two questions about that. In terms of the private streets, will the nine units be their own HOA? I mean, I just kind of, I have no idea, truthfully, how that very large neighborhoods, one through five, have divvied up HOAs. But who would own the streets? Because the city doesn't.

So for the nine homes, that is a private street for those nine homes. But in the event we merge with the existing association in neighborhood five, the 162 housing, then we could have it all come under a common area budget to include this street, to include the landscaping. In other words, they would be melded together. But it would take an action by the existing neighborhood five residents. There would undoubtedly be a vote and the board would have to have an action. So are we in favor of that? We certainly support it if Neighborhood 5 wants that because it's much easier to control 171 as opposed to R9 and their 162 because there's finger pointing at that point. But if it's all under one governance, it seems to me that it would operate much more smoothly.

But it does require them to.

Yes.

Okay. Just don't be clear about this. Yeah. So the other question I have, it says the concrete sideways and pedestrian improvements. What is a pedestrian improvement?

Well, that's an excellent question. I would go a sidewalk, but I happen to have our civil engineer here so we can defer to him.

Okay.

Now I'm not, do you have any thoughts on that?

Well, you were proud enough to put it in the packet here.

And I'm not saying he wrote that.

Oh, okay. I didn't specifically write the words, but yeah, in addition to the sidewalk that's going into the site, there's also a new sidewalk that has to go down Mateo Miller Circle to make the connection. It looks like if you look on the screen, it's just to the left of lot nine and it continues down until it gets to that crosswalk. So you could keep going. There was no sidewalk originally installed on that side. So that way people won't have to just be running across the road.

Okay, so that's the improvement.

Go ahead. Can I attempt to speak to the general plan question that you asked, if you don't mind? We're here to listen. And Martin will have thoughts on this, and Martin's opinion is ultimately going to guide the city's thoughts on this. But I will add that it is correct that if you think of the hierarchy of land use laws in California, the general plan is... still considered the constitution for development for a local agency. And to the extent there are specific plans, the specific plan falls under the general plan, the zoning below that, et cetera. when a specific plan is adopted, it is determined to be the city, the city council must make findings that the specific plan is consistent with the general plan. So when the Northwest specific plan was adopted, the city council made findings that it was consistent with your general plan to the extent that there's a determination that a GPA, a general plan amendment is required in this instance. That would be simply another legislative change that needs to be made because we acknowledge, Ryan knows, an amendment to the specific plan is required here. And that does have to come to you for a formal recommendation, and it must go to the City Council for an approval. to the extent there was a determination made that the general plan also needed to be amended, it would be part of the same process. And the city is allowed to change, and cities routinely change their general plans all the time. So it would be another change in the same vein as the specific plan amendment that we absolutely acknowledge is required.

Okay. So back to you, Ryan. Quick question then. Should this amendment go forward and then it falls under the general plan, the fact that we have recently updated the general plan for the 2040, will the 2040 standards apply rather than what the general plan was when this project was initially um instituted and and the criteria by which it was established under it'd be the 2040 general plan the current um this project right in other words in other words would it need to abide by the 2040 general plan rather than what i believe is quoted in the packet yes

yeah the the project is being submitted now so if they're proposing a project um we had to apply all the general plan zoning municipal code requirements at that time when it's submitted and so the general plan 2040 is the current document we would use

And is that what's cited in this when it references the city general plan is the 2040 numbers? Yes. Okay. That's good. Okay. So more questions for the applicant. I should have organized them better, but I didn't. Okay. We've already heard... Somebody asked where the original location for the house of worship and it seems like nobody really knows. But also I'll pass on that one. What is the what was the current asking price when this two acre parcel went up on the market?

well it's unpriced for the listing but the agreement is it's at the assessed valuation that the county assessor has it set at that seemed like a reasonable price um under the circumstances because how how do you really I mean I guess you can be appraised but the county set a value on it it's been increasing every year for let's say five years so yeah are we entitled to know that number You certainly are, but don't hold me to the exact number.

Okay.

Um, but I think it's around 3,000,009, 50, something like that, but that's the 26, 27 assessed value approximately.

Okay. That that's good. Just, just wanted to kind of have a ballpark here. Um, and back when it was, uh, envisioned to be a house of worship, uh, and this might be a staff question, how many parking places would that have triggered? on a two-acre parcel? Because that seems to be a linchpin in this discussion, is parking.

The way that the city's parking standard works is it's based on the size of the development as opposed to the acreage of the project area. So it would be dependent on how large the building proposed would be. So it's really just dependent on size of the building, which we have not had any information on other than that it was a two acre site.

So I'm going to ask you to, and it's okay, you can defer because I'm going to hit you with a question that you were not prepared to have the answer. In your expert opinion on a two acre parcel for something that would be a gathering building, What would be a likely number of parking places that might require on a two acre parcel?

I'm going to defer. I'll take the ability to defer only because different congregations and house of worships will have will have fixed seats versus movable seats. And then depending on what other uses are within the within the building, oftentimes there may be daytime or evening uses that also generate its own parking standard.

So I suspect it would be more than the 48. I think that was the number. 42 that is mentioned in this project.

it's okay it's difficult to to to guess that um i know the applicant has maybe played around with some some site design for a house of worship site so maybe lee can can speak to what what he may have designed sorry i hit you with the left field no it's a it's a great question i actually drew something up before you know years back where it's like

If I max out a building, I could have one parking space and that didn't work. If I have a really, really, really small building, I have a perfect giant parking area, but my building's really small. So just laying out different options. I don't know how to put it on the screen here. It's on my phone, but I rolled out a building and I had 58 parking spaces next to it.

Okay.

That left room for the water quality along the top because that was already installed. And I was able to put the parking on top of the underground storm system because that technically could have a parking lot on top. Obviously, with this project, we now have that as open space because I can't put somebody's home on top of that public facility.

Okay.

All right. Thank you. You're welcome.

And well done. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for your patience.

I do have a couple of questions for staff to begin with, just more on the process standpoint. And I think you said this, I want to confirm, you'll be we'll be amending either the specific plan, the general plan, the zoning ordinance, or some combination of everything, depending on what the project comes through. Is that correct? You're not quite certain what exactly will be amended because you haven't seen the final project. Is that true?

Correct. Yeah, the applicant would need to propose amendments. We mentioned the specific plan has provisions that need to be amended. We haven't seen any red line edits. I don't believe there's been any zoning ordinance amendments or anything like that, if that's what you're mentioning.

I was just wondering, things like setback, that will rely on the specific plan?

Development standards like setbacks that are called out in the specific plan, they may need to be amended potentially.

Okay. Okay. Just as a reminder on the process that the city now follows for specific plan or general plan it comes to the planning Commission first you know for review. And then the City Council then either accepts the recommendation which could or could not be exactly what we tell them, and they can. they're more or less free to make the discretionary decision once it gets to the council is that correct right that's what i thought okay okay and then this isn't just kind of another question out of curiosity do you recall what we assumed in the housing element for this site was it still a house of worship so at that point in our house being a house housing opportunity site yeah well really yes that assuming it was a housing as a church house of worship then so it's probably was not even thought about as a housing opportunity site is that it's not a housing opportunity site okay okay so there's no associated housing unit capacity okay okay and then um in the in that i want to just confirm because i think i remember reading sense twice there's 162 units built out on neighborhood five at this point, right? That's not 180. So it's not been, so there's headroom to build additional units. I just want to confirm that nodding yes. Okay. And then there was a comment made that, You know you do intend to comply with the current inclusionary housing ordinance maybe there's no questions for the applicant thanks right, you know. So there was mentioned that you would comply with the current inclusionary housing ordinance and. You know, pay the in lieu fee for the nine units is that correct is that. That was what I.

Let me go back to the prior question to make sure I understand this one. There are presently 162 units constructed in neighborhood five within the scope of a ballot initiative that allowed up to 180. Those are all of the units.

Okay.

this is entirely separate there will not be to my knowledge there will not be 18 additional units coming into neighborhood five uh the 162 constitutes the full scope of um what is built and going to be built okay so we're not for this not looking to go above the 180 in neighborhood five in total with the project that's right that's what i'm really getting at yeah yes okay that makes sense okay um and then

I think I did not to oversimplify, the conclusion was a church wouldn't work at this site, which probably is true based on this. What else did you consider other than housing? Because you're going to throw out church and a whole lot of changes. Did you consider other alternative land uses? And then as an intermediate step, that wouldn't be housing. No, it was either. No church or I think you did say you'd sell the property to the HOA if they're willing. So that's an option you thought and talked about duplicating what the neighborhoods with condos and then you landed on nine units. Is that kind of the sequence of where you've looked in terms of alternatives or options?

Would you repeat the last question?

Yeah. So I, I, the starting place is church and you concluded church wouldn't work, you know, and the options you considered, if I understood what you told us was more condos, similar to what's around there. And you landed on nine single family homes. And were there any other alternate you also threw out that if someone wanted to buy it, they could, you know, the, but was there anything else you considered that might be a compatible use in that area?

Well, 1 thing I left off, um. Uh, that I didn't think was relevant in our, um. Uh, meetings with the neighborhood 1 person said, would you consider putting a parking garage there? And I assume that was a non starter. So I don't know anything about parking garages, but that just seemed like a. too tough to climb. If someone wanted to sell storage there, we'd certainly look at that, but those don't seem to have a lot of favor.

Right. Yeah. Okay. So anything like small daycare or any of that kind of stuff never came up in the analysis. Okay.

if i go ahead if i can add to hopefully you all know with with my client they've been involved in this community for decades they do what they say they're going to do and they're a wonderful client and a wonderful developer and tried to propose something that makes sense for the site and is in keeping with what's already there i will also add something like a daycare has high traffic generation. So if you've ever been involved in the entitlement for a daycare project, that can get a lot of opposition because it drives up parking impacts that many folks don't want to experience. Sure. This is the lowest impact alternative relative to a house of worship. Great.

Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you. I think that's it for my questions. I'm going to go ahead and open public comment right now. Oh, I'm sorry. I can't open public commentary now. We have another question.

Yeah, Mary T. I have a couple of questions that I just thought of. Since it was expressed by the public regarding like the traffic along Mateo Miller Circle, do you guys propose any traffic calming measures for Mateo Miller Circle?

In response to the neighborhood input when Ryan and I were on site, we did discuss a couple of thoughts that we had. We haven't yet gotten the civil engineer to prepare anything. We thought it was premature, but that's certainly on the table. One was about would you consider changing the first turn that goes to the right to the north, make it not so sharp. And we said, yeah, we can look at relocating the curb and gutter, thus making the radius not so sharp. And then also they were concerned about visibility there. We said we certainly look at that in both the planting plan and any grading that we could do. That was one thing. The next thing was they said, well, people go so fast here. I said, well, there are speed humps throughout the neighborhood, but not really where we are. We certainly would be amenable to doing that. It benefits us and it benefits you. So not those terrible speed bumps, but more of a gradual hump that's elevated. So you don't have to spill your coffee in the morning or have your child jump out of the car seat, you know, just a speed hump, and then also centerline striping, like double yellow on that first turn that goes to the right to the north, we could centerline stripe that just so people kind of know where they're supposed to be. So those, those are the things that we talked to the neighbors about at the onsite meeting. But But I do have the civil engineer here, if you if he has any thoughts.

I'm in agreement with all the things that Mike mentioned here. I think it's important, though, to realize that if you take a turn, an arc, and you soften it, you actually would increase the speed because people could take it faster. So I think that's something we would work with the engineering department here before we just went ahead and said yes to it. With regard to the centerline stripe, I know they're finishing construction in Neighborhood 5, and I'm tempted to say maybe they just didn't finish the final striping because I'm Kind of surprised that my striping plan wouldn't have had a center line stripe around that arc. So I'm going to go back and take a look at that to see if it just isn't constructed yet. But that's something that we could easily take care of with a project like this.

And I have another question for, I think, the civil. So the entrance on off Matteo Miller Circle, is that in line with the alley loaded on the western side? It seems like slightly off, but it's a little bit hard to tell.

It is slightly off. The Alley on the west side is between buildings 49 and 51, so it is kind of opposite building 9 where we're higher. The reason we had to be where we were was because there is the underground storm system that serves this entire community below or south of lots 7, 8, and 9. it kind of forced the location we couldn't make these buildings bigger we couldn't push down into that area it's really in terms of the net density questions that we've been asked it's an area that you just couldn't develop so the entrance was identified as essentially the only location that it could be The good news is you don't have, usually you don't want to have intersections that are close and offset from one another because if one car is making a left turn and the other is making a left turn, they could have a problem. In this case, obviously everything is funneling to the roundabout on Freer Preserve Parkway. So everyone is really generally going in the same direction. So I see no conflicts with this setup for that reason. You're welcome. Very good question though.

So one small clarification. Is the Mathieu Miller Circle a private road currently?

Yes, indeed it is.

And it won't be dedicated to the city. It would be part of HOA. That would be maintained.

Correct. That is a private street.

But the Faria Preserve Parkway...

That is a public street.

That is a public street. Correct. That's where, like, if you look at the side of the road, there will be parking spaces. Oh, yeah.

People park on Freer Preserve Parkway. They go to the park, which is just to the east of this project.

And that was one question probably chair and other commissioners have asked. So would this community become like an island within the bigger HOA community? would they have, the park would be public park, that I understand. And from an amenities perspective, would this be sitting in Ireland unless they are taken into the bigger, wider community?

Question is, how does this HOA interface with the bigger HOA?

Ideally, all of the homes within Neighborhood 5, including R9 and their 162, would become one association. It's much easier to govern it that way as opposed to having two associations. So you get in a situation of those nine homes... i don't like that car that's parked there or the 162 they're taking our parking spaces but if it's under one governing board you can eliminate a lot of that because the decisions can be made rather rapidly and then um appropriate actions can be taken so that that would be the best case certainly to have one association thank you thanks okay why don't we go ahead and move on to open the public hearing and

Have we received any public comment?

We've received written public comment from Yunjin Kim and Haji Alam. They were provided to commission prior to the meeting and a copy is available at the red binder in the back of the room. And I have one speaker card in front of me and no remote participants raising their hands.

Thank you. Okay.

Greg Carr.

Greg Carr, Sand Moon resident. despise this in front of me. I'm moving it. I knew Art Lorenzini through my friend Jim Blickenstaff. Last time I saw Art was at a salmon fishing lodge in Sitka with his son. I'm assuming that's you? Long time. You've gotten a little gray like me. Anyway, I liked art. I thought he was not the usual developer that I had problems with and took umbrage with. I like this project. Could you put it back or perhaps I screwed up on the site plan. Thank you very much. A couple comments I suggest that the civil engineer provide details of the design of their retention basin falling wants to have a site plan that shows the tributary area that drains into the base one to have a conducted a percolation test in the basin. Three, at the 100-year storm, if that's what's being used for the design, what is the expected level of that? Four, is there an overflow, should it be a 500-year rain? Six, what protective fencing will be placed around it because, In a dry year, yeah, it's a nice place for kids to go down in, but the slopes are not gonna be too steep, but they're not gonna be very shallow. And I don't know what NPDES requires, or if that acronym has changed as I've gotten older, but there should be some protective fencing around it. And you want to see what that's like. It shouldn't be hurricane fence, slap it up nearly four feet high, five feet high, whatever, because that will look unsightly. And I don't think that's what the developer wants to convey. finally on the the the access for parking into the t-shaped private road um you will rue the day that you have anybody parked there i suggest you keep that private at the entrance for the residents only um and this time we got a lot of people like to park cars and places and they take off and you'll have a piece of junk sitting there I'm sorry, I'm speaking to him. spoken through Gary anyway. Take the information about the pond and just make sure that that's what you want. And that it's really covered. And this civil engineer appears to be competent. I'm sure that they can provide that to you just to check. Because if it overflows, you got a problem. And in terms of the road, fine. The last comment on my little overtime, this is the right project for this, not some high density housing where you're gonna have 2 million cars for 400 people. Wrong, not the place. And God forbid that it's any higher than two stories. I think this is nice. And anybody that knows me knows I'm not a fan of developers, except with, well, with the exception of Art and now his son. Anyway, thank you.

Kiru Trune.

Hi. Forgive me. I've never done anything like this.

That's okay. You're friendly.

First, I want to thank the chamber and the council and commissioners for this opportunity. I also want to start by saying thank you to Mr. Conley and Lorenzine. They actually came out into the community, spoke with us. I'm one of the individuals that I met with them. And everything that they represented today was true and accurate of what was said there. So I want to commend them for that. I think the parking is the biggest concern right now for us residents there. And there are many different topics around how to mitigate that that has been discussed. I think that needs to be really given a big thorough thought and using our existing HOA and how we can maximize that. One of the comments that has been made is Faria driveway, and I believe Commissioner Candula, you mentioned it, that Faria preserve is maxed, especially prior to going south towards past the roundabout, past the development. And so that is a real concern right now that needs to be really thoroughly vetted, considered and studied in order to mitigate that. um, I think for those of us that were sold that this is going to be a house of worship, I have no stake in the game what would have gone in there. But the assumption and what was sold to us by Toll Brothers is that it was going to preserve our view. And I was allowed to choose a premium lot that preserves my sunrise view. and i actually have paid thousands in my mortgage payment that accounts to that view that's now going to be gone so individuals like me need to be made whole and compensated and the the amount of money we paid for the view The other piece is, I mentioned this when we met in person, is that corner, the Mateo Circle north right turn. That is a serious concern. I would also, you know, to your question, Commissioner Avila, the level is not even. So the view is covered. Current state, the only reason that is relatively safe is because we have a view, a line of sight of the traffic that comes back and forth. Even if you put a pavement that divides the lane, it's still a tight corner. So that needs to be mitigated for safety for those of us that live in that neighborhood. And I think I am out of my time and I will stop there. Thank you for this opportunity.

Thanks for coming out tonight.

Masood?

Great. Thank you very much for asking great questions. And Ryan, Mike, very nice to see you guys again here. I'm here to just ask two questions, one of the commissioners and one for the for the developer. First question is the house of worship that was originally designated for this location. What's the process for

converting it from its current designation to the proposed designation so we won't answer it right now but we took note of the question and it's it is but it's come up a couple of times so tonight's a concept review on the um idea and if they choose to come back there's a very formal process within the city to make the changes you know it's very specific that would take place not tonight but later on so that's what we kind of discussed tonight with amending general plans specific plans

okay and um when the the uh property was uh listed for for sale um we we submitted a letter of intent um we're still interested in buying the property um for the house of worship um and um if uh we've but we've had a very difficult time having being able to connect i think with uh your realtor. So we've reached out multiple times, and we're not getting a response. And I think the question I have for the developers is, how much more money are you going to make from selling the lot as a house of worship versus the nine homes? From the estimates that I've seen, there's like about a $6 million difference in valuation. I don't know if that's the reason why our calls are not being returned for the house of worship. There was other interest and I don't know if others are going through a similar kind of experience so that's that's the question for the development team is there, like.

We'll let we'll let them you know choose to respond at a later time, you know, but yeah Thank you.

Celia limb.

Hi everyone, I'm Cecilia and I'm the current resident for the Twin Oaks. My lot is like all the way back. However, I drive through the Mattel Miller Drive circle going out every single day and we already experienced the sharp turn with the optical uh for the existing sites currently with the uh like as uh fans covering um so by building all these houses i think it's even blocking the outlet for us to getting out every single day i think that's the uh major concern of many of our neighbors and the residents currently so i think i talked to mike the other day in person for if possible to the mattel miller circle to expanding further or reducing the curve in that um southwest corner will be much helpful um so i think the the traffic in and out is our major major concern for everyone given we have so many young kids in the neighborhood. Yep, that's my only concern. Thank you.

Thank you.

W. Chan.

Thank you. This has been very informative. I'm one of the residents at the community. So it's my observation from the community discussion that there's not enough facts given to the community about who owns the parcel and what are the options that are there to either continue a house of worship or uh convert to this new neighborhood or if someone were someone has to buy it in order to develop something else so i think um like more facts to the community also the parking situation is uh is true and so um my question here is um like if the neighborhood is going to join the hoa community and it's going to use the existing guest spots And the permit spots does that mean the relationship is reciprocal and that the six parking spaces in the side that neighborhood can be used by the Community as well. And then the other thing was, I think one of the architect said that the when they were looking at the House of worship the basin was parking spaces could be put there so have they considered putting more parking spaces in that base in the area. I think that's it Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Merdan Nihan.

Hello, I'm a resident along the Portobello Terrace, just around the corner from Parcel Q. I am generally in favor of this development. Nine units is a very reasonable number of units to be added to the community, as opposed to the other use for the House of Worship, I think, as everyone's noted, is going to increase traffic significantly in the area and cause other disruptions. We deal with a number of disruptions right now from the park when there's certain tournaments and things like that, which, all well and good, it comes with the territory which we live with. ideally uh as like i said i am in favor of this development i do have a couple of issues i would love to see a addressed as noted there the curve along the tail miller is a very sharp and it's a bit of a blind curve um ideally if we could ask that that curve be softened not so much for speed but for visibility and if the road can be widened uh on that right side on the empty parcel to maybe add additional parking units along parallel parking units along that space to widen the road, add more visibility, and help address some of the community parking issues. Lastly, also, I would love to see them join the HOA. One of the issues that we have in our community is there is a restriction in the CCNRs because of the because of the designation of parcel q for a house of worship there is a restriction along for that back guest parking lot which is about 20 or 30 parking spaces that residents are not allowed to park there it's only for guests per the ccnrs because it was supposed to be allocated for use by the house of worship if no house of worship is being built and homes are being instead we would like to see that restriction removed and would help to alleviate the parking issues in the community significantly um it would go above and beyond more than anything that can be done right now to relieve the pressure that's in the neighborhood right now because if you come right now at this time of night all the parallel parking spaces are gone Like I said, I see a lot of win-wins in this development if it moves forward, but these are some of the things that we would like to see added as part of this to help ingratiate it to the neighborhood and make things more amenable to everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Crystal Jacobo.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for opening the forum to the public. And I want to thank Mr. Lorenzini and Mr. Connolly for holding the Zoom meeting. I attended that and also opening it to the public on the following Wednesday and today. I'm actually not in favor of of this. I recall on the Zoom meeting on August 17th that the goal you mentioned is for you want this to be an asset and for the community to receive that value versus impact. So I'm thinking about how this benefits not just the current residents, but also future residents of San Ramon. I think about the quality of life. And when I look at the layout, that's essentially my view. I live right in front of Parcel Q. So as I was attending the Zoom meeting, I am looking out. This is at 6 p.m. We're talking about the curve along the side. I see kids on e-bikes and also there's motorized scooters now zooming past. It's also... uh rush hour at the time and so during that hour meeting i just see people going across um Ms. Avila, I like the questions you asked about, those were essentially my questions about survey. We only had 15 attendants on the Zoom meeting. And I believe Mr. Lorenzini said we had 10 people attend in person. I don't think that's a good representative of the whole. We had Lennar community, I think they received the, of the 400 letters sent, they were a part of, I think that maybe their division four and five. Would you be open to sending a survey to the community on possibly alternative uses before any final decisions are being made? I feel like that would be a better possible representative of what the community versus 14 or 15 people on the Zoom meeting and 10 people in person. So I'm coming, and I also like the educational, the idea of the educational museum in place or daycare, some kind of community space in place of the house of worship. So I'm coming at an angle in terms of community, the future of San Ramon in that space. um i initially initially moved from san francisco if i wanted to see more homes being built i would have stayed there i have a two-year-old daughter i love the community where i live i'm proud to live there it's my first home so i come of it coming in that angle versus i think that's all i have to say thank you for your time thanks for coming out tonight appreciate that i have no other speaker cards

Okay, we will go ahead and close the public comment period. And so at this time, there's some specific questions in the staff report to provide direction to either staff or to the applicant or to the applicant through staff. And then staff and applicant will process all of the comments, including those tonight, And again, this is a concept review. The applicant has not submitted a formal application. So our comments tonight will be factored in into their decision process on what, if anything, they choose to come back with at some future date. So we want to keep that in mind. Somebody wants to provide comments.

Yep. There were a couple of comments. audience who have chimed in well and i'm glad that there is interest within the community and around the hoa for the lena homes who can show up and talk to the developer but there are also a question saying that would the developer be interested in selling that to the place of worship or things like that so that is some avenue that They can surely think about, I would say, I don't know if anything city can do or planning commission can do there, but that's, that's an opportunity if, if they are looking at selling it and keeping it as a house of worship site, then, um, much of this proposal would be. would not be of much moving forward. So that's one thing. And from my perspective, Northwest specific plan for the second question, amendments and the development standards, yes, as Ryan mentioned, he has to look through the GP 2040 as well as the Northwest specific plan. What are the recommendations that planning commission can do and does it match both the general plan 2040 and under it the Northwest Pacific plan? What are the actions that we need to take to convert this parcel queue from a house of worship to the current proposed site? So those steps as well, that would be really helpful. And of course, corresponding to the proposed site, I understand there are concerns from the community regarding parking, but you guys as developers, I think nine homes, even if we are looking at the standards of San Ramon, we have like 2.2 parking spaces allotted for one house that's a minimum standard and you guys have shown around four and which sufficiently meets the standards and what you guys have thought about is pretty good uh from that point of view But, of course, you guys will also be looking at the architectural committee, which I have seen from the pictures, which aligns with the general San Ramon view, as well as the neighborhood view, which, of course, once you go to the architectural committee and their designs, they're much more thorough than we are, I'll be honest. from a high level perspective i don't see anything specific that jumps out and especially being a two-floored instead of three floors that really helps as well and uh i would say a couple of couple of things as i mentioned earlier if if hoa or any other party comes forward for the you guys can think about us owners that's your right and decision uh at the end of the day And that's all I had. Chair, thank you.

Okay, thank you. So in terms of the four questions, I think most of these I have already given my comments about the proposal in terms of the amendment and so forth. I think there's still a few things that need to be worked out in terms of the specifics, setbacks and all kinds of things like that. Same with question number two. Again, I believe I've given my comments on that. The layout, I am sympathetic to the traffic issues, but other than how it's laid out, I think that if you're going to put something in there, that looks like a pretty good fit for it. But I will get to question number four, which is, does the Planning Commission, I have, as a commissioner, I have feedback on the architectural designs. And I didn't ask the question because it seemed like it was a little premature, but I will offer my feedback on two items. One is... I notoriously pour over the plans when I see them, even though they're really small, to try to figure out how people will move through the house, move through, you know, you come in this door, where do you have to go to get from point A to point B? And I would say that I'd like you to go back and look at that again, that some parts that are a little But the really big problem is, if you've looked at the, and this is to the audience as well, if you've looked at the pictures, on the left and the right elevations on the first floor, there's essentially other than one window on your first ADU or beginning, there's no windows along that whole wall. And that's your kitchen dining area. And I think that if you lived in the house where you had that long stretch of space with no window, maybe I'm wrong gentlemen, but I would be losing my mind. Okay. I need the light. Um, and I think that's a simple, I know the whole flip between this, the sink and the stove, but ladies, you could just not, if you want your sink over a window. Okay. We don't like washing dishes, looking at a wall. Um, so I offer that. Um, so again, I, I, I like the two story very much. I think some of your design elements could use a walkthrough and actually think about using it, like carrying your laundry and where the closets are and that kind of stuff. The other thing that I am concerned about is in your Diagram in our packet it's page 50. The colored diagram is the difference between the good neighbor fence with lattice and the wood view fence and. I guess I'm a little perplexed as why you would have the lattice fence. I guess it's to the bioretention. But the fencing that would open out to the backyards that open out to the street are the ones that are basically the welded wire. And I'm not sure if I lived there, I would want people walking on the sidewalk being able to view straight into my backyard. And why that would be the place you'd have the open fence versus what you're calling good neighbor fencing, which is on the side, which at least according to this picture, there are no neighbors. You have the bioretention. So just those are the things that caught my eye as far as the architectural design. Thank you.

Okay, so my comments kind of requests for the applicant are, you know, there's other detached single family homes within this overall development. And I really want to see development standards that are in line with what is built out there. I'm not sure what those side or rear yard or front setbacks are, but so long as it's in line with what's currently out there um the other thing that i kind of noticed was all the motor courts that do have the detached single family the lots as you enter the motor court are facing the street so they're front facing whereas here we have all the homes that are facing the alley i'm not sure why you know kind of this site plan is in place and why it isn't in line there's no other motor court that i saw with detached single-family homes that have the front that's not facing the street just overall from a city planning perspective it's you know always encouraged to have the front facing the street for visibility reasons and kind of like that component of a shared space The other thing was kind of noting you are across the park, so it would be nice. I know it sounds like there's no age restriction. There's no sort of that component. I do understand that there's an optional JDU option. I can't remember if that's in one or both of the plans, but just thinking about that multi-gen living, especially across The park that, you know, there's just so many amenities and the bocce, the, um, the playground, the big fields, you guys have a really robust, um, amenity there. and then the other thing was you know originally it was envisioned as a house of worship site and that kind of brings to the question that it was going to form some sort of community anchor and having residential development you know in this place is kind of i don't want to say stripping that but if there can be some sort of nod to potentially having like a small kind of notion toward that, whether that's some sort of like community anchor that is like a little herb garden or meditation garden or a little library or a labyrinth or some sort of form of trying to nod to that communal aspect that the site was envisioned to originally have, I think would kind of go along a long way, especially since a lot of people envision this as a spiritual place. Maybe there can be some component that we can add to this development that would nod to that. I don't really have any comments on the architecture. I thought it was great. Two stories, it's in line with the existing community. I'm not sure if there's even any single stories within this whole development. It all is two or three story townhomes. So to kind of ask you to do single story would not really be, you know, just, I think that's kind of like asking for a lot when the rest of the development is two to three stories tall. There seems to be a lot of concerns about, you know, the traffic visibility, especially around that blind turn. I understand that there's a slope on both sides of the property that seems like it probably won't be touched. I don't know to what extent it will be graded and what that will look like in the future. But potentially, if you can have you know, another engagement with the community since they really see that as a big concern into like a mock-up of what that would be like. Hey, we're going to have fencing here. Like this is kind of what it's going to be built out to be and not something extraordinary, but just for, okay, like for the sake of you, you know. to have that for them so they can know what that's going to look like, some sort of representation of that. The other thing is right now, you currently don't know if you'll join the HOA or not. And like, you know, when we come to hear this project, if it does go forward to trying to get the specific plan amendment and all the other discretionary entitlements, we'd like to know if it's going to be part of the HOA or not. It's hard to kind of have the concern of, okay, will these guest parking spaces also serve this development? Will there be something reciprocal? Just having those answers, I don't know what those answers are. Would the other residents be able to use the guest parking within this development? I'm not sure, but I hope when the project does come, if it does come forward to us again for the recommendation to city council, that we do know what that looks like. And then just overall, just really trying to understand the community's concerns. Understand that there was, I don't know how many 30 to 40 people that showed up. But you know, it sounds like the big concern is that traffic visibility. Thank you.

Well, first of all, thank you for coming out. And I want to thank the public because we don't usually get this kind of audience at the Planning Commission. It's kind of nice to get community feedback. So thank you all for sticking through this. And it does help. I am sympathetic to this two acre lot and what you can do with it. It's tough. And it's been a lot of steps going back, predating all of us by a long shot, this project. And so where we're ending with this neighborhood five is the last remnant of a whole lot of decisions over time. So I am sympathetic that a church would probably be much greater impact to the neighbors than nine. We did hear from public, this is a relatively benign impact to the neighbors versus what it could be. With that said, traffic calming seems to come up quite a bit. And so, and I don't know, you know, it's a private road, Mateo circle. So I don't know, I don't know who owns it. I don't know how we can influence, but I would encourage you to try and figure out how to, you know, If it's owned by the current HOA, the 160 teen homes, that you do make a sincere effort to work with them along with, I assume the city engineers play a role in this as well, to look at options and and as commissioner vela said to you know and others you know to come back with some recommendations for that um as it relates to parking i suspect the 27 or whatever it is outside of these nine homes will probably be touched more by these residents than vice versa i don't know that people are going to drive in there and take over those six places but um with that said attempting to work with the current hoa and i think we've all we've all kind of heard the benefits of merging them and i don't know i don't know the mechanics of that i don't know if the city even has a role whatsoever i know the planning commission does not but would encourage you to do your best to make it make them a good deal so that they would want to merge so thank you on that for sure My comments to staff were as follows. I think a lot of the questions got answered. The first was, does the Planning Commission have feedback on the proposed Northwest Civic Plan amendment to replace the Parcel Q House of Worship? I'm generally in favor of supporting the change. It's pretty obvious a House of Worship would not be viable there. Do acknowledge that a house of worship, as you shared, it could be one parking place in a huge building or a huge building and a small building and a lot of parking places, but it's going to be a lot more traffic throughout the day. You know, when it does come back on the specific plan amendment, you know, want to make sure that we do understand how that will be treated, you know what documents will be touched, you know, including the zoning ordinance. And then at that point, I think is appropriate for us to really understand the inclusionary housing ordinance, the open space fees and any other of those discretionary fees that were really captured pretty explicitly in multiple times in the Faria Preserve Citizens Initiative, you know, on how to address those. So I would expect those to come back. Development standards, you know, the land use, you know, am open i'm a little bit concerned about the size of the setbacks you know it does seem rather tight you know the four foot and eight foot i'm not sure how that matches up with other parcels in the area um and you know when it comes back especially you know you will take it to the arb and they'll also talk about the site layout and insight plan so hopefully that will all come together um It does seem workable. I do think that it would be very helpful. We had some really specific engineers comments that I think needs to be addressed, and I hope that you captured the notes on those. I tried to, but I'm not a civil engineer or anything else. But I think Mr. Carr's comments are worth responding to. You know, they seemed, you know, he's well reasoned, well thought and well thought through. So I do hope that you would listen to what he said and do address those when you come back. And I think on the architecture I tend to rely on the architecture review board, they do provide really good feedback and they do capture things everything from you know site layout landscape plans color palettes all of that so. At this stage i'm comfortable with the architecture, you know, but then i'm not an architect. So with that said, I'll look to staff and to the applicant. Do you have any questions for us before we close the public hearing questions or comments?

Well, thank you again, certainly, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, and the staff, as well as the public. Actually, coming here tonight, I didn't know how the conversation was going to go, but I think we got some good ideas, some of the things we'd identified before, but we can dive into them deeper. And your comments struck a chord also about some sort of religious element. I mean, there's a lot of options. We certainly have a great... landscape architecture firm in gates and associates and and we'll see what kind of ideas they come up with initially with the entire free of reserve there was the road rose garden of course in the park and then inside a neighborhood five there is a tot lot but yeah we can touch on that as well um i think that's a appropriate um certainly and we'll work with the engineer on the best location and um we'll take your comments to heart and we're going to huddle up and see what we can do about uh coming back to you with uh I'm going to say something you like. It's pretty tough with the planning commission to say something you like, but hopefully something you'll accept. So thank you very much. Thank you as well.

Thank you. Looking to Ryan and Steph, are you okay with what you guys were? Okay. Then we are ready to move on to the next agenda item. Thank you. You're welcome to stay because this is the fun part. Okay, so our next our next spot on this agenda is you know we're going to. nominate officers for the next year and the chore ahead of us is to elect a chair and a vice chair and i'll start by asking do we have any chair any nominations for the Chair of the Commission.

yeah I do, I would like to nominate miss Betty every now for the Chair for the next year okay.

I can second that nomination.

Great. Well, we could go to vote. How do I get out of this one? You can vote for yourself.

Or not. But it will be recorded.

Great. Well, congratulations, Commissioner Vila, for taking over the chair.

through the chair I just wanted to make an announcement that we ask that you continue to chair the rest of the meeting tonight and the terms for chair and vice chair will start at the following meeting thank you thank you sorry for not saying that earlier but yes okay and at this point we are looking for nominations for vice chair we have a nomination for vice chair I will nominate uh commissioner conjula or vice chair okay we'll second that great okay I'll do that

Okay.

Okay, great.

Well, congratulations, Mr. Conjula. We all get new seats starting the next meeting. So item 7.3 is recognition of the outgoing chair, which my least favorite subject.

after your most favorite?

So as being the senior member of this group and having worked with Gary for quite a long time, I think it's a... little interesting connection that my very first meeting as a planning commission was dealing with neighborhood five being approved. And for those of you who are new to this, that agenda was 495 pages. So that was my introduction to the planning commission. But we're here to command and honor Gary, my dear friend, someone who I've come to admire and respect greatly. And I think every time I've worked with him as the chair, he has steered the ship with a steady hand and kept us on track. fulfilling our responsibilities to each other, to the people who come before us as applicants, and to the citizens that we represent, that he has asked us to be prepared, to be ready with questions, to be very collaborative, and he does it all so smoothly, and he's very even-toned and even-tempered, which I'm still working on, but it is footsteps to follow and I feel like year six of my terms that I continue to learn from you and I hope that our two newer members will also follow that lead. So congratulations on successfully leading us through another year, our longest serving chair. It's a long story. and um and who by the way today is his birthday so happy birthday well he did get hugs and kisses from the grandchildren earlier so that's why i was a little spy so well done sir well done it's a joy to work with you thank you jean

So I can't follow that back, just so you know. But we really like your guidance. And as mentioned, you have a very calming voice. I think that keeps everything in order. It's a very difficult job planning commission. and I have worked in other cities and it's more confrontational, but here it's more collaborative. So I really like working here and thanks for getting us through even-handedly and having all the meetings without any issues and very straightforward. Thank you very much, Cher, and happy birthday. Hope you turn 21 and have a great and buy my first beer tonight.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, can I say something? Happy birthday, Gary. I wish you could sing happy birthday to you. But I've really enjoyed all of your guidance. Having you as chair has been fantastic. I don't know how you do it. You're always, like Jean and Santush mentioned, very even keeled. You don't get angry. I don't see you ever stressed, which is crazy. but you you bring us all together and you make really good points and you keep us on track you have amazing questions and i've really learned so much from you and i can i don't think i can fill your shoes even halfway maybe a quarter but i'll really appreciate you being chair and i hope you will be there to guide us along for the next

Absolutely. Four to eight years.

So, thank you. Thank you all.

Sorry, from a staff perspective, I want to echo the comments of the commission and also thank Gary for his demeanor on the dais and the lifelong learning efforts he puts forward to really understand issues and his commitment to the city as a whole. I was unaware of his birthday, but as such, I have a gift for you. And I'm also going to take this opportunity to further clutter up your wall. I really, this really does go on the wall. That's very nice. Thank you. Thank you.

My only other favorite thing is my city name tag. I love it. I love it. So thank you. So you all may not realize, you know, when we started on July 1st, we started with just four commissioners, you know, and We actually had 15 meetings over the past year and a few months and 14 were canceled. I'm gonna make a comment about that in a second. Five of them we did with a vacancy on the commission. So we did the work of five people with just four for a full third of the meetings we had. And as you recall, when we started this term, Santosh was brand new, Betty was just one year in and we lost Eric, who was one of the longest serving commissioners, and Dave, who had finished a full four years. So you have to sit and ask yourself, how did we do that? And the reason we were able to do that, I want to give a shout out to Lauren, Cindy, Ryan, Annalisa, Lucas, Caitlin, who provide all just from now on, just call them staff, you know, but, you know, it was their staff reports, it was their explanations, it was their meeting with us before every meeting that makes all that possible. And we all know that the real work of the staff is done by the people that support the staff. So a shout out to Amy and to Paige. And Paige is always in a good mood when you stop by the front desk. So I know she's not here today as well. No one else is, but they're watching. Thank you for everything you did to make us do our little job up here. So thank you. Let's talk about the 14 canceled meetings for a second. On the one hand, and Lauren knows this, I hate not coming here twice a month. That's one of the things that bugs me more than anything else. But then all you have to do is drive around the city and see everything that's going on. And the reason everything that's going on at one point or another It most likely came through this commission for one, two, three, five meetings. The reason we didn't have that many meetings is because of the work of this commission for the previous three, five, seven years. So you got to feel good about everything we've done and approved. So congratulations. So if you think about it, when we had that many meetings canceled, it's because we had all that work before. So thank you to everybody that made all that possible. And then, you know, I think this commission is terrific. I think we'll continue to do good work, you know, and I think we should be proud of the work we did this past year. And we did some really complicated things. So I want to, you know, you know, Jean and I had the benefit of living through two, three, four, years of talking about things like chevron and city walk and the core and both of you you know stepped in in the middle you know it takes me a few times to really try and process it and you didn't have the luxury of being able to do that the very first meeting i think you probably joined us santosh was we're talking about an affordable development agreement for bishop branch And then you talked about Bishop Ranch 3A, which is another development agreement. So those are really complex topics. And we just jumped in and we kept doing this. So again, thank you Lauren and Cindy for guiding us through all of this so congratulations on that and then the last thing I would just say is we managed to figure out how to use a new agenda tool and electronically vote so thank you Amy for putting up with that making sure we get here early so we know our passwords and can do our voting so thank you again for that and with that I will real to handle the gavel to you at the next meeting, you know, and that is one of my regrets. I hardly ever use the gavel. So I'm gonna grab the meeting closed tonight. So I'll do it one more time. So, and that's all I have to say for tonight, but I'll see if Cindy or Lauren have any comments for us.

I don't. So we'll go ahead and move on to agenda item eight.

Through the chair, we do have a speaker card for this item. Joyce Carr.

I wanted to couldn't let this night go by without coming over and congratulating you on your years of service to this city. And I'm thanking from Greg, Greg, and also Krista, Danny and Enzo, my daughter and family and next door neighbor of Gary's. We thank you for making this and keeping this a wonderful city. We love it here. And thank you and I hope you'll use your time. for something else but we hope to see you back here at meetings too of course i'm not leaving i'm still i'm still here for a few more years so you know okay i just get a new chair i get a new seat but i'm good there and thank you thank you angry you know i may i may have misunderstood you still stay on the commission i do i thought that this was oh oh yay

we are just having a musical chair yeah i get three more yes excuse my not understanding no that's okay but thank you i appreciate your comments and i especially thank you for coming and putting up with this someone every every couple of weeks i love the city thank you thanks to all of you thanks joyce there are no other speaker cards look to cindy for the next item okay well

Happy birthday, Gary. And our birthday present to you is it looks like or maybe it's not a good birthday present. It doesn't look like we'll have any items for the September 15th meeting at this point. So it's likely that meeting will get canceled. And we'll keep you updated on the next regularly scheduled one. We do have potentially some items that may be slated for October, but to be determined.

Thank you. Okay. With that, I'm going to use the gavel one last time and adjourn the meeting.