Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Are we ready? I'd like to call the Planning Commission meeting for 01/14/2026 to order. If you could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America and to the republic which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Oral communications on non agendized items. Before we get to that, we need to, if we could please have the roll call.

Before I get to the roll call, pursuant to Saratoga City Council's remote public participation policy, members of the public may participate in this meeting in person at the location listed on the agenda or via remote attendance using the Zoom information listed on the agenda. Public attendees participating by Zoom are automatically muted and are not viewable on camera. I will now call the roll. Commissioner Sheeran? Aye. Hasanan absent? Brownlee?

Here.

Zhang?

Here.

Mr. Murad?

Here.

Vice Chair Lee?

Here. Chair Kauser? Here. Thank you. Thank you, Silly. Oral communications on non agendized items. Sorry, I'm skipping one step. You come back after a new year. Happy new year, everyone. Chair, approval of minutes. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, if we can please have a motion.

Motion to

approve minutes.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Can we please have the roll call? All in favor. Aye.

One absent. Oral communications are non agendized items. Any member of the public will be allowed to address the Planning Commission for up to three minutes on matters not on this agenda. The law generally prohibits the Planning Commission from discussing or taking action on these items. However, the Planning Commission may instruct staff accordingly regarding oral communications. At this point, I would like to open public comment on nonagendized items. Staff, can you please explain the public comment process and announce our first speaker.

Thank you, Chair Causer. If you wish to speak on this item or another item, now is the time to raise your hand using the tool in Zoom. Or if you are in person, please approach the stage, complete a speaker card, and hand it to a staff member. There are no hands raised online.

Thank you. We see someone coming up. Are you coming to speak on a non agendized item?

It's on the agenda.

Okay. You can that's fine. Thank you. So seeing non agendized item speakers, we'll close that and move on to public hearings for application 2.1, application SUB23-three, ARB25-forty 7. That's 13785 Saratoga Avenue. If we could please have the staff report.

Thank you. Go ahead and share my screen. The project site located at 13785 Schaedog Avenue has an average slope of 8.37%. Structures on-site include a single family residence and two detached garages. Saratoga Creek enters the site from the Southwest and passes through the center of the site before it exits on the north side.

Barony Court is located along the south side of the site. Heritage Creek Court is located along the northern side of the site. And Saratoga Avenue borders the front of the site. Existing tree comprised a mixed woodland, with most trees being Coast Live Oaks, California Bay, Coast Redwood, and Western Sycamore. Structures on adjacent sites are a combination of one and two story homes.

The applicant requests tentative parcel map approval to subdivide a 100,972 square foot site into three parcels. On the screen is the tentative map. Saratoga Creek bisects the site for the front portion, front of Saratoga Avenue, with the R one twenty thousand zoning and RL and D general plan designation. On map, it's blue portion. Portion of the site on the opposite side of the Creek has r one ten thousand zoning and m 10 general plan designations shown as the red and the yellow parcels.

The front rear sites have separate street addresses and assessor parcel numbers. However, the rear side is not a separate legal parcel, but is taxed at a lower rate than the front parcel for which the county assessor assigned a separate APN number. Parcel one would be 47,960 net square feet and would maintain the existing site frontage on Frederick Avenue. Parcel two and three, 12327 And 13939 square feet, respectively, would be located behind Parcel 1 on the opposite side of the creek and would have access from Heritage Creek Court via a bridge spanning Saratoga Creek. Nine protected trees are proposed for removal, primarily for the construction of the Bridge.

All other structures on the site will be made. No development at the present time is proposed. These are tentative map findings the Commission must make to approve the map. Staff is able to make all of the findings for approval. Staff recommends the Commission adopt resolution number 26.1, approving map subdivision 20 Three-three, subject to conditions included in attachment one, the resolution. That concludes my report.

Thank you, Chris. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, I would like to invite the applicant to please come and have your presentation. You have up to ten minutes for your presentation. And then you'll have five minutes at the end for a closing, after the public comments.

Can you make sure the speaker is turned, mic is turned on?

It should. There we go. Is that on now? Yes. Okay, great. Thanks, Chris, for that presentation. We appreciate that. And I first just want to thank our team of professionals who have helped us and the city staff who have guided us through the planning process and navigating the city code and understanding the process. We are immensely grateful. Also I want to clarify, as reviewing the agenda for tonight and saw an attachment, want to clarify that I am not Cookie Fitzsimmons' sister. We are neighbors, but I am not her sister or related to her in any way. So I just want to clarify that. That said, my name is Michelle Brady. This is my husband Mark. And we are the applicants of this described project.

And I just wanted to give a little bit of history of the property. So in 1941 my grandparents purchased this home and parcel at 1300785 Saratoga Avenue where we currently reside. People at the time thought they were crazy moving to the country thinking it was so far away they would pack a picnic lunch, literally, grandma would tell me the stories, to come and visit them for the day. Was, Saratoga Avenue was a dirt road, only 800 people out here, not a whole lot going on. But they loved it out here.

And they raised my dad here, and then later my parents were able to purchase a home in Saratoga, and I was raised in Saratoga as well. In high school, after my grandfather died, I moved in with my grandmother to be a, so that she wouldn't be alone. It was so that we believed in family, and no family member should ever be alone. So I was the designated child to go live with grandma. And then we were blessed to be able to inherit this home from her estate.

Now we have two children and two grandchildren, and we are excited to be able to subdivide this parcel to give our kids something for the future. We love to be close to our kids and want to be close to our grandchildren, as I was close to my grandmother. And we value family and community. And when we consider things, we honor both sides, family and community. So thank you for considering our proposal.

Thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, thank you.

Thanks. I

am sorry. During public comments, you can come and make your comments. Thank you. Now, we open public comments for this agenda item. If you do have any comments, please come forward and you can turn in your slip because we don't have any slips up here.

And each person will have three minutes to speak.

I'm Linda Allen. I live across the creek and about two houses down. And I am conscious that part of our buying this house was because of the access to the creek bed and all the wonderful wildlife that we get to experience living by the creek. And I guess I have a concern about two things. One is the impact of construction construction on on the the creek creek itself. Itself, the bridge, and what it's going to do to the wildlife corridor. And that's all.

Thank you. If you have completed a form, you can just turn it to staff. Thank you.

If

you could just introduce yourself and then, because I don't have a card to introduce you with.

I am Dave Grant. I also live on the creek. I live not on Saratoga Avenue, but the other side of the creek. And I am even two houses further than the Allens are from it. So, first, I'd like to say the creek has an amazing acoustics.

You could hear people a few houses down and you think that they're right out in your back because the sound has just really increased tremendously. So I am looking at the noise being created for the bridge and the residences, I mean, I think, and impacting not only us but all the animals. And we have down on the creek ourselves, we have a camera, so we see all the wildlife that's coming down the creek. You know, it's deer, it's coyotes, it's all kinds of birds, we have everything. And anyway, so I'm gonna miss that.

I'm wondering about the trees that are removed. Does it mean that the same trees, same kind of trees that are removed, you're replacing it with?

If you can just finish your comments and we'll try and

get you Okay, so I want to know about that. I'm curious about we know the size of the lot, but we don't know the sizes of the residences and garage, how many square feet that that's going to encompass. And I'm hoping when it happens that all the permits are completed because I've seen a lot of residences, things going up or even a remodel. And it can go on for even not months, years. So, I'd like to know that everything is sealed and perfect before the construction starts.

And I guess one last thing, we are going to have a wedding in our backyard September 26, and I would hope that there would be no construction going on at that time and no people working on the property. Because, like I say, the creek brings all the noise right to you. We thought people were sleeping in the creek and they were clear up on the hill at another house and they just bought and lived on the balcony. So, those are my concerns.

Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers in the audience for this agenda item? Seeing none, Frances, do you have any online?

Yes, we have one speaker. Ying, please accept the prompt to speak.

Hi. Good evening. Hope you can all hear me.

Yes.

My name is Ying Smith. I live on Baroni Court, so I'm a neighbor. I'm speaking in opposition to the planning commission approving this application. Based on the information, there are many unresolved issues on the application. So instead, making sure that items are resolved, the city is recommending approval by tabling these items further down the process.

This is a typical practice of kicking the can down the road. City staff is very helpful in sharing information when request it. Thank you, Chris. Although they assure that ensure that the conditions will be met in the process, I have no confidence because the public has no easy access to the process. The only option is to visit the planning office regularly to check for updates.

I'm sure that's very annoying to the staff as well as inconvenient to the public. It is only reasonable for the PC to act on this application when the applicant can demonstrate these issues are resolved rather than approving it with the uncertainties you see today. In conclusion, I urge you not to approve the application this evening and require all outstanding issues be resolved before processing that application. Thank

you. Thank you. Any other speakers online?

Yes. We now have Ed Smith. Please accept the prompt to speak.

Hi. My name is Ed Smith, and I actually am Ying's husband. We do live on Boerne Court in an adjacent property to what they sub plan to subdivide. This will cause, as the previous speaker mentioned, what we believe to be irreparable harm to Saratoga Creek and the wildlife supports. Also, there are a number of issues that were brought up that are things that are of great concern, mainly which is the fact that there was no water down there at this point.

There's no water line down to that area, and I worry about fire danger. And, you know, because with these houses in such close proximity, a fire would just spread like crazy. And that is something that we just really worry about. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Yeah, if there is anybody else in the audience who would like to speak, please turn in your cards. We need to finish everybody who is speaking who is online right now. Frances, anyone else?

No other speakers at this time.

Okay. You can go ahead and introduce yourself.

I'm Todd Beiney. My wife, Cindy Beiney, is in the audience. We live on Heritage Creek Court. I really just want to get it on the record You know, we our concern is impact to the creek bed. Right? We live right in the the adjacent when you're looking down towards the creek, we're on the right hand side there. You know, the other concern, I'm sure it'll be mitigated as much as possible, is just impact to the area around construction. Heritage Creek Court is, I don't know if you've been there, it's a thin lane that goes down to the bottom down there. And construction is just going to cause a lot of blockage there. I'm just concerned about access into the area, access from public services, etcetera.

So I'm sure we'll work it all out. Right. I just want to get it on the record. That's a concern of ours, right? And I want you guys to consider it as well. Thanks.

Thank you. Next speaker, if you could just come up. Just introduce yourself and it will be fine.

All right. Nothing more to add. We met Chris a couple of times. Think along with the rest of the people who spoke so far, the concerns are the same. The Saratoga Creek is where we bought the houses for, all of us who stay there.

And then if the bridge is needed to access the parcels, then we need to figure out if that that becomes a dam for future flooding. If that's broken or it's not done correctly, then it's a problem. We need to see that as well. And also, we need to figure out the site boundaries of our current properties and then their property. And if the fences are required, we'll try to proceed with that as well. There's more to add, but I think we'll follow-up in the next session.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers?

Hello. I'm Hal Tan. We live at 1926 Marypool Drive next to Allen's house. So I share the concerns of the neighbors who earlier spoke. And the creek, my concern also is about the potential flooding or fire with regard to the creek and the construction in addition to what my neighbors already shared. Thank you.

Thank you. Please introduce yourself and then fill out that before leaving.

Hi, everyone. I'm Parthu Mishra. My wife, Ananya, I live on Boroni Court. And we are at 1990 Seven-eight Boroni Court, so we are immediately adjacent to the construction. One comment and one question. The comment was, and we've kind of provided this in writing, Baroni Court is a private road and it is part of our property. And we have indicated that we will not provide any easement. That's not required because the easement is through Heritage Court. But a couple of the earlier speakers talked about how narrow Heritage Creek is and so forth, right? So we just want to make it clear that there is no access at all from Baroni Court for the construction.

We have had a thorough legal search done of the underlying title and so forth, then it's very clear. So just wanted to make sure everyone on the Planning Commission understood that in terms of construction or any access down the road, that is absolutely done through Barodi Court. And Heritage Creek itself, I'm sure the planning commission documents show that, is at a pretty steep angle. It's very narrow. I think a lot of the previous speakers spoke about how beautiful the area is.

We've lived there for about eighteen years. There's some magnificent coastal redwoods, oaks, lots of wildlife, and there's always this trade off between, you know, kind of construction and preserving the environment. What I would say is, you know, since we've lived there for twenty years and, you know, we back up on the creek as well, I hope the Planning Commission seriously analyzes

all

of this before you kind of make a rubber stamp decision. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers? Seeing none, we are going to close public hearing and invite the applicants to come back and make closing statements. You have five minutes.

Hi. Thank you. We enjoy the creek also. It's been a major part of our home for the years. We intend on doing everything we can to protect the creek. The bridge will span the creek. It will not enter the creek. It will be built above the flood plain. All of these things have been reviewed very thoroughly by all of the agencies that have reviewed these drawings. And we just want, you know, the ability to enjoy and utilize our property as we've met all the requirements of the city to do so. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. With that, we close public hearing and bring it to the Commission to discuss. Go ahead.

Thank you so much for the presentation. It was really helpful. And I guess just to convey what's going through my mind, a lot of the concerns legitimate concerns that came, you know, today from the nearby neighbors have to do with things that will be part of the development plans and be reviewed at that time. So like many of you mentioned, there's this initial stage of what we're covering today is just the approval of a tentative map and divvying up the property. And there are some findings that we need to be able to make to do the division of the property.

And so that's what we're covering today, not the additional details of development which we'll cover when we have those development plans in front of us at a later date. So given that today's the tentative map and like staff listed up on the screen the findings that we need to make, I can also make all those findings for this tentative parcel map change. And then like the residents and nearby neighbors said, we can cover the details of any further development when that actually comes before us.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Yes, Paul.

Just a clarification along that line for you, Chris. The bridge itself is not part of this map. That will be a separate item that will come before the

planning The

bridge only requires a building permit. It is shown on the map. So it's part of the arbors to review it in terms of the impact for the trees and the site. But there will be a separate application for the bridge, again, that the building department will review.

Yeah. And they would address all those safety issues that were That's brought up correct. Will. Thank you. Just as a comment, I, too, can make all the findings that we're required to make.

I do have a question, but I'll let Ping go first.

Yeah, I have a question. It's also a clarifying question. So the zoning is called out the zonings are different between the south or northeast of the creek. And the new parcels, the two new parcels is on one side of the creek and the zone is R1, 10000. And how big is that piece? I mean, is that the maximum number of houses that can be built is two? Or there could be more?

Well, under the current zoning, the maximum is two.

Okay. So it's going to the maximum.

Correct.

But on the other side it could also

have That side is zone R1 20,000.

Yeah.

And so you need to have a lot of 20,000 feet, 40,000 feet to subdivide it.

I see. Okay. I think that answered my question. Thank you.

I have a question. If you can bring up the map. I just would like to know why was, like, because a bridge has to be built, why would not do it from the existing property so the entrance is still from Saratoga Avenue? Like why not keep, you know, like flag lots, if I would say, on those?

That's probably a good question for the applicant. But I can say that this was their easiest design in terms of it had access from Heritage Creek Court. And if you did do a flag lot, the site on the blue parcel is pretty steep in the front.

Uh-huh. So it

be a very steep driveway to

get at the back.

So it's it really falls down? When you say steep, is it doable or it's not doable? Or

Well, I think it's probably doable. But there's a house on the way as well.

Okay. Even yeah. You know, we can find do all the findings because you have done the great job of showing us that we have all the findings. But just talk, you know, practicality of things of if Heritage Creek Court is really a narrow road and you're adding more, if there was a possibility of doing it the other way, why was that not discussed would be the question.

Again, that's probably a good question for the applicant because this is what they submitted. Okay.

Is anybody interested in finding that out? Or should we not open up public hearing again? Because we have to open it up to ask that question. If everyone's good, then we will not do that.

As I said, I can make the findings, but I'm perfectly fine with you opening it back up for the applicant to respond to your question.

Okay. If you don't mind, please, coming up and just giving us a little bit of the reasoning of why you went this route.

Well, if you're I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the site. There are two large oak trees in our driveway. So coming in through our existing driveway, I'm not sure those oak trees are wide enough separation to provide access. Then, as Chris has mentioned, it's a very steep grade down. And it would, in a sense, divide our remaining parcel by having a road going right through the middle of it. So, for those reasons, we looked at the chose to go along on Heritage Court.

Okay. Yeah. We don't do site visits anymore and cannot intrude on private property and make a site visit. That's why we have not seen your property.

Okay.

But we just have to take your word and the staff's word on that it would be more difficult to do that route. Because it seems like Saratoga Avenue is a larger road. And if, you know, you're putting new homes, if it would go through that, to me that would be the logical thing. But I haven't seen your property and I don't design on the tires either. But wanted to ask that question. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone have any other questions for them before I close it?

Yes. I just have a question. Is that the Parcel 2 and the Parcel 3 can be only accessible through this new bridge we're going to build? I'm just because I don't see any bridge on the map. I I don't

The two parcels only accessible through the bridge. Correct?

Correct. Correct.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There is an existing bridge.

No, there isn't. There is no bridge.

There is a temporary liquidity issue that's there. So the applicant can, you know, walk across it. The one site to the next, but there's no the new bridge is not there yet.

But it's going to be at the same site as that bridge?

It's adjacent to it.

And that's on their current property?

Correct.

Okay. So there is a bridge on the property.

Shows a wooden bridge.

So Oh, okay. Thank you.

Okay. If you

all able if would somebody like to make a motion? Go ahead.

Just move that we adopt Resolution 26.1, approving tentative map sub 23.3, subject to conditions included in Attachment one.

I'll second it.

We have a motion and a second. Can you please do a roll call vote?

Commissioner Sheeran?

Aye.

Brownlee. Aye. Zang. Aye. Jermerad.

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee.

Aye. Chair Causer.

Aye. Motion passes.

So just as we have already stated, we just wanted to repeat that all we were able what was presented to us today was to do a tentative map. No design, no hows, none of those things. All that is a second stage. So I would say just stay on watch and then you'll be able to know. If you stay through the other end of our meeting, we do have a presentation that the staff is doing today as to how people how community can keep track of projects.

Because there is on our website, there is a place to do that. Right. So that they would know that it's for projects that are under review, and that's what I think they would want to keep track of is an under review project. I understand. Moving on to agenda item 2.2.

This item has been continued to an uncertain date. However, if there's anyone in the audience who would like to speak on it, please come forward and we will have public comments. Frances, do you have anyone online?

I do not, Chair Cowser.

Okay. Thank you. So public comments on item 2.2 have closed. Moving on to item 2.3, application PDRI one hundred ninety thousand and twenty four. Address is 1400190 Palomont Avenue. Would you make the staff report, please?

Go ahead and share my screen. This is the project site plan. Let me go back one more. The 1.58 project site is a corner lot located at 14190 Palomino Way. The site is vacant, has an average slope of 25%.

A total of 44 protected trees are located on-site, including coast live oaks, Monterey Pines, and Plum. An existing driveway easement located along the eastern portion of the site provides access to an adjacent single family residence. Structures in the general vicinity include a combination of both one and two story residences on similarly sized parcels. This is the project site plan. Driveway access to the project will be from Palomino Way, 1 Coast Live Oak, identified by a yellow X on the site plan, at the beginning of the driveway as the city arborist recommendation for removal.

The project includes the proposed grading of 5,224 cubic yards of combined cut and fill. The maximum allowable grading in this district, which is HR, is 1,000 cubic yards. Unless a grading exception for additional grading is granted by the Planning Commission. Most of the additional grading being requested is primarily required to construct the access driveway and emergency vehicle turnaround area into daylight these graded areas into the natural contours of the site. These are the north and east elevations.

The project will consist of a new two story home with a contemporary architectural design. The structure will include a 2,747 square foot main floor and 2,032 square foot lower floor. Five thirty two square feet of the lower floor is not counted as floor area, as this portion is considered a basement, not added to floor area, as I said. The proposed height of the residence is seventeen feet three inches tall as measured from average grade. Maximum height of the residence would be 26 feet.

These are the east and west elevations. Exterior colors and materials will include gray and brown colored plaster, bronze colored doors, windows and trim, and a white colored TPO flat roof. This is the floor plan for the lower Floor, which includes recreation spaces, bedrooms, laundry room, storage, and mechanical room. As mentioned earlier, the hashed area illustrates a five thirty seven square foot area is not counted as floor area considered to be basement. This is the floor area of the 3,541 square foot Main Floor, which includes a seven ninety four square foot three car garage, bedrooms, kitchen, and living room.

These are the findings that the Commission must make to prove the grading exception. The grading to exceed 1,000 cubic yards. The staff can make all the findings for approval. And these are the design review findings the Commission should make to prove the project. The staff can make all the findings for approval. DEF recommends the Planning Commission adopt position number 20Six-thirty3 approving the application for design review and a great exception for the project to exceed 26 feet. Includes my report.

Thank you. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, I would like to invite the applicant to please come up and speak. You have ten minutes.

Good evening. My name is Tom Sloan. I am the project's architect. And Eddie?

This is Eddie Ma. I am the property owner.

I think I will just go ahead and go first. Eddie purchased the property with his wife and his family back in 2019. And it also was in 2019 when we first submitted our initial application. That was quite a while ago. The reason for all the delays were related to the meticulous care that Cotton and Shires, the city's geologists took in searching for underground fault lines, that they had a hunch were there.

It took lots of investigation, many different types of investigation, and many years to let those investigations take place. There was a lot of study done on this site. Very comprehensive. During the process of that, we actually redesigned the project. We took away the swimming pool, shrunk the house down, and moved the house a little closer to Pierce Road where the landslides were a little shallower.

And, we laid the house out in compliance with the I would say compliance with the contours of the land, the topographic contours. We benched the house in so it's very stable. There's going to be a lot of mitigation, tiebacks and piers that will stabilize the house once it's finished. I don't think it's going go anywhere for sure. We're really before you today because of the request for a grading exception.

I think Chris has done a perfect job laying out all the reasons why he could make all the findings for that. And also, you know, the house really isn't very tall. It's under 18 feet high as measured from the average grade. It's, There is no massive landscape project in front. So as you drive down Pierce Road, everything will really seem very natural.

The regrading of the site will have to be done to mitigate the soil. And we're going to bring it back in with very smooth natural contours. Won't even be able to tell there was any grading at all. Won't have any of these vertical cuts and things like that except on the upside of the driveway. So the initial the site does have a driveway easement for the neighbor, the Gianinnis, who live up above.

And, initially, we were going to combine driveways so that we wouldn't have a double driveway at the bottom. But in doing so, we would have had to widen the driveway, taking out more oak trees. And plus the hindrance on the neighbor having all that construction on their driveway. That's why we went ahead and put in another driveway next to it. And that did require the removal of a small, I think it's a nine inch now, oak tree.

I think when we started the project it was around six or seven inches. It was like a shrub. So I hope you approve the project tonight.

Do want

to add anything, Eddie?

We really love the area, and we want

to build out there. Our general philosophy is we want our design to

merge into the environment as much as we can.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none. Thank you. We open for public hearing. Do we have anybody in the audience here to speak on this item 2.3? I don't see anyone. Frances, do you have anyone online?

Frances one online, Chair Kauser.

Thank you. Applicants, you have five minutes to do a closing statement, if you like. Okay. Thank you. Seeing none, we're closing public comments. Bringing back it to the Commission for discussion.

Chip Kauser, I'm sorry

to interrupt. I did have a hand go up online.

Okay. I will take back my closing public comments so you can have that.

Thank you. Kathy, if you wish to speak on this item, please accept the prompt to speak.

Hello?

Yes. We can hear you.

Oh, okay. Thank if you. You Thank you for seeing my raised hand. So I'm a neighbor that's uphill. I'm on Palomino Way.

And so the only thing I want to speak about is about the grading. I just want to make sure that the city does what the city is capable of doing to make sure that whatever happens with the grading request that it's not going to adversely affect the neighbors in any way. I speak about land movement in particular. Specifically, I'm talking I'm concerned about land movement and soil condition and the stability of the land. Because living here, there is land movement.

I live here. I see it happening on the property. So since this is lower than us, I it can I can't help but think about, you know, when you build a house, you have a foundation and you have, you know, what's above it? And the foundation is obviously very important because if it's unstable, then whatever is above it is only gonna crumble. So I just want to express some concern that, you know, whatever they do with the grading here, I hope, you know, it's not going to result in anything that adversely affects the land in the surrounding, especially uphill.

Anyway, just wanted to make sure that the city will make sure that it continues to be stable and safe. That is not going to result in any additional, like, artificially increased chances of land movement due to the construction involved for this proposal. So, I hope I expressed it clearly what my concern is. So, thank you so much.

Thank you. Okay. Going back to the applicant in case they have any closing statement. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the dais.

I'd like to ask a question to the applicant.

Would the applicant please come forward? We have a question for you.

Yeah, I just wondered if you'd address the last concern that we heard. I heard you say that you had done a large number of seismic studies, and the neighbor is concerned about that. Could you just elaborate in your confidence that those studies aren't going to result in the problem she was worried about?

Oh, yes, certainly. Where do I begin? Tremendous amount of science has taken place on this site. We used the use of piezometers to measure ground movement. We, this has never been used ever.

It's only been used on highways and roadways in the past. This was a complete new experiment. We were trying, so that we measured ground movement that was happening during, I think, a total of three seasons. And then, and that's all been cataloged and reviewed by very experienced geotechnical consultants, geologists and Cotton and Shires who are very experienced in this. It's peer reviewed.

Lots of discussions, literally a foot wide of data. Lots of letter writing back and forth. Chris can attest to that. It's very scientific. So can just tell you that a lot of experts have looked at this.

There's also written into the conditions of approval that our geologists and geotechnical engineers have to visit the site on a regular basis during the grading process, during the installation of the mitigation measures like the piers and the soil tiebacks, which are also kind of nicknamed it like soil nails. It's going to be a pretty expensive foundation, like nobody's done before.

Thank you.

Thank you. Coming you have a question? One more question.

Oh, actually I am not sure if it is the owner or Chris. I look at the staff report and there is a background. This house, actually, there's three applications has been approved starting 1989. And all of them did not go I mean, get to build the house. I'm just curious. Do we know the reason?

I don't know the reasons. It's not uncommon for applicants to have projects approved to then kind of go too far in the design and oftentimes can't afford what they purchased, designed and engineered. So that's pretty common.

Thank you.

Yeah. I'd say with a lot of certainty that it was not due to the soil investigation. We're the first ones to be triggered into this new soil investigation with cotton and jars, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions for Steph? Seeing none, any discussion or a motion?

I can make all the findings and I am comfortable that they've done the work in the seismic side. I'm also comfortable that they bear the greatest risk if anything goes wrong. So I think it's pretty safe to say they're probably doing their due diligence. So with that, I could make a motion to adopt Resolution 26,003 approving this project as staff described it and for granting the grading exemption for the project to exceed 1,000 cubic yards of grading.

Need a second?

Okay, second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. We have a roll call, please.

Commissioner Sreedharan?

Aye.

Brownlee?

Aye.

Zeng? Aye. Germerad?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee?

Aye. Chair Kauser? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving on to other business. Cindy has a brief overview of the GIS active projects map. And that's what I was referring to earlier in the meeting. It's a map of only active projects. Once the projects have been approved, they would not be on the city website anymore. But this is just if people want to know what projects are coming on soon in the city, this is going to be the place to go to. I'm just passing on some.

Thank you. Yes. So we the city, in coordination with the Lynx Technologies, our GIS company. We've developed this GIS active residential project map. And you can get to the map through the main webpage of the City Of Saratoga by clicking on Planning.

That'll take you to our Planning page. And there are three locations on this Planning page where you can link to the map and other projects in the city. And you can see those here, Development Projects. This takes you to the Development Project page. Here you can click on the GIS link.

You can also find out updates on Builders Remedy Projects in the city. You can learn about the Chester Avenue alternative to the Builders Remedy Project. And then some other projects that have gained interest in the city is House Family Vineyards and the Saratoga Retirement Community. So you click on the GIS link That brings you to a map of the city. The GIS map only talks about projects in the city of Saratoga.

And there's a menu on the left hand side. So if you see the screen here on the left hand side, there's a filter menu filter. And you can see that here on the left hand side. You can sort by application status, the planner assigned. You can sort by application type.

So if you want to see all the ADUs that are currently being reviewed in the city, you can do that. And you can select the date range. So if you want to see projects that were submitted in 2025 that are still under review, you can do that. On the left hand side, projects that are active projects are all the streets where there are active projects are listed here. And you can click on the street that you're interested in.

And it'll bring up a map of just those projects that are on that street. If you double click on the dot for the project on that street, it'll bring up another screen that includes more information about the project including the APN, the actual address, the application type, the application date, and a short description of the project. So in this case, it's a detached accessory dwelling unit. And you can see when the map was updated. So you can see that was updated today at the bottom of the screen.

So I mentioned accessory dwelling units. So I went ahead and did that for you. So I clicked on accessory dwelling units. And these are all of the ADUs that are currently under review in the Planning Department.

Going back to that screen, are multiple colors. What do they mean something?

Yeah. So I'm going to show you that in just a moment. Okay. Thank Thanks. So there's another filter function availability. And that is in the upper right hand corner. And I've pulled that out for you so you can see it. So there's a search function. You can see the legend which I'm gonna show you in just a moment. And then you can go to the Home button to bring you back to the entire city.

So if you click on the Hourglass search function, you can type in the address. Or if you're doing this from home, you can just click on your current location and it should show you the properties that are in your neighborhood. And so you can see the legend here and it's color coded. So the purple dot means that the project is complete. In the planning world, the word complete doesn't mean that the project's been approved.

It means that we have all of the application materials that we need to do a thorough review of the project. That's what the word complete means. So if a project is going to the Planning Commission it'll be denoted by green. And then certain projects also get noticed to neighbors. So if it meets a certain threshold size, it'll get noticed to neighbors.

It's a two fifty foot notice for admin projects and a 500 foot notice for planning commission projects. So you can see where it is in the review process. So I went ahead and did a search for City Hall, 13777 Rutabella Avenue. And it zooms in on our building where we're sitting right now. And it tells you that in that Zoom page there's one project on At This Place.

And it describes that project. And you can see in the lower right hand corner you can zoom in or out. You can also use your mouse to zoom in or out. And if you wanna zoom out and you wanna see projects that are going on further away from your property but still nearby, you just zoom out and you'll see that the Project List now increases to 24 projects. So in the map area shown, there are 24 projects in proximity to where we are right now.

So this concludes my presentation. Just to remind you of how to get to the MAP, go to the City website, go to the Planning page. There are several locations here where you can get information on current development projects. And if you need to submit a project to the city, we try to outline the process and that's all spelled out here. If there's something on this website that seems confusing to you, feel free to reach out to me. I'm the development manager. My name is Cindy McCormick. And I can update the website if needed. And again, here's that development project page.

Thank you, Cindy. Questions for Cindy? Yes, Paul.

Just want to be clear on what starts a project to show up on the map and then what concludes a project to leave the map. So I'm assuming a project shows up on the map the day, use me as an example, I walk in with an application to change something on my property. That would be the date that it will show up there. And the date that it will be disappeared is the date an administrator or the planning commission approves the project. Or is it, tell me, just be real clear in detail, when does it show up and when does it leave?

Great question. So you want to develop a project in the city of Saratoga. Go to our website. It'll tell you how to apply. It'll tell you all the documents that you need for us to do a thorough review of your project. Once you submit all the plans that are needed, we'll send you an invoice. Once you pay the invoice, then the project review period starts.

When did it show up on the map? So

the date on the it says the application submittal date. I think that's what it says. But it'll say 11/14/2025. That's the day that the invoice was paid and we can start a review of the project. So that's the submittal date.

Okay. So it shows up on the map the day that I pay the fees that I owe the city?

Correct.

Thank you.

Well, so the date, the application date that's in the project description is the date that you pay. It shows up on the map when we contact our GIS provider and give them a spreadsheet of all the new projects that have come into the city. Okay. But

that list would be those that have just paid their fees.

Or updates also, right? So how often do you reach out to your

So I'm trying to reach out to the memory two weeks. You can see the date in the lower right corner of when the map was updated. So you can see that was updated today. And I have a reminder on my calendar to send GIS coordinator the spreadsheet. Sometimes it gets a little busy and it may take a little longer than we may like, but he's usually pretty quick. So we'll update the map. The project planner will go into our tracking system And they'll say, okay, well we reviewed the project and now we're sending out the notices. And then they'll update, track it. And that should be updated on the map at least every two weeks.

And then how does it disappear?

So once the project is approved, it's no longer on the map. At that point, and these are planning projects, not building permits. At that point, the applicant is ready to submit their application to the building department. And I didn't include it here because I didn't think about it until just now. But we also have a link on our website for Trackit. And you can actually click on that

link and that will take you to active building projects, building permit projects. So said it gets so GIS updates every status. So every two weeks, even the ones that move from to the different colors, right? It doesn't happen by a planner reviewing it.

No. So the planner updates the tracking system. I go into the tracking system. I create a report that includes all the changes. I get a spreadsheet that shows, you know, how things have moved along. I send that spreadsheet to the GIS coordinator and then he updates the map.

Right. That's what I was like. It was a third party who's updating the map. Correct. Other questions? Yes.

Are there any plans to integrate those two systems, this one and the one that's tracking the actual work that's going on?

So our Track It system will have links to the GIS map. But it's not going to be tied to this particular map. So this map is a standalone map. Our tracking system doesn't have that capability that I'm aware of. But I can double check. Another question. So

like other parts of the some of the site some pages on the city website, if you sign up, if anything changes, you're part of the email list, you get a reminder that, oh, something is updated. Is this something that would happen? Like, let's say because I'm signed up to receive city newsletters. Every time there's a city newsletter, it shows up on my email. So is there anything similar with this where if someone wants to keep track of projects and they've signed up, they'll get an email saying something's changed on that page. That might be a

little more challenging because, again, it's an outside party that's update. We don't even have I can't update that map. I have to go through our GIS provider. So we don't really I can talk to our communications team to see if I can let them know when the map is updated and see if they can create it's called Notify Me. If they can

create a Notify Me for the list. I'm just wondering if it's even easier than that. Maybe the provider has triggered something because so much happens electronically now, programming. No, that goes through our city. Someone signs up on our city website to get notified of something. Yeah, I think that would be something good, right? If it's possible to Because if someone is tracking a project, for them to come every two weeks to check, but it didn't happen every two weeks, it happened three weeks because of whatever else was going on. But if it automatically triggers that, then it's up to the individuals who have signed up to go back and check it.

Okay.

I'll check into that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other suggestions we would like to make to Cindy? Because I know that's the reason. And thank you so much for presenting this because we really wanted to see how it worked after we had all suggested this last year or the year before.

I'll just echo the comment. It would be really nice to have an integrated system where it's from start all the way through, you know, the the final sign off on the on the permit so that, you know, it'd be one spot. But and then the other thing is any way that you could as a resident, I would be most interested in the peep in the area around me. It'd be nice if I could just say, send me everything within x feet of my my home kind of a thing. Those would be the upgrades that you can think about in the future.

That would definitely be more challenging. Okay. The notify me list, I think, is a possibility.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Yeah. Just to confirm. So this is a system. It's really up to the residents or anybody in the city to go in and check. It's not something that information will push it to you. You have to pull

it So right now that's why was asking if it can push it if we have that notify me system installed. Then that way, once you have signed up, it will always push it to you if it's

Mhmm.

If the change happens.

And if that Notify Me is available, the email that you get isn't gonna say, hey, there's a new project in your area. It's gonna say, the GIS map has been updated. And then you click on the GIS map and then you go through the steps that I showed you.

Correct. Yeah. Even that is very helpful, Yeah. Any other comments or feedback we would like to share with Cindy?

Thanks for the good work. Go ahead.

No, just saying, thanks so much. This came up a year or two ago and it's just great to get the information in front of the public. And then these enhancements to just make it easier to be pushed to rather than pull would be a great enhancement. But really helpful to have this available to everyone.

Great. Glad to help. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item number four, Director's Item.

Good evening. I think we had an online comment for the map. Is that correct, Frances?

Yeah. I don't know if it's a comment or a question. I have two hand raised hands raised. We do can you please accept the prompt to speak? Yeah.

Hi there. Can you hear me? Good evening.

Yes, sir.

Hi. My name is Shamik Mehrot. I live on Canyon View Drive, and one of the items I saw on the letter that I got in the mail was an application Sub24Dash0002 for 20731 Marion Road. Is that not being considered today?

No. That was postponed. And please watch the city agenda for next time because there's no date for that. So thank you.

I see. Okay. Thank you. Bye.

Bye.

Okay. One other commenter. Jojo, please accept the prompt to speak.

Welcome, Jojo.

Hi, Cindy. Thank you so much for all your hard work on this and the planning question for taking time to review the website and officially sort of a notification process now that's in Saratoga. One of the things I would love to see on the GIS website is if we could get sort of, like, a tabulated view, which we could sort by date of, like, the application because it's I understand that, like, it's we wanna go, and I think this is something that some of the other planning commissioners have already mentioned is that it's hard to know when a project's sort of in the queue. And so if there's any way for us to sort of sort the data via, like, what's the newest project that's just been inputted, then I think that would really help to sort of understand or people who are watching the map to see what are the changes that are occurring. Because, otherwise, you're just sort of basically going off memory every time you go visit.

It's like, did this change, or when did this change? It's sorta it's hard to have sort of a temporal feel for when things are moving onto one phase, the next phase of the review process. So if there's any way for us to get a tabulated view that we can just sort by date, I think that would be really helpful in terms of having this information be a little bit more useful to the residents rather than just sort of coming and checking if you remember to check. And so that that's my one sort of ask is if there's a way for us to make this a little bit more useful with sort of temporal information that we could sort by rather than just sort of looking at the map as a whole or just what's within our sort of interest areas. So I hope that makes sense.

I'm happy to answer any questions or clarifying questions to the comment that I just made.

Thank you, Jojo. If I understood it right, I think all the streets that are having a project are on that list of your filter. Correct?

Yeah. You can sort by street name. You can sort by year the application was submitted. I'll see if you can if they can add another filter Update it. For project date. That's possible. But the project date won't change because that's just the submittal But

can you have a filter for update? And do you, like, does the system say, like, when you make any changes, is there a date that's entered that says update or something like that? No. Like when it goes from one status to the next?

No. So the report, the spreadsheet that gets printed out by our tracking system has very limited, you know, things that you can get a report for. And that is not one of those things.

Okay. Thank you. We're back at the GSI.

Yeah. I'm wondering Cindy already said if there's any suggestions, there's a link that the public I mean, the community can report to you. I mean, they can show some probably screenshots to say, hey, this is the page I look at and maybe we can add a date, updated field or whatever field and then see if we can improve that way.

We can look and see what other filters can be added. At some point, there's it gets clogged with a bunch of filters. So But we can look and see what other things we can add. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Coming back to director's report.

Those were?

Yeah, they all passed.

You, Cindy and Chris, for your great job tonight. Awesome work. Planning Commission, thank you for everything you do. As a reminder, we have two meetings in February. Is that correct? Yeah. So that's the first regular meeting, which is

The eleventh.

The eleventh and the twenty fifth. So just remember to keep that in your schedules. And then for those that signed up for the League of California Cities Planning Commissioners workshop, thank you very much. If you need anything from us, please let us know. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any commission comments or announcements?