Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Are you ready, Frances?

Yes, I am.

Okay. Good evening. I would like to call the Planning Commission meeting for December 10 to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I would like to ask the staff to please explain the meeting procedures.

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 Sreedharan?

Yes.

Commissioner Hassan?

Yes.

Commissioner Brownlee?

Here.

Commissioner Zeng?

Present.

Commissioner Zhaer Morad?

Here.

Vice Chair Lee?

Here. Chair Kauser? Here. All present. Thank you.

Our next agenda item is approval of minutes. Can I please have a motion or unless there's any additions or corrections? Badhi?

I Thank second

you, Paul. All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Motion

passes. Thank you. Oral communication on 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 such items.

However, the Planning Commission may instruct staff accordingly regarding oral communications. At this point, I would like to open public comment on non agendized items. Francis, can you please explain the public comment process and announce our first speaker? Francis? Do we know if she's still on?

Okay. We don't have anyone online.

There are no hands raised online, Chair Kauser.

Thank you. And we don't see any public comments, non agendized item, in the audience either. So moving on to the next agenda item. To report on appeals rights, any interested person objecting to any decision on this agenda may file an appeal application with the city clerk within fifteen calendar days of the date of the decision. Our first public hearing item is 02/2001.

But before that, applicants and all their representatives have a total of ten minutes maximum for opening statements. All interested persons may appear and be heard during this meeting regarding the items on this agenda. If items on this agenda are challenged in court, members of the public may be limited to raising only issues raised at the public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the Planning Commission at or prior to the close of the public hearing. Members of the public may comment on any item for up to three minutes. Applicants and or their representatives have a total of five minutes maximum for the closing statements.

Moving on, can we have the staff report on the first agenda item, 2.1? Do we need to restart the meeting for that? We understand the Zoom may not be having the sound. So is that something that we need to be concerned about? Can you hear me okay? We can hear you, but we don't know about the Zoom.

Frances, can you hear me?

Okay. So should we continue or wait? Sure. So we'll just wait a few minutes until we can resolve the technical challenge. While we're waiting, if there are people in the audience who would like to speak on any agenda items, please step forward and complete a speaker card and hand it to a staff member.

Thank you.

Anjali, I believe the sound has been corrected. So you can continue when you're ready.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Frances. Go ahead, Christina.

There are three proposed changes to the code. Altering tree removal criteria number 11, which is for the creation of defensible space to be applicable throughout the city. Two, removing public noticing and right to appeal for trees with trunks located within five feet of a home. And three, reducing the tree planting requirement related to development projects in the wildland urban interface for the long term reduction of ladder fuels and wildfire fuels. The purpose of increasing the defensible space outside of the WUI is to allow for homeowners throughout Saratoga to create defensible space around their homes for wildfire and also for home insurance.

Since the Palisades fire in January 2025, I've been getting an increased interest in creating defensible space in areas not designated as high fire areas, and homeowners insurance companies are creating their own fire risk maps. The purpose of changes to the defensible space with regards to Zone 0 is to reduce obstacles for complying with defensible space best practices and help reduce the risk of wildfire spreading from vegetation to nearby structures. Recent laws require the establishment of an ember resistant defensible zone the first five feet around a structure, referred to as Zone zero. Since CAL FIRE is adopting a Zone zero where they will recommend nothing ignitable within five feet of a home, there is no discretion in whether removal of trees in this area would be in accordance with defensible space. This change would remove the right of appeal for the removal of trees in this zone.

Fuels in zones one, two, three are recommended for reduction, and there is a discretion in the tree removal to create defensible space in these zones. So removals in Zones one through three would still be subject to the usual neighborhood notification and appeal process. Tree permits are still required for these permits for these tree removals, and the replacement tree requirements remain unchanged. Reducing ladder and wildfire fuels, the proposing the proposal is to change the tree planting requirement for development projects. Instead of being equal to the assessed value of the removed trees, the new requirements would be to plant two trees for each tree that's being removed, granted that the trees that are planted will have the same benefit to the community once they're mature.

So no longer having the same value at time of planting, but having the same value at the time the trees are mature. The concern is that the replacements based on tree value, rather than the number of trees removed, favors planting many small trees and may increase ladder fuels as well as general wildfire fuels. Many homeowners do over plant understory trees in order to meet these tree planting requirements. And the purpose is to reduce the long term growth of vegetation and wildfire fuels in the WUI. My concern with this change is that without the value requirement in replacements, trees that maintain in replacement trees, excuse me the main disincentive for removing large mature trees in the WUI for development projects, particularly for projects that fall under the state laws that prohibit subjective project requirements.

Please let me know if you have more questions about that as I got a little distracted when I was going to speak about that. Staff recommendation is to adopt the resolution recommending the City Council to make these changes to the city code, and I'm open for any questions.

Thank you. Do we have questions for Christine? Paul?

Yeah, with respect to the first change that you were proposing, if you could put that up. So if I understand the proposed change, it's going to allow tree removable anywhere within a defensible space in all areas of the city?

Yes, that would be correct.

So that in defensible space as I understand it is zones one, two, three and

Yes. Okay. In order for the creation of defensible space.

Okay. So practically in in a home like mine, what it would mean that basically my whole lot is defined by CAL FIRE as defensible space. I mean it's you know a 100 feet by a 100 feet. So what you're saying is is that any tree on my property can now be removed?

That's not actually how the defensible space works.

You look at the

thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry. If you look at the diagram on the screen, the first five feet is now the ember resistant zone, and so that is going to be zero vegetation as a recommendation from CAL FIRE. They're required to have those recommendations solidified at the end of the month, but they've pretty much released what they're intending for that, which is no flammable materials within five feet of a home.

I understand zone zero.

And then moving out from that you have 30 feet from the home where you'd have reduced wildfire fuels and that reduction goes to a 100 feet of the home. So it's not reducing removing all trees in that area but it is removing anything within 10 feet of a chimney. It's removing things within 10 feet of the roof of a home, above the roof of the home, and possibly spacing out some trees on the property as well.

Okay. My question back to the wording

Paul, can you get forward?

My question back to the wording of that first proposed change you're making, it doesn't talk about any of the zones. It says any tree in any defensible space can now be removed?

It actually does refer to CAL FIRE's requirements in criteria 11 and I can pull that up.

So does CAL FIRE's criteria, how many feet from the home does CAL FIRE consider defensible space then?

So it has within five feet of the home no vegetation and then within 30 feet of the home there's spaces between the vegetation. And then it changes as the slope increases for 100 feet from the home. But it doesn't mean all the trees in that area are now up for removal.

I'm struggling with the wording that you had on the slide and how you're describing it.

Oh.

As she's pulling that, if the commission feels that the verbiage could be clarified, we can certainly work on that at the staff level before it goes to city council.

Okay. Then I have no further questions. I will have some recommendations for wording changes when the time comes.

Okay. Thanks Paul. Go ahead Ping.

Yes. I don't know if this will help to clarify. There's a staff report that you have and there's a table. I don't know if it's on your slides. So you clearly said that defensible space outside of the WI and also the the change. What are the changes that are proposed? It's defensible space zone zero. It's pretty clear,

just

says That one's only defensible space, not zone zero. This is number two. I'll ask Yeah.

So I thought that it's the Zone zero that changed, that first of all, residents must wait for the public notification period and have all other defensible space requirement met before permit can be issued. And that changed too that with the tree removal permit is still required amendment would remove the public notification. I don't know if you have

Yes. There's two separate changes that we're talking about here. There's the change where defensible space removals can be conducted outside of the WUI area of the city. Mhmm. And then there's the other change that introduces zone zero for the removal of the notification period and appeal process. So those are two separate changes. Okay.

Okay. So actually I have a follow-up question.

Okay.

I think what will help is to show us the zone. What is zone, how, where it is, what is the Wildland Urban Interface

On the city map?

Yeah, it's right now versus, I mean, and now we're expanding the same. I mean Okay. Yeah. Absolutely.

That will help. Right now, the Wildland Urban Interface is mostly South Of Highway 9 and West Of Saratoga Sunnyvale Road with most of Farwell Avenue also included in that. Mhmm. But I can absolutely include maps into the staff report or any if you want maps included.

Okay. That will I think that will be

helpful. Yeah. Other questions? Go ahead, Parndui.

So this is a hypothetical question, but if I want to remove a tree that is in outside zone one, thirty to a 100 feet from a property, does anything change from our current requirements? Right now, I need to get a permit for it and plant a replacement tree. Right?

Only if you're inside the WUI. So typically, if I'm unsure whether a tree would meet the CAL FIRE requirements, I'll reach out to Fire Safe Council, and they'll help me with what the requirements are for the particular slope in that area and for the fire road access in that area. Got it. Because those are somewhat changeable depending on those factors to CAL FIRE and Fire Safe Council.

That makes sense. Thank you.

Mhmm. Other questions? Seeing none, we're going to open it for public hearing. Francis, do you have any speakers while I call we have one speaker for item 2.1, Anthony Fisher. You have three minutes to speak.

Yes.

No. You hear me?

I think you have to press the button. No, down there.

Oh, there it is. Okay. There. I can hear myself. All right.

Listen, thank you very much. Good evening, commissioners. I am Anthony Fisher representing myself, a condominium owner in Saratoga with many nearby tall trees in my condominium complex. Regarding the proposed amendment of Saratoga municipal code by modifying article 15 dash 50, I request for safety reasons an additional exemption for tall trees with limbs whose quote, drip or or crash zone, end quote, is significantly above a condominium roof, even if such trees are not in a fire hazard. In January 2023, my neighbor's condominium, which is connected to my unit, had a branch crash through her roof and into her room below.

The adjacent tall redwoods to her condominium and mine have limbs with quote, drip or crash zones, end quote, sufficiently above our roofs, even though their trunks are more than five feet from these buildings. Thank you very much.

Thank you. At this time, we have no one in the audience. Francis, please go ahead and introduce the first speaker online.

The speaker with the acronym SESH, Please accept the prompt to speak.

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah. So thank you again. My name is Sash Tiramala. We have a situation where we have a very large oak tree with significant large limbs over our house, and the tree is situated within five feet of my house. I had a major difficulty last year even getting my home insurance renewed because the inspectors considered, you know, the coverage to be at risk just given the nature of the vegetation and the proximity of the large oak tree to my house.

I'd I'd like to request a means by which I could get this potentially reviewed, And then I'm happy to replace two, three replacement trees. It's just for the safety of the property that we do worry about the proximity of the large tree.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

No other hands are raised, Chair Kauser.

Okay. Seeing no more public comments, we're going to close public comments and bring it back to the Commission to continue our discussion. Go ahead, Clinton.

So I just wanted to clarify my understanding since there were a few questions at the beginning. It sounded like there were three proposals. And the first one was that currently tree removal for defensible space reasons is allowable within the WUI but we're extending that to the rest of the city now. And then the defensible space tree removal currently requires public noticing and public comment. And we're streamlining that process with this change to allow that to happen more efficiently, effectively. And then the third having to do with planning requirements and two for one with value coming due later in life. Were those the three changes that we were considering today?

Yes. The waiving of the notification period in the appeal process is only for trees whose main trunk is within five feet of the building, not for all defensible space removals.

Nice. And then the other question, comment I had was, I guess, from some of the conversations we've heard, is there some distinction between trunk distance from home versus branch distance from? Like how are we incorporating what might be within defensible space in terms of the structure of the trees?

The main trunk of the tree would need to be within five feet of the home.

Okay.

So if there's a scaffold branch that reaches out over the home, that wouldn't be the main trunk of the tree within five feet of the home.

Okay. Thank you. Mhmm.

Just a follow-up to that. So that trunk can be trimmed if it is coming over because you're trimming a trunk and not the tree.

Correct. Yes. If it's if it's a scaffold branch that's coming away from if it's the main trunk of the tree where the trunk goes into the ground and you have to remove that to get your five feet, then that tree would not require a notification at this point if if this were approved.

Okay. Paul? So

then going back to the with respect to the first proposal that I had the question about, would it it only says defensible space. If that was changed to the same wording as in the second which is defensible space zone one within five feet of the house, what would that impact be?

Because

that's As what I would like to opposed to having all defensible space removals throughout the city, it would just be zone zero so that people could clear five feet from their home outside of the buoy.

Right. And then our regular rules would apply to zones Zero. One and two. Right. Okay. Then my recommendation is to make that first thing instead of blanket defensible space, which actually would include for most people most of their lot, it's we don't to change it to defensible space zone zero as in proposal number two.

So you mean the first box where it says this addendum will allow tree removal for defensible space in all areas of the city. You want the staff to add in Zone 0?

Yeah.

Is that Is the everyone good with that? Is that fine? Okay. Other questions or go ahead.

Yes. I have additional question. I think earlier this year, I think we have the Planning Commission agreed on adding the tree ordinance into our work plan for 2025. And I'm curious, is this part of that work plan or this is separate?

This is just a continuation of the wildfire task force, and it's not part of the planning commission work plan. The city is continuously doing things to make our city more fire safe. We've had two policies rolled out last year, and this is a continuation of this process to make sure our citizens are safe.

Thank you. Then this question might be for Cindy then. Yes, what's our plan and when do we plan to do that project as part of the planning commission?

So I can pull up the work plan verbiage and we can talk about it under directors' comments. Sure.

Okay. So if you're all good, I would like a motion, please.

I'll make a motion to approve the item as stated with the amendment that the first element be changed from defensible space outside of the wildfire zone to defensible space zone one parenthesis within five feet of home parenthesis outside of wildfire.

It's the third part.

Yeah. Either way. Yeah.

Yeah. Here. This is the proposed change. That's the topic.

Okay.

So to allow defensible space for zone zero outside of the WUI.

Yes. Perfect. That would be the motion.

Have a second? Thank you. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Commissioner Srutaran? Aye. Commissioner Hassan? Aye. Commissioner Brownlee?

Aye.

Commissioner Zhang? Aye. Commissioner Drummerald?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee?

Aye.

Chair Kauser? Yes. Passes unanimously.

Thank you. Moving on to Item No. 2.2, the short term rental ordinance. Can we please have the staff report?

Good evening Chair Causer, members of the Planning Commission, ladies and gentlemen of the audience in person and online. My name is Brian Swanson and I serve as the Community Development Director for the beautiful city of Saratoga. So for some background tonight, at the 10/01/2025, City Council meeting, the council discussed short term rentals and unanimously directed staff to refer a draft ordinance to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and recommendation to the council. The draft is largely based on the Los Gatos short term rental ordinance. An application in short term rental license would be required for each property and could be revoked if the owner is out of compliance with the ordinance such as related to health and safety issues, parking, occupancy and nuisance control.

Unhosted rentals would be capped at thirty days. Penalties could also be imposed for violations of the ordinance. The number of short term rental licenses would be capped at 5% of the housing stock of the city. Transient occupancy taxes would be collected for short term rentals and paid to the city. Currently, short term rentals, which are rentals of fewer than 30 which are rentals of fewer than thirty consecutive days, are not allowed in Saratoga.

The draft short term rental ordinance would allow them subject to a comprehensive regulatory framework. The ordinance is intended to allow private homes to be used for short term lodging while protecting community character, housing stock, and public safety. Specifically, the ordinance seeks to safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of renters, hosts, and neighbors preserve the city's residential housing supply and community character prevent nuisances such as noise, trash and parking conflicts and ensure collection of transient occupancy taxes, otherwise known as TOT and provide clear licensing, enforcement, and compliance standards. The draft ordinance includes some key provisions in which I'll go over. So everything with an ordinance, it's always important to have a definition section.

And so the ordinance defines important terms such as hosted and unhosted rental in primary residence. Licensing. All STRs, which are short term rentals, are required to have an annual non transferable license from the city. Licenses expire at end of year or upon sale or other transfer of the property. Licenses may be denied or revoked for safety violations, incomplete applications, false statements or outstanding penalties and taxes.

The number of licenses would be capped at 5% of the city's stock with a waiting list if demand exceeds the cap. The city currently has a housing stock of approximately 11,504 units, Meet unit meaning that there could be up to 575 STR licenses in effect at one time. Business license and taxes. Hosts must obtain an annual business license and collect and remit TOT to the city. Records must be maintained for three years.

The ordinance provides that the state's recently enacted short term rental facilitator act of 2025 will apply to Saratoga. The law requires companies that facilitate short term rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo to provide cities with data on the location and use of short term rentals in the city. The city will use this information to ensure that all rentals are properly licensed and take enforcement action against those that are not. Eligibility. STRs may only be operated at a host's primary residence.

Application requirements. Residents must provide proof of residency, identify a local twenty fourseven representative to address complaints within one hour, acknowledge occupancy and parking limits, provide evidence of HOA approval if applicable, provide online advertising details, demonstrate compliance with the building code, and pay all applicable fees. We also have used caps. So unhosted rentals, which means the owner is absent from the home, are limited to thirty nights per year. Hosted rentals, which means the owner is present at the home, are allowed to up to 180 nights a year.

For occupancy, a maximum of two adult occupants per bedroom plus one additional person per unit is allowed overnight. Operational standards. STRs must comply with the building, fire, and health codes, provide adequate sleeping and bathing facilities, ensure weekly trash service, and restrict parking to on-site spaces. Accessory dwelling units. STRs are not allowed in in accessory dwelling units, which are ADUs.

State law prohibits those. They are also prohibited in below market rate housing or non owner occupied apartment units. A host may hold only one STR license in the city, and it must be for their primary residence. Rentals to accompanied unaccompanied minors and activities exceeding noise limits or creating nuisances are prohibited. Commercial events such as weddings, parties, cooperative functions are prohibited.

Enforcement and penalties. The first violation would be a warning. The second, a $250 fine. A third, a $500 fine plus license revocation immediate revocation is authorized for TOT nonpayment, false statements, or severe violations. Violations and revocations may occur for three or more violations in in a year, operating without a valid license, TOT nonpayment, providing false information and licensing process, operating in violation of the ordinance, or other severe violations.

Hosts may appeal denials or revocations to a hearing officer. The hearing officer decisions are final. Rev revoked licensees are prohibited from reapplying for five years. There is an amnesty period. So existing unpermitted STRs may apply for an STR license for the first six months that the ordinance is in effect if all requirements are met and past TOT obligations for twenty four months are paid for the twenty four prior months to be paid.

Unpermitted STRs that do not meet those requirements will be subject to code enforcement. The comparison of this STR ordinance, we compared this to other Santa Clara counties, including Cupertino, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Los Gatos. The planning commission has three options tonight. The first option is to recommend approval of the ordinance as is. The second option is to recommend approval with conditions from the Planning Commission.

Or the third option is to recommend denial of the ordinance. The Planning Commission is really geared for land use regulations. So it's really great that the Planning Commission gets to talk about that tonight. The Planning Commission is not involved with taxes or fines or fees. However, if you'd like to include that in your recommendation, we will pass that on to the city council for their consideration. The city council is the body that creates taxes and fees and fines. And so I just would like to also tell that to the the planning commission. That concludes the staff presentation. Thank

you. Do we have questions for staff at this time? Go ahead, Paul.

Brian, with respect to our reporting to the state, I know that we're trying to add housing to the city. Do STA or do these short term rentals impact that reporting at all? I mean does count as if it's an occupied home or does it somehow change the way the state looks at us for counting our numbers?

A great question, and I appreciate that question. I might have Cindy kind of bounce in a little bit, too, with my response. But HCD wants to see the production of housing, the opportunity for individuals to find safe housing. And so in STR, you'll see that in some communities for traveling nurses, folks that are traveling that need a place to stay, you know, in between jobs. And so while it may not move the needle with HCD in terms of our the units that we have to plan for in our eight year reporting cycle, I think it's a feather in the city's cap when we do report to HCD that we do have an STR regulated license program.

So just to piggyback off that. We wouldn't report this as first off, STRs wouldn't be allowed in a deed restricted affordable unit, would be reported to the state. So if somebody built a brand new home, I would count as our above market rate homes, just like any other home in the city.

Sure. With respect to the parking, you said it had to be on-site. We have properties that do not have on-site parking. Are they automatically then precluded from becoming a short term rental?

Thank you for the question. Parking is always a big issue with STRs, but also overall, there's never enough parking in the world. But on-site parking must remain in a garage, carport, or on a driveway meeting the standards of the Saratoga Municipal Code. So

So a property that does not have any of those elements would be precluded from being an STIR?

Thank you for the question. And it's correct.

Thank you.

Yeah. Other questions? Go ahead. Question.

Yeah. So Brian, so this STR is only restricted to the ADU of the single family house or it's you can actually pretty much run any rooms from a single family house?

Well, thank you for the question. So STRs are not allowed in any ADUs.

Not allowed? Not allowed.

So Okay.

In a primary residence, if you have bedrooms that are converted to STR units, you'd be able to rent rent those out Mhmm. But not allowed in ADUs at all.

Okay. Thank you.

And our housing element does not allow STRs and

ADUs either.

Thank you.

Other questions? Go ahead, Bhatia.

So you mentioned existing unpermitted, but you also mentioned CyroTucker doesn't allow it today. So how would you even find out? Is there any methodology here? Yeah. I did I just did a quick Airbnb search and there are homes in Saratoga that show up.

Right. Yeah. It's a great question. So STR is not allowed in Saratoga, but as your research has found on Vrbo or Airbnb, they're out there. And what what's happening is that we are not collecting TOT revenue from those units and we are not providing any regulation to those units.

And

so if if folks send us code compliance tickets to look into those properties, we will respond to those. One of the issues is sometimes there's not addresses associated with some. But having a regulated program requires those non complying STRs to come into compliance and actually have regulation with them. So we would and then plus, once this if this is recommended for approval or denial, when it goes to the city council and if this is eventually approved, the city will be working with a consultant, HDL, who will actually serve as the the middle entity between the short term rentals and the city to ensure that we're receiving taxes

Okay. From all those units.

I have one more question. You mentioned the 5% limit on homes. Yep. Was there a scientific reason behind that? And if not, like, where did that number come Yeah.

Thank you. That's a great question. Just so for everyone's knowledge, we've done a lot of different research. And so Palm Springs, which is a very it's a touristy area, they go up to 20% of the housing stock for STRs. And so we came upon 5% in Saratoga simply for the fact that we're following the Los Gatos model that has 5%. So there's no scientific reasoning behind the number other than just kind of following the current ordinance with Los Gatos.

Can I have a follow-up question to that? How did you come up with the days? Like, why ninety nights, or thirty nights, or sixty nights?

It was definitely from the Los Gatos ordinance as well.

So if we are restricting I'm going to be a devil's advocate here, just so that everybody knows. If we're restricting the number of units, why there is a restriction on the number of nights? How are you going to keep track of it? Who's going to be enforcing that?

Well, they have to fill out a license to have an STR with the city. The enforcement mechanism, though, will be the HDR that's going to be collecting the revenue. But also, you know, we will be we will have the authority to check-in on an on an STR to make sure that they're meeting the required days that they're there. So we have a the enforcement mechanism will be the city of Saratoga in conjunction with HDL, who will work with Airbnb and Vrbo to manage our expectations of how many nights a certain property has per month. Just

to continue with the questions is like, why did the city decide to do that rather besides regulating? Is the city looking for increasing revenue basis?

Thank you for the question. It's a great question. So as you know, Saratoga, it's a beautiful community. But we rely on really residential property taxes. We have really wonderful businesses here. We're thankful for those businesses. They do produce a revenue source. But we are seeking additional revenue sources that will help us. And so if you look at Los Gatos, there's a lot of commercial there, a lot of different forms of revenue sources coming in. And so Saratoga is somewhat limited in that.

And so this is an opportunity that the city could capture revenue with the upcoming World Cup in the summer. And if you did look at the ordinance, we were allowed to go back in time to have STRs that were not permitted to pay their back taxes. And so perhaps there's tax revenue we could collect through the Super Bowl that's going to be happening next month.

Yeah. But that's just limited. So if the city really wants to increase the revenue base, then why have so many restrictions on it also? And why have and if you have a business license you want to do, why do you need an external consultant to monitor these for you because you will be paying the fees to this consultant too. So you're taking away from the revenue of the city. And why not just directly contract with the sites that provide this service?

I appreciate the question. It's a good question. Through our discussions and so the Community Development Department will be monitoring from the land use perspective of these STRs, building codes, health codes. The administrative services department, which is our finance department for the city of Saratoga, will be in charge of the business licenses, working with HDL as the consultant to make sure the revenue is coming in. And part of our discussions, Chair Causer, is to make sure that the fees that HDL will be assessing on the city is baked into the application fee for an STR license with the city. So we're looking for cost recovery from using a consultant. Yeah.

Okay. I just don't like that model, but that's fine.

I understand.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah. I have another question about the TOT. So assuming owner of the STR, he got a license. Oh, sorry. He got a license from the city. He paid a fee. So he put up his STR on the LBMB. Okay, so MAB can basically rent his house, right? So through that business, is that LBNB will pay a tax, the local sales tax to the city also? So in that case, have two double fee collected for the city, right?

Well, we would be receiving the TOT revenue.

Right?

So the when you if you ever use an Airbnb, you'll see all the taxes you pay. Well, the state, the county gets tax. Now we will be able to get a tax. Okay. But we'll also be able to get the TOT the application fees recouped back to the city. And so those are cost recovery fees that will have to be applied for quite often.

Yeah. So basically, there's another piece of tax, the sales tax, which will be payable by the Airbnb to the city. Right? This is business.

Exactly. Yeah. It's a very good point. The ancillary benefits of someone using in their Airbnb, maybe they're going to Safeway to spend money at groceries. You know, they're filling their tank up and gas going to our restaurants. So we have the ancillary benefits that we can't really we don't know how much they spend. But we're assuming, if they're coming to Saratoga, they're spending money here.

Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Seeing none, I'm going to open it for public comments. And we will start with people in the audience. And Francis, we'll turn it over to you. And everyone will have three minutes for public comments. My first speaker is Anna Esnas.

Hello everyone. So I live on a private street on Hilltop Way in Saratoga. We have about five houses. This spring, we had one of the neighbors renting illegally their house, big house, on Airbnb. So, for three months, we had loud parties, insane amount of cars parked on the street, on a narrow, private street. We had a lot of trash because people would have a party. Like, we had three parties a week that, and most of the people who would come, they wouldn't cook. They would like order takeout and whatnot. We had people wandering in our backyards, because half of our backyards are not fenced in. They're open for the wildlife.

We have like big one acre properties. I found out about it because one group of teenagers knocked on my door at 11:00 at night looking for Airbnb. So, that's how I found out the neighbors were renting their house, and they were pretending that that didn't happen. So, I called the city, city, said that they will try to take care of it. Nothing was done for like a month and a half.

And then later, they rented the house for long term rentals, but we had so many issues. It was ridiculous. So, our main concern on the street is that when we have a lot of Airbnb renters, they don't know the local rules, they park anywhere, they block our streets, and it's not safe. We can't get, like, a fire truck up the street. The trash everywhere that pollutes our creeks and the liability if someone is wandering my backyard and they're going to break their leg or whatnot, because it's kind of a wildlife area, like, I'm going to be liable for someone wandering my backyard.

So, we are asking the people who live on private streets that are not taking care of the city of Saratoga, I'm liable for the safe Like, we have to take care of our pavement, we have to take care of our litter, we have to take care of the street, basically. The city is not going to help us with any of that. So, we are asking to take the private streets off that ordinance, like not allow the Airbnbs on private streets. Or, if you guys still want to do that, we're asking for every person who lives on the street to sign on that and say, yes, I agree to have my neighbor's house to be rented on Airbnb. So, thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Ian Craigford.

Hi there. Good evening. So when I look at the short rental proposal, number one, ensure safety, welfare and convenience of rentals, owners and neighbors' property owners. This is ridiculous. We had so many parties in our street.

Hilltop Way in Saratoga. Five houses is a cul de sac. It's about I don't know. We measured it. You put a car on each side, there's seven feet between them. That's it. A fire truck is 10 feet wide. I've had medical emergencies myself. If I couldn't get an emergency system in my house, I would have died. So you cannot do this.

Now, other than that, the noise, disrespectful parking. I had somebody parked across my gate. Ridiculous. I had to go and ask them to find the owner, move the car. They came out eventually. I got out of my car, went to the shops, came back. He'd parked exactly the same place. No responsibility. Nothing. No noise control from police.

They're overwhelmed. They cannot answer it. They'll come the next day maybe, but they can't get to us. So my proposal is, at a minimum, you do not allow private street places where you we're responsible to remetal the road. We're not going get any help and we're paying huge amount of taxes.

So we're not getting any benefits from that. So at a minimum, get private streets off or small cul de sacs removed. And if not, then as my neighbour said, we need to have a veto on whether the property is rented from the majority of people who are in that street. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Kate Cowleys. Oh, it's Pat? I'm sorry.

I also live on a cul de sac, but it's not a private road. It's a public road. However, it is a very small cul de sac. And in the area there are probably seven streets that are also cul de sacs. So my first question would be, is this citywide you would recommend this for? Or are there only areas that you would recommend this for? I would recommend it for Montalvo. They have wide frontage streets. But I could probably guarantee you that their neighbors wouldn't like it. Well, our neighbors wouldn't like it either.

And I bet all of us have rented a VRBO at one time in our lives. The last time we did, which was down in San Diego, really cute house, my family and I were very respectful of the home and treated it like our own. But there were signs everywhere that said, go home, we don't want VRBO, we don't want you know these short term rentals, Everywhere, everywhere. No one likes them. I recognize that it's revenue for the person that owns the home. That's probably the number one thing. They really don't care which is what you said. There's already homes that are doing this on the sly. They don't care that you get your money. They care that they get their money.

That's really what it's all about. They want some extra income. So at the risk of everyone else, they will do it and they'll continue to do it. So, my other point is code enforcement, I don't buy it. I've been on the other end of trying to get code enforcement for other issues. Uh-uh. No one's doing it. You think you've got one. They're not out there like this person said. You can't get the police. You can't get a code enforcement person. You can't get them to respond. Even if they respond, they don't have the capability really of doing anything about it at that time, at that moment, or even days later. And thirty days, I mean I could go on forever. But thirty days, that's two days at a time.

Every weekend for 30 times. That's ridiculous. So I don't see personally, I recognize it can be revenue for the city and that's all wonderful. That's the only benefit. The only benefit. The rest of it I think is a bunch of hogwash and I don't care what street, where it is and and if we all raise our hands, do you want a neighbor next to your house as a VRBO? Raise your hand if you want a VRBO neighbor.

Oh no.

See

and this is a very small group, but you could ask the same thing online. You could take a poll for the whole city and I'll guarantee you no one wants them as a neighbor. They may say, oh yeah, do it over here. Do it over there. Do it in this house, this area. But I don't want one as a neighbor. Nobody does. And I don't think you guys do either. So, I can't see that you'll recommend any part of this. I don't care that Los Gatos does it. They have a cute little walkable town. Cute little houses. So, want to do it. But the rest of us, uh-uh. There's nothing here. We have a bedroom community. It needs to stay that way. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you. No worries. Francis, please introduce the first speaker.

Thank you, Chair Kauser. Keith Mueller, please accept the prompt to speak.

Hi. This is Keith and Cindy my wife, Cindy Miller. I just have a couple comments. I read the article that was in the Saratoga News on the October 24. I had a number of reactions and questions to it.

In it, like in the first section, Brian said that, you know, we haven't heard of any complaints. Well, it's because, a, it's not officially supposed to be happening, and b, you don't really have a procedure to accept and act on complaints just as as the other neighbors have just said. I think that's a problem. In the article, he also said with 11,500 some houses, the goal was to raise 80,000. I think if you took a poll or or just I'd be so happy to pay $10 for my property, and I'm sure the majority of the 11,000 houses would pay $10 a year or more to not have STRs, and and make up that revenue.

I thought it was a little naive of, the one commissioner said, well, why should it be restricted? If you want revenue, we should make it bigger. You heard the problems. The per the reason is if you care about the community and the and and what we have here in Saratoga, it it's not for the money. It's it's for the community, and that's a a big difference.

Let's see. And also, that $80,000 doesn't include the cost of the enforcement, the reporting, everything else that you have to do in response to this that you start to open up. And you also mentioned that some people were against it, but they but on the council, but they acknowledged the need for revenue and workforce housing. How does this how does this help workforce housing? It's, such a short period of time.

You can't have workforce housing for thirty days a year or or weekends. Doesn't make any sense. I also have a second home up in Truckee. I've experienced this very problem. We opened up, SCRs even at Tahoe Donner, and, it just caused nothing but headaches for the neighbors.

These people come in and they and yes, they have okay. You have three bedrooms, has three bed has three families that they try to squeeze in those places. They overwhelm our facilities and and leave a lot of garbage. It just is not something that is without its its cost as well as the 80,000 revenue. And I think if the fact that you make it owner occupied helps because in Truckee, we have investors and companies that buy those and rent them as STRs only. They're not there. They don't really care at all except for the money. And that's caused the majority of the problems. So anyway, I guess my time is up. So I thank you and please don't do this to us.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Lloyd, please accept the prompt to speak.

Hi. My name is Lloyd. I'm a been a resident of Saratoga since 1985. I'm 76, a widower, and I'm totally opposed to this. I agree with all the other speakers.

The only and and if you took a poll of Saratoga residents, I think about 80% of the Saratoga residents would be opposed to it because it changes the character of the neighborhoods that we live in. That's the point. It are hotels that can take visitors. I don't wanna live next to a hotel with people who I don't know moving in, moving their stuff out. And I think that most Saratoga residents, probably about 80%, agree with that sentiment.

Plus, like the last speaker said, the amount of bureaucracy that you're creating for yourself to monitor this, to enforce it, to regulate it, to issue penalties, to enforce penalties, it's a huge bureaucracy that we don't need. I would suggest just sending having the city attorney send a letter to to Vrbo and to Airbnb letting them know that it's Short term rentals are prohibited in Saratoga. Let them know what the penalty is if a homeowner rents their home. Send it to send them a copy of the of the the law. Puts put the put their short term rental businesses on notice that's illegal in Saratoga.

I will volunteer to monitor both of those set sites for free, and I'll report if there's houses on, and I'll do that for a year. No charge weekly, and I'll report to anybody at the city who's violating it. And you should be able to find the owner from I'm sure that if you're renting it, you could find out where the house is. So I'm just totally opposed to it. I'm surprised that the city's even considering it.

It'll it'll change the the nature of our neighborhoods, and that's the that's the issue. And I I sent the, the staff member a, an email. We have porch pirates. We have mailbox thieves. We have home and car burglars. We've got enough people in the neighborhoods that shouldn't be there. We don't need to bring in more. If the city needs more revenue I can understand that the city always wants more revenue. I'm not aware of how the budget is going. I think we could find a different way to raise revenue or maybe cut expenses. That's that's my 2¢. I'm totally opposed to it. And I think 80% of the homeowners in Saradoga are opposed to it.

Thank you. Next speaker please.

I don't have any other hands raised on line. Chair Kauser.

Thank you. I don't see any other cards here. Would you please come up? If you could please come up here and state your name and then you can fill a card after.

Hi, my name is Ann Furlong. I live at the end of Douglas Road, which is also a private cul de sac road. And I've had a very similar experience to this neighbor. And again, it's a private road, so the city isn't necessarily going to do anything you know, to accommodate on the private road for that. I don't have anything much different than anyone else other than the fact that I really don't see a need for this.

I do not think that the income generated by the time you calculate in your expenses is actually worth it. And just as another commentator said, if you approached the members of the community, I'll bet anybody would be willing to up their own little tax a little bit to cover what income you might be making from this. I can't really believe that Saratoga needs to do this to gain income. And when the neighbor next to us had Airbnb happening, I frankly it wasn't even me that reported it, because I really didn't know what was going on, except that I was so distraught I thought I would have to move. Because people were parking in and around the cul de sac.

Again, it's a very small cul de sac. And that still happens. It's just a small cul de sac. And people park up in it. And if emergency vehicles came through, there would be a problem with that. That's a problem. But we did have worker vehicles there. We had construction trucks pulling trailers, pulling up on the curb, and just, you know, the beep beeps of the car locks all night long, the people coming and going. They're futzing with their equipment and getting ready at, you know, five in the morning to go out. It was a nightmare.

And I just, as I say, cannot imagine Saratoga would even contemplate this way of generating more revenue. And that's my opinion. Thank you. Thank you.

Please come up to the mic and you can complete a form after.

I just want to mention that one of the speakers earlier has a hand raised again. I'm just going to let him know that you're only allowed to speak once just in case it's another person in his household.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. My name is James Wong. I just want to add a comment. I live on Mount Pear Way. I just want to say there's a couple, they rent their house as Airbnb for years.

And from what we see, many of our neighbors car at night got break in, even neighbors street. And also, the worst case happened once or twice I think. A single widow lady live in her house across the street and one night there's 10 young people with mask breaking the house, rip off everything in ten minutes. The lady is still in the room, she was so scared, just sit on the sofa, don't dare not to to move. That's exactly what happened to our house because they rent the house as an Airbnb.

Ended up, the Airbnb become a crime house. They watch the neighbors. So, I don't think short term rental should be done unless you want to increase Saratoga's crime rate. That's my point. Thank you.

Thank you. Francis, do you have any new hands or you're all good?

Mr. Mueller, I just want to confirm that you are trying to speak again on the same line.

Hi. No. This is Cindy Mueller. Sorry. I didn't log in on my own computer.

Go ahead, Cindy.

So I just want to voice that I also oppose this as it's proposed. As Keith mentioned, we've seen this firsthand. It changes the nature of the community. It does, like the last gentleman said, increase potential for crime. We have a neighborhood watch. You can't effectively do that if you have strangers coming and going all the time. I think the other thing, if you consider a family renting a house, you think, Oh, it's just a family. But with two adults per bedroom plus another adult, if you have a four bedroom, you now have nine adults. You could have another nine or even 18 children in this house. And again, we have seen this.

They pack them in, they're in vacation mode, as even some of my own family members call it, and they're partying or just, you know, coming and going and making a lot of noise. I don't see how that helps our workers in the city. I would say, and again, I'm not saying I would be favorable to this, but the very minimum, if we really needed housing for, you know, employees, then an owner occupied, owner present renting a room would satisfy that need. I think everything else Keith kind of covered. So again, I just wanna say I really oppose this.

It does change the nature of our community. And I do appreciate the efforts everyone's put into it, but I think we probably aren't alone in most people. I don't even think a lot of our neighbors know about this meeting going on right now, which I think is unfortunate. Surveys. Oh, yeah. The other thing, maybe there could be a survey done so that it does go out to all of the residents and people can actually know that this is I mean, good friends of ours. I should have told them about the meeting Because one of them just texted me and said he didn't know. So I guess just wanna state that we are in opposition of it. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no more speakers, I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Go ahead Clinton.

I guess some of the comments we heard had to do with distinguishing between different types of roads and areas within the city and thinking about that. Do we have information about different like private cul de sac road versus public roads? Would we even be able to make those distinctions? Or would it take more information to be able to distinguish between different roads and neighborhoods?

We do have a private road list. If you look at Saratoga's map, so we have a private road list, but we also have a lot of cul de sacs in the community. Just the way that it's been developed over decades. And so private, we do have a private road list. And then

thinking about it two different ways, like a lot of the comments had to do with the nuisance within the community that occurs during STRs. And one of the ways that it was being communicated sounded like it's been going on, but because it's unregulated there's very little that's been done or been able to do. And part of creating a program would be setting up all of this regulation, ordinance and enforcement actions that could occur for that type of unruly behavior. So just wanted to hear from the city on your thoughts on things that have happened in the past in an unregulated world versus like the level of enforcement and actions that could be taken in the space of this program?

Sure. So the city has a code enforcement portal in which anyone can submit a code enforcement complaint and it gets sent to our code enforcement official. We also people can email us. People can call us after hours because we don't have someone that works 24 a day. Folks can call the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department.

They may respond or, depending on their level of service, kind of what, you know, what their level and priorities are. For the most part, though, the city hasn't received a ton of complaints. I've been here for two and a half years that folks have submitted to the code enforcement department and us taking action on. There has been a couple times of when someone was using an a d ADU for it wasn't even it wasn't even an Airbnb. It just was out there and people were using it.

There was no regulation at all. And so we do follow-up with that property owner. But keep in mind that when we visit a site, we have to give property owners thirty days to comply and they go through the compliance procedure. So with a regulated program, it's actually stronger. There's fines and it gives the city the ability to revoke a license pretty quickly if folks do not follow the rules.

Thanks.

Go ahead, Badri.

I have a follow-up on the private street question. Is it actually enforceable for us to deny or to limit activity to just public streets? I think that was

Yeah. It's a good question. So the ordinance is being proposed for all of Saratoga. However, the applicant, if the applicant's in an HOA, the applicant has to give us HOA regulations. And if the HOA approves of that property being an STR, private roads. So the the residents own the private road. They take care of the private road. But the homes within that private road are still within the bounds of the city of Saratoga and have to follow zoning rules. And so that's a regulation that would apply to STRs that are on private roads.

Other questions?

Zoom is off, maybe.

Female Oh yeah. It just seems to be rebooting. Should we wait a few minutes or continue?

Male We might want to continue. I don't quite know what is going on with Zoom.

Female Okay. Because people can still watch at home on the KCR.

KCR, that's right.

Female Okay. Oh, it just came back. I'm sorry, Paul?

Male Just going to check with you soon. So on the fines as proposed in the new thing, A neighbor of mine rents out. They have a loud party. I turn in the Claude enforcement thing saying my neighbor's having a loud party tonight. Tell me what the process is with the city. How does how does that owner end up getting money taken out of their pocket? I'd like to know how that process works.

So you would submit the the complaint.

Okay.

The city's code enforcement the city's code enforcement office will have to investigate the complaint. Okay. And that reach out to the property owner, give the property owner a warning.

Mhmm.

If the second violation occurs, this it's pretty clear that the city has the right to just levy the $250 fine. There's no appeal rights to that. The third violation is the fine plus license revocation. And so once that's revoked then the appeal the person can appeal it to an appeals officer in which the officer can then make the final determination.

The of the fine, if the, I turn it into the, I fill out the form, your code enforcement officer is gonna come to me and want me to provide photographs and a recording typically. And so I've got to have that available and I have that available for your your officer. The officer then goes and talks to the other property owner. If after those discussions, the officer thinks that the there there was a violation, The officer imposes the fine and there's no appeal rights for that officer's decision?

The the third so the second violation is $250 fine.

Right. And then Third But there's no No. Okay. So the officer's decision is final. Right. Okay. I just wanna understand the No.

Thank you for the question. And it's it's, you know, an STR, if an applicant receives an STR, that's a that's a privilege that that individual has. And so rather than a code enforcement so if we have someone that is building a house without a permit, it's it's more of an arduous process for that applicant to go through the process to get an application. They have appeal rights. And so this is more of a a privilege having this STR license and so it's it's more strict and it gives the city more ability to to revoke it.

So in the spirit of saying how I would if this were to go through, I would want the fines changed. The reason is that I have some property in San Diego that has problems with short term rentals. What happens there is, as was mentioned, people take advantage of Super Bowl events, other events. The places go, if you look at the Airbnb and stuff for what people are proposing to get during the Super Bowl, People are doing this at thousands of dollars per day. So a fine of $250 is just rounding error for anybody as part of this process.

So these fines are as they are set up and we heard people sharing with us here, they go up and tell people, gee, I'm gonna turn you in, to speak, and people just still park on their property and stuff. So if this was to go through, the fines have to have enough teeth. First off, there's no first warning. It's part of the when people sign up to to list their their home, they know the terms and conditions, so there's no first warning. The evidence that a person must provide for saying that there was noise or parking or whatever, the city would need to make it very explicit in whatever proposal the city council would want.

That proposal needs to be very explicit. They have to provide three photos or two photos, you know, but just really detailed what evidence does a resident have to provide for parking violations, for noise violations, you know, it needs to be very detailed. And then that evidence needs to be accepted on its face by the enforcement officer and the fine would need to be in the thousands of dollars per incident. And each incident would be separate. So if more than one neighbor complained, each incident.

The other thing I would ask is that the city seriously consider having the city attorney find a way to reimburse neighbors. So if I turn in my neighbor because I'm up at 03:00 in the morning, the city can get some fine money, but I ought to get reimbursed too. And there ought to be something in the in the code that we put into place that allows for neighbors to obtain some kind of redress for the actions of the person that's renting the property. Those would be the things that I propose for discussion.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Go ahead, Peggy.

Personally, I feel like this is pretty big, will have a big impact to our city. I mean, we live in Saratoga it's because our like royal feeling and our town. I mean, we all love the remote and the natural environment And we want our neighbors, we want to know our neighbors, and we don't want to turn it into Airbnb town. And so I feel like it's kind of opened a can of worm that we don't we do not know what what the consequences will be. And just based on what I'm hearing on the neighbors, I mean, right now, we don't allow it, the STR.

They're still happening and the neighbors are being impacted. And I'm wondering why don't we set up some fines. Right? Because we don't allow it. I mean, even even right now, why why do we have to wait to legally allow it to set up a fines? That's number one. And number two, we are doing this is because we're copying the same ordinance from Los Gatos. I'm not sure how long they have been doing this, opening it.

2019.

How long?

2018. 2019,

it says 2018.

Yeah. I'm just wondering what is the pros and cons from Los Gatos and their neighbors and the city, like really how much revenue that they're getting and how much work the city is putting in and how much cost there is? Should we gather some more data and to understand really what's the pros and cons and also our other neighboring cities, not just Los Gatos, maybe Cupertino, Los Altos, the the the cities that are similar to us that are in the foothill. And because the roads are narrow and lots of cul de sacs and lots of private streets, Should we, I feel like, really be careful, really be really consider all the factors for our town. Is this something that Sarah Token wants?

And I think I hear some recommendations about doing a survey. Why don't we do a survey and just see how ours, our community respond. That's all.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, I want to say okay.

I just have a comment. Yeah. Personally, I really think, you know, STI in Saratoga is not it's really against our small city character. So we've been pursuing, we're working so hard to try to maintain the city. So STI inserter are really going to bring a lot of the issues. I see I can foresee lots of issues. It's not like a $250 fine can resolve it. Right. So, yeah, personally, I can say. I just want to say that. Thank you.

I want to bring some more discussion to this, some ideas for thought. So what we have heard from our neighbors is that it's a nuisance, it's not regulated. And then we heard from staff, the reason we want to bring this is because we want to regulate it. How about we regulate it but it doesn't have to be allowed? Like why are we not talking about that aspect?

Because as we heard from our neighbors is that the amount it's going to generate is not you know, it's going to go away in all the court enforcement and all. It's not going to really generate good income for our city if that's one of the reasons we want to do it. Then why are we not using the resources we have to monitor it? And if you could help me, Brian, you had said that there is some new law that requires these sites to report to the cities if there are units that are on their site? And how does that law work? Do you know?

So the law is let's see here. Hosts must obtain an annual business license and collect and remit TOT to the city. Records must be maintained for three years. The ordinance provides that the state's recently enacted Short Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025 will apply in Saratoga. So the the this law requires companies that facilitate short term rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo to provide cities with data on the location and use of short term rentals in the city.

The city will then use this information to ensure that all rentals are properly licensed and take enforcement action against those that are not. So this ordinance would provide the state law, the Short Term Rental Facilitator Act, it will require these companies to report back to us.

So if I'm understanding you right, the only way these companies would provide that data to you is if we allow short term rentals?

With an ordinance.

With an, I know. With an ordinance if we allow it. But what if we have an ordinance but we don't allow it? Would they still give you that data?

If it's in the ordinance, we could definitely that would be something we would provide to the Airbnb in Vrbo. To say, hey, listen. It's not allowed. Here's the ordinance. Report to us.

So why do we not work on creating or setting up an ordinance or giving it back to the staff to come back with an ordinance that says that this is the ordinance that the city has adopted, and these are the rules so that the city can get that information from these providers, and then use our code enforcement officer to enforce it rather than being another thing that we are putting on our citizens to say, you know, complain on your neighbor, and then when the sheriff's office or the court enforcement is able to do it and then go through. Have all the stuff that we discussed, like have a fine, have the warning, you know, all those steps that we were talking about refined a little bit more. We don't, as you all said, we don't need to follow what the other cities are doing. We can look at it as what works for us, Saratoga, to do. So is it something we want to kind of talk and propose or suggest?

Go ahead, Bart.

I have one question before the $80,000 number, is that an accurate assessment of what we that's because I heard that

No, that was heard by somebody.

So what revenue are we expecting?

You know, Badri, it's or commissioner Sheridan, it's a good good question. We won't know until we start actually licensing and regulating and taxing the STRs. So it's it's tough to to say. If you go on Vrbo, there's a house that is being rented for $10,000 a night in Saratoga. And so, you know, that would that would add up with revenue. But we don't have an estimate as to how much.

What is the TOT in Saratoga? Because that's what the city would collect, would be the TOT

on Exactly.

I don't have the exact number.

Okay. Because I think

a guesstimate there would help a lot. If it's a really small number, there's one line of action. Uh-huh. If it's a meaningful number to the city, then that's something we should consider differently.

Other discussion items? How do we want to direct? What do we want to do next? Because we have to give some we have to take some action to this agenda item.

So I do agree that doing nothing is not an option. So we have to, which means that the third option of just simply denying this is not an option?

Don't think those are only the three options.

Well, it's my opinion that we should not just deny, and we should potentially approve with conditions. Some conditions seem straightforward to me, which is treat private residences kind of like HOAs and require majority approval of all the neighbors. I would also consider removing the thirty day limit on the non owner occupied one and just eliminate that entirely. Like if we have the owner has to live in the property that they're Airbnb ing, that has a different behavior versus if the owner is absent. And we have the option of looking at the 5% number and thinking about a more conservative number.

All these are options. So

I was just reminding that this what we have to do is make a recommendation to the City Council. So I guess you want to take notes and then we can come back and say these, you know, as long as all you get the majority to agree to those recommendations. And we don't have to like three options was what Brian said, but those are not limiting. We, as a commission, can come up with our own list of things that we want to recommend as the fourth option. Go ahead, Zahid.

So we do have an option to deny it also, right? It's on the table.

Yes. But denial only means that it will not be regulated. So if we want STRs to be regulated, we have to come up with something that we can recommend to the City Council and say, we don't want to have STR. Just by denying it doesn't mean STRs will stop. Those will continue like they're continuing currently, but if we want them to have as consequences, then we need to have some guidelines for that to recommend to the city council.

Yeah. No, I do get it. What I was saying that yes, you can do that, but we still don't want this STR to go forward with it. So yeah, you can have a regulation in place, but we do deny for STRs.

I think those are two different things. Like you're not you're so you're saying deny the way it's presented. Or what do you mean by deny?

We going to monitor all these things? Are we going to be able to enforce all these, you know, conditions that we're going to put in place? I think they are not enforceable. I think it'd be very impossible to do that. We have some situation in the past with the traffic, not even traffic, for parking regulations. We can, by the time you make a complaint, it'll take months before it can happen even if somebody come and visits. So I don't think it's even practical to even consider that.

Correct.

That's my point of view.

Clinton?

So just to piggyback on that, like, I think the two comments or suggestions that we've heard from the other commissioners were, you know, Chair Couser is saying if we're leaning towards just not wanting to encourage them or allow them in the city, then not just denying as proposed, but coming up with a recommendation for how to proceed with regulations on them in addition to not allowing them, but just then also Commissioner Paul was mentioning that we could, you know, modify the configuration of the existing regulation if we wanted to allow them. And Commissioner Sreedharan was also saying like, we can change some of the components. So I think what I've heard is, you know, having a conversation about either changing some of the components of this recommendation or as Chair Couser said, like doing a here's how we'd like to regulate it and avoid it. So that's where I thought the conversation was going.

Cindy wanted to add something and then

So the agenda has a recommendation. So the motion needs to make a recommendation as to whether to recommend the city council approve it, deny it, or modify it. You're making a recommendation to the city council. If there are additional things that you would like the city council to consider, I would put that in a separate recommendation or as part of a modification of the ordinance as drafted.

Yeah. So So if I understand, I just wanna recap what Or you you wanna do that? Go ahead.

Either way.

Go

ahead. Was going to try and jump ahead at the same time. What it sounds trying to get a sense of where we are, it sounds like the best way to respond to the city council is to say, yes, we want an ordinance that regulates short term rentals. We want it modified from what you presented to us by, and this is going appear drastic, but I'm just going to try and We'd like you to scrap everything that the staff has put together. No offend, but I mean just, you know, and we wanted to start by saying short term rentals are not to be allowed within Saratoga.

For those that exist

Come forward.

You Illegal.

Illegally, for those, you know, we will use the state law to find out who they are. We recommend that the city council put in stiff penalties for that in the in the thousands to tens of thousand dollars per per incident. I mean, big numbers. And then some of these other things that we put But basically the structure would be, yes, we're gonna have an ordinance. The top line is it's not legal to have one. If you do have one, here's the things that we, the way it gets regulated.

Is that

Did I capture what you're trying to do or not?

It's totally in the in the planning commissioner's realm to provide recommendation for what you want to recommend. You know, our task was it was a task by the city council to come to the planning commission with this ordinance. However, the planning commission wants to react to the ordinance and our recommendation is totally in your will

house. So

Okay. Go ahead, Henry.

Yeah. So I just have a question. So as today, so do we have a city law seeing the STR? STI is not allowed in the city? Do we have the ordinance or a law in the city in the reading statement?

No. No.

No? Then we should create a one.

Yeah. That's what we Okay.

Yeah. Then we should actually use that ordinance or that law to communicate with any like a LBMB, tell them our city, the STI is not allowed. So don't try to populate those, you know, requests online. So that that way we'll be very effective as as like, you know, today. We can do that. Not today, just like, you know, maybe in the next few weeks.

Recommend it

to the

Yeah, recommend that one. They also, I think we should deny this current ordinance. STI is not allowed.

Go ahead, Min.

Okay. I think I agree with my fellow commissioners. On top of that, I think I think it'll be good to get more research to understand what are the revenues. I mean when we think about it could generate revenue and what are the impact on our neighboring cities and just collect some data and

So I have another option to ask because if we want to correct more information, do we send it back? We don't send it to the city council. We table this agenda item and we request that the staff do, you know, talk about what revenue is it generating and what they're impacted. But before we do that, I want you to understand if most of us feel like it is not good to have an STR in the city, then why even make the staff go through those steps? Henry, what we would not deny it, we would modify it like Paul explained, because the only way we can get an ordinance in place, the only way we can recommend an ordinance to the city council is by modifying what's presenting.

And in that modification, as Paul said, top line is not allowed. And then everything else. Is that something

Well, I suppose that. I think that makes perfect sense to do it.

Anyone else? Go

ahead. My comment is, you know, like, cities shouldn't be draconian like this. So what's next? Like we disallow self driving cars or something like that. So like there are always newer forms of commerce and us just saying no is not, in my personal opinion, not an option, not a great option.

Us trying it out in a very controlled way I think is the direction I would go. I think there are some concerns I've heard that are very, very legitimate, we should address them. I think we've seen Los Gatos at 5%. We could try a lower percentage. I tried to do some math based on if 500 homes are being rented at a time, dollars 10,000 kind of numbers.

These are small numbers. I don't think they're going to be needle movers to the city in any way. But we haven't tried it much. So like for me, it's having blanket bans on any activity to me doesn't sound like a it doesn't sound like California. Like it feels like this is an innovative state, we do lots of cool things. We need to be able to try things out in a safe manner. So that would be my 2¢ on this.

So would the recommendation include try it out for two years and see what happens? Or the recommendation say let's send it back to this we feel strong enough to send it back to the staff to do a poll, because that was one of the things that also came up of the citizens. But because we the notice was sent to everybody. In a postcard. In a postcard, yeah.

I remember getting a postcard at home. So it was noticed, but I know it takes a few notices before residents really see it. And those postcards are not very easy to read or very vague. So it's very simple, it is not something that people may notice because we get so much quote unquote junk mail. Maybe the recommendation is next time you send a postcard, make it a different color and not white. Because if you do a color, it may get notice more. But so what is it that we want to do? And if somebody can start with Go ahead, Paul.

So I'm with you in terms of you know, it'd be good to run an experiment kind of a thing. I have no quarrel with that. Couple things come to mind though in that regard. One is is that first off, none of our ordinances are permanent. So if we find out, gosh, this was a real mistake. We should have done short term rentals. You know, there's nothing that stops the city from from doing in the future. These these are not. So it's we're we're not precluding ourselves from a different course of action if this one proved unwise. The other thing is is that I like the idea that you mentioned about gathering data.

There is a lot of data that is being collected in the world. I guess the question, and it would be a question to staff, we would really like to see the data so we could make a wiser choice. What's, any recommendations to us as to how we should

Thank you for do

that question. Planning Commission, your role is to not discuss financial incentives for projects or economics. It's strictly land use. Gauging what cities make is actually protected information. And so I cannot go to Los Gatos and tell and ask, tell me how much TOT your Airbnbs have created.

There it's actually kind of hard to get that. In my discussion with Los Gatos, though, with the community development director there, is that the they don't have many, if any, complaints, but they also don't have a lot of Airbnbs. You know, he wasn't able to tell me how many. But so just keep that in mind. I I appreciate the idea of seeing what other cities do from a financial perspective, but that's not not your roles. Just to just to let you know.

What I and just to recap that, our role is just land use. So all we can say is, yes, we think it's a great idea to have STRs or no, it's not. And the financial piece of it is determined by the administrative services.

So the counsel of the administrative services department.

Also your department's role is only enforcement. It's not collecting anything.

Correct? Regulation and enforcement.

Okay, Paul.

So then in that regard, if you could include, under the sub bullets of we, you know, we recommended the first bullet point be there are no short term rentals. If you could point out that the reason, the logic for that statement was the testimony and the comments that we heard tonight and in our own research in that it compromises the the the safety and the and the values and of the community. That's that's why we made that statement. And then the other points that we made about for the for the ones that are illegal, we think the fine should be significant. Are there any other points that should be made for the illegal ones that make sure that Brian gets them all from us?

We Go ahead, please. Yeah, we thought that currently there's not a clear kind of fines or consequences consequences for violating our ordinance. So So we want to propose, like, rules, actual rules about how the city will respond to it.

That's what we defined in the ordinance. That's what would be defined Yes. In the

So that would be part of the recommendation to deny in the in the ordinance. Is that what I'm

Yeah. I think that we recommend that in addition to keep our current ordinance of not allowing STR. On top of that, we want to have more specific.

We don't have an ordinance right now.

Yeah. There's no ordinance.

There is no ordinance.

So that's the reason. There's an ordinance. It's the Wild West with STRs in Saratoga.

Okay. Then we want to make this ordinance.

That's what we're doing.

It's almost like we want to approve the ordinance with 0% STR. That's kind of what we'd end up doing if that's the case.

And increasing the fine. Is that

is that

an easier way to go? Is that what we want to like, would somebody want to make that motion?

If we approve the ordinance, then we have an ordinance that we can go to Airbnb and other groups with. Then the percentage is a if it's zero, then there's no, there's nothing. Again, I personally would like a low number, so we run an experiment, but then I'll go with the

So I need someone to make a motion, please.

Can I add another one? Yes. So basically make an ordinance and have a fun, severe fun. And also also make a LBNB, any porters which is doing the doing the to make them illegal if they populate our Saratoga's housing resource. Is that that

So number one, we can't we can recommend what fees can be charged or to charge, but we cannot be the one setting it up because we are that's not our role. And then going with your thought of doing it as 0%, I don't think I don't know if that would really work because there are elements in there which talk about business license, which we don't want to if there is no unless we say, okay, want to try it out with 1% or 0.5%, you know, just to give it a trust. But then again, we want to go back and think, is it I know it's not our financial responsibility but is it worthwhile for the staff to spend the time to set it up with HDL?

HDL.

HDL, outside consultant they have to pay. Even if those fees are recovered by the people who want to have Airbnb's in town. Like, all those things come in. Is it practical? Is it you know, good use of public dollars is another way to look at it, right?

So we want to if we go the other route where we were talking about modify what's presented and then just do simple three or four things in it. We don't need to have a whole long list of things because we cannot control the we cannot define what the fines can be. We can say they need to be high enough or some language with that, but we can't say it has to be $500 or $250 or a warning and all that stuff. That's not our role. So with that in mind, would somebody like to make a Okay, Paul. Okay.

I'd like to move that with respect to the STR ordinance enforcement and policies that we do we accept that that we will have an ordinance that with respect to to to what was presented to us this evening, apologies, but we're going to not use that. That the first bullet point of what we're gonna have is gonna be that there will be no short term rentals in Saratoga. The second bullet point is that we recommend that the city, adopt significant fines. And I don't know how you want to word this, Brian, but I'm just going use significant. But make did you That's

a good direction. I think we'll be able to figure significant out. But

that's Significant.

The term significant is good.

Significant fines for those violating the policy. And the three that we, that they have staff put in place a very clear enforcement process. That's Which is what know, so that it's real clear to citizens if they see something going on, it's real clear what they're to do.

Can I add one Yes, more you may? If, once we have the ordinance and those sites have to provide us the list of people who are doing it, is that staff look at that list on a quarterly basis or something to see what's happening if Perfect. You

I meant

to add that. Yes. Thank you. Okay.

That's good enough. Okay.

Just so I understand, the recommendation would be to accept the ordinance as presented but with these conditions of no short term rentals?

No. To To

wrap it

To to strike the proposal as presented.

Okay.

And to replace it with these we've got four bullet points. Oh, I see. Okay.

Yeah. So your number two recommendation which said modify what's presented. So what this modifying it?

The issue being is we do want an ordinance.

You do want an ordinance.

We want it to be very different than what was presented. So

what I'm hearing is you're recommending an ordinance be adopted that prohibits short term rentals and that there be significant fines for violators of the ordinance which prohibits short term rentals.

Correct. Yeah. And that we can get the data from the whoever that that's that this

the provider. We have clear enforcement process and that we review the state law reporting requirements quarterly.

That's the motion, yes.

Yeah, I will second the motion, please.

Okay. Motion's been made and seconded. Can we have a roll call? Any further discussion? We have a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Sreedharan?

Nay. Hassan? Aye. Brownie?

Aye.

Zeng? Aye. Jermaran?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee. Aye. Chair Kauser. Aye. Motion passes six ten.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Moving on to the next application, 2314.000700 Farwell Avenue. I have to excuse myself from this. If you can please take it over because I have conflict because we're selling it on just that one. These are all related to this.

All you to just Next agenda. Next

agenda item.

Yeah. The next agenda item is 2.3 application, PDR24-fourteenARB24-eighty7. Staff, please go ahead and give you a report.

Thank you. Go ahead and share my screen. Just give a second.

Okay.

The approximately excuse me. The approximately one acre project site is a corner lot located at 14700 Farwell Avenue. The site contains an existing two story single family residence, swimming pool and combana, detached garage and ADU, asphalt driveways, sport court, and concrete decking. A total of 28 protected trees located on-site include coast live oaks, pines, redwoods and liquid amber. Structures in the general vicinity include a combination of both one and two story residences on similarly sized parcels.

All structures and hardscape on-site will be removed as part of the project. The project will consist of a new two story residence with a walkout basement. Additional structures will include a detached garage with two enclosed parking spaces and two carports on opposite sides of the garage. Attached to the garage will be an accessory dwelling unit with its first story located behind the garage and a second story located above the garage. A pool house will be located adjacent to the pool.

Location of the all new structures will replace Lowe's of the same type in approximately same location on the site except for the sport court, which will not be replaced. The northwest corner of the site projects into the right of way and road surface at Farwell Avenue. The applicant has agreed to dedicate to the city a 240 square foot triangle shaped portion of the site to the city for road purposes and maintenance. Three trees are recommended by the city arborist removal, which would include a Japanese maple, liquid amber, and one pittosporum. These are the front rear elevations.

The project will have an architectural style defined by the applicant as shingle. The proposed height is 29.79 feet. The city code limits the height of the structures to 26 feet. However, the planning commission may grant the height exception up to 30 feet if the findings for additional height can be made. These elevations identify both the 26 foot height limit and the requested height, 29.79 feet.

The applicant is requesting a height exception. And to grant this request, Planning Commission must determine additional height is a necessary component of identifiable and well documented architectural style. The architect's justification for the additional building height is that it is necessary because a shingle style residential structure has an asymmetrical facade with a regular steeply pitched roofline. The roof slope is consistent with the shingle style and is proportionate to the building. These are the side elevations of the project.

Additional features of the project which support the shingle style architectural style include exterior materials such as cedar shingles as a primary wall cladding with natural stone at the base of the building, and on the walls on opposite sides of their front entrance and windows, as well as the chimney. The roof will include second story projecting gables on all four elevations. Classical style porch supports will be located at the front entrance porches as well as the rear terraces. Windows will include an eyebrow dormer window on the front elevation of the second story as well as banks of square shaped windows. This is the floor area of the 3,686 square foot basement, which will include a theater, gym, bedrooms, entertaining spaces.

The right side of the basement will access a below grade patio. This is the floor plan for the first story. Floor area will consist of 3,617 square feet of living space. Interior areas include bedrooms, kitchen, and great room, dining living room, and a library. The areas shaded blue are front porches and rear covered terraces.

This is the floor plan for the 1,563 square foot second story. Second story will include four bedrooms, sitting area, and bathrooms. Blue shaded areas are front and rear open terraces. These are the front and rear elevations of the detached garage and ADU, which will have the same architectural style as the main residence, which will include a ten fourteen square foot detached garage with two enclosed parking spaces and two carports on opposite sides of the garage. Attached to the garage will be a eleven twenty nine square foot ADU, with its first story located behind the garage and second story located above the garage.

These are the floor plans for the first and second story with the garage and ADU. The ADU that is shaded in red will be located on both the first and second stories with living spaces on the first story and bedrooms on the second. These are the elevations for the 11.58 square feet tall pool structure. The enclosed spaces will include a bathroom and an equipment room. This is the landscape plan which illustrates how the site will be completely landscaped.

The plant list includes fourteen twenty one new plants which will be installed, which include 29 trees, including Chinese pistachio, flowering cherry, live oaks, flowering plum, magnolia, and fruit trees. All the trees, shrubs, and ground covers are rated for low and moderate water usage. The yellow x's illustrate the location of the protected trees to be removed. These are the findings that the commission must make to approve the height exception for the project. The applicant has stated that the additional building height, above 26 feet, is necessary to maintain the key aspects the Schinger architectural style.

Staff can make all the required findings to grant the Hyatt exception. These design review findings the commission must make to approve the project. Staff also can make all the required findings. TEP recommends that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number 20Three-thirty3, approving the application for design review and high exception for the project. This concludes my report. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. Are there any commission members that have questions for staff? Go ahead.

Chris, if you can answer it. Otherwise I'll ask the applicant. Currently, the property has a wall, as I'll describe it, on Farwell Court that extends around the property. And it curves around that corner a bit. Is is that You said all of the structures on the property are going to be removed. Is that applied to that exterior wall as well? I

believe the wall is going to remain. In fact, a portion of the wall in Farwell actually has an erosion permit from the city because it's the wall that goes around the visiting support court. So the applicant, I believe, intends to keep it.

Okay. I'll double check with them then. Okay. Thank

you. Any other questions from Commissioner? Hearing no further questions from the Commission for staff, the applicant now has ten minutes for opening remarks.

My name is John Stewart. This is my son Jason who did most of the design work on the house. We also have Bruce McDonald who's sitting on the aisle there. He's the landscape architect. And this is a house that we're really proud of. The owner, GY, he is also here. Wanna raise your hand? Yeah. So we're basically just here to answer questions that you might have.

Alright. Thank you.

Okay.

So now, any questions for the applicants? Go ahead.

Yeah, in walking along the Farwell Court, there's, it's my word choice, it's close to blind corner on that property. And and that wall really obscures the traffic and especially for pedestrians who are appropriately walking against traffic. There's not much of a window to view them before people come around there. I wondered if you were had taken that into consideration, if you had a way to improve the visibility around that corner.

I I well, I would have to ask the owner. I think you've owned a property for a long time. Have you ever had any incidents of problems with that corner? I don't think we're we were aware of it. Right? Of any problems? The corner.

So one of the things is that, as mentioned by Chris, the owner has decided to dedicate part of his property to the city in order to rectify sort of a historic situation that had happened over the years. And I believe as part of that process, there was some talk about reducing the sort of lower vegetation on that corner to improve visibility sort of between that existing wall that's proposed to remain and the street. And so I think it's about a 15 foot or so area there at the corner that would presumably be cleaned up as part of the project.

Currently there is no vegetation in that area.

There's some sort of scrubby trees and you know, that would be what we're Yeah. Planning to

But you would not be changing the wall to improve the pedestrian visibility. No. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions from the commissioners?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Hearing no further questions from the commission, I would like to open public comment on this agenda item. Each speaker will have three minutes. All right. Our first speaker is John Stewart. Really useful. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Up my lap. The second speaker is Tom McGinnis.

I'm Tom McGinnis and I live at 14720 Farwell, which is right next door to this house. And I'm just here in support of the project and the exception that he's seeking. I would speak very quickly about the wall. I walk my dog. My wife and I, we walk the neighborhood a lot. Half the people in the room have seen me walk in the neighborhood. The fence that you're talking about is actually set back quite away from the corner itself. There's actually like a cedar tree stump and some like pine saplings that are there. You know, I haven't really ever thought about it, you know, as I was walking. But I don't think that the wall is what creates the issue.

It's the nature of the bend that does, for sure, you know, creates that issue where you're walking and cars come around. And don't get me started about, you know, 08:00 in the morning because the cars come around at 35 miles an hour, which is not the wall's fault. But the bottom line is, you know, our house is as close to this house as any in the neighborhood. But the lots are big. They're, you know, over an acre. And so, you know, he honestly could build, you know, even higher. And I just don't think it would have any impact on us or any of the other neighbors. So I just am here to register my support.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Alice Chan.

Hello. I'm Alice Chen. I live in the across the street, 19795 Fowaway Avenue. I knew mister He for nine years. He's a great neighbor, and I'm really happy he put together the great team to put the proposal here. And I believe that it would improve the value of our neighborhood. Okay? That will add on more property tax to the city. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Then our next speaker is Jim

Hi, I'm Jim Pardon. Parden. I live at 1500141 Pepper Lane, long time Saratoga, born and raised here. My dad was on the commission years ago in the sixties, so I appreciate what you guys all do. It's really amazing. I'm here also to support the project. I think John Stewart and his son did a phenomenal job on designing it. It's a large site, and I really feel that the project really fits the site very well. So I'm voicing support for it as well. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Our last speaker here in person is Lee Howe.

Hello. Good evening. So my name is Lee Hao. I live at 14608 El Punte Way, a few houses down from site. And, I just want to hear I'm here to express my support for the new house because, you know, it's beautiful. It's gonna improve the value of the entire neighborhood. And actually, the character of the house fit into the neighborhood very well. So, I think it's a good design and we should go for it. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. This concludes our speaker here in person. Francis, is there anybody on Zoom that has he has

raised Vice Chair Lee.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Francis. All right, let's move on. This concludes public comment on this agenda. Sorry. Does we do have five minutes for our applicant to have closing remarks. All right, no question? Good. So this concludes public comment on this agenda item. Are there any members of commission that would like to discuss this item? Yes.

Just for people out in the audience, when we review these projects we have to make eight design review findings. And then staff also presented in this project that we've got to make three findings for the height exception. And like city staff, I can make all the findings that they saw in the that they said in the staff report. And so I'd be in support of making a motion of approval for this.

Is anybody second? Okay, great. So staff, now please conduct a roll call.

Commissioner Sreedharan? Aye. Prasang? Aye. Branley?

Aye.

Singh? Aye. Jim Morad?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee?

Aye. Motion passes.

Congratulations.

Moving on to application 2.4 For 18645, Pasiolado. Can we have the staff report please?

Yes, thank you so much.

I'll go

ahead and share my screen. Give me a second. Okay. The project site is located at 18645 Paseo Auto. The site is 10,732 square feet in size and located in the R 110000 Zoning District.

On April 7, planning staff approved an admin design review application for the site, which included a new 18 foot tall one story single family residence with an attached ADU. Five protected trees were approved for removal. The project is currently under construction. City regulations require overhead electric lines to be installed underground for all new home construction. The location of the existing power lines providing electrical service are located at the back of the site.

Providing underground electrical service would require PG and E to install a new transformer on the nearest power pole located in the rear yard of the adjacent site to the left. As the illustration shows, the proposed power line would run down the pole and then would be in a trench through the neighbor's yard and then down the side of the subject site to connect to the electrical panel. Located in the northwest corner of the neighbor's yard is an existing 40 inch coastline oak tree with a height of 35 feet, and required trenching will be located adjacent to its trunk. The applicant submitted a letter from PG and E, which is the staff report, stating that any trenching near the tree would require removal of this tree due to conflict with the roots. Both the project arborist and the city arborist agree that the tree would not survive impacts from the trenching.

Letters from both arborists are in the staff report. The applicant is requesting a variance from the city regulations to not underground the new electrical service for the purpose of preserving the oak tree. The variance would allow the applicant to maintain the current overhead power line configuration that currently exists on the site with no required trenching. These were the findings that the commission must make to approve the variance. Staff was able to make all the required variance findings.

Staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number 20Three-eighteen, approving the request for a variance as all the findings can be made. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any, Frances, do we have anyone online who would like to speak on this matter? Opening public No,

we don't. Chair Causer.

And we don't have anyone in the audience either. We will close the public hearing for this item. And sorry, I missed the applicant. Is the applicant here to speak?

Don't The applicant was invited to attend the meeting.

Okay. But they chose not to be here. So we don't have the applicant presentation. Nobody for public hearing. And so no close for the applicant. Any questions for the staff? Yes, Badri?

Attachment three says 18654 Paseo Lado. Is that a neighboring house? I'm just trying to see if there's a typo or if there's a neighboring house that had some

You mean a letter from that project arborist?

Yeah.

That would be the neighboring house next door.

The trees in the neighboring house, I think.

Yeah. Right. Okay. No other questions.

Okay. Anyone like to make a motion?

Yeah. I would make a motion that we approve the application 25, whatever it was, three, as put forward by staff.

And I will second it.

Thank you. We have a roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Sichuan?

Aye.

Sun? Aye. Brownlee?

Aye.

Singh? Aye. Jim Moran?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lee?

Aye. Chair Kelsor? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Going on to agenda item 2.5, application for 14575 Oak Street. Can we please have the staff report?

Thanks for bearing with me. Okay. For this project at +1 4575 the applicant is requesting design review approval for a new three story multifamily residence of two units plus an ADU and a variance to allow for a variance for front setback regulations to allow the new building to continue to encroach into the front setback, a variance for site coverage to exceed the maximum allowable for the property, a variance for the off street parking zoning requirement, and a variance for the third story to exceed the maximum two story limit. So the 7,020 square foot project site is located at 14575 Oak Street in the RN 3000 Zoning District. Average site slope is 22%.

The site contains an existing 2,000 square foot, two story residence to be redeveloped for the project, and an existing commercial building to the rear of the site which will be maintained. The existing development is already nonconforming with respect to site coverage, front setbacks, and parking. There are residential uses to either side, including multifamily apartments to the south, and Saratoga Elementary School is across the street. There are three protected trees on the property and 11 total in the project vicinity. No trees are proposed for removal.

Here's the site plan. New construction will consist of a 4,474 square foot three story multifamily building. A variance is requested for the redeveloped building to encroach into the required 25 foot front setback for the property. As can be seen on the plan, the existing residence already has this front setback encroachment. A variance is also requested for site coverage.

The existing site conditions already exceed the 40% maximum from the code. The new larger structure will add an additional 720 square feet of site coverage beyond the existing. And the variance is requested for off street parking. No on-site parking currently exists on the site, and none is proposed. The property is included as part of the Village Parking District Number 4 and is adjacent to the city owned parking lot for Parking District 4.

These are the front and rear elevations for the new building. The architectural style can best be described as craftsman. The overall height of the project will be 29.7 feet as measured from the average natural grade to the topmost point of the roof where the maximum allowable height is 30 feet. Due to the existing slope, the building will be split level, appearing as one story from the front and three from the rear. And another variance is requested for the third story.

And here we have the side elevations for the home. Here are the floor plans. Each floor will be a separate unit. The top main floor will be 1,761 square feet. 2nd Floor will be 1,248 square feet. And the bottom ADU unit will be 938 square feet. The applicant provided a streetscape for reference. This is the view of the proposed building from Oak Street. Note that the multifamily apartments to the left are also actually three stories from the rear. A color and materials board was also provided.

The exterior materials will include gray shingle siding, wooden clad windows, sage green wood door, and dark gray asphalt composition roof. These are the findings, the required multifamily design review findings that the commission must make to approve the project, and more detail is included in the staff report. And these are the required findings that the commission must make to approve the variances. And note that finding number d does not apply as the variance is not pertaining to signs. And more details on these findings as well are included in the staff report.

So staff recommends that the planning commission adopt resolution number twenty five zero two zero, approving the project subject to conditions of approval. And that concludes staff presentation.

Thank you. Do we have any questions at this time for the staff? Go ahead, Paul.

Compared to the existing structure, if I look at it from Oak Street, is the new height going to be the same as the existing one, or higher or lower?

I'd have to double check the numbers exactly. But it's not changing much, if at all. Yeah, it's going to look pretty much the same.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Seeing none, I would like to invite the applicant to come speak. You have ten minutes.

Is it possible to

access, to present up top? If not, I think we're okay.

Yes, you would have had this in.

We would have had to do it beforehand. Good evening, my name is Tom Sloan. I am the project architect. And I just want to thank Kyle for all his direction throughout the project and the nice presentation. I really want to turn this over to the owners here who are currently living there and wanted to expand to create more housing stock for lower income families to live in Saratoga. But I'll be around if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Hi everyone. I have a little visual aid, but it's okay that we can't use it. My name is Mimi Tranzambetti, and I'm here with my fiance, Ben Stanfield. I am Eugene Zambetti's daughter, so we're not actually the owners, but we have been the tenants for the past year.

I understand there were some concerns in the pre meeting around traffic and parking impacts. So having been the tenants, we're very happy to speak to that in more depth, as well as to what we're hoping to accomplish with the project as a family. So today, living at Oak Street, we work from home. So we don't actually need to leave the house during school hours. But when we do choose to commute to San Francisco to meet up with coworkers, it's really straightforward since school traffic moves towards Saratoga.

And we can essentially leave in the opposite direction, loop around towards Big Basin, and leave and come at will. With the addition of the new unit ADU and the way the Parking District Number 4 is structured, essentially that parking district and where those new residents would park, it's connected directly to 3rd Street. And so in order to commute to work or to leave the house during those school traffic hours, they could drive directly from their parking spots onto 3rd Street onto Big Basin. So again, completely circumventing the Oak Street traffic.

And then I had

a visual aid for the parking District Number 4 granted in 1980. But really what we're trying to accomplish with this project, adding in some new units, is the location is really ideal for the Saratoga workforce. So I heard earlier when talking about short term rentals, there was some interest in creating workforce housing. And here we truly have a long term workforce housing option available. So the unit is located within half a mile of the fire station, as far down as Sue's Gallery on the commercial stretch, by the villas, by the Saratoga Elementary School.

So it's really an ideal location for anyone who is already commuting in from outside the city, whether that's Campbell, Sunnyvale, San Jose, and renting outside the city, driving in their car, parking it during the day. So essentially, if some of these units were to house actual employees at these institutions and businesses downtown Saratoga, there would be no real traffic impact. It would essentially be the same number of cars. And pretty exciting for the city, because I was looking on Zillow, and I found that there are more houses for sale in Saratoga than there are rental units currently available. There are 50 homes for sale, 30 rental units available, and half of those rentals are single homes, single family homes.

And I was looking at the average rent, and the average rent of $6,400 per month would require an average household income of $255,000 per year, versus apartments and condos, which make up the other half of available housing stock, which would require $140,000 of household income per year. And that's what the new unit in ADU would fall a little bit more cleanly under. And then not to be too creepy, but I did pull up the salary schedule for elementary school teachers across the way from our house. For a certified teacher, their salary base salary ranges from $80,000 to $150,000 per year. So again, that falls right in the range of where these rental units would really be contributing to rental flexibility in a really ideal location.

So yeah, we've had the chance to live in a lot of different California communities in the last few years and we decided to move to Saratoga to be closer to my family. I actually used to live here twenty years ago, so it's pretty cool to be back. And yeah, like in a lot of California communities, know Saratoga is faced with the kind of tricky decision of maintaining the character of the community, the feel of the community, and still wanting to add in kind of gentle density in ways that make sense in order to really support people who actually contribute every day to our character and feel of the Saratoga Village. So thank you for your time, and happy to answer any other questions with remaining time.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Thank you so much. Do we have any opening public comments? Do you have a speaker card there?