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PC 09-11-07 CITY OF CUPERTINO 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 CITY OF CUPERTINO PLANNING COMMISSION AMENDED MINUTES 6:45 P.M. September 11,2007 TUESDAY CUPERTINO COMMUNITY HALL The Planning Commission meeting of September 11, 2007, was called to order at 6:45 p.m. in the Cupertino Community Hall, 10350 Torre A venue, Cupertino, California, by Chairperson Lisa Giefer. . SALUTE TO THE FLAG ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Chairperson: Commissioner: Commissioner: Commissioner: Lisa Giefer Marty Miller Gilbert Wong David Kaneda Staff present: Community Development Director: City Planner: Senior Planner: Assistant City Attorney: Steve Piasecki Ciddy Wordell Gary Chao Eileen Murray WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS: . Chair Giefer noted receipt of material regarding water usage in Cupertino. POSTPONEMENTSIREMOV AL FROM CALENDAR: 1. U-2007-07 Masayoshi Fujioka 1655 So. DeAoza Blvd. Use Permit for a full bar at an existing restaurant (Kikushushi) Planning Commission decision final unless appealed. Application withdrawn. Motion: Motion by Com. Wong, second by Com. Miller to withdraw Application No. U-2007-07. (Vote: 4-0-0) ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: None CONSENT CALENDAR: None APPROVAL OF MINUTES: None OLD BUSINESS 2. Review of Use Permit U-2003-43, Condition 19 (Wolf Camera) related to the Construction Management Plan. Cupertino Planning Commission 2 September 11, 2007 Gary Chao, Senior Planner, presented the staff report: . At the August 28, 2007 Planning Commission meeting, staff was directed to bring back the Wildflower /Wolf Camera mixed use project to review the construction management plan. The applicant has submitted a construction management plan which provides specific measures dealing with the location of the construction trailer, materials storage, construction parking and general construction site maintenance. . In addition, Gregg Bunker has entered into a parking agreement with the pancake house across the street so the construction work and employees from Wolf Camera could park there during construction. . Relative to concerns about road repair and maintenance, the Public Works staff has confIrmed that the applicant has submitted a performance bond and labor and material bond of approximately $150K each. The Public Works Department and Building Department are currently investigating some of the claims from neighbors of damages to the adjacent driveway approach and the curbs leading onto Wildflower Court. If there are damages associated with the project, the applicant will be required to make the necessary repairs. . Since the last meeting, no more concerns have been expressed by the neighbors. Staff feels that the applicant is working based on the direction of the Planning Commission on the landscaping architectural enhancements and will submit something shortly to the DRC for review. . Relative to the replacement of the two Ash trees, he said staff was communicating with the city arborist and should be receiving a proposal from him shortly relative to cost and scope. The Public Works department is aware of the direction from the Planning Commission and will work with the city arborist at the site. Com. Wong: . Asked staff for an update through the Director's report vs. putting it on the agenda to keep abreast of the schedule. Chair Giefer: . Asked staff when there is a construction management plan for the present application as well as others, do they take a proactive approach or manage by exception to ensure that they are meeting the requirements of the plan. Gary Chao: . Said the Building Department staff will make sure that any of the fencing, the storage of materials and the components of the plan are carried out; once it is in place things change sometimes and staff relies on inspectors. The applicant will be required to make modifications or changes or if concerns or complaints are received from the neighbors, staff will go out to the site and investigate. Chair Giefer: . Throughout the summer the debris box is parked on the street, which should not have been left on the street. With this application and other applications, if we put a construction management plan in place it would be good if the inspectors went out there with a checklist of items that were part of the plan, and potentially were more proactive, we wouldn't be coming to it at the end of the project. She said she would appreciate that, particularly as this project moves forward. Cupertino Planning Commission 3 September 11, 2007 Gregg Bunker: . Said he agreed with staff and they were preparing the information requested; and would be making any repairs to the curb, gutter, sidewalk or paving necessary. They have alsi ageed with Public Works to put a 4 inch layer on half the street as directed by the original approvals. Chair Giefer: . Asked to be updated if there were further violations of the construction management plan, through a Director's report, and the resolution of the violations. Motion: Motion by Com. Wong, second by Com. Kaneda, that the Planning Commission accept the Use Permit U-2003-03 and the construction management plan. The Community Development Director will report any further allegations or concerns to the Planning Commission as part of the Director of Community Development report and also Public Works will provide an update on the two Ash trees on Wildflower Way. (Vote: 4-0-0) NEW BUSINESS 3. MCA-2007-01, EA-2007-09 City of Cupertino ~ation:Cupertino Foothill area. Municipal Code Amendment to amend Chaptger 19.28 Single Family Residential (R1) Zones to exclude properties zoned R1-1O with an average slope equal to or greater than fIfteen (15) percent slope. Municipal Code Amendment to amend Chapter 19.28.050(C)1 of Single Family Residential (R1) zone regarding hillside development standards for building proposed on properties zoned RI-20 located west of the 10% slope line. Tentative City Council date: September 18,2007 Steve Piasecki, Community Development Director, presented the staff report. . Said that at the August 21, 2007 City Council meeting they heard the Planning Commission recommendations and decided that they would take no further action on the Al zoned properties effectively removing them from any additional hillside protections other than what is in the Al zone. They felt that it worked for many years and they could leave them with that zone and that there are some protections there; there may even be incentives for the future for property owners to seek either the hillside or whatever special designation comes out of this. That is presently not the case so the Council decided to remove them. They decided that they wanted to retain Section 19.28.05OC2 relating to 30% slopes feeling that it was not part of the discussion before, and to remove it would seem to remove an essential protection. The provision applies to all properti~s throughout the city in the 30% slope provisions. Even prop~rties that may be in other areas with excessive slopes would be regulated by that. . They took two other actions; they asked staff to initiate an ordinance amendment to remove the RI-10 toe-of-slope properties from any of the hillside standards after hearing staff's input that these properties weren't doing much to contribute to preserving the hillsides and wouldn't result in much harm to protection of the hillsides, so should they be excluded from these standards; that came about as a result of some analysis that staff did. . Another is that the Planning Commission consider appropriate hillside standards for the remaining Rl properties, 15 or 16 of them. They have direction from the Mayor to hear this at their September 18 Council meeting. . The fIrst question is excluding the R1-1O properties, you are familiar with this diagram that shows the properties at the toe-of-slope including the area along Lindy Lane that we suggested be removed from the hillside standards and that they simply come under the R1 rules. The Cupertino Planning Commission 4 September 11, 2007 reasons why we feel it was appropriate is that they are relatively flat; they are at the toe-of- slopes and are not visible to the valley floor; they don't contribute to the overall hillside protection or ambiance; and are really part of the suburban neighborhood that is adjacent to them not part of the hilly areas. The suggestion is to remove them from further consideration, take them out of the current ordinance which applies to them. . The direction was to come up with the appropriate hillside standards for the remaining Rl-20 properties that are on the Lindy Lane knoll; their characteristics tend to be on steeper lots, larger lots sizes, potentially visible to the valley floor for the ones that are on the upper portion and they are part of the hillside. . Key elements were suggested relating to house size, grading, fencing, retaining walls, tree protection and second floor size. Staff has been communicating with the neighbors and feels that there is general agreement on the last four with the possibility of some people questioning whether the tree protection should be as restrictive as suggested. Staff has no problem with the more restrictive approach and agrees that this is a heavily treed area, it is part of the character of the knoll; it is important to them as they have expressed and you could have a more restrictive tree protection. . Said he felt the suggestion had. merit because of the observations and concerns about lost trees in various locations. It does need something; it could be increasing the number to four or five instead of two to provide more protection but not going as far as completely eliminating it. . Second floor size, there is no disagreement, allowed to be per the RHS which is much larger than the Rl. Neighbors suggested that retaining walls should be screened or decoratively designed and that is suitable. Said he felt there was agreement with putting the RHS rules in for fencing which would allow up to 5,000 square feet around the building pad and not the entire site. . Two areas that don't have agreement are grading and house size. We had suggested the RHS standard on grading and that the house size we heard a suggestion that you could have up to 45% if you stayed on the flat pad. If you got off the flat pad the 10% or less area or you exceeded the RHS, you would need to go to a hearing process before the Planning Commission. . He reviewed the issues of grading, house size, fencing, retaining walls/screening, and tree protection as outlined in the staff report. . Said that the recommendation should be addressed in two parts: focusing on the RI-lO toe-in- slope properties and whether they should be removed; so that everybody doesn't have to speak to it if there is consensus on the part of the Planning Commission; you could take a straw vote and residents could direct their comments to your current thinking. Once you have done that the focus of the discussion should be on the remaining 15 or 16 Rl-20 properties and focus should be on house size and grading to help navigate through which would be the most appropriate way to go. Mr. Piasecki answered Commissioners' questions. Chair Giefer: . Suggested a straw vote to ascertain what their thoughts were regarding the RI-lO; Council was very specific with direction on how they wanted the Planning Commission to proceed and dispatch the R1-10 lots from deliberation and remove them, remove the toe slope from part of our R1 hillside discussion. Com. Wong: . Said he was not comfortable making a straw vote until there is a public hearing because there was a great deal of information presented tonight and it would be good to hear what the public Cupertino Planning Commission 5 September 11, 2007 has to say and then deliberate because he wanted to hear from the public before taking a straw vote. Chair Giefer: . Noted that there were not many audience members and she felt it would not add much more time. The Council was very specific in terms of how they wanted the Commission to proceed. Com. Miller: . Concurred that he would like to hear the comments before taking a straw vote. Com. Kaneda: . Said he agreed also. Chair Giefer opened the public hearing. Frank Sun, Cupertino resident: . Said they wanted to go back to R1, but the Council mandated that no owners come out with an agreement. In response to Council's demand, the neighbors and owners came up with a compromise, very different from staff's presentation. He said it was not fair or worthwhile the effort to focus on only 15 properties. They had their own version in response to Council's demand and were willing to talk about it, but they wanted to be treated equally. Protecting the hillside should be everybody's responsibility; they cannot exclude 600. He said he felt the process was becoming more and more unfair. Gary Chao: . Confirmed one of the questions, which is in RHS it does have some mention that walls over one story or twenty feet in height whichever is more restrictive, must contain architectural elements which provides relief from breakup of that wall plane. It relates to building walls, hence there isn't anything directly relating to retaining walls or detached wall planes. Barry Pangrle, resident: . Showed a slide presentation, showing the slope hillside transition line that the staff has included in their report. Pointed out the difference; the wording in the ordinance refers to the line ,as it is defined in the City of Cupertino General Plan. There are whole neighborhoods included or excluded in one line vs. the other line and there is a whole set of properties around Miramonte, that the line staff was using excluded them but looking at the line of the General Plan line, they are in. He illustrated the properties that would be impacted and said he felt it would be a missed opportunity, as the neighbors were willing to work for something that made sense for the whole city, and the question comes down to what is being accomplished by putting some special ordinance on top of 15 properties. . Said a number of suggestions that the Director of Community Development has made have merit to them,. but would have more merit if they applied to the whole city and not just 15 properties. . He asked the city attorney to explain the procedure for bringing properties back in, and moving properties out. He said he understood there were properties that have been excluded and now are being brought back in under this ordinance, so it is going to be a zoning change. Summarized that not all the properties are included presently; some will be brought back in and change zoning. . He said he felt it was not a fair process, some have been removed twice and a fair resolution would be to take it back to Rl. If they considering doing something for the city, citywide on these properties, the people in the neighborhood are willing to do that, but I think they want to Cupertino Planning Commission 6 September 11, 2007 see it done for the entire city; if it makes sense for one, it should make sense for all the slope properties. Mark Santoro, speaking on behalf of a group: · Reviewed the background of the application, which was passed in 2005 with no input from the Planning Commission and no public input. The Planning Commission has been consistent in voting three times to remove this overlay; the City Council voted 5:0 to leave it zoned Rl. · In response to concerns about safety, he said they had builders testify that buildings and safe homes could be built on slopes, and civil engineers explained that slopes could be even more stable with new homes put on them. They were told thee was an issue with watersheds and that the homes along Stevens Creek should be excluded because they are watershed and not hills. They look like hills and their water gets diverted into storm drains. Lindy Lane used to be called Lindy Creek and there is still a creek at the top end of it and the Regnart homes along there also drain into Regnart Creek, so they directly drain off into a creek. If one is watershed vs. the other, it is clearly our area. This is hurting our area a lot; for 40 years we were zoned Rl and we were fine without the overlay; we had no issues. The overlay has actually caused property owners to subdivide their properties. Next to me there are eight lots where there were previously three; he said the owners all subdivided. · More than a dozen specimen Oak trees have been destroyed as part of the subdivisions which has caused most of the neighborhood to be up in arms. This is not about what the impacted neighbors want; they are overwhelmingly against it and previously presented a petition. · What about our constitutional rights; we had realtors testify it reduces our property values. What about fairness, there are 500 properties that are sloped R1 properties in the city and why should you impact only 113 of them or 15 or even less. If we really want to protect the hills in the city, I think we should protect all of the hills in the city. I am in favor of that but would like to see it apply to everyone, not just to .0001 percent of the properties in the city. Many of these other properties are steeper, higher elevations and more rural than ours. · Gave examples of properties that were excluded from the overlay. · Why do we need special zoning for 15 properties? It just doesn't make sense. There have been a lot of unintended consequences; I think we all agree that the overlay is bad. It has hurt people; no one has received a remodel permit in the time this has been in effect in this area; several have tried and failed. One person after 34 years sold his home and left the city. · We were asked for a compromise; I won't get into details on this but we are much out of line with the city except for the two issues staff mentioned. We adopted a fencing rules that are more restrictive than any fencing rules in the city, including the hillside; we asked for the second floor RHS and balcony rules; we have asked for screening which is more restrictive than any other in the city because we want to protect our area; but we feel that we want something different in terms of the house size and moving of dirt. · We have proposed the following: The allowable Rl floor area shall be reduced by one percent for each percent of slope within the 15% building pad over 15% with a maximum reduction of 30%. Rl maximum still applies but you still have to go to the Planning Commission if you want to exceed that number. We still prefer R1 but this is our proposal. He said that he noticed that C2 only applies to Rl properties; and questioned why it wouldn't apply to hillside properties; it seems like fairness would be there. · The 10 properties that have already been excluded, now we are trying to bring them back in. If we want to do that, why don't we bring in all the sloped R110ts and write a reasonable rule that applies for the entire city and help the entire city out, which we are in favor of. · Said he felt the fair thing to do was to make all the Rllots the same and remove 19.28.050. They would support getting involved in a group to work on applying the type of things you have seen from staff and the neighborhood group to the rest of the city. Cupertino Planning Commission 7 September 11, 2007 Com. Miller: · One of the unintended consequences of the overlay is a rash of subdivisions. In Mr. Santoro's opinion if staff's recommendations were implemented, would that limit further subdivisions or not limit further subdivisions at this point? Mark Santoro: · He said what staff said is true; there are many recommendations they think are good ones. The biggest problem is that the RHS tends to put a cap on property sizes and what has helped property values in our area is that if you have a bigger piece of property, you can build a bigger house than you could in the hillside. If you tend to cap property maximum house size, it tends to induce people to subdivide. It depends if you take the staff's compromise or ours; I think that both of those would have less incentive to subdivide than the current overlay and I think ours has even less incentives still for people wanting to do subdivisions. If it is Rl I think that it is back to R1 and the incentive is even less. · Said their compromise does not do a lot to promote subdivision; the reason that it would is that it is a compromise so there are 15 people who feel they are isolated. He said if it were him and he knew he was R1 and staying that way, he would be less apartment to subdivide if he thought he might be rezoned later. He said he believed their size adjust formula is comparable to the Rl in terms of subdivision, and size is an issue. · Said that grading is a reasonable thing for sloped lots, and he was concerned to just apply the hillside rules because they are taking the things from hillside that are somewhat punitive and putting them on the properties and not taking the good things. No one has suggested letting them have livestock or other things that the hillsides can do; they asked for hillside second floor, did not ask for hillside third floors and one of the advantages of hillsides is you can walk a house up on the hill which might reduce grading, whereas they have a two floor limitation. Chair Giefer: · Asked Mr. Santoro if they would rather be in RHS since things he mentioned such as the concern about his neighbors subdividing and having a house stepped in the hillside were in the RHS. Mark Santoro: · Said no, while there are things in the RHS that may be better for some of the properties and things that are worse, the bottom line is they have always been zoned R1 and prefer to be zoned Rl. He said personally he believed there are things that can be done which would be better for the hills and the city to help preserve them and it should be applied citywide. At this point they just wanted to be treated as the rest ofthe other R1 properties. Mrs. Tasi, undy Lane: · Said she wanted to remind everyone that they were discussing hillside, and a hillside cannot be an Rl. There have been many meetings, discussion and planning, and no compromise has been reached. She pointed out that with a hillside, house sizes are very important; the look of the hills is very important, and urged them to remember that when voting, to come up with some compromise if not the RHS to limit the size of the houses on that hill. Chair Giefer closed the public hearing and asked for Commissioners' comments relative to removing the R1 ten lots out on the toe slope out and also regarding an R1 greater than 10,000 square feet and items in the staff proposal. Cupertino Planning Commission 8 September 11, 2007 Steve Piasecki: · Reviewed the recommendations to be considered by the Planning Commission. The suggestion was to take the two issues separately that the Council had asked Commissioners to look at removing the R1-1O toe slope properties for the reasons already reiterated that they don't contribute much to the hillside, therefore removing them isn't going to undermine the General Plan policy that we are trying to implement. · He said to consider what would be appropriate hillside development standards, many of many of which there is agreement on. The house size standard wasn't something staff invented, it came from the neighborhood input and staff felt it was a good compromise. Staff is suggesting that the standards be considered in two parts. Barry Prangle: · Said that when they were in front of the Council, they were told that they couldn't bring back all the R1 properties; there was a procedure they had to follow to go through that; yet if the 10 properties are being brought in to be placed under this ordinance, why couldn't they bring in the rest of the R1 properties in the city at the same time? The ordinance as written says properties west of the General Plan 10% slope line, and as shown in the slide presentation, there are a number of these 15 properties that don't fall into that. Eileen Murray: · Said she was not present at the City Council meeting and could not provide a defmite response without more information, but she speculated they were talking about noticing and the process at that time. Steve Piasecki: · Said the underlying assumption of the speaker is his data is accurate, and that it should apply as he is stating it; however, he said he did not agree. It is not how they interpreted the Council's policy in terms of the public hearings held and where the line was, and it is not the current General Plan line which is very fuzzy; there is an older General Plan line that has equal lack of specificity. Barry Prangle: · Said it was questionable whether his property falls underneath that line as well. He said he felt it left the city open if they are conducting zoning ordinance changes. Com. Kaneda: · Asked staff to explain why there is more than one line on the different plans and different drawings. Steve Piasecki : · General Plans are general, and those lines are for illustrative purposes and you will notice to make sure we didn't have the confusion that was in the noticing, we identified the streets, west of the streets; we think that is a valid; there is some confusion about how the public is interpreting it; we wanted to make it very clear. Council was very clear when they sent this back to you; there is no confusion on their part about where the slope begins and where it doesn't begin, so I think we need to focus on the issue of hillside protection and not technicalities which is what is being brought up. Com. Kaneda: · The two issues are view from the valley and protecting slope. He said it was difficult to separate those two things based on the information given. Cupertino Planning Commission 9 September 11, 2007 Steve Piasecki: · It has been stated most of the properties will not be highly visible from the valley any more than most of the properties in Regnart Canyon; and the General Plan statement is about preserving hillsides, and they are not preserving hillsides only for the view from the valley purposes, but so that the deer can run through and the rural character is retained. There are a number of statements in the General Plan about what are valuable aspects of the hillside and why you limit house size and control grading, etc. · Said he agreed that there are some of the houses that are visible, but that is not the primary issue now; with all of the hillsides they have prominent ridgelines which are the ones that are most visible and they have been identified. There is also a special set of rules that apply in the RHS ordinance to them. · The issue is more slope and environmental issues more than the view from the valley floor. Com. Kaneda: · Why has there never been discussion just on writing a set of rules based on the slope of the site, not looking at which side of an arbitrary line you are on. We have seen some photos of properties that are outside the line that are on relatively steep slopes, that if environment is the issue and slope protection is the issue, there is a cluing on fairly steep slopes. Steve Piasecki: · The issue is hillside protection; which doesn't mean a hill, but means the hillsides collectively. It is talking about a demarcation between valley floor properties and properties that are part of a contiguous connected hillside area; it is a broader area that is in question. · He said they have not had rules, other than the 30% rule that applies everywhere, that look just at the slope question. A General Plan policy could be adopted that says that every sloped lot is important for whatever reasons and they will be protected; there should be rules to write around that. They have not gone in that direction because it is not what the General Plan currently says. They are focusing on implementing that General Plan policy; that is the reason it keeps surfacing. Chair Giefer: · Asked for comment on the R1-1O lots that are basically part of the neighborhoods. Com. Miller: · He discussed two perspectives; the first as a Planning Commissioner and keeper of the General Plan and implementing General Plan policies, and in that respect he said he had a concern that what they were doing tonight was singling out a few properties and not applying rules generally throughout the city; where if they did that, they would be more appropriately protecting the hillsides. This is all about one small area and a number of people have pointed that out. · Said he had a concern about excluding properties arbitrarily or however they did it where some of those properties may have significant potential impacts. · The other perspective is the Council has asked the Commission to do some very specific things tonight and the Council has also provided directive that they want the R1 properties excluded. Said he was inclined to go along with their directives; however, mentioned that on the other side they should be looking at some things that they may apply to these specific lots and applying them more generally so that it does do a better job of meeting the objective of protecting the hillsides, which everybody is in favor of. Cupertino Planning Commission 10 September 11, 2007 Com. Wong: · Said his concern' was that of equity issue; when they started out to follow the General Plan they wanted to protect the hillside and started with a couple of hundred parcels, then reduced down to 100 something and now they are reduced to 15 parcels. · Said his biggest concern is that if there was a compromise here tonight that it should be applied citywide; it should not be applied for only the 15 properties. · Said he saw no difference from doing the RI-lO vs. Rl-20; there are some lots that are under 10,000 square feet and can also deeply impact the rating, the views from the valley floor as an RI-20. Even though City Council wanted to take it out, there is definitely more of the masses, the critical mass, for the properties that are Rl-20. Com. Kaneda: · Relative to the R1-1O, said he could support taking that policy out. He said he was concerned with the inequity issue, and felt they need to come up with a consistent set of guidelines not just for a small or large area, but look at a set of guidelines that is not based on an arbitrary line, but some other way of analyzing what a slope is and how much slope in a more impartial way. · Looking at the maps there are properties that are jig sawed in and out of what is considered R1-1O or RI-20 or RHS for historic reasons, and they don't make sense. Chair Giefer: · Commented on the R 1-1 Os and removing them from the section being discussed. Said the key issue for her is the homes that were built as part of Bayview Terrace originally which is Lindy Lane, Terra Bella, the slope side of those streets. They were built and graded about 50 years ago and were developed as part of an overall neighborhood that was later developed by Ward Crump. They have always been part of that neighborhood; they were never part of the rural look and feel of Regnart Canyon or Lindy Canyon and so the RHS is implemented consistently up Regnart Canyon and half of Lindy but not the other half. · Said that the greatest impact was the fact that these houses in general are on sidewalk, they are integrated in the neighborhood, both the house pad as well as the yard pad were graded decades ago and they were built as part of an overall neighborhood not as part of a subdivision, a custom home up in the hill. · Supports removing the R1-lOs from the deliberations and sending it back to City Council. Motion: Motion by Chair Giefer, second by Com. Kaneda, to approve MCA-2007-0a to remove the 10,000 square foot lots (RI-I0) (Vote: Motion failed; Corns. Miller, Wong voted No; Chair Giefer and Com. Kaneda voted Aye) Com. Miller: · Relative to the B portion, Council's direction was clear; they wanted the Planning Commission to hold the public hearing and test out the recommendations that were put forward by staff. There has not been a lot of public input, but what was heard was generally in agreement, except for grading and house size. · The Council is looking for one or two recommendations, the first one to keep C2 in; that is already decided. The other part of it was the Council said C 1 is out and now there is this new proposal that staff has put forward to replace C1, and there is not agreement on that staff proposal at this point. · Said that after listening to the City Council tape the alternative was that they either recommend that nothing replace Cl for these lots or that it be replaced with the staff proposed compromise. They are somewhat constrained to this type of decision, and looking at it that Cupertino Planning Commission 11 September 11, 2007 way, the suggestion would be that there be a staff proposal which is not accepted by either side. · They heard from one member from the side who said they don't want it to be just Rl, and then they heard from the folks on the hillside, the 15 lots that say staff's recommendation is not what they are looking for. It is close; in fact they are willing to impose on themselves more restrictions than if they were just RHS. They have tried to make an effort to do some further compromise and reach an agreement. · He said he was still concerned about putting more restrictions on this group than if they were an RHS itself, and as part of their recommendation they ask the Council to hold hearings on some of the greater restrictions within the RHS and within other Rl areas. If they make sense for this area, why don't they make sense for the other areas. He said it is a recommendation that he would like to put forward. · The other one is that we recommend that either the Council just drop the staff proposal all together or accept the proposal put forward by the residents; and if staff agrees with the proposal put forward by the residents, then I would have this further recommendation that we then take a look at that and apply those standards to other hillside areas as well; so that from a General Plan standpoint, this whole thing makes more sense and is more consistent with that we are trying to achieve here, which is to protect the hillsides, and not just focus on one particular group of people. Com. Wong: · It is a concern about equity and private property rights, and I think we are all here again, the Planning Commission, the city staff, the residents, and want to protect the hillsides, and by limiting to just the 15 properties, I still see this as spot zoning, 1 see it as narrowing down on one particular neighborhood. . · He said there will be a bigger discussion; tonight it is attracting the 15 property owners and the neighbors who are adjacent to the 15 parcels. When you do that, it gets into a smaller discussion and the discussion should be an override discussion. · Because the 15 property owners do not have or cannot seek a compromise with staff because they have concerns with staffs report, the most fair and equitable way is to remove Cion the 15 properties and start from scratch and apply it citywide. Com. Kaneda: · Said he concurred with Com. Miller; and if they were going to make changes, they should either look at applying them in a more general way or just not do it. Chair Giefer: · I wouldn't want to toss the baby out with the bath water; we have an RHS hillside policy and if we were going to make a change, and I brought up spot zoning years ago, that this is the one hill in Cupertino that is not zoned RHS. The same slope, the same hills, are zoned RHS in other parts of the city, but that suggestion got no traction with the Planning Commissioners. I don't think it is necessary to reopen and change the RHS; if we want to talk about rezoning which I don't think we do, we haven't up to this point, that would certainly be the one size that would fit the situation. Moving forward with what is before us tonight, I like staff s recommendation; I think it is a good compromise for many issues. The property owners retain their subdivision rights. · I went through and looked at property values on all of the affected properties including the A1s just anecdotally trying to figure out if there was validation between the argument that their property values were hurt. The properties that for some reason had the greatest value other than a few very large homes in the hills, were the Als vs. the RHS and the smaller Rl hillsides that we have been discussing. Cupertino Planning Commission 12 September 11, 2007 · I don't see this as a whole city issue because our entire city is not a hill. The owners preserve their subdivision rights which I think is key to their property values; the thing I liked about staff s proposal is they have asked for large second stories and balcony rights and they will receive those under the staff proposal and I think it is consistent with the General Plan with regards to protecting our hillside. · We haven't had any specific discussion with regards to some of the sub-items within the staff proposal regarding trees, the second story size; and we have heard a little bit about cut and fill so I won't belabor those because we are not going to have a discussion of those tonight. · I think also that we are adding conditions across the board that are more consistent with the conditions that we have imposed on the property owners who have some in and subdivided. Three of us who were present during those subdivisions and adding those conditions in Moxley, Knopp, and the Sun subdivisions, and others that come before us; I think that where the staff proposal gets closer to many of the conditions we have already asked the property owners to voluntarily accept. Motion: Motion by Com. Miller, second by Com. Wong, on Applications MCA-2007-01 and EA-2007-09, to send a recommendation to City Council that first they remove Cl and not replace it; and as a second alternative that they replace it with the proposal put forth by the residents tonight. Com. Miller: · What has happened with the overlay is it has created a flurry of subdivision activity; and in the process of subdividing, we have actually created more structures on the hillside or the possibility of more structures and cut down more trees, than if the overlay had not been in place and there was no subdivisions. Said in his view, subdivisions are not a good thing; and I wish we didn't have to preserve their rights to subdivision. I would rather see the larger lots and allow them a larger house, but the overall building and overall impact on the hillsides at least in my view, would have been less and would continue to be less. If I look at it from that perspective and I say subdivisions are not good and that this overlay created this unintended consequence, I don't want to repeat the same mistake twice. The owners of the properties are telling me if we implement their compromise that will keep the further subdivision down and in my view that would be better in terms of impacts on the hillsides, and that is strictly the way I am looking at it. Chair Giefer: · Said that the proposal presented tonight was only three bulleted lines of text which the Commission had not had a chance to study thoroughly and discuss amongst themselves. She questioned how they could be expected to vote on something that they did not have any time to understand the implications of or understand if it would serve the purpose that was brought up. Com. Miller: · There were only two items that were different from the staff s report; one was the grading and the other the proposed size of the house. There is a cap on that, limiting them more than if they were just under R1s; it is more restrictive than the size that they would have if it was under Rl, but less restrictive than if they were under RHS; which again fits my defmition, if we are going to do the special zoning thing, this should fall somewhere between the RHS and the R1; everything shouldn't be more restrictive, because RHS in my view is the most restrictive we should have. Cupertino Planning Commission 13 September 11, 2007 Chair Giefer: · Said she was not comfortable with that because she did not understand it, other than what was shown on bullet points on slides shown. Com. Miller: · Said he understood it was more restrictive than R1, and they are placing further restriction on them from the standpoint of size. · Said that the grading issue was reasonable, Mark Santoro explained that the reasoning was because they could not tier their houses like RHS can and therefore it might encompass more grading. He said he was willing to put some grading requirement on there, but it shouldn't be as strict as RHS because RHS encompasses some other things that they don't get which further restricts their ability to develop. · Said he was attempting to reach a compromise and if they were not going to allow them to tier their houses, it is reasonable that they are on a hillside, and may need some more grading flexibility than if they were in RHS. He said he is willing to go along with their grading recommendation or make some other grading recommendation that is more liberal than RHS but not totally open-ended. Com. Kaneda: · Asked staff to comment on the suggestions. Steve Piasecki: · We are defaulting to the RHS standard on grading because we know it works; it works well in the hillsides. I don't know what other; I couldn't tell you whether 3,000 or 3,500 would work; we would have to test that. · On the suggestion, as I understand it we only heard it today for the first time ourselves, is that there is a one percent reduction for every percent over 15%. For example, if you had 20% sloped building pad, then you would have to reduce the FAR from 45% down to 40%, 5 point reduction; 40% of a 20,000 square foot parcel is an 8,000 square foot home instead of a 9,000 square foot home; that is a very large house. To the left are the Moxley lots, these are about 4,000 square foot homes that everyone has complained about; if they came in on the middle parcel and wanted to build an 8,000 square foot home, I think that would be contrary to everything I have heard from both sides on this issue. I don't think that accomplishes it and I think you need a review procedure and that is why we are recommending if you want to build more than the RHS ordinance, then take it through a public process and show us why it is a great plan.. . Com. Wong: · Said he considered modifying the motion, and had a concern that even though the residents came up with a compromise, he felt it would send a stronger message to the City Council why not remove the resident's compromise because we know what the resident's compromise is and send a stronger message to staff to remove C1. Since the residents have already presented their proposal, staff has time to analyze it and let staff make that recommendation; because he does not feel comfortable with this motion to support it because it will send mixed messages on what was said in the deliberation. Com. Miller: · Said he agreed that giving staff some time to analyze and come back and tell them may move them forward. He said he was following Council direction; and understood that the Council said Cl is out and should it be replaced with this new proposal from staff. He said it wasn't clear to him that Council was asking them to vote on whether R1-lOs were in or not; he did not Cupertino Planning Commission 14 September 11, 2007 get that from listening to the Council hearing. He said he did not think they needed to vote on R1-10s at all; Council voted on it and they did not send that back as a recommendation that the Planning Commission discuss it. Steve Piasecki: · Said he thought it was clear that the Council wanted the Planning Commission to take that issue up because of the relationship or lack of relationship to the hillside co-terminus hillside area. · Suggested that where we have agreement, which is everything but grading and house size that you would recommend that package for Cl, and that where you do not have agreement, you can vote on them individually if you desire, take out the grading standard or leave it in, and then on the house size standard, you can agree to disagree or if you can't reach consensus on it, one way or another, just say you couldn't reach a consensus on the house size issue; that way you move past the roadblock, Council gets the best thinking you have and all your comments, and they can decide. (Vote: 2-2-0; Motion failed; Corns. Wong and Chair Giefer voted No; Corns. Miller and Kaneda voted Aye. Chair Wong: · Clarified that he voted No because he felt it was a stronger message than if he accepted. He said he accepted the residents' proposal, but wanted to send a stronger message. He said that if there was a re-vote, he would vote Yes, with a caveat saying that he supported the residents' compromise with strong reservations. Chair Giefer · Commented that they have had no substantive discussion of any of the points that were before them. There is a proposal from the residents making changes that the Commissioners have not studied and she felt at this point they should just move forward on it; they voted on it. Com. Miller: · Said as a further compromise he was willing to consider what the Director had suggested, which would indicate that they have reached some agreement at this point. Steve Piasecki: · Pointed out that another motion could be made. No new motion was made. Chair Giefer declared a short recess. 4. Appointment of a Vice. Chair for the Planning Commission. Appointment of Chair for Design Review Committee and additional Design Review Committee member. Chair Giefer referred to the information in the staff packet. Chair Giefer explained the order of succession for position of Vice Chair. Com. Wong is the first in line; Com. Kaneda second and then Com. Miller. Com. Miller filled in for the DRC and the Vice Chair is the Chair of the DRC. Motion: Motion by Com. Miller, second by Com. Kaneda, to appoint Com. Wong as Vice Chair of the Planning Commission. (Vote: 3-0-1; Com. Wong abstain) Cupertino Planning Commission 15 September 11, 2007 Motion: Motion by Com. Wong, second by Com. Kaneda, to appoint Com. Miller to the Design Review Committee. (Vote: 3-0-1; Com. Miller abstain) REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION: The Environmental Review Committee: No meeting held. Housine: Commission: No meeting held. Mavors Montblv Meetine: With Commissioners: No report. Economic DeveloDment Committee: No meeting held. REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: . No additional report. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned to the September 25, 2007 Planning Commission meeting at 6:45 p.m. ~ SUBMITTED BY: Elizabeth A. Ellis, Recording Secretary Approved as Amended: September 24, 2007