Only a few people at the planning commission meeting 8/13 thought that Rob DeSantis' plan to build a large home with accessory structures on his 13.7-acre property off Kennedy Rd. was a good idea. The planning commission had rejected the application, only to be overruled by the town council May 5. The audience was mostly anti-DeSantis--16 of 18 speakers were opposed to one aspect or another.
After the council's approval of the project's Planned Development (PD) application, a group calling themselves Friends of the Hillsides sued the town. While that suit is pending in the courts, since no restraining order has been granted, the project continues. The next step would ordinarily be architecture and site (A & S) approval from the town's Community Development department, but Mayor Barbara Spector specifically asked that A & S come before the planning commission.
The same planning commission that had rejected the project--except that Marcia Jensen had replaced Steve Rice--was now conducting another public hearing on the project, which has taken over four years so far. Given the council's approval of the PD, the planning commission was only discussing colors, materials, and architecture, and they did not seem happy that they were being asked to find that, in this narrow aspect, the project complies with the town's Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines. In the larger sense of building placement, house size, grading, and retaining walls, the planning commission had already concluded that it was not in compliance--and they were overruled by the council.
"Why are we here?"
"I do want to remind the commission that, to the extent that the commission has any concerns about whether the project complies with the Hillside Development Standards and Guidelines--and many of you have concerns, because many of you supported a motion to recommend to the council to deny the PD application on this project in part because of the issue of compliance with the hillside guidelines--but that issue has been resolved by the council," said Town Attorney Orry Korb. The hillside standards anticipate the need for exceptions, and the council approved four specific exceptions: the main residence can exceed the allowable floor area, a small portion of the house can exceed the 25' height limit, there is some development outside the Least Restrictive Development Area (LRDA), and grading cuts and fills exceed the allowable depths.
"The council has decided, with the exceptions made, that the project complies with the Hillside Guidelines," Korb said, "and the commission is obligated to defer to that decision, whether you agree with it or not. That is, in effect, the law for the town at this point in time."
Commissioner John Bourgeois, in particular, was troubled by the odd circumstances of the application. The council had overruled the planning commission and approved the project, but now it was back before them for another approval.
"I'm not suggesting that you have to agree with their logic and their reasoning, but you have to agree with their decision," said Korb. "In other words, you have to defer to that decision."
After a pause, Bourgeois said, "I guess that begs the question, why are we here?"
The Friends of the Hillsides have been secretive about their meetings and membership so far. Former Planning Commissioner Lee Quintana is named in court filings, and former mayor Sandy Decker and Community Services Commissioner Christine Currie were included in a Weekly Times article, but no other members have been named publicly. Quintana, Decker, and Currie spoke against the project before the commission.
Apparently, applicant DeSantis worried that planning commissioners might have secretly joined or supported the Friends of the Hillside, or attended meetings, and his lawyers sent a letter to the commission asking anyone who had thus prejudged the case to recuse themselves. None of the commissioners felt that DeSantis' concerns applied to them.
"That's why we're in this pickle," said Community Services Commissioner Christine Currie. "We've got a CEQA lawsuit, Friends of the Hillsides, you know? It's an ugly thing we gotta do, but if you don't have the biological, if you don't have the environmental documents, if you don't have the idea of where and how the wildlife corridors are and how that all works on our lovely hillsides--it's in our hillside-specific plan--it's got to be addressed. It hasn't been addressed."
Decker: Disputed Facts and "A crime against this town"
"This project is in your hands," former mayor Sandy Decker told the planning commission. Decker claimed that the project failed to meet "22 of the 29 guidelines" in "the second chapter of the Hillside Guidelines," but there is no such list in the document. Section II discusses site selection and provides 8 standards, most of which the project seems to meet. Calling the project 15,000 square feet, she said it was "100% larger than any home in the area." In fact, the total of the seven buildings proposed, including the garage, is 13,276 square feet. The main house, at 8,650 square feet is smaller than 9 homes in Los Gatos, several of which are in the immediate area of the DeSantis property.
"It's smaller than Al Gore's house," property neighbor Jack Faraone told the commission. Faraone was one of two neighbors (the other is Anil Singh) who spoke on behalf of the DeSantis project. Both neighbors approve, and Faraone was the only speaker who will be able to see the proposed residence when it is completed. Al Gore's Belle Meade mansion outside Nashville, TN is, in fact, 10,000 square feet.
"It is 200% larger than the 6,000 square feet allowed by the guidelines," Decker told the commission. Section IV of the Hillside Guidelines says that the maximum floor area is 6,000 square feet, unless an exception is granted, and that "The Town Council or Planning Commission may approve residential projects greater than the maximum." The council approved this exception May 5. 200% more than 6,000 would be 18,000 square feet.
Community Services Commissioner Christine Currie noticed that the assessor's parcel number was incorrect by one digit on a staff document. Suzanne Davis of the planning department admitted that it was a typo.
"Okay, so if it's incorrect on the title sheet, then shouldn't it be recirculated?" Currie asked, suggesting that the lengthy review process be restarted.
"I don't know how this is going to help us," Planning Commission chair Michael Kane said, gently ending the exchange between Currie and Davis. Currie also pointed out that although Rob DeSantis claims to have lived in Los Gatos for many years, he made a similar claim to the City of Manhattan Beach, CA, where he is building another home.
"So, I'm wondering how--I mean, I know that we all have vacation homes and vacation--but it's one thing to vacation, it's another to live," Currie said. "So I was hoping to get some sort of clarification, if possible."
"You simply are not equipped to let this project go forward," Decker told the commission. "The reports, the impact studies, for this project are inadequate. To let this massive project go forward without a total environmental impact review is a crime against this town."
Former planning commissioner Lee Quintana said again that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA, pronounced SEE-kwah) requires an environmental impact report (EIR) in her opinion. That is the basis of the Friends of the Hillsides' suit against the town.
"I hope you could just consider waiting," Currie said. "Waiting until you get [environmental] documents. Waiting until a CEQA judge says yay or nay."
Other Concerns
Steve Emery had no problem with the DeSantis development, but was worried that truck after truck hauling dirt from the site would damage Kennedy Rd. Of 18 speakers, 15 were opposed, and none of them live in the immediate Kennedy or Forrester Rd. neighborhood.
Some concerns were better founded than others. Parks Commission Chair Dick Konrad suggested that the commission require a hydrology study to make sure that the proposed well doesn't draw water away from other properties. Dr. David Weissman worried that the parcel's perimeter fence would not be as "wildlife permeable" as one might like, and he suggested doing away with the fence entirely.
Well-known landscape architect Alrie Middlebrook sat next to Currie in the audience and spoke against the project, admitting that she was unfamiliar with all the details, but saying that such a large amount of grading could hardly be called "green."
Florence Smith, a 43-year resident of Los Gatos, spoke of her "deep concern of setting this new precedent," but Peter Donnelly, who owns a large parcel of land further up Kennedy Rd., said the opposite, even though he, too, was against approving the DeSantis project.
"In response to [Jack Faraone]'s comment about size compatibility," Donnelly said. "I was always told when I was looking at my development: Past decisions are not a precedent for new decisions. So just 'cause somebody else got that in the past it doesn't make it right that new development should be allowed in the same way."
Yolanda Dreger was worried about sending the wrong message to Santa Clara County, which controls development on ridgeline parcels visible from Los Gatos. In the past, the county has approved large, bright white houses whose mass interrupts the ridgeline and whose windows reflect the sun.
"If approved, this development will send a message to the county that extensive grading and fill is okay and huge-sized homes are fine with Los Gatos," Dreger said. "The county in the past has looked to Los Gatos as a guide to how to develop our hillsides."
Some speakers hadn't looked closely at the plans. Dick Whitaker, who explained that he was "joining hands" with Friends of the Hillside due to another approved project across town, thought that "if so much dirt is taken out of this site, it might be under" the minimum 2.5 acres required per home. The parcel is actually 13.7 acres. Whitaker summed up his concern: "It's much larger than it should be, it seems like."
"Since when can a project be approved without story poles?" Bernadette Chadwick of Wooded View Dr. asked. "Why did the town council do this? Story poles are necessary...to notify people that there is something going on." Story poles, the orange netting that marks a project's outline, were not required for the DeSantis project, since they would be mostly underground until the grading is accomplished. No one--commission, staff, audience--explained this to her.
"The good news is that Los Gatos has clear standards and guidelines to protect our hillsides," Rosemary Greene said. "The bad news is we don't seem to be following them consistently, fairly, and fully for every single project." Both Rosemary and David Greene spoke against the DeSantis project. David warned the commission not to let DeSantis replace the 140 trees he would be removing with "twigs in 15-gallon cans." (The actual number is 35 trees, to be replaced by 105 native trees, according to DeSantis.) The Greenes led a relentless and ultimately futile attempt to stop development of a parcel that adjoined their backyard two years ago.
"How can you possibly make a finding that this was the intent of all the people in this community who worked so hard to write these standards?" Sandy Decker asked the commission. In fact, the standards were written by a committee of six: five planning commissioners and Peggy Dallas, Architect. Decker was on the council that approved the final draft in Jan. 2004.
Doing Goofy Things
The planning commissioners were concerned about the lack of fencing details, only a preliminary landscape plan, and no lighting plan.
"A landscape plan and a lighting plan is not going to help me approve this house," Commissioner Joanne Talesfore said. "It's very well-designed. It's quite beautiful. I'm just not sure that the way it's designed is the rural character that we're looking for."
"It's 11:00," chair Kane said. "We get around 11:00, we do goofy things. I don't want to do goofy things on this."
The Planning Commission voted, 5-2, to continue the public hearing, for the limited purpose of gathering more fence, landscape, lighting, and hydrology information, until Aug. 27.
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