 Good evening everyone. As the chair of the planning commission, I'm going to start the meeting of the planning commission and we'll start with a role called Jackie please. Commissioner Newman. Here. Commissioner Smith. Here. Commissioner Welch. Here. Commissioner Westman. Here. Chairperson Story. Here. And would you join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I want to announce that this meeting is cablecast live on charter communications cable TV channel 8 and AT&T Uverse channel 99. It's being recorded and will be replayed on next Monday and Friday at 1 p.m. on charter channel 71 and Comcast channel 25. The meeting can also be viewed at the city's website which is www.cityofcapitola.org. Tonight our technician is Victor Herman. Thank you Victor and I just want to remind everyone if you could please turn off your cell phones and if you come up to the podium please sign in so we can have your name for the record. With that let's move on to oral communications which is next on the agenda and we'll consider additions and deletions to the agenda. Commissioners have any additions or requested deletions. Hearing none. Staff. Chairperson's story I'd like to delete 4C item for 115 San Jose Avenue the Parklet application that has been withdrawn by both parties. So is there a motion to delete item 4C? I'll move the motion. Second. All in favor. Aye. The motion passes unanimously. Hearing no other additions or deletions for tonight we'll move on now to public comments. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the planning commission on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Somebody would like to speak to the commission. Hearing none let's move on. We'll next go to commission comments commissioners. You have comments updates reports questions. I just have one question for Katie for an update on the we call it the house on capitol road. I believe it's 4960 I think is the number. 4960 capitol road this property as you all know has been in the courts and it recently went under receivership with conditions for the permit. There are three deadlines set for the homeowner in which they were going to act as the personal contractor to finish within three certain deadlines that had specific items that had to be addressed at each deadline during an inspection. Upon completion of those deadlines which I have here the last deadline is September 12th 2018 the home will be inspected and if everything is in compliance the homeowner will get a certificate of occupancy and there'll be some significant leans against the home for the efforts the city has had to go through legally. If on September 12th the inspection fails at that point it would go into the receivership and they would decide the fate of the building in the future. So you may be seeing progress out there. Thank you. Maybe you'll give us an update after the inspection. Yes. Thank you. Next we'll move on to staff comments. Does staff have any comments or introductions they would like to make? I do. It's my honor to introduce Sasha Landry. Sasha Landry is a native to the Santa Cruz area and she was hired she began work this Monday. Planner Landry was selected from a large pool of applicants. In 2009 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from UC Santa Cruz with a focus on American studies. More recently that this past May she earned her master's in urban planning at San Jose State University. Sasha has successfully completed internships with the city of Santa Cruz and with Metro so she got great recommendations from both organizations and her professors at San Jose State University and we're so happy to have her. Welcome Sasha. Thank you. And next you see another new face and this is Chloe Woodmanson and Chloe is our records coordinator and Chloe how long have you been with the city? Since November. Since November so whenever your questions come up for any records on a property Chloe will be happy to help you out with those and she's been very kind to the team. Welcome Chloe. Any other staff comments? That's it. Thank you. Next we'll move on to the consent calendar. This item will be handled with one vote without any lengthy discussion unless someone chooses to pull it from our agenda for discussions. Any other speakers wish to pull any consent item? There's only one but being none. I'll move the consent agenda. And is there a second? I'll second it. Before we vote on that let me ask do any members of the public wish to remove this item from the consent agenda for further discussion? Here again I'll bring it back for a vote all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously Jackie. Moving on to public hearings. The first public hearing is under A are considerations of sign permit for two wall signs at 105 Stockton Avenue in the central village zoning district. That's and we'll begin with a staff presentation. Okay. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I came before you last month as an amendment to a master sign program. You asked and the applicant was not present. So you asked that we speak with the applicant speak with the building owner and bring this back as a sign permit instead. So that's what we did. The applicant submitted a sign permit application for two wall signs for the existing commercial space located at 105 Stockton Avenue in the CV central village zoning district. There is an exact existing master sign program for that commercial building. The applicant is proposing to add a second wall sign on the east elevation along Riverview Avenue which is not currently allowed under that master sign program. Master sign program establishes the allowed materials, letter style, height, color and illumination of signs for multi-tenant buildings. MSP is approved by the planning commission with subsequent approvals administered by the community development director. Master sign program for 103 and 105 Stockton allowed a wall sign located on the copper awnings in front of the business along Stockton Avenue approximately 27 inches tall by 10 feet long with capital letters being 18 inches. A wall sign located and a wall sign located on the existing copper awning on the side of the business along the Riverview path approximately 24 inches by tall by 8 feet long with capital letters being 15 inches. Letter style and sign color were to be subject to the community development director's approval. The two current Armida wall signs in the locations described in the master sign program shown here are both 24 inches high and 8 feet long with capital letters less than 12 inches in height. The size, shape, color and texture of the signs are also complementary to the overall design of the building. The applicant is proposing to add a new wall sign in front of the business along Stockton Avenue that meets the original size requirements approved under the master sign program of 27 inches tall by 10 feet wide. The applicant is also proposing a second wall sign on the east elevation along Riverview Avenue which is not currently allowed under the master sign program. Prior to the applicant meeting submitting revised designs city staff informed the applicant that at the June 7th, 2018 meeting the planning commission had requested that the applicant bring back two sign designs matching the 24 inch high by 8 foot wide signs in place at 103 Stockton Avenue. Staff also informed the applicant that several members of the planning commission disapproved of the stark white background and asked that the applicant consider different colors that fit with the building and existing signage in the area. The applicant's proposal includes 127 inch high by 10 foot wide wall sign on the Stockton Avenue side of the building and 127 inch high by 10 foot wide wall sign on the Riverview Avenue side of the building. The sign material for both signs would be aluminum dye bond which is the same material as the two existing illegal signs and the lettering height would be approximately 6 inches on the top and smaller on the second line though the applicant did not specify what that letter height was. The colors would be the same white background, turquoise border and black text as the existing signs. The proposed 27 inch tall by 10 foot wide sign dimensions for the new wall sign on Stockton Avenue which is 5 inches shorter and 2 feet wider than the existing illegal sign shown on this slide which were approved under the 2002 master sign program would be out of balance with the other tenant signs. Under the capital and municipal code, central village signs should relate to their surroundings in terms of size, shape, color, texture and lighting so that they are complementary to the overall design of the building and are not in visual competition with other conforming signs in the area. In addition to being larger than the signage at 103 Stockton Avenue, the proposed design of the sign with stark white background makes it appear even larger. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission limit the size of both signs to 24 inches high by 96 inches wide or 2 feet by 8 feet. Staff supports the request for a second sign on the wall adjacent to Riverview Avenue because the applicant is on a corner parcel and allowing a second sign along Riverview Avenue is an allowance that currently exists for wall signs on corner lots in the capital and municipal code. Under the code, businesses which are located adjacent to two streets or a corner shall be permitted one additional wall sign to face the second adjacent street if the business is not identified on the monument sign. So staff recommends the Planning Commission review application 180170 and approve the sign application as conditioned, limiting the sign size of the two signs to 24 inches wide by 96 inches each. Commissioner does have questions on the staff report? Question for staff. So would there still be a master sign program for this building after we do this? Or are we basically removing that? Yes. Unless the Planning Commission chose to avoid it via condition due to the fact that you'd be, if you want with the allowing a second wall sign that would directly contradict the program that's in place now, it could be removed. Thank you. And I should add that the owner had no problems with whatever the Planning Commission chose to do in terms of the master sign program or these two signs in particular stuff. So you could effectively condition it to remove, to avoid the master sign program? Any other questions on the staff report? Hearing none. I'm going to open it up to the public now. Are there representatives from the business or the building owner that would like to address the commission? Yes. Good evening. My name is Bahan Cikarian. I'm the business owner. Good evening. Welcome. Thank you very much. So it's good to be in Capitola. So I guess are you saying you're allowing or in your discussion to allow sign on the second side limit the size of the sign by 24 by AZA? What's being said 24 inches by 8 feet? Well, that's still to be determined. The commission hasn't actually discussed it at this point and made a final decision. But I think that what you've heard is the staff has recommended that it be allowed but with a reduction in the sign to 2 feet by 8 feet. Okay. All right. And we took out the whiteboard on the side. So the whiteboard is basically a bath and body shop. So it's personal care items and the ocean is turquoise. The bath products are white so it kind of goes with the theme of the business. So we remove the white on the outside to make it appear less white, if you will, made a wider border. So hopefully that works. And the lettering doesn't quite represent who we're looking at making it slightly larger to I think what Matt said. Yeah. Okay. Anything further? No, I'm just, you know, we're happy to be in Capitola. And, you know, it's been a little challenging because there was a previous sign that was identical. We tried to match the same thing unbeknownst to us that that was not a permitted way to go about it. But I basically went out and did exactly what was done before and that sign was up for three or four years. So anyway, we want to get past this and, you know, be able to get past that. Yeah. And we have that same goal for you. You heard some discussion about the master sign program that pre-existed. You have any thoughts about whether you want to abandon that and just I would say abandoning it just because every the city is so different in all the size. And in fact, I listened to the minutes from the last time. And I think there was some discussion about maybe get, you know, moving away from the master sign program. I think that would be good. Anyone else wish to address the commission on this item? Seeing none, I'm going to bring it back to the commissioners for discussion and action. Who would like to begin? Anyone should I call on? Well, I don't have any problem with them having the two sign as long as it conforms to the size of the 27 inches. I think that's what it was by eight feet. I'm sitting here thinking about the advantages and disadvantage of having a master sign program. And I really can't see a huge advantage to keeping one for, you know, when there are only two businesses there, makes a lot of sense. Like in King's Plaza or those kinds of places so signs can be replaced. But I think the village is so sensitive it might be a good policy to get rid of that master sign program as part of approving these two signs. Okay. Any other discussions? I would just say I concur with that. Being one of the people who had an issue with the stark white background, I appreciate the explanation that was given about why it is and I really appreciate the outer white border being removed. It does address that concern. So with that, I could if there's more discussion, I could make a motion to approve it. To accept staff recommendation with the addition that the master sign program be terminated. Is that the motion? I haven't seen comments first. Let me see if there's a second to the motion. So there's a second for discussion purposes. The sign itself and the two signs I don't have a problem with, it's better. That's not great in my opinion, but it's better. I'm a little concerned about how we're handling this master sign program, which I thought was kind of weird in the first place for this building, but yet it's the building owner's property that master sign program, not this particular applicants. And I don't think it's appropriate for us to take action on the owner's master sign program. I don't think it's appropriate without some kind of notice and opportunity for the owner to address that issue of the property. So if we're if we're going to go forward with doing the two signs, we'll just make a finding that, you know, even though it's an exception to the master sign program came to the planning determination for this business, they could have the second sign. Yeah, we can make that finding. Could we also have clarity on the motion because Commissioner Westman originally stated 27 inches for the height and the staff recommendation was 24. 24. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. Thank you. I concur with the rest of the group here. I don't know if we're going to have a huge heartburn doing something with a master plan. I think the business owner obviously has the ability to with only two tenants determine what they want to do there, but since it's only one in the village, I don't have a lot of heartburn with it going either way. I also am not a huge fan of the stark white or the white background, but I think it's really hard and maybe it's my age, but to read those letters from a distance, but whereas you notice the Armita Winery really stands out for an ounce, but with that, I can move with the rest of the commission here. Thank you. Where are we on our motion? Can we break it into two if you still want to do away with the master sign or eliminate that? No, I just have a question of staff first. The master sign program, because it's the only one that's down there has been confusing, what would the process be for the owner to remove it if they were amenable to doing that? I think it would be essentially an amendment to the master sign program where we would come in and ask for it to be removed. Originally, this got noticed as an amendment to the master sign program then continued. So it could be, in my mind it would be appropriate this evening to amend the actual master sign program to allow a 24 inch high by 96 inch wide sign, one on the front and one on the side and we would just simply update the master sign program and future applicants wouldn't be confused by different size signs up on the building versus what's allowed under the master sign program. So it was noticed for a master sign program and that would also be, I think, a more, almost a more appropriate alternative so that we don't have conflicting documents in the record. So I would amend my motion then to amend the master sign program rather than void it. But I think it's confusing and we're approving something that doesn't work without saying anything would be problematic. So there's the maker has made an amendment to the motion. That's acceptable. So to restate the motion is to approve staff recommendation but also amend the master sign program to incorporate the two sides adjacent street provision and the size on the adjacent street. Well, I support that motion but I didn't have any concerns about the notice to the applicant. This is our second meeting where we've discussed this item and since the applicant has chosen to come in not under the master sign program but under our ordinance and for their own benefit I view that Dave in essence waived the master sign program and again and I think it's overkill and it is confusion to have these two standards on such a small commercial building. So those are the reasons why I felt it was appropriate to take action on that. But with that if there are no other discussions I'll take action. And all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none the motion passes unanimously Jackie. Congratulations. It's been approved. Welcome to Capitola and may you thrive and and with that we'll move on to the next item which is item B on tonight's agenda and this is concerning the application for this project. Magellan street this is a design for a meant for a first and second story addition which includes a variance request for the 80 percent permissible structural alteration limit for non conforming structures for an existing single story single family home located in the R one that single family residential project is applying for design permit as you mentioned to add one thousand three hundred sixty six square feet of first and second story additions to the existing non conforming single family residents. The application includes a request for the variance for 80 percent permissible structural alteration limit for non conforming structures project includes the conversion of the existing garage into a master bedroom and a major interior apartment. The application includes the old one. Second story and a new covered porch on the front indicated in the blue blocks. Quick picture of the existing one story residents and these are the elevations that are being proposed the proposed roof will have multiple gable ends on the first and second story one with a gable window and one with a gable vent on the front elevation and one with an architech phantom and the arch in site committee. Apokan is proposing board and batten sideing on the first and second story of the new structure project is non-conforming because 21 feet of the existing garage encroach approximately 13 inches into the side set back based on that non conformity. The project is subject to capitol municipal code section 17.7 to point 07 0 for permissible structure alterations. That section states 80% of the present fair market value of the structure as computed by a formula that we have, then the proposed structural alterations may not be made. For the proposed project, the proposed structural changes are 99.5% of the value of the existing structure. Therefore the applicant is requesting variance for the 80% permissible structural alteration limit for non-conforming structures. The capital only municipal code states, and I know I've said this multiple times, but I feel like each new batch of people in the audience probably need to hear it. That the Planning Commission may grant a variance permit when it finds that one, because of special circumstances applicable to the subject property, including size, shape, topography, location, or surroundings, the strict application of this title is found to deprive subject property of privileges enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity and under identical zoning classification. And two, that the grant of a variance permit would not constitute a grant of special privilege inconsistent with the limitations upon other properties in the vicinity and zone in which the subject property is situated. So for reference here, the parcels on Magellan Street are large by Capitola standards, with most of them being 6,000 square feet or greater. I think most residents of Capitola would love to have 6,000 square feet. Of the single family homes located on Magellan Street, all of which require between six and seven foot side yard setbacks, all appear to be non-conforming due to a portion of the home being located within the setback area. This is a result of the design standards being different at the time the structures were constructed. There are not special circumstances applicable to the lot. However, an existing non-conforming encroachment in the side yard is a privilege enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity and under identical zoning classification. The grant of a variance permit would not constitute a grant of special privilege inconsistent with the limitations upon other properties in the vicinity and zone in which the subject property is situated because many properties along Magellan Street have non-conforming side yard setbacks. Also of note is that a variance to allow a new encroachment into a side yard setback was approved for 129 Cabrillo Street, which is in the same neighborhood. In 1986, based on the fact that it would not constitute a grant of special privilege inconsistent, I'm not going to read the rest of that. You've heard it like four times right now. In that case, the Planning Commission allowed an addition to be built into the required setback. In this application, however, the applicant is only asking for a variance to exceed the permissible structural alteration limit and keep the non-conforming garage wall in its current location four feet 11 inches from this property line. The proposed additions conform to all of the required setbacks and the structure stays under the maximum flurry ratio for the parcel under the existing code. Staff recommends the Planning Commission review this application and approve project number 18-0184 based on the conditions and findings for approval. Thank you. There are questions from commissioners on the staff report. Questions for staff. Just point of clarification. The garage that exists today is not being demolished and rebuilt. It's going to stay where it is. Correct. Just wanted to clarify that. Other members of the public that would like to address the commission on this project, please step up. I am Robin Allega and I'm just here. If you have any questions, we took a lot of time and effort doing the design of this to try and meet all the parameters and then also address the neighbor privacy by making all the windows higher on the side where we went two stories so that they're all about here. There are about four or nine from the floor so that there's not, it's just for light and ventilation more than view. And so if you have any questions, we're here to answer those. Other questions from commissioners for Robin? I just have one quick question. Did you have a neighborhood meeting where you showed the plans to the neighbors and reviewed that with them? Yes. You know what? I'll actually let the owner, he has letters from all the neighbors. Hello, my name is Scott Harway. I'm the homeowner along with my wife, Minnie Harway. We've been designing our hopefully future home for several years and we've incorporated all of our immediate neighbors into the into the not only the process but our finished product as well. We've got an input from all of them. They've all approved it. I have letters here. I believe some of them have even been mailed to you guys as far as letters of support from all of our immediate neighbors, the homeowners that live in the area that that they are all in favor of our design moving forward and approve of it. And yes, and the renter directly next door that's been there for over 10 years, also them as well. So every bunch, all of our immediate neighbors that their properties touch ours or have a direct view of ours have all been involved in the process and have all also submitted letters of support for us. I would just like to commend you for having done that. When I was reading a lot of the letters, it became apparent to me that you had shared the plans with the neighborhood and that's not often done. But I really commend you for doing that. Thank you. I feel if I could just say on that Magellan Street and probably Cliffwood Heights as a whole. But Magellan Street reminds me a lot of a street where I grew up on where every I mean we can go around. I can tell you every single person that lives up and down our street. Sometimes they probably know a little too much about our business or ask them, but it's a very tight knit community. And I would never want to move forward with something on this grandiose that had have an effect on the community without getting their involvement and approval prior to. Thank you. Any other questions that you have for me? I don't believe that any other questions, but I as well want to thank you for making this a neighborhood project, sharing the information with everyone and also particularly addressing the privacy issues that had come up. I'm Beverly Mottor, a retired school teacher with Pahero Valley Unified School District. In 1965 when my family and I moved from the San Joaquin Valley area where I'd been born and raised, we first found a rental in Scott's Valley. When that when the owner suddenly sold out from under us we luckily found our home at 146 Sir Francis Court in Capitola, which Gary Meeker, the original owner, was selling. He now lives across the street from us. Since the homes on Magellan behind us are graded at least four feet higher than ours, we decided that we needed a fence that would protect our privacy. And David Tashikin was the owner at that time. He agreed that privacy for both families was needed and a tall fence was erected. When the family on my right applied for a second story, Mr. Tashikin was adamant against it and our invasion of privacy. The council gave it a go ahead with a provision that windows on the side and back be above six feet so that our privacy would be protected. I'm asking for the same provisions. Please let me keep my privacy. Thank you Ms. Mater for coming in. Can we see the map again which showed the houses so. So you live on the street. I live in the court. Sir Francis Court. My backyard is his backyard. They're a backyard. I've been there 50 years or more. Thank you. Since we're talking about the rear yard here that backs up to that the rear yard set back, they're required is 20 feet and it's at 32 feet in this proposed project. Could you show us again then we're at the height of the windows. I can't tell from the picture. So can we, because I do have a concern about some privacy issue. Do we want to just talk about them now? Let's finish the problem. You know when we finish this then we'll bring it all back but I did maybe want to see if we could get information about the existing project designed and see if it you know already addresses Ms. Mater concerns or whether we could work with the applicant to you know adjust it in any way. But maybe we could show us you know where those windows are in the heights of them. So I'm assuming she's referring to actually the door and the balcony on the second floor because that's what faces the rear of the lot. The west elevation. Yes. Sorry I can't read the right hand. Yes. Actually my concern. The actual windows that were changed in terms of privacy are the ones on the upper left the south elevation. As you can see those are the high high windows that the architect or designer was referring to. Yes. And I just have one question for you. Your address ma'am? 146. Oh 146. Okay thank you. Are you able to see on this drawing on the top left side where it says south elevation. Okay. All right well. You don't like it. No that's fine. I don't think her backyard backs up too. Yes my backyard right. No I think you're actually a few houses down. If you look on them you're actually a few houses down from their backyard. Oh no they're right over the fence on me. Okay. You know we're pulling it out. This here is 146 Sir Francis Court. I'm 146. Okay that's this property here. 205 is there's quite a separation between the two so 205 Magellan is up the street approximately about six homes so it does not directly back up. It's about six homes up. So you're some distance away from this project. Your home is some distance away from this project. Well with the address that you gave us 146 that's what staff has pulled up on the map and where the arrow is what she's showing that's your your home there. 146 and the project you see is at the top of the screen. It's really hard to see on that magnetard there. Okay so but it's about seven seven properties up. There you go there's a thank you. Well it's a good night don't worry. You know it's really see it just goes to show it was good that you came here to get that confirmed and to express your congratulations. That's it. I think with that I will bring this back to the commission for further discussion and action. Let me start because I kind of feel the energy of this application so I'll get my descent in here right away and yeah I mean everything about this project is a positive except one thing which is the variance request and the problem with it is is that you have to show special circumstances to be entitled to a variance under the government code. It doesn't matter that everybody else in the neighborhood or the rest of the world has whatever it is you're asking for. There has to be the shape, topography, one of the elements and it just I mean the staff reports says there are no special circumstances here so we would be conflicting with the government code if we approve the variance without special circumstances. So to me there are only two options here one is either two and I mean I'm sorry because it's only 13 inches I know to either comply and then the project is an absolute go because it meets every single requirement and it's a great project or to somehow meet the 80% rule so a variance isn't required. So I'm not going to be able to support the variance unless I hear some awfully compelling arguments from somebody. Thank you Ed for that. Anyone else? Well I'll jump in there I'm not going to be able to convince an attorney that has a background in real estate obviously but I think what we have seen is in Capitola especially in these type of circumstances where we have all these non-conforming buildings today because we've changed our code throughout the time and now the setbacks have changed in this case they're not as far as I'm concerned they're not adding to that setback problem and I think we've set a precedence throughout Capitola in general one it's a very it's one of the reasons I think we got rid of the 80% code in our new zoning code we got rid of this 80% standard because it just draws so much difficulty in trying to decide some of these things but for the variance as far as the setback I quite frankly I think we've set enough precedence throughout the rest of the city and who do you who do you pick to be that person and say okay from here on out we're not going to do that so I know I'm not convincing you Ed but I kind of lean the other way I think this is something we've allowed for many many years we've changed our code several times and our setbacks have changed several times so for me I don't I don't have a real issue I think it's acceptable all right thank you DJ so I have another issue with the application probably can answer me to go along with it with the variance but what I can't go along with is the second floor rear yard deck and even if the you know existing neighbors say it's fine we've found over and over again that those create problems and they really are an intrusion into people's privacy and on this particular application it's sort of one big room they could easily put the balcony on the front side of the house and it would be in the same room if they it was it was extremely important to them to have a balcony but I just find that you know I can't go along with approving a house a second floor addition with a rear yard balcony I just think it's ultimately becomes a privacy problem for the neighbors so that would be the one thing I would need to see changed on the application if I was going to vote for it okay thank you Susan Linda well I'm going to be a flying ointment I think because I agree with what TJ says about the variance and I think by the time this project comes to fruition the 80 percent rule will be gone and the new code will be in effect so if you waited a year then that would go away and and I don't see any reason to have to wait for that the back deck doesn't bother me that much because of the distance between where that deck ends and where the the backyards are I know where I live it's very very tight and it makes it really bad to have second floor rear decks because you're just looking right down in everybody's backyard but when I looked at this I was thinking that the distance would be far enough to alleviate that as an issue but I would ask the the question of the applicant if they would be willing to um forego the the upstairs back deck and have a just large windows that opened would that be acceptable would it be appropriate to ask did we ask to look at that sure if uh if scott if you're prepared to come up and answer that question before he answers that though Susan would you be would it make a difference to you if it weren't a deck but we're just you know big windows that open if it's windows I'm comfortable with it you know they have fairly large windows in the front they could match the windows that are on the front if I could just address the reasoning of the deck first if that's a possibility we believe the lady that left kind of talked about it where the people behind us there's a lower elevation on surferanthosis and Wesley and Eleanor behind us we have amazing sunset views that happen behind our house and it's not it's a very small deck that we have up there it's not an entertaining deck and the idea was actually brought forth by our neighbors that have a two-story deck on their house directly across the street down at the corner there's three two-story decks on the jelon street alone so it wasn't a deck that we meant to have entertainment it's a smaller one that's actually built directly by a 30 plus foot tall palm tree that blocks our view from our neighboring properties and we can only look back and behind us we can only see rooftops we can't see down into anyone's property and we also have 30 semi 32 feet from the rear of the structure I'm sorry from the rear of our property anyways also behind our property is a wall of bamboo that goes through the side so the question that we had was would you be willing to get rid of the deck it's definitely something we'd be open to I mean if that's our only option yes okay thank you thank you Scott I would just here's here's my concern about this is what is the difference from looking out a window into the same area as looking from a deck and we've had this discussion several times about entertainment and I think we address that this deck is a very shallow deck it's not one made to barbecue and cook from so I don't I don't share that same concern I think it adds a luxury I don't think it's someone I mean I understand privacy and we're we're in an area that's it's going to be the common discussion for quite a while but in this situation the height of the I'm a little bit familiar with it because my cousin I mean my uncle lived on Eleanor right behind and the it's so high from the Eleanor side to them you can't see out your back window except for a fence and for the people on the jail and they're looking way over the top of it so I don't see it as a privacy issue but even give it that with large windows you see the same viewing area the only question would be is are you going to party out on the deck I guess would be the question so the staff know how deep the deck is four feet four feet yeah it's it's very shallow you know I think that we've seen more and more that you know privacy is an issue you know I appreciate that maybe they're only going to stand there and look at the sunsets we know homes don't stay in the same ownership forever we know neighbors don't stay the same and for me it's a bad precedent to have the second floor rear deck I think we have talked about not allowing them in the future and so I can't I can't see approving it with this deck on this particular one yeah thank you so maybe three of you so can I respond just comment on commissioner smith's point about the new ordinance I took a look at that and I'm not really sure how that would play out we haven't really implemented that ordinance yet and I tried to look at it in terms of the variance request or the non-conformity on this particular project and it wasn't all clear to me that they would qualify under the new ordinance either and I agree with your interpretation I looked at that the issue here is is that when the city council changes a rule for a neighborhood and so all the houses that existed prior to the change of that rule follow a certain set of rules now if the new houses are new lots that are under the new set of rules get variances because everyone else is under the old set of rules then the city council's act was really meaningless and you're basically saying they can either have the new rules or they can have the old rules because everyone else has them well I I don't know if I necessarily agree with that because under a new construction absolutely it would have to meet the new setbacks but when you're looking at existing home that you're adding to and again it goes back to this 80 percent are we what are we doing with that 80 percent I understand that but they have an expectation that they have to move the whole house over a few inches because we change the codes after that current house it just doesn't seem logical they don't have to move the whole house they just have to take one one garage wall understood understood and I I mean I like the project I'm happy if you guys approve it and I can stick to my uh understanding of okay well um maybe um I'll weigh in on both of those questions one first about the variance and then about the rear deck you know one concerning the variance and yes it is uh directive from the city council um but in my reading of section 1772.070 um it in essence says that the cost shall not exceed 80 percent of the present fair market value of the structure it doesn't say 80 percent of the cost of the reconstruction so the council said what it meant to say and I'm not sure if the calculations that we use are in strict compliance with that ordinance and so that's why I mean if it were clear and if it were direct I could I could maybe see where you're going with this ad and apply that but the way the calculations are used it compares cost of construction against cost of construction not fair market value I'm not sure if that is in a correct application and particularly in situations where the difference is de minimis and the cost of compliance is great and so when I weigh those in and I do I believe that there are special circumstances from the the non-conforming nature of that neighborhood almost this is um you know created you know by changing rules in which the homeowners you know have no responsibility for for doing and when you have a project that ultimately from the most part complies but for you know a small you know setback which is pre-existing and is not being altered or changed I think that it is within our purview to grant that variance and I think there are sufficient circumstances in this situation taking everything as a whole to have the appropriate findings but I'm mostly concerned about how we apply this and it would seem to me that if we consistently do this it's we're going to confront many homeowners with the economic inability to make these significant upgrades because I think the improvements I mean if you look at the end game the improvements are a betterment to the neighborhood it's a betterment to you know the look of our community and keeping up you know maintenance and reconstruction and and the needs of modern families and so when I look at it from that perspective I'm okay with granting the variance on the rear deck all because it's only four feet in width it's there's 34 feet setback rear yard setback it's which is way beyond what is normally required I think that the applicant has shown some responsibility toward their rear neighbors and I think I kind of agree with DJ what's the difference between a deck and a window and so I think it just creates a little bit more usability for the owners I don't see there's nothing in the record here right now for this project about privacy issues and I know that you've experienced Susan in other areas but I think that we should look at projects on a case-by-case basis and see if there's if there were a neighbor here saying oh my god this is too close I'm right behind you and they got that rear deck which we almost had but there isn't one and so that that I think weighs into my decision so I would be willing to you know accept staff recommendation prove the project with the variants but with that it sounds like we maybe have a well I'll just jump out there make a motion that we accept staff recommendation to prove as outlined and I wish I would have articulated my discussion as well as you were but I think we're on the same page so I would move a motion that we approve the project as outlined by staff sir second I would second it with a possible friendly amendment if you would consider it and that is condition that the second floor deck can never be extended past the four feet depth I'm good with that so we have a motion and a second any further discussion roll call mode please okay I'll Jackie let's have a roll call vote commissioner Newman no commissioner Smith yes commissioner Welch yes commissioner Westman no chairperson story yes the motion passes three to two which will bring us to our next item item c congratulations um item c has been deleted from tonight's agenda so we'll move on to item d which is a project at 210 central avenue this is an application for design permit conditional use permit major uh revocable encroachment permit invariance request to the 80 permissible structural alteration limit for non-converting structures for in addition to an historical single-family residence at 210 central avenue within the r1 single family zoning district we'll have a staff presentation please okay thank you chairperson story and good evening commissioners before you as an application at 210 central avenue this is in the depot hill neighborhood and in an area of there's quite a few historic homes along the first two to three streets along depot hill so i'm going to give you an overview of the project the this slide is showing the existing home in red at the bottom and the area of the existing home to be removed in blue so the first story of this home is actually decreasing in size of square footage with the extended portion of the the building that extends all the way to the rear property line it's a series of there's some sheds in there as well as just informal additions that took place over time the applicant is proposing to keep the front cottage of the home and then they'll have the new addition directly behind that the setback standard in the r1 district is a 20 percent of the lot depth not to exceed 25 feet and this proposal is at 31 feet from the rear lot line so they've really brought the the home is located just short of the 15 foot front yard setback and the new addition is has been brought close to the home in an effort to maintain the rear yard and provide it's similar lineup to the neighboring properties so as you can see in this slide the required setbacks are within the dashed line the existing home is over the property line and as you we just went through a thorough discussion on when you've got a property that extends over the existing properties it's a non-conforming structure and so the historic home here is non-conforming the new addition does comply with all the setback requirements for the first and second story now i'll go through the elevations and the proposed design the the existing elevation is on the left for the front and the proposed elevation is on the right it this is a two-dimensional design so it's hard to see the stepping that occurs but from the front facade of this building to the new addition behind it there's 20 feet and in this image you can see it a little bit better this is the north elevation and from the front of the historic building to the new addition is a there's a 20 foot setback and you can see the new addition is a two-story element it's made up of board and bat complementing the historic home in the front and it also has accents of stucco this is the south elevation so again you can see how it steps up in the back again using materials of board and bat and stucco and sorry on this previous slide i also want to point out the height there's a pyramidal gable roof form on the historic home so it has a bit of height to it with that roof form so the difference between the top of the pyramidal roof form in the proposed elongated roof is seven feet in difference in height and this is the difference between the rear elevation so again the existing is above and the proposed is below going through this process when you have a historic home it's required to go to receive a conditional use permit to show that you've mitigated all impacts to the historic structure and so step one is to always have it reviewed by an architectural historian this the applicant had a pre-meeting to to review the history of this building and leslie dale created a form that identified all of the character defining issues of this building from that report the applicant worked on their first draft of the design the draft you have in front of you this evening is actually a third draft so leslie dale had two rounds of edits that were done during the first step of this process once leslie dale found that the proposal was in compliance with the secretary of interior standards we brought the application to the architectural and site review committee during that meeting there was concern raised by the architect on the board frank fanton as well as our local historian carol and swift regarding the massing of the building behind it following that meeting i reached out to the applicant and i know they had been through a lot with revisions with leslie but we asked for more information under the design guidelines it states if more information is needed to show mass and scale to the planning commission you can ask for streetscapes and 3d imaging so at that point requested additional imaging to so that it would be easier that the two dimensional plans are tricky to read and to see the articulation so and also the architect frank fanton asked for them to create within their site plan to show the neighboring buildings and where their window locations are so this is the additional information that came in after the ark and site meeting so in this image you can see 210 central in the center and i've highlighted all the windows and they're on the first and second stories of the proposed building and highlighted the neighbors building another interesting thing about this image as you can see where there's the patio in the backyard we can see the two windows that face the rear the rear of this building does line up with the rear of the neighbors homes as you can see in this image and you can see where the windows line up as well and there's again the 32 feet setback kind of consistent with the neighboring structures here's the 3d image so on the top right is what the home looks like today below is the 3d image so you can start to see the articulation between the historic home and the rear addition the stucco area is where the staircase comes up and they've really stepped that back in three pieces the portion of the building that is that's attached to the building you can see how much narrower it is and it sits behind it has a similar pyramid form on top of the roof structure and it's it steps in on both sides of the historic building to kind of differentiate old from new and start to define what you know where the new addition begins this is a streetscape and again this is in a more of a straight on view so here you can see there's a mix of single family and two-story homes along the street and then another interesting matter that came out of the historic review is that during a site visit miss dill found that evidence but she didn't think that the original porch she thinks it was replaced over time so you can see the difference of the existing home currently on the right bottom and what's being proposed on the left so within the new proposal they are introducing a new style of a front porch that will actually um tie into that pyramidal roof but it will change that essential form of that roof and we had quite a bit of public comment that was sent to us stating that they think the the front porch may be original and frank fanton i'm sorry frank perry at the museum provided me with the image on top that it's very blurry and i apologize but there's a very clear line of where the um where the roof ends the pyramidal roof and where it appears that there was a porch element but it was not never tied into that roof above so that's new evidence for the planning commission this evening of what the format of the front porch most likely look like and it's not exactly what's proposed in the project so you're saying in the photograph the line of the existing building is the same yes it appears to me you can see you know this straight line here and it appears that the pyramidal roof there's a straight line here and then it seems that the porch roof element is here but it is fuzzy and it's you know but that is that was the best image of three that were sent to me from frank so thank you yes um so with that the applicant is asking for a variance to the non-conforming the cost of the improvements are at 128 percent of the fair market value and so it exceeds the 80 percent in reviewing a variance there have to be special circumstances tied to the lot which we've gone over this again and again the special circumstance that staff is tying to this lot is actually the historic structure within its historic location it's not exactly a steep slope or something very specific to the property itself but it is the way in which it was developed over time and it's something historic structures hold a high ranking within our general plan and our zoning code for preservation and then grant of special privilege it would not be seen as a grant of special privilege because it is consistent with our general plan goals and policies for historic preservation and there are three examples along this street in which this 80 percent a variance to the 80 percent regulation have been granted in the past the fourth portion of this application is that they're requesting a major revocable encroachment permit first i should say there is a little walkway that what goes across in front of this property public works has no interest in that walkway remaining in its place it it dead ends on one side of the property it's not safe for ADA access so they'd prefer not to not to discontinue that walkway they're requesting a major revocable encroachment permit for the two foot retaining wall the steps leading to the property and also the fence that encroaches out into the right of way so staff recommends that the planning commission consider the input of the architectural and site review committee and the architectural historian and this is a unique circumstance that we have differing opinions and so um we would suggest that you either continue the application with a request for specific modifications to address the arc and site committee's concerns or approve the project application based on the findings and conditions so we typically don't give a dual recommendation but in this circumstance it seemed like the right thing to do so thank you that concludes my presentation thank you Katie other questions i have a question for staff i have two questions one in frank's uh notes about arc and site originally he said that well his words were interesting design the elevations are as well articulated didn't say anything about massing i didn't see that until the follow-up letters was did he originally have massing concerns it just wasn't noted here or was that after the fact so i have to apologize i was not in attendance at this arc and site meeting but from what i understand he had more privacy concerns and wanted to know where the location of the neighboring yeah i didn't see i did read his follow-up letters uh the second question he has is did the applicant and mrs deal have access to the photos that uh were supplied to you by frank that the photos you showed of the original i don't believe so okay thank you um when we have a project with this significant a change in the massing um is it um appropriate to use the orange fencing and show what that massing really looks like because there's been differing opinions over it's only seven feet if you're looking up at it is it going to look as big as it looks in the drawing or is it not yeah but the design permit you have the option of asking for additional material to understand the the the arc and site committee's issue was about the massing of the additions do we have ordinances or abilities to uh dictate lesser massing than uh what we have currently concerning floor area ratio as it applies to another do we have a separate set of guidelines that apply to historic structures we have the secretary of interior standards for historic structures so um in within there's 10 guidelines within the standards but miss deal found that it was in compliance with those standards she did and um specifically how the new relates to the old and compatibility well seeing that if we were to defer this to consider or have the applicant consider the arc and site issues um on what standards of basis would we do that so it is um a qualitative analysis that you're making instead of quantitative within this whether or not the new addition overwhelms the historic structure so and that's exactly why we have this situation of we've got leslie dill who is an architect um by trade and an arch historic architect more specifically um so she i think you know in her qualitative analysis and understanding of how the building changed over time she found that it's in compliance but it would be it's it's for this committee it's you you're making that decision of that qualitative analysis okay thank you okay also it's a conditional use permit because it's a historic modification and that gives us latitude on that issue any other questions from commissioners on the staff report seeing none i'll open it up to the public and members of the public with dr dresses on this project please step forward good evening good evening welcome thank you my name is bridget esti i have my i am one of the homeowners of 210 central avenue i have my husband paul here in my daughter ali um we both my husband and i own 210 central avenue we um have been residents of depot hill since 2003 we do own a home on escalona drive as well and we've been here in capitol and on the hill for 15 years we bought this house the historic house on 210 central with the intent to expand remodel it for the use of our expanding family our children our adult age our oldest daughter just recently got engaged and so we're looking forward to our family expanding and having grandchildren and having a place for us all together here my husband and i will be retiring here and so we will have full-time residents here on depot hill and so this is exactly where we see our children coming and being with us so that was the thought in mind when we designed this house it was to be able to house our family our growing family to be able to have us all be together so recognizing that we also in our remodel plans had the the obligation to comply to the secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation we started our project by reaching out to the planning department and they let us know who we needed to work with to begin the design process we worked collaboratively with miss dill and staff from the planning department and our architect over several months to come up with this design there was an iterative process we went back and forth making changes to the design to be in compliance with the with miss dill's recommendations to be compliant to the standard as well as compliance to all of the other city's planning and building ordinance ordinances and we were very pleased to be able to come up with a design that met both of those the standard compliance for the addition to all the other setbacks and far and it also the design also meets our family's needs and we were able to have a backyard for our growing family front yard for a growing family and so and we also in the that iterative process took into consideration the privacy of our our neighbors at 208 and 212 there are you know the window placement and in addition to the structures that are already there both fences and trees and large hedges we believe all in combination address those privacy issues we're excited to remodel this house it's in great need of remodeling and improve this home and we're looking forward to getting to know our central avenue neighbors and we're thrilled to be able to i'm called 210 central our home for expanding family thank you anyone else hi i'm bob bowls i'm the estes architect and uh i can answer any more technical questions you might have i just wanted to talk a little bit about the site planning um there was no way to give the estes the program they wanted with nice outdoor spaces at the front and the back without making it a two-story high house if we had made it all one story there would have been virtually no yard yard left over um the second story is well set back from the sides it's very well set back from the front of the house from the front of the property and it's very well set back from the rear there are some windows on the side of the second floor but they look out on the roofs and on the vegetation um there is no deck so the the house sits in virtually the same footprint that the existing house sits in except that it's been pulled back at the rear and some extraneous sheds and so forth have been taken out there's a photograph that we had submitted that didn't show up on the presentation if i could show that to you i didn't realize it wasn't in the presentation or i would have brought extra copies but maybe if you could give it to matt and make could you it's in the staff for it too it was in our staff this shows what you see from the street the street is several feet lower than the house so the addition's being far back and hidden behind the very tall roof of the historic building you hardly see them from the street at least if you're looking straight on um um i think we've done a good job with the new materials on the addition they're sympathetic without copying the historic structure we're not actually allowed to do that for the secretary of the interior standards i think the it's a nice design it'll be a very comfortable family home for the estes if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer thank you one question about the the porch given the the new evidence of the photographs is there a problem changing that front porch design to what it is now instead of having it fit into the roof um first of all it's the first time we've ever seen that photograph either either us or the estes um we believe and i think leslie dill the historic architect believes that the porch is not historic but that it is in the same location as whatever was there originally and there's evidence from the sand board maps that shows shows that um we did our best to recreate what we thought might have been there originally i don't think the estes would have a problem with revised design what is on the on the plans is a new porch a new design so we could probably lower it and disengage it from the the front of the historic part of the building thank you but i haven't had a chance to talk to them about that so all right anyone else want to address the commission please come up yep hi my name is john ruder and my wife and i val we live next door at 212 central avenue where the homeowners we are certainly not opposed to improving 210 it is all that needs some improvement but to be candid we are very concerned about the the massive addition we feel it is not keeping with the tenor of dupal hill even a little bit i think you saw the elevation where they showed the four houses i i don't agree with dark it has contention that if you're standing in the street looking up you're not going to see this ginormous addition i mean it's a cute little i mean it's old it's crummy it needs some renovation but there's this little bit in the back in the front and then the addition is massive now our our challenge is that since we're next door and we're to the north that this house is going to cut up our son in our backyard so uh we got the house five years ago and it was red tagged so we spent 200 grand fixing the house internally 100 grand externally 100 grand but in compliance with city code it we didn't want to try to make a silicon valley in mcmanchin there's plenty of those in silicon valley we believe that we like this area because it's unique and distinctive recreating silicon valley in depot hill does not seem appropriate our again we are absolutely supportive of improvement a single story would absolutely work we have a hot tub in the backyard while there's the windows would frankly look into our hot tub but our primary concern is that it's going to wipe out the 100 grand that we spent on the backyard because the sun will be will be especially in the winter will be obscured by the house and if i could it sound when we looked at the staff report it seemed that there was a couple points which didn't seem to come out we actually approached carillon swift and frank fanton directly and they shared some written comments i can share these with you later but i can read some of frank fanton's comments i am now having some serious doubts about this project during the arcon site meeting i went before carillon so i didn't realize the story and had recommended the addition be subservient to the existing um my vote for this project has gone from an enthusiastic guest to a vehement no i can share the email with you uh okay great and then separately uh carillon swift the local story and not the the state person had indicated that she felt that the addition was way way way too big it did not create something in tenor with the neighborhood she acknowledges that leslie dill is very competent great to work with and that it technically meets the requirements of the state but is not in keeping tenor with the with the whole area and separately on a practical matter the the bit in the front that's the original bit the addition that you saw in blue some of that is is dirt floors with carpet so i acknowledge that it is possible just to build lean tubes on the back of a house and then say i want 80 percent of that but it seems unreasonable to incorporate that into the existing value of the home otherwise everyone could just add some dirt a lean to and voila big mansion thank you for your attention to consideration yeah thank you see anyone else like their dress account commission good evening i'm alberto muñoz i live in 700 escalona um i've known the estes for a really really long time and through that time i've seen them do uh a few renovations through this years and the renovations have always been very consistent with the neighborhood they have never been excessive and the outcome has been amazing as a matter of fact you can probably see their house in in escalona uh as as a as a proof of that now uh i believe that this this type of work is good for the neighborhood it will improve property taxes or income for for the city it will also increase property values and if you look at the pictures and you look at what this house will look like is is a tremendous improvement over what is there now and you also have to consider that they have spent significant amount of effort and money maintaining the historic nature of that of that property thank you thank you anyone else like to address the commission tonight seeing none i'm gonna close the public portion of the meeting and bring it back to the commissioners for discussion and action okay i'll jump in there go for it to you a couple things here um one is uh we've had this concern before and uh this this um project really has me concerned about it but it has to do with our arkansas and we we when we reviewed in our zoning code about what we do with arkansas we decided to keep it but we have to make one thing clear carillon swift is a great historian for the city she's not an architect she's not a construction she's not a builder she she is just what she is a historian for the city um her talking about massing is like me talking about landscaping i guess so i and i get her concern because it is a concern um frank vanton's change of heart um originally he said that uh he liked the um the layout changed uh notably i i assume maybe after some of the neighbors talked to him uh according because we have two different letters one that came from frank uh and then the email that was for this two of this evening and i'd just like to address that because um i get i get the concern by the neighbors absolutely get the concern i have the same issues uh concern about uh sunlight my property and and neighbors looking in my backyard but uh this is the area we live in a very uh small area and we just talked about privacy in the project before but uh you know he he brought up uh frank brought up in his letter about uh 124 now being this mickey mouse type thing but uh interesting i went and i looked at november 6 2014 his statements about um i called the google house i don't know but it's it's 124 which is a very large very large project on central the same street and frank had to say there that he reviewed the application expressed that the design does a good job of differentiating differentiating new from historic he noted the addition and how it's attached to the building will not be visible from the street so he goes from that when during the arkansas meeting to this letter after the neighbors contacted him saying that it's a mickey mouse house and then he changes his statement from his arkansas meeting with these other letters that i understand his concern i understand the neighbors concern i think arkansas is is there for a very specific reason i think we as a group and when we looked at the zoning wanted to keep them there but also try to keep it consistent with city staff people who could stay uh i guess focused on their areas of concern and while i i i love carolin i think she's um great for our community i i don't think she has i guess the authority really to judge massing in the street and that's why we have uh the occupants applicants pay for jan dill because it is a cost is expense to have to go through this historic person so this is a person who has um the credentials and the background and studying to to look at that and i think that's um where i go to look to see what jan has and it sounds like um i'm sorry uh leslie has said and it sounds like they've they've followed those guidelines uh a little bit miffed by the uh you know the late um notice of these pictures that the that port structure was there but um i i i would guess that um the applicant and um miss dill would you know probably go along with changing to look how it's supposed to look in those days the other thing i want to address is in one of the letters it talks about um the estes having some connection with the planning commission so that i assume that's me because the neighbor actually came to my house and was talking about this project and i was up front with her saying two things one of my planning commissioner so if you're going to talk about it i wanted to be aware of that and secondly i know the estes just like i know about 60 plus people on depot hill so um you know i just want to get that out there and make sure everyone knows how that that uh came about and why that's an in frank's letter i assume that's is where that's coming from so getting that off my chest and out there i'll let somebody else speak now thank you gj like everybody knows i'm a rural fan of historic preservation and i have um over the years tried to understand more about some of the secretary of interior standards because they're a lot of times they don't make sense to me um this section of depot hill is critical i think to capitol is history i went up and down the street multiple times in multiple days trying to fathom um this construction in the location that it's in and massing is massing and i think it you can talk about landscaping like i can talk about massing but when i look at the 124 um i was not a big fan of that design in the first place but now it really does look so big and it was big to start with and if we want the depot hill area to turn into that kind of construction it's going to change the nature of the whole central avenue so one of the things that i would need to see before i could approve this project would be the massing in some kind of orange fencing so you could actually see relative to the other cottages that are around it how big is this going to be um i don't understand all of the architectural technology that there is in making 3d models i was kind of hoping that we would have some kind of a physical model to look at that would better help me understand how big it is because i can't i can't logically look at that drawing and this picture and put them together and say this is what it's going to look like from the street and that's really what it's going to be so i can't imagine what it's going to look like from the neighbor's backyard or from the guy behind it and i think that taping that out or fencing that up in the air like i think we've done that on on river view when talking about historic buildings in the past i'd really like to see that done i just want to address one of the comments about the photographs i too am disappointed that we're seeing this photograph for the first time but we have a resource in capitol called the capitol museum and it's it's there i think if we hire and pay a an architectural historian or historic architect to review potential historic resources in our community that resource needs to be something that they utilize some leslie should have asked frank for pictures a long time ago and then we wouldn't be sitting here based on what we saw i would like to see it redesigned so that it's got the more historic flat roof the the drawing to me it looks like a newer house that's down the street um i don't believe that the one that i photographed was meant to look historic it was just meant to be blend in and when i look at this design i don't see the history it doesn't tell me the story of what depot hill in this area used to be and i think that's what historic preservation is all about so the the roof redesign the massing um would both need to be done for me to even think about approving this project thank you linda you want to go ahead want me to let's keep going down the road okay um well i often think it's very difficult to read plans you know particularly when they're in one-dimensional and and you don't see how it's going to work particularly for people who don't work with them a long time and i can see because i've known carolyn for a lot of time a lot of years and have worked with her and i have tremendous admiration for her and you know i can understand where you might look at the front elevation and be concerned about the massing if you didn't understand how the depths and the distances were going to work i very much appreciate the staff having the applicant you know go the extra step to provide us with a little more information so it becomes clearer to a lay person how the property is going to be laid out i think they've for me i think the design works quite well what people keep drumming into my head is that when you walk through a historical neighborhood like riverview avenue what you want to be able to do is look at the original cottages that were there and see the history that's on the street and a number of those have small cottages in the front where major additions have been done behind them and with this one if the roof line i would need to see the roof line continue to be straight the way it was historically and i think for the the people who who live in capitola that would identify it as a historic structure that's been preserved in the front an addition has been added on to the back of it i like the fact that they have a 32 rear but rear yard setback because that does allow for light and air and sun to be in the adjacent neighbor's yard since they have that large setback back there i'm sort of rambling here a bit i think they didn't they've done an excellent job in preserving the historical house up front as i said i would like to see it with the straight roof going across and a new porch design and the massing in the back works for me i think it's set significantly far enough back 20 feet so it's not going to overwhelm the cottage in the front thank you susan i'm done okay so thank you what i really like about this planning commission is how we get so many different perspectives i mean it's really it's good uh we all come at it from different directions and i learned a lot anyway listening to the other planning commissioners so um first on the um secretary of interior standards i've been railing about them ever since i got on the planning commission hey man i don't think their focus is very relevant to uh capitola it's uh they they focus a lot on what they call differentiation for those who aren't familiar which means that the new the new construction has to look like new construction you can't make it look like the old construction so somebody would be confused and think it's really part of the old building and i mean i'm not that is not the number one concern in capitola as far as i'm concerned our history that might work for say andrew jackson's plantation or something like that but i don't think it works for our community like capitola so it's kind of disappointing that all the historical research and reports focus on that issue because i don't think it's our issue um as far as the variance um that's for me that's a non-issue in this case because we have many times found historic protecting historic resources to be a justification a special circumstance um for a variance so that's not the issue here the issue is uh the conditional use permit and that's that's really the tool that we've been given on a project like this to have a lot of uh discretion in terms of all the different factors and it specifically applies to a reconstruction of a historic building so that's really um the decision in my opinion is is whether or not we we should grant a conditional use permit as these plans are presented or require something else and that comes down to the really comes down to the massing issue which is a really tough one and it's very subjective and it is hard to know for sure what it's going to look like when it's up um there's there's a balancing between preserving our history and realizing that the world keeps turning and we are evolving and we're intensifying and we can't this is not bode california where we're just preserving a little town that was there for the rest of eternity we're we're growing we're changing that's part of the history of capital is that it is always changing and there was a time when people were just living in tents here in the summer so we couldn't just go back and say well you should just put a tent on your property there so that's a balancing of uh how far the redevelopment can go and against how much we want to preserve what depot hill looked like at one time and i don't have a good answer for that yet i want to maybe hear what our chairman has to say and then see how the further discussion goes but just that one more comment not on the project so much was commissioner welch's mention about the allegation that there was some someone had an inside track with the planning commission and um that's the reason that i don't entertain um requests by applicants or anyone else to meet with them prior to the hearing and do it only in the public hearing i know every commissioner has their own system in that regard but mine is basically uh tell it to me in front of everybody else so and i think that helps mitigate that kind of a concern anyway i'm looking forward to hearing more thoughts thank you ed um and i guess those final thoughts would be mine as everyone has heard um you know there's been concerns expressed about the massing the roof line um and um and and also concerns from the neighbors uh about the overshadowing of their property um and my view is and oh let me also speak a little bit about the variance request that as i expressed before um i'm not i'm not sure if we do actually do those calculations as you know based on the ordinance so again and i think that applies in this case so the variance is not a significant issue uh for me um i will say that when i first saw you know the design in the picture because i i'm very familiar with the that uh that street that neighborhood um uh and have lived it there many years it it does kind of jump out at me of as how large the addition is and compared to um i think what we've all used to to have seen uh over the years and decades um and i think there has some expression here by commissioners um and i would say close to a majority of them that they would maybe like to be able to see realistically what is this going to look like instead of just seeing two-dimensional drawings what in real life will this turn out to be um and i think that maybe we should take the time to do that to actually look at it before making a decision uh at this point i think the question is here truly about the massing of the structure um and um and in even though it it does kind of i mean it to a bit it shocks me it stands out because i'm not used to it okay but with that said i'm not quite sure what our basis is for um uh determining what is the appropriate massing um and um but i think that we should certainly maybe start with um maybe seeing if we could have some can we have polls out there so that uh the neighbors um and we could actually go and see what is this really going to look like in relationship to the historical structure that's there could we maybe ask staff to look at well what kind of reasonable standards could we apply you know being qualitative standards and i'm also sympathetic to the neighbors at 212 and i think at least they should be able to see in some realistic way okay what is the impacts on us um and and what are the reasonable alternatives are there maybe some ways that that could be mitigated but i think that we need to maybe take the time uh to look at those questions and answer it and maybe have it come back um to the planning commission after that so um i don't know how commissioners feel about that i'll uh i'll jump back in here again um i i get that sometimes it's hard to i guess have a perspective i feel very comfortable with that i think the 3d rendering is great and even that rendering right there i think is i don't have an issue with that i i think if you want to put it in perspective something you can see live go look on grand where the well now it's why it used to be blue where they left the historical house and put a detached second story a two-story house behind it which i think does not match at all i think this one goes along with trying to keep the historical preservation of the original uh 400 square foot house while adding that second story it ties in much better than the the house on grand so if i think if you i think it's very close if you look at size and massing to what that would look like on the second story uh i always have a concern about and i think everyone here will say i'm consistent on this additional burdens on projects and sometimes i get it subjective it's hard to make that that perspective i understand the rotors concerns i i would say about the the roof design actually having that hip roof is going to be a benefit instead of a gable roof on that north elevation there because it's going to allow sunlight at a different at a better angle um also because it is a west facing how both all those are west facing houses the sun actually in the afternoon goes right over the top of their back or towards the front of their yard but it will have uh the the proposed house will have no impact on the sun in the afternoon out when it becomes uh winter time obviously there's going to be an impact there uh i get that i i don't see the sun really during the winter i have two lots and a single story house but i have eucalyptus trees across the street and eucalyptus trees behind me so in the winter we just don't get the same sun and i i'm empathetic to that but at the same time um i don't know that it's going to have the house is going to have that much of an impact personally i'm ready to move forward with it and there's probably no surprise to anybody here um and and not put more conditions on the owners i um i understand the concern about massing but really the massing was brought up initially by carol and swith who god bless her i respect her a lot but that's not her background and then frank later came up up with it but um for me i'm ready to make a motion to move forward with the project is that a motion tj well i will make a motion i'll make a motion that we approve the design permit the conditional use permit the major revocable encroachment permit including the variants and make one addition that um the the applicant works with jan deal i'm i keep saying jan deal it's a lady i used to work with um leslie deal to make that porch uh more in line with what it was historically sir second to the motion here none the motion fails for lack of second is is there uh um another motion that commissioners would like to make well i don't want to make i'm not prepared to make a motion right now but i'm i'm quite confident that when the orange fencing goes up that you know the massing is going to be appropriately set back from the historical building and um you know having the 32 foot rear yard you know i i don't i don't believe it's going to be a problem so i'm willing to to take the time to go through that step because um you know what we're going to have is a neighborhood up there and neighbors living with each other and i think it's much easier to you know take a couple weeks and and do this um so that that we see what's going to work so um i guess we would be making a motion to continue this to allow the applicant time to to put up the orange fencing and and i will tell you you know i think we need to be a little clear about what we're going to ask for because that's actually a fairly expensive thing to do and you know if you want them to show every little in and out now it's going to work um it gets even more complicated so maybe we could you know come up with something about um you know we're going to show you know which particular wall um you know are we going to show the orange fencing at the second floor set backs not the first floor i mean there are a lot of things we've got to decide rather than just saying we'll put up orange fencing all right good point susan i mean i think one of the one of the issues that has come up is concerning the massing of the structure i think in order to gauge that and see it we need to have the the perimeter i mean the the fencing going showing the footprint of the addition um and i think i mean imagine and the height of the addition now i don't i mean is it possible to put in showing the set backs on the second story i assume that we could probably if that's possible to do um maybe that would be helpful for because i might just think about us but it's it's the entire neighborhood it's the community um i think that what's different tj is that this is a historical structure um and significantly historical to capitola and i just think that we should take the time and ask the applicant let let us all see it okay before we get into a situation like at what is at 124 i mean that and and so um if it's possible to show the second story set backs with the fencing um then i think that we should do that as well um and so so i think that that's one request uh that is being made by commissioners to do the other i heard discussions about a flatter uh roof line so if um the applicant maybe wanted to put some thoughts about attempting to do that show that we have this new evidence of the photograph of the porch trying to stay true to that as best we can um and and i think you're talking about keeping the roof line in front of the porch entry i think you're talking about the porch right well that was what you meant okay um so those are those are some of the things that i heard but i think this is just one i think it's worthwhile to take the effort to have everyone see it as as best they can on location and i would also like ask staff i mean going back to my question okay yeah if we do that and now we have a sense of the massing but what standards do we use that then commissioners know that's right they're not standards for massing it's it's the judgment well it's subjective and well and it's relative to the area that it's into because well yeah yeah my concern is that then we come up with our own each individual and it just becomes you know a personal view about you know what's the what the code says about a conditional use permit is that the commission shall give due regard to the nature and condition of all adjacent uses and structures so that's how i'll take the neighborhood into account okay and there needs to make be a finding that there's no impact to the historic structure so i guess this is my trouble with this isn't that what uh leslie deal did i i guess this is my thing we we require our applicants to jump through all these hoops with uh this third party person leslie deal to talk about keeping this the historical component and yet now we're we're it's like we're second guessing that she doesn't she doesn't have the planning commission she doesn't have the tool i understand she's a tool but it's an expensive tool and so now we're going to be subjective and override this this expensive well that's not let's not make the assumption that we're going to override it no no i'm just saying it's it becomes subjective when that's a tool that we require the applicants to pay for so well i well to me i i think that that is her assessment is very relevant to me and you know and i would give that a great deal of credence in the ultimate decision but i don't know if it ends and stops there for us because i don't know that she's local here she's applying local standards and it's well considering you know the neighborhoods the neighbors and their impacts because so i want to look at those in addition to the historical architectural standards and so i don't want to i don't think in that anyway dismisses her conclusions i think that will come back as well and we will have that so i can i can support the procrastination motion here okay would you like to make the procrastination motion first let me say that personally i don't that front porch is not a big issue to me and the evidence isn't inconclusive enough that i wouldn't make a big deal out of it my main reason is i say it's a close call and there's such strong views on both sides i would hate to just really jump into a decision where those who are on the other side are gonna be very unhappy with us doing that without was taking it another step so yeah i'll move the second alternative that we continue the application with the request that the building be shown with netting the two-story portion of the building and then we come back the next hearing which would be in uh do we have a meeting in august we have a meeting in two weeks on august second can can that be done that quickly you can continue it to that date if they're unable to uh get the netting in time we'll continue it again second the motion okay okay so uh september sixth so there's a motion uh it's been seconded by commissioner smith um any further discussion hearing none let's have a roll call vote please commissioner newman yes commissioner smith yes commissioner welch no commissioners westman yes commissioners i'm sorry chair prudson story yes so that motion passes um and we do we do look forward to having you come back with the application your application thank you that brings us to the uh item five which is the directors to report have anything to report a couple things to report this evening good news is i've been working with the coastal commission quite closely on the zoning code update and our last the past meeting that we had this wednesday they are going to have final comments to me on we've worked through a lot of issues we got it down to 10 items wow and they're going to have final red lines to me hopefully by september first and then from there we'll be um making a decision of whether or not to take their red lines and submit them to the coastal commission with red lines so the coastal commission can see exactly what they've asked for or if there are big ticket items that we need to re look at policies bring it back to planning commission and city council for further tweaks and um so depending on what i receive in red lines you will i'll be reporting back so this is the zoning ordinance without the geological hazard correct the other good news is that we were awarded a grant for to update our hazard mitigation plan so i've also been talking to the coastal commission about can we please um hold off on our geological hazards until we've gone through our lhmp update in which we can utilize that tool go out to the public talk about geological hazards and bring that back as a separate modification to the zoning code so that that's the update on the zoning code next the seratage appeal came in um after the last hearing they did not have much availability in the near future so that's going to be heard in october october 25th it is my understanding that they have submitted for a facility closure permit at the county but other than that i have no other updates for you on that project and those were the two items i wanted to bring up to date on this evening a facility closure permit for the closing of the automotor the county that was september um october 25th october 25th okay any other commission communications i'd like to ask if the staff could put in a reposition to get me a new ready set in our budget i'd like to just give a heads up i may not make the october meeting okay welcome to our new employees what i guess right okay with that i'll adjourn this meeting thank you everyone thank you staff