Chair mr. Moran here mr. Cowd here mr. Strongman here mr. Kwok here mr. Clop here vice chair nading
Yeah, chair Anderson here. We have a quorum. Thank you. You may have noticed it took longer to call the roll
This hasn't recent I did
Actually managed to get a quorum thank you to the city council for appointing
members who both come with Fairmont Public Service in their background.
Most of these count most recently,
the Mount Diablo Unified School District.
And Miranda Moran most recently with the pros to the parks,
recs, and open space commission, not aware of that.
So welcome and we'll get to know you better over the next weeks and months and years.
okay do we have anything on the consent calendar we do not have anything on the
consent calendar now but staff would recommend moving public hearing item 4a
2800 Mitchell Drive extension to the consent calendar we have an objection to
make that change not all right we'll put that on the consent calendar we need a
motion a second on this? Okay. So we need a motion and a second. I would like to move
that we move item 48 to a consent calendar item. Second? I called her. I was curious.
Okay, you would call the roll on that? Commissioner Klop. Commissioner Klop.
Commissioner count yes mr. strongman yes mr. quark yes vice chair
knighting yeah chair Anderson yes that's seven oh can I vote to chip you miss
Commissioner Moran I know you put me at the far end here but and Commissioner
in. Yes. Thank you. This is a bit near-sighted that's all. Yeah. Very good.
Now that we've moved that because the consent calendar will. No need a motion in the second
consent calendar. First I have to ask if there's anyone on the
commission I assume not but also anyone in the public who would like to remove
anything from the consent calendar. There being only one item on it. Seeing no one
jumping to the podium, I'll assume that that can stay on the consent calendar
and I would entertain a motion on consent calendar. I move that we approve the
consent calendar. Second. Call the roll on that motion.
All right, Commissioner Kwok. Yes. Commissioner Strongman. Yes. Commissioner
on? Yes. Commissioner Cownd? Yes. Commissioner Klopp? Yes. Vice chair
Knighting? Yes. Chair Anderson? Yes. All right 7-0 the ayes have it. All right
we'll move on to the public communications. If you remember the
public you have two chances to speak at the meeting. One is when a particular
item comes up you have a chance to speak on that item. The current public
communications time is if you have something that is within the jurisdiction
of the Planning Commission but not on today's tonight's calendar you may speak
right now. Does anybody wish to speak? No one has indicated they would. So we can
close the public communications and I will ask with regard to the items
tonight has anyone any ex parte communications they'd like to disclose.
And the first public hearing has already been approved.
I think it's a consent calendar, so I'll move to item B of the public hearings, and that
is 20, excuse me, that is item B, oh, sorry, as a general plan and zoning text amendment
to comply with state legislation.
I have a staff report.
Yeah, and I'd like to introduce Crystal Dicastro.
I don't know if you've met our our
Principal planner and she's now an interim interim principal planner
She has been here six to seven months and I this might be her first time in front of the Planning Commission
Welcome
Welcome tonight
Good evening chairperson Anderson and members of the Commission
Thank you for the warm welcome and I'm happy tonight to present the following item
Which is a request for the Planning Commission to consider and adopt a resolution recommending that the council
Adopt a resolution amending various sections of the zoning code and a general plan amendment. Sorry. Can you hear me now? Okay, great
Oops as an overview of tonight's presentation will go over the purpose of the amendments and why they're important
The proposed general plan amendment the zoning tax amendments and finally conclude with the findings and recommendation
California continues to enact legislation aimed at increasing housing
production and streamlining local land use regulations. Cities are required to
make the corresponding updates to the general plan and zoning code to remain
in compliance. The proposed amendments are primarily administrative and
procedural in nature. They serve to align the current general plan and zoning
ordinance with existing state laws and that have already taken effect and the
city is already implementing. This will help streamline our processes by
providing clarity and consistency throughout the general plan and the
zoning ordinance. So the first one is a general plan amendment and it relates
to the growth limit policy, policy 9.3. So 9.3 is a growth control policy which
limits the construction of residential units through a housing cap. However,
Over under the 2019 housing crisis act or senate bill 330, cities are prohibited from
setting residential growth policies that conflict with their obligations to provide housing.
In addition, the city's housing element identifies the removal of this growth control policy.
Therefore staff is recommending to remove the policy from the general plan to be consistent
with the state law and to be compatible with the city's goals to promote the production
of housing.
The next five slides are related to the zoning text amendments.
And the first one is bedroom additions.
Under the existing zoning code, it provides that bedroom additions involving legal nonconforming
structures or uses would require a minor use permit.
And that would be subject to a public hearing before the zoning administrator or the planning
commission.
Under Assembly Bill 916, cities can't require public hearings for any projects that add
up to two bedrooms within an existing home.
This amendment updates the zoning code to align with AB 916 allowing nonconforming bedroom
additions to be reviewed through a ministerial process instead.
One exception to this is if the project triggers related parking requirements, such a project
would be reviewed and approved by the community development director.
The next amendment affects permit expirations.
Under Assembly Bill or AB 2117, the time spent in a lawsuit or a legal proceeding can't
count towards the timeline of a permit expiration.
The amendment updates the zoning code, pausing the expiration timeline for the approved project
while a lawsuit or a legal proceeding is occurring.
And then the timeline would then resume once the legal matter is resolved.
The next amendment is noticing requirements.
under AB 2904 the noticing period for zoning ordinances or an amendment for two zoning
ordinance like what we have tonight is increased from 10 days to 20 days.
This would only apply to public commission hearings not city council hearings.
And then the next one is would affect accessory dwelling units for multifamily residential
lots.
The current code provides that any type of multifamily lot can have up to two detached
ADUs.
This has been superseded by Senate Bill 1211.
The number of allowed ADUs is now based on whether the multifamily lot involves a proposed
development or has an existing development on the lot.
So per 1211, a lot with a proposed project is still only allowed up to two detached ADUs.
However, under this new law, an existing lot can have up to eight detached ADUs or as many
existing homes there are in the lot whichever is last. And finally, a few minor code updates
are included for internal consistency as you can see here on this slide. And in conclusion,
staff recommends the planning commission adopt the resolution as found in attachment
one of the staff report recommending council approve the proposed amendments based on the
findings that they're consistent with the state law, consistent with the general plan
and housing element and exempt from CEQA as they only evolve administrative and procedural
updates to the code in the general plan, which is not considered a project under CEQA.
Also as part of your motion, please note that Attachment 1, page 1 of the draft resolution,
there's a minor correction required.
Under Section 1, Findings Item Number 5, this sentence should indicate the date as June
26, 2025, not 2024.
And this will be updated prior to formal adoption.
And this concludes the presentation and staff is available for any questions.
Are there any questions for staff?
It's been an excellent staff report.
I do have a couple of questions though.
Are there any changes that are proposed here that are not required by state law?
No.
These laws are already in effect and the city's already implementing them.
Okay.
So there are no other things that are thrown into the same task.
Exactly.
There's no extra.
And in Exhibit B, in particular note, it mentions that the decision that was to be made by the
Community Development Director.
What I didn't see there was any criteria on which they would make those decisions.
I'm wondering if that's covered, if that's simply covered by state law or whether there's
some other place where that's...
So that would just be a case by case basis.
The community development director can ask for additional analysis, but the main item
to remember is that they couldn't go to a public hearing, and it would then be referred
to the community development director if there's any question at staff level.
And so I gather he has a fair amount of discretion as to how he makes that decision.
Yes.
How they would either ask for analysis through parking or just take a look at the site where
where the applicant would have to prove that the parking wouldn't be required.
Okay. Thank you. Anything else? All right. Thank you very much.
Move on to the public hearing on this item, the applicant. The applicant is a city, isn't
it? So, okay. We don't need to give them 10 minutes to explain it all again. Are there
any speakers who would like to comment on this item? Seeing none, I will close
the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for the discussion. Vice
Chair. I personally am excited to see 1211 on here. I follow a lot of
casita coalition and what they've been doing and this bill was passed by
Senator Skinner and so to me that's something exciting 880 and I know that
the city of Walnut Creek has done a ton with regards to even allowing
ministerial approvals to happen by way of even updating plans that can easily
be submitted to the Planning Department in order to obtain because it's
incredible it's exceedingly difficult these days to even get a permit or to be
able to do anything so to me this was very exciting when I saw this especially
especially since it is possible.
Sometimes folks don't realize that multifamily
is actually townhomes also.
And so it can be very easy to have an ADU attached
or detached, which the law allows for detached ADUs
to happen, so I just wanted to say that.
Actually, if I could ask one more question.
So, if I had a multifamily,
if I was planning a multifamily development,
that would allow me to build eight ADUs as well,
detached ADUs.
So, could I have, in fact, an eight-unit development
and then a cluster of ADUs,
little ADU village alongside it?
Is that the kind of way that they look at these things?
You would be able to,
it would think of it like as a one-to-one ratio,
so you can have a cluster of ADUs.
But I don't know if legal has anything else to add to that.
Do the ADUs have to be associated with each unit,
or is it simply there are ADUs associated
with the entire development?
It would be with each unit, with each primary unit
that's existing on the line.
It's depending on the number of units that are on the site.
So you had four, you had four, you had nine,
you could do eight because it's capped at eight.
So then you could, depending on how the site is laid out,
could have that kind of group of ADUs but it's corresponding to the units they're housing.
Just to clarify, for a vacant lot, or a proposed lot that's proposing multi-palmy, they're
only allowed to have two new detached ADUs.
That's the distinguishing factor.
If I had an eight-unit multi-palmy house there now and some extra land, I could...
You can have eight.
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
All right, I'll entertain a motion then and more discussion.
So I move the acceptance of the resolution
amending title 10 chapter two
of the Walnut Creek Municipal Code
amending various sections to comply with state housing
and land use laws along with minor code cleanup
and a general plan amendment in compliance
with the program H4G of the 2023 to 20,
there's a date typo housing element 2031. Second. any further discussion not
would you call the roll? okay commissioner Klopp yes mr. strongman yes
mr. Moran yes mr. count yes mr. Kwok yes
Vice Chair Knighting? Yes. Chair Anderson? Yes. 7-0-1. As you might have guessed we're
moving on to item C. This is the Holcomb Court condominium design review and
subdivision map as well as a variance application. That's for the staff report.
Good evening commissioners. Simmer Gill, Senior Planner with the City and we are
here tonight to consider the tentative map, the design review and the variance for the
Holcomb Court condominium project that will be located at 15 Holcomb Court. The application
number is Y22074 and the applicant, Ray Durham, representing the project is here tonight and
from the city we have the senior engineer Ryan Cook and myself to answer any questions
that you may have after the presentation.
And just to quickly orient you with the site, the 23,000 square foot lot is currently vacant
and access is provided through a 30-foot wide private easement that stems from San Miguel
Drive and the site is zoned multi-family residential and the surrounding uses consist of duplexes,
single family homes, as well as multi-family homes
along Holcomb Court.
And this site is also listed in the city's housing element
as an opportunity site, which essentially means
that we envision residential development on this property.
And here are some photographs that are essentially
just showing what the current vacant site looks like.
And the photo at the bottom is showing you the location.
if you're all the way down on Holcomb Court,
near that existing seven-unit development,
multi-family development,
looking up to the right side is you see this vacant lot.
And here's a closer look at the lot layout.
It is a 23,000 square foot lot.
Of that, there's a 30-foot wide access easement,
so after netting that out,
the buildable area is 18,097 square feet.
and access is provided through this easement
to two adjacent homes.
And here's a closer look at that.
There's a photograph that shows the existing easement
that's providing access to that home,
which is 11 Holcomb Court.
And then further up that easement is 17 Holcomb Court.
And to the right, the street that goes down is again,
the area I talked about earlier,
which is the existing seven-unit multi-family development.
Moving on into the project scope,
the project does propose a two-story,
five-unit condominium development.
Each unit will have a two-car garage,
and it does consist of a mix of three
or four-bedroom floor plans.
The units range from 2,137 to 2,350 square feet.
Each unit will have a private deck
that will face the rear yard.
new landscaping is also proposed, 18 new trees are proposed as part of this project.
And a variance is also requested as part of this project for the flow through planter
wall and the uncovered 88 parking stall that will encroach into the front yard setback,
which I will go into more detail later in the presentation.
And I just wanted to go over some project history.
In 2008, this project, not this project,
but a similar project for a five-unit development
on this parcel was proposed and approved by the Design Review
Commission.
And then subsequently, it went before the Planning Commission
for the approval of this tentative map.
And then in 2012, the existing triplex
that was on that parcel was demolished for anticipation
of proposed construction of that project.
However, since that time, the entitlements expired,
the map expired.
And today, what we have before you is a new project,
but again, similar layout, five unit development.
And it did go before the Design Review Commission for a study
session, where Design Review Commission reviewed it
and provided feedback on the design and a recommendation
to move it forward to the planning commission.
So tonight the planning commission's role is to consider the tentative map, the design
review, as well as the variance.
And as part of that DRC study session, the design review commission did make several
design related comments.
They are listed on this slide.
However I believe the applicant also has a presentation tonight and he will go into more
detail of basically all of these comments have been addressed, but he will show how
it changed from when DRC saw the plans.
And here is the existing and proposed site plan.
So access to the site is provided through that 30-foot-wide access easement extending
from the cul-de-sac bulb of Holcomb Court, and easement also provides shared access to
the two properties which I have identified with the red star on this exhibit.
And moving on to the building elevations, this is the front building elevation that
will be facing inwards towards the shared driveway, and it does have a stepped elevation
that's responding to the site slope, and all units do meet the required 15 foot front
yard setback.
And as you can see here, the façade is articulated with varied roof lines.
And the materials consist of a combination of smooth stucco, lap sighting, bronze metal
window frames and railings, and a variation in the color scheme.
Here is the rear building elevation, which faces downslope towards South Broadway Street.
Again, as mentioned earlier, each unit will have rear yard decks providing outdoor space
for each unit, and as part of design review commission's comment, the applicant has incorporated
privacy walls between each deck, and this setback will also maintain the 15-foot rear
yard setback.
And here's the side building elevation that's facing the adjacent multifamily and residential
uses to the north on Holcomb, and here you can see a closer look at that flow-through
planter what it would look like from the street and this is a side elevation
facing 17 Holcomb Court which is the the closest adjacent residential neighbor
the second floor was step back to reduce the massing and to provide a greater
step back 10 foot step back considering the proximity to that neighbor and here
Here is the color materials that is proposed for this project.
The units 1, 3, and 5, which I've identified with the star, will incorporate the colors
that are shown here, which is the bright white stucco with medium gray accents.
The garage doors will also be painted to match the stucco, and the lap siding will be painted
a brown color, and the entry door has that deep blue color.
Here is the other two units, two and four,
which will have a separate color palette,
which is a warm gray used as the primary stucco color
with accent walls painted a deep charcoal gray.
And light gray will be used for the garage doors
and the entry doors will have a burgundy,
reddish color for the doors.
And just to quickly go into the floor plans,
All of the units, with the exception, I believe,
of unit five are two-story layouts.
The first floor consists of garages, laundry room,
one-bedroom bath, family room, kitchen, and dining room.
And the second floor consists of bedroom, bathrooms, loft,
and the private outdoor decks.
And here is unit five, which is the largest of the five units.
It does include a third level due to the grade.
Bedrooms and laundry room is located on that lowest level and
This
This unit includes two rear-facing decks one on the main level and one on the upper floor
And here is the landscape plan
29% of the site will be landscape
20% is required under the city's design standards
The landscaping consists of new grasses shrubs and 18 new trees that consist of 15 gallon container to
48 inch box trees
And new permeable pavers are also proposed along the driveways
the new flow-through planter will also be
will have the shrubber the shrubs that are listed and
There is a
rendering of the proposed six foot tall perimeter vinyl fence that has a would would like design and
As mentioned earlier the project is requesting a variance
Due to the site specific constraints specifically due to the shape topography and the 88 accessibility requirements
The new flow through planter wall and the 88 space will encroach. I believe three feet six inches into that 15 foot
The flow-through planter is located in size to capture site drainage and runoff and also
for the treatment of the storm water for this project.
It is located outside of the roadway easement and would not obstruct any of the utilities
or fire access roads.
And due to the accessibility requirements under building code, the ADA, uncovered ADA
must be located closest to the accessible unit on this site which is unit number 2.
And on this to the right exhibit you can see a red dashed line that's basically the 15
foot step back line.
And as part of this project staff did determine that this project qualifies for a CEQA exemption
under infill development as it does check off all of these requirements that are listed
on this slide.
With that, staff does recommend that the Planning Commission
determine the project is exempt from CEQA
and approve the tentative subdivision map,
the design review and variance
subject to the conditions of approval
in the draft resolution.
And I'm happy to answer any questions.
And for the record, I did wanna mention
that we received three letters of expressing concern
for this project.
those letters have been included as part of your agenda packet tonight and copies
have been placed in the back for the public as well. Thank you.
Any questions for staff? If not, thank you very much. And we do have an applicant on
this one so applicant will have 10 minutes to present whatever they'd like
to present. Good evening commissioners. Ray Dormay with Master
Craft Residential and Holcomb Partners LLC. I want to first thank Samir and the
rest of the staff getting us to this point. We've been involved with this
project since 2015. It's been quite a journey to get to this point and we're
gonna go through some of the history of what we were doing over the past 10
years give or take. When we took over the project in 2015 or at least partnered up
with our developer friend. We are in the process of finalizing the plans for submittal into
engineering and building and safety in order to build it. There was some confusion regarding
the expiration of the map as it pertains to AB 208 and AB 116. So during that period the state was
extending maps and because of the pandemic, not pandemic but because of the the downturn
in the market, and we actually thought the map was gonna expire one year later.
It was brought to our attention by, it expired in 2016, and we thought it was gonna expire
in 2018 or else we would have, you know, submitted the map extension.
Andrew Smith at the time was one of our planners, said, you know, why don't you go ahead and
bring this back, kind of redesign it.
We were thinking maybe a couple of different things going, you know, with the project.
that should only take maybe six months to get it through, six to eight months.
It's taking a little bit longer, but during that time we took a look at the overall property
in a couple of different ways.
We looked at maximizing the number of units.
The code itself allows us to build 10 to 11 units on there.
And when we looked at it and we were talking to some of the neighbors, we just realized
it was really too dense for that location both from a slope standpoint also a parking standpoint.
So we decided to go back and just go with the original plan modify it with all the new codes
water quality being one of them and resubmitting it and it just took us a while to get here we
had the pandemic in place we had a bunch of things happening and so it took a little bit
longer to get here but DRC had a great review I think we had a good time reviewing that making
some changes to the plans and then you know we had a planner that left and then we're here today.
So in any event we kept the units to five went to design review in 2021 and we are here today.
So I want to go through some of the old plans and these plans we dug up these were the original
tentative map plans and a couple of things that you notice right now is they had detached garages
And the site was impacted a lot more than the new plan.
I'll show you what we're talking about here in just a bit.
I'm going to show you a couple of the elevations
that we were working with before.
This is the elevation from the back.
A lot of wood involved.
There's some railing.
A lot of windows that probably wouldn't pass Title 24 today.
And just overall colors probably need to be refreshed.
Here's another view, pretty sizable overall.
This didn't have a water quality basin,
which we probably would have had to incorporate
in our new design.
So somehow we would have had to fit that in some way.
This slide represents the DRC slide.
And it's very similar to the final slide,
but with adjustments.
And we'll see that here in just a bit.
This is the back elevation,
looking up the slope at the property.
This is the front elevation, and I'll
go through some of the major changes that we made.
I think Samir alluded to some of those already.
At the DRC meeting, they asked us to rethink the oak trees,
or at least replace them with something different.
Elevation needs work.
The decks, we needed some privacy
between some of the units.
Window alignment needed to be looked at.
Access to the rear site, so how's the landscaper
We're going to go back there and mow the lawn.
So we looked at that.
Screening at the north elevations
and adjacent to Holcomb Court.
What isn't in here is the flow-through planter.
And what they want to do is reduce
the massing of that planter.
And we did that with the step wall.
I'll show you here in just a second.
Provide fence samples, including board and posts.
And we'll talk about that here in just a second.
We did have some samples that were sent to the city.
And I believe they were lost.
We had some fence samples.
I tried to get some for this meeting,
but they arrived at my office today.
Path of Travel had to deal with ADA.
More details on the finishes, which I provided some here
for you tonight.
Plus, I have a few others to show you and share.
The retaining wall, we'll talk about that here in just a second.
and some additional details to the plans.
We find the colors and also a construction plan,
how's it gonna be staged?
So those are the main comments that came out of DRC.
There's a few others that we addressed
that were not as impactful,
but we'll go through some of those also.
All right, so regarding the site plan,
from the old site plan to the new site plan,
we actually shifted these units towards the driveway,
therefore freeing up additional open space.
We widen the driveway.
So the driveway, as it stands today,
is about 22, 23 feet, give or take.
We're going to pave an additional anywhere
from 2 feet to 8 and 1 by 2 feet to our line there.
So in reality, that's a pretty sizable driveway for anybody.
I mean, typically what, 24 feet, give or take for a drive aisle.
So it'll be fairly large for anybody going in and out.
We add a low planter there to the float planter,
and that's really to break up that view.
Coming in as you're driving in, you're going to see, you know,
a low planter with some plants, some plants
in front of the low planter, plants in the planter itself,
and then plants in the back planter.
So that was also a recommendation from both the DRC
and also one of the planners, the previous planners.
The flow-through planter has a low wall at the entry there.
It ranges anywhere from maybe a foot to three feet
when you actually transverse and go down the slope there.
That area there is gonna be planted,
so it's just not gonna be left bare.
You're gonna have shrubs and trees,
and probably not trees, but shrubs in there,
and I have an example of one I built.
This is a planter I built in San Diego.
A lot of shrubs.
This is probably about four or five months old,
maybe six months old, we put some mature plants in there,
you see some trees in there, looks very nice.
So you're coming up there and you're not looking
at something barren at all.
One of the other major impacts would be
that we redesigned lot one.
The second story, we actually pushed that back farther
to give our neighbor a little bit more privacy.
Part of the DRC comments, we aligned the windows
that you see there, so they're stacked over each other.
Privacy walls in between the decks,
they're about five foot in height.
We added additional gate by lot unit number one,
and we also have a gate down there over by Holcomb Court.
I don't think that's gonna be used as much
as the one over by lot one.
We also changed out the trees.
We added additional landscaping in various areas
throughout the project and trees
that the Planning Commission wanted.
It's just to really screen
and help soften the building altogether.
Okay, so one of the questions that we've been going around
would be the use of a vinyl fence.
And we've used these higher vinyl fences in other projects.
Personally, we'd go with wood or vinyl.
Either one, I'm fine with.
But what we're finding out over the years
is that the wood tends to fall apart.
It tends to termites and whatnot.
So we're proposing a vinyl fence,
but we're not actually stuck to it
if the commission decides I want to go back to wood.
You'll save me money, but this is probably a better product.
The cable rails, I'm going to be using these for the balconies.
Those are the garage doors.
They're actually metal, with glass in them.
And construction areas.
So during construction, we have a couple of areas
here that we can use for staging and also parking.
So we'll be leaving that drive aisle clear
during the whole process.
And there's plenty of room there, put your lumber.
And of course, there's gonna be some coordination,
depending on what trade comes in there, what time.
There might be some street parking,
there might have to be some shuttle in,
there might be something.
But I think that's plenty of room.
In addition to that, you see that shaded area?
Part of the driveway that we're gonna spend,
you can actually park there also
because that's not paved at this point.
So really, we can put our fence on the edge
and use that area also.
So I didn't shade it in,
but it's some additional space in case we need it.
That concludes my presentation.
This is the final drawing.
Oh, another thing you wanna look at
would be on these side windows here,
what we did on all the elevations,
we actually inset them.
So the old elevations were flat.
They didn't have any kind of details,
any kind of reveals.
Now we've added a little bit of detail to them
so you can get some depth to them,
a little bit of offset.
And that just gives the whole building that good feel.
So, during the process over the last, I want to say, two months, I've been out, I've actually
been talking to some of the residents, and a few things have come up.
One has been, obviously, the traffic.
There will be, obviously, with the new units, some traffic coming in.
I think we have plenty of parking there, you know, all the garages there have parking.
We have some additional parking in the driveways.
The other thing that came up with the residents, it would be the potholes on
Holcomb Court. Um, we agree. I mean, over the years we've seen it kind of go
down. I'm thinking what we're gonna do number one is as soon as we get
approved and maybe 30 or 40 days out there, we'll fill in those potholes.
Um, oh, we have. So let's see what we're doing here. Okay, here we go. It's
pretty bad the rains over the last years have really really hit it hard it needs
to be no matter what it needs to be looked at now I've had some residents
tell me they like the potholes because they like the speed bumps personally I
think and the other folks that support and some of them may have written a
letter they want them filled in so I propose filling them in doing
construction then coming back and do a proper R&R on there to the base. Okay,
then coming in and doing a slurry seal from the public street all the way to
our property. It'll make it look good I think. I think and we're doing that
afterwards because obviously during construction you're gonna have more
damage to the street with all the heavy trucks. It's just the right time to do it
But in the interim basis, let's get the potholes fixed.
These are some of the details that we've given
to planning to look at.
But I think that's all I have for tonight.
I'm here for questions.
I have my engineer here regarding any kind
of hydrology issues or engineering.
And take any questions.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Questions?
Commissioner Moran.
Thank you, great presentation.
I appreciate the changes that were made after the design review, especially seeing the before
and after pictures.
I think that what you have here is a lot more aesthetically pleasing, and it's just coming
from somebody who's looking at this for the first time.
Two or three quick questions ahead is, my gym's over there, right, so I can, I look
up and see, and it's a pretty severe cliff face.
fence is gonna go I assume a couple feet before the fence but I just wonder if
there's any thoughts like once you're inside the backyard you can't get
outside the fence right you know no you can't right cuz if I'm living there if I
got a couple of young kids I would worry that's like a good 30 foot drop into the
parking lot from that that cliff right and it's it's not you can't really see
on any of these pictures, but the back of it is it's a pretty sheer face. So my
question is that fence is going to be a good bit in front of that, right? If I
throw a baseball over the fence, is it going to the parking lot or is it going to the, you know, the...
So you're talking of the fence a Holcomb Court or the fence to the back of the...
The back fence, the vinyl fence we're talking about that lines the back
perimeter right okay if I was if that fence wasn't it wasn't there you could
pretty much just walk off a pretty good size cliff is my point right there's a
fence there now yeah so is that where the fence is going yeah the changing
fence yes that's gonna remain as well as all the trees right well good just kind
of a point yeah yes with more people living there it's a it's I don't want to
use word dangerous but it's definitely you wouldn't want to be back there at
night is my point, right? So as long as there's no way to get
from correct, it'll be cordoned in the thing. Yes, correct.
Gotcha. And then something that just jumped out at me is the the
outdoor decks are on the second floor. So are they out of the
primary bedrooms or
they are out of the one of the primary bedrooms, they only have
a couple of them, first and second floors. But they are out
the primary bedrooms and view areas like the living room or the kitchen area oh
so also the living room yes yes okay good that's that was yes I thought that
boy would I missed opportunity to actually be able to walk out your living
room right under the deck okay I think that was all I had thank you
welcome thank you first of all I just want to say thank you for all of the
talking and responding to the residents on the site in the area and I appreciate
the plan to repave all the way down to the street. I think that's a really great
way to to be responding to some issues that the residents have brought up.
And I appreciate the preserving of all the mature trees that are in good
condition and adding the drought tolerant plants to save water and then
I was looking at the in terms of the ADA unit I appreciate the adding the ADA
parking spot and showing showing the flow through on that path that the ADA
unit itself though is two floors right it is yes so is it assumed that the
person needing the ADA would stay on the floor, on the main floor and not be
able to access the master bedroom and bath. So in terms of the ADA we're gonna
have, what will happen is that we'll, there's a bedroom on that floor. Right.
Just not the master. That's correct, yes. Right. Just not the master. So you have to
have access to the bathroom and everything else has to have ADA access
and for that unit. Everything else can be something different, you know?
Right, okay. And then on the wood versus vinyl fence, I'm wondering if vinyl is
more fireproof when we're talking about wildfires in the area? If we choose
vinyl, is that a better choice in terms of? So to answer your question I've put
this type of fence in very high fire areas and all it does is it melts. So I
think that from my perspective in my experience it's okay used I mean
obviously block walls is probably a better solution but harder you know to
look at but in terms of fire they just they just melt away. Okay thank you
That's awesome.
That's just strongman.
Clarification on the back fence,
you talked about is it gonna remain a chain link fence
or you're gonna replace it with,
whether it's vinyl or wood,
but where do we recommend?
I'm going to leave it as chain link.
I believe that's not our fence.
I'm not mistaken.
Okay, I'm just, just clarification.
Yes.
So that is blocking anybody jumping off into.
Into that ditch.
Into that ditch, yes.
Thank you.
Questions?
Sure.
Claude?
Hi.
Thank you for the detailed presentation and the history.
It's interesting to see the evolution over time.
One theme that I caught through watching the old design review
meeting and reading all the materials
was the issue of water runoff and flow.
And I believe the planter is part of the system
that addresses making sure that we have a good runoff system
but I am not well educated in that.
So I was just going to ask you to explain
sort of what the thinking is and how that works.
Address that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is Easton with the Bolt Engineering.
You did the hydrology for us.
Excellent, thank you so much.
I'm Easton Callister with the Bolt Civil Engineering.
Yeah, the C3 Planner, the way it works,
and part of the reason it's positioned there
is because you need to collect all the impervious surfaces
from the proposed development.
Typically that means you need to put it
at the lowest point on the site.
So we put it as close to the driveway as possible.
The roofs are all designed so that the downspouts
will be clustered at the front
and it'll drain out to the driveway.
We're showing a trench drain as you transition
from the paved driveway on paved shared drive
under the individual auto cords
and it will drain into the planter itself.
The planner is designed to have two levels of storage above it.
The first storage is required by C3, the storm water quality control regulations.
And then the second overflow device is actually for the detention volume.
We are changing slightly, while maintaining existing drainage patterns,
we are slightly changing the drainage of the site.
The entire site, today it's kind of got a ridge in the middle and
it drains partially out to the west.
But we're gonna be draining it all north and east, so we're detaining the water.
said there's less flows today than post construction there are pre-construction.
The planter itself has the storage above that I described, 18 inches of loamy sand, the
biotics within the root system of the plants cleans the water as drain rocks sub-drain
underneath and it will flow out once it percolates through the soils for it to clean and to qualify
with county stormwater quality requirements.
Great. That's great and fascinating. Thank you.
It's just a strong one.
One more question. Just on that, where does it actually drain to? Does it go down to the
crew, the channel down below or it goes out to the street?
Just off property here, you kind of have a ridge in Holcomb Court. So Holcomb Court
drains easterly. And as I said before, the existing or the previous building and the driveway and the
out of courts before all drink down the driveway and out
from court to San Miguel.
San Miguel has infrastructure on the sides
and it's gonna go to those side drainage channels.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Yeah, just got a couple.
The parking encroachment or the ADA space there.
I wasn't clear on all the drawings.
I mean, I see where it's kind of marked out,
extending into the roadway.
But when you look at the detailed plans,
it looks like whatever construction is involved there
ends at the edge of the driveway.
So is there anything physical being built out
into the drive there?
That is an ingrain trench drain.
So it's going to collect the water coming from the driveways.
So you drive over it.
OK.
It's just an inground grate you drive over.
And as people get used to the dips, they'll go around.
There's no dip.
I mean, it's flat.
Oh, it's just flat.
It's a U-shaped trench with a plate on top of it.
OK.
So it'll be flush.
Very good.
And I guess I would ask, was the need for that extra 3 and 1
1.5 feet, because it would be difficult to move,
because it'd be unit three back that much.
Or was it just, it was kind of an architectural decision
as to where that unit landed.
So I'm asking.
The ADA space is in front of unit three,
and was the need to encroach further onto the street
because that unit could not be moved back a bit.
Talk about the variance, right?
Yeah.
The variance I believe is to have parking in the front.
If I'm mistaken, I don't think,
because we're not encroaching.
So Samira, do you wanna go through that?
The reason for the variance,
I think we have the same variance on the previous plan too.
Well, the code does require that
if parking is provided in the front yard,
it needs to meet the front yard setback, which is 15 feet.
So that's the need for the variance.
But I think what he's asking is,
why could the building not be set back a little?
Is that what you're asking about?
I'm thinking that I think it's three and a half feet
encroaches on the roadway.
On the other hand, if that isn't just in fact a flat drainage
area that they could drive over, I'm less concerned.
It's flat.
You can drive over it.
I don't think we're actually encroaching
on the roadway, on the 30-foot roadway.
It kind of looks like it, but we're not.
Mine to the roadway, but you're encroaching in that side.
It needed to be 15 feet away.
Yeah, that's right.
And it would be an architectural.
have to redesign the plans you can see that part of this is the garages they
sort of line up so they're turning garages if I were to push that unit back
I wouldn't be able to get into the garage for unit three you're correct now
I see yes okay thank you that's all I have
All right, Vice Chair Ng.
I had a quick question for staff,
and then are they doing the Inluvium for inclusionary?
There's no inclusionary on here.
Yeah, all market rate units, but they
are providing the inclusionary fee.
OK, and I think the required is 15.
The Inluvium of 15%, right, for ownership?
It's per square footage.
It's a condition of approval, I believe.
of the whole me but it is $26 per square feet plus or minus.
Yeah.
But it's in our attachment one draft resolution.
And then they didn't file using SB 330, but they could have.
They could have.
They could have.
Because what I'm seeing here is that it's fully consistent.
which then would have completely eliminated
anything discretionary.
What I'm seeing here is it's gonna be a very,
thank you for building a very expensive
flow-through planter.
That's a big wall.
It's basically a giant bathtub.
I am, I'm assuming it's also providing hydro modification.
That's correct. Sorry.
So it's doing both, water quality hydromod?
Technically, detention.
Hydromod is a different thing for projects over an acre.
OK.
So just slowing the water down versus retention.
It's for no flooding, storm water quality treatment.
Yeah.
It's cleanly involved.
Yep.
Yep.
So you're doing your C3, I just thought because it was all,
I didn't realize that you hadn't triggered the hydromod.
But detention is better than nothing,
even though you're not providing the retention.
Although evapotranspiration will provide you some retention here
naturally, I do see in the with I saw those comments
about the water.
So I do see that you have it super elevated.
So you're not draining anything off site to the additional site.
So I thought that was a positive.
You also have the trench drain specifically,
again, because the driveways, you're
not going to flood the buildings.
and so you're draining everything out,
super elevating it, catching it,
and then it looks like it does,
I'm glad you're slowing it down
because you're discharging it through the curb drain
versus in the pipe.
And I know that the engineering staff
will make sure that everything's good on that.
It's expensive to also have your roofs drained
to one, to all the way to the front.
So I'm glad that you said that,
because otherwise I wouldn't have believed you.
Thank you.
I'm also, I did notice from a topographic standpoint
from the other design to this design
when I saw the other design,
it looks like you did take into account
where essentially you have natural flat topography.
So you tried not to encroach.
And I think from a geotechnical perspective,
that's probably a positive.
I'm assuming that nothing, I know that there's new maps
that just came out with local and state responsibility areas
and that this is not in a fire hazard zone, right, staff?
So otherwise I would say you'd need the vinyl
because you can't have anything combustible.
But that being said, vinyl is more expensive than wood.
And if we can get something beautiful from the vinyl
and have it be, and be able to incorporate fire resistivity,
that's what we all wanna see.
So, sorry, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to kind of
pull out the items that's gonna be sustainable,
have the fire resistivity we know,
and to be able to understand also the fact
that you could have built 10,
because you had up to 22 dwelling units per acre
and state law actually allows you to go gross
versus net acreage.
So thank you for not for being considerate of the community
and for not building at the 22.
It sounds like that would have been too much.
So, and the materials,
the fence that you chose,
It is, it's a good for the little patios.
So that extra touch, which I know that material
is also costs more.
So I was happy to see that.
And most importantly,
because I noticed you have finished floors
that step every two feet approximately.
Did I get that right?
I'm doing it off memory.
When I saw the pads to be able to accommodate
the shifting of the windows for the importance
of the neighbors, which is so important.
I thought that was very, very helpful,
especially when it's hard,
when you are trying to build the same building
and all of a sudden from a framing perspective,
you're shifting that window because it's stepped.
So it would have been probably easier
for all the windows to step
versus having it kind of aligned.
So I did wanna point that out.
All in all, it sounded like in the outreach that you did, you provided the
responses so that community would welcome you. It sounded this way when I'm
reading it. Would you say so? You made the changes? If you'd like, I have the
handout that I gave the residents if you want to see them. No, no, it's okay. I mean,
Yes, other responses. Yeah. Yes, so I'm I'm that that was I
Appreciated seeing that that you were thoughtful to respond
I actually yeah staff responded to the oh, okay
But of course with the help of the applicant, I didn't have the answer
Yeah, I try to do that when I can I actually reached out to them a week earlier because they were at the DRC
They responded to the DRC, so I had those comments before.
And we were working on them, so I responded about a week
before that in an email to them saying, we're your neighbors.
We'd like to go through these items with you
so you have any other concerns.
And that's, I think, when they reached out to you,
because we talked about the notification,
and we figured it just let the city respond back.
So you're the, and I like the mid-century modern look
that you kind of put in there, but I'll stop blabbing.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
All right, thank you very much.
I can invite any other members of the public
who would like to comment.
You can do so now.
See none.
All right. Then I will close the public hearing unless you'd like to have five
minutes to respond to the comments that we didn't get from the public. Thank you.
I'll bring it back to the Commission for comments. Commissioner Strongman. I really
appreciate this project. It looks really nice. I really appreciate that you've
building a project that has more than two bedrooms per unit. Most of the
Contos that are being produced now
Assumes that we're all going to live in two-bedroom
Units and it's nice that you have expanded out and have three or four bedrooms in these units. Otherwise, I think it's a great project
Mr. Unclop, thank you. I agree and I'm also really pleased to hear you addressing the concerns of the road
I went to go do a little drive-by and it's it's needing love. So thank you very much for that
I want to express my appreciation for the consideration
and the thoughtfulness that went into this project,
taking into consideration the neighbors' concerns
and the feedback that they had.
I do like the consideration towards the parking situation
because I also live on a flag lot
where I share a driveway with my neighbors.
And so parking can be tight when you have a lot of people
living on a, sharing the same driveway.
So the consideration to that and the impacts of that on the people who will be living in
those homes as well as the neighbors is a very nice thought.
As for the fence, it sounds like vinyl would be preferable to wood for the sustainability
or not sustainability, the fire resistance.
I don't hear any other discussion, perhaps a motion would be in order if someone would
like to make one.
Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the draft resolution attachment one determining the
project to be exempt from CEQA pursuant to class 32 infill exemption and approving the
tentative subdivision map design review and variance for the proposed five-unit project
subject to conditions of approval in the draft resolution.
I second.
I have a motion and a second as I have any further discussion on the motion.
Do I call the roll preparing my notes, thank you
Roll call we'll have a motion by count
Yes, yes
Vice chair nighting. Yes
Commissioner Moran
Yes, Commissioner strong man. Yes, Commissioner quack. Yes, Commissioner clop. Yes, and chair Anderson. Yes
motion carries
Thank you very much
That brings us to item five, which is commission considerations.
Anybody have anything to bring up?
Commissioner Klop.
Yes, thank you.
I wanted to provide a quick update from the regional Transpac meeting.
At their June meeting, they approved their work plan and budget for fiscal year 25-26.
They're struggling to try to find a way to expand the free bus tickets, which currently
is a program that only lasts two months, to try to expand it to last more months.
But there seem to be a lot of overlapping jurisdictions and projects, and trying to
get collaboration between more than one area has been problematic.
So that's still moving on.
So that's what's going on there.
I did have the opportunity to get a referral for me to our transportation team so that
I can make sure that I'm advocating for the right things with that group.
All right.
We'll go on to item six of which is commission member and staff reports or announcements.
Any announcements?
Staff?
Uh, just that we have a, we will have a few items for the July 10th meeting.
actually for the next few meetings. We'll be good. Very exciting. We've been
hoarding them for a while. I hope no one has gotten too impatient with us for
failing to get a quorum. Any other announcements? Mr. Kahn. Thank you. I just wanted to say
thank you again to all of my new colleagues here on the Commission and
Thank you to staff and thank you to the city council who appointed us.
Just as a nearly 20-year resident of the city,
I'm really excited to be able to join all of
you to contribute in this way to our wonderful Walnut Creek.
It's something I've had an interest in from years ago when my kids were little,
and I started advocating for safe routes to schools,
ways that we could walk and bike to the schools in our neighborhood,
up through more recently in the past year in my role
as a field representative for our state assembly member,
being able to see how different cities in our region
do planning and how they're affected by state policy.
So just really excited to be here.
Thank you so much.
I'll second that.
I'm honored that I get to join
such an esteemed group of professionals
and I'm looking forward to working with all of you.
And I also want to thank the city
and my fellow pros commissioners for giving this
There's a nice plaque for my eight years of service
on the Parks and Opus Base Commission,
which I will miss very much.
But I'm excited to show up here more than even two times
every, or once every other month.
So my schedule is a little bit busier.
And I'm looking forward to it.
So thank you very much.
Welcome to you both.
There's nothing further.
And I will adjourn the meeting.
And I'll see you in two weeks.
I'll leave the gavel.
Bang it, huh?
One day, you should've dinged it when you had the pickle cup.
We had a couple of real classic Hello Good-Bye kind of things.