| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.13 | Richard Graef | director. |
| 00:00:01.89 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Chair Luxenberg, and good evening, Chair, Planning Commissioner, staff, and members of the public. This meeting is being held at City of Sausalito's City Council Chambers at 420 Litho Street and is open to members of the public. Members of the public may also access this meeting and provide public comment through Zoom. And if I could also just make a high-level comment, high-level note for this meeting. If you'd like to make a public comment in connection with any item on the agenda, please fill out a speaker card if you are in person and provide it to my colleague Maria Hernandez to my right. We'll make sure that you are heard in the order that they are received. If you are joining us virtually this evening, the process is the same. Please raise your hand on the Zoom application and you will be called upon in the order that your hand is raised. Thank you very much. And with that, I will move to call roll. Commissioner Saad. |
| 00:00:50.22 | Nastassya Saad | here. |
| 00:00:51.15 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Graff. Thank you. |
| 00:00:52.17 | Nastassya Saad | Sure. |
| 00:00:52.41 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Commissioner Feller. Here. |
| 00:00:53.93 | Nastassya Saad | here. |
| 00:00:54.55 | Director Phipps | Vice Chair Junius. Present. Chair Luxembourg. Here. All right, we have achieved quorum. Thank you, Chair. Back to you. |
| 00:01:00.76 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Director. We're now looking for approval of the agenda. I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the agenda. |
| 00:01:06.50 | Kristina Feller | So moved. Thank you. |
| 00:01:08.58 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Director Phipps, could you call roll, please? |
| 00:01:10.64 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Saad. Yes. Commissioner Graff. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. |
| 00:01:12.31 | Kristina Feller | Yes. Yeah. |
| 00:01:14.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:15.61 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 00:01:15.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:18.74 | Director Phipps | Yes. Motion carries. |
| 00:01:20.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Next item on the agenda is public comments for items not on the agenda. Director Phipps, if you could explain the process, please. |
| 00:01:27.43 | Director Phipps | Happy to. Thank you, Chair. This is the time for the Planning Commission to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda, except in very limited situations. State law precludes the Planning Commission from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the Planning Commission may refer matters not on the agenda to staff or direct the subject to the agendas at a future meeting. Video or audio public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker for this item. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in person or in the subject be agendized at a future meeting. Video or audio public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker for this item. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in person or in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it is your time to speak. And as a clarification, we've got the speaker card comment to raise your hand from a phone. On the Zoom application, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. Thank you. |
| 00:02:19.94 | Director Phipps | Chair, look into the audience, look into speaker cards for this item. none. Looking to the Zoom application for raised hands for this item. Seeing none. Back to you. |
| 00:02:29.46 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. We will move on to item for approval of planning Commission minutes. The first this evening are June 13 2023. I will do any of the Commissioners have any questions or comments. |
| 00:02:43.90 | Kristina Feller | It's actually June 14th, Chair. |
| 00:02:45.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | 14th. Yes, it is. Thank you very much. I'm looking for a motion to approve. you |
| 00:02:52.59 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:02:52.71 | Jeffery Luxenberg | move. I'm looking for a second. |
| 00:02:54.65 | Nastassya Saad | We'll be right back. |
| 00:02:55.65 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Director Phipps, please call roll. |
| 00:02:58.55 | Director Phipps | Thanks, Chair. Commissioner Saad. |
| 00:03:00.05 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 00:03:00.07 | Director Phipps | THE END OF THE Commissioner Graff? Yes. Commissioner Feller? |
| 00:03:01.71 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. I'll abstain, I was not present. |
| 00:03:06.50 | Director Phipps | Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes. |
| 00:03:11.22 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:03:11.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:03:11.26 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh. |
| 00:03:11.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Next item is Planning Commission minutes for July 12, 2023. I'll look for a motion for approval. |
| 00:03:19.73 | Kristina Feller | motion to approve as is? Thank you. |
| 00:03:21.43 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:03:21.45 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 00:03:21.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Any questions or comments? Director Phipps, please take roll. Thank you. |
| 00:03:27.29 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Saad? you |
| 00:03:28.17 | Marv Hovater | Yes. |
| 00:03:28.42 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Commissioner Graff. Thank you. |
| 00:03:29.91 | Marv Hovater | Yes. |
| 00:03:30.94 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. |
| 00:03:31.88 | Marv Hovater | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:03:34.95 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Go. |
| 00:03:35.19 | Marv Hovater | Thank you. |
| 00:03:35.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Next item is communications. Director Phipps, is there a report from CDD, please? |
| 00:03:43.93 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Chair. No communication items this evening from myself. Back to you. |
| 00:03:48.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Thank you, City Attorney Rudin. Do you have any comments this evening? |
| 00:03:56.31 | Mary Wagner | I do not share, thank you. |
| 00:03:58.59 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, thank you. A report out from planning commissioners, including various working groups. First one, Ferry Landside Working Group. So any comments before the item tonight or? |
| 00:04:11.77 | Kristina Feller | No comment. We're hearing it tonight. |
| 00:04:13.78 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Housing element working group, Commissioner Feller, Commissioner Saad, any comments this evening? |
| 00:04:19.50 | Kristina Feller | No update at this time unless Director Phipps has an update. So, |
| 00:04:25.36 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Mark Benthien, SCECeal Thank you. Master Plan Working Group, Commissioner Feller, Commissioner Saad, any updates on that? |
| 00:04:38.70 | Kristina Feller | No update at this time. |
| 00:04:40.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, finally, Landslide Task Force, Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:04:44.09 | Kristina Feller | No, we still do not have an update regarding Miller Pacific's work here in the city. And I know Director McGowan has been busy with a number of other things. So I hope to get with him in the next week or so. |
| 00:04:57.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Fowler. Any other working groups or comments from commissioners at this time for communications? Okay, with that we'll move on to item six public hearing at this point. I'll be looking for Commissioners to have any expert take communications starting with Commissioner Saad. |
| 00:05:16.76 | Nastassya Saad | Visited all the sites, nothing to declare. |
| 00:05:19.22 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:05:19.24 | Nastassya Saad | PARTICIPATE. |
| 00:05:19.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Mr. Vice Chair Junius. Nothing to declare. Commissioner Graff. |
| 00:05:26.80 | Richard Graef | No ex parte communications. |
| 00:05:29.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Fowler. |
| 00:05:30.65 | Kristina Feller | Regarding 6C, I just want to reiterate from our last study session that I am a member of the Sausalito Yacht Club. I did receive a request from director McGowan For contact information, for leadership at the Yacht Club. This was passed on to CDD. I just want everyone to be aware of that, I provided email addresses to leadership that could be found by the public on the website. So that is all. |
| 00:05:57.71 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Feller. I also have no expert communications, but I did visit all the sites as well. With that, we're going to move on to the first item, which is 170 Gate 5 Road, and I'll be looking, Director Phipps is at Mr. Toff to do a presentation. Good evening, thank you for being here. |
| 00:06:18.00 | Neal Toft | Thank you, Chairman Luxenberg and members of the Planning Commission. The item before you tonight is a continued matter. This is the applicant and property owner Dan Morgan is requesting Planning Commission approval. to allow replacement of an existing 40 by 81 steel building with a new 40 by 81 steel industrial building with new siding windows. Andrew Smith, MCC, MCC, MCC, The site is located on Gate 5 Road and currently developed with two other structures and 19 parking spaces located entirely on site. The current storage building, storage workshop building is located behind And adjacent to a more recently improved industrial structure, of similar footprint and behind a two-story office building located in the front of the parcel. while the property has a driveway. At the north corner onto Gate 5 Road, it also utilizes a shared driveway access And as we'll discuss... as well, some parking. in an easement on the adjacent property to the south. The new replacement structure is proposed largely in the same footprint. and would largely utilize existing grade level around the building. This. Design remains very similar. in design and exterior treatment to that you previously reviewed. back in April. with the exception that the floor level has come down. And the height of the building has also been reduced. And I'll discuss that a little bit more. The applicant is proposing Landscaping improvements around the West and West and North perimeter of the building. These include small patio areas. rear doors, some small trees, and a mix of trees, bushes, and ground covers. It also includes a bioswale. and on-site trash enclosure, but there's a bit of conflict between The landscape plan, which was really the original landscape plan, and the proposed site plan. which is, um, now includes a access uh, um, an access pathway along that West side. and also bicycle racks in that location. um, The project architect has informed and agreed the Architectural plan would supersede the landscape plan and the civil plans in terms of that layout. So there are some details that would need to be finalized in that. but their plan is to provide that exit path and provide placement of bicycle racks. And it may help for us to If the Commission decides to approve this with the resolution attached, a motion to include that the architectural plan supersedes with approval by the public, excuse me, by the Community Development Director, we could add that into the resolution to make sure that's clear in terms of that detail. Now, this application was initially reviewed on, excuse me, on March 1st. At the time they were proposing to raise the grade and the building floor level to address sea level rise concerns. And this also included creating an elevated entryway ramp railing, planters. The plans also And excuse me, on a rolling So a truck could access the front entry door. for various service uses. Now, The plan also showed a maximum of 19 onsite spaces, where approximately 32 spaces were required to serve the various uses and buildings on the site. the commission heard from property owners, to the north and across the street. The primary concern of the adjacent neighbors at 90. Gate 5 Road were impacts to light air privacy. in regard to an outdoor yard area, kind of an industrial but open yard area in the southwest corner of their property. And. fairly directly behind the proposed building. The property owner across Gate 5 Road expressed concern with the increased height and potential for more intensive use of the site and the potential demand on parking. After discussion on the matter with the applicants, The Commission expressed several general support for the project, but we're not entirely in agreement. Some commissioners expressed a concern with the height of the building. suggested that some reduction in height would be appropriate. particularly to bring it more in scale with the footprint on the structure. The site was lacking adequate parking already. And there was opportunity to provide offsite parking as the property owner also has control of several properties, not adjacent to the site, but in the vicinity. at Marineship. area. So after the discussion, the applicant agreed Look into reducing the height and review the available availability of parking. on other properties and determine if offsite parking Dedicated. So the commission voted to continue the matter. It took some time, the applicants eventually We submitted revised plans and materials that do modify the height of the structure and inform the existing and proposed parking condition In terms of the roof height, The applicants are proposing to lower the finished floor And. by two feet back to being a little above one foot clearance above um, base flood elevation. So a little above one foot above that. So that meets FEMA. standards. Um, And also... reducing the building height by two feet. And so the overall height reduction is that of 3.4 feet. um, in order to address the sea level rise concerns for the area. The applicants are proposing to design the interior of the building, the structure and the doors and the headers to accommodate raising the floor level. There was a graphic provided. but they could raise the floor level up three to three and a half feet within the structure of the building. It's got clearance to do that. And that is a similar approach to the design at 265 Gate 5 Road, which in fact was a two-story structure. So they had designed the second story to have enough clearance and the headers and such to provide for raising the floor level. The applicant's engineer confirms that this is a functional approach. In terms of the parking, the applicant initially did Uh, We had contact, they did some review, studied some options for offsite parking and some of their uh, and some of the other properties. talked with us about some of the challenges in doing that, Um, the, the demands that are already on those sites. And in doing that, also recognize they did have an easement in fact, so they do have up to 10 parking spaces on the adjacent site, including one additional. 11th space that is halfway on their site and halfway on the, adjacent site at, uh, 200 KM. There is also So as such, the site provides 19 on-site spaces, but also 11 adjacent on offsite spaces. So this is a total of 30 spaces where 32 are required. The applicants are also planning to install bicycle parking. And we've included a condition that would require at least three U-style bicycle frames. bicycle stance. Um, And with that, the applicants are not proposing any further parking dedications from offsite properties at this time. It should be noted applicants are willing to install an eight foot high fence. And obscured glass, I understand they've been in talks with the neighbor. to the north And so they're willing to do this. these mitigations are not on the project plans. Um, the An eight foot high fence does require administrative design review. I don't know if these are anything that's been agreed to at this point, but we can find out in take direction from there if necessary. We have reviewed the project for consistency with the general plan friendship plan and design review and non-conformity permit approval. Um, We recommend it's consistent with the findings for design review and nonconformity. permit. Structure is similar in scale with many industrial structures. in the area. and complements the existing site with limited impacts to surrounding properties. the by lowering The height, even though it's only 3.5, four feet, three and a half feet approximately. the building does come into more scale with its footprint. And The parking condition is only two spaces short of the standard requirement. and it does not appear there's a deficit of parking on this site. or the adjacent site that shares parking spaces and many trips out there. during the work week, there does not appear to be uh, overall impact to parking in that area. So in conclusion, And, the bike parking helps that shortfall. We recommend the Planning Commission approve the attached draft resolution. which approves subject to conditions of approval. the design review permit and nonconformity permit for the replacement structure. Do you have any questions of staff? |
| 00:17:05.41 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Mr. Toph. With that, Planning Commissioner's questions of staff? |
| 00:17:12.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | of, Wish me congrats. Thank you. |
| 00:17:15.35 | Richard Graef | Um, yes, um, I noticed in this recent design, there is an extension of the building forward, which is some kind of canopy or something. And that would Um... increase the footprint of the building. Does that have any impact in terms of, the FAR requirements or square foot requirements or anything? So the footprint is now, It looks to be, what, four or five feet longer in one direction, in a longer direction. |
| 00:17:58.01 | Neal Toft | Let me double check that, but that canopy has actually been part of the design. or from the get go. Yeah, and I think what's happened is the drawings, these drawings actually came out more revealing. Because I kind of had that same impression that did this |
| 00:18:14.21 | Richard Graef | because, Yeah. |
| 00:18:19.05 | Neal Toft | did this change, but it actually was part of the design. |
| 00:18:22.49 | Kristina Feller | I think there was a ramp there before. |
| 00:18:24.79 | Neal Toft | And that was part of it. There was a ramp. |
| 00:18:25.58 | Kristina Feller | I'm not. Right. |
| 00:18:27.47 | Neal Toft | Yeah. So there was a ramp and then it had it did have posts that came up to the roof overhang. |
| 00:18:35.94 | Jeffery Luxenberg | This is surprising. |
| 00:18:41.42 | Neal Toft | But I would agree that these drawings popped that difference out a lot more than the original plans. |
| 00:18:52.43 | Richard Graef | didn't catch that okay you |
| 00:18:54.44 | Neal Toft | you |
| 00:18:54.45 | Richard Graef | Um, hmm. Um... Then there was another area that was a little confusing to me on the, I guess it would be the west side. of the building. the plans and renderings and everything don't all quite match up to each other. And one of the plans, I think it was the landscape plan, showed some kind of a structure right at the front end of the building with doors or gates or something. |
| 00:19:29.33 | Neal Toft | I think they were showing a trash enclosure. on the landscape plan. |
| 00:19:34.45 | Richard Graef | Uh-huh. That's okay. And what's the path of travel for Uh... |
| 00:19:40.35 | Neal Toft | path of travel would actually go on the architectural plan. And that's what I was highlighting. It actually goes through that. I hadn't really caught this as we were working through the various iterations. But the path of travel the side exit path, we kind of go through that. through that trash container. So they do utilize a trash container that's off the site, but not exactly within one of their easements. So they would, and I can let the applicants speak to this, |
| 00:20:09.98 | Richard Graef | Yeah, it's just confusing because it looks like there's a wall there and you couldn't walk through there. But that's just maybe it's just the drawing. |
| 00:20:10.10 | Neal Toft | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 00:20:21.16 | Neal Toft | Yeah, it's a difference between they did not update the landscape plan consistent with the architectural drawing. |
| 00:20:30.54 | Richard Graef | Okay. Um, Well, that's it. for now. |
| 00:20:38.22 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Graff, Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:20:41.58 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Neil, for the presentation. I'm glad this is back in front of us. I just had a couple questions that were really more housekeeping items more than anything else. The first is at our last hearing on this project, the owner did agree to use some of his other properties in the area for parking. Is that no longer on the table? |
| 00:21:09.67 | Neal Toft | Well, I don't want to put words in the owner's mouth. I think he agreed to... look into it. I think he wanted and planned to do that. And then Thank you. as And as I said, and I don't recall because it's going back several months, but as he was looking into that, and again, I can, have him speak to this, but many of the sites that made any sense at all presented some challenges. And then recognizing that he actually had Um, extra parking directly on the adjacent property. |
| 00:21:45.04 | Kristina Feller | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:21:45.50 | Neal Toft | He felt it was probably more of an effort than it's worth. |
| 00:21:49.24 | Kristina Feller | Okay. The other issue is we had a discussion at the last hearing about there's a PG&E poll that doesn't show up in the renderings but it's quite close to his property and building and I just wanted to know if there was any additional conversations with PG&E or were there any concerns on the staff part as you reviewed this and the technical drawings. |
| 00:22:11.64 | Neal Toft | Well, the applicants will certainly need to address anything they'll need to do for PG&E. Thank you. |
| 00:22:19.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:22:19.55 | Neal Toft | Thank you. |
| 00:22:19.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:22:19.75 | Neal Toft | in order to assure that the poll is safe, and potentially, whether that requires any level of undergrounding, at least from their site, or replacement of equipment or anything on the pole. I do, this does go back a ways a little before I arrived, but I do remember there was some discussion or memo review, I believe, on this project with PG&E about addressing that concern. |
| 00:22:52.64 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And then just wanted to... um, I wanted to ask, is staff's opinion on this, is a resolution on the fence required to approve the design review in front of us, the application in front of us? |
| 00:23:12.35 | Neal Toft | It's not required. It's not required to approve it. If, The issue only really becomes such if the Planning Commission feels it's necessary. |
| 00:23:25.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:25.04 | Neal Toft | Thank you. |
| 00:23:25.08 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:23:25.46 | Neal Toft | to condition it or require it. That presents a bit of a loop issue because it would have to be sort of its own separate administrative design review. Thank you. |
| 00:23:35.93 | Unknown | Perfect. |
| 00:23:36.72 | Neal Toft | And I have not heard from the neighbors if that's really what they want. I'm sure they're What? like some buffer, if that's Eight feet is necessary, and I noted There is a difference in elevation. So a six foot high fence is pretty much equivalent to an eight foot high fence from below. |
| 00:23:57.07 | Kristina Feller | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:23:57.61 | Neal Toft | So |
| 00:23:58.76 | Kristina Feller | Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:24:02.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Before gone, can I just clarify that last issue? Are you saying that it's not within the Planning Commission's purview to approve an eight-foot fence, that if we were to approve an eight-foot fence, it still needs an administrative approval in addition to our approval? That's correct. Okay, thank you. Other questions? Okay. I have some cleanup on some dates, which I said in advance, on some dates referred to in the drawings. Did you receive those? |
| 00:24:33.56 | Neal Toft | I'm sorry I did not see those today. |
| 00:24:35.92 | Jeffery Luxenberg | uh commissioner director phipps has those and they're just um at some point in the conditions you refer uh to a a received date of 714 rather than the drawing date and some of the received plans have 713 and some have 714 so there's just some language when we get to that point where we can clean it up. And that's not a major issue. With that, if there's no more questions from the commissioners, we will bring up the applicant to do their presentation. |
| 00:24:53.54 | Marv Hovater | Oh, okay. |
| 00:25:17.72 | Dan Morgan | brought updated plans, would you like them? Thank you. |
| 00:25:19.94 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um... |
| 00:25:20.89 | Dan Morgan | five sets. |
| 00:25:21.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:25:22.22 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:25:22.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:25:22.29 | Jeffery Luxenberg | uh, |
| 00:25:23.12 | Dan Morgan | Okay, that's why I was late. |
| 00:25:25.58 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, sure. If you have them, you might as well bring them. |
| 00:25:28.40 | Kristina Feller | Go to the director. |
| 00:25:29.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:25:31.39 | Kristina Feller | Well, can I just ask a point of clarification chair if these have different dates or revised from what's in our package. They haven't been they're not in the agenda not publicly noticed. |
| 00:25:41.56 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, I think that I. |
| 00:25:42.36 | Kristina Feller | Do you have to respond to what has been? |
| 00:25:44.13 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I think these are not updated. They just bothered to print them, right? These aren't any different than what was submitted. Is that correct? Indeed. |
| 00:25:50.99 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 00:25:53.07 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, these are just what was submitted here. At the last meeting on this, they brought in drawings, which is what I was showing Commissioner Graff. These have not changed. They just don't have the stamp dates. What the public has. The date was 6. |
| 00:25:59.42 | Kristina Feller | Okay. I want to make sure it's because they don't have the stamp dates. It's what the public has. |
| 00:26:08.21 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, |
| 00:26:13.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | 622. Yeah, 622 is the date. |
| 00:26:18.18 | Dan Morgan | These plans were dated 622. And the last sheet is what I go by. It has the graphic showing the flood, the SLR study results. |
| 00:26:21.07 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:26:27.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, these are the drawings that were posted as far as I know. But if you can give a copy to Mr. Toth, he'll verify that for us, but I believe that to be true. |
| 00:26:36.29 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:26:37.18 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:26:37.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:37.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | We'll share the rest too. Oh, yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:26:41.21 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:26:41.42 | Jeffery Luxenberg | one |
| 00:26:42.68 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you're all. |
| 00:26:43.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Okay. Um, If Maria, if you could start the timer clock, that would be good, thank you. |
| 00:26:55.24 | Dan Morgan | Good evening, Chair Luxembourg and Commissioners. Dan Morgan, property owner, applicant. We have met with the neighbor, Mr. Kalina, who's here tonight to speak as well. And he was fine with the height reduction and requested that we install an eight foot fence. And just to be clear, that would only be between our properties. It wouldn't be on the long side of the building or the Western side of the building and just leave that fence the way it is. and requested that we do obscure glass on the on the upper windows and you'll be able to talk to that tonight. When we left today, we have an agreement. So I think the changes are... do a great job of getting the scale better. We were able to, one of the things we were able to do is lower the building so that we can actually use the garage door without taking the railing apart. And overall, I think it's a better project. talk much more about it. I will address the other the other issues. The PG&E PowerPole is actually on the neighboring property and we have a service line that PG&E will take down and then put back up. when the new building is there. um, As far as the parking, both 200 Gate 5 and 150, 60, 70 Gate 5 were owned by West Core. And One of the many things that happened during the acquisition of the property The parking space is... that are on. 150, 60, 70 Gate 5 Road. It's just a property line issue. The AP, the assessor's parcel, cut off 11 of those spaces and gave them to 200, gave five roads. So in the transaction, they gave me an easement because those those spaces do belong to that building. And I, that was, I just missed it. And then going back and looking at easements, I said, Whoa, I already have this. So that problem sort of solved itself. The landscaping plan is we missed it on the on the back. of the trash enclosure, we can use the adjacent trash enclosure. It actually makes more sense. And so we'll delete that back wall and make that a path of travel. Um, That's all I have, unless you have some questions with me. The architect's here to answer any other questions you might have. |
| 00:29:25.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. With that, questions from the commissioner? Thank you. |
| 00:29:31.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | uh, Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:29:34.49 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, I can go ahead and say. |
| 00:29:34.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I can go ahead and start. |
| 00:29:36.26 | Marv Hovater | Filler. |
| 00:29:37.36 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Mr Morgan. Thank you for coming back and revising the drawings. I'm excited about your project. I just had a question about the usage of your building, because I think I read two conflicting things in here. And of course, I don't believe you have a signed lease now, so you're not obligated to confirm one way or the other. But you mentioned in In I think your letter that this was going to be warehouse space. So my question with that is, you know, this is, in essence, a very glass open building. Is warehouse use really the intention for the building? |
| 00:30:20.27 | Dan Morgan | Yes, I don't have a signed lease. I have had discussions with, um, We had a boat building company and then of recent, Mr. DeReer introduced me to somebody that said, yeah, when you get it approved, let's talk. But that was a very compatible use. I don't remember what it was. |
| 00:30:41.14 | Kristina Feller | Okay. I'm just, the question really stems to, is this designed really for the type of tenant intended or that you want to attract, or is it just a spec office? Thank you. or industrial building. |
| 00:30:57.80 | Dan Morgan | It is a spec industrial building. I wanted to get the glass approved in case, because I think it's a, it's beautiful. And if it is such a use as such as warehouse, if it ends up being that. The film, the blackout film can be applied to the glass. So by getting it approved this way, I have all the flexibility for any kind of tenant that I want. It won't be office because that's not a permitted use. And we'll be consistent with the marineship specific plan. |
| 00:31:19.11 | Kristina Feller | not permitting. Okay. Great. Thank you. |
| 00:31:25.98 | Dan Morgan | Thank you. |
| 00:31:28.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Other questions? |
| 00:31:31.18 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Oh. |
| 00:31:31.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um... |
| 00:31:31.82 | Jeffery Luxenberg | no um i have a question regarding this opaque film if you're going to put warehousing in i understand that uh you do not have a you have a large volume in here you're not suggesting a second floor is that correct that's correct i'm not suggesting if you're on the back side of this building and and you put a big thing on the second floor or don't put a big thing on the second floor unless you're building a boat in there which i think you might have mentioned one time and you're up at a ladder you might be able to see out the windows i don't see the point if you have a use that lends itself to the glass why there would be a problem on the back of somebody looking out from the second floor over the top of the fence because you can't physically be there. Can you enlighten me of what the neighbor was looking for in that regard? Because you can't get up that high. |
| 00:31:46.99 | Dan Morgan | That's correct. I'm not. |
| 00:32:24.44 | Dan Morgan | unless you're on a ladder or something i i agree um the second the the upper windows are are there for light and i don't care if it's obscured or not because if that's what he wants and you can ask him if he comes up tonight um it makes no sense to me either other than if he's worried someday that there is a second story then he wants the obscured glass i don't want to speak for him but |
| 00:32:24.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Unless you're on a ladder. Thank you. So, |
| 00:32:49.83 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Are you suggesting now that you are, you are, want to put, are you, are you, what are we reviewing? Are we reviewing an eight foot fence and the film on the inside of the glass on the second floor on the backside? Is that now part? Cause that's, was not formally part of the application yet. So I just want to know what we're building on. |
| 00:33:07.54 | Dan Morgan | That's a good one. That's correct. We had a conversation today. We had prior conversations. He told me that's what he wanted. I guess he read the staff report, came over today and said, okay, that's, I don't want to speak for Mr. Kalina, but... That's why it's not in your package because it was an after the submission. Agreement. |
| 00:33:27.16 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So whether we require it or not, you would, for this agreement, you would ask for administrative approval for the eight foot fence and you would put the film on, which you might put on the other windows anyways, depending on the use. Is that what I'm understanding? |
| 00:33:40.53 | Dan Morgan | That's correct. And I'm fine with you. If you want to condition that, that's fine. |
| 00:33:42.33 | Jeffery Luxenberg | either way. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Anybody? No. With that, we're going to open it up for public comment. And then you'll have, I think you have 12 minutes left to respond to any public comment. Director Phipps, if you could handle, have we gotten speaker cards for this item? Or people, there's one person on Zoom, I think, on this. |
| 00:34:09.53 | Director Phipps | I have one speaker card for item 6A or Mr. or Ms. Gardner. |
| 00:34:18.97 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 00:34:20.47 | Director Phipps | Oh, okay. Well, that's appropriate. Okay. |
| 00:34:24.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:34:24.77 | Director Phipps | Thank you. |
| 00:34:24.79 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Very good. I'm seeing a hand in the flag. If you want to speak on this item, just quickly fill out a speaker card. If there are any others here, we can take the item from the Zoom. |
| 00:34:38.84 | Director Phipps | Yeah, while the gentleman is filling out the speaker card, let's have Sandra Bushmaker provide public comment on the Zoom application. Sandra, the floor is yours. |
| 00:34:47.35 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right, thank you. Good evening, commissioners. I was just glad that Commissioner Feller asked the question about the proposed uses because I just wanted to be sure that This project was within the Marinship specific plan uses and the general plan, etc. So that's all I had. I just wanted to make sure that that's what was happening. Thank you. |
| 00:35:11.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Ms. Bookmaker. Now the gentleman with the speaker card. I'll hand it to Maria. |
| 00:35:17.34 | Director Phipps | Thank you. |
| 00:35:22.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh, |
| 00:35:22.52 | Director Phipps | Please say your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to provide public comment. |
| 00:35:22.55 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:35:26.75 | Chris Kalina | Thank you, Chris Kalina, owner of 90 Gate 5 Road. I'm the neighbor directly to the north of Dan. I have been in discussions with him regarding this. I do appreciate the height drop. Not as much as I would have liked to see, but I would agree to it. I am requesting the eight-foot fence, a solid fence at the floor level, and I'm requesting opaque glass. If there's going to be any windows on the backside, I request that they're opaque and not a film. They need to be a permanent part of the glass that can't be removed. The reason for this, there were never any windows between us before my backyard and is not only a storage yard, but we use it for breaks and I'm out there. And I've always had complete privacy back there. There's never been the building completely has no windows. His building currently has no windows and there's no view from the street or anything around there. I have tall bushes around the rest of it. So really no one can see in there. And the reason for requesting the solid fence is to maintain that privacy that's always been there. And the security, I store things back there. Some stuff's not locked up. I've never had a security issue, and I don't want one. Now that there's going to be a path of travel back there, again, the solid eight-foot fence would be a good deterrent for anybody either looking over or feeling that they could get in. And that's really a non-negotiable issue. I need to see that. The reason for the opaque glass and again, not a removable film and is again to provide a the same level of privacy that was there before. I don't need to look into his building and I don't want people looking out into mine. And whether they're on a ladder or whether in 20 years there's a second floor there, I don't wanna have to worry about any of that. And having a glass that's Opaque meaning not a removable film, but a permanent glass and having that codified in the agreement, will just ensure going into the future that that won't become a view corridor for someone into my backyard. With the difference in elevation, which is approximately three and a half feet between his ground and my ground, any type of viewing out of the back will be looking directly down into my backyard. And that's something I never had happened before, and I don't want that happening in the future. And other than that, I think we have come to a pretty good agreement. I'll be okay with the height of the building, and I just want to maintain the privacy that I've had there all along. and I think... that about covers it. But I do need to see these things in some way stated that, you know, we don't have any written agreement or anything now, but I need to see that happen. |
| 00:38:35.30 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you for your comments this evening. With that, are there any other, are there more people on Zoom or any more speaker cards? I see one person on Zoom. |
| 00:38:45.98 | Director Phipps | I agree. No more speaker cards on our end for this item, but I will bring up John on the Zoom application. John, the floor is yours for three minutes, and please state your name and address for the record. |
| 00:38:58.57 | John DeRay | Hi, this is John DeRay with the Working Waterfront Coalition in Sausalito. The Sausalito Working Waterfront Coalition submitted an email letter in support of this project. We really are hoping that this results in affordable industrial space. We've had several discussions with Mr. Morgan. They've gone very well. We've introduced him to a client, as he mentioned, they do floating solar. as well as other solar solutions. They are in the other part of the marine ship and bursting at the seams. And they would like, I think, to move into this building, but they say it's going to depend on the cost of the lease. Um, One thing that I didn't hear any discussion of is the power in this building. I presume that we're gonna maintain the significant power capacity that was in the existing building. And maybe Mr. Morgan can comment on that. The other thing is the building next to it does have a mezzanine, I believe, as well as other buildings in the area do have mezzanines built around the perimeter and the inside. And so I think that's very possible here, again, if it's an industrial use. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is the sooner this project gets approved and this building goes up, the better. And the reason I say that is because The current use in that building is what we refer to as a man cave. It's an illegal use. It is a gentleman or group that has a pool table. archery targets. John M Duggan, lounge bar. And we've issued formal complaints to the city or enforcement. Nothing's happened. Councilman Sobieski is also issued a complaint in 2021. So it's been a two over two year process to try and get that that you shut down, it did displace an industrial business that was in there. But I'm optimistic that when this gets completed, we will have a good industrial use, as Dan has indicated he wants. Thank you. |
| 00:41:27.62 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you for your comments. Any more comments, Director Phipps? |
| 00:41:32.03 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Seeing no additional hands raised in the Zoom application and no additional speaker cards for this item. |
| 00:41:39.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. We'll close the public hearing. I'll turn it back over to Mr. Morgan and the architect to you have 12 minutes left to make any other final comments that you want. |
| 00:41:49.97 | Adam Gardner | Adam Gardner, Thank you good evening, my name is Adam Gardner with WHA architects and the architect of the project, I just wanted to address one specific item that Mr clean and brought up about the opaque glass. Adam Gardner, We just wanted to clarify that we're talking about the upper level windows on that West elevation or North elevation rather not the whole wall. There are some lower level Windows. So I just wanted to clarify that. or anything else you want to add? Thank you. |
| 00:42:19.43 | Dan Morgan | So as with respect to the PG&E, we have three phase power in the building and we're going to maintain it. It's it's an old, an old, very old. I think it's the original system. It's got a bulldog on the front of it. It's really big. So we do intend to maintain that. I think Mr. Kalina would agree that the eight foot fence will block any privacy issues from the lower level. So I just want to make sure that they were the upper story windows that we agreed to. Any other questions? |
| 00:42:55.14 | Jeffery Luxenberg | It doesn't appear to be. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. At this point, I'll bring it back to the dais. And what's our pleasure? Does anybody want to make a motion to set this off? Vice Chair James. |
| 00:43:06.97 | Andrew Junius | Well, before we get to the motion, I just want to add for the record and make a comment. this, this issue came up in the first hearing and I'm still just kind of puzzled. I don't need a response. I'm not asking a question. It's just that I've never seen a privacy issue raised in a, in an industrial area. It just seems kind of odd, but I am glad that the neighbors have worked it out. And I'm really glad we're going to get this done tonight. |
| 00:43:29.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Any other comments before I'm looking for a motion? |
| 00:43:32.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. you know. |
| 00:43:34.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Anybody want to make a comment? |
| 00:43:34.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:43:35.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | question. |
| 00:43:35.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:43:35.57 | Nastassya Saad | I'll make a motion with discussion, but I'd like to move this forward. I think the applicant has taken our feedback into hand with this new design, and I'd like to put a motion on the floor to approve. |
| 00:43:48.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | her a second. |
| 00:43:49.68 | Kristina Feller | Second. |
| 00:43:50.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. discussion or any additional condition? |
| 00:43:53.97 | Kristina Feller | I'd like to condition the approval. The first condition would just be to clarify that the architectural plans supersede the landscape plans. So that's clear in this approval. And that the applicant will provide an eight-foot-high solid fence at the northern property line with the neighbor um opaque glass really only at the higher level i think that the the fence will obviously obscure or mitigate any privacy issues for any lower level glass um And I just, you know, I don't know if this is a condition, but I want to be very, very clear that, you know, this approval is for the plans. We see any changes to this in the future, either before it is permitted by planning or during the construction and in the field would need to come back to the Planning Commission for further consideration and approval. |
| 00:45:03.81 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, would the maker of the motion accept those amendments? |
| 00:45:07.15 | Nastassya Saad | I accept all the amendments. |
| 00:45:09.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I would like to just clarify with City Attorney Rudin, if you're available. Can we can we put a condition on that we don't that needs administrative approval? Can you just clarify the process for that? |
| 00:45:24.36 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, I'm looking at the city code on that point. And I would say, on the condition for the opaque glass. Um, You know, I think it's a little bit vague as currently stated in the motion. Is there a particular height after which you'd like opaque glass, just to be clear as to whether or not the applicant is in compliance? |
| 00:45:51.33 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, City Attorney Rudin, for that. I would say any of the glazing on the north facade that is above the basic height of the adjacent building. the eaves of the adjacent building. So that would be the, what we're looking at or the cursor was over. Yes, that's correct. |
| 00:46:23.28 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Bye. Those four windows, correct? Yes. |
| 00:46:25.79 | Mary Wagner | So basically what appears on this rendering is a second story window, the second level of glass. |
| 00:46:31.83 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, there's just no second floor in the building. So I didn't want to use that as a reference to I do not want to encourage the applicant to include a second floor here. So any any of the glazing on the north facade that is above the eaves of the adjacent building as it currently stands. |
| 00:46:51.68 | Mary Wagner | So in terms of the administrative approval, 1050 180 of the city code allows the community director to authorize minor changes to an approved site plan architecture, nature and approved use subject to a number of restrictions. |
| 00:47:00.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:07.86 | Mary Wagner | That includes conformity with the zoning code. The fact that the changes don't involve a feature of the project that was specifically addressed or was a basis for findings in a negative declaration or EIR, which is not part of this project. The changes don't involve a feature of the project that was specifically addressed or was a basis for the project's conditions of approval or that was a specific consideration by The Planning Commission, they don't involve a significant expansion of the use and they do not adversely impact you. So that is authority that the, |
| 00:47:38.59 | Unknown | That is a good idea. |
| 00:47:41.63 | Mary Wagner | Community Development Director has under the code. Now, If the, you know, Commission wants to be specific about. you know, particular features that they would like to be subject to you know, planning commission review if there are changes and the basis for the Commission's approval, I would recommend the Commission state that expressly and then we can modify the resolution to make that clear. And then those features would be required to come back to the planning commission if there were changes. So, for example, your condition with respect to the second story glass being opaque, that would not be a condition that the CDD director has authority to, you know, remove or modify without coming back to the planning commission. But with respect to other minor design changes, you know, the, the CDD director does have the authority under the code. |
| 00:48:42.51 | Kristina Feller | Well, I mean, certainly if we're conditioning an approval that includes the opaque glazing on the north facade, that automatically, I would say, would need to come back to us should that change. But I would also include in that, and for consideration by the rest of the commission, The any if the percentage of punched openings if that changes if any of the exterior materials were to change or the color scheme change I would want that to come back to the Commission. |
| 00:49:19.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So is that the specificity you're looking for, Attorney Rudin? |
| 00:49:24.38 | Mary Wagner | I think that would work. |
| 00:49:26.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:49:26.15 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:49:26.27 | Jeffery Luxenberg | and I'm not sure. |
| 00:49:26.44 | Mary Wagner | The rest of the commission agrees with with those being the key features of the project that are the basis for the approval. Oh. |
| 00:49:33.69 | Jeffery Luxenberg | and the maker of the motion willing to, we'll discuss them, but is the maker of the motion willing to consider that amendment. |
| 00:49:40.27 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. May I just ask a point of clarification? |
| 00:49:43.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:49:43.75 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:49:43.77 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:49:44.00 | Nastassya Saad | For lack of certainty on all of the north-facing glass, could we make a condition to have the opaque as stated and leave the specifics between CDD and the applicant and the applicant? neighbor just to ensure that we've covered the correct portion of the glass or are we confident that those are the four |
| 00:50:11.29 | Kristina Feller | I think that's between CDD and the property owner. Okay. That's it. We've conditioned it here. That's our role. Okay. Perfect. |
| 00:50:15.56 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:50:16.64 | Unknown | Okay. And then that's our role. Okay. Yeah. |
| 00:50:19.80 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I think you're asking that of attorney Rudin. If we just say it's opaque glass and they can work out the details on that. Is that correct? |
| 00:50:27.52 | Mary Wagner | So you would want there to be opaque glass above basically the eve of the adjacent building. |
| 00:50:35.95 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, they're basically those four windows. |
| 00:50:36.76 | Mary Wagner | through those door windows. The what? |
| 00:50:39.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Those four windows, I don't know if you can see it, but yes, the four windows that are on our screen here. |
| 00:50:45.63 | Mary Wagner | But presumably if the applicant wanted to make three windows instead of four, that would be fine as long as they remain opaque glass. |
| 00:50:52.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No, if the applicant wanted to make three windows instead of four, pursuant to our other condition, he'd have to come back to it. |
| 00:50:57.97 | Mary Wagner | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:50:58.62 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm not sure. |
| 00:50:58.78 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:51:01.19 | Nastassya Saad | I'm specifically asking because of those windows below those break. I just want to make sure that whatever is captured in their agreement is, is captured. And I agree with making a condition to make it opaque, but to leave those details, if that makes sense. |
| 00:51:17.84 | Kristina Feller | I think you're really looking at the eaves upward. |
| 00:51:20.51 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. |
| 00:51:22.01 | Nastassya Saad | I think commissioner. |
| 00:51:23.03 | Richard Graef | of. Thank you. |
| 00:51:23.38 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:51:23.40 | Richard Graef | Right. |
| 00:51:24.29 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, Alicia Graves. |
| 00:51:25.49 | Richard Graef | try to clarify something. It seems to me, and I'm just looking at the drawings, that Mm-hmm. looking for the opaque windows at the lower level. Those. the lower part of that glazing is it looks to be from the drawings and what I'm seeing here at about eight feet, that is about the height of the fence. So the smaller windows are over eight feet. And so in my mind, the question comes up, do those want to be opaque as well? |
| 00:52:01.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:03.27 | Richard Graef | I don't think so. I'm just asking the question because of the height of the fence. And when we say opaque glass, |
| 00:52:03.78 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:52:03.90 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:52:04.01 | Kristina Feller | I don't think so. |
| 00:52:13.70 | Richard Graef | You know, one person's opaque glass is another person's obscure glass. And are we talking about a film or an integral surface on the glass that makes it translucent rather than transparent? |
| 00:52:32.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | As a commissioner, I'm like leaving that one to the agreement between the owner and the abutter and the CBD department. And as they mentioned earlier, and we didn't say that they could not make all the glass opaque. And that wasn't one of the items that if they make a certain use, they might make all the glass opaque in the building and it might be a film and might not. So I think we're not getting into that level of detail here and we're allowing them to adjust to whatever uh adjust to whatever their a butter i mean whatever their tenant needs uh cognizant of the concern of the butter in this particular case |
| 00:52:59.01 | Unknown | Oh, exactly. |
| 00:52:59.32 | Marv Hovater | than the other. |
| 00:52:59.69 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:53:00.02 | Chuck Reistrom | about it. |
| 00:53:12.66 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, I mean the property owner has a right to build and use this property as well, they have a reasonable enjoyment of the property, just as the neighbor does so I think we've covered this there's a motion on the floor chair I think it's clarified. We should just ask city attorney Rudin if he's got any other points that we need to clarify before we take a roll call. |
| 00:53:34.60 | Mary Wagner | So, Can we have a restatement of the motion just to be clear as to what the conditions of approval are. |
| 00:53:45.69 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Director Phipps or Mr. Toth, do you want to re-back what you have for the conditions that we've added? |
| 00:53:51.54 | Director Phipps | Happy to, Chair. We will motion on the floor seems to be approval of this project subject to a few conditions of approval, those conditions of approval being. Well, first, a clarification item that the architectural plans will supersede the landscape plans, a condition of approval associated with the construction of the eight foot fence on the north side of the property pursuant to the agreement between the applicant, the adjacent property owner, and opaque glass on the second story or perceived second story as identified. And I think we're all clear on what four windows we're referring to when we say that. |
| 00:54:32.53 | Jeffery Luxenberg | As well as all the conditions that are in the staff report, the standard conditions that are in the staff report already and the conditions Mr. Topp had added previously. |
| 00:54:42.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:54:42.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:42.05 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 00:54:42.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:43.16 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, Just let me remove the question. Are we ready to... |
| 00:54:46.42 | Unknown | I think we're... |
| 00:54:47.03 | Marv Hovater | Okay. |
| 00:54:47.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:48.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Can we take a vote call about Director Pips? |
| 00:54:51.58 | Director Phipps | you Thank you. |
| 00:54:52.21 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:54:52.26 | Director Phipps | Certainly, Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Saad. Commissioner Graff. Thank you. |
| 00:54:55.92 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 00:54:55.94 | Director Phipps | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:54:55.97 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:54:56.28 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes. |
| 00:54:57.44 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 00:54:57.47 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 00:54:57.76 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 00:54:57.78 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:55:03.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | At this point, thank you all. We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda, which is item 6B, which is the continued item for 813 to 817 Bridgeway, which is a design review amendment, conditional use permit, minor use permit, encroachment agreement, signed permit, which will be presented by Mr. Toff. This case was heard previously. This commission asked the applicant to come back with a revised plan that eliminated the outdoor raised seating area. And if they wanted to add a parklet, but did would include the facade changes in the upstairs seating. And I understand that they have done that. That's been posted on the agenda. I'll turn it off to Mr. Toff. |
| 00:55:54.02 | Neal Toft | Okay, thank you, Chair Luxembourg and members of the Planning Commission. As stated, this is a continued Planning Commission item. The applicant, Michael Rex, on behalf of the property owner, Michael Lappert. is requesting approval of an amendment to original design review. permit to modify a commercial building facade. provide food and beverage service. in order to provide food and beverage service on the second level. by up to 43 seats. an amendment to a previously approved minor use permit, to increase outdoor dining from nine seats for up to a total of 23 seats, A conditional use permit to reduce on-site parking requirements from 13 to 9 spaces. and to waive those parking requirements per municipal code. There's also a request for recommendation to the city council for approval of an encroachment agreement to construct a ramp and elevated entry. with four seats. above the sidewalk. and a new 19 seat parklet in the two parking spaces fronting the property. This would include removal and replacement the existing street light, with two light standards and removal and replacement of two street trees located along the frontage, The project includes sign permit for additional signs. The commission initially reviewed the application back in April, of this year at the time the design of the building facade, interior floor signage. Proposed uses were largely the same as that currently proposed? with the following exceptions. They were at the time providing up to 51 seats. in the dining and drinking area up on the level upper level. They proposed installing a raised dining terrace on the sidewalk. and providing a ramp for access to the front door and a total of 20 seats in that raised area and relocation of the sidewalk seven foot wide sidewalk around. the raised terrace, eliminating the two parallel parking spaces. During that meeting, the commission heard from neighbors There was some concerns. with nighttime noise and nuisance from upper level dining. the upper level dining and drinking area. There was some written concerns about the possibility of Rooftop deck, we noted there's no proposal for a rooftop deck or any kind of public access to a rooftop deck. uh, In the report, staff generally supported the use and site development in general. However, based on the... Planning Commission's previous denial of a similar Ray's platform application in 2022. We question whether the platform and outdoor dining improvements would be consistent for findings for minor use permit and encroachment agreement approval. In your review of the application, The commission was also generally supportive of the project, but also was somewhat split in terms of the specific outdoor dining terrace and whether that was appropriate. relocating the sidewalk. Two commissioners felt the terrorists, though unusual, kind of encroachment would be a reasonable solution to providing access and enhancing the use, three commissioners suggested, The extent of the encroachment was excessive and suggested use of a parklet to be more consistent with other dining solutions for other commercial uses in the district. So after discussion on the matter, the applicant property owner agreed they would come back with a revised design that provided a parklet solution as opposed to the raised terrace proposal. At the applicant's request, the commission voted to continue the matter to June 14th. However, the applicant did not have plans to us in time to be able to adequately review. They did come with plans that revised to the park parklet design. But it took more time to review and there was not time to provide public notice. So the application was continued to a date uncertain. We do have the revised updated plans and narrative. Again, the project is very similar to that previously proposed in terms of the facade and the side ends. However, The entry is now a narrow ramp. along the building frontage. It's a ramp with two stairways that provide access to the front door and the side door and four seats above the sidewalk. at includes, maintains the five foot sidewalk but does require removal of the parking meters. and a tall concrete street lamp. to street trees to allow for pedestrian passage along that sidewalk. The Parklet is a 19 seat parklet. proposed in the parking spaces. composed largely of tables and benches with a short counter in the middle. Two large planters are proposed at each end. These would each contain replacement trees for the street trees that are Lost? um, the design. is largely compliant with the city's draft parklet standards. These are not the approved standards, They are fairly well refined and the parklet does seem consistent with that. But it is somewhat unique in that they're proposing to install two 11 foot high. street lamps to replace the illumination for the sidewalk. in place of the existing lamp post. So the street lamps are somewhat smaller, a little more decorative. They do utilize LED lighting. Um, That comes from sort of a plate at the top of the lamp. The upper level seating has been reduced from 51 seats to 43 seats and this reduces the occupancy upstairs second floor occupancy to less than 50 persons, and this is just critical for allowing the inward swing of the door so that the so that the platform and door entry function properly with the design. We should note Public Works Department has reviewed The proposal has expressed some concern regarding the relocation of the trees and and the street lamp some concern with utilities and trenching along the street in that area. And they've included requirements for an encroachment permit agreement that would require property owner to both maintain the trees and provide for the cost of maintaining and operating the street lamps. The agreement would also stipulate replacement of street light and trees to the original condition. condition if the improvements are abandoned. Um, And I also noted in the staff report, Um, Mid last week, we received an email from the applicants. requesting that the They continue to press for the original design that was considered at the previous hearing. Um, and they requested we advise the commission that they have the opportunity to consider both layouts, Um, They provided a memo they had sent to the Community Development Director, making this argument that was attached in your mail. I also attached a photograph of a similar parklet with the Excuse me. outdoor dining with the sidewalk sort of veering around in San Rafael. But we'd note that the RAISE platform is not been part of the public notice for this hearing, so it's not the subject of the hearing in specific. This is based on a parklet designed not the raised platform option So we've reviewed the project for consistency with general plan zoning ordinance, and particularly the several groups of findings needed for conditional use permit, design review, minor use permit, encroachment agreement, and sign agreement. approval. consistent with the commission's initial review. We believe much of the improvement relating to the dining services the improvements to the building facade, and the new signage are consistent with the required findings for design review, signage, and conditional use permits, Um, But while the revised application would provide improved accessibility to the ground floor, A replacement of trees and the introduction of small, more decorative street lamps will introduce some new character. unique to the district, new sort of public facility character. And while the city has not finalized an ongoing parklet program, Again, the parklet is generally consistent with the program. However, most parklets are not necessarily designed to be integral with Um, uh, public features such as street lamp lights or street lamps. And we noted the trees, current trees out there, were reported to be in good condition during an inventory. One of them really is in bad shape due to the construction. So that would likely have to be removed in any case. Um, and the planting of the trees and the planters may limit their growth. It's kind of an unusual condition in the downtown. but it does create a more open feel to the building frontage. In terms of lampposts, again, these present a somewhat unique character along the streetscape. We've talked about the requirements for public works. And we do note in the initial discussion, The Planning Commission did express concern with the proximity of the street lamp the outdoor terrace. There was some discussion of mounting street lights on the building facade, public works, We've. had discussed that with them and they had indicated that, The concerns with, there are concerns with mounting public streetlights on the building facade. That's very unusual and it does present some potential maintenance and liability issues. So that would be something that would have to be explored um, And the other item I did wanna mention too is With these various options, the only other real option for providing accessibility into that lower ground level. would require ramp from the threshold of the door So if you weren't to do this extent of public improvements one way or another, a ramp coming from the threshold So the door could come into the building and begin at the threshold. The concern is this would eat up a lot of that. first level customer area, uh, require some relocation of the counter and probably compromise somewhat the main, uh, daytime activity, which is the food service. Um, So with that, We believe the principal issue for finding for approval of this application is really whether the street lamps Um, are consistent with the requirements for design review, which require that a project either be consistent and maintaining the prevailing character of the neighborhood. or else introduce us to distinctive and creative solution. that takes advantage of the unique characteristics of the site and contributes to the design diversity in Sausalito. So if the commission feels that incorporating the street lamps into the park load as proposed. subject to the requirements of DPW, we would recommend approval of the application it could meet the findings for minor use permit and encroachment permit agreement. As we've noted, the applicant has expressed reluctance to proceed with this option. performing the raised platform. approach, the applicant has provided late mail, I think it's a very interesting a more proof safety. of that approach. So, We haven't provided a resolution at this time. We really wanted to find out, is this something the applicant wants to do? Let me... |
| 01:08:59.27 | Jeffery Luxenberg | There is a draft resolution attached to that. That's correct. The agenda was posted. |
| 01:09:02.73 | Neal Toft | That's correct. Yeah, well, there is a draft resolution attached, however, does not have with it findings and conditions of approval, which should be included. |
| 01:09:04.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 01:09:13.26 | Neal Toft | Um, The commission certainly has options to either approve the application as proposed, determine whether to reconsider the application, or deny the application. In either case, we'd recommend if there is an action to be taken, we can take direction, bring it back at our next hearing. for a final resolution with all findings and conditions attached. |
| 01:09:40.83 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. Thank you for your report. Let me just clarify. So this is a project that has an existing approval that meets ADA code. They come into the building. They've met all of the code. They're looking for a modification to that. They came before us before. We recommended they come back with the alternative that was noticed tonight. So tonight, we're considering this alternative. Were we to proceed with that, we have a draft resolution, we can add the findings to that and approve the project. If we were to consider an alternative, it would have to be re-noticed and considered at a future date. you |
| 01:10:18.68 | Richard Graef | That's cool. |
| 01:10:19.02 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, thank you. With that, Commissioner, have questions of staff? |
| 01:10:28.31 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:10:30.04 | Nastassya Saad | I can, may I ask? |
| 01:10:31.18 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Saad. |
| 01:10:32.33 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. So for these street lamps and trees, did DPW happen to review maybe a bit extreme, but if neither trees were to be replaced at all, how that would impact those street lamps? Is it a proximity? I know you said trenching, but are those trees hindering a successful street lamp in the parklet or are the trees completely irrelevant to the street lamps? |
| 01:11:01.26 | Neal Toft | No, I don't think the trees are considered a hindrance or a problem relative to the street lamps that are proposed as designed. The DPW didn't identify a concern with that. Their concern is more with... bringing trees out towards the, it seems to be bringing trees out towards the street where there is apparently some concern with trenching that goes along in that area. You'll note there's some uh, power. There's quite a number of power facilities sort of buried utilities in that immediate area. that may require some study to really know how that's gonna work. But they recommended, yeah, that any trees be not be planted into the ground in that area. |
| 01:11:52.64 | Nastassya Saad | THE END OF |
| 01:11:52.77 | Neal Toft | HELLO. |
| 01:11:52.84 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:11:52.86 | Neal Toft | Thank you. |
| 01:11:53.67 | Nastassya Saad | And then could you just expand slightly on the parking waiver? So if there's a reduction already of two metered spaces, they're looking for a full waiver of the remaining spaces that would be required for the parking. Suck for X. |
| 01:12:13.13 | Neal Toft | Yeah, I don't believe there's any attachment of a parking standard or reduction to the two parking spaces because the parklet program recognizes that there's going to be loss of spaces. So it's not a zoning type of permit process for that. |
| 01:12:33.01 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. And then given the staff report and what you just stated here, I know this was our direction for to see this parklet, but just for a point of clarification, we can make an approval tonight on what we have in front of us and the applicant then has the choice whether to use it or not. They would still have that choice to come back with a... the design that they're more in favor of, is that correct? I'm a little unclear why we're entertaining this concept They're so vehemently against it. |
| 01:13:15.14 | Neal Toft | Well, I think that's a good question for the applicants. Typically, if there is direction to continue a project for revisions, the revisions are made and the application is put forward with that in mind. And the without necessarily saying, without vehemently sort of stating, David Daley, This is not really what you know i'm kind of putting words, but what you're hearing from this late mail is we really want you to consider this other option, so the applicant if if the applicant does. |
| 01:13:45.13 | Unknown | You're right. |
| 01:13:51.19 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 01:13:56.38 | Neal Toft | um, Continue. and does get a project approved as revised, they have the opportunity to, they certainly can decide whether or not to go with that approval. |
| 01:14:11.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Let me ask this, add on to that. If we approve the project as they've submitted it, does this supersede the previous approval? |
| 01:14:20.65 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:14:20.95 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:20.97 | Nastassya Saad | That's right. |
| 01:14:21.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | my name. |
| 01:14:21.43 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.46 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.51 | Nastassya Saad | question. |
| 01:14:21.78 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.81 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.85 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.00 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.07 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.39 | Nastassya Saad | Yeah. |
| 01:14:22.86 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So they have an approval. They're asking for a modification. They've submitted these plans. You've checked them. You've said they're complete. And if we approve the plans that they've submitted, does that approval now gets on record replacing the previous approval? |
| 01:14:37.90 | Neal Toft | That's actually a very good question. Why don't we ask that? |
| 01:14:40.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Why don't we ask that of the city attorney? Yes. Let's ask attorney Rudin. |
| 01:14:42.37 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 01:14:42.45 | Neal Toft | for the city. |
| 01:14:47.04 | Mary Wagner | Yes, it should. And if it is ambiguous, we should make that clear. |
| 01:14:51.90 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, so if we approve it tonight, we'll say this changes the previous, I think we've already done that. I think the draft resolution does that, that this is approval. If they don't want to build this project, I'll get back to Commissioner Saad in a second. If they don't want to build this project, they'll have this approval. They didn't want to build the last approval they got, so that's why they're here today. They come in in the future with uh future stuff but they have to you know uh but you know it's not an either or we approve it this becomes the project of record and then they can you know hopefully build it because they need to get their scaffolding down as their their architect said last time they want to get that scaffolding down so uh okay commissioner sod further questions thank you |
| 01:15:37.89 | Nastassya Saad | That is where I was headed. I think this is a good conversation for the applicant, but that, thank you, was exactly where I wanted to go. So I think with that, those are all the questions I have. Thank you. |
| 01:15:47.27 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Saad, Vice Chair Juniors. |
| 01:15:49.72 | Andrew Junius | Thank you, Chair. I'd like to just continue that discussion for a second because I'm not sure I heard the advice clearly from the city attorney. There's nothing in the code that says you can't have two entitlements for the same site, right? We don't have anything in the municipal code that would prevent that. |
| 01:16:05.71 | Neal Toft | I don't believe there's anything in the code that says you cannot have 10 entitlements. |
| 01:16:09.29 | Andrew Junius | And I completely understand that it's much more clear to everybody if one supersedes the other, if by taking this action we essentially extinguish the previous one, totally get that as well. But I mean, I'm kind of curious to the city attorney. |
| 01:16:09.58 | Neal Toft | to. |
| 01:16:23.87 | Andrew Junius | we don't have to do that, right? There's nothing legally that would, prevent the applicant from holding two entitlements and trying to figure out which one they want to pursue. Is there? |
| 01:16:37.49 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, let me let me look specifically at the language in the city code on changes to approve project. |
| 01:16:44.19 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 01:16:44.32 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:16:45.32 | Andrew Junius | In the jurisdictions that I've practiced in, I know some jurisdictions absolutely do allow that specifically. And I know certain jurisdictions, and that's by code, and then I know certain jurisdictions that don't allow that by practice. They simply would just not. Thank you. they would there would be a there would be a condition in this approval that would extinguish the previous one clearly so there'd be no question as to what's the active approval but it's very it's I think there's multiple ways to go. |
| 01:17:10.58 | Mary Wagner | Well, and I will say that this is sort of a broader policy discussion. There are really good reasons why the city may want to know exactly what the project of record and what the approval is. for purposes of, say, issuing building permits, verifying compliance with conditions of approval, and things like that. having the CDD staff know which project is the project that the applicant is allowed to build. you know, makes code enforcement easier, compliance easier, and things like that. But to your point, Um... looking at, uh, Municipal code 1050 180. Um, |
| 01:18:08.72 | Mary Wagner | I will say that it is a little ambiguous in terms of whether or not it entirely extinguishes the prior approval. Um, I- I do think that that is potentially an area of our code that we could clean up, but I'm inclined to Um, Thank you. |
| 01:18:31.89 | Neal Toft | All right. And in my experience, as you've said, some communities will practice that a new application, particularly an approval, will then supersede a prior application. application. I think there may also be some issues of case law, particularly with new housing mandates, et cetera. We've heard that there's a. Thank you. the ability to press different types of housing projects. each of which might meet a different type of housing mandate. |
| 01:19:07.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 01:19:08.10 | Neal Toft | Um, |
| 01:19:08.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Can I, I mean, this is a good philosophical discussion, but quite honestly, the applicant has been absolutely clear that they don't want to build what they have approved, and they've gone to great lengths for a long period of time to say, we don't want to bring people in and then do what you explained they would have to do with their current approval with ramps and whatever, and they don't get seats upstairs and whatever, that I can't even fathom why they would go back to this approval. And I agree with Attorney Rudin that if they're starting to build something that's inconsistent with both plans, which plan do you use? I mean, this is a good philosophical discussion, but let's move on to other questions. |
| 01:19:09.11 | Neal Toft | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 01:19:12.11 | Andrew Junius | Well, again, I guess... |
| 01:19:49.17 | Neal Toft | Well, and if I could just, I'll add one thing onto that is the minute you begin to exercise one entitlement that's different from the other. You can't mix and match. |
| 01:20:00.44 | Andrew Junius | Well, of course. I mean, |
| 01:20:00.82 | Neal Toft | I mean, you become locked in. |
| 01:20:02.23 | Andrew Junius | You become locked in. I'm not trying to make this a philosophical argument. I have a feeling that Mr. X might come up here and say exactly what I'm saying, which is we'd sure like the option to do both. I don't know how this commission is going to react to that, but I just wanted to make sure we were clear. I just wanted to make sure we were clear that that's not clear in the code. |
| 01:20:04.72 | Neal Toft | argument. |
| 01:20:15.65 | Mary Wagner | I just wanted to know. |
| 01:20:20.15 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, my... |
| 01:20:20.56 | Andrew Junius | My, |
| 01:20:22.75 | Mary Wagner | My sort of conclusion is given the strict time limits on approvals, given the fact that a new approval would operate to extend the time limit for completion of construction and for obtaining building permits prior to lapsing, I would think absent clear code language to the contrary that says that, a prior approval survives and is a viable alternative by Amos Hartston, Approving a change project, I do believe that the planning Commission is likely to change the project of record and therefore the applicant would be required to build that. Amos Hartston, Given the other benefits they would be receiving, including extensions of time limits, etc. Amos Hartston, Didn't we have that being said, if the applicant doesn't like this project that is before you, they can withdraw this application prior to. |
| 01:21:02.43 | Andrew Junius | Yeah. |
| 01:21:10.17 | Mary Wagner | the Planning Commission's decision on it, and they'd still have the prior approval of record. And they are free to do that at any moment. |
| 01:21:18.69 | Andrew Junius | Yes, and one more question to staff. I thought we asked them to come back and file a brand new application. So isn't this a new filing? It's different, it's not the same permit. I mean, we actually had that. issue that this is not a modification of the original entitlement. This is a new entitlement, correct? |
| 01:21:35.77 | Neal Toft | You mean relative to what had been approved originally back in, this is a request for a new entitlement. It includes a change to design review. So it says, |
| 01:21:41.71 | Andrew Junius | Yeah. So in that respect. |
| 01:21:48.50 | Neal Toft | It was filed as a change to permit with additional permits added on to it. |
| 01:21:54.93 | Andrew Junius | Okay, well, it is confusing. It's not the same in time. |
| 01:21:57.52 | Neal Toft | I got this. |
| 01:21:58.03 | Marv Hovater | Same entitlement, though. |
| 01:21:58.96 | Andrew Junius | That's kind of the point. So I understand there would be confusion going forward. suggesting that we entertain that. I just... I'm expecting to hear this from the applicant. So I just wanted to make sure we got that out of the chat. |
| 01:22:09.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | You know what I mean? Let's move on to other questions. Commissioner Graff, do you have any questions? Okay. Commissioner Feller, do you have any questions? |
| 01:22:16.73 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair. |
| 01:22:17.34 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:22:19.39 | Kristina Feller | Neal, do you mind going to the site plan really quickly and zooming into the sidewalk I want to make sure we've got our measurements and understanding what they are correct. And I want to understand I think this goes to Commissioner sods question about the lighting. and the existing street lighting and whether or not that can just stay And I want to understand, is there a ramp entry on both sides of the building, north and south? |
| 01:22:50.70 | Neal Toft | No, there's a ramp only on the south side. It's only required on the south, and then there's stairs that access from the north side and from the center. |
| 01:23:01.26 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And have we looked at doing it on the north so you avoid having to move the streetlamp altogether? |
| 01:23:08.90 | Neal Toft | I think the street lamp is being... It's We haven't looked at that. There's a door. What are the door accesses? is at the north side. that may not provide the length to access to have a door entry along the side of a ramp. |
| 01:23:34.37 | Kristina Feller | But don't these doors have to open outwards, like in the path of travel with the amount of seating inside? |
| 01:23:41.83 | Neal Toft | No, they don't. They've reduced the amount of occupancy to the degree they don't have to open outwards. |
| 01:23:51.52 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And what is the, what is the North door for? Or if people are looking at home, the one that's to the right, yeah, that one. |
| 01:24:01.23 | Neal Toft | Well, it's like a service door with also a required secondary entrance, exit from above. Um, and a service access to the second story. |
| 01:24:16.02 | Kristina Feller | So it's required. |
| 01:24:17.54 | Neal Toft | I believe it's required. |
| 01:24:19.16 | Kristina Feller | Okay. So that entire ramp height is basically the entire length of the building, almost shy several feet. |
| 01:24:28.34 | Neal Toft | Well, the ramp comes up to the... To me, you know, kind of point. |
| 01:24:32.74 | Kristina Feller | you know, |
| 01:24:38.60 | Richard Graef | I might ask. Thank you. |
| 01:24:45.38 | Kristina Feller | So, so you're pointing, so you're just pointing just south of the double doors, just so if people listening at home can hear what's happening on the screen. Okay. And so where, and there's no opportunity, you've measured the ramp, you can't start the ramp a little bit further north. I'm trying to avoid the conflict with clearance at the existing light streetlights use me so I'm just trying to figure out if that's been reviewed by you. |
| 01:25:23.16 | Richard Graef | structurally. |
| 01:25:23.72 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. I believe this, yeah. |
| 01:25:31.43 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, the lamp is the round by the pedestrians. Yeah, the round symbol. So I'm just trying to figure out if that's been looked at. |
| 01:25:42.16 | Neal Toft | I think it's been looked at as, you know, because it's centered, it's not providing an adequate width on either side. Thank you. |
| 01:25:52.54 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:25:54.25 | Neal Toft | Now, whether it could be relocated. and a direction and provide a required like there are I believe four foot minimums. If you notice the handrails that come out from the stairs, those are encroaching somewhat into the five foot sidewalk. So there are allowances for some intrusion. So it's not a totally clean |
| 01:26:21.13 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 01:26:21.15 | Neal Toft | Yeah. five foot through way. |
| 01:26:23.17 | Kristina Feller | Okay. Okay. And yeah, thank you for, for clarifying. Just one last question. Can you, can you give me the total number of patron seating? Is it 80? Did I calculate that right or wrong? |
| 01:26:43.91 | Neal Toft | I think you got 43 upstairs. And then it was 23 at the middle, or excuse me, out on the street in the parklet. and then |
| 01:26:59.23 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. So 66 plus 14. So we're at 80. 80. So this is going to be one of the largest restaurants in downtown, just to be clear. |
| 01:27:01.97 | Neal Toft | meeting. |
| 01:27:08.70 | Kristina Feller | Right. |
| 01:27:09.15 | Neal Toft | I'm not, I don't know all the seating and you're probably more familiar. |
| 01:27:12.87 | Kristina Feller | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:27:15.69 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Any other questions? |
| 01:27:16.63 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:27:16.65 | Jeffery Luxenberg | and then, |
| 01:27:16.70 | Jeffery Luxenberg | of, |
| 01:27:16.92 | Jeffery Luxenberg | mission. At this point, we'll have the applicant has 15 minutes to give a presentation about his updated proposal. |
| 01:27:27.55 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Mr. Rex, welcome. |
| 01:27:31.09 | Michael Rex | Thank you, Michael Rex, local architect. And before we start, I want to see if you can hold the time. I want to see if this pointer works. |
| 01:27:31.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | And I'm not. |
| 01:27:42.41 | Michael Rex | Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I'm going to keep it brief. There's two other speakers on our team that would like to speak. We have a traffic consultant, Robert Harris, to talk about safety and circulation between the two outdoor dining options. and Isaac Lappert, son of Michael Lappert, here, and he'd like to speak briefly as the third generation property owner of this site. I want to thank Neil for his thorough report and Brandon for his assistance with this project. We cemented this a year and a half ago. Last March, last spring. We're still at it and we still have to go for working drawings and a building permit. So it's a very long haul, longer than we would ever imagine. And, um, At our last hearing in April, you asked to see a parklet. I showed you a sketch. You wanted to see it carefully drawn. on how it would impact occupancy and plumbing and all the rest. We did exactly that. Not because we wanted to, but because you asked for it. And we thought and still think there's a benefit to see both. the parklet and our preferred and original plan for the race terrace. And now you have both in front of you, although this hearing tonight is about the parklet. Um, And, um, You kind of have to ask why we continue to pursue the raised terrorists. And I can tell you why. Because we deeply believe the raised terrace compared to the parklet is a much better plan, not only for our client, but for the community at large. And I'm going to try to focus very briefly on why. When you denied the raised terrace the last time, this is a different raised terrace. It's not the same one. The one you denied voted against last September only had a five foot wrap around with a sidewalk. This was seven feet and that was based on input from Robert Harris, who we spoke to afterwards. And so I don't, I want that clear that this is, this is different. And Uh, the maybe I can In your packet, there's a memo that dated May 2nd. I hope you had a chance to read it. It's one page, and it compares the two. Okay. Um, We continue to pursue this race terrace, um, Well, I have to just ask you this question. I would think you would want to, we could have appealed way back in September. We chose not to. specifically because we wanted to stay here and work with the Planning Commission to find together the right solution. And, uh, I would think you would want us to pursue a plan we believe in. that we think serves the community and our client the best. I can't believe you'd want us to do otherwise. And when you look at the benefits here, I won't go through them all, but if you have it near, I'd appreciate if you'd pull it out. The benefits of the raised terrace, it's safer for bicycles to ride next to a curb, a sidewalk and a curb, then squeezed between a parklet and moving cars. emergency vehicles have a better chance of responding and having more room to move around cars when they can drive up onto a sidewalk. They cannot. drive through park cars, parallel cars, and they cannot drive through parklets either. But if we have a sidewalk next to a travel lane, The vehicles have more room. The, Uh, We think that this particular design of the raised terrace is an improvement because it sort of camouflages and integrates the handicap ramp. And for the pedestrian that walks around the raised terrace, they're further away from the building so they can appreciate the building more visually, and the building doesn't loom over them. Um, Also, the raised terrace will make the building look a little less tall. So the proportions are better. Also, the proportions of the dining space is wider and more comfortable instead of squeezed in a long narrow parklet. There are no parklets south of the parklet Princess Street. The parklets downtown are all South of Princess, not North. There are plenty of examples of dining against the building. um, North of. Princess Street. You approved one in front of cultivar. We have Porges, we have Capito. The raised terrace is actually consistent with the street scape. When you put a parklet along the street, TODAY. Not only it visually narrows the street, and I'll show you some pictures, I'll show you why. The street will feel wider. is, We put the dining against the building. And it's safer. not only for pedestrians and bicycles, But when you have Diners carrying food down steps, hot drinks, and trying to navigate between 250 pedestrians who go by in an hour, according to Mr. Harrison. you have a direct circulation conflict between the diners and the pedestrians. In fact, that's already been happening at this location. And, We have videos. take time to show you. where the congestion on the sidewalk because of this arrangement The pedestrians are walking out into the street. The other thing is chairs in a park that can spill across into the walkway that's between the restaurant and the parklet and requires constant monitoring and enforcement. to keep the sidewalk clear. We've seen that happening at the Parkletts south of Princess Street. with the race terraces completely contained and the sidewalk would never be blocked. I'll buy any furniture. And doesn't require any enforcement. to avoid that conflict. Um, If you look at the negative impacts of a parklet, in fact, this shows it very well. Um, Here you can see where the, when you put the dining against the restaurant, and the sidewalk. between the vehicles and the bicycles The street feels wider. If you can flip to the next slide, please. No, I think it goes the other direction. back one. Yeah. Here's the park. One more. No, no, this is it. There's the parklet where you have people Dining right next to the travel lane, You have bikes squeezed between the parklet and the vehicles, and you have pedestrians squeezed between the parklet and our building and our handicap ramp. If you're concerned about precedent, there's no precedent with this raised terrace because two reasons. You just approved exactly this on El Patel for Cultivar. where we don't have a raised terrace, but the dining is in the sidewalk and the sidewalk moves out to where the parallel cars are. The other thing is there's no precedent because the city lowered the sidewalk at this restaurant. We have that in photographs. Where else does that happen downtown? We're clearly not the largest restaurant downtown. I can assure you with this. We also have no interest whatsoever And going back to the previous approval. Let me make that completely clear, as you've already suspected. Let me see. I would like to, can you go up to some slides? I have just a few slides I want to show you. Yes. Here you see the parklet south of Princess Street. And there's no people here, but on a busy day, you've got people going back and forth between the restaurant and the parklet. you are lucky to squeeze through here. Yeah, yes, there's a perception that the pedestrian can walk straight instead of around the dining. But in fact, the circulation is much worse. One next slide, then I'm gonna turn it over to Mr. Harrison. Here you can see diners right against bicycles and traveling. And this barricade has been hit many times. So it's not nearly as safe and the circulation doesn't flow as well as the raised terrace. Next slide, please. here's just two doors away at Porgio, where in fact they have dining on the sidewalk, against the restaurant with an incredibly narrow passageway, less than code requires. This is what was approved and it's not what we're proposing. We're moving the sidewalk out here. where it'll be completely clear and seven feet wide, This is less than three feet wide. and yet it's been approved. Next slide, please. There's Capito. Capito has dining on the sidewalk. against the building, and the sidewalk has been modified. In fact, it has a slope here at a doorway. It doesn't even meet code, and yet this was approved. This is not what we're proposing, and it's just within a half a block of where we're proposing it. We're proposing dining against a restaurant with the raised terrace in a much safer way. And I'm going to let Mr. Harris explain why it's safer and provides better circulation. Bob? |
| 01:38:24.05 | Robert Harrison | Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Robert Harrison. I've been doing traffic-confined parking analysis in Sausalito for at least 30 years. I wrote the downtown shared parking model which is part of your ordinance. And it even has my name in the ordinance. I've never been in an ordinance before. I was quite impressed when I saw it. In any event, Michael asked me to take a quick look at the pedestrian issue here. And, Basically, you probably already know it's a very high flow. |
| 01:38:52.20 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:38:53.70 | Robert Harrison | summer, Saturday, Sunday. We measured it last August on a Saturday, and at peak hour, we got 350 in each direction, 700 total pedestrians. attempting to use that sidewalk. The 250, Michael mentioned, is one way for the rest of the afternoon. So it is a very busy place and you're probably well aware of that. The point being when you do the analysis, and believe it or not, engineers even have a level of service for pedestrian flow. So you do the calculation and that level of service comes out F. So it is, it fails clearly. Now to make it wide enough, So it wouldn't be that slow. It would take up a lot of the street. So we don't do that. But the good news is, with the Praised terrorists that the sidewalk does get wider. Seven feet versus the proposed five, although Michael showed you how the five is going to be reduced potentially by people moving the chairs out and so forth from the... the dining area. And the difference is that the proposed. I don't know. raised terrorist alternative still does not function as a high level of service but it is much better in terms of service to the pedestrians Bend the Parkland. So the parklet is a negative in terms of pedestrian flow. compared to the rage terrorists. The other thing we looked at, of course, was safety and just quickly. Michael's already raised the issue A parklet exposes diners to the immediate flow of traffic. And while you can build a barrier, the more sturdy the barrier, usually the less attractive. And you probably wouldn't want one like that. So if any car does get out of control, and starts into the dining area, It could be mayhem. No, the... The good news is when the raised terrorists All those people are not in the line you of a vehicle out of control. So there is a safety advantage. who the raised terrorists And there is a service advantage. to the raised terrorists. I'll be happy to answer any questions. |
| 01:41:08.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. Are you saving your one minute 34 or do you want to have somebody else speak? |
| 01:41:15.15 | Michael Rex | Isaac Lapper would like to speak very well. |
| 01:41:17.29 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. |
| 01:41:23.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | You've got 122. |
| 01:41:24.58 | Isaac Lappert | All right, well, I'll make it short and sweet then. I'm just here to talk about my excitement of the inside of the project. As everyone's mentioned, my grandfather, Walter Lappert is the man on the logo, and this is a complete tribute to my grandfather. The inside is going to be something that is truly local serving. And I learned this through COVID and all the bickering on Nextdoor. What does Sauce Ludo need? I'm old school. I'm bringing it back to the times when we had conversation pits, there's not going to be TVs. In fact, I'm going to actually maybe even confiscate cell phones. Okay. This is going to be a place where there's no live music, actually, just because I want to make my neighbors happy and be the star of the show, being the humans that go and we can all come together, meet there, And yeah, my grandfather's history is Sausalito's history. He came here in the 60s. I'm first generation American. A lot of people don't know that. My mom and dad met in the hamburgers. from Okinawa in Venezuela. So I'm a Sausalito product, luck and love accident, a great accident waiting to happen. And this is gonna be something that I'm just very excited about all this meeting there and terraces and all that. That's your guys jurisdiction, but my God, I'm just excited to get that atrocious wood scaffolding down finally, maybe tonight. So yeah, please, thank you. |
| 01:42:44.30 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Do you want to save your two seconds or no? No, you lost it. So thank you very much for your presentation. At this point, it'll be time for commissioners to ask questions of the applicant. I'm going to remind commissioners this is a continued hearing. The proposal for this alternative was heard at length last time. That proposal has not changed one iota from what it was at our last hearing. So what's before us tonight is a revised proposal. So what's that? What's that? |
| 01:43:15.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:43:17.31 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Step back a little bit. Step back. Okay. Well, I'll step back a little bit. Anyways, our revised proposal is what's before us this evening. But even though Mr. Rex indicated that this was a change raised proposal, it's not changed from our last hearing. It's exactly what we had before. I just want a clarification for Mr. Harrison, who, if you could come back to the podium for one second, because you made a comment about chairs being put into the, putting in the blocking the sidewalk. But my understanding from the drawings, which I thought was a great idea that Mr. Rex had put in, he put in benches, which are much harder to move out. So much excellent choice of stuff for the parklet. Those are benches, not chairs. So are you saying that people are going to pull those benches into the sidewalk? |
| 01:44:11.44 | Robert Harrison | I guess. Thank you. I'm not an expert on chairs and benches, but just let me say the obvious is, Sometimes people get up from a table and they don't put the thing back. Now it could be a bench, It could be a chair. But whatever it is, it may not always go back in. And unless the manager comes out there and puts it in, it'll be in the way. |
| 01:44:29.53 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No, I agree with you that the chairs would be a problem, but they smartly in their proposal have proposed benches, which would be much more difficult. We could, they'll be much heavier to move. So anyway. True. Thank you. With that, I'll save other questions. I'll turn it over to Commissioner Saad for questions at this time. |
| 01:44:36.97 | Robert Harrison | Well, it could be. |
| 01:44:37.82 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:44:40.60 | Nastassya Saad | Anyway. |
| 01:44:47.59 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. I just, I guess this would be for Mr. Rex. Hi. Just given the nature of your presentation versus what Isaac just said, because I'm with Isaac. I think the insight is great and it's exciting. I also am in favor here of what you've designed. If you were to get approval tonight, what I was trying to ask the attorney was, I don't want to put you between a rock and a hard place. So if one is going to supersede the other, although you've gone on record saying you don't want to build what you currently have. What would be your intention if you were to receive an approval tonight? Would you intend to come back for the terrace? Would you intend to build? Just want to understand where you are with what we have here in front of us versus the terrace. |
| 01:45:40.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Before you do that, I see Mr. Lampert. He's the owner. Do you want to make a comment on this? I'm happy to have you come up to the podium. |
| 01:45:49.42 | Nastassya Saad | To the podium. |
| 01:45:53.33 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I mean, you're the owner, so you're the owner. So, you know, I can't. |
| 01:45:58.82 | Nastassya Saad | I can't applicant whichever I just yeah the intention here because there's there's an opportunity in front of us and we're just talking about the parklet. |
| 01:45:59.76 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:46:00.94 | Isaac Lappert | Thank you. |
| 01:46:05.90 | Isaac Lappert | I just want to get people with wheelchairs in the, The restaurant that's as far as what everyone else believes for the sidewalk, for what the flow of traffic. I want to get this approved and never look back again and just never have to bring like The amount of time that we've done this, like five years or something, something crazy, ridiculous. I just, If you approve this, you'll never have to see me again about a project about fish and chips for another 30 years. If I want to do some housing up there, please. Like I can't stress enough. Like, |
| 01:46:36.67 | Russell Croce | Yeah. |
| 01:46:38.64 | Isaac Lappert | I want to say goodbye to Mr. X on the project. I don't want to have to bring this. Like, it's like, I mean, we're all sick of it. Come on. I just want to get it approved and never look back, please. Yeah. Okay. |
| 01:46:47.89 | Nastassya Saad | He's your advocate here. So I just want to make sure that we're talking about the parklet and there's an interesting design proposal on the table. So if we take the time to discuss it, I'd like to know it goes somewhere. I think that was my only question. |
| 01:47:03.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:47:03.48 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioners, other questions of the applicant? Now, at this point, we will go to the public comment portion of the hearing. Director Phipps, if you can explain to people how to make comments again. For those in the room, if you want to talk on this item, please fill out a speaker card if you haven't already. Director of |
| 01:47:24.31 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Chair. Yeah, echoing Chair's comments, if you'd like to speak, please fill out a speaker card. If you're on the Zoom application, please raise your hand and you will be called upon following speakers in the chambers in the order that your hand was raised. And I believe I have one speaker card submitted thus far from Jim. And I cannot read your last name, so I will not butcher it. But I believe it's Jim. Come on down, Jim. And please state your full name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes. |
| 01:48:01.77 | Jim Gurney | Good evening. My name is Jim Gurney. I'm the general manager at Custom Madrona Hotel and Spa. I was at the, I think it was May meeting, and I had just a couple points at that point. I want to keep them front and center just because if you go from a 20-seat restaurant to an 80-seat restaurant, the volume of food produced is going to grow significantly. There are several neighboring residents and hotels that are going to be impacted by that food. And I'll just share with you when Pojo opened 25 years ago, they were required to put in a mechanical exhaust system on the roof to mitigate some of that odor going on. We actually have it right now. I mean, just, you know, frying fish, we're getting some experiential risks. And, you know, we put up with, we've been neighbors for a long time, but I think that's something that needs to be considered. The other thing that I wanted to share, and I shared this back in May, is that the proximity of the second floor to six of my more expensive suites, is less than a foot. So if you were there celebrating an event, an anniversary with your significant other, and you selected one of our harborside suites with a balcony, and we're sitting on that balcony at nine o'clock at night having a glass of wine, and that restaurant was making a significant amount of noise, that's a problem. |
| 01:49:15.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:49:15.55 | Richard Graef | Yeah. |
| 01:49:15.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:49:31.81 | Jim Gurney | I don't think I can necessarily fix that problem. We've got to mitigate it. It has to be addressed in such a way that I know Isaac said that, you know, he really wants this to be, you know, a much different kind of concept. But I don't know if I believe that. I mean, if you look at what in 2017, what the permit was approved for, It was approved for storage. It was not approved for a second floor restaurant. And if the intent was always to recognize his grandfather, the intention of always to put a restaurant on the second floor. It was not. It was put into be storage because there would have been pushback at that point. So I just think those are some points that ought to be recognized on behalf of the commission. And you know what? We want success in everybody's world. but I don't want somebody else's success to be my risk. Any questions? |
| 01:50:22.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Well, it's not time to ask questions, but if you have any other comments, that's great. We'll take your comments under consideration. Thank you so much. Next item in the room, I guess. |
| 01:50:32.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Percocet. |
| 01:50:33.68 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:50:36.33 | Director Phipps | Chair looking at speaker cards. Next speaker is Nick. Nick. Please step forward to the dais. You'll have three minutes to speak. |
| 01:50:48.11 | Unknown | Thank you, commissioners. Thank you for your service. First of all, these long meetings, you guys don't get enough credit. But seriously, thank you. I think the terrace closest to the building is way better than the parklets. I was recently at Josh's, also known as Bakery, Sausalito, Sausalito Bakery, whatever. There was a car reversing and it almost hit all of us and they weren't paying any attention. They were just happy they found a parking space. Anyway, I'm just in favor of the terrace being close to the building. And also I'm excited about getting rid of the scaffolding because it's sort of depressing in town as we walk by. And thank you all for your service again. |
| 01:51:36.93 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Director Phipps, the Zoom application. |
| 01:51:40.87 | Director Phipps | Chair, yep, no additional speaker cards for this item. Looking to the Zoom application for raised hands. I am seeing Carolyn Revel. Carolyn, the floor is yours for three minutes. Yes. |
| 01:51:55.51 | Carolyn Revelle | It's Carolyn Revelle. um, I'm not going to opine on which of the two projects, although I agree with what Nick said that, Parklets can be can be dangerous for cars, but I just want to refer to the tree the removal of two trees in that's before you today. of. I think that really we shouldn't try to equate new small trees on a parklet with existing mature trees. and thinking of Bridgeway as a whole, A good number of mature trees continue to be removed. There's a trench going in next to the Wells Fargo bank that Shirley is going to treat to kill a mature tree there. So I just urge you to consider whether it's necessary if you approve tonight's proposal to remove the two trees that has been suggested. Thank you very much. |
| 01:52:49.67 | Director Phipps | Sarah Lynn, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Good evening, Sandra. You'll have three minutes. |
| 01:52:55.90 | Jim Gurney | Good evening. |
| 01:53:00.14 | Director Phipps | Sorry, Sandra, you're on mute. |
| 01:53:03.21 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm not going to, good evening, commissioners. I'm not going to speak on the many, many issues with regard to the substance of your approval tonight. And I don't envy you. You've got a difficult question. balancing act between various interests with this particular project. However, I do want to, comment on the overriding trend that I see of elimination of parking spaces downtown. And I just would like to see that that, Granted, we did parklets because we had COVID. We had COVID and we didn't want to get, infect each other by rebreathing indoor air. So the parklet concept was born during the COVID Yeah. pandemic. But I am concerned about the trend, particularly in light of the next agenda item, of removing parking spaces downtown. I think we need to preserve our parking spaces as much as possible. And I would assume that the merchants and the other businesses downtown would want to see those parkings to help service their clients. And as a matter of fact, the residents also. All right. Thank you so much. |
| 01:54:11.33 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Sandra, for your comment. Chair, look into the Zoom application for additional raised hands. Seeing none, and I do not have any additional speaker cards. |
| 01:54:19.55 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Director Phipps, who will therefore close public hearing portion of this and bring it back to the dais. So this is where we're at. We heard this at the last meeting. We asked the applicant, similar to the first item in the agenda, to come back and make specific changes. They've done what we've asked. I've heard from Mr. Lapford, who is very excited about getting this project done, getting the scaffolding down. And I think this is a great addition to downtown. I think what they've proposed before us is an excellent proposal at this point. And so I'm going to actually make a motion. I'll look for a second. The draft resolution is in your packet. I would recommend that we approve the with the with the parklet and then we should add some conditions that will need to be drafted by the staff with relation to the trees and to the light poles as well as this exhaust issue if that's appropriate or whether that's under the department of health Health concern and along with hours of operation related to noise, which we did on other projects downtown. So if I could look for a second to at least get this on the floor for conversation, that would be great. |
| 01:55:37.01 | Nastassya Saad | I'll second that. |
| 01:55:38.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, with the motion on the floor, I'm going to turn it over to Commissioners. I'll start with Commissioner Salli. |
| 01:55:48.31 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you, Chair. I think that, given all the direction that we had given from previous times, that this is a great design of a parklet. We are going to have that parklet program eventually and keeping in line with that. It's designed well. I think I did have some concerns around the parking aspect to waive all of the parking. But I think given their proximity and some of the other material that we have, I'm going to hold off on that and just keep as is. The tree and light issue is concerning given what staff has mentioned specifically on on trenching. There's any conflict. I I asked my question earlier about the tree in relation to the street light because I would almost give that as a compromise, but it doesn't seem to help. So I think we can probably get some landscaping, a tree in a planter that doesn't That doesn't conflict, I think, from what Commissioner Feller said earlier about the lighting on the facade that was the original direction. I think we should try to get back there. I think that would also solve this issue with DPW potentially. So that would be my caveat. But overall, I think going up a floor makes sense. I think it's a good use of space. And I think hours of operation can be handled from a noise complaint. I just wanted to look one more time at the plan. And maybe we know this from last time, that little balcony that's in the front, that's just more decorative, correct? Are we aligned that that was not, people are not going to be standing out on that balcony. So with that, I would hope some of those noise concerns from the adjacent property could be relieved. But yeah, I think my bigger thing would just be the lighting. If we can work out these street lamps and figure out back onto the building, potentially, I'd be in favor to move forward. |
| 01:57:49.56 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Oh. |
| 01:57:49.63 | Unknown | So... |
| 01:57:49.68 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:57:49.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:57:50.27 | Jeffery Luxenberg | commissioner and stuff. |
| 01:57:50.98 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Bye. |
| 01:57:50.99 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'd advise to adjourn you. |
| 01:57:53.37 | Andrew Junius | Thank you, Chair. I'm disappointed that we're going to lose those mature trees. I think the speaker, Carolyn Revell, was spot on. You know, that's a mature tree that will be impossible to replace. Whatever's replaced there will take forever to grow to that height. Um, So I'm disappointed with that. I also, you know, I, I've never been hot on the parklet idea here. I'm still, I think a lot of the issues that have been raised today about, the location of the park, the way they work, in these narrow sidewalks in Sausalito, they don't work very well. And that's a real issue. I think if we approve this tonight, we're kind of brushing that aside. I think that's unfortunate. I originally supported the proposal of the sponsor, and I still do. I think it is a better approach. And those are my comments. |
| 01:58:53.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Vice Chair Junius, Commissioner Graff. |
| 01:58:58.32 | Richard Graef | Thank you. Chair Luxenberg. I have to say that I'm with the board Commissioner Junius, I think the raised terrace and the widened sidewalks is vastly superior to the parklet. I'm I'm a little confused about the outcome of this evening's procedure in terms of approvals or not approvals. Um, Uh... my inclination is if I were to make a choice, of course, would be for the race terrorist concept. The parklet, you know, it's a nice design for a parklet, of course. That's what we would expect from Mr. Rex. However, I think the parklet is not a good solution in this situation for many reasons which have already been put out there. And the other thing that sort of pops up is the idea of precedent. And while there aren't very many exact precedents for this, Um, I don't think that really matters that much. I mean, this might be a really good precedent. I think this is a wonderful solution to dining along the sidewalk and down there. The other project, I keep forgetting the name of it, where we approved, yeah, Concobar, That was a great solution. And this is similar in that respect. So, yeah. I guess in that context, I could not vote to approve the parklet However, I don't know if I could vote to approve the other solution. And I'm not quite sure how how this whole thing would be handled. And of course, the applicant could choose to not pursued the park would. that could choose to... come back with another attempt that the at the raised tariffs concept. It's a little, this whole, the way this whole thing has come together is a little confusing and a little bit difficult to deal with. But again, I would support the raised tariffs concept 100%. |
| 02:02:10.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Graff, Commissioner Fallon. |
| 02:02:13.08 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair. You know, again, there's only one project in front of us tonight. So. There is one project that's the Parklet project. The parklet is the existing... vehicle within our ordinances that's available to this applicant. Um, there it's fully it's within their right to apply or find a solution that includes a parklet. It is also |
| 02:02:39.05 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 02:02:40.74 | Kristina Feller | I mean, we can't forget the general plan when we're looking at any project, particularly this project. And one of the reasons previous designs that we've looked at since the project was already permitted. did not support the general plan. So that's why we're here tonight looking at one project and one project only. which is the parklet solution. We did not. request a parklet from this applicant. The parklet is the vehicle for which to achieve what they want to achieve with their restaurant. So I want to make sure no matter what that that's very clear there's one one thing in front of us tonight and that's the reason why and this particular solution does actually support um the general plan where the others that we've seen or versions of it did not um parklets occur currently where there are parking spots and there happen to be two parking spots in front of this particular property I wanted to just in deliberations here with the rest of the Commission also reaffirm and reiterate what has already been presented to the City Council that's been talked about in our Commission meetings, and that is the pending parklet program. that the City Council will be hearing September, it sounds like. I'm seeing a nod of the head from Director Phipps. once more for their approval. JoAnne Hanrahan, Any existing park litter outdoor dining will have to come into compliance unilaterally across the city with those requirements so wasting time looking back and we've said this before in these hearings on this project. going back and benchmarking off those things is not really, a worthwhile use of time because we know that whatever that program will be, everyone will unilaterally need to be in compliance of that. Um... I also just want to point out again in discussion with the commission here that Bridgeway is a, an evacuation route. And so where we have approved outdoor dining, off of Bridgeway is not a really good benchmark to what we're looking at here because there are other considerations here and. bumping out terraces or doing other things where you're actually putting pedestrians closer to to the bicyclists, which might even be more dangerous than the cars in this town, was a concern of ours from a safety standpoint. So we are where we are here tonight. Again, there is already an approved and permitted project that exists on this site. And I would want this to supersede that. I believe with this new application it would anyway, but I want that for clarification. As it relates to the second floor and operating hours, based on the drawings commissioner saw that terrace is not occupiable, it sticks out just a little tiny bit. And I know that there's a little bit more work to do with the Department of Public Works in terms of the lighting, but I know that uh Isaac Lappert's father had agreed to put the street lighting on the building at our last hearing. And if there is some sort of way to compromise or to achieve that, and condition how that lighting is used that meets DPW, that's great. Where it currently resides in the parklet, I think, is a non-starter for me, and I would not be interested in approving that. And I would really look to leave the trees as is and maybe possibly trim them. give them some care. I think they are alive and healthy. |
| 02:06:44.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Fowler. All right, so we have a motion on the floor. Let me give you my comments on this as well. One, I think we should approve this this evening. We have a draft resolution. I think we should include in that that we supersede the previous as we've discussed at length. I think that we will talk about hours in a minute about setting hours so it doesn't bother neighbors if there's noise and maybe one hour for the outside and a different hour for the inside, which we did on another project. I think that there was a comment, I think maybe Vice Chair Junius, I think the parklets down in the other part of Bridgeway work well. I think the Venice Delicatessen, which is under new management, they put some seats inside. They have seats outside. We had very crowded things over the weekend, and it works extremely well now. I think that people were happy. They weren't blocking. We weren't moving the chairs into the sidewalk. They were cogniz think that people were happy. They weren't blocking. We weren't moving the chairs into the sidewalk. They were cognizant of people walking by. And it reminds me a little bit of Paris. So, I mean, I think this is a great thing for Sausalito. And if anything come out of this awful three years of COVID, the idea that you can eat outside in a seaside thing like Sausalito So it's just a great thing. So and I think Mr. Lappert, I mean, we're here a year ago having to deny this raised proposal a year ago, and we're a year later and the scaffolding is still up. I think we need to get on with it. With regards to the light poles, I would prefer it on the building, but I quite honestly don't care whether it's on the building or it's in the parklet. And I would like to just defer that to public works to work out with the applicant because, quite honestly, it's an encroachment agreement and it's up to public works as far as streetlights. As far as the trees, whether it was on purpose or not, but one of the trees has been significantly cut down because of the scaffolding and the other tree is significantly leaning and these trees are an impediment whether they're good or bad it doesn't work with these trees I think a couple trees in planters that don't go into the ground at this point of bridge bridgeway would not be a problem I mean I love trees as much as anybody else but they they just don't work at this part of bridgeway so i i think we should allow them to put trees into the planters uh and i would uh suggest that so at this point i i guess uh we have this motion i i think the conditions uh if i could ask maybe Commissioner Saad, what were you thinking on this hours thing? Was there a proposal? And then we can ask the owner whether those were meeting with what they intended to do. |
| 02:09:34.31 | Nastassya Saad | You know, I think from the difference from outside to inside makes some sense. I think we. I think we went to 1030 at Cultivar. I think that would be equitable given the fact that Cultivar also has residents right across the street. That's for the outside and 211 for the inside. I think that would just be an equitable compromise. As a starting point, happy to discuss that, of course. |
| 02:10:07.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I just to because we put something on the table, I haven't asked the other Commissioners but Mr. Lappert if you come up to the podium, what were you and what was your idea for both the outside and the inside of how you were going to operate. |
| 02:10:24.97 | Isaac Lappert | I don't think anything really good after 12 o'clock happens in any kind of restaurant. And I got a couple of kids in my house and I'd rather not have to worry late in the hours. 1030, I mean, the outside... By the time the sun sets on the hill behind us, everyone scurries home like ants and that's around 515. And then there's that shift, you know, the locals coming up. So I'm really not so worried about what hours you'd like me to bring everyone inside because But I would like... 12 o'clock I think is reasonable and especially going off that we're, if you need to have me put this in writing that we're not going to have a sports bar or live blaring music, it's literally going to be some, you know, Hawaiian music, easy tempo background. once again... for our neighbors and just just to address everything this concept was actually came up I came up with this through COVID so there was our plan before and I had a new vision and that's why we we this all came to life is seeing the disconnection in the town but I think 12 o'clock for the indoor would be fun and Another reason for people to come to Sausalito, this used to be a fun, vibrant downtown. Okay. I know it's, it's not, you know, we have Uber now we could, kind of reinvent the nightlife just a little bit. We have the no name, we have Smitty's, we have Copita, we are getting Cultivar, we have Poggio. This is. None of those, but a compliment to the other businesses. This will bring more people from San Francisco. show that this isn't, you know, oh, they close at nine o'clock. Should we go there? This is another reason for outside people to come. 11 o'clock. That's when things really start cooking that last hour. but I don't wanna be, I'm not a night owl. So I think 12 o'clock for the indoor and uh whatever i guess you find appropriate for the outdoor nine o'clock ten o'clock 10 30 sounds great But again, I don't, that means more staff for me. And by the time that the upstairs is open at night, I don't want to have to hire people to monitor the outside and have there be a party out there. People walking around with drinks in this park. It's too much policing. So, so the, the, the point of it is to have people upstairs at nighttime. Yeah. |
| 02:12:48.85 | Kristina Feller | So- So, Mr. Lappert, thank you for that. So would you be willing to close the outdoor meeting? |
| 02:12:51.43 | Isaac Lappert | Yeah. |
| 02:12:55.66 | Kristina Feller | at 9 p.m. you just mentioned. |
| 02:12:59.15 | Isaac Lappert | Did you beat me at 1030? Like, are you just... |
| 02:13:01.06 | Kristina Feller | You just mentioned nine. You said you'd be happy with nine. I'm asking if you're happy with nine and you can live with that. |
| 02:13:08.49 | Isaac Lappert | I mean, I would like the same option that Poggio and Coltivar, just out of fairness. Will I probably close early every single night before that? Yes, but I would like to option because I never know what foot traffic in people's minds are going to do until I guess I don't have a crystal ball and I don't know how foot traffic and how people, well, you can't, you mean you can't let me sit out here just for 30 more minutes? No, it's not 8.45 and I gotta start clearing out and you gotta go upstairs. I'll, you know, 1030, I think is reasonable and 12 o'clock upstairs. |
| 02:13:40.94 | Kristina Feller | So well, as Commissioner Saad mentioned, we condition cultivar to 1030 and 11, 1030 outside, 11 inside. um, Would you be willing to live with that since that's consistent with the downtown |
| 02:13:57.76 | Isaac Lappert | Again, I think that That last hour between 11 and 12 will actually really help our downtown area at night and put us on the radar. For me, I only want to keep this place open. I'm not trying to Thursday, Friday, Saturday. There's no other nighttime business. Those are my three nights that I want to have the option of staying open late. |
| 02:14:22.11 | Kristina Feller | So would you be willing to have your upstairs and downstairs completely enclosed, like your terrace closed, windows closed? |
| 02:14:30.18 | Isaac Lappert | The outdoor? Yeah. |
| 02:14:31.43 | Kristina Feller | Indoor. You're upstairs. |
| 02:14:31.55 | Isaac Lappert | in a minute. So. by keeping the doors closed. |
| 02:14:35.49 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 02:14:36.68 | Isaac Lappert | Um, I got to look at more of the specifics of the windows, but I would be nice to crack open a window for ventilation and not be told like you can't get fresh air because it does have a lot of machines and generators downstairs that are going to raise from the heat. |
| 02:14:51.36 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, I think we're just trying to get to an approval tonight and it will include hours of operation. Yeah. So if it's consistent with downtown, we'll do 1030 outside and 11 inside. |
| 02:14:54.02 | Isaac Lappert | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:15:00.93 | Kristina Feller | And if you want something other than that, we just, we're trying to figure out if you're willing to work with us on enclosing. Yeah. |
| 02:15:07.71 | Isaac Lappert | Yeah, I... going back and forth. Yeah, I think 1030 outside is great, but I would ask for midnight upstairs, please. |
| 02:15:16.50 | Kristina Feller | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:15:17.56 | Isaac Lappert | What are you? |
| 02:15:17.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So I was like, |
| 02:15:18.39 | Kristina Feller | He said 10, 1030 outside and midnight upstairs. But I think we'd have to ensure that the building was fully enclosed, which means you condition the building. |
| 02:15:18.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 02:15:26.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Well, |
| 02:15:27.35 | Isaac Lappert | Thank you. |
| 02:15:27.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Mr. X. Let me just clarify. You're not asking them to close the windows at all times. You're asking them to close the windows after 1030 at night. Okay. Okay. We're only asking you to close the balcony window from 1030 on. Until midnight? Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. |
| 02:15:45.24 | Isaac Lappert | Yeah. Yeah, that's all the reasonable. Yeah. And yeah, no, that's yeah, that's completely reasonable. After 1030, having enclosed upstairs. |
| 02:15:46.86 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:15:47.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:15:53.64 | Isaac Lappert | Casa Madrona has a room, like you said, a few feet away. I respect that. I want to honor that. I don't want to bother anyone. I think that's completely reasonable. 1030 outside. and closed windows in 1030 till midnight. Everyone get out. |
| 02:16:09.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Cool. Thank you. |
| 02:16:11.90 | Isaac Lappert | Yeah. |
| 02:16:13.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, uh i'm gonna i'll start on there i i have no issue with 10 30 outside and 12 inside as long as the windows are closed from 10 30 to 12 so the noise is not you know coming out and and obviously we would hope you would be respectful for your neighbors at all times and and they would be respectful of you so you know um while others comment on ours. Okay, so that would be ours. Let's talk about the exhaust. Isn't that a health department issue as far as I'm concerned? |
| 02:16:52.84 | Kristina Feller | Well, if I'm not mistaken, their acoustic... |
| 02:16:53.38 | Jeffery Luxenberg | If I'm not mistaken. |
| 02:16:56.45 | Kristina Feller | requirements for all parts of Sausalito and the downtown area. I'm going to look to Director Phipps. I think it's spelled out in our ordinance what what the sound readings would be. |
| 02:17:11.13 | Director Phipps | Yeah, correct. There are decibel levels detailed in our municipal code related to ambient noise within given use zones for given hours. And it would become a code enforcement violation in the case that those decibels exceed those thresholds. So, you know, in a sense, that is already conditioned in our code. |
| 02:17:35.23 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you for that, Dr. Fitzgerald. I was actually not talking about the volume of the exhaust. I was talking about the fish smell coming out of the exhaust, which one of the speakers said. But I think that that's a health department issue, that they will make sure that they have the proper filters and whatever, so that there's not a smell coming out of them. That would be incumbent upon the health department. So I don't think we have to condition it. But I respect that comment and make sure that that doesn't happen. |
| 02:17:56.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:05.71 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So let's not add a condition for that. And then we have noise controlled by the ordinance already. We've discussed the hours, so we're set with that. Let's talk about the light poles. My recommendation is we should let Public Works work it out with them. I would like to see it on the building, but I don't want to tell Public Works how to light the streets. any other questions? |
| 02:18:30.02 | Kristina Feller | I don't support. I do want public works to work it out within. you know, the normal right of way of a sidewalk. And I do not support putting these in the street. Parklets are not. always permanent. |
| 02:18:44.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:44.54 | Kristina Feller | um, Neither are buildings, I'm sure, but I would not encourage it to be in any existing vehicular right-of-way or designation of that. |
| 02:18:56.36 | Richard Graef | Okay. |
| 02:18:56.70 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 02:18:56.97 | Nastassya Saad | I agree with Commissioner Fowler. I think we should encourage that conversation to happen on the wall mounting like we discussed last time. |
| 02:19:05.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, so we will include in this that we would like planning commissions findings we would like the applicant to work with public works to put a light on the building that meeting public works requirements. um all right so that's that issue now the trees the my my opinion on the trees is they it doesn't work with the trees that are there because it impedes the sidewalk and the trees although i love trees and i wouldn't ever want to see a tree taken down these particular trees were trimmed they don't work they cover up the buildings |
| 02:19:43.57 | Kristina Feller | So what do you recommend? |
| 02:19:44.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I recommend that they put small trees in planters, which is part of the landscaping. Don't call them street trees. They're not street trees, but they're just a little bit more ornamental and a little bit higher in the planters, but not so much that they have to grow into the ground. They have to be trees that are ornamental and will fit in a planter. When they have big planters on either end of their parklet, I think it'll be nice. That's what I'm saying. |
| 02:20:08.25 | Nastassya Saad | That's right. |
| 02:20:08.79 | Nastassya Saad | what's in the plan, correct? Yeah, I am in agreement with what's in the plan. |
| 02:20:09.64 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 02:20:12.74 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 02:20:13.48 | Jeffery Luxenberg | All right, so we don't have to condition that because that's in the plan. |
| 02:20:16.64 | Kristina Feller | So, |
| 02:20:16.86 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm not sure that... |
| 02:20:17.09 | Kristina Feller | But he I'm not sure that I agree with that, but I don't want to get I'm not sure that I agree with that. I mean, ornamental trees are very different than what a streetscape is. And let's remember, this is in a historic downtown area. Uniformity, I think, is important and what we strive for. And, you know, once these trees are removed, it's the, applicants responsibility to maintain whatever is put in their place and keep them alive. |
| 02:20:49.06 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. |
| 02:20:49.58 | Kristina Feller | So I'm, you know, there's trees planted have a sense of permanence and they're not decorative necessarily. I mean, they're beautiful, but not necessarily ornamental. So I'm not sure that I agree with that. I'm not, I know maybe you and Commissioner Saad disagree with me and that's okay. but I'd love to know what Commissioner. |
| 02:21:10.62 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I actually agree with your prior statement about the street lights that you don't think they should be in the parklet because the parklet needs to be removable. So putting street trees into the parklet has the same issue in my mind. And I love to have trees that fit here. And there are other places at Bridgeway where the trees don't work either. I mean, this is a problem. |
| 02:21:15.21 | Kristina Feller | that. |
| 02:21:23.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:23.45 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:21:30.64 | Kristina Feller | So I would suggest with both the trees and the street lighting, that this applicant work with DPW If we need to assign a working group to oversee that, I would support that as well to make sure that this is finished so we can get this approved tonight, which I think we're all intending to do. But You know, I don't want to belabor this. Let's let's you know, we're going down a list here. We're almost there. Can we just sort of try to finalize the conditions here? |
| 02:21:52.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:52.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 02:21:52.37 | Unknown | So, Thank you. |
| 02:21:53.54 | Jeffery Luxenberg | YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, YOU |
| 02:21:53.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:58.94 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Let me clarify something I think I understand from Director Phipps. Regardless of what we do here tonight, removal of those trees is in the purview of public works. And if they decide they don't want the trees to go, then the athletes got to work out a solution that works, that gets the clearances. Because the public works director is responsible for trees, not us, in the public way. Is that correct, Director Phipps? |
| 02:22:23.96 | Mr. McGowan | Correct. |
| 02:22:24.52 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. Thank you. So I agree with you. So we have the trees on the plan. I don't think we need to. |
| 02:22:28.10 | Kristina Feller | So let's move on. Let's move on to the next condition. |
| 02:22:31.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | OK, so I think we have all the conditions we have. Does anybody have any other conditions that they want to? |
| 02:22:38.54 | Kristina Feller | I don't know. You know, sort of our typical, you know, any any changes to our approval in any way needs to come back to us. |
| 02:22:47.37 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. |
| 02:22:48.43 | Kristina Feller | And obviously in the event that some consensus can't be found with DPW, that would trigger coming back to us. Okay. |
| 02:22:59.01 | Jeffery Luxenberg | My recommendation here this evening is that we, I'm recommending we approve it. There's a motion on the floor. I'm suggesting that the staff will draft the findings and the conditions as we've outlined. And we can assign a working group to work with them, or we can trust that they can do that. We've done that before. But I don't see there any reason for this to come back to us. Is that, yes, okay. Anybody have any other conditions or thoughts, or can we move for approval? |
| 02:23:29.59 | Kristina Feller | Director Phipps, are you good with what we've... |
| 02:23:31.21 | Director Phipps | Are you good with what we've... If I may just clarify the conditions that were outlined, and then I'd like to make a clarification with city attorney as well. First condition, and this is in addition to the standard conditions that are already included, first condition is related to hours of operation. Seems like there was consensus on closing the outdoor portion at 10.30 p.m. Now, as far as the inside, I heard us discuss two options, two primary options, it seems, 11 p.m. and 12 p.m. |
| 02:23:32.64 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 02:24:05.25 | Director Phipps | Can we confirm? |
| 02:24:06.41 | Nastassya Saad | We settled on midnight with windows closed, containment after 1030 p.m. |
| 02:24:14.17 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, all windows and doors closed. |
| 02:24:15.79 | Director Phipps | Yes, with that addition following 10.30 p.m. Are we thinking 11 p.m. or 12 p.m. for the interior? |
| 02:24:23.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. 12 p.m. 12. 12, yeah. 12. |
| 02:24:25.50 | Director Phipps | All right, 12 p.m. Thank you for the confirmation. Second condition of approval is related to the light poles. We will work out that item with public works. There is a request to specifically resolve this issue through the addition of exterior lighting. So working with DPW, the applicant, and CDD to put lighting on the building. Third condition being related to the trees. We will work with DPW to support a mutually agreeable solution, and one that DPW is certainly supportive of. Finally, any changes to the approval needs to come back to the commission. |
| 02:25:07.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, and the only other one was this clear indication that this supersedes the previous approval. |
| 02:25:15.43 | Director Phipps | Understood. And my confirmation item with city attorney is in the case that we do, well, following an approval, in the case that we do add the findings and conditions of approval at the staff level, do we need to bring this back to the commission for final approval as a consent item, for example, or can that be handled administratively internally? |
| 02:25:36.10 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, and so I would recommend we go about this a little differently. I would recommend that we have a motion on the floor for approval of the project. Uh, that was made by our chair. And that was seconded. I would recommend that we restate the motion as approve the project, adopt the resolution with the additional conditions of approval that were read into the record by our Planning Commission secretary just now. and our CDD director. And. That would allow staff to write those conditions into the resolution, and that would serve as the record of the final approval of the project. I would also suggest one minor modification to the condition that Any changes come back to the Planning Commission, which was verbally expressed just now. Um, you know, some of the points that were raised by the Planning Commission indicate that you'd like staff to work out changes to lighting. And presumably that would be a minor modification that could be approved at the staff level based on both the city code and the desire of the planning commission. |
| 02:26:41.66 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, Well, one thought would be I could assign a working group that could work with any changes that occur with regard to both the trees, the lights, or any future modifications. So it would be there in case you needed it. Would that work? Attorney Rude. |
| 02:27:00.46 | Director Phipps | I think, sorry, Sergio, go ahead. |
| 02:27:03.51 | Mary Wagner | I'm not sure that that would make a lot of sense, nor do I ultimately believe that a planning commission working group has the authority to modify a planning commission approval, so I do have some concerns about that as a general approach. Uh, |
| 02:27:17.69 | John DeRay | Uh, |
| 02:27:18.67 | Mary Wagner | But, you know, given the direction the planning commission has expressed about trying to work to resolve the street lining issue. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, If, if the planning commission is comfortable approving the project and giving that direction, then. you know, other than, absent an express prohibition that the planning commission wants to adopt on any sort of changes, that is the sort of change that would be considered a modification, a minor modification of the city code that could be approved by the CDD director. |
| 02:27:49.01 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So if there's a major change to the project, we want it to come back. But if there's a minor change, we don't. I assume that we'll just make it clear for the record to the CD director. If there is a major change to the project, you need to come back to us. If it's a minor change, it's in your purview per coat. Okay, and that's what the code says. So I guess we're okay. We were okay with that? Yes. Okay. With that, can you call the roll on the motion? |
| 02:28:18.69 | Director Phipps | Happy to share. Commissioner Saad. Thank you. |
| 02:28:21.88 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:28:22.18 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Commissioner Graff. |
| 02:28:23.72 | Unknown | No. |
| 02:28:24.87 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Feller. |
| 02:28:25.98 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:28:26.10 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Junius. No. Chair Luxembourg. |
| 02:28:29.93 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 02:28:31.13 | Director Phipps | Motion passes. |
| 02:28:32.82 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. Thank you this evening for all the work that everybody's done. And thank you, Mr. Taub, for all the work he went into the staff reporting. We're gonna move on to item C, 6C. Um... again anybody that's in the audience that wants to talk about um uh the item on 6c they should fill out a speaker card 6c is the theory land side capital improvement design review project and we have our dpw director mr mcgowan welcome this evening to do a presentation about the project thank you very much |
| 02:29:15.16 | Mr. McGowan | Good evening, Chair Luxembourg, members of the Planning Commission. Nice to see you. Did we want to take a quick break? You guys have been here for a long time. I think we're good. We're good. We're good. Let's keep going. |
| 02:29:23.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I think we're going to... Yeah. We're good. |
| 02:29:25.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Keep going. Thank you. |
| 02:29:27.19 | Mr. McGowan | Okay. |
| 02:29:27.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 02:29:28.03 | Mr. McGowan | I do have a presentation this evening. I'm hoping Maria can bring up that presentation. And so I'm the Public Works Director for the City of Sausalito, and we have an interesting project to bring before you this evening. This is actually a capital improvement project, and I haven't had the opportunity to come and address you about one of our capital improvement projects in the past. So I'm pretty excited about being here. And before I kind of get going, I'm wondering if our city council, excuse me, our city attorney would like to speak a little bit about this project and a couple issues that may have come up and how we proceed with that. Mr. Rudens. Mr. Riggins? |
| 02:30:08.18 | Mary Wagner | I guess you're going to put me on the spot here, Kevin. I'm assuming you're referring to Ordinance 1128. |
| 02:30:13.54 | Mr. McGowan | Yes, sir. That's correct. |
| 02:30:15.23 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. I anticipate a question from the planning commission about David Ensign, Its role with respect to ordinance 1128 and there are a lot of comments that have been received saying that you know changes to the changes that are proposed by this project require a vote. |
| 02:30:28.48 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:30:32.02 | Mary Wagner | I will say that that is a decision that will need to be made by the City Council ultimately and only the City Council has the authority to call an election or place a measure on the ballot. However, you know what is before the planning commission is the design review approval, and that is something that the planning commission does have authority to consider. And as a point of pragmatism before the city council decides whether or not to put this on the ballot. assuming it does want to put it on the ballot, the City Council would like Ness would probably like to see that the design is both approvable and approved so that they know what is going to need to go on the bell so That is my point on that issue. |
| 02:31:20.79 | Mr. McGowan | Okay. |
| 02:31:21.70 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 02:31:21.73 | Mr. McGowan | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:31:21.80 | Jeffery Luxenberg | can i ask a question in that regard so what you're saying is even 1128 although it's city ordinance or city code or whatever the the provision that we as a commissioner reviewing is not is not whether it's that's not like a zoning provision so therefore we do not need to determine whether it's consistent with that provision or not we have to determine it's consistent with zoning and if and we do a design review per the findings we have to make but the determination of whether it goes on a ballot or doesn't go on a ballot is not in our purview is what am i understanding i just want to |
| 02:32:00.24 | Mary Wagner | That's correct. Yes. |
| 02:32:02.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:32:04.73 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 02:32:04.83 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Right. |
| 02:32:04.97 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 02:32:05.15 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I want to continue. |
| 02:32:06.62 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Next slide, please. All right, so this evening, Becky Dower from BKF Engineers will be presenting the design details for the project. And I believe David Parisi from Parametrics will also be joining the meeting to assist with discussions related to traffic circulation and signage. We have included several documents with the application related to the project. The intent of including this information is to provide the committee members with some additional background on the project. Next slide. So why are we here? Besides the fact that I really enjoy talking to you and from day to day, it's nice to see you as well. This project is a public is a public capital improvement project based on section 105450 of the municipal code which knows that local capital improvement projects and local enhancement projects require design review permit approvals. So we need your assistance in this regard by reviewing the details and giving us your input on this plan. So please. Appreciate that already for your time and effort. Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution that the project is categorically exempt and approved the design review permit. Um, procedurally staff must return to the city council to approve the bid for this project. We are looking for the Commission's guidance on the design aspects for this specific work. Next project next slide please. Short history for the project. Only a couple slides on this, so bear with me. For those who may not be familiar with how we arrived at this place in time, the city owns the area in which Golden Gate Bridge Highway Transportation District docks their ferry. The city leases this property to the district. The district is planning to replace the existing ferry dock. The district has postponed this work during the recent pandemic and is now seeking additional funding to support the replacement of the dock. Next slide. In 2017, the city and the district entered into an agreement to make improvements to the Ferry Landside area in connection with the district's plans to improve the dock system. The district agreed to pass federal transit administration funding to the city for the construction of the improvements. As part of the agreement, the city will need to make improvements that enhance passenger staging, enhanced bicycle access to provide better delineation and circulation and improvement to circulation for ferry staging of passengers and adding additional ticket vending machines. So I've shortened that quite a bit. The actual paragraph in the agreement is much longer. The district agreed to pass through $2 million to of FTA funding and an additional 400,000 from the district, the city would match that funding with $100,000 for the project budget of 2.5 million. Public works is following through with the city's 2017 commitment to provide improvements in this area of town. Alright next slide. The City Council requested that a group of local professionals assist the city with a conceptual design for this area. The members of this group donated their time over the last several years to develop the initial concept concepts which are to be presented this evening. Many options were developed and considered by this group, which led to led to the presenting of the preferred alternative to council in 2021 and presented this evening. There have been other groups that are investigating and studying possible improvements to other parking lots and downtown parking in general. We want to be clear that that study is not part of this specific application. We are only talking about what is approved for the FDA grant or the ferry landing phase part one. So before I turn it over to Becky Dower, next slide, please. Before I turn it over to Becky Dower of BKF Engineers to lead us through the detailed design, I also want to mention that we have brought this before the Planning Commission last year, as well as the Historical Preservation Commission and the Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Commission several different times. Your help and assistance of all your help and those who have assisted us in the past is much appreciated and we welcome your input. With that, I'll turn the presentation over to Becky Dower to lead us through some of the detailed issues associated with the project. Becky, are you ready? |
| 02:37:02.95 | Becky Dower | I'm ready. Great. Thank you, Kevin. Can everyone hear me? Yes. |
| 02:37:06.69 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah. |
| 02:37:06.71 | Becky Dower | Great. Next slide, please. |
| 02:37:07.01 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:37:10.02 | Becky Dower | I'll go ahead and start by giving you an overview of what our project proposes, as well as a summary of how we got here. So as Kevin noted, we've been working on this project in earnest for the last about four and a half years at this point in time. The first couple of years we worked very closely with the local architects group that Kevin already noted. |
| 02:37:23.13 | Unknown | the |
| 02:37:28.36 | Becky Dower | And then after we developed some concepts, we started to bring this project up to city council, to the public. as well as the Planning Commission previously to get some additional feedback on the project and how the project should be shaped. The site plan that you see before you there, that is our current proposal layout for the project based on years of feedback and workshopping on the project. Next slide, please. When we met with Planning Commission back in June of 22, there were a number of topics that we reviewed with Planning Commission. We requested feedback on a lot of these topics. Some of the big topics that we discussed with Planning Commission about a year ago had to do with bike queuing. Where do we queue the bikes? People who are waiting to get on the fare with their bikes. Do they go up Spinnaker? Do they go on the plaza and Tracy way, etc. |
| 02:38:19.42 | Unknown | up. |
| 02:38:23.27 | Becky Dower | We also talked about where to park the bikes. There's also a need for hundreds of bike racks so that people can park their bikes and walk away and then come back later when they're ready to board the ferry. There was a number of other items that we talked about previously in review regarding how we're going to integrate new concrete on the new plaza with the existing plaza. the Selle Stamford water fountain relocation, et cetera. couple other big items that we touched on previously had to do with trees in the plaza to tree or not to tree do we want the trees or not and furnishings. There was a lot of various feedback about what types of furnishings and where furnishings on the plaza should go. Next slide, please. So following that June 22 Planning Commission meeting, we received the recommendation that we work with a subcommittee to dive into these design details more. And that's exactly what we did. in August and September of 2022 and again in July of 23, we met with a planning commission subcommittee to work through some of these specific items that we just covered and that are listed here today. As we worked through these items, we got general consensus on a number of these outstanding items. And then we got some additional ideas on a number of these items as well. So some of our outstanding items where we are looking to workshop through still or really pin down have to do with the bicycle cueing. trees in the plaza, loading at the plaza, a loading zone that's accessible, how to use Tracy Way for bike parking. limiting hardscape near and in Gabrielson Park, water fountain relocation, furnishings and as well as a kiosk, that existing Chamber of Commerce kiosk. Next slide please. All right, so I'll go ahead and run through those items at a high level, recap the feedback that we had received from the subcommittee, excuse me, and then how that feedback has been incorporated into our current design So first up, the bicycle cueing. in our working with Golden Gate, Bridget Harbour Transportation District and are working with the bike return companies We had come to understand that generally there's about 300 bikes, three to 500 bikes that need to be queued up to get on the ferry. That's no small number of bikes. And so that takes up a lot of real estate. So we had worked with the subcommittee to review four different options for where we can queue these bikes. We found that queuing bikes along the north side of lot one and up Spinnaker Drive towards Spinnaker restaurant there's ample space to queue well over 300 bikes in that route. We also looked at options that included queuing bikes down the plaza, down towards the south, down towards Tracy Way and along Tracy Way. Um, we found that, you know, we can't of course, queue bikes, um, in that fashion, but it doesn't necessarily support the goal of, um, |
| 02:41:27.26 | Unknown | in the |
| 02:41:32.52 | Becky Dower | queuing up to 300 bikes without inundating the entire plaza with bikes, basically. And we also found that it doesn't really support the goal of improving circulation drop off on the plaza when we have a long line of people standing with their bikes across the plaza. All right, next slide, please. All right, so here's a couple of graphics to illustrate what I was just talking about. The graphic over there on the left, they look like little tiny ants on the screen, but those are a bunch of people with bikes. It's supposed to represent people lining up. on the dock, on the sidewalk in front of the Yacht Club, which would be expanded to accommodate them. on a sidewalk on the north side of the parking lot, and then up that existing asphalt path on Spinnaker. So that's one queuing option. That is our preferred option because it does accommodate the number of cyclists that we need to queue based on what we understand the demand is. |
| 02:42:18.95 | Unknown | That is our |
| 02:42:28.15 | Becky Dower | Another option shown here on the right, this would be queuing people with bikes on the plaza and on Tracy Way. The specifics of how they ultimately came on the plaza are not shown here, it's just illustrated that they would make a line on the plaza. and that they could utilize Tracy Way for the queuing. Um, You'll see here, I also show some queuing on Anchor Street. It's not our intent necessarily to entertain queuing of bicycles on Anchor Street. they're shown there more or less to show you the magnitude of what it would look like to get 300 bikes queued. So we don't have the real estate to do like a nice clean line of bikes queued on the plaza without some overflow, essentially, out on the anchor street. |
| 02:43:11.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Becky, can I ask a quick question? Is 300 bikes what fits on one ferry? |
| 02:43:14.08 | Becky Dower | three. |
| 02:43:17.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | 300 bikes is what? |
| 02:43:18.06 | Becky Dower | 300 bikes is what fits on two ferries, I believe. And a lot of times the fairies are coming at the same time. It's about 150 bikes per ferry. |
| 02:43:24.93 | Jeffery Luxenberg | 150 bikes per ferry. Thank you very much. |
| 02:43:27.16 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 02:43:27.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 02:43:27.24 | Mr. McGowan | That was the number that we received from Golden Gate Bridge as well. So they were recommending that specific number. Even though the agreement doesn't specifically state a number, that's what they were requesting. |
| 02:43:39.54 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I didn't think that many fit on a boat. Now I understand one boat comes and then the other boat, the other brand boat comes and then they can, I get it. So Thank you. Keep going. |
| 02:43:50.07 | Becky Dower | Yeah, and that's a great distinction too. The grant doesn't necessarily dictate 300, that's more of a, implement you know Golden Gate sees practically that they need 300 bikes queued at most times on weekends. Alright, next slide please. Let's move on to the next item that we discussed and how we responded to that. We got some feedback from the subcommittee that shade would be nice to have out on the Plaza. |
| 02:44:10.91 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:44:16.97 | Becky Dower | However, we received some mixed reactions to including trees to provide shade, mostly because of concerns due to viewshed. So in response to that, we had met again with our local architect group. They are, you know, proponents of having the trees on the plaza as are the landscape architects on the project and landscape architects of record, big proponents of having the trees for shade for framing of the viewshed. So in light of some of the concerns with impacts to the viewshed, what we have done is we have designed a line of trees instead of clusters of trees. We have to space the trees so that there is ample space between the trees to still get a good view of the bay. And we have some selected some trees that have a little bit higher canopy. So that you can, you know, essentially when these trees are a little bit more grown and certainly once they reach maturity, you can see underneath the canopy. We also selected some trees that we believe would be suitable for this location. These include the Chinese Pistache and the October Glory. Next slide please. We've got some visuals here of what those trees would look like. |
| 02:45:34.29 | Becky Dower | All right, next slide. |
| 02:45:34.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:45:34.56 | Pat Sook | Thank you. |
| 02:45:34.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:45:37.63 | Becky Dower | And then this is a graphic rendering of what the trees could look like. So this is to scale. This shows the trees with the bottom of their canopy at 10 feet above the plaza. So the trees would be mature at this point in time, but this is a view of what it would look like to stand on the plaza with the row of trees. So it is the design team opinion. that the trees are beneficial and they do have a place in the plaza. So we are proposing that we do include a line of trees. All right, next slide, please. Next topic, a need for an accessible loading area for drop off and pickup was identified. We thought that was a fantastic idea. So we had modified the geometry of the plaza so that we can get more like a straight section on the plaza where vehicles can line up and drop off. And we have added a wide curb ramp to this area so that if you are in need of, you know, an accessible ramp to get up or down from the plaza that you have that. We're also proposing a row of lighted wallards. So it helps define and separate the loading area from the rest of the plaza. And it provides some additional lighting for safety in that area. So the image that you see over to the right, that is an example of the type of lighted bollard that we're looking at installing. And then the graphic to the left, that plan view where you see those little, they look like little starbursts or little little suns. Those are where we are proposing to put the lighted bollard. So just along the loading area. All right, next slide please. Great. We received feedback that bicycle parking, so this is putting bikes in bike racks. We had looked at length for various places to put these bike racks and we had received some feedback from the subcommittee that Tracy Way would be a good place to continue to put the bike racks. During current operations, that's where the bikes are parked currently. we heard that there's not necessarily a lot of support to keep Tracy way open to vehicles. and instead look at ways to |
| 02:47:47.94 | Unknown | it's, |
| 02:47:49.97 | Becky Dower | more permanently close off Tracy Way so that we can continue to use Tracy Way for bicycle parking. The graphics at the bottom of the screen, these are a couple of different options that we can employ to close off Tracy way so that vehicles don't turn in Tracy way so that we can use this for bike parking. These include simple bollards. That's what you see there on the left. Very cost effective, easy to remove in case we do want to reinstate vehicle access to Tracy way for whatever reason. Um, And then the graphic there on the right, this would be a more permanent yet more costly closure. This would involve installing a raised sidewalk, essentially, across Tracy Way. where we can have almost like a mini driveway or curb ramp or some sort of opening so that we can still get cyclists who are coming off a bridgeway over to Tracy so that they can park their bike. that little mini driveway and sidewalk area there obviously more costly and we would need to have some sorts of controls so that we don't get vehicles accidentally trying to turn up that way. But these are two options that we have looked at to close off Tracy way. Due to funding, quite frankly, our current proposal shows bollards to close off Tracy Way instead of a more permanent raised sidewalk. |
| 02:49:04.89 | Mr. McGowan | So I'd like to add something to that too, Becky, if that's all right. Yes. What she's referring to is in a public works project, sometimes when we may not think we have enough funding, we would still include something as a bid alternative in the construction documents. And I'm suggesting that we would probably do that for some of the improvements shown on this slide, not the bollards because they're pretty simple. But if we put a raised sidewalk at the end of traceway to redirect traffic, that would be a bid alternative, such that if we do have enough funding, and if there is interest from the city council at the time of award, we could we could move forward with that type of construction. |
| 02:49:08.22 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:49:42.66 | Mr. McGowan | Sorry about that. Go ahead, Becky. |
| 02:49:44.35 | Becky Dower | No, no worries. And I do want to clarify here, these are really simple graphics to show the two options. There's variations if we wanted to, almost create sort of like a mini plaza in this area, add a little bit more hardscape as one of those bid alternatives to this area. That's certainly doable. This was just meant to show the basic two types of alternatives that we can use to close off Tracy. Right, next slide, please. Moving along. As we talked about earlier, Our intent is to queue bicycles along the frontage of the Yacht Club and along the north side of the parking lot on a new wider sidewalk that would be installed as part of this project. We did hear feedback from some subcommittee members that they did not support the bike queuing in this area. Um, Join, I think David, do we have you here today? |
| 02:50:38.43 | David Parisi | We do. |
| 02:50:39.71 | Becky Dower | Great. I knew you'd be there. I would love to bring David Parisi into the discussion. He's a traffic engineer. We looked at this area with him and he has some thoughts and feedback on ways to improve safety in this area. |
| 02:50:53.70 | David Parisi | Great. Thanks, Becky. Good evening, Commissioners. I'm David Parisi, Traffic and Civil Engineer with Parametrics. I've been working with your city for over 20 years, and my role on the project was to review and provide input on multimodal circulation, including vehicular flow, Um, drop off and pick up and pedestrian bike riding, much of which Becky just presented. We also focus on how people, including those with bikes, would line up while waiting for the ferry. And there have been some questions about how conflicts can be minimized, particularly along the periphery of the plaza, for instance, right here at the driveway to the Yacht Club. And at this location, which is a very low volume driveway with low speeds, we recommend special paving that really would distinguish the driveway from the sidewalk and queuing zone. As a matter of fact, the driveway itself, where it crosses the sidewalk and vice versa, the driveway would be asphalt. To be black, it would not be the concrete of a, like you see in a driveway, typical driveway aprons or on the sidewalk. So it really distinguishes itself from the sidewalk and queuing zone. And we're also recommending special payment markings and signing, sort of like what is shown here. really to enable users to understand that this is a driveway and when not moving across it, that it is loading onto the ferry. really to keep it as clear as possible. So those are our ideas. We think it would be a pretty safe facility. Thank you, Becky. |
| 02:52:25.89 | Becky Dower | Great, thank you, David. And the next slide, please. All right. Earlier versions of our site plan included construction of the sidewalk that you see here in the graphic at the bottom. with any portion of Gabrielston Park. We had received some feedback from the subcommittee that there were concerns with putting a walkway in Gagelson Park or doing any hardscape improvements in that park. So in response to that feedback, we had revised the design so that this proposed wide walkway |
| 02:52:52.50 | Unknown | So, Thank you. |
| 02:52:58.86 | Becky Dower | does not encroach any Gabrielston Park. It instead, would replace some of the existing paving that you see there in the photo on the right. |
| 02:53:07.66 | Unknown | on the road. |
| 02:53:08.82 | Becky Dower | with the sidewalk, with the concrete sidewalk. So this would involve the removal of 18 parking spaces in exchange for this, this wide sidewalk in this area. The northern edge, sort of the plan top edge of the sidewalk, would be in line with where the existing edge of asphalt pavement is in the parking lot today. So this sidewalk does not encroach in the Gabrielston Park. If you direct your attention back down to the little exhibit that's in the bottom left, you'll see this sort of curvilinear, you know, dashed feature that is just like planned north of the sidewalk. That's a bioretention area that's intended for stormwater treatment. Basically for runoff from from the parking lot. That area is proposed within Gabrielson Park. It's proposed within that landscaped area that you can see in the photo. There's there's some hedges and bushes there currently. We do believe that that improvement is compatible with Gableson Park as it is just it's planting, it's vegetation, it's stormwater treatment, it's no hardscape. It's very much in line with the character of a park. So we would like to continue to propose that buyer retention feature within Um, the park or rather outside of the limits of the paved parking lot. |
| 02:54:25.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:54:26.70 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Becky, while you're on this thing, you showed in the last slide this break for the Yacht Club driveway. And obviously, we have public shore access that goes all along the water. And so people are coming out of Gabrielson Park. Do you have similar signage so that the bicycles would not be, those 300 bicycles would not be blocking the people that are trying to walk along the shoreline? |
| 02:54:53.87 | Becky Dower | Yes, no, that's a great question. I wish I could circle here somehow, but there you can see sort of in a lighter gray outline where the pathway at Gabrielson Park that you're mentioning ties in on either side of this walkway in question. I think that it would be imperative to have probably a combination of payment markings and signage here as well to alert |
| 02:55:10.71 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:55:15.06 | Becky Dower | people who are queuing with their bikes to keep that area clear so that we have free circulation. Absolutely. That's not shown on this particular little snapshot that we have in front of you here, but Absolutely, we need some signage and striping there. The challenge with those areas is, just to try not to make it really gaudy, I guess, for lack of a better word. We're not trying to put a ton of pavement markings down on the ground. We do want to keep this, you know, sort of natural feeling. So maybe there's an opportunity like a light crosshatch striping. We certainly think signage would be beneficial in that area to help keep it clear. But that's an area where if there's feedback that the planning commission has on how specifically you'd like to see that or how you would not like to see that, we're all ears. But we do intend to keep that area clear so that it's not congested. |
| 02:56:06.63 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, that was mentioned last year during the study sessions as well. So just that point. Okay, thank you. Please continue. |
| 02:56:14.18 | Becky Dower | Thank you. All right, next slide, please. Right, the Sally Stanford water fountain. When we met with the subcommittee, we had talked about relocating this fountain. It's in a little bit of an awkward spot even for existing conditions. And certainly when we expand the plaza, |
| 02:56:25.19 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:56:31.47 | Becky Dower | Um, this fountain becomes more like in the middle of the plaza. And so it really breaks up the circulation. So we would like to relocate this fountain We had received feedback from the subcommittee that they encouraged us to meet with the Historic Preservation Committee to talk about this fountain, which we did. We met with them back in, I believe it was June of this year, June of 2023. We reviewed this fountain at length with them and talked about alternative locations. During that discussion, we had learned that this fountain had originally been located near the kiosk on the plaza. and this fountain had actually been relocated to this location that it currently inhabits. It sounds like the fountain was picked up in one piece and relocated previously. So we had expressed interest to HPC to pick this thing up again and move it back over to the kiosk. |
| 02:57:19.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:20.04 | Unknown | it. |
| 02:57:20.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:21.78 | Becky Dower | We had reviewed a couple locations with them and they had provided some feedback and appeared supportive of relocating the fountain near the kiosk. They did express an interest in keeping the fountain as is, keeping this configuration, keeping the existing bowls. And then considering whether part of this project or part of a different effort by Sausalito to also include a plaque that honored the artist who created this fountain. So our intent is to pick it up, keep it in generally the same orientation and put it over by the kiosk. All right, next slide, please. Furniture. All right. This is a favorite topic of many. We reviewed some furniture options with the subcommittee and we've received a bunch of different feedback on what type of furnishings we should have on the plaza. Um, Not certainly not unanimously, but a lot of a lot of feedback was that we should have very limited furnishing on the plaza, excuse me, on the plaza, limited to benches only in many cases. We did receive some feedback that we wanted benches with backs, not just benches without backs as originally had been proposed. So in response to that feedback, what we have done is we have made a couple different areas of benches. You can see there, kind of see there on the graphic in the bottom left. Benches around the trees. So these would be benches without backs that would go around two sides of the trees so that you could sit under the trees and enjoy some shade. We are also proposing some benches with backs that would be over near the water. You can see that on that graphic as well. So these benches, they would all be similar to the type of benches that are used over at Dunphy Park. They're in that image over on the right hand side. Again, some with backs, some without backs. We would also be interested in exploring having some maybe small tables, granite stone tables, to create sort of a living room effect over where the benches are near the water. But this is an area where we are looking for feedback if the Planning Commission has any regarding |
| 02:59:25.07 | Unknown | but this is an area |
| 02:59:31.38 | Becky Dower | how much furnishing we should have out in the plaza and any then specific areas where you don't want to see or you do want to see benches and other furnishings. Right next slide, please. |
| 02:59:49.08 | Becky Dower | And last but not least, the kiosk. There was a lot of interest in what's going to happen with this kiosk. It has been underutilized in recent years. So there was some interest in understanding if the kiosk could be removed and free up some space on the plaza. |
| 02:59:49.11 | Nastassya Saad | last but not last. |
| 03:00:04.55 | Becky Dower | We have since understood from the Chamber of Commerce that they are considering reoccupying and reutilizing this kiosk again. |
| 03:00:04.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:10.00 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:00:13.30 | Becky Dower | And as such, they would like us to keep the kiosk in place. So our current plan keeps this kiosk in place as is. That is the least costly measure to basically do nothing with this kiosk, which is beneficial because the funding that Kevin had noted is quite limited for the size of project we're trying to do. So we are intending to keep this in place and put the Sally Stanford water fountain near this kiosk. So it creates sort of a hub of, you know, where you can, you know, get maybe tickets for the ferry, where you can get some materials, where you can drink from the fountain, get a little shade, and then get in line to get on the boat. Right next slide please. All right, I'll just sort of glaze over this because we already touched on the ordinance. We understand that changes in removal of parking in excess 5% could require that this project go to a vote Um, At this time, I'm not sure that we have a real clear understanding of if That 5% applies to each lot individually or all of the downtown lots cumulatively. That makes a big difference in whether or not our project is in compliance with this ordinance or not. |
| 03:01:25.39 | Mr. McGowan | Becky, why don't I interject here? I think the point of this slide is that we are also adding some bicycle parking in the plaza itself, as well as other areas. I've included an attachment of an analysis, just an engineering analysis in compliance with 1128. And it's basically my opinion of basically the numbers, looking at the numbers themselves. So I think the intent was to let you folks know, and members of the public, that we're trying to pay attention to all these pieces, trying to keep them all in line. That's the intent. So sorry about that, Becky, go ahead. |
| 03:02:03.89 | Becky Dower | No, excellent. I'll just wrap it up quickly. We are offsetting the removal of parking spaces with the addition of Sarah Mastrianni- Bike parking spaces, these are different from the bike parking spaces that we talked about where we intend to have the bike racks on Tracy way as these bike parking spaces would be. Sarah Mastrianni- You know sort of like local preferential parking spaces for people to park their bike in lieu of driving their vehicle to this parking lot. Right, next slide, please. Bye. Right? this is a high level overview of the number of parking spaces. Um, depending on the ultimate layout of the project, You know, again, we're losing likely in excess of 5% of this lot, although all the lots were counted cumulatively. That's sort of a different story. All right, next slide. |
| 03:03:02.92 | Becky Dower | And there's that new, go ahead, keep clicking through. There's a bike parking to offset the parking loss by the new closet expansion. Right. Great. All right, so quick recap, some of the larger items where we have received feedback. from previously where we had made some decisions and where we would look for some follow-up feedback have to do with the bike queuing. Um, Where do we queue bikes? The bike parking. We got some feedback that we're going to park on Tracy Way. It seems to work well. So we've been rolling with that. the concrete, the integration of the new and the old concrete. We're going to try to match the concrete finishing as much as possible. and then integrate them with the border. Sally Stanford Water Fountain, we've got feedback from Historic Preservation Committee on how to relocate that. We feel good about that option. Trees in the plaza, we are recommending that we do a line of trees in the plaza spaced out including along the Yacht Club frontage, but separated from the driveway so that we don't impact their sight lines. And then plaza furnishings, we do retain some furnishings, primarily benches on the plaza, but looking for feedback on the phone. furnishings as well. All right, next slide, please. With that, I'd like to hand it back over to Kevin. |
| 03:04:24.55 | Mr. McGowan | Great. Thank you, Becky. A couple more slides very quickly. Staff's recommendation is to split the flows of those boarding the ferry with their bicycles compared to the pedestrians boarding the ferry. This limits the conflict points and provides a more open area for the plaza. I am hoping that this presentation, along with the current plan set, provided sufficient details to allow you to at least understand what it is that we are proposing. we appreciate your assistance with the design and the aspects and the issues associated around the entire project. As part of this process, I've also reached out to members of the Sausalito Yacht Club, which I met with yesterday. It was quite fun, so I appreciate that. Who I hope are in attendance this evening to convey their thoughts in regards to this specific project. Their input and that of others is much appreciated, as we've got a lot of input from the public on this and sometimes I don't get the opportunity to say thanks for at least letting us know what your opinions are. So many thanks. A few thoughts before we move on. Funding for this project is quite limited. The FTA funding related to the timing may be an issue and we are working with the district that's the Golden Gate Highway Transportation District to reach out to FTA in order to see if we can make sure that we can have that money in place we've had some difficulty reaching out to FTA representatives in Washington to make sure that we can secure this funding specifically. It's been some time since it was allocated, and that is a concern. Next slide, please. Yep, this is our last slide. So I want to step back for a moment and acknowledge the importance of the project. This area of town has been a focal point for Sausalito for many, many years. The area has been a vital transit hub all the way back to the 1900s when the train system would connect patrons to the ferry service to San Francisco. The area has changed over the years, but still remains a valuable asset to the local community and has regional transit significance. The city entered into an agreement with the bridge district in 2017 to address the circulation elements in this area. The plan presented is a culmination of several years of work, both with the local professionals group, as well as city council members, members of your own committee and many, many members of the public. We look forward to having your input, input from the members of the public, in order to develop a project that will work for everyone. So many thanks. And that concludes my presentation. David Parisi and Becky are here on the call for your questions, as well as anything else that we can help with. |
| 03:07:20.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Director Morgan, thank you for your thorough presentation and thank Becky and David Parisi as well. Let me frame what we're here for this evening. They're before us for a design review of this project. So a little bit unlike what the Planning Commission's earlier involvement is, which it was a public project and they asked the Planning Commission and other commissions and other members of the public to be involved in the project. What's before us this evening and it's been noticed is the actual design review of this project. So at the conclusion of whatever we get to, we have to approve an actual set of plans. So we can't do things in the alternative. We can give ideas. We can help guide this project. But at the end of the day, this is no different than the other items that were earlier in our agenda where we actually approve a set of plans so there are some questions and there were some alternatives so in the case of tracy way if we were to if there's going to be an alternative in the bid we would have to approve the most complicated one of that and ballers and you know uh and until you were to do that uh as opposed to approving ballards and then you wouldn't be able to do the others so we would have to if we want to if you prefer the the raised sidewalk as a possible long long-term alternative if your funding arrives we could could approve that alternative so that you wouldn't have to come back to us. So again, we're here for design review. We have to make findings in order to do that. And with that, we will start this evening with questions from the dais for your team, and then we will open it up for public comment from anybody that wants to speak. If you haven't already, please fill out a card. Given the number of people in the room and the hour, we're going to Thank you. for public comment from anybody that wants to speak. If you haven't already, please fill out a card. Given the number of people in the room and the hour, we're going to restrict it to two minutes rather than three minutes. But I am going to encourage somebody that if somebody says something that you agree with, you don't really need to reiterate it. You can just say, I concur with so-and-so so that we're not hearing the same thing over and over again. So we also have gotten a large number of comments. They've all come to us. We've also posted at least the ones by whatever hour it was today on the, posted them on the website. The ones that came in after that still went to us. So we have, we do have all those comments. I wanted everybody to be aware. So we appreciate everybody's those comments I wanted everybody to be aware. So we appreciate everybody's time this evening. This is a very important project. I agree with Director McGowan for the city. This is part and parcel, part of a key part of Sausalito that is so special to us. So with that, I'm gonna have commissioners with questions. How do we wanna start? Start at the left, I guess. Commissioner's on. |
| 03:10:08.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:08.92 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 03:10:08.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:08.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 03:10:09.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:09.34 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 03:10:09.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:09.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh-huh. |
| 03:10:11.19 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you for the presentation and all the information. Thank you for the city attorney to talk about the ordinance. So I'll skip that, but can you please expand upon the landscaping in Gabrielson? I think, was that just the bioretention vegetation or is there further vegetation plans for the park? |
| 03:10:38.67 | Mr. McGowan | There are, it is only the bioretention area, which is a filtration system for filtering water before it goes to the bay. Based on the size of the project, we're required by state MS4, I think it is, in order to put something in that filters water. the stormwater as it exits the parking lot itself. Um, We're putting that in the Gabrielson Park area. Well, I'll back up just a sec. There's always been a bit of a question about what is really Gabrielson Park. We have an issue associated with where the property lines are located in this area of town. Specifically, there's a triangular section that is definitely Gabrielson Park. However, The actual limits in the field are much bigger than that. They encroach into a portion of the property that is owned by the city. And whether that's considered part of the original designation of Gabrielson Park or not. Regardless, stepping back, what we are proposing to do is simply put in bioretention, which is plants, which is filtration systems. It's the same character of material that is in the park to begin with. In addition, I'm hearing from some of our park maintenance staff that if we have things like junipers, things that are not good for fire and other things, we may want to remove them. Now, I'm not quite the expert, but I think there may be some of those type of plants in that area too. So sorry, that was a long around answer. My apologies. I'll make them shorter next time. |
| 03:12:08.78 | Nastassya Saad | No, that that was that was helpful. And then in terms of, I think that was that last slide, when you are having the pedestrians go down one way and bikes going, is that the overall intended concept to split people versus bikes as a whole? Or is there some... room to negotiate everybody in a similar fashion. |
| 03:12:36.98 | Mr. McGowan | I say good very good question. So that is staff's recommendation at this point in time. And we're basing that on our discussions with a local professionals group, as well as our transportation engineer, who is suggesting that we split the flows in order to avoid some conflicts between pedestrians and those boarding the ferry with their bike. Is that the only alternative? No. I think that you saw another alternative in Becky's slides, which is to route both pedestrians and those boarding the ferry with their bike in a direction towards Tracy Way and not in front of the Yacht Club entrance itself. So there are alternatives to this. |
| 03:13:15.59 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. And then is it also staff's opinion that, A parking space is equitable to a bike space that I think it was 38 total to be removed, but 38 bike spaces are staff saying it's like a one to one ratio as a replacement. |
| 03:13:32.58 | Mr. McGowan | I don't think that we're necessarily qualified to make that type of designation. What we are saying is that we are adding bike parking for residents to park their bikes in the plaza. We're trying to accommodate additional bike parking. We're strictly trying to adhere to the rules that we have in place, which is 1128, and try to accommodate that. |
| 03:13:56.17 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Those are all my questions at the moment. Thank you, chair. |
| 03:13:58.23 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Saad. Commissioner, Vice Chair, Jr. |
| 03:14:01.42 | Andrew Junius | you Thank you, Chair. Kevin, thanks for a great presentation and your team. Wonderful job. Back to where I think the chair started, I really would like to make it clear what we can do tonight and what happens next, and maybe we'll get the city attorney involved as well. to commit your sod's point. you're making a recommendation tonight. The commission has the authority to disagree with that recommendation and do something else, right? Once that does it, and you It's also clear the city would love to get this moving, right? I mean, you'd love a decision tonight, not a continuance, right? That's also very... |
| 03:14:35.32 | Mr. McGowan | with us. Yes, we would. But we realize that this is the real world. So, you know, if folks need time to discuss it, and we need to come back to the this commission with maybe an alternative, I think our team is open to that. |
| 03:14:39.02 | Andrew Junius | Yeah. |
| 03:14:50.32 | Mr. McGowan | you |
| 03:14:50.34 | Andrew Junius | Right. I mean, and the city attorney, I'd love your opinion on this. Whatever comes out of the planning commission tonight is that the city council isn't really bound by that, are they? I mean, this is a design approval from the commission. But what happens at the city council if the city council doesn't like what we do? |
| 03:15:08.97 | Mary Wagner | Well, yes, this is a design approval. There is the potential, of course, for an appeal that may be filed by any interested person under the terms of the city code with respect to the design approval. um, Ultimately, if the commission declines to approve the design review approval, I don't see anything that would prohibit staff from coming back with a different or slightly modified project. So. |
| 03:15:35.48 | Andrew Junius | But if the appeal is interesting, and that's a possibility, of course, given the public interest, but if there's no appeal... And something comes out of the commission and goes directly to the city council without appeal is the city council basically up or down on that or can could they change it themselves without without the context of context of an appeal. |
| 03:15:54.80 | Mary Wagner | Well, fish. as a practical matter, the city council could just remove your authority to even review these projects. |
| 03:16:03.51 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 03:16:03.63 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:16:03.66 | Andrew Junius | I appreciate that. That's what I wanted to make clear. And then one technical question for Kevin or the rest of your team. Who actually, is there a provision? We're going to talk a lot about the queuing of the bikes tonight. That's an enormous issue, very difficult to deal with. Is there anybody really in charge of managing that from a personnel standpoint? Because I take the ferry quite a bit. I commute into town. I see the issue clearly. There are times when I will not take the ferry because I feel like I can't even get on the ferry safely with the way that it's really not managed in the parking area right now. It is kind of chaos. I know that's probably not part of our purview here, but I'm just curious if, Golden Gate Bridge Authority or somebody is thinking about that. |
| 03:16:49.71 | Mr. McGowan | So I reached out to Golden Gate Bridge and asked that same question. And unfortunately, I haven't had a good answer back. It's hard to get a contact from their operations department. And I think, honestly, I don't see people out there. Every time I've been out there when it seems rather busy, maybe not at the same time you've been there. I haven't seen anybody from Golden Gate who's actually helping to direct folks to get onto the ferry. |
| 03:17:13.69 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Great. Yep. Thank you. No further questions. |
| 03:17:16.51 | Andrew Junius | you |
| 03:17:17.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | add on to that because i have i saw over the weekend they had the people queued in the bicycles with a with a rope stopping them from going to the kiosk so there's clearly somebody there that does something but i i would strongly encourage you to get an answer from we're designing a physical facility that they're going to manage even though it's off of the property that they're done they have people they do have some people there and if if this works for them that's good if it doesn't work for them they're gonna they're gonna have people line up however they want them to line up they're not going to listen to what we build i mean they're gonna they have control over that so it would be good to have their input on on this whole project so uh continuing on commissioner fellow |
| 03:17:58.19 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 03:18:05.47 | Kristina Feller | Yes. Karen Hollweg, Thank you chair and thank you director McGowan and to your team. Karen Hollweg, i've got a number of different questions and I also want to recognize, at least as of 530 tonight when I reprinted my agenda, there were 84. Letters from the public here. I got through all of those, but I don't know if anything arrived after 530. I was on my way over here. But I want to make sure that this commission and the public is also clear. You're referring to this as phase one. What are the future phases and what is this phase one of? |
| 03:18:41.58 | Mr. McGowan | So that's a good question. I mentioned it slightly in order to expedite our presentation due to the lateness of the hour. But the city council has reached out to local architects, a landscape architect, to help us understand what we can do in the future with downtown parking. And it has several different components. So this is just in the initial stages, just thoughts, ideas of what can be done. Nothing has been laid out in a plan or anything like that. So I'll throw some thoughts out for you. What about valet parking in certain times? Will that work? There needs to be some additional analysis of how much parking is there. So we're going to need a parking study. That's a component of it. |
| 03:19:29.22 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:19:29.55 | Mr. McGowan | We're also going to take a look at what if we have a parking structure? |
| 03:19:29.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:33.32 | Mr. McGowan | You know? Those type of ideas of how to look at the downtown parking to see if we can make it better for everybody in some shape or form. There's also been discussions at the city council level of considering changing lot one into a more municipal setting, maybe not a park with a play structure, but maybe a open plaza where you can have bigger events. Those type of discussions are happening right now. Decisions haven't been made on whether to proceed with that. |
| 03:19:41.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:41.87 | Neal Toft | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:19:42.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:01.95 | Unknown | Right. I don't know. |
| 03:20:02.51 | Mr. McGowan | But what we are doing is looking into bringing in data, taking a look at the current parking analysis. So I was just working on it today of an agreement with a consultant to gather all that data and look at it. |
| 03:20:16.92 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. Karen Hollweg, Well, I appreciate you you saying that and making it clear, because it was not clear in any of the staff report or or anything like that. Karen Hollweg, And you know part of my thought behind that is that's why this Commission has consistently been asking the city council. for funding for a comprehensive citywide master plan to actually address all of these different issues that all conflict and coincide with one another and have a physical manifestation. in the city. So that's helpful, but I'm assuming that any Any action that this commission takes on what you're referring to as phase one does is not some automatic consideration of any future phase. This is correct, completely separate and isolated from any future phase. |
| 03:21:01.42 | Mr. McGowan | That's correct. |
| 03:21:05.99 | Mr. McGowan | That's correct. We have to separate it based off the grant funding by itself. |
| 03:21:06.26 | Kristina Feller | Correct. Right, OK. I just wanted to make sure of that. OK. And I wanted to ask you, because I know this has come up in a number of conversations that I've had with you both here at the commission, but also in the working group. If you had a chance to talk to the Coast Guard. |
| 03:21:30.50 | Mr. McGowan | No, I have not yet. |
| 03:21:32.12 | Kristina Feller | Okay. I think it's probably important because we've noted before on a couple occasions that the Yacht Club dock is used by the Coast Guard for any emergencies and And they don't use the feridoccus. The feridoccus is too high. And so a lot of their vessels can't really approach that dock, and obviously it's used more. So I think it's important because we've stressed that Susan Nemitz, Ph.D.: They you know there's an access required beyond just the use of a private private membership there, and I think that needs to be figured out going forward. Susan Nemitz, Ph.D.: I had also asked previously to make the recordings available of the working group meetings to the Commission because those discussions that happened in those working groups were also reported out, you know, in our normal communications here. And it would be helpful If the rest of the commissioners, Vice Chair Junius and I still sit on the working group, if the rest of the commission and of course the public has the opportunity to view that as well. I also wanted to reconfirm, I watched the June 15th, 2022 study session again just to prepare for our hearing tonight. And I wanted to reconfirm something that was asked of you to the best of your knowledge, that with the extension of the. um, of the ferry jetty that is sometime in the future, the ferry companies are going to extend that, that your understanding is that it would still accommodate the same size ferries, but part of that dock would actually, the reason it's also being extended is for queuing. |
| 03:23:38.53 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah, that's my understanding, too, that I think your knowledge in mine is about the same. There may be more information from the district itself about how they're going to make that happen. I had a slide in the presentation, which was from quite a few years ago. So I'll reach out again to my contact at Golden Gate just to make sure. we're still on the same page that they are going to replace the float |
| 03:24:02.67 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:24:03.03 | Mr. McGowan | which was repaired a couple of years ago. And they're going to extend the jetty. I think that's the right term. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. |
| 03:24:08.95 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. Works for me. Great. Let's see. I wanted to also reconfirm, you had mentioned in our study session last year that there's no sunset date on the grant. |
| 03:24:27.78 | Mr. McGowan | That's correct. It is different than our normal FHWA funding, but that doesn't mean it's not, they won't pull it. So there's nothing written that I've seen so far that says you have six years, usually with our federal highway stuff, it's six years. With this one, I don't see that, but they have been discussing this with our representatives at Golden Gate, and we have been audited as well. So there's still a lot going on behind the scenes with that funding. |
| 03:24:56.64 | Kristina Feller | So. |
| 03:25:01.08 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. I'm, you know, I and with great respect to to Becky, I'm not necessarily based on looking at this looking back at the tape from last year. I'm not really in agreement with some of the assumptions that she made in some of her slides, because I jotted down a bunch of notes here in the times that we were all making comments or asking questions. Thank you. And there was pretty strong consensus against any new vegetation along the walkway in front of the Yacht Club, It was kind of The majority of us, I'll put it that way, didn't want trees in the plaza at all. because that's a very important view corridor that we intend to kind of grab back. I think some of the existing trees have gotten quite large over time and aren't trimmed. and we're a little concerned about that. So I went back through that. So I'm not sure that the assumptions that you've come to to us tonight with are really consistent with what that last Planning Commission study session was. Now, of course, there have been other meetings in the working group. But I'm not really seeing a change in the design that we saw in June of 2022. So, I'm a little bit I'm a little concerned with that, and I hope we can work through at least a path forward that we can agree on tonight. even if it doesn't mean an approval. At least we have a shared idea of what the direction would be moving forward. Um, So anyway, that's enough about that. And then one last question about the kiosk, because I think everyone agreed to get rid of the kiosk because it's not really used. And the chamber is right there across or right, you know. 10 feet, 20 feet away. Is that a change from what we saw a year ago? |
| 03:27:01.67 | Mr. McGowan | It's been my understanding that the chamber and our council members wanted it to stay. But here again, we have a lot of hands in the equation, so to speak. And so what I'd like to suggest is let's bring forward everybody's recommendations. And if we need to bring a plan back that shows that. We will do so. |
| 03:27:22.19 | Kristina Feller | Okay. |
| 03:27:22.66 | Mr. McGowan | you And the difference is we will probably bring back to council and let everybody know Planning Commission recommends this. Other groups recommend this. |
| 03:27:30.46 | Kristina Feller | Perfect. And then if you can just, can you just please confirm where where you have now located the vending machines and if there are more vending machines than before And if there's any forward progress in today's day and age about actually using an app instead of a vending machine. |
| 03:27:51.09 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah. So good question. The district would like two machines. They haven't told us exactly where they want them. Thank you. |
| 03:27:58.30 | Unknown | OK. |
| 03:27:58.64 | Mr. McGowan | So this is, I am kind of smiling because I've reached out twice to them already. And so I had Becky put them on the plan where you think they need to go and we'll send it off to the district. And if they like it, great. If they don't, no big deal. So it's not just ticket machine, ticket vending machines for the ferry. It's also ticket vending machines for the parking lot as well. So we have to pay attention to both of those and where they're placed. So at this point in time, Becky's plan, I believe, shows them one on the east side where you have the where we're recommending the bicycle queuing occurring on the east side of the lot. And the other one is closer to the existing kiosk right in that area where we're going to closely place the fountain as well. |
| 03:28:31.12 | Marv Hovater | Thank you. |
| 03:28:31.14 | Kristina Feller | and I think that's the best thing to do. Thank you. |
| 03:28:34.97 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 03:28:38.75 | Kristina Feller | Okay. |
| 03:28:39.42 | Mr. McGowan | And we'll have to get electricity to at least two of those as well. So that's going to be tricky. |
| 03:28:43.78 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And I'm curious if, um, because I'm noting in the staff report, have you received any legal analysis of 1128? |
| 03:28:57.21 | Mr. McGowan | Well, we did have a presentation from our city attorney Um, more than- |
| 03:29:02.12 | Kristina Feller | In 2021. |
| 03:29:03.39 | Mr. McGowan | Yes. And that was at the council itself. And. |
| 03:29:08.16 | Kristina Feller | Has City Attorney Rudin provided you a legal analysis or any legal briefing? |
| 03:29:14.19 | Mr. McGowan | We can ask him that if he is on this call. |
| 03:29:18.08 | Mary Wagner | Yes, and I won't be discussing it in a public meeting. |
| 03:29:22.56 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And I guess we won't be either. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. |
| 03:29:30.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Feller, Commissioner Graff. Questions of the team? |
| 03:29:43.11 | Richard Graef | Some of them are of the design related to the discussion with Bob and sharing the pain how to affect the And I don't see any effort |
| 03:29:58.30 | Sandra Bushmaker | You turn on your microphone. |
| 03:30:00.31 | Richard Graef | Oh, I'm sorry. |
| 03:30:03.31 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 03:30:03.34 | Richard Graef | Okay, there were discussions about integrating new paving with the existing paving in some fashion and some with patterns or whatever, but I didn't see anything on the plans that represented any effort for that. uh, concept. been pursued or abandoned or |
| 03:30:36.42 | Mr. McGowan | We kind of backed away from adding patterns to the two pavement surfaces. We originally showed something about having longitudinal lines that point out to the bay Cost is an issue. So we're trying to limit our cost on the project and stick as close as we can to the budget that we have. Keep in mind that when you place new concrete next to old concrete, even if you do your best to match it, it's not really gonna match. So I wanna remind everybody that we can do our best. We can add color to it, try to match it. I believe the existing one is exposed aggregate. We're gonna have exposed aggregate on the new surface as well. Regardless, I've never seen it that you can really get it to match exactly. So there will be some differences. |
| 03:31:24.31 | Richard Graef | Well, of course. So the new paving is also planned to be concrete. I mean, what's shown on the plan is a grid that looks like it might be something else, but is that just a scoring or? |
| 03:31:40.33 | Mr. McGowan | It might just be scoring. Becky, do you want to add anything to that? Maybe we lost Becky. Okay, let's say it's scoring for now. |
| 03:31:52.22 | Richard Graef | All right, and the other was the bioretention, feature. What triggered that? |
| 03:32:03.86 | Mr. McGowan | It has to do with the square footage of improvements. improvements. Yes. Any square footage of improvements, even though the existing area is basically |
| 03:32:07.41 | Richard Graef | So. |
| 03:32:12.67 | Mr. McGowan | already paved, The way the state code kind of reads is MS4. If you're making improvements greater than a certain size, you need to have some bioretention. So not only that, it's kind of a city goal as well. We have strategic plan elements that we have here in the city. And so we have something that we have to comply with MS4, which means we have to filter all of our storm drain systems by 2030. So we're in line with that. Any opportunity that we have to install a filtration system, we need to move forward with that. |
| 03:32:46.73 | Richard Graef | Okay. |
| 03:32:47.18 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah. |
| 03:32:47.18 | Kristina Feller | Commissioner Graff, do you mind if I ask a follow on question to yours really quickly? |
| 03:32:53.04 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 03:32:53.06 | Unknown | But... |
| 03:32:53.14 | Kristina Feller | About the, yeah, I'm wondering where, if this is impacts the Rose Garden in Gabrielson Park. |
| 03:32:53.16 | Mr. McGowan | I'm not sure. |
| 03:33:00.70 | Mr. McGowan | No, I don't believe it does. |
| 03:33:02.07 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Sorry. |
| 03:33:03.08 | Richard Graef | No, it's okay. So what I was wondering was that there's some significant vegetation that kind of separates the parking lot from the park. And that seems to be something that many people are favoring. And with this expanse of bioretention, |
| 03:33:03.16 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 03:33:28.75 | Richard Graef | feature that a lot of that screening seems to have disappeared. As there been a discussion about trying to replace some of that somehow without getting too much actually taking away more of the park. I mean, I'm just thinking that you know, it just sort of opens up, opens the park up to the parking lot. And so, |
| 03:33:57.08 | Mr. McGowan | Well, it's a good suggestion. I haven't opened that up with our team members yet. We will definitely kind of work on that and see if we can identify some good. |
| 03:33:57.69 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 03:34:06.65 | Mr. McGowan | landscaping that can act as screening if that's what this commission is looking for. Thank you. |
| 03:34:12.42 | Richard Graef | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:34:12.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:15.02 | Richard Graef | Another question I had about, it's in the bicycle cueing. Um... in all the solutions there are problem areas. you know, where they cross, where they meet a street or where they, cross with pedestrians. How do you intend to manage those kind of conditions? I'm not real familiar with how it works right now because I rarely go downtown. I just don't go there. So maybe I'm just asking a question because I just don't know, but... When it comes to conditions such as crossing the driveway into the Yacht Club, I see. signs as being a solution, but I don't know that that's a really good solution. Oh, oh, oh. And there are other places where the wine would cross streets and have to be interrupted. And I'm just curious about it. That's managing a lot of bikes and people. And what's the concept there? |
| 03:35:35.23 | Mr. McGowan | Okay, thank you for the question. I'm hoping, David Parisi, are you still on the call? Maybe you can step up and help with answering that question. |
| 03:35:42.97 | David Parisi | Yeah, thanks, Kevin. That is a good question. We do think through signing and markings as one way with and also including a good design that has the paving materials that we're talking about. I'm also envisioning for some signing, you know, very, Probably some nice wayfinding signs that are international, again, symbolic. as much as practical. not too many, somewhat elegant, that really can define the pedestrian route and the bike route as well. These are still to be designed, but we think it would be a really good solution. Certainly, we want to keep the two flows, we recommend keeping them separate. We think it'd be easier, it's more logical. And again, we'll be looking at assigning and marking details for that. |
| 03:36:36.50 | Mr. McGowan | So I'll add to that a little bit. I was fortunate to meet with the folks at the Yacht Club yesterday, and they brought up the same issue. And there are challenges there. And David, I know that when it comes to traffic issues, there are tradeoffs. And so in this case, what we're trying to address is a conflict point that we see right now where folks who have their bikes want to board the ferry and they are sharing the same area as pedestrians that want to board the ferry. It's getting late. I can't talk. So that want to board the ferry. So currently there's a bit of conflict in that configuration where everybody's in the plaza. We were attempting to try to address that by splitting the flows. In doing so, we may have created another issue, which is the yacht club. So we are aware of it. But what I'm suggesting is I think that this is a good alternative to give it a try. Let's see if this works correctly. And with David's help, with signage, we're hoping that it does. But at the same time, I think us as staff, we're always open to suggestions. That's why we're here. |
| 03:37:29.55 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:37:53.09 | Richard Graef | Okay. |
| 03:37:59.22 | Richard Graef | The other question really had to do with one of the options of the bicycle cueing where you're showing much of it going through Tracy Way, and on into the plaza. And I was curious about how that would work if Tracy Weyer's jam full of parked bikes. I don't see those two things working very well. |
| 03:38:32.53 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah, very well. It's true as well. You know, with those two options, if you choose to put the bicycles heading back towards Tracy Way as they board the ferry, there's limited room. We're kind of stuck with what we have. So that was the intent of trying to identify areas that we could split the flow and have them, if there's a whole lot of bikes, have them extend all the way down Spinnaker if they need to, because there is a little bit of space there to do so. But again, it introduces some other issues, which the folks at the Yacht Club brought up, as well as others on some of the correspondence. So I welcome all that. It's all good. |
| 03:39:12.10 | Richard Graef | I see several. potential conflicts with that. you |
| 03:39:16.00 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah. |
| 03:39:16.19 | Richard Graef | Thank you. Root. Um, That's enough for now. |
| 03:39:22.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Graff. I just want to clarify something you said a minute or so ago. You said something about recommendations that come out of this. I want to reiterate what I said at the beginning. We need to approve a design review. So we need to have a set of plans, not alternatives, not suggestions. We need to approve it. whether the city council gets appealed or they try to do some overriding our role here tonight is different than our role has been today and our role is to make a series of findings and clearly these drawings are not at that level we can't do that tonight i mean we're i haven't decided where we're going with this but a lot of we these drawings are not at a level that we could actually vote on them to approve what we can do. I think best tonight would give you some directions on a couple of key things like the bicycle queuing and the bio retention. So you can get the drawings to a level that are what they need to be to have findings. I mean, they're not there. So is are you looking tonight for us to give you not recommendations or guidance on what it will take to get? Thank you. I mean, we they're not there so is are you looking tonight for us to give you not recommendations or guidance on what it will take to get. you to come back for an actual finalization when you get the drawings are to that level, or what are you looking for us really to do this evening. |
| 03:40:43.90 | Mr. McGowan | You had a lot of statements in there that I don't necessarily agree with. So at this point in time, we have submitted something to you. We're asking you to review it and approve it. If you don't approve it, that's fine. |
| 03:40:48.05 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 03:40:48.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:48.17 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 03:40:48.32 | Unknown | So, |
| 03:40:56.73 | Mr. McGowan | We can also come back to you at a certain point in time with changes that you might recommend. However, I'd like to review that with our city council members as well to ask them direction. Do they want us to spend our staff time in order to do so? So at this point, you have an application in front of you. and we're asking you to approve it. |
| 03:41:16.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So I want to be clear, we were to approve the application with conditions and the building inspector, when you build this, will make sure it's built to all those conditions. If you change the design, it's going to be contrary to what we approve. So I heard from Becky a number of, well, there's an alternative for this or that, and we're not sure we possibly could put this on Tracy way. We're gonna, so in other words, if we can, whatever we approve, is what you have to build. And if you don't build it, then you have to come back for a modification of the plan. The same thing we just had on the prior application, where if you want to modify the design, you would have to come back to us to modify the design. So I mean, I think there's a disconnect in the language and what you think we're doing at this point compared to what we were doing before. Before we were trying to help you with a public infrastructure project. Now we're trying to put on our head as the planning commission that has to approve a public project under design review as stated in the municipal order, which is different. And so, you know, I'm struggling to explain that. But I don't think these plans are to the level that we could approve because they're not specific enough. They need to be 100% plans, not 90% plans, but we can give guidance and give you suggestions of what we're going to have to see. We could do that, but But we need 100% plans because that's what you need to build. |
| 03:43:01.89 | Mr. McGowan | So I would make some comments on that. The building official doesn't approve this. It goes through my office. We have an inspection team. This is a public infrastructure project. We don't use the building inspection department. |
| 03:43:13.53 | Richard Graef | So good. |
| 03:43:14.11 | Mr. McGowan | All right. There are changes that occur in the field. They go through my office. They go through the city manager's office. these things happen. In other words, you could have lovely material underneath the soil, which we definitely have. So there are changes that occur, and I don't think that we would bring those back to the planning commission. If there's a material change in the actual project where, let's say, we expand the plaza by another 100 feet, yeah, we would bring that back to you. But if it's in general conformance with what you are approving, then we would move forward with that. |
| 03:43:48.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No, I concur with that. And as we explained earlier, minor modifications to a project will come back to community development in the case of a private project. So, yeah, minor modifications, but major modifications. If you were to completely change how the bike queuing worked and you were going to rechange where the parking spaces are and where the curbing goes, that would be a major modification. And part of our condition is going to be any major major modification needs to come back to the planning commission. And because I heard various different things from Becky this evening. I don't, you know, we'll get to the negotiation with the Planning Commission, but I don't think these plans are there. for that kind of approval. |
| 03:44:36.73 | Mr. McGowan | Well, I question what type of detail do you need? We're showing a hard skate project. That's all it is. It's just hardscape. And it's showing that we are installing a bioretention area. If you need details on that, I can understand that. |
| 03:44:52.40 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I guess we're looking for the wayfinding that you said that is coming. We would like to see the actual wayfinding, both in English and in symbols, because without that, this doesn't work. |
| 03:44:52.66 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 03:45:04.52 | Mr. McGowan | symbols. |
| 03:45:08.03 | Mr. McGowan | Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. |
| 03:45:09.16 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Sorry, other questions from Commissioner Felder. |
| 03:45:14.81 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, sorry, Director McGowan. I had a couple other questions that I issued to staff earlier and it was a busy day for everybody. So I just wanted to, I didn't get responses back. So I wanted just to. because I sent it at a later hour. So I just wanted to go over these with you, if you don't mind. I wanted to ask you, this project was on our planning commission agenda earlier this year, but it was pulled at the last minute. Was that a change in design direction or why was that pulled? |
| 03:45:48.67 | Mr. McGowan | You know, I'm not too sure at this point in time. I know that we had to bring it to HPC first. That was a recommendation by our city attorney to not mix the two together. So we did that. There may have been a conflict with something on your agenda as well as our agenda as well. So, you know, I don't think it's anything having to do with the actual design. It's more scheduled. |
| 03:46:11.48 | Kristina Feller | Got it. Okay. Appreciate that. And then, um, You know, one of the things that we talked about was it last week or the week before regarding this project was the reference to the city's contract with the third party group for the bike parking that contract is up in the this fall. And so it offers an opportunity to kind of rethink. how we park bikes and where we park bikes and, you know, do double-decker the bikes like most buildings downtown in San Francisco do, or it's just an opportunity to kind of rethink that or really revisit that scope. So I'm curious if you, Have you ever spoke to anyone in the city about that or looked at what that scope of work was or considered that for tonight in terms of what you're proposing in front of us? |
| 03:47:04.85 | Mr. McGowan | No, I haven't. That system is managed by our police department. It's not managed through public works. Okay. I haven't reached out to them specifically. I know they're short on staff as well. My concentration has been specifically to the grant and how it applies. |
| 03:47:11.35 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.53 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And that's good. So I appreciate that too. My point in asking that is we don't always have to assume that Tracy Way is just used for bike racks, you know, in, in seasonal times where there are other options at our fingertips. So thank, thank you for clarifying that. And then I wanted to ask you, I'm assuming this falls under public works. what the deal is with the shipping containers that take up, you know, I went down there again today, like maybe five spots. Then you've got a solar generator. And then there's some bizarre... Coned off area that's become a makeshift break room, I think, for ferry workers. And that's taking up like three or four spots. So, um, is it, how is that reflected in your proposed idea or plan? |
| 03:48:17.01 | Mr. McGowan | So I wish I could say I could be every place all the time. However, I can't be. The shipping container, I've been told by our recreation director, is utilized for Jazz by the Bank. They store the tables and the chairs in there because they can't necessarily load them from MLK. It'll be there until I want to say the end of September, something like that, when the event is over. As far as this other areas for Golden Gate, I'd have to look into that one. But for now, it's my understanding that Brian and our recreation department put the container down there and hasn't had too many complaints. I wasn't aware of it until you've actually mentioned it. |
| 03:49:00.09 | Kristina Feller | I'm not necessarily complaining about it. What I'm asking about, and it doesn't seem to move even when Jazz by the Bay isn't. isn't on in the summer. is... Obviously, you need some, you know, the city needs some kind of storage down there. How is that incorporated? into your design. because if, and maybe we can look at the plan again, because The existing parking lot one. Um, And the. um, border of whatever that is, and then your proposed new one you're basically taking up way more space for the new parking lot one for less vehicles. And it doesn't reflect all these other vehicles needs, let's say, that end up in the parking lot. So I'm trying to understand how this plan is reflecting what other needs are down there And I'm not advocating it be in the parking lot. I'm not advocating it be somewhere else. I'm just curious where it will be in the new plan. |
| 03:50:03.14 | Mr. McGowan | It's a good comment. I'll have to look into it. |
| 03:50:05.47 | Kristina Feller | Okay. All right. Thank you. |
| 03:50:08.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Before we move on to public input, public hearing portion of our this evening's hearing, are there any other questions? Commissioner Graff. |
| 03:50:24.79 | Richard Graef | I'm looking at the location of the disabled parking in the various different plans over time they've been shifting all over the place and then most recent plans they're where you think they ought to be correct |
| 03:50:35.78 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:50:43.96 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah, we have to have some disabled parking spaces closer to the plaza itself. Some of the original plans moved them all the way over to the north side of the parking lot one, and we can't have that. We've got to have some as close to the plaza and spread throughout in areas that folks can get access to the plaza itself. |
| 03:51:02.47 | Richard Graef | Thank you. Thank you. with that question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:51:14.22 | Mr. McGowan | That's per the building code itself. Yeah, it's one per 25, I believe. |
| 03:51:22.82 | Richard Graef | Thank you. Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:51:26.43 | Mr. McGowan | Yes. Yes. |
| 03:51:28.58 | Richard Graef | Um, Thank you. along with them. Was there any... consideration given to put some of the disabled. and parking spaces closer to the 30th. Thank you. |
| 03:51:43.82 | Mr. McGowan | know that's a little bit tricky if you put them as close to the landing itself they would have to cross the active roadway in order to get to the plaza. And sometimes that's not preferred. So it has to do with having compliant access Thank you. where someone in the wheelchair or who is visually challenged. doesn't camp doesn't shouldn't walk across an active vehicle pathway. |
| 03:52:12.44 | Richard Graef | Thank you. and form ways of calling it. crazy way. the I only closed that off for average. It... Thank you. |
| 03:52:26.63 | Mr. McGowan | Yeah, you know, that's a good question as well. I think I'll raise that with our police chief when we start to take a look at some of the bicycle issues that Commissioner Feller brought up, you know what to do with that area, especially if the contract runs out for the bicycle return companies. So it's a good question. |
| 03:52:55.03 | Unknown | Right. |
| 03:52:55.67 | Richard Graef | closing off, starting to wait in the break. |
| 03:52:58.94 | Unknown | Right. |
| 03:53:04.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Graff. If there's no more questions from the commissioners, thank you, Director McGowan. At this point, we'll do a public hearing portion. If people haven't already, if you can fill out a speaker card for the people in the room, for the people on Zoom, if you can just raise your hand. As I said earlier, we're going to go with two minutes per person. But if somebody says something you were going to say, just say you concur with that. Might be helpful. But again, you have the full two minutes to discuss whatever you would like to discuss relative to this proposal. At this point, I'm going to turn it over to Director Phipps to call on people using the speaker cards. Thank you, Director Phipps. |
| 03:53:45.89 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much, Chair. Looking at the speaker cards. Alice Merrill, are you still here? Alice may have gone home. She may be joining us on the Zoom application. On to the next one. Jack. Lilman. |
| 03:54:05.08 | Director Phipps | Monsieur, you'll have two minutes to speak. Please state your name and address for the record. |
| 03:54:10.17 | Jacques Ullman | Jacques Ullman on Litho Street, about, I don't know, going on 60 years living in Sausalito. I'm one of the three local design professionals that worked on this project. Also, I was one of the designers of Dunphy Park. When renovating public spaces, old patterns have to be adjusted to changing circumstances. When I first commuted to work in San Francisco in 1970, the ferry was smaller and there were very few bicycles. Now we have to adjust to totally different circumstances. Farying interests have to adjust and compromise for the common good. |
| 03:54:14.93 | Director Phipps | I don't know. |
| 03:54:53.03 | Jacques Ullman | When designing Dunphy Park, we encountered a number of very vocal and forceful special interests. We worked very hard to find common ground. There were critics, but I believe that now all the various interests are working together and do not feel compromised. This is what we have worked to achieve in designing the ferry landing improvements. The sidewalk that crosses the entrance to the yacht club parking is significantly wider, and the entrance is much more strongly identified. At very peak periods, perhaps there could be an attendant at the crossing. We are asking the Yacht Club members to absorb a small amount of inconvenience that will allow for a greatly improved important downtown public space, eliminating bicycle congestion around Vina del Mar Park, enhancing pedestrian circulation. The proposed improvements will certainly greatly improve the ferry landing area, but our downtown will still be a mess until we address the awkward and congested pedestrian circulation. At the intersection of bridgeway anchor and Tracy way and bridgeway and El portal, the additive alternative. What can I say? I've spent years working on this project. I get two minutes. What can you do? |
| 03:56:19.82 | Director Phipps | Thank you for your comment, Jacques. And this next speaker is Morgan Pierce. Morgan, please step forward. |
| 03:56:30.89 | Morgan Pierce | Good evening. Director Phipps. Chairman Luxembourg, city commissioners of their community. I'm Morgan Pierce, 17 years on Curry Lane. I'm an architect, landscape architect. I've been a member and chair of this commission. I've been a member and chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. And tonight I'm speaking to you as an individual who cares a great deal about our city. As a design professional and community volunteer, I commiserate with you and have great respect to the diligence, creativity, and passion that you city staff and members of our community have contributed towards navigating the inherent challenges associated with this effort and crafting an appropriate and thoughtful solution I've reviewed the projects in the middle and find it to be straightforward and comprehensive results make strides towards improving one of our most important most visible public spaces in terms of safety, accessibility, enjoyment, and sustainability. I know what it's like to be a designer striving for perfection, I know what it's like to be a collaborator attempting to address the concerns of every stakeholder involved. I'm also aware that public projects of this scale have the potential to improve the lives of many while inconveniencing some. I'm also aware that no design is perfect, nor will it ever be. In this instance, it is important to recognize that the pursuit of perfection may be futile And oftentimes the result is nothing getting accomplished. We are at a fork in the road as a community. We can continue with aggravating complacency and the misguided hope that the perfect solution will be found someday. or we can be courageous and take the next step forward. As a designer, I've learned when it's time to stop drawing, put my pencil down and start building. Now is that time. Thank you. |
| 03:58:13.12 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Mr. Pierce, for your comments. Next speaker is Mr. Van Meter. Peter, come on up. |
| 03:58:24.51 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you, commissioners. After 20 years, it's great to see actual plans coming up for final design review. address the points that you've been asked to provide feedback on tonight. It's really essential that the pedestrians and bicycles be separated. We look down and see the congestion there going on now. It is a mess. Therefore the current plan is one that should be adopted. I'm a member of the Sausalito Yacht Club, and I think that Periodic, intermittent. you know, All right. Not times, all times of the day is not going to be a factor for entering into the yacht club. regarding your comment about concrete. It's been mentioned that the contact, the colors and surfaces should be compatible. I agree with that completely. have it look like one continuous piece of material. um, The Sally Stanford Fountain Relocation. You may have seen a video I made of that when it was installed in 1985. that going back to the original location approved by the HPC is the right thing on that. I like having no trees in the plaza, looking at an open, expansive area. If you must feel you have to have trees, I provide a sketch of the material I sent you later today that shows an idea of moving those tree alignment more across the edge of the parking lot, so you maintain a bigger open plaza looking space outside of the trees. Um, Also, please do not use those heavy wood benches. use some more traditional bits. That is just, in my opinion, an awful design feature. I know we've seen other places in town, but please try to avoid those tensions. Although it's not a topic of the agenda tonight, 1128 has been vetted by everybody that's worked on this project since at least 2007. We know that it's in compliance with the 5% land use rule. So thank you for approving the design tonight through your design review process. |
| 04:00:17.44 | Director Phipps | Peter, thank you for your comment. Next speaker is Teresa Raya. Teresa, please step forward. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:00:26.70 | Teresa Ray | Good evening. I'm Teresa Ray. There are way too many questions for you to say yay or nay on this proposal tonight. One big one to me is the Bridges has to go to BCDC anyway if they're going to extend their jetty. So why not wait till they do their design, find out how many bikes people can be queued on their own jetty and find ways to eliminate the impact land side for the town. I also want to know why it's correct to put visitors on bicycles into traffic hazards when they aren't now. Crossing an active driveway, please ask the traffic engineer for examples of where he's designed a bicycle or pedestrian queues across a working driveway where it worked. Um, And I also want to observe, I am a Yacht Club member, bicycle queuing across the driveway won't work. Yes, they'll stand still before loading starts, but as soon as loading starts, they will charge forward. It's so much harder to get a bunch of bicyclists to get out of the way for a delivery truck or one of our members' cars or a boat trailer. If you have to split them, Still not ideal, but put the pedestrians going that way and the bicycles the other way. Be much easier for people to scamper out of the way. I also wanted to know from Becky who kind of hedged on how many bicycles could be actually accommodated if you did them in the plaza area where the pedestrians are being contemplated. |
| 04:02:31.46 | Teresa Ray | Thank you. |
| 04:02:31.68 | Director Phipps | Thank you. Teresa, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is John Flavin. John, please step forward. |
| 04:02:45.38 | John Flavin | My name is John Flavin. I live on Prospect Avenue. I had a very similar position to what Kevin does. I had projects to expand or deal with changing shopping centers, and I had to deal with a lot of different components. The only distinction between Kevin and my approach to this is I used to find out who was most likely to sue me. at the end of the deal. And I would go talk to them first because I want to know what their opinions are. That approach has not been used here. We're not talking to the retailers. We're not talking to the people in that area. And we didn't talk to the Yacht Club until yesterday. And that is a problem. You're taking away 40 spaces. 40 parking spaces. Those retailers look like that like it's death. They live on a margin, and 40 is a big percentage of the total in that parking lot. Final comment I have is retention, I mean, bioretention facilities are not advised. If you Google them, you'll see most landscapers don't like them because they're very high maintenance, they're costly to maintain, and they should not be done in areas of high water. Now, I don't know the distance between the bottom of the bioretention and the water down below, but it's rising. And so that's a problem. So my idea is go out and talk to the people who are likely to sue you and figure out how to get this resolved without necessarily going to an 1128 challenge. Thank you. |
| 04:04:33.72 | Director Phipps | Mr. Flavin, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker, I am seeing as Jan Johnson. Jan, step forward. You'll have two minutes. Thank you very much. |
| 04:04:45.70 | Jan Johnson | Hi, Jan Johnson. Good evening. 30-year resident. Multiple worries about this project. One, what will keep the toddlers, kids, and dogs out of the bioretention facility since they're usually playing and scampering about Gabrielson Park. Thank you. There were two designs here presented tonight, and I'm not sure which one you're voting on. There's one that has the bicycle queuing along Gabrielson Park and takes away lots of parking. And there's one that's parallel to the outer side of the plaza that doesn't take away so much parking. Bicycles are already occupying Tracy way. and you're putting parking into the plaza area, people take the shortest path. You're going to ask the people who are parked in the plaza area to walk around the parking lot to get in the queue? I don't think so. And I don't think people coming out of the Vice Tracy Way are going to want to walk all the way around the parking lot to get into that queue. So I think you're going to have further chaos. And then the other thing is I was there Sunday. The parking lot was chock-a-block full. There were two or three cars in every lane waiting to park. 28 or 38 bicyclists do not do the shopping that 38 bicyclists, cars with their one to three to four to five occupants due. If you remove that parking, I think you're going to really hurt. our retailers and our restaurants and our shops. to the detriment of their incomes, livelihoods, and survival, and to the detriment of our sales taxes. Um... And I think that's it for now. Please don't approve this tonight. |
| 04:06:48.77 | Director Phipps | Ms. Johnson, thank you very much for your comments. next speaker is Michael Rex Michael please step forward you got two minutes |
| 04:06:59.93 | Michael Rex | Michael Rex local architect and on the architect volunteer committee. We spent almost four years studying this at great depth to have two minutes to critique it is absurd and it discourages volunteering one's time. You can't have a meaningful dialogue in two minutes, okay? Thank you. But I'll give it my best. There's a lot I see here. I want you to know we reached out in those four years of study. We talked to the hotel operators, we made presentation to the yacht club. We talked to the people who manage the ferry landing. They told us we have to have shade. We have emergency people suffering from sunstroke. We rush out with bottles. Please provide shade. The trees are essential. The change that Becky made to raise them up with high crowns so you look under them. is important from an aesthetic standpoint. they create an Ali that defines the shoreline trail. We need the trees. Putting the benches under the trees makes a lot of sense. They don't have to be so heavy, as Peter suggested. um, We urged against putting bike storage on Tracy way. If you do that, it's a fatal flaw. Because what will happen is this. They'll queue up in the plaza to get to the ferry landing. They're never going to walk around, as Jan said, to queue up on the other side. The storage belongs along Gabrielson Park, or if that is not room enough, along Spinnaker Way. Do not park on, if you have bikes lining up in front of the plaza, you block the loading from the plaza and you certainly block the view you're trying to protect. Parking, last thing I'll say, you're taking away too many parking spaces. I don't think you need to take away the parking on the Gabrielson side. Thank you. |
| 04:09:02.39 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much, Mr. Rex. Next speaker is Chuck Reistrom. Please step forward. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:09:10.72 | Chuck Reistrom | Okay, in regards to the bicycle, I remember, I'm a member of the Yacht Club. And basically, they did have the bicycles being loaded in front of our driveway. And I can tell you, pulling out of the lot, you had to honk your horn. They didn't want to move. I think Becky saying we'll have do not block driveway and stuff like that is being very naive. simply because they're going to have to print them in how many languages so everyone understands it. I mean, we've been on the road, driving with our cars and they have, do not block the intersection. How many people do you see when you're on the road? Just pull in there and wait. So, and the other thing I would add is I don't know why the commission would have us wait. on an issue as important as this, And here we are commenting, Three hours later, if you're going to have a hearing on this, it should be solely on this. Thank you. |
| 04:10:07.00 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Mr. Reistram. Next speaker is Pat Sook. Pat, come on down. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:10:15.34 | Pat Sook | I think I need more like two days. Um, I think you have real design issues here, some of which you've accepted without question. My concern is that this project is huge. Is it needed? to be this huge. You've got a 20 foot wide path going adjacent to Gabrielson, where there's now 18 or so parking spaces, 20 feet. in the middle of the room is 20 feet, I would think. Why is that necessary? People queue up three abreast. I think I could fit three of me inside of seven feet, for example. The size of the concrete addition to this in this project is what's generating the need for the size of the bio containment facility. And That biocontainment facility to me is a really disastrous design choice. There have to be other ways to deal with it. I cannot believe people who build parking lots use their neighbors property to put biocontainment trenches on to deal with their affluent. The one big thing that in addition to that 20 foot wide path the one big element that you're accepting. is the need to expand the plaza to the degree the designers want to in this case. That expansion has very little to do with bike queuing or people queuing. It has to do with viewing and benches. Now, maybe the decision should be, We value. viewing and benches over parking and revenue and retail viability. And if that's the case, that will be achieved. But I think those are design considerations you can question and try and modify. Thank you. |
| 04:12:09.28 | Director Phipps | Pat, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Russell. Russell Kruk, please step forward. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:12:21.93 | Russell Croce | I'm Russell Croce, the rear Commodore at the Yacht Club. We'll be Commodore in 2025. this is going to negatively affect the yacht club. And more than that, going to be negatively affect a lot of people in Sausalito. But, uh, I, I agree with the comments from, um, the bicycle queue, We'll never be able to stop the bicycles from going across our driveway. with signage or warnings, it's never going to happen. I agree with Jacques, same thing with going. going in and across an intersection, looking at downtown Manhattan. And rush hour, the same thing is going to happen. So I urge if you're going to, set up the queue. do another area, not in front of, Gabrielson Park across our driveway. If I can make one comment, that would be it. And I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. |
| 04:13:40.88 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much. Next speaker is Kay Mitzel. Okay, come on down. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:13:52.40 | Kaye Mitzel | Good evening. I'm Kaye Mitzel. I'm a 40 year resident of Sausalito and I'm also a Sausalito Yacht Club member. And I'm not going to take even two minutes. I'm going to reiterate and just say, I agree with Teresa. I agree with what Russell said, what Jock said. And what we have said to Kevin yesterday, The difficulties that we already have in the driveway and the congestion in the parking lot is a critical point. without adding 300 potential bicyclists in front of there. It's a danger to people driving. It's a danger to people on their bicycles. and it's a dangerous for the pedestrians. So please, Vote no on this. Thank you. |
| 04:14:36.51 | Director Phipps | Okay, thank you very much for your comment. That concludes the public comment that I have in connection with speaker cards. Look into the Zoom application. Next speaker is Marv Hovater. |
| 04:14:58.50 | Director Phipps | Marv, you're on mute. |
| 04:15:00.20 | Marv Hovater | I'm pushing all the buttons here. What Kool-Aid are you drinking, brother? So, absolutely though, tourism. They're physical children. in the train. It's going down the tube. Why are we spending a lot of money here preparing for. something is not gonna happen. these tourism These bicycles. I'm going to go with it, Rachel. not gonna keep going. |
| 04:15:40.98 | Marv Hovater | Look at the future. these bicycles, WE NEED TO TEND TO. No, we don't. Mm. |
| 04:15:55.94 | Marv Hovater | They're gonna stop. They're going to stop. They're going to stop keeping the cost of pressure. That's what I predict. You know? Why would we spend Our taxpayer money here Kind of predictive. kind of. help something. Not going to happen. Look at that. |
| 04:16:34.74 | Director Phipps | Marv, thank you very much for your comment. If you are finished, We will move on to the next speaker. Matthew Hartzell? Please unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes. |
| 04:16:49.88 | Matthew Hartzell | Yes, thank you. Could you turn on my, allow me to turn on my video please? Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Matt Hartzell, the Director of Planning at WTB TAM And I want to speak about the North-South Greenway. It's a pathway of regional importance, the most important pathway in Marin. It runs from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Sonoma County border. And it also runs right through this project site. And the alignment of the North-South Greenway through this project site was planned in the 2010 ferry terminal to gate six road feasibility study by Alta Planning and Carisi Transportation Consultants. And, I'm concerned that this project plan doesn't allow for the completion of the North South Greenway through this site. I realized that the staff report says that this this plan still allows for it in the future in phase two. However, I'm concerned that the the size of the Plaza overlaps with the designated alignment of the north south greenway. And that if well, it's possible the greenway could be moved over outside of where the Plaza is in these designs, but in order to do so it seems that more parking would need to be removed from parking parking lot one, which is clearly a controversial issue in this community. and also due to this infamous ordinance 1128 with its 5% maximum parking removal. It seems that this project is already maxing out that 5%. So I'm worried that it wouldn't allow any future parking removal to complete the greenway. I just wanna reiterate that the greenway |
| 04:18:28.12 | Unknown | I just want it. |
| 04:18:30.37 | Matthew Hartzell | is not about out of towners and tourists. It's about Sausalito residents. It's about Marin County residents. It's about local benefit. It's about local congestion relief. It's about improving the air quality and the environment in Sausalito, in Marin County, reducing Marin County's greenhouse gas Gracias. So I wanna make sure that you are keeping in mind the future use of this important site and keep it open for the Greenway. Thank you. |
| 04:19:02.01 | Director Phipps | Matthew, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Kieran Culligan. Kieran, please unmute yourself. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:19:11.31 | Kieran Culligan | there. My name is Kieran Culligan. I'm a Sausalito resident and vice chair of the Sausalito Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee. I've been following this project since 2019. And in 2021, the PBAC discussed a number of pedestrian and bicycle hotspots in the area. So it's great to see the project moving along, including support from city staff. And it appears to be addressing most, if not all of the noted hotspots that we discussed. I also like that it's flexible. If the queuing plan doesn't work, you can change it. You can move it. You can tweak it. This isn't like having to design for cars. It's much easier to deal with. And I hope we can even get rid of bicycle queuing someday with a pass system. it would benefit our local businesses to go spend money instead of standing in line. I agree with Matt on the previous comment. I'd love to see how the Greenway can fit in because it is in our general plan. and its original priority. After reading the many comments for this item, I just can't help but note a sad, sad irony. In a month, July of 2023, where the world is experiencing the hottest days ever recorded and vast regions of the Antarctic coastline are ice-free for the first time in history, we're here in a planning commission hearing things like every parking space counts when one ferry boat can carry as many people as lot one will accommodate all day for all of the cars that come into it. We're hearing that pride of Madeira, an invasive species, is now seems to be part of a historic planting quote. Ordinance 1128, let's not even go there. Thank goodness city staff clarified that it's not a topic for tonight, but I think it's been looked at and there's a path forward. We even heard a commissioner tonight surmise on the previous item that bicycles are more dangerous than cars in this town, when in fact, there's clear data saying that 80 to 90% of pedestrian injuries are from cars. And so these are the type of misconceptions we're dealing with. It's scary, it's terrifying. In fact, we have all of them. |
| 04:21:18.59 | Director Phipps | Mr. Culligan, thank you very much for your comments. Next speaker is Clayton Smith. Clayton, please unmute yourself. You will have two minutes. |
| 04:21:40.30 | Director Phipps | Clayton, looks like you're somewhere beautiful, but you're currently muted. |
| 04:21:57.35 | Clayton Smith | put that up on the... |
| 04:21:58.74 | Director Phipps | There we go. |
| 04:21:59.14 | Clayton Smith | Yeah. Okay, are we here? All right. All right. Yeah, it's a good backdrop. It's... near beach on a sunny day. Putting this in context, This all started with a disrespectful behavior. the bicycle community. during what they called critical mass. some decades ago. I don't think I'm alone experiencing. Bicycle fatigue. This is a rush to judgment. very late night hearing nature of this. says that you really don't want to hear from your unhappy public. which is mostly turned off And going to sleep already. This is not about answering wishes and needs of the local community. It's for city tourists, so the displacement. of Marin's actual residence. Downtown Sausalito. is no longer being considered as to be a part of Marin County anymore. The last assertions. that this is the hottest moment in history. is beyond bogus. is being used to drive us into a paradigm. we will surrender our cards for bicycles. Now in a town that is as hilly as Sausalito, That basically is going to preclude all the people who are not young, healthy, and fit. and who are . Use bicycles to get around. which is actually in its own way a kind of form of discrimination. And in the county that is aging as much as Marin County is. It should be something that's on the agenda. And to go back to the other person's earlier comment, people who come to Sausalito in cars, Thank you. are the ones who are expensive. |
| 04:24:09.77 | Director Phipps | Clayton, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Teresa Ancona. Teresa, please unmute yourself. You'll have two minutes. |
| 04:24:23.61 | Teresa Ancona | So I'm here actually as a chamber chair And as chamber chair, I want to express our memberships concern about removing any vehicular Parking and replacing it with bicycle parking. Bicycle parking does not equate to a one for one exchange. Secondly, regarding the kiosk. Previous to COVID, the chamber consistently staffed the kiosk for information as a information booth and the chamber continues to utilize the kiosk as a point of information for the city. Thank you. |
| 04:25:06.58 | Director Phipps | Teresa, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you all have two minutes. |
| 04:25:13.27 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening. Good evening. Once again, I just want to remind you Commissioners, first of all, I agree with the comments that have been made from the dais about how confusing it is that what you're voting on. And I don't think you can vote on a design with what you were given. Secondly, I don't want to dismiss this 1128 so easily. I do believe that Karen Hollweg, This 1128 does apply to this particular project and there's nothing that your city attorney. the city attorney said tonight that would preclude this commission from recommending to the city council that they put this on the ballot. and let the rest of the community make its voice known. You already have in your packet tonight 80 people who took the time to write sometimes very detailed objections to this particular project. And I want those people recognized as much as the people who have appeared tonight and spoken before you. Because their voice needs to be heard, as do the rest of the residents of Sausalito. That's why I'm promoting that this you recommend to the city council to put this matter on the ballot. Lastly, you might take a look at the the deed that the Maddens when they gave granted Gabelson Park to the city for the meets and bounds for the boundary of the park. Um, I think that's all I have at this particular point. I just think that this project is very confusing what has been submitted to you tonight. I've looked at the prior drawings. I do agree with other speakers who are confused with what is the specifics and the alternatives that are not nailed down at this particular point. I think that you can also recommend that the concept recommend to the City Council that the concept of this particular matter be put on the ballot. |
| 04:27:18.17 | Director Phipps | Sandra, thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker is Alice Merrill. Alice, please unmute yourself and you will have two minutes. |
| 04:27:26.17 | Alice Merrill | All right. I just want to say that I agree with everything Sandra said, so that's short and sweet. I'm glad that I'm glad that it's not trying to turn into a park, that it's still a parking lot, But, It's too confusing. So maybe a ballot measure is what we need in this particular case. Thank you. |
| 04:27:52.12 | Director Phipps | Alice, thank you very much for your comments. Looking to the Zoom application for additional hands raised. chair, seeing none. Back to you. |
| 04:28:01.50 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. At this point, we're going to close the public hearing portion of this hearing. I mean, the public comment portion of the public hearing and bring it back up to the dais. At this point, Commissioners, I just took some notes. I mean, I think there's several issues that I don't know if we can get concurrence on, but probably worth talking about here. There's the path of the bike queuing. There's the path of the pedestrian queuing. There's the issue of wayfinding. There's the issue of the trees. There was issue of this bioretention basin, whatever it's called. There's an issue of Tracy way whether it's closed or not a new one I hadn't heard before is this north south greenway. There's the kiosk and then there's the number of parking spaces and as it relates to 1125, although that's not necessarily 1128, although it's not necessarily in our purview. |
| 04:28:54.64 | Unknown | Not sure. |
| 04:29:01.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I do think that there might be others that you all have. So we can go and have some conversation. But I think if we can give Mr. McGowan some guidance on these issues as it relates to the drawings as we currently have them, that might be useful. And you might have some others you want to add. I don't know who wants to start. |
| 04:29:20.39 | Kristina Feller | I'll certainly. |
| 04:29:20.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Feld. |
| 04:29:22.64 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair. And I want to really thank the public for all their comments, both in writing and those who participated on Zoom and in the public forum. audience here tonight. I would like to go back to a comment I made at one of the last working group sessions, which echoed probably in much stronger language than what this commission indicated at our June 2022 work session. And that comment was, you know, a world does not exist where I could ever think of approving a project that generates a higher level of public safety than what is currently there and what's currently there is not great to begin with. So I will I can't support queuing in front of the club there's so many near. hits and misses and already. And I also am really wary of infringing upon Gary Brilson Park because that is one park in this city. that is used morning, noon, and night consistently. consistently there are people there Dog walkers rendezvous there. People are working at the picnic tables and hanging out. They're people lounging on the grass. So I want to be really... really clear about that. However, that being said, I really want to find a path and roadmap forward tonight because I do believe that our existing plaza does need... a lot of help. It needs to be renovated, upgraded, whatever you want to call it. And it could be organized in a manner in its existing footprint along with Tracy Way, which I don't believe anyone is against closing it to vehicular traffic. how we can use those combined areas and assets to our best ability to address safety, public safety, queuing, ferry needs, and then also city needs. So I, at this point, based on the information we have, you know, I would like to put a motion on the floor to continue this. with obvious discussion, because I don't think even if we were in agreement with what we had here tonight that we could actually execute a full approval with some of the outstanding items that have just sort of come up here anyway. So just like any other design applicant, we would ask for that. I also not really seeing how taking an extra space for parking and yielding less parking spots and is really an option here. It's unnecessary, completely unnecessary. And honestly, I'm uncomfortable. with approving a design review anyway, if we have no legal briefing on 1128, which is not within the purview necessarily of this commission. Uh, But I would strongly recommend without any hesitation that this issue of 1128 needs to go to the city council for their direction to put on the ballot. before we could actually approve anything unless we deal with the existing footprints of space as they are today. |
| 04:33:04.79 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Is there a second to that motion? |
| 04:33:13.65 | Nastassya Saad | Second. |
| 04:33:14.38 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. I think that there is more work that needs to be done. And so we're going to go around and people add into that. But I just want to frame this a little bit. I think that if we continue this, it's been to us before, not in the formal design review, but if we don't give some specific guidance on some of these issues, then we're not really going to move to your second point of moving forward. I think we need to sort of give some guidance on these issues as, you know, as we discuss it this evening and related to the sort of list I had, we have to give some guidance because it's going to come back. |
| 04:33:35.88 | Unknown | you |
| 04:33:36.03 | Marv Hovater | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:33:36.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:33:46.92 | Jim Gurney | you know. |
| 04:33:56.03 | Kristina Feller | Forgive my interruption, but to that point, we have given direction and our direction. |
| 04:33:59.76 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Right. |
| 04:34:01.68 | Kristina Feller | And our comments are not reflected in what we see tonight so forgive me for being a little frustrated and and director mcgallon. We you and I have spoken about this, so this is not not a surprise, but we have given quite a lot of feedback and none of it is really reflected here, so if you're looking for. |
| 04:34:03.25 | Jeffery Luxenberg | and what we're doing. |
| 04:34:03.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:34:21.51 | Kristina Feller | an approval of for under design review under the design review ordinance then the input we've provided to you would achieve the findings we have to make. So we would hope that you would reflect the input we've provided to achieve those findings. But at this point, I don't see that. |
| 04:34:45.39 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Fowler. I'm going to make a comment on 11-28th. If what comes out of this evening is some guidance on the issues that I sort of laid out that I've been hearing from the public and and the review of the staff report. And it changes the design, which I think it will, because there's alternatives in the design. Before you address 1128, you need to know what the design is. at the level that it's gonna be approvable at is because that would change whether you are and aren't complying with 1128. So if whatever changes that are made, it changes that, it's hard to make that decision on 1128. So I would suggest that we address some of those issues. Were you asking a question? Because the director came up, were you asking a specific question? |
| 04:35:42.51 | Kristina Feller | I wasn't asking a specific question, but I mean, I assume that this is we're deliberating. |
| 04:35:48.63 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:35:50.37 | Kristina Feller | but there's a motion on the floor in a second. Obviously it requires some discussion. Yeah. but I want to go through what you've listed here and all of the other comments. |
| 04:36:00.01 | Unknown | I'm going to sit here |
| 04:36:02.57 | Kristina Feller | that we made on June 15th of 2022. The comments we've made in the working group, some of that is recorded. which is why I wanted that recording available as an attachment to this agenda because There was some, it was pretty firm. It was pretty clear. And that was a reflection of what the commission had asked the working group to do on their behalf. |
| 04:36:25.30 | Jeffery Luxenberg | PB, David Ensign, Heightower he. Mark Benthien, SCECeal City Attorney & O'Otimal so I think we part of tonight is to answer some of these issues and give some direction, but with that i'll go to Commissioner graph of comments thoughts. |
| 04:36:49.52 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 04:36:49.59 | Unknown | Hmm. |
| 04:36:51.88 | Richard Graef | Yeah, thank you. Well, let's see. We could start with the trees. I'm in support of the trees. I think that's a nice feature. I don't think they really would get in the way of views, which is something that people are constantly in motion and their views are, constantly changing So even if a tree did disruptive view momentarily It's only for a moment. But I think the the treatment that's been suggestion is good. with the benches. I think the need for shade is great. And I like that. Um, My biggest concern with this really is the loss of parking And the actual size of this plaza once you add the proposed new part to the alt bar, It's really pretty big. And maybe it really doesn't need to be that big. I think you could put some more parking back into that lot and develop the overall plaza in a very nice way in a smaller space. I don't see the need for that much square feet. for people. I don't think they're going to be there. I don't think there's enough of them. that would use it in any significant way. That's my opinion, but I think the amount of space devoted to the plaza is excessive at this point. So then the issue really is the queuing of the bikes. In my mind, that's the tough one. I see some definite advantages to running it along the north and east side and crossing the driveway. There are some serious problems there. I agree. Um, However, coming in the other side from say the Tracy way and coming along, you are still going to mix up with tourists or with not tourists, but with with people boarding the ferry. So I think that that point does really kind of where the problem is, and I don't know what a solution to that is, but... Um, Initially, I was feeling like the suggested or the preferred route shown, um, might be best but I'm hearing some serious concern with that and which I I'm sympathetic to that um So really, I think my opinion, the scope of the plaza is bigger than it needs to be. Thank you. And the bicycle queuing issue needs... Further thought. |
| 04:40:23.88 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Graff, Commissioner Saad. |
| 04:40:27.78 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you, Chair. I disagree with, um, Commissioner Graff, in terms of the trees, I don't think they're appropriate for that space. I think shade can be potentially achieved in an alternate way if required. But given the state of a lot of the trees in town and their extensive growth, the parking lot is overrun with trees as it is in my personal opinion. And you've got vegetation all around. I just don't think we need to add anything further anywhere near that water. I also made a note, but had already disagreed with the design of the benches. Right now, there's some very charming benches down there that work with Gabrielson Park. And I know it's a small little design issue, not a major issue to get to the bike queuing, but I think they should be consistent with what we have currently or in Gabrielson Park. They're more comfortable and they're significantly more charming for the area, but I would take trees out in its entirety. I can't get behind removing those parking spaces. So I don't know what that looks like at this moment. I'm just throwing out my ideas and my scribble here. I don't think bikes and parking are one-to-one. And to some of the other comments, I mean, it's impossible to park sometimes downtown on a weekend. So with that, definitely agree with Commissioner Graff. I think the scope is too big. It's almost e egregiously large in my it's an overreach in my view and i think if it can be contained a little bit to really secure this whole issue of queuing which i think is the primary issue here um we should try to reduce that otherwise um i i also cannot get behind queuing in front of um Yacht Club. So I would be more in support of that secondary alternative, I think, down, down Tracy way. Um, and if it's not that that's okay, but it's not the Yacht Club in my personal opinion. Um, and I'm a little confused still on this bio retention. I'm just going to put a note in that for the moment so we don't hold us up. But I think those are my top, my highlights. here. |
| 04:42:57.09 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:42:57.41 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner. |
| 04:42:57.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair, Jr. |
| 04:42:59.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:42:59.17 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:43:01.12 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Late night. Thanks for everybody staying up and giving us all your great comments. It's really, the comments were very valuable and much appreciated. This is a really, really tough one, and it's a really important decision for the city, and we've been waiting for four years to make a decision. I absolutely have enough information in front of me. I agree with, Kevin, that the plans are sufficient for me to make an action tonight. I'm not going to be supporting a continuance of this, although it probably is going to get continued anyway. But, you know, I think the real issue here is we've got challenges that aren't going away. We can keep talking about it. We can keep mulling it over. But, you know, the ferry building is too close to the yacht club. That's not going to change. Or the ferry landing. The landing's too small. It's from another age. You know, the bikes are overwhelming. The tourist bikes, when they come and they overwhelm this entire area. It's just not working anymore. And it needs to be fixed. And this is a decent plan to fix it. Is it perfect? No. Is it even close to perfect? Probably not. but it's moving in the right direction. And I really, really am struggling with how we could be, I mean, I've been on the commission for two years now. We've been talking about it for two years and you guys were talking about it for two years before I even got here. So, I mean, it's, And the questions keep coming. I understand that there's some frustration that maybe the city hasn't responded quickly enough to some of the questions being asked by some of the commissioners in previous hearings. there aren't that many issues. Which way are we going to cue the bikes and are we going to split them or not? You know, and are we going to get rid of some parking so that we can have a much more gracious, you know, civic plaza so that when visitors come to our city in one of the most important parts, you know, the ferry landing, they don't just get off in a parking lot. You know, it really seems pretty straightforward to me. This is, you know, it's $2.5 million that somebody is giving us to do a project and let's do a project. It's just driving me kind of nuts. I mean, I'm not sure. Um, In the end. I really appreciate I'm not going to comment about the trees. I'm not going to comment about the benches. I'm going to leave that all to the awesome professionals that worked for years. You know, one of them still here, Jacques, thank you so much for all your work. You know, I trust those guys. They've, you know, the city gave them, you know, some, some, uh, some time and some, you know, some authority to work with the professionals, work with the city and come to this point. Is it perfect? No. Is the Yacht Club going to be inconvenienced? Yes. Are we going to lose some parking spaces? Yes. I think the city will overall benefit from this project. So I, you know, it's really what we come down to here is we're, balancing some interests. There are some burdens that the yacht club is going to have to, you know, going to have to deal with. you know, maybe some retailers will not be happy with loss of parking, but, But we need to do better for the people that come to the ferry landing. I mean, we didn't say much about it. There were a few interesting public comments about tourism, We're a tourist town. We're not dealing that well with the tourists that come off the ferry. And I know maybe, you know, maybe people don't like being a tourist town. Maybe we're not saying I'm from Vegas. I know tourism when I see it. We're a tourist town and we need to do a better job dealing with the bike tourists that come off the off the ferry, they're still coming. They're going to keep coming. Whether we, whatever we do, they're not stopping. So, you know, to keep delaying this decision and to keep talking about the same issues, I think, is just going in circles. Plenty of time has been spent. You know, I think we should have a robust discussion tonight, and I'd sure like to vote on something, and I'm going to vote no against it on a continuance. So thank you. |
| 04:46:46.76 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Vice Chair Junius. |
| 04:46:52.33 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I have concerns about a number of things, but I think this project needs to move forward. I think that there are some issues, and what I'm hoping we can do tonight is clarify where this commission, who has to vote on the design review, is on those issues. Whether we could take out less spaces and whether the plaza is slightly too big or maybe we could save a few spaces uh that i think can be considered uh but i think there are all of these issues i just want to see if i'm going to try to do this if we can come to concurrence on one issue after another then that will give guidance on this and then we can see where we are at the end of that let's uh let's start with the trees because that's my opinion on the trees is uh i guess i differ with uh commissioner sod i think the tree there there are a lot of trees in parking lot one there are very few trees in the area where the plaza is is this too many trees that are being proposed i don't know and i think they have to be trimmed appropriately but you do need a couple trees where you can sit down on a bench and have some shade so i think we should have some level of trees uh so uh uh and i and there are a lot of trees in parking lot one, but there are no benches under them. So that's where I am on the trees, but can we, can I just try to do this? I'm gonna attempt to do it this way. Can we take a poll whether you want the trees in or out or less of them or something, one or the other. So we can give guidance on the plan before us. The trees are okay. We want slightly less trees or you don't want any trees. Let's just poll. |
| 04:48:43.47 | Nastassya Saad | I say no trees. |
| 04:48:44.43 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No trees. Okay. I'm fine with the trees. |
| 04:48:45.56 | Nastassya Saad | I'm fine with the trees. |
| 04:48:46.59 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes on the trees. Commissioner Graham. |
| 04:48:53.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I think a few trees are appropriate. Yes, in the trees. Commissioner Fowler. |
| 04:48:58.28 | Kristina Feller | no trees at the plaza. This commission's been trying to Keep a view corridor there for a reason. We've been fighting hard. Let's keep fighting. Thank you. |
| 04:49:08.29 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, and I'm yes on some trees. So maybe, |
| 04:49:12.37 | Director Phipps | I'm hearing a three, two, four trees. |
| 04:49:14.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. The Lorax Moon. All right. |
| 04:49:18.65 | Kristina Feller | Can we keep going? |
| 04:49:19.33 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, we'll keep going. So the next item is the bicycle cueing and the pedestrian cueing. I'm going to divide this into two issues. Number one, there's a long discussion, which is the whole point, that we separate the two. I want a yes or no that we want them separated. If we're at where they are, do we want them separated? |
| 04:49:41.26 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. |
| 04:49:42.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Yes. Yes. |
| 04:49:45.43 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:49:45.45 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 04:49:46.65 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 04:49:46.66 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 04:49:46.70 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Yes. Okay, so this would be separate. So now my question is we had two alternatives this evening from Becky. Do we want them going toward Tracy, but that meant we have to make sure that they're separate if it goes towards Tracy, or do we want them going towards the Yacht Club. I'm sorry, toward Gabrielson or toward Tracy. |
| 04:50:08.57 | Adam Gardner | Thank you. |
| 04:50:08.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:50:08.62 | Adam Gardner | Thank you. |
| 04:50:08.63 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:50:08.65 | Adam Gardner | Go on. |
| 04:50:08.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Bye. |
| 04:50:13.26 | Kristina Feller | Do you have a question? No. |
| 04:50:15.76 | Andrew Junius | Tracy. Gabrielsson. |
| 04:50:19.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm the director of 50. Are you getting all this? Cause I'm can't write. |
| 04:50:24.92 | Director Phipps | So thus far, I'm with the Commission, but I want to clarify what exactly is the Commission discussing at this moment? |
| 04:50:31.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | We're discussing the direction of the split queue, whether it goes towards Tracy or it goes towards Gableson. |
| 04:50:40.83 | Director Phipps | So are we talking about bikes or pedestrians? |
| 04:50:40.85 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 04:50:40.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:50:42.74 | Kristina Feller | By the way, it's currently separated now, pedestrians and bikes. It currently is separated. So we want to keep them the same. |
| 04:50:49.83 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So maybe there's pedestrians closer to the water A walk in a short. |
| 04:50:55.55 | Kristina Feller | Just separate, separate lines. Separate lines, Jeffrey. Come on. |
| 04:50:57.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | to get started. Thank you. We're voting on the split. We're voting on the direction of where do the bikes go that are going to be separate. |
| 04:51:05.89 | Director Phipps | Right. Bike direction. |
| 04:51:07.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Bike direction. Saad, what do you have so far? Commissioner Saad said. Tracy. Tracy. I said Gabrielson. Gabrielson, Commissioner Graf. |
| 04:51:13.57 | Richard Graef | Tracy. Tracy. |
| 04:51:19.39 | Richard Graef | I'm a neutral. |
| 04:51:20.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Deutro, Commissioner Fowler. |
| 04:51:23.09 | Kristina Feller | Tracy way there in the shade. Uh, |
| 04:51:25.15 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:51:25.26 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 04:51:25.30 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Tracy. |
| 04:51:26.62 | Director Phipps | All right, we have bikes to Tracy, pedestrians to Gabrielson. |
| 04:51:30.02 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, next item, wayfinding. I want to see wayfinding signs that have been shared with the Golden Gate folks and who are going to have to manage this, and a sign program that's both in English and symbols as part of the plan. Can we agree that if this gets continued, that we have a wayfinding plan included with the approval? Yes or no? |
| 04:52:00.40 | Unknown | Yes. Thank you. |
| 04:52:01.09 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 04:52:01.11 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:52:01.75 | Andrew Junius | Yes. |
| 04:52:02.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Yes. Yes. OK, thank you. Next item is. I guess size of the plaza and lots of parking spaces. I don't know how we want to do this. Do you think the plaza should be slightly smaller? Yes or no? |
| 04:52:20.09 | Nastassya Saad | Objectively, yes, but I don't know how to quantify that, but yes. |
| 04:52:24.65 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 04:52:26.08 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No. |
| 04:52:26.33 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 04:52:27.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 04:52:27.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:52:27.15 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Mr. Graff. |
| 04:52:27.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:52:27.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:52:27.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Yes. Fish or fellas. |
| 04:52:30.27 | Kristina Feller | I'm sorry, we're voting if the plaza should be smaller than what's in the design. |
| 04:52:35.14 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 04:52:36.85 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, I think it should be what's there now. |
| 04:52:39.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Okay. |
| 04:52:40.88 | Kristina Feller | cleaned up. Uh, |
| 04:52:42.25 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I don't think it should be with right now, but I could see if we could get a few more spaces somehow as part of this, that that would work. So I think the plaza could be slightly small. So I think we're, as a vote, we want it to be a little bit smaller, which means less loss of parking space. |
| 04:52:54.60 | Unknown | So yeah. |
| 04:53:00.52 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, um, I Let me ask this, is the commission okay with losing some parking spaces and replacing with bike parking? |
| 04:53:11.12 | Nastassya Saad | Objectively, yes. What's some? Yes. |
| 04:53:13.60 | Richard Graef | Yeah. |
| 04:53:13.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:53:13.92 | Richard Graef | Yes. |
| 04:53:14.56 | Nastassya Saad | I'm sorry. |
| 04:53:14.60 | Richard Graef | you. |
| 04:53:14.87 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:53:14.92 | Unknown | you |
| 04:53:14.97 | Richard Graef | you |
| 04:53:15.02 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Graff. |
| 04:53:18.50 | Richard Graef | I don't think it's going to make a difference. I'd say no. No. OK. |
| 04:53:24.22 | Kristina Feller | I don't think this commission can comment on that until we have a legal review and a legal briefing on 11-28. |
| 04:53:26.38 | Richard Graef | Yeah. |
| 04:53:26.65 | Jeffery Luxenberg | . |
| 04:53:31.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, and I'm going to say yes, because I think that we can, if we say that we can lose parking spaces, and then it needs to go to the voters, it doesn't need to go to the voters, we could recommend a plan that shows that and then leave it up to the if a vote is needed. So I disagree with that. But the majority of us believe that we can lose some spaces in order to make this improvement happen. Kiosk. Do we want the kiosk? Yes or no? MISSION. |
| 04:54:03.87 | Nastassya Saad | I thought we have to have the kiosk. |
| 04:54:05.46 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:54:06.35 | Kristina Feller | Well, |
| 04:54:06.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:54:06.49 | Kristina Feller | You know, the chamber commented on that and they say that they're using it. So the chamber kiosk. |
| 04:54:06.54 | Nastassya Saad | You know, the change. |
| 04:54:07.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | question. |
| 04:54:07.42 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:07.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 04:54:07.52 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:10.47 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:10.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Oh, wow. |
| 04:54:10.59 | Nastassya Saad | the chamber kiosk. |
| 04:54:11.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. I understand that. |
| 04:54:12.43 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:12.65 | Nastassya Saad | I'm sorry. |
| 04:54:13.12 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:13.14 | Jeffery Luxenberg | tired i wasn't sure what let's just get a yes or no and then we can okay |
| 04:54:13.15 | Nastassya Saad | I wasn't tired. |
| 04:54:18.13 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, you know. |
| 04:54:18.89 | Nastassya Saad | Sorry, to keep the kiosk? Keep it, yes. |
| 04:54:22.65 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 04:54:22.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, keep it. Thank you. |
| 04:54:24.93 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 04:54:24.95 | Richard Graef | THE END OF |
| 04:54:25.15 | Nastassya Saad | but. |
| 04:54:25.86 | Kristina Feller | No, lose it. |
| 04:54:27.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. So that's four to one to keep the key up. And the chamber's using it. |
| 04:54:30.77 | Kristina Feller | in the chamber. No. |
| 04:54:33.40 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Keep it. Just keep aware of that. |
| 04:54:33.81 | Kristina Feller | Just keep a word. Get rid of it. |
| 04:54:36.09 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Keep it or get rid of it. Oh, I thought you said move it. No, no. Keep it. You want to keep it where it is. |
| 04:54:39.17 | Richard Graef | No, no. Yeah, it may not be the best players. Let's keep going. |
| 04:54:45.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, well it's there in the chamber uses it said they're going to stop it so I would keep it. |
| 04:54:45.47 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 04:54:54.94 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Closing of Tracy Way, yes or no? |
| 04:54:57.70 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 04:54:57.74 | Nastassya Saad | THE END OF |
| 04:54:57.77 | Kristina Feller | Well, to vehicular traffic. Oh, sorry. |
| 04:54:59.76 | Nastassya Saad | Yes, to be clear. Yes. Yes. |
| 04:55:00.52 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 04:55:02.09 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Mr. Greff. |
| 04:55:04.10 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 04:55:05.50 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Okay. |
| 04:55:10.76 | Kristina Feller | benches. |
| 04:55:11.42 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Benches, the benches as proposed or an alternative. |
| 04:55:16.28 | Nastassya Saad | I'll turn it. |
| 04:55:16.84 | Richard Graef | Thank you. |
| 04:55:18.28 | Andrew Junius | Yeah, I'd like to see an alternative. Those benches aren't good. |
| 04:55:21.29 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 04:55:21.38 | Andrew Junius | Yeah. |
| 04:55:21.82 | Richard Graef | THE END OF |
| 04:55:21.90 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 04:55:22.19 | Richard Graef | I'd like to see more comfortable benches. Yes. um, |
| 04:55:27.91 | Kristina Feller | Alternative, there are too many benches. |
| 04:55:30.36 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh... Yeah, more comfortable benches. um let's see what else what else do we got um |
| 04:55:42.73 | Nastassya Saad | landscaping, this bioretention, which is, I know, I think a required |
| 04:55:43.54 | Jeffery Luxenberg | this I think a requirement. Bio-retention, I'm a little perplexed because if it's required by, if we have to put it somewhere, it has to happen. So it's not like they wanted to, they say, oh, we love bio. |
| 04:55:59.99 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, yeah, I understand. |
| 04:56:00.77 | Jim Gurney | Thank you. |
| 04:56:01.86 | Jeffery Luxenberg | of federal requirements. |
| 04:56:03.20 | Kristina Feller | I think we need a clarification what's triggering it. And my understanding, and maybe Director McGowan can help us here, is that what's triggering it is this change in the plaza and the parking. And so there's more. surface area that would require it. But I don't want to assume that. Maybe Director McGowan could quickly clarify that for us. |
| 04:56:32.29 | Director Phipps | We also have Becky Dower with her hand raised. She'd like to comment. |
| 04:56:36.12 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Oh, that'd be great. |
| 04:56:36.64 | Becky Dower | Okay. Yeah, I would love to chime in here. So this, the, the bioretention, it's just a landscape based stormwater filtration device. A lot of times people in the public can't even recognize what they're looking at it looks very much like landscaping it's about six inches depressed. |
| 04:56:39.46 | Director Phipps | Bye. |
| 04:56:53.20 | Becky Dower | Anyways, this is a requirement triggered by the state water board when you replace or install 10,000 square feet of new impervious surface area. So the size of the plaza, the size of the new plaza and walkways are driving the implementation of the bioretention area. It doesn't matter if it's replacing existing asphalt, it's still a newer replaced impervious surface. um, if, The newer replaced impervious surface, meaning the plaza and walkways can be reduced in size. There's options, potentially, if we reduce it enough, to make that bioretention area smaller or potentially even remove that bioretention area. But we need to ensure that we can get below that threshold so that we don't trigger that requirement. |
| 04:57:43.53 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Becky. I just have a clarifying question, Chair, if I may. If you just resurface the existing parking lot, does that trigger this requirement? I mean, I obviously know what a buyer retention is, but I'm trying to figure out what's triggering it other than what you've said. Thank you. |
| 04:58:02.65 | Becky Dower | I'm checked. |
| 04:58:02.71 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 04:58:03.82 | Becky Dower | Yeah, that's so it is nuanced resurfacing the parking lot, assuming you don't change the way the parking lot drains does not trigger this requirement so you can go and do like a grind and overlay and that's fine. But since we are technically changing the drainage of the parking lot by installing the plaza, that triggers the need for the bioretention. |
| 04:58:24.62 | Kristina Feller | but only on your current design, not what we're talking about here. Is that correct? |
| 04:58:28.66 | Becky Dower | um, On any design where it's 10,000 square feet or more of replaced impervious and it changes the drainage patterns of the site. |
| 04:58:39.98 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, thank you, Becky. So I think on the bioretention, it might get smaller and that would be good. But if it's required, it's required. So the question is, do we want it in Gabrielson Park or do we want to take out more parking spaces and put it in the parking lot? I mean, that's really the choice. We got to put it somewhere. So assuming we have to put it, and I'm a little confused because the bike's queue on part of the parking lot, which is becoming part of the plaza, but that's already impervious. |
| 04:59:17.39 | Kristina Feller | Well, I don't think we're trying to design where it goes here. I think what we're trying to do is define a better roadmap of where we need to go if we continue this. And what we can ask for is that Director McGowan and his team come back With placing it, give us options of where that's placed and what those impacts might be. I think that's what we're trying to do is define the roadmap forward, not what the design is. |
| 04:59:46.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I agree that we're not here to design it, but I was hearing comments from the public that they didn't want it in Gabrielson Park. So if it's not in Gabrielson Park, it's going to take out more parking spaces to do it. So I don't know if we can give guidance on that, but I was hoping that we could decide where, not how to design it, but whether or not we want it to impact the park. I guess it was my question. |
| 05:00:10.58 | Kristina Feller | I would say I don't want it to impact the existing landscaping if that can be avoided. If |
| 05:00:14.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:00:15.56 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 05:00:15.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So. |
| 05:00:15.63 | Kristina Feller | But that's one idea. |
| 05:00:16.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | And Commissioner Stodd, |
| 05:00:20.24 | Nastassya Saad | It makes most sense in the park. So yes, if we're choosing park or elsewhere. |
| 05:00:26.31 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, and of our commission. |
| 05:00:27.83 | Andrew Junius | Yeah, the park is the right place. I mean, the landscaping over there is kind of, I mean, it's not, sorry to say, not very well maintained anyway. This might make it look better, but I think it's in a good location as it is. |
| 05:00:37.36 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Grass. |
| 05:00:39.62 | Richard Graef | Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think where they've shown it is probably the best place. It really needs to be considered relative to the final size of the parking lot. If there's some change there, that might change the configuration of the bioretention. Zone. And I also think if it goes there in the park, it needs some landscaping around it. as somebody pointed out, you know, little kids could run right into it. And I don't think that's so great. |
| 05:01:20.14 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, I also think the location is fine. If it can be smaller, that would be good. If we could bring Director McGowan, if you'd come back up to the podium, and also, Becky, if you could come back on video, that would be helpful. |
| 05:01:38.82 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. I know you'd like an approval this evening. I don't think that that's happening at the moment. Does this kind of help you all? Because I know, Becky, in your presentation, you were saying these are the issues. And you had one slide that said you were looking for guidance from the Planning Commission. We need Planning Commission feedback. So we've been trying very hard, you know, although we're not in 100% consensus, you see where the majority is on all these issues. Is this helpful so that you can tweak these plans and get them back to us by our next meeting is in September? So we can continue it to a date certain in September if you can commit to making the changes, and at least we may have to continue it again, but hopefully not. Does that make sense? Time-wise, I don't know what the schedule is as far as staff time there and what else. |
| 05:02:41.08 | Mr. McGowan | So before Becky answers that question, Commissioner Feller mentioned that we should review some of the older comments. Are the comments that you are providing today in conformance with the other comments. |
| 05:02:58.47 | Kristina Feller | Sorry. Most of them, yes. I mean, you've heard now from everybody, but yeah, the consensus had been Tracy way before. The majority. |
| 05:03:08.02 | Mr. McGowan | I just want to make sure that we're not going to be we have to go back and take a look at the other. documentation, the other recordings. But what you've given us today is extremely helpful. It narrows it down to what you're looking for. So I want to thank you for that. |
| 05:03:22.55 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I would say on behalf of the Commission and somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. In the event you go back and you listen to those tapes. If if there's anything that conflicts whatever we voted on tonight on these various issues overrides anything that was said early. |
| 05:03:38.48 | Mr. McGowan | Understood. That sounds great. |
| 05:03:39.94 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 05:03:40.02 | Kristina Feller | I have an addition to that though, because, um, Going back to June of last year, the other thing that we asked for is to not plant a bunch of trees in front of the Sausalito Yacht Club entry and exit because again it's it's very, you are 95% of the time backing out of there just because of the configuration and the constraints of it. So, the landscape architect put a bunch of trees and other vegetation right there in front. And I, I think I don't, I don't personally support that because it really does hinder the ability to to see what's around you or if you don't have backup cameras or you're constrained somehow. It's very hard. Bye. |
| 05:04:31.13 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I would suggest, but others can correct me, that the comment about the trees, that we wanted some trees was in the plaza area. I don't have an issue with reducing the ones near the Yacht Club, but I don't know if others have any opinion on that. |
| 05:04:47.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So please just generally |
| 05:04:48.04 | Nastassya Saad | Just generally supportive of, yes, tree reduction. |
| 05:04:50.98 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, the tree reduction in the yacht club. |
| 05:04:52.14 | Nastassya Saad | I'm. Yeah, cool. |
| 05:04:54.02 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh, uh director mcgowan are there other issues that other than the ones we just all voted on that you you or becky do you have outstanding issues that you don't have clarity on that you're still alternatives we we were clear in a close tracy way so we'll go with the raise the race thing obviously if there's not money for it that's okay but but we're okay with closing the road are there any other issues that you can think of that we haven't hit on that we should vote on so you know we're collectively |
| 05:05:25.72 | Becky Dower | I have one other item. that would be helpful to get some clarity on in light of where we're going. So since we are now looking at taking the bike queuing down Tracy, |
| 05:05:31.83 | Jeffery Luxenberg | both. |
| 05:05:36.32 | Becky Dower | and not in front of the yacht club, I'm not sure we need that wide sidewalk anymore. That wide sidewalk was to accommodate, you know, three, four people with bikes side by side to accommodate trees. That's why it ended up being some 20 feet wide. Does this group see the benefit in installing a new sidewalk in front of the yacht club or on the east side of the parking lot where those parking stalls were going to be removed and replaced with sidewalks. |
| 05:06:03.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'll start. I think the idea would be is if you can make it work, you might end up taking some parking out to separate the pedestrian and the bike, the bikes going towards Tracy and you might take a few spaces out there. But if you can put back those other spaces, yes, obviously, we don't need a 20 foot wide sidewalk, if we're not going to queue that way. That's correct. Does anybody disagree with that? |
| 05:06:27.44 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 05:06:27.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | . |
| 05:06:27.52 | Kristina Feller | I was going to ask Becky if she could, you know, because for the benefit of the public here as well, or us looking back at this tape at some point, if you could pull up a plan and show us exactly where. you're referring to. I think I understand and I think others do, but I wanna make sure everybody does. |
| 05:06:48.16 | Mr. McGowan | You're muted, Becky. |
| 05:06:49.47 | Becky Dower | Yeah, sorry about that. Give me just a minute and I could get something pulled up to share. |
| 05:07:01.66 | Becky Dower | Okay, this looks a little crude. It's just what I have readily available. Are you able to see my screen? |
| 05:07:09.35 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yes. |
| 05:07:10.45 | Becky Dower | Okay. This sidewalk here And this replacement sidewalk here. There's already a sidewalk here in front of the Yacht Club. But, These are the areas inclusive of this area as well. that I was asking about, you know, what level of improvements, if any, do we |
| 05:07:25.15 | Pat Sook | that I'm going to be able to do. |
| 05:07:29.77 | Becky Dower | even want to entertain in this area now. There's currently 18 parking spaces in here. that were being removed to facilitate this section of sidewalk. And there is I think it's six to eight, roughly, parking spaces over here that were removed so that we could widen this sidewalk and then shift the travel lane. So it's, you know, we're talking 24, 26 miles. parking spaces that potentially don't need to be removed if this isn't necessary. And we just maintain the existing sidewalk. Sorry about the scribbles. just maintain the existing sidewalk that is generally like. right there. |
| 05:08:14.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Can you show up, can you go to the picture that shows the Tracy way, because I just want to see if we try to separate more the bikes from the pedestrians in that plan, whether we, we add the parking here and then lose some, we might have to lose some in the other one but there won't be many. I mean you had that other plan. |
| 05:08:36.16 | Becky Dower | I think that was in the presentation that Kevin had. |
| 05:08:39.60 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, that was in the PowerPoint. You had them side by side. |
| 05:08:42.99 | Becky Dower | Yeah, hold on. |
| 05:08:51.24 | Becky Dower | Just a second. |
| 05:08:57.10 | Becky Dower | Let's see if this is, is this the graphic you were referring to? |
| 05:09:02.58 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Um, yeah, uh, yes. So that is showing the bicycle queuing, but not the pedestrians. So when you line the pedestrians up, for example, if that would move to, I guess it would be the north or to the, if you move it to the left, is that to the north? bicycles a little bit and lost a space or two there, but you added the other ones back in, you might be able to separate the bikes from the pedestrians better. So we want you to look at how to separate the bikes from the pedestrians better, even though they're sort of going in the same direction. But you know, and then again, this goes to that wayfinding, striping or whatever signs or whatever. So I guess what I would say, and I'll see if we get concurrence here, I would put back the spaces you're taking out because we don't need those wide sidewalks. And then I, but, but if you had to lose a couple of spaces to make the flow and safety of the bicycles work better on the other side of the lot, that would be far less loss of spaces. |
| 05:10:14.20 | Becky Dower | Yeah, because what I think we're gonna find is, the, the, the bikes take up a whole lot more space and the people queuing, the people queuing are involved people sitting at benches and sort of wandering, you know, I think that, that people are gonna wanna queue, pedestrians are gonna wanna queue on the plaza where the bikes are. They could be in two distinct separate lines. We could try to find a way to channelize the bikes to keep them separate. But I think the, The pedestrians are gonna wanna be on the plaza queuing as well. So we'd probably see a line of bikes, a line of, pedestrians essentially trying to get |
| 05:10:49.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, that makes sense. And they also keep in mind that people are walking from Gabrielson Park through this area as part of this. I think it's part of that. I don't know. I don't have plans for the north, south greenway, but we want people to be able to walk through here that aren't going on the ferries that have been walking along the water. So so I think does this give you the direction? I think we're saying put those those main spaces you can back in if you need to take some out elsewhere slightly that will still be a far less uh reduction in overall |
| 05:11:18.94 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 05:11:19.02 | Mr. McGowan | We, uh, |
| 05:11:23.64 | Mr. McGowan | So what we're hearing is no sidewalk on the east side of lot one. |
| 05:11:24.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | We're here. |
| 05:11:28.55 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 05:11:28.57 | Kristina Feller | Correct. Correct. |
| 05:11:30.43 | Mr. McGowan | We're saying that the direction of Bicycles queuing to the ferry needs to be directed to Tracy way, as well as pedestrians in the plaza that will be accessing the ferry will be in the plaza itself. |
| 05:11:44.30 | Kaye Mitzel | Thank you. |
| 05:11:44.33 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Correct. |
| 05:11:45.31 | Kaye Mitzel | Right. |
| 05:11:45.40 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 05:11:45.48 | Kaye Mitzel | Thank you. |
| 05:11:46.24 | Becky Dower | Thank you. |
| 05:11:46.26 | Kaye Mitzel | Okay. |
| 05:11:46.34 | Becky Dower | Thank you. One last item I would like some feedback on. It seems like a small one, but... COB, Elaine McLaughlin, The bollards delighted bollards that we're proposing around the loading area. Does anybody like or dislike or have any strong feelings about lighted bollards? |
| 05:12:04.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Oh, just... |
| 05:12:04.97 | Becky Dower | I love it. Thank you. |
| 05:12:05.39 | Jeffery Luxenberg | You like him, Commissioner Graff? |
| 05:12:08.85 | Richard Graef | that's reminding me of something that I noticed in the scheme where they bikes are marching along say right where the line of the bollards are, they're going to be right in the way of the, uh, handicap drop-off zone. So, that might have to shift to a better location. |
| 05:12:35.33 | Mr. McGowan | So you have conflict points, as I mentioned, when we changed this configuration. |
| 05:12:38.82 | Richard Graef | Yeah, well, that could be a really |
| 05:12:40.85 | Mr. McGowan | There are trade-offs and that's one of the trade-offs. |
| 05:12:43.12 | Richard Graef | Yeah, so maybe that maybe the disabled drop off moves up the other side of the entry into the ferry landing pier. |
| 05:13:00.96 | Richard Graef | Awesome. |
| 05:13:01.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 05:13:01.74 | Richard Graef | I don't know. |
| 05:13:01.82 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:13:01.87 | Kristina Feller | I don't know. I think there are more options for that than some of the queuing. Yeah. |
| 05:13:06.77 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Just look at options for that. I think on the bollards, lighted bollards are a good idea, but they might get relocated when you do the thing, but lighted bollards are a good idea. |
| 05:13:17.90 | Mr. McGowan | When we return to your commission, we will note that there are conflict points associated with this alignment as well. We'll note what they are. |
| 05:13:25.97 | Kristina Feller | I'm sorry. |
| 05:13:26.12 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 05:13:27.12 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, and if you can clearly identify the drop-offs and the wayfinding for the drop-offs, you know, in addition to the wayfinding for the bikes, wayfinding for drop-offs and handicap spaces and that kind of thing. And as far as date certain you want, we have two meetings in September. I would rather continue it to a date certain because we really want you to get, we really want to help you get this done. and then hopefully you're ready. If you're not, then we can always open a meeting and then continue it, but we prefer not to do that. But do we want to pick one of the two dates in September? Becky, how was your schedule for this? |
| 05:14:06.27 | Becky Dower | Yeah, I'll make it happen. I definitely want to get this done. So that would work for me. |
| 05:14:07.23 | Mr. McGowan | President Obama. |
| 05:14:07.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I want, |
| 05:14:07.97 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 05:14:08.01 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:14:11.92 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm sure. |
| 05:14:11.99 | Director Phipps | Okay. |
| 05:14:12.07 | Jeffery Luxenberg | so is it uh director phipps is it the 12th of september |
| 05:14:16.46 | Director Phipps | We have the 13th or the 27th. |
| 05:14:18.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | 13th through the 27th. Thank you. |
| 05:14:20.61 | Mr. McGowan | looks very favorable. |
| 05:14:21.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:14:21.91 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 05:14:22.30 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, so can the maker of the motion amend it to the continuance until September 13? |
| 05:14:30.23 | Kristina Feller | Yes, I, yeah, I move to date certain of Wednesday, September 13th. |
| 05:14:31.48 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:14:38.45 | Kristina Feller | Second. So. |
| 05:14:39.14 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:14:39.29 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 05:14:39.31 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Okay, Director McGowan, are there any, and Becky, are there any other items that we didn't cover that, again, we really do appreciate all your work on this and we really do want to get this project done. And we're hoping this has been helpful, but are there any other items that we missed? |
| 05:14:56.93 | Mr. McGowan | I'm okay, Becky. |
| 05:14:59.51 | Kristina Feller | None for me. |
| 05:15:00.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 05:15:00.76 | Mr. McGowan | Thank you. |
| 05:15:00.77 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you both. |
| 05:15:03.52 | Kristina Feller | Hold on, do we want to take a vote? |
| 05:15:05.28 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah, no, I was going to turn into Director Phipps. Director Phipps can tell you I was doing that. You can take roll call vote, please. |
| 05:15:05.97 | Kristina Feller | to an |
| 05:15:12.47 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Saad? Yes. Commissioner Graff? |
| 05:15:15.72 | Marv Hovater | Yes. |
| 05:15:16.31 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. No. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. |
| 05:15:17.18 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Yes. Next item is adjournment. So moved. Thank you all. Thank you to staff for lots of work. |
| 05:15:30.93 | Director Phipps | Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, staff. |
| 05:15:37.21 | Jan Johnson | Thank you. |
Chris Kalina — In Favor: Neighbor to the north; requested an eight-foot solid fence and opaque glass (not removable film) on all upper north-facing windows to maintain privacy and security; stated these were non-negotiable but overall reached an agreement with the applicant and was okay with the building height if conditions were met. ▶ 📄
John DeRay — In Favor: Representing the Sausalito Working Waterfront Coalition; voiced support for the project as a source of affordable industrial space; noted a potential tenant for floating solar; asked about maintaining the building's power capacity; mentioned the current illegal 'man cave' use and urged prompt approval to enable a legitimate industrial tenant. ▶ 📄