Los Gatos is months behind on creating design rules for new condominiums and apartments, but the process hit another snag, Aug. 24, after local architects asked for extra time to give input.
Representing that group was Bess Wiersema, the owner of Studio3 Design, who decried the “paint-by-numbers” objective standards the Planning Commission was considering.
“We do have concerns about what we see in the draft documents that are relatively significant,” she said. “We feel that this document creates a rule-of-thumb that can be used by everyone for essentially design-by-numbers.”
Los Gatos has been working for more than a year on coming up with the design guidelines for multi-family construction, in order to fall in line with new State legislation such as SB 167 (the Housing Accountability Act), SB 35 (which mandates approval of qualified projects), and SB 330 (the Housing Crisis Act).
Wiersema said she was speaking on behalf of Gary Kohlsatt, Louie Leu, Tom Sloan, Jay Plett, Noel Cross, Terry Martin, Bob Flury, Jennifer Kretschmer and Tony Jeans, people who will be intimately involved in implementing whatever’s put in place.
She said the architects feel Los Gatos’ draft standards would limit their work, adding others weren’t able to attend the meeting because of “back-to-school” season.
“We respect the fact that you’re trying to streamline the process by objectifying subjective design standards,” she said. “However, that’s not the definition of design. And I’m sure you all know that.”
The draft standards are too traditional and are more stringent than what other nearby cities require, she suggested.
“Individual ‘recreation area requirements’ are much larger than most typical condo apartments built locally,” she said, noting Kohlsatt was behind this particular complaint. “One hundred-square-feet of outdoor area per unit is not consistent with our neighboring townships and cities.”
Southern neighbor Gilroy adopted objective standards Oct. 18, last year. For a development with 11-30 units it requires at least two “passive” recreation amenities with a minimum area of 300 square feet and at least one “active” recreation amenity of 500 square feet.
Wiersema also harped against the point system Los Gatos has been intending to use to evaluate projects and offered to write a group email to find out how long it would take for the architects to get around to giving their feedback.
“You know, we lamented in our most recent get-together the special meetings and the research sessions that often occur during the middle of the day with a lot of us not being able to step away from clients,” she said.
Commission Chair Melanie Hanssen wasn’t thrilled that the designers were only now making time for a process that staff has been highlighting for months.
“This effort has been going on for over a year now,” she said.
Wiersema replied that it’s been challenging for the architects to keep up with all the changes happening at the Los Gatos Building Division.
“We also have a concern that perhaps these multi-family ones are going to trickle down into single-family rules-of-thumb in terms of objectifying subjective guidelines,” she said.
Los Gatos resident Lee Quintana encouraged staff to make time for this group of professionals.
“I would agree with Bess that the illustrations in these objective standards do tend to make one think that all these buildings are going to be absolutely symmetrical and absolutely square, and triangle and all face the street—and that can be pretty damn boring,” she said. “But, I do think we need the objective standards.”
Town Attorney Gabrielle Whelan confirmed the standards are just for multi-family units, not traditional-style lots.
Commissioner Jeffrey Barnett suggested Los Gatos follow Palo Alto’s lead and develop balcony regulations that protect privacy.
However, other commissioners worried this could create problems, going too in-depth on privacy concerns when other sections of the document aren’t as specific.
Senior Planner Sean Mullin said it could even create issues for homeowners, when a multi-family development goes in next door.
“Once that’s built, the residential property wants to redevelop in the future to a different residence, all the sudden you can create a conflict with privacy based on these objective standards,” he said. “Given all that—and there was long discussions with a consultant and with staff—we tried to simplify it down to try to preserve future development rights.”
Hanssen noted a subcommittee had already been working on objective standards, last summer.
Commissioner Emily Thomas asked about the impact of not forwarding the design rules to Council.
“When is our deadline really for getting these objective standards passed—like, approved by the Town Council according to SB 35? Is there a point at which we get fined, we get in trouble, we get told, ‘These are our standards now.’?”
Whelan emphasized that Los Gatos was already lagging.
“If I remember correctly, the deadline was January of this past year,” she said. “In terms of penalties, I think it will be difficult if we get an SB 35 planning application that asks to see the Town’s objective standards, because the Town will need to demonstrate that a proposed project does not comply with its objective standards.”
San Jose’s design guidelines took effect in March 2021.
Community Development Director Joel Paulson said Los Gatos doesn’t have anyone trying to bypass classic planning processes, at the moment.
However, he harkened back to how developers used the Housing Accountability Act to get their way for the controversial Phase 1 of the North 40 multi-family development.
And while developers for the mixed-use project at Union Avenue by Safeway did make some changes to their plans, that same piece of State legislation helped it avoid others, Paulson added.
On a motion from Barnett, Planning Commissioners unanimously agreed to give the architects two extra weeks to submit comments, with the draft set to return for discussion on Sept. 14.
