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January 6, 2011 Planning Commision City of Pleasanton Dear Commisioners, ?011 \ SAN TON ONISIGN }��,r►Nihlci -1 3' This letter is with regards to application from Yiping Leroudier (PADR -2138) to install a second -story 4'x4' window on the right elevation of the existing residence located at 5252 Meadowwood Court. Our residence is located at 5264 Meadowwood Court, which is adjacent to the applicants property. The main problem with this plan is that this proposed window is directly facing our main patio area and our main farnily room. If a window is allowed to be opened as planned, this will clearly cause major loss of our privacy. We tried to compromise with the applicants, and suggested many other solutions instead of adding the window, including the use of fix opaque glass, sunroof, trimming the trees in front of their existing window in that room, adding lighting to their rooms, opening a higher window with a window sill at least 6' from the base of the second floor, and enlarging the other window of the room. Some of the options are not to the codes, and the others were rejected by applicants without providing any wiggle room for compromise. Instead, the applicants gave many documents and information to the city, and most of them were pointing to nullify the need for ones' privacy and stressed right of use. Included with the documents, is a letter from Susan Spangler, our other neighbor. Her relationship may be closer to the applicant and, in her letter; we felt like, most probably, she did not really understand the background of the issue. The fact is that Mrs. Spangler did not participate in the previous hearing, and the letter was written without even consulting with us. As a close neighbor, we wished she could also be our good neighbor who is impartial and fair. Anyway, many of the statements are clearly one sided, exaggerated, and does not show fairness. As a body who is a part of the city of Pleasanton, I hope that the planning commission can discern individual's opinions vs. what is right for the residence of Pleasanton. The recent public hearing on this case by planning manager has resulted in the approval of the plan without any compromise. We were not given the reasons of why the decision is thus. We felt that the decision is made without the right guidelines or have been made in a hasty manner. While this matter is probably very small for planning division to deal with, this matter involved the fundamental view of city of Pleasanton towards the residence's privacy. An incorrect decision can be a really bad precedence to the development of city of Pleasanton. So we would like to use this opportunity to sincerely ask the commissioners to reconsider this decision through this appeal. Please look at (Exhibit I); a map I printed from Google map, enlarged multiple times, but still is a good way to see the orientation of the proposed window addition. While we understand that complete privacy is not a realistic expectation and that there are thresholds that we should and can tolerate; there are some that are just not right, especially for single family units in our neighborhood. In this case, the distance between the walls of which the second story window addition is planned is approx 9 -10 feet away from the fence, and the fence is approx 15 feet away from our family room's sliding door. In between the fence and the sliding door is where EXHIBIT H