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ATTACHMENT 5 May 10,2012 Ms.Janice Stern City of Pleasanton Planning Department 200 Old Bernal Avenue Pleasanton,CA 94566 Re: Comments to the City of Pleasanton's, Housing Site Development Standards and Design Guidelines,Discussion Draft,April 2,2012 Dear Janice, We are the owners of Site 8,CarrAmerica,as shown within the Housing Site Development Standards and Design Guidelines, Discussion Draft,dated,April 2,2012 ("Residential Guidelines"). On behalf of the entire RREEF team, I would like to thank you,the City of Pleasanton and all parties who have been involved with preparing the Residential Guidelines. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on these Residential Guidelines. Our team, including RREEF,Sares Regis Group of Northern California, Dahlin Group Architects, BKF Engineers,and Gates and Associates,has tremendous experience with multifamily housing and retail development at the 30 DUA range and above. Based on our many years of experience working with these building types and our knowledge of mixed-use development,our comments to the Residential Guidelines are as follows: 1) Page 4 and 5, Part 1, Introduction, B.Vision Statement Comment: The Vision Statement applies generally to all nine rezoned sites. The sites are all very different in their configuration,size,surrounding geography, neighborhood context, available community amenities and resultant opportunities and constraints. This Vision Statement is filled with many specifics that are intended to provide examples that individually,or in concert with others,add up to a"quality"neighborhood. In theory,the menu of amenities should be re-characterized in a way so as not to appear uniformly mandatory for all sites(all sites are not appropriate for a pool or water feature for example). We request that the Vision Statement be reduced to just the first paragraph and first two sentences of the second paragraph,followed by a new statement that acknowledges the varying character of the nine sites in order to set an appropriate tone for success without prescribing a specific formula that must apply to all of these disparate properties. "The livability of these development sites is paramount. These future developments address housing needs for families of all incomes and ages,and also provide a supply of workforce housing in the City to accommodate mandated regional Housing Need Allocations by the State of California. 1