CCMIN041613 - Laserfiche WebLink

California Building Commission, in which the engineer stated that Title 24 does contain any language in which a road is called a structure. She said the City has over 20 years in planning for the road connections to Lund Ranch II. Bridle Creek and Sycamore Heights were built to accommodate this future development and their CC&Rs clearly detail all development possibilities to the east including Lund Ranch and the associated road connections. She provided copies of the Sycamore Heights CC&Rs and said that any claim of inadequate disclosure is inaccurate. Shareef Mandavi concurred with the Planning Commission's vote and Ms. Fox's and Ms. McGovern's comments. He disagreed that disclosure regarding future roadway connections to Bridle Creek was adequate. The information was presented in small, poor quality print on page 170 of a 180 page document and that Greenbriar in general promoted its home with an intentional lack of transparency that should not be tolerated in Pleasanton. He said he was also disheartened by the tenor of these "not in my backyard" arguments. He said the common sense interpretation of a road is that it is a structure and asked the Council to uphold the voters' desire to see no development in the hills. Raj Rajagopalan clarified his comments from the last meeting, stating that the connector road was first talked about in 2003 not 2005. He fully concurred with Mr. Mandavi. He suggested that instead of arguing over the definition of a road, limiting the Lund Ranch II development to only 5 homes would satisfy all community interests. He said he took significant issue with the reversal of staff's position and current recommendation that the Council manipulated the language of PP to suit Us own purpose. Reshma Krishna, Bridle Creek, said that the focus should be on intent and both the arguments in favor of PP and the rebuttal to that argument contain clear discussions of roads. She said the primary intent is to protect the hillsides and roads are included in that intent. She reiterated that PP overrides all existing General Plan and Specific Plan provisions and can only be amended by the voters. Kay Ayala referred to the audio tape of the June 26, 2008 Council meeting in which one of the three signers of the initiative stated that "We agree with the staff report and (that) it would appear that a road, such as a bypass road that is intended to serve existing development could be built on slopes greater than 25% in that the grading for the road would not be for the purpose of The constructing new residential or commercial structures." When asked about the intent of the initiative as it relates to the Happy Valley Bypass Road, the speaker then said that "the intent of the initiative is to control construction of residential and commercial structures, not roads" and explicitly confirmed that it was not the intent to prevent roads that may be on a 25% slope. She said Mr. Fialho could attest to similar conversations with the signers the day before the election. She conceded that the maps used to gather signatures showed a road and said this was simply to demonstrate to the community where houses would be. She also noted that the General Plan contains satisfactory protections to prohibit a road such as what was demonstrated, regardless of tonight's vote. John Bauer provided the Council with the full text of the initiative, as signed by Ms. Ayala and Karla Brown (who was not then a member of the Council) and said they are the only ones who can truly speak to the intent. He agreed with the comments of Mr. Herz. He suggested two alternatives to satisfy the community — no development on Lund Ranch or construction of a tunnel through rather than over the hills to Sycamore Creek. He said that he considered roads to be public structures and therefore not covered under the residential and commercial restrictions of PP. Julie Lewis said the truth is that no one wants increased traffic in their neighborhoods but that growth is unavoidable and everyone must do what is fair to share in the burden. Belinda Zhu said the American Heritage Dictionary and defines civil engineering as the branch of engineering that specializes in design and construction of structures such as bridges, roads and dams. She said votes based on what is written and it was not written anywhere that roads are not structures. City Council Minutes Page 9 of 23 April 16, 2013