CCMIN081815 - Laserfiche WebLink

compromised. As a Birdland resident she is very familiar with the limited sense of privacy available and does not support the precedent that allowing the proposing balcony would create or the decline in property values that would surely result. Don Henning, Hummingbird Road resident, asked the Council to support the welfare and betterment of the community by upholding the Planning Commission's action. Michelle Meyers, Birdland resident, said she chose this neighborhood in part because of how owners have largely maintained the iconic look and aesthetic integrity of their homes even with more modem additions. She did not feel that a project which proposes to add 1,000 square feet, dormers, windows, a rear-facing balcony and modified roofline was necessarily in keeping with this. She urged the Council to review state law regarding privacy as it protects the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy against serious invasion. She cited a recent court case which upheld this premise. She said that no expectation is more reasonable than for families to be able to enjoy their backyards without the concern of neighbors having a direct line of sight to them. She asked that the Council adopt the staff recommendation. Councilmember Pentin asked if the case she mentioned relates to backyard privacy. Ms. Meyers said "no," it interprets the protection of these rights generally. Councilmember Pentin asked how that relates to this project. He asked whether the ruling states what level of expectation is reasonable, such as screening within a backyard, or whether it discusses the expectation of privacy in the public domain. Ms. Meyers offered to email him a copy of the briefing. Bill Foley stated that Housing Site Development Standards enacted by the Council in 2012 require that design features complement the adjacent neighborhoods and properties and discuss the role of architectural design in that effort. He said the proposed project does not fit the Birdland community, which has not one example of a rear-facing second-story balcony, and asked the Council to uphold the Planning Commission's action. Vice Mayor Brown asked how the architecture, excluding the balcony, fits within the neighborhood. Mr. Foley said he felt that dormer windows would tend not to complement the surrounding homes but that he is more concerned with the issue of reasonable expectation of privacy in rear yards. Miriam Noorzad, sister of the applicant, shared some of her family's professional accomplishments. She explained that the applicants relocated from Sacramento to Pleasanton to assist in caring for her own mother, and did so with the hopes to improve upon their outdated home. She said that the proposed project was designed with the intent to improve the property for both the applicants and the surrounding community. She also disagreed with the notion that the addition of a balcony would decrease home values within the neighborhood. She said she is very disappointed that her family has been challenged with neighbors who treat them as outsiders, and said she has witnessed behavior to this effect. She explained that the exterior cameras were installed as a protection measure against some of the treatment they have experienced and were not intended to violate the privacy of any one neighbor. One of these experiences includes the front door incident, which she felt occurred in a vastly different manner than described by Mr. Cummings. She said she has watched her family experience prejudice like this all of her life and said that any action other than overturning the Planning Commission's ruling would effectively condone this behavior. She said the matter should never have extended beyond the Zoning Administrator's ruling. City Council Minutes Page 7 of 14 August 18,2015