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was really problematic because the ridge is constantly moving, so whatever height one is measuring from could be different from one end of the house to the other, and it almost became a silly exercise to really try and implement that methodology to the letter of the law. The other thing that it did was penalize homes that were adjacent to but not on hills that were very short, and that seemed counter - intuitive to the purpose of Measure PP, such that the lower the hill the more punitive the rule was. As a result, staff came up with this other methodology that is much cleaner, and the applicants have been pushing for this as this was the methodology they came up with in the beginning. Staff considered it and explored the other option, but in the end, staff believes it is the best methodology because it can actually be implemented on a consistent basis regardless of the topographic situation. In this particular methodology, measurement starts at the top of the ridge, goes 100 feet straight down, and then turns at a 90- degree angle towards daylight: that is the area, 100 feet down, that is protected; no grading can be done on that hillside to put a pad, but grading can be done in the valley below to put a pad in. Staff applied it to this project, and it seems to work in this particular case. There are no homes proposed that are going to be breaking a ridgeline or coming close to somebody's view or ridgeline, and that is really what it is all about in terms of Measure PP. Because measurement will be done on a case -by -case basis, this methodology could be applied to the topography on another project site to see if it seemed reasonable. Is a road a structure? Measure PP, in part, states: "Ridgelines and hillsides should be protected. Housing units and structures shall not be placed on slopes of 25 percent or greater, or within 100 vertical feet of a ridgeline. No grading to construct residential or commercial structures shall occur on hillside slopes 25 percent or greater, or within 100 vertical feet of a ridgeline." There have been very eloquent arguments on both sides, and reasonable people can come to different conclusions on this issue. Some people have reached out to other definitions of structures and said this definition of structure does seem to include roads, and, therefore, a road is a structure and is prohibited in these areas by Measure PP. Others have said that if Measure PP meant to prohibit roads, it would have listed roads. Because Measure PP does not address it directly, the City has the ability to decide what was meant by Measure PP, and the Commission gets to be a part of that decision. Ultimately, it is a City Council decision. Staff is proposing that the Commission interpret Measure PP as not prohibiting roads because it is necessary to implement staff's recommendation. Man -made slopes. This has not been terribly controversial in terms of the concept, and almost everyone agrees in the cases here on Lund Ranch: there is one little land form where a road was needed, and instead of going over it, a flat road was bulldozed straight through, resulting in steep slopes on either side. The same thing happened to create a flat pad to put the barn in by the creek. Some grading was done to create the usable farm area. Nobody seems to disagree that that concept is incorrect, although there were some questions about whether or not the natural slopes around here exceeded 25 percent. Staff asked the project engineers to take a very detailed technical look at it, so one can see a section taken that cuts across both of those man -made areas and the information done by engineers using the topographic map. The existing areas were never graded; the maximum is 18 percent. There is a PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 24, 2015 Page 6 of 54