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Commissioner Balch further clarified that the subject of the subsequent matter is the <br />other homes in the district that did not make the scope of historic, the 88 homes, but <br />were in the survey. <br />Commissioner Nagler asked if this is an item that is either directly brought back to the <br />Commission for further discussion or recommended to the Council that it be brought <br />back for further discussion. <br />Chair Allen proposed that the Commission wait until after the Commission gets the <br />public comments. <br />THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS OPENED. <br />Linda Garbarino stated that she was a member of the Historic Preservation Task Force <br />and supports the adoption of the Historic Resource Survey, which is a very well done <br />and quite interesting document. She indicated that the City really did a fabulous job on <br />the Downtown historic preservation, starting with the Pleasanton Downtown Historic <br />Context Statement and moving through the process to the Survey. <br />Ms. Garbarino stated that she supports Option 2 as it certainly speaks to the issues that <br />need to be addressed in terms of going back to what was said about the conditions and <br />the looks of the City's neighborhoods. She expressed concern that there were <br />103 homes that did not qualify as a historic resource for reasons ranging from a very <br />minor to major and significant changes, as outlined by Ms. Petrin. She indicated that <br />when the Task Force first talked about this almost three years ago, the members were <br />told that replacing or relocating a second -floor window of a two -story home in the DTSP <br />area would trigger design review, which seemed understandable; but knocking out a <br />window in the first story of the house and putting in a sliding glass door or something <br />similar would not trigger a design review. She noted that the Task Force found it very <br />inconsistent that the upper story was scrutinized but the first ten from the ground level <br />up was not. She added that the reason given for this was that historically, most homes <br />had fencing and significant foliage around it so most of the lower part of the house was <br />really never shown; it was the issue of what was seen by neighbors of the upper story <br />and the significant impact that would have in terms of other people's rights to privacy. <br />Ms. Garbarino stated that ten feet on a one -story home can be pretty much the whole <br />house, and people have had the experience here in town of waking up one morning and <br />finding out that the lovely little one -story house next -door has been stripped to the <br />studs, and the City knew nothing about it. She noted that there is a major impact for <br />those 103 homes that did not make the list as some of these are beautiful homes that <br />have a significant look to them but could then potentially have some major changes <br />overnight. She indicated that this is a little frightening to those who live in the historic <br />area next to homes that were not approved for whatever reason. She noted that most <br />people tend to want to do the right thing, but sometimes really critical errors are made <br />that are expensive to change. She asked the Commission to consider making a <br />recommendation to the Council to have staff review this and come back with some <br />alternatives that do protect property values and historic property that citizens hold dear <br />in this City. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, October 14, 2015 Page 12 of 35 <br />