SUPPLEMENTAL - Laserfiche WebLink

PCJ REAL ESTATE ADVISORS, LLC DATE: May 1, 2023 TO: Pleasanton City Clerk Mayor Karla Brown Vice Mayor Jack Balch Council Member Julie Testa Councilmember Valerie Arkin Councilmember Jeff Nibert CC: Ellen Clark, Director of Community Development FROM: Patrick Costanzo, Jr. RE: City Council Agenda Item #13, May 2, 2023 Modifications to Objective Design Standards Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers: As you know I made significant comments to the Draft ODS in January. I would like to thank staff for following up on these comments and including me in discussions with the City's consultant to explore my concerns and their thoughts. I believe several improvements were made through this process and are included in the modifications being presented to you. However, there are a few items that we agreed to disagree on, but I feel are worth bringing to your attention for further modification. 1. Page 22, A1.3 and A1.4. These standards require a 4 foot park strip and 5 foot sidewalk on each side of an Alley. When combined this is 9 feet on each side and a total of 18 feet on an alley which is typically 21 feet wide so this adds 43% additional land for an alley which significantly reduces the density when designing a community with alley loaded homes. This will impact the likelihood of achieving some higher densities. Perhaps make these Guidelines rather than Standards for alleys. 2. Page 24, A1.10 f. requires private driveways connecting garages to Internal, Public, or Frontage streets to be a minimum of 22 feet. This standard is excessive and can unnecessarily result in smaller rear yards. The universal acceptable interior dimension of a garage is only required to be 20 feet so a driveway should not need to be longer. Furthermore, average car lengths range from 10.5 ft for a small car to 18.4 ft for a large pickup. A large SUV averages 16.4 feet and will still have an excess of 3.6 feet with a 20 foot driveway length. See attached table. We suggest 20 feet be the standard vs 22 feet. 1 I Page