12 Exhibits - Laserfiche WebLink

Commissioner Pearce generally agreed with the previous comments and noted that this site would not remain as a vacant field. She believed that Home Depot would provide less traffic in the long run than other business options being considered because it would not be a unique business in the City. She agreed that traffic was a major problem and believed the City should keep traffic engineers and developers on the hook iftheir traffic models did not pan out. She agreed that business revenues should be kept in mind as the City approached buildout. She agreed with the grill restriction and the removal of the liquor store from the plan. Acting Chairperson Fox noted that she would not support this proposal because it was located too far from the freeway. She disagreed with the move to sandwich a big-box retail store between two existing residential neighborhood and that it was too close to the Downtown. She believed this use and the associated traffic and noise would affect their quality of life and would not preserve the character of the residential neighborhood. She noted that the City did not have a weekend traffic model to gauge the effects of this use. Routing the commercial traffic through V alley Avenue would result in a negati ve impact on that street. She noted that the 100- foot buffer between the Beth Emek synagogue and the Home Depot complex had not been included as discussed in the first two workshops. She noted that the General Plan called for providing setbacks, landscaping, soundwalls, and other methods to protect adjacent land uses from noise from development. She believed that by not providing that buffer, this project did not meet the General Plan. Acting Chairperson Fox did not believe this part of Pleasant on had ever been designated as a regional shopping center in the 1970's and 1980's. She believed this project would be appropriate for a Commercial Neighborhood type of development, not for a Central Commercial District area. She could support Long's Drugs and Starbucks as well as other appropriately scaled retail uses in this neighborhood. She believed the 48 percent passers-by assumption was too high for this type of establishment. She believed a 24-hour drive-through at Long's Drugs was completely unacceptable in this location and that the height ofthe out structures at 41 feet was out of scale for this part of the City. She believed the hours would be more appropriate for a location near a freeway. She noted that Pleasanton has never had an East Side Specific Plan and noted that these types of applications were approved in a piecemeal fashion. She believed that the Commission must take into account lost revenue from locally-owned businesses, including some of the local flooring and hardware stores along the Valley Avenue/Quarry Lane area. She noted that the cost of policing a 24-hour drive-through would be another cost to the City. In response to an inquiry by Commissioner Blank regarding whether the Vintage Hills Shopping Center area had been notified, Ms. Decker confirmed that was the case. Commissioner Blank did not believe that any storeowners had spoken in opposition to this application. Commissioner Pearce moved to find that the proposed project will not have a significant environmental impact and that the Negative Declaration is appropriate; to find that the proposed project conforms to the General Plan; to make the PUD development plan and conditional use findings as stated in the staff report; and to recommend approval to the City Council of the Negative Declaration, Cases PUD-81-25-7M, PCUP-165, and PDR-529, subject to the conditions of approval as shown on Exhibits C, D, and E, respectively, of the staff report, as recommended and modified by staff. EXCERPTS: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, December 13,2006 Page 13 of 16