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Ms. Dennis had concerns about changing the designation to high density residential. The current proposal is at the low end of the high density range and until a definite plan has been submitted, it is unknown how many units are really proposed. She wanted to preserve the alternate land use designation in any case. She acknowledged the desire of the neighborhood for residential development. Ms. Ayala asked for staff direction. Mr. Iserson said the most likely event would be for the developer to pursue the ten-lot residential plan and Council would be seeing that in a fairly short period of time. The application has been submitted and processing it has been on hold pending a decision on the Specific Plan. This is a difficult decision because there are neighbors on one side who want residential and on the other side is the commercial use which could create a conflict for the new residents with the brew pub, parking lot, etc. That is why staff felt a small garden office might work well on this site. Ms. McKeehan indicated the real issue was to create a buffer between the residential and commercial developments. Mr. Iserson suggested that rather than the simple designation of office, that Council may want to define that more by suggesting a garden, one-story, small scale, residential appearing office, so it does not have the same type of office building that was presented in the past. Mr. Campbell asked if the designation was residential, does it have to be high density. Mr. Iserson said Council can do what it likes. Mr. Campbell hypothesized that if the property is designated medium density and a plan comes forward with ten homes and Council doesn't like it, can Council say it wants fewer homes. Would the medium density designation give more flexibility compared to high density? Are ten units the bottom of the range for high density? Mr. Iserson said ten is the minimum number of units for high density. If fewer units were desired, the property would have to be medium density. Ms. Ayala would be more comfortable with medium density than high density, but she was still concerned that the neighbors on Walnut are concerned about what goes next to them. She felt the residents of the newly constructed units would be concerned about the commercial uses next to them. That is creating a problem of compatibility. Ms. McKeehan pointed out that the lower the density, the more concern there would be and the less ora buffer there would be. There was discussion about what constitutes garden office and various examples were cited, including the kinds of tenants and estimated traffic flow. Pleasanton City Council 21 03/05/02 Minutes