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She was unprepared to discuss different land use designations for the church on Valley Trails. She wanted a broad look at existing public and institutional properties before making a decision to change any to residential use. Council member McGovern and Planning Commissioners Maas and Roberts recused themselves and left the room. Ms. Fox indicated she believed it was a mistake to take the 25% slope rule out of the 1996 General Plan and was in favor of putting it back in. Mr. Sullivan asked if any of the properties on the west side of Foothill Road were under the Williamson Act in the past or are they still covered by it? Mr. Roush said the only one he could recall was the Garms Ranch, which was approved in the 1980's. Council made findings to take it off the Williamson Act contract. The project did not go forward and the property reverted to acreage. The Williamson Act was not re-imposed and eventually the property was sold to the East Bay Regional Park District. He was unaware of any other properties in that area that are subject to the Williamson Act. He saw a list within the last year or so that listed all the properties in Pleasanton subject to the Act and he did not remember any of those properties being west of Foothill Road. He would check a current list from the County to make certain. Mr. Sullivan asked about the city's liability for allowing houses to be built in geotechnically unstable areas. Mr. Roush replied that the city's liability in that case is no more significant than on any other project. For any questionable site, staff would require engineering mitigations to take place. That does not insure that a site could not be hit by a big slide, but generally the city's immunity is good if it has done everything the environmental analysis requires and the geological and soils report recommendations are followed. That would provide design immunity. In addition, those sites would be put into geological hazard abatement districts, which would have funds to do remedial work to prevent the slide in an open space area from coming down and damaging the streets or houses in the area. Mr. Sullivan asked if staff had been able to compile the number of units allowed if everything was zoned rural density residential? Ms. Stern said if everything currently designated LDR (low density residential) and made it RDR (rural density residential), the existing RDR is not changed. Instead of 98 lots, there would be 43 lots. If the 25% slope rule were imposed, then the 64 lots would be reduced to 23 lots. Mr. Sullivan clarified if you use the 25% slope rule and change everything to RDR there would be 23 lots on the entire west side of Foothill Road. He indicated he was very concerned about additional development on the west side of Foothill Road for the same reasons people put an initiative on the ballot to protect the ridge. That did a great job in protecting the top of the ridge, but he felt there were huge holes in the measure. He would like to see a balance between further protection of the ridge, the environmental impacts of additional development, the visibility impacts, and the whole character of the rural nature of the ridge, balanced with maintaining some property value for those people who have zoning for development now. Some of the ideas mentioned at this meeting would help do that. The 25% slope rule should be Joint Workshop City Council/Planning Commission 15 03/01/06