11 ATTACHMENT 8 - Laserfiche WebLink

In response to Chairperson Arkin's inquiry regarding the height of the retaining walls, Ms. Mundie replied that she believes the design guidelines provide for five-foot tall retaining walls. Chairperson Arkin noted that if the walls were for stability, they should be part of the infrastructure of the project rather than the design guidelines. Ms. Mundie replied that they were but that it is important that the design guidelines weigh in on how large the walls are because otherwise, it would be possible to build a project that had a lot of very large retaining walls, and that would be an unattractive feature of a project. Chairperson Arkin stated that given that concept, he believed the number of retaining walls should be determined before the project was approved and not determined as a design guideline that will come house by house, and that there ought to be a map that shows where all the retaining walls are going to be on the project. Ms. Mundie stated that the strategy behind the site plan was to try to put the buildings on the most stable portions of the site. The idea was always to minimize the amount of cut-and-fill that would be needed and the amount of stabilization effort that would be involved. Therefore, if retaining walls are needed in certain situations, their dimensions would be limited. And if a retaining wall exceeded those dimensions, that would mean that was a site that could not be built on. It becomes a constraint on development. Commissioner O'Connor inquired how many of the 51 lot in the preferred plan would have had a grade of more than 25 percent before the cut for the pad of the house. Ms. Mundie replied that she did not have the answer at this time but that it is something that could be researched.. Those sites on the 51-lot alternative are on larger lots, and, therefore, the building will be a smaller proportion of the-total lot size. Some of those lots could possible have rather steeper slopes because it would be easier to avoid those slopes on a larger lot. Commissioner O'Connor indicated that he was more interested in the pad that the house would sit on rather than if the lot had steeper slopes. He inquired if grading had to occur to take away the 25 percent slope in order to place a house on the building pad. Ms. Mundie replied that she would inquire into that. Commissioner Fox noted that at the top of page 140, it indicates that the consultants relied upon the Berlogar report to determine stability and that the Verona Fault was one mile away. She inquired is the consultants relied on the Berlogar report or if there was another consultant that they also used. Ms. Mundie replied that she would ask Baseline Environmental Consulting to respond in part to that question. She pointed out that while Mr. Berlogar is a property owner in Pleasanton, he is also the head of a geotechnical consulting firm. She informed the Commission that the City of Pleasanton has its own City-paid consultant, Cotton Shires Associates, to review the geotechnical reports; therefore, in effect, the consultant and everything he has to work with is not the only resource Pleasanton has to try to assure maximum safety of new building sites. EXCERPTS: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, July l2, 2006 Page 12 of 21