11 ATTACHMENT 8 - Laserfiche WebLink

weeks prior to this hearing, a representative of the Grey Eagle Estates HOA met with the City of Pleasanton Fire Marshall, who had indicated that Grey Eagle Court was not the primary choice for an EVA. Mr. Janas noted that he had spoken to the Fire Marshall's office earlier in the week, and the staff indicated to him that the current Uniform Fire Code that allowed local, City, and fire officials to waive Code requirement was about to be affected significantly with the adoption of portions of the 2006 Uniform Fire Code. The new Code would severely restrict deviations or waivers by local officials, which he understood happened because the State had concerns that there were numerous instances where local officials were making Code waiver decisions due to political pressure or tax revenue considerations. As a result of that meeting, the homeowners had legal counsel spend some time with them over the past several days. He submitted the analysis by the legal counsel after that discussion about those affected changes that should be in place by the beginning of 2008 and what their view was of the impact to the current proposal of the EVA. He recalled a personal experience when he lived on a private street in Atlanta, where a moving truck parked overnight by a neighbor, blocked emergency vehicles responding to a fire and trying to access the EVA. The Fire Department tried to move the van, which jackknifed and blocked the road. The fire truck and van were both damaged, and the two homes were virtually burned to the ground, resulting in two deaths. Their HOA and numerous homeowners suffered hundreds of thousands of legal expenses in liability resulting from that incident. He was concerned that the same problems would be created for the residents of Grey Eagle Court. Bob Grove, 28 Grey Eagle Court, expressed concern about the liability issue and noted that he had lived through three grass fires in his 20 years on the street. He believed there would be another fire south of Grey Eagle Estates and noted that any City approval that directly or indirectly allowed public use of Grey Eagle Court would create a potential liability for the Grey Eagle Estates residents. He did not believe that any Grey Eagle Estates homeowners should be forced to take on this liability. He did not believe that indemnification was the correct solution to the problem and noted that the City had acknowledged that the EVA did not meet Code in terms of width or grade. He believed there would be a high likelihood that the City would be found to be grossly negligent, and every citizen in Pleasanton would be forced to pay damages. He did not believe the Final EIR could be approved since an adequate EVA that addressed the project needs did not correspond with the City's current easement. He noted that two property law firms independently concluded that the City had no legal right to allow public use of a private street, even in an emergency. He did not believe that placement of signage by the City could circumvent this fact. He noted that the Grey Eagle Estates HOA was prepared to enforce its legal right to prevent public use of its private street. He noted that they were not opposed to development of the property and added that there were many positive aspects to this project. He requested that the Planning Commission deny the current plan and direct the developer to resubmit an alternative plan with appropriate EVA ingress and egress that would not utilize Grey Eagle Court. Russell Schmidt, 18 Grey Eagle Court, noted that he was an open space advocate and used the Pleasanton Ridge trails weekly. He noted that the appealing part of this project was the preservation of the trails but was very concerned about house sizes and view impacts. He believed the visualizations were flawed and misleading, done with houses sizes much smaller EXCERPTS: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 13, 2007 Page 13 of 19