11 ATTACHMENT 8 - Laserfiche WebLink

"Views: First, they chose to evaluate the prominence from only three points of view. Two of them from the perspective of less than two dozen homes to the east of Court 1, and one very deceptive photo from the area near McDonald's. "The view that adversely affects probably the most citizens is Court 1 from the west. Not only does this view of Court 1 affect close to a hundred yards, houses and windows of nearby Kottinger Ranch and Vintage Hills, the houses on Court 1 will be prominently visible to more than half of the new Bernal Property Parklands, the entire grandstands and golf course on the County Fairgrounds, the eastern houses and streets of the Bernal Property Homes, several locations along Bernal entering the city, homes and streets on the ridge and along Foothill, the northern portions of Augustin Bernal Park, the Bernal-Stanley intersection and the southern portion of the Busch property, to name a few. "This view of Court 1 from the west will be of the most prominent and objectionable kind; massive ridgetop buildings with no hills behind, only sky. Staff mistakenly states that, `The views of homes on ridges are backed by distant ridgelines, thereby serving as a backdrop.' This is not true in the case of Court 1 when viewed from the west. "Photographic Methods: The second method staff used to misrepresent the prominence of these houses is to use photographic methods to make the houses appear more than twice as far away as they really appear to the naked eye. "Photo Size: The third method staff used was to print the photos too small to reveal usable detail. "House Size: The fourth method that staff used to mislead this Commission and the citizens was to significantly undersize the computer simulated homes, even though staff has admitted that `The market tendency is to design large homes to the maximum allowed Floor Area Ratio.' "At the time of the Final EIR, the average proposed house size on Courts 1 and 2 was 12,015 square feet plus an 800-square-foot garage. The visual analysis, used to evaluate the prominence of these 12,000-square-foot houses, according to staff, used 6,700-square-foot computer simulations with no mention of garages. "Even under the 20-percent FAR proposed at this meeting, the average house size on Courts 1 and 2 is 9,716 square feet, plus an 800-square-foot garage. But they are still using the same 6,700-square-foot simulations, a more than 3,000-square-foot discrepancy per house. "Corrections to Draft EIR: During the Draft EIR process, many citizens have officially requested these four misleading areas be corrected. Both on July 12, 2006, and August 23, 2006, this Commission has directed staff to correct these four areas. Ms. Decker and Mr. Pavan assured the Commission that it would be taken care of. EXCERPTS: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 13, 2007 Page 15 of 19