11 ATTACHMENT 8 - Laserfiche WebLink

three-story home. He displayed various views of the site on the overhead screen and expressed concern about the prominence of eight large homes on the hillside. He was also concerned about the lights from those homes at night. He wished to address the inconsistency of the homeowners association approving Mr. Roberts' house and noted that they did that because they had known Mr. Roberts for a long time; he was known to have conducted himself in a way that evinces trust. He noted that they did not yet have that trust with the applicant, although he hoped they could gain that trust. He requested more straight talk and answers to common-sense questions. Sharon Burnham, Executive Director, Tri-Valley Conservancy, 1736 Holmes Street, Livermore, noted that she would be available to answer any questions regarding conservation easements and the resource management plan for Oak Grove. Howard Neely noted that he had worked on the General Plan on Housing, the Park and Recreation Commission, and the Housing Commission. He noted that when Vintage Hills I and II and Kottinger Ranch were built, no one complained about them because they lived as a housing community. He recalled when Hacienda Business Park was built, people believed that it was a good project for the town. He expressed concern about the increasing frequency of private roads and gated communities in town, which he believed started social problems such as the divisions demonstrated by this project. Mary Roberts, 1666 Frog Hill Lane, believed that Alternative 3 was dead because there was no place to put it. She noted that the Commission has since approved the caregiver's house, a wine barn and a horse barn. She added that there was no such thing as a ridge road. She noted that in the Vineyard Avenue Corridor Specific Plan regarding the tank property, the EVA was supposed to go over the hill to Berlogar's. Because of the steepness of the road, the developers and the Fire Department wanted a different alternative. Part of the EVA went up her driveway and noted that large fire trucks could navigate her driveway. Melanie Bentley, 23 Grey Eagle Court, noted that she had never been a "no-growther" and generally liked Pleasanton's posture as a City of Planned Progress. She believed this project because she believed it could be done well and asked the Commission to continue to listen to the community's concerns. Mr. Inderbitzen noted that this project has been largely an attempt to understand what the community at large would benefit from, and how they could provide it in a way that minimized impacts as much as possible on the surrounding community. He noted that they ended up with 496 acres of publicly accessible open space and that they would build trails that would be available to the community at large. They also provided an end to development in that portion of the community and a beginning for several thousand acres of open space as a part of the community, which would be free of charge to the community. He noted that they had to make compromises on the immediately adjacent neighborhoods to meet that goal, and in order to minimize the impacts, they elected to stay out of the drainages, out of the trees, away from the biological impacts, and restricted the development as much as possible to preserve the maximum open space component for perpetuity. They were aware that the visual impact would be the most significant impact to deal with. He emphasized that this was a lot project, not a home project; they did not propose to build a single home with this application. He noted that compliance with EXCERPTS: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 27, 2007 Page 13 of 17