16 ATTACHMENT 04 - Laserfiche WebLink

August 6, 2007 Pleasanton Planning Corrunission 125 Old Bernal Avenue Pleasanton, CA 94566 Q~c~cad~o AUG r 6 2007 RE: PUD 64-4238 First Street Dear Commissioner. CITY OF PLEASANTON PLANNING DEPT. I reviewed the plans, walked the site, attended the workshop, listened to the discussions, and spoke with the applicants. Some projects in Old Town have been the right concept at the wrong location, others the wrong concept at the right location. I believe this tune this project can be the right concept at the right location. • The units are located beyond "acceptable" walking distances for the vast majority of Old Town's "retail" business customers, thereby rendering it unlikely that the project's "inevitable" parking overflows will substantially affect the parking supply of Old Town's business district. (Something that is currently being overlooked or ignored). • On the other hand, the units are close enough to Main Street to almost guarantee that when the new residents do go shopping or dining they won't be rolling 4,000 pounds of fire breathing steel, plastic and rubber with them, and expecting to find 200 sq. ft. of vacant asphalt within 17 feet of their destination to park it on when they get there, • Retaining the existing home up front and placing the new units in the rear is not only an excellent start towards an "appropriate" old town project, but also a good way to minimize the negative streetscape effects the "new" project might inflict upon the "old" neighborhood. (Something else that's been ignored lately) Now no doubt we all understand the basic irreversible components that make up this project. The number of units, size, placement, design, bulk, roof lines, materials and parking. Color and landscaping are reversible. And we know that it is how these components are assembled that will define the project. I have always felt that if Old Town is to maintain the character and appeal that draws people, and projects just like this one, to Old Town in the fu~st place, then new projects should be judged not only by what the project receives from Old Town, but also by what it gives back to Old Town in return, The known is, these applicants have tapped into the right concept at the right Old Town location and hold both the talent and the ability to create an "appropriate" project, make an "appropriate" profit, and "appropriately" give something back to Old Town in return. To me the only unknown is; do the applicants also hold the desire? Being an Old Town resident myself, thereby unable to walk and think at the same time, I laid down and stopped breathing (in order to plug all seven of my brain cells into this one unknown) and just before I passed out this thought flashed before me. I think so and the applicants should be given the opportunity to prove it. Not to me, or you, but to the Old Town community itself. ~es c IY, Robert W. Byrd 413-6850