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Dean Hassapakis said he is a landscape contractor and horticulturist and sees the retaining wall as preserving the planting materials at the bottom of the slope. He felt the wall was needed, said he believed the plants and trees he chose for the project were proper, aesthetically pleasing and functional. He felt Mr. Jeffrey explained nicely what was existing, said he visited the site prior to the work being done, and felt a good job was being done on replacing screening, noting that some of the landscaping was dead because of previous slope failures. Greg Raymond, a demolition contractor, said he worked on the project, that he spoke with Ms. Johnston the night the foliage was removed and he assured her foliage would go back in to preserve her privacy and the privacy of the appellant. His team also dug the footings for the retaining wall and during that process; they ensured proper drainage would work. Lisa Johnston asked the Council to deny the appeal, said she hoped the Council had a chance to review information they provided, said back in January they never believed they would be here tonight because with proper mediation, a solution could be achieved. Since permits were issued in error in December 2007, they felt the Zoning Administrator would enforce the zoning and landscaping would be replaced as soon as possible. The restriction from the lot prohibiting any re-grading was brought up by them to mean that re-grading would not be allowed, or if allowed, with conditions. They fought long and hard for this in 1988 when Council first developed the condition for the Tract. It states there shall be strict prohibition for re-grading of any lot within the tract. When heard at the planning level, they did not want their concerns to be taken lightly, but after staff assured them it would carry the same weight of importance as if the matter went to City Council, they agreed to have it dealt with through the Zoning Administrator. After attending the first zoning hearing, they realized the Zoning Administrator did not feel the same about their impact and chose to ignore it. The second hearing, Ms. Amos only focused on landscaping as the solution for privacy. This was a contributing factor in empowering Mr. Jeffrey that what he was asking for was okay. She said he was further frustrated when the retaining wall built across the western and southern property line was 50% higher than the plans indicated. The Zoning Administrator again rendered a decision that did not address her concerns. She noted that City staff had not asked to visit the site or pictures. She said reiterated that it had been built 50% higher as depicted in Exhibit A. She said this has been the most misunderstood argument. Mr. Jeffrey said he did not add dirt at the 50% level to build the wall on top of it, and she said she knows it was built at the existing grade at the 15 foot setback. She felt that he should have dug down into the slope and built the wall as the picture depicted. They were not happy with the 4 foot wall being built at the base grade. So when they returned from vacation and saw the wall built to the top of their 6 foot fence line, she visited Ms. Amos who said she would send someone out to the site and let the inspector know. However, none of this happened because what came out of the Zoning Administrator hearing three days later was that a 4 foot wall did not require a permit, however Mr. Jeffrey did get a permit. Ms, Johnson said her understanding was that the wall was there specifically to backfill and it should have been under the permitting process. However, tonight she is hearing something totally different for the first time about Mr. Jeffrey's yard being level and how he dug down into the dirt to install the wall, which was never in the record. Based on this new information, she believes the conditions of approval neglected to satisfy her concerns and she filed an appeal July 18t". During the appeal process, Mr. Jeffrey continued to work on his yard and finished two days prior to the Planning Commission meeting on September 10~". Mr. Jeffrey stated that during that meeting, that he has been understanding of the neighbor's concerns, coordinated with them, and discussed the design aspect of his backyard and met our concerns. He continued to work on the project while it was under appeal, Mr. Jeffrey feels he went through the proper process and cited errors made, but he has been City Council Minutes 9 December 2, 2008