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• Construction of 187 — 1,185 linear feet of retaining wall, at a height of between 8 and 12 foot tall • 12 — 21 heritage trees removed At Attachment 1, I have included some photos displaying the sort of grading occurring presently at another development, on slopes above the south side of Vineyard Avenue, off Pietronave Road and Silver Oak Ave (just past Western Garden Nursery). This is the exactly sort of thing the PP voters wanted to prevent happening to hillsides, but is the very sort of thing necessary to do when grading and building a road. A variety of commissioners and councilmembers have, in the past, agreed. The Commission appears to have gotten legal advice that there is ambiguity in Measure PP and that therefore it is up to the Commission to decide, on a project -by project basis, what is a "structure." As a practicing attorney, this advice surprises me. A road is either a structure or it isn't. A retaining wall is either a structure or it isn't. A bridge is either a structure or it isn't. It would be remarkable if, for example, a two -mile long road is a "structure" but a one - mile long road is not, or if obvious, ugly retaining walls are "structures" but less obvious walls are not. The law serves an important public notice function, informing residents and developers alike what is permitted and what is not. How is this function to be served if one cannot know whether a particular road or wall or bridge is permitted or barred by PP until the Commission and Council votes? Even if you accept this legal advice, though, it remains extremely difficult to understand how the Council could conclude that 184 feet of 8 -foot high retaining wall, plus a bridge, are not "structure." Commission Decides to Level Hillsides to Protect Hillsides The oddest turn in all of this came in the last moments of the Planning Commission's treatment of this issue. When initially asked by the Commission for a proposal to build a road to Sycamore, the developer provided a road plan with significant retaining walls. Two Commission members believed (without substantive explanation) that walls are "structure" but roads are not. As noted above, the Commission did not know the true ridgelines and so therefore was under the mistaken impression that it might be possible to connect to Sunset Creek without building walls in violation of Measure PP. And so the Commission directed the developer to submit alternate proposals that did not require retaining walls on slopes. On a hillside, if you move enough dirt, you do not need to build a retaining wall, as there isn't anything to retain any more. The original Sycamore road plan ( "Option B "), with retaining walls on slopes, called for grading across 1.5 acres (.8 of which were on 25 %+ slope). At the Commission's request the developer submitted an alternative, with no walls, requiring grading on 2.3 acres (1.6 of which are on 25 %+ slope). So, to "honor Measure PP" (a measure, remember, to protect hillsides), the Commission has mandated a plan that requires grading almost an additional acre of hillside.