HomeMy WebLinkAboutTC Min 2000-11-14
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TOWN COUNCn..
MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Gram called the special adjourned meeting of the Tiburon Town Council to order at 7:15
p,m.on Thursday, 1 . .. -1{ll), at the Del Mar School Gymnasium, 105 Avenida
Miraflores, Tiburon, California.
A. ROLL CALL
PRESENT: COUNCILMEMBERS:
Bach, Gram, Hennessy, Matthews, Thompson
PRESENT: EX OFFICIO:
Town Manager McIntyre, Town Attorney Danforth,
Senior Planner Watrous, Acting Chief of Police Lt,
Aiello, Superintendent of Public Works Iacopi,
Town Clerk Crane Iacopi
B. PUBLIC OUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
None.
C.
1)
PUBLIC HEARING
761 HILARY DRIVE - Appeal ofPlanniilg Commission Decision to Deny Conditional
Use Pennit #19908; Request to Expand the Facilities for an Existing Church - (St. Hilary
Church, Property Owner/AppelIant) - AP Nos. 55-253-11; 55-253-18; 55-221-06-
(Continuedfrom November 9,2000)
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D. ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the Town Council, Mayor Gram adjourned the meeting at
9:00 p,m, to the regular meeting on Wednesday, November 15, 2000,
On December 20, 2000, the Town Council adopted the transcript of the hearing provided by
Jane Grossman Reporting Services, Certified Shorthand Reporters, with the attached
amendments. Copies of the transcript are available at Town Hall.
~/,Z
ANDREW nIOMPSON~ MA ~ R-
AT~A .
DIANE CRANE IACO~ CLERK
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Town Council Minutes #11205
November 14, 2000
Page 1
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TOWN COUNCIL MINUTES NO. 1205 - November 14. 2000
(Changes submitted by Vice Mayor Matthews)
Page 210, line 9
Page 211, line 6
Page 211, line 15
insert "rather" between 'locally ^ than'
after the last word 'the' add "issues"
"at" should be "with" ['which [strike 'it was'] ~ proposed
[strike 'that the'] at [add ''with'']
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Page 211, line 23
add "plus" garage. Add "this" did not...
add ability ''to expand"
Page 212, line 2
after "character" add "since larl!:er remodelinl!: has been takinl!: place
in that neil!:hborhood for some time,"
Page 212, lines 4 &5
should read, "has a height of30 feet and is an unusually prominent
building for that site on Hilary Drive."
Page 212, line 6
delete "and"; begin sentence with "Al!:ain"
Change "would" to "agreed not to"
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Page 212, line 15
"Then" should be "when"
Page 212, line 16
"from the" should be "of'
Page 212, line 18
after "feet" add "of net new classroom space"
Page 213, line 1
"underquality" should read, "inadeauate and subaualitv"
Page 213, line 16
"as l! landscaping Dlan on the ..."
Page 213, line 19
"boils down to the ~"
Page 213, line 23
"where we are on these issues"
Page 213, line 25
"." partner, Councilmember Gram talk about the ~-I'm going
home."
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delete "And" and begin sentence "This"
Page 252, line 22
delete "it has been"
Page 252, line 25
replace "and" with "to where"
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TOWN COUNCIL, TOWN OF TIBURON
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In the matter of
761 Hilary Drive, St. Hilary Church
Appeal of Planning Commission Decision
to Deny Conditional Use Permit #19908
TRANSCRIPT OF TOWN COUNCIL MEETING
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
Volume II
7:00 P.M.
Del Mar Middle School
105 Avenida Miraflores
Tiburon, California
TOWN COUNCIL MEMBERS:
Tom Gram, Mayor
Andrew Thompson, Vice Mayor
Therese Hennessy
Mogens Bach
Harry Matthews
STAFF:
Alex McIntyre, Town Manager
Scott Anderson, Planning Director
Ann R. Danforth, City Attorney
Tom Aiello, Police Lieutenant
Tony E. Iacopi, Superintendent of Public Works
Diane Crane Iacopi, City Clerk
SHARON LANCASTER, CSR No. 5468
JANE GROSSMAN REPORTING SERVICES
Certified Shorthand Reporters
3756 Grand Avenue, Suite 406
Oakland, California 94610
(510) 653-2579
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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INDEX
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3 OPENING REMARKS:
PAGE
4 Mayor Gram
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5 PRESENTATION STATEMENT BY OPPONENTS:
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Jim Mallott
Todd Garrett
Wayne Howard
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8 PRESENTATION STATEMENT BY ST. HILARY CHURCH:
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Katie Vogelheim
Father James Tarantino
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204
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11 STATEMENTS BY THE STAFF:
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Ann Danforth
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~ 13 STATEMENTS BY THE COUNCIL MEMBERS:
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Mayor Gram
Harry Matthews
Andrew Thompson
Therese Hennessy
Mogens Bach
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TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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PRO C E E DIN G S
MAYOR GRAM: Would you take the roll, please?
Oh, we have no roll taker?
Council Person Hennessy, are you here?
MS. HENNESSY:
MAYOR GRAM:
MR. BACH: Yes, here.
MAYOR GRAM:
MR. THOMPSON:
MAYOR GRAM:
MR. MATTHEWS:
MAYOR GRAM:
Yes.
Bach?
Thompson?
Here.
Matthews?
Present.
Gram?
Here.
It's nice to see you back again.
have been doing recounts instead of this.
rank somewhere off the bottom. (Laughter.)
When last we met, we had closed the public
hearing. We had presentations from both the appellant,
St. Hilary's, and the neighbors. And then we had our
public hearing and had somewhere around 30 speakers.
And we have now closed the public hearing.
What we are going to do, to continue the
procedure we set out the other night, is we will allow
15 minutes of rebuttal per side starting with the
neighbors and then going to the appellant, St. Hilary's,
You could
At least we
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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1 at which point in time we'll bring it back to the
2 Council for questions, if there are any, of the two
3 sides. Actually, we'll have questions as each side
4 ends.
5 And then we will bring the matter back to the
6 Council, at which point there will be a report from our
7 subcommittee, which consists of Harry Matthews and
8 myself. There will be Council questions, subcommittee
9 recommendations. And then we will bring it to the
10 Council for discussion and attempt to forge a decision.
11 So, we're not going home tonight until we have a
12 decision. I can guarantee you that. But it will not be
13 as late as the other night, I don't think.
14 So, to get started, would the neighbors like to
15 do their presentation, which is 15 minutes?
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17 PRESENTATION BY JIM MALOTT
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19 MR. MALOTT: My name is Jim Malott. I am
20 representing the neighborhood tonight. And along with
21 several others, we would like to address primarily the
22 issue of the gymnasium and the CYO program since that
23 seems to be the crux of the matter. And with that, I'd
24 like to launch right into it since time is relatively
25 short.
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As you may recall, one of the big issues is
traffic. The CYO program itself brings approximately 18
cars per hour at least that's the traffic study that
was presented by St. Hilary's -- to the site. And
although the hours have been reduced from the original
10 and a half, for instance, on Saturday which would
have been 189 vehicles, or vehicle trips down to a
smaller number of trips let's see -- right now it
looks like there are something in the neighborhood of
six hours of operation on Saturday instead of the ten
and a half, which we admit is quite a concession, and
the neighbors do appreciate it.
Nevertheless, when you have 18 cars an hour --
and the way we calculate vehicle trips and convert it to
housing units is we usually allow about seven vehicle
trips per house per day as a reasonable number of
vehicle trips per home.
When you take the 6 hours, multiply it out
times the 18 cars an hour and then divide by the 7
vehicle trips per day, you still have the equivalent
traffic of about 15 cars -- excuse me -- 15 new homes
would put the same amount of traffic on Rock Hill and
Hilary. That's just about the number of homes that are
there now.
So, the traffic equivalent of the CYO program
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alone just about doubles the vehicular traffic on Hilary
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excuse me -- on Rock Hill Drive.
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Now, we also had a certain number of issues
4 that came up with regard to the CYO schools. And we've
5 outlined on this map the location of those schools and
6 the fact that Tiburon has half a dozen possible
7 gymnasiums to practice or play in now. And in addition
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8 to that, our lead schools are all in a programming state
9 right now to develop their needs, which would include
10 upgrading, for the most part, the multipurpose room.
11 So, at least each of the schools desires that --
12 including this room -- for our six through eighth
13 graders.
14 We went around and we looked at all of the
15 other CYO schools. And, in effect, there is quite a
16 difference between the CYO schools that are in the
17 program now, used for tournaments and games, and
18 St. Hilary's location.
19 The biggest differences are that a lot of these
20 schools are much larger and for much larger kids. One
21 is a university, three are high schools, and three are
22 middle schools like this one, sixth through eighth
23 grade. Only three of them are K-through-eight schools.
24 If you look at what the facilities are and what
25 the access is and what the land is like at those
1
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schools, you'll find that -- and these are color coded.
The red represents larger schools, much larger; in many
cases over 1,000 students at these schools.
The green represents playing fields. All of
these schools have playing fields in green.
And the gray represents very good access; major
streets or multiple street access to the schools.
Just briefly, if you want to go to Dominican
University, it's very close to the freeway. Grand
Avenue goes right by this. It is a big, broad street.
It has two or three ways to get to this university
depending on whether you're walking from various
directions.
The Marin Catholic High School is right on Sir
Francis Drake Boulevard. It's easy to get to, and it
has tremendous access. Terra Linda High School has
broad streets, accessed from two directions.
Novato High School has a large campus, big
playing field, broad street right in front of it. By
the way, when I say "broad street," that means a street
that is at least 50 feet wide or wider. These
streets St. Hilary Drive is 30 feet if you count the
two 18-inch gutters. Rock Hill is right in front of the
access for St. Hilary and is actually 35 feet, if you
count the width of the gutters.
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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1
Then when you look at these other schools --
2 these are two middle schools down here. Both of them
3 are on broad streets. One of them is on Las Galinas up
4 in Terra Linda, and the other is out in Fairfax. But
5 they are on relatively good-sized streets.
6 St. Patrick's in Larkspur is right on the main
7 street of Larkspur. And St. Anselms is right adjacent
8 to the campus of the seminary. So, all of this says
9 that these are big schools, big campuses, lots of flat
10 land.
11 And that brings up this chart. If you take a
12 look at the Hilary site, which is about seven acres --
13 St. Hilary's site -- and look at the acre of building,
14 the two acres of paving, that leaves about three and a
15 half or four acres of land that are left.
16 And then if you look at that land carefully,
17 you'll see all of it is extremely steep.
If you look at
18 the topo lines here, it's very steep land. Although you
19 can build a house on it, you can't build big buildings
20 on it because it's a fairly steep area.
21 And that brings up the last of our charts, the
22 acoustic charts. Last week, the acoustic consultant
23 from St. Hilary presented this chart which showed that
24 all of the acoustic noise in the neighborhood at seven
25 o'clock at night is pretty quiet.
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This is what we call the "peace-and-quiet
line," the 60 dBA level here. And with the exception of
two airplane spikes, nothing was over that
peace-and-quiet line.
Whereas, if you look at the general ambient
noise level during the day, you're at 50 or 53. This is
a 9:00 a.m. chart they showed. And this one is what
they showed on the playground outside the school. And
the peace-and-quiet line is here, and you have spikes up
to 80 dBA.
We would also like to just show briefly that
their chart, which indicated a neighbor who had an
acoustic profile, did not include the fact that the only
part of the acoustic energy that is created from
St. Hilary, which is from property line to property line
here -- the only part that can be controlled is in the
gym. And we admit that they can control most of that
noise unless the doors or windows are open or the AC is
on, in which case there is some ambient noise level.
They can't control the sound energy out on the
fields, the cars, the people, the basketball playing,
and so forth. And that energy does go uphill and is
wafted by prevailing wind. And because the parking lot
is close to the property line, it also is right in the
backyard of these neighbors.
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And I'll give the mike to Todd Garrett.
PRESENTATION BY TODD GARRETT
MR. GARRETT: Thank you, Jim.
I would like to just stay with this chart, and
I would like to demonstrate to the Council the noise
level generated by people -- students -- outside the
gym, on the playground. And I have a very limited
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videotape which will show the sound levels before the
kids come out on a normal recess to play and the sound
noises that are audible up the hill when the kids are
out on the playground.
You'll note that there are very few kids out
there, maybe half a dozen kids, and you will hear the
very audible noises that we hear up the hill from
St. Hilary as well as down the hill on St. Hilary Drive,
as well as up on Rock Hill to the side and up the hill.
(Videotape played from 7:22 p.m. to 7:24 p.m.)
MR. GARRETT: With all due respect to the
comments coming from the people in the room, that is
audible noise. And it happens a lot. And no one
objects to the normal sound of kids playing on
playground. When they are on recess, that is under
supervised activity, with a teacher around, and that's
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the play noise that we hear.
So, when your studies say, "There is no audible
noise," there is audible noise. And it's all day,
Monday through Friday. It is not after school, it is
not on Saturday, and it is not on Sunday. There is
audible noise.
The second thing I would like to cover are the
legal grounds that defend neighbors in this community
from overdevelopment by any developer.
The Planning Commission did vote five to zero
to reject this proposal, and they pointed to 16 findings
that were outside the town General Plan and zoning
ordinances. And I would just like to cite six because
they pertaining directly to the gym and CYO.
Section 4.0402 talks about the property related
to the development of the neighborhood as a whole, and
they deem the proximity of homes below and above created
the height and potential for impacts on the surrounding
homes and streets during otherwise quiet times for this
neighborhood on evenings and weekends.
The noise, lights, and traffic generated by the
proposed project would be incompatible with the quiet of
the neighborhood during the evening and quiet times
during which the proposed CYO activities would occur.
There were five other findings related to the
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1 General Plan and zoning ordinances, which I will not
2 repeat here because they are in the record, all of which
3 were findings of fact that did not allow the Planning
4 Commission to approve the CUP because it was outside the
5 town's own General Plan and zoning ordinances.
6 The last point I would like to cover pertains
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7 to the site and the building height that are legally
8 allowed on this site. And I'm going to cover a few
9 points being made by Herman Eller regarding this
10 important fact.
11 This is also in Section 2.040.305 of the town
12 zoning ordinances, and it's in the same section as the
13 land structure regulations. And it says -- it provides
14 for a 30-foot main building, singular, and 15 feet for
15 an accessory building, singular.
1.0502 defines a main
16 building as "a structure within which is conducted the
17 principal business of the lot upon which its located."
18 1.0501 defines an accessory building or
19 structure as "a building or structure which is
20 subordinate to the main building on the same site, or
21 the use of which is incidental to the use of the site of
22 the main building."
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It is a given that the main use of this site is
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for a church and a school.
The rectory, parish house,
25 office and other structures are clearly accessory to the
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main use. There is no way that a gym could be
considered a main building as defined in our zoning
code. If allowed at all, it would be considered
accessory to the school, and as such, if allowed at all,
would be limited to 15 feet in height.
Any other opinion on this matter is ignoring
our own code. The gym must be considered an accessory
to the school and the church. It is not the principal
activity on this site.
So, I think the Planning Commission citing 16
findings that did not allow them to approve a CUP, the
additional evidence and facts that are being presented
here tonight on traffic, noise, and general disruption
of the peace and quality of our life in the neighborhood
simply leads me to the conclusion that we have
substantial evidence and findings of fact that do not
support the application because it violates our own town
zoning ordinances and codes.
The neighbors will experience increased traffic
on the streets where they live, which is already
burdened by St. Hilary's extensive church and school
activities, parking and traffic. And the neighbors will
also experience significantly greater intensity of use
weekdays after school and most all day Saturday with
noise that will clearly be audible and disturbing during
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all these times of extended additional use. This full-
sized, high-school-sized gym and countywide CYO program
will undermine the peace and quiet and quality of life
in our neighborhood forever.
MAYOR GRAM: I'm going to ask you to wind down
because your 15 minutes are up. So, Wayne, if you could
make it quickly.
PRESENTATION BY WAYNE HOWARD
MR. HOWARD: Wayne Howard, 750 Hilary Drive.
I'd like to take this on a positive note and
acknowledge the fact that St. Hilary, I think, has made
a very considerable suggestion in the way they want to
address four of the five elements of the project. And I
think collectively as neighbors, we have been very
relieved to see that we have made such progress in the
last several weeks.
The one remaining aspect, of course, is the
gymnasium and the program attendant to it. And I think
what we should be looking at is the fact that there is a
real distinction between a gymnasium facility that
allows for the core curriculum, including CYO practice,
quality activity, and a gymnasium that allows for intra-
mural, countywide competition as a host facility.
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And what the neighbors I think will be more than
amenable to is the concept that a facility be
constructed at St. Hilary's that allows for St. Hilary's
and St. Hilary's own community needs, which is a
practice- quality gymnasium.
If you look at the chart over across the room,
the top building represents the structure we're in right
now. It is approximately 41 square feet, with a gym
floor that's 61 by 36, with -- I think it's a 3-foot
bordering area -- 4-foot bordering area all the way
around. So, it's very minimal by comparison.
The bottom represents the structure that
St. Hilary is proposing, which, as you can see, is
nearly double the size. It is a floor that is 86 by 50,
with 10 feet of perimeter on 3 sides and 15 or more feet
on the other side.
I think there is a logical opportunity
somewhere mid-point, and the middle drawing represents
yet another concept of where we can go with this. The
gym floor there is 65 by 44, which is adequate for the
core curriculum program without a doubt. And from the
standpoint of what the CYO practice schedule would be,
it provides for both full court play and two half-court
capabilities at what is basically a robust practice
level as opposed to a competitive game level.
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The building would still have six feet of
perimeter space on three sides and an area similar to
the stage here that could provide for both seating and
auditorium purposes. Again, this is a building in
principle. What we're trying to demonstrate is that
there is a big difference between an 8,000-square-foot
building and a 4500-square-foot building, give or take a
few hundred square feet. I think there is a real
opportunity for us to allow the neighbors and St. Hilary
to live together with a structure that provides for the
school's needs, but not make it a host institution.
MAYOR GRAM: Thank you.
At this point, I'm going to bring it back to
the Council to see if you have any questions of the
presenters on the neighbors' side.
MS. HENNESSY: Mr. Garrett, the tape that you
just showed us had a 5:05 time frame on it. Could you
tell me if that was accurate?
MR. GARRETT: That is not accurate. The time
actually was before school started in the morning and
then during a recess the same day. Recess is around ten
o'clock. And the morning was around 7:15, before the
cars and buses generally come. The tape was not
programmed correctly. That 5:00 p.m. thing was not
accurate.
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COUNCILWOMAN HENNESSY: Okay.
Mr. Howard, you mentioned that the compromise
size of the gym would be adequate for practice. Would
it be adequate for the CYO games?
MR. HOWARD: It's my understanding that CYO
games require a competitive floor of 6,050 dimension.
And the neighbors -- what we're basically saying is the
facility needs restrictions imposed on the building
being programmed (sic). And that might be by creating a
building that is smaller than what was allowed for
general play. (Inaudible. )
MS. HENNESSY: So, they could not play CYO
games there?
MR. HOWARD: That's correct.
MS. HENNESSY: Thank you.
MR. THOMPSON: I just wanted to confirm what
the regulation CYO size is.
MS. HENNESSY: The proposal.
MAYOR GRAM: Okay. At this point, the
appellant, St. Hilary, you just got a bonus, so you have
20 minutes.
PRESENTATION BY KATIE VOGELHEIM
MS. VOGELHEIM: Good evening, Mayor Gram,
Council members.
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My role here this evening is to clarify for the
record -- my name is Katie Vogelheim -- some of the
statements and displays that were presented by the
opposition at or meeting last week and tonight.
First, let's talk about project size and bulk.
No residents can see the linear view of the project that
was presented by Mr. Malott.
In fact, you must be
standing on our property to see that view.
Can I see the next slide quickly?
We took a picture of Hilary Drive, looking up
to our properties. This is the only vantage point where
you can actually see any part of the parking lot. As
you can see, you can't see any buildings at all from
Hilary Drive. You are going to be seeing the convent
when it is built. Next slide.
From above St. Hilary Drive -- this is
Mr. Garrett's house right here, the tennis court right
here, just to get your bearings.
As you're looking down, you can see the top of
the church a little bit, a little bit of the parking
lot. The gym will be hidden behind these trees.
It'~
very confusing to us when you talk about size and bulk.
If you can't see them, I'm not quite sure what the issue
is.
We would also like to remind the Council, as
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you look at the next slide -- keep going -- that the
total net impact of this project is 18,000 square feet.
And that is because, as we mentioned last week, we are
really updating most of our current facilities.
Let's talk for a moment about traffic. We
believe that our new traffic circulation plan will
actually improve the traffic in the area, particularly
for St. Hilary Drive residents. There will be an actual
decrease in school traffic on St. Hilary Drive if you
look at the next slide -- as our upper-grade parents
would come in here at Rock Hill, pick up their students
and again leave on Rock Hill Drive. There will be a
decrease in traffic on the weekends for church as more
parishioners are able to come in and actually come in
Rock Hill and leave Rock Hill Drive as well.
As everyone has heard, we've instituted a new
school program which reduces the speed and increases the
safety on Hilary Drive. CYO traffic will not impact
St. Hilary Drive, as we stated previously. Rock Hill
Drive is a collector street. We will be using Rock Hill
Drive for CYO traffic to come in here to the gym, drop
off, and leave. As we said last week, a collector
street is in fact a large street; it is meant to handle
a large volume of traffic.
There was also concern raised last week about
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emergency access to the property. We want to assure
everyone that we take the safety of our children quite
seriously. There is always a full lane open on our
property. When we build the new parking lot, we will
actually have another entrance up here, increasing the
emergency access and the safety of our students.
CYO. This is not a regional center. I don't
know how many times we have to say that. And saying it
over and over again does not make it true. We have
limited the hours of use of this particular facility.
We couldn't be a regional center with its current hours
of use as we have proposed.
Here are the correct stats on CYO use. And we
have provided each of you a letter from Mr. Ralph
Johnson, as you requested last week. It gives you more
details on the program.
This year there are 331 athletes in the
program; 39 percent are from St. Hilary school, 61
percent are from other Tiburon schools. We have one of
the few programs in the county and I want to talk
about this as it relates to noise -- that has its own
CYO board plus specific contracts for our players, our
coaches, and our parents. This is all done to ensure
appropriate behavior outside, before entering the gym,
and inside as they are playing games.
u
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Reed School. As a member of the Reed School
board discussed, their future plans on what they are
doing when facilities are not complete. There is no
guarantee that the Reed Schools will build a gym. And
if so, there is certainly an expectation that that
facility could be shared with Tiburon CYO's program.
Finally, Mr. Malott displayed a very large
picture of CYO gyms in the county and suggested that CYO
is well served by these facilities. His statement is
absolutely untrue.
In fact, as you'll see in your letter that we
gave you tonight, we cannot find enough practice time
with other gyms in this county. We may have to cut the
program if we can't find more gym space.
Gym size. Small multipurpose rooms do not
work. And I do appreciate the fact that we've moved
from a small multipurpose room now to a medium- size
facility on this diagram. Unfortunately, as you can
tell, we cannot have games in that medium-sized
facility, and it is not safe for the children.
Schools that are building athletic facilities
today are building full-sized gyms or large multi-
purpose rooms. And we have plenty of examples of that:
Mt. Tam, Neil Cummins, Marin Country Day. These
facilities are 8,000 to 10,000 square feet in size. A
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gym for our facility is 7,960 feet. We believe very
strongly and experts have stated -- that we need this
size not only to offer a safe and complete PE program
for our school, but also for our CYO program.
Noise. There have been five acoustical
studies. These studies have been done by experts. And
I do appreciate the attempt to try to take a look at
noise. But without an expert, it's very difficult to do
this.
We have proven that our project is below
Tiburon noise guidelines. We have '"also taken some time
and had two studies that focused specifically on outside
noise. They have concluded that the noise expected from
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CYO is in the range of existent ambient noise levels
even in the evening.
If you look to this next chart, as what was
pointed out before, these are ambient noise levels up
here. These are the sounds coming off the St. Hilary
campus. This includes car doors closing, engines and
people talking.
I also want to point your attention to an
acoustical study you should have in your packet that is
dated June 17, 2000. In that study, we measured at peak
periods the sound made by 100 children playing on our
parking lot. That sound was in the 59 decibel level,
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not 80 decibel level. And I think it was misrepresented
in the videotape by Mr. Garrett, because it's very hard
to determine -- it's a difficult thing to do to know
what the volume of the TV set or the VCR is.
I also wanted to point out that the 80 decibel
level was misquoted by Mr. Malott last week as it was
referred to in the "Mt. Tam gym study." We provided you
with a copy of that this evening.
Eighty decibels of noise was the noise in the
ambient neighborhood at the time the study was being
taken. The actual noise coming from that gym, with the
windows open, was in the 50 decibel level.
Our experts suggested that if we actually
lowered the volume of our buzzer in our gym, that the
sound drops dramatically, to the 27 decibel level, which
is about the same level as quiet conversation.
Next slide.
It is clear to us, in listening to our
neighbors last week, that there is a lot of concern
about the current level of activity on our campus. We
saw a videotape of the school traffic. We saw a picture
of the tandem parking at the church. We heard
discussions about the noise of our children playing
outside.
As you know, this type of activity has been in
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the neighborhood for many years and is a part of living
near a church or school like St. Hilary. Luckily, we
actually believe that the new project will actually
improve the current conditions in the neighborhood,
particularly for Hilary Drive residents. We have
already described the decrease in speed and the traffic
on Hilary Drive and the improved traffic circulation.
In addition, with the gym, there will be a percentage of
PE classes that get taken out of the playground and put
into a soundproof facility. This will actually have a
net effect of decreasing noise from the property.
While it's been very complicated presenting
various aspects of this project, we really only want to
do two things here. We want to improve our existing
facilities, much like the town of Tiburon did with the
town hall, the police department and the library, in
order to meet the needs of the 21st century, and we want
to allow Tiburon and St. Hilary's CYO program, a local
program, to have practices and games in our own
community.
From the beginning, in attempting to create a
project that met our needs and those of the surrounding
community, we have tried to understand and work with
various concerns. In this regard, we believe we have
been very responsive.
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We were asked to break up and disperse our
parish center over the entire campus. We did that.
We were asked to create residential buildings
on the lower property and keep in keeping with the
residential character of Hilary Drive. We did that.
We were asked to set back the convent in line
with other homes on Hilary Drive. we did that.
We were asked to reconfigure, reduce and
relocate the gym. We did that.
We were asked to conduct additional noise and
traffic studies to prove minimal impact to the
neighborhood. We did that.
We were asked to add soundproofing to our gym.
We did that.
We were asked to get additional acoustic
information to prove that both the inside and outside
gym noise would not negatively impact the neighborhood.
We did that.
We were asked to prove that our plan met zoning
and Tiburon General Plan guidelines. We did that.
On our own, we have removed the rectory from
the hillside. On our own, we have improved the
landscape on the upper hillside. On our own, we
designed a parking lot that improved the traffic flow in
the neighborhood. On our own, we instituted a program
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to refuse the speed of school traffic on Hilary Drive.
We're willing to work with the Reed School
District, the town of Tiburon, and our neighbors to
improve traffic safety in the neighborhood.
We were asked to put together a strategy for
construction phasing' and staging to minimize the impact
on Hilary Drive, and we did that.
We were asked to decrease the cap on our school
enrollment to 335 students. We did that.
We were asked to decrease the hours and the
time of CYO use. We agreed to do that.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to Father
Tarantino.
MAYOR GRAM: Thank you.
\
PRESENTATION BY FATHER TARANTINO
FATHER TARANTINO: Thank you, Katie, and Mayor
Gram, Council members, staff.
My name is Father James Tarantino, pastor of
the parish of St. Hilary here in Tiburon. I'd like to
add three more mitigations to our list of which we have
just heard.
With regard to on-site parking, we are willing
and have agreed to add a written policy, on-site policy,
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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to the job description of our business and facilities
manager that states that we will not schedule multiple
on-site events that will overwhelm the existing parking
capacity.
Secondly, that we will begin an awareness
program not just with our school, but with our overall
parish community to educate all of our parishioners, and
those that are connected to us, with regard to traffic,
speed, and also the use of the new parking configuration
when that particular configuration comes into play.
And thirdly, we are definitely willing to put
in writing into our current policy manual for CYO a
policy that ensures equal access to CYO for all students
on the Tiburon peninsula.
I would now like to take this opportunity, as
we come to at least the end of our ability to make a
presentation, to thank and to compliment the Council for
its time and for its sensitivity in striving to bring
about a resolution to this matter. And most especially,
I want to thank the Council for its willingness and
openness to sponsor a subcommittee which met with us and
met with some of our neighbors in negotiation as the key
to bringing about new clarity and, we hope, a possible
solution.
This process, as we all, I think, have heard in
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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1 last week's meeting and tonight, has led to what we
2 believe is a real opportunity to improve some existing
3 conditions, leading to what we hope will be an overall
4 improvement to our immediate neighborhood.
5 We have offered several dozen, as we've heard
6 already, mitigating items in this and last week's
7 Council session, which we do believe will substantially
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8 improve the neighborhood for all, while providing a very
9 real improvement for our own community and for the
10 children of our community.
11 Our new mitigation plan has been a direct
12 result of this Council's efforts, of this Council's
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13 advice and direction. And we believe that our plan does
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14 not detract from our neighborhood, but has now so been
15 crafted in such a way as to actually improve the
16 neighborhood to the benefit of all. And for this
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17 effort, we again are thankful to you.
18 Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't add a
19 little philosophical response. Lessons have been, I
20 think -- in this process, been relearned throughout,
21 lessons that are truly -- I think that we have all truly
22 learned and relearned that every voice is necessary and
23 every voice has a right to be heard, just as we learned
24 last week and this week that every vote is important, as
25 indicated by the national election.
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And we have also learned that as difficult as
this process has been at times -- and I say that's not
only true for ourselves, but for some of our neighbors
as well -- that our project, we believe, is now a better
project than when we first began.
What is the nature of a community but that of
various groups of individuals who must strive to learn
and to relearn how to live amicably with one another,
even though not always in agreement.
I can only rightfully represent my own
constituency, in which it is my responsibility to remind
and to instruct that in the end, the only thing that is
ultimately most important is our relationship with each
other, rooted, we believe, in our relationship in God.
I sincerely pray and hope that this end will become more
a part and parcel of all of our lives.
And thus, to you the Council members, to the
town staff, and to the greater community of Tiburon and
to all of our neighbors -- all of our neighbors -- our
sincere best wishes as we soon enter into the season of
grace and Thanksgiving next week. And thank you,
Council members, for your consideration.
MAYOR GRAM: Thank you. I assume you're
finished, with extra time to spare.
Back to the Council. Any questions?
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I have a couple questions. What is the seating
2 capacity of the church?
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FATHER TARANTINO: We have the ability to seat
4 approximately 380 to 400.
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MAYOR GRAM: And what about the new parish
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6 center?
7 FATHER TARANTINO: Four hundred and forty four.
8 MAYOR GRAM: Has anyone done a take-off on the
9 gym, if we were to use it for an event, a non-athletic
10 event, and just spread chairs on the floor to have some
11 sort of assembly?
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FATHER TARANTINO: No, I don't believe so.
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MAYOR GRAM: Okay. Thank you.
14
With that, I'm going to bring it back to the
15 Council. And at this point, Harry and I will give a
16 report to the Council.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we
17 were the subcommittee that was sort of sent out to try
18 and make sense out of both sides.
19 I think I calculated, last time and with
20 another 6 or 7 hours since then, I've spent between 60
21 and 70 hours on this. And I know Harry has an equal
22 amount of time, or more. We met with both sides three
23 times.
I think we spent over ten hours in meetings with
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both sides; inspections of the site, going to some of
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the homes.
Those meetings ranged from very cordial and
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friendly to crying and yelling. But at the end of those
meetings, I think we all better understood, as both
sides have said, really what the issues are on both
sides, what are the real concerns of the neighbors
and they do have very serious concerns -- and what are
the concerns of St. Hilary's and what they're trying to
do with their program.
And I will say that both sides were extremely
cooperative. There was no hiding of issues. Everyone
was really forthright. In fact, even more than
forthright in some instances. So, I really do commend
both of you for trying to help us get through this.
We were faced with a Planning commission
decision. The Planning Commission spent hours and hours
on this. I have read through their minutes twice. I
spent a lot of time with our legal counsel trying to
understand the legal issues.
And I think at this point, we're ready to make
our report to the Council, with some recommendations,
after which we're going to try to come to a decision, if
we can, as a Council, and go forward from here. So with
that, I'm going to turn it over to Harry.
/ / / /
/ / / /
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STATEMENT BY COUNCIL MEMBER HARRY MATTHEWS
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MR. MATTHEWS: Thanks, Tom.
3
I couldn't agree more with everything that Tom
4 has said. And people in the audience have been here in
5 town various lengths of time. But land use and
6 development has been the heart of Tiburon politics ever
7 since we were incorporated in 1964. And the reason we
8 incorporated is we thought we could do a better job
,ut:tl>o:r
9 making these kinds of decisions 10callYhthan having it
10 done up in the county. We haven't been perfect, but I
11 believe that the town is far better off by having local
12 controls, local ordinances, local rules in making its
13 decisions.
14 Moving on to tonight's issue, w~en Tom and I
15 were set up -- were set up -- (laughter). When Tom and
16 I were named to the committee, the purpose was to narrow
17 down the issues and find where people agreed and
18 disagreed and then find out if we can work out a
19 compromise. A month or so ago, we weren't quite where
20 we are this evening.
In my view, we have narrowed down
21 the issues, we know what the areas of agreement and
22 disagreement are, and we're hoping to work out something
23 that's mutually acceptable.
Clearly, it comes down to
24 the gym.
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And even looking at this chart, it's between
2 the gym in the middle and the gym down below.
There is
3 the neighbors' proposal, which is now a multipurpose
4 room with gym facilities, or the St. Hilary proposal for
5 the full-size CYO-type gym.
6 What I'd like to do is go into SQme of the --
7 before Tom and I started this -- maybe take each element
8 and some of the concerns that came up when we started
9 this. Our meetings were primarily with the three
10 neighborhoods. It was upper Rock Hill Drive, it was
11 Hilary Drive, and it was Vi~rais~~the properties
12 that are immediately adjacent to -- or contiguous to
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13 St. Hilary.
14 So, I'm going to walk through the project. And
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15 we start ~ the convent, which >t.. lnt'S proposed 1;.hx the
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16 2200-2300-square-footAgarage.Rid not present a problem
17 to the committee. Voluntarily, St. Hilary's moved it
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back,so it would be in line with the other homes along
Hilary.
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20
Another one of the objections or concerns of
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the neighbors was that a number of the homes on Hilary
are mu~maller, in the 1100-foot range. But ou~ ~~
feeling was that all of those homes have the ability and
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in due course will become larger and probably in the
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25 2300-2400 foot, maybe even larger as time goes on. So,
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we did not feel that the 2300 square feet was ~~.
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particularly out of character. '. ~ fl^o~'~ OX
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The rectory, which i." ,,~hHL 3.J,-e-ci square feet,
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wl,ich i" up aDove, with a 30 - foot height on the
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building is ~ prominent ~ing en that site and
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Hilary" ~I~gain, the church responded and ~d
n
put anything on that property, moved the rectory,
which
5
on
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not -fo
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will be downsized back to where the existing rectory is
9 right now.
No specifics on the design. But clearly,
10 it's going to be tucked into the hill behind where the
11 rectory is now, and it will probably have very little
12 visual impact.
13 The classrooms -- of the 18,000 square feet of
14 new floor space in the entire project, 12,300 square
w.ie.. '_
15 feet is for:new classrooms. J.h-etl you subtract some 1800
.or
16 square feet haIR 'e~ portab'le classrooms that will
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disappear, you'reotalking about a little over 10,000
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square feet. ~ qf the projects is classrsoms, and ~A
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nobody really had any objection to that part of the
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project.
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Some questions were raised over the height,
22 which I think was 25 feet. And that might be dealt with
23 by design and review for height considerations. But the
24 classroom was not an issue with anybody. The facilities
is
25 are needed. And what is there now a.Pe just woefully
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Next was the parish center, which is
approximately 3700 square feet.
I believe it is 119
feet more than what the existing parish hall is. And
that didn't present a problem.
There was some concern
over the 900-square-foot kitchen versus 500 some feet
that exists now.
If you walk into the present kitchen, it is
clearly too small. Whether 900 feet is the right
number, or 800, we're not in the food service business,
and we just decided to leave that alone.
We're very concerned about preserving trees on
the upper Rock Hill side of the property that is owned
by the church.
It will not be built upon.
And not only
will the trees
be preserved there, but
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additional
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trees
the
will be planted as
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property~ Hilary
to the
church.
+ \.. f t'"
It really boils down to -- and you've heard all
v
the concessions.
I think the neighbors and everybody
are pretty much in agreement. You might argue on some
points that have been raised,
height and that, but we're
~ ...~ -.q,
on ~ point, and it's
comfortable with where we are
about the gym. And wjth~that, I'll let my friend and
~ Gn.ONV 1:4..J2JIo.. n Q. .~ ti(p 't"t"^^ .
partner -- I'm going home. (Laughter.)
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STATEMENT BY MAYOR GRAM
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MAYOR GRAM: Thank you, Harry.
4
I agree with Harry; we worked through this
5 together.
So, you're sort of hearing a report from both
6 of us. And on the other elements, as we worked through
7 and we saw the concessions being made by St. Hilary's
8 and concessions being made by the neighbors and some of
9 the realities coming out and the program to reduce
10 traffic, it became clear that going on a~ element-
11 by-element basis made the most sense, and that the one
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12 element that sort of keeps sticking, as you've heard ,
13 over and over from every different angle, above, below
14 and every side, is a gym versus what I'll call a
15 "multipurpose room." And the argument has been made
16 that a multipurpose room would just as well serve the
17 needs of St. Hilary's as a gym would, 'as identified by
18 some of the neighbors. Maybe that's true.
19
But either facility, be it a multipurpose room
20 or a gym, cannot be built without restrictions.
If it
21 were built, and pretty much anything goes out there,
22 without our stepping in and imposing restrictions,
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23 either facility could be used 24 hours a day, you would
24 have traffic, you would have noise, it would be
25 uncontrollable. And it's our responsibility to. come up
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with restrictions that make sense; that, in effect,
address the negative effects of any facility that we put
into our town.
So, the question is: Can we restrict a
multipurpose room, as proposed by the neighbors, so it
is reasonable in its impact? There will be impacts on
the neighborhood, but they're reasonable. And if that's
the case, the question then comes up: Can we do the
same with a gym? And by the "gym," I mean the facility
proposed, which would be used for CYO use.
I was a CYO coach for two years. I can't
remember if it was two years or three years. But those
are the kinds of things you forget now. I've probably
been to 50 to 100 CYO basketball games. And I know what
goes on at the games. I know what the traffic levels
are, I know most parents, if they could figure out a
way not to go to the games a lot of these games --
they would. Because a lot of them, when you have a
score of two to one, are not real exciting.
So, the number of people the number of
parents going to the games, I use as a rule of thumb,
maybe half the players have their parents there. There
is eight to ten players on a team.
Normally, the teams are asked to arrive a half
hour beforehand, and they use that period to warm up.
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And then the parents come. So, one of the problems with
a gym which is being used for CYO games is overlapping
traffic, because you really have a doubling; you have
the teams leaving and then the teams coming, the parents
leaving, the parents coming. And very often when the
teams arrive a half hour early, they go outside and warm
up.
I know when I was coaching, we would have a
practice in the morning. We would practice for an hour
and a half and then go play our game because we had
nowhere to practice in gyms. There are very few gyms
around that are sufficient for sixth, seventh and eighth
graders.
So, the question is -- the issue is for this
gym -- you've heard it over and over -- this being a
regional facility, is:
Can we take the regional out of
the facility by imposing restrictions?
And that was really in my mind and in Harry's
and my discussions, whether we could do that.
If we
can't, in all good conscience, then we shouldn't approve
the gym. If we can take the regional out of the
facility, then I think we can seriously consider the
gymnasium at its full size. But, again, it's the
responsibility of the Council to impose the conditions,
or see if we can come up with the conditions and
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restrictions that make it reasonable.
So, going into some of the issues we've heard
of with the gym as you heard earlier, we were up at
the Tam primary school gym, which is held out to be a
soundproof gym. It's not a soundproof gym. We heard
the noises, we heard the kids playing inside, we heard
the whistles, and you could probably hear the buzzer
from the top of Mill Valley back in Tiburon, it's so
loud. But that can be dealt with; the buzzer is
adjustable.
There are different kinds of whistles that are
used nowadays. There are the very loud whistles that a
referee can use. You hear them in soccer, because you
can't hear allover the field in soccer. And there are
the lesser whistles, which can be used by referees in an
enclosed area. You can hear them in the gym, but they
don't travel nearly as much.
One of the things that we talked about is --
we've had all of these sound consultants and everything.
I would like the town of Tiburon to hire its own
consultant. Peer review is nice. But I would like the
consultant to work for us, take his instructions from
us. And I'm proposing that the consultant be Charles
Salter & Associates, who are probably the most well
known in California. They've done a lot of work for me,
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1 and I have found them to be very reliable.
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2 Secondly, there would be non-operable windows.
3 I don't know whether double-glazed or laminated glass is
4 the better.
I have been dealing on a project lately
5 with both, and laminated came out ahead.
But that is
6 for the design people. And that would have ,to be on all
7 outward-facing windows.
8
There would have to be a double set of doors so
9 that as you leave the gym proper itself, there would
10 have to be another set of doors which are closed. So
11 you have -- I guess I've heard it referred to as an "air
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13 it.
14
No skylights or cholestery (phonetic) windows.
15 I have a problem with that word.
I did look up what it
16 means, though: to bleed light out. That's another
17 major issue, the bleeding of light.
Some of these
18 structures can be very pretty. But at night, it's not
19 fun to be looking up on our beautiful hills in the
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21 glowing, manmade object up there, such as some of the
22 homes, unfortunately, that we've built. And this could
23 very well be that. So, that's another issue that I want
24 to have addressed: no windows on the back of the
25 facility.
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You're going to have to install HVAC. And
you've already heard that discussed. And that will have
to be baffled and cannot be run after the gym closes.
And all those can be accomplished; you can baffle
heating ventilation and air-conditioning equipment.
That's what HVAC means.
CYO. The question here is, Can we restrict the
CYO program such that it still is reasonable for
St. Hilary's -- and you'll have to make that decision
and still, with those restrictions, reduce the negative
effects?
You already heard St. Hilary's volunteer that
there will be no Sunday play, which I think is a major
concession and not taken lightly. There will be no
tournaments there, St. Hilary's team must play in each
game. In other words, we're not going to be inviting
teams from other areas to come in and use the facility.
It is to be used as a St. Hilary's CYO facility. And by
that I mean a Tiburon children's facility.
Because as you heard Father Tarantino say
and he's had me pressure him on this several times
the program has to be open equally to all of the kids
from the Tiburon peninsula. Kids from St. Hilary's
cannot be given priority.
And that is part of what tilts it in my mind,
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is we need a facility for which all of our kids have
equal access.
So, if a child from the fourth grade at
Bel Air applies to be on a team, they have to be given
the same weight and consideration as a child from the
fourth grade at St. Hilary's. And that has to be put
into writing.
Use of the gym. And this is, I think, really
where the keys come in, are the times you can use the
gym. We have seen your proposal. We have heard from
the neighbors. You already conceded that there will be
no Sunday play.
On weekdays, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
we've come up with 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
I know you've
asked for more, but we think going beyond that, as
things wind down, you have overlapping time, 7:30 is a
time to shut it down. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:00
a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
So, it would be an ho~r sooner.
Saturdays. These are the days that you play
the games.
So, I think this is key: how many games can
be played over what period of time. And this is where
there is going to be, from our recommendation, a limit
on the number of games that can be played.
I saw in the proposal from St. Hilary's that
the gym be used from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00, and I think I
saw it from the neighbors that the facility be used from
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9:00 a.m. to 3:00; both six-hour periods. I'm not sure
which is better. I would ask the neighbors which they
would rather have, if we were to go ahead with this
proposal. Take your choice: 10:00 to 4:00 or 9:00 to
3:00. I prefer 10:00 to 4:00 because sometimes you like
to sleep later on Saturday.
The games cannot overlap, because the teams
show up a half hour before the game -- and this is
pretty standard practice. I drafted two consultants in
the last couple of weeks, kids who were in the CYO
program that I have known for years and have played for
years, and sort of went through the program with them,
and it pretty much is the same. But they are always
instructed to show up a half hour ahead of time. So,
the games are going to have to be scheduled 45 minutes
apart so there is no overlap, because that's where the
noise is.
The noise is not going to be coming from inside
of the gym. It's as the neighbors said: It's going to
be outside of the gym. Now, St. Hilary's has
conceded -- and I consider this a major concession
that they will take down the basketball hoops.
Is that still on the table?
VOICE: Yes.
MAYOR GRAM: Because that's where we used to
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practice, is on your hoops on Saturday morning.
So, that is a major source of noise is the
kids -- the teams coming early and bouncing the ball
outside and warming up out there and then having their
practices. So, I believe that was a major concession.
When you look at all of this if you look at
six hours of potential use of the gym on Saturday, with
games having to spread 45 minutes apart, you're not
going to get many games. The most you're going to get
for the younger kids -- because the sixth, seventh and
eighth graders play in the high school gym -- is
probably five games max.
I don't know if that's enough for your program
to be satisfactory. You'll have to make that decision.
But this is what we came up with in going back and forth
and sort of thinking through the impacts from the
program.
u
The height inside is proposed at 30 feet. I
don't think you need 30 feet. This is 22 feet
(indicating). Something along the lines of 22 to 25
feet is completely sufficient for volleyball and
basketball.
There is a height issue, as you've heard, as to
the interpretation of some of our ordinances. Our
attorney has researched our own zoning code.
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Ann, do you want to address the height issue as
you've come up with it?
Again, as you heard last time, we've asked the
attorneys for both sides -- and both sides have two of
the best law firms in the city, so I figured they'd
probably nullify each other anyway. But they've
directed their legal analysis to Ann both in writing and
in several telephone conversations.
So, I have asked Ann to research what the
height issues really are, whether there is a IS-foot
limit based upon accessory buildings or whether the gym
would be considered something other than accessory, with
a right to go up to 30 feet as allowed for main
buildings.
STATEMENT BY ANN DANFORTH
MS. DANFORTH: Yes, Mr. Mayor. The language
regarding height restrictions is not, alas, not as
straightforward as the attorneys for the neighbors would
have it seem.
It is true that the language of the zoning
ordinance that contains the height restriction refers to
a main building with a maximum height of 30 feet, main
building singular, and an accessory building with a
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maximum height of 15 feet, again singular.
But this does not necessarily mean that there
can be only one main building. We see this come up most
clearly in the R-2 zone, where you can have two
structures, two dwelling units.
It doesn't necessarily
follow that one of those structures is a main building
and the other accessory, with the accessory building
only be subject to the IS-foot limit.
In fact,
typically, each of those buildings would be considered,
I believe, subject to the 30 foot. And in the R-2 zone,
you have exactly the same language and height
restriction as you have in the RO-l; that is, it refers
to main building, singular, with a maximum of 30 feet
and accessory building, singular, with a maximum of 15
feet.
I think, by the same token, a school can have
more than one main building which would be allowed up to
15 feet in height. This project as proposed, in fact,
has two classroom buildings, both of which exceed 15
feet. I believe one is 24 feet in height and the other
30. I'm not sure about the 30-foot limit, but it
certainly exceeds 24.
I think that is another example
of how a site can, in fact, have two main buildings,
both of which would be allowed heights of more than 15
feet.
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A gymnasium could be considered an integral
part of the school; in which case, it too could be
considered a main building. That's something of a moot
point here, though, because the gymnasium actually
adjoins one of the classroom buildings. And under the
definition of "accessory building" -- the same
definition, in fact, that Mr. Garrett read to you
earlier -- if an accessory building shares a wall with a
main building, that accessory building is considered a
main building, which means the gym gets to have the same
height maximum as the building it adjoins, which I would
suggest be 30 feet, under the CUP ordinance. That is,
of course, the maximum. The Council is not required to
allow 30 feet.
For all of these reasons, I must disagree with
the argument Mr: Garrett presented here tonight
regarding height and those presented on his behalf by
his attorney.
MAYOR GRAM: So, as I understand it then, you
feel we have the discretion to prescribe heights up to
30 feet in the gym, the classrooms, and, in this case,
the parish center?
MS. DANFORTH: Yes, Mr. Mayor.
MAYOR GRAM: Okay. We will also be
recommending some design-review guidelines a little bit
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later, and we'll get into some more of the height issues
u
at that point.
That's basically the report on the gym versus
the multipurpose room. You heard the restrictions that
we are going to recommend. And I think the St. Hilary
team is going to have to decide if they're acceptable.
We will be voting on them a little bit later, when we
take this back to the Council and let the other members
of the Council talk.
Some of the other issues that have been brought
up are traffic. We will be recommending that we write
into the Conditional Use Permit that we formalize the
program that St. Hilary has already adopted, which is
putting two of their personnel on the corner of Rock
Hill and Hilary and the St. Hilary property.
It seems
to be working to slow down the traffic and to calm the
traffic, and that becomes a permanent program.
Grade six through eight will ingress and egress
off of Rock Hill in the A.M. after completion of those
classrooms. And that should cut the traffic on Hilary
in the morning -- I don't know, maybe I'm missing the
arithmatic here -- but maybe by 30 to 33 percent, which
is significant. And we believe that Rock Hill can
handle the additional small amount of traffic since that
is a collector street. The gym ingress and egress will
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1 have to be off of Rock Hill at all times once the gym is
2 completed.
3 Miscellaneous conditions that we talked about
4 between us. First of all, lights. The parking lot
5 right now is unacceptable. I was up at Mr. Garrett's
6 house, and I walked the street up there. The lights
7 right now, even though they are pointed down, shine up,
8 and they really are a little bit disconcerting when they
9 are on at night. It's very easy, when you reconstruct
10 the area up there, to install lights which are
11 controlled as far as how much light they give off to the
12 side. It's really become a science nowadays. You can
13 baffle lights to go exactly where you want them to go
14 and where they can't be seen by somewhere else. So,
15 they should not be seen from above. Right now, they are
16 not acceptable.
17 Construction phasing. That will be something
18 you'll be asked to come in with. We'll want to see your
19 construction schedule, both in your Phase I, which, as I
20 understand it, will be the classrooms and the gym,
21 working toward the other side of the facility, and then
22 what your Phase II will be and how you intend to conduct
23 your activities through the construction period so that
24 you don't overwhelm the area with parking off-site,
25 trying to accommodate the programs during the
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1 construction.
2 As a condition of your DRB application, you
3 will have to apply for a lot line adjustment to bring
1
4 your coverage down to 15 percent. You have that extra
5 piece of land up there, somewhere up above here. I
6 think you said it was three and a half acres.
It's
7 going to take about a half acre of that property to
8 bring yourself down to 15 percent. That's a mechanical
9 thing that your engineer will take care of. But it will
10 be a condition of design review.
11 We have agreed to reduce the number of students
12 from a maximum of 400 to 335.
The Conditional Use
13 Permit which is decided upon -- assuming that we decide
14 upon one -- will be reviewed every six months after
15 completion of the gym for the first year and a half.
16 That will give us -- or the Council that is serving at
17 that time
three reviews, hopefully, two seasons of
18 athletics to see how things are going. And remember
19 that those reviews are a two-edged sword. Your
20 activities can be restricted even further. If the
21 restrictions aren't working or they are being abused,
22 there is a possibility they could be expanded.
But I
23 don't think they will be in the first several years.
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24 You're going to have a long line of success in showing
25 that you can control the program before there would be
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any ability to add to your permit.
One of the things we talked about very
seriously with the neighbors -- and I can understand
their concern -- is what if we come up with restrictions
tonight which are acceptable, a Council in the future
can modify the Conditional Use Permit such that they
could have expanded activities up there. And that was
one of the big issues we talked about. And I heard the
neighbors loud and clear.
Harry and I, on the one hand, had a difference
of opinion on that. I believe that in our system of
government, you don't tie the hands of the people you
elect in the future. That's the way our system works.
Things change, and they have to have the flexibility to
change things, the way the town is run, some of the
aspects of the town as time goes on. So, we did
disagree on that, that we not restrict the program by
the size of the facility, but rather by conditions. And
both sides have to know those conditions can be modified
in the future. And I feel very strongly that we leave
that to future councils. That's why you elect them.
The church lights -- what's the pronunciation?
MR. BACH: Cholestery (phonetic).
MAYOR GRAM: Cholestery lights must be turned
off at night when the church is not in use. Again, they
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
229
1 bleed light. And for a town which I think people -- one
20f the things people in this town hold mcst dear is our
3 views. And if you've ever tried to look out at your
4 view at night and there is lights between you and the
5 view, it's pretty disconcerting. So, we want the lights
6 turned off in the church when it's not in use, because
7 it is bleeding light.
8 Preservation of trees, Harry has talked about.
9 The parking, I asked you what ycu can seat in
10 the church, in the parish center. We don't know what
11 the gym is. You have 123 parking spaces, as I
12 understand it. If you extrapolate out the Tiburon
13 ordinance, you could probably seat 492 people. It's
14 usually one car for four seating places. And that's
15 pretty liberal. Tiburon is very liberal. A lot of
16 cities are one parking space per three. So, the .
17 parking, by our own ordinance, should not allow more
18 than 492, rounded up, 500 people, at a fu~ction at once.
19 And so we will be counting on you to put that, as you
20 say, into your written business manager's book, or
21 whatever you have, in case that business manager leaves,
22 that the next one knows that it's a very important
23 consideration.
24 Also, the last condition that we talked about
25 is limiting the school programs to K through eight at
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1 this point in time. In other words, there would not be
2 a preschool program. I don't think there is any plan
3 that you ever would go beyond eighth grade. But to not
4 have a preschool program under your Conditional Use
5 Permit, that we would be recommending.
6 Last but not least is DRB guidelines. It's not
7 fair for us to do all of this and not give some
8 guidelines, if we can, to our design review board. They
9 are the hardest working body we have in this town, by
10 the way. Being on the Council is easy compared to what
11 they go through twice a month. So any way we can help
12 them, we are going to try.
13 Again, I talked about the bleeding lights,
14 baffled skylights, moving the convent back. And the way
15 the rectory addition will work, as we understand it, is
16 there will be an addition coming off the back of the
17 existing rectory, and it will be smaller than the one
18 that has been proposed. I believe the parish center is
19 too high at 30 feet. And we are going to ask the design
20 review board to look at the history of the parish center
21 to see if it has to be that high and still work within
22 the project itself. If you look at the old parish
23 center and think about maybe stepping up to the church,
24 which is 30 feet high, that might work better.
25 The height of the gym, we talked about. It
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doesn't have to be 30 feet. This facility here is 22,
2
as I understand it.
I don't know of a kid that could
3 shoot a basketball that high or hit a volleyball that
4 high.
I don't know why it has to be 30 feet or even 25
5 feet.
6
Classrooms, again, as Ann said, because the gym
7 and classrooms will have a common wall, they may well
8 have to have the same height. You can't have the gym
9 higher than the classrooms, even though I see your plans
10
do have that occurring with the gym higher.
I don't
11
know that you can do that under the ordinance.
12
So, I've talked a lot. But these are the
13
things we thought about, we talked about with both
14
parties, and this is our report to the Council and
15 probably encompasses a lot of our recommendations to the
16 Council.
So with that, I'm going to be quiet.
17
18
STATEMENT BY COUNCIL MEMBER THOMPSON
19
20
MR. THOMPSON: That's quite an extensive list.
21 And just so you know, the town Council -- the rest of
22 them did not have the benefit of, you know, any
23 premeetings to know exactly what the recommendations
24 are.
So, we're taking in some of this just now.
25
I have my own sort of list of conditions, of
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1 which some of it overlapped. There are a few things
that are different. There is a couple of comments that
I thought would be beneficial, you know, for the group
that's here. So, we can do that now, or do you feel
like you wanted a break?
MAYOR GRAM: Keep goi.ng.
MR. THOMPSON: Would you like me to start?
MAYOR GRAM: Yes.
MR. THOMPSON: First of all, thank you,
everybody for coming. Certainly an exercise in
democracy here.
I would like to start with a funny story. I
drove up a couple weeks ago and I was with my daughter,
Lexie, who is six years old. And I was sitting there in
the St. Hilary's parking lot looking up at story poles,
And she was like, "What are we doing here?" Actually, I
was a little long-winded and tried to explain to her
what the Council does. These are the story poles meant
about new buildings, how we try to mediate disputes, how
we try to work this through and that this is what I
spend my evenings doing. And, you know, she listened.
And she listened and I stopped, and I said, "Well, what
do you think of that?"
And she looked around, she looked back, she
looked at me and very seriously said, "You know, Daddy,
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I got a better idea. We've got this game at school
called "Roshambo." And I think it's a pretty good
J
example.
Actually, I think our presidential candidates
are maybe going to get down to that point pretty soon
here. But it was a good example of just what we're
trying to do here in Tiburon, and that is -- you just
heard a tremendously long list of conditions and micro
management. And this is what we try to do.
It might
seem overwhelming, but it's significantly better than
having some Board of Supervisors or Planning Commission
up in -- for the civic center, or some other group just
sort of drawing a line and saying that's it and not
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14
spending this kind of quality time to try to make things
15' work for each side.
Anyway, so that's what we do. And this is also
one of the most difficult things that we deal with in
Tiburon is: how do we take 1950's homes and 1950's
facilities and have them meet the year 2000 and all the
needs that we have today, all within trying to alleviate
the impacts that they create?
Speaking of impacts, one of the things that we
have been talking
we've been focusing on the site.
And what we need to do, as Council members, is
understand the cumulative impact to the entire
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1 peninsula. What often we forget is that there is
2 roughly 34 homes being proposed on the nose of Tiburon.
3 There is another 8 to 12 homes being proposed up on
4 Trestle Glen, on the Cherry property. There is going to
5 be additions of
a whole capital improvement plan is
6 being developed by the Reed Union School District for
7 these facilities. There are improvements everywhere.
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8 Granted, this town is, by and large, about 95
9 percent built out, You can still have sort of on paper,
10 theoretically, almost over 100 homes on the Paradise
11 side of Tiburon,
These are the cumulative impacts.
12
St. Hilary mentioned where we have new
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13 facilities such as our town hall and library. And yes,
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14 we do.
They're wonderful. But you wouldn't -- that was
15 won through over -- over -- outvoting a majority of the
16 town Council. A majority of the town Council, at the
17 time, was trying to stop that because of the cumulative
18 impacts to this town.
So, they really do add up.
When
19 you look at them individually, it looks like a small
20 addition. When you add them all up, there is a real
21 impact. And I don't need to tell any of you what it's
22 like to drive down Tiburon Boulevard at around 8:30 in
23 the morning or 3:30 in the afternoon.
It's significant.
24 And it's radically -- its the one main difference that I
25 have seen in the many, many years I've lived in this
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peninsula.
S6, when this project was originally submitted,
I just thought what a great facility, what a terrible
location. There are so many better locations this could
be. In our idealistic world, it would be great to just
move everything around and sort of redesign the
peninsula. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic.
So, we try to figure out what will work on the site.
As originally proposed, this project really has
an appreciable impact on the neighbors. And in its
total, first, you know, it could not be accepted without
significant conditions on the use.
And you've already
heard many of those.
The list of conditions that I had -- and this
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is where you might want to take notes to see what
overlaps and what is different.
I'll just jump right
in.
The significance of the gym.
First of all, I
think a gym is a part of a school, and I think a gym is
needed here. And I don't really have a problem with CYO
basketball. I think the neighborhood neighbors that I
met with, I think started to see where my point was that
a multipurpose room, depending on the use, could have
just as much impact as CYO basketball.
What really is the difference is going to be
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1 hours of use. And the only difference I had from that
2 was that I was cutting everything off at 6:30. So,
3 Monday, Wednesday, Friday it would be 3:30 to 6:30, I
4 said, Tuesday, Thursday to 6:30, and then nothing on
5 Sunday as well.
6 The only other differences I had was, first of
7 all, the cap on enrollment. I wanted to say, Is that
8 the right number? And I also wanted to say to
9 St. Hilary's, I think that is a significant
10 contribution, and I really appreciate you guys looking
11 at that and recognizing that the enrollment number is
12 truly the impact, the volume of children. And limiting
13 that and sticking to that is going to really help the
14 neighborhood.
15 You know, I think you have to -- as said
16 earlier, you have to maintain those traffic monitors.
17 They are very significant in helping slow traffic, being
18 that you can see the traffic already and see the need
19 for monitors now already demonstrates that anything in
20 addition is going to have significant impacts.
21 As far as the gym size, while I think CYO
22 should be allowed to happen there, I agree with all the
23 other conditions to the CYO basketball program such as
24 hours, the spreading of the 45 minutes in between, et
25 cetera.
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And as fa~ as the size, I would like to see it
2 smaller.
I don't know why it has to be a full 30 feet.
3 I don't know what the exact number is.
I'll leave that
4 up to the DRB. But, I ~ean, this is plenty high.
5 Twenty-five feet seems to me to be okay.
If you agree
6 to reduce the mass as far as bringing in the walls, that
7 would be great.
I know if you have double doors, that
8 means you're going to have to have a greater size. But
9 maybe the sound benefits of the double doors is more
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10 beneficial than the size.
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As far as buffers, I think the project needs to
12 take care in maintaining all the trees on the uphill
13 sides so that you have, basically, a visual buffer from
14 everybody on the uphill side. And equally, one thing
15 that hasn't been said is, I think we need to have a
16 buffer to the homes that are immediately adjacent on the
17 downhill side of Hilary Drive.
18 I'll stand up and show you on the map here.
19 Essentially, right here you've got -- right now
20 you've got a good buffer of foliage and so forth. That
21 needs to be maintained, and probably should be
22 augmented.
These homes right here are going to be
23 directly affected by all the activity here. So,
24 actually, what I would like to see, that I haven't heard
25 yet, is some kind of a barrier, a fence, nice,
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1 attractive wood fence. Highways put up, you know, these
2 cinder-block walls. I don't think we need that. But
3 something that's really going to create a barrier.
4 There has been some debate about where the
5 actual lot line~ are. I would hate to see any
6 aggressive action in here. You know, you don't have to
7 play around with lot lines. But what you can do, in
8 effect, is, essentially, create a barrier so that balls
9 and other things aren't coming up. But that also
10 creates a foliage and a sound barrier, and I think that
11 would be a wonderful thing for those immediate neighbors
12 that are so close.
13 Anyway, that's pretty much it. In closing,
14 again, I really do appreciate both sides working
15 together, compromising. And then finally, when this
16 takes place, it's really up to all of us to have some
17 faith in each other to live by our rules and live by our
18 agreements and not look for opportunities to just go
19 back and "try to get what I wanted in the first place"
20 through whatever means, but to try to respect this
21 process that is -- this long, drawn-out process that we
22 had here, and work with the neighbors and work with the
23 church, Thank you very much.
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STATEMENT BY COUNCIL MEMBER HENNESSY
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MS. HENNESSY:
I'd like to commend the
neighbors for all their hard work.
I think it is a
better project because of all the effort that you put
into it.
I think the gym is an integral part of the
school. And the reason that I would vote for the full-
size gym is so that the children of Reed Union School
District will be able to use it.
If you limit it to a
multipurpose room, then it's for the children at
St. Hilary's. And although the children that attend
St. Hilary's are not a burden on the Reed Union School
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District and, therefore, save the district a great deal
of money -- I don't know what it costs to educate a
child, but I do know, because we have St. Hilary's here,
the Reed School District benefits by that.
I'd like to
see them benefit by having a full-sized gym as well.
If we l{mit it just to children of St. Hilary's, 60
percent of the children that are now in the CYO program
will not be able to participate. And I think that would
be a travesty.
Tiburon -- I have been here for 31 years. All
these years I've heard, "We have nothing for our
children to do," over and over again. We talk about
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1 creating centers, we talk about creating activities for
2 the children. Mogens Bach was instrumental in getting
3 McGagney Green so that the kids could play soccer there.
4 We have all invested a lot,of time in this
5 community. And I really commend Mayor Gram and Council
6 Member Matthews for the endless hours that they have put
7 into this project.
8 I think a great deal of fear has been expressed
9 through this process.
It's similar to when we were
10 trying to build the downtown town hall, and people said
11 that we wouldn't have any parking if we had a town hall
12 down there.
There was a great deal of fear. And I was
13 told a long time ago that fear stands for "false
14 evidence appearing real."
15
I really don't think that the CYO program is
16 going to create a great deal of problems for the
17 neighbors.
I really believe that the mitigation that is
18 being offered by St. Hilary's, especially the reduction
19 of the number of students -- 65 students, 5 days a week,
20 2 trips a day, is 650 trips a week that they are
21 entitled to according their current Conditional Use
22 Permit.
They are eliminating 650 trips a week.
That's
23 an enormous amount of traffic that's being mitigated.
24 And I think this Council can justify the small amount of
25 CYO traffic in comparison to that.
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I commend our Planning Commission for the work
that they did. And since their decision, there has been
a great deal of mitigation offered. And I think,
therefore, the Council can approve a full-size gym that
will take care of St. Hilary's teams, not outside teams,
not tournaments, but a St. Hilary-sponsored CYO program.
I think with the traffic circulation, the
people on Hilary Drive will have less traffic than they
have now. Taking the basketball hoops down on the
outside, you are going to have less noise than you have
now.
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The one concern -- one of the recommendations
you talked about, Mayor Gram, of the double doors -- the
doors -- from what I understand, the gym will be facing
into the school, not to the outside of the building.
So, I don't know whether that would be necessary.
If they're outside doors, then I would agree
with you that they need to be baffled. However, I --
MR. BACH: If I can say one thing. You have
some fire code restrictions, so you will have doors
perhaps in different directions. But some of them can
be fire doors only, and some of them can be access
doors. But it's wrong for us to sit here and say that
there may not be doors in the back. There may have to
be doors in the back just for fire.
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1 MS. HENNESSY: That's all the comments I have
2 now.
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4 STATEMENT BY COUNCIL MEMBER BACH
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6 MR. BACH: I certainly also want to thank
7 everybody that's been involved. And I thank the
8 Planning Commission especially, who spent a lot of time
9 on this before we did, and certainly for Mayor Gram and
10 Council Member Matthews for helping us out here.
11 I think we know the issue so well -- you know,
12 can read through it quite quickly and see what it is
13 that we come up with the conditions. And I think if
14 these conditions can be met by the church, then I
15 certainly don't have a lot of problems with this
16 project.
17 It has changed my mind a little bit. I had
18 some reservations for the whole thing when I first saw
19 it. And my biggest reservation was the mass and bulk of
20 the project in that location, as Council Member Thompson
21 said as well. I had less reservation with the CYO,
22 because I think it is limited months out of the year.
23 And my heart certainly has always been with the children
,24 and play facilities. I was a commissioner for the
25 soccer league for many years and enrolled with the
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soccer league, and it's kind of hard for me to sit up
here and now all of a sudden be the one saying "no."
You know, we were standing in front of Council
members many years ago looking for playing fields. And
I looked at these old geezers and said, "Why can't they
see it my way?" And here I am.
(Laughter)
So, you
know, life takes some interesting turns.
I have some questions, Tom, if I may here,
on -- on the first sheet under CYO -- this is sort of
clarification for my purpose here. The first ,line on
CYO says, "No Sunday play, no tournaments."
And I believe I asked a question last time we
met: Why a hundred-person bleacher? And I think the
word came back "for tournaments."
Now, if no tournaments are needed -- and my
experience and from what I've heard from all the coaches
who I asked, is that, you know, maybe half of the kids'
parents show up. There really are no more than half a
dozen to a dozen spectators. So, why the hundred
bleachers?
Perhaps that can be eliminated to some degree,
not necessarily all of it, but some of it, to reduce the
size a little bit.
I'm just bringing it
I don't know.
up as a potential for -- that may be a way of reducing
the size here.
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MR. MATTHEWS:
I think I might answer.
If I
2 recall, the seating in the gym wasn't to accommodate a
3 large spectator crowd as it was to provid~a place for ~
4 the assemblies and for the normal use of the school that
5 they now don't have.
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MR. BACH: Okay.
Thank you.
7
Also, the time -- under the same CYO, the time
8 restrictions made, which I think are fine, but it
9 actually addresses the gym hours only for the CYO. I
10 guess that's what's written here "and/or basketball," I
11 guess.
12
But also I asked last time:
Can a gym be used
13 for other activities? I'm just asking: Are those hours
14 mentioned here strictly addressing CYO and/or like
15 activities? Or are they actually addressing use of the
16 gym altogether?
17 I can see the CYO ending at 7:30 on Monday
18 through Wednesday, and another function can go on until
19 nine, ten, eleven o'clock or something.
I don't know if
20 there is a need for it. But that's a question I have.
21 I'm not sure whether that was just CYO
22 addressed, or the gym can be used for other functions
23 later on, which could potentially create a problem with
24 late-hour use. Maybe that should be addressed in some
25 way. Maybe it was addressed.
I'm not sure.
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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Do you want to answer that or just leave it
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MAYOR GRAM:
CYO, to me, and practices are
4 synonymous with athletic events.
So, you couldn't bring
5 in the men's league or the women's league after you end
6 your practices at 6:30 or 7:30.
7 The other issue that came up is the use of that
8 facility for other parish activities, which, obviously,
9 you said you want your 112-seatbleachers to be usable
10 for, and you might want the facility itself.
11 I think the gym can be used for other
12 activities. A gym is not only an athletic facility.
13
Look at what we're doing here tonight.
I'm sure the
14
neighbors are really happy about the parking around
15 here. But, again, it has to go to that moderation. And
16 that will be reviewed in the future reviews of your
17 conditional use permit, if you're abusing the facility
18 and its impacts on the neighborhood.
19
I guess under "Height," it says 25
MR. BACH:
20 feet.
I would say, maximum 25 feet.
I understand that
21 it doesn't have to be 25 feet.
22 On the next page, I had a couple of questions
23 or comments. Under the DRB guidelines it says,
24 "Preserve trees. Appropriate replacement of trees, if
25 removed, as necessary."
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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1 And I would say, add "screening of trees"
2 should also be a condition, because I think in some
3 areas, it's not enough just to replace existing trees,
4 I think there will be a need to add trees. But I do
5 recall hearing that that was mentioned last time. But
6 perhaps it should be mentioned in the DRB guidelines.
7 And I actually, just like Council Member
8 Thompson, also would suggest some kind of fencing or
9 fenestration along the line towards the lower street,
10 and not just for noise. Apparently, there shouldn't be
11 any balls in the parking area at this point now anymore.
12 But I'm concerned also about lights from parked cars at
13 night that shines into the neighbors. So, I think some
14 kind of a solid screening, I think, would be nice to
15 have there.
16 I think those are my basic comments. I have a
17 little piece -- if you can help me out with a piece of
18 education. I'm very confused. And I think I'm not so
19 well versed in some of the same stuff you are. And I do
20 know, talking about this project some time ago, when I
21 heard that the rectory and convent were two different
22 buildings, and I said, "Why can'~ there be one
23 building?" and everybody looked at me. I said, "Well,
24 you could have a wall in between, you know,"
25 Now, I'm reading here the convent -- it says,
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"to be used by nuns, sisters or persons directly
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connected to the church." And then it says, "i.e.
retired priests only."
Excuse me, but is there a difference -- if it's
a retired priest, can they be in the convent? Or is
there something I missed?
MAYOR GRAM: Not at the same time.
MR. BACH: Okay. Well, that's an education.
But that's what it says here.
MS. HENNESSY: Let me educate you.
The priests
are in the rectory, the nuns are in the convent.
MR. BACH: All the time?
(Laughter.)
MAYOR GRAM:
I don't think that's in the
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General Plan.
MR. BACH: All right. Well, other than that, I
have no problem with supporting this modified -- or this
proposal.
I think it's a great compromise. And I
certainly thank the neighbors and the church and
especially Tom and Harry for having worked this out and
helping us out with this. That helped us a lot.
Thank
you.
MAYOR GRAM: There is one other condition that
I didn't see on here and I forgot to add. And that is,
at all times that the gym is open for athletic events,
there has to be someone associated directly with the
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1 parish on duty to enforce these rules, so it's not just
2 left open and we have free playing going on. Obviously,
3 you have an education program for your coaches. But
4 there has to be someone there to oversee the whole
5 thing.
6 MR. THOMPSON: Just a clarification point.
7 When I was talking about the fence barrier to
8 help mitigate, it should be up basically right where the
9 lip of the hill is. There is a lip, flat, and then it
10 starts down. It should be right at the lip, not,
11 obviously, down to where the disputed property line is,
12 because that would just cut right through so many
13 backyards.
14 So, is the next step -- we talked through
15 these. I think the next step would be to make a
16 motion adopting -- direct staff to come back at a future
17 meeting with a resolution outlining all of it.
18 MAYOR GRAM: The next step would be that. We
19 would ask staff to come back at our meeting on the
20 6th -- which I think you said you could do -- with
21 language of a resolution, which if we do pass this by
22 motion, you can incorporate the language we've talked
23 about.
24 I don't know if you can get the court
25 reporter's transcript by then to help you, or if our
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microphone is working this time. Then you'll have our
notes here. But we'll need use permit language and a
resolution.
MR. THOMPSON: Tom, have you asked staff if
that's going to give them enough time?
MAYOR GRAM:
I asked them.
Staff said they
could.
If you can't do it by the 6th, then you'll have
to bring it back at a later date, which would be in
January. But I would like to get it on the 6th, if we
could.
And I want you also to submit i~ in draft to
both sides, to the neighbors at least four or five days
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ahead of time, and to St. Hilary's, and then send it
directly to each of their attorneys.
MR. BACH: When is this meeting?
MAYOR GRAM: December 6th.
All right. At this point, unless you have
anything else to say, I'll entertain a motion or some
discussion as to going to a motion to finalize this.
MR. THOMPSON: Well, I would make a motion that
we adopt all of the subcommittee's recommendations.
Well, let me back up.
I made the suggestion that we set -- you said
hours of 7:30.
I had suggested 6:30.
Is there any
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1 consensus of that? Or do you want to stick with the
2 subcommittee? I'm just looking at the hour's difference
3 that I had come up with.
4 MS, HENNESSY: I prefer 7:30 because the older
5 children might not be able to get there.
6 MR. BACH: I'll stick with the subcommittee's
7 recommendation. I think there is no reason for me to
8 change it at this point.
9 MR. MATTHEWS: I was going to say 7:30.
10 MR. THOMPSON: With that said, I'll make a
11 motion that we adopt all of the subcommittee's
12 recommendations, and, in addition, the fence between the
13 houses on the south side to Hilary Drive, and direct
14 staff to return on December 6th with a resolution
15 covering that.
16 MR. MATTHEWS: I'll second.
17 MR. THOMPSON: As a part of that, we would be
18 granting the appeal ~ith these conditions.
19 MAYOR GRAM: That would be in the resolution.
20 We have a second. Any discussion?
21 MR. BACH: Can I hear that motion a little bit
22 more clear again, please?
23 MR. THOMPSON: Are you asking me?
24 MR. BACH: I just asked to hear the motion a
25 little bit clearer. I wasn't clear on what the motion
,....
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MR. THOMPSON:
I would move that we grant the
appeal with the following conditions: that we adopt the
conditions set up by the subcommittee. In addition, the
fence that we both talked about running between the
parking lot area, along the back on the lip between the
parking lot area and the houses on St. Hilary, and that
we direct staff to return in December with a resolution
memorializing the motion.
MR. BACH:
I'll second the motion.
MR. MATTHEWS: I'll second
MAYOR GRAM: Is there any discussion on the
motion?
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MR. MATTHEWS: The only discussion I would like
to add, and one thing that hasn't been said this
evening, I've lived in Tiburon since 1963. I've raised
four children here in the public schools. I have not
been involved directly with St. Hilary's. But having
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lived here this 10ng,^St. Hilary's has ~illy lived in
peace and harmony with its neighbors for over 45 years.
And l(his has been a difficult period for them as well as
;U- nilfil 1982.r.. for the neighbors.
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There is no doubt in my mind that once this
project is finished and we get through the construction
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part, we'll just go right back ~ St. Hilary's will be
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TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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2 MAYOR GRAM: Any other discussions?
3 MR. BACH: I just had a comment. This project
4 has to go through design review. And I think during the
5 design review process, I'm sure the church and the
6 designers will be very sympathetic to angles and roof
7 lines and so on and so forth. Because there is no
8 question it has an impact on the neighbors.
9 And I think that I hope that up to this
10 point, that the neighbors and church can get together
11 and come up with some design that would please -- or at
12 least help everybody. Because that is an important
13 point that you guys have ahead of you at this point, and
14 I think it would be nice if you could work together on
15 that.
16 MAYOR GRAM: Anyone else?
17 Would you call the role, please?
18 MS. IACOPI: Council Member Hennessy?
19 MS. HENNESSY: Aye.
20 MS. IACOPI: Council Member Bach?
21 MR. BACH: Aye.
22 MS. IACOPI: Council Member Matthews?
23 MR, MATTHEWS: Yes,
24 MS. IACOPI: Vice Mayor Thompson?
25 MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
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MAYOR GRAM: Yes.
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MS. IACOPI: The motion passed by five. There
4 are no "no" votes.
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MAYOR GRAM: Okay. With that said, motion to
6 adjourn.
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MR. THOMPSON: So moved.
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2 I, SHARON LANCANSTER, Certified Shorthand
3 Reporter, do hereby certify the following:
4 That the foregoing proceedings in the
above-entitled action were taken at the time and place
therein specified before me, a Certified Shorthand
Reporter of the State of California; that said
proceedings were taken down in shorthand by me and were
thereafter transcribed into typewriting; and that the
foregoing transcript constitutes a full, true, and
correct record of said proceedings which took place;
That I am a disinterested person to said
action.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunder subscribed
my hand on this 27TH day of November, 2000
#t2I M.... ~I' ,I ~-x.
SHARON LANCASTER, CSR No. 5468
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF NOVEMBER 14, 2000
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