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The Pleasanton Planning Commission had many split feelings last week over a downtown application that seeks to build a multi-story home on Old Bernal Avenue that includes some commercial aspects on the first floor.
Commissioners had lengthy discussions at their Aug. 27 meeting over whether they should make exceptions to the city’s Downtown Specific Plan — the proposed project does not meet many standards listed in the plan — to allow the project to move forward and lose that commercial space near downtown, or if they should deny the project, which some said might lead to larger, undesirable projects in the future.
“Part of that question would then be: if we don’t do this, what could happen to (the property),” Commissioner Brandon Pace said. “There are things that could happen where we lose control.”
The approximately 21,384-square-foot project site is located at 231 Old Bernal Ave., between Augustine Street and Peters Avenue.
The proposal includes the demolition of a roughly 6,000-square-foot commercial office building that had housed a handful of businesses. According to the applicant, Gautam Patel — a Pleasanton resident who owns a real estate business with members of his family — said most of the tenants are gone and that one is currently looking for another space.
In its place, the applicant seeks to construct a new, approximately 38-foot-tall building that includes a roughly 15,000-square-foot, single-family residence. The building would be a mix of two and three stories and would also include a 725-square-foot, ground-floor, live-work space along with other site improvements.
Six total parking stalls are also being proposed along with the removal of 12 nonheritage trees.
The height of the proposed structure was a key point of contention for some at the dais, including Commissioner Stephanie Wedge.
“Pretty soon we’re not even going to see the ridge,” Wedge said. “We’re just going to lose all the beauty in the Bay Area as we keep going vertical and higher.”
According to staff, the zoning for this plot of land on Old Bernal Avenue stipulates that the height of buildings should not be over 36 feet tall.
Others on the commission said they could live with the height and that, at most, the applicant should try to at least look to reduce the height by those two feet, if possible.
The main discussion points during the meeting boiled down to whether the commission saw the project as a commercial space with residential on the two top floors or if it was simply a residential house with minimal aspects of commercial space.
And for many on the commission, they simply did not see the project as a commercial space.
“I don’t want to call it a mixed-use project, when it’s really not,” Commissioner Anurag Jain said during the meeting. “There is no storefront. The access to the commercial space is part of the house. It doesn’t stand out as a commercial activity.”
But according to Patel, the reason why the project doesn’t comply with some of the standards required of commercial space in that area is because of the greater context behind the project.
Patel said multiple members of his greater family want to all move in together in that proposed project and while the ground floor offices would be nice for his real estate business, the main goal for this project is to avoid other developers coming in and proposing something similar to the Harrison Street project from three years ago that was eventually shut down by the city.
The project had aimed to build a five-story, mixed-use building on the edge of downtown Pleasanton at 4884 Harrison St.
“If projects like (the Harrison project) were to proceed, then we would very strongly consider moving out of the town,” Patel said.
Patel said he and his family were so opposed to the Harrison project that they actually bought the property and have recently filed a new application to propose eight townhomes ranging from two to three stories high. Staff said that the application is brand new and is still going through the process of being reviewed.
The goal, Patel said, is to build projects in the area that fit within the neighborhoods. But he also recognized that the project doesn’t have to be approved, if the city chooses not to.
“We’re trying to make something work in order to mitigate what we believe is likely the outcome with these lots afterwards, given that we live in Pleasanton and if there isn’t something here then that’s OK … we would probably just go and then move on and we’ll sell it,” Patel said.
Another major point of discussion during the meeting was the fact that allowing the project to move forward, could cost the city land that might have been used to build more housing, rather than housing for a single family — even if that family is relatively large.
Per the city’s General Plan Land Use Element, the allowable density for a mixed use residential development such as the proposed project is 20 or more dwelling units per acre. As proposed, the project is considered a one residential unit, which means to conform to the General Plan, the project would need to propose a minimum of 10 units, associate planner Diego Mora said.
The balance between wanting to build something that fits within the neighborhood and also keeping in mind the state-mandated requirements to build almost 6,000 new units of housing was what many on the dais struggled with during the workshop.
“That’s what makes this so hard because here we are trying to find 6,000 units for the city,” Pace said.
Commission Chair Ken Morgan added that the contention becomes: if they are trying to find about 6,000 new units of housing and they have this small piece of land, do they prefer having a project that houses three families or 10?
“Building one single-family residence that’s 38 feet tall, just looks too huge and imposing,” Morgan said. “It looks a little bit like a mansion, and to me, it’s not accomplishing our goals of providing more housing for Pleasanton.”
The other major point of contention was the loss of commercial space given that the offices proposed for the ground floor would mostly serve the family’s real estate business.
The conversation regarding this subject went back and forth for the most part with many on the commission agreeing that if the project were to move forward, there would need to be more commercial aspects to the exterior.
However, Commissioner Vivek Mohan pointed out that the site for the proposed location isn’t necessarily the most economically viable location for businesses and that he would be fine with moving this project forward as strictly residential. He also said, in general, Pleasanton is seeing a decline in commercial viability.
“I think Pleasanton, probably at this point, is a more desirable bedroom community than a commercial (one) — that’s just a statement of fact,” Mohan said. “Unless we do something dramatically different … the existing commercial spaces are not getting filled up.”
“If it looks like a nice residential complex or building, with trees and everything else maintained to the best of our abilities, I actually would support this,” Mohan added. “And I would support more of this construction in this area because that’s the demand today in the city.”
Pace had similar thoughts in that he supports neighborhoods where there is uniformity and he doesn’t think the proposed location is commercially viable so as long as the aesthetics conform with the surrounding area, he is not as concerned about commercial requirements.
“This isn’t Barone’s where it’s literally right off Main Street and everyone is going to go there and shop. That’s just not happening,” Pace said.
In the end, both Mohan and Pace said they were fine with moving forward with a mostly residential project while members like Wedge, Jain and Morgan said they would like to see more commercial aspects if that’s what the applicant wants to pursue.
However, Jain added that he would have liked to see proposals for things like townhomes in that site location. The commission also recognized that there could be a possibility where, if the current project is rejected, they could see larger proposed developments in that area, which is what also had many on the dais second guessing themselves and how to move forward.
Community development director Ellen Clark said she couldn’t really say whether that would be true or not because it’s really just speculation at this point and would depend on a lot of factors.
Clark also noted that the market in Pleasanton currently shows higher favorability for building single-family homes and that high density, multi-family residential projects are not as popular.
No formal was taken as staff mainly sought input in order to continue working with the applicant before the project comes back to the commission, which will make a final recommendation to the City Council at a later date.
