The South San Francisco Planning Commission held its regular meeting on Thursday, December 20, 2018, at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers of the Municipal Services Building. The commission considered three public hearing items: a 22-unit townhome development, the Gateway of Pacific Phases II and III office/R&D project, and a digital sign amendment for the Best Western Grosvenor Hotel. All three items were recommended for approval, and each motion passed unanimously (4-0) with Commissioners Zhang and Evans absent.
Reading of um agenda item number one, please, Madam Clerk. Report regarding consideration of applications for a zoning map amendment, plan development, tentative parcel map, and design review to construct 22 single family attached townhouse units at the corner of Westboro, Barlevard, and Oakmont Drive in the low density residential zoning district, an associated California Environmental Quality Act analysis. Vice Chair Murphy, fellow commissioners, my name is Billy Gross with the planning division. I'll be presenting the staff report this evening. So can you see the uh we'll give Howard? Can you please bring the thank you? So the subject site for this Oakmont Meadows application is shown on the screen. It's at the southwesterly corner of Westboro and Oakmont. The project location it this originally consisted of a 10-acre site. The southern half of the original site was developed in the early 2000s and now is known as the Oakmont Estates, which is shown to the right in this photo. City Council denied an entitlement request for a public storage facility on the vacant site in 2000. The previous applicant submitted an application for an 18-unit residential development in 2006, but that application was ultimately deemed incomplete and withdrawn. Along the eastern and southern boundaries of the site, uh above and to the right in this graphic are low density residential uses. Commercial uses are located to the north across Westboro, including a professional office complex, Callon shopping center, and a public storage facility, and then there are high density residential uses located to the west across Westboro, which is towards the bottom in this graphic. For the actual subject site itself, the primary constraint on the parcel is the presence of the San Andreas fault traces. Because of the fault traces, habitable structures are not permitted within a 50-foot setback of the main fault trace and a 25-foot setback from the ancillary fault traces. These setback areas are indicated in this graphic in the white hatched area. A portion of the site is also too steeply sloped to be developed, and this is shaded gray. Based on these constraints, only the areas shaded blue are considered developable. This comprises just over one acre, about 21% of the site. Keep these blue areas in mind as we transition to the next slide. So this is the proposed site plan, which would consist of 22 single-family attached townhomes. As you can see, the development is proposed in the areas that were shown as blue on this graphic. Eight of the units would be located near the intersection of Westboro and Oakmont. These units would be accessed from a new road off of Oakmont Drive directly across from Bantry Line. The remaining 14 units would be located on the along the interior of the site. They'd be accessed from Shannon Park, which would be extended as a private road from its current terminus within the Oakmont estates development, just to the right of this graphic. Approximately 70% of the site would serve as common areas. This slide shows the elevations for the 14 units on the interior of the sites. And then as you move to some of the eight units on the exterior of the site, you can see that the uh general design is in keeping between both portions of the of the project site. The proposed units will all be three-story, either three or four bedroom, with total areas ranging from approximately 1,500 to 2600 square feet. All units would also include a two-car garage. 17 of the units would have attached two-car garages, five units would have detached. These floor plans show some of the interior, the 14 units, all of these would have attached garages. So coming back to this graphic, which shows the site constraints, this leads into the discussion of the need for a planned development district. Municipal Code Chapter 20.140 Plan Development District allows the city council to establish a planned development district in certain portions of the city. The purpose of such a district is to provide for better coordinated development and crafted development standards. One of the key aspects is having flexibility in the regulations. This lists some of the specific areas where there's the ability to look at flexibility, including building relationship setbacks, height limitations. The district must also show substantial compliance with the land use and density policy policies of the general plan. So we'll start with that general plan consistency. The land use designation is low density residential, which does allow attached single family units if the units have ground floor living area and private outdoor open space. And the proposed project units would meet both of these standards. The general plan Westboro subarea also includes a specific implementation policy related to this parcel from when the general plan was adopted back in 1999. It requires that new development to be low density residential, either single family detached or cluster development to be compatible with adjacent single family dwellings and to not permit vehicular access directly onto Westboro. And staff believes that the proposed project meets all of these stipulations. This table shows the existing low density RL8 zoning standards that the property is currently within. And then in those are in comparison to the proposed Plan Development District standards. And so you will see for all 11 of these, the applicant is proposing standards that are less than what would typically be required, but that is to accommodate the smaller development areas that are allowable on the site. So for instance, the lot sizes are reduced because uh the having to cluster the development together, having the eight units in that one corner, the lot sizes have to be smaller to allow for the homes.