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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNovember 12OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 1 Minutes - Los Altos Hills Open Space Committee November 12, 2004 Present: Patty Ciesla, Nancy Couperus, Mary Davey, Barbara Mordo, Elaine Nelson, Duffy Price, Roger Spreen, Susan Welch Regrets: Jean Struthers Guests: Carl Cahill (Town Planning Director); Art Lachenbruch (past Commissioner); Jean Mordo (Councilmember-elect) The meeting was called to order at 3:05 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room at Bullis School APPROVAL OF MINUTES Minutes from the 8 October 2004 meeting were approved without amendment. OLD BUSINESS Crozier-Hogle Conservation Easement Nancy Couperus provided an update on the status of the voluntary conservation easement for the lands of Crozier-Hogle. The 10.9-acre Crozier-Hogle parcel abuts Stanford land on Old Page Mill Road and has conservation value as oak woodland and wildlife habitat and provides a highly visible view shed along the Page Mill corridor. Representatives of the Open Space Committee have been working with the owner, Lois Crozier-Hogle (a co- founder of Committee for Green Foothills) to develop a formal agreement for the conservation easement. The owner has requested that the conservation easement include limitations on changes to the major structures on the property in addition to the natural features. The primary residence, built in 1940, is an early California style house designed by David and Birge Clark. Birge Clark was involved in the design of several hundred residential and commercial buildings in the Palo Alto area, including three that are on the National Registry of Historic Places. The Japanese pool and pool house and the surrounding landscaping were designed by Morgan and Katherine Stedman. The draft conservation easement agreement presented to the owner in September 2004 by the Open Space Committee has been reviewed by the owner, her family, and by a land-use attorney, David Mitchell of Peninsula Open Space trust. Mr. Mitchell has expanded and modified the agreement to include additional constraints on use of the land (e.g., exclusions of vineyards). Jason Kibbey of Defense of Place recommended adding provisions for monitoring the land and for remedying potential violations. Mr. Mitchell recommended that Mrs. Crozier-Hogle have the modified agreement reviewed by her estate planners and by her family. The modified agreement has been sent to the owner’s attorneys and has been reviewed by the Open Space Committee and by Carl Cahill, the City Planner. A formal appraisal of the property with the voluntary conservation easement will be made following the acceptance by the Town of the easement. A survey of the Crozier-Hogle property is needed to address a potential dispute about one of the property lines and to accurately establish the boundaries at the time the conservation easement is accepted by the Town. A survey of record, which costs about $13,200, is legally binding and provides permanent monument markers at property boundaries. The consensus of the OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 2 Committee is that the Town should do a full survey at the time any new conservation easement is accepted as part of the baseline documentation for the easement. Elaine Nelson made a motion that the Open Space Committee request that the Town pay $10,000 towards the cost of the survey of record for the lands of Crozier-Hogle to establish legally binding meets and bounds for the conservation easement and to provide baseline documentation for future monitoring. The Open Space Committee will pay the remaining cost of the survey ($3,200) from Committee funds. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. The survey of record will be done after the voluntary conservation easement has been signed, notarized, and accepted by the Town. Carl Cahill will determine whether the tract maps on file at the Town Hall can be used as exhibits in lieu of a survey of record in the signed agreement. The need for the survey of record for the Crozier-Hogle conservation easement will be raised by Roger Spreen during the public presentations from the floor at the Town Council meeting on Thursday, November 18, 2004. This brief presentation will include description of the economic and Open Space benefits to the Town of this voluntary conservation easement (e.g., saving the Town development costs as well as preserving scenic and historic property that includes watershed, wildlife habitat). The formal request for funds for the survey will be made at the following Town Meeting (December 2, 2004). Nancy Couperus will arrange for City Council Members to visit the Crozier-Hogle property and assure that they understand the terms of the conservation agreement. It is especially important, because of a recent mailer that contained misinformation about conservation easements, to explain the difference between publicly accessible Open Space lands (e.g., Rhus Ridge and Byrne Preserve) and conservation easements on private lands, which do not permit public access. Conservation Easement Ordinance Development on Slopes The issue of development on slopes was discussed at length. Development on slopes is an important issue for the Conservation Easement ordinance and will become more important in the future as development expands to the Town's remaining undeveloped lots, many of which have significant slopes. The Committee is researching the issue of required open space easements on parts of steeply sloped lands that will be developed in the future. Neighboring Towns of Woodside and Portola Valley include such open space easements in their General Plans. The Committee was pleased to have the participation of Art Lachenbruch, a long-time Los Altos Hills resident, a former Planning Commissioner and a geologist now retired from the U.S. Geological survey. Mr. Lachenbruch developed the Lot Unit Formula (LUF) that was adopted by the Town in 1967 and was used until 2001, when the City Council revised the Town's Zoning Code. Mr. Lachenbruch presented three maps showing slopes of the lands within Los Altos Hills: a conventional topographic map, a shaded relief map, and a color-coded slope map. The maps include for reference the Town boundary, major roads, buildings, and streams. These materials are included in a paper available on the USGS web site (i.e., Brooks SK, Lachenbruch AH, and Wentworth CM. Shaded relief, topographic slope, and land use planning in the Los Altos Hills area, California: an example of the use of elevation data, U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Geological Survey, 2002; http//geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of02- 351_6b.pdf). The slope map of the Town of Los Altos Hills displays the change in elevation (i.e., the slope, or the percentage rise in elevation over a given horizontal distance) over the area; by definition, a 10% slope rises 10 feet over a horizontal distance of 100 feet. The slope map is color coded to OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 3 show six categories of slope (e.g., 0% to 10%; 10% to 20%). A histogram showing the percentage of land in the Town of Los Altos Hills that falls into each of the six slope categories was also presented. This histogram indicates that about 20% of the area of the Town has slopes greater than 30%. Mr. Lachenbruch discussed the difference between the average slope of a lot (i.e., the mean slope over the entire lot) and the specific slope at specific sites on the lot (e.g., at the site where a structure is built or at a stream bank or canyon wall). Mr. Lachenbruch explained that the underlying principle for limiting development on slopes is to keep the overall impacts of development consistent (i.e., the same) on both steep lots and on flatter terrain. Basic concerns for development on slopes include: 1) visual impact—preserving the appearance of the natural terrain and thereby the rural and scenic quality of the area; and 2) hydrological impact—minimizing the impact of development on natural drainage and general hydrology of the area. The latter includes maintaining soil stability, preventing erosion and excessive run-off that may cause flooding and adversely affect water quality in creeks and streams. Mr. Lachenbruch explained that development on slopes has a greater impact on appearance of the terrain, and on hydrology and other natural processes, than does comparable development on flat terrain. The greater impact relates to the greater proportion of a sloped lot (compared to a flat lot) that must be disturbed or altered from its natural condition in order to build on it. To maintain a consistent impact of development on sloped lots and on flat lots, the LUF formula requires that the development area allowed per acre be less on steep lots than on flat lots. Thus, for a given development area (i.e., residence plus patios, paving, etc.), a steeper lot must be larger than a flat lot. The steeper the lot, the more acreage is required. More acreage is required in order to make the relative proportion of the lot that is disturbed by the development the same on steep lots as it is on flatter lots. For example, if the LUF formula allows 15,000 square feet of development on a one-acre flat lot (i.e., a lot with a slope up to 10%), about one third of the total lot area (one acre is about 43,000 square feet) would be disturbed. A more steeply sloped lot requires grading (i.e., movement of earth for cut and fill) in order to create a flat area for building. Thus, additional land outside the 15,000 sq ft of development area must also be disturbed from its natural condition. The resulting cut and fill banks are generally steeper than the natural slope and have been stripped of trees and vegetation during the grading and thus are more visible and more susceptible to erosion. To make the proportion of land that is disturbed by a 15,000 sq ft development on a lot with a 30% slope comparable to the disturbance of a 15,000 sq ft development on a one-acre flat lot (i.e., where one third of the area is disturbed) the steeper lot must be significantly larger—about 3.5 acres. For a 15,000 sq ft development on a lot with a slope of 50%, 10 acres of land are required in order to achieve the same proportion of disturbance as on the flat lot. If the lots with 30% or 50% slope were only one acre, the allowed development on them would be smaller than 15,000 sq ft. Mr. Lachenbruch illustrated that the amount of grading required to create a flat development pad increases dramatically as the natural slope of the lot increases. He showed a graph (from the reference above) of the number of acres that must be graded to produce a flat one-acre pad on uniform natural slopes from 0% to 35%. To create a square one-acre flat pad with balanced amounts of cut and fill on a hillside where the natural slope is 30%, about three acres must be altered by grading. The two acres of cut and fill will have a slope about twice the as steep as the original (natural) slope. The graph clearly illustrates the large impacts of development requiring cut and fill on sloped terrain. OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 4 Conservation Easement Information Booklet Roger Spreen received a copy of a booklet prepared by the Town of Woodside intended to introduce to land owners the concept of voluntary conservation easements and to provide practical advice for obtaining an agreement. It is the consensus of the LAH Open Space Committee consensus that a similar booklet would be useful for Los Altos Hills and should be prepared. Roger Spreen will contact the Woodside Open Space Committee about using some of the content of their booklet and Nancy Couperus suggested that photos of the lands of Crozier- Hogle be included. Memorial Bench Nancy Couperus reported that the memorial bench has been completed and installed at Byrne Preserve. Patty Ciesla visited the site and reports that the views are spectacular. Duffy Price will check with Barbara Lamparter to see when she would be available for the dedication. Adobe Creek Watershed Group Meeting The Adobe Creek Watershed Steering Committee, residents, and the agencies are continuing negotiations and making slow but steady progress on this project. Byrne Preserve Fire Management Plan A meeting was held on October 11, 2004 to discuss the environmental damage caused by the goats over-grazing the fuel break in Byrne Preserve this summer and to consider possible alternate fire protection strategies for the Preserve. Participants included representatives from the Fire District, owners of homes adjacent to the preserve, and Open Space Committee members Patty Ciesla, Nancy Couperus, Roger Spreen, and Duffy Price, who is also a member of the Fire Commission. Committee members reported that the meeting was well run and productive. The disturbance to the natural habitat of Byrne Preserve from the most recent goat grazing was significantly more severe than in prior years. Patty Ciesla estimated that the goats were allowed to graze an area approximately ten times larger than the area prescribed by the fuel management plan, resulting in girdling and death of many healthy trees and shrubs outside the fuel management zone. She estimates that as many as 100 to 200 bay trees and other natives were impacted. The Committee reviewed and modified a memo drafted by Patty Ciesla to be sent to the Town Council and to the Fire District. The memo outlines proposed actions to evaluate and mitigate the damage to the Preserve and to prevent future damage. Patty Ciesla argued that future fuel break projects on Byrne Preserve should be subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process to evaluate potential environmental damage. This would require that the Fuel Management Plan be provided for review by the Town of Los Altos Hills planning staff and the Open Space Committee, and that the final project be formally approved by the Town Council. The memo also recommends that the fuel management plan be evaluated by a biologist or other natural resource professional before goat grazing is resumed. Other recommendations include specific limitations and monitoring of any future goat grazing (if grazing is used as part of the future Fuel Management Plan); avoiding cutting additional native shrubs and trees within the Preserve boundaries; and re-surveying and marking the boundaries of the Preserve. The memo also recommends that the Fire District contribute to the cost of mitigating the damage from the goat grazing by paying for propagation of native shrubs to be replanted in the Preserve and by providing labor and chipping services for removal of French broom (an invasive non-native species) from parts of the preserve and adjacent areas. OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 5 A motion was made that the Open Space Committee send the revised memo to the Fire District and the Town Council. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. Patty Ciesla will post documentation of the damage cause by goat grazing on the Open Space Committee web site. Duffy Price will provide Open Space Committee members with a history of the Byrne Preserve fuel management plan and Mary Davey will distribute a POST report on the results of goat grazing on protected lands, including steps taken to protect trees and shrubs during the grazing. NEW BUSINESS Response to Misinformation in Recent Election Mailer Two weeks prior to the November 2, 2004 election the Los Altos Hill Civic Association distributed to Los Altos Hills residents a mailer that included serious misinformation about conservation easements, slope limits, and recent activities of the Los Altos Hills Open Space Committee. In response to queries from the San Jose Mercury News and from concerned Los Altos Hills residents regarding the mailer, Roger Spreen developed a document intended to be a factual response to the disinformation in the mailer. Roger’s document, which is written in a question-and-answer format, has been posted on the LAH Open Space Committee web site. A similar document has been prepared for publication in the Los Altos Hills Town Newsletter. The document addresses misinformation about ownership of conservation easement (i.e., the land remains the sole property of the owner who continues to own, enjoy, and sell it just as before); the Town’s long-standing limits on development on slopes; the Town’s long-standing use of 30% as a critical threshold for development on slope; and the need for a new ordinance addressing development on slopes. League of Women Voters Forum on Open Space The League of Women Voters of Los Altos and Mountain View will hold a forum on open space and conservation easements on Sunday, February 6, 2005. David Mitchell (of POST) will participate in the program and Carl Cahill will check to see if he can join a panel discussion on conservation easements. Lois Crozier-Hogle will be presented with the Wallace Stegner Environmental Award for her commitment to preserving open space in the area. A committee including Nancy Couperus, Mary Davey, Collette Cranston, Elaine Nelson, Duffy Price and Carol Gottleib has been formed to develop the program and the League is currently seeking a venue in Los Altos or Los Altos Hills for the forum. Joint Meeting with Portola Valley On February 9, 2005, a second joint meeting will be held with the Open Space Committees of Los Altos Hills, Portola Valley, Woodside, and Palo Alto. The meeting was adjourned at 5:05 PM. Respectively submitted, Susan Welch OSC_Min_111204 3/6/20 6