Although the City Council didn't officially pass the changes to the residential homes ordinance, councilmembers are steps closer to an agreement on the issue.
At the Feb. 15 meeting, councilmembers continued the final decision until March 1, but not before reaching a consensus on some issues. The council decided to add a new component to the ordinance, an architectural review committee.
The council reached an agreement on passing the design changes outlined by the Planning Commission and created a 60-day period before the changes are enforced following the approval of the ordinance. Council also agreed to have square footage in a home distributed 65 percent on the first floor and 35 percent on the second.
The City Council did not discuss the most controversial issue, whether to accept the Planning Commission's recommendation of a sliding scale floor area ratio (FAR), used to determine the maximum size of a home, or to revert to a flat maximum FAR.
During previous Planning Commission and City Council meetings, residents have commented that regulating size of homes does not account for good taste with regard to style and design. Many people felt some of the recent home designs were in poor taste.
In Mountain View, people receive a FAR bonus if they have a superior design, said Linda Roy at the Feb. 1 council meeting.
Based on comments from the meeting, Councilmember John Statton presented a proposal to create an architectural review committee to help regulate the style and design of a home.
According to Statton's proposal, a Neighborhood Consultation Committee would be created to review architectural designs of homes with a FAR of .35 or larger.
The .35 FAR was an arbitrary number consistent with what's used in Los Altos, Statton said.
The landowner can build a home up to the maximum allowed FAR--which has yet to be determined--but once the home crosses the .35 FAR threshold, it must be reviewed by the committee.
"[The proposal] is to get at the large house on the small lot issue," Statton said. "It's to preserve the ability to go up to .45 [FAR]."
City staff recommended that a $750 fee be applied to the applicant for design review.
For the next meeting, the council directed staff to determine the composition of the review committee, establish criteria for the committee to use and outline the process for notifying neighbors.
"Be careful who will participate in design review, non-professional versus professional people," said Dick Childress, an area developer since the early 1970s.
Childress was recently involved in constructing five homes in Saratoga. The designs went before Saratoga's design committee, and four of the homes were redesigned based on what members of the committee requested.
"The neighbors only liked one of the homes, the one we designed," Childress said. "Design review is very subjective. I hope you stick to some sort of a fixed criteria to build the house."
Cupertino has had architectural review committees in the past and when the issue of amending the homes ordinance first came up more than a year ago, the idea of a review committee was considered and abandoned, said Councilmember Sandra James. "I'm absolutely delighted we are talking about architectural review," she said.
During the Feb. 1 City Council meeting, the majority of speakers were against changes to the ordinance. Last week, speakers were in favor of it.
Several of the speakers urged the council to pass the ordinance that night. "A lot of homework has been done," said John Mracek. "To continue and continue it is to say a year of homework is not enough."
Cupertino, California Since 1947
