Politics & Government

Council Punts Edgewood Home Back to Commission

In three-hour hearing, neighbors raise litany of complaints about proposed residence, but council concludes it doesn't have enough information to decide.

The Mill Valley City Council was asked Monday night to resolve a dispute between a proposed Edgewood Ave. home that has been through six Planning Commission hearings and a group of neighbors who referred to the project as "evil" and a "skyscraper."

After a three-hour hearing in which two dozen nearby residents raised a slew of complaints about the steep-sloped project at 290 Edgewood Ave., the council punted the matter back to the Planning Commission along with a series of recommendations and directives to city staff.

The council directed city staff to clarify and expand upon some of the six conditions of approval applied to the project and to do more extensive analysis of a number of issues, including: the project's overall size and height; its 484-square-foot garage; the regulations for a home being built on a 56-percent slope; the status of a nearby heritage redwood tree on public property whose health has been the subject of differing analysis from multiple arborists; drainage and soil erosion issues during and after construction; and landscaping plans.

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"But given all that, this is a buildable lot," Vice Mayor Wachtel said, addressing the onslaught of complaints from nearby residents about the project. "The only way you're not going to have something built on this lot is if the neighborhood gets together and buys it. It's zoned as a buildable lot, and once it gets its entitlement, something can be built there."

The early part of the hearing was dominated by lengthy presentations from Hazel Ave. residents Bob and Elza Burton, who appealed the planning commission's unanimous Aug. 23 approval of the project to the council, as well as planning commissioner Heidi Richardson, who sought to guide the council through many of the issues the commission had tackled since the house was first proposed in January 2007.

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"We felt that we had seen it enough and that if it was going to get bumped upstairs, it was time for that to happen," Richardson said. "Your turn."

Bob Burton went through the 19 objections to the project in his appeal, reading letters and past quotes from fellow project opponents and even showing the council a number of photos of exposed sewer pipes and a variety of drainage issues at nearby 270 Edgewood Avenue that he said have impacted properties along Hazel.

"Hazel Avenue has become the forgotten backyard of all of these properties built along Edgewood," he said.

Burton, a former Mill Valley mayor, also issued a warning to the current council.

"[290 Edgewood] is the steepest one along this whole hillside," he said. "This is an incredibly steep lot. There are serious conditions, and the city is on notice that if anything is built here, it's a danger because that hill is really subject to sliding."

A bevy of area residents then echoed Burton's complaints, with some expressing surprise that the project was still alive.

"Why would anyone even want to build a house there?" asked Hazel Ave. resident Nancy Head.

Mallory Morse, who lives adjacent to the proposed project, said she was concerned about the safety of the site, using her own property, from which a tree crashed down upon the hillside below a few years ago, as an example.

"I cannot imagine why anyone would want to build on this lot or live on this lot and I cannot imagine what a nightmare the process of construction will be," said her husband, Harrison Morse.

Many residents said the proposed home was too large for the neighborhood and too imposing for residents of Hazel Avenue. The proposed 2,518-square-foot home on the 8,309-square-foot lot would be smaller than any of the homes on the same side of that block of Edgewood on lots of a similar size, according to the staff report.

"This structure on Edgewood will appear like a skyscraper on a cliff from Hazel," said said Hazel Ave. resident Patricia Little. "This will change our neighborhood and actually lower the value of our homes."

Councilman Garry Lion said the onslaught of complaints from nearby residents about the size of the house seemed to be more about people driving and walking by than the impact of the proposal on the actual view of other homes.

"There's not a lot of proof that there are a lot of people sitting in their living room looking at this house," he said.

After Burton's presentation and the roll call of objections from area neighbors, project architect Jill Tardy reminded the council that the project had been markedly reduced from earlier proposals and had continually addressed the concerns of opponents.

"We believe that we have done everything possible to address the concerns of the neighbors and that we can meet the conditions of approval," Tardy said.

In sending the project back to the commission, Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and several council members seemed most concerned about the issue of drainage and erosion on such a steep hillside.

"This is a challenging site, there's no doubt about that, and it deserves some extra care and attention," Moulton-Peters said. "I continue to wonder if we have a handle on drainage and erosion. I would like to have some more confidence that we've really done our due diligence about that."


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