The paradox of the ship of these concerns, which happens when every plank of its ship is replaced by a new piece of wood over time. Is it still the same ship?
The Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission wrestled with this philosophical question last week, but instead of a ship, the topic was the existing fences on the edge of the streams and streams of the city.
The zaunde debate appeared during the almost six -hour discussion of the Commission, which focused on the recent proposal for increasing protection by restricting development to bank corridors, including areas next to the San Francisquito Creek in North Palo Alto. This brook and others are currently subject to a 20-foot buffer zone for construction. City guides flirted in recent years with the idea of expanding it, although there was no clear consensus on how much it should be expanded.
This spirit of indecisiveness continued on August 27, when the Commission concluded without giving a recommendation to the full advice. However, several commissioners proved to be sympathy for real estate owners on Edgewood Drive, who consistently fought against the new rules.
The city's staff was prepared with a number of changes, for which additional studies are also required if a homeowner wants to change a non -compliant fence on its property.
The deputy city administration Andrew Yang managed to clarify the philosophical considerations of commissioners about what would happen if significant parts of a fence are replaced over time.
“This is only relevant for real estate that have no fences yet,” he told the Commission. “If you already have a fence, you can rebuild it. You can maintain it indefinitely.”
Commissioner Cari Templeton added: “And if you don't, do it quickly!”
The proposed regulation is controversial for the homeowners, whose property lies alongside Palo Altos streams and streams, since the expansion of the corridor intervenes into their backyards. The city's employees proposed last week to increase the necessary setbacks of power edges from the existing 20 feet to 30 feet for urbanized areas between Foothill Expressway and US Highway 101. This includes the Edgewood Drive along the San Francisquito Creek.
Kevin Gardiner, a planning consultant at Good City Company, who worked with the city at the regulation, said the goal is not necessarily about habit protection as a shielding of home owners against the effects of potential floods. But most homeowners were not satisfied with the proposed changes. A resident of Edgewood Drive compared the new restriction to lose part of her garden from an environmental relationship that she does not understand clearly.
A main concern among homeowners about setbacks and fences is the fact that it is available in Dry Creek beds in the Dry Creek beds near the year, especially near Edewood Drive. The other side of the stream, which falls under the area of East Palo Alto, has no barrier or fence that prevents people from getting into the dry stream bed.
In January, the Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance wrote to the Commission that the proposed ordinance with the additional setbacks would convert the area around the Bach “into a corridor for people and a platform for more camps, transitions and criminal activities”.
“There is literally nothing that prevents people from entering the stream from the side of East Palo Alto. As a result, Palo Alto House owners fight at the Edgewood Drive and the larger neighborhood and have had for years.
While the commission seemed to agree with the concerns of the homeowners, environmentalists also expressed as far as possible at the meeting in favor of expanding the corridor protection.
“Creeks such as San Franciscquito Creek and Matadero Creek are old, living ecosystems that are thousands of years old,” said Dashiell Leeds from the Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club, which mainly supported the proposed regulation from the city staff.
“It may feel small for us to build a structure here, add a little concrete there, but these decisions add up, and without adequate protective measures we will finally lose this precious and significant living space in no time compared to the overall lifespan of these currents,” he continued.
The proposal of the city staff's staff was divided into two broad categories: urban areas and rural areas. The members of the Commission voted more changes in the latter category as the former, with the deputy chairman Bryna Chang to submit an application to divide the commission's recommendation for an easier vote.
Chang described the changes in rural areas as “low-hanging fruits” so that the commission made some instructions available to the full council-especially because the commissioners could not come to a consensus about changes in the urban areas.
However, this application only managed to receive the support of Commissioner Kevin Ji.
“I just think it is premature,” said Commissioner Bart Hechtman about the idea. “I also don't know what the advice will do if we only forward a piece of the regulation … I don't want to give you half of what you have sent us.”
When the meeting of the six -hour brand came closer, the commissioners seemed to be trying to find a way to continue the discussion at another time with additional information from the city's employees. When the chairman of all Akin tried to make informal straw questions about the opinions of the Commissioners to the regulation, templeton refrained from further voting and found that their ability to perform cognitive “.
Instead, the Commission unanimously voted in favor of continuing the discussion at an indefinite time. The staff also recognized the complexity of accepting a new regulation on the regulation, which is one of the goals of the city council for the year.
“The conclusion to which the Commission has come is that it is simply very difficult to get part of it without really driving everything up, since it was not written as changes to the existing code, but how it really describes to try to clarify it and make it in a holistic way,” said the deputy planning director Jennifer Armeer.