What's happening: The Planning Commission continued the design review for a new home on Hillside Avenue this week, declining every major piece of what the applicant asked for: a side yard setback variance for the garage, a floor area variance to build 325 square feet over the maximum, and a public parking deck proposed across the street. The vote was 3-0. No new hearing date has been set.
The front elevation of the proposed home on Hillside Avenue, from the project plans submitted by Jessup Associates Architects. The house would sit above a three-car garage cut into the hillside. (City of Mill Valley, staff report)
Why it matters: It's a preview of what the commission expects from anyone building on Mill Valley's steep lots, and there are plenty of those. Planning Commission Chair Kevin Skiles told the applicant's team that hillside lots have their own "DNA," and that a project requiring 1,155 cubic yards of excavation and export, by Briefing math roughly 100 dump truck loads, means the design is fighting the site instead of working with it.
Moving those trucks up and down narrow hillside streets is exactly what turned neighbors against past projects and pushed the commission to start scrutinizing excavation totals, Skiles said. He's seen one project top 700 yards in eight years on the commission. Most run 100 to 300.
The context: The proposal would replace a 1,941-square-foot house built in 1913 with a 3,168-square-foot home, a 649-square-foot accessory unit, and an 831-square-foot garage cut into the hillside, reached from the house by elevator. Staff recommended approval of most of the application and left the floor area variance to the commission's judgment. Commissioners went further than staff did, rejecting both variances and the parking deck outright.
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