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Jenny Soo Subject: FW:August 21 City Council Chabad/Miller appeal Attachments: SKM_C454e18051410280.pdf; SKM_C454e18051410281.pdf From: Jim Shiffer Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018 2:03 PM To: Jenny Soo Cc:jewishtrivalley Subject: August 21 City Council Chabad/Miller appeal Jenny, I can't attend the August 21 city council meeting so please forward my comments to the city council members. I am Jim Shiffer. I have lived at in Pleasanton since 1996 and I am a member of St.Clare's Episcopal church. The planning commission erred in trying to find a compromise solution. Their compromise included moving the playground from the north side of Chabad's building to the west side. At the community meeting Chabad hosted to discuss this the Millers were asked if they would be satisfied if the playground was moved to the west side and Darlene's response as accurately as I can recall was "No. That is still too close. Why can't it be on the south?" The south side is where the shared parking lot is. Since the Millers didn't want the playground anywhere except to the south the planning commission might as well have left it in Chabad's preferred location,the north. This is also St. Clare's preferred location. Our master plan which was approved by the city council and which I will attach anticipates a Chabad parking lot on the west side. This is in conflict with what the planning commission approved. St. Clare's deliberately limited the parking agreement to 50 years to encourage Chabad to build a parking lot sometime in the next 50 years. The only place the city and neighbors would agree to when St. Clare's was before the city council was the west side. In the north as near as I can remember the playground would be 86 feet from the nearest neighbor. In the west location it would be 92 feet from the nearest neighbor. St. Clare's playground is approximately 87 feet from the nearest neighbor. The north location is not significantly closer to the nearest neighbor than the west location or St. Clare's playground and it is near Hopyard road which is in my opinion more of a noise nuisance than a playground. I don't understand complaining about playground noise when Hopyard road is right there making all kinds of noise. The planning commission also erred in limiting the number of outside events Chabad can have. St. Clare's attendance has dwindled but we have coffee hour twice each Sunday,once after each service, and it is usually outside. Both of those coffee hour events could be more than 25 people so St. Clare's has in the past had close to 100 outdoor events a year of over 25 people and nobody complained. Just because you have an event outdoors doesn't mean it is noisy. If St. Clare's can have unlimited outside events then Chabad should be allowed unlimited outside events. There are already remedies for noisy events which bother neighbors. Sincerely, Jim Shiffer IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Thank you. 1