SR 06:245 - Laserfiche WebLink

Page I of2 Natalie Amos From: Stan Knigh______ Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:50 AM To: Natalie Amos Cc: 'ssknight' Subject: Statement from the Knights Hello Natalie- Here is a written statement regarding our second story proposal. I have pasted it into this e-mail and also attached the same as a Word document. Let me know if you have any questions about it. Stan Knight Position statement from the Knights on their proposal to add a second story addition to their home at 779 Mirador Court, in Pleasanton. We moved to this home in Pleasanton Heights in 1996 and have thoroughly enjoyed this neighborhood over the past ten years. When we purchased the property we had one child, but planned to have additional children, and realized that we would very likely outgrow the house as our family grew and our need for space increased. At the time we made our decision to buy this home, we knew we would either have to move to a larger home at some point in the future or potentially expand our existing floor plan by adding on. Over the past ten years this neighborhood has experienced a great deal of investment in the existing homes in the form of remodels, upgrades and additions. In our opinion these individual property upgrades have significantly enhanced the quality and the desirability of the neighborhood as a whole. It also lead us to further believe that adding on to our existing home was a very good option. We also considered moving to a larger home in various other Pleasanton neighborhoods. and have been looking for an appropriate home for over 5 years. We finally came to the conclusion that staying in the Pleasanton Heights neighborhood, and expanding our current floor plan, was our best option. We love the feel of this neighborhood, it's proximity to downtown and we have also grown very fond of many of our neighbors on Mirador Court. When we decided to move forward with this plan to add space, we interviewed 4 different architects, all with significant experience in Pleasanton remodels with ties to this city . We wanted someone who could ensure the architectural features fit in with the neighborhood and also could "add to" the aesthetics, and the appeal, of our court. We also were looking for someone who fully understood the planning and zoning regulations established by the city. We retained Peter Shults, and his architectural firm, because he met all of these criteria and we were very pleased with his vision for our new home. To meet our current and future space needs we concluded that we had to increase our existing space by around 1200-1300 square feet, or - 75% increase over what we currently have. In our initial discussions around designing our expansion, we focused on the possibility of doing this all on the ground floor, as we knew the cost of constructing a second story would be significantly higher and we would likely have to move out of our home for a longer period. After exploring every possible option to maintain a single story configuration, we concluded our only choice was to put the majority of our expansion into a new second story. We preliminarily spoke with 9 of our neighbors regarding our plans. All were positive and supportive ofthe idea, but several were also eager to see and understand our plans, once they were completed. Several also indicated that they are also considering the possibility of adding a second story at some point in the future. They are therefore very interested in following the progression of our proposed project for the benefit of their own future plans. In working with our architect we took specific measures, with expected higher construction costs, to make the fal'ade as attractive and unobtrusive as reasonably possible, both filting into, and also enhancing, our street and the neighborhood. We kept the roofline 6 feet below the required limit, we limited the number of windows on 6/9/2006