Former Yountville ZRDB board member saddened by dismissal
Dear Fellow Residents of Yountville,
I enjoyed my years of volunteer service on the Zoning Design Review Board (ZDRB) as a member and as chair. I felt that I did a good job for the residents of the town, representing them and our objectives as laid out in our General Plan.
Just to be clear, I sincerely wished to remain on the ZDRB and continue to serve, but I was not reseated by the Town Council during the application process which fell a week after a difficult ZDRB meeting.
The June ZDRB meeting was a bit of a contentious one, where an applicant had chosen to take an aggressive approach with their project on Humboldt St. Instead of designing the building to comply with the Residential Scale Commercial Zoning for that lot, they chose to increase the size of the building and take advantage of the California Density Bonus Laws that allow a developer to build what they want and not have to comply with a municipality’s zoning or design standards.
The designation of Residential Scale Commercial was put in place to allow commercial development on the east side of Washington St as long as it stayed residential in size and design. This project does not fit that description, so the applicant chose a different path, to force it through instead of working with the town.
During the May 27 ZDRB meeting I chose to push back for the sake of the neighbors, bringing forth many of the comments that I received from the community about this project, asking the applicant to please make changes so that the building would be less intrusive to them. We had a good discussion. It was a 3-2 vote to forward the project to the council, so I was not alone in my frustrations.
But, for the tone I took with the applicant, I was not reseated on the board. I have done my best to represent the community that I have served for all these years; I do not regret my comments.
As an interesting follow up on this project, it was presented to the Town Council on June 17. The applicant presented the project with all of the changes that we asked them to make for the sake of the neighbors! I was pleased to see that am I am satisfied that my approach with the applicant was necessary and effective. We made this project much better than it was as first presented to the ZDRB.
I am heartbroken to not be able to continue to serve my community in this position.
I want to thank the community for all their support and love over the last few weeks. Yountville is truly a special place.
Kimberly Cook
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