City Restrictions

The City of Pleasanton spent considerable time working to minimize the environmental and visual impacts of the 51 custom lots at Oak Grove. In approving the Oak Grove plan, the City halved the number of custom lots, required that the lots be reconfigured, and laid out a number of conditions on home design summarized below. The City must approve each and every home before a building permit is issued. The City will require every home proposal to provide computer simulations of its view impacts and may require “story pole” studies for individual homes. The City requires every future home at Oak Grove to comply with the following.

Limits on home size—There are three types of restrictions on home size for the 51 lots at Oak Grove. Any homeowner can propose a home smaller than the prescribed size caps.

• Lots visible to immediate neighbors. The City designated 21 of the 51 lots as potentially visible to neighbors and placed a size cap of 9,175 square feet on these homes.

• Non-visible lots. On 27 lots, the City imposes a 20% floor-to-area ratio (FAR). The FAR for neighboring homes in Kottinger Ranch and Grey Eagle Estates is 30%.

• Estate lots. There are 3 lots at Oak Grove on which a home as large as 12,500 square feet could be proposed. None of these three lots is visible offsite.
  Limits on home height—The City conditioned that: “[T]he maximum building height for Lots 1 through 51 shall be 30 feet unless the lot is designated for a single-story structure where the maximum building height shall be 25 feet.”

Limits on home height—The City conditioned that: “[T]he maximum building height for Lots 1 through 51 shall be 30 feet unless the lot is designated for a single-story structure where the maximum building height shall be 25 feet.”

Curbing visual impacts—The Oak Grove site plan is being revised to move Lot 2 further away from the entrance and reduce the visual impact of Court 1. Homes proposed on the 21 lots potentially visible to immediate neighbors cannot exceed a single story or 25 feet in height. The placement of lots, the building envelopes, and the grading plan all work to also reduce the visibility of the future homes. In addition, requirements for tree planting both in the open space and on the 51 lots will have the effect of screening the new homes. Finally, the City requires the future homeowners to submit “computer generated and professionally rendered view analyses” for the City and nearby neighbors to review (Condition #26).

Green Building—All Oak Grove homes must comply with the City’s Green Building ordinance, set back and design standards and the comprehensive Oak Grove Design Guidelines.