The Tiburon Town Design Review Board approved an exception Nov. 20 allowing the enclosure of a previously approved covered outdoor kitchen into an enclosed pool house with a bathroom, and attached a landscape-screening condition intended to reduce views of the structure from adjacent properties.

Applicant Rich Viola told the board the property is roughly one acre and that the structure in question began as an approved 470-square-foot covered outdoor kitchen. "We're asking to enclose the space and add a bathroom," Viola said, adding that enclosure would protect furnishings from bay-side dirt and "help with the rodents" and noise from Tiburon Boulevard.

Staff and board members spent much of the hearing debating how the town should count floor area when an accessory dwelling and ministerial ADU allowances intersect with local FAR rules. Staff explained that California's ADU ministerial path creates a limited ministerial allowance but that local agencies still determine how that square footage is combined into total floor area for a lot.

The board considered two competing concerns: neighbors and some board members voiced worry about the project’s growing mass and the precedent of incrementally expanding floor area through repeated reviews; others said strong planting could adequately screen the structure. After an initial motion to approve with a planting condition failed, the board approved a revised motion by roll call, 3–1 (one member absent). The approval included a condition requiring larger, more mature pittosporum planting along the north fence to screen the pool house; the board characterized the action as categorically exempt from CEQA.

Vice chair Rosner and two board members voted to approve the FAR exception with the planting condition; one member voted no. The board directed staff to return with enforceable planting-language (container size/spacing and planting locations) to implement the screening requirement.

What's next: staff will craft precise, enforceable language for the screening condition (for example, minimum container size and spacing) and file the standard paperwork for the approved exception. The board took a short recess and moved on to its second public hearing.

Quotes used in this article are taken from the meeting transcript of the Tiburon Town Design Review Board Nov. 20, 2025 meeting.