HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-11-15 Architectural Review Board Summary Minutes
City of Palo Alto Page 1
Call to Order/Roll Call
Present: Chair Wynne Furth, Vice Chair Peter Baltay, Board Members Alexander Lew, Osma
Thompson and Robert Gooyer.
Absent: None.
Chair Furth: Welcome to the November 15, 2018, meeting of the Architectural Review Board for the city of Palo Alto. Would the staff call the roll, please?
[Roll Call]
Chair Furth: Thank you. Everybody is here.
Oral Communications
Chair Furth: Now is the time for oral communications, for people to speak on a matter that is not on our
agenda but is within our purview. Do we have any speaker cards for oral communications? We have
none. Does anybody else want to speak on matters not on the agenda? All right.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Chair Furth: Are there any agenda changes, additions or deletions?
Jodie Gerhardt, Manager of Current Planning: None.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
City Official Reports
1. Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and 2) Tentative
Future Agenda items. Not addressed.
Action Items
Chair Furth: Okay. We have two public hearings today, one on the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project, and one on a hotel proposal at 4256 El Camino Real. And then we're going to have three subcommittee items. Let's begin with item number 2.
2. PUBLIC HEARING: Architectural Review Board Input on Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP) Overhead Contact System Foundation & Pole Layouts Design for Installation Within Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (JPB) Right of Way in Palo Alto. Environmental Assessment: The JPB Certified the Final
ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD
DRAFT MINUTES: November 15, 2018
City Hall/City Council Chambers
250 Hamilton Avenue
8:30 AM
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Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Adopted a Mitigation Monitoring and
Reporting Plan (MMRP) in January 2015, Following Publication of the Draft EIR in
February 2014 for Public Comment. For More Information Contact the Chief Planning
Official Amy French at amy.french@cityofpaloalto.org
Chair Furth: That takes us to item number 2 on our agenda, which is a public hearing. The Architectural
Review Board is being asked for comment on the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project, overheard
contact system, foundation and pole layouts design for installation on the CalTrain Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board right-of-way. And EIR was certified for this project in 2015, in January 2015, and numerous statements of overriding considerations were made at that time, acknowledging that there will be adverse environmental effects from the project, but they are worth it on balance. May we have the staff report? Oh, I should also mention that we are not being asked to make a recommendation to the
City because the City does not have approval rights here. It's consultation rights. Thank you.
Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Good morning. Amy French, Chief Planning Official, and ARB liaison
of the day.
Chair Furth: Every week a new one. Thank you. Nice to have you back.
Ms. French: Thank you. Today, we have the CalTrain Electrification OCS design project. I have a
PowerPoint, and so does the applicant. We have from CalTrain JPB two members, Stacy and Brent. The
PCEP -- as it's known in acronym form -- is going to convert diesel train to electrically-powered trains.
They will tell you more about that, from the CalTrain staff. We have 3.8 miles in Palo Alto, and we will be
seeing these appurtenances and poles and wires and one paralleling station in the city of Palo Alto. As
Chair Furth mentioned, we do not have any permitting authority outside the JPB right-of-way, but we do have some input on requested items per a mitigation measure of the Environmental Impact Report. And, we also have some permitting authority over trees to be pruned and removed within the City right-of-way that's outside of the JPB corridor. I apologize for the slide issues here. The PCEP Final EIR was ap proved in January of 2015, and there are mitigation measures. Those were contained in your staff report. We are
seeing 65 percent plans today and commenting on those. The City Council will be looking at an
agreement between the City and CalTrain on November 26th. We do have a schedule coming up. The
applicant will tell you...I'm sorry, the project team will tell you more about that. Tree work has begun to
some limited degree, but it will proceed very shortly, and about 25 percent of that tree work in the Palo
Alto segment has been complete. Here is the tree work, and again, the project team will tell you more,
but you can see within these segments of Palo Alto, there are quite a few tree removals and trimmings,
and just listing here the ones in the right-of-way, there are about 296 trees to be pruned in the right-of-
way of CalTrain, and 52 trees to be removed and replaced at a 1-to-1 ratio. The paralleling station, there
were three options in the Environmental Impact Report. Option 2 is the one that's preferred and being
studied further at this time. There are some aspects that are contained in the area. It's not a 40 by 80 foot building as reported prior staff report. It is a fenced area within which there are several items I'll show will, as will the project team. Here is the Park Plaza site, showing the landscaping of that project. The paralleling station will be adjacent to this landscaping, but not on top of the landscaping. That landscaping will remain, to the best of the City's understanding. We will be seeing the paralleling station
items in 2019, but we are requesting comments on the location. And then, also, there is opportunity to
weigh in on color, for the painting of the control house. You can see here, this is a different site, but this
is roughly what the transformer would look like here. The control house would be a shed, and then,
there's something called gantries that, I don't know what they are, but I’m sure the project team does.
The ARB [sic] had asked some question last week at their public hearing, and these are answers to some
of the questions. We sent those onto the HRB so they are aware of the answers. Let's se. I'll come back
to that if anyone is curious. The HRB did make comments last Thursday, as well, so the concern was
about the San Francisquito Creek bridge, concern about, you know, was it going to be affected. There
were some answers there, regarding how close the wire and all of that would come to the bridge. The
urban forester was requested to be called out as an observer for any work around Palo Alto. We have our urban forester, Water Passmore, here today for questions on that. The HRB thought that the poles should be contextually appropriate with the Palo Alto depot, which is an historic resource. And, they selected a
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tan color, they recommended that color, but then, they suggested that everywhere else, the green color
would be just fine. That's it. Let's see. The JPB had considerations for pole configuration. I believe I was
able to get those into the staff report. Here they are if you want to come back to them. We had
overriding considerations in the EIR statement, and there were a number of them. Those are also in the
report. Just for laughs, a couple of images, although the project team will provide more detailed images.
We have the single and the cantilever and, you know, double pole. We have the long reach cantilever,
and a portal, which is, there are about four of those in Palo Alto, according to the plans. The colors. Three stations, three colors to be painted, on metal poles, not concrete. And, let's see. This was the report given to the HRB, so, also in the staff report, there are a number of historic resources within the JPB right-of-way, and there are mitigations about those. These are kind of fund images, so I'll just show them to you, as well. We have our bridge. These are the treatments and the Finding of Effect from back in September of 2015. A lot of information here. The El Palo Alto, when it was two stems, and now it's
just one. There were mitigations and Findings of Effect that were prepared. The Palo Alto Depot, here is
an image of the depot. Streamline (inaudible). And this is one location where the center poles are
proposed. They are actually center poled with cantilevers so as to minimize the impacts of the visuals.
We have a few old images of the underpasses, which are also historic, at University and Embarcadero.
The project team...Yeah?
??: (inaudible)
Ms. French: Oh, did you want to actually read stuff? Okay. It's kind of hard to read because it's cut off on
this side. Yeah, we have a few underpasses. If anyone wants me to go back to any slides...
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Ms. French: ...I'm happy to do that, as well. I'm not expecting everyone to speed reed. The center pole feasibility was something that CalTrain was looking at. You know, CalTrain prefers the double poles because they minimize the risk of failure in the event of a knock-down. And then, of course, Palo Alto, aesthetically speaking, we would prefer the single poles, let poles, but there are considerations there.
Also, in the right-of-way, there are stringing wire, and there's this tree replacement, which has mitigation
measures. So, the point of the trees is to try to screen the residents and park users from the right-of-
way. And I apologize for so many words. This was a late-breaking commitment on my standpoint, too. I
learn about the project and try to regurgitate for everybody. But, the great thing is we have our project
team here, we have aesthetic mitigation measures here, and they can elaborate on those, or not. We
have a comprehensive agreement, which is coming forward. There are some timelines there that relate to
this work, this agreement between Palo Alto and CalTrain. That's what I've got. I'm going to escape and
let them present.
Chair Furth: Are there any questions of staff? I have one question, Amy. Do we have color swatches, or
samples, or anything, other than that slide?
Ms. French: No.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Board Member Gooyer: I do have one comment that I thought was rather humorous, that Palo Alto is 91,000 years old.
Ms. French: Oh, did I have a typo on the screen? Yeah. Apologize. A thousand. Yeah, that would be quite
something. It is quite something at a thousand, as well. Let's see...Let's see if this is it. No. Trying to find
the CalTrain presentation.
Male??: (inaudible)
Ms. French: Is this it? Okay. My eyes are not what they used to be. How do I get to the big...?
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Male??: (inaudible)
Ms. French: I'm trying to find the bottom thing that tells me how to pan in.
[Locating presentation.]
Chair Furth: Good morning. If you could introduce yourself and spell your name for our transcriber.
Brent Tietjen: Oh, sure. Good morning. Brent Tietjen, Government and Community Relations Officer for
CalTrain. [spells name]
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Tietjen: Thank you. I'm here today to give you an update on the CalTrain Electrification Project. Thanks, Amy, for that introduction, and for a lot of detail on that. I'll try to go through these slides pretty quickly, but we're here to answer any questions that you have and talk in more detail on anything you'd
like to. First, I'll give a...
Chair Furth: You have 10 minutes automatically, but do not rush.
Mr. Tietjen: Sure. I'll give a quick overview of the CalTrain system, which I'm sure you're familiar with. I'll
talk about the project in general. Talk about the electric trains, which we are procuring. And then, go into
more detail about what's actually going to happen here in Palo Alto, the project elements, construction
impacts, etc. As I mentioned, I'll talk about the CalTrain system. We run 92 trains on an average
weekday from San Francisco down to San Jose. We also operate down to Gilroy. It's important to note
that we only own the tracks from San Francisco to Tamien station, or just south of Tamien station. We do
not own the tracks south of Tamien to Gilroy. Those are owned by UP, but we do operate on those. We
have a number of at-grade crossings, viaducts and bridges that have to be maintained in the city, good
repair. And we have one of the most robust on-board bike commuter programs, with over 5,000 bikes on board every day. Since the introduction of the Baby Bullet in 2004, we've seen our ridership grow exponentially, and continue to see that growth. In 2018, we had over 65,000 average weekday riders in our count. As you can see on these trains, on a Giants day, or on just any regular peak commute hour, it's packed. We are at or above seat capacity. Some of our trains are above 130 percent capacity.
Carrying those 65,000 riders is an aging fleet. Our older cars, the gallery cars and locomotives, were built
in 1985, some of them, and they are at or past their useful retirement age, or useful life. Quick
description of the project in general. For CalTrain Electrification, we are electrifying the corridor from San
Francisco to just south of Tamien. We are, as part of the electrification project, the infrastructure is the
installation of concrete foundations, poles on top of those foundations, and then, wires which will connect
to the electric trains. We are also building 10 traction power facilities throughout the corridor, one of
which is in Palo Alto, and I'll talk about later. We are procuring 96 electric vehicles, which will convert 75
percent of our fleet to electric service. We do have funding to convert additional from the state, as well.
This project will not increase the speed of the trains. It will remain at 79 miles per hour. But, it will allow
them to start and stop more efficiently, and it will allow us to increase service to an additional train per hour, per direction. Currently we have five trains per hour, per direction, during the peak. After this project, we will have six trains per hour, per direction, during the peak. This project will help us restore service both to Atherton and Broadway stations, which currently only get weekend service, and we will continue to have our tenants operate on the railroad. UP, ACE Corridor, Capital Corridor, will all continue
to operate on CalTrain tracks. A quick look at what service benefits could be as part of this project. If you
see that we have, on a Baby Bullet, we have five to six stops, if we want to retain those stops, right now
it's 60 minutes, but with this project, it could go down to 45 minutes. Or, if we wanted to retain that 60-
minute headway, we can more than double the stops at the stations for each train. This project has a
number of key regional benefits for the region. One of those is a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
on an annual basis of over 176,000. Also, general clean air, and reduced noise, and just overall capacity
increases for the corridor, as well. In 2016, there were a lot of decisions that were made about the new
electric trains that we're procuring in terms of the layout, on the bikes, on the bike-to-seat ratio, on the
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bathrooms on board. There will be one bathroom on each train, as well as upper doors not being
precluded. In 2017, that design progressed, with the exterior design, seat information, all with a lot of
public input. In 2019, we hope to have a virtual reality tour where folks throughout the public can put on
a Google Cardboard and see what the new trains will look like. Now we will talk more about the actual
construction activities for the project, and for Palo Alto in particular. As I mentioned, we do have 51 miles
of corridor that we are electrifying. That includes over 3,000 poles being installed along those 51 miles.
And we are installing 10 traction power facilities. I'll talk about those in a minute. We do have the construction broken out into phases. Segment 1 is from San Francisco down to South Francisco/Brisbane. Segment 2 is from South Francisco down to Menlo Park. Segment 3 is from Menlo Park to Santa Clara. Segment 4 is from Santa Clara to San Jose. In terms of the phasing, we currently see the Segment 2 portion being done, which there is a lot of construction going on right now. Then moving down to Segment 4, and then, moving back up the corridor to Segment 3. A quick overview of the Palo Alto work
segment. As Amy mentioned, it's over 3.8 miles, and there are two stations and one paralleling station,
which is a traction power facility, which helps regulate power to the train. In terms of actual field work
status right now, a lot of utility Geotech work has been done on the corridor and in Palo Alto, and they
are currently doing foundation potholing throughout the whole corridor, and including in Palo Alto. They
have done quite a bit of potholing already. Once they have the findings of the potholing, they will go
back and do any redesign that's necessary to make sure the conflicts are clear. Looking to the future,
they will come back and do tree pruning/removal, foundation installation, pole and wire installation, as
well as paralleling station construction. A quick overview of schedule, and this is always subject to change
as we have a design/build contract, but this is our best guess right now. For potholing, they are doing that currently and have been doing it since the summer of 2018 in Palo Alto. They will come back and do tree pruning later this year, so late fall for tree pruning and removal. For spring and summer, we're looking at foundation installation, so that's the actual concrete foundations that are drilled and poured into the ground. And in summer 2019, we're looking at the installation of the paralleling station
construction. And then, late 2019 would be the pole and wire installation. I want to talk in more detail
about each of those activities. I'll give you a general sense of what they include. You can see here for
potholing, it's just a basic big vacuum truck on the tracks that comes in, sucks out the dirt on each
foundation location. They do clear every location from utilities to make sure when they go in and drill,
they don't have to stop for any reason. They can continue to drill, and then, move down the line. For tree
pruning or replacement, we do have to remove or prune trees within 10 feet of any electrified component
of the project. You can see a quick diagram here of what that looks like. Here is a summary of the tree
pruning and replacement that will happen in Palo Alto. I won't go through these in detail, but happy to
stick around and answer any questions. There will be 120 trees replaced in Palo Alto. If a tree is removed
on JPB property, it's replaced on JPB property. Same thing for city. If it's removed on city property, replaced on city property, and for public, as well. We have worked with the City on the replacement locations for any city trees. Here is a quick summary of the tree work in Palo Alto, just to give you a general sense of where the bulk of the tree work is happening, and just broken up into major sections of the city. For foundation construction, it's basically excavating, drilling, and then, filling with rebar, and
then, pouring concrete, and then, curing. You can see on the right here, that's what the rebar cages look
like. They are quite long, 10 to 20 feet, or longer. They go into the ground, so there's about three feet
that protrudes out of the ground, not this rebar cage that you see. For full installation, as I mentioned,
there are 3,000 poles installed throughout the corridor. About 196 will be installed in Palo Alto. That's at
the current design; that could change going forward. But, that's a general sense. Pole heights range
between 30 to 45 1/2 feet, depending on the type of pole. The type of pole is dictated by the utility real
estate needs and just general operation needs of the project. Here's a quick view of what the poles look
like. On the left-hand side, you can see a single-track cantilever that goes over one track only. The right-
hand side, that's one of the taller poles at 45 1/2 feet, two track cantilevers, and spans two tracks. The
center pole is on the left, and then the portal -- which there are a few of -- on the right. Here are the
station color options, for the pole colors. Apologies, we don't have the swatches now, but we're happy to give those to the staff for your review, as well. Just a quick picture of what the pole installation looks like. A lot of this work does happen at night because we do have 92 weekday trains that run and need to serve our customers. But, as I mentioned, the pole are about 180 feet apart, so we hope they are not in
the back yards of any homes for too long. After the poles are installed, they come back and string the
wire, which is a pretty quick process. Our contractor has a wire train, one of the only ones in the nation,
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to move along the corridor pretty quickly. And I will note that there are additional wires that will be
installed where utilities cross above our track, above the poles. Those are called shunt wires. For the
traction power facilities, there will be 10 installed throughout the corridor. Some facility components of
those facilities are transformers, gantries, which are steel A-train structures, which help hold the wires
across the tracks, and then, a control house, which basically just houses the controls. The facilities
provide electric power to the trains. There are two traction power substations, which are the larger
substations, one in San Jose and one in South San Francisco. Those actually provide the power from PG&E to the overhead contact system. The one in Palo Alto is called a paralleling station, and that helps just boost and regulate the power to the overall system. The power actually comes in through the lines and then is just boosted, and helps regulate the power to the system. This is an unmanned, secured, lighted facility. For paralleling station #5, which is the one that will be installed in Palo Alto, this location is south of Page Mill Road and on CalTrain property. I'll show a diagram in a second. We did have
coordination with the City on the location during the EIR in 2015. Vegetation screening will be
implemented and reviewed by City staff, and the control house color is also to be selected by the City. A
quick map of what the paralleling station will look like. This is a rough estimate of what it will look like.
It's at 65 percent design right now. It could change, but this should give you a good idea of the elements
of the project and their location. You can see in the green, there is a transformer, which actually takes
the power and boosts it. There is a control house, which is a 10 by 10 house that I'll show in a second,
what that looks like. And then there are gantries, one on each side of the track. The gantry within the
facility footprint has disconnect switches. The gantry on the other side does not. It's just a basic A-train
structure that holds the wires across the track. Here is a picture of a paralleling station at the Amtrak northeast corridor. This is a good sense of what they will look like. I'll show here on the right, you can see the control house, the larger element there. In the middle is the transformer, and then, on the far left is the gantries with the disconnect switches. Behind this one, you can see the other, what are called strain gantries, which just hold the wires, which will be on the other side of the tracks. You can see,
these colors probably don't show up too well, so we will get samples to staff for these control house
options. These are general options of what the color selection the City has. For general construction
impacts, work will occur...I should say, for the traction power facility, that will be done mostly during the
day as it won't impact the rail, but there will be some work that is done at night. For all the other work, a
lot of it is done at night so we don't have impacts to our regular customers on CalTrain, but we do move
along the corridor pretty quickly for foundations, which are spaced, again, 200 feet apart. They can get
five to eight foundations done in a night, so they can move a couple hundred or even 1,000 feet down
the line. We do have a dedicated hotline for construction, which I'll leave up after this. Not specifically
related to Palo Alto, but we do have some work that is happening...
Chair Furth: (inaudible)
Mr. Tietjen: Sure. Yeah. I would encourage folks to go to calmod.org to learn more about the project. There is a tab on the top right-hand side called "Get Involved." If you sign up and you enter your city Palo Alto, we send out regular notices about construction activities particular to Palo Alto, as well as weekly construction notices for the project overall. We do physical notices to about a fourth a mile of the
tracks on any new phase of work and on meetings, and we do door hangers for more discreet impacts.
I'll leave this up here as we answer any questions, how to get in touch with us. We encourage folks to
call us to learn more about the project, or if you're experiencing anything on the railroad that you'd like
to learn more about, please let us know. I'm happy to answer any questions, and Stacy Cocke with our
team is also here.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Are there any questions of the applicant...? Not the applicant, the rail project,
before we hear from the public? Or should we just hear from the public? Okay. Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: Good morning. Thank you. I'm trying to understand what the poles are going to look
like. I'm reading the package of drawings I was given. I'm looking at, for example, the poles in by the
train station, or where Palo Alto is the big tree. And as I read the chart here very carefully, I can sort of make out, it says, "Pole type WF4A," for example. What does that look like? There's no drawing in the package. I've been given nothing.
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Mr. Tietjen: Sure.
Vice Chair Baltay: And then, what color choices do we have? Again, I don't have any color choices in
front of me.
Mr. Tietjen: Sure. For color choices, for things outside of the station areas, those will be either marine
green or galvanized steel. For within the station area, we will have color samples. We will bring those to
staff for your selection and your...
Vice Chair Baltay: To be clear, the samples are not here right now...
Mr. Tietjen: Correct.
Vice Chair Baltay: ...at the public hearing. Thank you.
Chair Furth: All right.
Vice Chair Baltay: I'm sorry, but what is the pole going to look like? What's the design?
Mr. Tietjen: These are our general sense of what the poles will look like. We're happy to share actual
design drawings, which I think Amy kind of flashed earlier as part of her presentation.
Vice Chair Baltay: So then, some of the poles that are labeled TT for a tapered pole, presumably it's a
different design style pole.
Mr. Tietjen: Correct. There are...
Vice Chair Baltay: These drawings represent a pole, but what...? I mean, is there any more detail than
that here?
Mr. Tietjen: There are details in the plan. I'm not sure if we shared those with...?
Board Member Gooyer: They emailed them to us yesterday. They emailed them to us yesterday.
Vice Chair Baltay: It's not in the drawings.
Chair Furth: And are there copies of them over there for the public?
Vice Chair Baltay: Were they made available?
Ms. French: We only had...These were the only drawings that were printed out, that staff printed out. We
didn't get a packet of drawings. We printed these out, but we emailed the other set that looks just like
this, only it has pictures of poles. That was an email.
Chair Furth: Can you put those up on the screen, so the public can see them? And us?
Ms. French: Okay. I don't know how to do that.
Chair Furth: Well, while you're thinking, why don't...
Vice Chair Baltay: I have no other questions. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Why don't we hear from the public? We have some speaker cards? Let's see, these are
for...? Does anybody care to speak on this project? Going once...? Okay, hearing no public comment, I'll
bring it back to the Board.
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Board Member Thompson: I have a couple more questions...
Chair Furth: Yes?
Board Member Thompson: ...of the applicant.
Chair Furth: Board Member Thompson.
Board Member Thompson: Thanks. In terms of what will be painted, just looking at what we're looking at
right now, are we considering just the pole to be painted, or is it the pole plus the stuff that's
cantilevering over?
Mr. Tietjen: It is just the vertical pole.
Board Member Thompson: And the stuff that's cantilevering over will be what we're looking at, just a metal...?
Mr. Tietjen: Correct.
Board Member Thompson: Okay, great. And the wires, I'm assuming will be black?
Mr. Tietjen: They will be steel color.
Board Member Thompson: Okay. Because I know in San Francisco, those overhead cables look like they
are kind of dark in color. Are we assuming something along that line?
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah, I don't know if you'll be able to determine the color. You can see there are wires on
the two-track cantilever here. It's a basic gray color, not black.
Chair Furth: Do we have a representative of the HRB here today? Would you care to address us?
David Bower: Good morning, David Bower, current chair of the HRB. As you may have seen in Amy's
email that she sent to you and to our HRB members, we had a few questions that had been answered.
The primary concerns the HRB had were what the attachments were going to be on the bridge that crosses San Francisco Creek, the protection of El Palo Alto, the color and the compatibility of the poles in front of the main University Avenue station, and then, in general...Well, in the location of the supplementary power station, which we did not want to be located near Greenmeadow/Eichler
neighborhood or near the train station. The current siting solves that, or satisfies it.
Chair Furth: You're supportive of their current proposal. Proposed location.
Mr. Bower: Right. We didn't see that when we had our meeting, but we just wanted it in the middle part
of the city, so that satisfies that. And then, one other Board member had a question about whether an all
battery-operated train system had been considered. Basically...
Chair Furth: Not, I think, within our jurisdiction here.
Mr. Bower: No, right, not in our jurisdiction. I think the last issue is that we wanted to have the poles all
painted the same color throughout the right-of-way, with the exception of the University Avenue station.
We thought that would be more consistent, and it would also be less noticeable than having steel some
places, painted, especially two different colors of paint, one at the California Avenue station, one at the
North University section. I think that's...That's what we reviewed. Did I forget anything, Amy? I don't think so.
Chair Furth: Thank you very much for coming this morning.
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Mr. Bower: If I could say one other thing. I went out yesterday to look at El Palo Alto, to actually see it
again, and it's not likely that any damage to this tree could be done by construction equipment because
it's actually adjacent to the bridge. Since all the work will be done on track, you couldn't actually reach it
without damaging the bridge structure. That was reassuring to me, and I'm sure it would be to you, as
well.
Chair Furth: Thank you. I should ask, did anybody do field inspections on this project? Alex, Peter. Osma,
no. Robert, no. My field inspection primarily consists of living in the area and seeing it frequently.
Ms. French: May I speak? We do have on the screen now the plans that were sent out on Tuesday to the Board. The other thing I wanted to mention is we do have Walter Passmore in the audience, our urban forester, if anyone had questions about the El Palo Alto and our negotiations on that.
Chair Furth: Thank you, to you and Mr. Passmore. Okay. I had a question of the train folks. Back in 2014
when we were writing a comment letter on the EIR, it talked about measure AES -- I can give you the file
number on the report if you want -- requiring aesthetic treatment for project for years when selecting
pole design, no unpainted metal surfaces, color-matched paint, and paint tones darker than the
surrounding visual area. That was the proposal from the rail folks. And our comment letter from the City
asked that you consider different metal finishes in addition to different paint tones and pole sizes. For
example, with galvanized steel, or weathered steel finish, better fade into the background and reduce the
visual impact and reduce maintenance costs. The letter recognizes the effort to find the most
aesthetically-pleasing OCS poles -- that's overhead (inaudible). But notes that these measures would not
mitigate for the addition of cantilevers or wires themselves to be visible, and there's a concern about
long-term maintenance if they are painted. Could you comment on the alternatives considered and the durability of the coloring you're proposing?
Mr. Tietjen: I cannot. I'm going to look to Stacy Cocke from our team, as well. She has a lot of history with this project, particularly around the EIR and alternatives considered.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Stacy Cocke: Good morning. I'm an 11 veteran of the electrification project.
Chair Furth: If you could spell your name for our transcriber.
Ms. Cocke: Sure. First name is Stacy [spells first name], last name is Cocke [spells last name]. Good
morning. I'm deputy director for the project on the program management and environmental compliance
side. I think I understood your question to be considerations on the different pole types and colors
relative to painted and galvanized.
Chair Furth: Pole materials, basically.
Ms. Cocke: Sure. We were trying to balance aesthetic impacts, cost of the project, so where we landed
was, we wanted to do the tapered poles in the station areas, and then, those would be color-selected by
the cities. And then, kind of the next tier would be poles adjacent to digitally-sensitive receptors, so, residents, parks, and things like that. Those would be that marine green color. When we've got areas that are industrial or commercial or not particularly visually-sensitive, that's where we were looking at the galvanized steel, so there wouldn't be maintenance required for those poles. From what we understand, they've got about a 10-year repainting cycle. It’s not an insignificant cost when we're looking at this and
the number of poles, so it really was a balancing act of trying to minimize visual impacts, but consider
what the long-term maintenance budget would be associated with these. That was our thought process
and where we landed.
Chair Furth: And so, in Palo Alto, where are you proposing galvanized unpainted steel?
City of Palo Alto Page 10
Ms. Cocke: That's a good question. I actually don't have that, but I can certainly provide it.
Chair Furth: You do understand that we think the entire city is visually sensitive.
Ms. Cocke: I certainly do understand that perspective. But, yeah, we can provide that. We actually have a
breakdown by mile post, so we can provide that.
Chair Furth: Any other questions?
Board Member Thompson: Yeah, I have some.
Chair Furth: Osma?
Board Member Thompson: What was the thinking behind having a center, a center platform pole versus double poles? I noticed, at least in the plans, some of the pole are going through the middle of the station platform for some of the stations, like California Avenue. I'm just thinking about, why wouldn't
that be something center-mounted?
Ms. Cocke: I think what...Brent mentioned a little bit, but just kind of the general considerations, and
then I'll get to your question, is we're looking at if there are any underground utilities that we need to
avoid, or minimizing right-of-way costs. Probably the biggest driver of what is the preferred configuration,
the two outside poles, which in the case of the station would be, yes, the poles would be mounted, you
know, on or at the edge of the station platforms. It gives us the most flexibility in terms of operations
and maintenance, so, if you have something that happens with the wires, or some of the poles are
impacted, you still can have electrified revenue service on the opposite track. You can do what we call
single-tracking, and it allows for that flexibility. The center pole, which does minimize visual impacts, we
acknowledge that, does put us in a compromise operations and maintenance situation. That's why, in
each case, there may be center poles in... For historic stations, we wanted to make that commitment, even though that was a trade-off from the operations side. But generally, the preferred, kind of more robust configuration would be the two outside poles.
Chair Furth: Board Member Lew.
Board Member Lew: I have a question about the fencing. We have some new fencing that has been
installed this year. I was wondering, is that going to happen on both sides of the right-of-way
everywhere in town? The ones that I'm thinking of that are really most noticeable to people is, like, sort
of like, in back of Town & Country shopping center and Palo Alto High School, we have a multiuse
pedestrian/bike path right along there. It seems like changing it to a tall fence with barbed wire on the
top would have a big visual impact. I was wondering what your thinking is on the fencing.
Ms. Cocke: Sure. The fencing that we have as part of the CalTrain program is actually not included as
part of this project, but we do continue to work with jurisdictions to provide fencing. Our ultimate goal is
to have a completely-fenced corridor for, just kind of security purposes. We want to minimize folks
trespassing, and being in the right-of-way where they shouldn't be. The only fencing that would be
included as part of this project would be if there are, you know, we have small slivers of property that we need to acquire, and if we need to kind of move that fence. But there's not any scope of budget included with the corridor-wide fencing program. That's part of just our regular capital program.
Board Member Lew: Thank you.
Chair Furth: Any other questions? Just to confirm. We worked long and hard, I think, with you all to get
the fencing we do have along that bike path. You have no plans to change that design or that fencing?
Ms. Cocke: I'm not specifically aware of that effort. I can follow up with Rob Scarpino, who is our liaison
for that. I'm not informed enough to speak to that.
City of Palo Alto Page 11
Chair Furth: When we finally negotiated the pedestrian underpass, there was a lot of fencing installed...
Ms. Cocke: Okay.
Chair Furth: ...to reassure the International Brotherhood of Railroad Engineers.
Ms. Cocke: Okay.
Chair Furth: One other question.
Board Member Lew: I have one last question. Are you aware of any projects to change the lighting at
either University Avenue station or the California Avenue station? I ask because they have very different fixtures. I was just wondering if there are any plans. I do know a lot of cities are changing to LED light fixtures, which look completely different.
Ms. Cocke: I don't. As part of this project, there's not. I don't know, Brent, if you know any...
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah, in general, we are looking to convert to LED, just in terms of more sustainable. I can
check about those particular stations. I know San Carlos (inaudible) originally got LED lights. I'll check on
these two, as well.
Board Member Lew: Okay. And I ask because my thinking is that that could have an impact on how I
think about the colors of the poles, of this project. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Okay. Any other questions? Thank you very much.
Ms. Cocke: Thank you.
Chair Furth: Okay. Staff? Amy? Could you remind us of the timeline on this project? The next steps in
terms of the City?
Ms. French: There is an agreement going to the City Council on November 26th.
Chair Furth: Right.
Ms. French: And the project team had reported out on the actual construction that's happening. But the next stage will be 100 percent drawings, is my understanding.
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah, this is a design-build contract, so each phase or each section of the work is being done
in phases. Currently, we are at 65 percent for the OCS poles and 65 percent for PS5, paralleling station
#5. Those have...
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Tietjen: ...OCS poles have been shared with the City, and we'll come and share the PS5 with...
Chair Furth: Thank you. And the reason I'm asking, Amy, is because we don't have any actual samples of
the colors. We do not have, have not had good drawings of the poles. Ordinarily, if somebody was going
to be putting up structures of this height, which are going to dominate our view for a large section of the
town, we would have, you know, photographic, we'd have computer-generated illustrations of what it's
going to look like. We don't have any of that at this point, which may make our recommendations less
useful than they might be.
Ms. French: Yes, and I apologize because I had thought the packets would be printed in color. But because there are color samples that were, you know, not real, but you can see them on the internet.
City of Palo Alto Page 12
Chair Furth: Right, but I don't think we like to make decisions about colors based on electronic images.
Basically, we need to have our recommendations and thoughts to the City Council for this next meeting,
or is there some room?
Ms. French: Well, you're not providing a recommendation to City Council because they are not
considering the colors or anything else. They're just looking at other items. It's a timeline that is flexible,
I think, before they paint the colors.
Mr. Tietjen: Sooner than that, but we do have time.
Chair Furth: Okay. And this is another question. I guess you answered it. There's about a 10-year repainting schedule...
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah.
Chair Furth: ...if these are painted. Thank you. Who would like to start? Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: I would like to echo Chair Furth's comments, perhaps stronger. In the joint
comprehensive agreement with the City, the JPB, I guess, the agency we're working with, has agreed to
provide the following information regarding a project to the City ARB for review. It says right here: Pole
design, color, location and configuration. I'm sorry, but that information hasn't been provided. You're
assembling the public, you're assembling the Board, asking us to give feedback, and you're not telling us
what we're supposed to give feedback on. You're making a great presentation of the public outreach, and
we support your project, but I'm sorry, I can't make comments. I just want you to hear the position I feel
that I’m in.
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah, I hear you, and we're happy to come back. It sounds like there's a lot more
information you would like. We're happy to work with staff to make sure we have the right information for you.
Chair Furth: This is probably the..."most impactful" is not a phrase, is it? This is probably the biggest aesthetic change we're going to see in the city for some years. I think we're probably all very thrilled about electrified trains and better train service, and raise some very interesting issues about level
crossings. But that's not before us today. But, I too don't feel that I have a very good idea of what I
would be looking at. I keep thinking, maybe it should be Golden Gate orange. I mean, if it's going to be
that visual, maybe we should call it an art statement and get on with it. But, let's hear from everybody
else.
Board Member Lew: Thank you for your presentation. I did bicycle down Alma and Park and I looked at
the whole thing, of the right-of-way yesterday. To me, it was very useful in sort of informing me about
how to think about the project. I didn't really get very much from the set of drawings. I guess I have a
couple...I think my observations are that the California Avenue station, I think my recommendation would
be to do, like, a grayish color. All the existing handicap railings, light existing, like, bell-shaped light
fixtures, I think they're all in that, kind of a fairly neutral color. I'm thinking that the poles maybe should just blend in with all of that other stuff. I think I can understand, I think, the HRB's recommendation to match the building color. I think I get that. But I'm thinking that all the pole stuff in the middle of the tracks should probably all coordinate with each other. I think the single, having the single-poles there will help minimize the impacts, visual impacts at that location. At the Cal Avenue station, all of the light
fixtures...There are, I guess you call it, like, a bus shelter, a little glass enclosure. There's a metal picket
rail, all the newspaper racks. Everything there is a dark brown/bronze color. My thought was there is just
to match that. I think that that color is not in our options list.
Chair Furth: Your first comments were on which...?
Board Member Lew: University. University Avenue station.
City of Palo Alto Page 13
Chair Furth: Ah. I got it backwards.
Board Member Lew: And the second was the California Avenue station. My thought is just to match all of
that. If the light fixtures aren't, if they're not changing, I would just try to match that. The Embarcadero
station, right? Just, like, the stadium station. My main concern is actually the fencing. That seemed to me
to have the most impact from the Alma side. The new fencing is really unattractive with the barbed wire.
It really stands out. My thought was maybe to try to paint that new metal fence black or something, to
help make it disappear. It's very noticeable from Alma. And then, on the pathway side, on the west side, I was worried about having that same, the new fence on that side. But if that's not changing, I think I'm okay with that. There is some green railings over there on the bridge between Pally and Town & Country, so that might be an option to consider, is to match that color. There are a lot of, in downtown north, there is not a lot of shrubs at all along Alma, and I'm thinking maybe in the City's right-of-way, that we
add shrubs. There are also a lot of dying redwood trees, and maybe we need to reconsider the street
planting there. In Old Palo Alto, it seems like there's been a lot of tree trimming there, and it seems to
me maybe shrubs would help fill in the gaps there. And then, down in Fairmeadow/Greenmeadow, it
seems like there are large gaps in the landscape screen there, and it seems to me the gaps are new. I
did see some gates there in the new fencing, and I do understand there are some creeks that cross
through there, so maybe that explains some of the gaps. It seems to me...I'd like to fill in the
landscaping there in the City right-of-way. And then, I think my last comment is on, in the Ventura
neighborhood. I was looking through some of the people's yards, and I was looking at some of the aerial
photos, and it seems like the houses that back up onto the tracks don't really have very much
landscaping at all. It's hard to generalize for everybody, but it seems to me like a lot of those houses have rear garages, so they don't have a lot of opportunities to minimize the impact. I'm thinking that they are going to have the most, the biggest...Potentially, it would have the biggest visual impact. I didn't look at it carefully, but I would...If I had more time, I would look at pole placement with regards to people's back yards. And if they're not able to landscape it in their own backyard just because of their
layout, then maybe there's a way of doing it in the right-of-way, in the CalTrain right-of-way, if there is
space. That being said, we need the actual color samples. I did look at all the pole drawings that came by
email. I did look at that, and I did review the HRB minutes. That's all I have.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Robert?
Board Member Gooyer: Yeah. I didn't go into it as much as far as figuring out exactly the planting off,
along the way as you did, mainly because of the fact I'm looking at this as more of a...I think the whole
process of electrification is a big step in the right direction, and the realty of it is, these are just a
necessity when you electrify a train system. I guess having spent a lot of time in Europe, you just get
used to these things. They are all over the place. I mean, almost all the trains in northern Europe are
electrified. As far as the...I find it interesting that you mentioned, you know, you showed variations of the types. I prefer the typical, or I should say, the center unit, and I noticed that your comment was we prefer using the double pole because of single-tracking. But the reality of it is, if you've got a batch of center poles in the middle, you can't single-track anyway, because if you have a problem there... That's like saying, you know, I've got 1,000 feet of double poles, and then, 300 feet of single poles. You can't
very well use it anyway. I'd rather see the single pole used almost exclusively, than if you had to do the
double pole for a curve or something like that, where you change the modification. I'd be happier with
that. As far as the color, you know, this is one of these things where...I hear all these discussions about
color, mainly because it's as though, if we paint it a certain color, it's going to disappear. Well, it's not.
And especially considering maintenance on any public facility. I'd rather just see these things gray
because that's the reality of what they are. Then, if you don't paint it after 10 years, nobody's really
going to know the difference, because the patina you get on the metal is really, people just get used to
that. I mean, it's one of these things. I'd rather see a natural patina like that, than after 10 years, the top
of the pole is gray because the paint has come off and the bottom of it is green, or whatever the color is.
And it's just one of these things that, as with so many things like this, people may be upset initially, but
it's the kind of thing that...I mean, I hate to say it, people just get used to it. That's the reality of what's there. I think from a maintenance standpoint, I'd prefer just to go with the gray, probably. I mean, I'd love to see actually colors, but any time you paint something to try and artificially hide it...That's like
City of Palo Alto Page 14
HVAC units on the roof. They paint them light blue to match the sky. It's like, come on. I mean, it doesn't
work. And, I think the pole should be in the center.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Osma.
Board Member Thompson: Hi. I Just wanted to start by saying I really appreciate Board Member Lew's
research on the track. That's really great. And a lot of stuff gets noticed, like foliage that we would not
otherwise think of. Thank you for that. In terms of, I'll start with the pole color. I think you might get a
grab bag of responses here because I actually feel a bit differently. I'm sort of more of the opinion of they are here, let's paint them bright...something. You know, like Golden Gate red, or something that's interesting, that is a benefit to...I don't know. I'm less about hiding and more about, this is transit, this is what we're doing, this is going to be great. Let's make these things beautiful if we can. For that reason,
yes, color samples. But then, also, it seems like there are two different types. One is tapered, one is not
tapered. Maybe next time you guys come back to us, sounds like you have a laundry list of things to
bring, but one of those things could just be, like, what is...You know, when you paint a pole, stuff comes
in front, stuff goes to the back. I would be nice to see some ideas of how this thing could be great, or
how are we making a statement here that is kind of this icon for transit in the city. I think it's going to
transform the city anyway, you know, like everyone is saying, it's going to change regardless of whether
you paint it, so let's make it really beautiful. For that reason -- and I’m open to hear the Board's opinions
on this -- but the paralleling station, the images that you showed us look pretty terrifying in terms of
aesthetics. I understand you can't do much in the way of foliage because it's dangerous, but even the
colors for the control room look pretty bleak and sad. I'm more of the opinion, like, is there an art
program? Can we make something that makes that building interesting? You know, like, let people graffiti on it, or something. But, like, good graffiti. Something really pretty. There's a lot of opportunity here that I’m not seeing being taken advantage of. And I understand maybe this is...I'd like to hear my Board members' opinions on this. I'd appreciate next time you come around, to see some ideas about that. I think this Board is all about what will benefit aesthetically the city. And I haven't seen anything in the
way of doing that. That's the long and short of my response.
Chair Furth: Peter.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you. I fairly well echo the comments of my colleagues on the Board. I'll be very
clear that I think that...This is based on not really having much of a design, but I think the center-
mounted poles are by far the better option as far as an aesthetic choice goes, up and down the tracks.
To the greatest extent possible, I would recommend they be center-mounted poles. As Board Member
Gooyer pointed out, it's nice to paint these poles, but I doubt you're going to paint them every 10 years.
The difficulty of doing that in the middle of an ongoing railroad track is challenging. I think if you take the
approach that they're not likely to be maintained, what is the best finish on them? And something that is
a naturally-weathering metal finish like galvanized steel is probably the best choice. The reality is that they exist, and we want them to be there. We want the train to be electrified. We don't want to look at poles that are half-painted, that are corroded, that make us think the railroad is operating on a shoestring and can't afford to pain the equipment. I'd recommend strongly that you find a finish that will weather into the background and not need to be painted, ever. Save the money, buy better trains
instead. Lastly, as Board Member Thompson was pointing out, you really are just not trying to design this
from an aesthetic point of view. It's strictly an engineering operation so far, and it could be more than
that. Whether the poles are tapered or (inaudible) in sections, really, just the slight effort to, what does it
look like? These paralleling stations, what she said is true. What you're showing there is just the worst
PG&E transformer station in the world, without any effort to think that there's...how many? Twenty
thousand people a day, riding by? An hour, probably? Why not hire an architect and just make one effort
to do something to make it look better? Why not consider painting in a bright color? Just do anything,
something, to just try to design it a little bit from an aesthetic point of view. These are visible, not only
from outside of the right-of-way, but also people on the train, who go by these things. Try a little bit to
design it. That's the extent of what I think. Thank you.
City of Palo Alto Page 15
Chair Furth: Thank you, and thank you for your presentation. I share my colleagues' feelings, that we are
so glad that this project is happening. But I don't think that it's ready for prime time here, the aspects of
which we're being asked to comment on. I mean, this is not something to be ashamed of. This is
something to be proud of. And at the same time, for people who are going to be living very close to all
this, our local aesthetic says that where we can plant plants, you know, lower plants, higher plants, to
soften the interface between residences and parks and schools and a transit facility -- anything, really --
we should do that. I also think of all the possible looks, peeling paint is the worst. It's just depressing. And I, too, have been fortunate to travel on newly-built and beautifully-designed roadways, and trains, and what-not, and seen beautiful, you know, blue, metal finishes, on guardrails. I think the main things that I think are that we need closer, more detailed and coordinated between the City and the JPB, landscaping. When you think about planting, we've had to chance a lot of our standard plant palates because of climate change, so we can't plant the same kinds of oak trees that we used to, for example.
And we need to know that the plants you're thinking about take that into consideration. We need to know
the actual colors proposed. And, I very much appreciate Alex's taking his life in his hands, if you're
bicycling on Alma...
Board Member Lew: Sidewalk.
Chair Furth: Sidewalk, good. Smart. And his detailed thoughts, which I think is the kind of work that you
all need to be doing, as well. And I agree that in terms of thinking about what's the appropriate material
for these structures, it's better to think about the stations. It's better to think about, what are the
accessories? What do the other poles, rails, metal pieces, what kind of finishes are they? Rather than,
what's the color of the building? Because that's not going to actually match. Sort of like in a house, if you've got, you know, if you've got antique bronze door handles, you're not going to switch suddenly to stainless steel around the color. So, in terms of aesthetics, you'd be looking at the...You'd be following Alex's approach. Again, if there was some...I think this is a project to be celebrated. If you came back and told me there's a really durable, baked-on color that will last for 40 years, that's some wonderful,
celebratory color, I'd say that would be fine. My choice. I share Osma's feelings on that. I also think that
a project that can't be, what I think of as the transformer, but I realize is more than a transformer, again,
that should look like it's intended to be there. That should look like we know it's there. That should look,
in some industrial way, gorgeous. I mean, I have a bunch of photographs taken by a relative back in the
30's, celebrating all these industrial structures, and I think we all like well-done industrial design. I look
forward to seeing you again. Staff, do you need more from us?
Ms. French: I don't think we need anything. It's all just a relationship with the project team, so...
Mr. Tietjen: Yeah, I would just like to say, thank you for your time this morning. We'll talk with staff.
There were a lot of comments here. We wrote down lots of notes, both Amy and I, and I know Stacy, as
well. Appreciate all the comments. We'll take them into consideration and work with staff.
Chair Furth: Well, we appreciate all your work. Osma, do you have another comment?
Board Member Thompson: I did. I had a question for some of my board member here, in terms of the color for the pole. Galvanized steel can look really terrible, so, I wonder, for fear of peeling paint, why would we choose a bad option as an alternative? I mean, it seems like the JPB is committed to
maintaining the paint. Why wouldn't we want to argue for something that looks better?
Vice Chair Baltay: Well, I think there's other weathering metal finishes that could look acceptable, and I
hate to see that much money spent on painting electric poles up and down the corridor. Every 10 years,
for a long time, just means more expensive train tickets. Why not pick something that will be durable
industrially for a long time?
Board Member Thompson: And you think galvanized steel is the answer for that?
City of Palo Alto Page 16
Vice Chair Baltay: I don't know. I think there are other finishes on metal industrial pieces that are
available. It probably does have a gray look, though, yeah.
Chair Furth: And we don't have any actual data on your costs, so, when you come back with alternatives,
that would be good to hear. Anything else? Thanks so much for coming. Thank you for all your work on a
complicated project. It's exciting to think we're actually going to get electric trains. We're going to take a
five-minute break before our next item. We'll be back at quarter to.
[The Board took a short break.]
Chair Furth: Thank you for waiting. I think you'll get better thinking from us after a break.
3. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 4256 El Camino Real (18PLN-00096): Consideration of a Major Architectural Review for a new 51,300 Square Foot FiveStory Hotel Including 100 Guest Rooms and Below-Grade Parking. Director's Adjustment Requested for a Reduction in Required On-site Parking (15%) and Loading Space Dimensions. Environmental Assessment: Pending. Zone District: CS (Service Commercial). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Samuel Gutierrez at samuel.gutierrez@cityofpaloalto.org
Chair Furth: Our next item is a public hearing on a proposal to build a hotel at 4256 El Camino Real. This
is a major architectural review for a new 51,300 square foot five-story hotel with 100 guest rooms and
below-grade parking. A request has been made to the Community Development Director to reduce the
required on-site parking by 15 percent, and to alter the code dimensions for a loading space. The
architectural...Sorry. The environmental documents are not yet completed, so we will not be making any
final recommendations today because we don't have complete information. Just a second while I grab my plan packet. The architect is Studio T Square. Landscape architect is MPA Designs -- Is that right? And the...yes. And the applicant is HXH Property, LLC. May we hear from staff? First of all, does anybody have any...? Although this project has been before us on a preliminary basis, this is our first formal hearing. Does anybody have any communications to report about this project, other than the ones that
we had before, before the first project? That you have not previously disclosed, is what I'm trying to say.
Board Member Lew: I do. I will disclose that visited the site, and then, also, I had a phone conversation
on November 13th with Randy Popp, who is working on the project. We were really just only talking
about the presentation format and time limits and not about the project itself.
Chair Furth: Thank you. I should disclose that in addition to my previous visit to the site and visits to Palo
Alto Redwoods, I revisited the site again yesterday.
Vice Chair Baltay: I did visit the site myself and have had previous conversations with the tenants at The
Redwoods apartment complex, but it's been over a year since I spoke to them, I believe.
Chair Furth: Anybody else?
Board Member Thompson: I haven't visited the site in a long time. Probably since the last time.
Chair Furth: Okay. All right. We will clean up our spilled coffee up here and get...Staff?
Samuel Gutierrez, Project Planner: Good morning.
Chair Furth: Oh, excuse me, one other thing I should say, is we did receive a supplemental set of drawings today. Is that correct? Okay, thanks.
Mr. Gutierrez: Good morning, Board members. My name is Samuel Gutierrez. I'm the project planner for
this project. I've been the project planner when you previously saw this, during the preliminary process,
City of Palo Alto Page 17
as well. Jumping to the presentation here, you can see an image of the current iteration of this project
right there on the screen. Just a project overview. This, of course, is a major ARB application for a new
five-story hotel with 100 guess rooms, totally 51,300 square feet of floor area, with 85 parking spaces
and 100 guest rooms. The FAR is approximately 2.0 to 1.0. The height varies from five stories along El
Camino down to two-story mass towards the rear of the development. It has a contemporary
architectural style that utilizes wood siding and stucco mixture, with finished metal beams and transoms
around the windows. The driveway is designed in a manner to allow two-vehicle access at the same time. I'll go deeper into that as we move along the presentation. The parking is totally provided underground. The parking is not visible from El Camino at all. And, they will utilize some mechanical lift systems in the parking structure. Again, I'll discuss that as we move along. The project, as Chair Furth pointed out, does have a request for director's adjustment. This is for a 15 percent reduction in the required parking, and the reduction in size for the required loading area, from the code. This reduction would be to
accommodate an SU-30 size vehicle. That's a 10 x 30 loading space rather than the larger code-required
space. The project has been reviewed thoroughly by staff in regards to zoning. We have found it to be
zoning compliant. However, there are some minor outstanding issues with a few departments, such as
Building and Public Works' Zero Waste that are still outstanding, but can be readily addressed. This
involves minor things like EVSE location, labeling, and a trash compactor in the trash room, and trash
shoots. Things of that nature. All internal to the building. They do not affect the site plan, the FAR, the
articulation of massing. We felt it's appropriate to bring it before you for comment. As Chair Furth pointed
out, the environmental document is still pending. That had a different timeline before, I should point out.
The application was going to come before you a little sooner, but there were some changes made by the applicant late in the review process, which changed the timeline for the environmental document. That's why it's not ready now. When we will return for another hearing, that document will be fully complete and would have been out for public comment as required, and we would have addressed said comments. All that information will be provided to you, of course. Just to go to the site, this is the existing condition.
Of course, this is the location of the existing Su Hong restaurant. It's a single-story restaurant that has
been in the community for several years, and it's still currently in operation. This was a bit of the project
history I feel like we should just cover because it's gone before you a few times. This was the first
iteration during the preliminary ARB review of the project. There was a lot of feedback provided from the
Board and the community. Then, the project came before you again approximately a month later, and
this was the redesign. Again, this was during the preliminary application process. This design also
received a lot of feedback from the community and the Board, and this, of course, is the current design
today, with the formal major review of the application. Taking all that information from the two first go-
arounds from the prelim process and coming up with this more-refined design before you today. The site
plan here shows the existing conditions. You can see the single-story building there, the restaurant, and then, the parking lot configuration. It's, of course, mostly a parking lot when visible from the neighboring apartment complex. Here, you can see the site plan of the proposed development. This one is including a bit of new landscaping and the outdoor plaza area of the hotel that's proposed. You can also see the carport cochere there in the front towards El Camino, and some of the ground-floor amenities, and then,
of course, the ramp heading down to the underground garage. And because this site plan is a bit chaotic
with all this information on here, this is a bit more cleaned up here for you to see. You can see the details
of the building footprint and the carport cochere. Again, they enter into the carport cochere from one
location. It's two lanes to allow for vehicle loading. Again, that would be the SU-30 vehicles that would
service this building. And, it would still allow for vehicles to pass by that vehicle, should they have, you
know, some type of loading going on with deliveries or pick-ups, you know, linens, or what-have-you, for
the hotel service. Vehicles entering into the site could still enter, pick up people who are staying there,
drop them off, or, head down to the garage and be serviced by the valet service that's going to be
provided on site. The parking lot, as we go down to the first level -- it is a two-level garage -- is pretty
standard spaces here. They are 90-degree spaces. They just go in perpendicular to the two aisle ways.
There is a valet parking spot in case they have some back-up or someone needs additional time as they are unloading or loading their vehicle. And then, the valet service could park that vehicle accordingly. The guests could enter in through the elevators located towards the lower center of this site plan here. The second garage level is being shown in this slide, and you can see that this is mainly just parking. There
are some office amenities and parking lifts located here. The previous iterations of this design had a lot
more parking lifts. They changed the design and they added another level of parking so they could
City of Palo Alto Page 18
actually provide more standard parking stalls and less mechanical lifts. They are not relying on that lift
system. In previous iterations, you would have seen a tandem system where you had to drive through
one system to get to the other parking facility. That was eliminated by adding another level. There's also
some locations called out here in boxes along the aisleways because they did request a TDM....Or, excuse
me, an adjustment for parking. And, of course, that came with a TDM program. That's under the
director's purview, and a part of that is the suggestion of parking in the aisleways because they do have
valet service. That actually would function as overflow parking. Moving to the next slide here, you can see that this is the garage layout, and what you see is the tree preservation. A lot of the concerns for this project were the neighboring redwoods that surround it. They are very mature. I mean, anyone who heads to the site, that's the thing that you see actually over the restaurant. You can see this row of redwood trees that just total border all of the property. Or most of the property, I should say. This shows the tree protection zones in red around the trees, both on site and adjacent. We accounted for the area
of shoring beyond the basement footprints because, of course, when they are digging this basement,
they're going to dig a little more to actually provide the shoring before they start pouring the concrete for
the actual basement. That means additional cutting into the root zone, so we wanted to be sure to take
that into account because that would be the full impact to the trees. These areas are indicated in the red
zones here where they interact with that basement footprint. A detailed, very detailed, arborist report
was prepared, and a tree preservation plan resulted from that. There was root scans performed in that
arborist report, and then, that resulted in suggested protection measures for the anticipated impacts to
the trees that are adjacent to the site. We do expect that the anticipated impacts to those adjacent trees
would be less than significant and would allow the trees to recover quickly, based on the suggestions in that tree protection and preservation section of the report. And this actually has been, throughout the process, been reviewed and overseen by the City urban forester, Walter Passmore, who is here should you have comments about that report and its technical aspects. He was visiting the site, I believe during the first prelim, the second prelim, and then, of course, during the formal application, so he has been
involved in reviewing this. The project has, throughout the time, you know, as I said earlier, received a
number of comments from the public. These range from the height in relation to the multifamily
apartment complex that's adjacent, known as the Palo Alto Redwoods. That was included in the staff
report as an attachment. The open space and the shadows cast by the building, of this new five-story
hotel building, that was a concern still with the neighbors to the site. The overall design and compatibility
of this development and this current design with the surrounding neighborhood and the adjacent
apartment complex was also a concern. And then, there's also concerns about traffic noise and impacts
to the adjacent Redwoods. Again, we've taken that and we did perform the arborist report, as I said
earlier, so, I believe we addressed the concerns of the trees and how they would be impacted by the
development in that report. The other aspects regarding traffic and noise, that will be presented when the environmental is complete, the environmental documents, so you will see that during another hearing. There was a community meeting conducted on site at the existing Su Hong restaurant. It was attended by the neighbors, a few members of the public that don't live in the general area, I believe, and, of course, the applicant team, myself, and the current planning manager, Jodie Gerhardt, was also
in attendance at this meeting. It took place on October 22nd, and the planning staff that was there,
we...only function to listen to the concerns of the residents and the applicant's presentation of their
design. We did answer a few questions regarding process, entitlements, how that works, of course, as
city representatives. What you have before you today is, of course, we can't make a decision. The
environmental documents will be complete, as I said. But I would like to say that the Board should
consider the aesthetics of the development, the contextual design of it in relation to the area, the El
Camino design guidelines, how this interacts with those guidelines, and the existing landscaping that
includes the existing trees, how you feel about the impacts to the trees, any comments for us. And, the
access on the site, circulation, of course, and the materials that are suggested for this project. There are
glass samples that, it looked like most of the Board members were circulating. There is another sample
board right next to Board Member Gooyer that has more samples and paint and siding that you may be able to see. The recommendation is, of course, to provide feedback on the project, of the design, to staff and the applicant, and to continue to a date uncertain. No formal action is necessary at this time due to the adjustment of the timeline for the environmental documents for the project. Thank you.
City of Palo Alto Page 19
Chair Furth: Thank you. Any questions of staff before we open the public hearing? All right. I have about,
maybe 10 cards. I will not reduce your speaking time...
Vice Chair Baltay: Applicant presentation first?
Chair Furth: Oh, (inaudible). I forgot the applicant presentation. Because we've seen this twice before, I
completely omitted it. Let me say in terms of timing that Board Member Thompson has to leave at 10:30,
so, after the applicant's presentation, we will give her time to ask questions before we go on to the public
hearing. Thank you. May we hear from the applicant?
[Applicant setting up presentation.]
Chair Furth: You have 10 minutes.
Randy Popp: All right, thank you. I'll move quickly. Good morning, Chair Furth, Vice Chair Baltay and
members of the Board. My name is Randy Popp. I'm serving in the capacity of entitlement and approval
support.
Chair Furth: Could you spell your name for our transcriber?
Mr. Popp: Sure. [spells name]
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Popp: Thank you to staff for the very thorough and detailed report. Out of respect for your time, I'll
try not to repeat what Sam has already shared with you. We're excited to be here to discuss this project.
It's a smart use of an underdeveloped property, which has many benefits, but comes with some serious
challenges that we want to acknowledge. Here is our hopeful agenda. We have much to cover, so I'll
move quickly. Our team is here and available to go into greater detail on any items you might ask of us.
It's been a while since we last shared this project with you, so I'll recap some of the prior comments. I'd like to tell you a bit about our recent neighborhood meeting. We had more than 25 people in attendance and felt it was informative and productive. We'd like to show you how the design has evolved, and our landscape team is here to show you some of their amazing work, and to ask for your feedback on that aspect. A meeting with the neighbors occurred in the period since we submitted our drawings, and we've
made some improvements that we want to go through with you. And, based on the specific requests
from some of the neighbors at that meeting, we expanded the range of shadow studies to some sort of
extreme hours of the day. Lastly, I was invited into two of the neighbors' homes, which gave us an
opportunity to visualize what we expect they will see, and I'd like you to understand that, as well. I think
this is a good time to point to out the major themes that came up from the commissioner. Shadow
impacts at the pool; we've reconfigured the courtyard. Insufficient loading, surface parking, drop-off
zones; we've relocated the entry and changed the dimensions. The courtyard was described as being too
narrow, and we've made that much more generous. There was a lack of pedestrian-friendly element, and
I think you'll see that that has been made much more efficient, and there's a seating area along El
Camino that's very welcoming. The lack of at-grade parking has been addressed. There was a concern with the bamboo, and that has all been replaced. The façade was considered to be too complex, and I think we've simplified that and really made it a lot more elegant. There was a concern about the redwoods. Sam mentioned that, and we will go through that in quite a big of detail, but the the design really respects the TPZ for those trees. And, the mechanical parking has been addressed by adding a
second layer of parking and reconfiguring that space. I'll also just very briefly mention that some of the
major themes that came out of the neighborhood meeting included massing and scale, privacy, tree
health, traffic and safety, and in particular, kids biking to school and buses standing on the curb; noise
and light in both the early morning and late evening hours; and, cut-off views of the sky and access to
natural light. Let's start with what was in your initial packet. We made a pretty major shift from the last
version. We had a broken-up plan and a leaky courtyard. The vehicular ingress and egress was found to
be in conflict with the general consensus. Here are some of the highlights of our new layout. It's a much
City of Palo Alto Page 20
more organized partee, where the first element you encounter is pedestrian- and amenity-focused.
Adjacent to the street, we are projecting a sense of being welcoming and interesting. We've shifted the
drive and enlarged it to allow for multiple lanes and vehicle types, including taxi or on-call car service,
shuttles and delivery vehicles. Sam mentioned briefly that there was enough room for everything to sort
of work around each other, but I'll just refine that a bit by saying we have a very clear intention of
scheduling deliveries at off-peak hours, so there really shouldn't be the kind of conflict that might occur if
that's not being managed. We've reconfigured and reoriented the court to mirror the Palo Alto Redwoods open space, and that limits very much the impact on that active area. We've made some significant effort to sculpt the rear of the building, terracing the floors to limit visual and other impacts, with oriented windows to enhance privacy even if the significant difference were separated. I want to more clearly articulate just how far we are from the neighboring building. It's a range of somewhere between 45 and 70 feet of distance between the two. And I just pulled out my little laser measure here a moment ago,
and I'll just share with you that from where the Board is sitting now, it's 55 feet to that back wall. That's
the kind of dimension that we're talking about. As you can see, that's significantly more than 6 to 8 feet
setbacks we see in our single-family neighborhoods, and significantly more than is required for this zone.
We worked hard to press the massing forward to El Camino Real, and I've adopted a non-traditional and
fairly inefficient design specifically to respond to concerns we've heard. Must of what is so special about
this site is the grove of trees which filter light and views into the Palo Alto Redwood homes. The mature
evergreen foliage creates a dramatic effect and a buffer for the residents. As staff mentioned, much
study has occurred. This includes a fairly unique route mapping exercise. As a result, we've adjusted the
shape and concept for the parking. We are now two levels with a mix of mechanical and standard at a 15 percent reduction, with the balance of valet stalls that ultimately will allow us to be 100 percent parked. You heard me talk about this before, but this amount of parking is much than is needed for a hotel. A quick look at the lower level, and I'll remind you that our impact has been evaluated to be approximately four percent or less to the root structure, with no impact to roots greater than four inches anticipated.
Visually, the changes are dramatically improved from what we've showed you previously. Materials that
are much warmer and drawing contextually from the buildings we're surrounded by. We have subtle
differentiation at base, middle and top, with the upper level terraces pushed back, allowing us to create
deep roof overhangs with dramatic shadow lines. We organized and created a pattern to the glazing,
adding scale and rhythm. Again, I'll point out how the redesign allows the first visual access to be
pedestrian-focused, with the driveway a bit further down the road, allowing you to find it as you
understand the building, before you pass it by. From the opposite vantage point, again, more varied, but
at the same time, more organized. Layered materials enhance horizontal elements to bring down the
scale. The only thing we held onto was the subtle differentiation between the two wings, which we
thought was successful in further breaking down the massing. I don't normally show you views like this, but it's the best way to explain the rear, since the trees are so dense and the massing is so complex. This is an efficient hotel design with stacked units and regular bars. The three multi-level units, which were independent from the main building, were nestled at the bottom. It's not what we wanted. One more thing. This was an 89-room design. While we've not made any decision about private or brand
association, our experts told us we needed to be at 100 rooms. Without changing the FAR, the design
you see in your packet gets us to 100 rooms, and at the same time, makes an attempt to address the
major concerns voiced by neighbors in 2017. We'll come back to this in a bit, but for now, let's go on to
some detail about the components. We really worked to enhance the connection to the street, but
recognize the limited desirability of setting out on El Camino Real. Buffering guests and the public with
the building and some beautiful materials at the pedestrian level where it can be best experienced serves
to create active outdoor space along the street. Lots of glass and doors have been included to enhance
the indoor-outdoor connection, and this translates through the lobby and out to the courtyard. Generous
and beautiful open spaces are welcoming and inviting. The landscape team is here to give you more
detail on this in just a moment. We've developed a restrained palette of high-quality materials, colors and
textures which create interest and tie to the building and to the context. We hope you'll see the natural and earthy tones that help and integrate the design into the site. Taking it a step further, let me introduce David from MPA Design, to come talk about the landscape for just a moment or two.
David Nelson: Hello. I'm David Nelson with MPA Design, landscape architects. Let me just say that the
original designer that you talked to previously was Gerald Kawamoto, who retired last year, so I'm taking
City of Palo Alto Page 21
over on the project. Let's start with the idea of the redwood forest. We're picking up some interesting
themes to bring into the garden. The pictures you see are the stream beds going through redwoods.
They traditionally grown in valleys with these conditions, and we wanted to pick up some of that design
into the plaza itself, leading to the redwoods. In these images, you can see use of different paving
materials and the waving and curving of the pattern as it moves through the courtyard, which gives you
the image of Redwood Creek. All of the lines tend to not be parallel. This is kind of keeping with the
Chinese garden style that we're bringing to the project. The plant material palette, based on earlier comments, we picked up more native plants, and we have adaptive plants, as well. These are compatible with themes from the redwood trees. And also, for bioretention, there's quite a bit of plant material and bioretention, and that's how selections were made. If you have any questions later about species, we can talk about that. In the overall design, you can see that the courtyard is much larger than in the earlier plan, which is a nice improvement for the users of the site. You can pick up on the pattern. Moving from
El Camino Real, where there is a small outdoor seating area that the public has access to, then there's
the creek that flows through the courtyard, which is all over structure, and out to the rear, and it actually
visually leads right to the large redwood trees in the corner of the site. On the northwest edge is
bioretention that has water guns in it, which are compatible with wet roots in the winter and dry in the
summer. On the south edge, that's also a bioretention, and I believe those are Catalina cherries. And
then, on the west side are plant materials compatible with growing redwood trees.
Chair Furth: Thank you. You can have another minute as sort of wind-up.
Mr. Nelson: Okay, okay. Thank you.
Chair Furth: And we may have further questions.
Mr. Popp: I might need two minutes, if that's okay. I've got some pretty important images I want to share with you really quickly. I want to really help you understand this diagram. We showed the newly-terraced building to the neighbors on October 22nd, with high hopes. It was a...
Chair Furth: You can have two and a half minutes and speak a little less rapidly.
Mr. Popp: There you go. It was a two-, three- and four-step building, with a fifth level more than 50 feet
away from the closest resident home. On October 25th, I was invited to meet with Julie and had the
opportunity to walk through the whole complex with her and visit her second floor unit here...I can't see
my pointer...Right approximately in this area. And to walk through the level that's directly above on the
fourth floor. I listened to her concerns and experienced the impact I could visualize. I took this back to
the team and we decided we needed to shift more units and further lower the massing. This is the result,
but it's a big tough to distinguish here, but easier to understand in this image. We dropped the third
level, a portion of the building, to just two, and a fourth level to just three, shifting the stair to be more
internal, and raising the fourth story element to be five, but farther back within the courtyard area. I'll
shift you around a little bit to the right so you can see it from another angle. And again, to the left a little bit more. We've removed all the foliage to make this really clear, but you can see that the perception of height really changes, depending on where you stand. Our goal was to push the massing as far away, as much as possible. I'm going to skip through these shadow studies at this point, but just very quickly explain graphically, what's gray is existing structures and foliage, and anything that we're adding to the
site is shown in blue. Those were in your packet, so, hopefully you've had a chance to review those. We
can address any questions you have about that, if you like. But this is what I really wanted to close with,
are some composite images. These are the pictures that I took from that second-floor unit late in
October, around 9:00 a.m. on an overcast day. And this is with the building inserted that was the initial
submittal to your packet, and the subtly-altered design where we dropped a couple units from the back.
Side by side, you can see how those compare. It's really difficult to see it through the trees in this way,
particularly in a static 2D image. But the change is dramatic. It really does push the massing farther
away. These great filtered views through the trees are super helpful. We went through the same exercise
at the pool deck. You see that, I think we've been pretty successful in maintaining solar access. The building will be visible, of course, but the impact is well controlled with alignment of spaces at both sides.
City of Palo Alto Page 22
And then, moving back up to the fourth level -- I'll go through this quickly -- that's the initial design, the
altered design, and then, side-by-side, you can see the impact there. If I was going more slowly, you'd
be able to see where the current tree canopy height is as you look out into the distance, and the
buildings are essentially at the same height as that. In my opinion, there is no significant change to the
height of the sky, but there is definitely an impact to the foreground. Undoubtedly, it's tough to see here,
but the changes we made still create a really valuable improvement. That's it for my presentation. My
team and I are...
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: Thank you, and you'll have more time to respond after the public hearing.
Mr. Popp: Yeah, and my team are happy to take any questions and go into greater detail for any
direction you have.
Chair Furth: All right, so, before you step down, Osma, do you have any questions of the applicant or
staff before you leave?
Board Member Thompson: I have a question on the façade colors. The image that we're looking at right
now implies that the façade has, sort of has some varied wood colors, and in the material board, there's
only one color shown here. I wanted to ask some clarification, if it is going to be one color, or if we're
going to get what this image is implying, that there is a variation of tones in the Trespa.
Chris Lee: I think that particular...
Mr. Popp: Introduce yourself.
Mr. Lee: I'm Chris Lee, of Studio T Square. I'm the architect of the project. The material we're using is a
rainscreen Trespa series, is a purer series. And the panel itself has some, has a pattern of the wood, the real wood pattern on a panel. I think the material board should show some variation of the wood grain in there, so, from panel to panel, they are not so unified. They would be wood grain and then a different color shade on the panel.
Mr. Popp: I'll suggest we can get you, maybe more samples, or a larger sample of this material, so that
you can see the variation. This Trespa material that we're planning to use really does have, I wouldn't
call it a significant variation, but it's subtlety like what we're seeing on the screen here. I think this is a
pretty accurate representation.
Board Member Thompson: Okay, yeah, it would be good to see that.
Mr. Popp: Sure.
Chair Furth: Anything else?
Board Member Thompson: No questions.
Chair Furth: Do you have a comment you want to make?
Board Member Thompson: Should I make...?
Chair Furth: You can some short comments so that the neighborhood and the applicant know something of your thinking. And, of course, we won't be making any decisions until next time, and you can review the minutes of the rest of the hearing. Or the tape.
City of Palo Alto Page 23
Board Member Thompson: All right, I appreciate, thank you for letting me speak because I have to run
for something else. I have seen a bunch of correspondence from the public, so I'm...I'm a little sad to be
missing this. Initial comments that I had were that this does seem like an improvement, a big
improvement from what we saw last time, so I appreciate that. Thank you. The change in façade
between the Trespa and the Hardie board, in the renders looks pretty dramatic. When I see it here, it
looks less dramatic, which makes me confused. What is really happening? Which is why I was asking
about the colors. I the render it seems like the color of the Hardie board doesn't seem at all related to the Trespa, but here, I see that there is a really close relationship to the color, which is what I was hoping there would be. I think that's important to maintain, in general. In that sense, if the two materials on your elevation do have a strong relationship, then I’m all for it. In the renders, it looks like it's completely distinct, and in a lot of ways, looks like a completely different red color. That was what was concerning. The two masses that you're showing, that come up front in this image that we're looking at,
have two different qualities. They kind of had relationship to each other, and I'm kind of wondering if
there could be more, like, more similarities between the two. It seems kind of bulky on one side, and sort
of thin on the other side. There's more detailing on the left side and less detailing on the right side. I
would encourage maybe a little more cross-pollination between the two sides so that there is
cohesiveness in the design. A lot of the precedent imagery that you showed had a lot of screen elements,
lot of striated screen elements. I feel like that's a really nice precedent, and I don't see it as much here,
and it would be really nice to see it here. I think that would add an extra dimension to the façade that
would make it feel less flat, and it would also add a bit more to your partee. And in terms of your design,
I think that screen element would sort of help bolster and enrich the façade a whole lot more. And it could look a lot nicer. A lot of images are at night, too, so it would be really nice to see a night render of how things thing kind of comes alive. If you would include some of that striation element, that could sort of bring that alive. I would request that for the next thing, to have a night image with a, just sort of to see what this thing looks like at night. And the smoke color, this gray color, it seems to kind of
chameleon out in all these different images. Sometimes it looks really dark. This image, it looks really
light. Looking at the board, I'm not a huge fan of the smoke color. It doesn't seem to have really great
relationship with the wood. I think maybe something lighter might be a better way to go. Overall, I think
it's headed in the right direction. It definitely seems to be a bit of an improvement, much more warmer
than what we saw last time. And I will leave it at that. Thank you for letting me share.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Board Member Thompson.
[Board Member Thompson left the meeting]
Chair Furth: Let's see, are we on the public hearing now? Okay. The first speaker -- and you are all
entitled to three minutes. Yes, Ms. Carlson.
Sharlene Carlson: May I clarify something? Palo Alto Redwoods homeowner's association has two speakers that are going to kind of generally address all of our concerns, and there may be a couple other people. Peter Mills and myself, Sharlene Carlson, are going to give overall comments, and Amy Wong and Judy Baumgardner have signed up, and they are ceding their time to us. We believe we have maybe eight or nine minutes in comments, but we're asking that we be able to, that Peter and I be able to make
those comments with those cedes in time.
Chair Furth: Okay. Just a second.
Ms. Carlson: And we also...
Chair Furth: Can you get five people to raise their hands as being part, surrendering their time to you? I
know there...
Ms. Carlson: Who is surrendering time? Amy Wong, and Judy Baumgardner.
Chair Furth: Okay, and one more?
City of Palo Alto Page 24
Ms. Carlson: Josephine Shuster...
Chair Furth: Fine.
Ms. Carlson: If needed.
Chair Furth: Then you two.
Ms. Carlson: Which is Peter Mills and Sharlene Carlson.
Chair Furth: Right. Then, according to our rules, you'll be allowed up to 15 minutes, at my discretion, so,
don't talk too fast.
Ms. Carlson: Okay. We also do have...
Chair Furth: Do stay within those limits, please.
Ms. Carlson: Since we weren't, we didn't have written comments this time, we have some copies of what
we're saying that we would like to hand out to you, if that's possible.
Chair Furth: Thank you. If you would give them to the staff.
Ms. Carlson: I'll give them to Sam. Thank you. Okay.
Chair Furth: And as always, could you state your name and spell it for our transcriber.
Ms. Carlson: My name is Sharlene Carlson [spells name]. I am president of Palo Alto Redwoods
homeowner's association, which, by the way, is a condominium association. We've heard references to
apartments. It's not apartments, it's condominium homes. And I’m joined by board member Peter Mills,
and together we will make comments on behalf of our community of 265 residents who live right next to
the proposed development of the Su Hong property. The Redwoods neighborhood community is
composed of a wide range of residents who may otherwise not afford to live in Palo Alto, including older
people on fixed incomes and young families with children that walk and/or bike to neighboring schools. We ask the City to strongly consider that the expansions along El Camino Real have a real and significant impact on these residents. I'm going to ask everyone in the audience who is here on behalf of Palo Alto Redwoods to please stand. Thank you. Affected residents and businesses did not receive adequate notice of this hearing. Mailed notices only arrived seven days ago and were not sent the required 14 days in
advance. In addition, it's unclear whether today's hearing is essentially another study session, or
something formal. We know it's the first formal ARB meeting, but feels much more like a study session.
The Redwoods had inadequate time to review the latest plans, so we chose to have our previous written
comments included in your meeting packet, and are providing only oral public comments at the hearing
today. There have been numerous submissions of revised, incomplete applications, which have been a
waste of time for all of us, and we will not spend our limited time and resources on new written
comments until we have a final plan, comments from all the City departments, and an environmental
impact report. We'd like to relate the plans to design guidelines for South El Camino Real, and contacts-
based design requirements as we previously did in preliminary ARB meetings. And we will do so when
there is a firm set of plans and complete City feedback to review. We are very unhappy about the way this process has unfolded. We were told by the City planners that nothing would be decided at this hearing, and all that would be asked of the ARB was conceptual design input. Yet, the City is asking for approval of director's adjustments, allowing both a reduction in the required on-site parking and a reduction in acquired loading space dimensions. We strongly oppose both proposed adjustments. The
applicant has not accounted for required parking spaces for staff, outside visitors to the conference
rooms, or outside visitors to the restaurant or bar. Given the many issues with traffic congestion and
blocked access due to service and delivery vehicles, and not just service and delivery vehicles within their
control, of who's going to deliver the linens when, but when is FedEx going to show up, when are all
City of Palo Alto Page 25
these other delivery vehicles going to show up. The Uber and Lyft vehicles and buses, huge buses
running up and down El Camino, and the uncertainty of parking restrictions that Caltrans will place on El
Camino Real in the near future -- and that's being discussed now -- it's preposterous to propose a loading
zone reduction. We are not opposed to development of the Su Hong site generally, but we are strongly
opposed to the massiveness of the proposed project. Over the years, we have had very good and
mutually-respectful relationships with our neighbors to the south -- Su Hong -- and their predecessor --
Denny's -- and our neighbor to the north, the Palo Alto Inn. We have been able to quickly address and resolve any issues that arose. We do not have the same confidence in a workable relationship with the current developer. We have been involved with reviewing all previous versions of the application and have provided written comments and oral public comments expressing our specific concerns. To date, our concerns have not been adequately addressed, if at all. And, in fact, the revised project is even larger and more intensive than before. Rooms have increased from 89 to 100 and garages now two levels,
necessitating deeper excavation and more dewatering. We want to highlight some of our concerns, and
Peter is going to do this.
Peter Mills: Good morning. My name is Peter Mills [spells name], and I'm on the board of the Palo Alto
Redwoods homeowners' association. I have six items we'd like to bring up that reflect the concerns of the
residents at the Redwoods. First is the affect of shadows and light. The bulk of the proposed building
would cast shadows on our homes and pool area. The developer's shadow study overlooks the blocked
morning daylight, and we requested that the developer revise these studies for early-morning light, but
sadly, those plans have not materialized. The direct sunlight streams year round through the redwood
grove and into our units behind Su Hong, starting as early as 6:30 a.m. during the summer. And yet, the developer's study only takes snapshots starting at 10 a.m. But it's morning daylight that people enjoy when they're getting up in the morning, getting ready to go to work. It also obscures the fact that a five-story structure will block several hours of precious direct sunlight every single morning, regardless of season, and this needs to be accounted for with a comprehensive study that accurately reflects all hours
of daylight. We're also very concerned that the artificial evening light from the tower hotel will disrupt the
natural circadian rhythms of our residents, and worse, it will create a permanent, giant, illuminated cruise
ship outside our windows that we can do nothing about. In addition, all the 12 BRM units in our complex
face the redwood grove in our area B behind Su Hong, and they will be disproportionately negatively
impacted by the lack of sunlight and the artificial light at night. The next item is that the massing of the
building is completely out of character with the entrepreneur. The building mass of the proposed 62-foot
structure towers over much of the lower neighboring buildings and is out of character with our homes,
and will ruin privacy of our residents. The proposed development does not have a context-based design
that provides harmonious transitions and scale mass in character to the adjacent land uses, nor does it
enhance living conditions in adjacent residential areas, which is required Finding #2. And, we're a little bit suspicious of some of the images that you've been shown with the Photo Shop. We find it hard to believe that a six-story building next door to us is not going to block more of the view that we see, so we'd like the City to require that the developer put up story poles so we can get realistic assessment of how much the building is going to block the sunlight and our views of the sky. Third item is item. Of course, during
construction, there will be a tremendous amount of noise and disruption, but afterwards, we will have
continuous noise from the HVAC and from outdoor activities, which are going to impact the quiet
enjoyment of our residents. This is a major and significant quality of life issue. Fourth, the risk to the
redwoods. We're extremely concerned that excavation and grading will kill the redwood trees at the
property line, and that blocking light will cause the trees to decline and die. We will provide additional
comments about our environmental concerns once the mitigated negative declaration is made available
to the public. Palo Alto Redwoods is an architecturally award-winning complex, and one of the reasons
for that is that the architects went out of their way to preserve the redwoods on the site. If you turn
around behind you, you'll see a symbol of the city of Palo Alto, which has a giant redwood tree on it. And
earlier today, one of the members here talked about the damage to the redwoods in relation to the
CalTrain power poles. We think preserving the redwoods is critical for the city and for the character of the neighborhood and for the residences, and we collectively -- the City, the developer, and the Redwoods complex -- should collaborate to make this project an award-winning project, rather than a giant tree-killing monolith, which is what it is today. Next item is the risk to property and building damage. The
deep excavation for underground parking will impact the foundations and infrastructure at The
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Redwoods, and we intend to fully document our existing conditions and hold the City and the applicant
responsible for any and all damage. This is not a trivial issue. You're all familiar with the Millennium
building in San Francisco. It's sinking, it's damaging its neighborhood foundations, and we don't want
that same problem with our complex. The last item is traffic and safety. This project will create intensive
traffic at the site, which will create safety and noise issues, and it will be exacerbated by inadequate
parking for service and delivery vehicles at grade. Buses, Uber and Lyft drivers park on the streets
already, they block access already, and visibility from entering and exiting our property will be affected. And this is not hypothetical. We have a stack of photographs of buses and Lyft and Uber cars idling illegally in the right-hand lane outside the Hilton Hotel just up the street from the proposed project, so we know this is the result of having a hotel in the neighborhood, and we think that the City should insist on adequate parking and space off the street for any vehicles, buses, delivery trucks and on-call cars. These issues have not been addressed at all, and we feel a director's adjustment allowing a smaller
loading zone will only exacerbate these problems. With that, I'll turn it back over to Charlene.
Ms. Carlson: Okay. In closing, on behalf of Palo Alto Redwoods, I want to urge the ARB to reject the
project outright, or require that it be scaled back to something more reasonable that does not harm
neighbors. We also urge you not to approve the proposed director's adjustments for parking and loading
zone dimensions. I'm going to finish by repeating what I've said multiple times before, and that is this:
There is no such thing as an absolute right to ordinance maximums. Every proposal must be tempered by
reasonableness, given the location and the situation. And in our opinion, this proposal is not reasonable.
Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you, both. Let's see. Is Judy Baumgardner still speaking, or did Judy...?
Ms. Carlson: (inaudible)
Chair Furth: Surrendered her time. Stephanie Tramz?
Stephanie Tramz: Good morning. My name is Stephanie Tramz [spells name.] I am an owner and a resident at Palo Alto Redwoods condominiums. My unit number is D-130. I want to adopt all of the
comments made by our president and board member, Peter Mills and Charlene Carlson. I also want to
adopt the comments put into writing by one of other residents named Marshal Blanchard], a copy of
which I picked off the table there as I entered. He lives in unit B-215. I don't have anything new to
present, but I want to present a different emphasis. First of all, the description shown here of the
proposed structure does not show the surrounding buildings, and I think it should. Because if it did, it
would show how looming and out of proportion this proposed construction is, which actually amounts to
five stories plus equipment on top, so, six stories. Palo Alto Redwoods, which, as Mr. Mills said, was an
award-winning architectural design at the time it was constructed, is predominantly three stories. There
are two small penthouses on one of the buildings, but as you look at it visually from the street, that's
very set back and very surrounded by our beautiful redwood trees. The visual impact of this looming, much-taller structure in comparison with our condominiums, and also in comparison with the other surrounding buildings, is going to be very startling. For example, the Elks Lodge across the street, which was just built a couple years ago, has two stories. Hyatt Rickey's was replaced by condominiums that have three stories. The Marriott Hotel down the street is three stories. The Cabana Hotel, which is close
by, as well -- we have many hotels already built in our area -- is very backed up from El Camino Real and
hidden by parking lot and trees. I do want to emphasize that that's a huge concern for us. Second
concern is, I did attend the October 22 meeting, where Mr. Randy Popp presented a slide show
purporting to demonstrate the shadowing effect, the sunlight blockading effect, of the proposed structure
on our property. And I think that the slide show is distorting, misleading, because it shows solid black-out
created by our redwood trees. And, of course, our redwood trees allow light through. So, the additional
black-out that would be provided by this massive structure is not adequately described in that slide show.
And as we go forward, I have every intention that we will present the actual light coming through the
trees now, to show that the slide show is inaccurate. I think the traffic danger can't be overemphasized. With 100 guests...Actually, the notice of this meeting said the hotel would have 89 rooms. I now understand it's going to have 100 rooms. But the impact upon traffic is going to be very dramatic.
City of Palo Alto Page 27
Chair Furth: Ms. Tramz?
Ms. Tramz: I'm sorry?
Chair Furth: You've gone over your time. Could you wind up in about 30 seconds?
Ms. Tramz: Yes. Those are my two chief concerns for now, but I certainly will appear at, if there is a
further hearing, with additional concerns. Thank you very much.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Our next speaker is Josephine Shuster, to be followed by...Did Amy Wong
surrender her time?
[no audible response]
Chair Furth: James Wong? Did you surrender your time, or did you wish to speak?
[no audible response]
Chair Furth: All right. You will speak after Miss Shuster. Thank you.
Josephine Shuster: I'm Josephine Shuster [spells name]. I'm 88 years old, and I'm very, very crabby
about this project because, not only will I be living in the dark all the time, and I'm wondering who is
going to take care of replacing my antique crystal, antique Chinese porcelains, during the construction
era? I'm very disappointed that the City of Palo Alto has protected Eichler homes from taller buildings,
but is not protecting 200-plus people who pay handsome taxes every single year. I know they like the
hotel tax, I understand that, but I pay more taxes in my little condominium than I did in my house in San
Jose. And that's what I would like to say. We are contributing to Palo Alto, and we are not being
protected by the City of Palo Alto. And I hope you look forward to protecting us to a greater extent.
Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Ms. Shuster. Mr. Wang? To be followed by Jeff Levinsky.
James Wang: Dear council, my name is James Wang [spells name]. This is my wife, Amy Wang. She's just with me. I think the (inaudible) of HOA already presented a lot of the concern against, as the individual. Unfortunately, my unit on the first floor, this is a misleading figure for that. You see, I'm just living here. It's most close for the absolute distance. (inaudible) I'm most close for this object. I agree
with previous speak. This, or the presentation about the develop are misleading. They did not show the
back. I'm the owner there. I know most about what's the impact to our lives. It's still (inaudible) your
home. (inaudible) big wall (inaudible) home. It blocks the lights. Put our whole home in the darkness.
You just can't imagine about that. It's too high. The highest...and also from this figure, so you can see,
the most part is on the (inaudible) side, from our building (inaudible).... I think they had the co-called
consideration redesign. The most close to this (inaudible) building (inaudible) most close to building level.
It's not two level. It's three levels, out here. So, I really hope you can consider the humans. We already
(inaudible) out of trees. It's important for our cities, but the humans most important. I have to
(inaudible) here. I'm already 60 years old. I (inaudible) spend my rest time in this unit. I will live in the
darkness. I think that's really harmful. And I live there. I know the view. You can go to the location. It's not like they select some pictures (inaudible) show no impact to neighbors. It's really, really, impact on neighbor. I hope you think about our living (inaudible) owner into this building. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Could you tell me what your unit is, your address? Your unit address?
Mr. Wang: It's B-114.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
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Mr. Wang. It's first floor. And also for our privacy. And every people can look into. Now, it's... We have
(inaudible) already not bright, but (inaudible) lights from the tree. It's a blue sky. Now I cannot
(inaudible). Such beauty. All I see is a wall. (inaudible)....
Chair Furth: Thank you very much.
Mr. Wang: Thank you.
Jeff Levinsky: Good morning, Board members. My name is Jeff Levinsky [spells name], and I am not a
resident of The Redwoods, but I'm speaking as part of PAN neighborhood, Palo Alto Neighborhood Group, because our zoning committee has looked at this project, and we're very concerned about it, as well. Let me point out on the parking that the code specifies that there shall be one space per guest room, plus the applicable requirements for eating and drinking, banquet assembly, commercial, or other
use required for such uses. The staff report and such shows 100 spaces is normally required, meaning
they didn't add anything for the eating and drinking spaces and the conference rooms that are part of the
plans. Unless staff has decided this part of the code doesn't mean anything, I think they've under-
calculated the parking requirements. As far as the 15 percent reduction for the TDM, let me read you
again the code on that. It says, where effective alternatives to automobile access are provided, parking
requirements may be reduced to an extent commensurate with the permanence, effectiveness, and the
demonstrated reduction of off-street parking demand, effectuated by such alternative programs. The
staff didn't even provide us with a TDM. I don't know how many of you have ever read a TDM in Palo
Alto, but I've had that misfortune. There's a company that you go to, and they put in your address and
such and press "print," and out comes a TDM. It includes lists of nearby restaurants, and that there shall
be a coordinator, and so forth. But no TDM in Palo Alto has ever been demonstrated to be effective. So, I think we should go back to basics here and reject the notion that we have proven the effectiveness. We have yet to prove the effectiveness, and thus, the TDM reduction is not to be allowed. Finally, I'd like to point out in your staff report, you will be asked to make a finding - Finding #2 e. - and its words include the following: That the project enhances living conditions in adjacent residential areas. After you hear all
these residents speak, and you look at the shadow studies, and the affect on light, and so forth, that this
project will create, I don't see how this project could ever claim, as its currently configured, that it will
enhance the nearby, the adjacent resident areas. I think that serious help for this project would be good
to provide. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Mr. Levinsky. Mr. Murphy? To be followed by Mr. Hutar.
Neil Murphy: Good morning. My name is Neil Murphy. I'm a Redwoods resident. [spells name] I have
three points. Point #1: No accommodation in the plans has been made for the inevitable tour buses. The
applicant naively claimed in our community meeting that buses wouldn't be an issue because this hotel
just wouldn't attract them. That position is patently ridiculous and doesn't match the reality of operating
a hotel of this size in Palo Alto. It seems negligent at best, and disingenuous at worst. At that meeting, when I presented 35 casually-collected photos of tour buses and ride shares illegally parked and blocking traffic in front of nearby hotels, despite available carports, the applicant assured me that this would be addressed in the design, and I'm not seeing that. Buses block visibility for traffic both exiting and passing the site at speed, and make the sidewalk less safe for pedestrians. They block circulation and hinder our
ability to exit our complex. This reality has to be addressed. Point 2: The excessive height at the front of
the building means that some of our homes will be plunged into darkness. For example, three of the four
hours of direct sunlight I get to my own home through the redwood trees every day will vanish, as the
sun rises exactly where the fourth and fifth stories of this project will block it. Outside of greed, I see no
real reason for this hotel to be five stories. It doesn't match the character of either of the surrounding
buildings on El Camino or our homes, and it doesn't meet ARB Finding #2, to provide harmony and scale
mass and character to adjacent land and enhance living conditions in adjacent residential areas. Mrs.
Furth, you earlier stated that the ARB thinks the entire city is visually sensitive, and I appreciate that, and
agree with that. I believe that should also include our views from behind the hotel, in addition to the views from street level. Point 3: Beyond the ARB's purview, but this need to be stated. In order to fund exploding employee pensions, the City has become addicted to hotel taxes and hasn't really taken major
City of Palo Alto Page 29
steps to correct this addiction. They are still participating in CalPERS, and even increased the monthly
payout percentage in 2007. Thus, the City has created a perverse financial incentive to continue pumping
hotels disproportionately into our community, and it hasn't really taken significant steps to wean itself
from this dependency. This looks like a significant conflict of interest, and it calls into question whether
the City will ultimately make an impartial and objective decision in this matter. It's immoral to make our
residents permanently responsible for the negative consequences of a problem that we didn't cause, and
which the City hasn't yet shut off at the source. Thank you for the time.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. Hutar.
John Hutar: Good morning, I'm John Hutar [spells name]. General manager of Dinah's Garden Hotel, 4261 El Camino, directly across from the subject property. Dinah's has the most to gain to support this
project. If we were to translate this density onto our five acres of parcels, we would have a 1,200 room
hotel. I managed a 1,200 room Westin St. Francis. I managed a million square foot casino for MGM
Mirage, so, knowing how to do that, not a problem. That said, we remain opposed. We've been invited
continuously for the last 15 months to provide input. Very kind words are said, flashy presentations are
made, input disregarded. As it relates to the specific agenda item today, I encourage you to oppose the
requested director's adjustment for 15 percent reduction in parking, and the reduction in load space
dimensions. The applicant's saying they are going to schedule deliveries is laughable. Good luck
scheduling Uber Eats, Door Dash, Lyft, Uber, UPS, FedEx. Now we get to the shopping services that
make regular visits: PostMates, TechLicious, InstaCart, Thumbtack. Good luck telling your guests, "Well,
you're not going to get your delivery because it didn't come at the scheduled time." As it relates to the
workforce, profound change. A few years ago, they came as far as Livermore, then Tracy. Now, it's Modesto. So, two years from now, should the hotel be built, they're going to come from even farther. And it's just laughable to think that parking would be reduced, laughable to think you're going to attract employees from the Palo Alto market that are going to take local transportation. Instead of the City continuing its love affair with more transient occupancy tax, those taxed with making decisions that affect
the lives of Palo Alto residents and visitors need to start enforcing existing codes, and need to take the
courage to do the right thing. Stop changing the rules to justify the project. Let the project be defined by
existing code and laws. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you. I don't have any other cards. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak? The
applicant has 10 minutes to respond.
Mr. Popp: Thank you. I'll make this brief, but I'm going to also call up a couple members of my team to
address some specific items. I think the thing that I want to say the most is that the suggestion that
we've been misleading or inaccurate in our representation of this project is entirely unfair. We have been
factual. We have been accurate. We have provided detailed and precise drawings to represent what we
intend. I'm going to take you back quickly to these shadow studies because I glossed over them quickly, and it was clearly something that the residents were anxious to understand, and to be more clear about. Specifically, they asked us for studies that started at 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning. In my career, over 30 years, I've never been asked to evaluate a shadow study at 6:30 in the morning because the light is at its extreme at that time of day. Even a fence casts an enormous shadow at that time of day. So, I'd as you
to just temper your evaluation of this with the understanding that that's not a very typical request. But,
we did factually provide that information. You can see clearly in these examples the impact of the
structures that we are building and how that falls across the adjoining properties. I think that in almost
all cases, the impact is much less severe than is being described, and we have the studies to prove it.
Words like "changing the rules" or "input disregarded" are troublesome for me. This is a completely
conforming project. There is nothing here that we are asking for that is out of the ordinary, and the type
of parking reduction that is being suggested by staff is completely consistent with our current thinking
about how to control encouraging vehicular traffic. The TDM is accurate. It has been studied carefully.
Staff has evaluated it. I'm confident in its ability to be achievable. The only other thing that I wanted to
just quickly address is a request for story poles, which I would consider to be a very unusual and extreme measure to be taken on a project that is conforming in this way. This is not a brutalist block building that we're describing here. This is a very thoughtfully sculpted, very carefully crafted mass that is pushed as
City of Palo Alto Page 30
far forward toward El Camino and as far away from the residents as it can be. And I think in the
description we've shown you, that the dimensions that we're talking about, these 50 feet dimensions
between us and the neighbors, are much, much greater than you would typically see in a normal
multifamily development, where you're putting buildings right next to each other. I think the intention
that we've had is to be very respectful and to listen carefully, and to hear what the neighbors have said,
and to respond to those in a thoughtful way. I'd like to ask Olivier to come forward. He is going to be
able to speak for you a little bit about the business operations and address some of these questions about operations and philosophy in regard to deliveries, etc.
Olivier Severin: Hi, good morning. My name is Olivier Severin [spells name]. I am the hospitality consultant for this project. Currently, the hotel is built to be a four-plus-star boutique hotel. We are in conversations with several of the major flags to see about their operation requirements as well, but the
intention of this hotel is for a, more of a luxury, business executive hotel. We have very small business
facilities, meeting rooms. We have two meetings rooms, so it's not saying that we have massive
ballrooms. We're not catering to massive events. The outside courtyard is purely just for leisure and
relaxation. We don't have this large generating capacity of bringing in large events and tending to large
events because we just don't have the space. With regard to deliveries, the intent is to bring as many
deliveries as we can to the lower level. In the dual elevators we have, one of the elevators is
actually...One of the elevators -- sorry -- will be a dual-access elevator, so the idea is that we can bring
down linen deliveries, they can access through the lower level and go directly into the housekeeping
storage facility. From there, the linens would be distributed through the service elevator up to the
additional floors, to where all the stuff is. That's why we're trying to mitigate as much of the loading bay in the porte-cochere as possible, to bring as much deliveries down to the lower level. With regard to food and service like that, the restaurant is a light tapas kind of meal restaurant. It's not a massive, multi-menu deal. The food services that we have will be fairly limited compared to the larger restaurant scales. And with regard to staff parking, we're obviously encouraging our staff to take public transit. We have a
shuttle bus that will be on site. We'll be offering services within a three-mile radius to both our guests
and staff, to where we can pick them up from train stations, bus depots, and all these areas. We're trying
to be as encouraging as we can, to not use their own vehicles in these areas. We understand some will
be coming. We're going to be trying to get as many staff as we can in this local area, but if there are
some that are coming from farther away, we'll be providing transport for them from those public transit
areas to the site itself. We're doing everything we can. On top of that, we're also doing a bike share
system, bike parking, and, for example, if our entire staff of, at the time...Each time is about 27 percent.
Now you're saying there's about a 73 percent parking stall requirement then for our guests, which would
mean that every single guest in a hotel would be renting a car and coming here, which is just impossible.
When coming in as a one-day or two-day traveler, you're taking an Uber, or you're taking a taxi, or you're being picked up by some service and brought to the hotel the majority of the time. A car service is just, the percentages don't make sense. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Does staff have any comments before we start deliberating up here? Or commenting, I should say.
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, just a few comments. There was comments regarding, you know, the director's
adjustment as if it were up right now for approval. You have to remember, that's under the director's
purview per the code, and again, in the staff report, it has been identified several times that we're not
making a decision on this project today. That's not happening. I said that several times during my
presentation. Or no decision. These are recommendations and reviews by the Board and they are taking
public comment, and then, see how that applies to the project.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Is the City arborist here?
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes. Walter Passmore is here.
Chair Furth: Could you comment on the comments on the trees and their preservation and good health?
City of Palo Alto Page 31
Walter Passmore: Walter Passmore, I'm the urban forester for the City.
Chair Furth: You, too have to spell your name for our transcriber.
Mr. Passmore: Of course.
Chair Furth: Otherwise, we have to correct the minutes.
Mr. Passmore: [spells name].
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Passmore: There has been several arborist assessments of the project, which I have reviewed at each new iteration, and we feel like the impacts with the proposed construction are going to be less than significant for all of the retained trees. You saw the map with the intrusions into tree protection zones. We typically find that any more than 25 percent intrusion into a tree protection zone would constitute a
significant impact and could be considered a removal as defined by municipal code. I think the most
extensive impact into a tree protection zone on a retained tree for this project is around four percent, so,
I don't want to say that that's a zero impact, but it is an impact that should not result in any noticeable
change in health to the tree. And there are going to be treatments that are required during the project,
such as supplemental irrigation, to make sure that the tree responds appropriately and recovers from
these impacts from the construction. I do want to comment on the depth of excavation because that's a
concern of some of the residents. Really, tree roots are concentrated in the top 18 inches of soil. There
are some structural roots that go deeper. However, it's very unlikely that there are going to be very many
roots below the top three to six feet of soil, and if you're talking the difference between a 10-foot
excavation or a 20-foot excavation for one or two levels of parking, you're very unlikely to find many
roots below that 10-foot depth. The difference is really insignificant for the tree health.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Any other questions of Mr. Passmore?
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes. Arborist Passmore, could you explain to me the process during construction by which you ensure that these arborist reports are followed?
Mr. Passmore: Of course. We do require tree protection fencing to be installed as part of the project.
That's inspected by City staff. Additionally, this project is required to have a project arborist that performs
inspections on a monthly basis and/or at milestone events where there are sensitive things happening,
such as any construction activity inside a tree protection zone would require the project arborist to be on
site, supervise that activity, and if actual conditions vary or if there is some level of concern, the project
arborist could direct the developer or construction team to modify their practices or defer that activity
until an adjustment in those construction practices is made.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you.
Chair Furth: Yes?
Board Member Lew: I have a follow up question to that, to Board Member Baltay's question. Typically,
our tree protection requirements are for the trees that are on the subject property, on the site. What happens to the trees on the Palo Alto Redwoods' properties? Do those get the same considerations that the ones on the property receive?
Mr. Passmore: We do have several layers of protection described in Title 8 of Palo Alto Municipal Code. One is for trees on the subject property that may be impacted by development. Another is for protected
status trees. Redwoods over 18 inches in diameter are protected by Title 8 of Municipal Code and have
very similar protections to those trees on the subject property during development. The trees of greatest
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concern are, of course, the redwoods that are close to the property line, and those are protected status
trees.
Board Member Lew: Okay, thank you very much.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Helpful. Yes, Board Member Lew has a question for staff.
Board Member Lew: Sam, so, Sharlene Carlson had raised an issue about notification. I was wondering if
we are in violation of the Brown Act, if notification wasn't properly made.
Mr. Gutierrez: The notification dates are in the staff report. The mailer went out according to our certified mailing on...Give me one moment. It's not at the top of my head. It was mailed out on November 5th. That's the postcard mailings, which is 11 days in advance of the meeting. However, the public notice in the Daily Post -- that's the periodical that the City uses, as well -- was posted on November 2nd, that's
Friday, November 2nd. And that's 14 days in advance of the meeting. There was also a note that a
community member made about the project description being different, about the room number. That is
an error on the notification card. However, they were specifically notified per the legal requirement that
the project was being heard. Also, of course, that had information about how to access the plans and the
staff report, so they could have easily seen that number adjusted. There was still notification of a public
hearing. I'm not sure what happened after it left the post office. Perhaps there was some delay in that
because of the Veterans Day holiday. I'm not too sure.
Board Member Lew: Thank you very much.
Chair Furth: Board Member Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes, I have three questions for...
Chair Furth: Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: ...staff, please. I believe we have a noise ordinance in the city. How would that affect the hotel operations, especially in their common outdoor courtyard, vise-e-vie how much that could affect the neighbors? What is the current statute about that?
Mr. Gutierrez: The noise ordinance falls under Title 9 of the municipal code. It sets limits of ambient
sound that any property may project. The municipal code only allows nine decibels of local ambient. The
ambient sound is taken from noise track studies that are presented in the Comprehensive Plan. We get
that information from the comp plan, and then, apply the municipal code information from Title 9. In this
particular area, because El Camino is El Camino and it does have traffic, vehicular noise, it is a bit louder
per those noise tracts, per the comp plan. However, there are other language in the comp plan that takes
into effect, like, if you're adjacent to some sensitive perceptors such as, like, housing. In this case, that
would be the adjacent Palo Alto Redwoods. As staff, what we have the ability to do is condition the
outside activity and have that closed down. Not to be utilized after a certain amount of hours, just like
any other business would have limitations on their hours of operation. For extended hours of
operation...And some businesses actually can have that, but they require a conditional use permit, which is, of course, discretionary and not guaranteed to be approved because we do take into account the surrounding uses. So, there are ways to address that. It wouldn't be something that just could be, you know, a private party could then be had on this commercial site in the late hours. So, we would take that into account. And then, as far as noise emitting from mechanical equipment, we, again, look at the
specifications of that mechanical equipment, see what kind of noise ratings it has from the manufacturer,
and then, take into account distance and height. And then, they do have a mechanical screening, which
is required for the architectural requirements to screen that equipment. We make an analysis and
determination if that equipment is sufficiently buffered for the sound that is generated, or not. If it is not,
then we require to select a different type of equipment. A lot of times you'll see conditions about noise,
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and must adhere to the noise ordinance in the total number of conditions that we have for projects. That
would be a condition that would be applied to this project.
Vice Chair Baltay: Following up on the noise. What recourse would residents of the condominium behind
them have? Say there's a wedding hosted and the band plays a little bit too late on a Saturday night. It's
a violation of the noise ordinance, but what happens? It's out of your purview, but what do they do if it's
too loud.
Mr. Gutierrez: The noise ordinance is actually enforced by the police department, so that would be calling the police department at that time. In particular, since you bring up a wedding, that actually might be subject to a temporary use permit. I don't believe that they would just, by right, be able to have a wedding reception in the outside like that. Because it would generate more people, potentially, and other
things that the Planning Department would have to review and approve first. Because there are other
sites that have similar events around the city. Some are concert series, and what-not. Those require
temporary use permits, as well.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you. Several times I've heard mentions about tour buses dropping off large
numbers of guests, residents and stuff. That can't be just a problem for this hotel. What is the City's
position or experience regarding that kind of large vehicle for these buildings?
Mr. Gutierrez: That's actually a concern that was brought up during the community meeting, as the
neighbors mentioned in their comments. It is a corridor-wide problem, and that is something that I
actually expressed at that meeting, as well. It's not going to be a problem that's focused only at this site.
It's an El Camino problem, which stretches across the whole city. We have been working with other city
departments to address this issue. The municipal code doesn't speak to anything about tour buses. It's not something that's in our code. And then, having them idle in the public right-of-way of El Camino, again, it's not something that's on the private property. We have no conditions that we can apply to this project that would say how can the applicant basically control this. We are looking at working with the police department, public works, transportation and planning to address this problem, because it is a
much larger problem citywide. We're working on that. That would include possibly adding signage,
because then people clearly notice that they wouldn't be able to idle with tour buses, not blocking
driveways, red zones. And then, having PD step up enforcement would be another angle to approach this
problem.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thanks. Lastly, I think we've covered this in the past, but my understanding is that
there is a 35-foot height limit imposed on this type of project next to residential areas, uses. I think there
was a reason we didn't apply that to this, but could you just refresh my memory for that, please?
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes. That was actually brought up during the first preliminary review. We thoroughly
looked into that, and the code actually describes the zoning and the uses if you're within that radius. The
thing is that this development that's next door is actually more like into an RM40, which is the most dense housing you can have in the city, and it doesn't have that trigger to limit the height because of that. That's for RM15, I believe is the cut-off point, and single-family residential. Because of the density at the neighboring site, which is actually, depending on how you calculate it because it's actually a conglomerate of, I believe five parcels, if my memory serves correct. It's over 40 units per acre, so it
would be falling under the RM40 regulations because it's currently zoned CS. And that's because at the
time of development in the 80's, the CS zone permitted multifamily developments. The code has since
change, so they are not technically conforming with the current zoning as they exist today.
Vice Chair Baltay: Great, thank you.
Board Member Lew: Sam, I think the step-down height applies to, up to RM30. I think that's correct.
Mr. Gutierrez: That may be correct.
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Board Member Lew: Yeah, or up to there. And then, but not RM 40. That's my recollection. Because it
comes up on a lot of...
Ms. French: I'll weigh in. That's my recollection with the Hilton Garden Inn. They had that same question.
Chair Furth: Sam, so, what's the Comprehensive Plan designation of the Palo Alto Redwoods site?
Residential or commercial?
Mr. Gutierrez: Off the top of my head, I'm not too sure. I'd have to research that.
Chair Furth: I'd appreciate it. I find it very perplexing when we have a pro-housing policy to have, if this isn't designated for housing and doesn't get the kind of protection that housing is generally accorded. But I think what you're telling me is that even if it were zoned for a residential zone, it would be, not be subject to the kind of protective height standards because of the intensity of the development. Is that
right?
Mr. Gutierrez: Correct.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Let's see, that was questions, we have comments yet. All right. I just want to say
that we apologize for any glitches in notices. I hope that we can send emails to the appropriate people as
soon as the staff report is ready to go or something is tentatively scheduled, so that at least they have
the earliest possible notice and we have a record of that. It's not really the Brown Act that controls the
notice here. It's the fact that it's a planning project. Brown Act notices are actually quite short. Also, as
staff said, we are not making any recommendations today. We don't have full environmental
documentation, so we don't have all the facts we need in order to make those decisions. Or
recommendations, rather. And I will say that I look forward to seeing the Transportation Demand
Management Program with the next packet. And then, I will save the rest of my comments for when I'm commenting. Who would like to go first? Robert?
Board Member Gooyer: Okay. Well, based on the initial, sort of design along El Camino, I think the project has improved greatly. The problem I have is that the basic concept of it, to me, I still have some difficulty with. The parking reduction, as I said, or as I indicated the first go-around, I can understand
the, you know, allowing a reduction nowadays, as I said, with Uber and all the various other things,
especially that it's going to be a business hotel. I don't have a problem with it. But, there's not a single
accommodation made for staff. And I agree with the gentleman from the hotel across the street, is that a
lot of the staff, I don't think the average staff member is going to be living in the Peninsula and take
CalTrain; they're going to be driving here. And I just don't know if this is just not too much of an
overreach. Also, with the whole concept of, that the loading dock is basically the porte-cochere. I'm
sorry, but no matter how you work it, you're not going to stop UPS from delivering whenever UPS wants
to deliver. If you start telling them you can only deliver between 6:00 and 7:00 in the morning, or
whatever the case is, they're going to say, "Well, come pick it up at our warehouse." I mean, I just don't
see that happening. And the biggest problem, you know, I can understand that the neighbors don't like a five-story hotel next to them. I can understand that, but having been on boards like this for quite a few years, it's always the idea that someone buys a piece of property, or whatever, 35 years ago, or 30 years ago, or 20 years ago, expects it to be, the conditions to stay exactly the way they are forever. And then, all of a sudden, they realize that a five-story building comes in next door. And I can see their concern.
Looking at it from the other way, I was under the assumption based on this that it was probably a
business hotel, and that was affirmed today. The gentleman indicated that it's a business executive hotel.
My question is, I find that the whole concept seems wrong, in that, if you look at the site plan, only about
half of the site is, has a footprint on it, or has a building on it. Because of that, you have to go up five
stories just to make the square footage work. If this is basically a business hotel that's designed for
executives who go to work in the morning, spend all day at wherever office they're at, and then, in the
evening, come by, and it's only basically Monday through Friday, why do you need this massive -- as you
put it here -- tranquil landscaped courtyard? If I've been working all day, I'm really not going to care
about the tranquil landscaped courtyard. I'm going to worry about a nice bed and a, as it's put here, a
City of Palo Alto Page 35
high-end café. Those are the things that I'm going to be more interested in. I think more of a balance...I
think the neighbors would be happier if you took some of the square footage of the site and actually put
some more building on it. In other words, you make a bigger footprint. The bigger the footprint, the
lower the building is allowed to be, if you're going to be right at the cap. I think it's very difficult for the
neighbors to complain about a three-story building next to them when they are in a three-story building.
I can understand the five-story building, especially depending on the way some of the angles work for
the sun. Like I said, when I initially saw it, the overall design of it, I think is a big improvement. I just have a problem, and I have had since the first time we saw this, is that the concept behind it I don't think is fulfilling what the initial intent was. Again, you're trying to put as much square footage on the property. In other words, if you're allowed 100 rooms, you're going to try and get 100 rooms. And I don't have a problem if you can make that work. But, in something like this where everything else around it is three stories, it's...I think an effort needs to be made to bring it down to that level. Going back to
the...I'm switching back and forth a little bit, but I’m just trying to cover most of the things. With the
design, going just for the design itself, this hotel looks like it was designed by two different design firms,
one that did the El Camino side and one that did the, you might say the residential side, and then, you
butted them together. The hotel in front has flat roofs, or maybe slight angles on them. All of a sudden in
the back, there are sloped roofs, it's residential. You go from a very sophisticated siding to the basic
Hardie plank siding that you see on every other house that's built these days, it seems like, where
somebody doesn't want to use wood. The two just don't look...It looks very strange when you look at the
side elevations, that they literally butted two buildings together, and they don't fit. I understand that you
want to try and save some money so you put the nicest elevation in front, but I think the whole building, you know, the building has four sides. I think they all need to relate to each other, not two sides that face, or one side that faces El Camino, and the other three that don’t. This building has, I think is trying to be too optimistic based on the size of the property. And that's probably enough for now.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Board Member Lew.
Board Member Lew: Thank you, Randy, for your presentation, and thank you for the supplemental
packet. It was actually very useful to look at this morning. I'm generally in support of the project. The
massing, I think, to me, makes a lot of sense. It seems like they...To follow up on your point, I think the
massing has shifted away from the Palo Alto Redwoods pool, so they're trying to minimize the shading
impacts of that, and it has made the other building taller. But, I think that's the reason why they did it.
My recollection is, too, that you had originally proposed a swimming pool and deleted that for noise
issues, and have made it more of a Chinese/Japanese courtyard. I do support that because it's a quieter
use, it seems to me. I think, on the parking issue, I think is a director's decision. It's not an ARB decision.
I have some comments, though, on it for the staff to consider. One is the occupancy rate at Palo Alto
hotels. My understanding, that I've heard anecdotally, but also when I look on line to see if rooms are available, is that they are full. Just for this week, there are 27 hotels listed, and 23 of them are full. No rooms available at all. And if you want a room, you're looking at $800 a night, $1,000 a night. I think that should be a factor in the director's decision, that they are full. My recollection is that we have had parking reductions like at the Hilton Garden Inn, and I think that also has a two-level garage. It seems to me,
what I've heard from parking experts is that if we have the TDM plan, I think, like...So-called parking
experts, they actually like to see the garages. A lot of times the parking consultants will use aerial photos
to count the number of cars and come up with, like a utilization of the parking, but they don't really have
any data for garages. It seems to me it may be useful for the public, is if we actually know what's
happening in the garages. Say, like at the Hilton Garden Inn, or the Homewood Suites across the street.
On the building design, I'm supportive of the building frontage on El Camino. I think I agree with Robert
about the front and back. Changes in material, I think is undesirable. I think the colors...The color board
looks better than the renderings with regard to the differences in the materials. Again, back to the
massing, it seems that you have really squished the floors. You only have a nine-foot floor-to-floor to get
in the five stories, so it seems like you've tried to minimize massing by squishing in the height for that.
But, you did allow a two-story lobby, so I think that actually works pretty well. I would recommend including more of the context in some of the drawings for street elevations. I did look at the site yesterday and I did sort of eyeball everything in there to get a sense of how much taller the building is compared to the neighbors. With regard to the El Camino Design Guidelines, I think it's meeting the
City of Palo Alto Page 36
guidelines' intent of a boulevard building, with a prominent entrance to the street. There are lots of
recesses and uses that provide visual activity to the street, and I think this project does it better than,
like, the Homewood Suites. It's probably comparable, or I would say maybe even a little better than the
Hilton Garden Inn. With regard to the bar area, I do have a minor concern, is that normally if you're
serving alcohol, you have to fence in a seating area. It can't be open. I do have a concern that you're
maybe closing off part of it, but it's not really...It's not really contained. I don't know all the details about
that, but if you could follow up with that. On the landscaping...Actually, let me back up for a second. Around the bar area, you have, like a transformer gate, and I think you also have a side gate to the trash area. I would like to see that designed and come back to the Board. I don't want, like, some really ugly, utilitarian service type of gate there. I think that should actually be something very attractive. I do like all of the landscape imagery that the landscape architect shared. I think that's all very desirable. I do have some questions on the lighting. I did look at the lighting plans, but I don't completely understand them.
Maybe the next time, if you could explain how the lighting may impact the Palo Alto Redwoods. I do see
light fixtures. It looks like they're pole, some sort of lights in the courtyard, and lights in the trees, or
somewhere along the back of the property line. But I don't really see the fixture. I don't really quite
understand what's going on there, so if that could follow up, if you could follow-up with us on the next
presentation. That's where I am on this one. I am generally in support of the project. I think the massing
steps down in the back. I think that works. I think you tried to minimize the sun impacts to the residents.
I do believe the sun study. I do think that trying to do a sun study at 7:00 a.m. is asking a lot. Our
standard in the code is just to minimize. It doesn't really give us...It doesn't say anything more specific
about that. It doesn't say no impacts on the neighbors. It just says to minimize it. And at least from what I've seen, you have made an effort to do that. I'm curious to see what my other board members have to say on this one.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Alex. Well, you can hear now from Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: Good morning. Thank you. I find myself in general agreement with my colleague, Alex
Lew, on his opinion on this, and I think I will be able to be supportive of the project with a few continual
adjustments. I do think that the building has evolved sufficiently to bring the massing towards El Camino
and minimize its impact on Palo Alto Redwoods condominium. I hope it might be able to be changed a
little bit more, but I find it impressive that they've been able to pull the building away, that they've clearly
done a lot of thoughtful study to reduce the height of the building, the mass, the functionality of the
hotel, so as to minimize its impact. It's not zero impact, but I think when you put a large hotel like this,
there will be some impact. That's what the City is allowing and seems to desire. I'm also impressed by
their putting the courtyard on the side next to the neighbor's pool area. It just seems to make sense to
have those functions next to each other, to mitigate or offset those uses. So many comments and pieces
here. On the site planning, I think it really works pretty well. Having the drive-through porte-cochere being 25 feet wide will be better than most hotels we see on El Camino, and that there is room for, my guess, six different taxis, Ubers, checking in people, at the same time. No, it can't handle a tour bus, but it can handle guests and guest vehicles, taxis, things, fairly well, I'd say. And having a two-story basement garage is a wonderful thing to have. It lets you have a number of spots that are just regular
parking spaces, and I think the parking will work fine given what we've seen with other hotels in the
area. I like the site planning and the thought that's gone into all that. My biggest, I guess, idea on this is
that I think you could put a few more of the rooms up in the front, and perhaps remove some of the
height at the back of the hotel on the fourth and fifth floor. There is a stair tower and then some king
bedrooms that are still having a bigger impact than they perhaps need to on the fourth floor, looking
back to Palo Alto Redwoods. And if the architect could find a way to take that secondary stair tower and
move it forward in the project, it will take some messing around with the planning, but if you were to do
that, the stair tower is the single tallest element. And while it's true there's no windows and activity
looking at the Palo Alto Redwoods, it does look large. It's got to be the full height of the building, the full
five stories. And I know it could be worked out. If you were to somehow shift that two rooms forward,
say, and try to get, say, three of those back rooms or so, just instead, put them up in the front. I'm looking at the floor plans for the third, fourth and fifth floor, where you have a fitness room and some king bedrooms, and then, a curved roof area. And you've got actually a convoluted hallway. If you could just straighten out the hall, you might get two or three more rooms sort of in the middle, between the
City of Palo Alto Page 37
two wings of the buildings up on top. That wouldn't really hurt the look of the building. It might even
help to keep the massive sense on El Camino where it belongs, but it would let you further mitigate the
impact on the condominiums in the back, which I think is really your biggest challenge on this project.
You're trying to fit in next to a large number of people who have been living peacefully there for a long
time. So, the more things you can do, which you have been doing, but I think you could do it just a little
bit more without hurting...Actually, I think it would enhance the overall functionality of the floor plan.
Again, if you were to mess around with the fitness room and hallway configurations on levels 3 and 4 and 5, you probably could get a couple more rooms up front there and help bring that together some. That's just a floor planning thing, but I'd like to see you further reduce the height and mass of the building at the back near the condominiums, especially where that stair tower is. I think...Let's see, to shift gears. On the building design and materials and stuff, I'm concerned about the roof forms being too thin and lightweight. And I understand the concept ideas of these thin, sloped roofs, but to me, the design of this
building just wants a thicker, flat roof that has a little more presence to it, especially on the El Camino
side. We really don't have details of how that looks and stuff, but I continually think that this looks too
lightweight to my eye. Echoing Board Member Thompson's comments earlier, I think also the left and the
right parts of the elevation on El Camino are slightly disjointed, not in materials or vocabulary, but just
the way that you, you bring up the parapet walls on one side to sort of flank in the outdoor deck, but on
the other side, you leave it a glass railing all around. Those are refinements and details, but I think it
would help to just take one more look at that all-important El Camino elevation. I'm very supportive,
however, of the overall look on El Camino. I think it's a handsome building and will meet the El Camino
Real guidelines. I think you've done a wonderful job in livening the pedestrian experience down that grade with, just the way the porte-cochere goes through, and having the tables and the bar activity out in the front there. That's all good stuff, that's all stuff that we're asking you to do with our guidelines. That, combined with the balconies up on the top, and then, some changes to the roof, you've really got a handsome-looking building. This could join your neighbors in winning awards, I think. I would like to see
more architectural construction, details or thought put into how that porte-cochere, and then, the curved
double-story glazed wall actually works. How does the eve of that fit on top of the glass roof, and what
happens on top of that? Is there landscaping or something up there? I just couldn’t quite understand
some of these drawings. I know that's details again, but I'd like to see that. On the materials of the
building, I share the comments that the Trespa panel on the front may be handsome, but shifting to the
Hardie board at the back does leave a disjointed feeling to the building, and it's an unfortunate thing. I'd
like to see if you couldn't find a material that's consistent through the building. I understand there's
economic reasons to that, but if you really are getting 800 bucks a night for a room, you owe it to your
tenants to make it a high-quality design all around. We've said this over and over. The Hardie plank stuff
is perhaps not quite the highest quality material you could use for this type of building. But certainly, you don't want it to feel disjointed, two different architects' kind of a feeling, which I think you have. It did catch my eye that the enclosure around the stair tower that is closest to the neighbors' swimming pool area is a pretty dramatic impact. It's a large element that when you flash back and forth on your images, which were wonderful to see, that five-story element looms over their swimming pool complex. It would
be really nice to understand what that's made of and see if there's even a way to mitigate further your
material choice, to just somehow make it not look so looming. Right now, I understand it's some sort of a
metal louvre mess, but there must be, just with some more thought, a way to maybe make it feel a little
more transparent, or just appealing-looking. Because right now, I think you're in the right direction, but
not quite there. Let's see. I'm also not quite convinced that your bicycle parking is in the right locations.
As I see it, one rack of bicycle parking is right in the porte-cochere next to the front of the building, and
the other rack is all the way around in the back, off the courtyard. I would guess that some of your
employees will ride bicycles to this hotel. A small number of neighbors might ride there if they're meeting
a friend to have a beer or something. But I very much doubt your guests are going to arrive at the hotel
on bicycle. Having the bicycle parking right up front and center like that is probably not realistic. Having
the bicycle parking in the back in the courtyard is, it's kind of tough unless you want your employees dragging their bikes around there. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me you haven't quite got there with the bicycle parking. There's plenty of places you could do to make it work, but really ask yourself, who's going to be riding their bicycles here? How are we going to make it work? And come back
with a better answer on that. Okay. That's what I have to offer right now. The biggest single thing I think
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is if you could somehow remove a couple more of the units at the back and relocate that stair tower. You
would further mitigate the impact on the neighboring condominiums. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you, and thank you to the applicant for a plan set that I thought was really, really
good in terms of explaining what you were proposing to do, having large enough type so that I could
read it, and having a number of illustrations. And, thank you to the public for their careful comments and
analysis and consideration on this project. I share the frustration of some of the members of the public
about reviewing a project without environmental documents, and I will keep an open mind about the project in light of the incomplete information. I look forward to having a chance to read and study the transportation demand management program. I have been in a number of hotels where it's pretty clear that the hotel is operating under a TDM permit, so there are various things to tick the boxes. My own experience has been, for example, that one shuttle will never, never letting me get to the nearest transit
station because it was always off doing something else. So, I think these are tricky to do, hard to
administer. But, having said that, I don't have a per se objection to variances, deviations, modifications of
parking standards. Parking standards are in our code. They are an attempt to estimate how things will
work best. They are never perfect, and in some cases, a modification is appropriate. I don’t know if this is
one of those. A bigger concern for me is curb management. I went to the Planning and Transportation
Commission meeting yesterday. They were discussing modifications to El Camino Real, removing parking,
adding parking lanes, and otherwise doing things that might implement the grand boulevard vision, which
is that over time, this would be a more pleasant place to walk, to sit, to bicycle, to be, and not simply a
thoroughfare through our city. And there's a disconnect between that vision and a vision of having ride-
sharing services picking up and dropping off people curbside in front of buildings. And we spend a lot of time up here, looking at mixed-use projects and residential projects, and people keep saying, "Oh, the loading zone will be over here," or, "Oh, they'll pick up over there." Well, they're not going to do that if there's a bike lane there. And so, this is a problem that we haven't solved. As I said to them last night, generally when we see hotel proposals, there's enough room and design to do something about that, to
at least get Uber and Lyft off the street. What concerns me, and what I'm looking forward to hearing
about, is whether there is enough room. What particularly concerns me is the idea of having vehicles
loading and unloading there. Not passenger vehicles. How does it work with shuttles, and Uber, and Door
Dash? And more than that, the whole issue of buses. When we shift from the old pattern, which is a
small building in a sea of asphalt, I have a lot of problems, there's a lot of reasons it's undesirable, but it
did give the buses and the delivery people somewhere to go that didn't cause a problem in terms of
traffic flow, or pedestrian and bicycle safety along El Camino Real. So, I look forward to hearing more
about that. I do not see hotels as being powerless to regulate the presence or absence of tour buses. I
think it's more like the situation when we deal with private schools, where they have a lot of control over
how their pupils, staff, etc., arrive, and I suspect this is also the case for hotels, but I don't know. At the moment, I don't think I have enough information about how either there would not be tour buses, or how they would be handled if there were, to make the required findings about the functionality of the operation. I am sympathetic to the request for study of early-morning sunlight because I think early-morning sunlight in one's home is one of the most precious kinds. Maybe it's because I'm older. I wake
up early because the sunlight means a lot to me in the early morning. I suppose I could take my coffee
and go over to the recreational center, but I think this is important, and I'm glad you're looking into it.
And there is a difference between filtered light and no light. A big difference. Having said that, I don't
think that we can expect to protect the neighborhood from that kind of darkness that's likely to result
from a 35-foot structure. That was always a possibility. I'm sort of interested in the marginal change. I
wanted to thank the applicant for the colored shadow studies. I find them much easier to read what I
think you're intending to convey than I usually do, and I appreciate them very much. If the neighbors are
going to do shadow studies, I look forward to seeing them, too. Noise. Generally speaking, our
ordinances...You know, decibel standards are not very helpful for dealing with people getting jovial in an
open space late at night. I live downtown. I'm very aware of people being jovial late at night as they go
back to their cars, and no decibel standard is going to help with that. I would like to hear more from staff on what existing regulations there are, and what operational regulations there might be, so that neighbors don't have to worry about late-night noise from people in good spirits -- or bad -- next door. In case you're wondering why I use a computer, it's because my handwriting is terrible and it's the only way
I can take notes while you're talking. I don't find story poles that helpful for a structure this complicated.
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They just don't provide a whole lot of information, in my experience. I have quite a bit of confidence in
our arborist and in the work they've done, and if they tell me that the work that the applicants have done
is highly unlikely to damage the redwood trees, my inclination is to believe them. I like a lot of things I
see in your landscaping plan. I'm a little perplexed as to why you would use sansevieria and kangaroo
pods in something that is inspired by a redwood forest. I've never seen either of those plants anywhere
near a redwood forest, or even anything like them, so, I look forward to thinking a little bit more about
the landscaping. In terms of neighborhood compatibility, I disagree with some of the public speakers. I do think that this new design, which I think is a big improvement, and I appreciate it, has thought a lot about compatibility. I think they thought a lot about impact on the Palo Alto Redwoods recreation center, which I think is important. I don't know if they're already there yet, but I think they made progress there. And I think they've taken note of what the sort of design environment in that part of the city is, which is woodsy. You have trees even bigger than your buildings, and it's not just you. I mean, you have Dinah's,
which has always had this kind of garden court effect. Oddly enough, even your most...Even the Cabana
Hotel has a mature, dense landscaping on its very, very big parking lot, so that the over, you know, the
overwhelming impression from the streets is practically woods. You know, the little Palo Alto...What is it
at the north? Inn? That's the same domination of wood or wood-like materials and landscaping, so I
appreciate that approach. I like...I think it's very thoughtful and clever to move your drive to the far side
of the building, from the point of view of people driving by. That looks like good design to me. I like your
café/bar opening to the sidewalk. I'm still looking for the place where I sit down if I'm walking down and
don't want a drink or coffee. Where do I take my break as I'm walking down that block, because there
aren't others. The buildings next to you don't have them. I think we all take seriously the finding that this should enhance the experience for people nearby. I think it could. It could buffer noise. It could provide a social amenity. It could provide a good thing to have in your neighborhood in terms of the café and the general improvement of that sidewalk frontage, which isn't particularly lovely now. Whether I can make that finding or not is going to depend upon being assured that the project design can accommodate the
traffic that will be around it and affected by it, and generated by it. And that the modifications of light are
the ones that reasonably have to be expected. I can understand that people were not expecting a 50-foot
building, so I'm going to be looking at the setback from their property and the effect on lights from the
lower, the bottom 35 feet of the structure, whatever you might otherwise expect. What else do I have
here? On construction damage, I would like to hear back on how we manage it and what we predict. I do
not believe...We're not building this building on top of sunken ships, so I think it's a little different than
the soil situations in the San Francisco Bay. They probably removed all the sunken ships by now. But of
course, for years, that's what that waterfront building was on top of. It was really unstable. I'm fairly
confident that we have better soil study and engineering and a much more conventional, lighter structure
here. But I do understand the anxiety about construction damage. I don't know what's going to go on in terms of pile driving, or whatever, and I would like to hear. I've been in a number of cities recently where this is a big issue. In Oslo, they allow dynamiting right in the city, and broken china is a big issue. I think that's right for people to ask about, and for us to answer the question. I apologize if I didn't, if I appear not to have considered your comments. I have, and will continue to do so. This project is built right now
at maximum floor area ratio, right? Very close to the maximum allowed square footage?
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, very close, actually. It's, rounded up, it's actually 1.9 [crosstalk]....
Chair Furth: Okay.
Mr. Gutierrez: ...FAR, but we rounded up because it's just simpler to break that [crosstalk].
Chair Furth: And I also wanted to say one more thing about whether this building is compatible with the
frontage along El Camino. For the last 15 years or so, we've had a design directive from the City that
basically says El Camino is a big, broad boulevard, it should have fairly substantial buildings fairly close to
the street to make a space that works. And there are trade-offs. You know, you lose views to the hill, and
other things may happen, but generally, that's the direction we're moving. I'm supportive of it, and I
think it's better to have the mass closer to the street. It does not particularly bother me that it might be 50 feet tall. I particularly think that's favorable, preferable to having height towards the rear of the structure. Height alone, I don't think makes it incompatible. We have a rather tall structure across the
City of Palo Alto Page 40
street, decorative, to be true, but I think this is part of the transition of the city from border to border,
along El Camino Real, and I think that a well-designed, attractive building that minimizes its impacts on
its neighbors to the rear, because those are the most sensitive neighbors, is something we could
approve. Anything else from staff? Would you like a motion to continue this to a date uncertain?
Mr. Gutierrez: Yes, please.
MOTION
Chair Furth: Do I have a motion?
Board Member Lew: I'll make a motion that we continue this item to a date uncertain.
Board Member Gooyer: I'll second.
Chair Furth: Okay, motion by Lew, second by Robert, to continue this to a date uncertain. All those in
favor? Seeing no opposition, that passes 4-0-1. We have one absence because Board Member Thompson
has left the meeting. Which I forgot to record for the minutes, but right after she made her comments.
All right. Thank you for coming.
MOTION TO CONTINUE PASSED 4-0.
Study Session [not addressed]
Approval of Minutes [not addressed]
Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements
Chair Furth: We will take a five-minute break before we go on to our next items, which are...Let's see.
We have...Actually, we just have subcommittee. Are there any board member questions, comments or
announcements?
Board Member Lew: The next North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan meeting is next Wednesday at the downtown library, at 5:30.
Chair Furth: Thank you. It would probably be a good idea for us as board members, and for people who live on El Camino Real, to take a look at the Planning and Transportation Commission meeting video or
minutes of yesterday, when they're talking about re-envisioning El Camino Real with a grand boulevard
modification. I don't think they've had a lot of public feedback from you, and it's probably important. We
will now adjourn the meeting.
Adjournment
Subcommittee Items
[The following items were discussed off-camera.]
4. 744 San Antonio Road [15PLN-00314]: Subcommittee Review of a Previously
Approved Project That was Conditioned to Return With Project Changes Related to
Lighting. Environmental Assessment: Exempt from the Provisions of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in Accordance With Section 15061(b)(3) That the
Project is not Subject to CEQA Because the Proposed Revisions Will not Have a Significant Effect on the Environment. Zoning Districts: CS (Service Commercial). For More Information Contact the Project Planner Sheldon S. Ah Sing at sahsing@mgroup.us
City of Palo Alto Page 41
**** emailed 12/21
5. 3945 El Camino Real [16PLN-00374]: Second Subcommittee Review of a Previously
Approved Project That was Conditioned to Return With Project Changes Related to 1)
Designated Guest Parking Spaces, 2) Details for Several Material Choices, 3) Location
and Design of at Least two Benches, and 4) Alternative Colors/Stains for the Siding.
Environmental Assessment: Exempt from the provisions of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in Accordance with Section 15301 (Existing Facilities). Zoning Districts: CS/RM-30. For More Information Contact Project Planner Graham Owen at graham.owen@cityofpaloalto.org
Revised plans dated November 08, 2018 were reviewed by the ARB Subcommittee. At the meeting, the Subcommittee agreed with the revisions as presented and without additional conditions of approval. The applicant shall ensure these revised plans are incorporated into the design.
6. 3223 Hanover Street: Subcommittee Review of Building 1 (16PLN-00190) and Building 2 (17PLN-00255) Landscaping and Bicycle Path Improvement Plans in
Accordance with Respective Conditions of Approval. Board Member Questions,
Comments or Announcement
Landscaping plans dated November 15, 2018 were reviewed by the ARB Subcommittee (Furth and Lew).
At the meeting, the Subcommittee agreed with the revisions presented with the following conditions
added:
1. The plans submitted for on-site permit shall incorporate the following changes to the landscaping along the eastern edge of the project site to the satisfaction of the Planning Director: a. Provide landscape and/or structural improvements that completely screen vehicle headlights at the eastern edge of the lower parking lot from view of the adjacent residences to the east.
Maximize the screening effect of the existing oaks and proposed landscaping in combination with
the proposed hedges, walls, and berms.
b. Provide densely-planted, low-profile shrubs on either side of the spur in order to reduce the
potential for loitering and to maintain adequate lines of sight at the path intersection.
c. Remove bollards from the path spur, and include a stop sign and corresponding STOP path
markings at the approach to the intersection.
The applicant shall ensure these changes/conditions are incorporated into the design.