HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-03-21 Architectural Review Board Summary MinutesCity 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 David Hirsch.
Absent: None
Chair Furth: ... March 21, 2019, meeting of the Architectural Review Board of the City of Palo Alto.
Rebecca, could you call the roll, please? Oh, Alicia, there you are. Hidden behind your screen.
[Roll Call]
Oral Communications
Chair Furth: Now is the time for oral communications. That's comments from anybody who wishes to talk about an item not on the agenda. I have no speaker cards. Is there anybody else present who wishes to
do that? Seeing none, we will go on.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Chair Furth: Agenda changes, additions and deletions. I'm going to make one change. Oh, first of all, we
have an updated agenda which is not the one that's in our printed package. It includes another item
under Board Member Questions, Comments and Announcements, which is the Architectural Review
Board's annual report to the City Council, drafting and proposed content. I propose -- actually, I'm just
going to do it as Chair - move the Board Member Questions, Comments and Announcements before the
subcommittee item since the subcommittee only involves two of us. And you know who you are, right?
Vice Chair Baltay and Board Member Thompson? Is that right? It's on the agenda somewhere. It is...
Yeah, it is. Baltay and Thompson. Okay.
City Official Reports
1.Transmittal of 1) the ARB Meeting Schedule and Attendance Record, and 2) TentativeFuture Agenda items.
Chair Furth: City official reports.
Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Package page 6 shows the meeting schedule and assignments. It
looks as if we're going to have a cancellation on July 4th.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Board Member Thompson, I should say, if I am wrong about who is doing that
hotel project subcommittee, somebody else thinks they're on that, let me now. And I have an
announcement, which is that I am retiring from the Board as of the end of July, inasmuch as my family is
leaving the city. There is a recruitment process underway, and anybody interested should apply.
ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD
APPROVED MINUTES: March 21, 2019
City Hall/City Council Chambers
250 Hamilton Avenue
8:30 AM
City of Palo Alto Page 2
Ms. French: No other announcements.
Chair Furth: We tentatively have the Mercedes-Audi dealership at 1700 Embarcadero Road scheduled for
April 4th.
Action Items
2. 700 Welch [18PLN-00331]: Request by Stanford Medicine for Major Architectural
Review of a Stanford University Medical Center Master Wayfinding Sign Program for
Sign Installations on Private Property Adjacent to Quarry Road, Welch Road, and Pasteur Drive, and Within the Public Rights of Way. Sign Exceptions are Requested for Some Signs. Zoning Districts: PC (1992), RM-40, MOR, and HD. Environmental Assessment: Pending. For more information, contact the Project Planner: Rebecca Atkinson at Rebecca.Atkinson@CityofPaloAlto.org.
Chair Furth: Our first public hearing item is 700 Welch. It's a request by Stanford Medicine for a major
architectural review of a Stanford University Medical Center Master Wayfinding Sign Program for sign
installations on private property adjacent to Quarry Road, Welch Road, and Pasteur Drive, and within the
public rights of way. They have requested sign exceptions for some signs. The zoning districts involved
are HD, which is Hospital, RM-40, which is Residential, MOR which is - what? Medical Office Research?
And a PC from our previous regimen. I think the important fact here is that although all this signage is
about the hospital - at least I believe it is - some of the land is not zoned in the Hospital District. This is a
quasi-judicial item. Does anybody have any...? First of all, have we all visited the site?
Board Member Lew: Yes.
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes.
Board Member Hirsch: Yes.
Board Member Thompson: No.
Chair Furth: Yes. With the exception of Board Member Thompson we have all visited the site. I'm sure you're familiar with the area. Does anybody have any extra meeting discussions to report? Board Member
Lew.
Board Member Lew: I do want to disclose that I exchanged emails with John Cohen from Stanford
Healthcare. We talked about meeting, but I was not able to meet.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Could we have the staff report, Rebecca?
Rebecca Atkinson, Planner: Good morning, ARB members. I'm Rebecca Atkinson from Planning. The
project description is as stated. Thank you. Staff determined that our municipal code and their sign
ordinance allows for a Master Sign Program review of this type of application because all the properties
involved are under one ownership with Stanford University. The locations of all the proposed wayfinding
signs are in your project plans. Many signs within the overall program do not require architectural review
nor review for sign exception requests. The materiality is largely aluminum cabinets. The wall-mounted signs are also aluminum with a satin finish and vinyl letters for reflectivity. Some freestanding vehicular and pedestrian-oriented signs do require review, including for the following examples: As mentioned before, some locations are not on HD - Hospital zoning district properties, and/or are in the right-of-way. Some of the signs require exceptions regarding the site visibility triangle as defined in our municipal code.
It's defined very broadly and strictly at the same time, meaning that a lot of area is captured within a site
visibility triangle, and yet, Transportation has reviewed all of these alongside traffic turning movements
and other signalization that's in the area and has cleared the signs regarding site exceptions and site
visibility. Also, an exception in regard to overall sign size resulting from the height of letters needed for
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readability. There are 10 types of sign exceptions requested, outlined beginning on packet page 17. As
mentioned before, site visibility questions were reviewed by Transportation and they are not opposed to
the exception for sign visibility triangles. Tree protection items were also reviewed in the draft conditions
of approval. Remaining items include the locations of signs in easements and locations near utility lines,
so those locations will continue to be looked at. Right now, the draft conditions of approval say no work
in an easement, or no work within five feet of an existing light. In effect, if they're not able to find a sign
location that meets those clearance objectives, those signs would not be approved as drafted in the conditions of approval. Staff requests overall feedback on sign locations, design and materials relative to the detailed architectural review findings that we have, and the very detailed plan exception findings that we have. There are two attachments, including draft conditions of approval and draft findings. Staff does ultimately recommend approval of all of the plan exceptions, and looking forward to your feedback. Happy to answer any questions. The applicant has a detailed presentation, too.
Chair Furth: Thanks. Any questions of staff before we hear from the applicant? I have one question of
staff. I think of the side of Welch Road toward the hospital as the inboard side and the other side as the
outboard side. Where are the sign exception requests on the inboard side? In other words, not across the
street.
Ms. Atkinson: The best way to identify those signs is by looking in the project plans, I believe. It starts on
page 11. The signs that request exception are highlighted in yellow. There's Sign #122, that one is
basically a do-not-turn-into-here sign. It's about four feet high. The next one is an emergency... It's a
higher sign, 137, that announces the entrance to the adult emergency entrance. And then, we have
another one on, another sign, Sign 129 and 239, and so forth. Most of the sign exceptions on the inboard
side are shown on page 12 of your project plan.
Chair Furth: It's 12, right, that shows them? Okay, thank you. That's helpful. Could we hear from the
applicant, please? Good morning. Could you introduce yourself and spell your name for our transcriber?
And you will have 10 minutes after you finish that.
Nikki San Miguel, Kate Keating Associates: Hello. I'm Nikki San Miguel. I am with Kate Keating Associates.
We are the signage and wayfinding consultant for Stanford Medicine on this project, and we have been
working with them to formalize this proposal for the past year and a half. Rebecca, is it possible to
borrow the keyboard? Thank you, Rebecca, for your report and recommendation, and thank you Board
Members for your time today. As mentioned in our application letter, our goal was to create a cohesive
signage and wayfinding program for the hospital and the medical center, with the focus on patient safety,
while establishing a consistent and distinct identity for the medical campus. The Master Sign Program
includes 57 signs and spans multiple properties across the campus. Excuse me for a second. [Making
adjustments...]
For a first-time visitor or patient, arriving at any medical campus can be really daunting. Oftentimes
people are already stressed upon arrival, whether they're late for an appointment, they are anxious about
their upcoming surgery, or they're trying to get to the emergency room. Compound that with a campus
that has an adult hospital, and coming at the end of this year, it will have two distinct buildings with two
different entrances. A children's hospital recently opened last year with two buildings, two entrances.
Emergency departments on opposite sides of campus, serving two very distinct patient populations.
Outpatient services up Blake Wilbur Drive. All the parking and valet options that you can pick from to get
to these various destinations. Your peripheral destinations that are also part of campus, so you've got the
Hoover medical campus nearby, as well as the University campus as a whole. And you've got a series of
decision points if you're driving, so those are highlighted in green on the screen. Those are at every
intersection and driveway. You've also got a series of pedestrian decision points at intersections along
pedestrian and bicycle paths. And what really connects all of that together is the main spine that runs
through the campus, is Welch Road. However, Welch Road is divided into two very distinct districts.
Actually, there are more in the red zone here, but we're grouping them together. We've got commercial,
residential and medical districts in red here on outboard Welch, and we've got hospital district here in
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inboard Welch, which has a much more generous signage allowance. Up on screen is what is currently
allowed on outboard Welch. You can place a sign six square feet, but it has to have a 20 foot setback
from the public right-of-way. This is not really ideal for a medical facility when you're trying to get people
to more than one destination -- EDs, hospitals, outpatient clinics. We can get a little bit closer to the
road, but it cuts our square footage in half to three square feet. On the other side of Welch, on inboard
Welch, you've got the hospital district, which has a much larger allowance, so you can create a sign that's
up to 30 square feet, 12 feet high, and the minimum setback is reduced to 24 inches, or two feet. This is
much more ideal for a medical campus and the number of destinations that we need. Our pedestrian sign
is also similar. Brings it closer to the sidewalk so that pedestrians can read the map more easily. What we
are looking for today is trying to make the two sides of outboard and inboard Welch cohesive. Most
patients arriving on campus will drive along Welch Road and they’ll never perceive that there are two
separate zoning districts. Their experience needs to be consistent as they move through the space. We
really want to prevent sudden U-turns, sudden stopping, and distracted, lost drivers, which are a risk to
public safety. And although our list of exceptions seems extensive, most are rooted in increasing
allowances on outboard Welch so they're equal to what's provided on inboard Welch. Our goal is to
create a cohesive sign family, so this is the complete sign family up on screen. We have drawn inspiration
from the signage already on site at the Packard, the Hoover medical campus, and the Stanford Medicine
campus, so that we can create something that is cohesive on campus. We have a consistent red tower
element that's consistent throughout the package, and that creates a distinct identity for the medical
campus, so it's clear that you have arrived at Stanford Medicine versus the University campus. Today, we
are requesting for exceptions specifically on outboard Welch. This location highlights those locations on
outboard Welch that would require an increase in size and location allowances so that we can bring them
up to the same size and distance as inboard Welch. As Rebecca mentioned, we do have a few more
locations on the South and North Pasteur loop that are based on locations that will require encroachment
permits because they hit public utilities or public easements. However, we've located these strategically
so that they are five foot clear from the nearest utility. They also meet Transportation's requirements of
the one-foot-six setback from the curb. Overall, we hope these exceptions can create a more seamless
experience for all, improving public safety, and making sure people are able to find the emergency
department, first and foremost. Board members, thank you again for your time. We hope this project will
be a success for the City, Stanford Medicine, and the community. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Are there any questions for the applicant's representative? Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: Good morning, thank you, I have a question for staff. Just crossing my mind. I'm
concerned. We don't want to be setting precedent here with this many exceptions. If I take the case of
one of the larger campuses up in the Sand Hill Road area, large corporate campuses we have up there. Is
there any way this could be equated to that situation, and the applicant there could come back,
requesting larger signs that are all on their campus area? I'm thinking, for example, of the law offices we
just approved signage for on the corner of Alameda Los Pogus [phonetic] and Page Mill Road. Most
of those signs were internal to their property, and it seems to me the same similar type of argument is
being made here for exceptions to the sign ordinance. Is that the case? Or is this truly a different, unique
situation?
Chair Furth: We're referencing Page Mill and Foothill, by the way.
Ms. French: I would say, generically, exceptions are like variances, and it's case-by-case, site-by-site, and
one is not supposed to be a precedent for another because you're making tailored findings specific to
that situation. Rebecca has something to say about that.
Chair Furth: I think the question is, what about the findings are specific to the hospital and would not
apply in the Research Park?
City of Palo Alto Page 5
Ms. Atkinson: Thank you for the question. I do think that detailed draft findings were prepared about
what are the exception circumstances here in this particular case, and what are the goal associated with
this signage, and given the medical center, that in and of itself is a unique situation here in Palo Alto, the
number of people coming here, the number of people that haven't been exposed to the site, the volume,
at all times of day. There are a lot of unique circumstances. Destination density would be another aspect
of a unique circumstance. Also, there is a sense here of trying to have a cohesive medical center, in
general. Some of that also relates to creating a wider medical campus area, medical center area, so I
think some of that also lends itself to somewhat showing cohesiveness, integration of the campus.
Chair Furth: The sign exception findings are on packet pages 31 and 32, if we want to take a more
detailed look at them. Are there any other questions of the applicant's representative? I'm sorry, I've lost
your name. I didn't take notes.
Ms. San Miguel: Nikki San Miguel. We are with Kate Keating Associates.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Yes, Board Member Hirsch.
Board Member Hirsch: On the location of the signs due to the setback requirements, are you confident in
your statement of the visibility of those signs with the size letters that you're selecting? How you did this
was really interesting, to see it from the distances for which it, where it will become evident to the
viewer. And these easements really require quite a setback on that one side. Are you confident that they
will be seen? From vehicles, you know.
Ms. San Miguel: One of our original proposals for the sign design was actually located within a planting
strip of the easement to maximize visibility, but to achieve that, we had to reduce the sign size a little bit
because it needed to fit and hit the various clearances. However, through ongoing revisions and
coordination with the Planning team, we revised our proposal so that it sat on the other side of the
sidewalk, on the private property side, and meets the requirements. That's increased the size to the
maximum allowed in that hospital district. We were able to gain about a quarter-inch cap size, so the
text, it makes a difference, actually. It's a three-inch cap height right now throughout Welch, and the
current signage there is also a three-inch cap height, but a less legible font. We've maintained the cap
height of the existing signage, but we've adapted a more legible font that is much more easy to read, it's
less condensed, and the design of the sign is much more visible in that it's lighter in color. If you look at
the sign considerations outlined in... Let's see...pulling it up on the screen. Page 27 of our application
package...
Board Member Hirsch: I think it's 28.
Ms. San Miguel: Twenty-seven shows the color...
Board Member Hirsch: Okay, 27.
Ms. San Miguel: ...so, we originally looked at the color of the sign, and the existing signage is a gray sign
with white text. We're proposing a lighter sign with darker text so that it pops out more in the landscape.
And on 28, these are the text type studies, and these are based on industry calculations for legibility and
readability, so where we are with three inch of copy, you have 2.6 seconds of visibility at 20 miles per
hour, and a little bit more at 15 miles per hour, which is about the average people are traveling along
Welch Road.
Board Member Hirsch: To add to the question, would the City explore the possibility of not living by the
rules of the easement? Becoming closer...
Chair Furth: I think that's not a question of the applicant right now, so let's see.
Board Member Hirsch: More to the City, yeah.
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Chair Furth: Let's take that in our discussion. Any other questions from Board members? I had one
question. You referenced a multi-modality of people here - bikes, cars, pedestrians, lots of strangers. Do
you address bicycle parking, access, concierge services anywhere? My experience bicycling is no, you're
on your own. There's no wayfinding for bicyclists. Am I wrong?
Ms. San Miguel: Can I introduce the Stanford Medicine team to address that question?
Chair Furth: Sure. I had a bad experience when I forgot my bicycle lock, and there were no bike
concierges. I had to go home again, bicycle back with the lock, and then go visit my friend.
Nanette Boerner, Stanford: Good morning.
Chair Furth: Good morning. If you could introduce yourself and spell your name for our transcriber.
Ms. Boerner: Sure. My name is Nanette Boerner [spells name]. I have been at Stanford for over a decade
now, planning multiple phases of a variety of projects. In terms of bicycle wayfinding, much of that is
coordinated with the University in terms of bike lockers, which may not be as available to the public.
That's one consideration. I know we studied that in the new Stanford Hospital. They added a number of
bike lockers across campus, that as the campus has become busier and busier, we're seeing more
pedestrians, more bicycles, etc. Some of the work that we've done is to add the green bike lanes
across... I know there's one on Quarry, I know there's one across the street right behind Welch, which is
Vineyard. We're working on those elements, but what we wanted to begin with this particular wayfinding
package is really focusing on getting pedestrians and vehicles to their location, and then, perhaps bicycle
wayfinding to could be added onto that as a future phase.
Chair Furth: Thank you. That might involve more street marking and... Well, we don't need to speculate
on this. That's not the application in front of us. But, I'm correct in thinking that this one does not
address that issue.
Ms. Boerner: Correct.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Yes?
Ms. San Miguel: Any more questions?
Chair Furth: I think we're good.
Board Member Hirsch: I have some detail questions about the construction of the signs.
Chair Furth: Fine.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay.
Chair Furth: Board Member Hirsch.
Board Member Hirsch: I guess one of my biggest concerns on, these have panels all the way down to the
ground and there are different elevations of the ground relative to the signs. What do you do at the base
to protect it from, you know, maintenance around it, cutting grass? The element that's the lowest
element, is that replaceable, or is that a permanent fixture on the bottom of the sign?
Ms. San Miguel: Thank you for your question. On the screen we have the preliminary design. The final
engineering details will be developed by the sign fabricator as part of the building permit process.
Currently, we have, once it hits the concrete footer, we transition to the concrete material. The aluminum
base only extends 14 inches below the actual message panel. The concrete is intended to rise or sink into
the ground, depending on the conditions. If it's sloped, you'll expose a little bit of the concrete, a little bit,
but that will take the brunt of any maintenance in terms of lawn mowers or landscaping maintenance.
City of Palo Alto Page 7
Board Member Hirsch: In your drawings, you've separated the panel and its backup material. Is that
intended to fit, to move into the...? You don’t have a dotted line indicating it's clipping in, but that's
what's happening, right? I had to sort of imagine that.
Ms. San Miguel: Correct. The...
Chair Furth: We're looking at Sheet 22?
Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, yeah.
Chair Furth: I can't see that.
Board Member Hirsch: Yes, it's 22.
Ms. San Miguel: The intended design is for the panels to be removeable, so as the messages get updated
or damaged, you don't have to extract the whole sign and replace it. You can just unscrew - with vandal-
resistant fasteners, of course - the message panels, and then it can be replaced on site.
Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, so that's the part that would come out, is one piece that comes out, get a
new one, stick in back in place...
Ms. San Miguel: Correct.
Board Member Hirsch: ...in case there is damage. What is the issue of, how do you handle graffiti onto
panels like this? Not that I hope we have graffiti artists here doing anything to these nice designs, but it's
sometimes a problem.
Ms. San Miguel: You can add an anti-graffiti coating to the paint as a clear coat. That will help with
cleanability of the sign, but it depends on the level of vandalism. And if it does get excessively
vandalized, at least the panel can come off.
Board Member Hirsch: Come off. This Stanford script visual that identifies every one of them, the color
strip, on the larger ones where it's along the edge, how is that fastened to the frame? It seems to be sort
of in the center. Have you done this before, that piece?
Ms. San Miguel: Not on Stanford campus, but we have developed similar signs that have this element
that protrudes from the rest of the panel. It's just a matter of welding aluminum brackets and L-angels
together.
Board Member Hirsch: I accept that it has to go through shop drawing review at a later date.
Ms. San Miguel: Correct.
Board Member Hirsch: Let's see...It's a separate element. Does it come all the way down to the ground?
Ms. San Miguel: It does, and it terminates at the same point as the 14-inch base, and it will also hit the...
Board Member Hirsch: There's a separate piece below it then, that continues it to the ground.
Ms. San Miguel: Structurally, there will be... Let me pull up the sheet on 22... There will be a frame that's
built that houses the main cabinet, and that's what that blade gets attached to. And that frame has
support structure inside that clamps down onto a support and structural tube that goes into the concrete
footer below. Final engineering and structural loads will be calculated by the engineering department for
the sign fabricator, and they will determine how deep exactly it goes, and how thick that post needs to
be.
Board Member Hirsch: It's all one piece, that color element. Is that what you're saying?
Ms. San Miguel: Mm-hmm.
City of Palo Alto Page 8
Board Member Hirsch: Okay.
Chair Furth: Looking at page 27, which shows these signs installed in sloping land. That bottom piece we
see is the aluminum piece in your drawing?
Ms. San Miguel: Correct.
Chair Furth: But there's also a concrete base? Where is it?
Ms. San Miguel: It's underground. In this specific location it would be underground. And if the slope were
in the opposite direction, it may be exposed.
Chair Furth: Is it correct as shown in this drawing that, in this case, the soil abuts the aluminum panel,
not the concrete base?
Ms. San Miguel: Correct.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, that's my question, too.
Chair Furth: Thank you. I think you're good to go.
Ms. San Miguel: Thank you so much.
Chair Furth: One question to staff. Rebecca, when you're calculating height -- I mean, obviously it's
sloped, you have to pick somewhere -- where do you calculate height from?
Ms. Atkinson: The base of the sign.
Chair Furth: The exposed base, whatever is above ground.
Ms. Atkinson: Yes.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Okay. Bring it back to the Board. Alex, would you start us off, pleas?
Board Member Lew: Sure. I can support the project. I think my only comment on the signs is that I think
at the moment the locations are kind of wordy. I know we're not really reviewing that specifically today.
This is more the Master Sign Program. But when I just look at it graphically, I find it... My thinking is that
it could be simplified one more time to get it to be more readable. Things like having "Lucille Packard" in
there, it just makes it harder to read. I just want to know if I'm going to the Children's Hospital or not,
right? Or the visitor parking garage is the Pasteur visitor parking garage, and you're having to break up
the text into two different lines. It just makes it harder to read. People are going by so quickly, you really
only have like a second to take it all in, and when you have multiple stacks of text, it just makes it harder
to absorb all of it. On the findings, I think that I would add a couple things. One is that the hospital is not
located on a major arterial street. That's really important. If I go to Kaiser and Santa Clara, it's at the
intersection of two big streets that are well known in South Bay. Here, from Sand Hill Road, you really
don't see anything. You see shrubs. The signage from Sand Hill Road is pretty minimal at the moment. I
think, too, is the hospital has changed since 1960. In the original Edward Durell Stone master plan, there
was a whole hierarchy of streets, and they've all been filled in now. You actually have, the hospital is kind
of inwardly-focused, whereas before, it used to be more mid-century modern, surrounded by parking
lots, so you could actually see where you're going. Now, you don't really see the entrances nearly as well
as the original master plan. And then, another thing I think is critical is Stanford has regional parking, so
it's not like you're necessarily parking right in front of a building. You may be parking a couple blocks
away, underground, underneath Pasteur Mall. It's a little bit harder to navigate, because you're trying to
find parking, and then, you're also trying to find your destination. I think fourth is, because the hospital is
really unique in that they had to keep the old hospital functioning while building the new hospital, and
City of Palo Alto Page 9
that really drove the design of a new hospital. So, the entrance may not be exactly where I would put it if
we were starting from scratch on a clean site. That's made it all very complicated. The Children's
Hospital, we have two, right? One for neonatal, one for children, and they have separate entrances and
separate garages. It just makes it all much more complicated. And then, I can support the design of the
signs only if they are not internally illuminated, as they are not proposed, right? There are some reflective
elements on the sign. But I think I've seen some new campus directory signs on, like Campus Drive, that
are internally illuminated, and they're white, and they're... I think they are way too bright. I would not be
supportive if a change were proposed for that. That's all that I have.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Osma? Board Member Thompson?
Board Member Thompson: I kind of agree with what Board Member Lew mentioned. In the past, it's
always been a little confusing to get to the hospital, so I support having more signs. I think initially I had
a little concern that, especially in the plan, it looks quite peppered and excessive in the plan. But, it
seems like it's quite necessary for traffic coming in that direction. At the moment, I can support the
project as it is. I don't really have too much to add to that. That's all.
Chair Furth: Not needed? Board Member Hirsch.
Board Member Hirsch: I think the selection of messages is working here. The priority is working. The use
of the color palette is working. The only major issue that I really have is that it, as mentioned, the signs
are pretty far into the property, and even if they are readable, it would be so much better if they could
be closer to the road. It's really a question of dealing with the easements, it seems, on the outboard side.
I would wish that there were more of an effort to locate those signs closer to the edge of the sidewalk.
Of course, it probably is, whatever the area is from the sidewalk to the street is... What's it called?
Chair Furth: Parkway.
Board Member Hirsch: Parkway, okay. Probably not big enough in dimension width, or safe enough to
keep the signs secure. But certainly, coming closer to the inner edge of the sidewalk would be a
significant improvement in the entire outboard area of Welch Road. The hospital is a very strong force in
the area. I can't see why they wouldn't push hard for moving those signs closer and making them more
visible. You see them against a sloping ground, ground shapes, and other things that are more of a
problem as you move inboard. But definitely the visibility would be improved. Fight the fight to try to get
into those easements. That's my major concern. Otherwise, I find the hierarchy, etc., method of choice in
verbiage, etc., to be quite successful.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Vice Chair Baltay.
Vice Chair Baltay: I find this to be a very thoughtful and carefully put-together application, and I can
support the project. I have no further comments.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues for their comments. Thank you, Stanford, for the
nice, well-designed, easy-to-read, clear presentation. We appreciate it. I would echo Board Member
Baltay's concerns about the findings. I think that Alex's suggestions for modifying them to make clear
what's unusual about this -- in fact, unique in this town -- about this setting, is that these are medical
facilities, that they are not located on major arterials, that many people come here as strangers to the
area, and under circumstances of urgency. That the site design has been constrained by the need to
expand existing facilities so that entrances are not located in particularly obvious places. I think all that is
important to put in. Also, the fact that parking is regional, and also the fact, I believe in conditions that
these signs should not be internally illuminated. Given the way that Welch Road is designed, and is
curbed, and is landscaped, I'm fine with this proposed signage. I don't like things blocking the view of
pedestrians, so by having the signs behind the pedestrians, I find it a little less unnerving, driving along
there. I think they probably have such wordy text because the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital wants
to be clear that it's primary benefactor was Lucille Packard. I don't think that applies to Pasteur Drive. I
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don't think Louis Pasteur would have any objections if you didn't denominate the Pasteur parking garage.
And personally, I find it confusing. I think, "Oh, that's the Pasteur parking garage. Where am I supposed
to be?” You're not at the Children's Hospital; it's the parking garage. There's that little space behind Blake
Wilbur, but not much. I agree that these are wordy, and I'm sure you've given it a lot of thought, but I
don't know why it needs to say, we have an extra line saying "Stanford University" when it's the School
of Medicine and it already says, "Stanford." My suggestion to staff is that you work with them to get
fewer words and more clarity. All right. I think we're ready for a motion. Yes?
Ms. Atkinson: Staff would request some clarification. Generally, the signs are non-illuminated. There are
two signs associated with the emergency room entrances that have ground...
Chair Furth: Could you show us on the plans, please?
Ms. Atkinson: Sure. And also the emergency letters in the top panel are internally illuminated. Forgive me
as I look for the actual page number. It's the V.06 sign type. Look on page 37 of the plans. It would be
sign number 127, as an example. There are only two of these. Some further clarification regarding
illumination. It's right at the new adult emergency room entrance.
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone)
Ms. Atkinson: Welch.
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone)
Ms. Atkinson: It's the driveway right above the north barrel [phonetic] of Pasteur. Page 37.
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone) and the plan is...? Sign number 137. Go back to page...
Ms. Atkinson: Sign 127 on page 37.
Board Member Lew: I don't have any issues with internally-illuminated signs with the push-through
letters. I think my direction generally is illuminated cabinet box signs that are white or light-colored, so
you actually have the whole sign glowing. They are too bright in those parts of Palo Alto.
Chair Furth: Is that sufficient clarification for staff and the applicant? Everybody is nodding "yes." We
have a speaker who needs to speak to us shortly, so, if someone could make a motion? On another
matter.
MOTION
Board Member Lew: I would make a motion that we approve the project with the following suggestions
for staff and Planning: To add, I think to Finding 1 - if I have the numbering correct - is that the project
is not on an arterial street; that the original master plan of the medical center has evolved over time; a
medical use that brings a lot of visitors to the site; and parking is regional. Also, the new addition had to
be built while the existing hospital was still functioning, which resulted in entrances that are not in the
optimal locations. Maybe more entrances than would be required otherwise. Okay. I think that's it.
Chair Furth: Do you want to add a condition about illumination?
Board Member Lew: No, because they're not really proposing any.
Chair Furth: All right. And it's in the record, and it's clear. Is there a second?
Vice Chair Baltay: I'll second that motion.
Chair Furth: All those in favor say aye? Opposed, none. It passes 5-0 with our recommendation for
approval. Thank you.
MOTION PASSED 5-0.
City of Palo Alto Page 11
3. ARB Review and Recommendation of Draft Objective Aesthetic, Noise, and Related
Standards for Wireless Communications Facilities in the Public Rights of Way. For
more information, contact Rebecca.Atkinson@CityofPaloAlto.org
Chair Furth: While we're setting up for item 3, which is the ARB review and recommendation for draft
objective aesthetic, noise, and related standards for wireless communication facilities in public rights-of-
way, I'm going to open the hearing now before we take a short break so that... I have a speaker card
here from a speaker who needs to leave by 9:40, which is Tina Chow. If you'd like to come and make
your remarks, you have three minutes from when you spell your name and start.
Tina Chow: (off microphone, inaudible)
Chair Furth: Oh, you can wait?
Ms. Chow: (off microphone, inaudible)
Chair Furth: Why don't you do it now because it's going to get a little jammed.
Ms. Chow: Alright, good morning, everyone. Is this on?
Chair Furth: Good morning.
Ms. Chow: Okay. My name is Tina Chow, I live in Barron Park, and I'm a professor in civil and
environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. I already sent you some written comments, but I just want to
summarize those briefly and expand on one of them. My first point was that our neighborhoods are so
distinct that I don't believe any menu of options would suffice in these decisions for the wireless
communications facilities. Second, this ARB review process that we're having now allows for critical public
input and discussion and should not be removed from the process. I ask that you please make a specific
recommendation to City Council to keep the ARB public hearings, and ensure that every cell tower gets
individual review.
Third, I ask that you please continue to insist on undergrounding of equipment. My fourth point is that
we need an updated wireless ordinance that safeguards residents and their interests. I wanted to take a
few moments to expand on this. First, I want to just say that I urge you not to incorporate any of the
specific FCC [Federal Communications Commission] standards into our standard because, according to
independent law firms, current and future litigation may reverse these standards, and including such FCC
standards into our ordinance language would bind the City to such standards, regardless of the outcomes
of litigation. Instead, what I think we should do is work together to create a better ordinance, just like
dozens of other cities are doing in the Bay Area, across California, and across the country. Some
examples are Arinda, San Resall [phonetic], San Anselmo, Hillsborough, Danville - The list goes on and
on of the cities in the Bay Areas that are working to improve the ordinance and include resident interest
in them. Some examples of things that we can ask for are minimum spacing between towers. For
example, 1,500 or 200 feet. We can ask for minimum setbacks from resident homes and schools. We can
even ask for increased fees and revenue for the City. Yes, there are descriptions about this, but we can
charge for actual cost of processing these applications. We can ask for requirements that, if they are less
visually-intrusive facilities that become available, technology improves, that these be replaced. We can
ask for liability and insurance for each node. We can ask for monitoring requirements of the radio
frequency of some of these towers. We can ask for property value assessments, protection for trees, and
compliance with the American Disabilities Act for electro hypersensitivity. The ADA - I want to expand on
this one a little bit - as you know, is intended to protect disabled people from discrimination and provides
general definitions for disability. The US Access Board and the Department of Labor recognize
electromagnetic sensitivity as a disability, so I'd like to ask that you ask the City to add an ADA section
and an ADA definition that describes disability as any physical impairment affecting a major life activity,
including language in Title II, which requires public agencies to make all their services, programs and
activities ADA accessibility. That would mean including language that indicates that ADA claims can be
City of Palo Alto Page 12
made if some sort of discrimination... For example, that persons with disabilities are prevented from
some activity can be shown. And, include language in the exceptions chapter and the compliance with
law chapter, saying that the American Disabilities Act, which is a federal law...Sorry. The exception
chapter should include the Americans With Disabilities Act as a federal law that is equal in authority to
the Federal Communications Act.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Any last sentence?
Ms. Chow: The last sentence is that I ask that you consider making a taskforce where residents can
actually work on this, because doing this in three minutes is really hard. We have a lot of ideas...
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: Thank you. I want to say, thank you for your presentation, but I want to say to you, and
others, that the ordinance itself has not been formally provided to us. We did get a copy this morning, so
the Planning and Transportation Commission will be reviewing it... What's the date, Albert?
Mr. Yang: Next Thursday. Sorry, next Wednesday.
Chair Furth: Next Wednesday, which is going to be the key hearing on that, followed by Council action.
Thank you. We're going to take a five-minute break before we hear the rest of this, and then we'll be
back. Thank you.
[The Board took a short break.]
Chair Furth: Before we go on to our next item, I meant to say as we concluded the last one, that I am
very concerned about bicycle access. I have spent a lot of time recently going to appointments on Welch
Road where there's no adequate car parking. I'd be happy to ride a bicycle, but there's not a lot of bike
parking. Okay.
3. ARB Review and Recommendation of Draft Objective Aesthetic, Noise, and Related
Standards for Wireless Communications Facilities in the Public Rights of Way. For
more information, contact Rebecca.Atkinson@CityofPaloAlto.org
Chair Furth: Our next item, I already read it, but I'll read it again. It's the ARB review and
recommendation of draft objective aesthetic, noise, and related standards for wireless communications
facilities in the public rights of way. Staff report will be prepared by Rebecca Atkinson. This is not a quasi-
judicial matter, I guess. We're commenting on a proposed regulation, so I won't ask anybody about
external communications. I will note that we have all received a large number of emails on this, which
staff has made available if they were received before 5:00 yesterday. What's the cutoff?
Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Correct, 5:00 p.m., and we printed them out in hard copy. If they
are emailed after 5:00, they were email-forwarded to you. We had some emails at 6:00 in the morning
and... yeah.
Chair Furth: Right. And they will be passed along -- will they? -- to Planning and Transportation
Commission, which will be considering this next, and staff will of course read them. All right. Staff report,
please.
Ms. French: Good morning. Amy French, Chief Planning Official, along with Rebecca Atkinson, and Albert
Yang, our City Attorney. We also have Jim Fleming [phonetic] in the audience, and Dave Lund
[phonetic] from the City, to help with questions.
Chair Furth: Which departments are they?
Ms. French: Utilities.
City of Palo Alto Page 13
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Ms. French: As noted, at places and at the back table we have the ordinance that is going to go to the
Planning and Transportation Commission next Wednesday, so members of the public who are interested
in reading that can go to the back table. The packet comes out today and will be uploaded on line for
those persons who wish to review the ordinance.
Chair Furth: This is a proposed ordinance amending Section 18.42.110 on wireless telecommunication
facilities.
Ms. French: Correct. We have an existing ordinance, these are amendments that would clarify based on
the FCC order.
Chair Furth: I think "modify" is a more accurate term, thank you.
Ms. French: Well, there's that. Just a brief background, then I'll turn it over to Albert. The existing
wireless communication facilities in the Palo Alto public rights-of-way, we have 73 AT&T ODAS [Outside
Distributed Antenna System] nodes, and these are on wood utility poles. Those were installed in 2012,
before we created the ordinance we have today. So, yes, there has been some noise issues on those
poles, just to be clear about that. Then, we have 19 small cell nodes on streetlight poles, and these were
installed by Crown Castle in 2016. I believe those are the ones that use those faux mailboxes.
We anticipate more coming. We have 93 from Verizon, 17 from AT&T Mobility, and 17 from Crown Castle
that we anticipate being installed or submitted for review. There are others in the wings that have not
come in yet. We have street lights, in Palo Alto, a total of 6,642. Of those, the City owns 6,500, and the
State owns 142. Those are located on El Camino and near Highway 101. Then we have wood utility
poles. We have a total of 6,000, again. Those are in the public right-of-way; 5,400 are jointly owned by
the City and AT&T.
Albert Yang, Deputy City Attorney: The reason that we are coming to you today with these draft
objective standards is because the Federal Communications Commission -- the FCC -- in September
adopted new regulations, that among several other changes, require any aesthetic regulation by local
governments to be reasonable, non-discriminatory, objective and published in advanced. They gave us
until April 15th of this year to work on and adopt these standards, and that's what we've prepared and
brought before you today. The bottom line is that if we don't have reasonable and objective standards
after April 15th, the City won't be able to enforce its current aesthetic regulations, which are based on
the ARB's subjective architectural review findings. There is ongoing litigation over the validity of that FCC
order. That is pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals right now. The Court unfortunately denied a
request by municipalities to stay the FCC order until that litigation is resolved, so, at the moment, we are
required to comply with that regulation. In addition to the litigation, there is pending legislation in
Congress introduced by Representative Ann Eshoo that would invalidate the FCC's order, as well. We will
be tracking that in addition to litigation. There are a few different steps, just to give you a road map of
how we're approaching our implementation of the FCC's order. The first meeting is today with the ARB,
where we're reviewing draft objective standards. The next meeting will be on Wednesday the 27th with
the Planning and Transportation Commission, to review updates to the ordinance to the wireless code.
Finally, both the standards and the ordinance will be presented to the City Council on April 15th. We had
a question from the Chair about what the ARB's role would be under the revised ordinance. Under the
current language of the ordinance for Tier 2 and Tier 3 applications, which are what the majority of
applications the City sees, fall into... the Planning Director is the designing authority, and the Director has
the discretion to send any of these applications to the ARB for public hearing. Under the revised
ordinance, that process and that authority remains. The Planning Director, if there is an issue or if there
is a desire to have a public hearing on an application, can send it to the ARB. In addition, there is a new
process that's created for any applications that are seeking exceptions from the objectives standards that
City of Palo Alto Page 14
we adopt, for those applications also to be sent to the ARB for review. I'll turn it back over to Amy and
Rebecca.
Rebecca Atkinson, Planner: Thank you, all. The wireless ordinance is in effect city-wide. The standards in
their current form focus on streetlight poles and wood utility poles. There are other wireless facilities
designs that could be deployed in the public right-of-way, including using existing or proposed new street
furniture, such as benches, bus shelters, and things like that. Even though some have been deployed in
Europe, and maybe elsewhere, we're looking at including innovation in a forthcoming version of the
administrative standards, but for the current April 15th timeframe, we're looking at focusing on
streetlights and wood utility poles.
To help promote feedback and discussion, staff put together Attachment D in your packets. Attachment D
contains a wide variety of design images, be it elevations or visual simulations, site photos, and so forth,
illustrating the types of different design options that are out there for wood poles and streetlight poles.
There are also some designs that you have seen before that you have previously weighed in on as not
preferred, so, just wanted to include those for you reference. In general, these are the types of designs
that we really appreciate your feedback on, whether or not they're appropriate for the right-of-way, any
comments, and the actual standards are included as an attachment, and actual draft standards are
included in attachment to the staff report. Those are the draft standards that would be moved forward,
so if you have any comments on siting criteria parameters, design options and equipment placement
parameters, size parameters, screening through shrouds and vegetation, and so forth, we are looking
forward to your feedback. Next steps: To receive public and ARB feedback today. Of course, as already
mentioned, the forthcoming Planning and Transportation Commission review next week, and then,
following also with City Council. There is contact information, as well as email addresses for the ARB and
City Council. And then, just so you know, all of the Attachment D images are here in this presentation, so
if you would like to discuss anything in particular, we can use this as a point of orientation. Thank you.
I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.
Chair Furth: I have an orientation question. And thank you for the marked-up copy of the ordinance,
which I understand is hot off the press. One of the questions I have is that under the existing ordinance,
when a project comes to the ARB, we review it under the ARB standards. Is that correct?
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Chair Furth: And in the future, if something was referred to the ARB, what standards would we be
applying?
Mr. Yang: They would have to be reviewed against the objective standards that the City has gotten.
Chair Furth: And those would be standards adopted by resolution.
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Chair Furth: Which is immediately effective. And the proposed resolution, tell us more about that. The
objective standards. It basically creates a safe harbor? Is that right?
Mr. Yang: The proposed standards are attached to the staff report, and the City Council would adopt
resolution, basically adopting those standards as mandatory design requirements for the various
categories of wireless facilities they apply to. Right now, we have prepared standards that apply to
streetlight and wood utility pole deployments.
Chair Furth: If somebody had a proposal to locate something on a wood utility pole or a streetlight, I
guess they would be a... We'll talk about underground later, but basically, that met one of these
preferred or described designs, certain kind of antenna, certain kind of location, then that would be a
City of Palo Alto Page 15
safe harbor. That would be the objective standard they would be held against. If they want to do
something else, it might require a more complicated hearing, like use street frontage?
Mr. Yang: That's correct. I guess I would say, even if there was a proposal that met all the various
criteria, if there were reasons that staff felt it would, you know, that would benefit from a hearing before
the ARB, either to provide a forum for the public to comment, or for any of the ARB's feedback on how
these standards are playing out in the real world, the Director would still have that option.
Chair Furth: Thanks. Looking at page 48 of Attachment B, which is the Draft Administrative Standards,
they are not written in mandatory language. You may have a shroud, you should consider doing this.
That's not correct. May be mounted, may be placed, may be enclosed. Why is it all written that way?
Mr. Yang: We'll take another look at tightening up that language. I believe the intent was to... There are
situations where there might be two different configurations that are permitted. For example, an antenna
may be mounted either at the top of a pole, or integrated into the body of the pole. But we'll take
another look through all these to make sure that it's clear that you have to choose among one of the
various options that's set forth.
Chair Furth: Because as it's written... You know what? We should ask if other people have other
questions. I don't mean to overdo this. We'll get back to public comment. But we are looking at a series
of standards which you asked us to comment on. We have a lot of speaker cards.
Vice Chair Baltay: (inaudible)
Chair Furth: The City is the applicant.
Vice Chair Baltay: (inaudible)
Chair Furth: They're not the applicant. The City is the moving party here. The City is asking us to
consider this. All right. The name is perfectly clear, the spelling is a little awkward. Vijay Reddybari? To
be followed by Sharon James.
Vijay Reddybari: Hi, my name is Vijay Reddybari. I'm a project manager at Crown Castle.
Chair Furth: I'm sorry, I need to have you spell your name for our transcriber.
Vijay Reddybari: Okay. [Transcription note, spells name, but still could not make out exact spelling.]
Before I go to the presentation, I just wanted to (inaudible) Crown Castle. I'm a project manager at
Crown Castle. Crown Castle is the largest provider of shared communication infrastructure. We have over
25 years of experience building and operating network infrastructure. We have a unique combination of
towers. Small system fiber. We have about 40,000 towers, (inaudible) under contract small cell, both
outdoor and indoor, and we have six (inaudible) microfiber. Coming to the small cells, we have a growing
demand for data for residents, businesses and (inaudible). There is about (inaudible) trillion megabytes
of data (inaudible) in 2017. (inaudible) increased, like, seven times in 2019. So, 47 percent of the total
US is using wireless and (inaudible) percent of homebuyers are looking for strong cell communication
when they're buying a home. And the average household has 13 devices connected at all times. And
then, there's a growing demand for smart communities, and connector schools, and cloud, and
(inaudible). There's a huge growing demand.
What I have before you is the two flavors of designs that we have for streetlight poles and wood utility
poles.
Chair Furth: This is the material at places? Are there copies at the public table?
Vijay Reddybari: Yeah.
Chair Furth: The crowd is indicating yes.
City of Palo Alto Page 16
Vijay Reddybari: [Setting up presentation.] What I have before you is the standard designs that we have
for streetlight poles. These are already active, or in place, or under contract currently with Crown Castle.
As you can see, we have different flavors, like integrated pole design, the top-mounted design, and
additional design. Going to the integrated pole design, these are the traffic signal poles. This is in Santa
Barbara. All equipment will be inside the poles, and we have used existing infrastructure of the traffic
lights and incorporated all equipment inside the poles. This is a fairly new product, the trash can
receptacle. We are currently using it in Piedmont, and I think I saw one in Palo Alto. I'm not sure who is
the carrier. This is a brand-new product, the trash can receptacle. The faux mailbox design, you have
already seen this in Palo Alto with our project, in 2016, I guess? Yeah. Adjacent to streetlights. We have
a small mailbox with a smaller form factor. And you can see the dimensions here, actually. It's 24.75 by
48.63 inches, with integrated pole design.
Coming to the next one is a top-mounted design. We have a couple of options here. With the wrapped-
around, a combination of equipment and equipment on top of the pole. You can see the dimensions there
- 31 inches by 27, which is a smaller form factor, again. All the small cells that we tried to build have a
smaller form factor. The next one is a side-mounted design. Where we cannot achieve the top-mounted
design, we try to connect it with the side-mounted design. Even this, we have seen a fair amount of
success with the smaller form factor, being 14 by 16.5 inches wide by 113 inches. Again, it depends on
the equipment and the requirement of our carrier with the coverage, what equipment we need,
depending on (inaudible) designs. But we do have a lot of options here. I have put before you some
additional design options with the pedestal design. A couple of options here for you, one in Piedmont and
the other one in Cupertino. Again, these are proposals for Palo Alto, which we did for our project. I'm just
putting the samples out there. And then, you can see the dimensions for the pedestal design, with the
dimensions. Our additional design options, we can use existing streetlights or existing cabinets which are
already there around the city, and you can use the space for putting equipment there.
Chair Furth: I'm sorry, Mr. Reddybari, but you have run out of time. Thank you for the written
presentation, and we will ask you further questions later if we need more information on what you
provided.
Vijay Reddybari: Thank you.
Chair Furth: Our next speaker is Sharon James, to be followed by Jeff Hoel.
Sharon James: Good morning. I'm Sharon James, I'm a government affairs manager for Crown Castle. I
wanted to speak today to let you know that, you know, as Vijay just showed you, there are a lot of
different designs you can use to incorporate small cell wireless infrastructure. They are deployed all over
the country in many different configurations. What I've seen happen that I want to share with you in
other jurisdictions. Currently in San Francisco, they have a workshop going on where they're meeting
every couple of weeks with all the carriers, with the CLEC, like Crown, ex-jeanette, modus,
[phonetic] to come up with a design and a revised ordinance that works, that simplifies the process
down the road, and includes 5G. It's also happened in Cupertino, where they worked with all the carriers
to come up with - and the CLEC, too - to come up with a design that they could incorporate on their city
poles throughout the city. And the city of Santa Barbara, the same thing has happened. I'm providing this
information to you because I think you should think about -- and I recommend -- that even though you're
revising your ordinance now to meet the April 15th date that the FCC has ordered, you probably will end
up revising it, to some extent. We're sharing information with you today because we want you to be
aware that there are a lot of options. We're more than happy to work with you. I would recommend that
you set up some workshops with the industry and do some real, you know, make some real effort to
come up with a design that works for all of you, that maybe you can include as part of your ordinance,
that is a form factor that you've approved ahead of time. And then, it expedites the process with the
carriers or the applicants.
City of Palo Alto Page 17
I would also say that in that FCC order, the time you have to review has been shortened as well. Some of
the process that we go through now that takes a little longer, you may have to cut out in your revised
ordinance. You may have to address. Thank you.
Chair Furth: I have one question for you. Your company is not a telecom provider, right? You are a
permit-obtainer? What do you call your company? What kind of business are you in?
Ms. James: We're a carrier's carrier, I think is simplifying it a little bit. We build infrastructure. We build
fiber networks, all across the country. On that fiber network there are multiple opportunities to use that
fiber. But we're called a CLEC.
Chair Furth: That's the word I didn't know.
Ms. James: Yeah, a CLEC.
Chair Furth: Which stands for?
Ms. James: It stands for California Licensed...?
Male?: [off microphone, inaudible]
Ms. James: Competitive Licensed Exchange Carrier. We basically build the infrastructure that the carriers
can go on. So, when we come to you and we apply as Crown Castle, we're building a fiber network here.
We have a contract with a customer, a carrier, to put their antennas and radios on that pole.
Chair Furth: And do your antennas and radios accommodate more than one carrier, or are they exclusive
to one carrier?
Ms. James: Well, they are exclusive to one carrier, but it doesn't mean that you can't find opportunities,
in a lot of cases, to co-locate a second carrier on that pole. The sites we built Downtown, the 19, with the
mailboxes? Seventeen with mailboxes. We had a second antenna approved at the time that we processed
those, and there is space in that mailbox for additional equipment. Those feasibly could be co-located
sites.
Chair Furth: Thank you. And to my colleagues, because there's a very tight timeline that we're under, and
because of the complication of what we're doing, if you have a question to ask of a specific person while
they're commenting now, please let me know, and feel free to do that. Thank you very much. Jeff Hoel,
to be followed by Matt Digino. Good morning.
Jeff Hoel: [spells name].
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Hoel: I think the FCC has overreached by requiring the City to make objective aesthetic standards.
It's sort of an impossibility, so I hope it gets overturned by the courts or federal legislation eventually. In
the meantime, I think we should do what we have to do, but not a lot more. Part of your advice to
Council should be, "Absolutely we should rescind it if the federal situation allows us to rescind it."
Meanwhile, I think probably the ARB should continue to meet just as if they had the authority to make
the aesthetic standards in real time, although they wouldn't. Part of what they could do in that case is
recommend when to change the objective standards when it looks like the objective standards have
become silly. And, by the way, maybe Legal could comment now on, how often does the FCC currently
allow us to change the standards? There's a specific thing about undergrounding. It seems to me like the
residents want undergrounding. You wanted undergrounding. In the staff report, Huntington Beach had
an underground vault that was approximately 8 by 10 by 7 feet. The staff report didn’t show dimension
drawings, so I just measured it based on their dimension for the two-foot setback. That's twice as large
in cubic feet as the objective standard is ready to say is the maximum we would allow. I think residents
don't care if it's twice as big as long as it does the job of hiding equipment. In fact, I guess my question
City of Palo Alto Page 18
is: What is size doing in this document anyhow? Is the size of an underground vault related to aesthetics
in any way? And, by the way, the reason Verizon said they needed such a big vault was to comply with
OSHA standards. I'm really suspicious of that, but I don't know if anybody has asked OSHA whether that
is true. Okay. Thanks.
Chair Furth: Thank you, Mr. Hoel. Mr. Digino. To be followed by Rochelle Swanson.
Matt Digino, Crown Castle: [spells name] I just want to follow up a little bit on what Sharon mentioned
earlier, is that it would be great if the City of Palo Alto could pursue designs we can all agree on. I'm glad
it stopped right here because, one thing I want to mention is that a lot of the designs we're showing right
now are for the existing 4G networks that are being deployed. 5G is coming pretty quick. As an example
of, you know, if you want to have a 5G city, it would be great to plan... Well, you can see here, on the
right and left is an example of 5G integrated into an existing 4G pole, and the left, multiple operators.
You asked about a CLEC earlier. Traditional operators go with ILEC - Incumbent. We're both licensed to
distribute wireless infrastructure. But on the left, if the 5G applications are coming and the operators
want their own poles, theirs a chance for (inaudible) to have, co-locate multiple operators on the same
pole, and you extend the shrouding, the ray dome, in the picture on the left. Pretty much all I would
share.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Any questions of Mr. Digino? Rochelle Swanson, to be followed by Jeremy
Stroup. [phonetic]
Rochelle Swanson: Good morning, Chair and commissioners. First, I want to thank you for holding this,
and I really wanted to take a moment to appreciate staff, who were able to come in and provide
additional information. You see the information today. I'm the government affairs manager for Northern
California for Crown Castle. I appreciate that we all have an opportunity to be part of the public comment
because, you know, we're here, and we're working in the community. I wanted to follow up on the
request for a workshop. I won't be able to be here on the 27th, and I would hope that you could include
that as part of your recommendation. The workshop ideally would be made up of members of the
Architectural Review Board, the Planning and Transportation Commission, the Council, carriers, both the
CLECs and the ILECs, and ideally the public. I think the first public commenter who went before the
break brought up some good points about being able to be included in the process. And what my
colleagues have talked about between the 4G and 5G and the limitations of design, currently the way the
ordinance is written, the envelopes are pretty small, which means most are going to fall outside an
exception. Which is good. That means we're still going to be part of the public process. I think part of the
concern is also recognizing the 60 to 90 day timeline for the new shot clocks under the order, as well as
you've seen in previous applications, that the smaller form factor is going to result in additional poles.
And there's only so much current vertical real estate within the city, and the potential to have to erect
more poles so the carriers can actually do their deployment. I think one thing we can envision in the
workshop is also being able to have an in-depth, iterative conversation also about maybe some co-
location by design. That is (inaudible) Crown, is being a neutral host, and we're not the only ones, so,
referring back to the pedestal design in Cupertino. Or, as Vijay mentioned, the trash can design. We are
working on that with another city, and I actually drove past three of them on Hamilton, which is pretty
much the exact same design except where it shares a trash and/or recyclable receptacle as well as the
radio equipment. I completely respect that you guys are trying to meet the April 15th guideline to be able
to have that incorporated, but being able to have a workshop maybe outside of that, I think could maybe
help everyone feel like they're part of the conversation, and to have something that moves it forward.
Because I think you guys have been clear, you're not trying to prohibit coverage, you’re just trying to
make it to where it fits within the character of Palo Alto. And I've seen that work in other places, and I
think it would be great if we could do it here. Thank you.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Jeremy Stroup, to be followed by Mark Grabisch.
City of Palo Alto Page 19
Jeremy Stroup: Good morning, staff and members of the Board. My name is Jeremy Stroup. I'm with
Vinculum Services, here today...
Chair Furth: I'm sorry, you're with whom?
Mr. Stroup: Vinculum Services, on behalf of Verizon Wireless. We're here this morning just to show
support of staff's direction to reward streamline designs within an administrative approval. We do believe
the current proposed design standards require a revision to accommodate Verizon Wireless's minimum
equipment requirements, and we are committed to working with staff moving forward to find common
ground. We also encourage ARB members to provide staff with affirmative direction regarding the wide
range of design options provided in the staff report today. Finally, Verizon Wireless would have the ARB
reaffirm support for the Verizon Wireless Cluster 1 design approved by this ARB on March 18, 2018, as
well as considering integrated pole designs like the Cupertino example, and the equipment shown in the
San Francisco example. Thank you for your time.
Chair Furth: I have a question for you. Would you support the concept of community workshops
continuing to work on this, and maximizing co-location?
Mr. Stroup: We would support a workshop. We've been working with City staff in that kind of respect in
the last couple of weeks. We like that idea.
Chair Furth: And what's your position on co-location?
Mr. Stroup: Co-location is always something that we look for as opportunities, as long as it fits our
equipment design and structurally, it's something we feel we could support.
Chair Furth: Does Verizon have co-located facilities in Northern California?
Mr. Stroup: We have many co-located facilities. Are you talking for small cell nodes? I think you're
specifically meaning small cell?
Chair Furth: What we're getting these days.
Mr. Stroup: We don't have any co-located small cells at this time that I know about, but we do have
macro sites that are co-located all the time.
Chair Furth: Do you have any notion of, at full build-out, how many small cell sites you want in the city?
Verizon would want in the city?
Mr. Stroup: Well, we have a proposal right now of 93 nodes that we're working with.
Chair Furth: Does that cover the entire city?
Mr. Stroup: That's correct.
Chair Furth: Ninety-three in the city.
Mr. Stroup: Correct.
Chair Furth: 4G or 5G?
Mr. Stroup: Currently, right now, we're looking at 4G designs.
Chair Furth: And if you went to 5G? Do you have any notion of what that number would be?
Mr. Stroup: I don't have that information right now.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Stroup: Yep. Thank you.
City of Palo Alto Page 20
Chair Furth: Mark Grabisch.
Mark Grabisch: I'm Mark Grabisch, I work on, more directly, AT&T. As you know, we have preliminary
Architectural Review Board on 17 applications that we proposed...
Chair Furth: Could you spell your name for our transcriber?
Mr. Grabisch: Sure. [spells name]
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Grabisch: And we're supportive of the process the City is going through and appreciate all the staff
time and effort that's gone into proposing the standards. We do have a few concerns in terms of, again,
like Verizon mentioned, the standards as proposed would be restrictive to the minimum design standards
that we have. Based on our equipment right now, I see that we have a 15-inch diameter restriction, and
in our applications, our 5G equipment requires about a 22-inch diameter, and that's just based on the
technical requirements for the radios themselves. I know that noise has been a concern for the city of
Palo Alto, and for 4 or 5 radios, we really made sure we can reduce a noise factor by having passive
cooling instead of active cooling. In order to have passive cooling, you need heat dissipation so that the
wider radios are required to allow for passive heat dissipation versus having active fan units that produce
noise. A minimum form factor would, from AT&T's perspective, needs to at least meet our minimum
technical requirements, which is, really, a lot of it is a result of the noise complaints from our ODAS that
we built here in Palo Alto. And to the extent that our networks are increasing in capacity demands by the
hundreds of thousands of percent... As you know, we put the ODAS here in Palo Alto and that's still not
sufficient...
Chair Furth: Excuse me, could you explain for our transcriber and people generally what an ODAS is?
Mr. Grabisch. It's an outdoor distributive antenna system. It was kind of a precursor to the small cell
facilities that you see now. It's lower-powered radios that have smaller form factors so that we can blend
into residential neighborhoods on wood utility poles in public rights-of-way. Obviously, the small cell
technology is an evolution of that, essentially, that provides an even smaller form factor that would blend
in within right-of-way infrastructure. We do obviously have a concern with the volume restrictions. If the
preference is to go to the smaller form factor, as was mentioned, that means that we'd have to produce
a larger number of site to get the same coverage, versus if we went with a larger, we call it a micro-sized
radio. That, again, would give us more propagation, and either way, the propagation in terms of EME
[phonetic] output is significantly reduced relative to a macro facility. I mean, we're talking in terms of...
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone)
Mr. Grabisch: Okay. Okay. Well, the nature of these facilities is that they are much lower powered, they
don't propagate as far as, say, a big tower that you're used to, right? And we're talking to the extent of
these being within a percent or two of the FCC threshold, so we're anywhere between one and three
percent of the allowable FCC threshold. Obviously, even though cities aren't able to make decisions based
on EME output, the concerns that are out there on a residential perspective, I think they're not really
understanding the difference between a full-blown macro tower and the facilities that we're placing in the
rights-of-way now. From a co-location perspective, I know you had a specific question to that. AT&T
would be supportive of co-location. It also depends on if that co-located facility is a match for the
network need to where we have to place facilities. Other carriers have different network needs, so they're
designing their networks based around where they need to fill the need, and that co-located facilities
might not be a match, and we'd still have to put a facility where we need it.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
City of Palo Alto Page 21
Board Member Hirsch: I have a question. You're selecting minimum number of pole locations, or can you
maximize the pole locations and reduce the size of equipment?
Mr. Grabisch: The size of the equipment is the smallest form factor. Particularly, what we're currently
proposing in Palo Alto, that is the smallest form factor that we have available to us, to fill the capacity
needs on our network.
Chair Furth: And what's the typical spacing between them? I know there's lots of variables, but what's
the typical space in between installation?
Mr. Grabisch: Again, the variables here in Palo Alto, depending on...
Chair Furth: Let's say a section of the city with low-rise housing and few trees.
Mr. Grabisch: I would say our propagation goes to about 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet. Again, that's... There's
very minimal instruction.
Chair Furth: I understand. So, at the optimal, from our point of view, most distance between installations,
1,000 feet?
Mr. Grabisch: About 1,000 feet.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Board Member Hirsch: I have another question. The size of your 5G, you didn't give us a size. You said
it's width is wider, but the size is the vertical, horizontal, etc.
Mr. Grabisch: The radios themselves, they're about 7 1/2 inches deep. They have another inch and a
quarter, two inches of attachment bracket, so, when you add that together with the pole width, you're
looking at about 22 inches in width off the pole. The height of the radios, again, is roughly 7 1/2 inches,
as well. We do have a shroud that we've used, that we've proposed, to conceal the cabling for fiber and
power. You can't see lights either that show the active components of the radio. The shroud itself is
longer because it has to have ventilation to allow for the air flow, but it's roughly about 8 to 10 inches.
Again, it's larger than the radios because we need to add for the ventilation.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Board Member Hirsch: Do the location of those 5G facilities, they're not included in the 4G portion of
the...?
Mr. Grabisch: That's correct. Our current proposal is for 4G equipment including radios and antenna to be
mounted above the pole, above the mast arm, and the 5G would be an additional equipment component
that's placed just below the mast arm. And in terms of the densification, which is the number of facilities,
within the 4G standard that I mentioned right now is about 1,000 to 1,500 feet. With 5G and the
standards and the latency and the capacity to meet a 5G standard, you will probably see that
densification increase.
Chair Furth: What do you think the spacing might be in those same optimal conditions we described
earlier?
Mr. Grabisch: I can't say that at the moment. I'm not clear because, again, this is brand-new technology
and we're actually looking to test the equipment this year and deploy it this year. A lot of it...
Chair Furth: It could be as low as 200 feet?
Mr. Grabisch: It's really going to depend on the bandwidth and capacity that's available within the
network. When we deploy these 4G facilities, it's going to have an impact on the further densification
required for 5G.
City of Palo Alto Page 22
Chair Furth: The 5G equipment would be supplemental to the 4G, rather than replacing it?
Mr. Grabisch: That's correct. In order for the 5G signal to propagate, currently it needs to work with a 4G
layer of technology.
Chair Furth: If we require more facilities to be installed, if you all require more facilities for 5G, you're
going to be installing more 4G?
Mr. Grabisch: Not...
Chair Furth: No? Something.
Mr. Grabisch: In the future, the expectation is that we can go with 5G-only facilities. It's all based on the
core that we don't have built out yet for 5G, and currently it does require a 4G layer to work.
Chair Furth: Thanks.
Vice Chair Baltay: Can I ask...? I understood one of the applicants to say they're proposing 93 small cell
nodes throughout Palo Alto to get coverage. I heard them just say of the entire city, 4G cells. I
understand you've proposed 17. Does that mean that you're not having 4G coverage of the entire city
with small cell nodes?
Mr. Grabisch: Currently we have no small cell nodes deployed in Palo Alto. We do have, again, our ODAS
facilities that are providing a 4G signal, and we do have our macro facilities. The small cell technology is
really not to add coverage, it's to add capacity. It helps efficient use of our spectrum by offloading the
macro facilities. These are the larger towers that could be on rooftops, or stand-alone monopoles. The
small cell offload the capacity on those networks by bringing the signal to where the users are needing it
most, so that they can get a better signal, increased capacity, and it offloads the network for the larger
propagation needs in the area.
Vice Chair Baltay: Another way to drive at what I’m after is to say you're going to need more of 4G
facilities than the 17 you've currently proposed.
Mr. Grabisch: We don't have more currently planned, but again, these demands increase as we look at
the traffic, and as phones become more capable, as new apps get developed, it's really all dependent on
how the users are utilizing and putting demands on our network. So, right now, this is what we have
planned. If we start to see increased demand, we'll have to plan for more facilities.
Vice Chair Baltay: If I could ask, how long have you been in this business?
Mr. Grabisch: Personally, I've been in this business about 20 years.
Vice Chair Baltay: Okay, so, what's your guess? Are you going to need more facilities in the next five
years? You've got 20 years of experience.
Mr. Grabisch: My guess is, as soon as more 5G devices are out there, the internet of things, smart city
devices - Yes, there's going to be a need for more facilities.
Vice Chair Baltay: Can you quantify any way...? Right now you have 17. How many more? Another 17?
Or 170?
Mr. Grabisch: I couldn't...
Vice Chair Baltay: Twenty years of experience, you can't give us a bit of a guess?
Mr. Grabisch: When I started I was wondering if I was going to be putting myself out of business by
putting up the towers that I did 20 years ago. I had no anticipation of seeing the need that's out there
now. Again, we're talking exponential increases.
City of Palo Alto Page 23
Vice Chair Baltay: Okay, so it's complicated.
Mr. Grabisch: It's complicated.
Chair Furth: We only have 6,000 street lights, you do know that.
Mr. Grabisch: Right.
Board Member Thompson: I have a question also, and this is maybe for (inaudible). I didn't hear you
mention the trash can solution, but if that were the case, would the City agree to maintain that part of it?
The trash would be serviced by the City? Just curious about how that would work operationally.
Mr. Grabisch: From our perspective, yes, that's not a service that we take on. As a carrier, you probably
don't want us to take that on. One of the concerns...
Chair Furth: You do visual blight, not trash collection. Anything else you'd like to say before you leave?
Mr. Grabisch: Well, just the point that was made in terms of restriction on new poles. As a utility provider
in California, we do have the right to, under 7901, to place new poles, and as you mentioned, there is a
limited number of vertical, 6,000 streetlights in the city of Palo Alto. It would be, you know, whether it's
through the workshop or other, but the consideration of new poles, integrated poles, are certainly things
that we can do. Not being restrictive on where we can place facilities, like in a gateway, instead of it
being categorically excluded, if we can work through a design that fits and blends in, that would be...
Chair Furth: You would be in favor of participating in a design workshop.
Mr. Grabisch: Absolutely. Yes.
Chair Furth: I know you have rights to certain poles. You or Albert can answer this. Which poles do
AT&T, in its category...? You know, it's a telco.
Mr. Yang: I think the comment from Mark and from one of the earlier commenters had to do with
placement of new poles that don't currently exist, and as drafted, standards just say if you want to place
a new pole, you have to go through the City standard process for applying for that new site. We already
have a process where our Public Works department and our Utilities department will consider those
requests. You have to go through that process.
Chair Furth: Is AT&T in a different position than other people who come to us with telecom facilities
because of its traditional role in telecommunications?
Mr. Yang: I can't answer that right now.
Chair Furth: I can't remember either, but I know that the pole agreements are different for some of those
folks, and their universal California rights to a franchise. Thank you.
Mr. Grabisch: Thank you.
Chair Furth: All right. Let's start with questions for staff. Alex, any questions? Peter, any questions?
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes, for staff. Three questions about the proposed ordinance. Is there any form of
public notification or comment provided for in this ordinance?
Ms. French: The Planning and Transportation Commission has advertised in the newspaper.
Vice Chair Baltay: I'm sorry...
Chair Furth: Under the ordinance.
Vice Chair Baltay: Once the ordinance, if the ordinance is put into effect...
City of Palo Alto Page 24
Chair Furth: Really a question to Albert.
Vice Chair Baltay: ...is there a procedure by which the public is notified of an application and has an
opportunity to comment on the application?
Mr. Yang: Actually, I'm not sure. Maybe Amy can help with... Oh, that's right. There are notice cards that
go out within a certain radius. We also require carriers, before they submit the application, to hold a
meeting, a community meeting within a certain radius of all these sites.
Vice Chair Baltay: Is that described in the ordinance that you propose?
Mr. Yang: Yes.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you.
Mr. Yang: That's a current feature and it's not changing. You won't see it in strike-out or underline. It's
just already there.
Chair Furth: It's part of the unmarked text in the draft ordinance. I'll see if I can find it.
Vice Chair Baltay: That's good. I just want to be clear, I just received the draft ordinance this morning.
Secondly, there's an exception process, I assume. Can you describe how that works, if the applicant
proposes something that doesn't meet the requirements of the ordinance? Who reviews it?
Mr. Yang: There's an exception process for situations where the applicant asserts that applying the
standards strictly would violate federal law, essentially. In those cases, they are required to inform us
that they're seeking an exception at the beginning of the application process, and supply us with all the
evidence on which they are relying. There's a provision that allows the Planning Director to refer those
applications to the ARB for finding that, I believe it's that the design deviates from our existing standards
to the minimum extent that's technically required. And... Yeah.
Vice Chair Baltay: Is the referral to the ARB mandatory or optional for the Planning Director?
Mr. Yang: I believe it's optional.
Chair Furth: And it's optional under the existing ordinance.
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Vice Chair Baltay: I just want it to be clear. Thank you.
Chair Furth: It's page 9, paragraph G.
Vice Chair Baltay: And then, if someone wanted to appeal one of these approvals under this ordinance,
how does the appeal process work?
Mr. Yang: The appeals go directly to Council, and they can either be placed on consent as the current
ARB process works, or they can go directly to a public hearing. That's likely going to depend on the
timeframe that we have. In most cases, we'll probably go directly to a public hearing.
Vice Chair Baltay: But anyone can appeal these under the same process as other decisions made by the
Planning Director?
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you. That's all my questions.
Board Member Thompson: I don't have any questions.
Chair Furth: Board Member Hirsch.
City of Palo Alto Page 25
Board Member Hirsch: Questions to staff, or...?
Chair Furth: Yes.
Board Member Hirsch: I guess we found out that there's a limited number of small cell facilities within an
area, and that increasing the small cells is a questioned I asked. Does it allow us to minimize the
equipment sizes in any way? Is that your understanding?
Mr. Yang: I don't think that's entirely correct. You were asking a question of a representative of AT&T
who is already using the smallest form factor that's currently available, so AT&T in particular would not
be able to go to an even smaller form factor. They are proposing the smaller form factor that requires
more sites.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Let me come back to it.
Chair Furth: Does staff have an estimate of how many of these small cell facilities we should anticipate in
the next 10 years, seeing that these are good for 10 years? A range is fine. I mean, listening to the
comments, I'm anticipating hundreds and hundreds. Is that unrealistic?
Ms. Atkinson: Staff has asked our sub consultants and a wide, you know, we've been researching that
particular question. We're interested in knowing that as well, and there isn't conclusive information. Also,
our sub consultants have not given us a number, like a density per square mile, and things like that. But
we are continuing to pursue that information.
Chair Furth: The reason that the applications that we've approved or recommended denial, what kind of
density of those small facilities proposed?
Mr. Yang: I can take a stab at this. We're seeing from Verizon that they’re looking for 93 sites to cover
the entire city for 4G. Those are using, for the most part, the larger form factor, so, if we were to require
smaller form factors as staff is proposing in these standards, I think we've heard that that generally
requires about twice as many sites. Actually, you know, perhaps Verizon would need almost 200 sites to
cover the entire city.
Chair Furth: And that's for 4G.
Mr. Yang: And that's for 4G. AT&T has proposed 17 sites right now, but as we saw earlier in the
presentation, I believe they have 72 existing ODAS sites, so we're also looking at about 100 sites there.
Going forward, I don't think we can really project how many sites there are going to be, but that's the
information that we have about what's currently proposed.
Chair Furth: And do you anticipate more carriers wanting to file applications? I mean, is there an effective
duopoly, or are there competitors?
Mr. Yang: I don't think we have a way of really answering that question.
Ms. Atkinson: I think we anticipate applications from those carriers that already have master licensing
agreements, and any new carrier that doesn't have a master licensing agreement, the carriers have
reached out to the utilities about that.
Chair Furth: Who has master license agreements now?
Ms. Atkinson: The name of the entity...
Chair Furth: Just tell me how many. How many master license agreements do we have at the moment?
Ms. Atkinson: Crown, AT&T and Verizon.
Mr. Yang: As well as another carrier's carrier that (inaudible) with Sprint.
City of Palo Alto Page 26
Chair Furth: So, AT&T and Verizon plus two CLECs? Crown and somebody else?
Mr. Yang: That's right. I'm not sure if the other entity is a CLEC, but...
Chair Furth: Something like that, perhaps. Okay, so, four, maybe eight hundred. Thank you. One of the
things that Dr. Chow said in her presentation, was that she thought that if the City found itself approving
facilities under these rules, under the hammer of this existing order, that carriers should be required to
replace those facilities with less obtrusive or objectionable facilities if the rules changed. The draft
agreement, in Section N on page 13 of the proposed ordinance, says that, except as provided in a lease
or license agreement, these are good for 10 years. Is it possible, in your opinion, to do what she's
suggesting? To make the entitlement shorter, and is 10 years the shortest period, and what do our
license agreements say? With respect to time?
Mr. Yang: I believe our master license agreements for right-of-way facilities have 10-year terms, but
they're also renewable for a number of 10-year renewal terms.
Chair Furth: And that's at the option of the...?
Mr. Yang: Of the carrier, I believe.
Chair Furth: Of the carrier, so, they could be infinite?
Mr. Yang: There is a... It's not infinite. I can't remember exactly what the end date is. We also have
leases and license agreements for micro sites that are on City property, and those may have other
lengths. I'm not sure off the top of my head. In terms of whether it's feasible for us to require a
replacement, you know, this is a condition that some other cities are imposing, and that our City Council,
I believe, recently also imposed on a recent application. It's part of the recommended ordinance to
include that as a standard condition. How exactly that will play out, I'm not sure.
Chair Furth: So, an upgrade requirement is part of this ordinance in front of us, but it says they have a
10-year license? A 10-year permit? I'm confused how those go together. You don't need to answer that
now, but were you saying that yes, the City Council is interested in requiring upgrades or modifications,
should that become within our power to do?
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Chair Furth: And you would draft this ordinance not to eliminate it.
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Chair Furth: Thanks. I'm having trouble reconciling the two. Okay. Before we start discussing this, what
staff has asked us for is comments on proposed designs that would be generally seen as okay. If a
proposal came in that complied with those designs, they would be acceptable. They include installations
on poles and light poles, right? Wooden electrical poles, utility poles, utility poles and light poles. They do
not include street furniture. And public, in their comments, have mostly focused on the ordinance, which
will actually be reviewed by the Planning Commission and the City Council. Does anybody have any
comments on the proposed design standards that were in our packet?
Board Member Thompson: I have a question, Chair Furth. The exhibits that were provided on packet
page 52, onward, those are the designs we should be commenting on, correct?
Chair Furth: Staff, you want to take us through your proposal? It starts on page 46, streetlight poles, and
then on 48, it goes on to wooden utility poles. Rebecca, what's the relevance of the illustrations in
Attachment D.
Ms. Atkinson: Thank you very much. We're asking for comments on the actual standards and what types
of design options might or might not be acceptable. In order to help work through the draft
City of Palo Alto Page 27
administrative standards, in order to help understand what types of designs would fall into these
categories, staff put together Attachment D with further comments and notes. If you're talking about the
particular standards for streetlight poles, there are three proposed - underground, integrated pole, and
top-mounted - so we're looking for comments on those particular design options, whether they should all
be included, and so forth. Then there are some general standards for all. And then, for wood utility poles,
there's the underground design, top-mounted design, side-mounted design, minimal sunshield, or
minimal side-mount design, and the strand-mount design. We're looking for feedback on which of these
might work. These are actual draft standards that will be going forward to Council, so we're hoping that
the illustrations and graphics will help promote your discussion on the standards.
Chair Furth: Well, my question is, are those illustrations part of the guidelines, the design guidelines? I
didn't see that.
Mr. Yang: They are not, and what staff will be pursuing is putting together standard drawings that are
more like plans, to illustrate what the designs and the guidelines look like.
Chair Furth: But those won't be part of the guidelines either.
Mr. Yang: Not in the first iteration.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Mr. Yang: We'll work with our Public Works and our Utilities departments to put those together.
Chair Furth: Okay, and I have one other question for the Board. We have members of the Utilities
Department here. Any questions of them? Okay, seeing none...
Board Member Thompson: I have a question of staff. I'm sorry. The trash can option, is that in the
ordinance anywhere, or is that not desired by the City?
Mr. Yang: That's something that we're looking for feedback from the ARB on, if that's something that we
should be adding in.
Board Member Thompson: Thank you.
Chair Furth: At present, you're only proposing design standards that would allow installations on utility
poles, and streetlights, and perhaps underground. Is that right?
Mr. Yang: That's right. We have much broader standards that will apply to proposals to locate on private
property. On rooftops, for example. And as time permits, we'll be working on more detailed and specific
standards for those types of applications, as well. But because almost all of our applications are for these
right-of-way projects, we've always done those first.
Chair Furth: Let's just quickly talk about streetlight poles. It says radio and other equipment may be
placed in an underground vault where space permits. They never required it, correct? Undergrounding is
never required.
Mr. Yang: That's right. It's one of the options.
Chair Furth: If they came to you and said, "We have a new silent thing that doesn't make noise," and it
was a space where the Utilities Department wasn't feeling quite so expansive, it could be done, but it's
never required.
Mr. Yang: That's correct.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Okay, anybody got comments on the proposed designs? No comments on the
proposal? Is that right? I understand that we might want to talk about the whole of proposals, but any
comments on the proposed illustrations, designs, options?
City of Palo Alto Page 28
Board Member Thompson: Yes.
Chair Furth: Go ahead, Osma, Board Member Thompson.
Board Member Thompson: I went through the images in Attachment D and wrote little notes next to each
of them. In general, the designs that were favorable, that were aesthetically superior to others, were
ones that attempted to integrate within the existing pole designs. For example, on packet page 55, on
the left-most image, there's an antenna that looks pretty well integrated with the light pole. There were
other images on here that were...
Chair Furth: Excuse me, are you referring to 12 4G or the photograph?
Board Member Thompson: I'm referring to the photograph. It does not have a ...
Chair Furth: Photograph on packet page 55.
Board Member Thompson: Yeah, but even on these other ones, there were a few that were less
successful. The 12 4G/5G multitenant, I felt like was not successful.
Chair Furth: You're still on page 55?
Board Member Thompson: I am, yeah. That would be the pole that's second from the right because it
has these pieces of equipment that sort of stick out from the pole. But then again, the pole to the very
right, the 16" smooth, seems like a better, more sleek choice. In that sense, that's sort of my
observation. In general, there were some scenarios that seem more successful than others. In a busy
scenario, like on packet page 59 where there is signage in front of the equipment, that's pretty clever. I
don't know that Palo Alto has enough signage. Maybe. Maybe there might be a case one day where we
become urban enough where that would be acceptable. I actually like the trash can solution. That's why I
kept asking about it. I think it's nice to have something that's multifunctional, that blends in with the city,
so I would be open to that as an option as long as the City is willing to service the trash. That's an
important caveat that has to be agreed to. In general, I would say those are probably the most
successful designs that I saw in Attachment D. There were a few others that came close, but I feel like
those were probably the ones that exhibited the most sleek aesthetics.
Chair Furth: Thank you. David.
Board Member Hirsch: I partially agree with what was just said. I think all suppliers should provide an
illustration along with what they're applying for, a 4G or a 5G, on each of the poles, on the assumption
that we're going to get there at some point, and we better see it now. And as just indicated, it's likely to
be a separate piece of equipment on the pole, so I would say it ought to be a requirement of the
ordinance that the 5G is part of the presentation. It seems like there's a lot of different variations on the
4G arrangement and the shroud of it, and that there should be a limitation on the size of that. I have
seen some that seem to be only five or six feet high, and others that are much, much higher. I guess 12"
4G/5G shown on the one that was mentioned, the second from the right, has them both. I'm assuming. I
don't know where the 5G is. Is it in the top? I think in all cases, keeping the equipment on the top of the
pole is essential. I think the only part that is down low is a disconnect switch, and that's the only piece
we should allow at a lower level. I'm not really in favor of the trash can because I think that we have
plenty of paraphernalia on the street. This is really in a downtown area, because it wouldn't be used, I
think, in the community areas on the wooden poles. I would not want to have any more material out on
the street where people need to use the full sidewalk. I also don't like the idea of the bases being larger
than what we normally need to support the pole, because again, it's an obstruction on the sidewalk. I see
there should be some variation in how we deal with the 5G because, in fact, there are other applications
on the pole for signage and for banners, etc. There has to be flexibility in the location of the 5G. Not
necessarily the 4G if it's going to be on the top of the pole. I don't understand... Actually, just noting in
the street pole section on page 46, except provided the top-mounted designed poles and all attachments
City of Palo Alto Page 29
would not exceed the height of the surrounding pole by more than three feet. Does that three feet
represent...? That's in number 6 on page 46, under general standards? Does that three feet represent
something there?
Mr. Yang: That allows for an antenna to be placed at the top of the pole, except in the case of a top-
mounted design, where everything is at the top. Then we need to allow for more space than that three
feet.
Board Member Hirsch: I just don't think there's a three-foot antenna exclusively used in most of these
applications.
Chair Furth: I believe that's what Albert is saying. He's saying all the equipment is up there. Not just the
antenna.
Mr. Yang: That's right. The application you most recently saw in a preliminary review had all the
equipment at the top. I think that was about 5 1/2 or 6 feet that was added at that top. We're saying,
unless you're doing that type of design, you need to keep your antenna to three feet from the top.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay. That works. I haven't read through the ordinance, but are we including in
the ordinance these regulations for sizes of equipment in any way? Or is it limited?
Mr. Yang: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
Board Member Hirsch: The ordinance. Does it indicate other sizes that we're discussing here? Or are they
going to be completely, separately presented? How is that? I don't understand the system here.
Mr. Yang: These are standards that are going to be adopted by City Council resolution. The ordinance is
going to say that you have to comply with the standards...
Board Member Hirsch: Comply with the standards, okay.
Mr. Yang: Yeah.
Board Member Hirsch: It's just going to reference...
Mr. Yang: Exactly. In order for the standards to be more easily updated.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay. Will the standards talk about the vaults, for example, or the potential vault?
Mr. Yang: Yes, they do.
Board Member Hirsch: It does? It minimizes or provides for the size for the vault, location of the vault,
and...? Or is this by ordinance, Department of Public Works?
Mr. Yang: The standards include underground vaulting as one of the options that's permitted, and it sets
for the size. We had a comment from a member of the public about, that we should be allowing larger
vault sizes because that will make it easier to vault. And if that's the direction that the ARB recommends,
that's what we'll take.
Chair Furth: If I could interrupt. What size are you recommending?
Ms. Atkinson: That is listed on packet page 46, and that dimension is the dimension included with the
largest vault. That dimension was compiled from the vault that was the largest that we've seen thus far
in our applications.
Chair Furth: Two hundred and sixty cubic feet.
Board Member Hirsch: I have an additional question here. Suppose we recommended the most minimum
equipment should be used from all suppliers. If we recommended that the most minimal amount of
City of Palo Alto Page 30
equipment should be used, meaning the smallest transmitters and the smallest antenna on the market
today, is that legally allowed?
Mr. Yang: I think we would need to be a little bit more directive than that, but that is along the lines of
what the staff proposed as dimensions, allowable dimensions, at least for streetlight poles allowed. For
streetlight poles, if you don't put it underground, you're allowed to integrate everything into the body of
the pole itself, which is what those designs on package page 55, I believe, show. Or, you can place
everything at the top, which is what the ARB recently reviewed. There is an exception that addresses one
of the comments from one of the industry members that allows you to place 5G equipment which might
not fit within that small shroud in another location.
Board Member Hirsch: Where?
Mr. Yang: Right now, I think we said none near the top of the pole, essentially.
Board Member Hirsch: Near the top.
Mr. Yang: As close to the top of the pole as...
Board Member Hirsch: Yes, good. Aside from other parts of this discussion, we're not likely to select the
actual supplier on any of this equipment.
Mr. Yang: We're not, and that's also beyond the scope of the City's authority.
Board Member Hirsch: In terms of the signage, is that included in the recommendation as to where the
signs would be located? I understand they can be close to the equipment if possible. There is additional
signage that comes along with requirements here. Okay.
Mr. Yang: Yes, that's included.
Board Member Hirsch: That's been also part of the...
Mr. Yang: That's correct, yes. Location of signage is part of the standard.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay. And it can also be as close as possible to the equipment? Rather than at the
base of the pole?
Ms. Atkinson: There's a need for signage to identify the site and have contact information in case there's
any difficulty with the site. That would be the wood poles lower to the ground, and there would be safety
signage closer to the antenna. In the case of streetlights, the signage would be closest to the antenna,
and then, also, where the power disconnect is in the vault, in the street.
Chair Furth: Okay. Alex, any comments on the proposed design standards? Or design proposal?
Board Member Lew: I only have one comment, which is in, like, downtown areas where we have build-to
line requirements for buildings, I think there should be some consideration of the upper floor tenants who
are looking directly into the antennas. I think in one of the recent projects that we've seen, there were
people on, say, on the second floor, second floor balconies, who are looking directly at the shroud. I
think we've heard some statements that the shroud may or may not be possible, where they're open, or
somehow it's screened, or louvers, or something on there. I think we haven't really seen any installations
of that, so I'd be curious about that, if there are ways to minimize the impact on the upper floors.
Vice Chair Baltay: I don't really have any specific design feedback on the proposals in front of us from the
ordinance.
Chair Furth: Okay, let's see (inaudible-off microphone) move on to broader issue of how we feel about
this whole thing and our role in it. I had a question for Utilities, which is: Where in the city do you believe
that there might be space for underground vaults? Let's assume that the noise issues are addressed, or
City of Palo Alto Page 31
city citizens say they'll put up with the noise as long as they can have these facilities underground. Are
there neighborhoods or streets or places where the City Utilities division and the rest of the City would
say, "Yes, you can put in an underground vault." So far, we haven't seen any. We have, for example,
been told that they would not be approved in an area with rolled curbs.
Gregory McKernan, Electric Utilities: Gregory McKernan, Electric Utilities.
Chair Furth: I'm sorry, you still have to spell your name. Even though we should know.
Mr. McKernan: That's okay. [spells name] The question is, where would Utilities be looking to see the
applicant find locations for underground vaults? It's really hard to say because it's a very case-by-case
basis. A lot of the poles that the applicants are finding are already in public right-of-way but on more
main streets than smaller streets. The larger streets have more infrastructure underground for gas,
water, storm drain, and even some of the private fibers go down those routes, too. It's really a case-by-
case basis. I don't know if we could really find a location and say, "Yeah, this is more of a
recommendation."
Chair Furth: Some of our most-concerned citizens live on smaller streets that do not have, they are not
big streets. They're probably not major thoroughfares for large distribution facilities. And yet, even in
those neighborhoods, we've never heard that an underground location would be feasible. Why is that?
Mr. McKernan: I think that was from the applicant. I don't want to talk for the applicant, but what I recall
from meeting with them is that they have a limited range for their conductors from the underground
vault.
Chair Furth: They need to be close to the pole.
Mr. McKernan: Correct. And because that restriction, I think, allotted to either 30 or 40 feet, it's really
impacted tree locations in other existing underground infrastructures.
Chair Furth: It's possible that there is somewhere in the street where it would be possible to put in an
underground vault?
Mr. McKernan: Yes, it would be possible.
Chair Furth: I know it's kind of a silly question, but... It's not an impossibility.
Mr. McKernan: I don't think vaulting is an impossibility. I think it just has very tight constraints. I don’t
want to talk for the applicant.
Chair Furth: I don't want you to.
Mr. McKernan: Yeah.
Vice Chair Baltay: Do you have published maps of where your conduits are underground?
Mr. McKernan: We don't publish those maps to the public.
Chair Furth: After 9/11 those all went private.
Mr. McKernan: Yes.
Chair Furth: Would they be available to an applicant trying to design a vault, somehow?
Mr. McKernan: Yes, we would provide those when part of the application process... And I know when
Verizon went through their exercise for the first cluster, before it was approved, we got map requests
showing, requesting for electric, water and gas. Wastewater, as well.
City of Palo Alto Page 32
Vice Chair Baltay: Is it true that for one of these facilities, if the power is underground in the area, they
need to tie into that power underground, regardless of whether or not they have a vault?
Mr. McKernan: That's a recommendation, so, if there's no... There's a couple questions about that. If
they're installing a vault in the ground with all their radio equipment, for a pole climbing space, it's easier
if they source the power from an underground source of it's located next to the pole. But if it's not within
that immediate pole, then we'd recommend them coming from the overhead. I hope that...
Vice Chair Baltay: Well, I'm thinking more the case of a streetlight, for example, where it's fed from
underground power.
Chair Furth: We're thinking of districts where the City utilities are undergrounded.
Mr. McKernan: Okay, in the districts where the utilities have already undergrounded, then we'd strictly be
talking about streetlights. There wouldn't be any wooden utility poles. In those cases, we require the
applicant to find a low-voltage source that's not tied into our streetlight circuits, because our streetlight
circuits, in some cases, are master controlled, so they might not be able to have power 24/7.
Vice Chair Baltay: But it's likely that they'll have to excavate and attach somehow to conduits under the
ground.
Mr. McKernan: They would have to because there would be no overhead poles to provide the power.
Vice Chair Baltay: Staff, don't we have in this ordinance a requirement that a disconnect switch be placed
in the vault, or in a connect box in the sidewalk, or underground? I saw that written someplace.
Mr. Yang: Yes, that's correct for streetlight poles.
Vice Chair Baltay: Okay, so, some excavation work is going to be required.
Mr. McKernan: For all streetlight poles, the utility requires that new foundations be created to allow the
separation between the applicant, their fiber and their radio equipment conductors, and the utility
streetlight conductors.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Any other questions? Peter, did you have any other comments on the design?
Vice Chair Baltay: No, no comments.
Chair Furth: My comments are, I think the point about second-story impacts are important. We had one
person who testified that she went from her house that was right next to one of these, to her office a few
blocks away, and in each case, she's within feet of these. I think that strand... What do you call them?
Where you sling those from the wire? Strand mount brackets are very unappealing. I think it's regrettable
that we have so many things of that kind with respect to our quite-unlovely cable television equipment. I
myself think that relatively sleek street poles with wider bases could be effective. I prefer that to in-and-
out clutter. I think that the guidelines should push undergrounding of equipment harder, and the City
should consider whether its residents, in some cases, prefer noise to above-ground equipment. I think
that's pretty clearly the case in some neighborhoods, and I think that should always be an option. We're
going to have a public outreach process, so I suspect they'll get quieter in the future, but I think that
should be an option. I think it's interesting that the people who work on providing these services to us -
and I'm about to get a flip phone. Thinking of this rising demand... I just read an interesting Wall Street
Journal article about the rise of the second hardly-does-anything phone. People don't usually take those
to work, so that's not going to help with the demand issue. I think the City should look at the situations
in which street furniture is appropriate. I agree with Osma that refuse cans could be fine. The City has to
deal with a complicated new technology, and we have enormous public distress about it. And we'll talk
about the overall aesthetic impact in a minute. And if that requires us to change the way that we collect
trash, that that requires additional expenditures in order to have less-obtrusive and objectionable
City of Palo Alto Page 33
equipment, I think that's a price we should consider very seriously paying. I would be in favor of it. I also
think it's got to be possible to design useful benches that could work. Having tried, as my colleagues
know, to mail a letter in my usual mailbox, only to discover it's now a fake mailbox and only had telecom
equipment in it, I think it's a very bad idea to install this kind of street furniture -- it's not really furniture;
obstruction, complication -- at the expense of other forms of communication, like the US mail. But I do
think our city, in some neighborhoods, have a street future deficit, and we should be figuring out if
there's a way that we can use those two situations to our advantage. I think that the ordinance should be
clear that it's minimizing the rights to the extent permitted by law and the agreements the City has
already signed, to keep equipment in place when better equipment that's less obtrusive, objectionable
and frightening to people is available. I will say that I don't think the problem of the Palo Alto citizens
who commented, is that they don't understand radiation, wavelengths or technology. I think their
doctorates in civil and environmental engineer are an indication that they are serious scholars and
scientists with serious issues. I think that's it for our comments on these proposals, right? And staff, was
that at all helpful? Was there anything else specific you want to know, Rebecca. And these are
interesting. I'm just sorry we got them this morning. I'm referring to the standard design wood utility
poles from Crown Castle. Oh, and if I haven't already said so, I think also that the City, in moving
forward with these on a slightly less shock clock basis, should distinguish among neighborhoods. That
already happens to a certain extent when you have the streetlights versus wooden utility poles, but
different... You know, David's concern about cluttered sidewalks and what-not is really important in some
areas, but not in others. And I think the City standards should reflect that. Okay. Peter, I know you had
something you wanted to say.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you, Chair Furth. I've given a lot of thought to this recently and over the past
couple of months, and I just want to put out there -- to my colleagues, mostly -- that I think we should
be making a stronger unified statement regarding what we think is an appropriate way to move forward
with these designs. I want to start this by putting some grounding to this. In Palo Alto, architectural
review of these small cell facilities is required by ordinance. I can't cite the statement, but it says very
clearly, wireless communication facilities must receive architectural review. And I don't see anything in
the proposed ordinance that changes that fundamental requirement. What I see is that the proposed
ordinance is really a type of architectural review. It sort of makes it a minor review that goes through
staff, and then, it tries to codify some standards to make it easier. Which makes sense given the FCC
requirements we have. But I think fundamentally have to say that the basic requirement of architectural
review still remains. I think it's very important for us to stand firm on that. The question really is, does
this proposed codification of objectification of these things still meet the architectural review standards?
That's what I want to then put forth to my colleagues. I've drafted a one-page statement, and I'd like to
pass it out to you guys, and then, see if we can either agree to it, or modify it, or come to some
stipulation, this is what we think. With that, I'd like to give this to everybody. I have one copy for staff.
And I'm going to read it, also.
[Passing out statement.]
Vice Chair Baltay: This is based on the reviews we've been making over the past couple of months. I'll
read this for the record: The Palo Alto Architectural Review Board's statement on small cell wireless
communication facilities. It is the recommendation of the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board that all
small cell wireless communication facilities be installed either below grade, or sufficiently above the
ground to be out of the direct line of site of pedestrians. I'm putting in parentheses there, Perhaps 20
feet above the ground, or somehow concealed within existing infrastructure. It's a definition we've
struggled with. The Palo Alto Architectural Review Board has recently reviewed several applications for
small cell wireless communication facilities. Each application has been reviewed for compliance with the
Palo Alto ARB findings. Of note is Finding 2.e, which requires the proposal to enhance the living
conditions on the site and in adjacent residential areas. And Finding 3, which requires the proposal to be
of high aesthetic quality using high-quality integrated materials and appropriate construction technique,
City of Palo Alto Page 34
and incorporating textures, colors and other details that are compatible with and enhance the
surrounding area. I've highlighted those two terms - "enhanced living conditions," and "enhance the
surrounding area." Recently, the ARB has fond that antennas concealed in an integrated shroud and
mounted at the top of either an existing streetlight or utility pole are acceptable design solutions and are
in conformance with the required ARB findings. Two, radio and power equipment concealed by a shroud
and mounted at the top of either an existing street or utility pole are acceptable design solutions and are
in conformance with the required ARB findings. Three, radio and power equipment, either exposed or
concealed by a shroud, and mounted on the side of an existing streetlight or utility pole, are not
acceptable design solutions, and prevent the ARB from making Finding 2.e and Finding 3. Four, radio
and power equipment located within new ground-mounted equipment enclosures are not acceptable
design solutions and prevent the ARB from making Finding 2.e and 3. Applicants claim that their
installations will be carefully integrated and represent a small, minor visual intrusion on the street scape.
The Planning staff has noted, however, that there are an increasing number of similar applications, and
that the number of proposed wireless communication applications and installations is likely to increase.
As the quantity of wireless communication facilities installations increases, small negative visual impacts
will be multiplied, resulting in a significant overall reduction in the aesthetic quality of the street scape.
The Architectural Review Board exists to help safeguard the aesthetic quality of the built environment in
Palo Alto, and it finds that wireless communication facility equipment mounted on the sides of streetlight
and utility poles reduces the aesthetic quality of the street scape and is not in conformance with the
design standards of the city. I don't know if that's exactly what we want to say, but I want to see if we
can come together behind something that we put out there as a statement from the ARB.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Albert, to be clear, under the revised ordinance, the ARB standards would no
longer apply to these facilities. Is that correct?
Mr. Yang: That's correct. Unless the FCC order is invalidated in some way and the City Council repeals
these objective standards, the ARB standards would no longer apply.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Vice Chair Baltay: Are we then changing the ARB ordinance that says otherwise?
Mr. Yang: Can you point me to the section that you're citing?
Chair Furth: I think the... The reason that we review these is because the wireless facility ordinance
currently says that we do.
Vice Chair Baltay: It's section... What? 1876.0.020, 3-D, regarding a description of which projects receive
ARB review. Any project relating to the installation of cabinets containing communication service
equipment, etc.
Mr. Yang: I believe that refers to cable equipment and not to these wireless communication facilities.
Chair Furth: It's your intent... Sorry. It's the intent of this revised ordinance that the ARB not apply its
standards because they are not objective standards within the meaning of the FCC order.
Mr. Yang: That's correct. As a result of the FCC order, we're not permitted to apply our architectural
review standards.
Chair Furth: Okay. And there are a number of City ordinances outside the one that sets up the ARB...
Sorry, I just lost that page. [Looking for correct page.] Okay. Any project relating to installation of
cabinets. That's the cable cabinet, cable equipment that, as that applies to it. I'm looking at 1876.0.020
B-3-D.
Mr. Yang: We'll take another look at this issue, but I think, Chair Furth, what you just read was correct.
City of Palo Alto Page 35
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: Okay. I have one... Go ahead.
Vice Chair Baltay: Again, to my colleagues, I don't want us to get wrangled up in what the legal
requirements of our reviews are, and things like that. We have a city attorney and staff, and they're
working very hard on this under a lot of tight conditions. But, I do want to remind the five of us that we
are here to help safeguard the aesthetic quality of our town. And I think we've consistently felt that when
you put this equipment down at eye level, it just doesn't do that. It looks worse, not better. And I think
we need to state that. We need to say it very clearly so the staff and the public can hear us saying such.
It's just not okay. And a small bit here and there adds up to be a lot. And I want us to just say that loud
and clear, rather than get wrangled up in the details. And the City Council can, in their wisdom, decide
how they want to legislate this. That's not our doing.
Chair Furth: I just have one comment before we all talk, which is that I have felt it is very difficult for us
to make the City's ARB findings on these facilities. They are not drawn up to consider these facilities, and
while some applications are better than others, and certainly some people will consider the availability of
more bandwidth in their neighborhoods a good thing, enhancing their residential living experience, it's
hard for me to see any of these as an aesthetic improvement on existing conditions. I am interesting in
having a statement independent of what... So, that having been said, I am grateful that we are no longer
trying to shoehorn ARB standards into a place where they don't fit, which is FCC-mandated reviews. I
appreciate that kind of contortion being removed. Okay. Comments.
Board Member Thompson: I can start. I'm going to comment on the piece of paper you just sent out,
Peter, and your statement. I have a few edits that I'd like to propose, and we can discuss it. And I'll go
from bottom to up, actually. At the bottom, we have the four stipulations of what the ARB has recently
found. Item #4 is about ground-mounted equipment enclosures. I'd like to talk about that because I
think there are scenarios where that would be acceptable, in the case of trash cans, or even planters. If
there's something that could improve the street scape or improve the aesthetic quality of that street,
then I think it's something that we could...
Vice Chair Baltay: I'm all with you. And benches, as Wynne pointed out, are another good example.
Board Member Thompson: Yeah, if there could be a way that we could make an edit, that even though,
in recent, we have found that, you know, blatantly un-designed ground-mounted equipment is not
acceptable, designed ground-mounted equipment would be acceptable, so long as it enhances the
surrounding landscape. And then, the other note that I would suggest is, this is in the first paragraph,
about equipment should be installed either below grade or sufficiently above the ground to be out of the
line of site of pedestrians. I think it might be worthwhile to add a note that, that if it is above ground,
that it should be designed in a slim line, sleek, site-specific way. I have seen some of the pictures in
Attachment D, where things are above the line of site, and they are gigantic. It's a big lollipop on a stick
over there. I think to stress that we are looking for a sleek, small, slim line design, if it is, in fact, above
ground.
Vice Chair Baltay: I agree absolutely. I didn't want to get into trying to re-write again the proposals that
staff has written. I think they've done a fairly good job, actually, of defining potential shrouds on top of
the utility poles, and all that struck me as a pretty well-done process. I think we can just refer to or
support that. It's the fact that they allow it in the middle area where you see it that bothered me.
Board Member Thompson: Okay. And you're referring to the top-mounted node on page 46?
Chair Furth: Do you have any other proposed edits?
Board Member Thompson: Those are my two notes on this.
City of Palo Alto Page 36
Chair Furth: David?
Board Member Hirsch: The issue of other equipment on the street...
Chair Furth: I think you have to be close to the mic, again.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay. The trash can concept of including some of the equipment in ground items
of that sort, I can understand that in a larger context. I don't see its a possibility in Palo Alto, except
maybe in a few areas. I really think it shouldn't be an open possibility, but is a possibility in very specific
areas where there is enough sidewalk and other amenities on the ground that would, and it wouldn't
disturb the immediate surrounding. I absolutely agree with the minimizing of the facility at the top of the
pole. I also want to comment that even if you state that, it really is important to state that it's
symmetrical to the pole, we've seen different off-the-side kind of concepts or materials that really
wouldn't enhance the look of the top of the pole. There are some that are symmetrical to the pole, or
around the pole, the way it shows on the top. I think that's the only way in which the equipment should
be placed, close to the top so it enhances the look of the top of the pole, not adds another element to
the side of the pole. I'm very concerned about the way the electric comes up the pole. I'm wondering if
there are other ways to bring the electric to the facilities that are on the top. That's not really discussed
anywhere here in these standards. I don't have an easy answer, of course. The metal poles are great for
that because everything goes up the middle, and there are hand holes that you can find your way into
the pole and do whatever maintenance is necessary. But glomming those wires on the side of the wood
pole certainly isn't delightful in the many communities that have the wood poles. I don't know what the
answer might be, and I think it ought to be studied, maybe by Public Works, how that can be done more
aesthetically. And I would add that item somehow to what Peter has written here. But, in general, I agree
with all of what is stated here, except that installing vaults in the neighborhoods doesn't seem to be a
reasonable alternative. An additional problem in the street, you know, things get stuck in vaults, they get
filled up with garbage, maintenance is a problem. I can see maintenance in the downtown area certainly
a better possibility, but not in the neighborhoods with the wooden poles.
Chair Furth: Okay. Alex.
Board Member Lew: Okay, so, I think in general I don’t support the letter because, really, the bulk of the
letter is about Finding 2 and Finding 3, whichever (inaudible) way. To me, the letter is not relevant to the
issue at hand today. I do support many of the things here, but, yeah, the letter, to me, just seems out of
place. In some detail, for example, like item number 3 says radio and power equipment either exposed or
concealed by a shroud, and then, on the side of an existing streetlight or utility pole, they're not
acceptable sign solutions. But, for example, in the packet, there are photos of the Cesar Chavez cell sites.
And that's actually, I looked at those even before this...
Chair Furth: Would you mind giving us a page number?
Board Member Lew: Packet page 58, and it's the image on the left. I've been stuck in traffic on Army
Street before (inaudible) Cesar Chavez Street, and I've looked at them, and I thought that was attractive,
and very nice. And the side equipment is tiny. I don't like these very broad statements, saying that
there's really no situation where it is acceptable. I really don't like those blanket statements, generally.
That's where I am on the letter. I think it's fine to send the letter to the Council, but I think it's
something... I guess it would be backwards-looking, just commenting on previous proposals, because the
findings really aren't relevant anymore.
Vice Chair Baltay: If we were to remove the paragraph regarding the findings, Alex, would you be able to
support it then? I think it would be great if we could be unanimous on something.
Board Member Lew: I think generally the letter is still too broad. Like, there's comments about furniture
in here, like there can be side-mounted things that are very small, that are very discreet. Yeah, and it
seems to me, if you have issues with the design, then it should be put in the objective standards. I mean,
City of Palo Alto Page 37
that's what's going to live on. Any letter that you send to the Council, that will go, and they will think
about it. It won't go into any ordinance or code. It seems to me like the focus should be on the objective
standards. I mean, that's where the energy should be put on and not on this letter.
Chair Furth: I have a thought, I don't know if it helps. I'm generally in favor, I mean, I find this a very
helpful summary of what we've done and what we've learned. When you think back to our first hearings,
I mean, I wasn't here for the original AT&T hearings, but a lot of information has emerged over time,
from the applicants, the citizens, and the City staff, who have all worked long and hard on this. And staff
asked us for comments on a specific set of possible design standards, which will be adopted by
resolution, which means they can be changed frequently. They can be updated relatively easily. They're
not ordinances. And I just heard more from you in your comments to Peter's letter than I heard in our
earlier rounds. For example...
Board Member Lew: I have other comments, but they're not, they're more general.
Chair Furth: Okay. But, I mean, it's helpful to know that the concealed fab dual sun shields, in your
experience, can work quite well in some settings. I guess there are a couple points that I think it might
be useful to make. One of them is to say... Do we have consensus that on the whole, the addition of the
small cell wireless communication facilities does not...? Does have an adverse aesthetic impact on the
neighborhood? In the city?
Vice Chair Baltay: I think so.
Board Member Hirsch: I think so, too.
Chair Furth: Osma?
Board Member Thompson: If it's done well, then it would be okay.
Chair Furth: So you think it's possible.
Board Member Thompson: I think it's possible to do it right. Yeah.
Chair Furth: Alex?
Board Member Lew: I have not thought about it. I would say that some have come to the Board, but not
all of them, and I've gone out there and seen sites that haven't come to the Board, right? There are more
out there than I am aware of.
Chair Furth: [crosstalk]
Board Member Lew: No, they are old...
Chair Furth: AT&T?
Board Member Lew: ... they are old AT&T sites that were, they were approved after the first batch. I
think it was done by staff, is my guess.
Chair Furth: Okay. At least two of us feel that... I guess I would say that I feel that the small cell wireless
equipment installed in the city to date generally has an adverse effect on the street scape and
neighborhoods. And, I would say that there's going to be greatly increased demand for these, for that,
and I would say that the application of... That because these facilities as they have been proposed are
difficult, typically do not visually enhance neighborhoods, the ARB standards are not, at present, likely to
be consistent with the federal requirements that we're facing. That's not a very well put together
sentence. What I would like to say is they don't look good, so reviewing them under ARB standards
makes us go into contortions because we're trying to work within a federal overlay that requires approval
of something, and we have not yet seen something that would meet our traditional ARB standards. I'd
City of Palo Alto Page 38
like to say... I’m trying to find Peter's document again. I'd like to say that we're fine with Item 1, that
those are generally the best design solutions we've found. I'd like to say that you can also design radio
and power equipment concealed by a shroud and mounted at the top of an existing street or utility pole,
and that's acceptable provided that it's a sleek, well-integrated design. I'd like to say that there may be
situations in which equipment can be placed in well-designed street furniture that is otherwise desirable
at that location. And, I'd like to say that there may be other designs that are unobtrusive, sleek, and well-
integrated, that may be acceptable after further review. And that the Board believes that a workshop or
other process to continue to explore these design standards after the urgency standards are placed into...
After the first round are placed into effect, would be very valuable.
Vice Chair Baltay: Let me try to, Alex, counter what you just said about the design of these things,
because I don't actually disagree with you in practice. I think that good architects, good designers, could
design this equipment to go in many places, even within the visual realm that we're talking about. I think
what's missing from you is that that's not the condition that we have here. We're under a very tight
approval process. These applications are generally being done by companies that don't have an interest
in design. Their engineers are interested in the functionality of it. And I think we're not being realistic
when we're saying... I agree, this box you show that's on page 58, the small pod-mounted box is fine.
But that's not what we're receiving as applications, and we're not likely to receive that. And I think you're
trying too hard for the very good rather than being willing to say a broader statement that will fit the
needs right now of the city. And the risk is going to be that we're going to have many of these that are
much worse than this, and we'll be allowing them, and we're giving it our stamp of approval as the ARB.
That's where I'm concerned.
Board Member Lew: If you don't...If we like this, then it should go in the objective standards, right? On
packet page 58. And if there's an example that we've seen recently that we don't like, I would
recommend putting that in the objective standards and saying that this is not acceptable.
Vice Chair Baltay: I just think it's too complicated to try to make standards that are this detailed under
something that's changing this much, with this much restriction from the government...
Board Member Lew: What does your letter do? Nothing. That's...
[crosstalk]
Vice Chair Baltay: I'm trying to give City Council the backup to say, "Look, we just have to make a
broader statement of where these things are acceptable until we have a better process." If they want to
remove the public review process, which is what we are, which is how we could ask for this kind of thing,
then Council has to be aware of what they're doing. That's really the point of this letter. I'm not trying to
stipulate how they have to design it, but rather just to say as the architecture board, I don't want to put
our stamp of approval on something that I think is not going to be as attractive as what you're pointing
to.
Board Member Lew: If we don't like a particular thing, it should be in this document. When the public
sees it, they'll complain, and the Planning Director can refer to the ARB. That's the way it should go.
Then there's something on the table that the companies can see, the neighbors can see it, and staff has
something to work with, and they have something to leverage. I think that's where I am on this. And I
don't disagree with you that some of the recent 5G ones are a little funny-looking, what things will fit on
the side, so I have no disagreement about that. And I'm fine with putting it in, saying that it's not
acceptable. I also think it's fine to put in the letter, saying, like a summary of the issues we've faced. I
have no issues with doing that. But I'm thinking that going forward, we should... What do I want to say?
I think maybe we should separate. Like, there's one thing about going forward, and then, a second thing
is just our view of the existing approval, approval process. Existing approval process for the cell sites.
City of Palo Alto Page 39
Board Member Hirsch: I find this is a, it's kind of a general statement. We're not really talking specific
equipment, and we shouldn't be. But it is important for us to present some generalizations here that will
be directed at the Council, so that they hear us. It's important to be heard on this. I'm not sure that
anybody is going to listen to this hearing and find out what we were saying here, but if we have
something in writing that's general enough. I think we can't solve all the problems. For example, when
we say no equipment should be lower than, so you have a disconnect switch on the pole. That's part of
the equipment. I think someone will pick it up at some point and say, "Well, what about the disconnect
switch?" But I do believe that the general comments made here are important for us to get out, and out
to the Council and to the public people who will be reviewing this further on. So, I am in favor of
presenting it this way, as some kind of a document. And I’m concerned that we shouldn't get hung up on
all of the detail.
Chair Furth: Albert, in the Planning Commission on Wednesday, is going to be considering the proposed
design standards and the ordinance, or just the ordinance?
Mr. Yang: Just the ordinance. If I can make a quick comment. I think what staff actually needs today
from the ARB is specific direction on potential designs. As Board Member Lew said, these are the designs
we are going to be directing applicants to provide us, so if there are things that we propose that the
Board doesn't like, we need to know that. If there are things that aren't in here that the Board does like,
like the sun shield, for example, or a trash can, maybe, you know, trash cans limited to the Downtown
District.
Chair Furth: But you haven't actually proposed all these things, right? You gave us a whole list of cuts,
and a whole bunch of pictures. Are those all staff proposals?
Mr. Yang: No. It should be noted, you know, on each of those slides which ones are actually proposed in
the standards right now, and which ones are not.
Board Member Thompson: Chair Furth, I think he's referring to attachment A and B.
Chair Furth: Right.
Board Member Thompson: Those are the...
Chair Furth: That's the text.
Board Member Thompson: ... that's the text that would be given to the applicant as direction for what
we're looking for.
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone) I would strike item E.
Board Member Thompson: On what page?
Chair Furth: Strand-mount design on page 48. I don't know if anybody agrees with me, but I think they
are hideous.
Board Member Thompson: Is that what the, it's like running on the cables?
Chair Furth: It's what you see on the cable.
Board Member Thompson: Okay. I would concur with that.
Board Member Hirsch: I concur, too.
Chair Furth: They never look good. In my experience. Squirrels like them a lot. Is there a consensus on
that? Page 48?
Board Member Hirsch: Yes on that one.
City of Palo Alto Page 40
Board Member Thompson: I would agree, as well.
Chair Furth: That's three votes.
Board Member Thompson: Could we go to what the sun shield looks like? Is there a picture of what the
sun shield looks like? I wasn't sure.
Chair Furth: Yes. That's the one Alex highlighted for us. I didn't know what the sun shield was either.
Page 58, right?
Board Member Thompson: Yes.
Chair Furth: I'm in favor of that. I don't know, are we in favor of other...? And I would be in favor of a
preference for placing things underground. Albert, what do you think our...? That's an objective standard.
Placement underground unless you deem that it's unfeasible. Why are we not saying that?
Mr. Yang: I think we can. You know, I guess with all these comments, I'd love to have the, not
consensus necessarily, but an understanding from the Board.
Chair Furth: I will try to get everybody. But my question to you is, first, is there a staff objection to
saying radio equipment shall be placed underground where space permits, unless it's not feasible?
Mr. Yang: No objection.
Chair Furth: Okay with you guys?
Vice Chair Baltay: That's okay.
Chair Furth: Is there support for that change?
Board Member Lew: What is it?
Chair Furth: Page 48, wood utility poles, standard design, that now reads: Radio equipment may be
placed underground where space permits...," and I would say "shall," unless not feasible. And feasibility
is usually considered a reasonably objective standard. Albert does not object to that language.
Board Member Hirsch: I object to it because I think that the, these small cell radios are getting smaller
and smaller. The equipment is getting so much smaller. I can't imagine that you really need to say that
for...
Chair Furth: Okay.
Board Member Hirsch: ...a number of locations [crosstalk].
Chair Furth: Let's do a straw vote on this. Go ahead.
Vice Chair Baltay: I support that statement. Wynne's statement.
Board Member Thompson: I do not support that statement.
Chair Furth: Okay, David does not support it. Alex, you are the decider.
Board Member Lew: I think I'm okay with the language.
Chair Furth: All right. Doesn't change. Anything about top-mounted design that we want to change?
Board Member Thompson: I'm okay with the language.
Chair Furth: Side-mounted design. This is separate from the sun shield design.
Vice Chair Baltay: I think we should strike that altogether.
City of Palo Alto Page 41
Board Member Thompson: Could we see a picture of that?
Chair Furth: Talking about wood utility poles at the moment.
Board Member Hirsch: Under C?
Chair Furth: We're talking about...
Mr. Yang: The dimensions in the standards are closest to the farthest right, kind of that gray...
Chair Furth: Except that's on a light pole, right?
Mr. Yang: Yes. But those are dimensionally closest to what we are identifying as standard.
Chair Furth: The one on the...? What page, Albert? I'm sorry.
Board Member Thompson: Forty-eight.
Board Member Hirsch: It's in here.
Chair Furth: I can't see that.
Ms. Atkinson: Packet page 62.
Chair Furth: Yes. Thank you.
Ms. Atkinson: The two images on the right-hand side of the page, the first image is showing the
dimension of the shroud that was previously approved in Vinculum's Cluster 1. The second image is on a
streetlight, yes, but it's more dimensionally accurate to the dimensions that are listed in the draft
standard.
Chair Furth: That's a smaller segment and shroud, right? Which we rejected last time. Okay. Having seen
that, these standards would not allow the larger shroud, which you show in the image, second from the
right, on page 62.
Mr. Yang: That's correct. And they would also require that image on the far right to be a continuous
shroud as opposed to segmented.
Board Member Hirsch: You know, it's hard to make a judgment on something like this, which has been
confusing me quite a lot. Because you look at these shrouds, and you're not really looking at the number
of transmitters that are in here to see what area they are serving. If it were possible to know exactly how
many of these units are going to be in a community, and know how they cover that particular area... This
isn't enough of an engineering presentation for us to make any judgment on it. I mean, in the first place,
it's ugly, but secondly...
Chair Furth: That's a judgment.
Board Member Hirsch: That's my judgment. I can't imagine that we can really understand the intention
here by looking at this image.
Chair Furth: Our choice, because this is going to go forward by April 15th, our choice is to make no
comment, or to comment on standards (inaudible).
Vice Chair Baltay: I think we should strike that altogether. That's the kind of thing that, unless it's done
exceptionally well, really looks well. It looks only a little bit bad on one pole, but there's 6,000 poles in
town, and a good number of them eventually will have this kind of thing on them. Look at those images.
Is that really what we want to put our name on?
Chair Furth: Osma.
City of Palo Alto Page 42
Board Member Thompson: I think it's true that the images we're looking at are not satisfactory. I think
there are ways they could be better. Like, if it was... I don't know, covered in moss, or some kind of... I
don't know. There's something that could make that pole look nicer, add landscaping, or something. It's
true, most of the time side-mounted design looks bad. There is a way to do it right, I think, so I don't
know if I would be in support of striking it altogether at the moment.
Chair Furth: Remember, these are standard designs, these are safe harbors, these are, if you do this,
you're going to get approval. Right, staff? Staff is nodding. We don't have to draft language, but we
could tell staff that we believe it is possible to design an attractive side-mounted facility, but you haven't
done it yet, you haven't shown it to us yet. So, in the short run, no safe harbor.
Board Member Hirsch: Furthermore, it isn't symmetrical, which is an item I brought up before.
Chair Furth: Symmetry matters to at least one board member. Alex?
Board Member Lew: I don't understand that comment. What you're saying, if there are three...?
Chair Furth: Which symmetry?
Board Member Hirsch: Symmetry means both sides of the pole, in this case. If it were...
[crosstalk]
Board Member Lew: I don't support that.
Chair Furth: I don't support that.
Board Member Thompson: I also would not support that.
Board Member Hirsch: Not in this location, certainly, but if it were mounted closer to the top, and
mounted symmetrically and minimized, it might look significantly different. It would relate at least to the
antenna, and wouldn't be an obstruction lower down, which I think is part [crosstalk].
Board Member Lew: I think you use one side of the pole to climb up. I think that's why they don't....
Right?
Board Member Hirsch: Excuse me?
Chair Furth: They need to leave one side free for climbing.
Board Member Lew: Yeah, one side is for climbing and the other side is for the equipment.
Chair Furth: I find I'm not distressed by it only being on one side. I do think there are two approaches,
you either try to make it disappear, or you try to make it something worth looking at. And at the
moment, this one does neither. I mean, I can imagine...
Board Member Hirsch: We're not designing...
Chair Furth: ...streetlights... No. We're talking about both. Streetlights... There are good-looking electrical
poles. There are good looking guardrails. Caltrans has a whole assortment. Some of them are basic and
horrible, and some of them are really quite well designed. And some designs just attract your eye, and
some designs... Well, they all are designed to be visible. But anyway, my request to staff would be that
you tighten up the side, make side-mounted designs not, you don't have a safe harbor yet. And that you
indicate that designs would be considered and reviewed, but that they would not be a safe harbor yet
because we don't have a good enough design for us to sign off. Is there any objection to that approach?
Vice Chair Baltay: That seems like a good compromise.
Board Member Thompson: I'm okay with that.
City of Palo Alto Page 43
Board Member Hirsch: I could go along with that redesign.
Board Member Lew: I think I'm... I think, isn't that what the staff is trying to do with the fourth image?
You're trying to make it even smaller than anything that we've seen before?
Chair Furth: And uniform.
Board Member Lew: Like, on 62, right?
Chair Furth: Right.
Board Member Lew: I think, if I understand Albert's description, I think we're saying that that's the
dimension that you wanted to be one continuous shroud. But this is something smaller than anything
we've seen. Like, the things that we've seen before, it's, like, the third image.
Chair Furth: It's 15 inches wide, still. Is that right? It's 15 inches wide. Okay, so, Alex, are you
comfortable...? You would support the staff's recommendation as a safe harbor?
Board Member Lew: I’m not opposed to what you're proposing. I'm thinking that...
Chair Furth: I'm expecting that you'll get this back.
Board Member Lew: That's fine.
Chair Furth: So, that's our suggestion there.
Board Member Hirsch: Are we asking that this safe harbor happens before...
Chair Furth: They're going to put it in place...
Board Member Hirsch: ...the application?
Chair Furth: ...before April 14th.
Board Member Hirsch: That's right. What is the sense of our asking [crosstalk]?
Chair Furth: Staff has asked us to give them our thoughts on changes they might make in this proposal
before they adopt it.
Board Member Hirsch: But we're not going to review them. We don’t have time to review them. Is that
right?
Chair Furth: No, but frequently staff listens to our thoughts and implements them. Everything we do is a
recommendation. And yes, we'd like to see further designs. That's a good point, David.
Board Member Hirsch: Are we saying that height is not a problem here?
Chair Furth: We're not saying anything on that score.
Board Member Hirsch: I think we ought to. And it's part of...
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: You want it shorter? Taller? Higher up? What's your thought?
Board Member Thompson: I think the height limit is noted in Item C.
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: Oh, sorry, yes, 40 inches, or 50 inches if it's smaller. Forty by 15 by 12, or 50 by 13 by 7.
Board Member Hirsch: Location on the pole.
City of Palo Alto Page 44
Chair Furth: That's what I thought you meant.
Ms. French: You're talking about height above grade.
Board Member Hirsch: Yeah, height above grade.
Chair Furth: And what would you suggest as a minimum? Or maximum?
Board Member Hirsch: Peter has it in his proposal.
Chair Furth: Twenty feet?
Board Member Lew: I don't support that. Because there's... I forgot the name of the, the diagram, where
the utilities have to be separated by a certain amount, and I don't like throwing out a number like that
based on nothing. There's no basis for the 20 feet.
Chair Furth: Okay. Have staff look into the issue of height?
Ms. Atkinson: Packet page 49. There's an item listing height, and there are items 7, 8, 9 and 10 that
speak to height.
Chair Furth: But they don't speak to where on a pole you would attach this side-mounted equipment. Is
that right?
Board Member Lew: That's the GO 95, it's that diagram.
Chair Furth: Yeah.
Mr. Yang: We understand that there is an interest in staff taking a look at where on the pole, to add
some sort of height regulation.
Chair Furth: [crosstalk] agreement.
[crosstalk]
Mr. Yang: And we'll take into account existing utilities when we look at that.
Chair Furth: Thank you. Minimal sun shield designs? Do we agree that they are pretty good?
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes.
Chair Furth: We like those?
Board Member Thompson: I think they're okay, yeah.
Chair Furth: And we don't like the (inaudible) design. Okay. I don't have any comments myself on
general standards for all WCFs (Wireless Communication Facilities) located on wood utility poles. Did I
completely miss standard streetlights?
Board Member Thompson: Yeah, I think we should go back...
Chair Furth: We should go back. Sorry. They're probably more important. Forty-six.
Board Member Thompson: There's only three.
Vice Chair Baltay: Excuse me, Wynne. General standard number 6 is the one regarding the 5G antenna
stuff. I was uncomfortable with that when I read it earlier.
Chair Furth: Which page are we on, Peter?
Vice Chair Baltay: Page 49.
City of Palo Alto Page 45
Chair Furth: Equipment that cannot propagate an adequate signal? That one?
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes, that one. It just seems to me a pretty wide loophole.
Chair Furth: Yeah, we don't want it strand-mounted. Do you have to?
Board Member Thompson: Is it talking about strand-mounted?
Chair Furth: Yeah. It's a loophole.
Board Member Thompson: Oh, "may be strand-mounted." Got it.
Mr. Yang: What we understand for 5G equipment on wood poles, they need to have a two-foot
separation from the pole itself, so we're likely either looking at some sort of arm sticking out from the
side of the pole, or, I guess in our estimation, strand mounting was for those 5G radios and antennas, a
potentially superior alternative.
Vice Chair Baltay: Well, I suggest we should add that it should be added near the top of the pole if it's
going to be sticking out from the pole that much.
Mr. Yang: There are additional technical limitations about how high they can be because of signal
propagation issues.
Chair Furth: And personally, I would prefer a brace, a straight pole, rather than a sagging strand. I think
they're particularly unfortunate.
Vice Chair Baltay: Absolutely on the strand, but this basically invalidates a lot of what we're talking about,
because as soon as we have 5G antennas, they can be anywhere, sticking two feet off the pole, and this
allows almost any configuration. What's the point of all this, then?
Unidentified??: (inaudible-off microphone)
Chair Furth: Yes.
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes.
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: ...minimize the amount of this. Oh, I thought David's point about, if you're coming in with a
4G facility, tell us how you're going to modify it for 5G, is a good idea. I don't know, I think we all agree
that would be a good idea to implement. Light poles, thank you.
Board Member Thompson: Wait, hold on. The equipment would be sticking out two feet on a brace?
Chair Furth: Mm-hmm. If you look at an existing wooden pole, you'll see lots of them.
Board Member Thompson: Right. Okay.
Chair Furth: If they're going to be two feet from the pole, they're either going to be out there on a brace
or they're going to be out there on a wire.
Board Member Thompson: And we're not okay if it's on the wire?
Chair Furth: I'm not. I just think...
Board Member Hirsch: I'm not.
Chair Furth: ... they look terrible.
Vice Chair Baltay: Again, we just have so little information of what it will really look like.
City of Palo Alto Page 46
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: Okay...
Vice Chair Baltay: The better answer is just to say no to most of it unless it comes back for review on a
detailed level.
Chair Furth: We can't... Anyway. So, you have a sense. We don't like this.
Ms. French: There's a little confusion; we just want to clarify. Albert and I think that you are scratching
the thing that says "strand-mounted" out of number 6, and Rebecca thinks that you're scratching all of 6.
Which is it?
Chair Furth: Just the "strand-mounted," at the moment.
Ms. French: Okay, thank you.
Chair Furth: We would rather not have six, but I think Albert has indicated to us audibly that he need
something that will allow this kind of equipment. Is that correct?
Mr. Yang: Yes.
Chair Furth: Yeah, he wants a two-foot separation. We can't do everything. I think some of the things we
can do are better than nothing. That may not be the case. I will say on noise that the City should revisit
its noise standards and find out which is actually worse, the noise or...? There should be some kind of
neighborhood input into that. Some people I think do find the noise very troubling, and we may not have
heard from them enough. Any comments on the streetlight poles, which start on page 46.
Board Member Thompson: For both streetlight and wood utility poles, how does the Board feel about
adding ground-mounted, to permit ground-mounted equipment, so long as it goes through review? Like
in the form of a planter, or...
Chair Furth: If it's located in otherwise-desirable street furniture?
Board Member Thompson: Yeah.
Chair Furth: Yeah. I'm in favor of that. David?
Vice Chair Baltay: I just don't see how you define it.
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: We don't have to define it, but right now, they've eliminated it, so we're never going to see
it. We're going to see all kinds of stuff attached to poles that perhaps, in a particular location, could go in
subtle street planters, and that would be better. Why would we eliminate that at this point?
Vice Chair Baltay: Because it's going to be not-so-subtle street planters we're going to see, and what
we've seen, 90 percent of what we do see, the images in front of us are the not-so-subtle type.
Chair Furth: Okay, so, we would want that to be reviewed.
Ms. French: (inaudible-off microphone)
Chair Furth: Yes.
Board Member Hirsch: Show us where the exceptions might be.
Chair Furth: Actually, I've got another one for staff. It would be great if staff would present, would
develop examples of suitable street furniture that could be used for these purposes in appropriate
City of Palo Alto Page 47
neighborhoods. Then there is an incentive to the people sitting out there to do it. Is that made simple?
Counsel says yes.
Vice Chair Baltay: I think the trash can we saw earlier would be a really clever idea. It's hard to see
arguing with a trash can that doubles-duty.
Chair Furth: There are lots of frontages along city parking lots that have spaces that could be used this
way. I mean, the city is littered with...sorry. Depends upon... large utility switching facilities, which are
anything but lovely, and we would rather not... We put them up all the time, and we would rather not do
that, but there are those spaces that could be better used.
Vice Chair Baltay: I would like to add on a streetlight poles, Item C on page 46, that they should be
stylistically consistent with the existing streetlight and pole.
Chair Furth: Why would we not say that... Would we say that all equipment "shall" be enclosed in a
shroud, rather than "may?"
Mr. Yang: Yes, we'll make all of those changes. We already also have the requirement that the poles be
stylistically consistent.
Chair Furth: I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you, Albert.
Mr. Yang: We already have a requirement that poles be stylistically consistent.
Chair Furth: Thank you.
Vice Chair Baltay: Well, what I see you say is that it shall match style and dimension of the existing public
works standards. I'm talking about the existing pole itself. Because the standard is one thing, but some of
the streetlight poles we have are quite attractive. I want to make sure that's what we're matching.
Mr. Yang: We have adopted standards for three areas of the city, for Downtown, Cal Ave, and El Camino.
And as we replace poles on their regular schedule, we bring them up to the standard. What we're saying
is if, you know, any of the carriers are going to be replacing those poles, they need to be matching those
standards in the places where we have them. The three areas. And if they're replacing a pole outside of
those three areas, they have to match what's currently there.
Vice Chair Baltay: And could we remove the phrase, "as closely as possible?" This is section B, I or 1.
Poles shall match existing, etc., as closely as possible. Why do you constantly give them these outs?
Mr. Yang: That's a question about whether or not the Board wants to support the integrated pole design.
If you're in favor of the integrated pole design, where all the radio and maybe the antenna, or maybe not
the antenna, but all the radios go inside the diameter of the pole, that's going to require a pole diameter,
maybe the whole length, or maybe, depending on what the Board directs, just up to a certain height, five
or six feet, that is wider than what we currently have out there. So, what we would be saying is, if you're
going to do that design, you can't exactly match our existing standards for a narrow pole the whole
length, but you have to add the fluting, match the color, and above the height, certain height, match the
exact diameter, as well.
Chair Furth: I'm guessing, based on previous hearings, that before the City opened that door again, we'd
want to see a City-approved design that got reviewed by us, before it went off to become, rather than a,
you know, here's what we're doing in Sunnyvale.
Vice Chair Baltay: I mean, these "as closely as possible" things, Albert, what you're talking about is fine,
but the level of review it gets is minimal. It's just staff under pressure from the applicant. And ultimately,
that's just how you wind up with this hodge-podge of stuff. If the City has these three light pole
standards, then...
City of Palo Alto Page 48
Chair Furth: Does anybody else share my view that there may be acceptable streetlight designs that are
not identical because they're designed to accommodate not just electrical lights in their switching? But
before the City staff signed off on one, we think they should come by us? Apparently not.
Board Member Thompson: Are we talking about something that's on page 54 of the packet?
Ms. Atkinson: Fifty-four and 55.
Mr. Yang: Yes. Yeah, that's right, 54 and 55.
Chair Furth: My sense is that those are not poles that are as, you know... Okay, I guess I need to hear
from everybody. Who supports this as written? Alex?
Board Member Lew: You're talking about B-1?
Chair Furth: Uh-huh. We're talking about integrated pole design where the equipment goes in the pole.
Board Member Lew: Yeah, I understand.
Chair Furth: Staff has informed us that they're going to need bigger poles to do this. Bigger diameters.
Board Member Thompson: But it shall not exceed 18 inches.
Mr. Yang: And we are really just looking for direction. If the Board doesn't like these, that's fine.
Chair Furth: I guess it's a two-level question. Do you think that in some circumstances these might work?
And, are you comfortable with delegating the definition of what those circumstances are to staff?
Board Member Lew: I don't have any issues with the wording.
Chair Furth: You're okay as it's written. Peter, no? Osma?
Board Member Thompson: I'm okay with it as written, but I would also like to note that in what we're
looking at here, they're all kind of different, and in the blue background image, 1, 3 and 6 are preferable
to the others that otherwise have side-mounted equipment on them.
Board Member Hirsch: My opinion, 18 inches is a huge, huge dimension. It's way out of scale with all of
the light fixtures that are downtown. And we should not accept that dimension, even if it means that the
equipment should be mounted differently on the pole.
Chair Furth: What's the existing dimension? Utilities?
Ms. Atkinson: I'm sorry, for the base, or the width of the pole?
Chair Furth: The existing pole design downtown, for example. David was saying that 18 inches diameter
is very big, and I'm asking what the existing diameter is.
Mr. McKernan: I'm to quite sure, but I think it's between six and eight inches. Maybe...
Chair Furth: I beg your pardon?
Utilities: I believe between six and eight inches in diameter at the base.
Ms. Atkinson: And I believe the most recent decorative streetlight pole downtown, the base, like, the
widest part at the very base...
Chair Furth: The part where it flares out.
Ms. Atkinson: Right. Fifteen inches. At the widest point, at the base.
Board Member Thompson: This would only be three more inches.
City of Palo Alto Page 49
Chair Furth: But the base flares.
Ms. Atkinson: Eighteen inches would be allowed continuously up from the...
Chair Furth: That's your proposal?
Mr. Yang: We need direction on how high it should be [crosstalk].
Chair Furth: But that's what you wrote.
Mr. Yang: Yeah.
Chair Furth: One of the things is we don't have a scale drawing, we don't know what they look like now,
we don't know what the technical requirements are. I think you've heard that we believe that there are
circumstances under which an integrated pole could work. Alex is happy with the language that you
have. Peter is not. David is not.
Ms. French: That image is 7.6 feet, is the pole base in that image to the left.
Chair Furth: It's above my head.
Ms. French: And the one to the right as well, 7.6 feet.
Chair Furth: These are very tall streetlights.
Ms. French: Yeah.
Chair Furth: I mean, are streetlights that high?
Board Member Lew: No. Well, they vary.
Ms. French: Twenty-five feet (inaudible). Downtown.
Board Member Lew: I think streetlights on University Avenue are very low. Maybe like... I don't know. I'm
guessing, like, something like 12 feet.
Chair Furth: That's what I'm thinking. I mean, they're not that far...
Board Member Lew: But even on University Avenue, if you look on the corners, there's a different type
that's much taller.
Board Member Hirsch: You look at this traditional streetlight pole and you think that, well, you're going to
change one dimension in there three inches? That's a huge change. It means you have to change the
base, you have to change all the fittings. It isn't going to look like that pole anymore. I think there's good
reason to keep traditions.
Chair Furth: So, at this point, I'm trying to count votes here for staff. Alex supports the language as it
stands. Peter does not. David does not. Osma, where are you?
Board Member Thompson: I'm okay with the language.
Chair Furth: You're okay with the language as it stands.
Vice Chair Baltay: Can I...?
Chair Furth: Yes.
Vice Chair Baltay: ...fly one more thought here? Is there a way we could say that the streetlights need to
match the standards, or have some additional aesthetic review somehow? There must be a process by
which the City has picked the three streetlight pole styles that we have now. It would be nice if we could,
City of Palo Alto Page 50
if we're going to have a new design or a different style, that should also be reviewed the same way. Is
there any way to put that in there instead? To allow the applicant, if they want to propose something
that's different, it has to get additional review.
Mr. Yang: The way to do that is just to not allow it in the standards. Then they could apply for something
different, and we would [crosstalk].
Vice Chair Baltay: If we say it's not allowed here, it's still allowed as an exception and has to get
reviewed specially.
Mr. Yang: Correct.
Chair Furth: Now that you've heard from all of us, you need to absorb... You haven't heard from me. I
think that these may very well be a good idea, but I think the City needs to design the poles, and there
needs to be some design review of the modified pole standard. Incidentally, doesn't that have to go to
City Council, if you modify a Public Works standard? So, I would be in favor of punting this down the road
a few months while you came up with a design, before you said, "Here, put up whatever pole you want
that's more or less like this." Okay. I think that's as much direction as you're going to get from us on
that. Top-mounted design. Straight streetlight poles. What picture should we be looking at?
Board Member Thompson: Is the one where you wanted to add the word "stylistically," here?
Vice Chair Baltay: (off microphone) Yes, at the bottom I wrote, "should be stylistically consistent with..." I
said, "existing light pole," but based on what Albert said, (inaudible) design of the light pole.
Board Member Thompson: I'm okay with that change.
Chair Furth: That's fine with me. Somebody else say "yes" and we can move on.
Board Member Hirsch: I just want to point out one thing about this illustration here, is it has...
Chair Furth: What page are you on?
Board Member Hirsch: I'm looking at the picture in front of you.
Chair Furth: Okay, that is page 56.
Board Member Hirsch: That shows a 5G under the 4G, 4G over the light and 5G below. And I'm very
much in favor of the way that mounting works. If someone wants to add more radios, this seems to be
kind of way to do it. And when I said "symmetrical" before, I really mean something exactly like this.
Completely surrounds the pole as I see it. Is that true, staff? Is the 5G piece surrounding the entire pole?
Clamps onto it.
[crosstalk]
Mr. Yang: Yes. In two-dimension, it's symmetrical.
Board Member Hirsch: It's in two pieces.
Mr. Yang: Yeah.
Board Member Thompson: It's not like a cylinder around it. It's kind of like an oblong....
Board Member Hirsch: I think it's...
Board Member Thompson: ... rectangle.
Board Member Hirsch: ...an irregular kind of cylinder of some sort.
City of Palo Alto Page 51
Mr. Yang: It's not symmetrical, like, a cylinder would be all the way around the pole. It is symmetrical on
two sides of the pole.
Board Member Hirsch: Okay, so, we're only looking at one part of it. The other part is attached to the
opposite side.
Mr. Yang: One of the... The rendering is a three-quarters view, and the plans are from the side.
Chair Furth: Is any portion of the pole visible where this is installed? It completely surrounds the pole.
Ms. Atkinson: Correct. With the shroud included.
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: We're talking about the experience of the person on the street. It's completely surrounded.
Got it. Thank you.
Board Member Hirsch: I think it is, right? It's completely surrounding the pole?
Chair Furth: Yes, it's completely surrounding, no, it is not completely round. Moving on. Any comments or
changes desired to Standard C for WCFs located on streetlights, on page 46 at the top of the page?
Hearing none. Any comments about the general standards that differ from those we did earlier?
Ms. French: Has there been discussion about hiding behind the street signs?
Chair Furth: What hiding behind...? Where is that? Where is that in the standards?
Mr. Yang: It's not in the standards, but it's something that we'd like to know if we should add.
Chair Furth: Page?
Ms. Atkinson: Packet page 59.
Chair Furth: I do remember. It's just I don't know where it is.
Board Member Thompson: I said I was okay with that.
Chair Furth: This is the one that Board Member Thompson said, if we ever got that urban, she thought it
was a good approach. Meaning that we had signs. I don't think there's any support for putting up signs
to do this. Seeing none. Any other comments on this?
Board Member Thompson: I think that's everything.
Chair Furth: I'm looking at the back view. I don't understand what I see if I look... They haven't quite
given us a shot coming up from the opposite side of the sign. What do you see that way?
Mr. Yang: Most likely it's a seven-by-seven box behind the sign.
Chair Furth: That little thing in front of the sign.
Mr. Yang: Yeah.
Board Member Hirsch: Is the disconnect switch we're talking about?
Chair Furth: That's the radio. I think behind is a complicated concept when people are working or driving
both directions, but it could be useful in some circumstances. Any other comments on that?
Board Member Hirsch: What number are we on?
Chair Furth: We're not on any particular number, but they are asking for our comments on that approach.
We're going to all need lunch, I can tell.
City of Palo Alto Page 52
Board Member Hirsch: I'm opposed to that. I just think that these things should stand alone so they don't
complicate other utility issues and signage issues.
Chair Furth: Okay, that's one for, one against. Alex?
Board Member Lew: I can support the signs.
Chair Furth: Alex supports. Peter?
Vice Chair Baltay: Well, I guess I'm fine with it.
Chair Furth: I will say that I think if staff thinks it's useful under the appropriate circumstances, fine, but
we don't think they should be installing signs in order to make it acceptable. Anything else?
Ms. French: (inaudible-off microphone)
Chair Furth: Okay, so, I would like both of these to indicate that street furniture that is otherwise City-
approved street furniture designs, that are desirably located from the point of view of those using the
streets and sidewalks, are an acceptable alternative. And I would add that the ARB should review those
furniture designs.
Vice Chair Baltay: I support that.
Board Member Thompson: I'll support that also.
Chair Furth: Okay, so, that's three. Thank you. I know this isn't easy. Is there a shorter statement that
we can agree upon?
Vice Chair Baltay: I made a few quick changes here. Maybe I'll try once more with...? At the first
paragraph, at the end of where it says, "...direct line of site of pedestrians..." we add, "...all equipment
shall be screened by a carefully-designed enclosure." That's responding to Osma's...
Board Member Thompson: Where is this? Sorry. Oh, this is the letter?
Vice Chair Baltay: Yes. Just adding a sentence that says: "All equipment shall be screened by a carefully-
designed enclosure."
Chair Furth: Fine.
Board Member Thompson: Yeah.
Vice Chair Baltay: Then, I would put that same thing down on, "Recently, the ARB has found," number 2,
"radio and power equipment concealed by..." Instead of a shroud, I just wrote, "carefully designed
enclosure.
Chair Furth: Okay.
Vice Chair Baltay: Responding to that. I think we just strike line number 4 altogether. That's the one
about ground-mounted stuff. There's no way to define that.
Board Member Thompson: Okay.
Vice Chair Baltay: The rest of it, I stand behind.
Chair Furth: I think we had disagreement on side-mounted equipment. And because... How about just
saying "radio and power equipment mounted on the side of existing streetlight or utility poles requires
particularly careful design, and the proposals we have seen have not yet been adequate?"
Vice Chair Baltay: Sure. That sounds...
City of Palo Alto Page 53
Board Member Thompson: I'm sorry, I missed that. Can you say that again?
Chair Furth: I never remember after I said it. "Radio and power equipment mounted on the side of an
existing streetlight or utility pole requires particularly careful design, and the proposals we have seen to
date have not yet been acceptable."
Board Member Thompson: Okay. If we're not all unanimous on this letter, does it even...? I mean, is
this...? I feel like this letter shouldn't really be a majority, right? It should be unanimous. We should all
stand behind it.
Vice Chair Baltay: I would like that very much. I think Alex is the one who is not so comfortable with it.
[crosstalk]
Chair Furth: I would strike the sentence about applicant's claim that installation... I don't want to get in a
claim that there will be no.... Planning staff has noted that there are an increasing number of
applications. And then, as the number of proposed WCF installations is likely to increase, as the quantity
of WCF noises increase, increase of small negative visual impacts will be multiplying, resulting in... Which
could result in a significant reduction of the aesthetic quality... which is likely to result...? If significant
overall reduction in the aesthetic quality of the street scape, you could say, "unless carefully managed,"
but I don't know if you want to do that. Go ahead.
Board Member Thompson: I was just going to say, if we're not all unanimous on this, I wouldn't feel
comfortable submitting this, just because it does represent us as a whole. But what I do think we've done
is we've talked about everything that's on here, and it's made public record. So, in that sense, I don't
know if that's enough for staff.
Chair Furth: Alex, is there any kind of communication from the...? What's your point of view, Alex? Are
you opposed to it?
Board Member Lew: I’m not opposed to the letter. I think I said it before, is that what... It should be
distinguished, what should be distinguished is what we've reviewed in the past, and what we are
proposing, what we recommend going forward. To me, those are two separate things. This sort of puts it
all together.
Chair Furth: I would leave in that we recently reviewed several applications. I'd leave out the stuff about
findings because they're moot. They have been mooted. I'd leave in, "Recently, the ARB has found..."
and have these four observations, as edited here. And then, I'd leave in the stuff, that, Planning staff has
noted there is going to be a lot of these, and small individual impacts can have a large cumulative
adverse effect.
Vice Chair Baltay: Do we have any mechanism through the Chair, that you, Wynne, could write this up
and submit it on our behalf? I don't think we can do this kind of editing right now from here. I think you
have a pretty good sense of what will work for us. Is there some mechanism you could circulate?
Chair Furth: No, I can't circulate it.
Ms. French: I think if you want to agendize it for your next meeting, you can wordsmith. April 4th.
Chair Furth: I feel pretty comfortable with my markup, but if not... Yes, we can agendize it for April 4th. I
don't know who our audience is here at this point.
Vice Chair Baltay: This is a complicated issue. I think City Council will appreciate a concise statement
from the ARB. That's who our audience is.
Chair Furth: Okay, well, let's try to bring something back on the 4th. We'll bring it back on the 4th.
City of Palo Alto Page 54
Vice Chair Baltay: Wynne, can you write up...?
Chair Furth: I will draft something. We can bring it back on the 4th.
Board Member Thompson: If you could maybe email to us...
Chair Furth: No, because that's a Brown Act violation.
Board Member Thompson: Oh.
Chair Furth: But at least you get to read it ahead of time. And write your comments ahead of time. And
send it to staff.
Board Member Thompson: Okay, are we good then, or do we need to do anything else?
Chair Furth: I think we've done everything.
Board Member Thompson: Good. Great.
Chair Furth: I think we're suffering from low blood sugar here. Sheldon, who are your...? Excuse me. Yes,
we're finished with that discussion.
Subcommittee Items
6. 3200 El Camino Real [17PLN-00156]: Subcommittee Review of a Previously
Approved Project That was Conditioned to Return With Project Changes to
Address Architectural Details. Environmental Assessment: An Initial Study
Prepared in Accordance With the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
was Circulated Between December 5, 2018 and January 4, 2019. Zoning
District: Service Commercial (CS). For More Information Contact the Project
Planner Sheldon S. Ah Sing at sahsing@m-group.us
Chair Furth: Sheldon, who are the people who are on the subcommittee?
Mr. Sing: (inaudible)
Chair Furth: You don’t know?
Board Member Thompson: I'll do it. It's fine. We just need to go right now.
Chair Furth: Okay. It's Osma and Peter. Before you go...
Approval of Minutes
4. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for February 7, 2019.
5. Draft Architectural Review Board Meeting Minutes for February 21, 2019.
Ms. French: What about the minutes?
Chair Furth: (inaudible-off microphone)
Ms. French: Okay, put the minutes on the next meeting?
Chair Furth: Yes.
Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements and Discussion Items
Chair Furth: We have another item, which was, we owe the City Council an annual report, on which we
tell them about matters affecting City policy that come to our attention in our capacity as the ARB,
meaning matters that we've noticed about our code. I can give you the exact language in a second. That
City of Palo Alto Page 55
we believe should be brought to their attention. And I had hoped we would have time to discuss what
you all thought should be brought to their attention so I could draft something. I know Alex has given
some thought to protection of small businesses and provided information to staff. Alex is making a face.
Board Member Lew: I was not thinking of it as an annual report. That's come up recently. Council has
brought it up, and they and others have brought it up at the North Ventura plan meetings.
Chair Furth: So, the language is, "The Architectural Review Board should send a report not less than once
a year to the Planning Commission and CCC, for the purpose of communicating the concerns of the Board
with respect to the City's plans, policies, ordinances and procedures, as these affect the projects which
the Board reviews. I'm going to include that in the draft as an issue, Alex. We can see if everybody
agrees or not. Which is the provision of accommodation of small businesses as the city redevelops. The
other items that I recall that we have talked about have to do with small lot standards, have to do with
parking standards. If you think of something, please send an email to staff. And I will bring back a draft,
and you can tell me if it's adequate, inadequate, acceptable, or unacceptable. And I wish I could think of
more of what we...
Board Member Lew: I would just throw out there for the rest of the Board to think about. The architects
in town are very alarmed at how long it takes to get a project approved in Palo Alto. There is a project on
El Camino, and I think it was in the process for maybe four years. It's pretty long. In the past, we've
looked at the number of times a project has come before the ARB, and it's been creeping up, by my
estimation.
Chair Furth: We had a (inaudible) study.
Board Member Lew: I've not looked at, like, cumulative time, though. Cumulative time is sometimes
because of the applicant, or there is a code change, or something. There's a whole number of reasons
why projects get delayed. But it seems to me it's fairly long. If we continue a project, oftentimes it takes,
like, a year or two to get back to the Board. And so much time goes by. I mean, it's hard to even
remember what the original meeting was.
Chair Furth: Right. And the question is, why would it be so long? Because it doesn't take that long to get
on our agenda. Okay. I can add a section that we can do something on that. We have had big
quantitative studies in many colors on those issues, showing, you know, how much of this time is the
applicant not bringing the plans back, how much of it is City staff review, and how much of it is ARB
review. And we could talk about that, and what we thought might help. Because certainly that is a
widespread comment. I'm also interested in saying something about where we clearly seem to add value
to the process. For me, that seems to be in public projects that we get early in their development, rather
than later. Anybody else have any thoughts on that topic that I could include? Alex, do you want to be
part of my subcommittee, writing this thing? I can talk to one person about this.
Board Member Lew: Sure.
Chair Furth: Okay. Alex and I are a subcommittee.
Board Member Lew: I think you have to make it (inaudible).
Chair Furth: I can appoint it. I just did. Alex and I are...
Board Member Lew: (inaudible)
Chair Furth: No. The Chair has the power to appointment subcommittees.
Board Member Lew: Okay, well, I think in the past, we've, I think we...
Chair Furth: Okay, Does it, would it...
City of Palo Alto Page 56
Board Member Thompson: I'm fine with it.
Chair Furth: David? You agree that Alex and I could write a draft for the rest of you to critique, improve,
and otherwise...whatever?
Board Member Hirsch: Yes.
Chair Furth: Is that okay with you, Peter?
Vice Chair Baltay: It's fine with me. I'm just putting my head into this issue. What I think is that every
year, the Chair should issue at the end of their term, and report to City staff. That's what we're doing
right now. I think it's good if we can establish some kind of precedent or practice, that that's what
happens. It's great for the Chair to pick one person to help them do it. That's what the subcommittee is.
I've been on the Board for a couple of years now and it hasn't really happened so far at all.
Chair Furth: If the Vice Chair would like to be...
Vice Chair Baltay: Maybe that statement should be in the report, that this is a practice that we want to
continue.
Chair Furth: Well, the ordinance says we shall.
Board Member Lew: Yeah, it's in our bylaws.
[crosstalk]
Vice Chair Baltay: But the Chair shall be responsible for doing it at the end of the year.
Chair Furth: Well, whatever. It's in the code that we should do it, and we haven't been. Okay. Staff, same
item on the agenda for the next regular meeting, please. Okay, we are adjourned.
Vice Chair Baltay: Thank you.
Adjournment