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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-12-17 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary Minutes City/School Liaison Committee Meeting Page 1 SCHOOL/CITY LIAISON COMMITTEE PALO ALTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT CITY OF PALO ALTO DATE: December 17, 2015 MINUTES FOR MEETING OF December 17, 2015 Opening The School/City Committee held a special meeting in the District Conference Room A at 25 Churchill Avenue, Palo Alto. The meeting was called to order at 8:08 a.m. * All handouts can be viewed in the Business Services Office, 25 Churchill Avenue. Palo Alto Unified School District Representatives: Camille Townsend, Board Member, Committee Chair Terry Godfrey, Board Member Cathy Mak, Chief Business Officer City of Palo Alto Representatives: Pat Burt, Council Member Tom DuBois, Council Member Khashayar Alaee, Senior Management Analyst Approval of Minutes The approval of the November 19, 2015, minutes was postponed to the February 2016 meeting. Oral Communications There were no requests for public comment. City Housing Element The City’s Advance Planning Manager Jeremy Dennis presented on the following slides: Housing Element: 4 required elements, different time scale based on state law. Presentation on Housing Element: -2014-2022 RHNA Goals -Historic Housing Construction and RHNA -Housing Units in Production -Demographic Profile -Program Highlights Dennis explained the housing element is one of the seven required elements of a comprehensive or general plan update. The City adopted within the housing element, a set of required components last year. One of the core components is the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) number. The housing element has added a core requirement for cities to find opportunities for all levels of housing within their communities. The City receives through a very complicated process, a set of numbers that they have to make decisions on to accommodate the different levels of growth. Garcia pointed out that these are not a construction obligation but they are required to plan to accommodate for those units within the City. Townsend asked if this is different from the ABAG numbers. Dennis answered this is the ABAG. Townsend confirmed the data is just for Palo Alto and does not include Stanford. Dennis answered correct; this is just for Palo Alto. Townsend asked if Mak uses this data when presenting on enrollment. Mak answered they do not, they simply use the number of anticipated units. Burt reiterated that the numbers of units are not units that will be constructed and they have other means to better anticipate what will be constructed. Godfrey pointed out that they do look at what is in the pipeline for construction and make a guess using that number. Mak confirmed. Burt asked Mak on what basis do they make those guesses. Mak answered no basis; they simply use the number of homes in the pipeline for construction. Burt asked if they engage with City staff. Mak said yes, they do. Dennis pointed out that depending on the economic factors and policy changes, they may see more City/School Liaison Committee Meeting Page 2 MINUTES FOR MEETING OF December 17, 2015 low income housing or more moderate income housing. Dennis stated part of the housing element process requires they look at specific locations in the City that are appropriate for zoning for the different types of housing units. A map was displayed that demonstrated the different type of sites throughout the City. DuBois mentioned they have had a lot of discussions regarding the commercial area on San Antonio and looking at whether there should be some residential units there. Dennis added they will be bringing back the housing element in February to Council to make these decisions. Townsend asked about the timeline. Dennis stated this current plan is until 2022 but it is also wrapped up in a comprehensive plan update that has a window to 2030. Burt said the Housing Element Advisory Committee already had a good consensus that they would want to move the bulk of those zoning areas on San Antonio to California Avenue and University areas and at the same time change the type of units to smaller units for two demographic needs, young professionals and elderly. This not only affects the location but the impact on school population. DuBois said another other big one is the Fry’s site; they have about 150 out of 200 possible housing units planned in South Palo Alto. Dennis mentioned they provide this report to the District demographer on an annual basis. Burt pointed out the bulk of the new Stanford units were approved a decade ago so these have been long in the planning cycle. It was not until three years ago that Stanford came forward on when they intended to do it. Townsend asked Dennis if they are comparing Santa Clara County to the rest of the State because she continues to hear that Santa Clara is still growing while the rest of the state is not. Dennis believes this to be true. They had a 9% growth from 2000 to 2013. Burt stated in 2000 to 2010, they had growth in population and growth in the percentage of population that were families but in 2010 to 2013, the data suggests they did not have that growth. He believes there is an overlay of two factors, the amount of family housing that is built and the demographic shifts in neighborhoods. The housing in South Palo Alto from 2000 to 2010 was predominantly two to three units with families. In the 1990s, in North Palo Alto they had turnover of aging families selling to younger families and the schools in the North experienced rapid growth. The same happened in the next decade in South Palo Alto and a slight decline in the North Palo Alto. It appears they are hitting an equilibrium of that sort in South Palo Alto. He emphasizes this because the demographers do not seem to understand that well enough. Dennis pointed out the City does their own population study. Burt asked how it compares to ABAG. Dennis answered that is not a huge difference but a difference of a couple thousand. Historically for the last 20 years, ABAG shows less growth and it is a source of concern because the ABAG projections are the basis for their housing element and for other analysis they do. Townsend asked what the smallest square footage unit is allowed in Palo Alto. Godfrey believes it is 500 square feet. Dennis mentioned the State has a set of minimum requirements for the size of a room. Townsend stated the District demographers underestimated several years ago how many people with children lived in condos; it was much higher than expected. Burt said out of that underestimation, he has heard there is an expectation that out of one bedroom units, they will still get families and that is highly unlikely. Godfrey said she believes their demographer used a very miniscule ratio for the one bedroom units. Burt said he has heard this argument from the community and policy makers on the City and District’s side and that is fallacious. City/School Liaison Committee Meeting Page 3 MINUTES FOR MEETING OF December 17, 2015 PAUSD Enrollment Report Mak presented on Enrollment on following slides: -Enrollment History -Elementary 11/14th Day Enrollment -Middle 11/14th Day Enrollment -High School 11/14th Day Enrollment -K-5 Class Size Average Comparison 2011-12 through 2015-16 -Current Available Elementary Classrooms -Middle School Class Size Average Comparison 2015-16 -The Elementary Subcommittee of the Enrollment Management Advisory Committee (EMAC) Enrollment Projection Slides: -Total K-12 -Elementary -Enrollment Growth From Base Year 2004-05 By Cluster -Middle -High -Projection on New Housing Developments Mak reported enrollment growth has slowed down in the past two to three years. This year they had a decline of 44 students. They have growth in the progression, meaning there are new families moving into the various grades but there is a decline in kindergarten. The decline in elementary is due to the larger classes progressing into middle school and they will see significant growth at the high school level in 2017 as the larger classes pass through the system. The average class size has gone down at every grade level with the exception of fifth grade. The average class size is 21.8 at the elementary schools. Townsend pointed out the District’s class sizes are low compared to other high performing school districts. The K-3 class size reduction was funded by the class size reduction program while grades 4-5 class size reduction was funded by the parcel tax. Mak continued to report the District has about 20 classrooms available throughout the elementary schools and emphasized they are primarily at the recently renovated Duveneck and Fairmeadow elementary schools. DuBois asked if the District would like to have a target of one or two classrooms available per school to use. Mak answered it would be ideal but there are sites that do not have the capacity. Burt asked if this will be a policy discussion the Board will have on what the District should have as a target. Godfrey answered they currently do not have plans to, it might be but they will be discussing class size reduction as part of one of the budget items. Townsend suggested they should have a comparison of other school district class sizes in future reports. Mak mentioned that as previously reported, the District convened an Enrollment Management Advisory Committee (EMAC) to look at various issues with enrollment. The work of this committee is near the end and their last meeting is in January. The plan is for the committee to present their final report to the Board in January. Mak reported the District’s demographer updated their projections using the 11th day enrollment numbers and the trend is very similar to last year. In the next three years, they will see a 1% increase in enrollment each year. Elementary enrollment will continue to see decline for about three more years and will then stabilize. The student population growth by cluster is projected to continue to decline in North and South Palo Alto but in West Palo Alto cluster (Escondido, Nixon, Briones, and Barron Park) they are projecting growth due to new housing. City/School Liaison Committee Meeting Page 4 MINUTES FOR MEETING OF December 17, 2015 Burt asked if there is a comparison of student population and school age population and whether there is a direct correlation. Mak answered they do not but will work with Dennis to put together a comparison. Mak reported they have projected 975 units in new housing developments of which 485 units have been approved and they also included another 490 units for years 2019-2025 to compensate for other possible housing. The students projected from these units are 314 students from the 485 units projected for 2016-2018 and 350 from the 490 units projected in 2019-2025. DuBois asked if they have a map of the new housing versus capacity at the schools. Godfrey said yes, EMAC has it in their report. Burt mentioned the recent announcement by Stanford that they will rebuild Escondido and believes reading in the report the proportion of residents will be fewer families but was not clear on whether the absolute number of families will be reduced. Mak had a conversation with Stanford and they do not believe it will have a significant impact on the District. Godfrey stated they did say the number of families has declined and they are building new housing with that in mind. City Sustainability Programs and Services The City’s Chief Sustainability Officer Gill Friend reported there will be a Community Sustainability and Climate Summit on January 24 at Jordan Middle School. The focus of their work is building a new updated climate action plan. Friend mentioned the recent events in Paris where 190 countries came to an agreement on future strategies for the world on climate change. They will see a lot more attention to issues and more will be expected from them. The City has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by a third since 1990. A large part of that due to the carbon neutral electricity utilities has provided and other efficiency efforts. The state of California has set a goal for all of 80% reduction by 2050 and the interim goal is 40% by 2030. The City is already at 33% of that goal. Some of the key things are transportation, natural gas, buildings, procurement, and adaptation. Transportation is more than 60% of their carbon footprint. Burt stated this is because they have eliminated the footprint from electricity. Friend added that yes, with Council’s action in 2013 to change to carbon neutral, it sliced out electricity so transportation is now their biggest challenge. The City can solely do some of the efforts but they will have to work with surrounding counties to reduce vehicle trips and greenhouse gases by finding alternatives to the automobile that are convenient like transit, ride sharing, and biking/walking. They are currently looking at a notion called mobility as a service that comes out of Europe and other U.S. cities. It revolves around giving people a single point of access to all their transportation services. They are going to pilot it with the City work force and downtown employees through the Transit Management Association and this is something for the schools to also think about how students get to school. Despite their 20 year policy on reducing dependency on the automobile, they provide free parking which is a big incentive while other cities in the region do not. Council directed them back in August to move away from natural gas to electricity. They are looking at ways to do this and working with utilities. Townsend asked if they are doing rebates for moving from gas to electricity. Friend answered not yet, but they do have other rebates for specific technology. They are looking at moving towards a more systemic approach. City/School Liaison Committee Meeting Page 5 MINUTES FOR MEETING OF December 17, 2015 DuBois pointed out that as the City shrinks their gas usage there are interesting effects on utilities. Friend added it is very challenging, for one it will raise their electrical so they have to be able to provide that capacity. They are committed to provide carbon neutral so they have to grow their solar purchases. Townsend mentioned all the District’s new roofs are solar friendly. The City has set a default green strategy for preferring environmentally preferable products. A few years ago they started focusing on compressed natural gas vehicles in the City’s fleet, that was the cleanest alternative at the time and now it is electrics so the default is to replace vehicles with electric vehicles. DuBois asked if at the summit they will be discussing a sustainable water source and ground water issues. Friend answered yes, water will be one of their topics. Burt believes the summit on January 24 will be one of the most important single environmental gathering their City has had and out of that will emerge the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. They would very much like to see a very strong engagement with the student community. They need to move quickly how to adequately engage students. Much of the support staff could be students for the summit. This is about their future and many of them view it that way. Friend stated they have a promotional plan underway, there is a press release dropping down today. Burt specified they need to enlist students as active participants. There are group of students that are already specifically focused on this. Burt said the promotional plan sounds general to the student population, he is suggesting a focused one with the students that are already there. Friend mentioned the email address for the summit is www.paloaltoclimateaction.org Godfrey mentioned the Board just authorized a study to look at where they should place solar. Future Meetings and Agendas The next meeting will take place in February 2016 at the City Hall. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 9:37 a.m.